of the limitless desert, there arises a
little cloud of dust.

Is it a panther seeking its prey? or a newspaper buffeted by the wind?
or the mirage of the desert?

It is the revolving form of a rolling body; and as she discovers it she
trembles like an aspen leaf.

"He comes," mutters she.

Another cloud of dust; not in the south, but in the east.

Can it be an optical delusion, or another revolving figure? Ever and
anon the sun gleams on something bright, which looks like the end of a
cane.

A sickening sensation comes over the watcher.

"They both come!" says she; and turns her eyes northward.

What! Is it another optical delusion, or is this yet one more cloud in
the north, which, as it approaches, also takes the semblance of a
revolving figure? Hot as the weather is, she shivers sensibly, and,
closing her parasol, mutters, her lips as white as driven snow--

"They all come!"

Sub-Chapter XIII.

THE WATCHER ON THE CAIRN.

Twenty-four hours of agonising suspense, and then the revolving figures
reach the base of the mountain, and commence simultaneously to roll up
the side.

The female figure on the top gives a despairing glance around her, and
drops senseless on the cairn.

At length, as the sun is setting in the only unoccupied horizon, she
starts, rigid and stiff, and listens.

On either side of her approaches a dull grinding noise, mingled with
heavy snorting, and the low muttering of voices.

She dares not look: it is terrible enough to hear!

So evenly do they approach, that at the same instant they reached the
summit.

Then she rises majestically to her full height, spreads her arms, and
utters a cry which is heard simultaneously at Cairo, at Zanzibar, and at
Cape Town.

A terrible silence follows, broken only by the trembling of the mountain
and the breathless panting of the three figures as each rears himself
slowly to his feet.

The scene that followed may be more easily imagined than described.

Sub-Chapter XIV.

ALL COMES OUT.

It is time we went back to the scene on the cliff at Crocusville
narrated in the opening chapter.

Peeler, the coastguardsman, after descending the cliff, resumed his
ordinary avocations, and sent his daughter to a superior high school.

Hence her presence at the Duc's ball and on the desert mountain.

The Duc de Septimominorelli (for such was the mysterious traveller)
recoiled several hundred yards on finding himself confronted not only by
th