Taking her hand, he bade her close her eyes and describe to him what she saw. She did as she was ordered, and for upward of a minute perfect silence reigned in the room. The picture they made--the worn-out, shrivelled body of the man and the lovely woman--I cannot hope to make you understand. "I see a great hall, supported by pillars," she said at last, speaking in that hard, measured voice I remembered to have heard on board the yacht. "The walls are covered with paintings, and two sphinxes guard the door. In the centre is an old man with a long white beard, who holds his arms above his head." "It is Paduamen, the mouthpiece of the Gods," moaned Pharos, with a look of terror in his face that there was no disguising. "I am lost for ever--for ever; not for to-day, not for to-morrow, but for all time! Tell me, woman, what judgment the Mighty Ones pronounce against me?" "Hush--he speaks!" Valerie continued slowly; and then a wonderful thing happened. Whether it was the first warning of the illness that was presently to fall upon me, or whether I was so much in sympathy with Valerie that I saw what she and Pharos saw, I cannot say; at any rate, I suddenly found myself transported from Park Lane away to that mysterious hall below the Temple of Ammon, of which I retained so vivid a recollection. The place was in semi-darkness, and in the centre, as Valerie had described, stood the old man who had acted as my guide on the other occasion that I had been there. His arms were raised above his head, and his voice when he spoke was stern yet full of sadness. "Ptahmes, son of Netruhôtep," he was saying, "across the seas I speak to thee. For the second time thou hast been found wanting in the trust reposed in thee. Thou hast used the power vouchsafed thee by the Gods for thine own purposes and to enrich thyself in the goods of the earth. Therefore thy doom is decreed, and in the Valley of Amenti thy punishment awaits thee. Prepare, for that time is even now upon thee." Then the hall grew dark, there was a rushing sound as of a great wind, and once more I was back in Park Lane. Pharos was crouching in his chair, moaning feebly, and evidently beside himself with terror. "What more dost thou see?" he said at length, and his voice was growing perceptibly weaker. "Tell me all." There was another pause, and then Valerie spoke again. "I see a rocky hillside and a newly-opened tomb. I see three white men and five Arabs who surround it. They are lifting a mummy from the vault below with cords." On hearing this Pharos sprang to his feet with a loud cry, and for a moment fought wildly with the air. Meanwhile the monkey clung tenaciously to him, uttering strange cries, which grew feebler every moment. Valerie, released from her trance, if by such a name I may describe it, and unable to bear more, fled the room, while I stood rooted to the spot, powerless to move hand or foot, watching Pharos with fascinated eyes.