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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Jewel of Seven Stars, by Bram Stoker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Jewel of Seven Stars
+
+Author: Bram Stoker
+
+Release Date: February 1, 2003 [eBook #3781]
+[Most recently updated: October 6, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Sue Asscher. HTML version by Al Haines.
+Revised by Richard Tonsing.
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JEWEL OF SEVEN STARS ***
+
+
+
+
+The Jewel of Seven Stars
+
+
+by
+
+Bram Stoker
+
+
+
+
+To Eleanor and Constance Hoyt
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+     I  A Summons in the Night
+    II  Strange Instructions
+   III  The Watchers
+    IV  The Second Attempt
+     V  More Strange Instructions
+    VI  Suspicions
+   VII  The Traveller’s Loss
+  VIII  The Finding of the Lamps
+    IX  The Need of Knowledge
+     X  The Valley of the Sorcerer
+    XI  A Queen’s Tomb
+   XII  The Magic Coffer
+  XIII  Awaking From the Trance
+   XIV  The Birth-Mark
+    XV  The Purpose of Queen Tera
+   XVI  The Cavern
+  XVII  Doubts and Fears
+ XVIII  The Lesson of the “Ka”
+   XIX  The Great Experiment
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+A Summons in the Night
+
+
+It all seemed so real that I could hardly imagine that it had ever
+occurred before; and yet each episode came, not as a fresh step in the
+logic of things, but as something expected.  It is in such a wise that
+memory plays its pranks for good or ill; for pleasure or pain; for weal
+or woe.  It is thus that life is bittersweet, and that which has been
+done becomes eternal.
+
+Again, the light skiff, ceasing to shoot through the lazy water as when
+the oars flashed and dripped, glided out of the fierce July sunlight
+into the cool shade of the great drooping willow branches—I standing
+up in the swaying boat, she sitting still and with deft fingers
+guarding herself from stray twigs or the freedom of the resilience of
+moving boughs.  Again, the water looked golden-brown under the canopy
+of translucent green; and the grassy bank was of emerald hue.  Again,
+we sat in the cool shade, with the myriad noises of nature both without
+and within our bower merging into that drowsy hum in whose sufficing
+environment the great world with its disturbing trouble, and its more
+disturbing joys, can be effectually forgotten.  Again, in that blissful
+solitude the young girl lost the convention of her prim, narrow
+upbringing, and told me in a natural, dreamy way of the loneliness of
+her new life. With an undertone of sadness she made me feel how in that
+spacious home each one of the household was isolated by the personal
+magnificence of her father and herself; that there confidence had no
+altar, and sympathy no shrine; and that there even her father’s face
+was as distant as the old country life seemed now.  Once more, the
+wisdom of my manhood and the experience of my years laid themselves at
+the girl’s feet.  It was seemingly their own doing; for the individual
+“I” had no say in the matter, but only just obeyed imperative orders.
+And once again the flying seconds multiplied themselves endlessly.  For
+it is in the arcana of dreams that existences merge and renew
+themselves, change and yet keep the same—like the soul of a musician
+in a fugue.  And so memory swooned, again and again, in sleep.
+
+It seems that there is never to be any perfect rest.  Even in Eden the
+snake rears its head among the laden boughs of the Tree of Knowledge.
+The silence of the dreamless night is broken by the roar of the
+avalanche; the hissing of sudden floods; the clanging of the engine
+bell marking its sweep through a sleeping American town; the clanking
+of distant paddles over the sea....  Whatever it is, it is breaking the
+charm of my Eden.  The canopy of greenery above us, starred with
+diamond-points of light, seems to quiver in the ceaseless beat of
+paddles; and the restless bell seems as though it would never cease....
+
+All at once the gates of Sleep were thrown wide open, and my waking
+ears took in the cause of the disturbing sounds.  Waking existence is
+prosaic enough—there was somebody knocking and ringing at someone’s
+street door.
+
+I was pretty well accustomed in my Jermyn Street chambers to passing
+sounds; usually I did not concern myself, sleeping or waking, with the
+doings, however noisy, of my neighbours.  But this noise was too
+continuous, too insistent, too imperative to be ignored.  There was
+some active intelligence behind that ceaseless sound; and some stress
+or need behind the intelligence.  I was not altogether selfish, and at
+the thought of someone’s need I was, without premeditation, out of bed.
+Instinctively I looked at my watch.  It was just three o’clock; there
+was a faint edging of grey round the green blind which darkened my
+room. It was evident that the knocking and ringing were at the door of
+our own house; and it was evident, too, that there was no one awake to
+answer the call.  I slipped on my dressing-gown and slippers, and went
+down to the hall door. When I opened it there stood a dapper groom,
+with one hand pressed unflinchingly on the electric bell whilst with
+the other he raised a ceaseless clangour with the knocker.  The instant
+he saw me the noise ceased; one hand went up instinctively to the brim
+of his hat, and the other produced a letter from his pocket.  A neat
+brougham was opposite the door, the horses were breathing heavily as
+though they had come fast.  A policeman, with his night lantern still
+alight at his belt, stood by, attracted to the spot by the noise.
+
+“Beg pardon, sir, I’m sorry for disturbing you, but my orders was
+imperative; I was not to lose a moment, but to knock and ring till
+someone came.  May I ask you, sir, if Mr. Malcolm Ross lives here?”
+
+“I am Mr. Malcolm Ross.”
+
+“Then this letter is for you, sir, and the bro’am is for you too, sir!”
+
+I took, with a strange curiosity, the letter which he handed to me.  As
+a barrister I had had, of course, odd experiences now and then,
+including sudden demands upon my time; but never anything like this.  I
+stepped back into the hall, closing the door to, but leaving it ajar;
+then I switched on the electric light.  The letter was directed in a
+strange hand, a woman’s.  It began at once without “dear sir” or any
+such address:
+
+“You said you would like to help me if I needed it; and I believe you
+meant what you said.  The time has come sooner than I expected.  I am
+in dreadful trouble, and do not know where to turn, or to whom to
+apply. An attempt has, I fear, been made to murder my Father; though,
+thank God, he still lives.  But he is quite unconscious. The doctors
+and police have been sent for; but there is no one here whom I can
+depend on.  Come at once if you are able to; and forgive me if you can.
+I suppose I shall realise later what I have done in asking such a
+favour; but at present I cannot think.  Come!  Come at once! MARGARET
+TRELAWNY.”
+
+Pain and exultation struggled in my mind as I read; but the mastering
+thought was that she was in trouble and had called on me—me!  My
+dreaming of her, then, was not altogether without a cause.  I called
+out to the groom:
+
+“Wait!  I shall be with you in a minute!”  Then I flew upstairs.
+
+A very few minutes sufficed to wash and dress; and we were soon driving
+through the streets as fast as the horses could go.  It was market
+morning, and when we got out on Piccadilly there was an endless stream
+of carts coming from the west; but for the rest the roadway was clear,
+and we went quickly.  I had told the groom to come into the brougham
+with me so that he could tell me what had happened as we went along.
+He sat awkwardly, with his hat on his knees as he spoke.
+
+“Miss Trelawny, sir, sent a man to tell us to get out a carriage at
+once; and when we was ready she come herself and gave me the letter and
+told Morgan—the coachman, sir—to fly.  She said as I was to lose not
+a second, but to keep knocking till someone come.”
+
+“Yes, I know, I know—you told me!  What I want to know is, why she
+sent for me. What happened in the house?”
+
+“I don’t quite know myself, sir; except that master was found in his
+room senseless, with the sheets all bloody, and a wound on his head. He
+couldn’t be waked nohow. Twas Miss Trelawny herself as found him.”
+
+“How did she come to find him at such an hour?  It was late in the
+night, I suppose?”
+
+“I don’t know, sir; I didn’t hear nothing at all of the details.”
+
+As he could tell me no more, I stopped the carriage for a moment to let
+him get out on the box; then I turned the matter over in my mind as I
+sat alone.  There were many things which I could have asked the
+servant; and for a few moments after he had gone I was angry with
+myself for not having used my opportunity.  On second thought, however,
+I was glad the temptation was gone.  I felt that it would be more
+delicate to learn what I wanted to know of Miss Trelawny’s surroundings
+from herself, rather than from her servants.
+
+We bowled swiftly along Knightsbridge, the small noise of our
+well-appointed vehicle sounding hollowly in the morning air.  We turned
+up the Kensington Palace Road and presently stopped opposite a great
+house on the left-hand side, nearer, so far as I could judge, the
+Notting Hill than the Kensington end of the avenue.  It was a truly
+fine house, not only with regard to size but to architecture.  Even in
+the dim grey light of the morning, which tends to diminish the size of
+things, it looked big.
+
+Miss Trelawny met me in the hall.  She was not in any way shy.  She
+seemed to rule all around her with a sort of high-bred dominance, all
+the more remarkable as she was greatly agitated and as pale as snow.
+In the great hall were several servants, the men standing together near
+the hall door, and the women clinging together in the further corners
+and doorways.  A police superintendent had been talking to Miss
+Trelawny; two  men in uniform and one plain-clothes man stood near him.
+As she took my hand impulsively there was a look of relief in her eyes,
+and she gave a gentle sigh of relief.  Her salutation was simple.
+
+“I knew you would come!”
+
+The clasp of the hand can mean a great deal, even when it is not
+intended to mean anything especially.  Miss Trelawny’s hand somehow
+became lost in my own.  It was not that it was a small hand; it was
+fine and flexible, with long delicate fingers—a rare and beautiful
+hand; it was the unconscious self-surrender.  And though at the moment
+I could not dwell on the cause of the thrill which swept me, it came
+back to me later.
+
+She turned and said to the police superintendent:
+
+“This is Mr. Malcolm Ross.”  The police officer saluted as he answered:
+
+“I know Mr. Malcolm Ross, miss.  Perhaps he will remember I had the
+honour of working with him in the Brixton Coining case.”  I had not at
+first glance noticed who it was, my whole attention having been taken
+with Miss Trelawny.
+
+“Of course, Superintendent Dolan, I remember very well!” I said as we
+shook hands. I could not but note that the acquaintanceship seemed a
+relief to Miss Trelawny. There was a certain vague uneasiness in her
+manner which took my attention; instinctively I felt that it would be
+less embarrassing for her to speak with me alone. So I said to the
+Superintendent:
+
+“Perhaps it will be better if Miss Trelawny will see me alone for a few
+minutes.  You, of course, have already heard all she knows; and I shall
+understand better how things are if I may ask some questions.  I will
+then talk the matter over with you if I may.”
+
+“I shall be glad to be of what service I can, sir,” he answered
+heartily.
+
+Following Miss Trelawny, I moved over to a dainty room which opened
+from the hall and looked out on the garden at the back of the house.
+When we had entered and I had closed the door she said:
+
+“I will thank you later for your goodness in coming to me in my
+trouble; but at present you can best help me when you know the facts.”
+
+“Go on,” I said.  “Tell me all you know and spare no detail, however
+trivial it may at the present time seem to be.”  She went on at once:
+
+“I was awakened by some sound; I do not know what.  I only know that it
+came through my sleep; for all at once I found myself awake, with my
+heart beating wildly, listening anxiously for some sound from my
+Father’s room.  My room is next Father’s, and I can often hear him
+moving about before I fall asleep.  He works late at night, sometimes
+very late indeed; so that when I wake early, as I do occasionally, or
+in the grey of the dawn, I hear him still moving.  I tried once to
+remonstrate with him about staying up so late, as it cannot be good for
+him; but I never ventured to repeat the experiment.  You know how stern
+and cold he can be—at least you may remember what I told you about
+him; and when he is polite in this mood he is dreadful.  When he is
+angry I can bear it much better; but when he is slow and deliberate,
+and the side of his mouth lifts up to show the sharp teeth, I think I
+feel—well, I don’t know how!  Last night I got up softly and stole to
+the door, for I really feared to disturb him.  There was not any noise
+of moving, and no kind of cry at all; but there was a queer kind of
+dragging sound, and a slow, heavy breathing. Oh! it was dreadful,
+waiting there in the dark and the silence, and fearing—fearing I did
+not know what!
+
+“At last I took my courage a deux mains, and turning the handle as
+softly as I could, I opened the door a tiny bit.  It was quite dark
+within; I could just see the outline of the windows.  But in the
+darkness the sound of breathing, becoming more distinct, was appalling.
+As I listened, this continued; but there was no other sound.  I pushed
+the door open all at once.  I was afraid to open it slowly; I felt as
+if there might be some dreadful thing behind it ready to pounce out on
+me! Then I switched on the electric light, and stepped into the room.
+I looked first at the bed.  The sheets were all crumpled up, so that I
+knew Father had been in bed; but there was a great dark red patch in
+the centre of the bed, and spreading to the edge of it, that made my
+heart stand still.  As I was gazing at it the sound of the breathing
+came across the room, and my eyes followed to it.  There was Father on
+his right side with the other arm under him, just as if his dead body
+had been thrown there all in a heap.  The track of blood went across
+the room up to the bed, and there was a pool all around him which
+looked terribly red and glittering as I bent over to examine him.  The
+place where he lay was right in front of the big safe.  He was in his
+pyjamas. The left sleeve was torn, showing his bare arm, and stretched
+out toward the safe.  It looked—oh! so terrible, patched all with
+blood, and with the flesh torn or cut all around a gold chain bangle on
+his wrist.  I did not know he wore such a thing, and it seemed to give
+me a new shock of surprise.”
+
+She paused a moment; and as I wished to relieve her by a moment’s
+divergence of thought, I said:
+
+“Oh, that need not surprise you.  You will see the most unlikely men
+wearing bangles.  I have seen a judge condemn a man to death, and the
+wrist of the hand he held up had a gold bangle.”  She did not seem to
+heed much the words or the idea; the pause, however, relieved her
+somewhat, and she went on in a steadier voice:
+
+“I did not lose a moment in summoning aid, for I feared he might bleed
+to death.  I rang the bell, and then went out and called for help as
+loudly as I could.  In what must have been a very short time—though it
+seemed an incredibly long one to me—some of the servants came running
+up; and then others, till the room seemed full of staring eyes, and
+dishevelled hair, and night clothes of all sorts.
+
+“We lifted Father on a sofa; and the housekeeper, Mrs. Grant, who
+seemed to have her wits about her more than any of us, began to look
+where the flow of blood came from.  In a few seconds it became apparent
+that it came from the arm which was bare.  There was a deep wound—not
+clean-cut as with a knife, but like a jagged rent or tear—close to the
+wrist, which seemed to have cut into the vein.  Mrs. Grant tied a
+handkerchief round the cut, and screwed it up tight with a silver
+paper-cutter; and the flow of blood seemed to be checked at once.  By
+this time I had come to my senses—or such of them as remained; and I
+sent off one man for the doctor and another for the police.  When they
+had gone, I felt that, except for the servants, I was all alone in the
+house, and that I knew nothing—of my Father or anything else; and a
+great longing came to me to have someone with me who could help me.
+Then I thought of you and your kind offer in the boat under the
+willow-tree; and, without waiting to think, I told the men to get a
+carriage ready at once, and I scribbled a note and sent it on to you.”
+
+She paused.  I did not like to say just then anything of how I felt.  I
+looked at her; I think she understood, for her eyes were raised to mine
+for a moment and then fell, leaving her cheeks as red as peony roses.
+With a manifest effort she went on with her story:
+
+“The Doctor was with us in an incredibly short time.  The groom had met
+him letting himself into his house with his latchkey, and he came here
+running.  He made a proper tourniquet for poor Father’s arm, and then
+went home to get some appliances.  I dare say he will be back almost
+immediately.  Then a policeman came, and sent a message to the station;
+and very soon the Superintendent was here.  Then you came.”
+
+There was a long pause, and I ventured to take her hand for an instant.
+Without a word more we opened the door, and joined the Superintendent
+in the hall.  He hurried up to us, saying as he came:
+
+“I have been examining everything myself, and have sent off a message
+to Scotland Yard.  You see, Mr. Ross, there seemed so much that was odd
+about the case that I thought we had better have the best man of the
+Criminal Investigation Department that we could get.  So I sent a note
+asking to have Sergeant Daw sent at once.  You remember him, sir, in
+that American poisoning case at Hoxton.”
+
+“Oh yes,” I said, “I remember him well; in that and other cases, for I
+have benefited several times by his skill and acumen.  He has a mind
+that works as truly as any that I know.  When I have been for the
+defence, and believed my man was innocent, I was glad to have him
+against us!”
+
+“That is high praise, sir!” said the Superintendent gratified:  “I am
+glad you approve of my choice; that I did well in sending for him.”
+
+I answered heartily:
+
+“Could not be better.  I do not doubt that between you we shall get at
+the facts—and what lies behind them!”
+
+We ascended to Mr. Trelawny’s room, where we found everything exactly
+as his daughter had described.
+
+There came a ring at the house bell, and a minute later a man was shown
+into the room.  A young man with aquiline features, keen grey eyes, and
+a forehead that stood out square and broad as that of a thinker.  In
+his hand he had a black bag which he at once opened.  Miss Trelawny
+introduced us:  “Doctor Winchester, Mr. Ross, Superintendent Dolan.”
+We bowed mutually, and he, without a moment’s delay, began his work.
+We all waited, and eagerly watched him as he proceeded to dress the
+wound. As he went on he turned now and again to call the
+Superintendent’s attention to some point about the wound, the latter
+proceeding to enter the fact at once in his notebook.
+
+“See! several parallel cuts or scratches beginning on the left side of
+the wrist and in some places endangering the radial artery.
+
+“These small wounds here, deep and jagged, seem as if made with a blunt
+instrument.  This in particular would seem as if made with some kind of
+sharp wedge; the flesh round it seems torn as if with lateral pressure.”
+
+Turning to Miss Trelawny he said presently:
+
+“Do you think we might remove this bangle?  It is not absolutely
+necessary, as it will fall lower on the wrist where it can hang
+loosely; but it might add to the patient’s comfort later on.”  The poor
+girl flushed deeply as she answered in a low voice:
+
+“I do not know.  I—I have only recently come to live with my Father;
+and I know so little of his life or his ideas that I fear I can hardly
+judge in such a matter.  The Doctor, after a keen glance at her, said
+in a very kindly way:
+
+“Forgive me!  I did not know.  But in any case you need not be
+distressed.  It is not required at present to move it.  Were it so I
+should do so at once on my own responsibility.  If it be necessary
+later on, we can easily remove it with a file.  Your Father doubtless
+has some object in keeping it as it is.  See! there is a tiny key
+attached to it....” As he was speaking he stopped and bent lower,
+taking from my hand the candle which I held and lowering it till its
+light fell on the bangle.  Then motioning me to hold the candle in the
+same position, he took from his pocket a magnifying-glass which he
+adjusted.  When he had made a careful examination he stood up and
+handed the magnifying-glass to Dolan, saying as he did so:
+
+“You had better examine it yourself.  That is no ordinary bangle.  The
+gold is wrought over triple steel links; see where it is worn away.  It
+is manifestly not meant to be removed lightly; and it would need more
+than an ordinary file to do it.”
+
+The Superintendent bent his great body; but not getting close enough
+that way knelt down by the sofa as the Doctor had done.  He examined
+the bangle minutely, turning it slowly round so that no particle of it
+escaped observation. Then he stood up and handed the magnifying-glass
+to me.  “When you have examined it yourself,” he said, “let the lady
+look at it if she will,” and he commenced to write at length in his
+notebook.
+
+I made a simple alteration in his suggestion.  I held out the glass
+toward Miss Trelawny, saying:
+
+“Had you not better examine it first?”  She drew back, slightly raising
+her hand in disclaimer, as she said impulsively:
+
+“Oh no!  Father would doubtless have shown it to me had he wished me to
+see it. I would not like to without his consent.”  Then she added,
+doubtless fearing lest her delicacy of view should give offence to the
+rest of us:
+
+“Of course it is right that you should see it.  You have to examine and
+consider everything; and indeed—indeed I am grateful to you...”
+
+She turned away; I could see that she was crying quietly.  It was
+evident to me that even in the midst of her trouble and anxiety there
+was a chagrin that she knew so little of her father; and that her
+ignorance had to be shown at such a time and amongst so many strangers.
+That they were all men did not make the shame more easy to bear, though
+there was a certain relief in it.  Trying to interpret her feelings I
+could not but think that she must have been glad that no woman’s
+eyes—of understanding greater than man’s—were upon her in that hour.
+
+When I stood up from my examination, which verified to me that of the
+Doctor, the latter resumed his place beside the couch and went on with
+his ministrations. Superintendent Dolan said to me in a whisper:
+
+“I think we are fortunate in our doctor!” I nodded, and was about to
+add something in praise of his acumen, when there came a low tapping at
+the door.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+Strange Instructions
+
+
+Superintendent Dolan went quietly to the door; by a sort of natural
+understanding he had taken possession of affairs in the room.  The rest
+of us waited.  He opened the door a little way; and then with a gesture
+of manifest relief threw it wide, and a young man stepped in.  A young
+man clean-shaven, tall and slight; with an eagle face and bright, quick
+eyes that seemed to take in everything around him at a glance.  As he
+came in, the Superintendent held out his hand; the two men shook hands
+warmly.
+
+“I came at once, sir, the moment I got your message.  I am glad I still
+have your confidence.”
+
+“That you’ll always have,” said the Superintendent heartily.  “I have
+not forgotten our old Bow Street days, and I never shall!”  Then,
+without a word of preliminary, he began to tell everything he knew up
+to the moment of the newcomer’s entry. Sergeant Daw asked a few
+questions—a very few—when it was necessary for his understanding of
+circumstances or the relative positions of persons; but as a rule
+Dolan, who knew his work thoroughly, forestalled every query, and
+explained all necessary matters as he went on.  Sergeant Daw threw
+occasionally swift glances round him; now at one of us; now at the room
+or some part of it; now at the wounded man lying senseless on the sofa.
+
+When the Superintendent had finished, the Sergeant turned to me and
+said:
+
+“Perhaps you remember me, sir.  I was with you in that Hoxton case.”
+
+“I remember you very well,” I said as I held out my hand.  The
+Superintendent spoke again:
+
+“You understand, Sergeant Daw, that you are put in full charge of this
+case.”
+
+“Under you I hope, sir,” he interrupted.  The other shook his head and
+smiled as he said:
+
+“It seems to me that this is a case that will take all a man’s time and
+his brains.  I have other work to do; but I shall be more than
+interested, and if I can help in any possible way I shall be glad to do
+so!”
+
+“All right, sir,” said the other, accepting his responsibility with a
+sort of modified salute; straightway he began his investigation.
+
+First he came over to the Doctor and, having learned his name and
+address, asked him to write a full report which he could use, and which
+he could refer to headquarters if necessary.  Doctor Winchester bowed
+gravely as he promised.  Then the Sergeant approached me and said sotto
+voce:
+
+“I like the look of your doctor.  I think we can work together!”
+Turning to Miss Trelawny he asked:
+
+“Please let me know what you can of your Father; his ways of life, his
+history—in fact of anything of whatsoever kind which interests him, or
+in which he may be concerned.”  I was about to interrupt to tell him
+what she had already said of her ignorance in all matters of her father
+and his ways, but her warning hand was raised to me pointedly and she
+spoke herself.
+
+“Alas!  I know little or nothing.  Superintendent Dolan and Mr. Ross
+know already all I can say.”
+
+“Well, ma’am, we must be content to do what we can,” said the officer
+genially. “I’ll begin by making a minute examination.  You say that you
+were outside the door when you heard the noise?”
+
+“I was in my room when I heard the queer sound—indeed it must have
+been the early part of whatever it was which woke me.  I came out of my
+room at once. Father’s door was shut, and I could see the whole landing
+and the upper slopes of the staircase.  No one could have left by the
+door unknown to me, if that is what you mean!”
+
+“That is just what I do mean, miss.  If every one who knows anything
+will tell me as well as that, we shall soon get to the bottom of this.”
+
+He then went over to the bed, looked at it carefully, and asked:
+
+“Has the bed been touched?”
+
+“Not to my knowledge,” said Miss Trelawny, “but I shall ask Mrs.
+Grant—the housekeeper,” she added as she rang the bell.  Mrs. Grant
+answered it in person. “Come in,” said Miss Trelawny.  “These gentlemen
+want to know, Mrs. Grant, if the bed has been touched.”
+
+“Not by me, ma’am.”
+
+“Then,” said Miss Trelawny, turning to Sergeant Daw, “it cannot have
+been touched by any one.  Either Mrs. Grant or I myself was here all
+the time, and I do not think any of the servants who came when I gave
+the alarm were near the bed at all.  You see, Father lay here just
+under the great safe, and every one crowded round him.  We sent them
+all away in a very short time.”  Daw, with a motion of his hand, asked
+us all to stay at the other side of the room whilst with a
+magnifying-glass he examined the bed, taking care as he moved each fold
+of the bedclothes to replace it in exact position.  Then he examined
+with his magnifying-glass the floor beside it, taking especial pains
+where the blood had trickled over the side of the bed, which was of
+heavy red wood handsomely carved. Inch by inch, down on his knees,
+carefully avoiding any touch with the stains on the floor, he followed
+the blood-marks over to the spot, close under the great safe, where the
+body had lain.  All around and about this spot he went for a radius of
+some yards; but seemingly did not meet with anything to arrest special
+attention.  Then he examined the front of the safe; round the lock, and
+along the bottom and top of the double doors, more especially at the
+places of their touching in front.
+
+Next he went to the windows, which were fastened down with the hasps.
+
+“Were the shutters closed?” he asked Miss Trelawny in a casual way as
+though he expected the negative answer, which came.
+
+All this time Doctor Winchester was attending to his patient; now
+dressing the wounds in the wrist or making minute examination all over
+the head and throat, and over the heart.  More than once he put his
+nose to the mouth of the senseless man and sniffed.  Each time he did
+so he finished up by unconsciously looking round the room, as though in
+search of something.
+
+Then we heard the deep strong voice of the Detective:
+
+“So far as I can see, the object was to bring that key to the lock of
+the safe.  There seems to be some secret in the mechanism that I am
+unable to guess at, though I served a year in Chubb’s before I joined
+the police.  It is a combination lock of seven letters; but there seems
+to be a way of locking even the combination.  It is one of Chatwood’s;
+I shall call at their place and find out something about it.”  Then
+turning to the Doctor, as though his own work were for the present
+done, he said:
+
+“Have you anything you can tell me at once, Doctor, which will not
+interfere with your full report?  If there is any doubt I can wait, but
+the sooner I know something definite the better.”  Doctor Winchester
+answered at once:
+
+“For my own part I see no reason in waiting.  I shall make a full
+report of course.  But in the meantime I shall tell you all I
+know—which is after all not very much, and all I think—which is less
+definite.  There is no wound on the head which could account for the
+state of stupor in which the patient continues.  I must, therefore,
+take it that either he has been drugged or is under some hypnotic
+influence.  So far as I can judge, he has not been drugged—at least by
+means of any drug of whose qualities I am aware.  Of course, there is
+ordinarily in this room so much of a mummy smell that it is difficult
+to be certain about anything having a delicate aroma.  I dare say that
+you have noticed the peculiar Egyptian scents, bitumen, nard, aromatic
+gums and spices, and so forth. It is quite possible that somewhere in
+this room, amongst the curios and hidden by stronger scents, is some
+substance or liquid which may have the effect we see.  It is possible
+that the patient has taken some drug, and that he may in some sleeping
+phase have injured himself.  I do not think this is likely; and
+circumstances, other than those which I have myself been investigating,
+may prove that this surmise is not correct. But in the meantime it is
+possible; and must, till it be disproved, be kept within our purview.”
+Here Sergeant Daw interrupted:
+
+“That may be, but if so, we should be able to find the instrument with
+which the wrist was injured.  There would be marks of blood somewhere.”
+
+“Exactly so!” said the Doctor, fixing his glasses as though preparing
+for an argument. “But if it be that the patient has used some strange
+drug, it may be one that does not take effect at once.  As we are as
+yet ignorant of its potentialities—if, indeed, the whole surmise is
+correct at all—we must be prepared at all points.”
+
+Here Miss Trelawny joined in the conversation:
+
+“That would be quite right, so far as the action of the drug was
+concerned; but according to the second part of your surmise the wound
+may have been self-inflicted, and this after the drug had taken effect.”
+
+“True!” said the Detective and the Doctor simultaneously.  She went on:
+
+“As however, Doctor, your guess does not exhaust the possibilities, we
+must bear in mind that some other variant of the same root-idea may be
+correct.  I take it, therefore, that our first search, to be made on
+this assumption, must be for the weapon with which the injury was done
+to my Father’s wrist.”
+
+“Perhaps he put the weapon in the safe before he became quite
+unconscious,” said I, giving voice foolishly to a half-formed thought.
+
+“That could not be,” said the Doctor quickly.  “At least I think it
+could hardly be,” he added cautiously, with a brief bow to me.  “You
+see, the left hand is covered with blood; but there is no blood mark
+whatever on the safe.”
+
+“Quite right!” I said, and there was a long pause.
+
+The first to break the silence was the Doctor.
+
+“We shall want a nurse here as soon as possible; and I know the very
+one to suit.  I shall go at once to get her if I can.  I must ask that
+till I return some of you will remain constantly with the patient.  It
+may be necessary to remove him to another room later on; but in the
+meantime he is best left here.  Miss Trelawny, may I take it that
+either you or Mrs. Grant will remain here—not merely in the room, but
+close to the patient and watchful of him—till I return?”
+
+She bowed in reply, and took a seat beside the sofa.  The Doctor gave
+her some directions as to what she should do in case her father should
+become conscious before his return.
+
+The next to move was Superintendent Dolan, who came close to Sergeant
+Daw as he said:
+
+“I had better return now to the station—unless, of course, you should
+wish me to remain for a while.”
+
+He answered, “Is Johnny Wright still in your division?”
+
+“Yes!  Would you like him to be with you?”  The other nodded reply.
+“Then I will send him on to you as soon as can be arranged.  He shall
+then stay with you as long as you wish.  I will tell him that he is to
+take his instructions entirely from you.”
+
+The Sergeant accompanied him to the door, saying as he went:
+
+“Thank you, sir; you are always thoughtful for men who are working with
+you.  It is a pleasure to me to be with you again.  I shall go back to
+Scotland Yard and report to my chief.  Then I shall call at Chatwood’s;
+and I shall return here as soon as possible. I suppose I may take it,
+miss, that I may put up here for a day or two, if required.  It may be
+some help, or possibly some comfort to you, if I am about, until we
+unravel this mystery.”
+
+“I shall be very grateful to you.”  He looked keenly at her for a few
+seconds before he spoke again.
+
+“Before I go have I permission to look about your Father’s table and
+desk?  There might be something which would give us a clue—or a lead
+at all events.”  Her answer was so unequivocal as almost to surprise
+him.
+
+“You have the fullest possible permission to do anything which may help
+us in this dreadful trouble—to discover what it is that is wrong with
+my Father, or which may shield him in the future!”
+
+He began at once a systematic search of the dressing-table, and after
+that of the writing-table in the room.  In one of the drawers he found
+a letter sealed; this he brought at once across the room and handed to
+Miss Trelawny.
+
+“A letter—directed to me—and in my Father’s hand!” she said as she
+eagerly opened it.  I watched her face as she began to read; but seeing
+at once that Sergeant Daw kept his keen eyes on her face, unflinchingly
+watching every flitting expression, I kept my eyes henceforth fixed on
+his.  When Miss Trelawny had read her letter through, I had in my mind
+a conviction, which, however, I kept locked in my own heart.  Amongst
+the suspicions in the mind of the Detective was one, rather perhaps
+potential than definite, of Miss Trelawny herself.
+
+For several minutes Miss Trelawny held the letter in her hand with her
+eyes downcast, thinking.  Then she read it carefully again; this time
+the varying expressions were intensified, and I thought I could easily
+follow them.  When she had finished the second reading, she paused
+again.  Then, though with some reluctance, she handed the letter to the
+Detective.  He read it eagerly but with unchanging face; read it a
+second time, and then handed it back with a bow.  She paused a little
+again, and then handed it to me.  As she did so she raised her eyes to
+mine for a single moment appealingly; a swift blush spread over her
+pale cheeks and forehead.
+
+With mingled feelings I took it, but, all said, I was glad.  She did
+not show any perturbation in giving the letter to the Detective—she
+might not have shown any to anyone else.  But to me.... I feared to
+follow the thought further; but read on, conscious that the eyes of
+both Miss Trelawny and the Detective were fixed on me.
+
+
+“MY DEAR DAUGHTER,  I want you to take this letter as an
+instruction—absolute and imperative, and admitting of no deviation
+whatever—in case anything untoward or unexpected by you or by others
+should happen to me. If I should be suddenly and mysteriously stricken
+down—either by sickness, accident or attack—you must follow these
+directions implicitly.  If I am not already in my bedroom when you are
+made cognisant of my state, I am to be brought there as quickly as
+possible. Even should I be dead, my body is to be brought there.
+Thenceforth, until I am either conscious and able to give instructions
+on my own account, or buried, I am never to be left alone—not for a
+single instant.  From nightfall to sunrise at least two persons must
+remain in the room.  It will be well that a trained nurse be in the
+room from time to time, and will note any symptoms, either permanent or
+changing, which may strike her.  My solicitors, Marvin & Jewkes, of 27B
+Lincoln’s Inn, have full instructions in case of my death; and Mr.
+Marvin has himself undertaken to see personally my wishes carried out.
+I should advise you, my dear Daughter, seeing that you have no relative
+to apply to, to get some friend whom you can trust to either remain
+within the house where instant communication can be made, or to come
+nightly to aid in the watching, or to be within call.  Such friend may
+be either male or female; but, whichever it may be, there should be
+added one other watcher or attendant at hand of the opposite sex.
+Understand, that it is of the very essence of my wish that there should
+be, awake and exercising themselves to my purposes, both masculine and
+feminine intelligences.  Once more, my dear Margaret, let me impress on
+you the need for observation and just reasoning to conclusions,
+howsoever strange.  If I am taken ill or injured, this will be no
+ordinary occasion; and I wish to warn you, so that your guarding may be
+complete.
+
+“Nothing in my room—I speak of the curios—must be removed or
+displaced in any way, or for any cause whatever.  I have a special
+reason and a special purpose in the placing of each; so that any moving
+of them would thwart my plans.
+
+“Should you want money or counsel in anything, Mr. Marvin will carry
+out your wishes; to the which he has my full instructions.”
+
+          “ABEL TRELAWNY.”
+
+
+I read the letter a second time before speaking, for I feared to betray
+myself.  The choice of a friend might be a momentous occasion for me.
+I had already ground for hope, that she had asked me to help her in the
+first throe of her trouble; but love makes its own doubtings, and I
+feared.  My thoughts seemed to whirl with lightning rapidity, and in a
+few seconds a whole process of reasoning became formulated.  I must not
+volunteer to be the friend that the father advised his daughter to have
+to aid her in her vigil; and yet that one glance had a lesson which I
+must not ignore.  Also, did not she, when she wanted help, send to
+me—to me a stranger, except for one meeting at a dance and one brief
+afternoon of companionship on the river?  Would it not humiliate her to
+make her ask me twice?  Humiliate her!  No! that pain I could at all
+events save her; it is not humiliation to refuse.  So, as I handed her
+back the letter, I said:
+
+“I know you will forgive me, Miss Trelawny, if I presume too much; but
+if you will permit me to aid in the watching I shall be proud.  Though
+the occasion is a sad one, I shall be so far happy to be allowed the
+privilege.”
+
+Despite her manifest and painful effort at self-control, the red tide
+swept her face and neck.  Even her eyes seemed suffused, and in stern
+contrast with her pale cheeks when the tide had rolled back.  She
+answered in a low voice:
+
+“I shall be very grateful for your help!”  Then in an afterthought she
+added:
+
+“But you must not let me be selfish in my need!  I know you have many
+duties to engage you; and though I shall value your help highly—most
+highly—it would not be fair to monopolise your time.”
+
+“As to that,” I answered at once, “my time is yours.  I can for today
+easily arrange my work so that I can come here in the afternoon and
+stay till morning.  After that, if the occasion still demands it, I can
+so arrange my work that I shall have more time still at my disposal.”
+
+She was much moved.  I could see the tears gather in her eyes, and she
+turned away her head.  The Detective spoke:
+
+“I am glad you will be here, Mr. Ross.  I shall be in the house myself,
+as Miss Trelawny will allow me, if my people in Scotland Yard will
+permit.  That letter seems to put a different complexion on everything;
+though the mystery remains greater than ever. If you can wait here an
+hour or two I shall go to headquarters, and then to the safe-makers.
+After that I shall return; and you can go away easier in your mind, for
+I shall be here.”
+
+When he had gone, we two, Miss Trelawny and I, remained in silence.  At
+last she raised her eyes and looked at me for a moment; after that I
+would not have exchanged places with a king.  For a while she busied
+herself round the extemporised bedside of her father.  Then, asking me
+to be sure not to take my eyes off him till she returned, she hurried
+out.
+
+In a few minutes she came back with Mrs. Grant and two maids and a
+couple of men, who bore the entire frame and furniture of a light iron
+bed.  This they proceeded to put together and to make.  When the work
+was completed, and the servants had withdrawn, she said to me:
+
+“It will be well to be all ready when the Doctor returns.  He will
+surely want to have Father put to bed; and a proper bed will be better
+for him than the sofa.”  She then got a chair close beside her father,
+and sat down watching him.
+
+I went about the room, taking accurate note of all I saw.  And truly
+there were enough things in the room to evoke the curiosity of any
+man—even though the attendant circumstances were less strange.  The
+whole place, excepting those articles of furniture necessary to a
+well-furnished bedroom, was filled with magnificent curios, chiefly
+Egyptian. As the room was of immense size there was opportunity for the
+placing of a large number of them, even if, as with these, they were of
+huge proportions.
+
+Whilst I was still investigating the room there came the sound of
+wheels on the gravel outside the house.  There was a ring at the hall
+door, and a few minutes later, after a preliminary tap at the door and
+an answering “Come in!” Doctor Winchester entered, followed by a young
+woman in the dark dress of a nurse.
+
+“I have been fortunate!” he said as he came in.  “I found her at once
+and free. Miss Trelawny, this is Nurse Kennedy!”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+The Watchers
+
+
+I was struck by the way the two young women looked at each other.  I
+suppose I have been so much in the habit of weighing up in my own mind
+the personality of witnesses and of forming judgment by their
+unconscious action and mode of bearing themselves, that the habit
+extends to my life outside as well as within the court-house.  At this
+moment of my life anything that interested Miss Trelawny interested me;
+and as she had been struck by the newcomer I instinctively weighed her
+up also. By comparison of the two I seemed somehow to gain a new
+knowledge of Miss Trelawny.  Certainly, the two women made a good
+contrast.  Miss Trelawny was of fine figure; dark, straight-featured.
+She had marvellous eyes; great, wide-open, and as black and soft as
+velvet, with a mysterious depth.  To look in them was like gazing at a
+black mirror such as Doctor Dee used in his wizard rites.  I heard an
+old gentleman at the picnic, a great oriental traveller, describe the
+effect of her eyes “as looking at night at the great distant lamps of a
+mosque through the open door.”  The eyebrows were typical.  Finely
+arched and rich in long curling hair, they seemed like the proper
+architectural environment of the deep, splendid eyes.  Her hair was
+black also, but was as fine as silk.  Generally black hair is a type of
+animal strength and seems as if some strong expression of the forces of
+a strong nature; but in this case there could be no such thought.
+There were refinement and high breeding; and though there was no
+suggestion of weakness, any sense of power there was, was rather
+spiritual than animal.  The whole harmony of her being seemed complete.
+Carriage, figure, hair, eyes; the mobile, full mouth, whose scarlet
+lips and white teeth seemed to light up the lower part of the face—as
+the eyes did the upper; the wide sweep of the jaw from chin to ear; the
+long, fine fingers; the hand which seemed to move from the wrist as
+though it had a sentience of its own.  All these perfections went to
+make up a personality that dominated either by its grace, its
+sweetness, its beauty, or its charm.
+
+Nurse Kennedy, on the other hand, was rather under than over a woman’s
+average height.  She was firm and thickset, with full limbs and broad,
+strong, capable hands. Her colour was in the general effect that of an
+autumn leaf.  The yellow-brown hair was thick and long, and the
+golden-brown eyes sparkled from the freckled, sunburnt skin.  Her rosy
+cheeks gave a general idea of rich brown.  The red lips and white teeth
+did not alter the colour scheme, but only emphasized it.  She had a
+snub nose—there was no possible doubt about it; but like such noses in
+general it showed a nature generous, untiring, and full of good-nature.
+Her broad white forehead, which even the freckles had spared, was full
+of forceful thought and reason.
+
+Doctor Winchester had on their journey from the hospital, coached her
+in the necessary particulars, and without a word she took charge of the
+patient and set to work.  Having examined the new-made bed and shaken
+the pillows, she spoke to the Doctor, who gave instructions; presently
+we all four, stepping together, lifted the unconscious man from the
+sofa.
+
+Early in the afternoon, when Sergeant Daw had returned, I called at my
+rooms in Jermyn Street, and sent out such clothes, books and papers as
+I should be likely to want within a few days.  Then I went on to keep
+my legal engagements.
+
+The Court sat late that day as an important case was ending; it was
+striking six as I drove in at the gate of the Kensington Palace Road.
+I found myself installed in a large room close to the sick chamber.
+
+That night we were not yet regularly organised for watching, so that
+the early part of the evening showed an unevenly balanced guard.  Nurse
+Kennedy, who had been on duty all day, was lying down, as she had
+arranged to come on again by twelve o’clock.  Doctor Winchester, who
+was dining in the house, remained in the room until dinner was
+announced; and went back at once when it was over.  During dinner Mrs.
+Grant remained in the room, and with her Sergeant Daw, who wished to
+complete a minute examination which he had undertaken of everything in
+the room and near it.  At nine o’clock Miss Trelawny and I went in to
+relieve the Doctor. She had lain down for a few hours in the afternoon
+so as to be refreshed for her work at night.  She told me that she had
+determined that for this night at least she would sit up and watch.  I
+did not try to dissuade her, for I knew that her mind was made up.
+Then and there I made up my mind that I would watch with her—unless,
+of course, I should see that she really did not wish it.  I said
+nothing of my intentions for the present.  We came in on tiptoe, so
+silently that the Doctor, who was bending over the bed, did not hear
+us, and seemed a little startled when suddenly looking up he saw our
+eyes upon him.  I felt that the mystery of the whole thing was getting
+on his nerves, as it had already got on the nerves of some others of
+us.  He was, I fancied, a little annoyed with himself for having been
+so startled, and at once began to talk in a hurried manner as though to
+get over our idea of his embarrassment:
+
+“I am really and absolutely at my wits’ end to find any fit cause for
+this stupor.  I have made again as accurate an examination as I know
+how, and I am satisfied that there is no injury to the brain, that is,
+no external injury.  Indeed, all his vital organs seem unimpaired.  I
+have given him, as you know, food several times and it has manifestly
+done him good.  His breathing is strong and regular, and his pulse is
+slower and stronger than it was this morning.  I cannot find evidence
+of any known drug, and his unconsciousness does not resemble any of the
+many cases of hypnotic sleep which I saw in the Charcot Hospital in
+Paris.  And as to these wounds”—he laid his finger gently on the
+bandaged wrist which lay outside the coverlet as he spoke, “I do not
+know what to make of them.  They might have been made by a
+carding-machine; but that supposition is untenable.  It is within the
+bounds of possibility that they might have been made by a wild animal
+if it had taken care to sharpen its claws.  That too is, I take it,
+impossible. By the way, have you any strange pets here in the house;
+anything of an exceptional kind, such as a tiger-cat or anything out of
+the common?” Miss Trelawny smiled a sad smile which made my heart ache,
+as she made answer:
+
+“Oh no!  Father does not like animals about the house, unless they are
+dead and mummied.”  This was said with a touch of bitterness—or
+jealousy, I could hardly tell which.  “Even my poor kitten was only
+allowed in the house on sufferance; and though he is the dearest and
+best-conducted cat in the world, he is now on a sort of parole, and is
+not allowed into this room.”
+
+As she was speaking a faint rattling of the door handle was heard.
+Instantly Miss Trelawny’s face brightened.  She sprang up and went over
+to the door, saying as she went:
+
+“There he is!  That is my Silvio.  He stands on his hind legs and
+rattles the door handle when he wants to come into a room.”  She opened
+the door, speaking to the cat as though he were a baby:  “Did him want
+his movver?  Come then; but he must stay with her!”  She lifted the
+cat, and came back with him in her arms.  He was certainly a
+magnificent animal.  A chinchilla grey Persian with long silky hair; a
+really lordly animal with a haughty bearing despite his gentleness; and
+with great paws which spread out as he placed them on the ground.
+Whilst she was fondling him, he suddenly gave a wriggle like an eel and
+slipped out of her arms.  He ran across the room and stood opposite a
+low table on which stood the mummy of an animal, and began to mew and
+snarl.  Miss Trelawny was after him in an instant and lifted him in her
+arms, kicking and struggling and wriggling to get away; but not biting
+or scratching, for evidently he loved his beautiful mistress.  He
+ceased to make a noise the moment he was in her arms; in a whisper she
+admonished him:
+
+“O you naughty Silvio!  You have broken your parole that mother gave
+for you.  Now, say goodnight to the gentlemen, and come away to
+mother’s room!”  As she was speaking she held out the cat’s paw to me
+to shake. As I did so I could not but admire its size and beauty.
+“Why,” said I, “his paw seems like a little boxing-glove full of
+claws.”  She smiled:
+
+“So it ought to.  Don’t you notice that my Silvio has seven toes, see!”
+she opened the paw; and surely enough there were seven separate claws,
+each of them sheathed in a delicate, fine, shell-like case.  As I
+gently stroked the foot the claws emerged and one of them
+accidentally—there was no anger now and the cat was purring—stuck
+into my hand. Instinctively I said as I drew back:
+
+“Why, his claws are like razors!”
+
+Doctor Winchester had come close to us and was bending over looking at
+the cat’s claws; as I spoke he said in a quick, sharp way:
+
+“Eh!”  I could hear the quick intake of his breath.  Whilst I was
+stroking the now quiescent cat, the Doctor went to the table and tore
+off a piece of blotting-paper from the writing-pad and came back.  He
+laid the paper on his palm and, with a simple “pardon me!” to Miss
+Trelawny, placed the cat’s paw on it and pressed it down with his other
+hand.  The haughty cat seemed to resent somewhat the familiarity, and
+tried to draw its foot away.  This was plainly what the Doctor wanted,
+for in the act the cat opened the sheaths of its claws and made
+several reefs in the soft paper. Then Miss Trelawny took her pet away.
+She returned in a couple of minutes; as she came in she said:
+
+“It is most odd about that mummy!  When Silvio came into the room
+first—indeed I took him in as a kitten to show to Father—he went on
+just the same way.  He jumped up on the table, and tried to scratch and
+bite the mummy.  That was what made Father so angry, and brought the
+decree of banishment on poor Silvio.  Only his parole, given through
+me, kept him in the house.”
+
+Whilst she had been gone, Doctor Winchester had taken the bandage from
+her father’s wrist.  The wound was now quite clear, as the separate
+cuts showed out in fierce red lines.  The Doctor folded the
+blotting-paper across the line of punctures made by the cat’s claws,
+and held it down close to the wound.  As he did so, he looked up
+triumphantly and beckoned us over to him.
+
+The cuts in the paper corresponded with the wounds in the wrist!  No
+explanation was needed, as he said:
+
+“It would have been better if master Silvio had not broken his parole!”
+
+We were all silent for a little while.  Suddenly Miss Trelawny said:
+
+“But Silvio was not in here last night!”
+
+“Are you sure?  Could you prove that if necessary?”  She hesitated
+before replying:
+
+“I am certain of it; but I fear it would be difficult to prove.  Silvio
+sleeps in a basket in my room.  I certainly put him to bed last night;
+I remember distinctly laying his little blanket over him, and tucking
+him in.  This morning I took him out of the basket myself.  I certainly
+never noticed him in here; though, of course, that would not mean much,
+for I was too concerned about poor father, and too much occupied with
+him, to notice even Silvio.”
+
+The Doctor shook his head as he said with a certain sadness:
+
+“Well, at any rate it is no use trying to prove anything now.  Any cat
+in the world would have cleaned blood-marks—did any exist—from his
+paws in a hundredth part of the time that has elapsed.”
+
+Again we were all silent; and again the silence was broken by Miss
+Trelawny:
+
+“But now that I think of it, it could not have been poor Silvio that
+injured Father. My door was shut when I first heard the sound; and
+Father’s was shut when I listened at it.  When I went in, the injury
+had been done; so that it must have been before Silvio could possibly
+have got in.”  This reasoning commended itself, especially to me as a
+barrister, for it was proof to satisfy a jury.  It gave me a distinct
+pleasure to have Silvio acquitted of the crime—possibly because he was
+Miss Trelawny’s cat and was loved by her.  Happy cat!  Silvio’s
+mistress was manifestly pleased as I said:
+
+“Verdict, ‘not guilty!’”  Doctor Winchester after a pause observed:
+
+“My apologies to master Silvio on this occasion; but I am still puzzled
+to know why he is so keen against that mummy.  Is he the same toward
+the other mummies in the house?  There are, I suppose, a lot of them.
+I saw three in the hall as I came in.”
+
+“There are lots of them,” she answered.  “I sometimes don’t know
+whether I am in a private house or the British Museum.  But Silvio
+never concerns himself about any of them except that particular one.  I
+suppose it must be because it is of an animal, not a man or a woman.”
+
+“Perhaps it is of a cat!” said the Doctor as he started up and went
+across the room to look at the mummy more closely.  “Yes,” he went on,
+“it is the mummy of a cat; and a very fine one, too.  If it hadn’t been
+a special favourite of some very special person it would never have
+received so much honour.  See!  A painted case and obsidian eyes—just
+like a human mummy.  It is an extraordinary thing, that knowledge of
+kind to kind.  Here is a dead cat—that is all; it is perhaps four or
+five thousand years old—and another cat of another breed, in what is
+practically another world, is ready to fly at it, just as it would if
+it were not dead.  I should like to experiment a bit about that cat if
+you don’t mind, Miss Trelawny.”  She hesitated before replying:
+
+“Of course, do anything you may think necessary or wise; but I hope it
+will not be anything to hurt or worry my poor Silvio.”  The Doctor
+smiled as he answered:
+
+“Oh, Silvio would be all right:  it is the other one that my sympathies
+would be reserved for.”
+
+“How do you mean?”
+
+“Master Silvio will do the attacking; the other one will do the
+suffering.”
+
+“Suffering?”  There was a note of pain in her voice.  The Doctor smiled
+more broadly:
+
+“Oh, please make your mind easy as to that.  The other won’t suffer as
+we understand it; except perhaps in his structure and outfit.”
+
+“What on earth do you mean?”
+
+“Simply this, my dear young lady, that the antagonist will be a mummy
+cat like this one.  There are, I take it, plenty of them to be had in
+Museum Street.  I shall get one and place it here instead of that
+one—you won’t think that a temporary exchange will violate your
+Father’s instructions, I hope.  We shall then find out, to begin with,
+whether Silvio objects to all mummy cats, or only to this one in
+particular.”
+
+“I don’t know,” she said doubtfully.  “Father’s instructions seem very
+uncompromising.”  Then after a pause she went on:  “But of course under
+the circumstances anything that is to be ultimately for his good must
+be done.  I suppose there can’t be anything very particular about the
+mummy of a cat.”
+
+Doctor Winchester said nothing.  He sat rigid, with so grave a look on
+his face that his extra gravity passed on to me; and in its
+enlightening perturbation I began to realise more than I had yet done
+the strangeness of the case in which I was now so deeply concerned.
+When once this thought had begun there was no end to it.  Indeed it
+grew, and blossomed, and reproduced itself in a thousand different
+ways.  The room and all in it gave grounds for strange thoughts.  There
+were so many ancient relics that unconsciously one was taken back to
+strange lands and strange times.  There were so many mummies or mummy
+objects, round which there seemed to cling for ever the penetrating
+odours of bitumen, and spices and gums—“Nard and Circassia’s balmy
+smells”—that one was unable to forget the past.  Of course, there was
+but little light in the room, and that carefully shaded; so that there
+was no glare anywhere. None of that direct light which can manifest
+itself as a power or an entity, and so make for companionship.  The
+room was a large one, and lofty in proportion to its size.  In its
+vastness was place for a multitude of things not often found in a
+bedchamber.  In far corners of the room were shadows of uncanny shape.
+More than once as I thought, the multitudinous presence of the dead and
+the past took such hold on me that I caught myself looking round
+fearfully as though some strange personality or influence was present.
