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 "What did it mean, please," asked Fen, holding the amulet, "about the somethings singing in the dawn?"

"The Memnon?" said Siddereticus. "Alas, people say that it happens no more, but I, for one, believe that it does—in solitary dawns, when no living creature is about. But I'll tell you."

He lit a cigarette, and for a moment watched the blue smoke rising straight upward in the still air. Then he went on:

"Far into the desert, where it is sometimes overflowed by the Nile, stand two great statues, bigger than anything you can imagine, yet each one is carven from a single block of stone. Their mighty hands rest on their knees; the wind and the sand have worn away their faces; armies that are passed and gone have shattered the great crowns they used long ago to wear. Silent they sit there, as they