Programming note: Notwithstanding recent health challenges, I hope to be back in the chair for our Clubland Q&A tomorrow. So, fingers crossed, please join me on Wednesday for an hour of questions from Mark Steyn Club members live around the planet at 3pm North American Eastern - that's 8pm Greenwich Mean Time/9pm Central European. We hope you can swing by.
~Just ahead of Episode Twelve of The Quest of the Sacred Slipper, thank you again for your kind comments about this caper and our other Tales for Our Time. Larry, a South Carolina Steyn Clubber, writes:
It appears Cavanagh has bitten off a bit more than he can chew - but at least, to this point, he is still alive and in possession of both hands. My enjoyment of this Tale grows with the telling.
Thank you, Larry. It's certainly a fun tale to tell, and, if I do say so myself, which I do, I think I make a pretty good job of tonight's installment in Sax Rohmer's Mohammedan caper. We begin with Cavanagh immobilised:
Helpless, gagged, I pictured those hideous creatures, evil products of the secret East, who might, nay, who must surround that place! I thought of the horrible little yellow man who lay dead in Wyatt's Buildings; and it became evident to me that the house in which I was now imprisoned must overlook the back of those unsavoury tenements... How humanly the Hashishin had proposed to gain his goal, how he had travelled through empty space—for from empty space the shot had brought him down—I could not imagine.
I knew something of the almost supernatural attributes of these people. From Professor Deeping's book I knew of the incredible feats which they could perform when under the influence of the drug hashish.
Really? In that case, Vermonters and New Mexicans surely perform more "incredible feats" than any society in human history. Thank God Cavanagh isn't up against them.
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear me read Part Twelve of The Quest of the Sacred Slipper simply by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier episodes can be found here.
If you've yet to hear any of our Tales for Our Time, you can do so by joining The Mark Steyn Club. For more details, see here - and don't forget our special Gift Membership. I'll be hosting Part Thirteen of The Quest of the Sacred Slipper right here tomorrow evening.
