To Ainsley the mysterious visitors made a direct appeal.  He felt as though they had thrown themselves upon his hospitality.  That they showed such confidence that the sanctuary would be kept sacred touched him.  And while his friends spoke eagerly, he remained silent, watching the drooping, ghost-like figures, his eyes filled with pity.

“I have seen birds like those in Florida,” Mortimer was whispering, “but they were not migratory birds.”

“And I’ve seen white cranes in the Adirondacks,” said Lowell, “but never six at one time.”

“They’re like no bird I ever saw out of a zoo,” declared Elsie Mortimer.  “Maybe they are from the Zoo?  Maybe they escaped from the Bronx?”

“The Bronx is too near,” objected Lowell.  “These birds have come a great distance.  They move as though they had been flying for many days.”

As though the absurdity of his own thought amused him, Mortimer laughed softly.

“I’ll tell you what they do look like,” he said.  “They look like that bird you see on the Nile, the sacred Ibis, they—­”

Something between a gasp and a cry startled him into silence.  He found his host staring wildly, his lips parted, his eyes open wide.

“Where?” demanded Ainsley.  “Where did you say?” His voice was so hoarse, so strange, that they all turned and looked.

“On the Nile,” repeated Mortimer.  “All over Egypt.  Why?”

Ainsley made no answer.  Unclasping his hold, he suddenly slid down the face of the rock, and with a bump lit on his hands and knees.  With one bound he had cleared a flower-bed.  In two more he had mounted the steps to the terrace, and in another instant had disappeared into the house.

“What happened to him?” demanded Elsie Mortimer.

“He’s gone to get a gun!” exclaimed Mortimer.  “But he mustn’t!  How can he think of shooting them?” he cried indignantly.  “I’ll put a stop to that!”

In the hall he found Ainsley surrounded by a group of startled servants.

“You get that car at the door in five minutes!” he was shouting, “and you telephone the hotel to have my trunks out of the cellar and on board the Kron Prinz Albert by midnight.  Then you telephone Hoboken that I want a cabin, and if they haven’t got a cabin I want the captain’s.  And tell them anyway I’m coming on board to-night, and I’m going with them if I have to sleep on deck.  And you,” he cried, turning to Mortimer, “take a shotgun and guard that lake, and if anybody tries to molest those birds—­shoot him!  They’ve come from Egypt!  From Polly Kirkland!  She sent them!  They’re a sign!”

“Are you going mad?” cried Mortimer.

“No!” roared Ainsley.  “I’m going to Egypt, and I’m going now!”