uest, and--_was_ he any nearer the goal--even with the penciled
addresses of these two men in his possession? Even with these men almost
within pistol shot!

Pondering there, immersed in frowning retrospection, the room, the
Tracer, the city seemed to fade from his view. He saw the red sand
blowing in the desert; he heard the sickly squealing of camels at the El
Teb Wells; he saw the sun strike fire from the rippling waters of Sais;
he saw the plain, and the ruins high above it; and the odor of the Long
Bazaar smote him like a blow, and he heard the far call to prayer from
the minarets of Sa-el-Hagar, once Sais, the mysterious--Sais of the
million lanterns, Sais of that splendid festival where the Great Triad's
worship swayed dynasty after dynasty, and where, through the hot
centuries, Isis, veiled, impassive, looked out upon the hundredth king
of kings, Meris, the Builder of Gardens, dragged dead at the chariot of
Upper and Lower Egypt.

Slowly the visions faded; into his remote eyes crept the consciousness
of the twentieth century again; he heard the river whistles blowing, and
the far dissonance of the streets--that iron undertone vibrating through
the metropolis of the West from river to river and from the Palisades to
the sea.

His gaze wandered about the room, from telephone desk to bookcase, from
the table to the huge steel safe, door ajar, swung outward like the
polished breech of a twelve-inch gun.

Then his vacant eyes met the eyes of the Tracer of Lost Persons, almost
helplessly. And for the first time the full significance of this quest
he had undertaken came over him like despair--this strange, hopeless,
fantastic quest, blindly, savagely pursued from the sand wastes of Sais
to the wastes of this vast arid city of iron and masonry, ringing to the
sky with the menacing clamor of its five monstrous boroughs.

Curiously weary of a sudden, he sat down, resting his head on one hand.
The Tracer watched him, bent partly over his desk. From moment to moment
he tore minute pieces from the blotter, or drew imaginary circles and
arabesques on his pad with an inkless pen.

"Perhaps I could help you, after all--if you'd let me try," he said
quietly.

"Dou you mean--_me_?" asked Burke, without raising his head.

"If you like--yes, you--or any man in trouble--in perplexity--in the
uncertain deductions which arise from an attempt at self-analysis."

"It is true; I am trying to analyze myself. I believe that I don