'They can,' said Oliver.

'And the Eastern palaces in which your youth was spent, and the black slaves who waited on you, and the bearded sheikhs who imparted to you secret knowledge?' cried Dr Porhoet.

'I was educated at Eton, and I left Oxford in 1896.'

'Would you mind telling me at what college you were?' said Arthur.

'I was at the House.'

'Then you must have been there with Frank Hurrell.'

'Now a.s.sistant physician at St Luke's Hospital. He was one of my most intimate friends.'

'I'll write and ask him about you.'

'I'm dying to know what you did with all the lions you slaughtered,' said Susie Boyd.

The man's effrontery did not exasperate her as it obviously exasperated Margaret and Arthur. He amused her, and she was anxious to make him talk.

'They decorate the floors of Skene, which is the name of my place in Staffordshire.' He paused for a moment to light a cigar. 'I am the only man alive who has killed three lions with three successive shots.'

'I should have thought you could have demolished them by the effects of your oratory,' said Arthur.

Oliver leaned back and placed his two large hands on the table.

'Burkhardt, a German with whom I was shooting, was down with fever and could not stir from his bed. I was awakened one night by the uneasiness of my oxen, and I heard the roaring of lions close at hand. I took my carbine and came out of my tent. There was only the meagre light of the moon. I walked alone, for I knew natives could be of no use to me.

Presently I came upon the carca.s.s of an antelope, half-consumed, and I made up my mind to wait for the return of the lions. I hid myself among the boulders twenty paces from the prey. All about me was the immensity of Africa and the silence. I waited, motionless, hour after hour, till the dawn was nearly at hand. At last three lions appeared over a rock.

I had noticed, the day before, spoor of a lion and two females.'

'May I ask how you could distinguish the s.e.x?' asked Arthur, incredulously.

'The prints of a lion's fore feet are disproportionately larger than those of the hind feet. The fore feet and hind feet of the lioness are nearly the same size.'

'Pray go on,' said Susie.

'They came into full view, and in the dim light, as they stood chest on, they appeared as huge as the strange beasts of the Arabian tales. I aimed at the lioness which stood nearest to me and fired. Without a sound, like a bullock felled at one blow, she dropped. The lion gave vent to a sonorous roar. Hastily I slipped another cartridge in my rifle. Then I became conscious that he had seen me. He lowered his head, and his crest was erect. His lifted tail was twitching, his lips were drawn back from the red gums, and I saw his great white fangs. Living fire flashed from his eyes, and he growled incessantly. Then he advanced a few steps, his head held low; and his eyes were fixed on mine with a look of rage.

Suddenly he jerked up his tail, and when a lion does this he charges. I got a quick sight on his chest and fired. He reared up on his hind legs, roaring loudly and clawing at the air, and fell back dead. One lioness remained, and through the smoke I saw her spring to her feet and rush towards me. Escape was impossible, for behind me were high boulders that I could not climb. She came on with hoa.r.s.e, coughing grunts, and with desperate courage I fired my remaining barrel. I missed her clean. I took one step backwards in the hope of getting a cartridge into my rifle, and fell, scarcely two lengths in front of the furious beast. She missed me.

I owed my safety to that fall. And then suddenly I found that she had collapsed. I had hit her after all. My bullet went clean through her heart, but the spring had carried her forwards. When I scrambled to my feet I found that she was dying. I walked back to my camp and ate a capital breakfast.'

Oliver Haddo's story was received with astonished silence. No one could a.s.sert that it was untrue, but he told it with a grandiloquence that carried no conviction. Arthur would have wagered a considerable sum that there was no word of truth in it. He had never met a person of this kind before, and could not understand what pleasure there might be in the elaborate invention of improbable adventures.

'You are evidently very brave,' he said.

'To follow a wounded lion into thick cover is probably the most dangerous proceeding in the world,' said Haddo calmly. 'It calls for the utmost coolness and for iron nerve.'

The answer had an odd effect on Arthur. He gave Haddo a rapid glance, and was seized suddenly with uncontrollable laughter. He leaned back in his chair and roared. His hilarity affected the others, and they broke into peal upon peal of laughter. Oliver watched them gravely. He seemed neither disconcerted nor surprised. When Arthur recovered himself, he found Haddo's singular eyes fixed on him.

'Your laughter reminds me of the crackling of thorns under a pot,' he said.

Haddo looked round at the others. Though his gaze preserved its fixity, his lips broke into a queer, sardonic smile.

'It must be plain even to the feeblest intelligence that a man can only command the elementary spirits if he is without fear. A capricious mind can never rule the sylphs, nor a fickle disposition the undines.'

Arthur stared at him with amazement. He did not know what on earth the man was talking about. Haddo paid no heed.

'But if the adept is active, pliant, and strong, the whole world will be at his command. He will pa.s.s through the storm and no rain shall fall upon his head. The wind will not displace a single fold of his garment.

He will go through fire and not be burned.'

Dr Porhoet ventured upon an explanation of these cryptic utterances.

