Pharos fiercely to himself,
suddenly oblivious to my presence, his sunken eyes looking out across
the water, but I am convinced seeing nothing. "So long as he was
successful they sang his praises through the city, but when he failed
and was cast out from before Pharaoh, there were only six in all the
country brave enough to declare themselves his friends."

Then recollecting himself he turned to me, and with one of his peculiar
laughs, to which I had by this time grown accustomed, he continued: "But
there, if I talk like this you will begin to imagine that I really have
some association with my long-deceased relative, the man of whom we are
speaking, and whose mummy is in the cabin yonder. Your account of the
vision, if by that name you still persist in calling it, is extremely
interesting, and goes another step toward proving how liable the human
brain is, under stress of great excitement, to seize upon the most
unlikely stories, and even to invest them with the necessary
_mise-en-scene_. Now I'll be bound you could reproduce the whole
picture, were such a thing necessary--the buildings, the chariots, the
dresses, nay even the very faces of the crowd."

"I am quite sure I could," I answered, filled with sudden excitement at
the idea, "and what is more I will do so. So vivid was the impression it
made upon my mind that not a detail has escaped my memory. Indeed, I
really believe that it will be found that a large proportion of the
things I saw then I had never seen or heard of before. This, I think,
should go some way toward proving that my story is not the fallacy you
suppose."

"You mistake me, my dear Forrester," he hastened to reply. "I do not go
so far as to declare it to be altogether a fallacy; I simply say that
what you think you saw must have been the effect of the fright you
received in the Pyramid. But your idea of painting the picture is
distinctly a good one, and I shall look forward with pleasure to giving
you my opinion upon it when it is finished. As you are well aware, I am
a fair Egyptologist, and I have no doubt I shall be able to detect any
error in the composition, should one exist."

"I will obtain my materials from my cabin, and set to work at once," I
said, rising from my chair, "and when I have finished you shall
certainly give me your opinion on it."

As on a similar occasion already described, under the influence of my
enthusiasm, the feeling of animosity I usually entertained toward him