"Then she glided away, and, Horace, my spirit seemed to loose itself
from the body and to be given the power to follow. We passed swiftly
eastward, over lands and seas, and--I knew the road. At one point
she paused and I looked downwards. Beneath, shining in the moonlight,
appeared the ruined palaces of Kor, and there not far away was the gulf
we trod together.

"Onward above the marshes, and now we stood upon the Ethiopian's Head,
and gathered round, watching us earnestly, were the faces of the Arabs,
our companions who drowned in the sea beneath. Job was among them also,
and he smiled at me sadly and shook his head, as though he wished to
accompany us and could not.

"Across the sea again, across the sandy deserts, across more sea, and
the shores of India lay beneath us. Then northward, ever northward,
above the plains, till we reached a place of mountains capped with
eternal snow. We passed them and stayed for an instant above a building
set upon the brow of a plateau. It was a monastery, for old monks droned
prayers upon its terrace. I shall know it again, for it is built in the
shape of a half-moon and in front of it sits the gigantic, ruined statue
of a god who gazes everlastingly across the desert. I knew, how I cannot
say, that now we were far past the furthest borders of Thibet and that
in front of us lay untrodden lands. More mountains stretched beyond that
desert, a sea of snowy peaks, hundreds and hundreds of them.

"Near to the monastery, jutting out into the plain like some rocky
headland, rose a solitary hill, higher than all behind. We stood upon
its snowy crest and waited, till presently, above the mountains and the
desert at our feet shot a sudden beam of light that beat upon us like
some signal flashed across the sea. On we went, floating down the
beam--on over the desert and the mountains, across a great flat land
beyond, in which were many villages and a city on a mound, till we lit
upon a towering peak. Then I saw that this peak was loop-shaped like the
symbol of Life of the Egyptians--the _crux-ansata_--and supported by
a lava stem hundreds of feet in height. Also I saw that the fire which
shone through it rose from the crater of a volcano beyond. Upon the very
crest of this loop we rested a while, till the Shadow of Ayesha pointed
downward with its hand, smiled and vanished. Then I awoke.

"Horace, I tell you that the sign has come to us."

His voice died away in the darkness, but I sat sti