HARMAC COMES TO MUR Slowly and in very bad spirits I retraced my steps to the old temple, following the line of the telephone wire which Higgs and Quick had unreeled as they went.

In the Sergeant's prognostications of evil I had no particular belief, as they seemed to me to be born of the circumstances which surrounded us, and in different ways affected all our minds, even that of the buoyant Higgs.
To take my own case, for instance.

Here I was about to assist in an act which for aught I knew might involve the destruction of my only son.

It was true we believed that this was the night of his marriage at the town of Harmac, some miles away, and that the tale of our spies supported this information.

But how could we be sure that the date, or the place of the ceremony, had not been changed at the last moment?
Supposing, for instance, that it was held, not in the town, as arranged, but in the courts of the idol, and that the fearful activities of the fiery agent which we were about to wake to life should sweep the celebrants into nothingness.
The thought made me turn cold, and yet the deed must be done; Roderick must take his chance.