For a moment she rested against his shoulder, deathly white, then in a flash she had straightened, was on her feet in one bound and so swiftly that he scarcely followed her movement—was unaware that she had risen until he saw her standing there with a pistol glittering in her hand, her eyes fixed on the portières that hung across the corridor leading to his bedroom. “What on earth,” he began, but she interrupted him, keeping her gaze focused on the curtains, and the pistol resting level on her hip. “I’ll answer you if I die for it!” she cried. “I’ll tell you everything I know! You wish to learn what is this monstrous evil that threatens the world with destruction—what you call anarchy and Bolshevism? It is an Evil that was born before Christ came! It is an Evil which not only destroys cities and empires and men but which is more terrible still for it obtains control of the human mind, and uses it at will; and it obtains sovereignty over the soul, and makes it prisoner. Its aim is to dominate first, then to destroy. It was conceived in the beginning by Erlik and by Sorcerers and devils.... Always, from the first, there have been sorcerers and living devils. “And when human history began to be remembered and chronicled, devils were living who worshiped Erlik and practised sorcery. “They have been called by many names. A thousand years before Christ Hassan Sabbah founded his sect called Hassanis or Assassins. The Yezidees are of them. Their Chief is still called Sabbah; their creed is the annihilation of civilisation!” Cleves had risen. The girl spoke in a clear, accentless monotone, not looking at him, her eyes and pistol centred on the motionless curtains. “Look out!” she cried sharply. “What is the matter?” he demanded. “Do you suppose anybody is hidden behind that curtain in the passageway?” “If there is,” she replied in her excited but distinct voice, “here is a tale to entertain him: “The Hassanis are a sect of assassins which has spread out of Asia all over the world, and they are determined upon the annihilation of everything and everybody in it except themselves! “In Germany is a branch of the sect. The hun is the lineal descendant of the ancient Yezidee; the gods of the hun are the old demons under other names; the desire and object of the hun is the same desire—to rule the minds and bodies and souls of men and use them to their own purposes!” She lifted her pistol a little, came a pace forward: “Anarchist, Yezidee, Hassani, Boche, Bolshevik—all are the same—all are secretly swarming in the hidden places for the same purpose!” The girl’s blue eyes were aflame, now, and the pistol was lifting slowly in her hand to a deadly level. “Sanang!” she cried in a terrible voice.