the scalp of a Red Indian.  There, cold and impassive, was the lord of the ancient world, the Emperor Augustus, with a modern air-pump sticking in his eye.  The walls were hung with priceless pictures, which were half-hidden by grimacing skeletons, rude wooden idols with horrible features, tall suits of gleaming armour, and figures of Egyptian deities, with the bodies of men and heads of animals.  The place was a kitchen of all the arts and religions and interests of mankind.

This extraordinary confusion was rendered still more bizarre by the dim cross-lights that played upon everything.  Raphael’s eyes grew weary with gazing, and his mind was oppressed by the spectacle of the ruined splendours of thousands of years of human life.  A fever born of hunger and exhaustion possessed him.  The pictures appeared to light up, the statues seemed to move.  Everything danced and swayed around him.  Then a horrible Chinese monster advanced upon him with menacing eyes from the other side of the room, and he swooned away in terror.

When he came to, his eyes were dazzled by a flood or radiance streaming from a circle of crimson light.  Before him, holding a bright red lamp, was a frail, white-haired, extraordinary man, clad in a long robe of black velvet.  His body was wasted by extreme old age.  His skin was like wrinkled parchment, and his lips were so thin and colourless that it was hardly possible to discern on his ivory-white face the line made by his mouth.  But his eyes were marvellous.  They were calm, clear and searching, and they glowed with the light and freshness of youth.

“So you have been looking over my collection,” the old man said.  “Do you wish to buy anything?”

“Buy?” said Raphael, with a strange smile.  “I am utterly penniless.  I have been examining your treasures just to while away the time till I could drown myself quietly and secretly at night.  You will not grudge this last pleasure to a poet and man of learning, will you?”

“Penniless?” said the old man.  “But you do not want to die because you are penniless!  A young, handsome, intellectual lad like you could pick up a living somehow.  What is it?  Some woman, eh?  Now let me help——­”

“I want no help or advice or consolation,” said Raphael furiously.

“And I will give you none,” said the old man.  “But as you are resolved to die, will you do something for me.  I want to get rid of this.”

He held the lamp up the wall, and showed Raphael a piece of very old shagreen, about the size of a fox’s skin.

“Ah!” said Raphael.  “A wild ass’s skin engraved with Sanscrit characters.  Why, here’s the mark that some of the Eastern races call the Seal of Solomon!”

“You are truly a man of learning,” said the strange old merchant, his breath coming in quick pants through his nostrils.  “No doubt you can read the inscription.”

“I should translate it thus,” said Raphael, fixing his eyes upon the skin.