Barry feasted his eyes on that pale face. Zalithea! Speculation was ended. Doubt was done with. By some unsuspected gift of prevision, of clairvoyance--call it what he might--he had been enabled to see her, though she lay deep in this rocky tomb, long before he had ever set foot on the black soil of Egypt! It was, therefore, predestined. As Hassan would have said, “It is written.” For this he had been born. Because of this wonder which was to come, he had never found his ideal woman but had dreamed of dark mysterious eyes which one day would beckon to him.… A faint sigh broke the deathly stillness. Princess Zalithea raised her drooping lashes--and looked long and wonderingly into the faces bending over her. Then, without otherwise stirring, she turned her dark, beautiful eyes in Barry’s direction. Danbazzar, that man of steel, gripped John Cumberland’s shoulder and indicated the stoppered flagon. Cumberland, making a visible effort to steady his hand, poured the old wine into the goblet. Never removing that fixed, childlike look of inquiry from Barry, the girl allowed Danbazzar very gently to lift her up. He held the draught to her lips and spoke a few words in a language entirely unfamiliar to the others. Zalithea glanced swiftly up at him and swallowed the drugged wine. Then once more she looked at Barry, smiled like a tired child, and lay back, closing her eyes. Danbazzar pointed to the doorway. As John Cumberland and Barry tiptoed out, he extinguished the seven lamps, joining them in the outer chamber. “She is now sleeping normally,” he whispered. “She should wake in eight or nine hours’ time--and resume life!” He reeled, clutched at Barry, and: “Get me out,” he said hoarsely. “I’m through.” CHAPTER XXI. THE AWAKENING Perhaps, in his heart of hearts, no one of the party--excepting Danbazzar--had ever really counted on success. Certainly, in their wildest imaginings, they had not schooled their minds to acceptance of the miracle; had not realized what success would mean. Slowly, and by different mental processes, realization came in turn to John Cumberland and to Barry, as it had come, instantly, insupportably, to the scientific mind of Professor Blackwell. A girl who had lived during the reign of Seti I--a girl barely out of her teens--was living now. She must be, according to ordinary human computation, fully three thousand two hundred years old; but, according to all the laws of modern physiology, she was still no more than nineteen or twenty! To the Professor, the problem presented was one of scientific faith. Acceptance meant destruction of his life’s labour, the tearing up of every textbook written on the subject; it assailed the very throne of reason itself. Rejection, with Zalithea living, meant closing his eyes to the truth. For a long time he remained alone in his tent and could not be induced to see her.