And then as I stood, between that horrid exultation which is born of killing and the panic which threatened me out of the darkness, I saw something advancing ... slowly ... slowly ... from the elmen shades toward the loggia.
It was a shape—it was a shadow. Silent it came—on—and on. Where the dusk lay deepest it paused, undefined; for I could give it no name of man or spirit. But a horror seemed to proceed from it as light from a lamp.
I groped about the table near to me, never taking my eyes from that sinister form outside. As my fingers closed upon the telephone, distant voices and the sound of running footsteps (of those who had heard the shots) came welcome to my ears.
The form stirred, seeming to raise phantom arms in execration, and a stray moonbeam pierced the darkness shrouding it. For a fleeting instant something flashed venomously.
The sounds grew nearer. I could tell that the newcomers had found Morris lying at the gate. Yet still I stood, frozen with uncanny fear, and watching—watching the spot to which that stray beam had pierced; the spot where I had seen the moon gleam upon the ring of the Prophet!
CHAPTER X
AT THE BRITISH ANTIQUARIAN MUSEUM
A little group of interested spectators stood at the head of the square glass case in the centre of the lofty apartment in the British Antiquarian Museum known as the Burton Room (by reason of the fact that a fine painting of Sir Richard Burton faces you as you enter). A few other people looked on curiously from the lower end of the case. It contained but one exhibit—a dirty and dilapidated markoob—or slipper of morocco leather that had once been red.
“Our latest acquisition, gentlemen,” said Mr. Mostyn, the curator, speaking in a low tone to the distinguished Oriental scholars around him. “It has been left to the Institution by the late Professor Deeping. He describes it in a document furnished by his solicitor as one of the slippers worn by the Prophet Mohammed, but gives us no further particulars. I myself cannot quite place the relic.”
“Nor I,” interrupted one of the group. “It is not mentioned by any of the Arabian historians to my knowledge—that is, if it comes from Mecca, as I understand it does.”
“I cannot possibly assert that it comes from Mecca, Dr. Nicholson,” Mostyn replied. “The Professor may have taken it from Al-Madinah—perhaps from the mysterious inner passage of the baldaquin where the treasures of the place lie. But I can assure you that what little we do know of its history is sufficiently unsavoury.”