the monkey head of Hapi, the
jackal head of Tuamutef, and the hawk head of Kebhsnauf. The vases
contained the viscerae of the mummy enclosed in the sarcophagus. At the
head of the tomb an effigy of Osiris with plaited beard seemed to watch
over the dead. Two coloured statues of women stood right and left of the
tomb, supporting, with one hand a square box on their head, and holding
in the other a vase for ablutions which they rested on their hip. The
one was dressed in a simple white skirt clinging to the hips and held up
by crossed braces; the other, more richly costumed, was wrapped in a
sort of narrow shift, covered with scales alternately red and green. By
the side of the first there were three water-jars, originally filled
with Nile water, which, as it evaporated, had left its mud, and a plate
holding some alimentary paste, now dried up. By the side of the second,
two small ships, like the model ships made in seaports, which reproduced
accurately, the one the minutest details of the boats destined to bear
the bodies from Diospolis to Memnonia, the other the symbolical boat in
which the soul is carried to the regions of the West. Nothing was
forgotten,--neither the masts, nor the rudder formed of one long sweep,
nor the pilot, nor the oarsmen, nor the mummy surrounded by mourners and
lying under the shrine on a bed with feet formed of lion's claws, nor
the allegorical figures of the funeral divinities fulfilling their
sacred functions. Both the boats and the figures were painted in
brilliant colours, and on the two sides of the prow, beak-like as the
poop, showed the great Osiris' eye, made longer still by the use of
antimony. The bones and skull of an ox scattered here and there showed
that a victim had been offered up as a scapegoat to the Fate which might
have disturbed the repose of the dead. Coffers painted and bedizened
with hieroglyphs were placed on the tomb; reed tables yet bore the final
offerings. Nothing had been touched in this palace of death since the
day when the mummy in its cartonnage and its two coffins had been placed
upon its basalt couch. The worm of the sepulchre, which can find a way
through the closest biers, had itself retreated, driven back by the
bitter scent of the bitumen and the aromatic essences.

"Shall I open the sarcophagus?" said Argyropoulos, after Lord Evandale
and Doctor Rumphius had had time to admire the beauty of the Golden
Hall.

"Unquestionably," replied the nobleman; "b