nder the
arcade. Instead, he raised his hand to impose silence. Connor heard,
from some distance, a harsh sound of breathing of inconceivable
strength. For though it was plainly not close to them, he could mark
each intake and expulsion of breath. And the noise created for him the
picture of a monster.

"Let us go to the master," said Joseph, and turned straight across the
patio in the direction of that sonorous breathing.

Connor followed, by no means at ease. From the withered old men to huge
Joseph had been a long step. How far would be the reach between Joseph
himself and the omnipotent master?

He passed in the track of Joseph toward the rear of the patio. Presently
the big man halted, removed his hat, and faced a door beneath the
arcade. It was only a momentary interruption. He went on again at once,
replacing his hat, but the thrill of apprehension was still tingling in
the blood of the gambler. Now they went under the arcade, through an
open door, and issued in the rear of the house, Connor's imaginary
"monster" dissolved.

For they stood in front of a blacksmith shop, the side toward them being
entirely open so that Connor could see the whole of the interior. Two
sooty lanterns hung from the rafters, the light tangling among wreaths
of smoke above and showing below a man whose back was turned toward them
as he worked a great snoring bellows with one hand.

That bellows was the source of the mysterious breathing. Connor
chuckled; all mysteries dissolved as this had done the moment one
confronted them. He left off chuckling to admire the ease with which the
blacksmith handled the bellows. A massive angle of iron was buried in
the forge, the white flames spurting around it as the bellows blew,
casting the smith into high relief at every pulse of the fire. Sometimes
it ran on the great muscles of the arm that kept the bellows in play;
sometimes it ran a dazzling outline around his entire body, showing the
leather apron and the black hair which flooded down about his shoulders.

"Who--" began Connor.

"Hush," cautioned Joseph in a whisper. "David speaks when he
chooses--not sooner."

Here the smith laid hold on the iron with long pincers, and, raising it
from the coals, at once the shop burst with white light as David placed
the iron on the anvil and caught up a short-handled sledge. He whirled
it and brought it down with a clangor. The sparks spurted into the
night, dropping to the ground and turning red