I looked, and lo! everywhere the skeletons were rising from their sandy
beds. I saw their white skulls, their gleaming arm and leg bones, their
hollow ribs. The long-slain army had come to life again, and look! in
their hands were the ghosts of spears.
Of course I knew at once that this was but another manifestation of
Ayesha's magic powers, which some whim of hers had drawn us from our
beds to witness. Yet I confess that I felt frightened. Even the boldest
of men, however free from superstition, might be excused should their
nerve fail them if, when standing in a churchyard at midnight, suddenly
on every side they saw the dead arising from their graves. Also our
surroundings were wilder and more eerie than those of any civilized
burying-place.
"What new devilment of thine is this?" cried Leo in a scared and angry
voice. But Ayesha made no answer. I heard a noise behind me and looked
round. The skeletons were springing upon our body-guard, who for their
part, poor men, paralysed with terror, had thrown down their weapons and
fallen, some of them, to their knees. Now the ghosts began to stab at
them with their phantom spears, and I saw that beneath the blows they
rolled over. The veiled figure above me pointed with her hand at Leo and
said--"Seize him, but I charge you, harm him not."
I knew the voice; _it was that of Atene!_
Then too late I understood the trap into which we had fallen.
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