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million yelling devils hemmed me in, shrieking and stabbing. Bone by bone, vein by vein, cell by cell I felt my body disintegrate and fly in bloody atoms all over the universe — and each separate cell was an entire system of quivering, screaming nerves. And they gathered from far voids and reunited with a greater torment.
    Through the fiery bloody mists I heard my own voice screaming, a monotonous yammering. Then with distended eyes I saw a golden goblet, held by a claw-like hand, swim into view — a goblet filled with an amber liquid.
    With a bestial screech, I seized it with both hands, being dimly aware that the metal stem gave beneath my fingers, and brought the brim to my lips. I drank in frenzied haste, the liquid slopping down onto my breast.
    9. Kathulos of Egypt
     
    “Night shall be thrice night over you,
    And Heaven an iron cope.”
— Chesterton
     
    The Skull-faced One stood watching me critically as I sat panting on a couch, completely exhausted. He held in his hand the goblet and surveyed the golden stem, which was crushed out of all shape. This my maniac fingers had done in the instant of drinking.
    “Superhuman strength, even for a man in your condition,” he said with a sort of creaky pedantry. “I doubt if even Hassim here could equal it. Are you ready for your instructions now?”
    I nodded, wordless. Already the hellish strength of the elixir was flowing through my veins, renewing my burnt-out force. I wondered how long a man could live as I lived being constantly burned out and artificially rebuilt.
    “You will be given a disguise and will go alone to the Frenton estate. No one suspects any design against Sir Haldred and your entrance into the estate and the house itself should be a matter of comparative ease. You will not don the disguise — which will be of unique nature — until you are ready to enter the estate. You will then proceed to Sir Haldred’s room and kill him, breaking his neck with your bare hands — this is essential —”
    The voice droned on, giving the ghastly orders in a frightfully casual and matter-of-fact way. The cold sweat beaded my brow.
    “You will then leave the estate, taking care to leave the imprint of your hand somewhere plainly visible, and the automobile, which will be waiting for you at some safe place nearby, will bring you back here, you having first removed the disguise. I have, in case of complications, any amount of men who will swear that you spent the entire night in the Temple of Dreams and never left it. But here must be no detection! Go warily and perform your task surely, for you know the alternative.”
    I did not return to the opium house but was taken through winding corridors, hung with heavy tapestries, to a small room containing only an oriental couch. Hassim gave me to understand that I was to remain here until after nightfall and then left me. The door was closed but I made no effort to discover if it was locked. The Skull-faced Master held me with stronger shackles than locks and bolts.
    Seated upon the couch in the bizarre setting of a chamber which might have been a room in an Indian zenana, I faced fact squarely and fought out my battle. There was still in me some trace of manhood left — more than the fiend had reckoned, and added to this were black despair and desperation. I chose and determined on my only course.
    Suddenly the door opened softly. Some intuition told me whom to expect, nor was I disappointed. Zuleika stood, a glorious vision before me — a vision which mocked me, made blacker my despair and yet thrilled me with wild yearning and reasonless joy.
    She bore a tray of food which she set beside me, and then she seated herself on the couch, her large eyes fixed upon my face. A flower in a serpent den she was, and the beauty of her took hold of my heart.
    “Steephen!” she whispered, and I thrilled as she spoke my name for the first time.
    Her luminous eyes suddenly shone with tears and she laid her little hand on my