clever--I have no knowledge of what you
do--but this I will tell you surely! You may have a secret,--or you may
not have it,--but if you play with the powers of God you will be
punished! Yes!--of that I am quite certain! And this I will also
say--if you were to pull all the clouds down upon you and the thunders
and the lightnings and all the terrible things of destruction in the
world, I would be there! And you would know what love is!--Yes!"--her
voice choked, and then pealed out like that of a Sybilline prophetess,
"If God struck you down to hell, I would be there!"

And with a wild, sobbing cry she rushed away from him down the hill
before he could move or utter a word.

CHAPTER XVIII

A red sky burned over Egypt,--red with deep intensity of spreading
fire. The slow-creeping waters of the Nile washed patches of dull
crimson against the oozy mud-banks, tipping palms and swaying reeds
with colour as though touched with vermilion, and here and there long
stretches of wet sand gleamed with a tawny gold. All Cairo was out,
inhabitants and strangers alike, strangers especially, conceiving it
part of their "money's worth" never to miss a sunset,--and beyond
Cairo, where the Pyramids lifted their summits aloft,--stern points of
warning or menace from the past to the present and the future,--a crowd
of tourists with their Arab guides were assembled, staring upward in,
amazement at a white wonder in the red sky, a great air-ship, which,
unlike other air-ships, was noiseless, and that moved vast wings up and
down with the steady, swift rhythm of a bird's flight, as though of its
own volition. It soared at an immense height so that it was quite
impossible to see any pilot or passenger. It hung over the Pyramids
almost motionless for three or four minutes as if about to descend, and
the watching groups below made the usual alarmist prognostications of
evil, taking care to look about for the safest place of shelter for
themselves should the huge piece of mechanism above them suddenly
escape control and take a downward dive. But apparently nothing was
further from the intention of its invisible guides. Its pause above the
Pyramids was brief--and almost before any of the observers had time to
realise its departure it had floated away with an easy grace, silence
and swiftness, miraculous to all who saw it vanish into space towards
the Libyan desert and beyond. The Pyramids, even the Sphinx--lost
interest for the time bein