Chick never knew just what happened, much less how it was accomplished.  He knew only that a black, opaque wave ran up the long windows, shutting off the light, so that instantly the darkness of night enveloped everything, blotting out all that maze of colour; it was the blackness of the void.  Then came a tiny light, a mere dot of flame, over on the opposite wall; a pin-point of light it was, seemingly coming out of a vast distance like an approaching star, growing gradually larger, spreading out into a screen of radiance that presently was flashing with intrinsic life.  The corruscation grew brighter; little tufts of brilliance shot out with all the stabbing suddenness of shooting stars.  To Chick it was exactly as though some god were pushing his way through and out of fire.  In the end the flame burst asunder, diminished into a receding circle and sputtered out.

And in the place of the strange light there appeared the illuminated figure of a man.  Leaning forward, Chick rubbed his eyes and looked again.

It was the bust of Professor Holcomb.

XXXV

THE PERFECT IMPOSTOR

Chick gasped.  Of all that assemblage—­Rhamdas, guards, the occupants of the two thrones—­he himself was the most astounded.  Was the great professor in actual fact the true Jarados?  If not, how explain this miracle?  But if he were, how to explain the duality, the identity?  Surely, it could not be sheer chance!

Fortunately for Chick, it was dark.  All eyes were fixed on the trim figure which occupied the space of the clover-leaf on the rear wall.  Except for Chick’s strangled gasp, there was only the hushed silence of reverence, deep and impressive.

Then another dot appeared.  From its position, Watson took it to come from another leaf of the clover; another light approaching out of the void and cutting through the blackness exactly as the first had come.  It grew and spread until it had filled the whole leaf; then, again the bursting of the flare, the diminishing of the light, and its disappearance in a thin rim at the edge.  And this time there was revealed—­

A handsome brown-haired dog.

Watson of course, could not understand.  The silence held; he could feel the Rhamda Geos at his side, and hear him murmur something which, in itself, was quite unintelligible: 

“The four-footed one!  The call to humility, sacrifice, and unselfishness!  The four-footed one!”

That was all.  It was a shaggy shepherd dog, with a pointed nose and one ear cocked up and the other down, very wisely inquisitive.  Chick had seen similar dogs many times, but he could not account for this one; certainly not in such a place.  What had it to do with the Jarados?

Still the darkness.  It gave him a chance to think.  He wondered, rapidly, how he could link up such a creature with his description of the Jarados.  What could be the purpose of a canine in occult philosophy?  Or, was the whole thing, after all, mere blundering chance?