“So I gave way and in the end we went to Egypt together with Lady Longden, who insisted upon accompanying us although she is a wretched sailor.  At Cairo a large dahabeeyah that I had hired in advance, manned by an excellent crew and a guard of four soldiers, was awaiting us.  In it we started up the Nile.  For a month or more all went well; also to my delight my wife seemed now and again to show signs of returning intelligence.  Thus she took some interest in the sculptures on the walls of the temples, about which she had been very fond of reading when in health.  I remember that only a few days before the—­the catastrophe, she pointed out one of them to me, it was of Isis and the infant Horus, saying, ‘Look, George, the holy Mother and the holy Child,’ and then bowed to it reverently as she might have done to an altar.  At length after passing the First Cataract and the Island of Philae we came to the temple of Abu Simbel, opposite to which our boat was moored.  On the following morning we explored the temple at daybreak and saw the sun strike upon the four statues which sit at its farther end, spending the rest of that day studying the colossal figures of Rameses that are carved upon its face and watching some cavalcades of Arabs mounted upon camels travelling along the banks of the Nile.

“My wife was unusually quiet that afternoon.  For hour after hour she sat still upon the deck, gazing first at the mouth of the rock-hewn temple and the mighty figures which guard it and then at the surrounding desert.  Only once did I hear her speak and then she said, ’Beautiful, beautiful!  Now I am at home.’  We dined and as there was no moon, went to bed rather early after listening to the Sudanese singers as they sang one of their weird chanties.

“My wife and her mother slept together in the state cabin of the dahabeeyah, which was at the stern of the boat.  My cabin, a small one, was on one side of this, and that of the trained nurse on the other.  The crew and the guard were forward of the saloon.  A gangway was fixed from the side to the shore and over it a sentry stood, or was supposed to stand.  During the night a Khamsin wind began to blow, though lightly as was to be expected at this season of the year.  I did not hear it for, as a matter of fact, I slept very soundly, as it appears did everyone else upon the dahabeeyah, including the sentry as I suspect.

“The first thing I remember was the appearance of Lady Longden just at daybreak at the doorway of my cabin and the frightened sound of her voice asking if Luna, that is my wife, was with me.  Then it transpired that she had left her cabin clad in a fur cloak, evidently some time before, as the bed in which she had been lying was quite cold.  Quatermain, we searched everywhere; we searched for four days, but from that hour to this no trace whatever of her has been found.”

“Have you any theory?” I asked.