There was a menace in the last words. Tchigorsky smiled: "The meddling doctor has already had personal experience," he said. "I carry the marks of my suffering to the grave. I remember how your peasants treated me and this does not tend to relax my efforts." "And yet you might die at any moment. If you persist in your studies you will have to die. The eyes of Western men must not look upon the secrets of the priests of Lassa and live. Be warned, Dr. Tchigorsky, be warned in time. You are brave and clever, and as such command respect. If you know everything and proclaim it to the world----" "Civilization will come as one man, and no stone in Lassa shall stand on another. Your priests will be butchered like wild beasts; an infernal plague spot will be wiped off the face of the outraged earth!" The Princess caught her breath swiftly. Just for one moment there was murder in her eyes. She held her fan as if it were a dagger ready for the Russian's heart. "Why should you do this thing?" she asked. "Because your knowledge is diabolical," Tchigorsky replied. "In the first place, all who are in the secret can commit murder with impunity. As the Anglo-Saxon pushes on to the four corners of the earth that knowledge must become public property. I am going to stop that if I can." "And if you die in the meantime? You are bold to rashness. And yet there are many things that you do not know." "The longer I live, the more glaring my ignorance becomes. I do not know whence you derive your perfect mastery of the English tongue. But I do know that I am going to see this business through." "Man proposes, but the arm of the priests is long." "Ah, I understand. I may die to-night. I should not mind. Still, let us argue the matter out. Say that I have already solved the problem. I write a detailed account of the whole weird business. I write twenty detailed statements; I enclose the key in each. These statements I address to a score of the leading savants in Europe. "Then I place them in, say, a safe deposit until my death. I write to each of those wise men a letter with an enclosure not to be opened till I die. That enclosure contains a key to my safe, and presently in that safe all those savants find a packet addressed to themselves. In a week all Europe would ring with my wonderful discoveries. Think of the outcry, the wrath, the indignation!" The Princess smiled. She could appreciate a stratagem like this. With dull, stolid and averted face, Ralph Ravenspur listened and wondered. He heard the laugh that came from the lips of the Princess; he detected the vexation underlying it. Tchigorsky was a foeman worthy of her steel. "That you propose to do?" she asked. "A question you will pardon me for not answering," said Tchigorsky. "You have made your move and I have made mine. Whether I am going to do the thing, or whether I have done so, remains to be seen. Whether you dare risk my death now is a matter for you to decide. Check to your king."