II. POLLY'S NARRATIVE 12

III. LEONORA'S DISCOVERY 18

IV. THE EQUIPMENT 27

V. DOWN THE DARK RIVER 31

VI. THE ZU 41

VII. AMONG THE LO-GROLLAS 49

VIII. HE 59

IX. THE POWER OF HE 76

X. A BODY IN PAWN 81

XI. THE WIZARD UNBOSOMS 91

XII. THE WIZARD'S SCHEME 97

XIII. THE PERILOUS PATH 103

XIV. THE MAGIC CHAIR 113

XV. THE END 116

HE.

CHAPTER I.

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION.

As I sat, one evening, idly musing on memories of roers and Boers, and
contemplating the horns of a weendigo I had shot in Labrador and the
head of a Moo Cow[1] from Canada, I was roused by a ring at the door
bell.

[1]
A literary friend to whom I have shown your MS. says a
weendigo is Ojibbeway for a cannibal. And why do you shoot
poor Moo Cows?--PUBLISHER.

Mere slip of the pen. Meant a Cow Moose. Literary gent no
sportsman.--ED.

All right.--PUBLISHER.

The hall-porter presently entered, bearing a huge parcel, which had
just arrived by post. I opened it with all the excitement that an
unexpected parcel can cause, and murmured, like Thackeray's sailor-man,
'Claret, perhaps, Mumm, I hope----'

It was a Mummy Case, by Jingo!

This was no common, or museum mummy case. The lid, with the gilded
mask, was absent, and the under half or lower segment, painted all over
with hieroglyphics of an unusual type, and _green_ in colour--had
obviously been used as a cradle for unconscious infancy. A baby had
slept in the last sleeping-place of the dead! What an opportunity for
the moralist! But I am not a collector of cradles.

Who had sent it, and why?

The question was settled by an envelope in a feminine hand, which, with
a cylindrical packet, fell out of the Mummy Case, and contained a
letter running as follows:--

_'Lady Betty's, Oxford._

_'My dear Sir,--You have not forgotten me and my friend Leonora
O'Dolite?_

_'The Mummy Case which encloses this document is the Cradle of
her ancient Race._

_'We are, for reasons you will di