s, must have mingled with that of the
old Egyptians. But still the national life went on without a break; the
old culture leavened the new peoples, and the immigrant strangers ended
by becoming Egyptians. It is a wonderful phenomenon. Looking back on it
from our own time, it seems more like a geological period than the
life-history of a single nation. Are you at all interested in the
subject?"

"Yes, decidedly, though I am completely ignorant of it. The fact is that
my interest is of quite recent growth. It is only of late that I have
been sensible of the glamour of things Egyptian."

"Since you made Miss Bellingham's acquaintance, perhaps?" suggested Mr.
Jellicoe, himself as unchanging in aspect as an Egyptian effigy.

I suppose I must have reddened--I certainly resented the remark--for he
continued in the same even tone: "I made the suggestion because I know
that she takes an intelligent interest in the subject and is, in fact,
quite well informed on it."

"Yes; she seems to know a great deal about the antiquities of Egypt, and
I may as well admit that your surmise was correct. It was she who showed
me her uncle's collection."

"So I had supposed," said Mr. Jellicoe. "And a very instructive
collection it is, in a popular sense; very suitable for exhibition in a
public museum, though there is nothing in it of unusual interest to the
expert. The tomb furniture is excellent of its kind and the cartonnage
case of the mummy is well made and rather finely decorated."

"Yes, I thought it quite handsome. But can you explain to me why, after
taking all that trouble to decorate it, they should have disfigured it
with those great smears of bitumen?"

"Ah!" said Mr. Jellicoe, "that is quite an interesting question. It is
not unusual to find mummy-cases smeared with bitumen; there is a mummy
of a priestess in the next gallery which is completely coated with
bitumen excepting the gilded face. Now, this bitumen was put on for a
purpose--for the purpose of obliterating the inscriptions and thus
concealing the identity of the deceased from the robbers and desecrators
of tombs. And there is the oddity of this mummy of Sebek-hotep.
Evidently there was an intention of obliterating the inscriptions. The
whole of the back is covered thickly with bitumen, and so are the feet.
Then the workers seem to have changed their minds and left the
inscriptions and decoration untouched. Why they intended to cover it,
and why, having commenced,