[*] This accounts for the gaps in the last sheets of the
     second roll. —­Editor.

“At last, however, I wrenched it loose and put it with the other in my pocket.

“Then we went on with our dreadful task in silence.  With much care we ripped loose the sack-like garment, and at last the body of a man lay before us.  Between his knees was a third roll of papyrus.  I secured it, then held down the light and looked at him.  One glance at his face was enough to tell a doctor how he had died.

“This body was not much dried up.  Evidently it had not passed the allotted seventy days in natron, and therefore the expression and likeness were better preserved than is usual.  Without entering into particulars, I will only say that I hope I shall never see such another look as that which was frozen on this dead man’s face.  Even the Arabs recoiled from it in horror and began to mutter prayers.

“For the rest, the usual opening on the left side through which the embalmers did their work was absent; the finely-cut features were those of a person of middle age, although the hair was already grey, and the frame was that of a very powerful man, the shoulders being of an extraordinary width.  I had not time to examine very closely, however, for within a few seconds from its uncovering, the unembalmed body began to crumble now that it was exposed to the action of the air.  In five or six minutes there was literally nothing left of it but a wisp of hair, the skull, and a few of the larger bones.  I noticed that one of the tibiae—­I forget if it was the right or the left—­had been fractured and very badly set.  It must have been quite an inch shorter than the other.

“Well, there was nothing more to find, and now that the excitement was over, what between the heat, the exertion, and the smell of mummy dust and spices, I felt more dead than alive.

“I am tired of writing, and this ship rolls.  This letter, of course, goes overland, and I am coming by ‘long sea,’ but I hope to be in London within ten days after you get it.  Then I will tell you of my pleasing experiences in the course of the ascent from the tomb-chamber, and of how that prince of rascals, Ali Baba, and his thieves tried to frighten me into handing over the papyri, and how I worsted them.  Then, too, we will get the rolls deciphered.  I expect that they only contain the usual thing, copies of the ‘Book of the Dead,’ but there may be something else in them.  Needless to say, I did not narrate this little adventure in Egypt, or I should have had the Boulac Museum people on my track.  Good-bye, ‘Mafish Fineesh,’ as Ali Baba always said.”

In due course, my friend, the writer of the letter from which I have quoted, arrived in London, and on the very next day we paid a visit to a learned acquaintance well versed in Hieroglyphics and Demotic writing.  The anxiety with which we watched him skilfully damping and unfolding one of the rolls and peering through his gold-rimmed glasses at the mysterious characters may well be imagined.