He did not flinch from the blistering flash of the discharge. It seemed to me that it should have seared his face and that the bullet should have split his skull. I had a momentary glimpse of a ghastly, brownish-yellow visage and of two dull widely separated eyes peering into mine. Then all was dark again and I was struggling as never I had struggled in my life before. Long, stiff fingers clutched my throat. A rigid wood-like form was pressed against my own and my nostrils were filled with a sickly penetrating odour which I all too sharply recognised. It was the perfume that had issued from the sarcophagus of Ptahmes when I drove my chisel through the lead. At first I grasped nothing but air. But clutching wildly at the things that gripped my throat, I caught hands at last composed of bone. There was no flesh on them, or so it seemed to me. Yet it was good to grip something. It gave me heart. I had a horrible feeling for some awful seconds of contending with the supernatural. But those hands were hard and firm. They compressed my windpipe. Back and fro we writhed. I heard nothing but my own hard breathing. I was being slowly strangled. It was very hard to drag those hands apart. But I am strong, stronger than many men who earn their living by exhibiting to the vulgar feats of strength. Impelled by fear of death, I exerted my reserve of force, and driving will and muscle into one supreme united effort I tore the death grip from my neck and flung the Arab off. Uttering a sobbing howl of relief and rage, I followed him and caught him by the middle. Then stooping low, I heaved him high and dashed him to the ground. There came a sound of snapping wood or bones, but neither sigh nor cry of any sort. "We'll see," I growled, and struck a match. The sand before me was dinted, but deserted. The Arab had vanished. My senses rocked in horrified astonishment. My flesh crept. A cold chill of vague unreasoning terror caught me. I listened, all my nerves taut strained, peering wildly round into the dark. But the silence was unbroken. Nothing was to be heard, nothing was to be seen. Were it not for the dinted sand and the marks of feet other than my own where we had stepped and struggled, I could have come to the conclusion I had dreamed. After a while spent in soothing panic fears, I sneaked off to my baggage and extracted from the pile a candle lamp. This I lighted and, returning, searched the sands on hands and knees. The stranger's footprints were longer than my own and they were toe-marked. Plainly, then, he had stolen on me naked-footed. Looking wide around the dint made by his falling body I came presently upon some more of them. They were each a yard apart, and led towards the Hill of Rakh. Yet only for a little while. Soon they grew fainter and fainter. Finally they disappeared. Tortured by the mystery of it all, I halted where the footprints vanished and, putting out the lamp, squatted on the ground to wait for dawn. It came