My brilliant friend at times displayed a sort of prescience, of which I
may have occasion to speak later, but I, together with the rest of pur-
blind humanity, am commonly immune from the prophetic instinct.
Therefore I chronicle the fact for what it may be worth, that as I
gazed with a sort of disgust at the exhibit lying upon the table I
became possessed of a conviction, which had no logical basis, that a
door had been opened through which I should step into a new avenue of
being; I felt myself to stand upon the threshold of things strange and
terrible, but withal alluring. Perhaps it is true that in the great
crises of life the inner eye becomes momentarily opened.

With intense curiosity I awaited the Colonel's next words, but, a
cigarette held nervously between his fingers, he stood staring at
Harley, and it was the latter who broke that peculiar silence which had
fallen upon us.

"The wing of a bat," he murmured, then touched it gingerly. "Of what
kind of bat, Colonel Menendez? Surely not a British species?"

"But emphatically not a British species," replied the Spaniard. "Yet
even so the matter would be strange."

"I am all anxiety to learn the remainder of your story, Colonel
Menendez."

"Good. Your interest comforts me very greatly, Mr. Harley. But when
first I came, you led me to suppose that you were departing from
London?"