of triumphant steel through its soft smoothness. "Stand aside. This
is in the name of the law."

It seemed to McLean that for one mad moment Ryder was tempted to
resist. In the flickering light of the torches he stood defiantly
above the painted mummy case, his eyes steadily upon the bey, his
hands pressing down upon the vivid bloom of the dead woman's
pictured face.

Then with a beaten but ironic smile he stood aside.

Slowly the men lifted the lid.... In that moment McLean became aware
that his heart was pumping thickly somewhere in his throat and that
the rest of him was a hollow, horrible void of suspense.

Hamdi Bey turned his arrogant stare from young Ryder and looked
down.... Drawing closer, fearfully McLean's eyes followed him.

He could not believe their evidence. His heart could not stop its
idiotic pumping.

But there he saw no terror-stricken girl, no pallid runaway of the
harems, but a still, dark-shrouded form, swathed in the tight
bandages of the ancient embalmer, a dry, dusty little mummy creature
blankly and inscrutably confronting this unforeseen resurrection.

Over their dumbfounded heads he heard young Ryder's mocking laugh.

CHAPTER XXV

IN CAIRO

"It's good news!" said Miss Jeffries with bright positives.

It was her response to Andrew McLean's greeting that evening. He
had made rather a tardy appearance at the hotel, for there had
been an important dinner with an important bank official passing
through Cairo to escape from, but he arrived at last, looking
extraordinarily well in his very best dinner clothes.

And Miss Jeffries, for all her harassment of suspense, was no woeful
object in a vivacious blue evening frock with silvery gleams.

"He's safe--absolutely safe," McLean confirmed.

He expected radiance. Miss Jeffries' expression was arrested
judgment.

"Safe--_where_?"

"At his camp ... I just returned--just in time to dine. I motored
out this morning."

"Oh!... It took your whole day. I am so sorry!" For a moment the
girl appeared to concentrate her sympathetic interest upon McLean.

"You must simply hate me," she told him repentantly, dropping into
one of the chairs in the drawing-room corner she had long been
guarding. "Do sit down and tell me all the horrid details....--Uncle
and Aunt are in the Lounge, and I should like you to meet them, but
they'll be there forever and I do want to hear first.... Was it
fearfully hot?"

"Oh, rather," murmured the young