ete. Again it was to be borne in mind that this sarcophagus
differed internally from all the others. What meant that odd raised
place? I said nothing to Miss Trelawny, for I feared lest I should
either frighten her or buoy her up with future hopes; but I made up my
mind that I would take an early opportunity for further investigation.

Close beside the sarcophagus was a low table of green stone with red
veins in it, like bloodstone. The feet were fashioned like the paws of
a jackal, and round each leg was twined a full-throated snake wrought
exquisitely in pure gold. On it rested a strange and very beautiful
coffer or casket of stone of a peculiar shape. It was something like a
small coffin, except that the longer sides, instead of being cut off
square like the upper or level part were continued to a point. Thus it
was an irregular septahedron, there being two planes on each of the two
sides, one end and a top and bottom. The stone, of one piece of which
it was wrought, was such as I had never seen before. At the base it
was of a full green, the colour of emerald without, of course, its
gleam. It was not by any means dull, however, either in colour or
substance, and was of infinite hardness and fineness of texture. The
surface was almost that of a jewel. The colour grew lighter as it
rose, with gradation so fine as to be imperceptible, changing to a fine
yellow almost of the colour of "mandarin" china. It was quite unlike
anything I had ever seen, and did not resemble any stone or gem that I
knew. I took it to be some unique mother-stone, or matrix of some gem.
It was wrought all over, except in a few spots, with fine
hieroglyphics, exquisitely done and coloured with the same blue-green
cement or pigment that appeared on the sarcophagus. In length it was
about two feet and a half; in breadth about half this, and was nearly a
foot high. The vacant spaces were irregularly distributed about the
top running to the pointed end. These places seemed less opaque than
the rest of the stone. I tried to lift up the lid so that I might see
if they were translucent; but it was securely fixed. It fitted so
exactly that the whole coffer seemed like a single piece of stone
mysteriously hollowed from within. On the sides and edges were some
odd-looking protuberances wrought just as finely as any other portion
of the coffer which had been sculptured by manifest design in the
cutting of the stone. They had queer-shaped h