"
"Good," said Nicol Brinn.
In that unique room, at once library and museum, amid relics of a
hundred ages, spoil of the chase, the excavator, and the scholar,
these two faced each other; and despite the peaceful quiet of the
apartment up to which as a soothing murmur stole the homely
sounds of Piccadilly, each saw in the other's eyes recognition of
a deadly peril. It was a queer, memorable moment.
"My question is simple but strange," said Paul Harley. "It is
this: What do you know of 'Fire-Tongue'?"
CHAPTER V. THE GATES OF HELL
If Paul Harley had counted upon the word "Fire-Tongue" to have a
dramatic effect upon Nicol Brinn, he was not disappointed. It was
a word which must have conveyed little or nothing to the
multitude and which might have been pronounced without
perceptible effect at any public meeting in the land. But Mr.
Brinn, impassive though his expression remained, could not
conceal the emotion which he experienced at the sound of it. His
gaunt face seemed to grow more angular and his eyes to become
even less lustrous.
"Fire-Tongue!" he said, tensely, following a short silence. "For
God's sake, when did you hear that word?"
"I heard it," replied Harley, slowly, "to-night." He fixed his
gaze intently upon the sallow face of the American. "It was
spoken by Sir Charles Abingdon."
Closely as he watched Nicol Brinn while pronouncing this name he
could not detect the slightest change of expression in the stoic
features.
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