The Cairo bazaar pursuit turns a seemingly chance encounter into an immediate flight: a fortune-teller’s prophecy gives shape to Theodosia’s unease, and the men who appear moments later reveal that the danger is not merely imagined. Theodosia and Nabir escape through the streets and onto an electric tram, but the journey to Giza only changes the setting of the chase. As the tram pulls away there, Theodosia recognizes von Braggenschnott and Tetley among the pursuers.

A warning in the bazaar

The encounter begins with the fortune-teller offering to read Theodosia’s future for free because, she says through Nabir’s translation, Theodosia is marked by the gods. The words thrill her, though she cannot tell whether the feeling is fear or excitement. The fortune-teller shakes a small black bag and spills its contents onto the dirt: shells, bits of wood, and what appear to be bones. The scene’s ordinary, tangible objects give way to a startlingly personal prediction.

As the fortune-teller’s eyes glaze, she speaks rapidly in accented English. Her message gathers several dangers and reassurances together: chaos follows Theodosia like a jackal, but Isis’s thumbprint glows on her forehead and Isis will protect her. She is told to look to the ancients for help; then the woman’s eyes widen and she whispers that they are coming. The prediction does not name the approaching men, but its final warning immediately acquires a visible counterpart.

Theodosia has already felt unusually alert throughout the morning and has sometimes suspected she was being watched. She had explained those impressions away as the curiosity of Cairo’s merchants, just as she had attributed her heightened senses to being in a land of antiquity. The fortune-teller’s warning overturns that comfortable explanation. Theodosia backs away from the doorway, half expecting to see giant serpents in the street, but the threat takes human form instead.

Flight through Cairo

Three men advance without stopping to inspect the shops. Their black, billowing robes and the turbans and scarves covering the lower halves of their faces disguise them, but their movement draws Theodosia’s attention: they walk stiffly, unlike the fluid, graceful movement she has observed among the people around them. Their fair skin offers another clue that they do not belong among the local passersby. Theodosia tells Nabir that the fortune-teller is not joking, turns, and runs.

She weaves between stalls and people, dodges a heavily laden donkey, and narrowly avoids a rolled-up carpet protruding from a stall. In the urgency of the escape, she thinks of Will, who would have known what to do, and calls to Nabir for a safe place. He suggests a mosque, but Theodosia rejects the idea after recalling Stokes trying to claim sanctuary at St Paul's churchyard. The thought does not establish that the two situations are identical; it shows that her immediate calculation is shaped by the earlier danger and by her distrust of sanctuary as reliable protection.

A tramway station offers another option. Theodosia plunges into the waiting crowd, pushing into its middle in the hope of hiding from the men. Only then does she realize that the crowd is a line for an electric tram. Nabir skirts its edge while the pursuers reach the station, look around in confusion, and spread out after one of them gives an order. The crowd is both cover and a force that carries Theodosia forward: she is swept along with it, while Nabir must keep to its margin. Their escape depends not on defeating the men but on using the movement and density of the city to break their direct pursuit.

An unexpected journey to Giza

The tram takes Theodosia and Nabir to Giza, where the Great Pyramids rise into view. The destination is fortunate in an unexpected way: Theodosia had hoped to see them while she was in Cairo. For the moment, she is safe, and the pursuit briefly gives way to wonder as the three pyramids on the horizon grow larger during the journey.

After getting off, Theodosia is almost reluctant to continue. The scale and age of the monuments humble her; mesmerized, she walks to the edge of the desert and climbs a sandy slope until the pyramid towers over her. The scene places the ancient world invoked by the fortune-teller directly before her, but it also interrupts rather than resolves the chase. The same journey that carries Theodosia toward a long-desired sight has taken her away from Cairo without ensuring that her pursuers have been left behind.

Recognition as the tram departs

The danger becomes immediate again near the tram station. An electric tram is just beginning to pull away toward Cairo, and Theodosia realizes that missing it would leave her and Nabir exposed. Nabir runs ahead, leaps aboard despite upsetting other passengers, and reaches back to help Theodosia climb on. She follows, apologizing to the people she has disturbed. Their departure is hurried and awkward, but it gets them moving before the pursuing men can close the distance.

As the tram pulls away, Theodosia can see the men clearly enough to identify two of them. One is von Braggenschnott, whom she recognizes from his newspaper picture and from the cold eyes she remembers at St Paul's churchyard. Another has uncovered his face: Theodosia recognizes Tetley, whom she knows from the British Museum, by his pale cheekbones, long, slightly crooked nose, and conspicuous lack of a chin. The third man remains unidentified in this encounter. The recognition transforms the chase from a threatening but anonymous pursuit into a conflict involving adversaries Theodosia has met before. Her escape aboard the tram buys distance, not certainty or safety; the story moves directly toward the next leg of the pursuit.