eaven.'

Failing for the moment to see the drift or the connection of the
argument, I contented myself with waiting events. For the rest of that
day and the next Zaleski seemed to have dismissed the matter of the
tragedies from his mind, and entered calmly on his former studies. He
no longer consulted the news, or examined the figures on the tablet.
The papers, however, still arrived daily, and of these he soon
afterwards laid several before me, pointing, with a curious smile, to a
small paragraph in each. These all appeared in the advertisement
columns, were worded alike, and read as follows:

'A true son of Lycurgus, _having news_, desires to know the _time_ and
_place_ of the next meeting of his Phyle. Address Zaleski, at R----
Abbey, in the county of M----.'

I gazed in mute alternation at the advertisement and at him. I may here
stop to make mention of a very remarkable sensation which my
association with him occasionally produced in me. I felt it with
intense, with unpleasant, with irritating keenness at this moment. It
was the sensation of being borne aloft--aloft--by a force external to
myself--such a sensation as might possibly tingle through an earthworm
when lifted into illimitable airy heights by the strongly-daring
pinions of an eagle. It was the feeling of being hurried out beyond
one's depth--caught and whiffed away by the all-compelling sweep of
some rabid vigour into a new, foreign element. Something akin I have
experienced in an 'express' as it raged with me--winged, rocking,
ecstatic, shrilling a dragon Aha!--round a too narrow curve. It was a
sensation very far from agreeable.

'To that,' he said, pointing to the paragraph, 'we may, I think,
shortly expect an answer. Let us only hope that when it comes it may be
immediately intelligible.'

We waited throughout the whole of that day and night, hiding our
eagerness under the pretence of absorption in our books. If by chance I
fell into an uneasy doze, I found him on waking ever watchful, and
poring over the great tome before him. About the time, however, when,
could we have seen it, the first grey of dawn must have been peeping
over the land, his impatience again became painful to witness; he rose
and paced the room, muttering occasionally to himself. This only
ceased, when, hours later, Ham entered the room with an envelope in his
hand. Zaleski seized it--tore it open--ran his eye over the
contents--and dashed it to the ground with an oath.

'