This morning as I finished the above lines I suffered a mild stroke ... a particularly unusual one since I did not become, as far as I know, unconscious. I was rereading my somewhat telescoped account of the Council of Dallas when, without warning, the blow fell; a capillary burst in my brain and I felt as though I were losing my mind in one last fantastic burst of images. The pain was negligible, no worse than a headache, but the sensation of letting go one’s conscious mind, one’s control was terrifying. I tried to move from my work-table, to call for help, but I was too weak. For one long giddy moment I thought: I am dying; this is the way it is and, even in my anguish, I was curious, waiting for that approach of winged darkness which years ago I once experienced when I fainted and which I have always since imagined to be like death’s swift entrance. But then my body recovered from the assault: the wall was breached, the enemy is in the city but the citadel is still intact and yet I live. Weakly I got up, poured myself a jigger of brandy and then, having drunk it all at once, fell across my bed and slept and did not dream, which is a rare blessing in these feverish last days. I was awakened by the sensation of being watched. I opened my eyes and saw above me, looking like a bronze figure of Anubis, Jessup who said, “I’m sorry ... didn’t mean to disturb you. Your door was open and I....” “Perfectly all right,” I said, as smoothly as I could, drugged with sleep. I pulled myself up against the pillows. “Excuse me for not getting up but I’m still a little weak from my illness.” “I wanted to see you,” said Jessup, sitting down in the chair which I indicated beside the bed. “I hope you don’t mind my barging in like this.” “Not at all. How do you find Luxor?” I wanted to delay as long as possible the questions which I was quite sure he would want to ask me, questions concerning my identity. “The people are not so fixed in error as we’d been warned. There’s a great curiosity about Cavesword.” His eyes had been taking in the details of the room with some interest; to my horror I recalled that I had left the manuscript of my work on the table instead of hiding it as usual in the washstand. He saw it. “Your ... memoirs?” He looked at me with a polite interest which I was sure disguised foreknowledge. “A record of my excavations,” I said, in a voice which descended the scale to a whisper. “I do it for my own amusement, to pass the time.” “I should enjoy reading it.” “You exaggerate, in your kindness,” I said, pushing myself higher on the bed, preparing if necessary for a sudden spring. “Not at all. If it is about Egypt, I should read it. There are no contemporary accounts of this country ... by one of us.” “I’m afraid the details of findings in the valley yonder,” I gestured toward Libya and the last acres of the kings, “won’t be of much use to you. I avoid all mention of people less than two millennia dead.”