"And I assure you with equal sincerity that it is all a delusion," he replied. "You must have dreamed the whole thing. Now I come to think of it, I do remember that you said something about a vision which I enabled you to see. Perhaps, as your memory is so keen on the subject, you may be able to give me some idea of its nature."
I accordingly described what I had seen. From the way he hung upon my words it was evident that the subject interested him more than he cared to confess. Indeed, when I had finished he gave a little gasp that was plainly one of relief, though why he should have been so I could not understand.
"And the man you saw coming through the crowd, this Ptahmes, what was he like? Did you recognise him? Should you know his face again?"
"I scarcely know how to tell you," I answered diffidently, a doubt as to whether I had really seen the vision I had described coming over me for the first time, now that I was brought face to face with the assertion I was about to make. "It seems so impossible, and I am weak enough to feel that I should not like you to think I am jesting. The truth of the matter is, the face of the disgraced Magician was none other than your own. You were Ptahmes, the man who walked with his face covered with his mantle, and before whom the crowd drew back as if they feared him, and yet hated him the more because they did so."
"The slaves, the craven curs!" muttered Pharos fiercely to himself, suddenly oblivious to my presence, his sunken eyes looking out across the water, but I am convinced seeing nothing. "So long as he was successful they sang his praises through the city, but when he failed and was cast out from before Pharaoh, there were only six in all the country brave enough to declare themselves his friends."
Then recollecting himself he turned to me, and with one of his peculiar laughs, to which I had by this time grown accustomed, he continued: "But there, if I talk like this you will begin to imagine that I really have some association with my long-deceased relative, the man of whom we are speaking, and whose mummy is in the cabin yonder. Your account of the vision, if by that name you still persist in calling it, is extremely interesting, and goes another step toward proving how liable the human brain is, under stress of great excitement, to seize upon the most unlikely stories, and even to invest them with the necessary mise-en-scène. Now I'll be bound you could reproduce the whole picture, were such a thing necessary—the buildings, the chariots, the dresses, nay even the very faces of the crowd."
"I am quite sure I could," I answered, filled with sudden excitement at the idea, "and what is more I will do so. So vivid was the impression it made upon my mind that not a detail has escaped my memory. Indeed, I really believe that it will be found that a large proportion of the things I saw then I had never seen or heard of before. This, I think, should go some way toward proving that my story is not the fallacy you suppose."
"You mistake me, my dear Forrester," he hastened to reply. "I do not go so far as to declare it to be altogether a fallacy; I simply say that what you think you saw must have been the effect of the fright you received in the Pyramid. But your idea of painting the picture is distinctly a good one, and I shall look forward with pleasure to giving you my opinion upon it when it is finished. As you are well aware, I am a fair Egyptologist, and I have no doubt I shall be able to detect any error in the composition, should one exist."
"I will obtain my materials from my cabin, and set to work at once," I said, rising from my chair, "and when I have finished you shall certainly give me your opinion on it."
As on a similar occasion already described, under the influence of my enthusiasm, the feeling of animosity I usually entertained toward him left me entirely. I went to my cabin, found the things I wanted, and returned with them to the deck. When I reached it I found the Fräulein Valerie there. She was dressed in white from head to foot, and was slowly fanning herself with the same large ostrich-feather fan which I remembered to have seen her vising on that eventful night when I had dined with Pharos in Naples. Her left hand was hanging by her side, and as I greeted her and reseated myself in my chair, I could not help noticing its exquisite proportions.