than
the usual size, to have it decorated in the Egyptian fashion, and, after
my meeting with Pharos, this seemed to have a singular appropriateness.
It was as if the quaint images of the gods, which decorated the walls,
were watching me with almost human interest, and even the gilded
countenance upon the mummy-case, in the alcove at the farther end, wore
an expression I had never noticed on it before. It might have been
saying: "Ah, my nineteenth century friend, your father stole me from the
land of my birth, and from the resting-place the gods decreed for me;
but beware, for retribution is pursuing you and is even now close upon
your heels."

Cigar in hand, I stopped in my walk and looked at it, thinking as I did
so of the country from which it had hailed, and of the changes that had
taken place in the world during the time it had lain in its Theban tomb,
whence it had emerged in the middle of the nineteenth century, with
colouring as fresh, and detail as perfect, as on the day when the
hieroglyphs had first left the artist's hand. It was an unusually fine
specimen--one of the most perfect, indeed, of its kind ever brought to
England, and, under the influence of the interest it now inspired in me,
I went to an ancient cabinet on the other side of the room, and, opening
a small drawer, took from it a bulky pocketbook, once the property of my
father. He it was, as I have already said, who had discovered the mummy
in question, and it was from him, at his death, in company with many
other Egyptian treasures, that I received it.

As I turned the yellow, time-stained pages in search of the information
I wanted, the clock of St. Jude's, in the street behind, struck one,
solemnly and deliberately, as though it were conscious of the part it
played in the passage of time into eternity. To my surprise the
reference was more difficult to find than I had anticipated. Entries
there were in hundreds; records of distances travelled, of measurements
taken, evidence as to the supposed whereabouts of tombs, translations of
hieroglyphics, paintings, and inscriptions, memoranda of amounts paid to
Arab sheiks, details of stores and equipments, but for some time no
trace of the information for which I was searching. At last, however, it
struck me to look in the pocket contained in the cover of the book. My
diligence was immediately rewarded, for there, carefully folded and
hidden away, was the small square of parchment upon which my fathe