hree whole days, when
you were in the Queen's tomb for the second time. And then, as I
gathered from Mr. Corbeck's story, the coffer was not back in the tomb,
though the mummy was. Surely in both these cases there must have been
some active intelligence awake, and with some other power to wield."
Mr. Trelawny's answer was equally to the point:

"There was some active intelligence awake. I am convinced of it. And
it wielded a power which it never lacks. I believe that on both those
occasions hypnotism was the power wielded."

"And wherein is that power contained? What view do you hold on the
subject?" Doctor Winchester's voice vibrated with the intensity of his
excitement as he leaned forward, breathing hard, and with eyes staring.
Mr. Trelawny said solemnly:

"In the mummy of the Queen Tera! I was coming to that presently.
Perhaps we had better wait till I clear the ground a little. What I
hold is, that the preparation of that box was made for a special
occasion; as indeed were all the preparations of the tomb and all
belonging to it. Queen Tera did not trouble herself to guard against
snakes and scorpions, in that rocky tomb cut in the sheer cliff face a
hundred feet above the level of the valley, and fifty down from the
summit. Her precautions were against the disturbances of human hands;
against the jealousy and hatred of the priests, who, had they known of
her real aims, would have tried to baffle them. From her point of
view, she made all ready for the time of resurrection, whenever that
might be. I gather from the symbolic pictures in the tomb that she so
far differed from the belief of her time that she looked for a
resurrection in the flesh. It was doubtless this that intensified the
hatred of the priesthood, and gave them an acceptable cause for
obliterating the very existence, present and future, of one who had
outrage their theories and blasphemed their gods. All that she might
require, either in the accomplishment of the resurrection or after it,
were contained in that almost hermetically sealed suite of chambers in
the rock. In the great sarcophagus, which as you know is of a size
quite unusual even for kings, was the mummy of her Familiar, the cat,
which from its great size I take to be a sort of tiger-cat. In the
tomb, also in a strong receptacle, were the canopic jars usually
containing those internal organs which are separately embalmed, but
which in this case had no such contents. So