her ankles. It, too, was stained, and she
tore if off as she ran. Ahead of her was a sagging limestone wall,
with no gap, but Masanath, hardly sane, would have dashed herself
against it, if hands had not detained her.

"Blood! Blood!" she shrieked. "Holy Ptah save us!"

"Peace!" some one made answer. "God is with us."

The voice was calm and reassuring, the hands firm. Here, then, was one
who was strong and unafraid, and therefore, a safe refuge. No longer
called upon to care for herself, Masanath fell into the arms of the
brave unknown and ceased to remember.

Consciousness returned to her slowly and incompletely. Horror had
dazed her, and her surroundings, but faintly discovered in an
all-enveloping gloom, were not conducive to mental repose and clearness.

She became aware, first, that she was somewhere hidden from the
sunshine and beyond reach of the strange odor from the Nile.

Next she realized that she was sheltered in a cave; that slender lines
of white daylight sifted through the interstices of a door; that a lamp
was burning somewhere behind a screen; that a hairy thing sat in a
corner and looked at her with half-human eyes, and that, as she shrank
at the sight, the warm support under her head moved and a fair face,
framed with golden hair, bent over her.

Then her eyes, becoming clearer as her recollection returned, wandered
away toward the walls of her shelter. They had been hewn by hands.
There was an opening in one side, leading into another and a darker
crypt. Was not this a tomb? She was in the Tomb of the Discontented
Soul! Terrified, she struggled to gain her feet and fly, but the awful
memory of the plague without returned to her overwhelmingly. Gentle
hands restrained her, and the same voice that had sought to soothe her
before, continued its soft comforting now.

"Thou art safe and sheltered," she heard. "No evil shall befall thee."

Was this the spirit of the tomb? If so, it was most lovely and kindly.
But a solemn voice issued out of the dark cell beyond. This was the
spirit, of a surety. She cowered against her fair-haired protector and
shuddered. But the maiden answered the voice in a strange tongue.
Masanath would have known it to be Hebrew, had she been composed. But
now it was mystic, cabalistic.

Presently the maiden addressed her.

"Deborah asks after thee, Lady. How shall I tell her thou findest
thyself?"

"Oh, I can not tell," Masanath answered. "What h