Robert gazed around, speechless with surprise, and finally turned upon his host a face in which curiosity was not un-mixed with a suspicion of fear.
"People have been burned for less, have they not ?" cried Raffles Haw laughing heartily.

"Have you had enough of the Amazon?
What do you say to a spell of Egypt ?" Again the whirr, the swift flash of passing objects, and in an instant a huge desert stretched on every side of them, as far as the eye could reach.

In the foreground a clump of five palm-trees towered into the air, with a profusion of rough cactus-like plants bristling from their base.

On the other side rose a rugged, gnarled, grey monolith, carved at the base into a huge scarabaeus.

A group of lizards played about on the surface of the old carved stone.