Before closing, one matter may be casually mentioned.  The tale has never been told, but I have unimpeachable authority for its authenticity.

During the recent expeditionary advance towards Dongola, a body of native troops which was encamped at a remote spot in the desert was aroused one night by what seemed to be the sound of a loud explosion.  The next morning, at a distance of about a couple of miles from the camp, a huge hole was discovered in the ground,—­as if blasting operations, on an enormous scale, had recently been carried on.  In the hole itself, and round about it, were found fragments of what seemed bodies; credible witnesses have assured me that they were bodies neither of men nor women, but of creatures of some monstrous growth.  I prefer to believe, since no scientific examination of the remains took place, that these witnesses ignorantly, though innocently, erred.

One thing is sure.  Numerous pieces, both of stone and of metal, were seen, which went far to suggest that some curious subterranean building had been blown up by the force of the explosion.  Especially were there portions of moulded metal which seemed to belong to what must have been an immense bronze statue.  There were picked up also, more than a dozen replicas in bronze of the whilom sacred scarabaeus.

That the den of demons described by Paul Lessingham, had, that night, at last come to an end, and that these things which lay scattered, here and there, on that treeless plain, were the evidences of its final destruction, is not a hypothesis which I should care to advance with any degree of certainty.  But, putting this and that together, the facts seem to point that way,—­and it is a consummation devoutly to be desired.

By-the-bye, Sydney Atherton has married Miss Dora Grayling.  Her wealth has made him one of the richest men in England.  She began, the story goes, by loving him immensely; I can answer for the fact that he has ended by loving her as much.  Their devotion to each other contradicts the pessimistic nonsense which supposes that every marriage must be of necessity a failure.  He continues his career of an inventor.  His investigations into the subject of aerial flight, which have brought the flying machine within the range of practical politics, are on everybody’s tongue.

The best man at Atherton’s wedding was Percy Woodville, now the Earl of Barnes.  Within six months afterwards he married one of Mrs Atherton’s bridesmaids.

It was never certainly shown how Robert Holt came to his end.  At the inquest the coroner’s jury was content to return a verdict of ‘Died of exhaustion.’  He lies buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, under a handsome tombstone, the cost of which, had he had it in his pockets, might have indefinitely prolonged his days.

It should be mentioned that that portion of this strange history which purports to be The Surprising Narration of Robert Holt was compiled from the statements which Holt made to Atherton, and to Miss Lindon, as she then was, when, a mud-stained, shattered derelict he lay at the lady’s father’s house.