she come--she, the daughter of the great Rameses! But it may
be that she is held in bondage under the spell of the evil powers that
created these devil-chariots which pant like souls in agony and breathe
with the breath of Hell. She must be rescued, Neb-Anat."

"Rescued?" echoed the woman, in a tone that was half scorn and half
fear. "Is it so long ago that thou hast forgotten how we tried to rescue
her mummy from the hands of these infidels? Now, behold, she is alive
again, living in the midst of this vast, foul city of the infidels,
clothed after the fashion of their women, and yet still beautiful and
smiling. Pent-Ah, didst thou not even see her laugh as she rode past us?
Alas! I tell thee that our Queen is laid under some awful spell,
doubtless because she has in some way incurred the displeasure of the
High Gods, and if that is so, not even the Master himself could rescue
her. What, then, shall we do?"

"Thy saying is near akin to blasphemy, Neb-Anat," he murmured in reply,
"and yet there may be a deep meaning in it. Nevertheless, to-night, nay,
this hour, the Master must know of what we have seen."

They walked along, conversing in murmurs, as far as Waterloo Bridge,
then they turned and crossed it and walked down Waterloo Road into the
Borough Road, and then turned off into a narrow, grimy street which
ended in a small court whose three sides were formed of wretched houses,
upon which many years of misery, poverty, and crime had set their
unmistakable stamp. They crossed the court diagonally and entered a
house in the right-hand corner. They went up the worn, carpetless stairs
with a rickety handrail on one side and the torn, peeling paper on the
other, and stopped before a door which opened on to a narrow landing on
the first floor. Pent-Ah knocked with his knuckles on the panel, first
three times quickly, and then twice slowly. Then came the sound of the
drawing of a bolt, and the door opened.

They went in with shuffling feet and crouching forms, and the woman
closed the door behind her. A tall, gaunt, yellow-skinned man, his head
perfectly bald and the lower part of his face covered with a heavy white
beard and moustache, faced them. His clothing was half Western, half
Oriental. A pair of thin, creased, grey tweed trousers met, or almost
met, a pair of Turkish slippers, showing an inch of bare, lean ankle in
between. His body was covered with a dirty yellow robe of fine woollen
stuff, whose ragged fringe