is a dusky Cleopatra in whose arms I forget the world--even
the world of the poppy. We float down the stream together, always in
an Indian bark canoe, and this stream runs through orange groves.
Numberless apes--millions of apes, inhabit these groves, and as we
two float along, they hurl orange blossoms--orange blossoms, you
understand--until the canoe is filled with them. I assure you, monsieur,
that I perform these delightful journeys regularly, and to be deprived
of the key which opens the gate of this wonderland, is to me like being
exiled from a loved one. Pardieu! that grove of the apes! Morbleu! my
witch of the dusky eyes! Yet, as I have told you, owing to some trick of
my brain, whilst I can experience an intense longing for that companion
of my dreams, my waking attempts to visualize her provide nothing but
the image"...

"Of a serpent," concluded Sir Brian, smiling pathetically. "You are
indeed an enthusiast, M. Gaston, and to me a new type. I had supposed
that every slave of the drug cursed his servitude and loathed and
despised himself."...

"Ah, monsieur! to ME those words sound almost like a sacrilege!"

"But," continued Sir Brian, "your remarks interest me strangely; for two
reasons. First, they confirm your assertion that you are, or were, an
habitue of the Rue St. Claude, and secondly, they revive in my mind an
old fancy--a superstition."

"What is that, Sir Brian?" inquired M. Max, whose opium vision was a
faithful imitation of one related to him by an actual frequenter of the
establishment near the Boulevard Beaumarchais.

"Only once before, M. Gaston, have I compared notes with a fellow
opium-smoker, and he, also, was a patron of Madame Jean; he, also, met
in his dreams that Eastern Circe, in the grove of apes, just as I"...

"Morbleu! Yes?"

"As I meet her!"

"But this is astounding!" cried Max, who actually thought it so. "Your
fancy--your superstition--was this: that only habitues of Rue St.
Claude met, in poppyland, this vision? And in your fancy you are now
confirmed?"

"It is singular, at least."

"It is more than that, Sir Brian! Can it be that some intelligence
presides over that establishment and exercises--shall I call it a
hypnotic influence upon the inmates?"

M. Max put the question with sincere interest.

"One does not ALWAYS meet her," murmured Sir Brian. "But--yes, it is
possible. For I have since renewed those experiences in London."

"What! in London?"

"Are you r