at.

Here Ayesha had halted and was engaged in the contemplation of this
boulder-strewn path, as though she meditated making use of it that day.
Now we drew near to her, and the priest who guided us fell back with our
guard, leaving us to go forward alone, since they dared not approach the
Hesea unbidden. Leo was somewhat in advance of me, seven or eight yards
perhaps, and I heard him say--"Why dost thou venture into such places at
night, Ayesha, unless indeed it is not possible for any harm to come to
thee?"

She made no answer, only turned and opened her arms wide, then let them
fall to her side again. Whilst I wondered what this signal of hers might
mean, from the shadows about us came a strange, rustling sound.

I looked, and lo! everywhere the skeletons were rising from their sandy
beds. I saw their white skulls, their gleaming arm and leg bones, their
hollow ribs. The long-slain army had come to life again, and look! in
their hands were the ghosts of spears.

Of course I knew at once that this was but another manifestation of
Ayesha's magic powers, which some whim of hers had drawn us from our
beds to witness. Yet I confess that I felt frightened. Even the boldest
of men, however free from superstition, might be excused should their
nerve fail them if, when standing in a churchyard at midnight, suddenly
on every side they saw the dead arising from their graves. Also our
surroundings were wilder and more eerie than those of any civilized
burying-place.

"What new devilment of thine is this?" cried Leo in a scared and angry
voice. But Ayesha made no answer. I heard a noise behind me and looked
round. The skeletons were springing upon our body-guard, who for their
part, poor men, paralysed with terror, had thrown down their weapons and
fallen, some of them, to their knees. Now the ghosts began to stab at
them with their phantom spears, and I saw that beneath the blows they
rolled over. The veiled figure above me pointed with her hand at Leo and
said--"Seize him, but I charge you, harm him not."

I knew the voice; _it was that of Atene!_

Then too late I understood the trap into which we had fallen.

"Treachery!" I began to cry, and before the word was out of my lips, a
particularly able-bodied skeleton silenced me with a violent blow upon
the head. But though I could not speak, my senses still stayed with
me for a little. I saw Leo fighting furiously with a number of men who
strove to pull him down, so furio