I strode to the door intending to quit, but there rage mastered me again. I swung on heel and once more faced them. "One word more," I grated out; "you're not done with me yet, either of you. I'm a peaceful man by nature, but no man treads on my toes with impunity. Spiritualists or spirit-summoners you are, I hear. Weldon calls you spook-hunters—a very proper term. You'll need all the money you possess between you and all the spirits' help you'll buy from your rascal spirit-rappers to keep me from your trail. Looking for the elixir of life, I'm told. It will go hard if I don't help you find it. The elixir of public ridicule, that I'll turn upon you, will hand your names down to posterity. I'll help you to that much immortality, at least, and gratis, too. Good-day to you!"
"Dr. Pinsent!" shouted Ottley.
I paused and glanced at him across my shoulder. He gazed at me with eyes that simply blazed.
"Be warned," he hissed, "if you value your life, let me and mine alone. I'll send a cheque to your tent to-day; keep it, call quits, and I'm done with you. I owe you that consideration, but no more."
"And suppose, on the other hand——"
"Cross me and you shall see. You sleep sometimes, I suppose. My emissary will not always find you wakeful. He never sleeps."
"Your rascal Arab!" I shouted.
"Pah!" he cried.
"Murderer, it was to you I owe that rough and tumble a week ago at my own camp in the desert."
"To me," he mumbled. "To me. Whom else? My agents are spirits and invisible. They do not love you for despising them. They have tortures in reserve for you when you are dead and you, too, are a spirit. But I would be merciful—I shall send you a cheque. Return it at your peril. Now go, go, go."