stood back and the whole glorious
beauty of the Queen was revealed, I felt a rush of shame sweep over me.
It was not right that we should be there, gazing with irreverent eyes
on such unclad beauty: it was indecent; it was almost sacrilegious!
And yet the white wonder of that beautiful form was something to dream
of. It was not like death at all; it was like a statue carven in ivory
by the hand of a Praxiteles. There was nothing of that horrible
shrinkage which death seems to effect in a moment. There was none of
the wrinkled toughness which seems to be a leading characteristic of
most mummies. There was not the shrunken attenuation of a body dried in
the sand, as I had seen before in museums. All the pores of the body
seemed to have been preserved in some wonderful way. The flesh was
full and round, as in a living person; and the skin was as smooth as
satin. The colour seemed extraordinary. It was like ivory, new ivory;
except where the right arm, with shattered, bloodstained wrist and
missing hand had lain bare to exposure in the sarcophagus for so many
tens of centuries.

With a womanly impulse; with a mouth that drooped with pity, with eyes
that flashed with anger, and cheeks that flamed, Margaret threw over
the body the beautiful robe which lay across her arm. Only the face
was then to be seen. This was more startling even than the body, for
it seemed not dead, but alive. The eyelids were closed; but the long,
black, curling lashes lay over on the cheeks. The nostrils, set in
grave pride, seemed to have the repose which, when it is seen in life,
is greater than the repose of death. The full, red lips, though the
mouth was not open, showed the tiniest white line of pearly teeth
within. Her hair, glorious in quantity and glossy black as the raven's
wing, was piled in great masses over the white forehead, on which a few
curling tresses strayed like tendrils. I was amazed at the likeness to
Margaret, though I had had my mind prepared for this by Mr. Corbeck's
quotation of her father's statement. This woman--I could not think of
her as a mummy or a corpse--was the image of Margaret as my eyes had
first lit on her. The likeness was increased by the jewelled ornament
which she wore in her hair, the "Disk and Plumes", such as Margaret,
too, had worn. It, too, was a glorious jewel; one noble pearl of
moonlight lustre, flanked by carven pieces of moonstone.

Mr. Trelawny was overcome as he looked. He quite