, directly at him.
She raised her hands, and pressed them to her lips, then threw them
outwards, with a gesture eloquent of innocent and tender passion.
Freeman's heart leaped: involuntarily he stretched out his arms, and
murmured, "Miriam!" The next moment, a tall, dark figure, with white
hair, wrapped in a blanket, came stalking behind her, and made a
beckoning movement. Miriam did not turn, but her bearing changed; her
hands fell to her sides; she seemed bewildered. Freeman sprang angrily
to his feet: the picture became blurred; it flowed into streaks of vague
color; it was gone. There were only the brassy sky, and the painted
crags quivering in the heat.

"That was not a mirage: it was a miracle," muttered the young man to
himself. "Forty miles at least, and it seemed scarcely three hundred
yards! What does it mean?"

The sun sank behind the hills, and a transparent shadow filled the
gorge. Freeman, uneasy in mind, and unable to remain inactive, filled
his canteen at the spring, and descended to the rugged trail at the
bottom. Clambering over boulders, leaping across narrow chasms, letting
himself down from ledges, his preoccupation soon left him, and physical
exertion took the precedence. Half an hour's work brought him to the
out-jutting promontory which had concealed the further reaches of
the valley. These now lay before him, merging imperceptibly into
indistinctness.

"This atmosphere is unbearable," said Freeman. "I must get a little
higher up." He turned to the right, and saw a natural archway, of
no great height, formed in the rock. The arch itself was white; the
super-incumbent stone was of a dull red hue. On the left flank of the
arch were a series of inscribed characters, which might have been cut by
a human hand, or might have been a mere natural freak. They looked like
some rude system of hieroglyphics, and bore no meaning to Freeman's
mind.

A sort of crypt or deep recess was hollowed out beneath the arch, the
full extent of which Freeman was unable to discern. The floor of it
descended in ridges, like a rough staircase. He stood for a few moments
peering into the gloom, tempted by curiosity to advance, but restrained
partly by the gathering darkness, and partly by the oppressiveness of
the atmosphere, which produced a sensation of giddiness. Something white
gleamed on the threshold of the crypt. He picked it up. It was a human
skull; but even as he lifted it it came apart in his hands and crumble