He merely grunted and pushed on past me into the opium room, and standing at the door I saw him cross the floor and disappear into the rear room. I stood there, my bewilderment increasing. For as Hassim had brushed past me, I had noted an item on the face of the paper, against which his black thumb was tightly pressed as if to mark that special column of news. And with the unnatural celerity of action and judgment which seemed to be mine those days, I had in that fleeting instant read: African Special Commissioner Found Murdered! The body of Major Fairlan Morley was yesterday discovered in a rotting ship's hold at Bordeaux.... No more I saw of the details, but that alone was enough to make me think! The affair seemed to be taking on an ugly aspect. Yet---- Another day passed. To my inquiries, Hassim snarled that the plans had been changed and I was not to go to France. Then, late in the evening, he came to bid me once more to the room of mystery. I stood before the lacquer screen, the yellow smoke acrid in my nostrils, the woven dragons writhing along the tapestries, the palm-trees rearing thick and oppressive. "A change has come in our plans," said the hidden voice. "You will not sail as was decided before. But I have other work that you may do. Mayhap this will be more to your type of usefulness, for I admit you have somewhat disappointed me in regard to subtlety. You interfered the other day in such manner as will no doubt cause me great inconvenience in the future." I said nothing, but a feeling of resentment began to stir in me. "Even after the assurance of one of my most trusted servants," the toneless voice continued, with no mark of any emotion save a slightly rising note, "you insisted on releasing my most deadly enemy. Be more circumspect in the future." "I saved your life!" I said angrily. "And for that reason alone I overlook your mistake--this time!" A slow fury suddenly surged up in me. "This time! Make the best of it this time, for I assure you there will be no next time. I owe you a greater debt than I can ever hope to pay, but that does not make me your slave. I have saved your life--the debt is as near paid as a man can pay it. Go your way and I go mine!" A low, hideous laugh answered me, like a reptilian hiss. "You fool! You will pay with your whole life's toil! You say you are not my slave? I say you are--just as black Hassim there beside you is my slave--just as the girl Zuleika is my slave, who has bewitched you with her beauty." These words sent a wave of hot blood to my brain and I was conscious of a flood of fury which completely engulfed my reason for a second. Just as all my moods and senses seemed sharpened and exaggerated those days, so now this burst of rage transcended every moment of anger I had ever had before. "Hell's fiends!" I shrieked. "You devil--who are you and what is your hold on me? I'll see you or die!"