n any way, rest assured I shall
only be too glad to do so."

"I am afraid, after the explanation you gave me this morning, that it is
impossible for you to help me," I answered. "To tell the truth, I have
been worrying over what happened last night, and the more I think of it
the less able I am to understand."

"What is it you find difficult to understand?" he inquired. "I thought
we were agreed on the subject when we spoke of it this morning."

"Not as far as I am concerned," I replied. "And if you will consider for
a moment, I fancy you will understand why. As I told you then, I have
the best possible recollection of all that befell me in the Pyramid, and
of the fright I sustained in that terrible room. I remember your coming
to my assistance, and I am as convinced that, when my senses returned to
me, I followed you down the passage, out into the open air, and across
the sands to a spot before the Sphinx, where you gave me some strange
concoction to drink, as I am that I am now sitting on this deck beside
you."

"And I assure you with equal sincerity that it is all a delusion," he
replied. "You must have dreamed the whole thing. Now I come to think of
it, I _do_ remember that you said something about a vision which I
enabled you to see. Perhaps, as your memory is so keen on the subject,
you may be able to give me some idea of its nature."

I accordingly described what I had seen. From the way he hung upon my
words it was evident that the subject interested him more than he cared
to confess. Indeed, when I had finished he gave a little gasp that was
plainly one of relief, though why he should have been so I could not
understand.

"And the man you saw coming through the crowd, this Ptahmes, what was he
like? Did you recognise him? Should you know his face again?"

"I scarcely know how to tell you," I answered diffidently, a doubt as to
whether I had really seen the vision I had described coming over me for
the first time, now that I was brought face to face with the assertion I
was about to make. "It seems so impossible, and I am weak enough to feel
that I should not like you to think I am jesting. The truth of the
matter is, the face of the disgraced Magician was none other than your
own. You were Ptahmes, the man who walked with his face covered with his
mantle, and before whom the crowd drew back as if they feared him, and
yet hated him the more because they did so."

"The slaves, the craven curs!" muttered