"Well said, my ages-old adept, as you think you are! You shall follow me, for I will go on now even to death, or what there may be worse behind it, if I can only take my beautiful Queen with me. Yes, I swear I will, by God--if there is one!" So by his ignorant blasphemy Oscar Oscarovitch, who once was Lord of War in Egypt, for the love of the same woman, fixed his fate for this life, and for many that were to come after it. CHAPTER XVI THE MYSTERY OF PRINCE ZASTROW Events now began to move with an almost bewildering rapidity, at least, so far as they affected the immediate temporal concerns of Nitocris and her father. For days and weeks a furious storm raged round the famous lecture, and the atmosphere of the scientific world was thick with figures and formulae, diagrams and disquisitions; but since none of the learned disputators proved himself capable of detecting the slightest flaw in the lecturer's mathematics, it had very little interest for him, and therefore has none for us. In fact, so little did he seem concerned with the tempest he had raised, that a few days later, to the astonishment and chagrin of his baffled critics, he and Nitocris bade adieu to their more intimate friends and disappeared on a wandering trip of undetermined destination for change of air and scene and a much-needed holiday for the over-worked Professor. At least, that is the reason which Nitocris gave to Lord Leighton and the Van Huysmans, and the few others to whom she thought it necessary to give any explanation at all. The day before they left, Merrill lunched at "The Wilderness," took a fitting leave of his lady-love and his prospective father-in-law, and departed to join his ship, slightly mystified, perhaps, by recent happenings, but still believing himself with sufficient reason to be the happiest and most fortunate Lieutenant-Commander in the British Navy. The true reasons for the sudden departure of the now more than ever famous Professor and his beautiful daughter from the scene of his latest and most marvellous triumph may be set forth as follows: On the evening of the third day after the lecture Franklin Marmion was going back by train to Wimbledon after a long day at the British Museum among the relics of Egyptian antiquity--which, as may well be understood, he studied now with an interest of which no other man living could have been capable; and as soon as he was seated in a comfortable corner, and had his pipe going, he opened his _Pall Mall Gazette_, and, as was his wont on such occasions, began with the leading article and read straight along through the Special Article and the Occ. Notes, until he came to the news of the day, skipping only the financial news and quotations, which, under his present changed conditions of existence, he dare not trust himself to read lest he might be tempted by the unrighteousness of Mammon, a form of idolatry which he had always heartily despised.