t light which had shone through
it from behind? Had the Thing, a Thing unnameable, indescribable,
stood there?

He read his answer upon the tapestry.

Whitening streaks showed where the pellets, melting, had trickled down
the curtain!

"Lift Myra on the settee!"

It was Dr. Cairn speaking, calmly, but in a strained voice.

Robert Cairn, as if emerging from a mist, turned to the recumbent
white form upon the carpet. Then, with a great cry, he leapt forward
and raised the girl's head.

"Myra!" he groaned. "Myra, speak to me."

"Control yourself, boy," rapped Dr. Cairn, sternly; "she cannot speak
until you have revived her! She has swooned--nothing worse."

"And--"

"We have conquered!"

CHAPTER XXXI

THE BOOK OF THOTH

The mists of early morning still floated over the fields, when these
two, set upon strange business, walked through the damp grass to the
door of the barn, where-from radiated the deathly waves which on the
previous night had reached them, or almost reached them, in the
library at Half-Moon Street.

The big double doors were padlocked, but for this they had come
provided. Ten minutes work upon the padlock sufficed--and Dr. Cairn
swung wide the doors.

A suffocating smell--the smell of that incense with which they had too
often come in contact, was wafted out to them. There was a dim light
inside the place, and without hesitation both entered.

A deal table and chair constituted the sole furniture of the interior.
A part of the floor was roughly boarded, and a brief examination of
the boarding sufficed to discover the hiding place in which Antony
Ferrara kept the utensils of his awful art.

Dr. Cairn lifted out two heavy boards; and in a recess below lay a
number of singular objects. There were four antique lamps of most
peculiar design; there was a larger silver lamp, which both of them
had seen before in various apartments occupied by Antony Ferrara.
There were a number of other things which Robert Cairn could not have
described, had he been called upon to do so, for the reason that he
had seen nothing like them before, and had no idea of their nature or
purpose.

But, conspicuous amongst this curious hoard, was a square iron box of
workmanship dissimilar from any workmanship known to Robert Cairn. Its
lid was covered with a sort of scroll work, and he was about to reach
down, in order to lift it out, when:

"Do not touch it!" cried the doctor--"for God's sake, do not touc