“This case is really typical of all stories of mummy-haunting, and none of them are cases to trifle with,” he explained, “for the mummies of important people—­kings, priests, magicians—­were laid away with profoundly significant ceremonial, and were very effectively protected, as you have seen, against desecration, and especially against destruction.

“The general belief,” he went on, anticipating my questions, “held, of course, that the perpetuity of the mummy guaranteed that of its Ka,—­the owner’s spirit,—­but it is not improbable that the magical embalming was also used to retard reincarnation, the preservation of the body preventing the return of the spirit to the toil and discipline of earth-life; and, in any case, they knew how to attach powerful guardian-forces to keep off trespassers.  And any one who dared to remove the mummy, or especially to unwind it—­well,” he added, with meaning, “you have seen—­and you will see.”

I caught his face in the mirror while I struggled with my collar.  It was deeply serious.  There could be no question that he spoke of what he believed and knew.

“The traveller-brother who brought it here must have been haunted too,” he continued, “for he tried to banish it by burial in the wood, making a magic circle to enclose it.  Something of genuine ceremonial he must have known, for the stars the man saw were of course the remains of the still flaming pentagrams he traced at intervals in the circle.  Only he did not know enough, or possibly was ignorant that the mummy’s guardian was a fire-force.  Fire cannot be enclosed by fire, though, as you saw, it can be released by it.”

“Then that awful figure in the laundry?” I asked, thrilled to find him so communicative.

“Undoubtedly the actual Ka of the mummy operating always behind its agent, the elemental, and most likely thousands of years old.”

“And Miss Wragge—?” I ventured once more.

“Ah, Miss Wragge,” he repeated with increased gravity, “Miss Wragge—­”

A knock at the door brought a servant with word that tea was ready, and the Colonel had sent to ask if we were coming down.  The thread was broken.  Dr. Silence moved to the door and signed to me to follow.  But his manner told me that in any case no real answer would have been forthcoming to my question.

“And the place to dig in,” I asked, unable to restrain my curiosity, “will you find it by some process of divination or—?”

He paused at the door and looked back at me, and with that he left me to finish my dressing.

It was growing dark when the three of us silently made our way to the Twelve Acre Plantation; the sky was overcast, and a black wind came out of the east.  Gloom hung about the old house and the air seemed full of sighings.  We found the tools ready laid at the edge of the wood, and each shouldering his piece, we followed our leader at once in among the trees.  He went straight forward for some twenty yards and then stopped.  At his feet lay the blackened circle of one of the burned places.  It was just discernible against the surrounding white grass.