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ST. NICHOLAS

THE LAND OF MYSTERY

BY CLEVELAND MOFFETT

Author of “Careers of Danger and Daring,” “Through the Wall,” “The Battle,” etc.

Charter I

A HOUSE WITHOUT A WINDOW

Through the purple stillness of the night, in the strangest spot on earth, a boy of sixteen and his mother sat on a ledge of grayish brown stone, watching the August moon as it sank redder and redder through a bank of early morning mist, there on the far horizon where the sea of sand met the sky. This ledge of stone, the lowest step of the Great Pyramid, was about as high as a dining-room table, and as long as two city blocks. It was hewn perfectly flat, top and side, save where the stone had crumbled. Two or three feet back of this ledge, rose the second step, exactly like the first, but a little shorter in length. And back of this rose another step, and then another, scores and scores of steps, tiering away upward in a huge mass that narrowed and narrowed, until, far up against the velvet stars, it came to a dull point. This point, higher than the highest church steeple, was the meeting-place of the four steep, stone hills of steps that formed the four faces of this wonderful pyramid.

“Mother, look!” cried the boy, and he pointed up to a band of opalescent color that had sud-denly settled, like a flashing jewel, upon the top-most tip of the world-famous tomb of Cheops.

“Yes, dear,” said the woman, softly. “It’s the dawn. I want you to remember this as long as you live, Harold. There are n’t many American boys who can say that they have sat at the foot of the Great Pyramid and watched the moon set and the sun rise. Look there—toward Cairo!”

She rose and turned to the east, where the delicate pink and purple tints of breaking day formed an exquisite background to the white domes and minarets of the distant city.

“Is n’t it beautiful! Is n’t it wonderful!” Mrs. Evans murmured, and her face shone transfigured. It was a face wherein was blended, with a high-bred American beauty, that strength and nobility of soul that come through fine, womanly achievement, and suffering bravely endured.

“Tell you what we ought to do, Mumsy,” suggested the boy in a matter-of-fact tone. “If you ’ll let me boost you up a few steps, we ‘ll get a corking view of good old Egypt and the good old river Nile, ‘drink her down, down, down.’ Only she looks awfully muddy to drink.”

“Harold, have you no reverence?” sighed the lady.

“Excuse me, Mother. You see, I ’m so glad to be off that wobbly steamer. Um-m! It ’s good to be on solid earth again! Besides, ] never met a pyramid before.” He laid his arm playfully on

Copyright, 1912, by The Century Co. All rights reserved.

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