could I have seen the picture that was to come,
how, and in what place and circumstance, once again this very woman's
head should be laid upon my knee, pale with that cast of death! Ah!
could I have seen!

I chafed her hand between my hands. I bent down and kissed her on the
lips, and at my kiss she woke. She woke with a little sob of fear--a
shiver ran along her delicate limbs, and she stared upon my face with
wide eyes.

"Ah! it is thou!" she said. "I mind me--thou hast saved me from that
horror-haunted place!" And she threw her arms about my neck, drew me to
her and kissed me. "Come, love," she said, "let us be going! I am sore
athirst, and--ah! so very weary! The gems, too, chafe my breast! Never
was wealth so hardly won! Come, let us be going from the shadow of this
ghostly spot! See the faint lights glancing from the wings of Dawn. How
beautiful they are, and how sweet to behold! Never, in those Halls of
Eternal Night, did I think to look upon the blush of dawn again! Ah! I
can still see the face of that dead slave, with the Horror hanging to
his beardless chin! Bethink thee!--there he'll sit for ever--there--with
the Horror! Come; where may we find water? I would give an emerald for a
cup of water!"

"At the canal on the borders of the tilled land below the Temple of
Horemkhu--it is close by," I answered. "If any see us, we will say that
we are pilgrims who have lost our way at night among the tombs. Veil
thyself closely, therefore, Cleopatra; and beware lest thou dost show
aught of those gems about thee."

So she veiled herself, and I lifted her on to the ass which was tethered
near at hand. We walked slowly through the plain till we came to the
place where the symbol of the God Horemkhu,[*] fashioned as a mighty
Sphinx (whom the Greeks call Harmachis), and crowned with the royal
crown of Egypt, looks out in majesty across the land, his eyes ever
fixed upon the East. As we walked the first arrow of the rising sun
quivered through the grey air, striking upon Horemkhu's lips of holy
calm, and the Dawn kissed her greeting to the God of Dawn. Then the
light gathered and grew upon the gleaming sides of twenty pyramids, and,
like a promise from Life to Death, rested on the portals of ten thousand
tombs. It poured in a flood of gold across the desert sand--it pierced
the heavy sky of night, and fell in bright beams upon the green of
fields and the tufted crest of palms. Then from his horizon bed royal Ra
rose up i