I wonder if my reader has ever experienced Fear. And by Fear I do not mean mere fright, or terror, or alarm, or other mental spasms with which Fear is so often vulgarly confused. If he reads Mr Kipling's poems about Mowgli, the little hunter of the jungle, he will obtain some inkling of that mysterious emotion which is in reality man's tribute to a relentless destiny. "Very softly down the glade runs a waiting watching shade, And the whisper spreads and widens far and near; And the sweat is on thy brow, for he passes even now-- He is Fear, O little Hunter, he is Fear! And thy throat is shut and dried, and thy heart against thy side Hammers: Fear, O little Hunter--this is Fear." Yes, Fear in one aspect is a physical recognition of the existence and the approach of the Unknown; and its external symptoms are first of all an involuntary erection of the hair of the head, a sensation of intense heat in the scalp and a subsequent exudation of chill sweat over the body, which last offers some relief to the internal or psychical lesion caused by Fear. I endured it then, as I suddenly realised in the midst of Dr Wayne's half-humorous discourse that I was a fly caught in the web of Fate; a victim rotating on the wheel of destiny; an atom of humanity that was urgently required for the completion of some great cosmic design.... It passed; thank God, It passed; and moreover It left me stronger and wiser than before. Very likely those honest penetrating grey eyes of my companion detected my fleeting wave of anguish, but he only kept an eloquent silence; and when a few minutes later I expressed a wish to descend and interview these alleged Indian wanderers, he offered neither comment nor opposition. On reaching the vestibule I found the two foreign traders conversing amiably with a youthful frock-coated manager, for the fashionable ladies had evacuated the hall in pursuit of the tea and the music which were being provided in a distant chamber. At my approach the Indians took no farther notice of me than by smiling blandly and by indicating the various articles spread at their feet. Meanwhile the supercilious young manager addressed me: "Your friend Dr Wayne seems to think we are encouraging spies or bad characters here; but so far as I can judge, these men are only Indian hucksters, and several of our ladies are very pleased with the bargains they have bought this afternoon. What do you make of them, sir?" "I believe," said I slowly, envisaging the two Meleagrian nobles, envoys to our Earth disguised in the mean garments of Oriental mountebanks, "from their features and their dress these men hail from the Nicobar Islands, where I once held an official post." And in the most natural and condescending manner I could command I straightway began to question the two smiling pseudo-merchants in Meleagrian. "Are you here in order to kill me?"