astern languages,
Smith?"

"Nothing at all. Not a word."

The answer seemed to lift a weight from the Egyptologist's mind.

"By-the-way," he continued, "how long was it from the time that you ran
down, until I came to my senses?"

"Not long. Some four or five minutes."

"I thought it could not be very long," said he, drawing a long breath.
"But what a strange thing unconsciousness is! There is no measurement
to it. I could not tell from my own sensations if it were seconds or
weeks. Now that gentleman on the table was packed up in the days of
the eleventh dynasty, some forty centuries ago, and yet if he could
find his tongue he would tell us that this lapse of time has been but a
closing of the eyes and a reopening of them. He is a singularly fine
mummy, Smith."

Smith stepped over to the table and looked down with a professional eye
at the black and twisted form in front of him. The features, though
horribly discoloured, were perfect, and two little nut-like eyes still
lurked in the depths of the black, hollow sockets. The blotched skin
was drawn tightly from bone to bone, and a tangled wrap of black coarse
hair fell over the ears. Two thin teeth, like those of a rat, overlay
the shrivelled lower lip. In its crouching position, with bent joints
and craned head, there was a suggestion of energy about the horrid
thing which made Smith's gorge rise. The gaunt ribs, with their
parchment-like covering, were exposed, and the sunken, leaden-hued
abdomen, with the long slit where the embalmer had left his mark; but
the lower limbs were wrapt round with coarse yellow bandages. A number
of little clove-like pieces of myrrh and of cassia were sprinkled over
the body, and lay scattered on the inside of the case.

"I don't know his name," said Bellingham, passing his hand over the
shrivelled head. "You see the outer sarcophagus with the inscriptions
is missing. Lot 249 is all the title he has now. You see it printed
on his case. That was his number in the auction at which I picked him
up."

"He has been a very pretty sort of fellow in his day," remarked
Abercrombie Smith.

"He has been a giant. His mummy is six feet seven in length, and that
would be a giant over there, for they were never a very robust race.
Feel these great knotted bones, too. He would be a nasty fellow to
tackle."

"Perhaps these very hands helped to build the stones into the
pyramids," suggested Monkhouse Lee, looking down with d