From her place on the pillow the old lady could now see into the adjoining chamber, and through its two windows on to the Nile. A bright moon had risen, and she lay a long time looking into the silvery night. Somewhere in the dead waste of early morning the Egyptian woman thought she heard somebody calling her, and, rising in alarm, she found that her mistress had left her bed and was speaking in a toneless voice in the next room. "Fatimah! Are you awake? Isn’t the boy very restless to-night? He throws his arms out in his sleep and uncovers little Hafiz too." She was standing in her nightdress and lace nightcap, with the moon shining in her face, by the side of one of the two beds the room contained, tugging at its eiderdown coverlet. Her eyes had the look of eyes that did not see, but she stood up firmly, and seemed to have become younger and stronger—so swiftly had her spirit carried her back in sleep to the woman she used to be. "Oh my heart, no," said Fatimah. "Gordon hasn’t slept in this room for nearly twenty years—nor Hafiz neither." At the sound of Fatimah’s husky voice and the touch of her moist fingers the old lady awoke. "Oh yes, of course," she said, and after a moment, in a sadder tone, "Yes, yes." "Come, my heart, come," said Fatimah, and taking her cold and nerveless hand, she led her, a weak old woman once more, back to her bed, for the years had rolled up like a tidal wave and the spell of her sweet dream was broken. On a little table by the side of her bed stood a portrait of Helena in a silver frame, and she took it up and looked at it for a moment, and then the light which Fatimah had switched on was put out again. After a little while there was a sigh in the darkness, and after a little while longer a soft, tremulous— "Ah, well!" *CHAPTER IV* Helena was still in her room when the Consul-General, who had been telephoned for, held an inquiry into the circumstances of the General’s death. She was sitting with her hands clasped in her lap and her eyes looking fixedly before her, hardly listening, hardly hearing, while the black boy darted in and out with broken and breathless messages which contained the substance of what was said. The household servants could say nothing except that, following in the wake of the new prophet when he left the Citadel, they had left the house by the side gate of the garden without being aware of anything that had happened in the General’s office. The Surgeon testified to the finding of the General’s body, and the Aide-de-camp explained that the last time he saw his chief alive was when he was ordered to call Colonel Macdonald. "Who was with him at that moment?" asked the Consul-General. "The Egyptian, Ishmael Ameer." "Was there anything noticeable in their appearance and demeanour?" "The General looked hot and indignant." "Did you think there had been angry words between them?" "I certainly thought so, my lord."