It was that of a majestic old man, white bearded, with aquiline nose, and the fierce eagle eyes of a fanatic set upon me sternly, reprovingly.
With folded arms he stood watching me, and I drew a sharp breath and rose slowly to my feet.
There amid the yellow and green and gold, amid the abominable reek of burning hashish I stood and faced Hassan of Aleppo!
No words came to me; I was confounded.
Hassan spoke in that gentle voice which I had heard only once before.
"Mr. Cavanagh," he said, "I have brought you here that I might warn you. Your police are seeking me night and day, and I am fully alive to my danger whilst I stay in your midst. But for close upon a thousand years the Sheikh-al-jebal, Lord of the Hashishin, has guarded the traditions and the relics of the Prophet, Salla-'llahu 'ale yhi wasellem! I, Hassan of Aleppo, am Sheikh of the Order to-day, and my sacred duty has brought me here."
The piercing gaze never left my face. I was not yet by any means my own man and still I made no reply.
"You have been wise," continued Hassan, "in that you have never touched the sacred slipper. Had you lain hands upon it, no secrecy could have availed you. The eye of the Hashishin sees all. There is a shaft of light which the true Believer perceives at night as he travels toward El-Medineh. It is the light which uprises, a spiritual fire, from the tomb of the Prophet (Salla-'llahu 'aleyhi wasellem!). The relics also are radiant, though in a lesser degree."
He took a step toward me, spreading out his lean brown hands, palms downward.
"A shaft of light," he said impressively, "shines upward now from London. It is the light of the holy slipper." He gazed intently at the yellow drapery at the left of the divan, but as though he were looking not at the wall but through it. His features worked convulsively; he was a man inspired. "I see it now!" he almost whispered—"that white light by which the guardians of the relic may always know its resting place!"
I managed to force words to my lips.
"If you know where the slipper is," I said, more for the sake of talking than for anything else, "why do you not recover it?"
Hassan turned his eyes upon me again.
"Because the infidel dog," he cried loudly, "who has soiled it with his unclean touch, defies us — mocks us! He has suffered the loss of the offending hand, but the evil ginn protect him; he is inspired by efreets! But God is great and Mohammed is His only Prophet! We shall triumph; but it is written, oh, daring infidel, that you again shall become the guardian of the slipper!"
He spoke like some prophet of old and I stared at him fascinated. I was loth to believe his words.
"When again," he continued, "the slipper shall be in the receptacle of which you hold the key, that key must be given to me!"
I thought I saw the drift of his words now; I thought I perceived with what object I had been trapped and borne to this mysterious abode for whose whereabouts the police vainly were seeking. By the exercise of the gift of divination it would seem that Hassan of Aleppo had forecast the future history of the accursed slipper or believed that he had done so. According to his own words I was doomed once more to become trustee of the relic. The key of the case at the Antiquarian Museum, to which he had prophesied the slipper's return, would be the price of my life! But—
"In order that these things may be fulfilled," he continued, "I must permit you to return to your house. So it is written, so it shall be. Your life is in my hands; beware when it is demanded of you that you hesitate not in yielding up the key!"
He raised his hands before him, making a sort of obeisance, I doubt not in the direction of Mecca, drew aside one of the yellow hangings behind him and disappeared, leaving me alone again in that nightmare apartment of yellow and green and gold. A moment I stood watching the swaying curtain. Utter silence reigned, and a sort of panic seized me infinitely greater than that occasioned by the presence of the weird Sheikh. I felt that I must escape from the place or that I should become raving mad.
I leapt forward to the curtain which Hassan had raised and jerked it aside; it had concealed a door. In this door and about level with my eyes was a kind of little barred window through which shone a dim green light. I bent forward, peering into the place beyond, but was unable to perceive anything save a vague greenness.
And as I peered, half believing that the whole episode was a dreadful, fevered dream, the abominable fumes of hashish grew, or seemed to grow, quite suddenly insupportable. Through the square opening, from the green void beyond, a cloud of oily vapour, pungent, stifling, resembling that of burning Indian hemp, poured out and enveloped me!
With a gasping cry I fell back, fighting for breath, for a breath of clean air unpolluted with hashish. But every inhalation drew down into my lungs the fumes that I sought to escape from. I experienced a deathly sickness; I seemed to be sinking into a sea of hashish, amid bubbles of yellow and green and gold, and I knew no more until, struggling again to my feet, surrounded by utter darkness — I struck my head on the corner of my writing-table … for I lay in my own study!
My revolver, unloaded, was upon the table beside me. The night was very still. I think it must have been near to dawn.
"My God!" I whispered, "did I dream it all? Did I dream it all?"
Chapter 21
THE BLACK TUBE
"There's no doubt in my mind," said Inspector Bristol, "that your experience was real enough."
The sun was shining into my room now, but could not wholly disperse the cloud of horror which lay upon it. That I had been drugged was sufficiently evident from my present condition, and that I had been taken away from my chambers Inspector Bristol had satisfactorily proved by an examination of the soles of my slippers.
"It was a clever trick," he said. "God knows what it was they puffed into your face through the letter box, but the devilish arts of ten centuries, we must remember, are at the command of Hassan of Aleppo! The repetition of the trick at the mysterious place you were taken to is particularly interesting. I should say you won't be in a hurry to peer through letter boxes and so forth in the future?"
I shook my aching head.
"That accursed yellow room," I replied, "stank with the fumes of hashish. It may have been some preparation of hashish that was used to drug me."
Bristol stood looking thoughtfully from the window.
"It was a nightmare business, Mr. Cavanagh," he said; "but it doesn't advance our inquiry a little bit. The prophecy of the old man with the white beard — whom you assure me to be none other than Hassan of Aleppo — is something we cannot very well act upon. He clearly believes it himself; for he has released you after having captured you, evidently in order that you may be at liberty to take up your duty as trustee of the slipper again. If the slipper really comes back to the Museum the fact will show Hassan to be something little short of a magician. I shan't envy you then, Mr. Cavanagh, considering that you hold the keys of the case!"
"No," I replied wearily. "Poor Professor Deeping thought that he acted in my interests and that my possession of the keys would constitute a safeguard. He was wrong. It has plunged me into the very vortex of this ghastly affair."
"It is maddening," said Bristol, "to know that Hassan and Company are snugly located somewhere under our very noses, and that all Scotland Yard can find no trace of them. Then to think that Hassan of Aleppo, apparently by means of some mystical light, has knowledge of the whereabouts of the slipper and consequently of the whereabouts of Earl Dexter (another badly wanted man) is extremely discouraging! I feel like an amateur; I'm ashamed of myself!"