d all's well."

So I stepped into the shining circle of the electric light and halted
again.

"Who is it? Who is it?" muttered Higgs. "The face is the face of--of--I
have it--of old Adams, only he's been dead these ten years. The Khalifa
got him, they said. Antique shade of the long-lost Adams, please be so
good as to tell me your name, for we waste time over a useless mystery."

"There is no need, Higgs, since it is in your mouth already. Well, I
should have known you anywhere; but then _your_ hair doesn't go white."

"Not it; too much colouring matter; direct result of a sanguine
disposition. Well, Adams--for Adams you must be--I am really delighted
to see you, especially as you never answered some questions in my last
letter as to where you got those First Dynasty scarabs, of which the
genuineness, I may tell you, has been disputed by certain envious
beasts. Adams, my dear old fellow, welcome a thousand times"--and he
seized my hands and wrung them, adding, as his eye fell upon a ring I
wore, "Why, what's that? Something quite unusual. But never mind; you
shall tell me after dinner. Let me introduce you to my friend, Captain
Orme, a very decent scholar of Arabic, with a quite elementary knowledge
of Egyptology."

"_Mr._ Orme," interrupted the younger man, bowing to me.

"Oh, well, Mr. or Captain, whichever you like. He means that he is not
in the regular army, although he has been all through the Boer War, and
wounded three times, once straight through the lungs. Here's the soup.
Mrs. Reid, lay another place. I am dreadfully hungry; nothing gives me
such an appetite as unrolling mummies; it involves so much intellectual
wear and tear, in addition to the physical labour. Eat, man, eat. We
will talk afterwards."

So we ate, Higgs largely, for his appetite was always excellent, perhaps
because he was then practically a teetotaller; Mr. Orme very moderately,
and I as becomes a person who has lived for months at a time on
dates--mainly of vegetables, which, with fruits, form my principal
diet--that is, if these are available, for at a pinch I can exist on
anything.

When the meal was finished and our glasses had been filled with port,
Higgs helped himself to water, lit the large meerschaum pipe he always
smokes, and pushed round the tobacco-jar which had once served as a
sepulchural urn for the heart of an old Egyptian.

"Now, Adams," he said when we also had filled our pipes, "tell us what
has brought you back