arduously, up the long slope. They saw the blue sky
above them....

* * * * *

"Something like a huge bat," said Robert Cairn, "crawled out upon the
first stage. We both fired--"

Dr. Cairn raised his hand. He lay exhausted at the foot of the mound.

"He had lighted the incense," he replied, "and was reciting the secret
ritual. I cannot explain. But your shots were wasted. We came too
late--"

"Lady Lashmore--"

"Until the Pyramid of Meydum is pulled down, stone by stone, the world
will never know her fate! Sime and I have looked in at the gate of
hell! Only the hand of God plucked us back! Look!"

He pointed to Sime. He lay, pallid, with closed eyes--and his hair was
abundantly streaked with white!

CHAPTER XX

THE INCENSE

To Robert Cairn it seemed that the boat-train would never reach
Charing Cross. His restlessness was appalling. He perpetually glanced
from his father, with whom he shared the compartment, to the flying
landscape with its vistas of hop-poles; and Dr. Cairn, although he
exhibited less anxiety, was, nevertheless, strung to highest tension.

That dash from Cairo homeward had been something of a fevered dream to
both men. To learn, whilst one is searching for a malign and
implacable enemy in Egypt, that that enemy, having secretly returned
to London, is weaving his evil spells around "some we loved, the
loveliest and the best," is to know the meaning of ordeal.

In pursuit of Antony Ferrara--the incarnation of an awful evil--Dr.
Cairn had deserted his practice, had left England for Egypt. Now he
was hurrying back again; for whilst he had sought in strange and dark
places of that land of mystery for Antony Ferrara, the latter had been
darkly active in London!

Again and again Robert Cairn read the letter which, surely as a royal
command, had recalled them. It was from Myra Duquesne. One line in it
had fallen upon them like a bomb, had altered all their plans, had
shattered the one fragment of peace remaining to them.

In the eyes of Robert Cairn, the whole universe centred around Myra
Duquesne; she was the one being in the world of whom he could not bear
to think in conjunction with Antony Ferrara. Now he knew that Antony
Ferrara was beside her, was, doubtless at this very moment, directing
those Black Arts of which he was master, to the destruction of her
mind and body--perhaps of her very soul.

Again he drew the worn envelope from his pocket an