“Sit there!” An authoritative finger pointed Bean to the chair he had lately occupied.

He sat nervously, suffering that peculiar apprehension which physicians and dentists had always inspired.

“Most amazing!  Most astounding!” muttered the professor as if to his own ear alone.  He sat in a chair facing Bean and regarded him long and intently.  At brief intervals his face twitched, his body stiffened, he seemed to writhe in some malign grasp.

Bean gripped the arms of his chair.  His tingling nerves were accurately defining his spine.  He waited, breathless.

“I see it all,” breathed the professor in low, solemn tones, his eyes fixed above Bean’s head.  “First the pomp and glitter of a throne.  You wrench it from a people whose weakness you play upon with a devilish cunning, you ascend to it over the bodies of countless men slain in battle.  Power through blood!  You are cruel, insatiable, a predatory monster.  But retribution comes.  You are hurled from your throne.  Again you ascend it, but only for a brief time.  You fight your last battle; you lose!  You are captured and taken to a lonely island somewhere far to the south, there to be imprisoned until your death.  Afterward I see your body returned to the city that was once your capital.  It now lies in a heavy stone coffin.  It is in a European city.  I can almost hear the name, but not plainly.  I cannot get the name under which you ruled.  I look into the abyss and the cries of your victims drown it.  Horror piles upon horror!”

Bean was leaning forward, tense with excitement, his mouth open.  “Yes, that’s just the way I felt about it,” he murmured.

“But this was only a few paltry years ago, perhaps a hundred.  It passes from my view.  I am led back, away from it—­far back—­the cries of those you slaughtered echo but faintly—­the scene changes—­”

The professor paused.  Bean had cowered in his chair, wincing under each blow.  He wiped his face and crumpled the moist handkerchief tightly in one hand.

“Perhaps the name may come to me now,” continued the professor.  “But your superior personality overwhelmed me at first; you are so self-willed, so dominant, so ruthless.  The name, the name!” He cried the last words commandingly and snapped his fingers at the delinquent control.  “There!  I seem to hear—­”

“Never mind that name,” broke in Bean hastily.  “Let it go!  I—­I don’t want to know it.  Go on back farther!”

Again the professor’s look became trancelike.

“Ah!  What a relief to be free from that blood-lust!” He breathed deeply and his eyes rolled far up under their lids.

“What is this?  A statesman, still crafty, still the lines of cunning cruelty about the mouth.  The city is Venice in the fourteenth century.  He is dressed in a richly bejewelled robe and toys with an inlaid dagger.  He is plotting the assassination of a Doge—­”

“Please get still farther back, can’t you?” pleaded Bean.