+Even the manifest presence of Doctor Winchester and Miss Trelawny could
+not altogether comfort or satisfy me at such moments.  It was with a
+distinct sense of relief that I saw a new personality in the room in
+the shape of Nurse Kennedy. There was no doubt that that business-like,
+self-reliant, capable young woman added an element of security to such
+wild imaginings as my own. She had a quality of common sense that
+seemed to pervade everything around her, as though it were some kind of
+emanation.  Up to that moment I had been building fancies around the
+sick man; so that finally all about him, including myself, had become
+involved in them, or enmeshed, or saturated, or.... But now that she had
+come, he relapsed into his proper perspective as a patient; the room
+was a sick-room, and the shadows lost their fearsome quality.  The only
+thing which it could not altogether abrogate was the strange Egyptian
+smell. You may put a mummy in a glass case and hermetically seal it so
+that no corroding air can get within; but all the same it will exhale
+its odour.  One might think that four or five thousand years would
+exhaust the olfactory qualities of anything; but experience teaches us
+that these smells remain, and that their secrets are unknown to us.
+Today they are as much mysteries as they were when the embalmers put
+the body in the bath of natron....
+
+
+All at once I sat up.  I had become lost in an absorbing reverie.  The
+Egyptian smell had seemed to get on my nerves—on my memory—on my very
+will.
+
+At that moment I had a thought which was like an inspiration.  If I was
+influenced in such a manner by the smell, might it not be that the sick
+man, who lived half his life or more in the atmosphere, had gradually
+and by slow but sure process taken into his system something which had
+permeated him to such degree that it had a new power derived from
+quantity—or strength—or....
+
+I was becoming lost again in a reverie.  This would not do.  I must
+take such precaution that I could remain awake, or free from such
+entrancing thought.  I had had but half a night’s sleep last night; and
+this night I must remain awake.  Without stating my intention, for I
+feared that I might add to the trouble and uneasiness of Miss Trelawny,
+I went downstairs and out of the house.  I soon found a chemist’s shop,
+and came away with a respirator.  When I got back, it was ten o’clock;
+the Doctor was going for the night.  The Nurse came with him to the
+door of the sick-room, taking her last instructions.  Miss Trelawny sat
+still beside the bed.  Sergeant Daw, who had entered as the Doctor went
+out, was some little distance off.
+
+When Nurse Kennedy joined us, we arranged that she should sit up till
+two o’clock, when Miss Trelawny would relieve her.  Thus, in accordance
+with Mr. Trelawny’s instructions, there would always be a man and a
+woman in the room; and each one of us would overlap, so that at no time
+would a new set of watchers come on duty without some one to tell of
+what—if anything—had occurred.  I lay down on a sofa in my own room,
+having arranged that one of the servants should call me a little before
+twelve.  In a few moments I was asleep.
+
+When I was waked, it took me several seconds to get back my thoughts so
+as to recognise my own identity and surroundings.  The short sleep had,
+however, done me good, and I could look on things around me in a more
+practical light than I had been able to do earlier in the evening.  I
+bathed my face, and thus refreshed went into the sick-room.  I moved
+very softly.  The Nurse was sitting by the bed, quiet and alert; the
+Detective sat in an arm-chair across the room in deep shadow.  He did
+not move when I crossed, until I got close to him, when he said in a
+dull whisper:
+
+“It is all right; I have not been asleep!”  An unnecessary thing to
+say, I thought—it always is, unless it be untrue in spirit.  When I
+told him that his watch was over; that he might go to bed till I should
+call him at six o’clock, he seemed relieved and went with alacrity.  At
+the door he turned and, coming back to me, said in a whisper:
+
+“I sleep lightly and I shall have my pistols with me.  I won’t feel so
+heavy-headed when I get out of this mummy smell.”
+
+He too, then, had shared my experience of drowsiness!
+
+I asked the Nurse if she wanted anything.  I noticed that she had a
+vinaigrette in her lap.  Doubtless she, too, had felt some of the
+influence which had so affected me. She said that she had all she
+required, but that if she should want anything she would at once let me
+know.  I wished to keep her from noticing my respirator, so I went to
+the chair in the shadow where her back was toward me.  Here I quietly
+put it on, and made myself comfortable.
+
+For what seemed a long time, I sat and thought and thought.  It was a
+wild medley of thoughts, as might have been expected from the
+experiences of the previous day and night.  Again I found myself
+thinking of the Egyptian smell; and I remember that I felt a delicious
+satisfaction that I did not experience it as I had done.  The
+respirator was doing its work.
+
+It must have been that the passing of this disturbing thought made for
+repose of mind, which is the corollary of bodily rest, for, though I
+really cannot remember being asleep or waking from it, I saw a
+vision—I dreamed a dream, I scarcely know which.
+
+I was still in the room, seated in the chair.  I had on my respirator
+and knew that I breathed freely.  The Nurse sat in her chair with her
+back toward me.  She sat quite still.  The sick man lay as still as the
+dead.  It was rather like the picture of a scene than the reality; all
+were still and silent; and the stillness and silence were continuous.
+Outside, in the distance I could hear the sounds of a city, the
+occasional roll of wheels, the shout of a reveller, the far-away echo
+of whistles and the rumbling of trains.  The light was very, very low;
+the reflection of it under the green-shaded lamp was a dim relief to
+the darkness, rather than light.  The green silk fringe of the lamp had
+merely the colour of an emerald seen in the moonlight. The room, for
+all its darkness, was full of shadows.  It seemed in my whirling
+thoughts as though all the real things had become shadows—shadows
+which moved, for they passed the dim outline of the high windows.
+Shadows which had sentience. I even thought there was sound, a faint
+sound as of the mew of a cat—the rustle of drapery and a metallic
+clink as of metal faintly touching metal.  I sat as one entranced.  At
+last I felt, as in nightmare, that this was sleep, and that in the
+passing of its portals all my will had gone.
+
+All at once my senses were full awake.  A shriek rang in my ears.  The
+room was filled suddenly with a blaze of light.  There was the sound of
+pistol shots—one, two; and a haze of white smoke in the room.  When my
+waking eyes regained their power, I could have shrieked with horror
+myself at what I saw before me.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+The Second Attempt
+
+
+The sight which met my eyes had the horror of a dream within a dream,
+with the certainty of reality added.  The room was as I had seen it
+last; except that the shadowy look had gone in the glare of the many
+lights, and every article in it stood stark and solidly real.
+
+By the empty bed sat Nurse Kennedy, as my eyes had last seen her,
+sitting bolt upright in the arm-chair beside the bed.  She had placed a
+pillow behind her, so that her back might be erect; but her neck was
+fixed as that of one in a cataleptic trance.  She was, to all intents
+and purposes, turned into stone.  There was no special expression on
+her face—no fear, no horror; nothing such as might be expected of one
+in such a condition.  Her open eyes showed neither wonder nor interest.
+She was simply a negative existence, warm, breathing, placid; but
+absolutely unconscious of the world around her.  The bedclothes were
+disarranged, as though the patient had been drawn from under them
+without throwing them back.  The corner of the upper sheet hung upon
+the floor; close by it lay one of the bandages with which the Doctor
+had dressed the wounded wrist. Another and another lay further along
+the floor, as though forming a clue to where the sick man now lay.
+This was almost exactly where he had been found on the previous night,
+under the great safe.  Again, the left arm lay toward the safe.  But
+there had been a new outrage, an attempt had been made to sever the arm
+close to the bangle which held the tiny key.  A heavy “kukri”
+knife—one of the leaf-shaped knives which the Gurkhas and others of
+the hill tribes of India use with such effect—had been taken from its
+place on the wall, and with it the attempt had been made. It was
+manifest that just at the moment of striking, the blow had been
+arrested, for only the point of the knife and not the edge of the blade
+had struck the flesh.  As it was, the outer side of the arm had been
+cut to the bone and the blood was pouring out.  In addition, the former
+wound in front of the arm had been cut or torn about terribly, one of
+the cuts seemed to jet out blood as if with each pulsation of the
+heart.  By the side of her father knelt Miss Trelawny, her white
+nightdress stained with the blood in which she knelt.  In the middle of
+the room Sergeant Daw, in his shirt and trousers and stocking feet, was
+putting fresh cartridges into his revolver in a dazed mechanical kind
+of way.  His eyes were red and heavy, and he seemed only half awake,
+and less than half conscious of what was going on around him.  Several
+servants, bearing lights of various kinds, were clustered round the
+doorway.
+
+As I rose from my chair and came forward, Miss Trelawny raised her eyes
+toward me. When she saw me she shrieked and started to her feet,
+pointing towards me.  Never shall I forget the strange picture she
+made, with her white drapery all smeared with blood which, as she rose
+from the pool, ran in streaks toward her bare feet.  I believe that I
+had only been asleep; that whatever influence had worked on Mr.
+Trelawny and Nurse Kennedy—and in less degree on Sergeant Daw—had not
+touched me. The respirator had been of some service, though it had not
+kept off the tragedy whose dire evidences were before me.  I can
+understand now—I could understand even then—the fright, added to that
+which had gone before, which my appearance must have evoked.  I had
+still on the respirator, which covered mouth and nose; my hair had been
+tossed in my sleep.  Coming suddenly forward, thus enwrapped and
+dishevelled, in that horrified crowd, I must have had, in the strange
+mixture of lights, an extraordinary and terrifying appearance.  It was
+well that I recognised all this in time to avert another catastrophe;
+for the half-dazed, mechanically-acting Detective put in the cartridges
+and had raised his revolver to shoot at me when I succeeded in
+wrenching off the respirator and shouting to him to hold his hand.  In
+this also he acted mechanically; the red, half-awake eyes had not in
+them even then the intention of conscious action.  The danger, however,
+was averted.  The relief of the situation, strangely enough, came in a
+simple fashion. Mrs. Grant, seeing that her young mistress had on only
+her nightdress, had gone to fetch a dressing-gown, which she now threw
+over her.  This simple act brought us all back to the region of fact.
+With a long breath, one and all seemed to devote themselves to the most
+pressing matter before us, that of staunching the flow of blood from
+the arm of the wounded man.  Even as the thought of action came, I
+rejoiced; for the bleeding was very proof that Mr. Trelawny still lived.
+
+Last night’s lesson was not thrown away.  More than one of those
+present knew now what to do in such an emergency, and within a few
+seconds willing hands were at work on a tourniquet.  A man was at once
+despatched for the doctor, and several of the servants disappeared to
+make themselves respectable.  We lifted Mr. Trelawny on to the sofa
+where he had lain yesterday; and, having done what we could for him,
+turned our attention to the Nurse.  In all the turmoil she had not
+stirred; she sat there as before, erect and rigid, breathing softly and
+naturally and with a placid smile. As it was manifestly of no use to
+attempt anything with her till the doctor had come, we began to think
+of the general situation.
+
+Mrs. Grant had by this time taken her mistress away and changed her
+clothes; for she was back presently in a dressing-gown and slippers,
+and with the traces of blood removed from her hands.  She was now much
+calmer, though she trembled sadly; and her face was ghastly white.
+When she had looked at her father’s wrist, I holding the tourniquet,
+she turned her eyes round the room, resting them now and again on each
+one of us present in turn, but seeming to find no comfort.  It was so
+apparent to me that she did not know where to begin or whom to trust
+that, to reassure her, I said:
+
+“I am all right now; I was only asleep.”  Her voice had a gulp in it as
+she said in a low voice:
+
+“Asleep!  You! and my Father in danger!  I thought you were on the
+watch!”  I felt the sting of justice in the reproach; but I really
+wanted to help her, so I answered:
+
+“Only asleep.  It is bad enough, I know; but there is something more
+than an “only” round us here.  Had it not been that I took a definite
+precaution I might have been like the Nurse there.”  She turned her
+eyes swiftly on the weird figure, sitting grimly upright like a painted
+statue; and then her face softened.  With the action of habitual
+courtesy she said:
+
+“Forgive me!  I did not mean to be rude.  But I am in such distress and
+fear that I hardly know what I am saying.  Oh, it is dreadful!  I fear
+for fresh trouble and horror and mystery every moment.”  This cut me to
+the very heart, and out of the heart’s fulness I spoke:
+
+“Don’t give me a thought!  I don’t deserve it.  I was on guard, and yet
+I slept.  All that I can say is that I didn’t mean to, and I tried to
+avoid it; but it was over me before I knew it.  Anyhow, it is done now;
+and can’t be undone.  Probably some day we may understand it all; but
+now let us try to get at some idea of what has happened.  Tell me what
+you remember!”  The effort to recollect seemed to stimulate her; she
+became calmer as she spoke:
+
+“I was asleep, and woke suddenly with the same horrible feeling on me
+that Father was in great and immediate danger.  I jumped up and ran,
+just as I was, into his room.  It was nearly pitch dark, but as I
+opened the door there was light enough to see Father’s nightdress as he
+lay on the floor under the safe, just as on that first awful night.
+Then I think I must have gone mad for a moment.”  She stopped and
+shuddered. My eyes lit on Sergeant Daw, still fiddling in an aimless
+way with the revolver.  Mindful of my work with the tourniquet, I said
+calmly:
+
+“Now tell us, Sergeant Daw, what did you fire at?”  The policeman
+seemed to pull himself together with the habit of obedience.  Looking
+around at the servants remaining in the room, he said with that air of
+importance which, I take it, is the regulation attitude of an official
+of the law before strangers:
+
+“Don’t you think, sir, that we can allow the servants to go away?  We
+can then better go into the matter.”  I nodded approval; the servants
+took the hint and withdrew, though unwillingly, the last one closing
+the door behind him.  Then the Detective went on:
+
+“I think I had better tell you my impressions, sir, rather than recount
+my actions. That is, so far as I remember them.”  There was a mortified
+deference now in his manner, which probably arose from his
+consciousness of the awkward position in which he found himself.  “I
+went to sleep half-dressed—as I am now, with a revolver under my
+pillow.  It was the last thing I remember thinking of.  I do not know
+how long I slept.  I had turned off the electric light, and it was
+quite dark.  I thought I heard a scream; but I can’t be sure, for I
+felt thick-headed as a man does when he is called too soon after an
+extra long stretch of work. Not that such was the case this time.
+Anyhow my thoughts flew to the pistol.  I took it out, and ran on to
+the landing.  Then I heard a sort of scream, or rather a call for help,
+and ran into this room.  The room was dark, for the lamp beside the
+Nurse was out, and the only light was that from the landing, coming
+through the open door.  Miss Trelawny was kneeling on the floor beside
+her father, and was screaming.  I thought I saw something move between
+me and the window; so, without thinking, and being half dazed and only
+half awake, I shot at it.  It moved a little more to the right between
+the windows, and I shot again.  Then you came up out of the big chair
+with all that muffling on your face.  It seemed to me, being as I say
+half dazed and half awake—I know, sir, you will take this into
+account—as if it had been you, being in the same direction as the
+thing I had fired at.  And so I was about to fire again when you pulled
+off the wrap.”  Here I asked him—I was cross-examining now and felt at
+home:
+
+“You say you thought I was the thing you fired at.  What thing?”  The
+man scratched his head, but made no reply.
+
+“Come, sir,” I said, “what thing; what was it like?”  The answer came
+in a low voice:
+
+“I don’t know, sir.  I thought there was something; but what it was, or
+what it was like, I haven’t the faintest notion.  I suppose it was
+because I had been thinking of the pistol before I went to sleep, and
+because when I came in here I was half dazed and only half awake—which
+I hope you will in future, sir, always remember.”  He clung to that
+formula of excuse as though it were his sheet-anchor.  I did not want
+to antagonise the man; on the contrary I wanted to have him with us.
+Besides, I had on me at that time myself the shadow of my own default;
+so I said as kindly as I knew how:
+
+“Quite right! Sergeant.  Your impulse was correct; though of course in
+the half-somnolent condition in which you were, and perhaps partly
+affected by the same influence—whatever it may be—which made me sleep
+and which has put the Nurse in that cataleptic trance, it could not be
+expected that you would pause to weigh matters.  But now, whilst the
+matter is fresh, let me see exactly where you stood and where I sat.
+We shall be able to trace the course of your bullets.”  The prospect of
+action and the exercise of his habitual skill seemed to brace him at
+once; he seemed a different man as he set about his work.  I asked Mrs.
+Grant to hold the tourniquet, and went and stood where he had stood and
+looked where, in the darkness, he had pointed.  I could not but notice
+the mechanical exactness of his mind, as when he showed me where he had
+stood, or drew, as a matter of course, the revolver from his pistol
+pocket, and pointed with it.  The chair from which I had risen still
+stood in its place.  Then I asked him to point with his hand only, as I
+wished to move in the track of his shot.
+
+Just behind my chair, and a little back of it, stood a high buhl
+cabinet.  The glass door was shattered.  I asked:
+
+“Was this the direction of your first shot or your second?”  The answer
+came promptly.
+
+“The second; the first was over there!”
+
+He turned a little to the left, more toward the wall where the great
+safe stood, and pointed.  I followed the direction of his hand and came
+to the low table whereon rested, amongst other curios, the mummy of the
+cat which had raised Silvio’s ire.  I got a candle and easily found the
+mark of the bullet.  It had broken a little glass vase and a tazza of
+black basalt, exquisitely engraved with hieroglyphics, the graven lines
+being filled with some faint green cement and the whole thing being
+polished to an equal surface.  The bullet, flattened against the wall,
+lay on the table.
+
+I then went to the broken cabinet.  It was evidently a receptacle for
+valuable curios; for in it were some great scarabs of gold, agate,
+green jasper, amethyst, lapis lazuli, opal, granite, and blue-green
+china. None of these things happily were touched.  The bullet had gone
+through the back of the cabinet; but no other damage, save the
+shattering of the glass, had been done.  I could not but notice the
+strange arrangement of the curios on the shelf of the cabinet.  All the
+scarabs, rings, amulets, &c. were arranged in an uneven oval round an
+exquisitely-carved golden miniature figure of a hawk-headed God crowned
+with a disk and plumes.  I did not wait to look further at present, for
+my attention was demanded by more pressing things; but I determined to
+make a more minute examination when I should have time.  It was evident
+that some of the strange Egyptian smell clung to these old curios;
+through the broken glass came an added whiff of spice and gum and
+bitumen, almost stronger than those I had already noticed as coming
+from others in the room.
+
+All this had really taken but a few minutes.  I was surprised when my
+eye met, through the chinks between the dark window blinds and the
+window cases, the brighter light of the coming dawn.  When I went back
+to the sofa and took the tourniquet from Mrs. Grant, she went over and
+pulled up the blinds.
+
+It would be hard to imagine anything more ghastly than the appearance
+of the room with the faint grey light of early morning coming in upon
+it. As the windows faced north, any light that came was a fixed grey
+light without any of the rosy possibility of dawn which comes in the
+eastern quarter of heaven.  The electric lights seemed dull and yet
+glaring; and every shadow was of a hard intensity.  There was nothing
+of morning freshness; nothing of the softness of night.  All was hard
+and cold and inexpressibly dreary.  The face of the senseless man on
+the sofa seemed of a ghastly yellow; and the Nurse’s face had taken a
+suggestion of green from the shade of the lamp near her.  Only Miss
+Trelawny’s face looked white; and it was of a pallor which made my
+heart ache.  It looked as if nothing on God’s earth could ever again
+bring back to it the colour of life and happiness.
+
+It was a relief to us all when Doctor Winchester came in, breathless
+with running.  He only asked one question:
+
+“Can anyone tell me anything of how this wound was gotten?”  On seeing
+the headshake which went round us under his glance, he said no more,
+but applied himself to his surgical work.  For an instant he looked up
+at the Nurse sitting so still; but then bent himself to his task, a
+grave frown contracting his brows.  It was not till the arteries were
+tied and the wounds completely dressed that he spoke again, except, of
+course, when he had asked for anything to be handed to him or to be
+done for him.  When Mr. Trelawny’s wounds had been thoroughly cared
+for, he said to Miss Trelawny:
+
+“What about Nurse Kennedy?”  She answered at once:
+
+“I really do not know.  I found her when I came into the room at
+half-past two o’clock, sitting exactly as she does now.  We have not
+moved her, or changed her position.  She has not wakened since.  Even
+Sergeant Daw’s pistol-shots did not disturb her.”
+
+“Pistol-shots?  Have you then discovered any cause for this new
+outrage?”  The rest were silent, so I answered:
+
+“We have discovered nothing.  I was in the room watching with the
+Nurse. Earlier in the evening I fancied that the mummy smells were
+making me drowsy, so I went out and got a respirator.  I had it on when
+I came on duty; but it did not keep me from going to sleep.  I awoke to
+see the room full of people; that is, Miss Trelawny and Sergeant Daw,
+being only half awake and still stupefied by the same scent or
+influence which had affected us, fancied that he saw something moving
+through the shadowy darkness of the room, and fired twice.  When I rose
+out of my chair, with my face swathed in the respirator, he took me for
+the cause of the trouble.  Naturally enough, he was about to fire
+again, when I was fortunately in time to manifest my identity.  Mr.
+Trelawny was lying beside the safe, just as he was found last night;
+and was bleeding profusely from the new wound in his wrist.  We lifted
+him on the sofa, and made a tourniquet.  That is, literally and
+absolutely, all that any of us know as yet.  We have not touched the
+knife, which you see lies close by the pool of blood. Look!” I said,
+going over and lifting it. “The point is red with the blood which has
+dried.”
+
+Doctor Winchester stood quite still a few minutes before speaking:
+
+“Then the doings of this night are quite as mysterious as those of last
+night?”
+
+“Quite!” I answered.  He said nothing in reply, but turning to Miss
+Trelawny said:
+
+“We had better take Nurse Kennedy into another room.  I suppose there
+is nothing to prevent it?”
+
+“Nothing!  Please, Mrs. Grant, see that Nurse Kennedy’s room is ready;
+and ask two of the men to come and carry her in.”  Mrs. Grant went out
+immediately; and in a few minutes came back saying:
+
+“The room is quite ready; and the men are here.”  By her direction two
+footmen came into the room and, lifting up the rigid body of Nurse
+Kennedy under the supervision of the Doctor, carried her out of the
+room.  Miss Trelawny remained with me in the sick chamber, and Mrs.
+Grant went with the Doctor into the Nurse’s room.
+
+When we were alone Miss Trelawny came over to me, and taking both my
+hands in hers, said:
+
+“I hope you won’t remember what I said.  I did not mean it, and I was
+distraught.”  I did not make reply; but I held her hands and kissed
+them.  There are different ways of kissing a lady’s hands.  This way
+was intended as homage and respect; and it was accepted as such in the
+high-bred, dignified way which marked Miss Trelawny’s bearing and every
+movement.  I went over to the sofa and looked down at the senseless
+man. The dawn had come much nearer in the last few minutes, and there
+was something of the clearness of day in the light.  As I looked at the
+stern, cold, set face, now as white as a marble monument in the pale
+grey light, I could not but feel that there was some deep mystery
+beyond all that had happened within the last twenty-six hours.  Those
+beetling brows screened some massive purpose; that high, broad forehead
+held some finished train of reasoning, which the broad chin and massive
+jaw would help to carry into effect.  As I looked and wondered, there
+began to steal over me again that phase of wandering thought which had
+last night heralded the approach of sleep.  I resisted it, and held
+myself sternly to the present.  This was easier to do when Miss
+Trelawny came close to me, and, leaning her forehead against my
+shoulder, began to cry silently.  Then all the manhood in me woke, and
+to present purpose.  It was of little use trying to speak; words were
+inadequate to thought. But we understood each other; she did not draw
+away when I put arm protectingly over her shoulder as I used to do with
+my little sister long ago when in her childish trouble she would come
+to her big brother to be comforted.  That very act or attitude of
+protection made me more resolute in my purpose, and seemed to clear my
+brain of idle, dreamy wandering in thought.  With an instinct of
+greater protection, however, I took away my arm as I heard the Doctor’s
+footstep outside the door.
+
+When Doctor Winchester came in he looked intently at the patient before
+speaking. His brows were set, and his mouth was a thin, hard line.
+Presently he said:
+
+“There is much in common between the sleep of your Father and Nurse
+Kennedy. Whatever influence has brought it about has probably worked
+the same way in both cases.  In Kennedy’s case the coma is less marked.
+I cannot but feel, however, that with her we may be able to do more and
+more quickly than with this patient, as our hands are not tied.  I have
+placed her in a draught; and already she shows some signs, though very
+faint ones, of ordinary unconsciousness.  The rigidity of her limbs is
+less, and her skin seems more sensitive—or perhaps I should say less
+insensitive—to pain.”
+
+“How is it, then,” I asked, “that Mr. Trelawny is still in this state
+of insensibility; and yet, so far as we know, his body has not had such
+rigidity at all?”
+
+“That I cannot answer.  The problem is one which we may solve in a few
+hours; or it may need a few days.  But it will be a useful lesson in
+diagnosis to us all; and perhaps to many and many others after us, who
+knows!” he added, with the genuine fire of an enthusiast.
+
+As the morning wore on, he flitted perpetually between the two rooms,
+watching anxiously over both patients.  He made Mrs. Grant remain with
+the Nurse, but either Miss Trelawny or I, generally both of us,
+remained with the wounded man. We each managed, however, to get bathed
+and dressed; the Doctor and Mrs. Grant remained with Mr. Trelawny
+whilst we had breakfast.
+
+Sergeant Daw went off to report at Scotland Yard the progress of the
+night; and then to the local station to arrange for the coming of his
+comrade, Wright, as fixed with Superintendent Dolan.  When he returned
+I could not but think that he had been hauled over the coals for
+shooting in a sick-room; or perhaps for shooting at all without certain
+and proper cause.  His remark to me enlightened me in the matter:
+
+“A good character is worth something, sir, in spite of what some of
+them say.  See! I’ve still got leave to carry my revolver.”
+
+That day was a long and anxious one.  Toward nightfall Nurse Kennedy so
+far improved that the rigidity of her limbs entirely disappeared.  She
+still breathed quietly and regularly; but the fixed expression of her
+face, though it was a calm enough expression, gave place to fallen
+eyelids and the negative look of sleep. Doctor Winchester had, towards
+evening, brought two more nurses, one of whom was to remain with Nurse
+Kennedy and the other to share in the watching with Miss Trelawny, who
+had insisted on remaining up herself.  She had, in order to prepare for
+the duty, slept for several hours in the afternoon.  We had all taken
+counsel together, and had arranged thus for the watching in Mr.
+Trelawny’s room.  Mrs. Grant was to remain beside the patient till
+twelve, when Miss Trelawny would relieve her.  The new nurse was to sit
+in Miss Trelawny’s room, and to visit the sick chamber each quarter of
+an hour.  The Doctor would remain till twelve; when I was to relieve
+him.  One or other of the detectives was to remain within hail of the
+room all night; and to pay periodical visits to see that all was well.
+Thus, the watchers would be watched; and the possibility of such events
+as last night, when the watchers were both overcome, would be avoided.
+
+When the sun set, a strange and grave anxiety fell on all of us; and in
+our separate ways we prepared for the vigil.  Doctor Winchester had
+evidently been thinking of my respirator, for he told me he would go
+out and get one.  Indeed, he took to the idea so kindly that I
+persuaded Miss Trelawny also to have one which she could put on when
+her time for watching came.
+
+And so the night drew on.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+More Strange Instructions
+
+
+When I came from my room at half-past eleven o’clock I found all well
+in the sick-room.  The new nurse, prim, neat, and watchful, sat in the
+chair by the bedside where Nurse Kennedy had sat last night.  A little
+way off, between the bed and the safe, sat Dr. Winchester alert and
+wakeful, but looking strange and almost comic with the respirator over
+mouth and nose.  As I stood in the doorway looking at them I heard a
+slight sound; turning round I saw the new detective, who nodded, held
+up the finger of silence and withdrew quietly.  Hitherto no one of the
+watchers was overcome by sleep.
+
+I took a chair outside the door.  As yet there was no need for me to
+risk coming again under the subtle influence of last night.  Naturally
+my thoughts went revolving round the main incidents of the last day and
+night, and I found myself arriving at strange conclusions, doubts,
+conjectures; but I did not lose myself, as on last night, in trains of
+thought.  The sense of the present was ever with me, and I really felt
+as should a sentry on guard.  Thinking is not a slow process; and when
+it is earnest the time can pass quickly.  It seemed a very short time
+indeed till the door, usually left ajar, was pulled open and Dr.
+Winchester emerged, taking off his respirator as he came.  His act,
+when he had it off, was demonstrative of his keenness.  He turned up
+the outside of the wrap and smelled it carefully.
+
+“I am going now,” he said.  “I shall come early in the morning; unless,
+of course, I am sent for before.  But all seems well tonight.”
+
+The next to appear was Sergeant Daw, who went quietly into the room and
+took the seat vacated by the Doctor.  I still remained outside; but
+every few minutes looked into the room.  This was rather a form than a
+matter of utility, for the room was so dark that coming even from the
+dimly-lighted corridor it was hard to distinguish anything.
+
+A little before twelve o’clock Miss Trelawny came from her room.
+Before coming to her father’s she went into that occupied by Nurse
+Kennedy. After a couple of minutes she came out, looking, I thought, a
+trifle more cheerful.  She had her respirator in her hand, but before
+putting it on, asked me if anything special had occurred since she had
+gone to lie down.  I answered in a whisper—there was no loud talking
+in the house tonight—that all was safe, was well.  She then put on her
+respirator, and I mine; and we entered the room.  The Detective and the
+Nurse rose up, and we took their places.  Sergeant Daw was the last to
+go out; he closed the door behind him as we had arranged.
+
+For a while I sat quiet, my heart beating.  The place was grimly dark.
+The only light was a faint one from the top of the lamp which threw a
+white circle on the high ceiling, except the emerald sheen of the shade
+as the light took its under edges. Even the light only seemed to
+emphasize the blackness of the shadows.  These presently began to seem,
+as on last night, to have a sentience of their own.  I did not myself
+feel in the least sleepy; and each time I went softly over to look at
+the patient, which I did about every ten minutes, I could see that Miss
+Trelawny was keenly alert.  Every quarter of an hour one or other of
+the policemen looked in through the partly opened door.  Each time both
+Miss Trelawny and I said through our mufflers, “all right,” and the
+door was closed again.
+
+As the time wore on, the silence and the darkness seemed to increase.
+The circle of light on the ceiling was still there, but it seemed less
+brilliant than at first.  The green edging of the lamp-shade became
+like Maori greenstone rather than emerald. The sounds of the night
+without the house, and the starlight spreading pale lines along the
+edges of the window-cases, made the pall of black within more solemn
+and more mysterious.
+
+We heard the clock in the corridor chiming the quarters with its silver
+bell till two o’clock; and then a strange feeling came over me.  I
+could see from Miss Trelawny’s movement as she looked round, that she
+also had some new sensation.  The new detective had just looked in; we
+two were alone with the unconscious patient for another quarter of an
+hour.
+
+My heart began to beat wildly.  There was a sense of fear over me.  Not
+for myself; my fear was impersonal.  It seemed as though some new
+person had entered the room, and that a strong intelligence was awake
+close to me.  Something brushed against my leg.  I put my hand down
+hastily and touched the furry coat of Silvio. With a very faint
+far-away sound of a snarl he turned and scratched at me.  I felt blood
+on my hand.  I rose gently and came over to the bedside.  Miss
+Trelawny, too, had stood up and was looking behind her, as though there
+was something close to her. Her eyes were wild, and her breast rose and
+fell as though she were fighting for air. When I touched her she did
+not seem to feel me; she worked her hands in front of her, as though
+she was fending off something.
+
+There was not an instant to lose.  I seized her in my arms and rushed
+over to the door, threw it open, and strode into the passage, calling
+loudly:
+
+“Help!  Help!”
+
+In an instant the two Detectives, Mrs. Grant, and the Nurse appeared on
+the scene. Close on their heels came several of the servants, both men
+and women. Immediately Mrs. Grant came near enough, I placed Miss
+Trelawny in her arms, and rushed back into the room, turning up the
+electric light as soon as I could lay my hand on it.  Sergeant Daw and
+the Nurse followed me.
+
+We were just in time.  Close under the great safe, where on the two
+successive nights he had been found, lay Mr. Trelawny with his left
+arm, bare save for the bandages, stretched out.  Close by his side was
+a leaf-shaped Egyptian knife which had lain amongst the curios on the
+shelf of the broken cabinet.  Its point was stuck in the parquet floor,
+whence had been removed the blood-stained rug.
+
+But there was no sign of disturbance anywhere; nor any sign of any one
+or anything unusual.  The Policemen and I searched the room accurately,
+whilst the Nurse and two of the servants lifted the wounded man back to
+bed; but no sign or clue could we get.  Very soon Miss Trelawny
+returned to the room.  She was pale but collected. When she came close
+to me she said in a low voice:
+
+“I felt myself fainting.  I did not know why; but I was afraid!”
+
+The only other shock I had was when Miss Trelawny cried out to me, as I
+placed my hand on the bed to lean over and look carefully at her father:
+
+“You are wounded.  Look! look! your hand is bloody.  There is blood on
+the sheets!” I had, in the excitement, quite forgotten Silvio’s
+scratch. As I looked at it, the recollection came back to me; but
+before I could say a word Miss Trelawny had caught hold of my hand and
+lifted it up. When she saw the parallel lines of the cuts she cried out
+again:
+
+“It is the same wound as Father’s!”  Then she laid my hand down gently
+but quickly, and said to me and to Sergeant Daw:
+
+“Come to my room!  Silvio is there in his basket.”  We followed her,
+and found Silvio sitting in his basket awake.  He was licking his paws.
+The Detective said:
+
+“He is there sure enough; but why licking his paws?”
+
+Margaret—Miss Trelawny—gave a moan as she bent over and took one of
+the forepaws in her hand; but the cat seemed to resent it and snarled.
+At that Mrs. Grant came into the room.  When she saw that we were
+looking at the cat she said:
+
+“The Nurse tells me that Silvio was asleep on Nurse Kennedy’s bed ever
+since you went to your Father’s room until a while ago.  He came there
+just after you had gone to master’s room.  Nurse says that Nurse
+Kennedy is moaning and muttering in her sleep as though she had a
+nightmare.  I think we should send for Dr. Winchester.”
+
+“Do so at once, please!” said Miss Trelawny; and we went back to the
+room.
+
+For a while Miss Trelawny stood looking at her father, with her brows
+wrinkled. Then, turning to me, as though her mind were made up, she
+said:
+
+“Don’t you think we should have a consultation on Father?  Of course I
+have every confidence in Doctor Winchester; he seems an immensely
+clever young man.  But he is a young man; and there must be men who
+have devoted themselves to this branch of science.  Such a man would
+have more knowledge and more experience; and his knowledge and
+experience might help to throw light on poor Father’s case. As it is,
+Doctor Winchester seems to be quite in the dark.  Oh! I don’t know what
+to do. It is all so terrible!”  Here she broke down a little and cried;
+and I tried to comfort her.
+
+Doctor Winchester arrived quickly.  His first thought was for his
+patient; but when he found him without further harm, he visited Nurse
+Kennedy.  When he saw her, a hopeful look came into his eyes.  Taking a
+towel, he dipped a corner of it in cold water and flicked on the face.
+The skin coloured, and she stirred slightly.  He said to the new
+nurse—Sister Doris he called her:
+
+“She is all right.  She will wake in a few hours at latest.  She may be
+dizzy and distraught at first, or perhaps hysterical.  If so, you know
+how to treat her.”
+
+“Yes, sir!” answered Sister Doris demurely; and we went back to Mr.
+Trelawny’s room. As soon as we had entered, Mrs. Grant and the Nurse
+went out so that only Doctor Winchester, Miss Trelawny, and myself
+remained in the room.  When the door had been closed Doctor Winchester
+asked me as to what had occurred.  I told him fully, giving exactly
+every detail so far as I could remember.  Throughout my narrative,
+which did not take long, however, he kept asking me questions as to who
+had been present and the order in which each one had come into the
+room.  He asked other things, but nothing of any importance; these were
+all that took my attention, or remained in my memory.  When our
+conversation was finished, he said in a very decided way indeed, to
+Miss Trelawny:
+
+“I think, Miss Trelawny, that we had better have a consultation on this
+case.”  She answered at once, seemingly a little to his surprise:
+
+“I am glad you have mentioned it.  I quite agree.  Who would you
+suggest?”
+
+“Have you any choice yourself?” he asked.  “Any one to whom your Father
+is known? Has he ever consulted any one?”
+
+“Not to my knowledge.  But I hope you will choose whoever you think
+would be best.  My dear Father should have all the help that can be
+had; and I shall be deeply obliged by your choosing.  Who is the best
+man in London—anywhere else—in such a case?”
+
+“There are several good men; but they are scattered all over the world.
+Somehow, the brain specialist is born, not made; though a lot of hard
+work goes to the completing of him and fitting him for his work.  He
+comes from no country.  The most daring investigator up to the present
+is Chiuni, the Japanese; but he is rather a surgical experimentalist
+than a practitioner.  Then there is Zammerfest of Uppsala, and Fenelon
+of the University of Paris, and Morfessi of Naples.  These, of course,
+are in addition to our own men, Morrison of Aberdeen and Richardson of
+Birmingham. But before them all I would put Frere of King’s College.
+Of all that I have named he best unites theory and practice.  He has no
+hobbies—that have been discovered at all events; and his experience is
+immense.  It is the regret of all of us who admire him that the nerve
+so firm and the hand so dexterous must yield to time.  For my own part
+I would rather have Frere than any one living.”
+
+“Then,” said Miss Trelawny decisively, “let us have Doctor Frere—by
+the way, is he ‘Doctor’ or ‘Mister’?—as early as we can get him in the
+morning!”
+
+A weight seemed removed from him, and he spoke with greater ease and
+geniality than he had yet shown:
+
+“He is Sir James Frere.  I shall go to him myself as early as it is
+possible to see him, and shall ask him to come here at once.”  Then
+turning to me he said:
+
+“You had better let me dress your hand.”
+
+“It is nothing,” I said.
+
+“Nevertheless it should be seen to.  A scratch from any animal might
+turn out dangerous; there is nothing like being safe.”  I submitted;
+forthwith he began to dress my hand.  He examined with a
+magnifying-glass the several parallel wounds, and compared them with
+the slip of blotting-paper, marked with Silvio’s claws, which he took
+from his pocket-book.  He put back the paper, simply remarking:
+
+“It’s a pity that Silvio slips in—and out—just when he shouldn’t.”
+
+The morning wore slowly on.  By ten o’clock Nurse Kennedy had so far
+recovered that she was able to sit up and talk intelligibly.  But she
+was still hazy in her thoughts; and could not remember anything that
+had happened on the previous night, after her taking her place by the
+sick-bed.  As yet she seemed neither to know nor care what had happened.
+
+It was nearly eleven o’clock when Doctor Winchester returned with Sir
+James Frere. Somehow I felt my heart sink when from the landing I saw
+them in the hall below; I knew that Miss Trelawny was to have the pain
+of telling yet another stranger of her ignorance of her father’s life.
+
+Sir James Frere was a man who commanded attention followed by respect.
+He knew so thoroughly what he wanted himself, that he placed at once on
+one side all wishes and ideas of less definite persons.  The mere flash
+of his piercing eyes, or the set of his resolute mouth, or the lowering
+of his great eyebrows, seemed to compel immediate and willing obedience
+to his wishes.  Somehow, when we had all been introduced and he was
+well amongst us, all sense of mystery seemed to melt away.  It was with
+a hopeful spirit that I saw him pass into the sick-room with Doctor
+Winchester.
+
+They remained in the room a long time; once they sent for the Nurse,
+the new one, Sister Doris, but she did not remain long.  Again they
+both went into Nurse Kennedy’s room.  He sent out the nurse attendant
+on her. Doctor Winchester told me afterward that Nurse Kennedy, though
+she was ignorant of later matters, gave full and satisfactory answers
+to all Doctor Frere’s questions relating to her patient up to the time
+she became unconscious.  Then they went to the study, where they
+remained so long, and their voices raised in heated discussion seemed
+in such determined opposition, that I began to feel uneasy.  As for
+Miss Trelawny, she was almost in a state of collapse from nervousness
+before they joined us.  Poor girl! she had had a sadly anxious time of
+it, and her nervous strength had almost broken down.
+
+They came out at last, Sir James first, his grave face looking as
+unenlightening as that of the sphinx.  Doctor Winchester followed him
+closely; his face was pale, but with that kind of pallor which looked
+like a reaction.  It gave me the idea that it had been red not long
+before.  Sir James asked that Miss Trelawny would come into the study.
+He suggested that I should come also.  When we had entered, Sir James
+turned to me and said:
+
+“I understand from Doctor Winchester that you are a friend of Miss
+Trelawny, and that you have already considerable knowledge of this
+case. Perhaps it will be well that you should be with us.  I know you
+already as a keen lawyer, Mr. Ross, though I never had the pleasure of
+meeting you.  As Doctor Winchester tells me that there are some strange
+matters outside this case which seem to puzzle him—and others—and in
+which he thinks you may yet be specially interested, it might be as
+well that you should know every phase of the case.  For myself I do not
+take much account of mysteries—except those of science; and as there
+seems to be some idea of an attempt at assassination or robbery, all I
+can say is that if assassins were at work they ought to take some
+elementary lessons in anatomy before their next job, for they seem
+thoroughly ignorant.  If robbery were their purpose, they seem to have
+worked with marvellous inefficiency.  That, however, is not my
+business.”  Here he took a big pinch of snuff, and turning to Miss
+Trelawny, went on: “Now as to the patient. Leaving out the cause of his
+illness, all we can say at present is that he appears to be suffering
+from a marked attack of catalepsy.  At present nothing can be done,
+except to sustain his strength.  The treatment of my friend Doctor
+Winchester is mainly such as I approve of; and I am confident that
+should any slight change arise he will be able to deal with it
+satisfactorily.  It is an interesting case—most interesting; and
+should any new or abnormal development arise I shall be happy to come
+at any time.  There is just one thing to which I wish to call your
+attention; and I put it to you, Miss Trelawny, directly, since it is
+your responsibility.  Doctor Winchester informs me that you are not
+yourself free in the matter, but are bound by an instruction given by
+your Father in case just such a condition of things should arise.  I
+would strongly advise that the patient be removed to another room; or,
+as an alternative, that those mummies and all such things should be
+removed from his chamber.  Why, it’s enough to put any man into an
+abnormal condition, to have such an assemblage of horrors round him,
+and to breathe the atmosphere which they exhale.  You have evidence
+already of how such mephitic odour may act.  That nurse—Kennedy, I
+think you said, Doctor—isn’t yet out of her state of catalepsy; and
+you, Mr. Ross, have, I am told, experienced something of the same
+effects.  I know this”—here his eyebrows came down more than ever, and
+his mouth hardened—“if I were in charge here I should insist on the
+patient having a different atmosphere; or I would throw up the case.
+Doctor Winchester already knows that I can only be again consulted on
+this condition being fulfilled.  But I trust that you will see your
+way, as a good daughter to my mind should, to looking to your Father’s
+health and sanity rather than to any whim of his—whether supported or
+not by a foregoing fear, or by any number of “penny dreadful”
+mysteries.  The day has hardly come yet, I am glad to say, when the
+British Museum and St. Thomas’s Hospital have exchanged their normal
+functions.  Good-day, Miss Trelawny.  I earnestly hope that I may soon
+see your Father restored.  Remember, that should you fulfil the
+elementary condition which I have laid down, I am at your service day
+or night.  Good-morning, Mr. Ross.  I hope you will be able to report
+to me soon, Doctor Winchester.”
+
+When he had gone we stood silent, till the rumble of his carriage
+wheels died away. The first to speak was Doctor Winchester:
+
+“I think it well to say that to my mind, speaking purely as a
+physician, he is quite right.  I feel as if I could have assaulted him
+when he made it a condition of not giving up the case; but all the same
+he is right as to treatment.  He does not understand that there is
+something odd about this special case; and he will not realise the knot
+that we are all tied up in by Mr. Trelawny’s instructions.  Of
+course—” He was interrupted by Miss Trelawny:
+
+“Doctor Winchester, do you, too, wish to give up the case; or are you
+willing to continue it under the conditions you know?”
+
+“Give it up!  Less now than ever.  Miss Trelawny, I shall never give it
+up, so long as life is left to him or any of us!”  She said nothing,
+but held out her hand, which he took warmly.
+
+“Now,” said she, “if Sir James Frere is a type of the cult of
+Specialists, I want no more of them.  To start with, he does not seem
+to know any more than you do about my Father’s condition; and if he
+were a hundredth part as much interested in it as you are, he would not
+stand on such punctilio.  Of course, I am only too anxious about my
+poor Father; and if I can see a way to meet either of Sir James Frere’s
+conditions, I shall do so.  I shall ask Mr. Marvin to come here today,
+and advise me as to the limit of Father’s wishes.  If he thinks I am
+free to act in any way on my own responsibility, I shall not hesitate
+to do so.”  Then Doctor Winchester took his leave.
+
+Miss Trelawny sat down and wrote a letter to Mr. Marvin, telling him of
+the state of affairs, and asking him to come and see her and to bring
+with him any papers which might throw any light on the subject.  She
+sent the letter off with a carriage to bring back the solicitor; we
+waited with what patience we could for his coming.
+
+It is not a very long journey for oneself from Kensington Palace
+Gardens to Lincoln’s Inn Fields; but it seemed endlessly long when
+waiting for someone else to take it.  All things, however, are amenable
+to Time; it was less than an hour all told when Mr. Marvin was with us.
+
+He recognised Miss Trelawny’s impatience, and when he had learned
+sufficient of her father’s illness, he said to her:
+
+“Whenever you are ready I can go with you into particulars regarding
+your Father’s wishes.”
+
+“Whenever you like,” she said, with an evident ignorance of his
+meaning. “Why not now?”  He looked at me, as to a fellow man of
+business, and stammered out:
+
+“We are not alone.”
+
+“I have brought Mr. Ross here on purpose,” she answered.  “He knows so
+much at present, that I want him to know more.”  The solicitor was a
+little disconcerted, a thing which those knowing him only in courts
+would hardly have believed.  He answered, however, with some hesitation:
+
+“But, my dear young lady—Your Father’s wishes!—Confidence between
+father and child—”
+
+Here she interrupted him; there was a tinge of red in her pale cheeks
+as she did so:
+
+“Do you really think that applies to the present circumstances, Mr.
+Marvin?  My Father never told me anything of his affairs; and I can
+now, in this sad extremity, only learn his wishes through a gentleman
+who is a stranger to me and of whom I never even heard till I got my
+Father’s letter, written to be shown to me only in extremity.  Mr. Ross
+is a new friend; but he has all my confidence, and I should like him to
+be present.  Unless, of course,” she added, “such a thing is forbidden
+by my Father.  Oh! forgive me, Mr. Marvin, if I seem rude; but I have
+been in such dreadful trouble and anxiety lately, that I have hardly
+command of myself.”  She covered her eyes with her hand for a few
+seconds; we two men looked at each other and waited, trying to appear
+unmoved.  She went on more firmly; she had recovered herself:
+
+“Please! please do not think I am ungrateful to you for your kindness
+in coming here and so quickly.  I really am grateful; and I have every
+confidence in your judgment.  If you wish, or think it best, we can be
+alone.”  I stood up; but Mr. Marvin made a dissentient gesture.  He was
+evidently pleased with her attitude; there was geniality in his voice
+and manner as he spoke:
+
+“Not at all!  Not at all!  There is no restriction on your Father’s
+part; and on my own I am quite willing.  Indeed, all told, it may be
+better.  From what you have said of Mr. Trelawny’s illness, and the
+other—incidental—matters, it will be well in case of any grave
+eventuality, that it was understood from the first, that circumstances
+were ruled by your Father’s own imperative instructions.  For, please
+understand me, his instructions are imperative—most imperative.  They
+are so unyielding that he has given me a Power of Attorney, under which
+I have undertaken to act, authorising me to see his written wishes
+carried out.  Please believe me once for all, that he intended fully
+everything mentioned in that letter to you!  Whilst he is alive he is
+to remain in his own room; and none of his property is to be removed
+from it under any circumstances whatever.  He has even given an
+inventory of the articles which are not to be displaced.”
+
+Miss Trelawny was silent.  She looked somewhat distressed; so, thinking
+that I understood the immediate cause, I asked:
+
+“May we see the list?”  Miss Trelawny’s face at once brightened; but it
+fell again as the lawyer answered promptly—he was evidently prepared
+for the question:
+
+“Not unless I am compelled to take action on the Power of Attorney.  I
+have brought that instrument with me.  You will recognise, Mr.
+Ross”—he said this with a sort of business conviction which I had
+noticed in his professional work, as he handed me the deed—“how
+strongly it is worded, and how the grantor made his wishes apparent in
+such a way as to leave no loophole.  It is his own wording, except for
+certain legal formalities; and I assure you I have seldom seen a more
+iron-clad document.  Even I myself have no power to make the slightest
+relaxation of the instructions, without committing a distinct breach of
+faith.  And that, I need not tell you, is impossible.” He evidently
+added the last words in order to prevent an appeal to his personal
+consideration.  He did not like the seeming harshness of his words,
+however, for he added:
+
+“I do hope, Miss Trelawny, that you understand that I am
+willing—frankly and unequivocally willing—to do anything I can,
+within the limits of my power, to relieve your distress.  But your
+Father had, in all his doings, some purpose of his own which he did not
+disclose to me. So far as I can see, there is not a word of his
+instructions that he had not thought over fully.  Whatever idea he had
+in his mind was the idea of a lifetime; he had studied it in every
+possible phase, and was prepared to guard it at every point.
+
+“Now I fear I have distressed you, and I am truly sorry for it; for I
+see you have much—too much—to bear already.  But I have no
+alternative. If you want to consult me at any time about anything, I
+promise you I will come without a moment’s delay, at any hour of the
+day or night. There is my private address,” he scribbled in his
+pocket-book as he spoke, “and under it the address of my club, where I
+am generally to be found in the evening.”  He tore out the paper and
+handed it to her.  She thanked him.  He shook hands with her and with
+me and withdrew.
+
+As soon as the hall door was shut on him, Mrs. Grant tapped at the door
+and came in. There was such a look of distress in her face that Miss
+Trelawny stood up, deadly white, and asked her:
+
+“What is it, Mrs. Grant?  What is it?  Any new trouble?”
+
+“I grieve to say, miss, that the servants, all but two, have given
+notice and want to leave the house today.  They have talked the matter
+over among themselves; the butler has spoken for the rest.  He says as
+how they are willing to forego their wages, and even to pay their legal
+obligations instead of notice; but that go today they must.”
+
+“What reason do they give?”
+
+“None, miss.  They say as how they’re sorry, but that they’ve nothing
+to say.  I asked Jane, the upper housemaid, miss, who is not with the
+rest but stops on; and she tells me confidential that they’ve got some
+notion in their silly heads that the house is haunted!”
+
+We ought to have laughed, but we didn’t.  I could not look in Miss
+Trelawny’s face and laugh.  The pain and horror there showed no sudden
+paroxysm of fear; there was a fixed idea of which this was a
+confirmation.  For myself, it seemed as if my brain had found a voice.
+But the voice was not complete; there was some other thought, darker
+and deeper, which lay behind it, whose voice had not sounded as yet.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+Suspicions
+
+
+The first to get full self-command was Miss Trelawny.  There was a
+haughty dignity in her bearing as she said:
+
+“Very well, Mrs. Grant; let them go!  Pay them up to today, and a
+month’s wages. They have hitherto been very good servants; and the
+occasion of their leaving is not an ordinary one.  We must not expect
+much faithfulness from any one who is beset with fears.  Those who
+remain are to have in future double wages; and please send these to me
+presently when I send word.”  Mrs. Grant bristled with smothered
+indignation; all the housekeeper in her was outraged by such generous
+treatment of servants who had combined to give notice:
+
+“They don’t deserve it, miss; them to go on so, after the way they have
+been treated here.  Never in my life have I seen servants so well
+treated or anyone so good to them and gracious to them as you have
+been. They might be in the household of a King for treatment.  And now,
+just as there is trouble, to go and act like this.  It’s abominable,
+that’s what it is!”
+
+Miss Trelawny was very gentle with her, and smothered her ruffled
+dignity; so that presently she went away with, in her manner, a lesser
+measure of hostility to the undeserving.  In quite a different frame of
+mind she returned presently to ask if her mistress would like her to
+engage a full staff of other servants, or at any rate try to do so.
+“For you know, ma’am,” she went on, “when once a scare has been
+established in the servants’ hall, it’s wellnigh impossible to get rid
+of it.  Servants may come; but they go away just as quick.  There’s no
+holding them.  They simply won’t stay; or even if they work out their
+month’s notice, they lead you that life that you wish every hour of the
+day that you hadn’t kept them.  The women are bad enough, the huzzies;
+but the men are worse!”  There was neither anxiety nor indignation in
+Miss Trelawny’s voice or manner as she said:
+
+“I think, Mrs. Grant, we had better try to do with those we have.
+Whilst my dear Father is ill we shall not be having any company, so
+that there will be only three now in the house to attend to.  If those
+servants who are willing to stay are not enough, I should only get
+sufficient to help them to do the work.  It will not, I should think,
+be difficult to get a few maids; perhaps some that you know already.
