I could not disturb her, it would have been—­well, unseemly.  So I, Shabaka, or Allan Quatermain, just sat still feeling curiously comfortable, and tried to piece things together, when suddenly Amada—­ I mean Lady Ragnall woke.

“I wonder,” she said without lifting her head from my shoulder, “what happened to the holy Tanofir.  I think that I heard him outside the shine giving directions for the digging of Pharaoh’s grave at that spot, and saying that he must do so at once as his time was very short.  Yes, and I wished that he would go away.  Oh! my goodness!” she exclaimed, and suddenly sprang up.

I too rose and we stood facing each other.

Between us, in front of the fire stood the tripod and the bowl of black stone at the bottom of which lay a pinch of white ashes, the remains of the Taduki.  We stared at it and at each other.

“Oh! where have we been, Shaba—­I mean, Mr. Quatermain?” she gasped, looking at me round-eyed.

“I don’t know,” I answered confusedly.  “To the East I suppose.  That is —­it was all a dream.”

“A dream!” she said.  “What nonsense!  Tell me, were you or were you not in a sanctuary just now with me before the statue of Isis, the same that fell on George two years ago and killed him, and did you or did you not give me a necklace of wonderful rosy pearls which we put upon the neck of the statue as a peace-offering because I had broken my vows to the goddess—­those that you won from the Great King?”

“No,” I answered triumphantly, “I did nothing of the sort.  Is it likely that I should have taken those priceless pearls into battle?  I gave them to Karema to keep after my mother returned them to me on her death-bed; I remember it distinctly.”

“Yes, and Karema handed them to me again as your love-token when she appeared in the city with the holy Tanofir, and what was more welcome at the moment—­something to eat.  For we were near starving, you know.  Well, I threw them over your neck and my own in the shrine to be the symbol of our eternal union.  But afterwards we thought that it might be wise to offer them to the goddess—­to appease her, you know.  Oh! how dared we plight our mortal troth there in her very shrine and presence, and I her twice-sworn servant?  It was insult heaped on sacrilege.”

“At a guess, because love is stronger than fear,” I replied.  “But it seems that you dreamed a little longer than I did.  So perhaps you can tell me what happened afterwards.  I only got as far as—­well, I forget how far I got,” I added, for at that moment full memory returned and I could not go on.

She blushed to her eyes and grew disturbed.

“It is all mixed up in my mind too,” she exclaimed.  “I can only remember something rather absurd—­and affectionate.  You know what strange things dreams are.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t a dream.”

“Really I don’t know what it was.  But—­your wound doesn’t hurt you, does it?  You were bleeding a good deal.  It stained me here,” and she touched her breast and looked down wonderingly at her sacred, ancient robe as though she expected to see that it was red.