"He knew us at last," Ben Heer resumed. "He met us face to face in the public street, and he knew that his hour had come. A night later he was in Paris. At the same time we were in Paris also. He tried Rome, Vienna, Berlin. So did we. Then he came back to London again. When he did so we knew that he had bowed his face before the All-seeing, and prayed that the end might come speedily."
The princess followed all this with impatience. But the man was speaking after the manner of his kind and could not be hurried.
He would go on to the end without omitting a single detail and the princess was forced to listen. Despite the Western garb and the evidences of Western life and custom about her, she was no longer Mrs. May, but Princess Zara.
She had only to close her eyes and the droning intonation and passionless voice of the speaker took her back to Lassa again. And the day was near, ah! the day was near, when the goal would be reached.
"Once we had him and once he escaped," Ben Heer went on. "He was a brave man was Voski, and nothing could break down those nerves of iron. He knew that the end was near. It was in a big house—a house near to London—that we found him.
"There were servants, and they were glad to have their fortunes told. It was their evening meal on the table when we got there, and the man Voski Sahib was out. Then, behold, after that evening meal the servants slept till the dawn, and at midnight the master returned. He came into his study and the bright flash of the lightning came at the touch of his fingers."
"Electric light," the princess said impatiently. "Go on."
"Then he saw us. We knew that he had no weapon. The door we barred. Then Voski, he sit down and light a cigar, smiling, smiling all the time. When we look at him we see that he moves not so much as a little finger. There was no sign of fear, except that he look at a little box on the table now and then."
"Ah," the princess cried. "You got it, eh?"
Ben Heer made no direct reply. He was not to be hurried. He meant to describe a sordid murder in his own cold-blooded way. Probably he did not regard the thing as a crime at all; he had been acting under the blessing of the priests.