ographical Galleries.

It was a weird journey. The swaying lantern shot its beams abroad into
the darkness of the great, dim galleries, casting instantaneous flashes
on the objects in the cases, so that they leaped into being and
vanished in the twinkling of an eye. Hideous idols with round, staring
eyes started forth from the darkness, glared at us for an instant and
were gone. Grotesque masks, suddenly revealed by the shimmering light,
took on the semblance of demon faces that seemed to mow and gibber at
us as we passed. As for the life-sized models--realistic enough by
daylight--their aspect was positively alarming; for the moving light
and shadow endowed them with life and movement, so that they seemed to
watch us furtively, to lie in wait and to hold themselves in readiness
to steal out and follow us. The illusion evidently affected Ruth as
well as me, for she drew nearer to me and whispered:

"These figures are quite startling. Did you see that Polynesian? I
really felt as if he were going to spring out on us."

"They are rather uncanny," I admitted, "but the danger is over now. We
are passing out of their sphere of influence."

We came out on a landing as I spoke and then turned sharply to the left
along the North Gallery, from the center of which we entered the Fourth
Egyptian Room.

Almost immediately, a door in the opposite wall opened; a peculiar,
high-pitched humming sound became audible, and Jervis came out on
tiptoe with his hand raised.

"Tread as lightly as you can," he said. "We are just making an
exposure."

The attendant turned back with his lantern, and we followed Jervis into
the room from whence he had come. It was a large room, and little
lighter than the galleries, for the single glow-lamp that burned at the
end where we entered left the rest of the apartment in almost complete
obscurity. We seated ourselves at once on the chairs that had been
placed for us, and, when the mutual salutations had been exchanged, I
looked about me. There were three people in the room besides Jervis:
Thorndyke, who sat with his watch in his hand, a gray-headed gentleman
whom I took to be Dr. Norbury, and a smaller person at the dim farther
end--undistinguishable, but probably Polton. At our end of the room
were the two large trays that I had seen in the workshop, now mounted
on trestles and each fitted with a rubber drain-tube leading down to a
bucket. At the farther end of the room the sinister