We presented, indeed, a strange spectacle, for the mage, in his silvery swathings, held Leonora by the hands, and Leonora held me, as we raced through the gloom. In any other city our aspect and demeanour had excited attention and claimed the interference of the authorities. In Berlin Uhlans would have charged us, in Paris grape-shot would have ploughed through our ranks. _Here_ they deemed we were but of the sacred race of Thought-readers, who, by a custom of the strange people, are permitted to run at random through the streets and even to enter private houses. We were not even followed, in our headlong career, by a crowd, for the public had ceased to interest itself in frenzied research for hidden pins or concealed cigarettes. After a frantic chase Jambres (late 'the Mage') paused, breathless, in front of a building of portentous proportions. How it chanced I have never been able to understand, but, as I am a living and honourable woman, this hall had the characteristics of ancient Egyptian architecture, and that (miraculous as it may appear) in perfect preservation. There are the hypostyle halls, the two Osirid pillars--colossal figures of strange gods, in coloured relief--there is the great blue scarab, the cartouche, the _pschent_, the _pschutt_, and all that we admire in the Rameseum of the Ancient Empire. But all was silent, all was deserted; the vast adamantine portals were closed. Jambres paused in dismay. 'Since I last gave an exhibition of mine art in those halls,' said he, '('twas in old forgotten days, in Bosco's palmy time), much is altered. OPEN SESAME!' he cried; but, curious to say, _nothing opened_! At that moment a dark figure crawled submissively to our feet. It was old Pellmelli. His instinct for 'copy' had brought him on our track, and he began-- 'As our representative, I am commissioned----' Jambres (late 'Asher') turned from him, and he fell (still making notes) prone on his face, where we left him, as the pace was too good to inquire. The mage now reconnoitred carefully the vast façade of the Hall of Egypt, and finally fixed his gaze on a perpendicular leaden column, adorned with strange symbols, through which (for it was a rainy night) raging torrents of water were distinctly heard flowing downwards to who knows what abysmal and unfathomable depths? In this weird climate it was the familiar yet dreaded _waterspout_!