emotion in me that was almost
akin to pity.

"Thou hast come in time," he said to Valerie, but in a different voice
and without that harshness to which we had so long grown accustomed. "I
have been anxiously awaiting thee."

He signed to her to approach him.

"Give me your hand," he whispered faintly. "Through you it is decreed
that I must learn my fate. Courage, courage--there is naught for thee to
fear!"

Taking her hand, he bade her close her eyes and describe to him what she
saw. She did as she was ordered, and for upward of a minute perfect
silence reigned in the room. The picture they made--the worn-out,
shrivelled body of the man and the lovely woman--I cannot hope to make
you understand.

"I see a great hall, supported by pillars," she said at last, speaking
in that hard, measured voice I remembered to have heard on board the
yacht. "The walls are covered with paintings, and two sphinxes guard the
door. In the centre is an old man with a long white beard, who holds his
arms above his head."

"It is Paduamen, the mouthpiece of the Gods," moaned Pharos, with a look
of terror in his face that there was no disguising. "I am lost for
ever--for ever; not for to-day, not for to-morrow, but for all time!
Tell me, woman, what judgment the Mighty Ones pronounce against me?"

"Hush--he speaks!" Valerie continued slowly; and then a wonderful thing
happened.

Whether it was the first warning of the illness that was presently to
fall upon me, or whether I was so much in sympathy with Valerie that I
saw what she and Pharos saw, I cannot say; at any rate, I suddenly found
myself transported from Park Lane away to that mysterious hall below the
Temple of Ammon, of which I retained so vivid a recollection. The place
was in semi-darkness, and in the centre, as Valerie had described, stood
the old man who had acted as my guide on the other occasion that I had
been there. His arms were raised above his head, and his voice when he
spoke was stern yet full of sadness.

"Ptahmes, son of Netruhotep," he was saying, "across the seas I speak to
thee. For the second time thou hast been found wanting in the trust
reposed in thee. Thou hast used the power vouchsafed thee by the Gods
for thine own purposes and to enrich thyself in the goods of the earth.
Therefore thy doom is decreed, and in the Valley of Amenti thy
punishment awaits thee. Prepare, for that time is even now upon thee."

Then the hall grew dark, there was a rushi