“No. Santiago detected the trick before it was absolutely too late, leaped into his car, and drove fiercely into the night, with still a chance to keep his word inviolate. “

“So, he fell in the duel?”

The Marquis winced.

“No, chérie. He never reached the rendezvous. A storm arose; and he skidded on a dangerous turn, doubly dangerous on account of the rain. The wrecked car crushed the life out of him. Had I but let him go, he might have won; or at least died like a man … thus I killed Santiago, my friend… And this stranger from Kurdistan may have been an impostor, a fraud…Imbecile! I believed him to be the Lord Peacock incarnate!”

Christ, what a tale! Was it then the Kurdish stranger whom d’Artois had met, and almost vanquished? The devil who had inspired the Marquis to meddle, and caused the death of Santiago on that lonely road from Spain? My brain reeled with the madness of it all….

And then I raised my eyes again to regard that marquis who chanted sonorously to that lovely girl, serene and calm, reclining among silken cushions in the Adytum of Darkness, in the very shrine of the Oriflamme of Iniquity, face to face with its high priest… and this without changing expression, save to shake her patrician head in pity … what a woman!

Had they discovered the gagged warder? Were they returning? I was in a devilish mess, literally. Devils on all sides, and in an atmosphere of demonaltry.

The girl nodded … sank back among the emblazoned cushions. Drugged. Inert. The tiny pill had done its work.

The Marquis rose, thrust the table behind the arras; listened to the breathing of the sleeping Madonna; straightened himself to his full height. Madness and despair flamed in his somber eyes; his lips drooped; his lean cheeks were drawn. The muscles at the point of his jaw were knotted and quivering. If not the devil, then was this marquis his double: Satan overcome with sorrow, but unrelenting.

What now? Madness was his. But what form would it assume?

With swift, sure fingers he removed the silver slippers of La Belle Allzaneau; stripped from her the glittering, iridescent gown; and then the tenuous silk which clung to her form.

Cristo del Grao! What had that madman in mind…?

And then he lifted her body from the chaise longue, strode up the cinnabar-strewn pathway toward the shrine, ascended the altar steps, and placed his burden upon the upraised, black palms of those great hands that reached for their prey.