"I remember nothing of it," she said. "But why do you ask me such strange questions?"
I took her hand before I answered. I could feel that she was trembling violently.
"Because I want to prove to you the diabolical power the man possesses. You described a tomb from which the mummy had been taken. I have seen that tomb. It was the burial place of the Magician, Ptahmes, whose mummy once stood in my studio in London, which Pharos stole from me, and which was the primary cause of my becoming associated with him. You described a subterranean hall with carved pillars and paintings on the walls, and a mummy lying upon a block of stone. I have seen that hall, those pillars, those carvings and paintings, and the mummy of Ptahmes lying stretched out as you portrayed it. You mentioned a tent in the desert and a sick man lying on a bed inside it. I was that sick man, and it was to that tent that Pharos conveyed me after I had spent the night in the ruins of the Temple of Ammon. The last incident has yet to take place, but, please God, if you will help me in my plan, we shall have done with him long before then."
"You say you saw all the things I described. Please do not think me stupid, but I do not understand how you could have done so."
Thereupon I told her all that had befallen me at the ruins of Karnak. She listened with feverish interest.
"How is it that Providence allows this man to live?" she cried when I had finished. "Who is he and what is the terrible power he possesses? And what is to be the end of all his evil ways?"
"That is a problem which only the future can solve," I answered. "For ourselves it is sufficient that we must get away from him and at once. Nothing could be easier, he exercises no control over our movements. He does not attempt to detain us. We go in and out as we please, therefore all we have to do is to get into a train and be hundreds of miles away before he is even aware that we are outside the doors of the hotel. You are not afraid, Valerie, to trust yourself and your happiness to me?"
"I would trust myself with you anywhere," she answered, and as she said it she pressed my hand and looked into my face with her brave sweet eyes. "And for your sake I would do and bear anything."