have been
devised by her most subtle enemy. But not by a glance or movement did
she betray the fact. She had had time to recover herself, to regain
perfect outward self-control. But within her a storm was raging. Into
the chamber of her soul, borne upon the wings of the wind, were flocking
the ginnees out of the dense darkness of night. And when the twilight
came, throwing its pale mystery over the desert, and the wonders the
desert kept, they had taken possession of her spirit.

The travellers who, during the day, had peopled the waste about the
Pyramids had gone back to Cairo by tram and carriage, or were at tea in
the hotel, when the Armines, mounted on donkeys, rode through the
twilight towards the Sphinx. They approached it from behind. The wind
had quite gone down, and though the evening was not warm, the sharpness
of the morning had given place to a more gentle briskness that was in
place among the sands. Far off, across the plains and the Nile, the
lights of Cairo gleamed against the ridges of the Mokattam. Through the
empty silence of this now deserted desert they rode in silence, till
before them, above the grey waste of the sand, a protuberance arose.

"Do you see that, Ruby?" Nigel said, pulling at his donkey's rein.

"That thing like a gigantic mushroom? Yes. What is it?"

"The Sphinx."

"That!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, but only the back of its head. All the body is concealed. Wait
till you've ridden round it and seen it from the front."

She said nothing, and they rode on till they came to the edge of the
deep basin in which the sacred monster lies with the sand and its
ceaseless fame about it, till they had skirted the basin's rim, and
faced it full on the farther bank. There they dismounted, and Nigel
ordered their donkey-boys to lead the beasts away till they were out of
earshot. The dry sound of their tripping feet, over the stones and hard
earth which edged the sand near by, soon died down into the twilight,
and the Armines were left alone.

Although the light of day was rapidly failing, it had not entirely gone;
day and night joined hands in a twilight mystery which seemed not only
to fall from the sky, so soon to be peopled with stars, but also to rise
from the pallor of the sands, and to float about the Sphinx. In the
distance the Great Pyramid was black against the void.

Mrs. Armine at first stood perfectly still looking at the monster. Then
she made Nigel a sign to spread her dust-cloak u