With hideous, goggling eyes the great god Budd sat cross-legged on a pedestal and stared stolidly into the semi-darkness. He saw, by the wavering light of a peacock lamp which swooped down from the ceiling with wings outstretched, what might have been a nook in a palace of East India. Draperies hung here, there, everywhere; richly embroidered divans sprawled about; fierce tiger rugs glared up from the floor; grotesque idols grinned mirthlessly in unexpected corners; strange arms were grouped on the walls. Outside the trolley cars clanged blatantly.

The single human figure was a distinct contradiction of all else. It was that of a man in evening dress, smoking. He was fifty, perhaps sixty, years old with the ruddy colour of one who has lived a great deal out of doors. There was only a touch of gray in his abundant hair and moustache. His eyes were steady and clear, and indolent.

For a long time he sat, then the draperies to his right parted and a girl entered. She was a part of the picture of which the man was a contradiction. Her lustrous black hair flowed about her shoulders; lambent mysteries lay in her eyes. Her dress was the dress of the East. For a moment she stood looking at the man and then entered with light tread.

“Varick Sahib,” she said, timidly, as if it were a greeting. “Do I intrude?” Her voice was softly guttural with the accent of her native tongue.

“Oh no, Jadeh. Come in,” said the man.

She smiled frankly and sat down on a hassock near him.

“My brother?” she asked.

“He is in the cabinet.”

Varick had merely glanced at her and then continued his thoughtful gaze into vacancy. From time to time she looked up at him shyly, with a touch of eagerness, but there was no answering interest in his manner. His thoughts were far away.

“May I ask what brings you this time, Sahib?” she inquired at last.

“A little deal in the market,” responded Varick, carelessly. “It seems to have puzzled Adhem as much as it did me. He has been in the cabinet for half an hour.”

He stared on musingly as he smoked, then dropped his eyes to the slender, graceful figure of Jadeh. With knees clasped in her hands she leaned back on the hassock deeply thoughtful. Her head was tilted upward and the flickering light fell full on her face. It crossed Varick’s mind that she was pretty, and he was about to say so as he would have said it to any other woman, when the curtains behind them were thrown apart and they both glanced around.

Another man — an East Indian — entered. This man was Adhem Singh, the crystal gazer, in the ostentatious robes of a seer. He, too, was a part of the picture. There was an expression of apprehension, mingled with some other impalpable quality on his strong face.

“Well, Adhem?” inquired Varick.

“I have seen strange things, Sahib,” replied the seer, solemnly. “The crystal tells me of danger.”

“Danger?” repeated Varick with a slight lifting of his brows. “Oh well, in that case I shall keep out of it.”

“Not danger to your business, Sahib,” the crystal gazer went on with troubled face, “but danger in another way.”

The girl, Jadeh, looked at him with quick, startled eyes and asked some question in her native tongue. He answered in the same language, and she rose suddenly with terror stricken face to fling herself at Varick’s feet, weeping. Varick seemed to understand too, and looked at the seer in apprehension.

“Death?” he exclaimed. “What do you mean?”

Adhem was silent for a moment and bowed his head respectfully before the steady, inquiring gaze of the white man.

“Pardon, Sahib,” he said at last. “I did not remember that you understood my language.”

“What is it?” insisted Varick, abruptly. “Tell me.”

“I cannot, Sahib.”

“You must,” declared the other. He had arisen commandingly. “You must.”

The crystal gazer crossed to him and stood for an instant with his hand on the white man’s shoulder, and his eyes studying the fear he found in the white man’s face.

“The crystal, Sahib,” he began. “It tells me that — that —”

“No, no, brother,” pleaded the girl.

“Go on,” Varick commanded.

“It grieves me to say that which will pain one whom I love as I do you, Sahib,” said the seer, slowly. “Perhaps you had rather see for yourself?”

“Well, let me see then,” said Varick. “Is it in the crystal?”

“Yes, by the grace of the gods.”

“But I can’t see anything there,” Varick remembered. “I’ve tried scores of times.”

“I believe this will he different, Sahib,” said Adhem, quietly. “Can you stand a shock?”

Varick shook himself a little impatiently.

“Of course,” he replied. “Yes, yes.”

“A very serious shock?”

Again there was an impatient twist of Varick’s shoulders.

