no goddess. I know not why we three
are wrapped in this coil of fate; I know not the destinies to which we
journey up the ladder of a thousand lives, with grief and pain climbing
the endless stair of circumstance, or, if I know, I may not say.
Therefore I take up the tale where my own memory gives me light."

The Hesea paused, and we saw her frame shake as though beneath some
fearful inward effort of the will. "Look now behind you," she cried,
throwing her arms wide.

We turned, and at first saw nothing save the great curtain of fire that
rose from the abyss of the volcano, whereof, as I have told, the crest
was bent over by the wind like the crest of a breaking billow. But
presently, as we watched, in the depths of this red veil, Nature's awful
lamp-flame, a picture began to form as it forms in the seer's magic
crystal.

Behold! a temple set amid sands and washed by a wide, palm-bordered
river, and across its pyloned court processions of priests, who pass
to and fro with flaunting banners. The court empties; I could see the
shadow of a falcon's wings that fled across its sunlit floor. A man clad
in a priest's white robe, shaven-headed, and barefooted, enters through
the southern pylon gate and walks slowly towards a painted granite
shrine, in which sits the image of a woman crowned with the double
crown of Egypt, surmounted by a lotus bloom, and holding in her hand the
sacred sistrum. Now, as though he heard some sound, he halts and looks
towards us, and by the heaven above me, his face is the face of Leo
Vincey in his youth, the face too of that Kallikrates whose corpse we
had seen in the Caves of Kor!

"Look, look!" gasped Leo, catching me by the arm; but I only nodded my
head in answer.

The man walks on again, and kneeling before the goddess in the shrine,
embraces her feet and makes his prayer to her. Now the gates roll open,
and a procession enters, headed by a veiled, noble-looking woman, who
bears offerings, which she sets on the table before the shrine, bending
her knee to the effigy of the goddess. Her oblations made, she turns
to depart, and as she goes brushes her hand against the hand of the
watching priest, who hesitates, then follows her.

When all her company have passed the gate she lingers alone in the
shadow of the pylon, whispering to the priest and pointing to the river
and the southern land beyond. He is disturbed; he reasons with her,
till, after one swift glance round, she lets drop her v