_o my Leonora
when that mystic change has been worked
which has been predestined
for countless ages and which shall come as
sure as fate,
then on another continent
kindred to thine yet strange, even in the land
of the railways that thy shares are in,
Thou and I,
the Magician and the Novice,
the Celebrated Wizard of the West
and his Accomplished Pupil
Mademoiselle Leonore
will make a tour that shall drag in the
dollars
by the hatful. NOW COME!'_

CHAPTER XIII.

THE PERILOUS PATH.

Forth we rushed into the darkness, through the streaming deluge of that
tropic clime. For the seraphic frenzy had now come upon the mage in
good earnest, and all the Thought-reader burned in his dusky eyes.

We presented, indeed, a strange spectacle, for the mage, in his silvery
swathings, held Leonora by the hands, and Leonora held me, as we raced
through the gloom.

In any other city our aspect and demeanour had excited attention and
claimed the interference of the authorities.

In Berlin Uhlans would have charged us, in Paris grape-shot would have
ploughed through our ranks. _Here_ they deemed we were but of the
sacred race of Thought-readers, who, by a custom of the strange people,
are permitted to run at random through the streets and even to enter
private houses.

We were not even followed, in our headlong career, by a crowd, for the
public had ceased to interest itself in frenzied research for hidden
pins or concealed cigarettes.

After a frantic chase Jambres (late 'the Mage') paused, breathless, in
front of a building of portentous proportions.

How it chanced I have never been able to understand, but, as I am a
living and honourable woman, this hall had the characteristics of
ancient Egyptian architecture, and that (miraculous as it may appear)
in perfect preservation.

There are the hypostyle halls, the two Osirid pillars--colossal figures
of strange gods, in coloured relief--there is the great blue scarab,
the cartouche, the _pschent_, the _pschutt_, and all that we admire in
the Rameseum of the Ancient Empire.

But all was silent, all was deserted; the vast adamantine portals were
closed.

J