der the viperish glare of the lamp and smiled.
He certainly did look like an anarchist at the moment. He loomed over
me, huge, satanic, inscrutable.

A thrill, almost of fear, passed over me. I glanced round in some
apprehension. Under an archway near by I saw Lord Alberan looking
fixedly at us. The expression of suspicion had returned to his face.

"You mean----?" He nodded. I gulped a little. "You really have----?" He
continued to nod. "Then we can try the great experiment?" I whispered,
dry throated.

"At once!" The detective passed us, brushing against my shoulder. I
caught Sarakoff by the arm.

"Look here--we must get away," I muttered. I felt like a criminal.
Sarakoff clasped the bag firmly under his free arm. We began to walk
hurriedly away. Our manner was furtive. Once I looked back and saw
Alberan talking, with excited gestures, to the detective. They were both
looking in our direction. The impulse to run possessed me. "Quick," I
exclaimed, "there's a taxi. Jump in. Drive to Harley Street--like the
devil."

Inside the cab I lay back, my mind in a whirl.

"We begin the experiment to-morrow," said Sarakoff at last. "Have you
made plans as I told you?"

"Yes--yes. Of course. Only I never believed it possible." I controlled
myself and sat up. "I fixed on Birmingham. It seemed best--but I never
dreamed----"

"Good!" he exclaimed. "Birmingham, then!"

"Their water supply comes from Wales."

We spoke no more till I turned the key of my study door behind me. It
was in this way that the germ, which made so vast and strange an
impression on the course of the world's history, first reached England.
It had lain under the very nose of Lord Alberan, who opposed everything
new automatically. Yet it, the newest of all things, escaped his
vigilance.

We decided to put our plans into action without delay, and next morning
we set off, carrying with us the precious tubes of the Sarakoff-Harden
bacillus. Throughout the long journey we scarcely spoke to each other.
Each of us was absorbed in his picture of the future effects of the
germ.

There was one strange fact that Sarakoff had told me the night before,
and that I had verified. The bacillus was ultra-microscopical--that is,
it could not be seen, even with the highest power, under the microscope.
Its presence was only to be detected by the blue stain it gave off
during its growth.

CHAPTER V

THE GREAT AQUEDUCT

The Birmingham reservoirs are a cha