o many who are themselves robust, he was apt to confuse
the constitution with the character, to ascribe to want of principle
what was really a want of circulation. Smith, with his stronger mind,
knew his friend's habit, and made allowance for it now as his thoughts
turned towards the man beneath him.

There was no return of the singular sound, and Smith was about to turn
to his work once more, when suddenly there broke out in the silence of
the night a hoarse cry, a positive scream--the call of a man who is
moved and shaken beyond all control. Smith sprang out of his chair and
dropped his book. He was a man of fairly firm fibre, but there was
something in this sudden, uncontrollable shriek of horror which chilled
his blood and pringled in his skin. Coming in such a place and at such
an hour, it brought a thousand fantastic possibilities into his head.
Should he rush down, or was it better to wait? He had all the national
hatred of making a scene, and he knew so little of his neighbour that
he would not lightly intrude upon his affairs. For a moment he stood
in doubt and even as he balanced the matter there was a quick rattle of
footsteps upon the stairs, and young Monkhouse Lee, half dressed and as
white as ashes, burst into his room.

"Come down!" he gasped. "Bellingham's ill."

Abercrombie Smith followed him closely down stairs into the
sitting-room which was beneath his own, and intent as he was upon the
matter in hand, he could not but take an amazed glance around him as he
crossed the threshold. It was such a chamber as he had never seen
before--a museum rather than a study. Walls and ceiling were thickly
covered with a thousand strange relics from Egypt and the East. Tall,
angular figures bearing burdens or weapons stalked in an uncouth frieze
round the apartments. Above were bull-headed, stork-headed,
cat-headed, owl-headed statues, with viper-crowned, almond-eyed
monarchs, and strange, beetle-like deities cut out of the blue Egyptian
lapis lazuli. Horus and Isis and Osiris peeped down from every niche
and shelf, while across the ceiling a true son of Old Nile, a great,
hanging-jawed crocodile, was slung in a double noose.

In the centre of this singular chamber was a large, square table,
littered with papers, bottles, and the dried leaves of some graceful,
palm-like plant. These varied objects had all been heaped together in
order to make room for a mummy case, which had been conveyed from the
w