into illimitable airy heights by the strongly-daring pinions of an eagle.  It was the feeling of being hurried out beyond one’s depth—­caught and whiffed away by the all-compelling sweep of some rabid vigour into a new, foreign element.  Something akin I have experienced in an ‘express’ as it raged with me—­winged, rocking, ecstatic, shrilling a dragon Aha!—­round a too narrow curve.  It was a sensation very far from agreeable.

‘To that,’ he said, pointing to the paragraph, ’we may, I think, shortly expect an answer.  Let us only hope that when it comes it may be immediately intelligible.’

We waited throughout the whole of that day and night, hiding our eagerness under the pretence of absorption in our books.  If by chance I fell into an uneasy doze, I found him on waking ever watchful, and poring over the great tome before him.  About the time, however, when, could we have seen it, the first grey of dawn must have been peeping over the land, his impatience again became painful to witness; he rose and paced the room, muttering occasionally to himself.  This only ceased, when, hours later, Ham entered the room with an envelope in his hand.  Zaleski seized it—­tore it open—­ran his eye over the contents—­and dashed it to the ground with an oath.

‘Curse it!’ he groaned.  ’Ah, curse it! unintelligible—­every syllable of it!’

I picked up the missive and examined it.  It was a slip of papyrus covered with the design now so hideously familiar, except only that the two central figures were wanting.  At the bottom was written the date of the 15th of November—­it was then the morning of the 12th—­and the name ‘Morris.’  The whole, therefore, presented the following appearance: 

[Illustration]

My eyes were now heavy with sleep, every sense half-drunken with the vapourlike atmosphere of the room, so that, having abandoned something of hope, I tottered willingly to my bed, and fell into a profound slumber, which lasted till what must have been the time of the gathering in of the shades of night.  I then rose.  Missing Zaleski, I sought through all the chambers for him.  He was nowhere to be seen.  The negro informed me with an affectionate and anxious tremor in the voice that his master had left the rooms some hours before, but had said nothing to him.  I ordered the man to descend and look into the sacristy of the small chapel wherein I had deposited my caleche, and in the field behind, where my horse should be.  He returned with the news that both had disappeared.  Zaleski, I then concluded, had undoubtedly departed on a journey.