undreds of miles away back of anywhere.
Those are the ruins, solitary, unseen, unchanging through the centuries,
which appeal to one's imagination. But when I present a check at the
door, and go in as if it were Barnum's show, all the subtle feeling of
romance goes right out of it."

"Absolutely!" said Cecil Brown, looking over the desert with his dark,
intolerant eyes. "If one could come wandering here alone--stumble upon
it by chance, as it were--and find one's self in absolute solitude in
the dim light of the temple, with these grotesque figures all round, it
would be perfectly overwhelming. A man would be prostrated with wonder
and awe. But when Belmont is puffing his bulldog pipe, and Stuart is
wheezing, and Miss Sadie Adams is laughing--"

"And that jay of a dragoman speaking his piece," said Headingly;
"I want to stand and think all the time, and I never seem to get the
chance. I was ripe for manslaughter when I stood before the Great
Pyramid, and couldn't get a quiet moment because they would boost me on
to the top. I took a kick at one man which would have sent _him_ to the
top in one jump if I had hit meat. But fancy travelling all the way
from America to see the pyramid, and then finding nothing better to do
than to kick an Arab in front of it!"

The Oxford man laughed in his gentle, tired fashion. "They are starting
again," said he, and the two hastened forwards to take their places at
the tail of the absurd procession.

Their route ran now among large, scattered boulders, and between stony,
shingly hills. A narrow winding path curved in and out amongst the
rocks. Behind them their view was cut off by similar hills, black and
fantastic, like the slag-heaps at the shaft of a mine. A silence fell
upon the little company, and even Sadie's bright face reflected the
harshness of Nature. The escort had closed in, and marched beside them,
their boots scrunching among the loose black rubble. Colonel Cochrane
and Belmont were still riding together in the van.

"Do you know, Belmont," said the Colonel, in a low voice, "you may think
me a fool, but I don't like this one little bit."

Belmont gave a short gruff laugh.

"It seemed all right in the saloon of the _Korosko_, but now that we are
here we _do_ seem rather up in the air," said he. "Still, you know, a
party comes here every week, and nothing has ever gone wrong."

"I don't mind taking my chances when I am on the war-path," the Colonel
answ