“Oh, yes; here you are!” and the voyager pointed to his breast. The Professor inspected, with unconcealed delight, some small tattooings of irregular form. “It is, it is,” he cried, “the _wasm_, the _sharat_,* the Semitic tribal mark, the mark with which the Arab tribes brand their cattle! Of old time they did tattoo it on their bodies. The learned Herr Professor Robertson Smith, in his leedle book, do you know what he calls that very mark, my dear sir?” * Sharat or Short.--“The shart was in old times a tattooed mark.... In the patriarchal story of Cain...the institution of blood revenge is connected with a ‘mark’ which Jehovah appoints to Cain. Can this be anything else than the _sharat_, or tribal mark, which every man bore on his person?” --Robertson Smith, _Kinship in Ancient Arabia_, p.215. “Not I,” said the sailor; “I’m no scholar.” “He says it was--I do not say he is right,” cried the Professor, in a loud voice, pointing a finger at his victim’s breast--“he says it was _the mark of cain_!” The sailor, beneath his mahogany tan, turned a livid white, and grasped at a bookcase by which he stood. “What do you mean?” he cried, through his chattering teeth; “what do you mean with your damned Hebrew-Dutch and your mark of Cain? The mark’s all right! A Hadendowa woman did it in Suakim years ago. Ain’t it on that chart of yours?” “Certainly, good sir; it is,” answered the Professor. “Why do you so agitate yourself? _The proof is complete!_” he added, still pointing at the sailor’s breast. “Then I’ll put on my togs, with your leave: it’s none so warm!” grumbled the man. He had so far completed his dressing that he was in his waistcoat, and was just looking round for his coat. “Stop!” said the Professor. “Hold Mr. Johnson’s coat for a moment!” This was to young Wright, who laid his hands on the garment in question. “You must be tired, sir,” said the Professor, in a very soft voice. “May I offer you a leedle cigarette?” He drew from his pocket a silver cigarette-case, and, in a thoroughly English accent, he went on: “I have waited long to give you back your cigarette-case, which you left at your club, Mr. Thomas Cranley!” The sailor’s eye fell on it. He dashed the silver box violently to the ground, and trampled on it, then he made one rush at his coat. “Hold it, hold it!” cried Barton, laying aside his Teutonic accent--“hold it: there’s a revolver in the pocket!” But there was no need to struggle for the coat. The sailor had suddenly staggered and fallen, a crumpled but not unconscious mass, on the floor. “Call in the police!” said Barton. “They’ll have no difficulty in taking him.” “This is the man against whom you have the warrant,” he went on, as young Wright opened the door and admitted two policemen. “I charge the Honorable Thomas Cranley with murder!” The officers lifted the fallen man.