Full as my life had been of extraordinary circumstances during the last few weeks, I am not certain that my feelings as I stood upon the deck of the steamer while she made her way up stream, passed the Khedive's Palace, the Kasr-en-Nil barracks, Kasr-el-Ain, the Island of Rodah, and Gizeh, did not eclipse them. Our vessel was a most luxurious one, and to charter her must have cost Pharos a pretty penny. Immediately we got under way the latter departed to his cabin, while the Fräulein Valerie and I stood side by side under the awning, watching the fast-changing landscape in silence. The day was hot, with scarcely a breath of wind to cool the air. Ever since the first week in June the Nile had been rising, and was now running a swift and muddy river only a few feet below the level of her banks. I looked at my companion, and as I did so thought of all that we had been through together in the short time we had known each other. Less than a month before, Pharos and I had to all intents and purposes been strangers, and Valerie and I had not met at all. Now I was embarking on a voyage up the Nile in their company, and for what purpose? To restore the body of Merenptah's Chief Magician to the tomb from which it had been taken by my own father nearly twenty years before. Could anything have seemed more unlikely, and yet could anything have been more true? Amiable as were my relations with my host at present, there was a feeling deep down in my heart that troublous times lay ahead of us. The explanation Pharos had given me of what had occurred on the preceding night had been plausible enough, as I have said, and yet I was far from being convinced by it. There were only two things open to me to believe. Either he had stood over me saying, "For the future you are mine to do with as I please; you will have no will but my pleasure, no thought but to act as I shall tell you," or I had dreamed it. When I had taxed him with it some hours before, he had laughed at me, and had told me to attribute it all to the excited condition of my brain. But the feeling of reality with which it had inspired me was, I felt sure, too strong for it to have been imaginary; and yet, do what I would, I could not throw off the unpleasant belief that, however much I might attempt to delude myself to the contrary, I was in reality more deeply in his power than I fancied myself to be.