“Onward above the marshes, and now we stood upon the Ethiopian’s Head, and gathered round, watching us earnestly, were the faces of the Arabs, our companions who drowned in the sea beneath.  Job was among them also, and he smiled at me sadly and shook his head, as though he wished to accompany us and could not.

“Across the sea again, across the sandy deserts, across more sea, and the shores of India lay beneath us.  Then northward, ever northward, above the plains, till we reached a place of mountains capped with eternal snow.  We passed them and stayed for an instant above a building set upon the brow of a plateau.  It was a monastery, for old monks droned prayers upon its terrace.  I shall know it again, for it is built in the shape of a half-moon and in front of it sits the gigantic, ruined statue of a god who gazes everlastingly across the desert.  I knew, how I cannot say, that now we were far past the furthest borders of Thibet and that in front of us lay untrodden lands.  More mountains stretched beyond that desert, a sea of snowy peaks, hundreds and hundreds of them.

“Near to the monastery, jutting out into the plain like some rocky headland, rose a solitary hill, higher than all behind.  We stood upon its snowy crest and waited, till presently, above the mountains and the desert at our feet shot a sudden beam of light that beat upon us like some signal flashed across the sea.  On we went, floating down the beam—­on over the desert and the mountains, across a great flat land beyond, in which were many villages and a city on a mound, till we lit upon a towering peak.  Then I saw that this peak was loop-shaped like the symbol of Life of the Egyptians—­the crux-ansata—­and supported by a lava stem hundreds of feet in height.  Also I saw that the fire which shone through it rose from the crater of a volcano beyond.  Upon the very crest of this loop we rested a while, till the Shadow of Ayesha pointed downward with its hand, smiled and vanished.  Then I awoke.

“Horace, I tell you that the sign has come to us.”

His voice died away in the darkness, but I sat still, brooding over what I had heard.  Leo groped his way to me and, seizing my arm, shook it.

“Are you asleep?” he asked angrily.  “Speak, man, speak!”

“No,” I answered, “never was I more awake.  Give me time.”

Then I rose, and going to the open window, drew up the blind and stood there staring at the sky, which grew pearl-hued with the first faint tinge of dawn.  Leo came also and leant upon the window-sill, and I could feel that his body was trembling as though with cold.  Clearly he was much moved.

“You talk of a sign,” I said to him, “but in your sign I see nothing but a wild dream.”

“It was no dream,” he broke in fiercely; “it was a vision.”