s used in embalming
became new fuel, and the flames roared. A few minutes of fierce
conflagration; and then we breathed freely. Queen Tera's Familiar was
no more!

When we went back to the cave we found Margaret sitting in the dark.
She had switched off the electric light, and only a faint glow of the
evening light came through the narrow openings. Her father went
quickly over to her and put his arms round her in a loving protective
way. She laid her head on his shoulder for a minute and seemed
comforted. Presently she called to me:

"Malcolm, turn up the light!" I carried out her orders, and could see
that, though she had been crying, her eyes were now dry. Her father
saw it too and looked glad. He said to us in a grave tone:

"Now we had better prepare for our great work. It will not do to leave
anything to the last!" Margaret must have had a suspicion of what was
coming, for it was with a sinking voice that she asked:

"What are you going to do now?" Mr. Trelawny too must have had a
suspicion of her feelings, for he answered in a low tone:

"To unroll the mummy of Queen Tera!" She came close to him and said
pleadingly in a whisper:

"Father, you are not going to unswathe her! All you men...! And in
the glare of light!"

"But why not, my dear?"

"Just think, Father, a woman! All alone! In such a way! In such a
place! Oh! it's cruel, cruel!" She was manifestly much overcome. Her
cheeks were flaming red, and her eyes were full of indignant tears.
Her father saw her distress; and, sympathising with it, began to
comfort her. I was moving off; but he signed to me to stay. I took it
that after the usual manner of men he wanted help on such an occasion,
and man-like wished to throw on someone else the task of dealing with a
woman in indignant distress. However, he began to appeal first to her
reason:

"Not a woman, dear; a mummy! She has been dead nearly five thousand
years!"

"What does that matter? Sex is not a matter of years! A woman is a
woman, if she had been dead five thousand centuries! And you expect
her to arise out of that long sleep! It could not be real death, if
she is to rise out of it! You have led me to believe that she will
come alive when the Coffer is opened!"

"I did, my dear; and I believe it! But if it isn't death that has been
the matter with her all these years, it is something uncommonly like
it. Then again, just think; it was men who embalmed her. They d