elf. You may tell my story or you may withhold it at your pleasure.
The choice rests with you. I owe you some amends, for you have had a
narrow escape of your life this night. I was a desperate man, and not to
be baulked in my purpose. Had I seen you before the thing was done, I
might have put it beyond your power to oppose me or to raise an alarm.
This is the door. It leads into the Rue de Rivoli. Good-night."

The Englishman glanced back. For a moment the lean figure of Sosra the
Egyptian stood framed in the narrow doorway. The next the door had
slammed, and the heavy rasping of a bolt broke on the silent night.

It was on the second day after his return to London that Mr. John
Vansittart Smith saw the following concise narrative in the Paris
correspondence of the _Times_:--

"_Curious Occurrence in the Louvre._--Yesterday morning a strange
discovery was made in the principal Eastern chamber. The _ouvriers_ who
are employed to clean out the rooms in the morning found one of the
attendants lying dead upon the floor with his arms round one of the
mummies. So close was his embrace that it was only with the utmost
difficulty that they were separated. One of the cases containing
valuable rings had been opened and rifled. The authorities are of
opinion that the man was bearing away the mummy with some idea of
selling it to a private collector, but that he was struck down in the
very act by long-standing disease of the heart. It is said that he was a
man of uncertain age and eccentric habits, without any living relations
to mourn over his dramatic and untimely end."

VIII

THE LOS AMIGOS FIASCO

I used to be the leading practitioner of Los Amigos. Of course, every
one has heard of the great electrical generating gear there. The town is
wide spread, and there are dozens of little townlets and villages all
around, which receive their supply from the same centre, so that the
works are on a very large scale. The Los Amigos folk say that they are
the largest upon earth, but then we claim that for everything in Los
Amigos except the gaol and the death-rate. Those are said to be the
smallest.

Now, with so fine an electrical supply, it seemed to be a sinful waste
of hemp that the Los Amigos criminals should perish in the old-fashioned
manner. And then came the news of the electrocutions in the East, and
how the results had not after all been so instantaneous as had been
hoped. The Western engineers raised their eyeb