as i lay my couch weak and weary the priest of came to my chamber he stood in the circle of the and he looked down upon me with eyes which were bright with a mad joy a why did you let the maiden die he asked why did you not strengthen her as you strengthened me r was too late i answered but i had forgot you also loved her you are my fellow in misfortune is it not terrible to think of the centuries which must pass ere we look upon her again fools fools that we were to take death to be our enemy o the ring of you may say that he cried with a wild laugh the words come well from your lips for me they have no meaning what mean you i cried raising myself upon my elbow surely friend this grief has turned your brain his face was with joy and he and shook like one who hath a devil do you know whither i go he asked nay i answered i cannot tell i go to her said he she lies in the further tomb by the double palm tree beyond the city wall � why do you go there i asked to die i he shrieked to die i am not bound by but the is in your blood i cried i can defy it said he i have found a stronger principle which will destroy it it is working in my veins at this moment and in an hour i shall be a dead man i shall join her and you shall remain behind as i looked upon him i could see that he of truth the light in his eye told me that he was indeed beyond the power of the you will teach me i cried never he answered i you by the wisdom of by the majesty of it is useless he said coldly then i will find it out i cried you cannot he answered it came to me by the ring of chance there is one which you can never get save that which is in the ring of none will ever more be made in the ring of repeated where then is the ring of that also you shall never know he answered you won her love who has won in the end i leave you to your sordid earth life my chains are broken i must go i he turned upon his heel and fled from the chamber in the morning came the news that the priest of was dead my days after that were spent in study i must find this subtle poison which was strong enough to undo the from early dawn to midnight i bent over the test and the furnace above all i collected the and the of the priest of alas i they taught me little here and there some hint or stray expression would raise hope in my bosom but no good ever came of it still month after month i struggled on when my heart grew faint i would make my way to the tomb by the palm trees there standing by the dead from which the jewel had been i would feel her sweet presence and would whisper to her that i would her if mortal wit could solve the riddle had said that his discovery was connected with the ring of had some remembrance of the it was a large and made not of gold but of a and heavier metal brought from the mines of mount you call the ring of it the ring had i remembered a hollow crystal set in it in which some few drops of liquid might be stored now the secret of could not have to do with the metal alone for there were m ny rings of that metal in the temple was it not more likely that he had stored his precious poison within the of the crystal i had scarce come to this before in hunting through his papers i came upon one which told me that it was indeed so and that there was still some of the liquid unused but how to find the ring it was not upon him when he was stripped for the of that i made sure neither was it among his private effects in vain i searched every room that he had entered every box and and that he had owned i the very sand of the desert in the places where he had been wont to walk but do what i would i could come upon no traces of the ring of yet it may be that my labours would have overcome all obstacles had it not been for a new and for misfortune a great war had been against the and the captains of the great king had been cut off in the desert with all their and the shepherd tribes were upon us like the in a dry year from the wilderness of to the great bitter lake th re was blood by day and fire by night was the of egypt but we could not keep the savages back the city fell the governor and the the ring op r soldiers were put to the sword and i with many more was led away into for years land years i tended cattle in the great plains by the my master died and his son grew old but i was still as far from death as ever at last i escaped upon a swift and made my way back to egypt the had settled in the land which they had conquered and their own king ruled over the country had been torn down the city had been burned and of the great temple there was nothing left save an mound everywhere the had been and the monuments destroyed of my s grave no sign was 