This ring, which had a coat of arms cut upon its
bezel seemed to interest her very much as she examined it for a long
while. Then she drew off from her own finger another ring of gold
fashioned of two snakes curiously intertwined, and gently, so gently
that in his sleep he scarcely felt it, slipped it on to his finger above
Barbara's ring.
After this she seemed to vanish away, and Alan slept soundly until the
morning, when he awoke to find the light of the sun pouring into the
room through the high-set latticed window places.
CHAPTER XI
THE HALL OF THE DEAD
Alan rose and stretched himself, and hearing him, Jeekie, who had a
dog's faculty of instantly awaking from what seemed to be the deepest
sleep, sat up also.
"You rest well, Major? No dream, eh?" he asked curiously.
"Not very," answered Alan, "and I had a dream, of a woman who stood over
me and vanished away, as dreams do."
"Ah!" said Jeekie. "But where you find that new ring on finger, Major?"
Alan stared at his hand and started, for there set on it above that of
Barbara, was the little circlet formed of twisted snakes which he had
seen in his sleep.
"Then it must have been true," he said in a low and rather frightened
voice.
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