'These ladies are unacquainted with the mysterious beings of whom you speak, _cher ami_. They should know that during the Middle Ages imagination peopled the four elements with intelligences, normally unseen, some of which were friendly to man and others hostile. They were thought to be powerful and conscious of their power, though at the same time they were profoundly aware that they possessed no soul. Their life depended upon the continuance of some natural object, and hence for them there could be no immortality. They must return eventually to the abyss of unending night, and the darkness of death afflicted them always. But it was thought that in the same manner as man by his union with G.o.d had won a spark of divinity, so might the sylphs, gnomes, undines, and salamanders by an alliance with man partake of his immortality. And many of their women, whose beauty was more than human, gained a human soul by loving one of the race of men. But the reverse occurred also, and often a love-sick youth lost his immortality because he left the haunts of his kind to dwell with the fair, soulless denizens of the running streams or of the forest airs.'

'I didn't know that you spoke figuratively,' said Arthur to Oliver Haddo.

The other shrugged his shoulders.

'What else is the world than a figure? Life itself is but a symbol. You must be a wise man if you can tell us what is reality.'

'When you begin to talk of magic and mysticism I confess that I am out of my depth.'

'Yet magic is no more than the art of employing consciously invisible means to produce visible effects. Will, love, and imagination are magic powers that everyone possesses; and whoever knows how to develop them to their fullest extent is a magician. Magic has but one dogma, namely, that the seen is the measure of the unseen.'

'Will you tell us what the powers are that the adept possesses?'

'They are enumerated in a Hebrew ma.n.u.script of the sixteenth century, which is in my possession. The privileges of him who holds in his right hand the Keys of Solomon and in his left the Branch of the Blossoming Almond are twenty-one. He beholds G.o.d face to face without dying, and converses intimately with the Seven Genii who command the celestial army.

He is superior to every affliction and to every fear. He reigns with all heaven and is served by all h.e.l.l. He holds the secret of the resurrection of the dead, and the key of immortality.'

'If you possess even these you have evidently the most varied attainments,' said Arthur ironically.

'Everyone can make game of the unknown,' retorted Haddo, with a shrug of his ma.s.sive shoulders.

Arthur did not answer. He looked at Haddo curiously. He asked himself whether he believed seriously these preposterous things, or whether he was amusing himself in an elephantine way at their expense. His mariner was earnest, but there was an odd expression about the mouth, a hard twinkle of the eyes, which seemed to belie it. Susie was vastly entertained. It diverted her enormously to hear occult matters discussed with apparent gravity in this prosaic tavern. Dr Porhoet broke the silence.

'Arago, after whom has been named a neighbouring boulevard, declared that doubt was a proof of modesty, which has rarely interfered with the progress of science. But one cannot say the same of incredulity, and he that uses the word impossible outside of pure mathematics is lacking in prudence. It should be remembered that Lactantius proclaimed belief in the existence of antipodes inane, and Saint Augustine of Hippo added that in any case there could be no question of inhabited lands.'

'That sounds as if you were not quite sceptical, dear doctor,' said Miss Boyd.

'In my youth I believed nothing, for science had taught me to distrust even the evidence of my five senses,' he replied, with a shrug of the shoulders. 'But I have seen many things in the East which are inexplicable by the known processes of science. Mr Haddo has given you one definition of magic, and I will give you another. It may be described merely as the intelligent utilization of forces which are unknown, contemned, or misunderstood of the vulgar. The young man who settles in the East sneers at the ideas of magic which surround him, but I know not what there is in the atmosphere that saps his unbelief.

When he has sojourned for some years among Orientals, he comes insensibly to share the opinion of many sensible men that perhaps there is something in it after all.'

Arthur Burdon made a gesture of impatience.

'I cannot imagine that, however much I lived in Eastern countries, I could believe anything that had the whole weight of science against it.

If there were a word of truth in anything Haddo says, we should be unable to form any reasonable theory of the universe.'

'For a scientific man you argue with singular fatuity,' said Haddo icily, and his manner had an offensiveness which was intensely irritating. 'You should be aware that science, dealing only with the general, leaves out of consideration the individual cases that contradict the enormous majority. Occasionally the heart is on the right side of the body, but you would not on that account ever put your stethoscope in any other than the usual spot. It is possible that under certain conditions the law of gravity does not apply, yet you will conduct your life under the conviction that it does so invariably. Now, there are some of us who choose to deal only with these exceptions to the common run. The dull man who plays at Monte Carlo puts his money on the colours, and generally black or red turns up; but now and then zero appears, and he loses. But we, who have backed zero all the time, win many times our stake. Here and there you will find men whose imagination raises them above the humdrum of mankind. They are willing to lose their all if only they have chance of a great prize. Is it nothing not only to know the future, as did the prophets of old, but by making it to force the very gates of the unknown?'

Suddenly the bantering gravity with which he spoke fell away from him. A singular light came into his eyes, and his voice was hoa.r.s.e. Now at last they saw that he was serious.