say for the moment. Following his example, I folded
the table together and took up the chairs, and our host, still dazed and
silent, mechanically obeyed him and moved to the door.

We removed all traces of the experiment, taking the empty bowl back to
the house concealed beneath an ulster.

The air was cool and fragrant as we walked to the house, the stars
beginning to fade overhead and a fresh wind of early morning blowing up
out of the east where the sky was already hinting of the coming day. It
was after five o'clock.

Stealthily we entered the front hall and locked the door, and as we went
on tiptoe upstairs to our rooms, the Colonel, peering at us over his
candle as he nodded good-night, whispered that if we were ready the
digging should be begun that very day.

Then I saw him steal along to his sister's room and disappear.

IV

But not even the mysterious references to the mummy, or the prospect of
a revelation by digging, were able to hinder the reaction that followed
the intense excitement of the past twelve hours, and I slept the sleep
of the dead, dreamless and undisturbed. A touch on the shoulder woke me,
and I saw Dr. Silence standing beside the bed, dressed to go out.

"Come," he said, "it's tea-time. You've slept the best part of a dozen
hours."

I sprang up and made a hurried toilet, while my companion sat and
talked. He looked fresh and rested, and his manner was even quieter than
usual.

"Colonel Wragge has provided spades and pickaxes. We're going out to
unearth this mummy at once," he said; "and there's no reason we should
not get away by the morning train."

"I'm ready to go tonight, if you are," I said honestly.

But Dr. Silence shook his head.

"I must see this through to the end," he said gravely, and in a tone
that made me think he still anticipated serious things, perhaps. He went
on talking while I dressed.

"This case is really typical of all stories of mummy-haunting, and none
of them are cases to trifle with," he explained, "for the mummies of
important people--kings, priests, magicians--were laid away with
profoundly significant ceremonial, and were very effectively protected,
as you have seen, against desecration, and especially against
destruction.

"The general belief," he went on, anticipating my questions, "held, of
course, that the perpetuity of the mummy guaranteed that of its Ka,--the
owner's spirit,--but it is not improbable that the magical embalming
was also