hind the
temple and city of Abydus, the supposed burying place of the holy
Osiris, a tomb was recently discovered, among the contents of which were
the papyrus rolls whereupon this history is written. The tomb itself is
spacious, but otherwise remarkable only for the depth of the shaft which
descends vertically from the rock-hewn cave, that once served as the
mortuary chapel for the friends and relatives of the departed, to the
coffin-chamber beneath. This shaft is no less than eighty-nine feet in
depth. The chamber at its foot was found to contain three coffins only,
though it is large enough for many more. Two of these, which in all
probability inclosed the bodies of the High Priest, Amenemhat, and of
his wife, father and mother of Harmachis, the hero of this history, the
shameless Arabs who discovered them there and then broke up.

The Arabs broke the bodies up. With unhallowed hands they tore the holy
Amenemhat and the frame of her who had, as it is written, been filled
with the spirit of the Hathors--tore them limb from limb, searching for
treasure amidst their bones--perhaps, as is their custom, selling the
very bones for a few piastres to the last ignorant tourist who came
their way, seeking what he might destroy. For in Egypt the unhappy, the
living find their bread in the tombs of the great men who were before
them.

But as it chanced, some little while afterwards, one who is known to
this writer, and a doctor by profession, passed up the Nile to Abydus,
and became acquainted with the men who had done this thing. They
revealed to him the secret of the place, telling him that one coffin
yet remained entombed. It seemed to be the coffin of a poor person,
they said, and therefore, being pressed for time, they had left it
unviolated. Moved by curiosity to explore the recesses of a tomb as yet
unprofaned by tourists, my friend bribed the Arabs to show it to him.
What ensued I will give in his own words, exactly as he wrote it to me:

"I slept that night near the Temple of Seti, and started before daybreak
on the following morning. With me were a cross-eyed rascal named
Ali--Ali Baba I named him--the man from whom I got the ring which I am
sending you, and a small but choice assortment of his fellow thieves.
Within an hour after sunrise we reached the valley where the tomb is. It
is a desolate place, into which the sun pours his scorching heat all
the long day through, till the huge brown rocks which are strewn abo