“No; I jumped after you.  It seemed best to end together, so that we might begin again together.”

“Brave old Horace!” he said affectionately, the tears starting to his grey eyes.

“Well, never mind all that,” I broke in; “you see you were right when you said that we should get through, and we have.  Now for your tale.”

“It is interesting, but not very long,” he answered, colouring.  “I went to sleep, and when I woke it was to find a beautiful woman leaning over me, and Horace—­at first I thought that it was—­you know who, and that she kissed me; but perhaps it was all a dream.”

“It was no dream,” I answered.  “I saw it.”

“I am sorry to hear it—­very sorry.  At any rate there was the beautiful woman—­the Khania—­for I saw her plenty of times afterwards, and talked to her in my best modern Greek—­by the way, Ayesha knew the old Greek; that’s curious.”

“She knew several of the ancient tongues, and so did other people.  Go on.”

“Well, she nursed me very kindly, but, so far as I know, until last night there was nothing more affectionate, and I had sense enough to refuse to talk about our somewhat eventful past.  I pretended not to understand, said that we were explorers, etc., and kept asking her where you were, for I forgot to say I found that you had gone.  I think that she grew rather angry with me, for she wanted to know something, and, as you can guess, I wanted to know a good deal.  But I could get nothing out of her except that she was the Khania—­a person in authority.  There was no doubt about that, for when one of those slaves or servants came in and interrupted her while she was trying to draw the facts out of me, she called to some of her people to throw him out of the window, and he only saved himself by going down the stairs very quickly.

“Well, I could make nothing of her, and she could make little of me, though why she should be so tenderly interested in a stranger, I don’t know—­unless, unless—­oh! who is she, Horace?”

“If you will go on I will tell you what I think presently.  One tale at a time.”

“Very good.  I got quite well and strong, comparatively speaking, till the climax last night, which upset me again.  After that old prophet, Simbri, had brought me my supper, just as I was thinking of going to sleep, the Khania came in alone, dressed like a queen.  I can tell you she looked really royal, like a princess in a fairy book, with a crown on, and her chestnut black hair flowing round her.

“Well, Horace, then she began to make love to me in a refined sort of way, or so I thought, looked at me and sighed, saying that we had known each other in the past—­very well indeed I gathered—­and implying that she wished to continue our friendship.  I fenced with her as best I could; but a man feels fairly helpless lying on his back with a very handsome and very imperial-looking lady standing over him and paying him compliments.