o'clock on the Sunday morning.

* * * * *

The guard came up to the four as they stood there silent.

"We are ready, gentlemen," he said.

"What do you think of the weather?" asked Snowford abruptly.

The guard pursed his lips.

"A little thunder, I expect, sir," he said.

Oliver looked at him curiously.

"No more than that?" he asked.

"I should say a storm, sir," observed the guard shortly.

Snowford turned towards the gangway.

"Well, we had best be off: we can lose time further on, if we wish."

It was about five minutes more before all was ready. From the stern of
the boat came a faint smell of cooking, for breakfast would be served
immediately, and a white-capped cook protruded his head for an instant,
to question the guard. The four sat down in the gorgeous saloon in the
bows; Oliver silent by himself, the other three talking in low voices
together. Once more the guard passed through to his compartment at the
prow, glancing as he went to see that all were seated; and an instant
later came the clang of the signal. Then through all the length of the
boat--for she was the fastest ship that England possessed--passed the
thrill of the propeller beginning to work up speed; and simultaneously
Oliver, staring sideways through the plate-glass window, saw the rail
drop away, and the long line of London, pale beneath the tinged sky,
surge up suddenly. He caught a glimpse of a little group of persons
staring up from below, and they, too, dropped in a great swirl, and
vanished. Then, with a flash of dusty green, the Common bad vanished,
and a pavement of house-roofs began to stream beneath, the long lines of
streets on this side and that turning like spokes of a gigantic wheel;
once more this pavement thinned, showing green again as between
infrequently laid cobble-stones; then they, too, were gone, and the
country was open beneath.

Snowford rose, staggering a little.

"I may as well tell the guard now," he said. "Then we need not be
interrupted again."

CHAPTER VI

I

The Syrian awoke from a dream that a myriad faces were looking into his
own, eager, attentive and horrible, in his corner of the roof-top, and
sat up sweating and gasping aloud for breath. For an instant he thought
that he was really dying, and that the spiritual world was about him.
Then, as he struggled, sense came back, and he stood up, drawing long
breaths of the stifling night air.

Above him the sky was as the pit, black an