at Karamaneh who, since the moment of my arrival had never
once removed her gaze from me; she remained in that state of passive
fear in which I had found her, the lovely face pallid; and she stared at
me fixedly in a childish, expressionless way which made me fear that the
shock to which she had been subjected, whatever its nature, had caused
a relapse into that strange condition of forgetfulness from which a
previous shock had aroused her. I could see that Stacey shared my view,
for:

"Something has frightened you," he said gently, seating himself on the
arm of Karamaneh's chair and patting her hand as if to reassure her.
"Tell us all about it."

For the first time since our meeting that night, the girl turned her
eyes from me and glanced up at Stacey, a sudden warm blush stealing over
her face and throat and as quickly departing, to leave her even more
pale than before. She grasped Stacey's hand in both her own--and looked
again at me.

"Send for Mr. Nayland Smith without delay!" she said, and her sweet
voice was slightly tremulous. "He must be put on his guard!"

I started up.

"Why?" I said. "For God's sake tell us what has happened!"

Aziz who evidently was as anxious as myself for information, and who now
knelt at his sister's feet looking at her with that strange love, which
was almost adoration, in his eyes, glanced back at me and nodded his
head rapidly.

"Something"--Karamaneh paused, shuddering violently--"some dreadful
thing, like a mummy escaped from its tomb, came into my room to-night
through the porthole..."

"Through the porthole?" echoed Stacey, amazedly.

"Yes, yes, through the porthole! A creature tall and very, very thin. He
wore wrappings--yellow wrappings--swathed about his head, so that only
his eyes, his evil gleaming eyes, were visible.... From waist to knees
he was covered, also, but his body, his feet, and his legs were bare..."

"Was he--?" I began...

"He was a brown man, yes,"--Karamaneh divining my question, nodded, and
the shimmering cloud of her wonderful hair, hastily confined, burst
free and rippled about her shoulders. "A gaunt, fleshless brown man, who
bent, and writhed bony fingers--so!"

"A thug!" I cried.

"He--it--the mummy thing--would have strangled me if I had slept, for he
crouched over the berth--seeking--seeking..."

I clenched my teeth convulsively.

"But I was sitting up--"

"With the light on?" interrupted Stacey in surprise.

"No," added Karamane