“Yes, I can stand anything,” he exclaimed shortly. “What is it? Let me see.”

He strode toward that point in the draperies where Adhem had entered while the girl on her knees, sought with entreating hands to stop him.

“No, no, no,” she pleaded. “No.”

“Don’t do that,” Varick expostulated in annoyance, but gently he stooped and lifted her to her feet. “I am not a child — or a fool.”

He threw aside the curtains. As they fell softly behind him he heard a pitiful little cry of grief from Jadeh and set his teeth together hard.

He stood in the crystal cabinet. It was somewhat larger than an ordinary closet and had been made impenetrable to the light by hangings of black velvet. For awhile he stood still so that his eyes might become accustomed to the utter blackness, and gradually the sinister fascinating crystal ball appeared, faintly visible by its own mystic luminosity. It rested on a pedestal of black velvet.

Varick was accustomed to his surroundings — he had been in the cabinet many times. Now he dropped down on a stool in front of the table whereon the crystal lay and leaning forward on his arms stared into its limpid depths. Unblinkingly for one, two, three minutes he sat there with his thoughts in a chaos.

After awhile there came a change in the ball. It seemed to glow with a growing light other than its own. Suddenly it darkened completely, and out of this utter darkness grew shadowy, vague forms to which he could give no name. Finally a veil seemed lifted for the globe grew brighter and he leaned forward, eagerly, fearfully. Another veil melted away and a still brighter light illumined the ball.

Now Varick was able to make out objects. Here was a table littered with books and papers, there a chair, yonder a shadowy mantel. Gradually the light grew until his tensely fixed eyes pained him, but he stared steadily on. Another quick brightness came and the objects all became clear. He studied them incredulously for a few seconds, and then he recognized what he saw. It was a room — his study — miles away in his apartments.

A sudden numb chilliness seized him but he closed his teeth hard and gazed on. The outlines of the crystal were disappearing, now they were gone and he saw more. A door opened and a man entered the room into which he was looking. Varick gave a little gasp as he recognized the man. It was — himself. He watched the man — himself — as he moved about the study aimlessly for a time as if deeply troubled, then as he dropped into a chair at the desk. Varick read clearly on the vision-face those emotions which he was suffering in person. As he looked the man made some hopeless gesture with his hands — his hands — and leaned forward on the desk with his head on his arms. Varick shuddered.

For a long time, it seemed, the man sat motionless, then Varick became conscious of another figure — a man — in the room. This figure had come into the vision from his own view point. His face was averted — Varick did not recognize the figure, but he saw something else and started in terror. A knife was in the hand of the unknown, and he was creeping stealthily toward the unconscious figure in the chair — himself — with the weapon raised.

An inarticulate cry burst from Varick’s colourless lips — a cry of warning — as he saw the unknown creep on, on, on toward — himself. He saw the figure that was himself move a little and the unknown leaped. The upraised knife swept down and was buried to the handle. Again a cry, an unintelligible shriek, burst from Varick’s lips; his heart fluttered and perspiration poured from his face. With incoherent mutterings he sank forward helplessly.

How long he remained there he didn’t know, but at last he compelled himself to look again. The crystal glittered coldly on its pedestal of velvet but that hideous thing which had been there was gone. The thought came to him to bring it back, to see more, but repulsive fear, terror seized upon him. He rose and staggered out of the cabinet. His face was pallid and his hands clasped and unclasped nervously.

Jadeh was lying on a divan sobbing. She leaped to her feet when he entered, and looking into his face she knew. Again she buried her face in her hands and wept afresh. Adhem stood with moody eyes fixed on the great god Budd.

“I saw — I understand,” said Varick between his teeth, “but — I don’t believe it.”

“The crystal never lies, Sahib,” said the seer, sorrowfully.

“But it can’t be-that,” Varick declared protestingly.

“Be careful, Sahib, oh, be careful,” urged the girl.

“Of course I shall be careful,” said Varick, shortly. Suddenly he turned to the crystal gazer and there was a menace in his tone. “Did such a thing ever appear to you before?”

“Only once, Sahib.”

“And did it come true?”

Adhem inclined his head, slowly.

“I may see you tomorrow,” exclaimed Varick suddenly. “This room is stifling. I must go out.”

With twitching hands he drew on a light coat over his evening dress, picked up his hat and rushed out into the world of realities. The crystal gazer stood for a moment while Jadeh clung to his arm, tremblingly.

