“I know of none.  I have not cast the horoscope yet.”

“Then you wish to do so?”

“With your good permission.  I have taken a long journey for that very purpose, Sir Jasper.”

“Then you shall,” the baronet cried, yielding to a swift impulse—­“you shall cast his horoscope.  If it can avert no evil, it can, at least, cause none.  But, first, there is no action without its ruling motive.  What are me or mine to you, to make you take a long and toilsome journey on our account?”

The old man paused, drawn up to his fullest height, imposing as a new King Lear, his deep, dark eyes glowing with inward fire.

“I will tell you,” he said.  “Years ago, Sir Jasper, when you were a young man, you did an honor and a service to one I dearly love; that I have never forgotten and never will forget!  You have ceased to remember it years ago, no doubt; but I never have, nor ever will until my dying day.”

“A service! an honor!  What could it have been?  I recollect nothing of it.”

“I expected as much; but my memory is a good one.  It is stamped on my heart forever.  Great men like Sir Jasper Kingsland, grandees of the land, forget these little things.  I owe you a long debt, Sir Jasper, and I will pay it to the uttermost farthing, so help me God!”

His black eyes blazed, his low voice rose, his arm uplifted fiercely for an instant in dire menace.  Then, quick as lightning flashes, all was transformed.  The eyes were bent upon the carpet, the arms folded, the voice sunk, soft and servile.

“Forgive me!” he murmured.  “In my gratitude I forget myself.  But you have my motive in coming here—­the desire to repay you; to look into the future of your son; to see the evils that may threaten his youth and manhood, and to place you on your guard against them.  ’Forwarned is fore-armed,’ you know.  Do not doubt my power.  In far-off Oriental lands, under the golden stars of Syria, I learned the lore of the wise men of the East.  I learned to read the stars as you Englishmen read your printed books.  Believe and trust, and let me cast the horoscope of your son.”

“First let me test your vaunted power.  Show me my past, before you show me my son’s future.”

He held forth his hand with a cynical smile,

“As you will.  Past and future are alike to me—­save that the past is easier to read.  Ah! a palm seamed and crossed and marked with troubled lines.  Forty years have not gone and left no trace behind—­”

“Forty years!” interrupted Sir Jasper, with sneering emphasis.  “Pray do not bungle in the very beginning.”

“I bungle not,” answered Achmet, sternly.  “Forty years ago, on the third of next month, you, Jasper Southdown Kingsland, were born beneath this very roof.”

“Right!” he said.  “You know my age.  But go on.”

“Your boyhood you passed here—­quiet, eventless years—­with a commonplace mother and a dull, proud father.  At ten, your mother went to her grave.  At twelve, the late Sir Noel followed her.  At thirteen, you, a lonely orphan, were removed from this house to London in the charge of a guardian that you hated.  Am I not right?”