We presented, indeed, a strange spectacle, for the mage, in his silvery swathings, held Leonora by the hands, and Leonora held me, as we raced through the gloom.
In any other city our aspect and demeanour had excited attention and claimed the interference of the authorities.
In Berlin Uhlans would have charged us, in Paris grape-shot would have ploughed through our ranks. Here they deemed we were but of the sacred race of Thought-readers, who, by a custom of the strange people, are permitted to run at random through the streets and even to enter private houses.
We were not even followed, in our headlong career, by a crowd, for the public had ceased to interest itself in frenzied research for hidden pins or concealed cigarettes.
After a frantic chase Jambres (late 'the Mage') paused, breathless, in front of a building of portentous proportions.
How it chanced I have never been able to understand, but, as I am a living and honourable woman, this hall had the characteristics of ancient Egyptian architecture, and that (miraculous as it may appear) in perfect preservation.
There are the hypostyle halls, the two Osirid pillars—colossal figures of strange gods, in coloured relief—there is the great blue scarab, the cartouche, the pschent, the pschutt, and all that we admire in the Rameseum of the Ancient Empire.
But all was silent, all was deserted; the vast adamantine portals were closed.
Jambres paused in dismay.
'Since I last gave an exhibition of mine art in those halls,' said he, '('twas in old forgotten days, in Bosco's palmy time), much is altered. Open sesame!' he cried; but, curious to say, nothing opened!