In little groups the tourists of the evening have disappeared; to regain perhaps the neighbouring hotel, where the orchestra doubtless has not ceased to rage; or may be, remounting their cars, to join, in some club of Cairo, one of those bridge parties, in which the really superior intellects of our time delight; some--the stouthearted ones--departed talking loudly and with cigar in mouth; others, however, daunted in spite of themselves, lowered their voices as people instinctively do in church.

And the Bedouin guides, who a moment ago seemed to flutter about the giant monument like so many black moths--they too have gone, made restless by the cold air, which erstwhile they had not known.

The show for to-night is over, and everywhere silence reigns.
The rosy tint fades on the Sphinx and the pyramids; all things in the ghostly scene grow visibly paler; for the moon as it rises becomes more silvery in the increasing chilliness of midnight.

The winter mist, exhaled from the artificially watered fields below, continues to rise, takes heart and envelops the great mute face itself.

And the latter persists in its regard of the dead moon, preserving still the old disconcerting smile.