“It is as the gods will,” he said sadly, at last.

Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen — The Thinking Machine — received Howard Varick in the small reception room and invited him to a seat. Varick’s face was ashen; there were dark lines under his eyes and in them there was the glitter of an ungovernable terror. Every move showed the nervousness which gripped him. The Thinking Machine squinted at him curiously, then dropped back into his big chair.

For several minutes Varick said nothing; he seemed to be struggling to control himself. Suddenly he burst out:

“I’m going to die some day next week. Is there any way to prevent it?”

The Thinking Machine turned his great yellow head and looked at him in a manner which nearly indicated surprise.

“Of course if you’ve made up your mind to do it,” he said irritably, “I don’t see what can be done.” There was a trace of irony in his voice, a coldness which brought Varick around a little. “Just how is it going to happen?”

“I shall be murdered — stabbed in the back — by a man whom I don’t know,” Varick rushed on desperately.

“Dear me, dear me, how unfortunate,” commented the scientist. “Tell me something about it. But here —” He arose and went into his laboratory. After a moment he returned and handed a glass of some effervescent liquid to Varick, who gulped it down. “Take a minute to pull yourself together,” instructed the scientist.

He resumed his seat and sat silent with his long, slender fingers pressed tip to tip. Gradually Varick recovered. It was a fierce fight for the mastery of emotion.

“Now,” directed The Thinking Machine at last, “tell me about it.”

Varick told just what happened lucidly enough, and The Thinking Machine listened with polite interest. Once or twice he turned and looked at his visitor.

“Do you believe in any psychic force?” Varick asked once.

“I don’t disbelieve in anything until I have proven that it cannot be,” was the answer. “The God who hung a sun up there has done other things which we will never understand.” There was a little pause, then: “How did you meet this man, Adhem Singh?”

“I have been interested for years in the psychic, the occult, the things we don’t understand,” Varick replied. “I have a comfortable fortune, no occupation, no dependents and made this a sort of hobby. I have studied it superficially all over the world. I met Adhem Singh in India ten years ago, afterwards in England where he went through Oxford with some financial assistance from me, and later here. Two years ago he convinced me that there was something in crystal gazing — call it telepathy, self hypnotism, sub-conscious mental action — what you will. Since then the science, I can call it nothing else, has guided me in every important act of my life.”

“Through Adhem Singh?”

“Yes.”

“And under a pledge of secrecy, I imagine — that is secrecy as to the nature of his revelations?”

“Yes.”

“Any taint of insanity in your family?”

Varick wondered whether the question was in the nature of insolent reproof, or was a request for information. He construed it as the latter.

“No,” he answered. “Never a touch of it.”

“How often have you consulted Mr. Singh?”

“Many times. There have been occasions when he would tell me nothing because, he explained, the crystal told him nothing. There have been other times when he advised me correctly. He has never given me bad advice even in intricate stock operations, therefore I have been compelled to believe him in all things.”

“You were never able to see anything yourself in the crystal until this vision of death, last Tuesday night you say?”

“That was the first.”

“How do you know the murder is to take place at any given time — that is next week, as you say?”

“That is the information Adhem Singh gave me,” was the reply. “He can read the visions — they mean more to him than —”

“In other words, he makes it a profession?” interrupted the scientist.

“Yes.”

“Go on.”

“The horror of the thing impressed me so — both of us — that he has at my request twice invoked the vision since that night. He, like you, wanted to know when it would happen. There is a calendar by weeks in my study; that is, only one week is shown on it at a time. The last time the vision appeared he noted this calendar. The week was that beginning next Sunday, the 21st of this month. The only conclusion we could reach was it would happen during that week.”

The Thinking Machine arose and paced back and forth across the room deeply thoughtful. At last he stopped before his visitor.

“It’s perfectly amazing,” he commented emphatically. “It approaches nearer to the unbelievable than anything I have ever heard of.”

Varick’s response was a look that was almost grateful.

“You believe it impossible then?” he asked, eagerly.

“Nothing is impossible,” declared the other aggressively. “Now, Mr. Varick, you are firmly convinced that what you saw was prophetic? That you will die in that manner, in that place?”

“I can’t believe anything else — I can’t,” was the response.

“And you ............