There was a crowd around us. It was a rather unusual spectacle, and the passers-by gave eager attention to it.
“Very well, then, I’ll show you something that will decide you, if you will let the man drive on a little, out of this crush,” he rejoined, diving his hand into his breast-pocket.
Impatiently I told him to jump in, giving the order to drive away, anywhere. After the lapse of a few minutes I turned to the strange being by my side.
He held a piece of torn paper, but what was on it I could not then see. Putting his shaking hand upon my shoulder, and his ashen face with its wild, glaring eyes, close to my own, he hissed, with a kind of vicious pleasure.
“You think me an impostor, eh? Well, look at this, and remember what it has revealed to you before. Then say if I have stopped you without cause. Its author may yet be found!”
His face wore a smile of triumph as he held before my eyes a torn fragment of paper. With an indefinable thrill of excitement, not unmingled with alarm—for his words were ominous—I took it. So dark was it in the vehicle that I held it close to my eyes till we approached the next street-lamp. As we did so, and the light fell across the crumpled and dirty paper, my heart almost stopped beating, and my pulses, for a moment ceased.
There, in all its frightful reality, was the seal!