“I can quite enter into your feelings, my dear boy!” he said. “And do you know, I’m not sure that it would not be a good thing if you were to shoot me dead! My life is of no particular value to anybody,—certainly not to myself; and I begin to think I’ve been always more or less of a failure. I have won fame, but I have missed—something—but upon my word, I don’t quite know what!”
He sighed heavily, then suddenly held out his hand.
“Denzil, the bitterest foes shake hands before fighting each other to the death, as we propose to do to-morrow; it is a civil custom and hurts no one. I should like to part kindly from you to-night!”
Denzil hesitated; then something stronger than himself made him yield to the impulsive note of strong emotion in his former friend’s voice, and the two men’s hands met in a momentary silent grasp. Then Denzil turned quickly away.
“To-morrow morning at six,” he said, briefly; “close to the Sphinx.”
“Good!” responded Gervase. “The Sphinx shall second us both and see fair play. Good-night, Denzil!”
“Good-night!” responded Denzil, coldly, as he moved on and disappeared.
A slight shiver ran through Gervase’s blood as he watched him depart.
“Odd that I should imagine I have seen the last of him!” he murmured. “There are strange portents in the air of the desert, I suppose! Is he going to his death? Or am I going to mine?”
Again the cold tremor shook him, and combating with his uneasy sensations, he went to his own apartment, there to await the expected summons of the Princess. No triumph filled him now; no sense of joy elated him; a vague fear and dull foreboding were all the emotions he was conscious of. Even his impatient desire of love had cooled, and he watched the darkening of night over the desert, and the stars shining out one by one in the black azure of the heavens, with a gradually deepening depression. A dreamy sense stole over him of remoteness or detachment from all visible things, as though he were suddenly and mysteriously separated from the rest of humankind by an invisible force which he was powerless to resist. He was still lost in this vague half-torpor or semi-conscious reverie, when a light tap startled him back to the realization of earth and his earthly surroundings. In response to his “Entrez!” the tall Nubian, whom he had seen in Cairo as the guardian of the Princess’s household, appeared, his repulsive features looking, if anything, more ghastly and hideous than ever.