+And please bear in mind, that those whom you get, and who are suitable
+and will stay, are henceforth to have the same wages as those who are
+remaining.  Of course, Mrs. Grant, you well enough understand that
+though I do not group you in any way with the servants, the rule of
+double salary applies to you too.”  As she spoke she extended her long,
+fine-shaped hand, which the other took and then, raising it to her
+lips, kissed it impressively with the freedom of an elder woman to a
+younger. I could not but admire the generosity of her treatment of her
+servants. In my mind I endorsed Mrs. Grant’s sotto voce remark as she
+left the room:
+
+“No wonder the house is like a King’s house, when the mistress is a
+Princess!”
+
+“A Princess!”  That was it.  The idea seemed to satisfy my mind, and to
+bring back in a wave of light the first moment when she swept across my
+vision at the ball in Belgrave Square.  A queenly figure! tall and
+slim, bending, swaying, undulating as the lily or the lotos.  Clad in a
+flowing gown of some filmy black material shot with gold. For ornament
+in her hair she wore an old Egyptian jewel, a tiny crystal disk, set
+between rising plumes carved in lapis lazuli.  On her wrist was a broad
+bangle or bracelet of antique work, in the shape of a pair of spreading
+wings wrought in gold, with the feathers made of coloured gems.  For
+all her gracious bearing toward me, when our hostess introduced me, I
+was then afraid of her.  It was only when later, at the picnic on the
+river, I had come to realise her sweet and gentle, that my awe changed
+to something else.
+
+For a while she sat, making some notes or memoranda.  Then putting them
+away, she sent for the faithful servants.  I thought that she had
+better have this interview alone, and so left her.  When I came back
+there were traces of tears in her eyes.
+
+The next phase in which I had a part was even more disturbing, and
+infinitely more painful.  Late in the afternoon Sergeant Daw came into
+the study where I was sitting. After closing the door carefully and
+looking all round the room to make certain that we were alone, he came
+close to me.
+
+“What is it?” I asked him.  “I see you wish to speak to me privately.”
+
+“Quite so, sir!  May I speak in absolute confidence?”
+
+“Of course you may.  In anything that is for the good of Miss
+Trelawny—and of course Mr. Trelawny—you may be perfectly frank.  I
+take it that we both want to serve them to the best of our powers.”  He
+hesitated before replying:
+
+“Of course you know that I have my duty to do; and I think you know me
+well enough to know that I will do it.  I am a policeman—a detective;
+and it is my duty to find out the facts of any case I am put on,
+without fear or favour to anyone.  I would rather speak to you alone,
+in confidence if I may, without reference to any duty of anyone to
+anyone, except mine to Scotland Yard.”
+
+“Of course! of course!” I answered mechanically, my heart sinking, I
+did not know why.  “Be quite frank with me.  I assure you of my
+confidence.”
+
+“Thank you, sir.  I take it that what I say is not to pass beyond
+you—not to anyone. Not to Miss Trelawny herself, or even to Mr.
+Trelawny when he becomes well again.”
+
+“Certainly, if you make it a condition!” I said a little more stiffly.
+The man recognised the change in my voice or manner, and said
+apologetically:
+
+“Excuse me, sir, but I am going outside my duty in speaking to you at
+all on the subject.  I know you, however, of old; and I feel that I can
+trust you.  Not your word, sir, that is all right; but your discretion!”
+
+I bowed.  “Go on!” I said.  He began at once:
+
+“I have gone over this case, sir, till my brain begins to reel; but I
+can’t find any ordinary solution of it.  At the time of each attempt no
+one has seemingly come into the house; and certainly no one has got
+out. What does it strike you is the inference?”
+
+“That the somebody—or the something—was in the house already,” I
+answered, smiling in spite of myself.
+
+“That’s just what I think,” he said, with a manifest sigh of relief.
+“Very well! Who can be that someone?”
+
+“‘Someone, or something,’ was what I said,” I answered.
+
+“Let us make it ‘someone,’ Mr. Ross!  That cat, though he might have
+scratched or bit, never pulled the old gentleman out of bed, and tried
+to get the bangle with the key off his arm.  Such things are all very
+well in books where your amateur detectives, who know everything before
+it’s done, can fit them into theories; but in Scotland Yard, where the
+men aren’t all idiots either, we generally find that when crime is
+done, or attempted, it’s people, not things, that are at the bottom of
+it.”
+
+“Then make it ‘people’ by all means, Sergeant.”
+
+“We were speaking of ‘someone,’ sir.”
+
+“Quite right.  Someone, be it!”
+
+“Did it ever strike you, sir, that on each of the three separate
+occasions where outrage was effected, or attempted, there was one
+person who was the first to be present and to give the alarm?”
+
+“Let me see!  Miss Trelawny, I believe, gave the alarm on the first
+occasion.  I was present myself, if fast asleep, on the second; and so
+was Nurse Kennedy.  When I woke there were several people in the room;
+you were one of them.  I understand that on that occasion also Miss
+Trelawny was before you.  At the last attempt I was in the room when
+Miss Trelawny fainted.  I carried her out and went back.  In returning,
+I was first; and I think you were close behind me.”
+
+Sergeant Daw thought for a moment before replying:
+
+“She was present, or first, in the room on all the occasions; there was
+only damage done in the first and second!”
+
+The inference was one which I, as a lawyer, could not mistake.  I
+thought the best thing to do was to meet it half-way.  I have always
+found that the best way to encounter an inference is to cause it to be
+turned into a statement.
+
+“You mean,” I said, “that as on the only occasions when actual harm was
+done, Miss Trelawny’s being the first to discover it is a proof that
+she did it; or was in some way connected with the attempt, as well as
+the discovery?”
+
+“I didn’t venture to put it as clear as that; but that is where the
+doubt which I had leads.”  Sergeant Daw was a man of courage; he
+evidently did not shrink from any conclusion of his reasoning on facts.
+
+We were both silent for a while.  Fears began crowding in on my own
+mind.  Not doubts of Miss Trelawny, or of any act of hers; but fears
+lest such acts should be misunderstood.  There was evidently a mystery
+somewhere; and if no solution to it could be found, the doubt would be
+cast on someone.  In such cases the guesses of the majority are bound
+to follow the line of least resistance; and if it could be proved that
+any personal gain to anyone could follow Mr. Trelawny’s death, should
+such ensue, it might prove a difficult task for anyone to prove
+innocence in the face of suspicious facts.  I found myself
+instinctively taking that deferential course which, until the plan of
+battle of the prosecution is unfolded, is so safe an attitude for the
+defence.  It would never do for me, at this stage, to combat any
+theories which a detective might form. I could best help Miss Trelawny
+by listening and understanding.  When the time should come for the
+dissipation and obliteration of the theories, I should be quite willing
+to use all my militant ardour, and all the weapons at my command.
+
+“You will of course do your duty, I know,” I said, “and without fear.
+What course do you intend to take?”
+
+“I don’t know as yet, sir.  You see, up to now it isn’t with me even a
+suspicion.  If any one else told me that that sweet young lady had a
+hand in such a matter, I would think him a fool; but I am bound to
+follow my own conclusions.  I know well that just as unlikely persons
+have been proved guilty, when a whole court—all except the prosecution
+who knew the facts, and the judge who had taught his mind to
+wait—would have sworn to innocence.  I wouldn’t, for all the world,
+wrong such a young lady; more especial when she has such a cruel weight
+to bear.  And you will be sure that I won’t say a word that’ll prompt
+anyone else to make such a charge.  That’s why I speak to you in
+confidence, man to man.  You are skilled in proofs; that is your
+profession.  Mine only gets so far as suspicions, and what we call our
+own proofs—which are nothing but ex parte evidence after all.  You
+know Miss Trelawny better than I do; and though I watch round the
+sick-room, and go where I like about the house and in and out of it, I
+haven’t the same opportunities as you have of knowing the lady and what
+her life is, or her means are; or of anything else which might give me
+a clue to her actions.  If I were to try to find out from her, it would
+at once arouse her suspicions.  Then, if she were guilty, all
+possibility of ultimate proof would go; for she would easily find a way
+to baffle discovery.  But if she be innocent, as I hope she is, it
+would be doing a cruel wrong to accuse her.  I have thought the matter
+over according to my lights before I spoke to you; and if I have taken
+a liberty, sir, I am truly sorry.”
+
+“No liberty in the world, Daw,” I said warmly, for the man’s courage
+and honesty and consideration compelled respect.  “I am glad you have
+spoken to me so frankly. We both want to find out the truth; and there
+is so much about this case that is strange—so strange as to go beyond
+all experiences—that to aim at truth is our only chance of making
+anything clear in the long-run—no matter what our views are, or what
+object we wish to achieve ultimately!”  The Sergeant looked pleased as
+he went on:
+
+“I thought, therefore, that if you had it once in your mind that
+somebody else held to such a possibility, you would by degrees get
+proof; or at any rate such ideas as would convince yourself, either for
+or against it.  Then we would come to some conclusion; or at any rate
+we should so exhaust all other possibilities that the most likely one
+would remain as the nearest thing to proof, or strong suspicion, that
+we could get. After that we should have to—”
+
+Just at this moment the door opened and Miss Trelawny entered the room.
+The moment she saw us she drew back quickly, saying:
+
+“Oh, I beg pardon!  I did not know you were here, and engaged.”  By the
+time I had stood up, she was about to go back.
+
+“Do come in,” I said; “Sergeant Daw and I were only talking matters
+over.”
+
+Whilst she was hesitating, Mrs. Grant appeared, saying as she entered
+the room: “Doctor Winchester is come, miss, and is asking for you.”
+
+I obeyed Miss Trelawny’s look; together we left the room.
+
+When the Doctor had made his examination, he told us that there was
+seemingly no change.  He added that nevertheless he would like to stay
+in the house that night if he might.  Miss Trelawny looked glad, and
+sent word to Mrs. Grant to get a room ready for him.  Later in the day,
+when he and I happened to be alone together, he said suddenly:
+
+“I have arranged to stay here tonight because I want to have a talk
+with you.  And as I wish it to be quite private, I thought the least
+suspicious way would be to have a cigar together late in the evening
+when Miss Trelawny is watching her father.”  We still kept to our
+arrangement that either the sick man’s daughter or I should be on watch
+all night.  We were to share the duty at the early hours of the
+morning. I was anxious about this, for I knew from our conversation
+that the Detective would watch in secret himself, and would be
+particularly alert about that time.
+
+The day passed uneventfully.  Miss Trelawny slept in the afternoon; and
+after dinner went to relieve the Nurse.  Mrs. Grant remained with her,
+Sergeant Daw being on duty in the corridor.  Doctor Winchester and I
+took our coffee in the library.  When we had lit our cigars he said
+quietly:
+
+“Now that we are alone I want to have a confidential talk.  We are
+‘tiled,’ of course; for the present at all events?”
+
+“Quite so!” I said, my heart sinking as I thought of my conversation
+with Sergeant Daw in the morning, and of the disturbing and harrowing
+fears which it had left in my mind.  He went on:
+
+“This case is enough to try the sanity of all of us concerned in it.
+The more I think of it, the madder I seem to get; and the two lines,
+each continually strengthened, seem to pull harder in opposite
+directions.”
+
+“What two lines?”  He looked at me keenly for a moment before replying.
+Doctor Winchester’s look at such moments was apt to be disconcerting.
+It would have been so to me had I had a personal part, other than my
+interest in Miss Trelawny, in the matter.  As it was, however, I stood
+it unruffled.  I was now an attorney in the case; an amicus curiae in
+one sense, in another retained for the defence.  The mere thought that
+in this clever man’s mind were two lines, equally strong and opposite,
+was in itself so consoling as to neutralise my anxiety as to a new
+attack.  As he began to speak, the Doctor’s face wore an inscrutable
+smile; this, however, gave place to a stern gravity as he proceeded:
+
+“Two lines:  Fact and—Fancy!  In the first there is this whole thing;
+attacks, attempts at robbery and murder; stupefyings; organised
+catalepsy which points to either criminal hypnotism and thought
+suggestion, or some simple form of poisoning unclassified yet in our
+toxicology.  In the other there is some influence at work which is not
+classified in any book that I know—outside the pages of romance.  I
+never felt in my life so strongly the truth of Hamlet’s words:
+
+     ‘There are more things in Heaven and earth....
+     Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’
+
+“Let us take the ‘Fact’ side first.  Here we have a man in his home;
+amidst his own household; plenty of servants of different classes in
+the house, which forbids the possibility of an organised attempt made
+from the servants’ hall.  He is wealthy, learned, clever.  From his
+physiognomy there is no doubting that he is a man of iron will and
+determined purpose.  His daughter—his only child, I take it, a young
+girl bright and clever—is sleeping in the very next room to his.
+There is seemingly no possible reason for expecting any attack or
+disturbance of any kind; and no reasonable opportunity for any outsider
+to effect it.  And yet we have an attack made; a brutal and remorseless
+attack, made in the middle of the night.  Discovery is made quickly;
+made with that rapidity which in criminal cases generally is found to
+be not accidental, but of premeditated intent.  The attacker, or
+attackers, are manifestly disturbed before the completion of their
+work, whatever their ultimate intent may have been.  And yet there is
+no possible sign of their escape; no clue, no disturbance of anything;
+no open door or window; no sound.  Nothing whatever to show who had
+done the deed, or even that a deed has been done; except the victim,
+and his surroundings incidental to the deed!
+
+“The next night a similar attempt is made, though the house is full of
+wakeful people; and though there are on watch in the room and around it
+a detective officer, a trained nurse, an earnest friend, and the man’s
+own daughter.  The nurse is thrown into a catalepsy, and the watching
+friend—though protected by a respirator—into a deep sleep.  Even the
+detective is so far overcome with some phase of stupor that he fires
+off his pistol in the sick-room, and can’t even tell what he thought he
+was firing at.  That respirator of yours is the only thing that seems
+to have a bearing on the ‘fact’ side of the affair.  That you did not
+lose your head as the others did—the effect in such case being in
+proportion to the amount of time each remained in the room—points to
+the probability that the stupefying medium was not hypnotic, whatever
+else it may have been.  But again, there is a fact which is
+contradictory. Miss Trelawny, who was in the room more than any of
+you—for she was in and out all the time and did her share of permanent
+watching also—did not seem to be affected at all.  This would show
+that the influence, whatever it is, does not affect generally—unless,
+of course, it was that she was in some way inured to it.  If it should
+turn out that it be some strange exhalation from some of those Egyptian
+curios, that might account for it; only, we are then face to face with
+the fact that Mr. Trelawny, who was most of all in the room—who, in
+fact, lived more than half his life in it—was affected worst of all.
+What kind of influence could it be which would account for all these
+different and contradictory effects?  No! the more I think of this form
+of the dilemma, the more I am bewildered!  Why, even if it were that
+the attack, the physical attack, on Mr. Trelawny had been made by some
+one residing in the house and not within the sphere of suspicion, the
+oddness of the stupefyings would still remain a mystery.  It is not
+easy to put anyone into a catalepsy.  Indeed, so far as is known yet in
+science, there is no way to achieve such an object at will.  The crux
+of the whole matter is Miss Trelawny, who seems to be subject to none
+of the influences, or possibly of the variants of the same influence at
+work.  Through all she goes unscathed, except for that one slight
+semi-faint.  It is most strange!”
+
+I listened with a sinking heart; for, though his manner was not
+illuminative of distrust, his argument was disturbing.  Although it was
+not so direct as the suspicion of the Detective, it seemed to single
+out Miss Trelawny as different from all others concerned; and in a
+mystery to be alone is to be suspected, ultimately if not immediately.
+I thought it better not to say anything.  In such a case silence is
+indeed golden; and if I said nothing now I might have less to defend,
+or explain, or take back later.  I was, therefore, secretly glad that
+his form of putting his argument did not require any answer from
+me—for the present, at all events. Doctor Winchester did not seem to
+expect any answer—a fact which, when I recognised it, gave me
+pleasure, I hardly knew why.  He paused for a while, sitting with his
+chin in his hand, his eyes staring at vacancy, whilst his brows were
+fixed.  His cigar was held limp between his fingers; he had apparently
+forgotten it.  In an even voice, as though commencing exactly where he
+had left off, he resumed his argument:
+
+“The other horn of the dilemma is a different affair altogether; and if
+we once enter on it we must leave everything in the shape of science
+and experience behind us.  I confess that it has its fascinations for
+me; though at every new thought I find myself romancing in a way that
+makes me pull up suddenly and look facts resolutely in the face.  I
+sometimes wonder whether the influence or emanation from the sick-room
+at times affects me as it did the others—the Detective, for instance.
+Of course it may be that if it is anything chemical, any drug, for
+example, in vaporeal form, its effects may be cumulative.  But then,
+what could there be that could produce such an effect?  The room is, I
+know, full of mummy smell; and no wonder, with so many relics from the
+tomb, let alone the actual mummy of that animal which Silvio attacked.
+By the way, I am going to test him tomorrow; I have been on the trace
+of a mummy cat, and am to get possession of it in the morning.  When I
+bring it here we shall find out if it be a fact that racial instinct
+can survive a few thousand years in the grave.  However, to get back to
+the subject in hand.  These very mummy smells arise from the presence
+of substances, and combinations of substances, which the Egyptian
+priests, who were the learned men and scientists of their time, found
+by the experience of centuries to be strong enough to arrest the
+natural forces of decay. There must be powerful agencies at work to
+effect such a purpose; and it is possible that we may have here some
+rare substance or combination whose qualities and powers are not
+understood in this later and more prosaic age.  I wonder if Mr.
+Trelawny has any knowledge, or even suspicion, of such a kind?  I only
+know this for certain, that a worse atmosphere for a sick chamber could
+not possibly be imagined; and I admire the courage of Sir James Frere
+in refusing to have anything to do with a case under such conditions.
+These instructions of Mr. Trelawny to his daughter, and from what you
+have told me, the care with which he has protected his wishes through
+his solicitor, show that he suspected something, at any rate. Indeed,
+it would almost seem as if he expected something to happen.... I wonder
+if it would be possible to learn anything about that!  Surely his
+papers would show or suggest something.... It is a difficult matter to
+tackle; but it might have to be done.  His present condition cannot go
+on for ever; and if anything should happen there would have to be an
+inquest.  In such case full examination would have to be made into
+everything.... As it stands, the police evidence would show a murderous
+attack more than once repeated.  As no clue is apparent, it would be
+necessary to seek one in a motive.”
+
+He was silent.  The last words seemed to come in a lower and lower tone
+as he went on.  It had the effect of hopelessness.  It came to me as a
+conviction that now was my time to find out if he had any definite
+suspicion; and as if in obedience to some command, I asked:
+
+“Do you suspect anyone?”  He seemed in a way startled rather than
+surprised as he turned his eyes on me:
+
+“Suspect anyone?  Any thing, you mean.  I certainly suspect that there
+is some influence; but at present my suspicion is held within such
+limit.  Later on, if there be any sufficiently definite conclusion to
+my reasoning, or my thinking—for there are not proper data for
+reasoning—I may suspect; at present however—”
+
+He stopped suddenly and looked at the door.  There was a faint sound as
+the handle turned.  My own heart seemed to stand still.  There was over
+me some grim, vague apprehension.  The interruption in the morning,
+when I was talking with the Detective, came back upon me with a rush.
+
+The door opened, and Miss Trelawny entered the room.
+
+When she saw us, she started back; and a deep flush swept her face.
+For a few seconds she paused; at such a time a few succeeding seconds
+seem to lengthen in geometrical progression.  The strain upon me, and,
+as I could easily see, on the Doctor also, relaxed as she spoke:
+
+“Oh, forgive me, I did not know that you were engaged.  I was looking
+for you, Doctor Winchester, to ask you if I might go to bed tonight
+with safety, as you will be here.  I feel so tired and worn-out that I
+fear I may break down; and tonight I would certainly not be of any
+use.”  Doctor Winchester answered heartily:
+
+“Do!  Do go to bed by all means, and get a good night’s sleep.  God
+knows! you want it.  I am more than glad you have made the suggestion,
+for I feared when I saw you tonight that I might have you on my hands a
+patient next.”
+
+She gave a sigh of relief, and the tired look seemed to melt from her
+face.  Never shall I forget the deep, earnest look in her great,
+beautiful black eyes as she said to me:
+
+“You will guard Father tonight, won’t you, with Doctor Winchester?  I
+am so anxious about him that every second brings new fears.  But I am
+really worn-out; and if I don’t get a good sleep, I think I shall go
+mad.  I will change my room for tonight. I’m afraid that if I stay so
+close to Father’s room I shall multiply every sound into a new terror.
+But, of course, you will have me waked if there be any cause.  I shall
+be in the bedroom of the little suite next the boudoir off the hall.  I
+had those rooms when first I came to live with Father, and I had no
+care then.... It will be easier to rest there; and perhaps for a few
+hours I may forget.  I shall be all right in the morning.  Good-night!”
+
+When I had closed the door behind her and come back to the little table
+at which we had been sitting, Doctor Winchester said:
+
+“That poor girl is overwrought to a terrible degree.  I am delighted
+that she is to get a rest.  It will be life to her; and in the morning
+she will be all right.  Her nervous system is on the verge of a
+breakdown.  Did you notice how fearfully disturbed she was, and how red
+she got when she came in and found us talking?  An ordinary thing like
+that, in her own house with her own guests, wouldn’t under normal
+circumstances disturb her!”
+
+I was about to tell him, as an explanation in her defence, how her
+entrance was a repetition of her finding the Detective and myself alone
+together earlier in the day, when I remembered that that conversation
+was so private that even an allusion to it might be awkward in evoking
+curiosity.  So I remained silent.
+
+We stood up to go to the sick-room; but as we took our way through the
+dimly-lighted corridor I could not help thinking, again and again, and
+again—ay, and for many a day after—how strange it was that she had
+interrupted me on two such occasions when touching on such a theme.
+
+There was certainly some strange web of accidents, in whose meshes we
+were all involved.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+The Traveller’s Loss
+
+
+That night everything went well.  Knowing that Miss Trelawny herself
+was not on guard, Doctor Winchester and I doubled our vigilance.  The
+Nurses and Mrs. Grant kept watch, and the Detectives made their visit
+each quarter of an hour.  All night the patient remained in his trance.
+He looked healthy, and his chest rose and fell with the easy breathing
+of a child.  But he never stirred; only for his breathing he might have
+been of marble.  Doctor Winchester and I wore our respirators, and
+irksome they were on that intolerably hot night.  Between midnight and
+three o’clock I felt anxious, and had once more that creepy feeling to
+which these last few nights had accustomed me; but the grey of the
+dawn, stealing round the edges of the blinds, came with inexpressible
+relief, followed by restfulness, went through the household.  During
+the hot night my ears, strained to every sound, had been almost
+painfully troubled; as though my brain or sensoria were in anxious
+touch with them.  Every breath of the Nurse or the rustle of her dress;
+every soft pat of slippered feet, as the Policeman went his rounds;
+every moment of watching life, seemed to be a new impetus to
+guardianship.  Something of the same feeling must have been abroad in
+the house; now and again I could hear upstairs the sound of restless
+feet, and more than once downstairs the opening of a window.  With the
+coming of the dawn, however, all this ceased, and the whole household
+seemed to rest. Doctor Winchester went home when Sister Doris came to
+relieve Mrs. Grant.  He was, I think, a little disappointed or
+chagrined that nothing of an exceptional nature had happened during his
+long night vigil.
+
+At eight o’clock Miss Trelawny joined us, and I was amazed as well as
+delighted to see how much good her night’s sleep had done her.  She was
+fairly radiant; just as I had seen her at our first meeting and at the
+picnic.  There was even a suggestion of colour in her cheeks, which,
+however, looked startlingly white in contrast with her black brows and
+scarlet lips.  With her restored strength, there seemed to have come a
+tenderness even exceeding that which she had at first shown to her sick
+father.  I could not but be moved by the loving touches as she fixed
+his pillows and brushed the hair from his forehead.
+
+I was wearied out myself with my long spell of watching; and now that
+she was on guard I started off to bed, blinking my tired eyes in the
+full light and feeling the weariness of a sleepless night on me all at
+once.
+
+I had a good sleep, and after lunch I was about to start out to walk to
+Jermyn Street, when I noticed an importunate man at the hall door.  The
+servant in charge was the one called Morris, formerly the “odd man,”
+but since the exodus of the servants promoted to be butler pro tem.
+The stranger was speaking rather loudly, so that there was no
+difficulty in understanding his grievance.  The servant man was
+respectful in both words and demeanour; but he stood squarely in front
+of the great double door, so that the other could not enter.  The first
+words which I heard from the visitor sufficiently explained the
+situation:
+
+“That’s all very well, but I tell you I must see Mr. Trelawny!  What is
+the use of your saying I can’t, when I tell you I must.  You put me
+off, and off, and off!  I came here at nine; you said then that he was
+not up, and that as he was not well he could not be disturbed.  I came
+at twelve; and you told me again he was not up.  I asked then to see
+any of his household; you told me that Miss Trelawny was not up.  Now I
+come again at three, and you tell me he is still in bed, and is not
+awake yet.  Where is Miss Trelawny?  ‘She is occupied and must not be
+disturbed!’  Well, she must be disturbed!  Or some one must.  I am here
+about Mr. Trelawny’s special business; and I have come from a place
+where servants always begin by saying No.  ‘No’ isn’t good enough for
+me this time!  I’ve had three years of it, waiting outside doors and
+tents when it took longer to get in than it did into the tombs; and
+then you would think, too, the men inside were as dead as the mummies.
+I’ve had about enough of it, I tell you.  And when I come home, and
+find the door of the man I’ve been working for barred, in just the same
+way and with the same old answers, it stirs me up the wrong way.  Did
+Mr. Trelawny leave orders that he would not see me when I should come?”
+
+He paused and excitedly mopped his forehead.  The servant answered very
+respectfully:
+
+“I am very sorry, sir, if in doing my duty I have given any offence.
+But I have my orders, and must obey them.  If you would like to leave
+any message, I will give it to Miss Trelawny; and if you will leave
+your address, she can communicate with you if she wishes.”  The answer
+came in such a way that it was easy to see that the speaker was a
+kind-hearted man, and a just one.
+
+“My good fellow, I have no fault to find with you personally; and I am
+sorry if I have hurt your feelings.  I must be just, even if I am
+angry. But it is enough to anger any man to find himself in the
+position I am. Time is pressing.  There is not an hour—not a
+minute—to lose!  And yet here I am, kicking my heels for six hours;
+knowing all the time that your master will be a hundred times angrier
+than I am, when he hears how the time has been fooled away.  He would
+rather be waked out of a thousand sleeps than not see me just at
+present—and before it is too late.  My God! it’s simply dreadful,
+after all I’ve gone through, to have my work spoiled at the last and be
+foiled in the very doorway by a stupid flunkey!  Is there no one with
+sense in the house; or with authority, even if he hasn’t got sense?  I
+could mighty soon convince him that your master must be awakened; even
+if he sleeps like the Seven Sleepers—”
+
+There was no mistaking the man’s sincerity, or the urgency and
+importance of his business; from his point of view at any rate.  I
+stepped forward.
+
+“Morris,” I said, “you had better tell Miss Trelawny that this
+gentleman wants to see her particularly.  If she is busy, ask Mrs.
+Grant to tell her.”
+
+“Very good, sir!” he answered in a tone of relief, and hurried away.
+
+I took the stranger into the little boudoir across the hall.  As we
+went he asked me:
+
+“Are you the secretary?”
+
+“No!  I am a friend of Miss Trelawny’s.  My name is Ross.”
+
+“Thank you very much, Mr. Ross, for your kindness!” he said.  “My name
+is Corbeck.  I would give you my card, but they don’t use cards where
+I’ve come from.  And if I had had any, I suppose they, too, would have
+gone last night—”
+
+He stopped suddenly, as though conscious that he had said too much.  We
+both remained silent; as we waited I took stock of him.  A short,
+sturdy man, brown as a coffee-berry; possibly inclined to be fat, but
+now lean exceedingly.  The deep wrinkles in his face and neck were not
+merely from time and exposure; there were those unmistakable signs
+where flesh or fat has fallen away, and the skin has become loose.  The
+neck was simply an intricate surface of seams and wrinkles, and
+sun-scarred with the burning of the Desert.  The Far East, the Tropic
+Seasons, and the Desert—each can have its colour mark.  But all three
+are quite different; and an eye which has once known, can thenceforth
+easily distinguish them.  The dusky pallor of one; the fierce red-brown
+of the other; and of the third, the dark, ingrained burning, as though
+it had become a permanent colour.  Mr. Corbeck had a big head, massive
+and full; with shaggy, dark red-brown hair, but bald on the temples.
+His forehead was a fine one, high and broad; with, to use the terms of
+physiognomy, the frontal sinus boldly marked.  The squareness of it
+showed “ratiocination”; and the fulness under the eyes “language”.  He
+had the short, broad nose that marks energy; the square chin—marked
+despite a thick, unkempt beard—and massive jaw that showed great
+resolution.
+
+“No bad man for the Desert!” I thought as I looked.
+
+Miss Trelawny came very quickly.  When Mr. Corbeck saw her, he seemed
+somewhat surprised.  But his annoyance and excitement had not
+disappeared; quite enough remained to cover up any such secondary and
+purely exoteric feeling as surprise. But as she spoke he never took his
+eyes off her; and I made a mental note that I would find some early
+opportunity of investigating the cause of his surprise.  She began with
+an apology which quite smoothed down his ruffled feelings:
+
+“Of course, had my Father been well you would not have been kept
+waiting.  Indeed, had not I been on duty in the sick-room when you
+called the first time, I should have seen you at once.  Now will you
+kindly tell me what is the matter which so presses?” He looked at me
+and hesitated.  She spoke at once:
+
+“You may say before Mr. Ross anything which you can tell me.  He has my
+fullest confidence, and is helping me in my trouble.  I do not think
+you quite understand how serious my Father’s condition is.  For three
+days he has not waked, or given any sign of consciousness; and I am in
+terrible trouble about him.  Unhappily I am in great ignorance of my
+Father and his life.  I only came to live with him a year ago; and I
+know nothing whatever of his affairs.  I do not even know who you are,
+or in what way your business is associated with him.”  She said this
+with a little deprecating smile, all conventional and altogether
+graceful; as though to express in the most genuine way her absurd
+ignorance.
+
+He looked steadily at her for perhaps a quarter of a minute; then he
+spoke, beginning at once as though his mind were made up and his
+confidence established:
+
+“My name is Eugene Corbeck.  I am a Master of Arts and Doctor of Laws
+and Master of Surgery of Cambridge; Doctor of Letters of Oxford; Doctor
+of Science and Doctor of Languages of London University; Doctor of
+Philosophy of Berlin; Doctor of Oriental Languages of Paris.  I have
+some other degrees, honorary and otherwise, but I need not trouble you
+with them.  Those I have named will show you that I am sufficiently
+feathered with diplomas to fly into even a sick-room.  Early in
+life—fortunately for my interests and pleasures, but unfortunately for
+my pocket—I fell in with Egyptology.  I must have been bitten by some
+powerful scarab, for I took it bad.  I went out tomb-hunting; and
+managed to get a living of a sort, and to learn some things that you
+can’t get out of books.  I was in pretty low water when I met your
+Father, who was doing some explorations on his own account; and since
+then I haven’t found that I have many unsatisfied wants.  He is a real
+patron of the arts; no mad Egyptologist can ever hope for a better
+chief!”
+
+He spoke with feeling; and I was glad to see that Miss Trelawny
+coloured up with pleasure at the praise of her father.  I could not
+help noticing, however, that Mr. Corbeck was, in a measure, speaking as
+if against time.  I took it that he wished, while speaking, to study
+his ground; to see how far he would be justified in taking into
+confidence the two strangers before him.  As he went on, I could see
+that his confidence kept increasing.  When I thought of it afterward,
+and remembered what he had said, I realised that the measure of the
+information which he gave us marked his growing trust.
+
+“I have been several times out on expeditions in Egypt for your Father;
+and I have always found it a delight to work for him.  Many of his
+treasures—and he has some rare ones, I tell you—he has procured
+through me, either by my exploration or by purchase—or—or—otherwise.
+Your Father, Miss Trelawny, has a rare knowledge.  He sometimes makes
+up his mind that he wants to find a particular thing, of whose
+existence—if it still exists—he has become aware; and he will follow
+it all over the world till he gets it.  I’ve been on just such a chase
+now.”
+
+He stopped suddenly, as suddenly as though his mouth had been shut by
+the jerk of a string.  We waited; when he went on he spoke with a
+caution that was new to him, as though he wished to forestall our
+asking any questions:
+
+“I am not at liberty to mention anything of my mission; where it was
+to, what it was for, or anything at all about it.  Such matters are in
+confidence between Mr. Trelawny and myself; I am pledged to absolute
+secrecy.”
+
+He paused, and an embarrassed look crept over his face.  Suddenly he
+said:
+
+“You are sure, Miss Trelawny, your Father is not well enough to see me
+today?”
+
+A look of wonderment was on her face in turn.  But it cleared at
+once;—she stood up, saying in a tone in which dignity and graciousness
+were blended:
+
+“Come and see for yourself!”  She moved toward her father’s room; he
+followed, and I brought up the rear.
+
+Mr. Corbeck entered the sick-room as though he knew it.  There is an
+unconscious attitude or bearing to persons in new surroundings which
+there is no mistaking. Even in his anxiety to see his powerful friend,
+he glanced for a moment round the room, as at a familiar place.  Then
+all his attention became fixed on the bed.  I watched him narrowly, for
+somehow I felt that on this man depended much of our enlightenment
+regarding the strange matter in which we were involved.
+
+It was not that I doubted him.  The man was of transparent honesty; it
+was this very quality which we had to dread.  He was of that
+courageous, fixed trueness to his undertaking, that if he should deem
+it his duty to guard a secret he would do it to the last.  The case
+before us was, at least, an unusual one; and it would, consequently,
+require more liberal recognition of bounds of the duty of secrecy than
+would hold under ordinary conditions.  To us, ignorance was
+helplessness.  If we could learn anything of the past we might at least
+form some idea of the conditions antecedent to the attack; and might,
+so, achieve some means of helping the patient to recovery. There were
+curios which might be removed.... My thoughts were beginning to whirl
+once again; I pulled myself up sharply and watched.  There was a look
+of infinite pity on the sun-stained, rugged face as he gazed at his
+friend, lying so helpless. The sternness of Mr. Trelawny’s face had not
+relaxed in sleep; but somehow it made the helplessness more marked.  It
+would not have troubled one to see a weak or an ordinary face under
+such conditions; but this purposeful, masterful man, lying before us
+wrapped in impenetrable sleep, had all the pathos of a great ruin.  The
+sight was not a new one to us; but I could see that Miss Trelawny, like
+myself, was moved afresh by it in the presence of the stranger.  Mr.
+Corbeck’s face grew stern.  All the pity died away; and in its stead
+came a grim, hard look which boded ill for whoever had been the cause
+of this mighty downfall.  This look in turn gave place to one of
+decision; the volcanic energy of the man was working to some definite
+purpose.  He glanced around at us; and as his eyes lighted on Nurse
+Kennedy his eyebrows went up a trifle.  She noted the look, and glanced
+interrogatively at Miss Trelawny, who flashed back a reply with a
+glance.  She went quietly from the room, closing the door behind her.
+Mr. Corbeck looked first at me, with a strong man’s natural impulse to
+learn from a man rather than a woman; then at Miss Trelawny, with a
+remembrance of the duty of courtesy, and said:
+
+“Tell me all about it.  How it began and when!”  Miss Trelawny looked
+at me appealingly; and forthwith I told him all that I knew.  He
+seemed to make no motion during the whole time; but insensibly the
+bronze face became steel.  When, at the end, I told him of Mr. Marvin’s
+visit and of the Power of Attorney, his look began to brighten.  And
+when, seeing his interest in the matter, I went more into detail as to
+its terms, he spoke:
+
+“Good!  Now I know where my duty lies!”
+
+With a sinking heart I heard him.  Such a phrase, coming at such a
+time, seemed to close the door to my hopes of enlightenment.
+
+“What do you mean?” I asked, feeling that my question was a feeble one.
+
+His answer emphasized my fears:
+
+“Trelawny knows what he is doing.  He had some definite purpose in all
+that he did; and we must not thwart him.  He evidently expected
+something to happen, and guarded himself at all points.”
+
+“Not at all points!” I said impulsively.  “There must have been a weak
+spot somewhere, or he wouldn’t be lying here like that!”  Somehow his
+impassiveness surprised me.  I had expected that he would find a valid
+argument in my phrase; but it did not move him, at least not in the way
+I thought.  Something like a smile flickered over his swarthy face as
+he answered me:
+
+“This is not the end!  Trelawny did not guard himself to no purpose.
+Doubtless, he expected this too; or at any rate the possibility of it.”
+
+“Do you know what he expected, or from what source?”  The questioner
+was Miss Trelawny.
+
+The answer came at once:  “No!  I know nothing of either. I can
+guess...”  He stopped suddenly.
+
+“Guess what?”  The suppressed excitement in the girl’s voice was akin
+to anguish. The steely look came over the swarthy face again; but there
+was tenderness and courtesy in both voice and manner as he replied:
+
+“Believe me, I would do anything I honestly could to relieve your
+anxiety.  But in this I have a higher duty.”
+
+“What duty?”
+
+“Silence!”  As he spoke the word, the strong mouth closed like a steel
+trap.
+
+We all remained silent for a few minutes.  In the intensity of our
+thinking, the silence became a positive thing; the small sounds of life
+within and without the house seemed intrusive.  The first to break it
+was Miss Trelawny.  I had seen an idea—a hope—flash in her eyes; but
+she steadied herself before speaking:
+
+“What was the urgent subject on which you wanted to see me, knowing
+that my Father was—not available?”  The pause showed her mastery of
+her thoughts.
+
+The instantaneous change in Mr. Corbeck was almost ludicrous.  His
+start of surprise, coming close upon his iron-clad impassiveness, was
+like a pantomimic change.  But all idea of comedy was swept away by the
+tragic earnestness with which he remembered his original purpose.
+
+“My God!” he said, as he raised his hand from the chair back on which
+it rested, and beat it down with a violence which would in itself have
+arrested attention.  His brows corrugated as he went on:  “I quite
+forgot!  What a loss!  Now of all times!  Just at the moment of
+success! He lying there helpless, and my tongue tied!  Not able to
+raise hand or foot in my ignorance of his wishes!”
+
+“What is it?  Oh, do tell us!  I am so anxious about my dear Father!
+Is it any new trouble?  I hope not! oh, I hope not!  I have had such
+anxiety and trouble already!  It alarms me afresh to hear you speak so!
+Won’t you tell me something to allay this terrible anxiety and
+uncertainty?”
+
+He drew his sturdy form up to his full height as he said:
+
+“Alas!  I cannot, may not, tell you anything.  It is his secret.”  He
+pointed to the bed. “And yet—and yet I came here for his advice, his
+counsel, his assistance.  And he lies there helpless.... And time is
+flying by us!  It may soon be too late!”
+
+“What is it? what is it?” broke in Miss Trelawny in a sort of passion
+of anxiety, her face drawn with pain.  “Oh, speak!  Say something!
+This anxiety, and horror, and mystery are killing me!”  Mr. Corbeck
+calmed himself by a great effort.
+
+“I may not tell you details; but I have had a great loss.  My mission,
+in which I have spent three years, was successful.  I discovered all
+that I sought—and more; and brought them home with me safely.
+Treasures, priceless in themselves, but doubly precious to him by whose
+wishes and instructions I sought them.  I arrived in London only last
+night, and when I woke this morning my precious charge was stolen.
+Stolen in some mysterious way.  Not a soul in London knew that I was
+arriving.  No one but myself knew what was in the shabby portmanteau
+that I carried.  My room had but one door, and that I locked and
+bolted. The room was high in the house, five stories up, so that no
+entrance could have been obtained by the window.  Indeed, I had closed
+the window myself and shut the hasp, for I wished to be secure in every
+way.  This morning the hasp was untouched.... And yet my portmanteau
+was empty. The lamps were gone! ... There! it is out.  I went to Egypt
+to search for a set of antique lamps which Mr. Trelawny wished to
+trace.  With incredible labour, and through many dangers, I followed
+them.  I brought them safe home.... And now!”  He turned away much
+moved.  Even his iron nature was breaking down under the sense of loss.
+
+Miss Trelawny stepped over and laid her hand on his arm.  I looked at
+her in amazement.  All the passion and pain which had so moved her
+seemed to have taken the form of resolution.  Her form was erect, her
+eyes blazed; energy was manifest in every nerve and fibre of her being.
+Even her voice was full of nervous power as she spoke.  It was apparent
+that she was a marvellously strong woman, and that her strength could
+answer when called upon.
+
+“We must act at once!  My Father’s wishes must be carried out if it is
+possible to us. Mr. Ross, you are a lawyer.  We have actually in the
+house a man whom you consider one of the best detectives in London.
+Surely we can do something.  We can begin at once!”  Mr. Corbeck took
+new life from her enthusiasm.
+
+“Good!  You are your Father’s daughter!” was all he said.  But his
+admiration for her energy was manifested by the impulsive way in which
+he took her hand.  I moved over to the door.  I was going to bring
+Sergeant Daw; and from her look of approval, I knew that Margaret—Miss
+Trelawny—understood.  I was at the door when Mr. Corbeck called me
+back.
+
+“One moment,” he said, “before we bring a stranger on the scene.  It
+must be borne in mind that he is not to know what you know now, that
+the lamps were the objects of a prolonged and difficult and dangerous
+search.  All I can tell him, all that he must know from any source, is
+that some of my property has been stolen.  I must describe some of the
+lamps, especially one, for it is of gold; and my fear is lest the
+thief, ignorant of its historic worth, may, in order to cover up his
+crime, have it melted.  I would willingly pay ten, twenty, a hundred, a
+thousand times its intrinsic value rather than have it destroyed.  I
+shall tell him only what is necessary.  So, please, let me answer any
+questions he may ask; unless, of course, I ask you or refer to either
+of you for the answer.”  We both nodded acquiescence.  Then a thought
+struck me and I said:
+
+“By the way, if it be necessary to keep this matter quiet it will be
+better to have it if possible a private job for the Detective.  If once
+a thing gets to Scotland Yard it is out of our power to keep it quiet,
+and further secrecy may be impossible.  I shall sound Sergeant Daw
+before he comes up.  If I say nothing, it will mean that he accepts the
+task and will deal with it privately.”  Mr. Corbeck answered at once:
+
+“Secrecy is everything.  The one thing I dread is that the lamps, or
+some of them, may be destroyed at once.”  To my intense astonishment
+Miss Trelawny spoke out at once, but quietly, in a decided voice:
+
+“They will not be destroyed; nor any of them!”  Mr. Corbeck actually
+smiled in amazement.
+
+“How on earth do you know?” he asked.  Her answer was still more
+incomprehensible:
+
+“I don’t know how I know it; but know it I do.  I feel it all through
+me; as though it were a conviction which has been with me all my life!”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+The Finding of the Lamps
+
+
+Sergeant Daw at first made some demur; but finally agreed to advise
+privately on a matter which might be suggested to him.  He added that I
+was to remember that he only undertook to advise; for if action were
+required he might have to refer the matter to headquarters.  With this
+understanding I left him in the study, and brought Miss Trelawny and
+Mr. Corbeck to him.  Nurse Kennedy resumed her place at the bedside
+before we left the room.
+
+I could not but admire the cautious, cool-headed precision with which
+the traveller stated his case.  He did not seem to conceal anything,
+and yet he gave the least possible description of the objects missing.
+He did not enlarge on the mystery of the case; he seemed to look on it
+as an ordinary hotel theft.  Knowing, as I did, that his one object was
+to recover the articles before their identity could be obliterated, I
+could see the rare intellectual skill with which he gave the necessary
+matter and held back all else, though without seeming to do so.
+“Truly,” thought I, “this man has learned the lesson of the Eastern
+bazaars; and with Western intellect has improved upon his masters!”  He
+quite conveyed his idea to the Detective, who, after thinking the
+matter over for a few moments, said:
+
+“Pot or scale? that is the question.”
+
+“What does that mean?” asked the other, keenly alert.
+
+“An old thieves’ phrase from Birmingham.  I thought that in these days
+of slang everyone knew that.  In old times at Brum, which had a lot of
+small metal industries, the gold- and silver-smiths used to buy metal
+from almost anyone who came along. And as metal in small quantities
+could generally be had cheap when they didn’t ask where it came from,
+it got to be a custom to ask only one thing—whether the customer
+wanted the goods melted, in which case the buyer made the price, and
+the melting-pot was always on the fire.  If it was to be preserved in
+its present state at the buyer’s option, it went into the scale and
+fetched standard price for old metal.
+
+“There is a good deal of such work done still, and in other places than
+Brum.  When we’re looking for stolen watches we often come across the
+works, and it’s not possible to identify wheels and springs out of a
+heap; but it’s not often that we come across cases that are wanted.
+Now, in the present instance much will depend on whether the thief is a
+good man—that’s what they call a man who knows his work.  A
+first-class crook will know whether a thing is of more value than
+merely the metal in it; and in such case he would put it with someone
+who could place it later on—in America or France, perhaps.  By the
+way, do you think anyone but yourself could identify your lamps?”
+
+“No one but myself!”
+
+“Are there others like them?”
+
+“Not that I know of,” answered Mr. Corbeck; “though there may be others
+that resemble them in many particulars.”  The Detective paused before
+asking again: “Would any other skilled person—at the British Museum,
+for instance, or a dealer, or a collector like Mr. Trelawny, know the
+value—the artistic value—of the lamps?”
+
+“Certainly!  Anyone with a head on his shoulders would see at a glance
+that the things were valuable.”
+
+The Detective’s face brightened.  “Then there is a chance.  If your
+door was locked and the window shut, the goods were not stolen by the
+chance of a chambermaid or a boots coming along.  Whoever did the job
+went after it special; and he ain’t going to part with his swag without
+his price.  This must be a case of notice to the pawnbrokers.  There’s
+one good thing about it, anyhow, that the hue and cry needn’t be given.
+We needn’t tell Scotland Yard unless you like; we can work the thing
+privately.  If you wish to keep the thing dark, as you told me at the
+first, that is our chance.”  Mr. Corbeck, after a pause, said quietly:
+
+“I suppose you couldn’t hazard a suggestion as to how the robbery was
+effected?” The Policeman smiled the smile of knowledge and experience.
+
+“In a very simple way, I have no doubt, sir.  That is how all these
+mysterious crimes turn out in the long-run.  The criminal knows his
+work and all the tricks of it; and he is always on the watch for
+chances. Moreover, he knows by experience what these chances are likely
+to be, and how they usually come.  The other person is only careful; he
+doesn’t know all the tricks and pits that may be made for him, and by
+some little oversight or other he falls into the trap.  When we know
+all about this case, you will wonder that you did not see the method of
+it all along!”  This seemed to annoy Mr. Corbeck a little; there was
+decided heat in his manner as he answered:
+
+“Look here, my good friend, there is not anything simple about this
+case—except that the things were taken.  The window was closed; the
+fireplace was bricked up.  There is only one door to the room, and that
+I locked and bolted.  There is no transom; I have heard all about hotel
+robberies through the transom.  I never left my room in the night.  I
+looked at the things before going to bed; and I went to look at them
+again when I woke up.  If you can rig up any kind of simple robbery out
+of these facts you are a clever man.  That’s all I say; clever enough
+to go right away and get my things back.”  Miss Trelawny laid her hand
+upon his arm in a soothing way, and said quietly:
+
+“Do not distress yourself unnecessarily.  I am sure they will turn up.”
+Sergeant Daw turned to her so quickly that I could not help remembering
+vividly his suspicions of her, already formed, as he said:
+
+“May I ask, miss, on what you base that opinion?”
+
+I dreaded to hear her answer, given to ears already awake to suspicion;
+but it came to me as a new pain or shock all the same:
+
+“I cannot tell you how I know.  But I am sure of it!”  The Detective
+looked at her for some seconds in silence, and then threw a quick
+glance at me.
+
+Presently he had a little more conversation with Mr. Corbeck as to his
+own movements, the details of the hotel and the room, and the means of
+identifying the goods.  Then he went away to commence his inquiries,
+Mr. Corbeck impressing on him the necessity for secrecy lest the thief
+should get wind of his danger and destroy the lamps.  Mr. Corbeck
+promised, when going away to attend to various matters of his own
+business, to return early in the evening, and to stay in the house.
+
+All that day Miss Trelawny was in better spirits and looked in better
+strength than she had yet been, despite the new shock and annoyance of
+the theft which must ultimately bring so much disappointment to her
+father.
+
+We spent most of the day looking over the curio treasures of Mr.
+Trelawny.  From what I had heard from Mr. Corbeck I began to have some
+idea of the vastness of his enterprise in the world of Egyptian
+research; and with this light everything around me began to have a new
+interest.  As I went on, the interest grew; any lingering doubts which
+I might have had changed to wonder and admiration.  The house seemed to
+be a veritable storehouse of marvels of antique art.  In addition to
+the curios, big and little, in Mr. Trelawny’s own room—from the great
+sarcophagi down to the scarabs of all kinds in the cabinets—the great
+hall, the staircase landings, the study, and even the boudoir were full
+of antique pieces which would have made a collector’s mouth water.
+
+Miss Trelawny from the first came with me, and looked with growing
+interest at everything.  After having examined some cabinets of
+exquisite amulets she said to me in quite a naive way:
+
+“You will hardly believe that I have of late seldom even looked at any
+of these things. It is only since Father has been ill that I seem to
+have even any curiosity about them. But now, they grow and grow on me
+to quite an absorbing degree.  I wonder if it is that the collector’s
+blood which I have in my veins is beginning to manifest itself.  If so,
+the strange thing is that I have not felt the call of it before.  Of
+course I know most of the big things, and have examined them more or
+less; but really, in a sort of way I have always taken them for
+granted, as though they had always been there.  I have noticed the same
+thing now and again with family pictures, and the way they are taken
+for granted by the family.  If you will let me examine them with you it
+will be delightful!”
+
+It was a joy to me to hear her talk in such a way; and her last
+suggestion quite thrilled me.  Together we went round the various rooms
+and passages, examining and admiring the magnificent curios.  There was
+such a bewildering amount and variety of objects that we could only
+glance at most of them; but as we went along we arranged that we should
+take them seriatim, day by day, and examine them more closely.  In the
+hall was a sort of big frame of floriated steel work which Margaret
+said her father used for lifting the heavy stone lids of the
+sarcophagi.  It was not heavy and could be moved about easily enough.
+By aid of this we raised the covers in turn and looked at the endless
+series of hieroglyphic pictures cut in most of them.  In spite of her
+profession of ignorance Margaret knew a good deal about them; her year
+of life with her father had had unconsciously its daily and hourly
+lesson.  She was a remarkably clever and acute-minded girl, and with a
+prodigious memory; so that her store of knowledge, gathered
+unthinkingly bit by bit, had grown to proportions that many a scholar
+might have envied.
+
+And yet it was all so naive and unconscious; so girlish and simple.
+She was so fresh in her views and ideas, and had so little thought of
+self, that in her companionship I forgot for the time all the troubles
+and mysteries which enmeshed the house; and I felt like a boy again....
+
+The most interesting of the sarcophagi were undoubtedly the three in
+Mr. Trelawny’s room.  Of these, two were of dark stone, one of porphyry
+and the other of a sort of ironstone.  These were wrought with some
+hieroglyphs.  But the third was strikingly different.  It was of some
+yellow-brown substance of the dominating colour effect of Mexican onyx,
+which it resembled in many ways, excepting that the natural pattern of
+its convolutions was less marked.  Here and there were patches almost
+transparent—certainly translucent.  The whole chest, cover and all,
+was wrought with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of minute hieroglyphics,
+seemingly in an endless series.  Back, front, sides, edges, bottom, all
+had their quota of the dainty pictures, the deep blue of their
+colouring showing up fresh and sharply edged in the yellow stone.  It
+was very long, nearly nine feet; and perhaps a yard wide.  The sides
+undulated, so that there was no hard line.  Even the corners took such
+excellent curves that they pleased the eye.  “Truly,” I said, “this
+must have been made for a giant!”
+
+“Or for a giantess!” said Margaret.
+
+This sarcophagus stood near to one of the windows.  It was in one
+respect different from all the other sarcophagi in the place.  All the
+others in the house, of whatever material—granite, porphyry,
+ironstone, basalt, slate, or wood—were quite simple in form within.
