Many years rolled by, when one day, as the disconsolate father was walking in the garden of the same house whence the child was stolen, he was accosted by an old beldame, who asked him what he would pay in gold in return for information respecting his child. It is needless to narrate the successive steps taken. Suffice it that within twenty-four hours the father and the gipsy were on the ocean, going as fast as steam would carry them toward the Western World.... The child, now a regal woman, was found, and father and daughter lived with each other for a time in New York, where a fine property had been bought; for the old gentleman so liked the New World that he determined to settle there for life, after his daughter had been properly cultured in Europe, whither he soon took her, and then, after transmitting the bulk of his fortune to America, went on a final visit to his people in Persia, his friends and co-religionists in the East. I had met with him as already stated, when on his return from Egypt to France. This brings us to the night of my arrival in Paris. It being impossible to join his child that night, Hokeis and myself drove to a hotel in the Palaise Royale, and were at the satisfactory end of a supper, when a person who was totally unknown to either of us entered the _salle à manger_, and, making a profound obeisance to us both, said: “_Salute!_ I come to tell you, Im Hokeis, that you will not quit Paris to-morrow. But at the hour of four you will take your daughter to the house that is last but one on the left ascending the Boulevart de Luxembourg. You will ask me no questions, but will obey. My authority I thus give you,” and he whispered three words in the ear of Hokeis, that caused the latter to start as if he had been shot. _He had received the secret countersign of the priests of fire!_ Then turning to me, he said, “You will go early in the morning to the Hotel Fleury. There you will find Beverly, your friend, join him; go where he goes, and quit him not for an instant for the next two days--_his salvation depends upon it!_ Now I go. Forget not the words of _the Stranger_.” I was thunderstruck. Hokeis and I talked much that night before we slept. What we spoke of is easily to be conceived. This brings me to my next meeting with Beverly, whose fortunes we will now follow. It will be remembered that Ravalette had given him a paper just before they parted in Belleville, and that Vatterale had also left something for him at his hotel. Bearing this in mind, observe what followed. In a bold, strong hand was written these words in the note placed by Ravalette in the hands of Beverly when they parted in Belleville--“When you need me--when you are ready to become one of us--when you have given up all hope of ever probing the mystery of my existence and your own--then seek me in _the house that is last but one on the left ascending the Boulevart de Luxembourg_.--Ravalette.”