ith crimson laughing mouth.

Men bewitched as with woman have followed; women bewitched as with man
have followed. You will find their bones if you go far enough or dig
deep enough; and leave yours to bleach with theirs if you have not
strength to resist.

Beasts see it not at all.

So that through a certain unromantic yearning for oats under his
loosening girth, the stallion Sooltan raced Damaris back to the _sayis_
and safety.

She had not understood the import of the apparition in the desert any
more than she perceived the figure of a man standing amongst the ruins,
watching her.

Hugh Carden Ali knew that it was her last ride; the last time she would
feed the stallion with sugar; her last day amongst the ruins of the
City of On.

The blood of his fathers, even that of the men who had swept the desert
for their women, warred with the blood of his mother of a gentler
breed; so that, fearing the strength of the one or the weakness of the
other, he had sacrificed the last ride to the love in his heart.

CHAPTER XVII

"The hundred-gated Thebes, where twice ten-score in martial state
Of valiant men with steeds and cars march through each massy gate."

There was no moon to break the shadows in the Great Hypostyle Hall of
the Temple of Amnon; neither was there sound or sign of life, the
winter residents and bird-of-passage tourists being duly occupied in
the festivities which are the order of the night in hotel life on the
Nile.

It is not actually dangerous, nor is it actually wise, to visit the
stupendous ruins of Egypt alone at night. The native has far too good
an eye to business to lurk behind obelisk or column with intent to
spring out and demand the purse of any stray unit of the cosmopolitan
hordes which bring such wealth in the winter months to the land of the
Pharaohs.

Rather not! Far greater joy for him at full noon is palming off upon
your guileless self the spurious scarab at a price 300% above its
intrinsic worth.

Incidents of that kind do not occur in the great tourist
centres--though worse, far worse happens to the foolhardy or
featherheaded in the by-paths and hidden corners of this mysterious
land--but if you have the vision, the terrible silence of the Past, the
supreme indifference of the great ruins to the passage of Time, the
wonderful repose of the mighty blocks of stone piled in the days of the
great Pharaohs, are apt to give a thrill to your heart and an
impression