And with a humorous and kindly smile, Dr. Dean moved off to join the two motionless and picturesque figures that stood side by side looking at the moon, while Helen, like a frightened bird suddenly released, fled precipitately back to the ball-room, where Ross Courtney was already searching for her as his partner in the next waltz. “Upon my word,” mused the Doctor, “this is a very pretty kettle of fish! The Gezireh Palace Hotel is not a hotel at all, it seems to me; it is a lunatic asylum. What with Lady Fulkeward getting herself up as twenty at the age of sixty; and Muriel and Dolly Chetwynd Lyle man-hunting with more ferocity than sportsmen hunt tigers; Helen in love, Denzil in love, Gervase in love--dear me! dear me! What a list of subjects for a student’s consideration! And the Princess Ziska …” He broke off his meditations abruptly, vaguely impressed by the strange solemnity of the night. An equal solemnity seemed to surround the two figures to which he now drew nigh, and as the Princess Ziska turned her eyes upon him as he came, he was, to his own vexation, aware that something indefinable disturbed his usual equanimity and gave him an unpleasant thrill. “You are enjoying a moonlight stroll, Doctor?” she inquired. Her veil was now cast aside in a careless fold of soft drapery over her shoulders, and her face in its ethereal delicacy of feature and brilliant coloring looked almost too beautiful to be human. Dr. Dean did not reply for a moment; he was thinking what a singular resemblance there was between Armand Gervase and one of the figures on a certain Egyptian fresco in the British Museum. “Enjoying--er--er--a what?--a moonlight stroll? Exactly--er--yes! Pardon me, Princess, my mind often wanders, and I am afraid I am getting a little deaf as well. Yes, I find the night singularly conducive to meditation; one cannot be in a land like this under a sky like this”--and he pointed to the shining heaven--“without recalling the great histories of the past.” “I daresay they were very much like the histories of the present,” said Gervase smiling. “I should doubt that. History is what man makes it; and the character of man in the early days of civilization was, I think, more forceful, more earnest, more strong of purpose, more bent on great achievements.” “The principal achievement and glory being to kill as many of one’s fellow-creatures as possible!” laughed Gervase--“Like the famous warrior, Araxes, of whom the Princess has just been telling me!” “Araxes was great, but now Araxes is a forgotten hero,” said the Princess slowly, each accent of her dulcet voice chiming on the ear like the stroke of a small silver bell. “None of the modern discoverers know anything about him yet. They have not even found his tomb; but he was buried in the Pyramids with all the honors of a king. No doubt your clever men will excavate him some day.”