dgment in the interstices. I used much
force, however; and by many heavy strokes won a way into the tomb, for
such I found it to be. The stone door having fallen into the entrance
I passed over it into the tomb, noting as I went a long iron chain
which hung coiled on a bracket close to the doorway.

"The tomb I found to be complete, after the manner of the finest
Egyptian tombs, with chamber and shaft leading down to the corridor,
ending in the Mummy Pit. It had the table of pictures, which seems
some kind of record--whose meaning is now for ever lost--graven in a
wondrous colour on a wondrous stone.

"All the walls of the chamber and the passage were carved with strange
writings in the uncanny form mentioned. The huge stone coffin or
sarcophagus in the deep pit was marvellously graven throughout with
signs. The Arab chief and two others who ventured into the tomb with
me, and who were evidently used to such grim explorations, managed to
take the cover from the sarcophagus without breaking it. At which they
wondered; for such good fortune, they said, did not usually attend such
efforts. Indeed they seemed not over careful; and did handle the
various furniture of the tomb with such little concern that, only for
its great strength and thickness, even the coffin itself might have
been injured. Which gave me much concern, for it was very beautifully
wrought of rare stone, such as I had no knowledge of. Much I grieved
that it were not possible to carry it away. But time and desert
journeyings forbade such; I could only take with me such small matters
as could be carried on the person.

"Within the sarcophagus was a body, manifestly of a woman, swathed with
many wrappings of linen, as is usual with all mummies. From certain
embroiderings thereon, I gathered that she was of high rank. Across
the breast was one hand, unwrapped. In the mummies which I had seen,
the arms and hands are within the wrappings, and certain adornments of
wood, shaped and painted to resemble arms and hands, lie outside the
enwrapped body.

"But this hand was strange to see, for it was the real hand of her who
lay enwrapped there; the arm projecting from the cerements being of
flesh, seemingly made as like marble in the process of embalming. Arm
and hand were of dusky white, being of the hue of ivory that hath lain
long in air. The skin and the nails were complete and whole, as though
the body had been placed for burial over night. I t