"Yes; I am to shoot him."
"That is right. Now, if you do not go he will have them before you get there. Get up and we will say good-night. You must not put your hand in your pocket until you see the man who wants to rob you. Good-night. There is your hat."
"Good-night!"
Mr Isaac Josephus put on his hat and walked away to his death with the motions of a mechanical doll.
CHAPTER XIX
THE HORUS STONE
An hour later Phadrig, the poor curio dealer, had disappeared, and Mr Phadrig Amena, the wonder-working Adept, clad in evening clothes and a light overcoat, alighted from a hansom at the great entrance to the Royal Court Mansions. The huge, gorgeously uniformed guardian of the Gilded Gates was saluting at his elbow in an instant, for a friend of Princes is a very great man in the eyes of even such dignitaries as he.
"The Prince expects you, sir," he said, loud enough to make the title heard by those who were standing by. "Will you be good enough to walk in? I will discharge the cab."
He stood aside with a bow and another salute, and Phadrig walked lightly up the broad steps. Peter Petroff opened the door of the flat, bowing low, and conducted him to his master's sanctum. Evidently he was expected, for the coffee apparatus stood ready on the Moorish table beside the cosy chair which he was wont to occupy. The Prince, who was standing on a white bear's skin by the mantel, motioned him to it, saying: