said abruptly, as soon as we'd shaken hands. 'I've the Devil's own wine-jug in there, and I want to show it to you.' He grasped my arm and actu- ally tried to pull me along. "I'd got a whiff of his breath as he greeted me, and it was enough to knock a man down. 'What's the mat- ter with you?' I said, as I followed him into the living-room. 'You smell like a two-legged brewery. You're drunk.' "He looked me squarely in the eye, and I saw that, though his face was flushed and his eyes were bloodshot, he was actually in complete command of his faculties. The liquor he had drunk — and obviously he had been drinking for days — had merely bol- stered him up. Of course, I had no way of knowing, then, why his nerves were so utterly shattered. " 'Drunk?' he repeated. 'Doc, I was never soberer in my life. And I've lapped up a quart of whisky a day ever since we left Bagdad. Sit down.' "I sat down on a newly polished chair. Fothergill stood before the fireplace looking at me. He seemed too nervous to relax. " 'But why?' I asked, perplexed. 'You never were a boozer— ' "He kicked out his right foot sav- agely. 'That' — and. he swore a stream of indigo, sulphurous profanity — 'that —— —— —— thing!'

"My eyes followed his unortho- dox gesture. He'd always had a lot of outlandish bric-a-brac cluttering up his living-room; I suppose that is why I'd missed noticing the object di- rectly I came into the room. I looked at it now. "It was a crude, vase-shaped vessel, of exceedingly primitive workmanship and made, I assumed from its appear- ance, of unglazed fire-baked clay. It stood about eighteen inches high, and its greatest circumference was at the throat; it was, in fact, just a jug — a plain, ordinary, though certainly very ancient receptacle for liquids. You've probably seen pictures — most likely in illustrated Bibles — of desert women carrying similar jugs on their heads or on their shoulders. I stared at the thing — and I can't say that I was par- ticularly impressed. " 'Look at the way it's stopped up,' Fothergill said suddenly. "I got up from my chair and went over to the jug; I saw then that its neck had been sealed with a wax-like plug. I reached down and scratched the stuff with my fingernails; it was as hard as stone and of a yellowish- gray color; it reminded me of petri- fied beeswax. "Fothergill understood perfectly what I was thinking. 'Sure,' he nodded, 'there's something inside. That's why I sneaked the damned thing into my tent; I wanted to open it up myself. There were only two native diggers with me at the time; it was easy. I had no intention of stealing the jug then; that notion came later.' "He paused, then said thickly, 'I stole the —— —— jug because there's something alive in it!' "I looked at him, then at the ves- sel. 'You're cuckoo,' I said. "He stared at me with owl-eyed seriousness. 'Listen,' he said, 'I've transported that —— —— jug six thousand miles, and I tell you there's something alive in it. I'll tell you how I tried to open the thing. " 'First I dug at that plug with my pocket-knife, but I couldn't even scratch it; it's as hard as stone. Later on I got a brace and bit from the