ously watched against them, and
contrived various means to their mitigation,--the most successful
being the music of his violin, which he seldom let beyond his reach.
Yet, again and again would the fit steal a march on him. Hence, in
part, his retired way of life, varied only by the brief journeys
demanded by the twofold craving--for gambling and for news of Thor,
who figured in his morbid imagination as the enemy of his soul!

The news never came, but all the more brooded Manetho over his hatred
and his fancied wrongs. His mind had never been entirely sound, and
years tinged it more and more deeply with insanity. His philosophy of
life--obscure indeed if tried by sane standards--emits a dusky glimmer
when read by this. He would creep through miles of subterranean
passages to achieve an end which one glance above ground would have
argued vain!

Lying on the bunk in the close cabin, lighted by a dirty lantern
pendent from the roof, the Reverend Manetho began to fear that not his
worst misfortune was the having been thrown overboard. At the moment
when madness was smouldering to a blaze within him, the lantern flash
had revealed to him the face which, for twenty years, he had seen in
visions. Often had he rehearsed this meeting, varying his imaginary
behavior to suit all conceivable moods and attitudes of his enemy, but
never thinking to provide for perversity in himself! So far from
veiling his designs with the soft-voiced cunning of his Oriental
nature, he had been a wild beast! A misgiving haunted him, moreover,
that he had babbled something in the false security of darkness, which
might give Helwyse a clew to his secret.

But here Manetho asked himself a question that might have suggested
itself before. Was it really his enemy, Thor Helwyse, whose face he
had seen? or only some likeness of him?

Thor must be threescore years old by this,--the senior by ten years of
Manetho himself; while his late antagonist had the strength and aspect
of half that age. Yet how could he be mistaken in the face which had
haunted him during more than the third part of his lifetime? He had
recognized it on the instant!

"I will ask the haversack!" said he. He sat up, and, bracing himself
against the roll of the vessel, he opened the bag and carefully
examined its contents. In an inner pocket he found an old letter of
Doctor Glyphic's to Thor; another from Thor to his son, dated three
years back; and finally a diary kept by Balder He