reality uttered by an indifferent person--the spirit of a mighty cry
seeking its own echo in the echoless, flat waste of the Great Desert.

Then, too, she placed a sincere faith in the old man's answers to her
questions, regardless of the matter inquired into. She believed that
in the mysterious condition between sleep and waking which she could
command, the knowledge of things to be was with him as certainly as the
memory of what had been and of what was even now passing in the outer
world. To her, the one direction of the faculty seemed no less possible
than the others, though she had not yet attained alone to the vision of
the future. Hitherto the old man's utterances had been fulfilled to the
letter. More than once, as Keyork Arabian had hinted, she had consulted
his second sight in preference to her own, and she had not been
deceived. His greater learning and his vast experience lent to his
sayings something divine in her eyes; she looked upon him as the
Pythoness of Delphi looked upon the divinity of her inspiration.

The irresistible longing to hear the passionate pleadings of her own
heart solemnly confirmed by the voice in which she trusted overcame at
last every obstacle. Unorna bent over the sleeper, looking earnestly
into his face, and she laid one hand upon his brow.

"You hear me," she said, slowly and distinctly. "You are conscious of
thought, and you see into the future."

The massive head stirred, the long limbs moved uneasily under the white
robe, the enormous, bony hands contracted, and in the cavernous eyes the
great lids were slowly lifted. A dull stare met her look.

"Is it he?" she asked, speaking more quickly in spite of herself. "Is it