cannot suppose that my readers have any further curiosity respecting
her from the moment that Fate freed her from that awful servitude.
Therefore, when I shall have dealt with the episodes which marked our
voyage to Egypt--I had opened negotiations in regard to a practice in
Cairo--I may honorably lay down my pen.

These episodes opened, dramatically, upon the second night of the
voyage from Marseilles.



CHAPTER XXXI

"MY SHADOW LIES UPON YOU"

I suppose I did not awake very readily. Following the nervous
vigilance of the past six months, my tired nerves, in the enjoyment of
this relaxation, were rapidly recuperating. I no longer feared to
awake to find a knife at my throat, no longer dreaded the darkness as
a foe.

So that the voice may have been calling (indeed, had been calling) for
some time, and of this I had been hazily conscious before finally I
awoke. Then, ere the new sense of security came to reassure me, the
old sense of impending harm set my heart leaping nervously. There is
always a certain physical panic attendant upon such awakening in the
still of night, especially in novel surroundings. Now, I sat up
abruptly, clutching at the rail of my berth and listening.

There was a soft thudding on my cabin door, and a voice, low and