'Do you know that as a fact?'

'Excuse me, but do you know it as a fact?--Are you aware that youare treating me as if I was on the witness stand?--Have you anyspecial purpose in making these inquiries?'

He chuckled.

'In a kind of a way I have. I have recently come across rather acurious story; I am trying to get to the bottom of it.'

'What is the tale?'

'I am afraid that at present I am not at liberty to tell it you;when I am I will. You will find it interesting,--as an instance ofa singular survival.--Didn't the followers of Isis believe intransmigration?'

'Some of them,--no doubt.'

'What did they comprehend by transmigration?'

'Transmigration.'

'Yes,--but of the soul or of the body?'

'How do you mean?--transmigration is transmigration. Are youdriving at something in particular? If you'll tell me fairly andsquarely what it is I'll do my best to give you the informationyou require; as it is, your questions are a bit perplexing.'

'0h, it doesn't matter,--as you say, "transmigration istransmigration."' I always was eyeing him keenly; I seemed to detect inhis manner an odd reluctance to enlarge on the subject he himselfhad started. He continued to trifle with the retort upon thetable. 'Hadn't the followers of Isis a--what shall I say?--asacblack emblem?'

'How?'

'Hadn't they an especial regard for some sort of a--wasn't it somesort of a--beetle?'

'You mean Scarabaeus sacer,--according to Latreille, ScarabaeusEgyptiorum? Undoubtedly,--the scarab was venerated throughoutEgypt,--indeed, speaking generally, most things that had life, forinstance, felines; as you know, 0risis continued among men in thefigure of Apis, the bull.'

'Weren't the priests of Isis--or some of them--supposed to assume,after death, the form of a--scarabaeus?'