The cord, stretched taut, struck him under the chin. Back he reeled. The cord was about his throat! "God!" he choked, and thrust up his hands. Madly, he strove to pluck the deadly silken thing from his neck. It was useless. A grip of steel was drawing it tightly--and ever more tightly--about him.... Despair touched him, and almost he resigned himself. Then, "Rob! Rob! open the door!" Dr. Cairn was outside. A new strength came--and he knew that it was the last atom left to him. To remove the rope was humanly impossible. He dropped his cramped hands, bent his body by a mighty physical effort, and hurled himself forward upon the door. The latch, now, was just above his head. He stretched up ... and was plucked back. But the fingers of his right hand grasped the knob convulsively. Even as that superhuman force jerked him back, he turned the knob--and fell. All his weight hung upon the fingers which were locked about that brass disk in a grip which even the powers of Darkness could not relax. The door swung open, and Cairn swung back with it. He collapsed, an inert heap, upon the floor. Dr. Cairn leapt in over him. * * * * * When he reopened his eyes, he lay in bed, and his father was bathing his inflamed throat. "All right, boy! There's no damage done, thank God...." "The hands!--" "I quite understand. But _I_ saw no hands but your own, Rob; and if it had come to an inquest I could not even have raised my voice against a verdict of suicide!" "But I--opened the door!" "They would have said that you repented your awful act, too late. Although it is almost impossible for a man to strangle himself under such conditions, there is no jury in England who would have believed that Antony Ferrara had done the deed." CHAPTER XXVIII THE HIGH PRIEST, HORTOTEF The breakfast-room of Dr. Cairn's house in Half-Moon Street presented a cheery appearance, and this despite the gloom of the morning; for thunderous clouds hung low in the sky, and there were distant mutterings ominous of a brewing storm. Robert Cairn stood looking out of the window. He was thinking of an afternoon at Oxford, when, to such an accompaniment as this, he had witnessed the first scene in the drama of evil wherein the man called Antony Ferrara sustained the leading _role_.