d protect me!"

She raised the Sacred Stone to her lips as she spoke, turned off the
light, and lay down in her bed to dream dreams of forgotten ages.

CHAPTER XXV

THE PASSING OF PHADRIG

In all London, or, indeed, in any capital of Europe, there were no more
angrily puzzled men than Nicol Hendry and his colleague and
subordinates. He was perfectly certain now that Phadrig Amena held the
key to the conspiracy which had resulted in the disappearance of Prince
Zastrow. Oscarovitch had vanished. He had been traced to Copenhagen, and
then absolutely lost sight of. Three agents, all picked experts, had
been put on to watch Phadrig and the Pentanas, as they were known to
him, and within a fortnight they had all died. One had fallen down
crossing the north side of Trafalgar Square: the verdict had been heart
failure. Another threw himself into the river from the Tower Bridge; and
the third, a woman who was one of the most skilful spies in the service
of the International, had made his acquaintance and had dinner with him
at the "Monico," and was found dead the next morning with an empty
morphia syringe in her hand and a swollen puncture in her left arm.

Thus four more or less valuable lives had been lost, and not a shred of
tangible evidence obtained against the Egyptian. Convinced as he was
that this man was as responsible for their deaths as he had been for
that of Josephus, neither he nor his colleagues could find the slightest
grounds for applying for a warrant for his arrest, and meanwhile things
were going from bad to worse in Russia. The Romanoff dynasty was
tottering to its fall. The responsible leaders of the Revolution, angry
and bewildered by the loss of the man whom they had practically chosen
to rule over them, were distributing thousands of copies of an unsigned
manifesto which could not have come from any one but "the new
Skobeleff." What was left of the army and the navy was rallying to the
nameless standard of the still unknown saviour of Russia. Von Kessner
and Captain Vollmar had apparently ceased to exist, and the Princess
Hermia was living with her lady-in-waiting in the strictest retirement
in Dresden.

"It seems to me that things are at an utter deadlock," said Nicol Hendry
to the Chief of the German section, who had come over to London to
confer with him. "Four of our best agents have died in a fortnight, and
the others are getting shy. Really, we can't blame them. This is not
like figh