“Franklin Pierce, President of the United States of America!”

CHAPTER II

THE SEVEN WIVES

Hardly had the words fallen from the lips of Obadiah Price than the old man straightened himself and stood as rigid as a gargoyle, his gaze penetrating into the darkness of the room beyond Captain Plum, his head inclined slightly, every nerve in him strained to a tension of expectancy.  His companion involuntarily gripped the butt of his pistol and faced the narrow entrance through which they had come.  In the moment of absolute silence that followed there came to him, faintly, a sound, unintelligible at first, but growing in volume until he knew that it was the last echo of a tolling bell.  There was no movement, no sound of breath or whisper from the old man at his back.  But when it came again, floating to him as if from a vast distance, he turned quickly to find Obadiah Price with his face lifted, his thin arms flung wide above his head and his lips moving as if in prayer.  His eyes burned with a dull glow as though he had been suddenly thrown into a trance.  He seemed not to breathe, no vibration of life stirred him except in the movement of his lips.  With the third toll of the distant bell he spoke, and to Captain Plum it was as if the passion and fire in his voice came from another being.

“Our Christ, Master of hosts, we call upon Thy chosen people the three blessings of the universe—­peace, prosperity and plenty, and upon Strang, priest, king and prophet, the bounty of Thy power!”

Three times more the distant bell tolled forth its mysterious message and when the last echoes had died away the old man’s arms dropped beside him and he turned again to Captain Plum.

“Franklin Pierce, President of the United States of America,” he repeated, as though there had been no interruption since his companion’s question.  “The package is to be delivered to him.  Now you must excuse me.  An important matter calls me out for a short time.  But I will be back soon—­oh, yes, very soon.  And you will wait for me.  You will wait for me here, and then I will take you to St. James.”

He was gone in a quick hopping way, like a cricket, and the last that Captain Plum saw of him was his ghostly face turned back for an instant in the darkness of the next room, and after that the soft patter of his feet and the strange chuckle in his throat traveled to the outer door and died away as he passed out into the night.  Nathaniel Plum was not a man to be easily startled, but there was something so unusual about the proceedings in which he was as yet playing a blind part that he forgot to smoke, which was saying much.  Who was the old man?  Was he mad?  His eyes scanned the little room and an exclamation of astonishment fell from his lips when he saw the leather bag, partly filled with gold, lying where his mysterious acquaintance had dropped it.  Surely