At first the ascent was delightful to her.  It seemed as if she were flying.  The powerful Nubian guides, one on each side, lifted her jauntily up, without her being conscious of motion.  Having seen them daily for some time past, she was now not much afraid of these handsome athletes, with their polished black skins, set off by dazzling white garments.  She called out to Agamemnon, who had preceded her, that it was charming; she was not at all afraid.  Every now and then she stopped to rest on the broad cornice made by each retreating step.  Suddenly, when she was about half-way up, as she leaned back against the step above, she found herself panting and exhausted.  A strange faintness came over her.  She was looking off over a beautiful scene:  through the wide Libyan desert the blue Nile wound between borders of green edging, while the picturesque minarets of Cairo, on the opposite side of the river, and the sand in the distance beyond, gleamed with a red and yellow light beneath the rays of the noonday sun.

But the picture danced and wavered before her dizzy sight.  She sat there alone; for Agamemnon and the rest had passed on, thinking she was stopping to rest.  She seemed deserted, save by the speechless black statues, one on either side, who, as she seemed to be fainting before their eyes, were looking at her in some anxiety.  She saw dimly these wild men gazing at her.  She thought of Mungo Park, dying with the African women singing about him.  How little she had ever dreamed, when she read that account in her youth, and gazed at the savage African faces in the picture, that she might be left to die in the same way alone, in a strange land—­and on the side of a pyramid!  Her guides were kindly.  One of them took her shawl to wrap about her, as she seemed to be shivering; and as a party coming down from the top had a jar of water, one of her Nubians moistened a handkerchief with water and laid it upon her head.  Mrs. Peterkin had closed her eyes, but she opened them again, to see the black figures in their white draperies still standing by her.  The travellers coming down paused a few minutes to wonder and give counsel, then passed on, to make way for another party following them.  Again Mrs. Peterkin closed her eyes, but once more opened them at hearing a well-known shout,—­such a shout as only one of the Peterkin family could give,—­one of the little boys!

Yes, he stood before her, and Agamemnon was behind; they had met on top of the pyramid.

The sight was indeed a welcome one to Mrs. Peterkin, and revived her so that she even began to ask questions:  “Where had he come from?  Where were the other little boys?  Where was Mr. Peterkin?” No one could tell where the other little boys were.  And the sloping side of the pyramid, with a fresh party waiting to pass up and the guides eager to go down, was not just the place to explain the long, confused story.  All that Mrs. Peterkin could understand was that Mr. Peterkin was now, probably,