lieve in
black magic?"

"I am not altogether sure that I do--"

"Very well; you are entitled to your opinion. But although you appear
to be ignorant of the fact, the Pyramid of Meydum was formerly one of
the strong-holds--the second greatest in all the land of the Nile--of
Ancient Egyptian sorcery! I pray heaven I may be wrong, but in the
disappearance of Lady Lashmore, and in the story of Ali Mohammed, I
see a dreadful possibility. Ring for a time-table. We have not a
moment to waste!"

CHAPTER XVIII

THE BATS

Rekka was a mile behind.

"It will take us fully an hour yet," said Dr. Cairn, "to reach the
pyramid, although it appears so near."

Indeed, in the violet dusk, the great mastabah Pyramid of Meydum
seemed already to loom above them, although it was quite four miles
away. The narrow path along which they trotted their donkeys ran
through the fertile lowlands of the Fayum. They had just passed a
village, amid an angry chorus from the pariah dogs, and were now
following the track along the top of the embankment. Where the green
carpet merged ahead into the grey ocean of sand the desert began, and
out in that desert, resembling some weird work of Nature rather than
anything wrought by the hand of man, stood the gloomy and lonely
building ascribed by the Egyptologists to the Pharaoh Sneferu.

Dr. Cairn and his son rode ahead, and Sime, with Ali Mohammed, brought
up the rear of the little company.

"I am completely in the dark, sir," said Robert Cairn, "respecting the
object of our present journey. What leads you to suppose that we shall
find Antony Ferrara here?"

"I scarcely hope to _find_ him here," was the enigmatical reply, "but
I am almost certain that he _is_ here. I might have expected it, and I
blame myself for not having provided against--this."

"Against what?"

"It is impossible, Rob, for you to understand this matter. Indeed, if
I were to publish what I know--not what I imagine, but what I
know--about the Pyramid of Meydum I should not only call down upon
myself the ridicule of every Egyptologist in Europe; I should be
accounted mad by the whole world."

His son was silent for a time; then:

"According to the guide books," he said, "it is merely an empty tomb."

"It is empty, certainly," replied Dr. Cairn grimly, "or that apartment
known as the King's Chamber is now empty. But even the so-called
King's Chamber was not empty once; and there is another chamber in the
pyramid wh