“The red glow near the floor expired in one last flicker. There was a stab of flame, the simultaneous deafeningly violent detonation of a revolver fired close to my ear, a savage cry of furious menace, another gloating chuckle of laughter--and then darkness and silence. “Brought suddenly to myself, I struggled to my feet in the choking fumes, and groped feverishly for the switch of the electric light. I found it and the lamp sprang into dull illumination of the smoke-filled cabin. The door was open. The conjurer had disappeared--I heard a splash in the river under the open ports and was left in no doubt that he was beyond our reach. Then, in sudden alarm at his silence, I turned to look for Captain Strong. “He was stretched back unconscious upon the settee where we had sat together, his hand grasping the revolver which he had vainly fired with his last strength. He looked livid, pale as death, and for a moment I thought the native had murdered him. But I could find no mark on him, and presently he opened his eyes, began to murmur delirious phrases. I saw at a glance that he was very ill, with the illness that frightens you when you see it in a place like Saigon. With some difficulty, for he was a heavy man, I lifted him to his bunk and put him to bed. As I loosened the shirt from about his throat, I noticed, with a thrill of the uncanny which made me shudder, that round his neck was a circling line of blanched skin, and on his chest a similar, broader patch. But the amulet, whose long wearing had evidently caused these marks, had disappeared completely. “Half an hour later I was being rowed in all haste to the black Messageries Maritimes boat and claiming the services of her doctor. “It was hopeless from the first, and we both knew it. Captain Strong died before morning, raving native words in his delirium, and calling incessantly a native name--_Héa-Nan! Héa-Nan!_ “At dawn I looked up to see the yellow jack fluttering from the masthead precisely as, not twelve hours before, I had seen the vision of it from the quay.” Captain Williamson stopped, glanced at his burnt-out cheroot, threw it away, and selected another one carefully from his case. “Well, Professor, what do you make of that?” he asked, as he struck a match. The professor assumed an air of wisdom superior to any mystery.