is the first time you have even closed
your eyes. You'd better let him help us and file that wire as he
advises. I'm going now, you will wake up in a moment. This priest man
told me after I had given you the message to drop this out of my hand
and the dream would end. So here goes. Goodbye."

Owen saw Hicks hold his hand over a table and drop a small black shiny
object upon it. As it dropped Hicks vanished and Owen awoke. He heard
a sharp snap and saw something black and shiny on the table. For a
moment the secretary sat quietly in his chair staring at the table and
making sure that he was no longer dreaming. Then he examined the black
object. It was the scarab which old Mr. Marvin had removed from the
folds of the mummy. An image of the beetle which Egypt held sacred,
carved in black stone. Owen had not noticed the scarab before his
short nap and he could not account for its presence in his room
anyway.

A little later he donned his motor-cycling suit, tip-toed downstairs,
noiselessly went out by a back door and was soon trundling his big
two-cylinder motorcycle from the garage. He was careful to push it out
of the Marvin premises onto the highway before lighting his lamp and
starting.

Arriving at the field just at dawn Owen found it as deserted as the
spectral Hicks had promised. From the tool kit of his motor-cycle he
took two files of different shapes and a pair of pliers and walked
briskly and fearlessly over the uneven ground to the hangars. All were
closed except one, and that one contained the French machine in which
Pauline was to ascend. The secretary knew that this hangar would be
open. He knew in advance that he would find a mechanic on guard and
sound asleep.

Whether real or unreal, awake or asleep, the business of the moment was
the filing of that wire. Owen recognized it readily and found it not
to be a single wire, as he supposed, but a slender cable composed of
many strands. These strands resisted his file and even the clipper
attached to his pliers. After what seemed an hour's work he had
weakened or broken enough of the metal threads so that the cable
stretched perceptibly at that point to do more might cause the cable to
break at once and betray what had been done.

Owen hurriedly, returned to his machine had dashed back through the
beautiful morning air to the Marvin home. Servants were stirring in
their rooms and the gardener was engaged in shaking some sort of powder