us madman. Why
should I destroy my own property? It is a valuable mummy."

"You must cut it up, and you must burn it."

"I will do no such thing."

"Four minutes are gone."

Smith took up the pistol and he looked towards Bellingham with an
inexorable face. As the second-hand stole round, he raised his hand,
and the finger twitched upon the trigger.

"There! there! I'll do it!" screamed Bellingham.

In frantic haste he caught up the knife and hacked at the figure of the
mummy, ever glancing round to see the eye and the weapon of his
terrible visitor bent upon him. The creature crackled and snapped
under every stab of the keen blade. A thick yellow dust rose up from
it. Spices and dried essences rained down upon the floor. Suddenly,
with a rending crack, its backbone snapped asunder, and it fell, a
brown heap of sprawling limbs, upon the floor.

"Now into the fire!" said Smith.

The flames leaped and roared as the dried and tinderlike debris was
piled upon it. The little room was like the stoke-hole of a steamer
and the sweat ran down the faces of the two men; but still the one
stooped and worked, while the other sat watching him with a set face.
A thick, fat smoke oozed out from the fire, and a heavy smell of burned
rosin and singed hair filled the air. In a quarter of an hour a few
charred and brittle sticks were all that was left of Lot No. 249.

"Perhaps that will satisfy you," snarled Bellingham, with hate and fear
in his little grey eyes as he glanced back at his tormenter.

"No; I must make a clean sweep of all your materials. We must have no
more devil's tricks. In with all these leaves! They may have
something to do with it."

"And what now?" asked Bellingham, when the leaves also had been added
to the blaze.

"Now the roll of papyrus which you had on the table that night. It is
in that drawer, I think."

"No, no," shouted Bellingham. "Don't burn that! Why, man, you don't
know what you do. It is unique; it contains wisdom which is nowhere
else to be found."

"Out with it!"

"But look here, Smith, you can't really mean it. I'll share the
knowledge with you. I'll teach you all that is in it. Or, stay, let
me only copy it before you burn it!"

Smith stepped forward and turned the key in the drawer. Taking out the
yellow, curled roll of paper, he threw it into the fire, and pressed it
down with his heel. Bellingham screamed, and grabbed at it; but Smith
pushed him back, and