his he hurriedly ran his eye prior to a more careful perusal of
its contents. But even this cursory glance was enough to make his face
flush and his eye glisten. His hand shook so that it could scarcely
hold the paper. Here was the key to wealth illimitable.

And then a strange and startling thing happened. The paper was suddenly
snatched from his grasp.

So quickly was this done, so absolutely terrifying was his abrupt and
wholly unlooked-for turn in the state of affairs, that his glance was
hardly quick enough to mark the paper disappearing through the open
window beside which he was seated, or the black, claw-like hand which
had seized it. Yet he did only just see both.

He fell back in his chair in a cold sweat. Such a thing to happen in
the dead midnight, with not a soul but himself astir. Small wonder
that, unnerved by the dastardly act of robbery he had just committed,
his thoughts should revert straight to Satan himself. The sick man was
still slumbering peacefully.

Recovering his nerve to some extent, he rushed to the door and gained
the outer air. All was still as death. As his sight became used to the
modified gloom of the starlight he went round to the back of the house--
made the complete circuit of it. Not a living thing was astir. He went
even further afield, peering here, there, and everywhere. In vain.
Then, with nerve and system shaken as they had never been before in his
life, he returned indoors.

For long he sat motionless, pondering over this extraordinary
occurrence. The first shock of surprise, the first involuntary access
of superstition past, two considerations obtruded themselves. The
prospect of possible wealth had been snatched from his grasp, literally
strangled at its birth, for the paper looked genuine, and was certainly
lucid enough, but it required studying, and that carefully. For the
rest, how should he eventually account to its owner for its
disappearance? And at this thought he began to feel exceedingly
uncomfortable.

Not for long, however. The bag could easily be replaced, and the
chances were that its owner would take for granted the security of its
contents, and not go to the trouble of opening it to ascertain. Or he
himself might be far enough away by that time, but that he was loth to
abandon a fellow-countryman on a lonely sick-bed in that frightful
wilderness; and we must, in justice to the man, record that this
consideration was genuine and wholly