Page:The council of seven.djvu/160

 alone, was calm indifference. He cared for none, he feared none; moreover, he prided himself upon his power of wiping off old scores and paying grudges with interest. The car waited a minute or two to give other arrivals an opportunity of joining him. None did so; and the first of the three cars started for Doe Hill with Saul Hartz its sole occupant.

As it began to move, there flashed across the mind of the Colossus the warning of the man Wygram in regard to Lien Weng, the Chinese occultist. And it came upon him now with the force of a definite action. Instantly he knew, without a shade of doubt, that he was in the toils of the Society of the Friends of Peace. Even for one of Saul Hartz's iron nerve, such an intuition was not agreeable. Too much was known of the activities of the Council of Seven, its far-reaching yet dark power had been too recently demonstrated for such a fact to be lightly held.

Saul Hartz lit a cigar and then gave careful thought to a decidedly unpleasant situation. What should he do?

Uppermost, for a moment, was an instinct to tell the chauffeur to drive him back to the station, so that he might return to London by the next train. Only a madman or a fool would walk open-eyed into a den of declared enemies, particularly when they bore the indelible brand of fanatics and murderers.

There was nothing of the weakling, however, about Saul Hartz. He could never have reached his present significance in the scheme of things had there been any