tle leather-covered
boxes were there also. One of these he abstracted, relocked the safe,
and stepped out of the room, locking the door behind him. Up the stairs
he mounted to the bedroom wherein he had left the sleeper. Having
entered, he locked the door from within, placed the keys and the torch
upon the table, and crept out again upon the dizzy ledge.

Poised there, high above the thoroughfare below, a great nausea attacked
him. Glancing to the right, in the direction of the window through which
he had come, he perceived Madame de Medici leaning out and beckoning to
him. Her arm gleamed whitely in the faint light. A new courage came to
him. He succeeded, crouched there upon the narrow ledge, in relowering
the window, and leaving it in the state in which he had found it, he
stood up and essayed that sickly stride to the adjoining ledge. He
accomplished it, knelt, and crept back into the room from which he had
started....

The head of an ivory image of Buddha loomed up out of the utter
darkness, growing and growing until it seemed like a great mountain. He
could not believe that there was so much ivory in the world, and he felt
it with his fingers, wonderingly. As he did so it began to shrink, and
shrink, and shrink, and shrink, until it was no larger than a seated
human figure. Then beneath his trembling hands it became animate; it
moved, extended ivory arms, and wrapped them about his neck. Its lips
became carmine--perfumed; they bent to him... and he was looking into
the bewitching face of Madame de Medici!

He awoke, gasping for air and bathed in cold perspiration. The dawn was
just breaking over London and stealing grayly from object to object in
his bedroom.

V

THE IVORY GOD

The great car, with its fittings of gold and ivory, drew up at the door
of Colonel Deacon's house. The interior was ablaze with tiger lilies,
and out from their midst stepped the fairest of them all--Madame de
Medici, and swept queenly up the steps upon the arm of the cavalierly
soldier.

All connoisseurs esteemed it a privilege to view the Deacon collection,
and this afternoon there was a goodly gathering. Chairs and little white
tables were dotted about the lawn in shady spots, and the majority of
the company were already assembled; but when, in a wonderful golden
robe, Madame de Medici glided across the lawn, the babel ceased abruptly
as if by magic. She pulled off one glove and began twirling a great
emerald between