" he thought; and a memory of the basilisk eyes of Antony
Ferrara came to him.

Both the sounds seemed to come slowly nearer and nearer--the dragging
thing being evidently responsible for the hissing; until Cairn decided
that the creature must be immediately outside the door.

Revolver in hand, he leapt across the room, and threw the door open.

The red carpet, to right and left, was innocent of reptiles!

Perhaps the creaking of the revolving chair, as he had prepared to
quit it, had frightened the thing. With the idea before him, he
systematically searched all the rooms into which it might have gone.

His search was unavailing; the mysterious reptile was not to be found.

Returning again to the study he seated himself behind the table,
facing the door--which he left ajar.

Ten minutes passed in silence--only broken by the dim murmur of the
distant traffic.

He had almost persuaded himself that his imagination--quickened by the
atmosphere of mystery and horror wherein he had recently moved--was
responsible for the hiss, when a new sound came to confute his
reasoning.

The people occupying the chambers below were moving about so that
their footsteps were faintly audible; but, above these dim footsteps,
a rustling--vague, indefinite, demonstrated itself. As in the case of
the hiss, it proceeded from the passage.

A light burnt inside the outer door, and this, as Cairn knew, must
cast a shadow before any thing--or person--approaching the room.

_Sssf! ssf!_--came, like the rustle of light draperies.

The nervous suspense was almost unbearable. He waited.

_What_ was creeping, slowly, cautiously, towards the open door?

Cairn toyed with the trigger of his revolver.

"The arts of the West shall try conclusions with those of the East,"
he said.

A shadow!...

Inch upon inch it grew--creeping across the door, until it covered all
the threshold visible.

Someone was about to appear.

He raised the revolver.

The shadow moved along.

Cairn saw the tail of it creep past the door, until no shadow was
there!

The shadow had come--and gone ... but there was _no substance_!

"I am going mad!"

The words forced themselves to his lips. He rested his chin upon his
hands and clenched his teeth grimly. Did the horrors of insanity stare
him in the face!

From that recent illness in London--when his nervous system had
collapsed, utterly--despite his stay in Egypt he had never fully
recovered. "A month will