CHAPTER III.
THE HUT ON THE HEATH.
Far away from the lofty, battlemented ancestral home of Sir Jasper Kingsland--straight to the seashore went Achmet the Astrologer.

A long strip of bleak marshland spreading down the hill-side and sloping to the sea, arid and dry in the summer-time--sloppy and sodden now--that was his destination.

It was called Hunsden's Heath--a forlorn and desolate spot, dotted over with cottages of the most wretched kind.

To one of these wretched hovels, standing nearest the sea and far removed from the rest, Achmet swiftly made his way.
The sun was high in the heavens; the sea lay all a-glitter beneath it.
The astrologer had got over the ground at a swift, swinging stride, and he had walked five miles at least; but he paused now, with little sign of fatigue in his strange white face.

Folding his arms over his breast, he surveyed the shining sky, the glittering sea, with a slow, dreamy smile.
"The sun shines and the sea sparkles on the natal day of the heir of Kingsland," he said to himself; "but for all that it is a fatal day to him.