was lost. Thinking that it might be in the
valley, I peered up it. As I was looking, from round a great rock glided
a ghost. She stood still, with the moonlight shining on her, and gazed
towards the Nile. I, too, stood still in the shadow, thirty or forty
paces away. Then she threw up her arms as though in despair, turned and
vanished."

"She!" I said, then checked myself and asked indifferently: "Well, what
was the fashion of this ghost?"

"So far as I could see that of a young and beautiful woman, wearing
such clothes as we find upon the ancient dead, only wrapped more loosely
about her."

"Had she aught upon her head, Palka?"

"Yes, a band of gold or a crown set upon her hair, and about her neck
what seemed to be a necklace of green and gold, for the moonlight
flashed upon it. It was much such a necklace as you wear beneath your
robe, Hodur."

"And pray how do you know what I wear, Palka?" I asked.

"By means of what you lack, poor man, the eyes in my head. One night
when you were asleep I had need to pass through your chamber to reach
another beyond. You had thrown off your outer garment because of the
heat, and I saw the necklace. Also I saw a great red sword lying by your
side and noted on your bare breast sundry scars, such as hunters and
soldiers come by. All of these things, Hodur, I thought strange, seeing
that I know you to be nothing but a poor blind beggar who gains his
bread by his skill upon the harp."

"There are beggars who were not always beggars, Palka," I said slowly.

"Quite so, Hodur, and there are great men and rich who sometimes appear
to be beggars, and--many other things. Still, have no fear that we shall
steal your necklace or talk about the red sword or the gold with which
your niece Hilda weights her garments. Poor girl, she has all the ways
of a fine lady, one who has known Courts, as I think you said was the
case. It must be sad for her to have fallen so low. Still, have no fear,
Hodur," and she took my hand and pressed it in a certain secret fashion
which was practised among the persecuted Christians in the East when
they would reveal themselves to each other. Then she went away laughing.

As for me, I sought Martina, who had been sleeping through the heat, and
told her everything.

"Well," she said when I had finished, "you should give thanks to God,
Olaf, since without doubt this ghost is the lady Heliodore. So should
Jodd," I heard her add beneath her breath, for in my blin