first, then more boldly. At length he looked up into the face, blurred
in the half-light.

When he had finished with the pedestal he pulled himself up between the
outstretched arms, and perhaps a trifle hurriedly now, as he saw the
face more distinctly, began to pass the cloth over the arms and back.

Then, quick as the strike of a snake, the arms crushed him against the
stone breast. He could not move; he could not cry out; he could not
breathe. The statue, seen from the level of the pedestal, had changed
its whole expression. Hate glowed in its eyes; menace lived in every
line of its face. The arms tightened slowly, inexorably; then, as
quickly as they had closed, unclasped; and Simpkins half-slid, half-fell
to the floor.

When the breath came back into his lungs and he found himself unharmed,
he choked back the cry on his lips, for in that same moment a suspicion
floated half-formed through his brain. He forced himself to climb up on
the pedestal again, and made a careful inspection of the statue--but
from behind this time.

The arms were metal, enameled to the smoothness of the body, and
jointed, though the joints were almost invisible. The statue was one of
those marvelous creations of the ancient priests, and once, no doubt, it
had stood behind the veil in some Egyptian temple to tempt and to punish
the curiosity of the neophyte.

Though Simpkins could find no clew to the mechanism of the statue, he
determined that he had sprung it with his feet, and that during his
struggles a lucky kick had touched the spring which relaxed the arms.
"Did any one beside himself know their strength?" he asked himself, as
he stepped out into the hall again. Mrs. Athelstone was bent over her
desk writing; Brander was yawning over a novel in his corner, and
neither paid any attention to him. So he busied himself going over the
mummy-cases, and by the time he had worked around to the two beside Mrs.
Athelstone he had himself well in hand, outwardly. But he was still so
shaken internally that he knocked the black case rather roughly as he
dusted.

"What way is that to treat a king?" demanded Mrs. Athelstone; and the
anger in her voice was so real that Simpkins, startled, blundered out:

"I really meant no disrespect. Very careless of me, I'm sure." He looked
so distressed that Mrs. Athelstone's anger melted into a delicious
little laugh, as she answered:

"Really, Simpkins, you musn't be so bungling. These mummies are
price