“I trust not,” replied our host gravely. “I sleep quite close to you across the landing,” he whispered, pointing to his door, “and if you—if you want anything in the night you will know where to find me.”
He wished us pleasant dreams and disappeared down the passage into his room, shading the candle with his big muscular hand from the draughts.
John Silence stopped me a moment before I went.
“You know what it is?” I asked, with an excitement that even overcame my weariness.
“Yes,” he said, “I’m almost sure. And you?”
“Not the smallest notion.”
He looked disappointed, but not half as disappointed as I felt.
“Egypt,” he whispered, “Egypt!”
II
Nothing happened to disturb me in the night—nothing, that is, except a nightmare in which Colonel Wragge chased me amid thin streaks of fire, and his sister always prevented my escape by suddenly rising up out of the ground in her chair—dead. The deep baying of dogs woke me once, just before the dawn, it must have been, for I saw the window frame against the sky; there was a flash of lightning, too, I thought, as I turned over in bed. And it was warm, for October oppressively warm.