ite veil, a statue like those all
around us, upright in their niches. It seemed to fix us with an
impenetrable gaze.

"Sir Archibald Russell," murmured M. Le Mesge slowly.

Morhange approached, speechless, but strong enough to lift up the
white veil. For a long, long time he gazed at the sad bronze statue.

"A mummy, a mummy?" he said finally. "You deceive yourself, sir, this
is no mummy."

"Accurately speaking, no," replied M. Le Mesge. "This is not a mummy.
None the less, you have before you the mortal remains of Sir Archibald
Russell. I must point out to you, here, my dear sir, that the
processes of embalming used by Antinea differ from the processes
employed in ancient Egypt. Here, there is no natron, nor bands, nor
spices. The industry of Ahaggar, in a single effort, has achieved a
result obtained by European science only after long experiments.
Imagine my surprise, when I arrived here and found that they were
employing a method I supposed known only to the civilized world."

M. Le Mesge struck a light tap with his finger on the forehead of Sir
Archibald Russell. It rang like metal.

"It is bronze," I said. "That is not a human forehead: it is bronze."

M. Le Mesge shrugged his shoulders.

"It is a human forehead," he affirmed curtly, "and not bronze. Bronze
is darker, sir. This is the great unknown metal of which Plato speaks
in the Critias, and which is something between gold and silver: it is
the special metal of the mountains of the Atlantides. It is
_orichalch_."

Bending again, I satisfied myself that this metal was the same as that
with which the walls of the library were overcast.

"It is orichalch," continued M. Le Mesge. "You look as if you had no
idea how a human body can look like a statue of orichalch. Come,
Captain Morhange, you whom I gave credit for a certain amount of
knowledge, have you never heard of the method of Dr. Variot, by which
a human body can be preserved without embalming? Have you never read
the book of that practitioner?[11] He explains a method called
electro-plating. The skin is coated with a very thin layer of silver
salts, to make it a conductor. The body then is placed in a solution,
of copper sulphate, and the polar currents do their work. The body of
this estimable English major has been metalized in the same manner,
except that a solution of orichalch sulphate, a very rare substance,
has been substituted for that of copper sulphate. Thus, instead of the
statue of