How is this matter to end?  Manetho’s devotion to Helen seems unwavering; yet sometimes it is hard not to suspect a secret understanding between him and Salome.  He has ceased to wear his ring, and once we caught a diamond-sparkle from beneath the thick folds of lace which cover Helen’s bosom; but, on the other hand, we fear his arm has been round the gypsy’s graceful waist, and that she has learnt the secret of the private chamber.  Is demure Manetho a flirt, or do his affections and his ambition run counter to each other?  Helen would bring him the riches of this world,—­but what should a clergyman care for such vanities?—­while Salome, to our thinking, is far the prettier, livelier, and more attractive woman of the two.  Brother Hiero, whimsical and preoccupied, sees nothing of what is going on.  He is an antiquary,—­an Egyptologist, and thereto his soul is wedded.  He has no eyes nor ears for the loves of other people for one another.—­

Provoking!  The uneasy sleeper has moved again, and disorganized, beyond remedy, the events of a whole year.  Judging from such fragments as reach us, it must have been a momentous epoch in our history.  From the beginning, a handsome, stalwart, blue-eyed man, with a great beard like a sheaf of straw, shoulders upon the scene, and thenceforth becomes inextricably mixed up with dark-eyed Helen.  We recognize in him an old acquaintance; he was on the lateen-sailed boat that went up the Nile; it was he who swung himself from the vessel’s side, and pulled Manetho out of the jaws of death,—­a fact, by the way, of which Manetho remained ignorant until his dying day.  With this new arrival, Helen’s supremacy in the household ends.  Thor—­so they call him—­involuntarily commands her, and so her subjects.  Against him, the Reverend Manetho has not the ghost of a chance.  To his credit is it that he conceals whatever emotions of disappointment or jealousy he might be supposed to feel, and is no less winning towards Thor than towards the rest of the world.  But is it possible that the talisman still hides in Helen’s bosom?  Does the conflict which it symbolizes beset her heart?

The enchanted mirror is still again, and a curious scene is reflected from it.  A large and lofty room, windowless, lit by flaring lamps hung at intervals round the walls; the panels contain carvings in bas-relief of Egyptian emblems and devices; columns surround the central space, their capitals carved with the lotos-flower, their bases planted amidst papyrus leaves.  A border of hieroglyphic inscription encircles the walls, just beneath the ceiling.  In each corner of the room rests a red granite sarcophagus, and between each pair of pillars stands a mummy in its wooden case.  At that end farthest from the low-browed doorway—­which is guarded by two great figures of Isis and Osiris, sitting impassive, with hands on knees—­is raised an altar of black marble, on which burns some incense.  The perfumed smoke, wavering upwards, mingles with that of the lamps beneath the high ceiling.  The prevailing color is ruddy Indian-red, relieved by deep blue and black, while brighter tints show here and there.  Blocks of polished stone pave the floor, and dimly reflect the lights.