Instinctively they shrank back from the beautiful bush as though it had been the fabled Upas.

They had begun to fear now for the first time.

But there was one among them, a young fellow of twenty-two, named Martin Caine, who was already known as one of the most daring and far-sighted of the rising generation of chemical investigators, to whom the prospect of an endless life devoted to his darling science was anything but a curse.

Intoxicated for the moment by what he had seen, he sprang forward, exclaiming: "I'll risk the curse if I can have the life!" As his hand touched one of the roses, Phadrig's darted out and caught his wrist.

He was a powerful youth, but the instant Phadrig's hand gripped him he stopped, as though he had been suddenly stricken by paralysis.