+Some of them were plain of interior surface; others were engraved, in
+whole or part, with hieroglyphics.  But each and all of them had no
+protuberances or uneven surface anywhere.  They might have been used
+for baths; indeed, they resembled in many ways Roman baths of stone or
+marble which I had seen.  Inside this, however, was a raised space,
+outlined like a human figure.  I asked Margaret if she could explain it
+in any way.  For answer she said:
+
+“Father never wished to speak about this.  It attracted my attention
+from the first; but when I asked him about it he said:  ‘I shall tell
+you all about it some day, little girl—if I live!  But not yet!  The
+story is not yet told, as I hope to tell it to you!  Some day, perhaps
+soon, I shall know all; and then we shall go over it together.  And a
+mighty interesting story you will find it—from first to last!’  Once
+afterward I said, rather lightly I am afraid:  ‘Is that story of the
+sarcophagus told yet, Father?’  He shook his head, and looked at me
+gravely as he said:  ‘Not yet, little girl; but it will be—if I
+live—if I live!’  His repeating that phrase about his living rather
+frightened me; I never ventured to ask him again.”
+
+Somehow this thrilled me.  I could not exactly say how or why; but it
+seemed like a gleam of light at last.  There are, I think, moments when
+the mind accepts something as true; though it can account for neither
+the course of the thought, nor, if there be more than one thought, the
+connection between them.  Hitherto we had been in such outer darkness
+regarding Mr. Trelawny, and the strange visitation which had fallen on
+him, that anything which afforded a clue, even of the faintest and most
+shadowy kind, had at the outset the enlightening satisfaction of a
+certainty.  Here were two lights of our puzzle.  The first that Mr.
+Trelawny associated with this particular curio a doubt of his own
+living.  The second that he had some purpose or expectation with regard
+to it, which he would not disclose, even to his daughter, till
+complete. Again it was to be borne in mind that this sarcophagus
+differed internally from all the others.  What meant that odd raised
+place?  I said nothing to Miss Trelawny, for I feared lest I should
+either frighten her or buoy her up with future hopes; but I made up my
+mind that I would take an early opportunity for further investigation.
+
+Close beside the sarcophagus was a low table of green stone with red
+veins in it, like bloodstone.  The feet were fashioned like the paws of
+a jackal, and round each leg was twined a full-throated snake wrought
+exquisitely in pure gold.  On it rested a strange and very beautiful
+coffer or casket of stone of a peculiar shape.  It was something like a
+small coffin, except that the longer sides, instead of being cut off
+square like the upper or level part were continued to a point.  Thus it
+was an irregular septahedron, there being two planes on each of the two
+sides, one end and a top and bottom.  The stone, of one piece of which
+it was wrought, was such as I had never seen before.  At the base it
+was of a full green, the colour of emerald without, of course, its
+gleam. It was not by any means dull, however, either in colour or
+substance, and was of infinite hardness and fineness of texture.  The
+surface was almost that of a jewel.  The colour grew lighter as it
+rose, with gradation so fine as to be imperceptible, changing to a fine
+yellow almost of the colour of “mandarin” china.  It was quite unlike
+anything I had ever seen, and did not resemble any stone or gem that I
+knew.  I took it to be some unique mother-stone, or matrix of some gem.
+It was wrought all over, except in a few spots, with fine
+hieroglyphics, exquisitely done and coloured with the same blue-green
+cement or pigment that appeared on the sarcophagus.  In length it was
+about two feet and a half; in breadth about half this, and was nearly a
+foot high.  The vacant spaces were irregularly distributed about the
+top running to the pointed end.  These places seemed less opaque than
+the rest of the stone.  I tried to lift up the lid so that I might see
+if they were translucent; but it was securely fixed.  It fitted so
+exactly that the whole coffer seemed like a single piece of stone
+mysteriously hollowed from within.  On the sides and edges were some
+odd-looking protuberances wrought just as finely as any other portion
+of the coffer which had been sculptured by manifest design in the
+cutting of the stone.  They had queer-shaped holes or hollows,
+different in each; and, like the rest, were covered with the
+hieroglyphic figures, cut finely and filled in with the same blue-green
+cement.
+
+On the other side of the great sarcophagus stood another small table of
+alabaster, exquisitely chased with symbolic figures of gods and the
+signs of the zodiac.  On this table stood a case of about a foot square
+composed of slabs of rock crystal set in a skeleton of bands of red
+gold, beautifully engraved with hieroglyphics, and coloured with a blue
+green, very much the tint of the figures on the sarcophagus and the
+coffer.  The whole work was quite modern.
+
+But if the case was modern what it held was not.  Within, on a cushion
+of cloth of gold as fine as silk, and with the peculiar softness of old
+gold, rested a mummy hand, so perfect that it startled one to see it.
+A woman’s hand, fine and long, with slim tapering fingers and nearly as
+perfect as when it was given to the embalmer thousands of years before.
+In the embalming it had lost nothing of its beautiful shape; even the
+wrist seemed to maintain its pliability as the gentle curve lay on the
+cushion.  The skin was of a rich creamy or old ivory colour; a dusky
+fair skin which suggested heat, but heat in shadow.  The great
+peculiarity of it, as a hand, was that it had in all seven fingers,
+there being two middle and two index fingers.  The upper end of the
+wrist was jagged, as though it had been broken off, and was stained
+with a red-brown stain.  On the cushion near the hand was a small
+scarab, exquisitely wrought of emerald.
+
+“That is another of Father’s mysteries.  When I asked him about it he
+said that it was perhaps the most valuable thing he had, except one.
+When I asked him what that one was, he refused to tell me, and forbade
+me to ask him anything concerning it. ‘I will tell you,’ he said, ‘all
+about it, too, in good time—if I live!’”
+
+“If I live!” the phrase again.  These three things grouped together,
+the Sarcophagus, the Coffer, and the Hand, seemed to make a trilogy of
+mystery indeed!
+
+At this time Miss Trelawny was sent for on some domestic matter.  I
+looked at the other curios in the room; but they did not seem to have
+anything like the same charm for me, now that she was away.  Later on
+in the day I was sent for to the boudoir where she was consulting with
+Mrs. Grant as to the lodgment of Mr. Corbeck.  They were in doubt as to
+whether he should have a room close to Mr. Trelawny’s or quite away
+from it, and had thought it well to ask my advice on the subject.  I
+came to the conclusion that he had better not be too near; for the
+first at all events, he could easily be moved closer if necessary.
+When Mrs. Grant had gone, I asked Miss Trelawny how it came that the
+furniture of this room, the boudoir in which we were, was so different
+from the other rooms of the house.
+
+“Father’s forethought!” she answered.  “When I first came, he thought,
+and rightly enough, that I might get frightened with so many records of
+death and the tomb everywhere.  So he had this room and the little
+suite off it—that door opens into the sitting-room—where I slept last
+night, furnished with pretty things.  You see, they are all beautiful.
+That cabinet belonged to the great Napoleon.”
+
+“There is nothing Egyptian in these rooms at all then?” I asked, rather
+to show interest in what she had said than anything else, for the
+furnishing of the room was apparent.  “What a lovely cabinet!  May I
+look at it?”
+
+“Of course! with the greatest pleasure!” she answered, with a smile.
+“Its finishing, within and without, Father says, is absolutely
+complete.”  I stepped over and looked at it closely.  It was made of
+tulip wood, inlaid in patterns; and was mounted in ormolu.  I pulled
+open one of the drawers, a deep one where I could see the work to great
+advantage.  As I pulled it, something rattled inside as though rolling;
+there was a tinkle as of metal on metal.
+
+“Hullo!” I said.  “There is something in here.  Perhaps I had better
+not open it.”
+
+“There is nothing that I know of,” she answered.  “Some of the
+housemaids may have used it to put something by for the time and
+forgotten it.  Open it by all means!”
+
+I pulled open the drawer; as I did so, both Miss Trelawny and I started
+back in amazement.
+
+There before our eyes lay a number of ancient Egyptian lamps, of
+various sizes and of strangely varied shapes.
+
+We leaned over them and looked closely.  My own heart was beating like
+a trip-hammer; and I could see by the heaving of Margaret’s bosom that
+she was strangely excited.
+
+Whilst we looked, afraid to touch and almost afraid to think, there was
+a ring at the front door; immediately afterwards Mr. Corbeck, followed
+by Sergeant Daw, came into the hall.  The door of the boudoir was open,
+and when they saw us Mr. Corbeck came running in, followed more slowly
+by the Detective.  There was a sort of chastened joy in his face and
+manner as he said impulsively:
+
+“Rejoice with me, my dear Miss Trelawny, my luggage has come and all my
+things are intact!”  Then his face fell as he added, “Except the lamps.
+The lamps that were worth all the rest a thousand times....”  He
+stopped, struck by the strange pallor of her face.  Then his eyes,
+following her look and mine, lit on the cluster of lamps in the drawer.
+He gave a sort of cry of surprise and joy as he bent over and touched
+them:
+
+“My lamps!  My lamps!  Then they are safe—safe—safe! ... But how, in
+the name of God—of all the Gods—did they come here?”
+
+We all stood silent.  The Detective made a deep sound of in-taking
+breath.  I looked at him, and as he caught my glance he turned his eyes
+on Miss Trelawny whose back was toward him.
+
+There was in them the same look of suspicion which had been there when
+he had spoken to me of her being the first to find her father on the
+occasions of the attacks.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+The Need of Knowledge
+
+
+Mr. Corbeck seemed to go almost off his head at the recovery of the
+lamps.  He took them up one by one and looked them all over tenderly,
+as though they were things that he loved.  In his delight and
+excitement he breathed so hard that it seemed almost like a cat
+purring.  Sergeant Daw said quietly, his voice breaking the silence
+like a discord in a melody:
+
+“Are you quite sure those lamps are the ones you had, and that were
+stolen?”
+
+His answer was in an indignant tone:  “Sure!  Of course I’m sure.
+There isn’t another set of lamps like these in the world!”
+
+“So far as you know!”  The Detective’s words were smooth enough, but
+his manner was so exasperating that I was sure he had some motive in
+it; so I waited in silence. He went on:
+
+“Of course there may be some in the British Museum; or Mr. Trelawny may
+have had these already.  There’s nothing new under the sun, you know,
+Mr. Corbeck; not even in Egypt.  These may be the originals, and yours
+may have been the copies.  Are there any points by which you can
+identify these as yours?”
+
+Mr. Corbeck was really angry by this time.  He forgot his reserve; and
+in his indignation poured forth a torrent of almost incoherent, but
+enlightening, broken sentences:
+
+“Identify!  Copies of them!  British Museum!  Rot!  Perhaps they keep a
+set in Scotland Yard for teaching idiot policemen Egyptology!  Do I
+know them?  When I have carried them about my body, in the desert, for
+three months; and lay awake night after night to watch them!  When I
+have looked them over with a magnifying-glass, hour after hour, till my
+eyes ached; till every tiny blotch, and chip, and dinge became as
+familiar to me as his chart to a captain; as familiar as they doubtless
+have been all the time to every thick-headed area-prowler within the
+bounds of mortality.  See here, young man, look at these!”  He ranged
+the lamps in a row on the top of the cabinet.  “Did you ever see a set
+of lamps of these shapes—of any one of these shapes?  Look at these
+dominant figures on them!  Did you ever see so complete a set—even in
+Scotland Yard; even in Bow Street?  Look! one on each, the seven forms
+of Hathor. Look at that figure of the Ka of a Princess of the Two
+Egypts, standing between Ra and Osiris in the Boat of the Dead, with
+the Eye of Sleep, supported on legs, bending before her; and Harmochis
+rising in the north.  Will you find that in the British Museum—or Bow
+Street?  Or perhaps your studies in the Gizeh Museum, or the
+Fitzwilliam, or Paris, or Leyden, or Berlin, have shown you that the
+episode is common in hieroglyphics; and that this is only a copy.
+Perhaps you can tell me what that figure of Ptah-Seker-Ausar holding
+the Tet wrapped in the Sceptre of Papyrus means?  Did you ever see it
+before; even in the British Museum, or Gizeh, or Scotland Yard?”
+
+He broke off suddenly; and then went on in quite a different way:
+
+“Look here! it seems to me that the thick-headed idiot is myself!  I
+beg your pardon, old fellow, for my rudeness.  I quite lost my temper
+at the suggestion that I do not know these lamps.  You don’t mind, do
+you?” The Detective answered heartily:
+
+“Lord, sir, not I.  I like to see folks angry when I am dealing with
+them, whether they are on my side or the other.  It is when people are
+angry that you learn the truth from them.  I keep cool; that is my
+trade!  Do you know, you have told me more about those lamps in the
+past two minutes than when you filled me up with details of how to
+identify them.”
+
+Mr. Corbeck grunted; he was not pleased at having given himself away.
+All at once he turned to  me and said in his natural way:
+
+“Now tell me how you got them back?”  I was so surprised that I said
+without thinking:
+
+“We didn’t get them back!”  The traveller laughed openly.
+
+“What on earth do you mean?” he asked.  “You didn’t get them back!
+Why, there they are before your eyes!  We found you looking at them
+when we came in.”  By this time I had recovered my surprise and had my
+wits about me.
+
+“Why, that’s just it,” I said.  “We had only come across them, by
+accident, that very moment!”
+
+Mr. Corbeck drew back and looked hard at Miss Trelawny and myself;
+turning his eyes from one to the other as he asked:
+
+“Do you mean to tell me that no one brought them here; that you found
+them in that drawer?  That, so to speak, no one at all brought them
+back?”
+
+“I suppose someone must have brought them here; they couldn’t have come
+of their own accord.  But who it was, or when, or how, neither of us
+knows.  We shall have to make inquiry, and see if any of the servants
+know anything of it.”
+
+We all stood silent for several seconds.  It seemed a long time.  The
+first to speak was the Detective, who said in an unconscious way:
+
+“Well, I’m damned!  I beg your pardon, miss!”  Then his mouth shut like
+a steel trap.
+
+We called up the servants, one by one, and asked them if they knew
+anything of some articles placed in a drawer in the boudoir; but none
+of them could throw any light on the circumstance.  We did not tell
+them what the articles were; or let them see them.
+
+Mr. Corbeck packed the lamps in cotton wool, and placed them in a tin
+box.  This, I may mention incidentally, was then brought up to the
+detectives’ room, where one of the men stood guard over them with a
+revolver the whole night.  Next day we got a small safe into the house,
+and placed them in it.  There were two different keys.  One of them I
+kept myself; the other I placed in my drawer in the Safe Deposit vault.
+We were all determined that the lamps should not be lost again.
+
+About an hour after we had found the lamps, Doctor Winchester arrived.
+He had a large parcel with him, which, when unwrapped, proved to be the
+mummy of a cat. With Miss Trelawny’s permission he placed this in the
+boudoir; and Silvio was brought close to it.  To the surprise of us
+all, however, except perhaps Doctor Winchester, he did not manifest the
+least annoyance; he took no notice of it whatever.  He stood on the
+table close beside it, purring loudly.  Then, following out his plan,
+the Doctor brought him into Mr. Trelawny’s room, we all following.
+Doctor Winchester was excited; Miss Trelawny anxious.  I was more than
+interested myself, for I began to have a glimmering of the Doctor’s
+idea.  The Detective was calmly and coldly superior; but Mr. Corbeck,
+who was an enthusiast, was full of eager curiosity.
+
+The moment Doctor Winchester got into the room, Silvio began to mew and
+wriggle; and jumping out of his arms, ran over to the cat mummy and
+began to scratch angrily at it.  Miss Trelawny had some difficulty in
+taking him away; but so soon as he was out of the room he became quiet.
+When she came back there was a clamour of comments:
+
+“I thought so!” from the Doctor.
+
+“What can it mean?” from Miss Trelawny.
+
+“That’s a very strange thing!” from Mr. Corbeck.
+
+“Odd! but it doesn’t prove anything!” from the Detective.
+
+“I suspend my judgment!” from myself, thinking it advisable to say
+something.
+
+Then by common consent we dropped the theme—for the present.
+
+In my room that evening I was making some notes of what had happened,
+when there came a low tap on the door.  In obedience to my summons
+Sergeant Daw came in, carefully closing the door behind him.
+
+“Well, Sergeant,” said I, “sit down.  What is it?”
+
+“I wanted to speak to you, sir, about those lamps.”  I nodded and
+waited:  he went on:  “You know that that room where they were found
+opens directly into the room where Miss Trelawny slept last night?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“During the night a window somewhere in that part of the house was
+opened, and shut again.  I heard it, and took a look round; but I could
+see no sign of anything.”
+
+“Yes, I know that!” I said; “I heard a window moved myself.”
+
+“Does nothing strike you as strange about it, sir?”
+
+“Strange!” I said; “Strange! why it’s all the most bewildering,
+maddening thing I have ever encountered.  It is all so strange that one
+seems to wonder, and simply waits for what will happen next.  But what
+do you mean by strange?”
+
+The Detective paused, as if choosing his words to begin; and then said
+deliberately:
+
+“You see, I am not one who believes in magic and such things.  I am for
+facts all the time; and I always find in the long-run that there is a
+reason and a cause for everything.  This new gentleman says these
+things were stolen out of his room in the hotel.  The lamps, I take it
+from some things he has said, really belong to Mr. Trelawny.  His
+daughter, the lady of the house, having left the room she usually
+occupies, sleeps that night on the ground floor.  A window is heard to
+open and shut during the night.  When we, who have been during the day
+trying to find a clue to the robbery, come to the house, we find the
+stolen goods in a room close to where she slept, and opening out of it!”
+
+He stopped.  I felt that same sense of pain and apprehension, which I
+had experienced when he had spoken to me before, creeping, or rather
+rushing, over me again.  I had to face the matter out, however.  My
+relations with her, and the feeling toward her which I now knew full
+well meant a very deep love and devotion, demanded so much.  I said as
+calmly as I could, for I knew the keen eyes of the skilful investigator
+were on me:
+
+“And the inference?”
+
+He answered with the cool audacity of conviction:
+
+“The inference to me is that there was no robbery at all.  The goods
+were taken by someone to this house, where they were received through a
+window on the ground floor.  They were placed in the cabinet, ready to
+be discovered when the proper time should come!”
+
+Somehow I felt relieved; the assumption was too monstrous.  I did not
+want, however, my relief to be apparent, so I answered as gravely as I
+could:
+
+“And who do you suppose brought them to the house?”
+
+“I keep my mind open as to that.  Possibly Mr. Corbeck himself; the
+matter might be too risky to trust to a third party.”
+
+“Then the natural extension of your inference is that Mr. Corbeck is a
+liar and a fraud; and that he is in conspiracy with Miss Trelawny to
+deceive someone or other about those lamps.”
+
+“Those are harsh words, Mr. Ross.  They’re so plain-spoken that they
+bring a man up standing, and make new doubts for him.  But I have to go
+where my reason points.  It may be that there is another party than
+Miss Trelawny in it.  Indeed, if it hadn’t been for the other matter
+that set me thinking and bred doubts of its own about her, I wouldn’t
+dream of mixing her up in this.  But I’m safe on Corbeck.  Whoever else
+is in it, he is!  The things couldn’t have been taken without his
+connivance—if what he says is true.  If it isn’t—well! he is a liar
+anyhow.  I would think it a bad job to have him stay in the house with
+so many valuables, only that it will give me and my mate a chance of
+watching him.  We’ll keep a pretty good look-out, too, I tell you.
+He’s up in my room now, guarding those lamps; but Johnny Wright is
+there too.  I go on before he comes off; so there won’t be much chance
+of another house-breaking.  Of course, Mr. Ross, all this, too, is
+between you and me.”
+
+“Quite so!  You may depend on my silence!” I said; and he went away to
+keep a close eye on the Egyptologist.
+
+It seemed as though all my painful experiences were to go in pairs, and
+that the sequence of the previous day was to be repeated; for before
+long I had another private visit from Doctor Winchester who had now
+paid his nightly visit to his patient and was on his way home.  He took
+the seat which I proffered and began at once:
+
+“This is a strange affair altogether.  Miss Trelawny has just been
+telling me about the stolen lamps, and of the finding of them in the
+Napoleon cabinet.  It would seem to be another complication of the
+mystery; and yet, do you know, it is a relief to me.  I have exhausted
+all human and natural possibilities of the case, and am beginning to
+fall back on superhuman and supernatural possibilities.  Here are such
+strange things that, if I am not going mad, I think we must have a
+solution before long.  I wonder if I might ask some questions and some
+help from Mr. Corbeck, without making further complications and
+embarrassing us.  He seems to know an amazing amount regarding Egypt
+and all relating to it.  Perhaps he wouldn’t mind translating a little
+bit of hieroglyphic.  It is child’s play to him.  What do you think?”
+
+When I had thought the matter over a few seconds I spoke.  We wanted
+all the help we could get.  For myself, I had perfect confidence in
+both men; and any comparing notes, or mutual assistance, might bring
+good results.  Such could hardly bring evil.
+
+“By all means I should ask him.  He seems an extraordinarily learned
+man in Egyptology; and he seems to me a good fellow as well as an
+enthusiast.  By the way, it will be necessary to be a little guarded as
+to whom you speak regarding any information which he may give you.”
+
+“Of course!” he answered.  “Indeed I should not dream of saying
+anything to anybody, excepting yourself.  We have to remember that when
+Mr. Trelawny recovers he may not like to think that we have been
+chattering unduly over his affairs.”
+
+“Look here!” I said, “why not stay for a while:  and I shall ask him to
+come and have a pipe with us.  We can then talk over things.”
+
+He acquiesced:  so I went to the room where Mr. Corbeck was, and
+brought him back with me.  I thought the detectives were pleased at his
+going. On the way to my room he said:
+
+“I don’t half like leaving those things there, with only those men to
+guard them. They’re a deal sight too precious to be left to the police!”
+
+From which it would appear that suspicion was not confined to Sergeant
+Daw.
+
+Mr. Corbeck and Doctor Winchester, after a quick glance at each other,
+became at once on most friendly terms.  The traveller professed his
+willingness to be of any assistance which he could, provided, he added,
+that it was anything about which he was free to speak.  This was not
+very promising; but Doctor Winchester began at once:
+
+“I want you, if you will, to translate some hieroglyphic for me.”
+
+“Certainly, with the greatest pleasure, so far as I can.  For I may
+tell you that hieroglyphic writing is not quite mastered yet; though we
+are getting at it!  We are getting at it!  What is the inscription?”
+
+“There are two,” he answered.  “One of them I shall bring here.”
+
+He went out, and returned in a minute with the mummy cat which he had
+that evening introduced to Silvio.  The scholar took it; and, after a
+short examination, said:
+
+“There is nothing especial in this.  It is an appeal to Bast, the Lady
+of Bubastis, to give her good bread and milk in the Elysian Fields.
+There may be more inside; and if you will care to unroll it, I will do
+my best.  I do not think, however, that there is anything special.
+From the method of wrapping I should say it is from the Delta; and of a
+late period, when such mummy work was common and cheap.  What is the
+other inscription you wish me to see?”
+
+“The inscription on the mummy cat in Mr. Trelawny’s room.”
+
+Mr. Corbeck’s face fell.  “No!” he said, “I cannot do that!  I am, for
+the present at all events, practically bound to secrecy regarding any
+of the things in Mr. Trelawny’s room.”
+
+Doctor Winchester’s comment and my own were made at the same moment.  I
+said only the one word “Checkmate!” from which I think he may have
+gathered that I guessed more of his idea and purpose than perhaps I had
+intentionally conveyed to him.  He murmured:
+
+“Practically bound to secrecy?”
+
+Mr. Corbeck at once took up the challenge conveyed:
+
+“Do not misunderstand me!  I am not bound by any definite pledge of
+secrecy; but I am bound in honour to respect Mr. Trelawny’s confidence,
+given to me, I may tell you, in a very large measure.  Regarding many
+of the objects in his room he has a definite purpose in view; and it
+would not be either right or becoming for me, his trusted friend and
+confidant, to forestall that purpose.  Mr. Trelawny, you may know—or
+rather you do not know or you would not have so construed my remark—is
+a scholar, a very great scholar.  He has worked for years toward a
+certain end.  For this he has spared no labour, no expense, no personal
+danger or self-denial.  He is on the line of a result which will place
+him amongst the foremost discoverers or investigators of his age.  And
+now, just at the time when any hour might bring him success, he is
+stricken down!”
+
+He stopped, seemingly overcome with emotion.  After a time he recovered
+himself and went on:
+
+“Again, do not misunderstand me as to another point.  I have said that
+Mr. Trelawny has made much confidence with me; but I do not mean to
+lead you to believe that I know all his plans, or his aims or objects.
+I know the period which he has been studying; and the definite
+historical individual whose life he has been investigating, and whose
+records he has been following up one by one with infinite patience.
+But beyond this I know nothing.  That he has some aim or object in the
+completion of this knowledge I am convinced.  What it is I may guess;
+but I must say nothing. Please to remember, gentlemen, that I have
+voluntarily accepted the position of recipient of a partial confidence.
+I have respected that; and I must ask any of my friends to do the same.”
+
+He spoke with great dignity; and he grew, moment by moment, in the
+respect and esteem of both Doctor Winchester and myself.  We understood
+that he had not done speaking; so we waited in silence till he
+continued:
+
+“I have spoken this much, although I know well that even such a hint as
+either of you might gather from my words might jeopardise the success
+of his work.  But I am convinced that you both wish to help him—and
+his daughter,” he said this looking me fairly between the eyes, “to the
+best of your power, honestly and unselfishly.  He is so stricken down,
+and the manner of it is so mysterious that I cannot but think that it
+is in some way a result of his own work.  That he calculated on some
+set-back is manifest to us all.  God knows! I am willing to do what I
+can, and to use any knowledge I have in his behalf.  I arrived in
+England full of exultation at the thought that I had fulfilled the
+mission with which he had trusted me.  I had got what he said were the
+last objects of his search; and I felt assured that he would now be
+able to begin the experiment of which he had often hinted to me.  It is
+too dreadful that at just such a time such a calamity should have
+fallen on him.  Doctor Winchester, you are a physician; and, if your
+face does not belie you, you are a clever and a bold one.  Is there no
+way which you can devise to wake this man from his unnatural stupor?”
+
+There was a pause; then the answer came slowly and deliberately:
+
+“There is no ordinary remedy that I know of.  There might possibly be
+some extraordinary one.  But there would be no use in trying to find
+it, except on one condition.”
+
+“And that?”
+
+“Knowledge!  I am completely ignorant of Egyptian matters, language,
+writing, history, secrets, medicines, poisons, occult powers—all that
+go to make up the mystery of that mysterious land.  This disease, or
+condition, or whatever it may be called, from which Mr. Trelawny is
+suffering, is in some way connected with Egypt.  I have had a suspicion
+of this from the first; and later it grew into a certainty, though
+without proof.  What you have said tonight confirms my conjecture, and
+makes me believe that a proof is to be had.  I do not think that you
+quite know all that has gone on in this house since the night of the
+attack—of the finding of Mr. Trelawny’s body. Now I propose that we
+confide in you.  If Mr. Ross agrees, I shall ask him to tell you. He is
+more skilled than I am in putting facts before other people.  He can
+speak by his brief; and in this case he has the best of all briefs, the
+experience of his own eyes and ears, and the evidence that he has
+himself taken on the spot from participators in, or spectators of, what
+has happened.  When you know all, you will, I hope, be in a position to
+judge as to whether you can best help Mr. Trelawny, and further his
+secret wishes, by your silence or your speech.”
+
+I nodded approval.  Mr. Corbeck jumped up, and in his impulsive way
+held out a hand to each.
+
+“Done!” he said.  “I acknowledge the honour of your confidence; and on
+my part I pledge myself that if I find my duty to Mr. Trelawny’s wishes
+will, in his own interest, allow my lips to open on his affairs, I
+shall speak so freely as I may.”
+
+Accordingly I began, and told him, as exactly as I could, everything
+that had happened from the moment of my waking at the knocking on the
+door in Jermyn Street.  The only reservations I made were as to my own
+feeling toward Miss Trelawny and the matters of small import to the
+main subject which followed it; and my conversations with Sergeant Daw,
+which were in themselves private, and which would have demanded
+discretionary silence in any case.  As I spoke, Mr. Corbeck followed
+with breathless interest.  Sometimes he would stand up and pace about
+the room in uncontrollable excitement; and then recover himself
+suddenly, and sit down again.  Sometimes he would be about to speak,
+but would, with an effort, restrain himself.  I think the narration
+helped me to make up my own mind; for even as I talked, things seemed
+to appear in a clearer light.  Things big and little, in relation of
+their importance to the case, fell into proper perspective.  The story
+up to date became coherent, except as to its cause, which seemed a
+greater mystery than ever.  This is the merit of entire, or collected,
+narrative.  Isolated facts, doubts, suspicions, conjectures, give way
+to a homogeneity which is convincing.
+
+That Mr. Corbeck was convinced was evident.  He did not go through any
+process of explanation or limitation, but spoke right out at once to
+the point, and fearlessly like a man:
+
+“That settles me!  There is in activity some Force that needs special
+care.  If we all go on working in the dark we shall get in one
+another’s way, and by hampering each other, undo the good that any or
+each of us, working in different directions, might do.  It seems to me
+that the first thing we have to accomplish is to get Mr. Trelawny waked
+out of that unnatural sleep.  That he can be waked is apparent from the
+way the Nurse has recovered; though what additional harm may have been
+done to him in the time he has been lying in that room I suppose no one
+can tell.  We must chance that, however.  He has lain there, and
+whatever the effect might be, it is there now; and we have, and shall
+have, to deal with it as a fact.  A day more or less won’t hurt in the
+long-run. It is late now; and we shall probably have tomorrow a task
+before us that will require our energies afresh.  You, Doctor, will
+want to get to your sleep; for I suppose you have other work as well as
+this to do tomorrow.  As for you, Mr. Ross, I understand that you are
+to have a spell of watching in the sick-room tonight.  I shall get you
+a book which will help to pass the time for you.  I shall go and look
+for it in the library.  I know where it was when I was here last; and I
+don’t suppose Mr. Trelawny has used it since.  He knew long ago all
+that was in it which was or might be of interest to him.  But it will
+be necessary, or at least helpful, to understand other things which I
+shall tell you later.  You will be able to tell Doctor Winchester all
+that would aid him.  For I take it that our work will branch out pretty
+soon. We shall each have our own end to hold up; and it will take each
+of us all our time and understanding to get through his own tasks.  It
+will not be necessary for you to read the whole book.  All that will
+interest you—with regard to our matter I mean of course, for the whole
+book is interesting as a record of travel in a country then quite
+unknown—is the preface, and two or three chapters which I shall mark
+for you.”
+
+He shook hands warmly with Doctor Winchester who had stood up to go.
+
+Whilst he was away I sat lonely, thinking.  As I thought, the world
+around me seemed to be illimitably great.  The only little spot in
+which I was interested seemed like a tiny speck in the midst of a
+wilderness. Without and around it were darkness and unknown danger,
+pressing in from every side.  And the central figure in our little
+oasis was one of sweetness and beauty.  A figure one could love; could
+work for; could die for...!
+
+Mr. Corbeck came back in a very short time with the book; he had found
+it at once in the spot where he had seen it three years before.  Having
+placed in it several slips of paper, marking the places where I was to
+read, he put it into my hands, saying:
+
+“That is what started Mr. Trelawny; what started me when I read it; and
+which will, I have no doubt, be to you an interesting beginning to a
+special study—whatever the end may be.  If, indeed, any of us here may
+ever see the end.”
+
+At the door he paused and said:
+
+“I want to take back one thing.  That Detective is a good fellow.  What
+you have told me of him puts him in a new light.  The best proof of it
+is that I can go quietly to sleep tonight, and leave the lamps in his
+care!”
+
+When he had gone I took the book with me, put on my respirator, and
+went to my spell of duty in the sick-room!
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+
+The Valley of the Sorcerer
+
+
+I placed the book on the little table on which the shaded lamp rested
+and moved the screen to one side.  Thus I could have the light on my
+book; and by looking up, see the bed, and the Nurse, and the door.  I
+cannot say that the conditions were enjoyable, or calculated to allow
+of that absorption in the subject which is advisable for effective
+study. However, I composed myself to the work as well as I could.  The
+book was one which, on the very face of it, required special attention.
+It was a folio in Dutch, printed in Amsterdam in 1650.  Some one had
+made a literal translation, writing generally the English word under
+the Dutch, so that the grammatical differences between the two tongues
+made even the reading of the translation a difficult matter.  One had
+to dodge backward and forward among the words.  This was in addition to
+the difficulty of deciphering a strange handwriting of two hundred
+years ago.  I found, however, that after a short time I got into the
+habit of following in conventional English the Dutch construction; and,
+as I became more familiar with the writing, my task became easier.
+
+At first the circumstances of the room, and the fear lest Miss Trelawny
+should return unexpectedly and find me reading the book, disturbed me
+somewhat.  For we had arranged amongst us, before Doctor Winchester had
+gone home, that she was not to be brought into the range of the coming
+investigation.  We considered that there might be some shock to a
+woman’s mind in matters of apparent mystery; and further, that she,
+being Mr. Trelawny’s daughter, might be placed in a difficult position
+with him afterward if she took part in, or even had a personal
+knowledge of, the disregarding of his expressed wishes.  But when I
+remembered that she did not come on nursing duty till two o’clock, the
+fear of interruption passed away.  I had still nearly three hours
+before me. Nurse Kennedy sat in her chair by the bedside, patient and
+alert.  A clock ticked on the landing; other clocks in the house
+ticked; the life of the city without manifested itself in the distant
+hum, now and again swelling into a roar as a breeze floating westward
+took the concourse of sounds with it.  But still the dominant idea was
+of silence.  The light on my book, and the soothing fringe of green
+silk round the shade intensified, whenever I looked up, the gloom of
+the sick-room.  With every line I read, this seemed to grow deeper and
+deeper; so that when my eyes came back to the page the light seemed to
+dazzle me.  I stuck to my work, however, and presently began to get
+sufficiently into the subject to become interested in it.
+
+The book was by one Nicholas van Huyn of Hoorn.  In the preface he told
+how, attracted by the work of John Greaves of Merton College,
+Pyramidographia, he himself visited Egypt, where he became so
+interested in its wonders that he devoted some years of his life to
+visiting strange places, and exploring the ruins of many temples and
+tombs.  He had come across many variants of the story of the building
+of the Pyramids as told by the Arabian historian, Ibn Abd Alhokin, some
+of which he set down.  These I did not stop to read, but went on to the
+marked pages.
+
+As soon as I began to read these, however, there grew on me some sense
+of a disturbing influence.  Once or twice I looked to see if the Nurse
+had moved, for there was a feeling as though some one were near me.
+Nurse Kennedy sat in her place, as steady and alert as ever; and I came
+back to my book again.
+
+The narrative went on to tell how, after passing for several days
+through the mountains to the east of Aswan, the explorer came to a
+certain place.  Here I give his own words, simply putting the
+translation into modern English:
+
+“Toward evening we came to the entrance of a narrow, deep valley,
+running east and west.  I wished to proceed through this; for the sun,
+now nearly down on the horizon, showed a wide opening beyond the
+narrowing of the cliffs.  But the fellaheen absolutely refused to enter
+the valley at such a time, alleging that they might be caught by the
+night before they could emerge from the other end.  At first they would
+give no reason for their fear.  They had hitherto gone anywhere I
+wished, and at any time, without demur.  On being pressed, however,
+they said that the place was the Valley of the Sorcerer, where none
+might come in the night.  On being asked to tell of the Sorcerer, they
+refused, saying that there was no name, and that they knew nothing.  On
+the next morning, however, when the sun was up and shining down the
+valley, their fears had somewhat passed away.  Then they told me that a
+great Sorcerer in ancient days—‘millions of millions of years’ was the
+term they used—a King or a Queen, they could not say which, was buried
+there.  They could not give the name, persisting to the last that there
+was no name; and that anyone who should name it would waste away in
+life so that at death nothing of him would remain to be raised again in
+the Other World.  In passing through the valley they kept together in a
+cluster, hurrying on in front of me.  None dared to remain behind. They
+gave, as their reason for so proceeding, that the arms of the Sorcerer
+were long, and that it was dangerous to be the last.  The which was of
+little comfort to me who of this necessity took that honourable post.
+In the narrowest part of the valley, on the south side, was a great
+cliff of rock, rising sheer, of smooth and even surface. Hereon were
+graven certain cabalistic signs, and many figures of men and animals,
+fishes, reptiles and birds; suns and stars; and many quaint symbols.
+Some of these latter were disjointed limbs and features, such as arms
+and legs, fingers, eyes, noses, ears, and lips.  Mysterious symbols
+which will puzzle the Recording Angel to interpret at the Judgment Day.
+The cliff faced exactly north.  There was something about it so
+strange, and so different from the other carved rocks which I had
+visited, that I called a halt and spent the day in examining the rock
+front as well as I could with my telescope.  The Egyptians of my
+company were terribly afraid, and used every kind of persuasion to
+induce me to pass on.  I stayed till late in the afternoon, by which
+time I had failed to make out aright the entry of any tomb, for I
+suspected that such was the purpose of the sculpture of the rock.  By
+this time the men were rebellious; and I had to leave the valley if I
+did not wish my whole retinue to desert.  But I secretly made up my
+mind to discover the tomb, and explore it.  To this end I went further
+into the mountains, where I met with an Arab Sheik who was willing to
+take service with me.  The Arabs were not bound by the same
+superstitious fears as the Egyptians; Sheik Abu Some and his following
+were willing to take a part in the explorations.
+
+“When I returned to the valley with these Bedouins, I made effort to
+climb the face of the rock, but failed, it being of one impenetrable
+smoothness.  The stone, generally flat and smooth by nature, had been
+chiselled to completeness.  That there had been projecting steps was
+manifest, for there remained, untouched by the wondrous climate of that
+strange land, the marks of saw and chisel and mallet where the steps
+had been cut or broken away.
+
+“Being thus baffled of winning the tomb from below, and being
+unprovided with ladders to scale, I found a way by much circuitous
+journeying to the top of the cliff. Thence I caused myself to be
+lowered by ropes, till I had investigated that portion of the rock face
+wherein I expected to find the opening.  I found that there was an
+entrance, closed however by a great stone slab.  This was cut in the
+rock more than a hundred feet up, being two-thirds the height of the
+cliff.  The hieroglyphic and cabalistic symbols cut in the rock were so
+managed as to disguise it. The cutting was deep, and was continued
+through the rock and the portals of the doorway, and through the great
+slab which formed the door itself. This was fixed in place with such
+incredible exactness that no stone chisel or cutting implement which I
+had with me could find a lodgment in the interstices.  I used much
+force, however; and by many heavy strokes won a way into the tomb, for
+such I found it to be.  The stone door having fallen into the entrance
+I passed over it into the tomb, noting as I went a long iron chain
+which hung coiled on a bracket close to the doorway.
+
+“The tomb I found to be complete, after the manner of the finest
+Egyptian tombs, with chamber and shaft leading down to the corridor,
+ending in the Mummy Pit.  It had the table of pictures, which seems
+some kind of record—whose meaning is now for ever lost—graven in a
+wondrous colour on a wondrous stone.
+
+“All the walls of the chamber and the passage were carved with strange
+writings in the uncanny form mentioned.  The huge stone coffin or
+sarcophagus in the deep pit was marvellously graven throughout with
+signs.  The Arab chief and two others who ventured into the tomb with
+me, and who were evidently used to such grim explorations, managed to
+take the cover from the sarcophagus without breaking it. At which they
+wondered; for such good fortune, they said, did not usually attend such
+efforts.  Indeed they seemed not over careful; and did handle the
+various furniture of the tomb with such little concern that, only for
+its great strength and thickness, even the coffin itself might have
+been injured.  Which gave me much concern, for it was very beautifully
+wrought of rare stone, such as I had no knowledge of.  Much I grieved
+that it were not possible to carry it away.  But time and desert
+journeyings forbade such; I could only take with me such small matters
+as could be carried on the person.
+
+“Within the sarcophagus was a body, manifestly of a woman, swathed with
+many wrappings of linen, as is usual with all mummies.  From certain
+embroiderings thereon, I gathered that she was of high rank.  Across
+the breast was one hand, unwrapped.  In the mummies which I had seen,
+the arms and hands are within the wrappings, and certain adornments of
+wood, shaped and painted to resemble arms and hands, lie outside the
+enwrapped body.
+
+“But this hand was strange to see, for it was the real hand of her who
+lay enwrapped there; the arm projecting from the cerements being of
+flesh, seemingly made as like marble in the process of embalming.  Arm
+and hand were of dusky white, being of the hue of ivory that hath lain
+long in air.  The skin and the nails were complete and whole, as though
+the body had been placed for burial over night.  I touched the hand and
+moved it, the arm being something flexible as a live arm; though stiff
+with long disuse, as are the arms of those faqueers which I have seen
+in the Indees.  There was, too, an added wonder that on this ancient
+hand were no less than seven fingers, the same all being fine and long,
+and of great beauty.  Sooth to say, it made me shudder and my flesh
+creep to touch that hand that had lain there undisturbed for so many
+thousands of years, and yet was like unto living flesh.  Underneath the
+hand, as though guarded by it, lay a huge jewel of ruby; a great stone
+of wondrous bigness, for the ruby is in the main a small jewel.  This
+one was of wondrous colour, being as of fine blood whereon the light
+shineth.  But its wonder lay not in its size or colour, though these
+were, as I have said, of priceless rarity; but in that the light of it
+shone from seven stars, each of seven points, as clearly as though the
+stars were in reality there imprisoned.  When that the hand was lifted,
+the sight of that wondrous stone lying there struck me with a shock
+almost to momentary paralysis.  I stood gazing on it, as did those with
+me, as though it were that faded head of the Gorgon Medusa with the
+snakes in her hair, whose sight struck into stone those who beheld.  So
+strong was the feeling that I wanted to hurry away from the place.  So,
+too, those with me; therefore, taking this rare jewel, together with
+certain amulets of strangeness and richness being wrought of
+jewel-stones, I made haste to depart.  I would have remained longer,
+and made further research in the wrappings of the mummy, but that I
+feared so to do.  For it came to me all at once that I was in a desert
+place, with strange men who were with me because they were not
+over-scrupulous. That we were in a lone cavern of the dead, an hundred
+feet above the ground, where none could find me were ill done to me,
+nor would any ever seek. But in secret I determined that I would come
+again, though with more secure following.  Moreover, was I tempted to
+seek further, as in examining the wrappings I saw many things of
+strange import in that wondrous tomb; including a casket of eccentric
+shape made of some strange stone, which methought might have contained
+other jewels, inasmuch as it had secure lodgment in the great
+sarcophagus itself. There was in the tomb also another coffer which,
+though of rare proportion and adornment, was more simply shaped.  It
+was of ironstone of great thickness; but the cover was lightly cemented
+down with what seemed gum and Paris plaster, as though to insure that
+no air could penetrate.  The Arabs with me so insisted in its opening,
+thinking that from its thickness much treasure was stored therein, that
+I consented thereto.  But their hope was a false one, as it proved.
+Within, closely packed, stood four jars finely wrought and carved with
+various adornments.  Of these one was the head of a man, another of a
+dog, another of a jackal, and another of a hawk.  I had before known
+that such burial urns as these were used to contain the entrails and
+other organs of the mummied dead; but on opening these, for the
+fastening of wax, though complete, was thin, and yielded easily, we
+found that they held but oil.  The Bedouins, spilling most of the oil
+in the process, groped with their hands in the jars lest treasure
+should have been there concealed.  But their searching was of no avail;
+no treasure was there. I was warned of my danger by seeing in the eyes
+of the Arabs certain covetous glances.  Whereon, in order to hasten
+their departure, I wrought upon those fears of superstition which even
+in these callous men were apparent.  The chief of the Bedouins ascended
+from the Pit to give the signal to those above to raise us; and I, not
+caring to remain with the men whom I mistrusted, followed him
+immediately.  The others did not come at once; from which I feared that
+they were rifling the tomb afresh on their own account.  I refrained to
+speak of it, however, lest worse should befall.  At last they came.
+One of them, who ascended first, in landing at the top of the cliff
+lost his foothold and fell below.  He was instantly killed.  The other
+followed, but in safety. The chief came next, and I came last.  Before
+coming away I pulled into its place again, as well as I could, the slab
+of stone that covered the entrance to the tomb.  I wished, if possible,
+to preserve it for my own examination should I come again.
+
+“When we all stood on the hill above the cliff, the burning sun that
+was bright and full of glory was good to see after the darkness and
+strange mystery of the tomb. Even was I glad that the poor Arab who
+fell down the cliff and lay dead below, lay in the sunlight and not in
+that gloomy cavern.  I would fain have gone with my companions to seek
+him and give him sepulture of some kind; but the Sheik made light of
+it, and sent two of his men to see to it whilst we went on our way.
+
+“That night as we camped, one of the men only returned, saying that a
+lion of the desert had killed his companion after that they had buried
+the dead man in a deep sand without the valley, and had covered the
+spot where he lay with many great rocks, so that jackals or other
+preying beasts might not dig him up again as is their wont.
+
+“Later, in the light of the fire round which the men sat or lay, I saw
+him exhibit to his fellows something white which they seemed to regard
+with special awe and reverence.  So I drew near silently, and saw that
+it was none other than the white hand of the mummy which had lain
+protecting the Jewel in the great sarcophagus. I heard the Bedouin tell
+how he had found it on the body of him who had fallen from the cliff.
+There was no mistaking it, for there were the seven fingers which I had
+noted before.  This man must have wrenched it off the dead body whilst
+his chief and I were otherwise engaged; and from the awe of the others
+I doubted not that he had hoped to use it as an Amulet, or charm.
+Whereas if powers it had, they were not for him who had taken it from
+the dead; since his death followed hard upon his theft.  Already his
+Amulet had had an awesome baptism; for the wrist of the dead hand was
+stained with red as though it had been dipped in recent blood.
+
+“That night I was in certain fear lest there should be some violence
+done to me; for if the poor dead hand was so valued as a charm, what
+must be the worth in such wise of the rare Jewel which it had guarded.
+Though only the chief knew of it, my doubt was perhaps even greater;
+for he could so order matters as to have me at his mercy when he would.
+I guarded myself, therefore, with wakefulness so well as I could,
+determined that at my earliest opportunity I should leave this party,
+and complete my journeying home, first to the Nile bank, and then down
+its course to Alexandria; with other guides who knew not what strange
+matters I had with me.
+
+“At last there came over me a disposition of sleep, so potent that I
+felt it would be resistless.  Fearing attack, or that being searched in
+my sleep the Bedouin might find the Star Jewel which he had seen me
+place with others in my dress, I took it out unobserved and held it in
+my hand.  It seemed to give back the light of the flickering fire and
+the light of the stars—for there was no moon—with equal fidelity; and
+I could note that on its reverse it was graven deeply with certain
+signs such as I had seen in the tomb.  As I sank into the
+unconsciousness of sleep, the graven Star Jewel was hidden in the
+hollow of my clenched hand.
+
+“I waked out of sleep with the light of the morning sun on my face.  I
+sat up and looked around me.  The fire was out, and the camp was
+desolate; save for one figure which lay prone close to me.  It was that
+of the Arab chief, who lay on his back, dead.  His face was almost
+black; and his eyes were open, and staring horribly up at the sky, as
+though he saw there some dreadful vision.  He had evidently been
+strangled; for on looking, I found on his throat the red marks where
+fingers had pressed.  There seemed so many of these marks that I
+counted them.  There were seven; and all parallel, except the thumb
+mark, as though made with one hand.  This thrilled me as I thought of
+the mummy hand with the seven fingers.
+
+“Even there, in the open desert, it seemed as if there could be
+enchantments!
+
+“In my surprise, as I bent over him, I opened my right hand, which up
+to now I had held shut with the feeling, instinctive even in sleep, of
+keeping safe that which it held.  As I did so, the Star Jewel held
+there fell out and struck the dead man on the mouth.  Mirabile dictu
+there came forth at once from the dead mouth a great gush of blood, in
+which the red jewel was for the moment lost.  I turned the dead man
+over to look for it, and found that he lay with his right hand bent
+under him as though he had fallen on it; and in it he held a great
+knife, keen of point and edge, such as Arabs carry at the belt.  It may
+have been that he was about to murder me when vengeance came on him,
+whether from man or God, or the Gods of Old, I know not.  Suffice it,
+that when I found my Ruby Jewel, which shone up as a living star from
+the mess of blood wherein it lay, I paused not, but fled from the
+place. I journeyed on alone through the hot desert, till, by God’s
+grace, I came upon an Arab tribe camping by a well, who gave me salt.
+With them I rested till they had set me on my way.
+
+“I know not what became of the mummy hand, or of those who had it.
+What strife, or suspicion, or disaster, or greed went with it I know
+not; but some such cause there must have been, since those who had it
+fled with it.  It doubtless is used as a charm of potence by some
+desert tribe.
+
+“At the earliest opportunity I made examination of the Star Ruby, as I
+wished to try to understand what was graven on it.  The symbols—whose
+meaning, however, I could not understand—were as follows...”
+
+Twice, whilst I had been reading this engrossing narrative, I had
+thought that I had seen across the page streaks of shade, which the
+weirdness of the subject had made to seem like the shadow of a hand.
+On the first of these occasions I found that the illusion came from the
+fringe of green silk around the lamp; but on the second I had looked
+up, and my eyes had lit on the mummy hand across the room on which the
+starlight was falling under the edge of the blind.  It was of little
+wonder that I had connected it with such a narrative; for if my eyes
+told me truly, here, in this room with me, was the very hand of which
+the traveller Van Huyn had written.  I looked over at the bed; and it
+comforted me to think that the Nurse still sat there, calm and wakeful.
+At such a time, with such surrounds, during such a narrative, it was
+well to have assurance of the presence of some living person.
+
+I sat looking at the book on the table before me; and so many strange
+thoughts crowded on me that my mind began to whirl.  It was almost as
+if the light on the white fingers in front of me was beginning to have
+some hypnotic effect.  All at once, all thoughts seemed to stop; and
+for an instant the world and time stood still.
+
+There lay a real hand across the book!  What was there to so overcome
+me, as was the case?  I knew the hand that I saw on the book—and loved
+it.  Margaret Trelawny’s hand was a joy to me to see—to touch; and yet
+at that moment, coming after other marvellous things, it had a
+strangely moving effect on me.  It was but momentary, however, and had
+passed even before her voice had reached me.
+
+“What disturbs you?  What are you staring at the book for?  I thought
+for an instant that you must have been overcome again!”  I jumped up.
+
+“I was reading,” I said, “an old book from the library.”  As I spoke I
+closed it and put it under my arm.  “I shall now put it back, as I
+understand that your Father wishes all things, especially books, kept
+in their proper places.”  My words were intentionally misleading; for I
+did not wish her to know what I was reading, and thought it best not to
+wake her curiosity by leaving the book about.  I went away, but not to
+the library; I left the book in my room where I could get it when I had
+had my sleep in the day.  When I returned Nurse Kennedy was ready to go
+to bed; so Miss Trelawny watched with me in the room.  I did not want
+any book whilst she was present.  We sat close together and talked in a
+whisper whilst the moments flew by.  It was with surprise that I noted
+the edge of the curtains changing from grey to yellow light. What we
+talked of had nothing to do with the sick man, except in so far that
+all which concerned his daughter must ultimately concern him.  But it
+had nothing to say to Egypt, or mummies, or the dead, or caves, or
+Bedouin chiefs.  I could well take note in the growing light that
+Margaret’s hand had not seven fingers, but five; for it lay in mine.
+
+When Doctor Winchester arrived in the morning and had made his visit to
+his patient, he came to see me as I sat in the dining-room having a
+little meal—breakfast or supper, I hardly knew which it was—before I
+went to lie down.  Mr. Corbeck came in at the same time; and we resumed
+out conversation where we had left it the night before.  I told Mr.
+Corbeck that I had read the chapter about the finding of the tomb, and
+that I thought Doctor Winchester should read it, too.  The latter said
+that, if he might, he would take it with him; he had that morning to
+make a railway journey to Ipswich, and would read it on the train.  He
+said he would bring it back with him when he came again in the evening.
+I went up to my room to bring it down; but I could not find it
+anywhere. I had a distinct recollection of having left it on the little
+table beside my bed, when I had come up after Miss Trelawny’s going on
+duty into the sick-room.  It was very strange; for the book was not of
+a kind that any of the servants would be likely to take.  I had to come
+back and explain to the others that I could not find it.
+
+When Doctor Winchester had gone, Mr. Corbeck, who seemed to know the
+Dutchman’s work by heart, talked the whole matter over with me.  I told
+him that I was interrupted by a change of nurses, just as I had come to
+the description of the ring.  He smiled as he said:
+
+“So far as that is concerned, you need not be disappointed.  Not in Van
+Huyn’s time, nor for nearly two centuries later, could the meaning of
+that engraving have been understood.  It was only when the work was
+taken up and followed by Young and Champollion, by Birch and Lepsius
+and Rosellini and Salvolini, by Mariette Bey and by Wallis Budge and
+Flinders Petrie and the other scholars of their times that great
+results ensued, and that the true meaning of hieroglyphic was known.
