t ready for Mr. Cavanagh--I
thought I saw someone in the orchard."

"Eh?" jerked Hilton--"in the orchard? Come on up, Cavanagh!"

We all ran upstairs. The moonlight was streaming into the room.

"Keep back!" I warned.

Well within the shadow, I crept up to the window and looked out.
The night was hot and still. No breeze stirred the leaves, but
the edge of the frowning thunder cloud which I had noted before
spread a heavy carpet of ebony black upon the ground. Beyond, I
could dimly discern the hills. The others stood behind me,
constrained by the fear of this mysterious danger which I had
brought to "Uplands."

There was someone moving among the trees!

Closer came the figure, and closer, until suddenly a shaft of
moonlight found passage and spilled a momentary pool of light amid
the shadows, I could see the watcher very clearly. A moment he
stood there, motionless, and looking up at the window; then as he
glided again into the shade of the trees the darkness became
complete. But I watched, crouching there nervously, for long after
he was gone.

"For God's sake, who is it?" whispered Hilton, with a sort of awe
in his voice.

"It's Hassan of Aleppo!" I replied.

Virtually, the house, with the capital of the Midlands so near upon
the one hand, the feverish activity of the Black Country reddening
the night upon the other, was invested by fanatic Easterns!

We descended again to the extemporized study. Soar entered with us
and Hilton invited him to sit down.

"We must stick together to-night!" he said. "Now, Cavanagh, let us
see if we can find any explanation of this amazing business. I can
understand that at one period of the slipper's history you were an
object of interest to those who sought to recover it; but if, as
you say, the Hashishin have the slipper now, what do they want with
you? If you have never touched it, they cannot be prompted by
desire for vengeance."

"I have never touched it," I replied grimly; "nor even any
receptacle containing it."

As I ceased speaking came a distant muffled rumbling.

"That's the thunder," said Hilton. "There's a tremendous storm
brewing."

He poured out three glasses of whisky, and was about to speak
when Soar held up a warning finger.

"Listen!" he said.

At his words, with tropical suddenness down came the rain.

Hilton, his pipe in his hand, stood listening intently.

"What?" he asked.

"I don't know, sir; the sound of the rain has drown