Sir Jocelin Saul, a man of intense nervosity, lived his life alone in a remote old manor-house in Suffolk, his only companion being a person of Eastern origin, named Ul-Jabal.

Ul-Jabal greeted me warmlyseemed to have been looking forward to itand pointed out that seventy is of the fateful numbers, its only factors being seven, five, and two: the last denoting the duality of Birth and Death; five, Isolation; seven, Infinity.

'June 23.The mysterious, the unfathomable Ul-Jabal!

'June 24.No moreno more shall I drink wine from the hand of Ul-Jabal.

'June 26.Marvellous to tell, the traitor, Ul-Jabal, has now placed another stone in the Edmundsbury chalicealso identical in nearly every respect with the original gem.

Ul-Jabal constantly found pretexts for following me, and I am confident that every step I took was known to him.

Ul-Jabal carried a small lantern which revealed him to me.

'July 11.I had not the courage to see Ul-Jabal to-day.

'July l4.Ul-Jabal is gone!

Near him, probably by his side, will be found a geman oval stone, white in colourthe same in fact which Ul-Jabal last placed in the Edmundsbury chalice.

The Red Cross Knights called him Shaikh-ul-Jabal the Old Man of the Mountains, that very nickname connecting him infallibly with the Ul-Jabal of our own times.

The Red Cross Knights called him Shaikh-ul-Jabal the Old Man of the Mountains, that very nickname connecting him infallibly with the Ul-Jabal of our own times.

It is presumable that the chalice was not often opened by the baronet, and this would therefore have been a perfectly rational device on the part of Ul-Jabal.

But we are met with something more extraordinary still when we come to the last stone, the white oneI shall prove that it was whitewhich Ul-Jabal placed in the cup.

'We may say then that Ul-Jabal had not prepared any substitute; and it may be added that it was a thing altogether beyond the limits of the probable that he could by chance have possessed two old gems exactly similar in every detail down to the very half-obliterated letters of the word "Hasn-us-Sabah."

There is therefore nothing so certain as that Ul-Jabal did steal the gem; but these two things are equally evident: that by some means or other it very soon passed out of his possession, and that when it had so passed, he, for his part, believed it to be in the possession of the baronet.

When, moreover, the baronet is examining the house at night with his lens, he believes that Ul-Jabal is spying his movements; when he extends his operations to the park, the other finds pretexts to be near him.

Now, it seems to me that Ul-Jabal was not really murderous, averse rather to murder; thus the baronet is often in his power, swoons in his arms, lies under the influence of narcotics in semi-sleep while the Persian is in his room, and yet no injury is done him.

Ul-Jabal must have noticed it.

But before he leaves the house Ul-Jabal has one more work to do: once more the two eat and drink together as in "the old days of love"; once more the baronet is drunken with a deep sleep, and when he wakes, his skin is "brown as the leaves of autumn.

And now that the face of the baronet has been smeared with this indelible pigment, all is ready for the tragedy, and Ul-Jabal departs.

Thus, Ul-Jabal having stolen the stone, finds that it is of the wrong colour, and soon after replaces it; he supposes that in the darkness he has selected the wrong chalice, and so takes the valueless stone from the other.

I have not the least doubt that it was the skeleton of Ul-Jabal.

Jabel, English Jabal, son of Lamech, a descendant of Cain and Adah.

Jubal, the brother of Jabal.