At the same "The next moment I was in the darkness. moment I must somehow have How I got up to the tomb at all I don't know, for the track our footsteps had made was blotted out by a new and perfectly level layer of sand. "Suddenly the top of the ridge appeared out of the gloom, and just beneath it the black entrance to the tomb. It looked much bigger and gaunter than usual. I thought I heard some one shouting, and stopped dead for a minute. Then I laughed at my fears, for it was only the wind wailing along the top of the ridge and down the small wadis, or the sand hitting the rocks. "In another moment I had passed into the tomb. It was darker than usual inside, and I cursed myself for not having brought my torch, as I groped about near the top of the shaft for my revolver. At last I found the sacrificial basin, and put my hand into it. The revolver had gone ! "Damn!' I muttered. 666 Who's there? Is there any one there? "My question was answered by a soft chuckle, as if some one was laughing to himself. At first it was subdued, and then gradually it swelled into insane laughter. "I admit that I was terrified by now. I was about to make for the dim light of the entrance when a figure sidled across it and barred my way. I knew at once that it was Stanhope. "Ah! so it's you?' I said "Yes, it's I,' he chuckled "Expecting me?' ... Been "Certainly. I wanted to "Thank you,' I managed to "But before I return it to you, my dear young friend,' he continued with a return of pleasantness, 'I want you to make acquaintance with the tomb-shaft. Charming pictures. And there's that interesting legend which you've never translated.' "I suggest another time,' I replied, trying to keep the fear out of my voice. 'You see, we haven't a light.' "Never mind about lights. You won't need a light when you get down there. A light! Ha ha ha! Splendid joke! ... But don't move,' he added in a harder tone as he saw me edge away from the shaft. 'I can see you plainly now. My eyes are accustomed to the darkness. And your revolver's loaded, mind.' "Indeed, he had it pointing at me. Gradually he advanced towards me. I stood rooted to the floor. In another second I felt his hand grasp my left shoulder with the fury of madness, so that his nails dug through my shirt to the skin, and, what was infinitely more horrible, I felt the coldness of steel over my heart. "Now,' he muttered, his breath playing into my face, 'I'm going to push you down the tomb-shaft. Go on; move! I'll shoot you if you don't.' "I was mesmerised with fear. Gradually he pushed me backwards towards the shaft. "Here we are,' he said with mad exultation. 'Now be ready. I'm going to give you a final push. You've got a fifty-feet drop, and then Amen-hotep can deal with you.' 66 6 Where the bloody hell has the boy got to?' "I thought he must be reloading, and looked up to see an electric torch probing into the corners. I knew that it was Abdul from the speed with which it was used. "Suddenly it lit on Stanhope's figure. "There he is,' I shouted to Abdul. 'Push him down the tomb-shaft.' "At that moment the instinct of self-preservation was too great for me, and though I believe now that I saw a sudden return of sanity, a sudden deep remorse on Stanhope's face in the momentary glow of the light as he turned towards it, I never stayed my command. Again and again I ask myself now, Was he sane at that ONE opinion as regards Cyprus is common to the medieval French pilgrim, whose phrase gives a title to these pages, and to Euripides and his translator, Gilbert Murray. Cyprus set in the sea is indeed a sweet land This "Where the rainless meadows smile the island that culminates in Mount Troodos or Olympus ! On their peaks and slopes and among their valleys there is scenery which, I maintain, cannot be surpassed elsewhere in colour, in romantic outline, in fragrance of vegetation. Although they are small when With riches rolled from the hundred- compared with the great ranges fold Mouths of the far-off Nile,” a fit dwelling-place for the Muses, a land meet to have given birth to laughter-loving Aphrodite. But while the meadows smile, the meadows which merge into the great central plain of the island, the Mesaoria, the “Land between the Mountains," what of the mountains themselves, the long serrated Kyrenia range which is the northern edge of Cyprus, and the more massive range in the south-western part of of the world, I claim for the mountains of Cyprus that they contain and are bounded by all that is most perfect in mountain-land and forest, sea and sky. Leaving aside the towns and the Mesaoria, I would take the reader through the forest and hill country of Cyprus, beginning at Cape Andreas, the island's eastern extremity, then working westwards through the Karpass peninsula and the Kyrenia range to the Bay of Morphou; thence fetching a circuit, which will embrace the but scarcely diminishing beauty Troodos forests and the peninsula of Akámas, rich in legend, to Paphos, beloved of Aphrodite. The time of year is early spring early spring in Cyprus, be it understood,-namely, February, the month when the mountain streams come tumbling down the hillsides in full spate, when the oleander that fringes their banks is bursting into bloom, when in the foothills and plains the shy little winter narcissus is being replaced by the larger variety, when the woods and mountainsides are pink with cyclamen. At this time it is a delight to be about in Cyprus, to live green days" in her forests and "blue days" by her shores; to wander with tent and mule among the more recondite beauty spots of an island of many beauties. The Karpass, that long and narrow peninsula which, projecting for forty miles beyond the rest of Cyprus, points like an index-finger at the Gulf of Alexandretta, is then blossoming out after the winter rains. From its base by the juniper forest of Vallia to its tip at Cape Andreas and its outposts, the Kleides Islands, it is a little paradise of undulating green, with hues that range from the tender colour of the young barley through the silvery gleam of the olive to the deeper tones of the mulberries in its plains and the cypresses on its hills. Its hills are the eastern continuation and end of the Kyrenia range, running with diminishing height VOL. CCXI.-NO. MCCLXXVIII. to Land's End, which is the monastery of the Apostle Andrew, the islanders' favourite place of pilgrimage. Isolated from the rest of Cyprus by its remote situation, and containing, perhaps, among its population traces of Crusading stock, the Karpass, at one time the senior fief of feudal Cyprus, still differs from other parts of the island in its distinctive costume, distinctive customs, and a distinctive physical type: the Karpasitoi are without doubt the handsomest of the inhabitants of Cyprus, their clothes the most picturesque, their villages the neatest and most prosperous-looking. Riding westward from the monastery, past the principal village of the peninsula, the scattered Rhizo Karpass, past Yialousa gleaming on the northern coast, past ample Heptakomé, we arrive at the first real eminences of the Kyrenia Mountains and at the first of the castles of the Lusignan Kings of Cyprus, which cling with astounding picturesqueness to their steepest and loftiest crags. There are three of these castles on the summits of the northern range, vying with one another in beauty and boldness of site; and between them nestle, unsuspected from below, such fairy-like spots as Khalevga and the forest of Qartal Dagh. And the names are almost as beautiful as the places. The most easterly of the castles, thickly overgrown by the spreading cypress pecu 8 |