At sight of them her mind reverted to the theme she had been investigating, and happening to remember the importance attached by ethnologists to the early Coptic inscriptions, she took from the book-shelves a volume containing copies of many of these characters, and drawings of the triumphal processions carved on granite, and representing the captives of various nations torn from their homes to swell the pompous retinue of some barbaric Rhamses or Sesostris.

Drifting back over the gray, waveless, tideless sea of centuries, she stood, in imagination, upon the steps of the Serapeum at Memphis; and when the wild chant of the priests had died away under the huge propylaeum, she listened to the sighing of the tamarinds and cassias, and the low babble of the sacred Nile, as it rocked the lotus-leaves, under the glowing purple sky, whence a full moon flooded the ancient city with light, and kindled like a beacon the vast placid face of the Sphinx—­rising solemn and lonely and weird from its desert lair—­and staring blankly, hopelessly across arid yellow sands at the dim colossi of old Misraim.

Following the sinuous stream of Coptic civilization to its inexplicable source in the date-groves of Meroe, the girl’s thoughts were borne away to the Golden Fountain of the Sun, where Ammon’s black doves fluttered and cooed over the shining altars and amid the mystic symbols of the marvelous friezes.

As Edna bent over the drawings in the book, oblivious for a time of everything else, she suddenly became aware of the presence of some one in the room, for though perfect stillness reigned, there was a consciousness of companionship, of the proximity of some human being, and with a start she looked up, expecting to meet a pair of eyes fastened upon her.  But no living thing confronted her—­the tall, bent figure of the Cimbri Prophetess gleamed ghostly white upon the wall, and the bright blue augurous eyes seemed to count the dripping blood-drops; and the unbroken, solemn silence of night brooded over all things, hushing even the chime of sheep-bells, that had died away among the elm arches.  Knowing that no superstitious terrors had ever seized her heretofore, the young student rose, took up the candle, and proceeded to search the two rooms, but as unsuccessfully as before.

“There certainly is somebody here, but I can not find out where.”

These words were uttered aloud, and the echo of her own voice seemed sepulchral; then the chill silence again fell upon her.  She smiled at her own folly, and thought her imagination had been unduly excited by the pictures she had been examining, and that the nervous shiver that crept over her was the result of the cold.  Just then the candle-light flashed over the black marble statuette, grinning horribly as it kept guard over the Taj Mahal.  Edna walked up to it, placed the candle on the slab that supported the tomb, and, stooping, scrutinized the lock.  A spider had ensconced himself in the golden receptacle,