“Nonsense!” I said, rather uncivilly, I fear.  “You surely do not believe such things?”

“Certainly not:  I have seen them too often.”

“But I do,” said a journalist of considerable local fame as a picturesque reporter.  “I have so frequently related them that nothing but observation could shake my conviction.  Why, gentlemen, I have my own word for it.”

Nobody laughed—­all were looking at something behind me.  Turning in my seat I saw a man in evening dress who had just entered the room.  He was exceedingly dark, almost swarthy, with a thin face, black-bearded to the lips, an abundance of coarse black hair in some disorder, a high nose and eyes that glittered with as soulless an expression as those of a cobra.  One of the group rose and introduced him as Dr. Dorrimore, of Calcutta.  As each of us was presented in turn he acknowledged the fact with a profound bow in the Oriental manner, but with nothing of Oriental gravity.  His smile impressed me as cynical and a trifle contemptuous.  His whole demeanor I can describe only as disagreeably engaging.

His presence led the conversation into other channels.  He said little—­I do not recall anything of what he did say.  I thought his voice singularly rich and melodious, but it affected me in the same way as his eyes and smile.  In a few minutes I rose to go.  He also rose and put on his overcoat.

“Mr. Manrich,” he said, “I am going your way.”

“The devil you are!” I thought.  “How do you know which way I am going?” Then I said, “I shall be pleased to have your company.”

We left the building together.  No cabs were in sight, the street cars had gone to bed, there was a full moon and the cool night air was delightful; we walked up the California street hill.  I took that direction thinking he would naturally wish to take another, toward one of the hotels.

“You do not believe what is told of the Hindu jugglers,” he said abruptly.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

Without replying he laid his hand lightly upon my arm and with the other pointed to the stone sidewalk directly in front.  There, almost at our feet, lay the dead body of a man, the face upturned and white in the moonlight!  A sword whose hilt sparkled with gems stood fixed and upright in the breast; a pool of blood had collected on the stones of the sidewalk.

I was startled and terrified—­not only by what I saw, but by the circumstances under which I saw it.  Repeatedly during our ascent of the hill my eyes, I thought, had traversed the whole reach of that sidewalk, from street to street.  How could they have been insensible to this dreadful object now so conspicuous in the white moonlight?