Why, then, if the mysterious Eastern employed a European
girl, should he not also employ an American man?
It might well be that the relic, in entering the
doors of the impregnable Antiquarian Museum, had passed
where the diabolical arts of the Hashishin had no
power to reach it—where the beauty of Western
women and the craft of Eastern man were equally useless
weapons. Perhaps Hassan’s campaign was
entering upon a new phase.
Was it a shirking of plain duty on my part that wish—that
ever-present hope—that the murderous company
of fanatics who had pursued the stolen slipper from
its ancient resting-place to London, should succeed
in recovering it? I leave you to judge.
The crescent of Islam fades to-day and grows pale,
but there are yet fierce Believers, alust for the
blood of the infidel. In such as these a faith
dies the death of an adder, and is more venomous in
its death-throes than in the full pulse of life.
The ghastly indiscretion of Professor Deeping, in
rifling a Moslem Sacristy, had led to the mutilation
of many who, unwittingly, had touched the looted relic,
had brought about his own end, had established a league
of fantastic assassins in the heart of the metropolis.
Only once had I seen the venerable Hassan of Aleppo—a
stately, gentle old man; but I knew that the velvet
eyes could blaze into a passionate fury that seemed
to scorch whom it fell upon. I knew that the
saintly Hassan was Sheikh of the Hashishin. And
familiarity with that dreadful organization had by
no means bred contempt. I was the holder of
the key, and my fear of the fanatics grew like a magic
mango, darkened the sunlight of each day, and filled
the night with indefinable dread.
You, who have not read poor Deeping’s “Assyrian
Mythology”, cannot picture a creature with a
huge, distorted head, and a tiny, dwarfed body—a
thing inhuman, yet human—a man stunted and
malformed by the cruel arts of brother men—a
thing obnoxious to life, with but one passion, the
passion to kill. You cannot conceive of the years
of agony spent by that creature strapped to a wooden
frame—in order to prevent his growth!
You cannot conceive of his fierce hatred of all humanity,
inflamed to madness by the Eastern drug, hashish,
and directed against the enemies of Islam—the
holders of the slipper—by the wonderful
power of Hassan of Aleppo.
But I had not only read of such beings, I had encountered
one!
And he was but one of the many instruments of the
Hashishin. Perhaps the girl with the violet
eyes was another. What else to be dreaded Hassan
might hold in store for us I could not conjecture.
Do you wonder that I feared? Do you wonder that
I hoped (I confess it), hoped that the slipper might
be recovered without further bloodshed?
THE HOLE IN THE BLIND
I stepped over to the door, where a constable stood
on duty.
