“That is so, Mr Mansfield. Or I have seen an apparition of a surprising character, any way. About midnight I was sitting on a rock beside the boss, and figuring out what I might clear by transporting to the States that whole cargo of damaged Palmyrene antiquities in the cellar back of ours, and selling them in small quantities to local museums, when I distinctly saw that curtain move that we fixed up. You bet I kept my eyes nailed on it. Well, it was drawn back slightly, and there was an old woman--a little old woman--standing in the passage, wrapped in a white sheet, like our friend at the door above, but I could see her whole face. She never saw me, for the light was between us; but she took a step forward and looked at the boss. I guess I was hasty, but I cocked my six-shooter. She heard me, and in the minutest fraction of a second she was gone. I caught up the light, and made tracks after her, but there was nothing to be seen. I searched every inch of the passage and the cave where the remains are, but she wasn’t there, and there is no means of getting out that way, unless she slithered up the roof to the hole where the light comes in, and that isn’t what you would expect of an elderly female of respectable appearance.” “But was she a European, as you said the other one was?” “Can’t say, Mr Mansfield. One old woman is pretty much like another. Maybe she was the ghost of the Lady Zenobia. If that is so, I’ve lost the best chance a newspaper man ever had, and I can tell you I feel real mean.” “Well,” said Mansfield, with ungenerous exultation, “I can tell you something, and that is, it’s _my_ funeral to-night. You haven’t said anything to the Count?” “Do I look such a fool as all that, sir? But I’m real down. You could most trample on me. I guess I ought to shove you into the swimming-bath for your impudence, and I would do it, too, if it wasn’t that maybe you would catch cold,” and having launched this Parthian shaft, Mr Hicks departed.