ng, apparently a simile offered by way of
explanation. Mansfield read it in a shamefaced tone, evidently prepared
for laughter:

"'Whether I strike you on the back or in the face determines what kind
of answering force I rouse in you. Direction is significant.' And he
said it was the period called the Night of Power--time when the Desert
encroaches and spirits are close."

And tossing the book aside, he lit his pipe again and waited a moment to
hear what might be said. "Can you explain such gibberish?" he asked at
length, as neither of his listeners spoke. But Henriot said he couldn't.
And the wife then took up her own tale of stories that had grown about
this singular couple.

These were less detailed, and therefore less impressive, but all
contributed something towards the atmosphere of reality that framed the
entire picture. They belonged to the type one hears at every dinner
party in Egypt--stories of the vengeance mummies seem to take on those
who robbed them, desecrating their peace of centuries; of a woman
wearing a necklace of scarabs taken from a princess's tomb, who felt
hands about her throat to strangle her; of little Ka figures, Pasht
goddesses, amulets and the rest, that brought curious disaster to those
who kept them. They are many and various, astonishingly circumstantial
often, and vouched for by persons the reverse of credulous. The modern
superstition that haunts the desert gullies with Afreets has nothing in
common with them. They rest upon a basis of indubitable experience; and
they remain--inexplicable. And about the personalities of Lady Statham
and her nephew they crowded like flies attracted by a dish of fruit. The
Arabs, too, were afraid of her. She had difficulty in getting guides and
dragomen.

"My dear chap," concluded Mansfield, "take my advice and have nothing to
do with 'em. There _is_ a lot of queer business knocking about in this
old country, and people like that know ways of reviving it somehow. It's
upset you already; you looked scared, I thought, the moment you came
in." They laughed, but the Englishman was in earnest. "I tell you what,"
he added, "we'll go off for a bit of shooting together. The fields along
the Delta are packed with birds now: they're home early this year on
their way to the North. What d'ye say, eh?"

But Henriot did not care about the quail shooting. He felt more inclined
to be alone and think things out by himself. He had come to his friends
for comfort, a