Russian travellers in the Great Sahara desert witnessed
one evening, as they sat in their tent door, the performance of a savage
charmer of snakes who carried upon his body three serpents,--one
striped, one black, one white. And the younger of them noticed, and
remarked to the other, that the charmer wore half-way up the little
finger of his left hand a thin gold circle in which there was set a
magnificent black pearl.

A TRIBUTE OF SOULS

PRELUDE

The matter of Carlounie, the village of Perthshire in Scotland, is
become notorious in the world. The name of its late owner, his
remarkable transformation, his fortunate career, his married life, the
brooding darkness that fell latterly upon his mind, the flaming deed
that he consummated, its appalling outcome, and the finding of him by Mr
Mackenzie, the minister of the parish of Carlounie, sunk in a pool of
the burn that runs through a "den" close to his house--all these things
are fresh in the minds of many men. It has been supposed that he had
discovered a common intrigue between his wife, Kate, formerly an
hospital nurse, and his tenant, Hugh Fraser of Piccadilly, London. It
has been universally thought that this discovery led to the last action
of his life. The following pages, found among his papers, seem to put a
very different complexion on the affair, although they suggest a
mediaeval legend rather than a history of modern days. It may be added
that careful enquiries have been made among the inhabitants of
Carlounie, and that no man, woman, or child has been discovered who ever
saw, or heard of, the grey traveller mentioned in Alistair Ralston's
narrative.

I

THE STRANGER BY THE BURN

Can a fever change a man's whole nature, giving him powers that he never
had before? Can he go into it impotent, starved, naked, emerge from it
potent, satisfied, clothed with possibilities that are wonders, that are
miracles to him? It must be so; it is so. And yet--I must go back to
that sad autumn day when I walked beside the burn. Can I write down my
moods, my feelings of that day and of the following days? And if I can,
does that power of pinning the butterfly of my soul down upon the
board--does that power, too, bud, blossom from a soil mysteriously
fertilised by illness? Formerly, I could as easily have flown in the air
to the summit of cloud-capped Schiehallion as have set on paper even the
smallest fragment of my mind. Now--well, let me see, let me still
fu