ed upon to encounter. I do not
ask you to do this. I am quite prepared to go alone."

"That remark was wholly unnecessary, doctor," said Sime rather
truculently. "Suppose the other two proceed to their post."

"But, sir--" began Robert Cairn.

"You know the way," said the doctor, with an air of finality. "There
is not a moment to waste, and although I fear that we are too late, it
is just possible we may be in time to prevent a dreadful crime."

The tall Egyptian and Robert Cairn went stumbling off amongst the
heaps of rubbish and broken masonry, until an angle of the great wall
concealed them from view. Then the two who remained continued the
climb yet higher, following the narrow, zigzag path leading up to the
entrance of the descending passage. Immediately under the square black
hole they stood and glanced at one another.

"We may as well leave our outer garments here," said Sime. "I note
that you wear rubber-soled shoes, but I shall remove my boots, as
otherwise I should be unable to obtain any foothold."

Dr. Cairn nodded, and without more ado proceeded to strip off his
coat, an example which was followed by Sime. It was as he stooped and
placed his hat upon the little bundle of clothes at his feet that Dr.
Cairn detected something which caused him to stoop yet lower and to
peer at that dark object on the ground with a strange intentness.

"What is it?" jerked Sime, glancing back at him.

Dr. Cairn, from a hip pocket, took out an electric lamp, and directed
the white ray upon something lying on the splintered fragments of
granite.

It was a bat, a fairly large one, and a clot of blood marked the place
where its head had been. For the bat was decapitated!

As though anticipating what he should find there, Dr. Cairn flashed
the ray of the lamp all about the ground in the vicinity of the
entrance to the pyramid. Scores of dead bats, headless, lay there.

"For God's sake, what does this mean?" whispered Sime, glancing
apprehensively into the black entrance beside him.

"It means," answered Cairn, in a low voice, "that my suspicion, almost
incredible though it seems, was well founded. Steel yourself against
the task that is before you, Sime; we stand upon the borderland of
strange horrors."

Sime hesitated to touch any of the dead bats, surveying them with an
ill-concealed repugnance.

"What kind of creature," he whispered, "has done this?"

"One of a kind that the world has not known for many ages! Th