He broke off his meditations abruptly, vaguely impressed by the strange solemnity of the night.  An equal solemnity seemed to surround the two figures to which he now drew nigh, and as the Princess Ziska turned her eyes upon him as he came, he was, to his own vexation, aware that something indefinable disturbed his usual equanimity and gave him an unpleasant thrill.

“You are enjoying a moonlight stroll, Doctor?” she inquired.

Her veil was now cast aside in a careless fold of soft drapery over her shoulders, and her face in its ethereal delicacy of feature and brilliant coloring looked almost too beautiful to be human.  Dr. Dean did not reply for a moment; he was thinking what a singular resemblance there was between Armand Gervase and one of the figures on a certain Egyptian fresco in the British Museum.

“Enjoying—­er—­er—­a what?—­a moonlight stroll?  Exactly—­er—­yes!  Pardon me, Princess, my mind often wanders, and I am afraid I am getting a little deaf as well.  Yes, I find the night singularly conducive to meditation; one cannot be in a land like this under a sky like this”—­and he pointed to the shining heaven—­“without recalling the great histories of the past.”

“I daresay they were very much like the histories of the present,” said Gervase smiling.

“I should doubt that.  History is what man makes it; and the character of man in the early days of civilization was, I think, more forceful, more earnest, more strong of purpose, more bent on great achievements.”

“The principal achievement and glory being to kill as many of one’s fellow-creatures as possible!” laughed Gervase—­“Like the famous warrior, Araxes, of whom the Princess has just been telling me!”

“Araxes was great, but now Araxes is a forgotten hero,” said the Princess slowly, each accent of her dulcet voice chiming on the ear like the stroke of a small silver bell.  “None of the modern discoverers know anything about him yet.  They have not even found his tomb; but he was buried in the Pyramids with all the honors of a king.  No doubt your clever men will excavate him some day.”

“I think the Pyramids have been very thoroughly explored,” said Dr. Dean.  “Nothing of any importance remains in them now.”

The Princess arched her lovely eyebrows.

“No?  Ah!  I daresay you know them better than I do!” and she laughed, a laugh which was not mirthful so much as scornful.

“I am very much interested in Araxes,” said Gervase then, “partly, I suppose, because he is as yet in the happy condition of being an interred mummy.  Nobody has dug him up, unwound his cerements, or photographed him, and his ornaments have not been stolen.  And in the second place I am interested in him because it appears he was in love with the famous dancer of his day whom the Princess represents to-night,—­Charmazel.  I wish I had heard the story before I came to Cairo; I would have got myself up as Araxes in person to-night.”