+
+“Later, I shall explain to you, if Mr. Trelawny does not explain it
+himself, or if he does not forbid me to, what it means in that
+particular place.  I think it will be better for you to know what
+followed Van Huyn’s narrative; for with the description of the stone,
+and the account of his bringing it to Holland at the termination of his
+travels, the episode ends.  Ends so far as his book is concerned.  The
+chief thing about the book is that it sets others thinking—and acting.
+Amongst them were Mr. Trelawny and myself.  Mr. Trelawny is a good
+linguist of the Orient, but he does not know Northern tongues.  As for
+me I have a faculty for learning languages; and when I was pursuing my
+studies in Leyden I learned Dutch so that I might more easily make
+references in the library there.  Thus it was, that at the very time
+when Mr. Trelawny, who, in making his great collection of works on
+Egypt, had, through a booksellers’ catalogue, acquired this volume with
+the manuscript translation, was studying it, I was reading another
+copy, in original Dutch, in Leyden.  We were both struck by the
+description of the lonely tomb in the rock; cut so high up as to be
+inaccessible to ordinary seekers:  with all means of reaching it
+carefully obliterated; and yet with such an elaborate ornamentation of
+the smoothed surface of the cliff as Van Huyn has described.  It also
+struck us both as an odd thing—for in the years between Van Huyn’s
+time and our own the general knowledge of Egyptian curios and records
+has increased marvellously—that in the case of such a tomb, made in
+such a place, and which must have cost an immense sum of money, there
+was no seeming record or effigy to point out who lay within.  Moreover,
+the very name of the place, ‘the Valley of the Sorcerer’, had, in a
+prosaic age, attractions of its own. When we met, which we did through
+his seeking the assistance of other Egyptologists in his work, we
+talked over this as we did over many other things; and we determined to
+make search for the mysterious valley. Whilst we were waiting to start
+on the travel, for many things were required which Mr. Trelawny
+undertook to see to himself, I went to Holland to try if I could by any
+traces verify Van Huyn’s narrative.  I went straight to Hoorn, and set
+patiently to work to find the house of the traveller and his
+descendants, if any.  I need not trouble you with details of my
+seeking—and finding. Hoorn is a place that has not changed much since
+Van Huyn’s time, except that it has lost the place which it held
+amongst commercial cities.  Its externals are such as they had been
+then; in such a sleepy old place a century or two does not count for
+much.  I found the house, and discovered that none of the descendants
+were alive. I searched records; but only to one end—death and
+extinction.  Then I set me to work to find what had become of his
+treasures; for that such a traveller must have had great treasures was
+apparent.  I traced a good many to museums in Leyden, Utrecht, and
+Amsterdam; and some few to the private houses of rich collectors.  At
+last, in the shop of an old watchmaker and jeweller at Hoorn, I found
+what he considered his chiefest treasure; a great ruby, carven like a
+scarab, with seven stars, and engraven with hieroglyphics.  The old man
+did not know hieroglyphic character, and in his old-world, sleepy life,
+the philological discoveries of recent years had not reached him.  He
+did not know anything of Van Huyn, except that such a person had been,
+and that his name was, during two centuries, venerated in the town as a
+great traveller.  He valued the jewel as only a rare stone, spoiled in
+part by the cutting; and though he was at first loth to part with such
+an unique gem, he became amenable ultimately to commercial reason.  I
+had a full purse, since I bought for Mr. Trelawny, who is, as I suppose
+you know, immensely wealthy.  I was shortly on my way back to London,
+with the Star Ruby safe in my pocket-book; and in my heart a joy and
+exultation which knew no bounds.
+
+“For here we were with proof of Van Huyn’s wonderful story.  The jewel
+was put in security in Mr. Trelawny’s great safe; and we started out on
+our journey of exploration in full hope.
+
+“Mr. Trelawny was, at the last, loth to leave his young wife whom he
+dearly loved; but she, who loved him equally, knew his longing to
+prosecute the search.  So keeping to herself, as all good women do, all
+her anxieties—which in her case were special—she bade him follow out
+his bent.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+
+A Queen’s Tomb
+
+
+“Mr. Trelawny’s hope was at least as great as my own.  He is not so
+volatile a man as I am, prone to ups and downs of hope and despair; but
+he has a fixed purpose which crystallises hope into belief.  At times I
+had feared that there might have been two such stones, or that the
+adventures of Van Huyn were traveller’s fictions, based on some
+ordinary acquisition of the curio in Alexandria or Cairo, or London or
+Amsterdam. But Mr. Trelawny never faltered in his belief.  We had many
+things to distract our minds from belief or disbelief.  This was soon
+after Arabi Pasha, and Egypt was no safe place for travellers,
+especially if they were English.  But Mr. Trelawny is a fearless man;
+and I almost come to think at times that I am not a coward myself.  We
+got together a band of Arabs whom one or other of us had known in
+former trips to the desert, and whom we could trust; that is, we did
+not distrust them as much as others.  We were numerous enough to
+protect ourselves from chance marauding bands, and we took with us
+large impedimenta.  We had secured the consent and passive co-operation
+of the officials still friendly to Britain; in the acquiring of which
+consent I need hardly say that Mr. Trelawny’s riches were of chief
+importance.  We found our way in dhahabiyehs to Aswan; whence, having
+got some Arabs from the Sheik and having given our usual backsheesh, we
+set out on our journey through the desert.
+
+“Well, after much wandering and trying every winding in the
+interminable jumble of hills, we came at last at nightfall on just such
+a valley as Van Huyn had described. A valley with high, steep cliffs;
+narrowing in the centre, and widening out to the eastern and western
+ends.  At daylight we were opposite the cliff and could easily note the
+opening high up in the rock, and the hieroglyphic figures which were
+evidently intended originally to conceal it.
+
+“But the signs which had baffled Van Huyn and those of his time—and
+later, were no secrets to us.  The host of scholars who have given
+their brains and their lives to this work, had wrested open the
+mysterious prison-house of Egyptian language.  On the hewn face of the
+rocky cliff we, who had learned the secrets, could read what the Theban
+priesthood had had there inscribed nearly fifty centuries before.
+
+“For that the external inscription was the work of the priesthood—and
+a hostile priesthood at that—there could be no living doubt.  The
+inscription on the rock, written in hieroglyphic, ran thus:
+
+“‘Hither the Gods come not at any summons.  The “Nameless One” has
+insulted them and is for ever alone.  Go not nigh, lest their vengeance
+wither you away!’
+
+“The warning must have been a terribly potent one at the time it was
+written and for thousands of years afterwards; even when the language
+in which it was given had become a dead mystery to the people of the
+land. The tradition of such a terror lasts longer than its cause.  Even
+in the symbols used there was an added significance of alliteration.
+‘For ever’ is given in the hieroglyphics as ‘millions of years’.  This
+symbol was repeated nine times, in three groups of three; and after
+each group a symbol of the Upper World, the Under World, and the Sky.
+So that for this Lonely One there could be, through the vengeance of
+all the Gods, resurrection in neither the World of Sunlight, in the
+World of the Dead, or for the soul in the region of the Gods.
+
+“Neither Mr. Trelawny nor I dared to tell any of our people what the
+writing meant. For though they did not believe in the religion whence
+the curse came, or in the Gods whose vengeance was threatened, yet they
+were so superstitious that they would probably, had they known of it,
+have thrown up the whole task and run away.
+
+“Their ignorance, however, and our discretion preserved us.  We made an
+encampment close at hand, but behind a jutting rock a little further
+along the valley, so that they might not have the inscription always
+before them.  For even that traditional name of the place:  ‘The Valley
+of the Sorcerer’, had a fear for them; and for us through them.  With
+the timber which we had brought, we made a ladder up the face of the
+rock.  We hung a pulley on a beam fixed to project from the top of the
+cliff.  We found the great slab of rock, which formed the door, placed
+clumsily in its place and secured by a few stones.  Its own weight kept
+it in safe position.  In order to enter, we had to push it in; and we
+passed over it.  We found the great coil of chain which Van Huyn had
+described fastened into the rock.  There were, however, abundant
+evidences amid the wreckage of the great stone door, which had revolved
+on iron hinges at top and bottom, that ample provision had been
+originally made for closing and fastening it from within.
+
+“Mr. Trelawny and I went alone into the tomb.  We had brought plenty of
+lights with us; and we fixed them as we went along.  We wished to get a
+complete survey at first, and then make examination of all in detail.
+As we went on, we were filled with ever-increasing wonder and delight.
+The tomb was one of the most magnificent and beautiful which either of
+us had ever seen.  From the elaborate nature of the sculpture and
+painting, and the perfection of the workmanship, it was evident that
+the tomb was prepared during the lifetime of her for whose
+resting-place it was intended.  The drawing of the hieroglyphic
+pictures was fine, and the colouring superb; and in that high cavern,
+far away from even the damp of the Nile-flood, all was as fresh as when
+the artists had laid down their palettes.  There was one thing which we
+could not avoid seeing.  That although the cutting on the outside rock
+was the work of the priesthood, the smoothing of the cliff face was
+probably a part of the tomb-builder’s original design.  The symbolism
+of the painting and cutting within all gave the same idea.  The outer
+cavern, partly natural and partly hewn, was regarded architecturally as
+only an ante-chamber. At the end of it, so that it would face the east,
+was a pillared portico, hewn out of the solid rock.  The pillars were
+massive and were seven-sided, a thing which we had not come across in
+any other tomb. Sculptured on the architrave was the Boat of the Moon,
+containing Hathor, cow-headed and bearing the disk and plumes, and the
+dog-headed Hapi, the God of the North.  It was steered by Harpocrates
+towards the north, represented by the Pole Star surrounded by Draco and
+Ursa Major. In the latter the stars that form what we call the ‘Plough’
+were cut larger than any of the other stars; and were filled with gold
+so that, in the light of torches, they seemed to flame with a special
+significance. Passing within the portico, we found two of the
+architectural features of a rock tomb, the Chamber, or Chapel, and the
+Pit, all complete as Van Huyn had noticed, though in his day the names
+given to these parts by the Egyptians of old were unknown.
+
+“The Stele, or record, which had its place low down on the western
+wall, was so remarkable that we examined it minutely, even before going
+on our way to find the mummy which was the object of our search.  This
+Stele was a great slab of lapis lazuli, cut all over with hieroglyphic
+figures of small size and of much beauty.  The cutting was filled in
+with some cement of exceeding fineness, and of the colour of pure
+vermilion.  The inscription began:
+
+“‘Tera, Queen of the Egypts, daughter of Antef, Monarch of the North
+and the South.’ ‘Daughter of the Sun,’ ‘Queen of the Diadems’.
+
+“It then set out, in full record, the history of her life and reign.
+
+“The signs of sovereignty were given with a truly feminine profusion of
+adornment. The united Crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt were, in
+especial, cut with exquisite precision.  It was new to us both to find
+the Hejet and the Desher—the White and the Red crowns of Upper and
+Lower Egypt—on the Stele of a queen; for it was a rule, without
+exception in the records, that in ancient Egypt either crown was worn
+only by a king; though they are to be found on goddesses.  Later on we
+found an explanation, of which I shall say more presently.
+
+“Such an inscription was in itself a matter so startling as to arrest
+attention from anyone anywhere at any time; but you can have no
+conception of the effect which it had upon us.  Though our eyes were
+not the first which had seen it, they were the first which could see it
+with understanding since first the slab of rock was fixed in the cliff
+opening nearly five thousand years before.  To us was given to read
+this message from the dead.  This message of one who had warred against
+the Gods of Old, and claimed to have controlled them at a time when the
+hierarchy professed to be the only means of exciting their fears or
+gaining their good will.
+
+“The walls of the upper chamber of the Pit and the sarcophagus Chamber
+were profusely inscribed; all the inscriptions, except that on the
+Stele, being coloured with bluish-green pigment.  The effect when seen
+sideways as the eye caught the green facets, was that of an old,
+discoloured Indian turquoise.
+
+“We descended the Pit by the aid of the tackle we had brought with us.
+Trelawny went first.  It was a deep pit, more than seventy feet; but it
+had never been filled up. The passage at the bottom sloped up to the
+sarcophagus Chamber, and was longer than is usually found.  It had not
+been walled up.
+
+“Within, we found a great sarcophagus of yellow stone.  But that I need
+not describe; you have seen it in Mr. Trelawny’s chamber.  The cover of
+it lay on the ground; it had not been cemented, and was just as Van
+Huyn had described it.  Needless to say, we were excited as we looked
+within. There must, however, be one sense of disappointment.  I could
+not help feeling how different must have been the sight which met the
+Dutch traveller’s eyes when he looked within and found that white hand
+lying lifelike above the shrouding mummy cloths.  It is true that a
+part of the arm was there, white and ivory like.
+
+“But there was a thrill to us which came not to Van Huyn!
+
+“The end of the wrist was covered with dried blood!  It was as though
+the body had bled after death!  The jagged ends of the broken wrist
+were rough with the clotted blood; through this the white bone,
+sticking out, looked like the matrix of opal.  The blood had streamed
+down and stained the brown wrappings as with rust.  Here, then, was
+full confirmation of the narrative.  With such evidence of the
+narrator’s truth before us, we could not doubt the other matters which
+he had told, such as the blood on the mummy hand, or marks of the seven
+fingers on the throat of the strangled Sheik.
+
+“I shall not trouble you with details of all we saw, or how we learned
+all we knew. Part of it was from knowledge common to scholars; part we
+read on the Stele in the tomb, and in the sculptures and hieroglyphic
+paintings on the walls.
+
+“Queen Tera was of the Eleventh, or Theban Dynasty of Egyptian Kings
+which held sway between the twenty-ninth and twenty-fifth centuries
+before Christ.  She succeeded as the only child of her father, Antef.
+She must have been a girl of extraordinary character as well as
+ability, for she was but a young girl when her father died.  Her youth
+and sex encouraged the ambitious priesthood, which had then achieved
+immense power.  By their wealth and numbers and learning they dominated
+all Egypt, more especially the Upper portion.  They were then secretly
+ready to make an effort for the achievement of their bold and
+long-considered design, that of transferring the governing power from a
+Kingship to a Hierarchy. But King Antef had suspected some such
+movement, and had taken the precaution of securing to his daughter the
+allegiance of the army.  He had also had her taught statecraft, and had
+even made her learned in the lore of the very priests themselves. He
+had used those of one cult against the other; each being hopeful of
+some present gain on its own part by the influence of the King, or of
+some ultimate gain from its own influence over his daughter.  Thus, the
+Princess had been brought up amongst scribes, and was herself no mean
+artist.  Many of these things were told on the walls in pictures or in
+hieroglyphic writing of great beauty; and we came to the conclusion
+that not a few of them had been done by the Princess herself.  It was
+not without cause that she was inscribed on the Stele as ‘Protector of
+the Arts’.
+
+“But the King had gone to further lengths, and had had his daughter
+taught magic, by which she had power over Sleep and Will.  This was
+real magic—“black” magic; not the magic of the temples, which, I may
+explain, was of the harmless or “white” order, and was intended to
+impress rather than to effect.  She had been an apt pupil; and had gone
+further than her teachers.  Her power and her resources had given her
+great opportunities, of which she had availed herself to the full.  She
+had won secrets from nature in strange ways; and had even gone to the
+length of going down into the tomb herself, having been swathed and
+coffined and left as dead for a whole month. The priests had tried to
+make out that the real Princess Tera had died in the experiment, and
+that another girl had been substituted; but she had conclusively proved
+their error. All this was told in pictures of great merit.  It was
+probably in her time that the impulse was given in the restoring the
+artistic greatness of the Fourth Dynasty which had found its perfection
+in the days of Chufu.
+
+“In the Chamber of the sarcophagus were pictures and writings to show
+that she had achieved victory over Sleep.  Indeed, there was everywhere
+a symbolism, wonderful even in a land and an age of symbolism.
+Prominence was given to the fact that she, though a Queen, claimed all
+the privileges of kingship and masculinity.  In one place she was
+pictured in man’s dress, and wearing the White and Red Crowns.  In the
+following picture she was in female dress, but still wearing the Crowns
+of Upper and Lower Egypt, while the discarded male raiment lay at her
+feet.  In every picture where hope, or aim, of resurrection was
+expressed there was the added symbol of the North; and in many
+places—always in representations of important events, past, present,
+or future—was a grouping of the stars of the Plough.  She evidently
+regarded this constellation as in some way peculiarly associated with
+herself.
+
+“Perhaps the most remarkable statement in the records, both on the
+Stele and in the mural writings, was that Queen Tera had power to
+compel the Gods.  This, by the way, was not an isolated belief in
+Egyptian history; but was different in its cause.  She had engraved on
+a ruby, carved like a scarab, and having seven stars of seven points,
+Master Words to compel all the Gods, both of the Upper and the Under
+Worlds.
+
+“In the statement it was plainly set forth that the hatred of the
+priests was, she knew, stored up for her, and that they would after her
+death try to suppress her name.  This was a terrible revenge, I may
+tell you, in Egyptian mythology; for without a name no one can after
+death be introduced to the Gods, or have prayers said for him.
+Therefore, she had intended her resurrection to be after a long time
+and in a more northern land, under the constellation whose seven stars
+had ruled her birth.  To this end, her hand was to be in the
+air—‘unwrapped’—and in it the Jewel of Seven Stars, so that wherever
+there was air she might move even as her Ka could move!  This, after
+thinking it over, Mr. Trelawny and I agreed meant that her body could
+become astral at command, and so move, particle by particle, and become
+whole again when and where required. Then there was a piece of writing
+in which allusion was made to a chest or casket in which were contained
+all the Gods, and Will, and Sleep, the two latter being personified by
+symbols.  The box was mentioned as with seven sides. It was not much of
+a surprise to us when, underneath the feet of the mummy, we found the
+seven-sided casket, which you have also seen in Mr. Trelawny’s room.
+On the underneath part of the wrapping—linen of the left foot was
+painted, in the same vermilion colour as that used in the Stele, the
+hieroglyphic symbol for much water, and underneath the right foot the
+symbol of the earth.  We made out the symbolism to be that her body,
+immortal and transferable at will, ruled both the land and water, air
+and fire—the latter being exemplified by the light of the Jewel Stone,
+and further by the flint and iron which lay outside the mummy wrappings.
+
+“As we lifted the casket from the sarcophagus, we noticed on its sides
+the strange protuberances which you have already seen; but we were
+unable at the time to account for them.  There were a few amulets in
+the sarcophagus, but none of any special worth or significance.  We
+took it that if there were such, they were within the wrappings; or
+more probably in the strange casket underneath the mummy’s feet.  This,
+however, we could not open.  There were signs of there being a cover;
+certainly the upper portion and the lower were each in one piece.  The
+fine line, a little way from the top, appeared to be where the cover
+was fixed; but it was made with such exquisite fineness and finish that
+the joining could hardly be seen. Certainly the top could not be moved.
+We took it, that it was in some way fastened from within.  I tell you
+all this in order that you may understand things with which you may be
+in contact later.  You must suspend your judgment entirely.  Such
+strange things have happened regarding this mummy and all around it,
+that there is a necessity for new belief somewhere.  It is absolutely
+impossible to reconcile certain things which have happened with the
+ordinary currents of life or knowledge.
+
+“We stayed around the Valley of the Sorcerer, till we had copied
+roughly all the drawings and writings on the walls, ceiling and floor.
+We took with us the Stele of lapis lazuli, whose graven record was
+coloured with vermilion pigment.  We took the sarcophagus and the
+mummy; the stone chest with the alabaster jars; the tables of
+bloodstone and alabaster and onyx and carnelian; and the ivory pillow
+whose arch rested on ‘buckles’, round each of which was twisted an
+uraeus wrought in gold. We took all the articles which lay in the
+Chapel, and the Mummy Pit; the wooden boats with crews and the ushaptiu
+figures, and the symbolic amulets.
+
+“When coming away we took down the ladders, and at a distance buried
+them in the sand under a cliff, which we noted so that if necessary we
+might find them again. Then with our heavy baggage, we set out on our
+laborious journey back to the Nile. It was no easy task, I tell you, to
+bring the case with that great sarcophagus over the desert.  We had a
+rough cart and sufficient men to draw it; but the progress seemed
+terribly slow, for we were anxious to get our treasures into a place of
+safety.  The night was an anxious time with us, for we feared attack
+from some marauding band. But more still we feared some of those with
+us.  They were, after all, but predatory, unscrupulous men; and we had
+with us a considerable bulk of precious things. They, or at least the
+dangerous ones amongst them, did not know why it was so precious; they
+took it for granted that it was material treasure of some kind that we
+carried.  We had taken the mummy from the sarcophagus, and packed it
+for safety of travel in a separate case.  During the first night two
+attempts were made to steal things from the cart; and two men were
+found dead in the morning.
+
+“On the second night there came on a violent storm, one of those
+terrible simooms of the desert which makes one feel his helplessness.
+We were overwhelmed with drifting sand.  Some of our Bedouins had fled
+before the storm, hoping to find shelter; the rest of us, wrapped in
+our bournous, endured with what patience we could.  In the morning,
+when the storm had passed, we recovered from under the piles of sand
+what we could of our impedimenta.  We found the case in which the mummy
+had been packed all broken, but the mummy itself could nowhere be
+found. We searched everywhere around, and dug up the sand which had
+piled around us; but in vain.  We did not know what to do, for Trelawny
+had his heart set on taking home that mummy.  We waited a whole day in
+hopes that the Bedouins, who had fled, would return; we had a blind
+hope that they might have in some way removed the mummy from the cart,
+and would restore it.  That night, just before dawn, Mr. Trelawny woke
+me up and whispered in my ear:
+
+“‘We must go back to the tomb in the Valley of the Sorcerer.  Show no
+hesitation in the morning when I give the orders!  If you ask any
+questions as to where we are going it will create suspicion, and will
+defeat our purpose.’
+
+“‘All right!” I answered.  “But why shall we go there?’  His answer
+seemed to thrill through me as though it had struck some chord ready
+tuned within:
+
+“‘We shall find the mummy there!  I am sure of it!’  Then anticipating
+doubt or argument he added:
+
+“‘Wait, and you shall see!’ and he sank back into his blanket again.
+
+“The Arabs were surprised when we retraced our steps; and some of them
+were not satisfied.  There was a good deal of friction, and there were
+several desertions; so that it was with a diminished following that we
+took our way eastward again.  At first the Sheik did not manifest any
+curiosity as to our definite destination; but when it became apparent
+that we were again making for the Valley of the Sorcerer, he too showed
+concern.  This grew as we drew near; till finally at the entrance of
+the valley he halted and refused to go further.  He said he would await
+our return if we chose to go on alone.  That he would wait three days;
+but if by that time we had not returned he would leave.  No offer of
+money would tempt him to depart from this resolution.  The only
+concession he would make was that he would find the ladders and bring
+them near the cliff.  This he did; and then, with the rest of the
+troop, he went back to wait at the entrance of the valley.
+
+“Mr. Trelawny and I took ropes and torches, and again ascended to the
+tomb.  It was evident that someone had been there in our absence, for
+the stone slab which protected the entrance to the tomb was lying flat
+inside, and a rope was dangling from the cliff summit.  Within, there
+was another rope hanging into the shaft of the Mummy Pit.  We looked at
+each other; but neither said a word.  We fixed our own rope, and as
+arranged Trelawny descended first, I following at once.  It was not
+till we stood together at the foot of the shaft that the thought
+flashed across me that we might be in some sort of a trap; that someone
+might descend the rope from the cliff, and by cutting the rope by which
+we had lowered ourselves into the Pit, bury us there alive.  The
+thought was horrifying; but it was too late to do anything.  I remained
+silent.  We both had torches, so that there was ample light as we
+passed through the passage and entered the Chamber where the
+sarcophagus had stood. The first thing noticeable was the emptiness of
+the place.  Despite all its magnificent adornment, the tomb was made a
+desolation by the absence of the great sarcophagus, to hold which it
+was hewn in the rock; of the chest with the alabaster jars; of the
+tables which had held the implements and food for the use of the dead,
+and the ushaptiu figures.
+
+“It was made more infinitely desolate still by the shrouded figure of
+the mummy of Queen Tera which lay on the floor where the great
+sarcophagus had stood!  Beside it lay, in the strange contorted
+attitudes of violent death, three of the Arabs who had deserted from
+our party.  Their faces were black, and their hands and necks were
+smeared with blood which had burst from mouth and nose and eyes.
+
+“On the throat of each were the marks, now blackening, of a hand of
+seven fingers.
+
+“Trelawny and I drew close, and clutched each other in awe and fear as
+we looked.
+
+“For, most wonderful of all, across the breast of the mummied Queen lay
+a hand of seven fingers, ivory white, the wrist only showing a scar
+like a jagged red line, from which seemed to depend drops of blood.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII
+
+The Magic Coffer
+
+
+“When we recovered our amazement, which seemed to last unduly long, we
+did not lose any time carrying the mummy through the passage, and
+hoisting it up the Pit shaft.  I went first, to receive it at the top.
+As I looked down, I saw Mr. Trelawny lift the severed hand and put it
+in his breast, manifestly to save it from being injured or lost.  We
+left the dead Arabs where they lay.  With our ropes we lowered our
+precious burden to the ground; and then took it to the entrance of the
+valley where our escort was to wait.  To our astonishment we found them
+on the move.  When we remonstrated with the Sheik, he answered that he
+had fulfilled his contract to the letter; he had waited the three days
+as arranged.  I thought that he was lying to cover up his base
+intention of deserting us; and I found when we compared notes that
+Trelawny had the same suspicion.  It was not till we arrived at Cairo
+that we found he was correct.  It was the 3rd of November 1884 when we
+entered the Mummy Pit for the second time; we had reason to remember
+the date.
+
+“We had lost three whole days of our reckoning—out of our
+lives—whilst we had stood wondering in that chamber of the dead.  Was
+it strange, then, that we had a superstitious feeling with regard to
+the dead Queen Tera and all belonging to her?  Is it any wonder that it
+rests with us now, with a bewildering sense of some power outside
+ourselves or our comprehension?  Will it be any wonder if it go down to
+the grave with us at the appointed time?  If, indeed, there be any
+graves for us who have robbed the dead!”  He was silent for quite a
+minute before he went on:
+
+“We got to Cairo all right, and from there to Alexandria, where we were
+to take ship by the Messagerie service to Marseilles, and go thence by
+express to London.  But
+
+     ‘The best-laid schemes o’ mice and men Gang aft agley.’
+
+At Alexandria, Trelawny found waiting a cable stating that Mrs.
+Trelawny had died in giving birth to a daughter.
+
+“Her stricken husband hurried off at once by the Orient Express; and I
+had to bring the treasure alone to the desolate house.  I got to London
+all safe; there seemed to be some special good fortune to our journey.
+When I got to this house, the funeral had long been over.  The child
+had been put out to nurse, and Mr. Trelawny had so far recovered from
+the shock of his loss that he had set himself to take up again the
+broken threads of his life and his work.  That he had had a shock, and
+a bad one, was apparent.  The sudden grey in his black hair was proof
+enough in itself; but in addition, the strong cast of his features had
+become set and stern.  Since he received that cable in the shipping
+office at Alexandria I have never seen a happy smile on his face.
+
+“Work is the best thing in such a case; and to his work he devoted
+himself heart and soul.  The strange tragedy of his loss and gain—for
+the child was born after the mother’s death—took place during the time
+that we stood in that trance in the Mummy Pit of Queen Tera.  It seemed
+to have become in some way associated with his Egyptian studies, and
+more especially with the mysteries connected with the Queen.  He told
+me very little about his daughter; but that two forces struggled in his
+mind regarding her was apparent.  I could see that he loved, almost
+idolised her. Yet he could never forget that her birth had cost her
+mother’s life.  Also, there was something whose existence seemed to
+wring his father’s heart, though he would never tell me what it was.
+Again, he once said in a moment of relaxation of his purpose of silence:
+
+“‘She is unlike her mother; but in both feature and colour she has a
+marvellous resemblance to the pictures of Queen Tera.’
+
+“He said that he had sent her away to people who would care for her as
+he could not; and that till she became a woman she should have all the
+simple pleasures that a young girl might have, and that were best for
+her.  I would often have talked with him about her; but he would never
+say much.  Once he said to me:  ‘There are reasons why I should not
+speak more than is necessary.  Some day you will know—and understand!’
+I respected his reticence; and beyond asking after her on my return
+after a journey, I have never spoken of her again.  I had never seen
+her till I did so in your presence.
+
+“Well, when the treasures which we had—ah!—taken from the tomb had
+been brought here, Mr. Trelawny arranged their disposition himself.
+The mummy, all except the severed hand, he placed in the great
+ironstone sarcophagus in the hall.  This was wrought for the Theban
+High Priest Uni, and is, as you may have remarked, all inscribed with
+wonderful invocations to the old Gods of Egypt.  The rest of the things
+from the tomb he disposed about his own room, as you have seen.
+Amongst them he placed, for special reasons of his own, the mummy hand.
+I think he regards this as the most sacred of his possessions, with
+perhaps one exception.  That is the carven ruby which he calls the
+‘Jewel of Seven Stars’, which he keeps in that great safe which is
+locked and guarded by various devices, as you know.
+
+“I dare say you find this tedious; but I have had to explain it, so
+that you should understand all up to the present.  It was a long time
+after my return with the mummy of Queen Tera when Mr. Trelawny
+re-opened the subject with me.  He had been several times to Egypt,
+sometimes with me and sometimes alone; and I had been several trips, on
+my own account or for him.  But in all that time, nearly sixteen years,
+he never mentioned the subject, unless when some pressing occasion
+suggested, if it did not necessitate, a reference.
+
+“One morning early he sent for me in a hurry; I was then studying in
+the British Museum, and had rooms in Hart Street.  When I came, he was
+all on fire with excitement.  I had not seen him in such a glow since
+before the news of his wife’s death.  He took me at once into his room.
+The window blinds were down and the shutters closed; not a ray of
+daylight came in.  The ordinary lights in the room were not lit, but
+there were a lot of powerful electric lamps, fifty candle-power at
+least, arranged on one side of the room.  The little bloodstone table
+on which the heptagonal coffer stands was drawn to the centre of the
+room.  The coffer looked exquisite in the glare of light which shone on
+it.  It actually seemed to glow as if lit in some way from within.
+
+“‘What do you think of it?’ he asked.
+
+“‘It is like a jewel,’ I answered.  ‘You may well call it the
+‘sorcerer’s Magic Coffer’, if it often looks like that.  It almost
+seems to be alive.’
+
+“‘Do you know why it seems so?’
+
+“‘From the glare of the light, I suppose?’
+
+“‘Light of course,’ he answered, ‘but it is rather the disposition of
+light.’  As he spoke he turned up the ordinary lights of the room and
+switched off the special ones.  The effect on the stone box was
+surprising; in a second it lost all its glowing effect.  It was still a
+very beautiful stone, as always; but it was stone and no more.
+
+“‘Do you notice anything about the arrangement of the lamps?’ he asked.
+
+“‘No!’
+
+“‘They were in the shape of the stars in the Plough, as the stars are
+in the ruby!’  The statement came to me with a certain sense of
+conviction. I do not know why, except that there had been so many
+mysterious associations with the mummy and all belonging to it that any
+new one seemed enlightening.  I listened as Trelawny went on to explain:
+
+“‘For sixteen years I have never ceased to think of that adventure, or
+to try to find a clue to the mysteries which came before us; but never
+until last night did I seem to find a solution.  I think I must have
+dreamed of it, for I woke all on fire about it.  I jumped out of bed
+with a determination of doing something, before I quite knew what it
+was that I wished to do.  Then, all at once, the purpose was clear
+before me. There were allusions in the writing on the walls of the tomb
+to the seven stars of the Great Bear that go to make up the Plough; and
+the North was again and again emphasized.  The same symbols were
+repeated with regard to the “Magic Box”, as we called it.  We had
+already noticed those peculiar translucent spaces in the stone of the
+box.  You remember the hieroglyphic writing had told that the jewel
+came from the heart of an aerolite, and that the coffer was cut from it
+also.  It might be, I thought, that the light of the seven stars,
+shining in the right direction, might have some effect on the box, or
+something within it.  I raised the blind and looked out. The Plough was
+high in the heavens, and both its stars and the Pole Star were straight
+opposite the window.  I pulled the table with the coffer out into the
+light, and shifted it until the translucent patches were in the
+direction of the stars. Instantly the box began to glow, as you saw it
+under the lamps, though but slightly. I waited and waited; but the sky
+clouded over, and the light died away.  So I got wires and lamps—you
+know how often I use them in experiments—and tried the effect of
+electric light.  It took me some time to get the lamps properly placed,
+so that they would correspond to the parts of the stone, but the moment
+I got them right the whole thing began to glow as you have seen it.
+
+“‘I could get no further, however.  There was evidently something
+wanting.  All at once it came to me that if light could have some
+effect there should be in the tomb some means of producing light, for
+there could not be starlight in the Mummy Pit in the cavern.  Then the
+whole thing seemed to become clear.  On the bloodstone table, which has
+a hollow carved in its top, into which the bottom of the coffer fits, I
+laid the Magic Coffer; and I at once saw that the odd protuberances so
+carefully wrought in the substance of the stone corresponded in a way
+to the stars in the constellation.  These, then, were to hold lights.
+
+“‘Eureka!’ I cried.  ‘All we want now is the lamps.’”  I tried placing
+the electric lights on, or close to, the protuberances.  But the glow
+never came to the stone. So the conviction grew on me that there were
+special lamps made for the purpose. If we could find them, a step on
+the road to solving the mystery should be gained.
+
+“‘But what about the lamps?’ I asked.  ‘Where are they?  When are we to
+discover them?  How are we to know them if we do find them?  What—’
+
+“He stopped me at once:
+
+“‘One thing at a time!’ he said quietly.  ‘Your first question contains
+all the rest. Where are these lamps?  I shall tell you:  In the tomb!’
+
+“‘In the tomb!’ I repeated in surprise.  ‘Why you and I searched the
+place ourselves from end to end; and there was not a sign of a lamp.
+Not a sign of anything remaining when we came away the first time; or
+on the second, except the bodies of the Arabs.’
+
+“Whilst I was speaking, he had uncoiled some large sheets of paper
+which he had brought in his hand from his own room.  These he spread
+out on the great table, keeping their edges down with books and
+weights.  I knew them at a glance; they were the careful copies which
+he had made of our first transcripts from the writing in the tomb.
+When he had all ready, he turned to me and said slowly:
+
+“‘Do you remember wondering, when we examined the tomb, at the lack of
+one thing which is usually found in such a tomb?’
+
+“‘Yes!  There was no serdab.’
+
+“The serdab, I may perhaps explain,” said Mr. Corbeck to me, “is a sort
+of niche built or hewn in the wall of a tomb.  Those which have as yet
+been examined bear no inscriptions, and contain only effigies of the
+dead for whom the tomb was made.” Then he went on with his narrative:
+
+“Trelawny, when he saw that I had caught his meaning, went on speaking
+with something of his old enthusiasm:
+
+“‘I have come to the conclusion that there must be a serdab—a secret
+one.  We were dull not to have thought of it before.  We might have
+known that the maker of such a tomb—a woman, who had shown in other
+ways such a sense of beauty and completeness, and who had finished
+every detail with a feminine richness of elaboration—would not have
+neglected such an architectural feature.  Even if it had not its own
+special significance in ritual, she would have had it as an adornment.
+Others had had it, and she liked her own work to be complete.  Depend
+upon it, there was—there is—a serdab; and that in it, when it is
+discovered, we shall find the lamps.  Of course, had we known then what
+we now know or at all events surmise, that there were lamps, we might
+have suspected some hidden spot, some cachet.  I am going to ask you to
+go out to Egypt again; to seek the tomb; to find the serdab; and to
+bring back the lamps!’”
+
+“‘And if I find there is no serdab; or if discovering it I find no
+lamps in it, what then?’ He smiled grimly with that saturnine smile of
+his, so rarely seen for years past, as he spoke slowly:
+
+“‘Then you will have to hustle till you find them!’
+
+“‘Good!’ I said.  He pointed to one of the sheets.
+
+“‘Here are the transcripts from the Chapel at the south and the east.
+I have been looking over the writings again; and I find that in seven
+places round this corner are the symbols of the constellation which we
+call the Plough, which Queen Tera held to rule her birth and her
+destiny.  I have examined them carefully, and I notice that they are
+all representations of the grouping of the stars, as the constellation
+appears in different parts of the heavens.  They are all astronomically
+correct; and as in the real sky the Pointers indicate the Pole Star, so
+these all point to one spot in the wall where usually the serdab is to
+be found!’
+
+“‘Bravo!’ I shouted, for such a piece of reasoning demanded applause.
+He seemed pleased as he went on:
+
+“‘When you are in the tomb, examine this spot.  There is probably some
+spring or mechanical contrivance for opening the receptacle.  What it
+may be, there is no use guessing.  You will know what best to do, when
+you are on the spot.’
+
+“I started the next week for Egypt; and never rested till I stood again
+in the tomb.  I had found some of our old following; and was fairly
+well provided with help.  The country was now in a condition very
+different to that in which it had been sixteen years before; there was
+no need for troops or armed men.
+
+“I climbed the rock face alone.  There was no difficulty, for in that
+fine climate the woodwork of the ladder was still dependable.  It was
+easy to see that in the years that had elapsed there had been other
+visitors to the tomb; and my heart sank within me when I thought that
+some of them might by chance have come across the secret place.  It
+would be a bitter discovery indeed to find that they had forestalled
+me; and that my journey had been in vain.
+
+“The bitterness was realised when I lit my torches, and passed between
+the seven-sided columns to the Chapel of the tomb.
+
+“There, in the very spot where I had expected to find it, was the
+opening of a serdab. And the serdab was empty.
+
+“But the Chapel was not empty; for the dried-up body of a man in Arab
+dress lay close under the opening, as though he had been stricken down.
+I examined all round the walls to see if Trelawny’s surmise was
+correct; and I found that in all the positions of the stars as given,
+the Pointers of the Plough indicated a spot to the left hand, or south
+side, of the opening of the serdab, where was a single star in gold.
+
+“I pressed this, and it gave way.  The stone which had marked the front
+of the serdab, and which lay back against the wall within, moved
+slightly.  On further examining the other side of the opening, I found
+a similar spot, indicated by other representations of the
+constellation; but this was itself a figure of the seven stars, and
+each was wrought in burnished gold.  I pressed each star in turn; but
+without result.  Then it struck me that if the opening spring was on
+the left, this on the right might have been intended for the
+simultaneous pressure of all the stars by one hand of seven fingers.
+By using both my hands, I managed to effect this.
+
+“With a loud click, a metal figure seemed to dart from close to the
+opening of the serdab; the stone slowly swung back to its place, and
+shut with a click.  The glimpse which I had of the descending figure
+appalled me for the moment.  It was like that grim guardian which,
+according to the Arabian historian Ibn Abd Alhokin, the builder of the
+Pyramids, King Saurid Ibn Salhouk placed in the Western Pyramid to
+defend its treasure:  ‘A marble figure, upright, with lance in hand;
+with on his head a serpent wreathed.  When any approached, the serpent
+would bite him on one side, and twining about his throat and killing
+him, would return again to his place.’
+
+“I knew well that such a figure was not wrought to pleasantry; and that
+to brave it was no child’s play.  The dead Arab at my feet was proof of
+what could be done!  So I examined again along the wall; and found here
+and there chippings as if someone had been tapping with a heavy hammer.
+This then had been what happened:  The grave-robber, more expert at his
+work than we had been, and suspecting the presence of a hidden serdab,
+had made essay to find it.  He had struck the spring by chance; had
+released the avenging ‘Treasurer’, as the Arabian writer designated
+him. The issue spoke for itself.  I got a piece of wood, and, standing
+at a safe distance, pressed with the end of it upon the star.
+
+“Instantly the stone flew back.  The hidden figure within darted
+forward and thrust out its lance.  Then it rose up and disappeared.  I
+thought I might now safely press on the seven stars; and did so.  Again
+the stone rolled back; and the ‘Treasurer’ flashed by to his hidden
+lair.
+
+“I repeated both experiments several times; with always the same
+result. I should have liked to examine the mechanism of that figure of
+such malignant mobility; but it was not possible without such tools as
+could not easily be had.  It might be necessary to cut into a whole
+section of the rock.  Some day I hope to go back, properly equipped,
+and attempt it.
+
+“Perhaps you do not know that the entrance to a serdab is almost always
+very narrow; sometimes a hand can hardly be inserted.  Two things I
+learned from this serdab.  The first was that the lamps, if lamps at
+all there had been, could not have been of large size; and secondly,
+that they would be in some way associated with Hathor, whose symbol,
+the hawk in a square with the right top corner forming a smaller
+square, was cut in relief on the wall within, and coloured the bright
+vermilion which we had found on the Stele.  Hathor is the goddess who
+in Egyptian mythology answers to Venus of the Greeks, in as far as she
+is the presiding deity of beauty and pleasure.  In the Egyptian
+mythology, however, each God has many forms; and in some aspects Hathor
+has to do with the idea of resurrection.  There are seven forms or
+variants of the Goddess; why should not these correspond in some way to
+the seven lamps!  That there had been such lamps, I was convinced.  The
+first grave-robber had met his death; the second had found the contents
+of the serdab.  The first attempt had been made years since; the state
+of the body proved this.  I had no clue to the second attempt.  It
+might have been long ago; or it might have been recently.  If, however,
+others had been to the tomb, it was probable that the lamps had been
+taken long ago.  Well! all the more difficult would be my search; for
+undertaken it must be!
+
+“That was nearly three years ago; and for all that time I have been
+like the man in the Arabian Nights, seeking old lamps, not for new, but
+for cash.  I dared not say what I was looking for, or attempt to give
+any description; for such would have defeated my purpose.  But I had in
+my own mind at the start a vague idea of what I must find.  In process
+of time this grew more and more clear; till at last I almost overshot
+my mark by searching for something which might have been wrong.
+
+“The disappointments I suffered, and the wild-goose chases I made,
+would fill a volume; but I persevered.  At last, not two months ago, I
+was shown by an old dealer in Mossul one lamp such as I had looked for.
+I had been tracing it for nearly a year, always suffering
+disappointment, but always buoyed up to further endeavour by a growing
+hope that I was on the track.
+
+“I do not know how I restrained myself when I realised that, at last, I
+was at least close to success.  I was skilled, however, in the finesse
+of Eastern trade; and the Jew-Arab-Portugee trader met his match.  I
+wanted to see all his stock before buying; and one by one he produced,
+amongst masses of rubbish, seven different lamps.  Each of them had a
+distinguishing mark; and each and all was some form of the symbol of
+Hathor.  I think I shook the imperturbability of my swarthy friend by
+the magnitude of my purchases; for in order to prevent him guessing
+what form of goods I sought, I nearly cleared out his shop.  At the end
+he nearly wept, and said I had ruined him; for now he had nothing to
+sell. He would have torn his hair had he known what price I should
+ultimately have given for some of his stock, that perhaps he valued
+least.
+
+“I parted with most of my merchandise at normal price as I hurried
+home. I did not dare to give it away, or even lose it, lest I should
+incur suspicion.  My burden was far too precious to be risked by any
+foolishness now.  I got on as fast as it is possible to travel in such
+countries; and arrived in London with only the lamps and certain
+portable curios and papyri which I had picked up on my travels.
+
+“Now, Mr. Ross, you know all I know; and I leave it to your discretion
+how much, if any of it, you will tell Miss Trelawny.”
+
+As he finished a clear young voice said behind us:
+
+“What about Miss Trelawny?  She is here!”
+
+We turned, startled; and looked at each other inquiringly.  Miss
+Trelawny stood in the doorway.  We did not know how long she had been
+present, or how much she had heard.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII
+
+Awaking From the Trance
+
+
+The first unexpected words may always startle a hearer; but when the
+shock is over, the listener’s reason has asserted itself, and he can
+judge of the manner, as well as of the matter, of speech.  Thus it was
+on this occasion.  With intelligence now alert, I could not doubt of
+the simple sincerity of Margaret’s next question.
+
+“What have you two men been talking about all this time, Mr. Ross?  I
+suppose, Mr. Corbeck has been telling you all his adventures in finding
+the lamps.  I hope you will tell me too, some day, Mr. Corbeck; but
+that must not be till my poor Father is better.  He would like, I am
+sure, to tell me all about these things himself; or to be present when
+I heard them.”  She glanced sharply from one to the other.  “Oh, that
+was what you were saying as I came in?  All right!  I shall wait; but I
+hope it won’t be long.  The continuance of Father’s condition is, I
+feel, breaking me down.  A little while ago I felt that my nerves were
+giving out; so I determined to go out for a walk in the Park.  I am
+sure it will do me good.  I want you, if you will, Mr. Ross, to be with
+Father whilst I am away.  I shall feel secure then.”
+
+I rose with alacrity, rejoicing that the poor girl was going out, even
+for half an hour. She was looking terribly wearied and haggard; and the
+sight of her pale cheeks made my heart ache.  I went to the sick-room;
+and sat down in my usual place.  Mrs. Grant was then on duty; we had
+not found it necessary to have more than one person in the room during
+the day.  When I came in, she took occasion to go about some household
+duty. The blinds were up, but the north aspect of the room softened the
+hot glare of the sunlight without.
+
+I sat for a long time thinking over all that Mr. Corbeck had told me;
+and weaving its wonders into the tissue of strange things which had
+come to pass since I had entered the house.  At times I was inclined to
+doubt; to doubt everything and every one; to doubt even the evidences
+of my own five senses.  The warnings of the skilled detective kept
+coming back to my mind.  He had put down Mr. Corbeck as a clever liar,
+and a confederate of Miss Trelawny.  Of Margaret!  That settled it!
+Face to face with such a proposition as that, doubt vanished.  Each
+time when her image, her name, the merest thought of her, came before
+my mind, each event stood out stark as a living fact.  My life upon her
+faith!
+
+I was recalled from my reverie, which was fast becoming a dream of
+love, in a startling manner.  A voice came from the bed; a deep,
+strong, masterful voice.  The first note of it called up like a clarion
+my eyes and my ears.  The sick man was awake and speaking!
+
+“Who are you?  What are you doing here?”
+
+Whatever ideas any of us had ever formed of his waking, I am quite sure
+that none of us expected to see him start up all awake and full master
+of himself.  I was so surprised that I answered almost mechanically:
+
+“Ross is my name.  I have been watching by you!”  He looked surprised
+for an instant, and then I could see that his habit of judging for
+himself came into play.
+
+“Watching by me!  How do you mean?  Why watching by me?”  His eye had
+now lit on his heavily bandaged wrist.  He went on in a different tone;
+less aggressive, more genial, as of one accepting facts:
+
+“Are you a doctor?”  I felt myself almost smiling as I answered; the
+relief from the long pressure of anxiety regarding his life was
+beginning to tell:
+
+“No, sir!”
+
+“Then why are you here?  If you are not a doctor, what are you?”  His
+tone was again more dictatorial.  Thought is quick; the whole train of
+reasoning on which my answer must be based flooded through my brain
+before the words could leave my lips. Margaret!  I must think of
+Margaret!  This was her father, who as yet knew nothing of me; even of
+my very existence.  He would be naturally curious, if not anxious, to
+know why I amongst men had been chosen as his daughter’s friend on the
+occasion of his illness.  Fathers are naturally a little jealous in
+such matters as a daughter’s choice, and in the undeclared state of my
+love for Margaret I must do nothing which could ultimately embarrass
+her.
+
+“I am a Barrister.  It is not, however, in that capacity I am here; but
+simply as a friend of your daughter.  It was probably her knowledge of
+my being a lawyer which first determined her to ask me to come when she
+thought you had been murdered. Afterwards she was good enough to
+consider me to be a friend, and to allow me to remain in accordance
+with your expressed wish that someone should remain to watch.”
+
+Mr. Trelawny was manifestly a man of quick thought, and of few words.
+He gazed at me keenly as I spoke, and his piercing eyes seemed to read
+my thought.  To my relief he said no more on the subject just then,
+seeming to accept my words in simple faith. There was evidently in his
+own mind some cause for the acceptance deeper than my own knowledge.
+His eyes flashed, and there was an unconscious movement of the
+mouth—it could hardly be called a twitch—which betokened
+satisfaction.  He was following out some train of reasoning in his own
+mind.  Suddenly he said:
+
+“She thought I had been murdered!  Was that last night?”
+
+“No! four days ago.”  He seemed surprised.  Whilst he had been speaking
+the first time he had sat up in bed; now he made a movement as though
+he would jump out. With an effort, however, he restrained himself;
+leaning back on his pillows he said quietly:
+
+“Tell me all about it!  All you know!  Every detail!  Omit nothing!
+But stay; first lock the door!  I want to know, before I see anyone,
+exactly how things stand.”
+
+Somehow his last words made my heart leap.  “Anyone!”  He evidently
+accepted me, then, as an exception.  In my present state of feeling for
+his daughter, this was a comforting thought.  I felt exultant as I went
+over to the door and softly turned the key.  When I came back I found
+him sitting up again.  He said:
+
+“Go on!”
+
+Accordingly, I told him every detail, even of the slightest which I
+could remember, of what had happened from the moment of my arrival at
+the house.  Of course I said nothing of my feeling towards Margaret,
+and spoke only concerning those things already within his own
+knowledge. With regard to Corbeck, I simply said that he had brought
+back some lamps of which he had been in quest.  Then I proceeded to
+tell him fully of their loss, and of their re-discovery in the house.
+
+He listened with a self-control which, under the circumstances, was to
+me little less than marvellous.  It was impassiveness, for at times his
+eyes would flash or blaze, and the strong fingers of his uninjured hand
+would grip the sheet, pulling it into far-extending wrinkles.  This was
+most noticeable when I told him of the return of Corbeck, and the
+finding of the lamps in the boudoir.  At times he spoke, but only a few
+words, and as if unconsciously in emotional comment.  The mysterious
+parts, those which had most puzzled us, seemed to have no special
+interest for him; he seemed to know them already.  The utmost concern
+he showed was when I told him of Daw’s shooting.  His muttered comment:
+“stupid ass!” together with a quick glance across the room at the
+injured cabinet, marked the measure of his disgust.  As I told him of
+his daughter’s harrowing anxiety for him, of her unending care and
+devotion, of the tender love which she had shown, he seemed much moved.
+There was a sort of veiled surprise in his unconscious whisper:
+
+“Margaret!  Margaret!”
+
+When I had finished my narration, bringing matters up to the moment
+when Miss Trelawny had gone out for her walk—I thought of her as “Miss
+Trelawny,” not as “Margaret” now, in the presence of her father—he
+remained silent for quite a long time.  It was probably two or three
+minutes; but it seemed interminable.  All at once he turned and said to
+me briskly:
+
+“Now tell me all about yourself!”  This was something of a floorer; I
+felt myself grow red-hot.  Mr. Trelawny’s eyes were upon me; they were
+now calm and inquiring, but never ceasing in their soul-searching
+scrutiny.  There was just a suspicion of a smile on the mouth which,
+though it added to my embarrassment, gave me a certain measure of
+relief.  I was, however, face to face with difficulty; and the habit of
+my life stood me in good stead.  I looked him straight in the eyes as I
+spoke:
+
+“My name, as I told you, is Ross, Malcolm Ross.  I am by profession a
+Barrister.  I was made a Q. C. in the last year of the Queen’s reign.
+I have been fairly successful in my work.”  To my relief he said:
+
+“Yes, I know.  I have always heard well of you!  Where and when did you
+meet Margaret?”
+
+“First at the Hay’s in Belgrave Square, ten days ago.  Then at a picnic
+up the river with Lady Strathconnell.  We went from Windsor to Cookham.
+Mar—Miss Trelawny was in my boat.  I scull a little, and I had my own
+boat at Windsor.  We had a good deal of conversation—naturally.”
+
+“Naturally!” there was just a suspicion of something sardonic in the
+tone of acquiescence; but there was no other intimation of his feeling.
+I began to think that as I was in the presence of a strong man, I
+should show something of my own strength.  My friends, and sometimes my
+opponents, say that I am a strong man.  In my present circumstances,
+not to be absolutely truthful would be to be weak.  So I stood up to
+the difficulty before me; always bearing in mind, however, that my
+words might affect Margaret’s happiness through her love for her
+father.  I went on:
+
+“In conversation at a place and time and amid surroundings so pleasing,
+and in a solitude inviting to confidence, I got a glimpse of her inner
+life.  Such a glimpse as a man of my years and experience may get from
+a young girl!”  The father’s face grew graver as I went on; but he said
+nothing.  I was committed now to a definite line of speech, and went on
+with such mastery of my mind as I could exercise.  The occasion might
+be fraught with serious consequences to me too.
