fall on the mule's neck, and
spread open his arms to the beautiful phantom, but as he rode forwards
it ever retired, and when presently the west wind blew the sand in his
face, and he had to cover his eyes with his hand it vanished entirely,
and did not return before he found himself at the Apis-tombs.

He had hoped to find here a soldier or a watchman to whom he could
entrust the beast, but when the midnight chant of the priests of the
temple of Osiris-Apis had died away not a sound was to be heard far or
near; all that lay around him was as still and as motionless as though
all that had ever lived there were dead. Or had some demon robbed him
of his hearing? He could hear the rush of his own swift pulses in his
ears-not the faintest sound besides.

Such silence is there nowhere but in the city of the dead and at night,
nowhere but in the desert.

He tied the mule's bridle to a stela of granite covered with
inscriptions, and went forward to the appointed place. Midnight must be
past--that he saw by the position of the moon, and he was beginning to
ask himself whether he should remain standing where he was or go on to
meet the water-bearer when he heard first a light footstep, and then saw
a tall erect figure wrapped in a long mantle advancing straight towards
him along the avenue of sphinxes. Was it a man or a woman--was it she
whom he expected? and if it were she, was there ever a woman who had
come to meet a lover at an assignation with so measured, nay so solemn,
a step? Now he recognized her face--was it the pale moonlight that made
it look so bloodless and marble-white? There was something rigid in her
features, and yet they had never--not even when she blushingly accepted
his violets--looked to him so faultlessly beautiful, so regular and so
nobly cut, so dignified, nay impressive.

For fully a minute the two stood face to face, speechless and yet quite
near to each other. Then Publius broke the silence, uttering with the
warmest feeling and yet with anxiety in his deep, pure voice, only one
single word; and the word was her name "Klea."

The music of this single word stirred the girl's heart like a message
and blessing from heaven, like the sweetest harmony of the siren's song,
like the word of acquittal from a judge's lips when the verdict is life
or death, and her lips were already parted to say 'Publius' in a tone
no less deep and heartfelt-but, with all the force of her soul, she
restrained herself, an