lantern full in the direction of the spot where I stood; but so agilely did I slide behind a pillar, that he could not have seen me.  In the pantry he lifted the trap-door, and descended still further into the vaults beneath the house.  Ah, the vaults,—­the long, the tortuous, the darksome vaults,—­how had I forgotten them?  Still I followed, rent by seismic shocks of terror.  I had not forgotten the weapon:  could I creep near enough, I felt that I might plunge it into the marrow of his back.  He opened the iron door of the first vault and passed in.  If I could lock him in?—­but he held the key.  On and on he wound his way, holding the lantern near the ground, his head bent down.  The thought came to me then, that, had I but the courage, one swift sweep, and all were over.  I crept closer, closer.  Suddenly he turned round, and made a quick step in my direction.  I saw his eyes, the murderous grin of his jaw.  I know not if he saw me—­thought forsook me.  The weapon fell with clatter and clangor from my grasp, and in panic fright I fled with extended arms and the headlong swiftness of a stripling, through the black labyrinths of the caverns, through the vacant corridors of the house, till I reached my chamber, the door of which I had time to fasten on myself before I dropped, gasping, panting for very life, on the floor.

’July 11.—­I had not the courage to see Ul-Jabal to-day.  I have remained locked in my chamber all the time without food or water.  My tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth.

’July 12.—­I took heart and crept downstairs.  I met him in the study.  He smiled on me, and I on him, as if nothing had happened between us.  Oh, our old friendship, how it has turned into bitterest hate!  I had taken the false stone from the Edmundsbury chalice and put it in the pocket of my brown gown, with the bold intention of showing it to him, and asking him if he knew aught of it.  But when I faced him, my courage failed again.  We drank together and ate together as in the old days of love.

’July l3.—­I cannot think that I have not again imbibed some soporiferous drug.  A great heaviness of sleep weighed on my brain till late in the day.  When I woke my thoughts were in wild distraction, and a most peculiar condition of my skin held me fixed before the mirror.  It is dry as parchment, and brown as the leaves of autumn.

’July l4.—­Ul-Jabal is gone!  And I am left a lonely, a desolate old man!  He said, though I swore it was false, that I had grown to mistrust him! that I was hiding something from him! that he could live with me no more!  No more, he said, should I see his face!  The debt I owe him he would forgive.  He has taken one small parcel with him,—­and is gone!

’July l5.—­Gone! gone!  In mazeful dream I wander with uncovered head far and wide over my domain, seeking I know not what.  The stone he has with him—­the precious stone of Saul.  I feel the life-surge ebbing, ebbing in my heart.’