+
+“I could not but see that there was over her spirit a sense of
+loneliness which was habitual to her.  I thought I understood it; I am
+myself an only child.  I ventured to encourage her to speak to me
+freely; and was happy enough to succeed.  A sort of confidence became
+established between us.”  There was something in the father’s face
+which made me add hurriedly:
+
+“Nothing was said by her, sir, as you can well imagine, which was not
+right and proper.  She only told me in the impulsive way of one longing
+to give voice to thoughts long carefully concealed, of her yearning to
+be closer to the father whom she loved; more en rapport with him; more
+in his confidence; closer within the circle of his sympathies.  Oh,
+believe me, sir, that it was all good!  All that a father’s heart could
+hope or wish for!  It was all loyal!  That she spoke it to me was
+perhaps because I was almost a stranger with whom there was no previous
+barrier to confidence.”
+
+Here I paused.  It was hard to go on; and I feared lest I might, in my
+zeal, do Margaret a disservice.  The relief of the strain came from her
+father.
+
+“And you?”
+
+“Sir, Miss Trelawny is very sweet and beautiful!  She is young; and her
+mind is like crystal!  Her sympathy is a joy!  I am not an old man, and
+my affections were not engaged.  They never had been till then.  I hope
+I may say as much, even to a father!” My eyes involuntarily dropped.
+When I raised them again Mr. Trelawny was still gazing at me keenly.
+All the kindliness of his nature seemed to wreath itself in a smile as
+he held out his hand and said:
+
+“Malcolm Ross, I have always heard of you as a fearless and honourable
+gentleman. I am glad my girl has such a friend!  Go on!”
+
+My heart leaped.  The first step to the winning of Margaret’s father
+was gained.  I dare say I was somewhat more effusive in my words and my
+manner as I went on.  I certainly felt that way.
+
+“One thing we gain as we grow older:  to use our age judiciously!  I
+have had much experience.  I have fought for it and worked for it all
+my life; and I felt that I was justified in using it.  I ventured to
+ask Miss Trelawny to count on me as a friend; to let me serve her
+should occasion arise.  She promised me that she would.  I had little
+idea that my chance of serving her should come so soon or in such a
+way; but that very night you were stricken down.  In her desolation and
+anxiety she sent for me!” I paused.  He continued to look at me as I
+went on:
+
+“When your letter of instructions was found, I offered my services.
+They were accepted, as you know.”
+
+“And these days, how did they pass for you?”  The question startled me.
+There was in it something of Margaret’s own voice and manner; something
+so greatly resembling her lighter moments that it brought out all the
+masculinity in me.  I felt more sure of my ground now as I said:
+
+“These days, sir, despite all their harrowing anxiety, despite all the
+pain they held for the girl whom I grew to love more and more with each
+passing hour, have been the happiest of my life!”  He kept silence for
+a long time; so long that, as I waited for him to speak, with my heart
+beating, I began to wonder if my frankness had been too effusive.  At
+last he said:
+
+“I suppose it is hard to say so much vicariously.  Her poor mother
+should have heard you; it would have made her heart glad!”  Then a
+shadow swept across his face; and he went on more hurriedly.
+
+“But are you quite sure of all this?”
+
+“I know my own heart, sir; or, at least, I think I do!”
+
+“No! no!” he answered, “I don’t mean you.  That is all right!  But you
+spoke of my girl’s affection for me ... and yet...!  And yet she has
+been living here, in my house, a whole year.... Still, she spoke to you
+of her loneliness—her desolation.  I never—it grieves me to say it,
+but it is true—I never saw sign of such affection towards myself in
+all the year!...”  His voice trembled away into sad, reminiscent
+introspection.
+
+“Then, sir,” I said, “I have been privileged to see more in a few days
+than you in her whole lifetime!”  My words seemed to call him up from
+himself; and I thought that it was with pleasure as well as surprise
+that he said:
+
+“I had no idea of it.  I thought that she was indifferent to me.  That
+what seemed like the neglect of her youth was revenging itself on me.
+That she was cold of heart.... It is a joy unspeakable to me that her
+mother’s daughter loves me too!” Unconsciously he sank back upon his
+pillow, lost in memories of the past.
+
+How he must have loved her mother!  It was the love of her mother’s
+child, rather than the love of his own daughter, that appealed to him.
+My heart went out to him in a great wave of sympathy and kindliness.  I
+began to understand.  To understand the passion of these two great,
+silent, reserved natures, that successfully concealed the burning
+hunger for the other’s love!  It did not surprise me when presently he
+murmured to himself:
+
+“Margaret, my child!  Tender, and thoughtful, and strong, and true, and
+brave!  Like her dear mother! like her dear mother!”
+
+And then to the very depths of my heart I rejoiced that I had spoken so
+frankly.
+
+Presently Mr. Trelawny said:
+
+“Four days!  The sixteenth!  Then this is the twentieth of July?”  I
+nodded affirmation; he went on:
+
+“So I have been lying in a trance for four days.  It is not the first
+time.  I was in a trance once under strange conditions for three days;
+and never even suspected it till I was told of the lapse of time.  I
+shall tell you all about it some day, if you care to hear.”
+
+That made me thrill with pleasure.  That he, Margaret’s father, would
+so take me into his confidence made it possible.... The business-like,
+every-day alertness of his voice as he spoke next quite recalled me:
+
+“I had better get up now.  When Margaret comes in, tell her yourself
+that I am all right.  It will avoid any shock!  And will you tell
+Corbeck that I would like to see him as soon as I can.  I want to see
+those lamps, and hear all about them!”
+
+His attitude towards me filled me with delight.  There was a possible
+father-in-law aspect that would have raised me from a death-bed.  I was
+hurrying away to carry out his wishes; when, however, my hand was on
+the key of the door, his voice recalled me:
+
+“Mr. Ross!”
+
+I did not like to hear him say “Mr.”  After he knew of my friendship
+with his daughter he had called me Malcolm Ross; and this obvious
+return to formality not only pained, but filled me with apprehension.
+It must be something about Margaret.  I thought of her as “Margaret”
+and not as “Miss Trelawny”, now that there was danger of losing her. I
+know now what I felt then:  that I was determined to fight for her
+rather than lose her.  I came back, unconsciously holding myself erect.
+Mr. Trelawny, the keen observer of men, seemed to read my thought; his
+face, which was set in a new anxiety, relaxed as he said:
+
+“Sit down a minute; it is better that we speak now than later.  We are
+both men, and men of the world.  All this about my daughter is very new
+to me, and very sudden; and I want to know exactly how and where I
+stand.  Mind, I am making no objection; but as a father I have duties
+which are grave, and may prove to be painful.  I—I”—he seemed
+slightly at a loss how to begin, and this gave me hope—“I suppose I am
+to take it, from what you have said to me of your feelings towards my
+girl, that it is in your mind to be a suitor for her hand, later on?”
+I answered at once:
+
+“Absolutely!  Firm and fixed; it was my intention the evening after I
+had been with her on the river, to seek you, of course after a proper
+and respectful interval, and to ask you if I might approach her on the
+subject.  Events forced me into closer relationship more quickly than I
+had to hope would be possible; but that first purpose has remained
+fresh in my heart, and has grown in intensity, and multiplied itself
+with every hour which has passed since then.”  His face seemed to
+soften as he looked at me; the memory of his own youth was coming back
+to him instinctively.  After a pause he said:
+
+“I suppose I may take it, too, Malcolm Ross”—the return to the
+familiarity of address swept through me with a glorious thrill—“that
+as yet you have not made any protestation to my daughter?”
+
+“Not in words, sir.”  The arriere pensee of my phrase struck me, not by
+its own humour, but through the grave, kindly smile on the father’s
+face.  There was a pleasant sarcasm in his comment:
+
+“Not in words!  That is dangerous!  She might have doubted words, or
+even disbelieved them.”
+
+I felt myself blushing to the roots of my hair as I went on:
+
+“The duty of delicacy in her defenceless position; my respect for her
+father—I did not know you then, sir, as yourself, but only as her
+father—restrained me.  But even had not these barriers existed, I
+should not have dared in the presence of such grief and anxiety to have
+declared myself.  Mr. Trelawny, I assure you on my word of honour that
+your daughter and I are as yet, on her part, but friends and nothing
+more!”  Once again he held out his hands, and we clasped each other
+warmly.  Then he said heartily:
+
+“I am satisfied, Malcolm Ross.  Of course, I take it that until I have
+seen her and have given you permission, you will not make any
+declaration to my daughter—in words,” he added, with an indulgent
+smile. But his face became stern again as he went on:
+
+“Time presses; and I have to think of some matters so urgent and so
+strange that I dare not lose an hour.  Otherwise I should not have been
+prepared to enter, at so short a notice and to so new a friend, on the
+subject of my daughter’s settlement in life, and of her future
+happiness.”  There was a dignity and a certain proudness in his manner
+which impressed me much.
+
+“I shall respect your wishes, sir!” I said as I went back and opened
+the door.  I heard him lock it behind me.
+
+When I told Mr. Corbeck that Mr. Trelawny had quite recovered, he began
+to dance about like a wild man.  But he suddenly stopped, and asked me
+to be careful not to draw any inferences, at all events at first, when
+in the future speaking of the finding of the lamps, or of the first
+visits to the tomb.  This was in case Mr. Trelawny should speak to me
+on the subject; “as, of course, he will,” he added, with a sidelong
+look at me which meant knowledge of the affairs of my heart.  I agreed
+to this, feeling that it was quite right.  I did not quite understand
+why; but I knew that Mr. Trelawny was a peculiar man.  In no case could
+one make a mistake by being reticent. Reticence is a quality which a
+strong man always respects.
+
+The manner in which the others of the house took the news of the
+recovery varied much.  Mrs. Grant wept with emotion; then she hurried
+off to see if she could do anything personally, and to set the house in
+order for “Master”, as she always called him.  The Nurse’s face fell:
+she was deprived of an interesting case.  But the disappointment was
+only momentary; and she rejoiced that the trouble was over. She was
+ready to come to the patient the moment she should be wanted; but in
+the meantime she occupied herself in packing her portmanteau.
+
+I took Sergeant Daw into the study, so that we should be alone when I
+told him the news.  It surprised even his iron self-control when I told
+him the method of the waking.  I was myself surprised in turn by his
+first words:
+
+“And how did he explain the first attack?  He was unconscious when the
+second was made.”
+
+Up to that moment the nature of the attack, which was the cause of my
+coming to the house, had never even crossed my mind, except when I had
+simply narrated the various occurrences in sequence to Mr. Trelawny.
+The Detective did not seem to think much of my answer:
+
+“Do you know, it never occurred to me to ask him!”  The professional
+instinct was strong in the man, and seemed to supersede everything else.
+
+“That is why so few cases are ever followed out,” he said, “unless our
+people are in them.  Your amateur detective never hunts down to the
+death.  As for ordinary people, the moment things begin to mend, and
+the strain of suspense is off them, they drop the matter in hand.  It
+is like sea-sickness,” he added philosophically after a pause; “the
+moment you touch the shore you never give it a thought, but run off to
+the buffet to feed!  Well, Mr. Ross, I’m glad the case is over; for
+over it is, so far as I am concerned.  I suppose that Mr. Trelawny
+knows his own business; and that now he is well again, he will take it
+up himself. Perhaps, however, he will not do anything. As he seemed to
+expect something to happen, but did not ask for protection from the
+police in any way, I take it that he don’t want them to interfere with
+an eye to punishment.  We’ll be told officially, I suppose, that it was
+an accident, or sleep-walking, or something of the kind, to satisfy the
+conscience of our Record Department; and that will be the end.  As for
+me, I tell you frankly, sir, that it will be the saving of me.  I
+verily believe I was beginning to get dotty over it all.  There were
+too many mysteries, that aren’t in my line, for me to be really
+satisfied as to either facts or the causes of them.  Now I’ll be able
+to wash my hands of it, and get back to clean, wholesome, criminal
+work.  Of course, sir, I’ll be glad to know if you ever do light on a
+cause of any kind.  And I’ll be grateful if you can ever tell me how
+the man was dragged out of bed when the cat bit him, and who used the
+knife the second time.  For master Silvio could never have done it by
+himself.  But there! I keep thinking of it still.  I must look out and
+keep a check on myself, or I shall think of it when I have to keep my
+mind on other things!”
+
+When Margaret returned from her walk, I met her in the hall.  She was
+still pale and sad; somehow, I had expected to see her radiant after
+her walk.  The moment she saw me her eyes brightened, and she looked at
+me keenly.
+
+“You have some good news for me?” she said.  “Is Father better?”
+
+“He is!  Why did you think so?”
+
+“I saw it in your face.  I must go to him at once.”  She was hurrying
+away when I stopped her.
+
+“He said he would send for you the moment he was dressed.”
+
+“He said he would send for me!” she repeated in amazement.  “Then he is
+awake again, and conscious?  I had no idea he was so well as that! O
+Malcolm!”
+
+She sat down on the nearest chair and began to cry.  I felt overcome
+myself.  The sight of her joy and emotion, the mention of my own name
+in such a way and at such a time, the rush of glorious possibilities
+all coming together, quite unmanned me.  She saw my emotion, and seemed
+to understand.  She put out her hand.  I held it hard, and kissed it.
+Such moments as these, the opportunities of lovers, are gifts of the
+gods! Up to this instant, though I knew I loved her, and though I
+believed she returned my affection, I had had only hope.  Now, however,
+the self-surrender manifest in her willingness to let me squeeze her
+hand, the ardour of her pressure in return, and the glorious flush of
+love in her beautiful, deep, dark eyes as she lifted them to mine, were
+all the eloquences which the most impatient or exacting lover could
+expect or demand.
+
+No word was spoken; none was needed.  Even had I not been pledged to
+verbal silence, words would have been poor and dull to express what we
+felt.  Hand in hand, like two little children, we went up the staircase
+and waited on the landing, till the summons from Mr. Trelawny should
+come.
+
+I whispered in her ear—it was nicer than speaking aloud and at a
+greater distance—how her father had awakened, and what he had said;
+and all that had passed between us, except when she herself had been
+the subject of conversation.
+
+Presently a bell rang from the room.  Margaret slipped from me, and
+looked back with warning finger on lip.  She went over to her father’s
+door and knocked softly.
+
+“Come in!” said the strong voice.
+
+“It is I, Father!”  The voice was tremulous with love and hope.
+
+There was a quick step inside the room; the door was hurriedly thrown
+open, and in an instant Margaret, who had sprung forward, was clasped
+in her father’s arms. There was little speech; only a few broken
+phrases.
+
+“Father!  Dear, dear Father!”
+
+“My child!  Margaret!  My dear, dear child!”
+
+“O Father, Father!  At last!  At last!”
+
+Here the father and daughter went into the room together, and the door
+closed.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV
+
+The Birth-Mark
+
+
+During my waiting for the summons to Mr. Trelawny’s room, which I knew
+would come, the time was long and lonely.  After the first few moments
+of emotional happiness at Margaret’s joy, I somehow felt apart and
+alone; and for a little time the selfishness of a lover possessed me.
+But it was not for long.  Margaret’s happiness was all to me; and in
+the conscious sense of it I lost my baser self.  Margaret’s last words
+as the door closed on them gave the key to the whole situation, as it
+had been and as it was.  These two proud, strong people, though father
+and daughter, had only come to know each other when the girl was grown
+up. Margaret’s nature was of that kind which matures early.
+
+The pride and strength of each, and the reticence which was their
+corollary, made a barrier at the beginning.  Each had respected the
+other’s reticence too much thereafter; and the misunderstanding grew to
+habit.  And so these two loving hearts, each of which yearned for
+sympathy from the other, were kept apart.  But now all was well, and in
+my heart of hearts I rejoiced that at last Margaret was happy.  Whilst
+I was still musing on the subject, and dreaming dreams of a personal
+nature, the door was opened, and Mr. Trelawny beckoned to me.
+
+“Come in, Mr. Ross!” he said cordially, but with a certain formality
+which I dreaded.  I entered the room, and he closed the door again.  He
+held out his hand, and I put mine in it.  He did not let it go, but
+still held it as he drew me over toward his daughter.  Margaret looked
+from me to him, and back again; and her eyes fell.  When I was close to
+her, Mr. Trelawny let go my hand, and, looking his daughter straight in
+the face, said:
+
+“If things are as I fancy, we shall not have any secrets between us.
+Malcolm Ross knows so much of my affairs already, that I take it he
+must either let matters stop where they are and go away in silence, or
+else he must know more.  Margaret! are you willing to let Mr. Ross see
+your wrist?”
+
+She threw one swift look of appeal in his eyes; but even as she did so
+she seemed to make up her mind.  Without a word she raised her right
+hand, so that the bracelet of spreading wings which covered the wrist
+fell back, leaving the flesh bare.  Then an icy chill shot through me.
+
+On her wrist was a thin red jagged line, from which seemed to hang red
+stains like drops of blood!
+
+She stood there, a veritable figure of patient pride.
+
+Oh! but she looked proud!  Through all her sweetness, all her dignity,
+all her high-souled negation of self which I had known, and which never
+seemed more marked than now—through all the fire that seemed to shine
+from the dark depths of her eyes into my very soul, pride shone
+conspicuously.  The pride that has faith; the pride that is born of
+conscious purity; the pride of a veritable queen of Old Time, when to
+be royal was to be the first and greatest and bravest in all high
+things. As we stood thus for some seconds, the deep, grave voice of her
+father seemed to sound a challenge in my ears:
+
+“What do you say now?”
+
+My answer was not in words.  I caught Margaret’s right hand in mine as
+it fell, and, holding it tight, whilst with the other I pushed back the
+golden cincture, stooped and kissed the wrist.  As I looked up at her,
+but never letting go her hand, there was a look of joy on her face such
+as I dream of when I think of heaven.  Then I faced her father.
+
+“You have my answer, sir!”  His strong face looked gravely sweet.  He
+only said one word as he laid his hand on our clasped ones, whilst he
+bent over and kissed his daughter:
+
+“Good!”
+
+We were interrupted by a knock at the door.  In answer to an impatient
+“Come in!” from Mr. Trelawny, Mr. Corbeck entered.  When he saw us
+grouped he would have drawn back; but in an instant Mr. Trelawny had
+sprung forth and dragged him forward.  As he shook him by both hands,
+he seemed a transformed man.  All the enthusiasm of his youth, of which
+Mr. Corbeck had told us, seemed to have come back to him in an instant.
+
+“So you have got the lamps!” he almost shouted.  “My reasoning was
+right after all. Come to the library, where we will be alone, and tell
+me all about it!  And while he does it, Ross,” said he, turning to me,
+“do you, like a good fellow, get the key from the safe deposit, so that
+I may have a look at the lamps!”
+
+Then the three of them, the daughter lovingly holding her father’s arm,
+went into the library, whilst I hurried off to Chancery Lane.
+
+When I returned with the key, I found them still engaged in the
+narrative; but Doctor Winchester, who had arrived soon after I left,
+was with them.  Mr. Trelawny, on hearing from Margaret of his great
+attention and kindness, and how he had, under much pressure to the
+contrary, steadfastly obeyed his written wishes, had asked him to
+remain and listen.  “It will interest you, perhaps,” he said, “to learn
+the end of the story!”
+
+We all had an early dinner together.  We sat after it a good while, and
+then Mr. Trelawny said:
+
+“Now, I think we had all better separate and go quietly to bed early.
+We may have much to talk about tomorrow; and tonight I want to think.”
+
+Doctor Winchester went away, taking, with a courteous forethought, Mr.
+Corbeck with him, and leaving me behind.  When the others had gone Mr.
+Trelawny said:
+
+“I think it will be well if you, too, will go home for tonight.  I want
+to be quite alone with my daughter; there are many things I wish to
+speak of to her, and to her alone. Perhaps, even tomorrow, I will be
+able to tell you also of them; but in the meantime there will be less
+distraction to us both if we are alone in the house.”  I quite
+understood and sympathised with his feelings; but the experiences of
+the last few days were strong on me, and with some hesitation I said:
+
+“But may it not be dangerous?  If you knew as we do—”  To my surprise
+Margaret interrupted me:
+
+“There will be no danger, Malcolm.  I shall be with Father!”  As she
+spoke she clung to him in a protective way.  I said no more, but stood
+up to go at once.  Mr. Trelawny said heartily:
+
+“Come as early as you please, Ross.  Come to breakfast.  After it, you
+and I will want to have a word together.”  He went out of the room
+quietly, leaving us together.  I clasped and kissed Margaret’s hands,
+which she held out to me, and then drew her close to me, and our lips
+met for the first time.
+
+I did not sleep much that night.  Happiness on the one side of my bed
+and Anxiety on the other kept sleep away.  But if I had anxious care, I
+had also happiness which had not equal in my life—or ever can have.
+The night went by so quickly that the dawn seemed to rush on me, not
+stealing as is its wont.
+
+Before nine o’clock I was at Kensington.  All anxiety seemed to float
+away like a cloud as I met Margaret, and saw that already the pallor of
+her face had given to the rich bloom which I knew.  She told me that
+her father had slept well, and that he would be with us soon.
+
+“I do believe,” she whispered, “that my dear and thoughtful Father has
+kept back on purpose, so that I might meet you first, and alone!”
+
+After breakfast Mr. Trelawny took us into the study, saying as he
+passed in:
+
+“I have asked Margaret to come too.”  When we were seated, he said
+gravely:
+
+“I told you last night that we might have something to say to each
+other.  I dare say that you may have thought that it was about Margaret
+and yourself.  Isn’t that so?”
+
+“I thought so.”
+
+“Well, my boy, that is all right.  Margaret and I have been talking,
+and I know her wishes.”  He held out his hand.  When I wrung it, and
+had kissed Margaret, who drew her chair close to mine, so that we could
+hold hands as we listened, he went on, but with a certain
+hesitation—it could hardly be called nervousness—which was new to me.
+
+“You know a good deal of my hunt after this mummy and her belongings;
+and I dare say you have guessed a good deal of my theories.  But these
+at any rate I shall explain later, concisely and categorically, if it
+be necessary.  What I want to consult you about now is this:  Margaret
+and I disagree on one point.  I am about to make an experiment; the
+experiment which is to crown all that I have devoted twenty years of
+research, and danger, and labour to prepare for.  Through it we may
+learn things that have been hidden from the eyes and the knowledge of
+men for centuries; for scores of centuries.  I do not want my daughter
+to be present; for I cannot blind myself to the fact that there may be
+danger in it—great danger, and of an unknown kind.  I have, however,
+already faced very great dangers, and of an unknown kind; and so has
+that brave scholar who has helped me in the work.  As to myself, I am
+willing to run any risk.  For science, and history, and philosophy may
+benefit; and we may turn one old page of a wisdom unknown in this
+prosaic age.  But for my daughter to run such a risk I am loth.  Her
+young bright life is too precious to throw lightly away; now especially
+when she is on the very threshold of new happiness.  I do not wish to
+see her life given, as her dear mother’s was—”
+
+He broke down for a moment, and covered his eyes with his hands.  In an
+instant Margaret was beside him, clasping him close, and kissing him,
+and comforting him with loving words.  Then, standing erect, with one
+hand on his head, she said:
+
+“Father! mother did not bid you stay beside her, even when you wanted
+to go on that journey of unknown danger to Egypt; though that country
+was then upset from end to end with war and the dangers that follow
+war. You have told me how she left you free to go as you wished; though
+that she thought of danger for you and feared it for you, is proved
+by this!”  She held up her wrist with the scar that seemed to run
+blood. “Now, mother’s daughter does as mother would have done herself!”
+Then she turned to me:
+
+“Malcolm, you know I love you!  But love is trust; and you must trust
+me in danger as well as in joy.  You and I must stand beside Father in
+this unknown peril. Together we shall come through it; or together we
+shall fail; together we shall die. That is my wish; my first wish to my
+husband that is to be!  Do you not think that, as a daughter, I am
+right?  Tell my Father what you think!”
+
+She looked like a Queen stooping to plead.  My love for her grew and
+grew.  I stood up beside her; and took her hand and said:
+
+“Mr. Trelawny! in this Margaret and I are one!”
+
+He took both our hands and held them hard.  Presently he said with deep
+emotion:
+
+“It is as her mother would have done!”
+
+Mr. Corbeck and Doctor Winchester came exactly at the time appointed,
+and joined us in the library.  Despite my great happiness I felt our
+meeting to be a very solemn function.  For I could never forget the
+strange things that had been; and the idea of the strange things which
+might be, was with me like a cloud, pressing down on us all.  From the
+gravity of my companions I gathered that each of them also was ruled by
+some such dominating thought.
+
+Instinctively we gathered our chairs into a circle round Mr. Trelawny,
+who had taken the great arm-chair near the window.  Margaret sat by him
+on his right, and I was next to her.  Mr. Corbeck was on his left, with
+Doctor Winchester on the other side. After a few seconds of silence Mr.
+Trelawny said to Mr. Corbeck:
+
+“You have told Doctor Winchester all up to the present, as we arranged?”
+
+“Yes,” he answered; so Mr. Trelawny said:
+
+“And I have told Margaret, so we all know!”  Then, turning to the
+Doctor, he asked:
+
+“And am I to take it that you, knowing all as we know it who have
+followed the matter for years, wish to share in the experiment which we
+hope to make?”  His answer was direct and uncompromising:
+
+“Certainly!  Why, when this matter was fresh to me, I offered to go on
+with it to the end.  Now that it is of such strange interest, I would
+not miss it for anything which you could name.  Be quite easy in your
+mind, Mr. Trelawny.  I am a scientist and an investigator of phenomena.
+I have no one belonging to me or dependent on me.  I am quite alone,
+and free to do what I like with my own—including my life!”  Mr.
+Trelawny bowed gravely, and turning to Mr. Corbeck said:
+
+“I have known your ideas for many years past, old friend; so I need ask
+you nothing. As to Margaret and Malcolm Ross, they have already told me
+their wishes in no uncertain way.”  He paused a few seconds, as though
+to put his thoughts or his words in order; then he began to explain his
+views and intentions.  He spoke very carefully, seeming always to bear
+in mind that some of us who listened were ignorant of the very root and
+nature of some things touched upon, and explaining them to us as he
+went on:
+
+“The experiment which is before us is to try whether or no there is any
+force, any reality, in the old Magic.  There could not possibly be more
+favourable conditions for the test; and it is my own desire to do all
+that is possible to make the original design effective.  That there is
+some such existing power I firmly believe.  It might not be possible to
+create, or arrange, or organise such a power in our own time; but I
+take it that if in Old Time such a power existed, it may have some
+exceptional survival.  After all, the Bible is not a myth; and we read
+there that the sun stood still at a man’s command, and that an ass—not
+a human one—spoke.  And if the Witch at Endor could call up to Saul
+the spirit of Samuel, why may not there have been others with equal
+powers; and why may not one among them survive?  Indeed, we are told in
+the Book of Samuel that the Witch of Endor was only one of many, and
+her being consulted by Saul was a matter of chance.  He only sought one
+among the many whom he had driven out of Israel; ‘all those that had
+Familiar Spirits, and the Wizards.’  This Egyptian Queen, Tera, who
+reigned nearly two thousand years before Saul, had a Familiar, and was
+a Wizard too.  See how the priests of her time, and those after it
+tried to wipe out her name from the face of the earth, and put a curse
+over the very door of her tomb so that none might ever discover the
+lost name.  Ay, and they succeeded so well that even Manetho, the
+historian of the Egyptian Kings, writing in the tenth century before
+Christ, with all the lore of the priesthood for forty centuries behind
+him, and with possibility of access to every existing record, could not
+even find her name.  Did it strike any of you, in thinking of the late
+events, who or what her Familiar was?”  There was an interruption, for
+Doctor Winchester struck one hand loudly on the other as he ejaculated:
+
+“The cat!  The mummy cat!  I knew it!”  Mr. Trelawny smiled over at him.
+
+“You are right!  There is every indication that the Familiar of the
+Wizard Queen was that cat which was mummied when she was, and was not
+only placed in her tomb, but was laid in the sarcophagus with her.
+That was what bit into my wrist, what cut me with sharp claws.”  He
+paused. Margaret’s comment was a purely girlish one:
+
+“Then my poor Silvio is acquitted!  I am glad!”  Her father stroked her
+hair and went on:
+
+“This woman seems to have had an extraordinary foresight.  Foresight
+far, far beyond her age and the philosophy of her time.  She seems to
+have seen through the weakness of her own religion, and even prepared
+for emergence into a different world.  All her aspirations were for the
+North, the point of the compass whence blew the cool invigorating
+breezes that make life a joy.  From the first, her eyes seem to have
+been attracted to the seven stars of the Plough from the fact, as
+recorded in the hieroglyphics in her tomb, that at her birth a great
+aerolite fell, from whose heart was finally extracted that Jewel of
+Seven Stars which she regarded as the talisman of her life.  It seems
+to have so far ruled her destiny that all her thought and care circled
+round it.  The Magic Coffer, so wondrously wrought with seven sides, we
+learn from the same source, came from the aerolite.  Seven was to her a
+magic number; and no wonder.  With seven fingers on one hand, and seven
+toes on one foot.  With a talisman of a rare ruby with seven stars in
+the same position as in that constellation which ruled her birth, each
+star of the seven having seven points—in itself a geological
+wonder—it would have been odd if she had not been attracted by it.
+Again, she was born, we learn in the Stele of her tomb, in the seventh
+month of the year—the month beginning with the Inundation of the Nile.
+Of which month the presiding Goddess was Hathor, the Goddess of her own
+house, of the Antefs of the Theban line—the Goddess who in various
+forms symbolises beauty, and pleasure, and resurrection.  Again, in
+this seventh month—which, by later Egyptian astronomy began on October
+28th, and ran to the 27th of our November—on the seventh day the
+Pointer of the Plough just rises above the horizon of the sky at Thebes.
+
+“In a marvellously strange way, therefore, are grouped into this
+woman’s life these various things.  The number seven; the Pole Star,
+with the constellation of seven stars; the God of the month, Hathor,
+who was her own particular God, the God of her family, the Antefs of
+the Theban Dynasty, whose Kings’ symbol it was, and whose seven forms
+ruled love and the delights of life and resurrection.  If ever there
+was ground for magic; for the power of symbolism carried into mystic
+use; for a belief in finites spirits in an age which knew not the
+Living God, it is here.
+
+“Remember, too, that this woman was skilled in all the science of her
+time.  Her wise and cautious father took care of that, knowing that by
+her own wisdom she must ultimately combat the intrigues of the
+Hierarchy.  Bear in mind that in old Egypt the science of Astronomy
+began and was developed to an extraordinary height; and that Astrology
+followed Astronomy in its progress.  And it is possible that in the
+later developments of science with regard to light rays, we may yet
+find that Astrology is on a scientific basis.  Our next wave of
+scientific thought may deal with this.  I shall have something special
+to call your minds to on this point presently.  Bear in mind also that
+the Egyptians knew sciences, of which today, despite all our
+advantages, we are profoundly ignorant.  Acoustics, for instance, an
+exact science with the builders of the temples of Karnak, of Luxor, of
+the Pyramids, is today a mystery to Bell, and Kelvin, and Edison, and
+Marconi.  Again, these old miracle-workers probably understood some
+practical way of using other forces, and amongst them the forces of
+light that at present we do not dream of.  But of this matter I shall
+speak later.  That Magic Coffer of Queen Tera is probably a magic box
+in more ways than one.  It may—possibly it does—contain forces that
+we wot not of.  We cannot open it; it must be closed from within.  How
+then was it closed?  It is a coffer of solid stone, of amazing
+hardness, more like a jewel than an ordinary marble, with a lid equally
+solid; and yet all is so finely wrought that the finest tool made today
+cannot be inserted under the flange.  How was it wrought to such
+perfection?  How was the stone so chosen that those translucent patches
+match the relations of the seven stars of the constellation?  How is
+it, or from what cause, that when the starlight shines on it, it glows
+from within—that when I fix the lamps in similar form the glow grows
+greater still; and yet the box is irresponsive to ordinary light
+however great?  I tell you that that box hides some great mystery of
+science.  We shall find that the light will open it in some way:
+either by striking on some substance, sensitive in a peculiar way to
+its effect, or in releasing some greater power.  I only trust that in
+our ignorance we may not so bungle things as to do harm to its
+mechanism; and so deprive the knowledge of our time of a lesson handed
+down, as by a miracle, through nearly five thousand years.
+
+“In another way, too, there may be hidden in that box secrets which,
+for good or ill, may enlighten the world.  We know from their records,
+and inferentially also, that the Egyptians studied the properties of
+herbs and minerals for magic purposes—white magic as well as black.
+We know that some of the wizards of old could induce from sleep dreams
+of any given kind.  That this purpose was mainly effected by hypnotism,
+which was another art or science of Old Nile, I have little doubt.  But
+still, they must have had a mastery of drugs that is far beyond
+anything we know.  With our own pharmacopoeia we can, to a certain
+extent, induce dreams.  We may even differentiate between good and
+bad—dreams of pleasure, or disturbing and harrowing dreams.  But these
+old practitioners seemed to have been able to command at will any form
+or colour of dreaming; could work round any given subject or thought in
+almost any was required.  In that coffer, which you have seen, may rest
+a very armoury of dreams.  Indeed, some of the forces that lie within
+it may have been already used in my household.”  Again there was an
+interruption from Doctor Winchester.
+
+“But if in your case some of these imprisoned forces were used, what
+set them free at the opportune time, or how?  Besides, you and Mr.
+Corbeck were once before put into a trance for three whole days, when
+you were in the Queen’s tomb for the second time.  And then, as I
+gathered from Mr. Corbeck’s story, the coffer was not back in the tomb,
+though the mummy was.  Surely in both these cases there must have been
+some active intelligence awake, and with some other power to wield.”
+Mr. Trelawny’s answer was equally to the point:
+
+“There was some active intelligence awake.  I am convinced of it.  And
+it wielded a power which it never lacks.  I believe that on both those
+occasions hypnotism was the power wielded.”
+
+“And wherein is that power contained?  What view do you hold on the
+subject?” Doctor Winchester’s voice vibrated with the intensity of his
+excitement as he leaned forward, breathing hard, and with eyes staring.
+Mr. Trelawny said solemnly:
+
+“In the mummy of the Queen Tera!  I was coming to that presently.
+Perhaps we had better wait till I clear the ground a little.  What I
+hold is, that the preparation of that box was made for a special
+occasion; as indeed were all the preparations of the tomb and all
+belonging to it.  Queen Tera did not trouble herself to guard against
+snakes and scorpions, in that rocky tomb cut in the sheer cliff face a
+hundred feet above the level of the valley, and fifty down from the
+summit.  Her precautions were against the disturbances of human hands;
+against the jealousy and hatred of the priests, who, had they known of
+her real aims, would have tried to baffle them.  From her point of
+view, she made all ready for the time of resurrection, whenever that
+might be. I gather from the symbolic pictures in the tomb that she so
+far differed from the belief of her time that she looked for a
+resurrection in the flesh.  It was doubtless this that intensified the
+hatred of the priesthood, and gave them an acceptable cause for
+obliterating the very existence, present and future, of one who had
+outraged their theories and blasphemed their gods.  All that she might
+require, either in the accomplishment of the resurrection or after it,
+were contained in that almost hermetically sealed suite of chambers in
+the rock.  In the great sarcophagus, which as you know is of a size
+quite unusual even for kings, was the mummy of her Familiar, the cat,
+which from its great size I take to be a sort of tiger-cat.  In the
+tomb, also in a strong receptacle, were the canopic jars usually
+containing those internal organs which are separately embalmed, but
+which in this case had no such contents.  So that, I take it, there was
+in her case a departure in embalming; and that the organs were restored
+to the body, each in its proper place—if, indeed, they had ever been
+removed.  If this surmise be true, we shall find that the brain of the
+Queen either was never extracted in the usual way, or, if so taken out,
+that it was duly replaced, instead of being enclosed within the mummy
+wrappings. Finally, in the sarcophagus there was the Magic Coffer on
+which her feet rested.  Mark you also, the care taken in the
+preservance of her power to control the elements.  According to her
+belief, the open hand outside the wrappings controlled the Air, and the
+strange Jewel Stone with the shining stars controlled Fire.  The
+symbolism inscribed on the soles of her feet gave sway over Land and
+Water.  About the Star Stone I shall tell you later; but whilst we are
+speaking of the sarcophagus, mark how she guarded her secret in case of
+grave-wrecking or intrusion.  None could open her Magic Coffer without
+the lamps, for we know now that ordinary light will not be effective.
+The great lid of the sarcophagus was not sealed down as usual, because
+she wished to control the air. But she hid the lamps, which in
+structure belong to the Magic Coffer, in a place where none could find
+them, except by following the secret guidance which she had prepared
+for only the eyes of wisdom.  And even here she had guarded against
+chance discovery, by preparing a bolt of death for the unwary
+discoverer.  To do this she had applied the lesson of the tradition of
+the avenging guard of the treasures of the pyramid, built by her great
+predecessor of the Fourth Dynasty of the throne of Egypt.
+
+“You have noted, I suppose, how there were, in the case of her tomb,
+certain deviations from the usual rules.  For instance, the shaft of
+the Mummy Pit, which is usually filled up solid with stones and
+rubbish, was left open.  Why was this?  I take it that she had made
+arrangements for leaving the tomb when, after her resurrection, she
+should be a new woman, with a different personality, and less inured to
+the hardships that in her first existence she had suffered.  So far as
+we can judge of her intent, all things needful for her exit into the
+world had been thought of, even to the iron chain, described by Van
+Huyn, close to the door in the rock, by which she might be able to
+lower herself to the ground.  That she expected a long period to elapse
+was shown in the choice of material.  An ordinary rope would be
+rendered weaker or unsafe in process of time, but she imagined, and
+rightly, that the iron would endure.
+
+“What her intentions were when once she trod the open earth afresh we
+do not know, and we never shall, unless her own dead lips can soften
+and speak.”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV
+
+The Purpose of Queen Tera
+
+
+“Now, as to the Star Jewel!  This she manifestly regarded as the
+greatest of her treasures.  On it she had engraven words which none of
+her time dared to speak.
+
+“In the old Egyptian belief it was held that there were words, which,
+if used properly—for the method of speaking them was as important as
+the words themselves—could command the Lords of the Upper and the
+Lower Worlds.  The ‘hekau’, or word of power, was all-important in
+certain ritual.  On the Jewel of Seven Stars, which, as you know, is
+carved into the image of a scarab, are graven in hieroglyphic two such
+hekau, one above, the other underneath.  But you will understand better
+when you see it!  Wait here!  Do not stir!”
+
+As he spoke, he rose and left the room.  A great fear for him came over
+me; but I was in some strange way relieved when I looked at Margaret.
+Whenever there had been any possibility of danger to her father, she
+had shown great fear for him; now she was calm and placid.  I said
+nothing, but waited.
+
+In two or three minutes, Mr. Trelawny returned.  He held in his hand a
+little golden box.  This, as he resumed his seat, he placed before him
+on the table.  We all leaned forward as he opened it.
+
+On a lining of white satin lay a wondrous ruby of immense size, almost
+as big as the top joint of Margaret’s little finger.  It was carven—it
+could not possibly have been its natural shape, but jewels do not show
+the working of the tool—into the shape of a scarab, with its wings
+folded, and its legs and feelers pressed back to its sides. Shining
+through its wondrous “pigeon’s blood” colour were seven different
+stars, each of seven points, in such position that they reproduced
+exactly the figure of the Plough.  There could be no possible mistake
+as to this in the mind of anyone who had ever noted the constellation.
+On it were some hieroglyphic figures, cut with the most exquisite
+precision, as I could see when it came to my turn to use the
+magnifying-glass, which Mr. Trelawny took from his pocket and handed to
+us.
+
+When we all had seen it fully, Mr. Trelawny turned it over so that it
+rested on its back in a cavity made to hold it in the upper half of the
+box.  The reverse was no less wonderful than the upper, being carved to
+resemble the under side of the beetle.  It, too, had some hieroglyphic
+figures cut on it.  Mr. Trelawny resumed his lecture as we all sat with
+our heads close to this wonderful jewel:
+
+“As you see, there are two words, one on the top, the other underneath.
+The symbols on the top represent a single word, composed of one
+syllable prolonged, with its determinatives.  You know, all of you, I
+suppose, that the Egyptian language was phonetic, and that the
+hieroglyphic symbol represented the sound.  The first symbol here, the
+hoe, means ‘mer’, and the two pointed ellipses the prolongation of the
+final r: mer-r-r.  The sitting figure with the hand to its face is what
+we call the ‘determinative’ of ‘thought’; and the roll of papyrus that
+of ‘abstraction’.  Thus we get the word ‘mer’, love, in its abstract,
+general, and fullest sense.  This is the hekau which can command the
+Upper World.”
+
+Margaret’s face was a glory as she said in a deep, low, ringing tone:
+
+“Oh, but it is true.  How the old wonder-workers guessed at almighty
+Truth!”  Then a hot blush swept her face, and her eyes fell.  Her
+father smiled at her lovingly as he resumed:
+
+“The symbolisation of the word on the reverse is simpler, though the
+meaning is more abstruse.  The first symbol means ‘men’, ‘abiding’, and
+the second, ‘ab’, ‘the heart’.  So that we get ‘abiding of heart’, or
+in our own language ‘patience’.  And this is the hekau to control the
+Lower World!”
+
+He closed the box, and motioning us to remain as we were, he went back
+to his room to replace the Jewel in the safe.  When he had returned and
+resumed his seat, he went on:
+
+“That Jewel, with its mystic words, and which Queen Tera held under her
+hand in the sarcophagus, was to be an important factor—probably the
+most important—in the working out of the act of her resurrection.
+From the first I seemed by a sort of instinct to realise this.  I kept
+the Jewel within my great safe, whence none could extract it; not even
+Queen Tera herself with her astral body.”
+
+“Her ‘astral body’?  What is that, Father?  What does that mean?” There
+was a keenness in Margaret’s voice as she asked the question which
+surprised me a little; but Trelawny smiled a sort of indulgent parental
+smile, which came through his grim solemnity like sunshine through a
+rifted cloud, as he spoke:
+
+“The astral body, which is a part of Buddhist belief, long subsequent
+to the time I speak of, and which is an accepted fact of modern
+mysticism, had its rise in Ancient Egypt; at least, so far as we know.
+It is that the gifted individual can at will, quick as thought itself,
+transfer his body whithersoever he chooses, by the dissolution and
+reincarnation of particles.  In the ancient belief there were several
+parts of a human being.  You may as well know them; so that you will
+understand matters relative to them or dependent on them as they occur.
+
+“First there is the ‘Ka’, or ‘Double’, which, as Doctor Budge explains,
+may be defined as ‘an abstract individuality of personality’ which was
+imbued with all the characteristic attributes of the individual it
+represented, and possessed an absolutely independent existence.  It was
+free to move from place to place on earth at will; and it could enter
+into heaven and hold converse with the gods.  Then there was the ‘Ba’,
+or ‘soul’, which dwelt in the ‘Ka’, and had the power of becoming
+corporeal or incorporeal at will; ‘it had both substance and form....
+It had power to leave the tomb.... It could revisit the body in the
+tomb ... and could reincarnate it and hold converse with it.’  Again
+there was the ‘Khu’, the ‘spiritual intelligence’, or spirit. It took
+the form of ‘a shining, luminous, intangible shape of the body.’...
+Then, again, there was the ‘Sekhem’, or ‘power’ of a man, his strength
+or vital force personified.  These were the ‘Khaibit’, or ‘shadow’, the
+‘Ren’, or ‘name’, the ‘Khat’, or ‘physical body’, and ‘Ab’, the
+‘heart’, in which life was seated, went to the full making up of a man.
+
+“Thus you will see, that if this division of functions, spiritual and
+bodily, ethereal and corporeal, ideal and actual, be accepted as exact,
+there are all the possibilities and capabilities of corporeal
+transference, guided always by an unimprisonable will or intelligence.”
+As he paused I murmured the lines from Shelley’s “Prometheus Unbound”:
+
+     “‘The Magnus Zoroaster....
+     Met his own image walking in the garden.’”
+
+Mr. Trelawny was not displeased.  “Quite so!” he said, in his quiet
+way. “Shelley had a better conception of ancient beliefs than any of
+our poets.”  With a voice changed again he resumed his lecture, for so
+it was to some of us:
+
+“There is another belief of the ancient Egyptian which you must bear in
+mind; that regarding the ushaptiu figures of Osiris, which were placed
+with the dead to its work in the Under World.  The enlargement of this
+idea came to a belief that it was possible to transmit, by magical
+formulae, the soul and qualities of any living creature to a figure
+made in its image.  This would give a terrible extension of power to
+one who held the gift of magic.
+
+“It is from a union of these various beliefs, and their natural
+corollaries, that I have come to the conclusion that Queen Tera
+expected to be able to effect her own resurrection, when, and where,
+and how, she would.  That she may have held before her a definite time
+for making her effort is not only possible but likely.  I shall not
+stop now to explain it, but shall enter upon the subject later on.
+With a soul with the Gods, a spirit which could wander the earth at
+will, and a power of corporeal transference, or an astral body, there
+need be no bounds or limits to her ambition. The belief is forced upon
+us that for these forty or fifty centuries she lay dormant in her
+tomb—waiting.  Waiting with that ‘patience’ which could rule the Gods
+of the Under World, for that ‘love’ which could command those of the
+Upper World.  What she may have dreamt we know not; but her dream must
+have been broken when the Dutch explorer entered her sculptured cavern,
+and his follower violated the sacred privacy of her tomb by his rude
+outrage in the theft of her hand.
+
+“That theft, with all that followed, proved to us one thing, however:
+that each part of her body, though separated from the rest, can be a
+central point or rallying place for the items or particles of her
+astral body.  That hand in my room could ensure her instantaneous
+presence in the flesh, and its equally rapid dissolution.
+
+“Now comes the crown of my argument.  The purpose of the attack on me
+was to get the safe open, so that the sacred Jewel of Seven Stars could
+be extracted.  That immense door of the safe could not keep out her
+astral body, which, or any part of it, could gather itself as well
+within as without the safe.  And I doubt not that in the darkness of
+the night that mummied hand sought often the Talisman Jewel, and drew
+new inspiration from its touch.  But despite all its power, the astral
+body could not remove the Jewel through the chinks of the safe.  The
+Ruby is not astral; and it could only be moved in the ordinary way by
+the opening of the doors.  To this end, the Queen used her astral body
+and the fierce force of her Familiar, to bring to the keyhole of the
+safe the master key which debarred her wish.  For years I have
+suspected, nay, have believed as much; and I, too, guarded myself
+against powers of the Nether World.  I, too, waited in patience till I
+should have gathered together all the factors required for the opening
+of the Magic Coffer and the resurrection of the mummied Queen!”  He
+paused, and his daughter’s voice came out sweet and clear, and full of
+intense feeling:
+
+“Father, in the Egyptian belief, was the power of resurrection of a
+mummied body a general one, or was it limited?  That is:  could it
+achieve resurrection many times in the course of ages; or only once,
+and that one final?”
+
+“There was but one resurrection,” he answered.  “There were some who
+believed that this was to be a definite resurrection of the body into
+the real world.  But in the common belief, the Spirit found joy in the
+Elysian Fields, where there was plenty of food and no fear of famine.
+Where there was moisture and deep-rooted reeds, and all the joys that
+are to be expected by the people of an arid land and burning clime.”
+
+Then Margaret spoke with an earnestness which showed the conviction of
+her inmost soul:
+
+“To me, then, it is given to understand what was the dream of this
+great and far-thinking and high-souled lady of old; the dream that held
+her soul in patient waiting for its realisation through the passing of
+all those tens of centuries.  The dream of a love that might be; a love
+that she felt she might, even under new conditions, herself evoke.  The
+love that is the dream of every woman’s life; of the Old and of the
+New; Pagan or Christian; under whatever sun; in whatever rank or
+calling; however may have been the joy or pain of her life in other
+ways.  Oh!  I know it!  I know it!  I am a woman, and I know a woman’s
+heart.  What were the lack of food or the plenitude of it; what were
+feast or famine to this woman, born in a palace, with the shadow of the
+Crown of the Two Egypts on her brows!  What were reedy morasses or the
+tinkle of running water to her whose barges could sweep the great Nile
+from the mountains to the sea.  What were petty joys and absence of
+petty fears to her, the raising of whose hand could hurl armies, or
+draw to the water-stairs of her palaces the commerce of the world!  At
+whose word rose temples filled with all the artistic beauty of the
+Times of Old which it was her aim and pleasure to restore!  Under whose
+guidance the solid rock yawned into the sepulchre that she designed!
+
+“Surely, surely, such a one had nobler dreams!  I can feel them in my
+heart; I can see them with my sleeping eyes!”
+
+As she spoke she seemed to be inspired; and her eyes had a far-away
+look as though they saw something beyond mortal sight.  And then the
+deep eyes filled up with unshed tears of great emotion.  The very soul
+of the woman seemed to speak in her voice; whilst we who listened sat
+entranced.
+
+“I can see her in her loneliness and in the silence of her mighty
+pride, dreaming her own dream of things far different from those around
+her. Of some other land, far, far away under the canopy of the silent
+night, lit by the cool, beautiful light of the stars.  A land under
+that Northern star, whence blew the sweet winds that cooled the
+feverish desert air.  A land of wholesome greenery, far, far away.
+Where were no scheming and malignant priesthood; whose ideas were to
+lead to power through gloomy temples and more gloomy caverns of the
+dead, through an endless ritual of death!  A land where love was not
+base, but a divine possession of the soul!  Where there might be some
+one kindred spirit which could speak to hers through mortal lips like
+her own; whose being could merge with hers in a sweet communion of soul
+to soul, even as their breaths could mingle in the ambient air!  I know
+the feeling, for I have shared it myself.  I may speak of it now, since
+the blessing has come into my own life.  I may speak of it since it
+enables me to interpret the feelings, the very longing soul, of that
+sweet and lovely Queen, so different from her surroundings, so high
+above her time! Whose nature, put into a word, could control the forces
+of the Under World; and the name of whose aspiration, though but graven
+on a star-lit jewel, could command all the powers in the Pantheon of
+the High Gods.
+
+“And in the realisation of that dream she will surely be content to
+rest!”
+
+We men sat silent, as the young girl gave her powerful interpretation
+of the design or purpose of the woman of old.  Her every word and tone
+carried with it the conviction of her own belief.  The loftiness of her
+thoughts seemed to uplift us all as we listened.  Her noble words,
+flowing in musical cadence and vibrant with internal force, seemed to
+issue from some great instrument of elemental power.  Even her tone was
+new to us all; so that we listened as to some new and strange being
+from a new and strange world.  Her father’s face was full of delight.
+I knew now its cause.  I understood the happiness that had come into
+his life, on his return to the world that he knew, from that prolonged
+sojourn in the world of dreams.  To find in his daughter, whose nature
+he had never till now known, such a wealth of affection, such a
+splendour of spiritual insight, such a scholarly imagination, such...
+The rest of his feeling was of hope!
+
+The two other men were silent unconsciously.  One man had had his
+dreaming; for the other, his dreams were to come.
+
+For myself, I was like one in a trance.  Who was this new, radiant
+being who had won to existence out of the mist and darkness of our
+fears? Love has divine possibilities for the lover’s heart!  The wings
+of the soul may expand at any time from the shoulders of the loved one,
+who then may sweep into angel form.  I knew that in my Margaret’s
+nature were divine possibilities of many kinds.  When under the shade
+of the overhanging willow-tree on the river, I had gazed into the
+depths of her beautiful eyes, I had thenceforth a strict belief in the
+manifold beauties and excellences of her nature; but this soaring and
+understanding spirit was, indeed, a revelation.  My pride, like her
+father’s, was outside myself; my joy and rapture were complete and
+supreme!
+
+When we had all got back to earth again in our various ways, Mr.
+Trelawny, holding his daughter’s hand in his, went on with his
+discourse:
+
+“Now, as to the time at which Queen Tera intended her resurrection to
+take place! We are in contact with some of the higher astronomical
+calculations in connection with true orientation.  As you know, the
+stars shift their relative positions in the heavens; but though the
+real distances traversed are beyond all ordinary comprehension, the
+effects as we see them are small.  Nevertheless, they are susceptible
+of measurement, not by years, indeed, but by centuries.  It was by this
+means that Sir John Herschel arrived at the date of the building of the
+Great Pyramid—a date fixed by the time necessary to change the star of
+the true north from Draconis to the Pole Star, and since then verified
+by later discoveries.  From the above there can be no doubt whatever
+that astronomy was an exact science with the Egyptians at least a
+thousand years before the time of Queen Tera.  Now, the stars that go
+to make up a constellation change in process of time their relative
+positions, and the Plough is a notable example.  The changes in the
+position of stars in even forty centuries is so small as to be hardly
+noticeable by an eye not trained to minute observances, but they can be
+measured and verified.  Did you, or any of you, notice how exactly the
+stars in the Ruby correspond to the position of the stars in the
+Plough; or how the same holds with regard to the translucent places in
+the Magic Coffer?”
+
+We all assented.  He went on:
+
+“You are quite correct.  They correspond exactly.  And yet when Queen
+Tera was laid in her tomb, neither the stars in the Jewel nor the
+translucent places in the Coffer corresponded to the position of the
+stars in the Constellation as they then were!”
