surpassed by that of the Prophet Isaiah. A bias so striking in the
immortal Herodotus is hardly shared by your modern encyclopaedist. While
the science of Egyptology and its adepts command rather awe and wonder
than sympathy from the uninitiated, who keep their praises for the more
attractive study of Greek art. Yet some of us still turn with relief
from the serene material masterpieces of Greece, soulless in their very
realism and truth of expression, to the vague and happily unexplained
monsters, the rigid gods and hieratic princes, who are given new names by
each succeeding generation. A knowledge that behind painted masks and
gilded, tawdry gew-gaws are the remains of a once living person gives
even the mummy a human interest denied to the most exquisite handiwork of
Pheidias.

Professor Lachsyrma at present felt only the impossibility of a situation
that would have been difficult for many a weaker man to face. Humiliation
overwhelms the strongest. Modern agencies for the concealment of a body
having failed to suggest themselves, he must needs fall back on the
despised expedient of Egypt. Palaeography and Greek art were obviously
useless in the present instance. He understood at last why deplorable
people wanted to abolish Greek from the University curriculum.

The coffin was of varnished sycamore wood, ornamented on the outside with
gods in their shrines and inscriptions relating to the name and titles of
the deceased, painted in red and green. The face was carved out of a
separate piece of wood, with the conventional beard attached to the chin;
the eyelids were of bronze; the eyes of obsidian; wooden hands were
crossed on the breast. Inside the lid were pictures of apes in yellow on
a purple background, symbolising the Spirits of the East adoring the Gods
of the Morning and Evening. The mummy itself was enclosed in a handsome
cartonnage case laced up the back. The Professor lifted it gently out on
the table, and substituted Carrel's body. He staunched as he best could
the blood which trickled on to the glaring pictures of the Judgment of
Osiris and the goddess Nut imparting the Waters of Life; then he turned
to examine the former occupant, whom two thousand years, even at such a
moment endowed with a greater interest than could attach to the corpse of
a defunct blackmailer. It now occurred to him that he might profitably
utilise the mummy cerements along with the coffin for more effectually
conceali