man leaning over
me, and Horace--at first I thought that it was--you know who, and that
she kissed me; but perhaps it was all a dream."

"It was no dream," I answered. "I saw it."

"I am sorry to hear it--very sorry. At any rate there was the beautiful
woman--the Khania--for I saw her plenty of times afterwards, and talked
to her in my best modern Greek--by the way, Ayesha knew the old Greek;
that's curious."

"She knew several of the ancient tongues, and so did other people. Go
on."

"Well, she nursed me very kindly, but, so far as I know, until last
night there was nothing more affectionate, and I had sense enough to
refuse to talk about our somewhat eventful past. I pretended not to
understand, said that we were explorers, etc., and kept asking her where
you were, for I forgot to say I found that you had gone. I think that
she grew rather angry with me, for she wanted to know something, and, as
you can guess, I wanted to know a good deal. But I could get nothing out
of her except that she was the Khania--a person in authority. There was
no doubt about that, for when one of those slaves or servants came in
and interrupted her while she was trying to draw the facts out of me,
she called to some of her people to throw him out of the window, and he
only saved himself by going down the stairs very quickly.

"Well, I could make nothing of her, and she could make little of me,
though why she should be so tenderly interested in a stranger, I don't
know--unless, unless--oh! who is she, Horace?"

"If you will go on I will tell you what I think presently. One tale at a
time."

"Very good. I got quite well and strong, comparatively speaking, till
the climax last night, which upset me again. After that old prophet,
Simbri, had brought me my supper, just as I was thinking of going to
sleep, the Khania came in alone, dressed like a queen. I can tell you
she looked really royal, like a princess in a fairy book, with a crown
on, and her chestnut black hair flowing round her.

"Well, Horace, then she began to make love to me in a refined sort of
way, or so I thought, looked at me and sighed, saying that we had known
each other in the past--very well indeed I gathered--and implying that
she wished to continue our friendship. I fenced with her as best I
could; but a man feels fairly helpless lying on his back with a very
handsome and very imperial-looking lady standing over him and paying him
compliments.

"The end of it was