For a while there was silence. Then Sir Robert,
recovering himself, asked:
"Did you notice anything unusual just now, Haswell?"
"Yes," whispered his partner. "I thought that hideous African thing
which Vernon brought here, came sliding across the floor and stared into
my face with its glittering eyes, and in the eyes----"
"Well, what was in the eyes?"
"I can't remember. It was a kind of picture and the meaning of it was
Sudden Death--oh Lord! Sudden Death. Tell me it was a fancy bred of that
ill-omened talk of yours?"
"I can't tell you anything of the sort," answered Aylward in a hollow
voice, "for I saw something also."
"What?" asked his partner.
"Death that wasn't sudden, and other things."
Again the silence fell till it was broken by Aylward.
"Come," he said, "we have been over-working--too much strain, and now
the reaction. Keep this rubbish to yourself, or they will lock you up in
an asylum."
"Certainly, Aylward, certainly. But can't you get rid of that beastly
image?"
"Not on any account, Haswell, even if it haunts us all day. Here it
shall stop until the Saharas are floated on Monday, if I have to lock it
in the strongroom and throw the keys into the Thames.
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