n to account for its
presence there. I could not remember scratching myself with anything in
my room, nor could I discover that the coat I bad worn on the preceding
evening showed any signs of a puncture.

After a few moments the feeling of weakness which had seized me when I
first left my bed wore off. I accordingly dressed myself with as much
despatch as I could put into the operation, and my toilet being
completed, left my room and went in search of the Fraeulein Valerie. To
my disappointment she was not visible. I, however, discovered Pharos
seated in the veranda, in the full glare of the morning sun, with the
monkey, Pehtes, on his knee. For once he was in the very best of
tempers. Indeed, since I had first made his acquaintance I never
remembered to have known him so merry. At a sign I seated myself beside
him.

"My friend," he began, "I am rejoiced to see you. Permit me to inform
you that you had a narrow escape last night. However, since you are up
and about this morning I presume you are feeling none the worse for it."

I described the fit of vertigo which had overtaken me when I rose from
my bed, and went on to question him as to what had happened after I had
become unconscious on the preceding night.

"I assure you you came very near being a lost man," he answered. "As
good luck had it I had not left the Pyramid and so heard you cry for
help, otherwise you might be in the Queen's Hall at this minute. You
were unconscious when we found you, and you had not recovered by the
time we reached home again."

"Not recovered?" I cried in amazement. "But I walked out of the Pyramid
unassisted, and accompanied you across the sands to the Sphinx, where
you gave me something to drink and made me see a vision."

Pharos gazed incredulously at me.

"My dear fellow, you must have dreamed it," he said. "After all you had
gone through it is scarcely likely I should have permitted you to walk,
while as for the vision you speak of--well, I must leave that to your
own common sense. If necessary my servants will testify to the
difficulty we experienced in getting you out of the Pyramid, while the
very fact that you yourself have no recollection of the homeward
journey would help to corroborate what I say."

This was all very plausible; at the same time I was far from being
convinced. I knew my man too well by this time to believe that because
he denied any knowledge of the circumstance in question he was really as
innocen