, assenting with an inclination
of her head. "If that is so it must be, as you say, well worth seeing."

He went to his room and came back with a large square morocco case in
his hand. He gave it to her, and said:

"Do me the favour to open it, and tell me what you think of it."

She touched the spring and the cover flew up. She half-expected what she
saw. There, lying in a nest of soft black velvet, encircled by a triple
halo of whitely gleaming diamonds, was the Horus Stone. In an instant
she travelled back through fifty centuries to the scene of the
death-bridal of her other self, Nitocris the Queen, in the
banqueting-hall of the Palace of Pepi. Then it had lain gleaming on her
breast, and now she saw it again with the eyes of flesh, after nearly
five thousand years. Now, too, she grasped in all the fullness of its
evil meaning the reason why Oscarovitch had brought it to her in such an
hour as this. With utter contempt in her soul and a smile on her lips,
she leaned back in her chair and said in a voice which had a note of
ecstasy in it:

"Oh, Prince, how lovely! What a glorious gem! The diamonds are, of
course, splendid, but they are only a setting for the emerald. What a
magnificent stone! Rich as you are, you are very fortunate to be the
possessor of such a treasure--for treasure it surely must be."

"It is, as you say, a magnificent stone," he replied, looking steadily
into her questioning eyes. "But if what Amena told me was true, it is
something more than a unique gem. There is an inscription on it, some
characters carved in the stone which are, as he said, the history of it,
but to me they are as unintelligible as the Assyrian cuneiform would be.
Possibly you may know something of them. If you do, here is a lens that
will help your sight."

She took the glass from him and bent down over the gem. She read the
sacred symbol of the Trinity as she had read it and known it ages
before. But while she was gazing at it, she also read the intent of the
man who had given it into her hands. She put the lens aside, and,
laying her palms on her temples, she looked deep down into the luminous
depths of the great emerald in a silence which Oscarovitch interpreted
into such meaning as he was able to make for himself.

Minute after minute passed in silence, and still her eyes were fixed
upon the Stone. Her face became like that of a beautiful masterpiece of
Phidias: pure, cold, and true. A feeling of something like awe