--and I pursue thee! Through life into
death; through death out into life again!
I find thee and I follow! I follow!
Araxes!..."

Moonlight and the Hour wove their own mystery; and ere the pale
opal dawn flushed the sky with hues of rose and amber the Shadow
had vanished; the Voice was heard no more. Slowly the sun lifted
the edge of its golden shield above the horizon, and the great
Sphinx awaking from its apparent brief slumber, stared in
expressive and eternal scorn across the tracts of sand and tufted
palm-trees towards the glittering dome of El-Hazar--that abode of
profound sanctity and learning, where men still knelt and
worshipped, praying the Unknown to deliver them from the Unseen.
And one would almost have deemed that the sculptured Monster with
the enigmatical Woman-face and Lion-form had strange thoughts in
its huge granite brain; for when the full day sprang in glory over
the desert and illumined its large features with a burning saffron
radiance, its cruel lips still smiled as though yearning to speak
and propound the terrible riddle of old time; the Problem which
killed!




CHAPTER I.


It was the full "season" in Cairo. The ubiquitous Britisher and
the no less ubiquitous American had planted their differing