They arrived on the scene of action, just as the ruffian, breaking through Shiel's guard, struck him a terrific blow on the forehead, which sent him reeling against the railings. The newcomer (upon whom, both man and woman, seeing Shiel incapacitated, instantly turned) would probably have shared the same fate, had not the occupants of several of the neighbouring houses--amongst whom were some half-dozen athletic young men--roused by the noise, come out into the street, and the ruffian and his companion, seeing the odds were against them, decamped.
Shiel had not fully regained consciousness, when Lilian Rosenberg, regardless of propriety, led him into her sitting-room, bathed his forehead, dosed him with brandy, and making up a bed for him on the sofa, bade him rest there, till the morning.
When he took his departure, he had quite recovered, and Lilian Rosenberg had, at last, realized that she loved him.
[Footnote 23: There is no doubt that Moses inflicted the plagues, with which he tormented Pharaoh, in this way.]
[Footnote 24: In stage two this might have been performed by ethereal projection, but Hamar could not resort to this method as the power of projection had now passed from him.]
A few days after the incident in Margaret Terrace, Shiel had an inspiration. He was lunching with an old schoolfellow whom, quite by chance, he had met in Lincoln's Inn, having previously lost sight of him for many years, and the conversation, which had at first been confined to the old days, had gradually drifted to what was ever uppermost in Shiel's mind--namely, the Modern Sorcery Company, _i.e._ Hamar, Kelson and Curtis.
"Did you know," his friend remarked, "that the old statute, introduced in Henry the Fifth's reign against sorcery, has never been repealed?"
"You don't mean to say so," Shiel cried excitedly--a vague idea dawning on him. "Tell me all about it."
"Well, that's rather a long order. For one thing, it imposes all kinds of penalties from capital punishment to fines. For another, it was in force up to the beginning of George the Third's reign, when the last case of a person being burned for witchery in England occurred, and since then it has fallen into disuse."
"Could it be revived?" Shiel asked, a sudden wild hope surging through him.