used to retard reincarnation, the preservation of the body
preventing the return of the spirit to the toil and discipline of
earth-life; and, in any case, they knew how to attach powerful
guardian-forces to keep off trespassers. And any one who dared to remove
the mummy, or especially to unwind it--well," he added, with meaning,
"you have seen--and you will see."

I caught his face in the mirror while I struggled with my collar. It was
deeply serious. There could be no question that he spoke of what he
believed and knew.

"The traveller-brother who brought it here must have been haunted too,"
he continued, "for he tried to banish it by burial in the wood, making a
magic circle to enclose it. Something of genuine ceremonial he must have
known, for the stars the man saw were of course the remains of the still
flaming pentagrams he traced at intervals in the circle. Only he did not
know enough, or possibly was ignorant that the mummy's guardian was a
fire-force. Fire cannot be enclosed by fire, though, as you saw, it can
be released by it."

"Then that awful figure in the laundry?" I asked, thrilled to find him
so communicative.

"Undoubtedly the actual Ka of the mummy operating always behind its
agent, the elemental, and most likely thousands of years old."

"And Miss Wragge--?" I ventured once more.

"Ah, Miss Wragge," he repeated with increased gravity, "Miss Wragge--"

A knock at the door brought a servant with word that tea was ready, and
the Colonel had sent to ask if we were coming down. The thread was
broken. Dr. Silence moved to the door and signed to me to follow. But
his manner told me that in any case no real answer would have been
forthcoming to my question.

"And the place to dig in," I asked, unable to restrain my curiosity,
"will you find it by some process of divination or--?"

He paused at the door and looked back at me, and with that he left me to
finish my dressing.

It was growing dark when the three of us silently made our way to the
Twelve Acre Plantation; the sky was overcast, and a black wind came out
of the east. Gloom hung about the old house and the air seemed full of
sighings. We found the tools ready laid at the edge of the wood, and
each shouldering his piece, we followed our leader at once in among the
trees. He went straight forward for some twenty yards and then stopped.
At his feet lay the blackened circle of one of the burned places. It was
just discernible against the surrou