+
+We looked at each other as he paused:  a new light was breaking upon
+us. With a ring of mastery in his voice he went on:
+
+“Do you not see the meaning of this?  Does it not throw a light on the
+intention of the Queen?  She, who was guided by augury, and magic, and
+superstition, naturally chose a time for her resurrection which seemed
+to have been pointed out by the High Gods themselves, who had sent
+their message on a thunderbolt from other worlds.  When such a time was
+fixed by supernal wisdom, would it not be the height of human wisdom to
+avail itself of it?  Thus it is”—here his voice deepened and trembled
+with the intensity of his feeling—“that to us and our time is given
+the opportunity of this wondrous peep into the old world, such as has
+been the privilege of none other of our time; which may never be again.
+
+“From first to last the cryptic writing and symbolism of that wondrous
+tomb of that wondrous woman is full of guiding light; and the key of
+the many mysteries lies in that most wondrous Jewel which she held in
+her dead hand over the dead heart, which she hoped and believed would
+beat again in a newer and nobler world!
+
+“There are only loose ends now to consider.  Margaret has given us the
+true inwardness of the feeling of the other Queen!”  He looked at her
+fondly, and stroked her hand as he said it.  “For my own part I
+sincerely hope she is right; for in such case it will be a joy, I am
+sure, to all of us to assist at such a realisation of hope.  But we
+must not go too fast, or believe too much in our present state of
+knowledge. The voice that we hearken for comes out of times strangely
+other than our own; when human life counted for little, and when the
+morality of the time made little account of the removing of obstacles
+in the way to achievement of  desire. We must keep our eyes fixed on
+the scientific side, and wait for the developments on the psychic side.
+
+“Now, as to this stone box, which we call the Magic Coffer.  As I have
+said, I am convinced that it opens only in obedience to some principle
+of light, or the exercise of some of its forces at present unknown to
+us.  There is here much ground for conjecture and for experiment; for
+as yet the scientists have not thoroughly differentiated the kinds, and
+powers, and degrees of light.  Without analysing various rays we may, I
+think, take it for granted that there are different qualities and
+powers of light; and this great field of scientific investigation is
+almost virgin soil.  We know as yet so little of natural forces, that
+imagination need set no bounds to its flights in considering the
+possibilities of the future.  Within but a few years we have made such
+discoveries as two centuries ago would have sent the discoverers to
+the flames.  The liquefaction of oxygen; the existence of radium, of
+helium, of polonium, of argon; the different powers of Roentgen and
+Cathode and Bequerel rays.  And as we may finally prove that there are
+different kinds and qualities of light, so we may find that combustion
+may have its own powers of differentiation; that there are qualities in
+some flames non-existent in others.  It may be that some of the
+essential conditions of substance are continuous, even in the
+destruction of their bases. Last night I was thinking of this, and
+reasoning that as there are certain qualities in some oils which are
+not in others, so there may be certain similar or corresponding
+qualities or powers in the combinations of each.  I suppose we have all
+noticed some time or other that the light of colza oil is not quite the
+same as that of paraffin, or that the flames of coal gas and whale oil
+are different.  They find it so in the light-houses! All at once it
+occurred to me that there might be some special virtue in the oil which
+had been found in the jars when Queen Tera’s tomb was opened.  These
+had not been used to preserve the intestines as usual, so they must
+have been placed there for some other purpose.  I remembered that in
+Van Huyn’s narrative he had commented on the way the jars were sealed.
+This was lightly, though effectually; they could be opened without
+force.  The jars were themselves preserved in a sarcophagus which,
+though of immense strength and hermetically sealed, could be opened
+easily.  Accordingly, I went at once to examine the jars.  A little—a
+very little of the oil still remained, but it had grown thick in the
+two and a half centuries in which the jars had been open.  Still, it
+was not rancid; and on examining it I found it was cedar oil, and that
+it still exhaled something of its original aroma. This gave me the idea
+that it was to be used to fill the lamps.  Whoever had placed the oil
+in the jars, and the jars in the sarcophagus, knew that there might be
+shrinkage in process of time, even in vases of alabaster, and fully
+allowed for it; for each of the jars would have filled the lamps half a
+dozen times.  With part of the oil remaining I made some experiments,
+therefore, which may give useful results.  You know, Doctor, that cedar
+oil, which was much used in the preparation and ceremonials of the
+Egyptian dead, has a certain refractive power which we do not find in
+other oils.  For instance, we use it on the lenses of our microscopes
+to give additional clearness of vision.  Last night I put some in one
+of the lamps, and placed it near a translucent part of the Magic
+Coffer.  The effect was very great; the glow of light within was fuller
+and more intense than I could have imagined, where an electric light
+similarly placed had little, if any, effect.  I should have tried
+others of the seven lamps, but that my supply of oil ran out. This,
+however, is on the road to rectification.  I have sent for more cedar
+oil, and expect to have before long an ample supply.  Whatever may
+happen from other causes, our experiment shall not, at all events, fail
+from this.  We shall see!  We shall see!”
+
+Doctor Winchester had evidently been following the logical process of
+the other’s mind, for his comment was:
+
+“I do hope that when the light is effective in opening the box, the
+mechanism will not be impaired or destroyed.”
+
+His doubt as to this gave anxious thought to some of us.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI
+
+The Cavern
+
+
+In the evening Mr. Trelawny took again the whole party into the study.
+When we were all attention he began to unfold his plans:
+
+“I have come to the conclusion that for the proper carrying out of what
+we will call our Great Experiment we must have absolute and complete
+isolation.  Isolation not merely for a day or two, but for as long as
+we may require.  Here such a thing would be impossible; the needs and
+habits of a great city with its ingrained possibilities of
+interruption, would, or might, quite upset us.  Telegrams, registered
+letters, or express messengers would alone be sufficient; but the great
+army of those who want to get something would make disaster certain.
+In addition, the occurrences of the last week have drawn police
+attention to this house.  Even if special instructions to keep an eye
+on it have not been issued from Scotland Yard or the District Station,
+you may be sure that the individual policeman on his rounds will keep
+it well under observation.  Besides, the servants who have discharged
+themselves will before long begin to talk.  They must; for they have,
+for the sake of their own characters, to give some reason for the
+termination of a service which has I should say a position in the
+neighbourhood.  The servants of the neighbours will begin to talk, and,
+perhaps the neighbours themselves.  Then the active and intelligent
+Press will, with its usual zeal for the enlightenment of the public and
+its eye to increase of circulation, get hold of the matter.  When the
+reporter is after us we shall not have much chance of privacy.  Even if
+we were to bar ourselves in, we should not be free from interruption,
+possibly from intrusion.  Either would ruin our plans, and so we must
+take measures to effect a retreat, carrying all our impedimenta with
+us.  For this I am prepared.  For a long time past I have foreseen such
+a possibility, and have made preparation for it.  Of course, I had no
+foreknowledge of what has happened; but I knew something would, or
+might, happen.  For more than two years past my house in Cornwall has
+been made ready to receive all the curios which are preserved here.
+When Corbeck went off on his search for the lamps I had the old house
+at Kyllion made ready; it is fitted with electric light all over, and
+all the appliances for manufacture of the light are complete.  I had
+perhaps better tell you, for none of you, not even Margaret, knows
+anything of it, that the house is absolutely shut out from public
+access or even from view.  It stands on a little rocky promontory
+behind a steep hill, and except from the sea cannot be seen.  Of old it
+was fenced in by a high stone wall, for the house which it succeeded
+was built by an ancestor of mine in the days when a great house far
+away from a centre had to be prepared to defend itself. Here, then, is
+a place so well adapted to our needs that it might have been prepared
+on purpose.  I shall explain it to you when we are all there.  This
+will not be long, for already our movement is in train.  I have sent
+word to Marvin to have all preparation for our transport ready.  He is
+to have a special train, which is to run at night so as to avoid
+notice.  Also a number of carts and stone-wagons, with sufficient men
+and appliances to take all our packing-cases to Paddington.  We shall
+be away before the Argus-eyed Pressman is on the watch.  We shall today
+begin our packing up; and I dare say that by tomorrow night we shall be
+ready.  In the outhouses I have all the packing-cases which were used
+for bringing the things from Egypt, and I am satisfied that as they
+were sufficient for the journey across the desert and down the Nile to
+Alexandria and thence on to London, they will serve without fail
+between here and Kyllion.  We four men, with Margaret to hand us such
+things as we may require, will be able to get the things packed safely;
+and the carrier’s men will take them to the trucks.
+
+“Today the servants go to Kyllion, and Mrs. Grant will make such
+arrangements as may be required.  She will take a stock of necessaries
+with her, so that we will not attract local attention by our daily
+needs; and will keep us supplied with perishable food from London.
+Thanks to Margaret’s wise and generous treatment of the servants who
+decided to remain, we have got a staff on which we can depend.  They
+have been already cautioned to secrecy, so that we need not fear gossip
+from within. Indeed, as the servants will be in London after their
+preparations at Kyllion are complete, there will not be much subject
+for gossip, in detail at any rate.
+
+“As, however, we should commence the immediate work of packing at once,
+we will leave over the after proceedings till later when we have
+leisure.”
+
+Accordingly we set about our work.  Under Mr. Trelawny’s guidance, and
+aided by the servants, we took from the outhouses great packing-cases.
+Some of these were of enormous strength, fortified by many thicknesses
+of wood, and by iron bands and rods with screw-ends and nuts.  We
+placed them throughout the house, each close to the object which it was
+to contain.  When this preliminary work had been effected, and there
+had been placed in each room and in the hall great masses of new hay,
+cotton-waste and paper, the servants were sent away.  Then we set about
+packing.
+
+No one, not accustomed to packing, could have the slightest idea of
+the amount of work involved in such a task as that in which in we were
+engaged. For my own part I had had a vague idea that there were a large
+number of Egyptian objects in Mr. Trelawny’s house; but until I came to
+deal with them seriatim I had little idea of either their importance,
+the size of some of them, or of their endless number. Far into the
+night we worked. At times we used all the strength which we could
+muster on a single object; again we worked separately, but always under
+Mr. Trelawny’s immediate direction. He himself, assisted by Margaret,
+kept an exact tally of each piece.
+
+It was only when we sat down, utterly wearied, to a long-delayed supper
+that we began to realise that a large part of the work was done.  Only
+a few of the packing-cases, however, were closed; for a vast amount of
+work still remained.  We had finished some of the cases, each of which
+held only one of the great sarcophagi. The cases which held many
+objects could not be closed till all had been differentiated and packed.
+
+I slept that night without movement or without dreams; and on our
+comparing notes in the morning, I found that each of the others had had
+the same experience.
+
+By dinner-time next evening the whole work was complete, and all was
+ready for the carriers who were to come at midnight.  A little before
+the appointed time we heard the rumble of carts; then we were shortly
+invaded by an army of workmen, who seemed by sheer force of numbers to
+move without effort, in an endless procession, all our prepared
+packages.  A little over an hour sufficed them, and when the carts had
+rumbled away, we all got ready to follow them to Paddington.  Silvio
+was of course to be taken as one of our party.
+
+Before leaving we went in a body over the house, which looked desolate
+indeed.  As the servants had all gone to Cornwall there had been no
+attempt at tidying-up; every room and passage in which we had worked,
+and all the stairways, were strewn with paper and waste, and marked
+with dirty feet.
+
+The last thing which Mr. Trelawny did before coming away was to take
+from the great safe the Ruby with the Seven Stars.  As he put it safely
+into his pocket-book, Margaret, who had all at once seemed to grow
+deadly tired and stood beside her father pale and rigid, suddenly
+became all aglow, as though the sight of the Jewel had inspired her.
+She smiled at her father approvingly as she said:
+
+“You are right, Father.  There will not be any more trouble tonight.
+She will not wreck your arrangements for any cause.  I would stake my
+life upon it.”
+
+“She—or something—wrecked us in the desert when we had come from the
+tomb in the Valley of the Sorcerer!” was the grim comment of Corbeck,
+who was standing by. Margaret answered him like a flash:
+
+“Ah! she was then near her tomb from which for thousands of years her
+body had not been moved.  She must know that things are different now.”
+
+“How must she know?” asked Corbeck keenly.
+
+“If she has that astral body that Father spoke of, surely she must
+know! How can she fail to, with an invisible presence and an intellect
+that can roam abroad even to the stars and the worlds beyond us!”  She
+paused, and her father said solemnly:
+
+“It is on that supposition that we are proceeding.  We must have the
+courage of our convictions, and act on them—to the last!”
+
+Margaret took his hand and held it in a dreamy kind of way as we filed
+out of the house.  She was holding it still when he locked the hall
+door, and when we moved up the road to the gateway, whence we took a
+cab to Paddington.
+
+When all the goods were loaded at the station, the whole of the workmen
+went on to the train; this took also some of the stone-wagons used for
+carrying the cases with the great sarcophagi.  Ordinary carts and
+plenty of horses were to be found at Westerton, which was our station
+for Kyllion.  Mr. Trelawny had ordered a sleeping-carriage for our
+party; as soon as the train had started we all turned into our cubicles.
+
+That night I slept sound.  There was over me a conviction of security
+which was absolute and supreme.  Margaret’s definite announcement:
+“There will not be any trouble tonight!” seemed to carry assurance with
+it.  I did not question it; nor did anyone else.  It was only
+afterwards that I began to think as to how she was so sure. The train
+was a slow one, stopping many times and for considerable intervals.  As
+Mr. Trelawny did not wish to arrive at Westerton before dark, there was
+no need to hurry; and arrangements had been made to feed the workmen at
+certain places on the journey.  We had our own hamper with us in the
+private car.
+
+All that afternoon we talked over the Great Experiment, which seemed to
+have become a definite entity in our thoughts.  Mr. Trelawny became
+more and more enthusiastic as the time wore on; hope was with him
+becoming certainty.  Doctor Winchester seemed to become imbued with
+some of his spirit, though at times he would throw out some scientific
+fact which would either make an impasse to the other’s line of
+argument, or would come as an arresting shock.  Mr. Corbeck, on the
+other hand, seemed slightly antagonistic to the theory.  It may have
+been that whilst the opinions of the others advanced, his own stood
+still; but the effect was an attitude which appeared negative, if not
+wholly one of negation.
+
+As for Margaret, she seemed to be in some way overcome.  Either it was
+some new phase of feeling with her, or else she was taking the issue
+more seriously than she had yet done.  She was generally more or less
+distraite, as though sunk in a brown study; from this she would recover
+herself with a start.  This was usually when there occurred some marked
+episode in the journey, such as stopping at a station, or when the
+thunderous rumble of crossing a viaduct woke the echoes of the hills or
+cliffs around us.  On each such occasion she would plunge into the
+conversation, taking such a part in it as to show that, whatever had
+been her abstracted thought, her senses had taken in fully all that had
+gone on around her.  Towards myself her manner was strange.  Sometimes
+it was marked by a distance, half shy, half haughty, which was new to
+me.  At other times there were moments of passion in look and gesture
+which almost made me dizzy with delight.  Little, however, of a marked
+nature transpired during the journey.  There was but one episode which
+had in it any element of alarm, but as we were all asleep at the time
+it did not disturb us. We only learned it from a communicative guard in
+the morning.  Whilst running between Dawlish and Teignmouth the train
+was stopped by a warning given by someone who moved a torch to and fro
+right on the very track.  The driver had found on pulling up that just
+ahead of the train a small landslip had taken place, some of the red
+earth from the high bank having fallen away.  It did not however reach
+to the metals; and the driver had resumed his way, none too well
+pleased at the delay.  To use his own words, the guard thought “there
+was too much bally caution on this ‘ere line!’”
+
+We arrived at Westerton about nine o’clock in the evening.  Carts and
+horses were in waiting, and the work of unloading the train began at
+once.  Our own party did not wait to see the work done, as it was in
+the hands of competent people.  We took the carriage which was in
+waiting, and through the darkness of the night sped on to Kyllion.
+
+We were all impressed by the house as it appeared in the bright
+moonlight.  A great grey stone mansion of the Jacobean period; vast and
+spacious, standing high over the sea on the very verge of a high cliff.
+When we had swept round the curve of the avenue cut through the rock,
+and come out on the high plateau on which the house stood, the crash
+and murmur of waves breaking against rock far below us came with an
+invigorating breath of moist sea air.  We understood then in an instant
+how well we were shut out from the world on that rocky shelf above the
+sea.
+
+Within the house we found all ready.  Mrs. Grant and her staff had
+worked well, and all was bright and fresh and clean.  We took a brief
+survey of the chief rooms and then separated to have a wash and to
+change our clothes after our long journey of more than four-and-twenty
+hours.
+
+We had supper in the great dining-room on the south side, the walls of
+which actually hung over the sea.  The murmur came up muffled, but it
+never ceased.  As the little promontory stood well out into the sea,
+the northern side of the house was open; and the due north was in no
+way shut out by the great mass of rock, which, reared high above us,
+shut out the rest of the world.  Far off across the bay we could see
+the trembling lights of the castle, and here and there along the shore
+the faint light of a fisher’s window.  For the rest the sea was a dark
+blue plain with an occasional flicker of light as the gleam of
+starlight fell on the slope of a swelling wave.
+
+When supper was over we all adjourned to the room which Mr. Trelawny
+had set aside as his study, his bedroom being close to it.  As we
+entered, the first thing I noticed was a great safe, somewhat similar
+to that which stood in his room in London.  When we were in the room
+Mr. Trelawny went over to the table, and, taking out his pocket-book,
+laid it on the table.  As he did so he pressed down on it with the palm
+of his hand.  A strange pallor came over his face.  With fingers that
+trembled he opened the book, saying as he did so:
+
+“Its bulk does not seem the same; I hope nothing has happened!”
+
+All three of us men crowded round close.  Margaret alone remained calm;
+she stood erect and silent, and still as a statue.  She had a far-away
+look in her eyes, as though she did not either know or care what was
+going on around her.
+
+With a despairing gesture Trelawny threw open the pouch of the
+pocket-book wherein he had placed the Jewel of Seven Stars.  As he sank
+down on the chair which stood close to him, he said in a hoarse voice:
+
+“My God! it is gone.  Without it the Great Experiment can come to
+nothing!”
+
+His words seemed to wake Margaret from her introspective mood.  An
+agonised spasm swept her face; but almost on the instant she was calm.
+She almost smiled as she said:
+
+“You may have left it in your room, Father.  Perhaps it has fallen out
+of the pocket-book whilst you were changing.”  Without a word we all
+hurried into the next room through the open door between the study and
+the bedroom.  And then a sudden calm fell on us like a cloud of fear.
+
+There! on the table, lay the Jewel of Seven Stars, shining and
+sparkling with lurid light, as though each of the seven points of each
+the seven stars gleamed through blood!
+
+Timidly we each looked behind us, and then at each other.  Margaret was
+now like the rest of us.  She had lost her statuesque calm.  All the
+introspective rigidity had gone from her; and she clasped her hands
+together till the knuckles were white.
+
+Without a word Mr. Trelawny raised the Jewel, and hurried with it into
+the next room.  As quietly as he could he opened the door of the safe
+with the key fastened to his wrist and placed the Jewel within.  When
+the heavy doors were closed and locked he seemed to breathe more freely.
+
+Somehow this episode, though a disturbing one in many ways, seemed to
+bring us back to our old selves.  Since we had left London we had all
+been overstrained; and this was a sort of relief.  Another step in our
+strange enterprise had been effected.
+
+The change back was more marked in Margaret than in any of us.  Perhaps
+it was that she was a woman, whilst we were men; perhaps it was that
+she was younger than the rest; perhaps both reasons were effective,
+each in its own way.  At any rate the change was there, and I was
+happier than I had been through the long journey.  All her buoyancy,
+her tenderness, her deep feeling seemed to shine forth once more; now
+and again as her father’s eyes rested on her, his face seemed to light
+up.
+
+Whilst we waited for the carts to arrive, Mr. Trelawny took us through
+the house, pointing out and explaining where the objects which we had
+brought with us were to be placed.  In one respect only did he withhold
+confidence.  The positions of all those things which had connection
+with the Great Experiment were not indicated. The cases containing them
+were to be left in the outer hall, for the present.
+
+By the time we had made the survey, the carts began to arrive; and the
+stir and bustle of the previous night were renewed.  Mr. Trelawny stood
+in the hall beside the massive ironbound door, and gave directions as
+to the placing of each of the great packing-cases.  Those containing
+many items were placed in the inner hall where they were to be unpacked.
+
+In an incredibly short time the whole consignment was delivered; and
+the men departed with a douceur for each, given through their foreman,
+which made them effusive in their thanks.  Then we all went to our own
+rooms.  There was a strange confidence over us all.  I do not think
+that any one of us had a doubt as to the quiet passing of the
+remainder of the night.
+
+The faith was justified, for on our re-assembling in the morning we
+found that all had slept well and peaceably.
+
+During that day all the curios, except those required for the Great
+Experiment, were put into the places designed for them.  Then it was
+arranged that all the servants should go back with Mrs. Grant to London
+on the next morning.
+
+When they had all gone Mr. Trelawny, having seen the doors locked, took
+us into the study.
+
+“Now,” said he when we were seated, “I have a secret to impart; but,
+according to an old promise which does not leave me free, I must ask
+you each to give me a solemn promise not to reveal it.  For three
+hundred years at least such a promise has been exacted from everyone to
+whom it was told, and more than once life and safety were secured
+through loyal observance of the promise.  Even as it is, I am breaking
+the letter, if not the spirit of the tradition; for I should only tell
+it to the immediate members of my family.”
+
+We all gave the promise required.  Then he went on:
+
+“There is a secret place in this house, a cave, natural originally but
+finished by labour, underneath this house.  I will not undertake to say
+that it has always been used according to the law.  During the Bloody
+Assize more than a few Cornishmen found refuge in it; and later, and
+earlier, it formed, I have no doubt whatever, a useful place for
+storing contraband goods.  ‘Tre Pol and Pen’, I suppose you know, have
+always been smugglers; and their relations and friends and neighbours
+have not held back from the enterprise.  For all such reasons a safe
+hiding-place was always considered a valuable possession; and as the
+heads of our House have always insisted on preserving the secret, I am
+in honour bound to it.  Later on, if all be well, I shall of course
+tell you, Margaret, and you too, Ross, under the conditions that I am
+bound to make.”
+
+He rose up, and we all followed him.  Leaving us in the outer hall, he
+went away alone for a few minutes; and returning, beckoned us to follow
+him.
+
+In the inside hall we found a whole section of an outstanding angle
+moved away, and from the cavity saw a great hole dimly dark, and the
+beginning of a rough staircase cut in the rock. As it was not pitch
+dark there was manifestly some means of lighting it naturally, so
+without pause we followed our host as he descended. After some forty
+or fifty steps cut in a winding passage, we came to a great cave whose
+further end tapered away into blackness. It was a huge place, dimly
+lit by a few irregular slits of eccentric shape. Manifestly these
+were faults in the rock which would readily allow the windows to be
+disguised. Close to each of them was a hanging shutter which could
+be easily swung across by means of a dangling rope. The sound of
+the ceaseless beat of the waves came up muffled from far below. Mr.
+Trelawny at once began to speak:
+
+“This is the spot which I have chosen, as the best I know, for the
+scene of our Great Experiment.  In a hundred different ways it fulfils
+the conditions which I am led to believe are primary with regard to
+success. Here, we are, and shall be, as isolated as Queen Tera herself
+would have been in her rocky tomb in the Valley of the Sorcerer, and
+still in a rocky cavern.  For good or ill we must here stand by our
+chances, and abide by results.  If we are successful we shall be able
+to let in on the world of modern science such a flood of light from the
+Old World as will change every condition of thought and experiment and
+practice.  If we fail, then even the knowledge of our attempt will die
+with us.  For this, and all else which may come, I believe we are
+prepared!”  He paused.  No one spoke, but we all bowed our heads
+gravely in acquiescence.  He resumed, but with a certain hesitancy:
+
+“It is not yet too late!  If any of you have a doubt or misgiving, for
+God’s sake speak it now!  Whoever it may be, can go hence without let or
+hindrance.  The rest of us can go on our way alone!”
+
+Again he paused, and looked keenly at us in turn.  We looked at each
+other; but no one quailed.  For my own part, if I had had any doubt as
+to going on, the look on Margaret’s face would have reassured me.  It
+was fearless; it was intense; it was full of a divine calm.
+
+Mr. Trelawny took a long breath, and in a more cheerful, as well as in
+a more decided tone, went on:
+
+“As we are all of one mind, the sooner we get the necessary matters in
+train the better.  Let me tell you that this place, like all the rest
+of the house, can be lit with electricity.  We could not join the wires
+to the mains lest our secret should become known, but I have a cable
+here which we can attach in the hall and complete the circuit!”  As he
+was speaking, he began to ascend the steps.  From close to the entrance
+he took the end of a cable; this he drew forward and attached to a
+switch in the wall.  Then, turning on a tap, he flooded the whole vault
+and staircase below with light.  I could now see from the volume of
+light streaming up into the hallway that the hole beside the staircase
+went direct into the cave.  Above it was a pulley and a mass of strong
+tackle with multiplying blocks of the Smeaton order.  Mr. Trelawny,
+seeing me looking at this, said, correctly interpreting my thoughts:
+
+“Yes! it is new.  I hung it there myself on purpose.  I knew we should
+have to lower great weights; and as I did not wish to take too many
+into my confidence, I arranged a tackle which I could work alone if
+necessary.”
+
+We set to work at once; and before nightfall had lowered, unhooked, and
+placed in the positions designated for each by Trelawny, all the great
+sarcophagi and all the curios and other matters which we had taken with
+us.
+
+It was a strange and weird proceeding, the placing of those wonderful
+monuments of a bygone age in that green cavern, which represented in
+its cutting and purpose and up-to-date mechanism and electric lights
+both the old world and the new.  But as time went on I grew more and
+more to recognise the wisdom and correctness of Mr. Trelawny’s choice.
+I was much disturbed when Silvio, who had been brought into the cave in
+the arms of his mistress, and who was lying asleep on my coat which I
+had taken off, sprang up when the cat mummy had been unpacked, and flew
+at it with the same ferocity which he had previously exhibited.  The
+incident showed Margaret in a new phase, and one which gave my heart a
+pang.  She had been standing quite still at one side of the cave
+leaning on a sarcophagus, in one of those fits of abstraction which had
+of late come upon her; but on hearing the sound, and seeing Silvio’s
+violent onslaught, she seemed to fall into a positive fury of passion.
+Her eyes blazed, and her mouth took a hard, cruel tension which was new
+to me. Instinctively she stepped towards Silvio as if to interfere in
+the attack.  But I too had stepped forward; and as she caught my eye a
+strange spasm came upon her, and she stopped.  Its intensity made me
+hold my breath; and I put up my hand to clear my eyes.  When I had done
+this, she had on the instant recovered her calm, and there was a look
+of brief wonder on her face.  With all her old grace and sweetness she
+swept over and lifted Silvio, just as she had done on former occasions,
+and held him in her arms, petting him and treating him as though he
+were a little child who had erred.
+
+As I looked a strange fear came over me.  The Margaret that I knew
+seemed to be changing; and in my inmost heart I prayed that the
+disturbing cause might soon come to an end.  More than ever I longed at
+that moment that our terrible Experiment should come to a prosperous
+termination.
+
+When all had been arranged in the room as Mr. Trelawny wished he turned
+to us, one after another, till he had concentrated the intelligence of
+us all upon him.  Then he said:
+
+“All is now ready in this place.  We must only await the proper time to
+begin.”
+
+We were silent for a while.  Doctor Winchester was the first to speak:
+
+“What is the proper time?  Have you any approximation, even if you are
+not satisfied as to the exact day?”  He answered at once:
+
+“After the most anxious thought I have fixed on July 31!”
+
+“May I ask why that date?”  He spoke his answer slowly:
+
+“Queen Tera was ruled in great degree by mysticism, and there are so
+many evidences that she looked for resurrection that naturally she
+would choose a period ruled over by a God specialised to such a
+purpose.  Now, the fourth month of the season of Inundation was ruled
+by Harmachis, this being the name for ‘Ra’, the Sun-God, at his rising
+in the morning, and therefore typifying the awakening or arising.  This
+arising is manifestly to physical life, since it is of the mid-world of
+human daily life.  Now as this month begins on our 25th July, the
+seventh day would be July 31st, for you may be sure that the mystic
+Queen would not have chosen any day but the seventh or some power of
+seven.
+
+“I dare say that some of you have wondered why our preparations have
+been so deliberately undertaken.  This is why!  We must be ready in
+every possible way when the time comes; but there was no use in having
+to wait round for a needless number of days.”
+
+And so we waited only for the 31st of July, the next day but one, when
+the Great Experiment would be made.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII
+
+Doubts and Fears
+
+
+We learn of great things by little experiences.  The history of ages is
+but an indefinite repetition of the history of hours.  The record of a
+soul is but a multiple of the story of a moment.  The Recording Angel
+writes in the Great Book in no rainbow tints; his pen is dipped in no
+colours but light and darkness.  For the eye of infinite wisdom there
+is no need of shading.  All things, all thoughts, all emotions, all
+experiences, all doubts and hopes and fears, all intentions, all wishes
+seen down to the lower strata of their concrete and multitudinous
+elements, are finally resolved into direct opposites.
+
+Did any human being wish for the epitome of a life wherein were
+gathered and grouped all the experiences that a child of Adam could
+have, the history, fully and frankly written, of my own mind during the
+next forty-eight hours would afford him all that could be wanted.  And
+the Recorder could have wrought as usual in sunlight and shadow, which
+may be taken to represent the final expressions of Heaven and Hell.
+For in the highest Heaven is Faith; and Doubt hangs over the yawning
+blackness of Hell.
+
+There were of course times of sunshine in those two days; moments when,
+in the realisation of Margaret’s sweetness and her love for me, all
+doubts were dissipated like morning mist before the sun.  But the
+balance of the time—and an overwhelming balance it was—gloom hung
+over me like a pall.  The hour, in whose coming I had acquiesced, was
+approaching so quickly and was already so near that the sense of
+finality was bearing upon me!  The issue was perhaps life or death to
+any of us; but for this we were all prepared.  Margaret and I were one
+as to the risk.  The question of the moral aspect of the case, which
+involved the religious belief in which I had been reared, was not one
+to trouble me; for the issues, and the causes that lay behind them,
+were not within my power even to comprehend.  The doubt of the success
+of the Great Experiment was such a doubt as exists in all enterprises
+which have great possibilities.  To me, whose life was passed in a
+series of intellectual struggles, this form of doubt was a stimulus,
+rather than deterrent.  What then was it that made for me a trouble,
+which became an anguish when my thoughts dwelt long on it?
+
+I was beginning to doubt Margaret!
+
+What it was that I doubted I knew not.  It was not her love, or her
+honour, or her truth, or her kindness, or her zeal.  What then was it?
+
+It was herself!
+
+Margaret was changing!  At times during the past few days I had hardly
+known her as the same girl whom I had met at the picnic, and whose
+vigils I had shared in the sick-room of her father.  Then, even in her
+moments of greatest sorrow or fright or anxiety, she was all life and
+thought and keenness.  Now she was generally distraite, and at times in
+a sort of negative condition as though her mind—her very being—was
+not present.  At such moments she would have full possession of
+observation and memory.  She would know and remember all that was going
+on, and had gone on around her; but her coming back to her old self had
+to me something the sensation of a new person coming into the room.  Up
+to the time of leaving London I had been content whenever she was
+present.  I had over me that delicious sense of security which comes
+with the consciousness that love is mutual.  But now doubt had taken
+its place. I never knew whether the personality present was my
+Margaret—the old Margaret whom I had loved at the first glance—or the
+other new Margaret, whom I hardly understood, and whose intellectual
+aloofness made an impalpable barrier between us.  Sometimes she would
+become, as it were, awake all at once. At such times, though she would
+say to me sweet and pleasant things which she had often said before,
+she would seem most unlike herself.  It was almost as if she was
+speaking parrot-like or at dictation of one who could read words or
+acts, but not thoughts.  After one or two experiences of this kind, my
+own doubting began to make a barrier; for I could not speak with the
+ease and freedom which were usual to me.  And so hour by hour we
+drifted apart.  Were it not for the few odd moments when the old
+Margaret was back with me full of her charm I do not know what would
+have happened.  As it was, each such moment gave me a fresh start and
+kept my love from changing.
+
+I would have given the world for a confidant; but this was impossible.
+How could I speak a doubt of Margaret to anyone, even her father!  How
+could I speak a doubt to Margaret, when Margaret herself was the theme!
+I could only endure—and hope. And of the two the endurance was the
+lesser pain.
+
+I think that Margaret must have at times felt that there was some cloud
+between us, for towards the end of the first day she began to shun me a
+little; or perhaps it was that she had become more diffident that usual
+about me.  Hitherto she had sought every opportunity of being with me,
+just as I had tried to be with her; so that now any avoidance, one of
+the other, made a new pain to us both.
+
+On this day the household seemed very still.  Each one of us was about
+his own work, or occupied with his own thoughts.  We only met at meal
+times; and then, though we talked, all seemed more or less preoccupied.
+There was not in the house even the stir of the routine of service.
+The precaution of Mr. Trelawny in having three rooms prepared for each
+of us had rendered servants unnecessary.  The dining-room was solidly
+prepared with cooked provisions for several days.  Towards evening I
+went out by myself for a stroll.  I had looked for Margaret to ask her
+to come with me; but when I found her, she was in one of her apathetic
+moods, and the charm of her presence seemed lost to me.  Angry with
+myself, but unable to quell my own spirit of discontent, I went out
+alone over the rocky headland.
+
+On the cliff, with the wide expanse of wonderful sea before me, and no
+sound but the dash of waves below and the harsh screams of the seagulls
+above, my thoughts ran free.  Do what I would, they returned
+continuously to one subject, the solving of the doubt that was upon me.
+Here in the solitude, amid the wide circle of Nature’s force and
+strife, my mind began to work truly.  Unconsciously I found myself
+asking a question which I would not allow myself to answer.  At last
+the persistence of a mind working truly prevailed; I found myself face
+to face with my doubt.  The habit of my life began to assert itself,
+and I analysed the evidence before me.
+
+It was so startling that I had to force myself into obedience to
+logical effort.  My starting-place was this:  Margaret was changed—in
+what way, and by what means? Was it her character, or her mind, or her
+nature? for her physical appearance remained the same.  I began to
+group all that I had ever heard of her, beginning at her birth.
+
+It was strange at the very first.  She had been, according to Corbeck’s
+statement, born of a dead mother during the time that her father and
+his friend were in a trance in the tomb at Aswan.  That trance was
+presumably effected by a woman; a woman mummied, yet preserving as we
+had every reason to believe from after experience, an astral body
+subject to a free will and an active intelligence.  With that astral
+body, space ceased to exist.  The vast distance between London and
+Aswan became as naught; and whatever power of necromancy the Sorceress
+had might have been exercised over the dead mother, and possibly the
+dead child.
+
+The dead child!  Was it possible that the child was dead and was made
+alive again? Whence then came the animating spirit—the soul?  Logic
+was pointing the way to me now with a vengeance!
+
+If the Egyptian belief was true for Egyptians, then the “Ka” of the
+dead Queen and her “Khu” could animate what she might choose.  In such
+case Margaret would not be an individual at all, but simply a phase of
+Queen Tera herself; an astral body obedient to her will!
+
+Here I revolted against logic.  Every fibre of my being resented such a
+conclusion. How could I believe that there was no Margaret at all; but
+just an animated image, used by the Double of a woman of forty
+centuries ago to its own ends...! Somehow, the outlook was brighter to
+me now, despite the new doubts.
+
+At least I had Margaret!
+
+Back swung the logical pendulum again.  The child then was not dead.
+If so, had the Sorceress had anything to do with her birth at all?  It
+was evident—so I took it again from Corbeck—that there was a strange
+likeness between Margaret and the pictures of Queen Tera.  How could
+this be?  It could not be any birth-mark reproducing what had been in
+the mother’s mind; for Mrs. Trelawny had never seen the pictures.  Nay,
+even her father had not seen them till he had found his way into the
+tomb only a few days before her birth.  This phase I could not get rid
+of so easily as the last; the fibres of my being remained quiet.  There
+remained to me the horror of doubt.  And even then, so strange is the
+mind of man, Doubt itself took a concrete image; a vast and
+impenetrable gloom, through which flickered irregularly and
+spasmodically tiny points of evanescent light, which seemed to quicken
+the darkness into a positive existence.
+
+The remaining possibility of relations between Margaret and the mummied
+Queen was, that in some occult way the Sorceress had power to change
+places with the other.  This view of things could not be so lightly
+thrown aside.  There were too many suspicious circumstances to warrant
+this, now that my attention was fixed on it and my intelligence
+recognised the possibility.  Hereupon there began to come into my mind
+all the strange incomprehensible matters which had whirled through our
+lives in the last few days.  At first they all crowded in upon me in a
+jumbled mass; but again the habit of mind of my working life prevailed,
+and they took order.  I found it now easier to control myself; for
+there was something to grasp, some work to be done; though it was of a
+sorry kind, for it was or might be antagonistic to Margaret.  But
+Margaret was herself at stake!  I was thinking of her and fighting for
+her; and yet if I were to work in the dark, I might be even harmful to
+her.  My first weapon in her defence was truth.  I must know and
+understand; I might then be able to act.  Certainly, I could not act
+beneficently without a just conception and recognition of the facts.
+Arranged in order these were as follows:
+
+Firstly:  the strange likeness of Queen Tera to Margaret who had been
+born in another country a thousand miles away, where her mother could
+not possibly have had even a passing knowledge of her appearance.
+
+Secondly:  the disappearance of Van Huyn’s book when I had read up to
+the description of the Star Ruby.
+
+Thirdly:  the finding of the lamps in the boudoir.  Tera with her
+astral body could have unlocked the door of Corbeck’s room in the
+hotel, and have locked it again after her exit with the lamps.  She
+could in the same way have opened the window, and put the lamps in the
+boudoir.  It need not have been that Margaret in her own person should
+have had any hand in this; but—but it was at least strange.
+
+Fourthly:  here the suspicions of the Detective and the Doctor came
+back to me with renewed force, and with a larger understanding.
+
+Fifthly:  there were the occasions on which Margaret foretold with
+accuracy the coming occasions of quietude, as though she had some
+conviction or knowledge of the intentions of the astral-bodied Queen.
+
+Sixthly:  there was her suggestion of the finding of the Ruby which her
+father had lost.  As I thought now afresh over this episode in the
+light of suspicion in which her own powers were involved, the only
+conclusion I could come to was—always supposing that the theory of the
+Queen’s astral power was correct—that Queen Tera being anxious that
+all should go well in the movement from London to Kyllion had in her
+own way taken the Jewel from Mr. Trelawny’s pocket-book, finding it of
+some use in her supernatural guardianship of the journey.  Then in some
+mysterious way she had, through Margaret, made the suggestion of its
+loss and finding.
+
+Seventhly, and lastly, was the strange dual existence which Margaret
+seemed of late to be leading; and which in some way seemed a
+consequence or corollary of all that had gone before.
+
+The dual existence!  This was indeed the conclusion which overcame all
+difficulties and reconciled opposites.  If indeed Margaret were not in
+all ways a free agent, but could be compelled to speak or act as she
+might be instructed; or if her whole being could be changed for another
+without the possibility of any one noticing the doing of it, then all
+things were possible.  All would depend on the spirit of the
+individuality by which she could be so compelled.  If this
+individuality were just and kind and clean, all might be well.  But if
+not! ... The thought was too awful for words.  I ground my teeth with
+futile rage, as the ideas of horrible possibilities swept through me.
+
+Up to this morning Margaret’s lapses into her new self had been few and
+hardly noticeable, save when once or twice her attitude towards myself
+had been marked by a bearing strange to me.  But today the contrary was
+the case; and the change presaged badly.  It might be that that other
+individuality was of the lower, not of the better sort!  Now that I
+thought of it I had reason to fear.  In the history of the mummy, from
+the time of Van Huyn’s breaking into the tomb, the record of deaths
+that we knew of, presumably effected by her will and agency, was a
+startling one. The Arab who had stolen the hand from the mummy; and the
+one who had taken it from his body.  The Arab chief who had tried to
+steal the Jewel from Van Huyn, and whose throat bore the marks of seven
+fingers. The two men found dead on the first night of Trelawny’s taking
+away the sarcophagus; and the three on the return to the tomb.  The
+Arab who had opened the secret serdab.  Nine dead men, one of them
+slain manifestly by the Queen’s own hand!  And beyond this again the
+several savage attacks on Mr. Trelawny in his own room, in which, aided
+by her Familiar, she had tried to open the safe and to extract the
+Talisman jewel.  His device of fastening the key to his wrist by a
+steel bangle, though successful in the end, had wellnigh cost him his
+life.
+
+If then the Queen, intent on her resurrection under her own conditions
+had, so to speak, waded to it through blood, what might she not do were
+her purpose thwarted?  What terrible step might she not take to effect
+her wishes?  Nay, what were her wishes; what was her ultimate purpose?
+As yet we had had only Margaret’s statement of them, given in all the
+glorious enthusiasm of her lofty soul.  In her record there was no
+expression of love to be sought or found.  All we knew for certain was
+that she had set before her the object of resurrection, and that in it
+the North which she had manifestly loved was to have a special part.
+But that the resurrection was to be accomplished in the lonely tomb in
+the Valley of the Sorcerer was apparent.  All preparations had been
+carefully made for accomplishment from within, and for her ultimate
+exit in her new and living form. The sarcophagus was unlidded.  The oil
+jars, though hermetically sealed, were to be easily opened by hand; and
+in them provision was made for shrinkage through a vast period of time.
+Even flint and steel were provided for the production of flame.  The
+Mummy Pit was left open in violation of usage; and beside the stone
+door on the cliff side was fixed an imperishable chain by which she
+might in safety descend to earth. But as to what her after intentions
+were we had no clue.  If it was that she meant to begin life again as a
+humble individual, there was something so noble in the thought that it
+even warmed my heart to her and turned my wishes to her success.
+
+The very idea seemed to endorse Margaret’s magnificent tribute to her
+purpose, and helped to calm my troubled spirit.
+
+Then and there, with this feeling strong upon me, I determined to warn
+Margaret and her father of dire possibilities; and to await, as well
+content as I could in my ignorance, the development of things over
+which I had no power.
+
+I returned to the house in a different frame of mind to that in
+which I had left it; and was enchanted to find Margaret—the old
+Margaret—waiting for me.
+
+After dinner, when I was alone for a time with the father and daughter,
+I opened the subject, though with considerable hesitation:
+
+“Would it not be well to take every possible precaution, in case the
+Queen may not wish what we are doing, with regard to what may occur
+before the Experiment; and at or after her waking, if it comes off?”
+Margaret’s answer came back quickly; so quickly that I was convinced
+she must have had it ready for some one:
+
+“But she does approve!  Surely it cannot be otherwise.  Father is
+doing, with all his brains and all his energy and all his great
+courage, just exactly what the great Queen had arranged!”
+
+“But,” I answered, “that can hardly be.  All that she arranged was in a
+tomb high up in a rock, in a desert solitude, shut away from the world
+by every conceivable means. She seems to have depended on this
+isolation to insure against accident.  Surely, here in another country
+and age, with quite different conditions, she may in her anxiety make
+mistakes and treat any of you—of us—as she did those others in times
+gone past. Nine men that we know of have been slain by her own hand or
+by her instigation.  She can be remorseless if she will.”  It did not
+strike me till afterwards when I was thinking over this conversation,
+how thoroughly I had accepted the living and conscious condition of
+Queen Tera as a fact.  Before I spoke, I had feared I might offend Mr.
+Trelawny; but to my pleasant surprise he smiled quite genially as he
+answered me:
+
+“My dear fellow, in a way you are quite right.  The Queen did
+undoubtedly intend isolation; and, all told, it would be best that her
+experiment should be made as she arranged it.  But just think, that
+became impossible when once the Dutch explorer had broken into her
+tomb. That was not my doing.  I am innocent of it, though it was the
+cause of my setting out to rediscover the sepulchre.  Mind, I do not
+say for a moment that I would not have done just the same as Van Huyn.
+I went into the tomb from curiosity; and I took away what I did, being
+fired with the zeal of acquisitiveness which animates the collector.
+But, remember also, that at this time I did not know of the Queen’s
+intention of resurrection; I had no idea of the completeness of her
+preparations. All that came long afterwards.  But when it did come, I
+have done all that I could to carry out her wishes to the full.  My
+only fear is that I may have misinterpreted some of her cryptic
+instructions, or have omitted or overlooked something.  But of this I
+am certain; I have left undone nothing that I can imagine right to be
+done; and I have done nothing that I know of to clash with Queen Tera’s
+arrangement.  I want her Great Experiment to succeed.  To this end I
+have not spared labour or time or money—or myself.  I have endured
+hardship, and braved danger. All my brains; all my knowledge and
+learning, such as they are; all my endeavours such as they can be, have
+been, are, and shall be devoted to this end, till we either win or lose
+the great stake that we play for.”
+
+“The great stake?” I repeated; “the resurrection of the woman, and the
+woman’s life? The proof that resurrection can be accomplished; by
+magical powers; by scientific knowledge; or by use of some force which
+at present the world does not know?”
+
+Then Mr. Trelawny spoke out the hopes of his heart which up to now he
+had indicated rather than expressed.  Once or twice I had heard Corbeck
+speak of the fiery energy of his youth; but, save for the noble words
+of Margaret when she had spoken of Queen Tera’s hope—which coming from
+his daughter made possible a belief that her power was in some sense
+due to heredity—I had seen no marked sign of it.  But now his words,
+sweeping before them like a torrent all antagonistic thought, gave me a
+new idea of the man.
+
+“‘A woman’s life!’  What is a woman’s life in the scale with what we
+hope for!  Why, we are risking already a woman’s life; the dearest life
+to me in all the world, and that grows more dear with every hour that
+passes.  We are risking as well the lives of four men; yours and my
+own, as well as those two others who have been won to our confidence.
+‘The proof that resurrection can be accomplished!’  That is much.  A
+marvellous thing in this age of science, and the scepticism that
+knowledge makes. But life and resurrection are themselves but items in
+what may be won by the accomplishment of this Great Experiment.
+Imagine what it will be for the world of thought—the true world of
+human progress—the veritable road to the Stars, the itur ad astra of
+the Ancients—if there can come back to us out of the unknown past one
+who can yield to us the lore stored in the great Library of Alexandria,
+and lost in its consuming flames.  Not only history can be set right,
+and the teachings of science made veritable from their beginnings; but
+we can be placed on the road to the knowledge of lost arts, lost
+learning, lost sciences, so that our feet may tread on the indicated
+path to their ultimate and complete restoration.  Why, this woman can
+tell us what the world was like before what is called ‘the Flood’; can
+give us the origin of that vast astounding myth; can set the mind back
+to the consideration of things which to us now seem primeval, but which
+were old stories before the days of the Patriarchs.  But this is not
+the end!  No, not even the beginning!  If the story of this woman be
+all that we think—which some of us most firmly believe; if her powers
+and the restoration of them prove to be what we expect, why, then we
+may yet achieve a knowledge beyond what our age has ever known—beyond
+what is believed today possible for the children of men.  If indeed
+this resurrection can be accomplished, how can we doubt the old
+knowledge, the old magic, the old belief! And if this be so, we must
+take it that the ‘Ka’ of this great and learned Queen has won secrets
+of more than mortal worth from her surroundings amongst the stars. This
+woman in her life voluntarily went down living to the grave, and came
+back again, as we learn from the records in her tomb; she chose to die
+her mortal death whilst young, so that at her resurrection in another
+age, beyond a trance of countless magnitude, she might emerge from her
+tomb in all the fulness and splendour of her youth and power.  Already
+we have evidence that though her body slept in patience through those
+many centuries, her intelligence never passed away, that her resolution
+never flagged, that her will remained supreme; and, most important of
+all, that her memory was unimpaired.  Oh, what possibilities are there
+in the coming of such a being into our midst!  One whose history began
+before the concrete teaching of our Bible; whose experiences were
+antecedent to the formulation of the Gods of Greece; who can link
+together the Old and the New, Earth and Heaven, and yield to the known
+worlds of thought and physical existence the mystery of the Unknown—of
+the Old World in its youth, and of Worlds beyond our ken!”
+
+He paused, almost overcome.  Margaret had taken his hand when he spoke
+of her being so dear to him, and held it hard.  As he spoke she
+continued to hold it.  But there came over her face that change which I
+had so often seen of late; that mysterious veiling of her own
+personality which gave me the subtle sense of separation from her.  In
+his impassioned vehemence her father did not notice; but when he
+stopped she seemed all at once to be herself again.  In her glorious
+eyes came the added brightness of unshed tears; and with a gesture of
+passionate love and admiration, she stooped and kissed her father’s
+hand.  Then, turning to me, she too spoke:
+
+“Malcolm, you have spoken of the deaths that came from the poor Queen;
+or rather that justly came from meddling with her arrangements and
+thwarting her purpose. Do you not think that, in putting it as you have
+done, you have been unjust?  Who would not have done just as she did?
+Remember she was fighting for her life!  Ay, and for more than her
+life! For life, and love, and all the glorious possibilities of that
+dim future in the unknown world of the North which had such enchanting
+hopes for her!  Do you not think that she, with all the learning of her
+time, and with all the great and resistless force of her mighty nature,
+had hopes of spreading in a wider way the lofty aspirations of her
+soul! That she hoped to bring to the conquering of unknown worlds, and
+using to the advantage of her people, all that she had won from sleep
+and death and time; all of which might and could have been frustrated
+by the ruthless hand of an assassin or a thief.  Were it you, in such
+case would you not struggle by all means to achieve the object of your
+life and hope; whose possibilities grew and grew in the passing of
+those endless years?  Can you think that that active brain was at rest
+during all those weary centuries, whilst her free soul was flitting
+from world to world amongst the boundless regions of the stars? Had
+these stars in their myriad and varied life no lessons for her; as they
+have had for us since we followed the glorious path which she and her
+people marked for us, when they sent their winged imaginations circling
+amongst the lamps of the night!”
+
+Here she paused.  She too was overcome, and the welling tears ran down
+her cheeks. I was myself more moved than I can say.  This was indeed my
+Margaret; and in the consciousness of her presence my heart leapt.  Out
+of my happiness came boldness, and I dared to say now what I had feared
+would be impossible:  something which would call the attention of Mr.
+Trelawny to what I imagined was the dual existence of his daughter.  As
+I took Margaret’s hand in mine and kissed it, I said to her father:
+
+“Why, sir! she couldn’t speak more eloquently if the very spirit of
+Queen Tera was with her to animate her and suggest thoughts!”
+
+Mr. Trelawny’s answer simply overwhelmed me with surprise.  It
+manifested to me that he too had gone through just such a process of
+thought as my own.
+
+“And what if it was; if it is!  I know well that the spirit of her
+mother is within her.  If in addition there be the spirit of that great
+and wondrous Queen, then she would be no less dear to me, but doubly
+dear!  Do not have fear for her, Malcolm Ross; at least have no more
+fear than you may have for the rest of us!”  Margaret took up the
+theme, speaking so quickly that her words seemed a continuation of her
+father’s, rather than an interruption of them.
+
+“Have no special fear for me, Malcolm.  Queen Tera knows, and will
+offer us no harm. I know it!  I know it, as surely as I am lost in the
+depth of my own love for you!”
+
+There was something in her voice so strange to me that I looked quickly
+into her eyes.  They were bright as ever, but veiled to my seeing the
+inward thought behind them as are the eyes of a caged lion.
+
+Then the two other men came in, and the subject changed.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII
+
+The Lesson of the “Ka”
+
+
+That night we all went to bed early.  The next night would be an
+anxious one, and Mr. Trelawny thought that we should all be fortified
+with what sleep we could get. The day, too, would be full of work.
+Everything in connection with the Great Experiment would have to be
+gone over, so that at the last we might not fail from any unthought-of
+flaw in our working. We made, of course, arrangements for summoning aid
+in case such should be needed; but I do not think that any of us had
+any real apprehension of danger.  Certainly we had no fear of such
+danger from violence as we had had to guard against in London during
+Mr. Trelawny’s long trance.
+
+For my own part I felt a strange sense of relief in the matter.  I had
+accepted Mr. Trelawny’s reasoning that if the Queen were indeed such as
+we surmised—such as indeed we now took for granted—there would not be
+any opposition on her part; for we were carrying out her own wishes to
+the very last.  So far I was at ease—far more at ease than earlier in
+the day I should have thought possible; but there were other sources of
+trouble which I could not blot out from my mind.  Chief amongst them
+was Margaret’s strange condition.  If it was indeed that she had in her
+own person a dual existence, what might happen when the two existences
+became one? Again, and again, and again I turned this matter over in my
+mind, till I could have shrieked out in nervous anxiety.  It was no
+consolation to me to remember that Margaret was herself satisfied, and
+her father acquiescent.  Love is, after all, a selfish thing; and it
+throws a black shadow on anything between which and the light it
+stands. I seemed to hear the hands go round the dial of the clock; I
+saw darkness turn to gloom, and gloom to grey, and grey to light
+without pause or hindrance to the succession of my miserable feelings.
