ok up the chant, and the light faded,
until only the speck on the disk below the spider was visible.

Then that, too, vanished.

* * * * *

A bell was ringing furiously. Its din grew louder and louder; it
became insupportable. Cairn threw out his arms and staggered up like a
man intoxicated. He grasped at the table-lamp only just in time to
prevent it overturning.

The ringing was that of his telephone bell. He had been unconscious,
then--under some spell!

He unhooked the receiver--and heard his father's voice.

"That you, Rob?" asked the doctor anxiously.

"Yes, sir," replied Cairn, eagerly, and he opened the drawer and slid
his hand in for the silken cord.

"There is something you have to tell me?"

Cairn, without preamble, plunged excitedly into an account of his
meeting with Ferrara. "The silk cord," he concluded, "I have in my
hand at the present moment, and--"

"Hold on a moment!" came Dr. Cairn's voice, rather grimly.

Followed a short interval; then--

"Hullo, Rob! Listen to this, from to-night's paper: 'A curious
discovery was made by an attendant in one of the rooms, of the Indian
Section of the British Museum late this evening. A case had been
opened in some way, and, although it contained more valuable objects,
the only item which the thief had abstracted was a Thug's
strangling-cord from Kundelee (district of Nursingpore).'"

"But, I don't understand--"

"Ferrara _meant_ you to find that cord, boy! Remember, he is
unacquainted with your chambers and he requires a _focus_ for his
damnable forces! He knows well that you will have the thing somewhere
near to you, and probably he knows something of its awful history! You
are in danger! Keep a fast hold upon yourself. I shall be with you in
less than half-an-hour!"

CHAPTER XXVII

THE THUG'S CORD

As Robert Cairn hung up the receiver and found himself cut off again
from the outer world, he realised, with terror beyond his control, how
in this quiet backwater, so near to the main stream, he yet was far
from human companionship.

He recalled a night when, amid such a silence as this which now
prevailed about him, he had been made the subject of an uncanny
demonstration; how his sanity, his life, had been attacked; how he had
fled from the crowding horrors which had been massed against him by
his supernaturally endowed enemy.

There was something very terrifying in the quietude of the court--a
quiet