Page:Weird Tales volume 30 number 01.djvu/89

 prevent it, and never was the time so ripe as now. Listen:

"Karamour has ridden into the desert to test liquids—some wild dream of a crazed scientist, that he thinks will render useless the man-power of other nations. I, of course, know that it is but a hopeless dream. The great guns of the new countries will quickly crush both him and his feeble power; yet we must let the fool find that out for himself.

"But you and I—why should we stay here to perish miserably with the rest? Is it not wiser to flee these ancient halls and spend the years in the pleasures of the new worlds, than lie as whitened skeletons amid the charred castle ruin?"

"And my friends—you could arrange to have them come with us?" I asked quickly.

Atma hesitated a moment before replying.

"Yes, we can do that," she answered finally. "Leave with them when the plane returns the day after tomorrow. Of course, the tiny ship will make two trips necessary, but as it is only some nine hours' journey from here to Tangier, it could be done."

An escape! An escape, and return to the lands we loved and knew! But this royal daughter of the Nile—did she realize the strangeness of the new world? Could she know and understand the countless changes that had taken place since her tiny feet trod the flower-strewn halls of old Memphis?

"Wait," I cautioned. "You are going to find the new world strange in more ways than one. True, it has all the luxuries of which you speak, as well as many more. Each, however, demands its price. Money is as essential to the modern land as an unerring sword arm was to the old."

Atma laughed softly.

"The answer to all that lies but a short distance in the desert," she murmured, "and it is ours for the taking. Tomorrow night, while the castle sleeps, we will take three blacks and ride to the cast, where, in the eternal halls of night that lie below a forgotten valley, we can soon load ourselves with unthinkable riches."

As the girl ceased speaking, a soft melody from the cliffs above caused her to turn quickly. The radio in the summer house that had been playing soft, unknown music, suddenly began a melody I knew well, a lovely, tantalizing air, that seemed to breathe the glamor of old Egypt—the weirdly throbbing Vision of Salome.

As the first dreamy notes reached us, an eager thrill ran through the supple body of the Egyptian. Now, with the ease of an uncoiling serpent, she rose to her lovely height. Only for an instant did she pause to smile at me, wide-eyed and glorious; and then, with a slow, exotic grace, the long-limbed Princess began the dance of the centuries.

It was fascinating. Soft, rolling muscles played beneath the ivory surface. A perfect body swayed enchantingly. Slender arms encircled the shapely head, while the beautiful face, beaming through a mass of wavy black hair, seemed lost in wondrous dreaming.

As though in rhythm with the dancer swayed the tropical palms. The sparkling ocean seemed motionless and quiet. A mellow moon hung low; while high above, the blazing stars flashed their light to illuminate dimly the beauty of that whirling siren.

I watched as one entranced. For me, at least, time had ceased to exist, and I had been drawn back across the void to behold a swaying vision that had enslaved the hearts of men ages upon ages before the dancing Salome roused the passions of King Herod. Weird music, that strange, exotic ringing—was that the crashing of ancient timbrels from the