es--set in
the great, misshapen head upon the tiny, agile body.

Wildly, I fired again. I hurled myself forward and dashed into
the room.

Like nothing so much as a cat, the gleaming body (the dwarf was
but scantily clothed) streaked through the open window!

Certain death, I thought, must be his lot upon the stones of the
court far below. I ran and looked down, shaking in every limb,
my mind filled with a loathing terror unlike anything I had ever
known.

Brilliant moonlight flooded the pavement beneath; for twenty yards
to left and right every stone was visible.

The court was empty!

Human, homely London moved and wrought intimately about me; but
there, at sight of the empty court below, a great loneliness swept
down like a mantle--a clammy mantle of the fabric of dread. I
stood remote from my fellows, in an evil world peopled with the
creatures of Hassan of Aleppo.

Moved by some instinct, as that of a frightened child, I dropped
to my knees and buried my face in trembling hands.

CHAPTER VI

THE RING OF THE PROPHET

"There is no doubt," said Mr. Rawson, "that great personal danger
attaches to any contact with this relic. It is the first time I
have been concerned with anything of the kind."

Mr. Bristol, of Scotland Yard, standing stiffly military by the
window, looked across at the gray-haired solicitor. We were all
silent for a few moments.

"My late client's wishes," continued Mr. Rawson, "are explicit.
His last instructions, evidently written but a short time prior to
his death, advise me that the holy slipper of the Prophet is
contained in the locked safe at his house in Dulwich. He was
clearly of opinion that you, Mr. Cavanagh, would incur risk--great
risk--from your possession of the key. Since attempts have been
made upon you, murderous attempts, the late Professor Deeping, my
unfortunate client, evidently was not in error."

"Mysterious outrages," said Bristol, "have marked the progress of
the stolen slipper from Mecca almost to London."

"I understand," interrupted the solicitor, "that a fanatic known
as Hassan of Aleppo seeks to restore the relic to its former
resting-place."

"That is so."

"Exactly; and it accounts for the Professor's wish that the safe
should not be touched by any one but a Believer--and for his
instructions that its removal to the Antiquarian Museum and the
placing of the slipper within that institution be undertaken by a
Moslem or Moslems."