ide the window."

Amaryllis stepped out upon the terrace, and the dog followed her. "Lie
down," she said. "On guard."

She came back into the room, and Randal drew the heavy curtains across
the window. "Keep your eye on the end of the passage, Dick," he said.
"There's no other door in it but ours."

Then he sat down. "Coal-tar," he said, "the mother of wealth, the aunt
of colour, and the grandmother of drugs, is a mystery to the layman. The
highest, if not the best known, of its priesthood, is my old friend
Caldegard. Some little time ago he penetrated too far into the arcana of
his cult; and on one of the branches of that terrific tree he found and
coaxed into blossom a bud which grew into the fruit which his daughter
has named Ambrotox--as if it were a beef essence or a cheap wine. Tell
'em its properties, Caldegard--in the vernacular."

Between the first and second puffs at a fresh cigar, Caldegard grunted a
sort of final protest.

"You answer for him?" he asked, nodding to Dick.

"Of course. And you for your daughter."

"It is," began Caldegard, "the perfect opiate. As anodyne it gives more
ease, and as anaesthetic leaves less after-effect to combat than any
other. Morphia, opium, cannabis Indica, cocaine, heroin, veronal and
sulphonal act less equally, need larger doses, tempt more rapidly to
increase of dose, and, where the patient knows what drug he has taken,
lead, in a certain proportion of cases, very quickly to an ineradicable
habit. In wise hands, the patient's and the public's ignorance being
maintained, Ambrotox"--and here he bestowed a little laugh on amateur
nomenclature--"Ambrotox will be a blessing almost as notable as was
chloroform in the fifties.

"But there's another side: carry the thing a step further, and you have
a life, waking, and dreams, sleeping, of delight such as has never
been--I think never could be expressed in words; not because, as with De
Quincey and his laudanum, the coherent story of the dreams and visions
cannot be remembered, but because the clear sunshine of personal
happiness and confidence in the future--the pure joy of being
alive--which the abuser of Ambrotox experiences in his whole daily life,
is incommunicable. It is a period of bliss, of clear head, good
impulses, celestial dreams, and steady hope. These effects last, on an
even dose, longer than with any other drug of which I have experience.
And then there begins and grows a desire for action, the devil preac