ld; that outside of the tomb doubt had
overtaken him and caused him to break it upon a stone or otherwise. The
rest was clear. Finding that it was but gold-washed bronze he had thrown
away the fragments, rather than be at the pains of carrying them. This
was his theory, probably not a correct one, as the sequel seems to show.

Smith's first idea was to recover the other portion. He searched quite a
long while, but without success. Neither then nor afterwards could it
be found. He reflected that perhaps this lower half had remained in the
thief's hand, who, in his vexation, had thrown it far away, leaving
the head to lie where it fell. Again Smith examined this head, and more
closely. Now he saw that just beneath the breasts was a delicately cut
cartouche.

Being by this time a master of hieroglyphics, he read it without
trouble. It ran: "Ma-Mee, Great Royal Lady. Beloved of ----" Here the
cartouche was broken away.

"Ma-Me, or it might be Ma-Mi," he reflected. "I never heard of a queen
called Ma-Me, or Ma-Mi, or Ma-Mu. She must be quite new to history. I
wonder of whom she was beloved? Amen, or Horus, or Isis, probably. Of
some god, I have no doubt, at least I hope so!"

He stared at the beautiful portrait in his hand, as once he had stared
at the cast on the Museum wall, and the beautiful portrait, emerging
from the dust of ages, smiled back at him there in the solemn moonlight
as once the cast had smiled from the museum wall. Only that had been but
a cast, whereas this was real. This had slept with the dead from whose
features it had been fashioned, the dead who lay, or who had lain,
within.

A sudden resolution took hold of Smith. He would explore that tomb, at
once and alone. No one should accompany him on this his first visit;
it would be a sacrilege that anyone save himself should set foot there
until he had looked on what it might contain.

Why should he not enter? His lamp, of what is called the "hurricane"
brand, was very good and bright, and would burn for many hours.
Moreover, there had been time for the foul air to escape through the
hole that they had cleared. Lastly, something seemed to call on him to
come and see. He placed the bronze head in his breast-pocket over his
heart, and, thrusting the lamp through the hole, looked down. Here there
was no difficulty, since sand had drifted in to the level of the bottom
of the aperture. Through it he struggled, to find himself upon a bed of
sand that only j