r, half unwrapped and
broken in two beneath the breast. Moreover, the face, which I remembered
as being so like my own, was gone to dust, so that there remained of
it nothing but a skull, to which hung tresses of long black hair, as,
indeed, you may see for yourself.

"By the side of the body was the gilded mask, with black and staring
eyes, and the painted breast-piece of stiff linen, neither of which the
thieves had found worth stealing.

"I looked and a thought came to me. Lifting the mummy, I thrust it
into the sarcophagus, all of it save the gilded mask and the painted
breast-piece of stiff linen. Then I laid myself down in the coffin, of
which the lid, still lying crosswise, hid me to the waist, and drew the
gilded mask and painted breast-piece over my head and bosom. Scarcely
was it done when the soldiers entered. By now the reflected sunlight
had faded from the place, leaving it in deep shadow; but some of the men
held burning torches made from splinters of old coffins, that were full
of pitch.

"'Feet have passed here; I saw the marks of them in the dust,' said the
officer. 'She may have hidden in this place. Search! Search! It will go
hard with us if we return to Musa to tell him that he has lost his toy.'

"They looked into the sarcophagus and saw the broken mummy. Indeed, one
of them lifted it, unwillingly enough, and let it fall again, saying
grimly,

"'Musa would scarce care for this companion, though in her day she may
have been fair enough.'

"Then they came to the coffin.

"'Here's another,' exclaimed the soldier, 'and one with a gold face.
Allah! how its eyes stare.'

"'Pull it out,' said the officer.

"'Let that be your task,' answered the man. 'I'll defile myself with no
more corpses.'

"The officer came and looked. 'What a haunted hole is this, full of the
ghosts of idol worshippers, or so I think,' he said. 'Those eyes stare
curses at us. Well, the Christian maid is not here. On, before the
torches fail.'

"Then they went, leaving me; the painted linen creaked upon my breast as
I breathed again.

"'Till nightfall I lay in that coffin, fearing lest they should return;
and I tell you, Olaf, that strange dreams came to me there, for I think
I swooned or slept in that narrow bed. Yes, dreams of the past, which
you shall hear one day, if we live, for they seem to have to do with you
and me. Aye, I thought that the dead woman in the sarcophagus at my side
awoke and told them to me. At le