Now, for a time in the spring of the previous year, I had devoted much labor to an inquiry in this place, which stands of course roughly upon the site of the ancient Egyptian city of _Bubastis_. In those myths, or so-called myths, of the Ancient Egyptian religion which represented the various attributes of man in the guises of animals, I had perceived a nucleus of wisdom pointing to the possibility that the law which I had so laboriously established might have been known to the early Egyptian priesthood. Indeed I was partly induced to inquire into the myths of Bâst, the cat-headed goddess to whom of old this town was dedicated, by the following two things: first, a chance reference in the pages of Herodotus; and, second, a persistent superstition that during a certain season of the year, _psycho-hybrids_ occurred in this town. By dint of close research I discovered that the date favored by the inhabitants of Zagazig, as that upon which such creatures were born there, corresponded very closely with the Sacred Sothic month, formerly sacred to Bâst, the titulary goddess of the place, corresponded in short with the ancient Feast of Bâst. My inquiries at the time, however, proved futile, and beyond the fact that the town was remarkable for a singular number of semi-wild cats, I discovered nothing to support my theory. However, as I have already stated, a native acquaintance there, a very learned Moslem, to whom I had imparted during my residence some idea of the nature of my studies, sent me a long communication containing particulars of the event which had befallen Lady Coverly during her one-night's sojourn in Zagazig. Briefly, she had learned from a native attached to the one possible hotel which the town boasted, of the tradition associated with the place. Some other member of the party (for quite a large company had been detained in Zagazig by the mishap) unwisely pointed out to her that the favored date was that upon which they had arrived in the town. Nothing might have resulted from this; but by a strange fatality (or because of the operation of some unsuspected law understood by the ancients but misapprehended to-day) the matter was sealed in a very extraordinary fashion.