matter of course, the revolver from his pistol
pocket, and pointed with it. The chair from which I had risen still
stood in its place. Then I asked him to point with his hand only, as I
wished to move in the track of his shot.

Just behind my chair, and a little back of it, stood a high buhl
cabinet. The glass door was shattered. I asked:

"Was this the direction of your first shot or your second?" The answer
came promptly.

"The second; the first was over there!"

He turned a little to the left, more toward the wall where the great
safe stood, and pointed. I followed the direction of his hand and came
to the low table whereon rested, amongst other curios, the mummy of the
cat which had raised Silvio's ire. I got a candle and easily found the
mark of the bullet. It had broken a little glass vase and a tazza of
black basalt, exquisitely engraved with hieroglyphics, the graven lines
being filled with some faint green cement and the whole thing being
polished to an equal surface. The bullet, flattened against the wall,
lay on the table.

I then went to the broken cabinet. It was evidently a receptacle for
valuable curios; for in it were some great scarabs of gold, agate,
green jasper, amethyst, lapis lazuli, opal, granite, and blue-green
china. None of these things happily were touched. The bullet had gone
through the back of the cabinet; but no other damage, save the
shattering of the glass, had been done. I could not but notice the
strange arrangement of the curios on the shelf of the cabinet. All the
scarabs, rings, amulets, &c. were arranged in an uneven oval round an
exquisitely-carved golden miniature figure of a hawk-headed God crowned
with a disk and plumes. I did not wait to look further at present, for
my attention was demanded by more pressing things; but I determined to
make a more minute examination when I should have time. It was evident
that some of the strange Egyptian smell clung to these old curios;
through the broken glass came an added whiff of spice and gum and
bitumen, almost stronger than those I had already noticed as coming
from others in the room.

All this had really taken but a few minutes. I was surprised when my
eye met, through the chinks between the dark window blinds and the
window cases, the brighter light of the coming dawn. When I went back
to the sofa and took the tourniquet from Mrs. Grant, she went over and
pulled up the blinds.

It would be hard to imagine