the pressure
upon the wound.

But, as if in response to Herne's appeal, he freed one hand momentarily,
and pushed back the covering from his face. And in the dim light Herne
looked, looked closely; then shut his eyes and sank back with an
uncontrollable shudder.

"Merciful Heaven!" he said.

VIII

"Monty, I say! Monty!"

Again the gulf of years was bridged; again the voice he knew came down
to him. Herne wrestled with himself, and opened his eyes.

The man in Arab dress was still kneeling by his side, the skeleton hands
still supported him, but the face was veiled again.

He suppressed another violent shudder.

"In Heaven's name," he said, "what are you?"

"I am a dead man," came the answer. "Don't move! I will call your man in
a moment, but I must speak to you first. Do you feel all right?"

"Bobby!" Herne said.

"No, I am not Bobby. He died, you know, ages ago. They cut him up and
burned him. Don't move. I have stopped the bleeding, but it will easily
start again. Lean back--so! You needn't look at me. You will never see
me again. But if I hadn't shown you--once, you would never have
understood. Are you comfortable? Can you listen?"

"Bobby!" Herne said again.

He seemed incapable of anything but that one word, spoken over and over,
as though trying to make himself believe the incredible.

"I am not Bobby," the voice reiterated. "Put that out of your mind for
ever! He belonged to another life, another world. Don't you believe me?
Must I show you--again? Do you really want to talk with me face to
face?"

"Yes," Herne said, with abrupt resolution. "I will see you--talk with
you--as you are."

There was a brief pause, and he braced himself to face, without
blenching, the thing that a moment before, his soldier's training
notwithstanding, had turned him sick with horror. But he was spared the
ordeal.

"There is no need," said the familiar voice. "You have seen enough. I
don't want to haunt you, even though I am dead. What put it into your
head to come in search of me? You must have known I should be long past
any help from you."

"I--wanted to know," Herne said. He was feeling curiously helpless, as
if, in truth, he were talking with a mummy. All the questions he desired
to put remained unuttered. He was confronted with the impossible, and he
was powerless to deal with it.

"What did you want to know? How I died? And when? It was a thousand
years ago, when those damned Wandis swallowed up