distant. A few more weeks and we shall see such a being as I have long dreamed.” Again the queer light flickered for a moment in the once kindly and jovial eyes of the scientist. 

 Von Horn was horrified. He was a man of little sentiment. He could in cold blood have married this girl for the wealth he knew that she would inherit; but the thought that she was to be united with such a thing—“Lord! It is horrible,” and his mind pictured the fearful atrocity which was known as Number One. 

 Without a word he turned and left the campong. A moment later Sing’s knock aroused Professor Maxon from the reverie into which he had fallen, and he stepped to the trap door to receive his evening meal. 

 

3 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

 One day, about two weeks later, von Horn and the professor were occupied closely with their work in the court of mystery. Developments were coming in riotous confusion. A recent startling discovery bade fare to simplify and expedite the work far beyond the fondest dreams of the scientist. 

 Von Horn’s interest in the marvellous results that had been obtained was little short of the professor’s—but he foresaw a very different outcome of it all, and by day never moved without a gun at either hip, and by night both of them were beside him. 

 Sing Lee, the noonday meal having been disposed of, set forth with rod, string and bait to snare gulls upon the beach. He moved quietly through the jungle, his sharp eyes and ears always alert for anything that might savor of the unusual, and so it was that he saw the two men upon the beach, while they did not see him at all. 

 They were Bududreen and the same tall Malay whom Sing had seen twice before—once in splendid raiment and commanding the pirate prahu, and again as a simple boatman come to the Ithaca to trade, but without the goods to carry out his professed intentions. 

 The two squatted on the beach at the edge of the jungle a short distance above the point at which Sing had been about to emerge when he discovered them, so that it was but the work of a moment or two for the Chinaman to creep stealthily through the dense underbrush to a point directly above them and not three yards from where they conversed in low tones—yet sufficiently loud that Sing missed not a word. 

 “I tell you, Bududreen, that it will be quite safe,” 

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