gers, and he fully appreciated the anxiety
of the company to get within doors. Where chrysanthemum and _yashmak_
turban and _tarboosh_, uraeus and Indian plume had mingled gaily, no
soul remained; but yet--he was in error ... someone did remain.

As if embodying the fear that in a few short minutes had emptied the
garden, out beneath the waving lanterns, the flying _debris_, the
whirling dust, pacing sombrely from shadow to light, and to shadow
again, advancing towards the hotel steps, came the figure of one
sandalled, and wearing the short white tunic of Ancient Egypt. His
arms were bare, and he carried a long staff; but rising hideously upon
his shoulders was a crocodile-mask, which seemed to grin--the mask of
Set, Set the Destroyer, God of the underworld.

Cairn, alone of all the crowd, saw the strange figure, for the reason
that Cairn alone faced towards the garden. The gruesome mask seemed to
fascinate him; he could not take his gaze from that weird advancing
god; he felt impelled hypnotically to stare at the gleaming eyes set
in the saurian head. The mask was at the foot of the steps, and still
Cairn stood rigid. When, as the sandalled foot was set upon the first
step, a breeze, dust-laden, and hot as from a furnace door, blew fully
into the hotel, blinding him. A chorus arose from the crowd at his
back; and many voices cried out for doors to be shut. Someone tapped
him on the shoulder, and spun him about.

"By God!"--it was Sime who now had him by the arm--"_Khamsin_ has come
with a vengeance! They tell me that they have never had anything like
it!"

The native servants were closing and fastening the doors. The night
was now as black as Erebus, and the wind was howling about the
building with the voices of a million lost souls. Cairn glanced back
across his shoulder. Men were drawing heavy curtains across the doors
and windows.

"They have shut him out, Sime!" he said.

Sime stared in his dull fashion.

"You surely saw him?" persisted Cairn irritably; "the man in the mask
of Set--he was coming in just behind me."

Sime strode forward, pulled the curtains aside, and peered out into
the deserted garden.

"Not a soul, old man," he declared. "You must have seen the Efreet!"

CHAPTER XIII

THE SCORPION WIND

This sudden and appalling change of weather had sadly affected the
mood of the gathering. That part of the carnival planned to take place
in the garden was perforce abandoned, together with