+At last, when it was decently possible without the fear of disturbing
+others, I got up.  I crept along the passage to find if all was well
+with the others; for we had arranged that the door of each of our rooms
+should be left slightly open so that any sound of disturbance would be
+easily and distinctly heard.
+
+One and all slept; I could hear the regular breathing of each, and my
+heart rejoiced that this miserable night of anxiety was safely passed.
+As I knelt in my own room in a burst of thankful prayer, I knew in the
+depths of my own heart the measure of my fear.  I found my way out of
+the house, and went down to the water by the long stairway cut in the
+rock.  A swim in the cool bright sea braced my nerves and made me my
+old self again.
+
+As I came back to the top of the steps I could see the bright sunlight,
+rising from behind me, turning the rocks across the bay to glittering
+gold.  And yet I felt somehow disturbed.  It was all too bright; as it
+sometimes is before the coming of a storm.  As I paused to watch it, I
+felt a soft hand on my shoulder; and, turning, found Margaret close to
+me; Margaret as bright and radiant as the morning glory of the sun! It
+was my own Margaret this time!  My old Margaret, without alloy of any
+other; and I felt that, at least, this last and fatal day was well
+begun.
+
+But alas! the joy did not last.  When we got back to the house from a
+stroll around the cliffs, the same old routine of yesterday was
+resumed: gloom and anxiety, hope, high spirits, deep depression, and
+apathetic aloofness.
+
+But it was to be a day of work; and we all braced ourselves to it with
+an energy which wrought its own salvation.
+
+After breakfast we all adjourned to the cave, where Mr. Trelawny went
+over, point by point, the position of each item of our paraphernalia.
+He explained as he went on why each piece was so placed.  He had with
+him the great rolls of paper with the measured plans and the signs and
+drawings which he had had made from his own and Corbeck’s rough notes.
+As he had told us, these contained the whole of the hieroglyphics on
+walls and ceilings and floor of the tomb in the Valley of the Sorcerer.
+Even had not the measurements, made to scale, recorded the position of
+each piece of furniture, we could have eventually placed them by a
+study of the cryptic writings and symbols.
+
+Mr. Trelawny explained to us certain other things, not laid down on the
+chart.  Such as, for instance, that the hollowed part of the table was
+exactly fitted to the bottom of the Magic Coffer, which was therefore
+intended to be placed on it.  The respective legs of this table were
+indicated by differently shaped uraei outlined on the floor, the head
+of each being extended in the direction of the similar uraeus twined
+round the leg. Also that the mummy, when laid on the raised portion in
+the bottom of the sarcophagus, seemingly made to fit the form, would
+lie head to the West and feet to the East, thus receiving the natural
+earth currents.  “If this be intended,” he said, “as I presume it is, I
+gather that the force to be used has something to do with magnetism or
+electricity, or both.  It may be, of course, that some other force,
+such, for instance, as that emanating from radium, is to be employed.
+I have experimented with the latter, but only in such small quantity as
+I could obtain; but so far as I can ascertain the stone of the Coffer
+is absolutely impervious to its influence.  There must be some such
+unsusceptible substances in nature.  Radium does not seemingly manifest
+itself when distributed through pitchblende; and there are doubtless
+other such substances in which it can be imprisoned.  Possibly these
+may belong to that class of “inert” elements discovered or isolated by
+Sir William Ramsay.  It is therefore possible that in this Coffer, made
+from an aerolite and therefore perhaps containing some element unknown
+in our world, may be imprisoned some mighty power which is to be
+released on its opening.”
+
+This appeared to be an end of this branch of the subject; but as he
+still kept the fixed look of one who is engaged in a theme we all
+waited in silence.  After a pause he went on:
+
+“There is one thing which has up to now, I confess, puzzled me.  It may
+not be of prime importance; but in a matter like this, where all is
+unknown, we must take it that everything is important.  I cannot think
+that in a matter worked out with such extraordinary scrupulosity such a
+thing should be overlooked.  As you may see by the ground-plan of the
+tomb the sarcophagus stands near the north wall, with the Magic Coffer
+to the south of it.  The space covered by the former is left quite bare
+of symbol or ornamentation of any kind.  At the first glance this would
+seem to imply that the drawings had been made after the sarcophagus had
+been put into its place.  But a more minute examination will show that
+the symbolisation on the floor is so arranged that a definite effect is
+produced.  See, here the writings run in correct order as though they
+had jumped across the gap.  It is only from certain effects that it
+becomes clear that there is a meaning of some kind.  What that meaning
+may be is what we want to know.  Look at the top and bottom of the
+vacant space, which lies West and East corresponding to the head and
+foot of the sarcophagus.  In both are duplications of the same
+symbolisation, but so arranged that the parts of each one of them are
+integral portions of some other writing running crosswise.  It is only
+when we get a coup d’oeil from either the head or the foot that you
+recognise that there are symbolisations.  See! they are in triplicate
+at the corners and the centre of both top and bottom.  In every case
+there is a sun cut in half by the line of the sarcophagus, as by the
+horizon. Close behind each of these and faced away from it, as though
+in some way dependent on it, is the vase which in hieroglyphic writing
+symbolises the heart—‘Ab’ the Egyptians called it.  Beyond each of
+these again is the figure of a pair of widespread arms turned upwards
+from the elbow; this is the determinative of the ‘Ka’ or ‘Double’.  But
+its relative position is different at top and bottom.  At the head of
+the sarcophagus the top of the ‘Ka’ is turned towards the mouth of the
+vase, but at the foot the extended arms point away from it.
+
+“The symbolisation seems to mean that during the passing of the Sun
+from West to East—from sunset to sunrise, or through the Under World,
+otherwise night—the Heart, which is material even in the tomb and
+cannot leave it, simply revolves, so that it can always rest on ‘Ra’
+the Sun-God, the origin of all good; but that the Double, which
+represents the active principle, goes whither it will, the same by
+night as by day. If this be correct it is a warning—a caution—a
+reminder that the consciousness of the mummy does not rest but is to be
+reckoned with.
+
+“Or it may be intended to convey that after the particular night of the
+resurrection, the ‘Ka’ would leave the heart altogether, thus typifying
+that in her resurrection the Queen would be restored to a lower and
+purely physical existence.  In such case what would become of her
+memory and the experiences of her wide-wandering soul?  The chiefest
+value of her resurrection would be lost to the world!  This, however,
+does not alarm me.  It is only guess-work after all, and is
+contradictory to the intellectual belief of the Egyptian theology, that
+the ‘Ka’ is an essential portion of humanity.”  He paused and we all
+waited.  The silence was broken by Doctor Winchester:
+
+“But would not all this imply that the Queen feared intrusion of her
+tomb?”  Mr. Trelawny smiled as he answered:
+
+“My dear sir, she was prepared for it.  The grave-robber is no modern
+application of endeavour; he was probably known in the Queen’s own
+dynasty.  Not only was she prepared for intrusion, but, as shown in
+several ways, she expected it.  The hiding of the lamps in the serdab,
+and the institution of the avenging ‘treasurer’ shows that there was
+defence, positive as well as negative.  Indeed, from the many
+indications afforded in the clues laid out with the most consummated
+thought, we may almost gather that she entertained it as a possibility
+that others—like ourselves, for instance—might in all seriousness
+undertake the work which she had made ready for her own hands when the
+time should have come.  This very matter that I have been speaking of
+is an instance.  The clue is intended for seeing eyes!”
+
+Again we were silent.  It was Margaret who spoke:
+
+“Father, may I have that chart?  I should like to study it during the
+day!”
+
+“Certainly, my dear!” answered Mr. Trelawny heartily, as he handed it
+to her.  He resumed his instructions in a different tone, a more
+matter-of-fact one suitable to a practical theme which had no mystery
+about it:
+
+“I think you had better all understand the working of the electric
+light in case any sudden contingency should arise.  I dare say you have
+noticed that we have a complete supply in every part of the house, so
+that there need not be a dark corner anywhere.  This I had specially
+arranged.  It is worked by a set of turbines moved by the flowing and
+ebbing tide, after the manner of the turbines at Niagara.  I hope by
+this means to nullify accident and to have without fail a full supply
+ready at any time. Come with me and I will explain the system of
+circuits, and point out to you the taps and the fuses.”  I could not
+but notice, as we went with him all over the house, how absolutely
+complete the system was, and how he had guarded himself against any
+disaster that human thought could foresee.
+
+But out of the very completeness came a fear!  In such an enterprise as
+ours the bounds of human thought were but narrow.  Beyond it lay the
+vast of Divine wisdom, and Divine power!
+
+When we came back to the cave, Mr. Trelawny took up another theme:
+
+“We have now to settle definitely the exact hour at which the Great
+Experiment is to be made.  So far as science and mechanism go, if the
+preparations are complete, all hours are the same.  But as we have to
+deal with preparations made by a woman of extraordinarily subtle mind,
+and who had full belief in magic and had a cryptic meaning in
+everything, we should place ourselves in her position before deciding.
+It is now manifest that the sunset has an important place in the
+arrangements.  As those suns, cut so mathematically by the edge of the
+sarcophagus, were arranged of full design, we must take our cue from
+this.  Again, we find all along that the number seven has had an
+important bearing on every phase of the Queen’s thought and reasoning
+and action.  The logical result is that the seventh hour after sunset
+was the time fixed on.  This is borne out by the fact that on each of
+the occasions when action was taken in my house, this was the time
+chosen.  As the sun sets tonight in Cornwall at eight, our hour is to
+be three in the morning!”  He spoke in a matter-of-fact way, though
+with great gravity; but there was nothing of mystery in his word or
+manner.  Still, we were all impressed to a remarkable degree.  I could
+see this in the other men by the pallor that came on some of their
+faces, and by the stillness and unquestioning silence with which the
+decision was received.  The only one who remained in any way at ease
+was Margaret, who had lapsed into one of her moods of abstraction, but
+who seemed to wake up to a note of gladness.  Her father, who was
+watching her intently, smiled; her mood was to him a direct
+confirmation of his theory.
+
+For myself I was almost overcome.  The definite fixing of the hour
+seemed like the voice of Doom.  When I think of it now, I can realise
+how a condemned man feels at his sentence, or at the sounding of the
+last hour he is to hear.
+
+There could be no going back now!  We were in the hands of God!
+
+The hands of God...!  And yet...!  What other forces were arrayed? ...
+What would become of us all, poor atoms of earthly dust whirled in the
+wind which cometh whence and goeth whither no man may know.  It was not
+for myself.... Margaret...!
+
+I was recalled by Mr. Trelawny’s firm voice:
+
+“Now we shall see to the lamps and finish our preparations.”
+Accordingly we set to work, and under his supervision made ready the
+Egyptian lamps, seeing that they were well filled with the cedar oil,
+and that the wicks were adjusted and in good order.  We lighted and
+tested them one by one, and left them ready so that they would light at
+once and evenly.  When this was done we had a general look round; and
+fixed all in readiness for our work at night.
+
+All this had taken time, and we were I think all surprised when as we
+emerged from the cave we heard the great clock in the hall chime four.
+
+We had a late lunch, a thing possible without trouble in the present
+state of our commissariat arrangements.  After it, by Mr. Trelawny’s
+advice, we separated; each to prepare in our own way for the strain of
+the coming night.  Margaret looked pale and somewhat overwrought, so I
+advised her to lie down and try to sleep.  She promised that she would.
+The abstraction which had been upon her fitfully all day lifted for the
+time; with all her old sweetness and loving delicacy she kissed me
+good-bye for the present!  With the sense of happiness which this gave
+me I went out for a walk on the cliffs.  I did not want to think; and I
+had an instinctive feeling that fresh air and God’s sunlight, and the
+myriad beauties of the works of His hand would be the best preparation
+of fortitude for what was to come.
+
+When I got back, all the party were assembling for a late tea.  Coming
+fresh from the exhilaration of nature, it struck me as almost comic
+that we, who were nearing the end of so strange—almost monstrous—an
+undertaking, should be yet bound by the needs and habits of our lives.
+
+All the men of the party were grave; the time of seclusion, even if it
+had given them rest, had also given opportunity for thought.  Margaret
+was bright, almost buoyant; but I missed about her something of her
+usual spontaneity.  Towards myself there was a shadowy air of reserve,
+which brought back something of my suspicion.  When tea was over, she
+went out of the room; but returned in a minute with the roll of drawing
+which she had taken with her earlier in the day.  Coming close to Mr.
+Trelawny, she said:
+
+“Father, I have been carefully considering what you said today about
+the hidden meaning of those suns and hearts and ‘Ka’s’, and I have been
+examining the drawings again.”
+
+“And with what result, my child?” asked Mr. Trelawny eagerly.
+
+“There is another reading possible!”
+
+“And that?”  His voice was now tremulous with anxiety.  Margaret spoke
+with a strange ring in her voice; a ring that cannot be, unless there
+is the consciousness of truth behind it:
+
+“It means that at the sunset the ‘Ka’ is to enter the ‘Ab’; and it is
+only at the sunrise that it will leave it!”
+
+“Go on!” said her father hoarsely.
+
+“It means that for this night the Queen’s Double, which is otherwise
+free, will remain in her heart, which is mortal and cannot leave its
+prison-place in the mummy-shrouding.  It means that when the sun has
+dropped into the sea, Queen Tera will cease to exist as a conscious
+power, till sunrise; unless the Great Experiment can recall her to
+waking life.  It means that there will be nothing whatever for you or
+others to fear from her in such way as we have all cause to remember.
+Whatever change may come from the working of the Great Experiment,
+there can come none from the poor, helpless, dead woman who has waited
+all those centuries for this night; who has given up to the coming hour
+all the freedom of eternity, won in the old way, in hope of a new life
+in a new world such as she longed for...!”  She stopped suddenly.  As
+she had gone on speaking there had come with her words a strange
+pathetic, almost pleading, tone which touched me to the quick.  As she
+stopped, I could see, before she turned away her head, that her eyes
+were full of tears.
+
+For once the heart of her father did not respond to her feeling.  He
+looked exultant, but with a grim masterfulness which reminded me of the
+set look of his stern face as he had lain in the trance.  He did not
+offer any consolation to his daughter in her sympathetic pain.  He only
+said:
+
+“We may test the accuracy of your surmise, and of her feeling, when the
+time comes!” Having said so, he went up the stone stairway and into his
+own room.  Margaret’s face had a troubled look as she gazed after him.
+
+Strangely enough her trouble did not as usual touch me to the quick.
+
+When Mr. Trelawny had gone, silence reigned.  I do not think that any
+of us wanted to talk.  Presently Margaret went to her room, and I went
+out on the terrace over the sea.  The fresh air and the beauty of all
+before helped to restore the good spirits which I had known earlier in
+the day. Presently I felt myself actually rejoicing in the belief that
+the danger which I had feared from the Queen’s violence on the coming
+night was obviated.  I believed in Margaret’s belief so thoroughly that
+it did not occur to me to dispute her reasoning.  In a lofty frame of
+mind, and with less anxiety than I had felt for days, I went to my room
+and lay down on the sofa.
+
+I was awaked by Corbeck calling to me, hurriedly:
+
+“Come down to the cave as quickly as you can.  Mr. Trelawny wants to
+see us all there at once.  Hurry!”
+
+I jumped up and ran down to the cave.  All were there except Margaret,
+who came immediately after me carrying Silvio in her arms.  When the
+cat saw his old enemy he struggled to get down; but Margaret held him
+fast and soothed him.  I looked at my watch.  It was close to eight.
+
+When Margaret was with us her father said directly, with a quiet
+insistence which was new to me:
+
+“You believe, Margaret, that Queen Tera has voluntarily undertaken to
+give up her freedom for this night?  To become a mummy and nothing
+more, till the Experiment has been completed?  To be content that she
+shall be powerless under all and any circumstances until after all is
+over and the act of resurrection has been accomplished, or the effort
+has failed?”  After a pause Margaret answered in a low voice:
+
+“Yes!”
+
+In the pause her whole being, appearance, expression, voice, manner had
+changed. Even Silvio noticed it, and with a violent effort wriggled
+away from her arms; she did not seem to notice the act.  I expected
+that the cat, when he had achieved his freedom, would have attacked the
+mummy; but on this occasion he did not.  He seemed too cowed to
+approach it. He shrunk away, and with a piteous “miaou” came over and
+rubbed himself against my ankles.  I took him up in my arms, and he
+nestled there content.  Mr. Trelawny spoke again:
+
+“You are sure of what you say!  You believe it with all your soul?”
+Margaret’s face had lost the abstracted look; it now seemed illuminated
+with the devotion of one to whom is given to speak of great things.
+She answered in a voice which, though quiet, vibrated with conviction:
+
+“I know it!  My knowledge is beyond belief!”  Mr. Trelawny spoke again:
+
+“Then you are so sure, that were you Queen Tera herself, you would be
+willing to prove it in any way that I might suggest?”
+
+“Yes, any way!” the answer rang out fearlessly.  He spoke again, in a
+voice in which was no note of doubt:
+
+“Even in the abandonment of your Familiar to death—to annihilation.”
+
+She paused, and I could see that she suffered—suffered horribly.
+There was in her eyes a hunted look, which no man can, unmoved, see in
+the eyes of his beloved.  I was about to interrupt, when her father’s
+eyes, glancing round with a fierce determination, met mine.  I stood
+silent, almost spellbound; so also the other men. Something was going
+on before us which we did not understand!
+
+With a few long strides Mr. Trelawny went to the west side of the cave
+and tore back the shutter which obscured the window.  The cool air blew
+in, and the sunlight streamed over them both, for Margaret was now by
+his side.  He pointed to where the sun was sinking into the sea in a
+halo of golden fire, and his face was as set as flint.  In a voice
+whose absolute uncompromising hardness I shall hear in my ears at times
+till my dying day, he said:
+
+“Choose!  Speak!  When the sun has dipped below the sea, it will be too
+late!”  The glory of the dying sun seemed to light up Margaret’s face,
+till it shone as if lit from within by a noble light, as she answered:
+
+“Even that!”
+
+Then stepping over to where the mummy cat stood on the little table,
+she placed her hand on it.  She had now left the sunlight, and the
+shadows looked dark and deep over her.  In a clear voice she said:
+
+“Were I Tera, I would say ‘Take all I have!  This night is for the Gods
+alone!’”
+
+As she spoke the sun dipped, and the cold shadow suddenly fell on us.
+We all stood still for a while.  Silvio jumped from my arms and ran
+over to his mistress, rearing himself up against her dress as if asking
+to be lifted.  He took no notice whatever of the mummy now.
+
+Margaret was glorious with all her wonted sweetness as she said sadly:
+
+“The sun is down, Father!  Shall any of us see it again?  The night of
+nights is come!”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX
+
+The Great Experiment
+
+
+If any evidence had been wanted of how absolutely one and all of us had
+come to believe in the spiritual existence of the Egyptian Queen, it
+would have been found in the change which in a few minutes had been
+effected in us by the statement of voluntary negation made, we all
+believed, through Margaret.  Despite the coming of the fearful ordeal,
+the sense of which it was impossible to forget, we looked and acted as
+though a great relief had come to us.  We had indeed lived in such a
+state of terrorism during the days when Mr. Trelawny was lying in a
+trance that the feeling had bitten deeply into us.  No one knows till
+he has experienced it, what it is to be in constant dread of some
+unknown danger which may come at any time and in any form.
+
+The change was manifested in different ways, according to each nature.
+Margaret was sad.  Doctor Winchester was in high spirits, and keenly
+observant; the process of thought which had served as an antidote to
+fear, being now relieved from this duty, added to his intellectual
+enthusiasm.  Mr. Corbeck seemed to be in a retrospective rather than a
+speculative mood.  I was myself rather inclined to be gay; the relief
+from certain anxiety regarding Margaret was sufficient for me for the
+time.
+
+As to Mr. Trelawny he seemed less changed than any.  Perhaps this was
+only natural, as he had had in his mind the intention for so many years
+of doing that in which we were tonight engaged, that any event
+connected with it could only seem to him as an episode, a step to the
+end.  His was that commanding nature which looks so to the end of an
+undertaking that all else is of secondary importance.  Even now, though
+his terrible sternness relaxed under the relief from the strain, he
+never flagged nor faltered for a moment in his purpose.  He asked us
+men to come with him; and going to the hall we presently managed to
+lower into the cave an oak table, fairly long and not too wide, which
+stood against the wall in the hall.  This we placed under the strong
+cluster of electric lights in the middle of the cave.  Margaret looked
+on for a while; then all at once her face blanched, and in an agitated
+voice she said:
+
+“What are you going to do, Father?”
+
+“To unroll the mummy of the cat!  Queen Tera will not need her Familiar
+tonight.  If she should want him, it might be dangerous to us; so we
+shall make him safe.  You are not alarmed, dear?”
+
+“Oh no!” she answered quickly.  “But I was thinking of my Silvio, and
+how I should feel if he had been the mummy that was to be unswathed!”
+
+Mr. Trelawny got knives and scissors ready, and placed the cat on the
+table.  It was a grim beginning to our work; and it made my heart sink
+when I thought of what might happen in that lonely house in the
+mid-gloom of the night.  The sense of loneliness and isolation from the
+world was increased by the moaning of the wind which had now risen
+ominously, and by the beating of waves on the rocks below.  But we had
+too grave a task before us to be swayed by external manifestations:
+the unrolling of the mummy began.
+
+There was an incredible number of bandages; and the tearing sound—they
+being stuck fast to each other by bitumen and gums and spices—and the
+little cloud of red pungent dust that arose, pressed on the senses of
+all of us.  As the last wrappings came away, we saw the animal seated
+before us.  He was all hunkered up; his hair and teeth and claws were
+complete.  The eyes were closed, but the eyelids had not the fierce
+look which I expected.  The whiskers had been pressed down on the side
+of the face by the bandaging; but when the pressure was taken away they
+stood out, just as they would have done in life.  He was a magnificent
+creature, a tiger-cat of great size.  But as we looked at him, our
+first glance of admiration changed to one of fear, and a shudder ran
+through each one of us; for here was a confirmation of the fears which
+we had endured.
+
+His mouth and his claws were smeared with the dry, red stains of recent
+blood!
+
+Doctor Winchester was the first to recover; blood in itself had small
+disturbing quality for him.  He had taken out his magnifying-glass and
+was examining the stains on the cat’s mouth.  Mr. Trelawny breathed
+loudly, as though a strain had been taken from him.
+
+“It is as I expected,” he said.  “This promises well for what is to
+follow.”
+
+By this time Doctor Winchester was looking at the red stained paws.
+“As I expected!” he said.  “He has seven claws, too!”  Opening his
+pocket-book, he took out the piece of blotting-paper marked by Silvio’s
+claws, on which was also marked in pencil a diagram of the cuts made on
+Mr. Trelawny’s wrist.  He placed the paper under the mummy cat’s paw.
+The marks fitted exactly.
+
+When we had carefully examined the cat, finding, however, nothing
+strange about it but its wonderful preservation, Mr. Trelawny lifted it
+from the table.  Margaret started forward, crying out:
+
+“Take care, Father!  Take care!  He may injure you!”
+
+“Not now, my dear!” he answered as he moved towards the stairway.  Her
+face fell. “Where are you going?” she asked in a faint voice.
+
+“To the kitchen,” he answered.  “Fire will take away all danger for the
+future; even an astral body cannot materialise from ashes!”  He signed
+to us to follow him.  Margaret turned away with a sob.  I went to her;
+but she motioned me back and whispered:
+
+“No, no!  Go with the others.  Father may want you.  Oh! it seems like
+murder!  The poor Queen’s pet...!”  The tears were dropping from under
+the fingers that covered her eyes.
+
+In the kitchen was a fire of wood ready laid.  To this Mr. Trelawny
+applied a match; in a few seconds the kindling had caught and the
+flames leaped.  When the fire was solidly ablaze, he threw the body of
+the cat into it.  For a few seconds it lay a dark mass amidst the
+flames, and the room was rank with the smell of burning hair.  Then the
+dry body caught fire too.  The inflammable substances used in embalming
+became new fuel, and the flames roared.  A few minutes of fierce
+conflagration; and then we breathed freely.  Queen Tera’s Familiar was
+no more!
+
+When we went back to the cave we found Margaret sitting in the dark.
+She had switched off the electric light, and only a faint glow of the
+evening light came through the narrow openings.  Her father went
+quickly over to her and put his arms round her in a loving protective
+way.  She laid her head on his shoulder for a minute and seemed
+comforted. Presently she called to me:
+
+“Malcolm, turn up the light!”  I carried out her orders, and could see
+that, though she had been crying, her eyes were now dry.  Her father
+saw it too and looked glad.  He said to us in a grave tone:
+
+“Now we had better prepare for our great work.  It will not do to leave
+anything to the last!”  Margaret must have had a suspicion of what was
+coming, for it was with a sinking voice that she asked:
+
+“What are you going to do now?”  Mr. Trelawny too must have had a
+suspicion of her feelings, for he answered in a low tone:
+
+“To unroll the mummy of Queen Tera!”  She came close to him and said
+pleadingly in a whisper:
+
+“Father, you are not going to unswathe her!  All you men...!  And in
+the glare of light!”
+
+“But why not, my dear?”
+
+“Just think, Father, a woman!  All alone!  In such a way!  In such a
+place!  Oh! it’s cruel, cruel!”  She was manifestly much overcome.  Her
+cheeks were flaming red, and her eyes were full of indignant tears.
+Her father saw her distress; and, sympathising with it, began to
+comfort her.  I was moving off; but he signed to me to stay.  I took it
+that after the usual manner of men he wanted help on such an occasion,
+and man-like wished to throw on someone else the task of dealing with a
+woman in indignant distress.  However, he began to appeal first to her
+reason:
+
+“Not a woman, dear; a mummy!  She has been dead nearly five thousand
+years!”
+
+“What does that matter?  Sex is not a matter of years!  A woman is a
+woman, if she had been dead five thousand centuries!  And you expect
+her to arise out of that long sleep!  It could not be real death, if
+she is to rise out of it!  You have led me to believe that she will
+come alive when the Coffer is opened!”
+
+“I did, my dear; and I believe it!  But if it isn’t death that has been
+the matter with her all these years, it is something uncommonly like
+it. Then again, just think; it was men who embalmed her.  They didn’t
+have women’s rights or lady doctors in ancient Egypt, my dear!  And
+besides,” he went on more freely, seeing that she was accepting his
+argument, if not yielding to it, “we men are accustomed to such things.
+Corbeck and I have unrolled a hundred mummies; and there were as many
+women as men amongst them.  Doctor Winchester in his work has had to
+deal with women as well of men, till custom has made him think nothing
+of sex.  Even Ross has in his work as a barrister...”  He stopped
+suddenly.
+
+“You were going to help too!” she said to me, with an indignant look.
+
+I said nothing; I thought silence was best.  Mr. Trelawny went on
+hurriedly; I could see that he was glad of interruption, for the part
+of his argument concerning a barrister’s work was becoming decidedly
+weak:
+
+“My child, you will be with us yourself.  Would we do anything which
+would hurt or offend you?  Come now! be reasonable!  We are not at a
+pleasure party.  We are all grave men, entering gravely on an
+experiment which may unfold the wisdom of old times, and enlarge human
+knowledge indefinitely; which may put the minds of men on new tracks of
+thought and research.  An experiment,” as he went on his voice
+deepened, “which may be fraught with death to any one of us—to us all!
+We know from what has been, that there are, or may be, vast and unknown
+dangers ahead of us, of which none in the house today may ever see the
+end.  Take it, my child, that we are not acting lightly; but with all
+the gravity of deeply earnest men!  Besides, my dear, whatever feelings
+you or any of us may have on the subject, it is necessary for the
+success of the experiment to unswathe her.  I think that under any
+circumstances it would be necessary to remove the wrappings before she
+became again a live human being instead of a spiritualised corpse with
+an astral body. Were her original intention carried out, and did she
+come to new life within her mummy wrappings, it might be to exchange a
+coffin for a grave!  She would die the death of the buried alive!  But
+now, when she has voluntarily abandoned for the time her astral power,
+there can be no doubt on the subject.”
+
+Margaret’s face cleared.  “All right, Father!” she said as she kissed
+him.  “But oh! it seems a horrible indignity to a Queen, and a woman.”
+
+I was moving away to the staircase when she called me:
+
+“Where are you going?”  I came back and took her hand and stroked it as
+I answered:
+
+“I shall come back when the unrolling is over!”  She looked at me long,
+and a faint suggestion of a smile came over her face as she said:
+
+“Perhaps you had better stay, too!  It may be useful to you in your
+work as a barrister!”  She smiled out as she met my eyes:  but in an
+instant she changed.  Her face grew grave, and deadly white.  In a far
+away voice she said:
+
+“Father is right!  It is a terrible occasion; we need all to be serious
+over it.  But all the same—nay, for that very reason you had better
+stay, Malcolm!  You may be glad, later on, that you were present
+tonight!”
+
+My heart sank down, down, at her words; but I thought it better to say
+nothing.  Fear was stalking openly enough amongst us already!
+
+By this time Mr. Trelawny, assisted by Mr. Corbeck and Doctor
+Winchester, had raised the lid of the ironstone sarcophagus which
+contained the mummy of the Queen.  It was a large one; but it was none
+too big.  The mummy was both long and broad and high; and was of such
+weight that it was no easy task, even for the four of us, to lift it
+out.  Under Mr. Trelawny’s direction we laid it out on the table
+prepared for it.
+
+Then, and then only, did the full horror of the whole thing burst upon
+me!  There, in the full glare of the light, the whole material and
+sordid side of death seemed staringly real.  The outer wrappings, torn
+and loosened by rude touch, and with the colour either darkened by dust
+or worn light by friction, seemed creased as by rough treatment; the
+jagged edges of the wrapping-cloths looked fringed; the painting was
+patchy, and the varnish chipped.  The coverings were evidently many,
+for the bulk was great.  But through all, showed that unhidable human
+figure, which seems to look more horrible when partially concealed than
+at any other time.  What was before us was Death, and nothing else.
+All the romance and sentiment of fancy had disappeared.  The two elder
+men, enthusiasts who had often done such work, were not disconcerted;
+and Doctor Winchester seemed to hold himself in a business-like
+attitude, as if before the operating-table.  But I felt low-spirited,
+and miserable, and ashamed; and besides I was pained and alarmed by
+Margaret’s ghastly pallor.
+
+Then the work began.  The unrolling of the mummy cat had prepared me
+somewhat for it; but this was so much larger, and so infinitely more
+elaborate, that it seemed a different thing.  Moreover, in addition to
+the ever present sense of death and humanity, there was a feeling of
+something finer in all this.  The cat had been embalmed with coarser
+materials; here, all, when once the outer coverings were removed, was
+more delicately done.  It seemed as if only the finest gums and spices
+had been used in this embalming.  But there were the same surroundings,
+the same attendant red dust and pungent presence of bitumen; there was
+the same sound of rending which marked the tearing away of the
+bandages. There were an enormous number of these, and their bulk when
+opened was great.  As the men unrolled them, I grew more and more
+excited.  I did not take a part in it myself; Margaret had looked at me
+gratefully as I drew back.  We clasped hands, and held each other hard.
+As the unrolling went on, the wrappings became finer, and the smell
+less laden with bitumen, but more pungent.  We all, I think, began to
+feel it as though it caught or touched us in some special way.  This,
+however, did not interfere with the work; it went on uninterruptedly.
+Some of the inner wrappings bore symbols or pictures. These were done
+sometimes wholly in pale green colour, sometimes in many colours; but
+always with a prevalence of green.  Now and again Mr. Trelawny or Mr.
+Corbeck would point out some special drawing before laying the bandage
+on the pile behind them, which kept growing to a monstrous height.
+
+At last we knew that the wrappings were coming to an end.  Already the
+proportions were reduced to those of a normal figure of the manifest
+height of the Queen, who was more than average height.  And as the end
+drew nearer, so Margaret’s pallor grew; and her heart beat more and
+more wildly, till her breast heaved in a way that frightened me.
+
+Just as her father was taking away the last of the bandages, he
+happened to look up and caught the pained and anxious look of her pale
+face.  He paused, and taking her concern to be as to the outrage on
+modesty, said in a comforting way:
+
+“Do not be uneasy, dear!  See! there is nothing to harm you.  The Queen
+has on a robe.—Ay, and a royal robe, too!”
+
+The wrapping was a wide piece the whole length of the body.  It being
+removed, a profusely full robe of white linen had appeared, covering
+the body from the throat to the feet.
+
+And such linen!  We all bent over to look at it.
+
+Margaret lost her concern, in her woman’s interest in fine stuff.  Then
+the rest of us looked with admiration; for surely such linen was never
+seen by the eyes of our age. It was as fine as the finest silk.  But
+never was spun or woven silk which lay in such gracious folds,
+constrict though they were by the close wrappings of the mummy cloth,
+and fixed into hardness by the passing of thousands of years.
+
+Round the neck it was delicately embroidered in pure gold with tiny
+sprays of sycamore; and round the feet, similarly worked, was an
+endless line of lotus plants of unequal height, and with all the
+graceful abandon of natural growth.
+
+Across the body, but manifestly not surrounding it, was a girdle of
+jewels.  A wondrous girdle, which shone and glowed with all the forms
+and phases and colours of the sky!
+
+The buckle was a great yellow stone, round of outline, deep and curved,
+as if a yielding globe had been pressed down.  It shone and glowed, as
+though a veritable sun lay within; the rays of its light seemed to
+strike out and illumine all round. Flanking it were two great
+moonstones of lesser size, whose glowing, beside the glory of the
+sunstone, was like the silvery sheen of moonlight.
+
+And then on either side, linked by golden clasps of exquisite shape,
+was a line of flaming jewels, of which the colours seemed to glow.
+Each of these stones seemed to hold a living star, which twinkled in
+every phase of changing light.
+
+Margaret raised her hands in ecstasy.  She bent over to examine more
+closely; but suddenly drew back and stood fully erect at her grand
+height.  She seemed to speak with the conviction of absolute knowledge
+as she said:
+
+“That is no cerement!  It was not meant for the clothing of death!  It
+is a marriage robe!”
+
+Mr. Trelawny leaned over and touched the linen robe.  He lifted a fold
+at the neck, and I knew from the quick intake of his breath that
+something had surprised him. He lifted yet a little more; and then he,
+too, stood back and pointed, saying:
+
+“Margaret is right!  That dress is not intended to be worn by the dead!
+See! her figure is not robed in it.  It is but laid upon her.”  He
+lifted the zone of jewels and handed it to Margaret.  Then with both
+hands he raised the ample robe, and laid it across the arms which she
+extended in a natural impulse.  Things of such beauty were too precious
+to be handled with any but the greatest care.
+
+We all stood awed at the beauty of the figure which, save for the face
+cloth, now lay completely nude before us.  Mr. Trelawny bent over, and
+with hands that trembled slightly, raised this linen cloth which was of
+the same fineness as the robe.  As he stood back and the whole glorious
+beauty of the Queen was revealed, I felt a rush of shame sweep over me.
+It was not right that we should be there, gazing with irreverent eyes
+on such unclad beauty:  it was indecent; it was almost sacrilegious!
+And yet the white wonder of that beautiful form was something to dream
+of. It was not like death at all; it was like a statue carven in ivory
+by the hand of a Praxiteles. There was nothing of that horrible
+shrinkage which death seems to effect in a moment.  There was none of
+the wrinkled toughness which seems to be a leading characteristic of
+most mummies. There was not the shrunken attenuation of a body dried in
+the sand, as I had seen before in museums.  All the pores of the body
+seemed to have been preserved in some wonderful way.  The flesh was
+full and round, as in a living person; and the skin was as smooth as
+satin.  The colour seemed extraordinary.  It was like ivory, new ivory;
+except where the right arm, with shattered, blood-stained wrist and
+missing hand had lain bare to exposure in the sarcophagus for so many
+tens of centuries.
+
+With a womanly impulse; with a mouth that drooped with pity, with eyes
+that flashed with anger, and cheeks that flamed, Margaret threw over
+the body the beautiful robe which lay across her arm.  Only the face
+was then to be seen.  This was more startling even than the body, for
+it seemed not dead, but alive.  The eyelids were closed; but the long,
+black, curling lashes lay over on the cheeks.  The nostrils, set in
+grave pride, seemed to have the repose which, when it is seen in life,
+is greater than the repose of death.  The full, red lips, though the
+mouth was not open, showed the tiniest white line of pearly teeth
+within.  Her hair, glorious in quantity and glossy black as the raven’s
+wing, was piled in great masses over the white forehead, on which a few
+curling tresses strayed like tendrils.  I was amazed at the likeness to
+Margaret, though I had had my mind prepared for this by Mr. Corbeck’s
+quotation of her father’s statement.  This woman—I could not think of
+her as a mummy or a corpse—was the image of Margaret as my eyes had
+first lit on her.  The likeness was increased by the jewelled ornament
+which she wore in her hair, the “Disk and Plumes”, such as Margaret,
+too, had worn.  It, too, was a glorious jewel; one noble pearl of
+moonlight lustre, flanked by carven pieces of moonstone.
+
+Mr. Trelawny was overcome as he looked.  He quite broke down; and when
+Margaret flew to him and held him close in her arms and comforted him,
+I heard him murmur brokenly:
+
+“It looks as if you were dead, my child!”
+
+There was a long silence.  I could hear without the roar of the wind,
+which was now risen to a tempest, and the furious dashing of the waves
+far below.  Mr. Trelawny’s voice broke the spell:
+
+“Later on we must try and find out the process of embalming.  It is not
+like any that I know.  There does not seem to have been any opening cut
+for the withdrawing of the viscera and organs, which apparently remain
+intact within the body.  Then, again, there is no moisture in the
+flesh; but its place is supplied with something else, as though wax or
+stearine had been conveyed into the veins by some subtle process.  I
+wonder could it be possible that at that time they could have used
+paraffin.  It might have been, by some process that we know not, pumped
+into the veins, where it hardened!”
+
+Margaret, having thrown a white sheet over the Queen’s body, asked us
+to bring it to her own room, where we laid it on her bed.  Then she
+sent us away, saying:
+
+“Leave her alone with me.  There are still many hours to pass, and I do
+not like to leave her lying there, all stark in the glare of light.
+This may be the Bridal she prepared for—the Bridal of Death; and at
+least she shall wear her pretty robes.”
+
+When presently she brought me back to her room, the dead Queen was
+dressed in the robe of fine linen with the embroidery of gold; and all
+her beautiful jewels were in place.  Candles were lit around her, and
+white flowers lay upon her breast.
+
+Hand in hand we stood looking at her for a while.  Then with a sigh,
+Margaret covered her with one of her own snowy sheets.  She turned
+away; and after softly closing the door of the room, went back with me
+to the others who had now come into the dining-room.  Here we all began
+to talk over the things that had been, and that were to be.
+
+Now and again I could feel that one or other of us was forcing
+conversation, as if we were not sure of ourselves.  The long wait was
+beginning to tell on our nerves.  It was apparent to me that Mr.
+Trelawny had suffered in that strange trance more than we suspected, or
+than he cared to show.  True, his will and his determination were as
+strong as ever; but the purely physical side of him had been weakened
+somewhat.  It was indeed only natural that it should be.  No man can go
+through a period of four days of absolute negation of life without
+being weakened by it somehow.
+
+As the hours crept by, the time passed more and more slowly.  The other
+men seemed to get unconsciously a little drowsy.  I wondered if in the
+case of Mr. Trelawny and Mr. Corbeck, who had already been under the
+hypnotic influence of the Queen, the same dormancy was manifesting
+itself.  Doctor Winchester had periods of distraction which grew longer
+and more frequent as the time wore on.
+
+As to Margaret, the suspense told on her exceedingly, as might have
+been expected in the case of a woman.  She grew paler and paler still;
+till at last about midnight, I began to be seriously alarmed about her.
+I got her to come into the library with me, and tried to make her lie
+down on a sofa for a little while.  As Mr. Trelawny had decided that
+the experiment was to be made exactly at the seventh hour after sunset,
+it would be as nearly as possible three o’clock in the morning when the
+great trial should be made.  Even allowing a whole hour for the final
+preparations, we had still two hours of waiting to go through, and I
+promised faithfully to watch her and to awake her at any time she might
+name.  She would not hear of it, however.  She thanked me sweetly and
+smiled at me as she did so; but she assured me that she was not sleepy,
+and that she was quite able to bear up.  That it was only the suspense
+and excitement of waiting that made her pale.  I agreed perforce; but I
+kept her talking of many things in the library for more than an hour;
+so that at last, when she insisted on going back to her father’s room I
+felt that I had at least done something to help her pass the time.
+
+We found the three men sitting patiently in silence.  With manlike
+fortitude they were content to be still when they felt they had done
+all in their power.  And so we waited.
+
+The striking of two o’clock seemed to freshen us all up.  Whatever
+shadows had been settling over us during the long hours preceding
+seemed to lift at once; and we went about our separate duties alert and
+with alacrity.  We looked first to the windows to see that they were
+closed, and we got ready our respirators to put them on when the time
+should be close at hand.  We had from the first arranged to use them
+for we did not know whether some noxious fume might not come from the
+magic coffer when it should be opened.  Somehow, it never seemed to
+occur to any of us that there was any doubt as to its opening.
+
+Then, under Margaret’s guidance, we carried the mummied body of Queen
+Tera from her room into her father’s, and laid it on a couch.  We put
+the sheet lightly over it, so that if she should wake she could at once
+slip from under it.  The severed hand was placed in its true position
+on her breast, and under it the Jewel of Seven Stars which Mr. Trelawny
+had taken from the great safe.  It seemed to flash and blaze as he put
+it in its place.
+
+It was a strange sight, and a strange experience.  The group of grave
+silent men carried the white still figure, which looked like an ivory
+statue when through our moving the sheet fell back, away from the
+lighted candles and the white flowers.  We placed it on the couch in
+that other room, where the blaze of the electric lights shone on the
+great sarcophagus fixed in the middle of the room ready for the final
+experiment, the great experiment consequent on the researches during a
+lifetime of these two travelled scholars.  Again, the startling
+likeness between Margaret and the mummy, intensified by her own
+extraordinary pallor, heightened the strangeness of it all.  When all
+was finally fixed three-quarters of an hour had gone, for we were
+deliberate in all our doings.  Margaret beckoned me, and I went out
+with her to bring in Silvio.  He came to her purring.  She took him up
+and handed him to me; and then did a thing which moved me strangely and
+brought home to me keenly the desperate nature of the enterprise on
+which we were embarked. One by one, she blew out the candles carefully
+and placed them back in their usual places.  When she had finished she
+said to me:
+
+“They are done with now.  Whatever comes—life or death—there will be
+no purpose in their using now.”  Then taking Silvio into her arms, and
+pressing him close to her bosom where he purred loudly, we went back to
+the room.  I closed the door carefully behind me, feeling as I did so a
+strange thrill as of finality.  There was to be no going back now.
+Then we put on our respirators, and took our places as had been
+arranged.  I was to stand by the taps of the electric lights beside the
+door, ready to turn them off or on as Mr. Trelawny should direct.
+Doctor Winchester was to stand behind the couch so that he should not
+be between the mummy and the sarcophagus; he was to watch carefully
+what should take place with regard to the Queen.  Margaret was to be
+beside him; she held Silvio ready to place him upon the couch or beside
+it when she might think right.  Mr. Trelawny and Mr. Corbeck were to
+attend to the lighting of the lamps.  When the hands of the clock were
+close to the hour, they stood ready with their linstocks.
+
+The striking of the silver bell of the clock seemed to smite on our
+hearts like a knell of doom.  One!  Two!  Three!
+
+Before the third stroke the wicks of the lamps had caught, and I had
+turned out the electric light.  In the dimness of the struggling lamps,
+and after the bright glow of the electric light, the room and all
+within it took weird shapes, and all seemed in an instant to change.
+We waited with our hearts beating.  I know mine did, and I fancied I
+could hear the pulsation of the others.
+
+The seconds seemed to pass with leaden wings.  It were as though all
+the world were standing still.  The figures of the others stood out
+dimly, Margaret’s white dress alone showing clearly in the gloom.  The
+thick respirators which we all wore added to the strange appearance.
+The thin light of the lamps showed Mr. Trelawny’s square jaw and strong
+mouth and the brown shaven face of Mr. Corbeck.  Their eyes seemed to
+glare in the light.  Across the room Doctor Winchester’s eyes twinkled
+like stars, and Margaret’s blazed like black suns.  Silvio’s eyes were
+like emeralds.
+
+Would the lamps never burn up!
+
+It was only a few seconds in all till they did blaze up.  A slow,
+steady light, growing more and more bright, and changing in colour from
+blue to crystal white.  So they stayed for a couple of minutes without
+change in the coffer; till at last there began to appear all over it a
+delicate glow.  This grew and grew, till it became like a blazing
+jewel, and then like a living thing whose essence of life was light.
+We waited and waited, our hearts seeming to stand still.
+
+All at once there was a sound like a tiny muffled explosion and the
+cover lifted right up on a level plane a few inches; there was no
+mistaking anything now, for the whole room was full of a blaze of
+light. Then the cover, staying fast at one side rose slowly up on the
+other, as though yielding to some pressure of balance.  The coffer
+still continued to glow; from it began to steal a faint greenish smoke.
+I could not smell it fully on account of the respirator; but, even
+through that, I was conscious of a strange pungent odour.  Then this
+smoke began to grow thicker, and to roll out in volumes of ever
+increasing density till the whole room began to get obscure.  I had a
+terrible desire to rush over to Margaret, whom I saw through the smoke
+still standing erect behind the couch.  Then, as I looked, I saw Doctor
+Winchester sink down.  He was not unconscious; for he waved his hand
+back and forward, as though to forbid any one to come to him.  At this
+time the figures of Mr. Trelawny and Mr. Corbeck were becoming
+indistinct in the smoke which rolled round them in thick billowy
+clouds.  Finally I lost sight of them altogether.  The coffer still
+continued to glow; but the lamps began to grow dim.  At first I thought
+that their light was being overpowered by the thick black smoke; but
+presently I saw that they were, one by one, burning out.  They must
+have burned quickly to produce such fierce and vivid flames.
+
+I waited and waited, expecting every instant to hear the command to
+turn up the light; but none came.  I waited still, and looked with
+harrowing intensity at the rolling billows of smoke still pouring out
+of the glowing casket, whilst the lamps sank down and went out one by
+one.
+
+Finally there was but one lamp alight, and that was dimly blue and
+flickering.  The only effective light in the room was from the glowing
+casket.  I kept my eyes fixed toward Margaret; it was for her now that
+all my anxiety was claimed.  I could just see her white frock beyond
+the still white shrouded figure on the couch.  Silvio was troubled; his
+piteous mewing was the only sound in the room.  Deeper and denser grew
+the black mist and its pungency began to assail my nostrils as well as
+my eyes. Now the volume of smoke coming from the coffer seemed to
+lessen, and the smoke itself to be less dense.  Across the room I saw
+something white move where the couch was.  There were several
+movements. I could just catch the quick glint of white through the
+dense smoke in the fading light; for now the glow of the coffer began
+quickly to subside.  I could still hear Silvio, but his mewing came
+from close under; a moment later I could feel him piteously crouching
+on my foot.
+
+Then the last spark of light disappeared, and through the Egyptian
+darkness I could see the faint line of white around the window blinds.
+I felt that the time had come to speak; so I pulled off my respirator
+and called out:
+
+“Shall I turn up the light?”  There was no answer; so before the thick
+smoke choked me, I called again but more loudly:
+
+“Mr. Trelawny, shall I turn up the light?”  He did not answer; but from
+across the room I heard Margaret’s voice, sounding as sweet and clear
+as a bell:
+
+“Yes, Malcolm!”  I turned the tap and the lamps flashed out.  But they
+were only dim points of light in the midst of that murky ball of smoke.
+In that thick atmosphere there was little possibility of illumination.
+I ran across to Margaret, guided by her white dress, and caught hold of
+her and held her hand.  She recognised my anxiety and said at once:
+
+“I am all right.”
+
+“Thank God!” I said.  “How are the others?  Quick, let us open all the
+windows and get rid of this smoke!”  To my surprise, she answered in a
+sleepy way:
+
+“They will be all right.  They won’t get any harm.”  I did not stop to
+inquire how or on what ground she formed such an opinion, but threw up
+the lower sashes of all the windows, and pulled down the upper.  Then I
+threw open the door.
+
+A few seconds made a perceptible change as the thick, black smoke began
+to roll out of the windows.  Then the lights began to grow into
+strength and I could see the room.  All the men were overcome.  Beside
+the couch Doctor Winchester lay on his back as though he had sunk down
+and rolled over; and on the farther side of the sarcophagus, where they
+had stood, lay Mr. Trelawny and Mr. Corbeck.  It was a relief to me to
+see that, though they were unconscious, all three were breathing
+heavily as though in a stupor.  Margaret still stood behind the couch.
+She seemed at first to be in a partially dazed condition; but every
+instant appeared to get more command of herself.  She stepped forward
+and helped me to raise her father and drag him close to a window.
+Together we placed the others similarly, and she flew down to the
+dining-room and returned with a decanter of brandy.  This we proceeded
+to administer to them all in turn.  It was not many minutes after we
+had opened the windows when all three were struggling back to
+consciousness.  During this time my entire thoughts and efforts had
+been concentrated on their restoration; but now that this strain was
+off, I looked round the room to see what had been the effect of the
+experiment.  The thick smoke had nearly cleared away; but the room was
+still misty and was full of a strange pungent acrid odour.
+
+The great sarcophagus was just as it had been.  The coffer was open,
+and in it, scattered through certain divisions or partitions wrought in
+its own substance, was a scattering of black ashes.  Over all,
+sarcophagus, coffer and, indeed, all in the room, was a sort of black
+film of greasy soot.  I went over to the couch.  The white sheet still
+lay over part of it; but it had been thrown back, as might be when one
+is stepping out of bed.
+
+But there was no sign of Queen Tera!  I took Margaret by the hand and
+led her over. She reluctantly left her father to whom she was
+administering, but she came docilely enough.  I whispered to her as I
+held her hand:
+
+“What has become of the Queen?  Tell me!  You were close at hand, and
+must have seen if anything happened!”  She answered me very softly:
+
+“There was nothing that I could see.  Until the smoke grew too dense I
+kept my eyes on the couch, but there was no change.  Then, when all
+grew so dark that I could not see, I thought I heard a movement close
+to me. It might have been Doctor Winchester who had sunk down overcome;
+but I could not be sure.  I thought that it might be the Queen waking,
+so I put down poor Silvio.  I did not see what became of him; but I
+felt as if he had deserted me when I heard him mewing over by the door.
+I hope he is not offended with me!”  As if in answer, Silvio came
+running into the room and reared himself against her dress, pulling it
+as though clamouring to be taken up. She stooped down and took him up
+and began to pet and comfort him.
+
+I went over and examined the couch and all around it most carefully.
+When Mr. Trelawny and Mr. Corbeck recovered sufficiently, which they
+did quickly, though Doctor Winchester took longer to come round, we
+went over it afresh.  But all we could find was a sort of ridge of
+impalpable dust, which gave out a strange dead odour.  On the couch lay
+the jewel of the disk and plumes which the Queen had worn in her hair,
+and the Star Jewel which had words to command the Gods.
+
+Other than this we never got clue to what had happened.  There was just
+one thing which confirmed our idea of the physical annihilation of the
+mummy.  In the sarcophagus in the hall, where we had placed the mummy
+of the cat, was a small patch of similar dust.
+
+*    *    *    *    *
+
+In the autumn Margaret and I were married.  On the occasion she wore
+the mummy robe and zone and the jewel which Queen Tera had worn in her
+hair. On her breast, set in a ring of gold make like a twisted lotus
+stalk, she wore the strange Jewel of Seven Stars which held words to
+command the God of all the worlds.  At the marriage the sunlight
+streaming through the chancel windows fell on it, and it seemed to glow
+like a living thing.
+
+The graven words may have been of efficacy; for Margaret holds to them,
+and there is no other life in all the world so happy as my own.
+
+We often think of the great Queen, and we talk of her freely.  Once,
+when I said with a sigh that I was sorry she could not have waked into
+a new life in a new world, my wife, putting both her hands in mine and
+looking into my eyes with that far-away eloquent dreamy look which
+sometimes comes into her own, said lovingly:
+
+“Do not grieve for her!  Who knows, but she may have found the joy she
+sought? Love and patience are all that make for happiness in this
+world; or in the world of the past or of the future; of the living or
+the dead. She dreamed her dream; and that is all that any of us can
+ask!”
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JEWEL OF SEVEN STARS ***
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