never believe the truth, even if you told it, for the time is not
yet ripe for men and women to recognize the avengers of their
wicked deeds. They are kept purposely in the dark lest the light
should kill!"

And with her sombre eyes darkening, yet glowing with the inward
fire that always smouldered in their dazzling depths, she saluted
him gravely and gracefully, watching him to the last as he slowly
withdrew.




CHAPTER XV.


The next day broke with a bright, hot glare over the wide desert,
and the sky in its cloudless burning blue had more than its usual
appearance of limitless and awful immensity. The Sphinx and the
Pyramids alone gave a shadow and a substance to the dazzling and
transparent air,--all the rest of the visible landscape seemed
naught save a far-stretching ocean of glittering sand, scorched by
the blazing sun. Dr. Maxwell Dean rose early and went down to the
hotel breakfast in a somewhat depressed frame of mind; he had
slept badly, and his dreams had been unpleasant, when not actually
ghastly, and he was considerably relieved, though he could not
have told why, when he saw his young friend Denzil Murray, seated
at the breakfast table, apparently enjoying an excellent meal.

"Hullo, Denzil!" he exclaimed cheerily, "I hardly expected you