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 windows darkened⁠—though it was two in the morning and pitch dark outside. She said it was all one thing⁠—trying to get in; just as water, you see, would rush in through every hole and opening it could find, and all at once. And in spite of her terror⁠—that's the odd part of it⁠—she says she felt a kind of splendour in her⁠—a sort of elation.'

'She saw nothing?'

'She says she doesn't remember. Her senses left her, I believe⁠—though she won't admit it.'

'Fainted for a minute, probably,' said Mansfield.

'So there it is,' his wife concluded, after a silence. 'And that's true. It happened to my niece, didn't it, John?'

Stories and legendary accounts of strange things that the presence of these two brought poured out then. They were obviously somewhat mixed, one account borrowing picturesque details from another, and all in disproportion, as when people tell stories in a language they are little familiar with. But, listening with avidity, yet also with uneasiness, somehow, Henriot put two and two together. Truth stood behind them somewhere. These two held traffic with the powers that ancient Egypt knew.

'Tell Felix, dear, about the time you met the nephew⁠—horrid creature⁠—in the Valley of the Kings,' he heard his wife say presently. And Mansfield told it plainly enough, evidently glad to get it done, though.

'It was some years ago now, and I didn't know who he was then, or anything about him. I don't know much more now⁠—except that he's a dangerous sort of charlatan-devil, I think. But I came across him one night up there by Thebes in the Valley of the Kings⁠—you know, where they buried all their