“‘I thought it possible,’ continued Sir Charles, ‘and I am tempted to tell you of a curious experience which once befell me during the time that I was a guest of my late friend Colonel Banfield in Delhi. My reputation as an osteologist was not at that time so fully established as it later became, but I already had some reputation in this branch of surgery; and one evening a very dignified Hindu gentleman sought an interview with me, saying that a distinguished native noble, who was a guest of his, had met with a serious accident, and offering me a fee equivalent to nearly five hundred pounds to perform an operation which he believed to be necessary. “‘I assured him that my services were at his disposal, and blankly declined to accept so large a fee. He thereupon explained that the circumstances were peculiar. His friend belonged to a religious cult of an extremely high order. He would lose caste if it became known that he had been attended by a Christian surgeon; therefore my visit must be a secret one. “‘It made no difference,’ I replied. ‘I quite understood; and he might rely upon my discretion. “‘Accordingly I was driven in a car which was waiting to some house upon the outskirts of the city and conducted to a room where the patient had been carried. I saw him to be a singularly handsome young man, apparently about twenty-three years of age. His features were flawless, and he possessed light ivory skin and wavy jet-black hair. His eyes, which were very dark and almond-shaped, had a strange and arresting beauty. But there was something effeminate about him which repelled me, I cannot say in what way; nor did I approve of the presence of many bowls of hyacinths in the room. “‘However, I performed the operation, which, although slight, demanded some skill, and with the nature of which I will not trouble you. Intense anxiety was manifested by the young man’s attendants, and one of these, a strikingly beautiful woman, insisted on remaining while the operation was performed. “‘She seemed more especially to concern herself with preserving intact a lock of the young man’s jet-black hair, which was brushed in rather an odd manner across his ivory forehead. Naturally enough, this circumstance excited my curiosity and, distracting the woman’s attention for a moment--I asked her to bring me something from a table at the opposite side of the room--I lightly raised this wayward lock and immediately replaced it again. “‘Do you know what it concealed, Mr. Brinn?’ “I assured him that I did not. “‘A mark, apparently natural, resembling a torch surmounted by a tongue of fire!’ “I was amazed, gentlemen, by Sir Charles’s story. He was given his fee and driven back to his quarters. But that he had succeeded where I had failed, that he had actually looked upon Fire-Tongue in person, I could not doubt. I learned from this, too, that the Prophet of Fire did not always remain in his mountain stronghold, for Delhi is a long way from the Secret City.