“Why d’ye ask me? I wasn’t there. But we’ll call my secretary, and ask him about the Mountain sect. It’s his business to get ’em all up, and he’s a dab at finding out facts. Not that I let him think so. Here, you sir, Hazeldean!” he raised his voice, “Come here!” The secretary came hurrying up, in evident perturbation. He was a nervous-looking youth, with the round shoulders and hesitating manners of the student, and gave the impression of having been waked from a dream by a rough shock. “Why are you never at hand when you’re wanted, sir?” demanded Mr Crayne. “It’s scarcely worth while asking you, but perhaps among all the perfectly useless information you manage to stow away you may have picked up something about the Sheikh-ul-Jabal and his sect?” “Indeed I have, sir. The subject has interested me very much since I came to Khemistan, and learned----” “Then let’s hear what you know about it,” snapped Mr Crayne. “The Mountain brotherhood claims to be the direct survival of a terrible secret society formed in Crusading times,” began the secretary, as if he were repeating a lesson, “which furthered its objects by the murder of any one who stood in its way. There were seven stages of initiation, and in the lower the brethren professed the most rigid Mohammedanism, but in the higher the initiates were taught that good and evil were merely names, and all religions alike false. Absolute obedience to the rule of the Sheikh-ul-Jabal was the chief point in the vows taken, and when he ordered the removal of any one, it took place at once. Some of the Crusading leaders were accused of having entered the brotherhood, and this accusation was especially brought against the Templars. The order seems to have existed in secret ever since it was supposed to be stamped out, and the present Sheikh-ul-Jabal is actually a pensioner of the Company’s, living somewhere near Alibad, which was what attracted my attention to the sect at first. Some writers think that the Druses----” “That’ll do,” said Mr Crayne curtly, interrupting the hurried monologue. “I didn’t ask you for a lecture. Can you tell me the exact membership of the order at the present time, or anything else that is practical?” “I--I’m afraid not, sir. There are no means of ascertaining such facts as that, I fear. But I believe an important book has been published in Germany dealing with the sect, if you would permit me to order it for you----” “No, I won’t. What good is a German book to any civilised man? You are always ready to stock my library with books you want to read. You can go back to your grinding, sir.” The secretary departed with alacrity, and Mr Crayne turned to his nephew--