"By heavens! it is!" he took me up. "After all he didn't die at the hands of his own friends. "
"One thing is fairly certain," I said; "he came by the same route as the woman--by Lafleur's Shaft. What isn't certain is when a way was forced through. "
"Nor why a way was forced through," Weymouth added. "What in heaven's name were they after? Is it possible"--he lowered his voice, staring at the procession of hideous, giant apes which marched eternally round the walls of the chamber--"that there was something in this tomb beyond...." He nodded in the direction of the sarcophagus.
"Quite possible," I replied; "but lacking special information to the contrary the first thing any excavator would do would be to open the mummy case. "
"This seems to have been done. "
"What!" I cried. "What! "
"Look for yourself," Weymouth invited, a curious expression in his voice.
He directed a ray on one end of the sarcophagus; whereupon:
"Good God!" I cried.
The wooden rivets had been removed, the lid raised and then replaced! Two wedges prevented its falling into its original position, leaving a gap of an inch or more all around....
I stared in utter stupefaction, unticlass="underline" "Have you any idea why that should be done?" Weymouth asked.
I shook my head. "Unless to make it easier to lift again," I suggested.
"If that was the idea," Weymouth went on quickly, "we will take advantage of it." He turned to Ali. "Hold the light--so. Now, Greville, get a grip with me, here. Don't move to any other part of the lid if you can avoid it--there may be fingerprints. And now ... see if we can raise it."
In a state of such excitement as I cannot describe, I obeyed. Simultaneously we lifted, steadily. It responded to our efforts, being lighter than I had supposed....
I fixed a half-fearful gaze upon its shadowy interior.
It appeared to contain a dull, grey mass, irregular in contour, provokingly familiar yet impossible to identify in that first dramatic moment. The very unexpectedness of its appearance destroyed my reasoning powers, temporarily defeating recognition.
When we had the lid at an angle of about forty-five:
"Hold it!" I called. "I'll take the other end. "
"Right!" Weymouth agreed.
"Now!"
We lifted the lid bodily and laid it on the floor.
I could not have believed that that night of mystery and horror had one more thrill for my jaded nerves. Yet it was so, and it came to me then--an emotion topping all the others; such a thing as no sane man could have conjured up in his wildest imaginings....
Amazed beyond reasonable articulation, I uttered a sort of strangled cry, staring-- staring---down into the sarcophagus.
Overstrain and the insufferable atmo- sphere of the place may have played their parts. But I must confess that the procession of apes began to move about me, the walls of the tomb to sway.
I became aware of a deadly sickness, as I stared and stared at the grey-white face of Sir Lionel Barton, lying in that ancient coffin wrapped in his army blanket!
Chapter Fourth
FAH LO SUEE
"Better turn in, Greville," said Dr. Petrie rapidly.
"Lie down at any rate. Can't expect you to sleep. But you've had enough for one night. Your job is finished for the moment. Mine begins."
How the others had reacted to our astounding discovery I am quite unable to relate. I was in no fit condition to judge.
Petrie half supported me along the sloping passage, and administered a fairly stiff peg from his flask which enabled me with All's aid to mount the ladders. I was furious with myself. To have to retire when the most amazing operation ever attempted by a surgeon was about to be performed--the restoring of a dead man to life!... But when at last I dropped down on my bed in the tent, I experienced a moment of horrible doubt--a moment during which I questioned my own sanity.
Alt Mahmoud's expression, as he stood watching me anxiously, held a certain reassur- ance, however. That imperturbable man was shaken to the depths of his being.
"Effendim," he whispered, "it is Black Magic! It is Forbidden this tomb!" He grasped an iron ring which he wore upon his right hand, and pronounced the takbir, being a devout Moslem. "Everyone has told me so. And it is true! "
"It would seem to be," I whispered. "Go back. You will be wanted."
I had always loved the chief, and that last glimpse of his grey-white face, under the astounding circumstances of our discovery, had utterly bowled me out. The things I had heard of Dr. Fu Manchu formed a sort of dizzy background--a moving panorama behind this incredible phantasy. There was no sanity in it all--no stable point upon which one could grasp.
Was Sir Lionel dead, or did he live? Dead or alive, who had stolen his body, and why? Most unanswerable query of all-- with what possible object had he been concealed in the sarcophagus?
A thousand other questions, equally insane, presented themselves in a gibbering horde. I clutched my head and groaned. I heard a light footstep, looked up, and there was Rima standing in the opening of the tent.
"Shan, dear!" she cried, "you look awful! I don't wonder. I have heard what happened. And truly I can't believe it even now! Oh, Shan, do you really, really think--"
She fell on her knees beside me and grasped my hand.
"I don't know," I said, and scarcely knew my own voice. "I have had rather a thick time, dear, and I, well... I nearly passed out. But I saw him. "
"Do you think I could help? "
"I don't know," I replied wearily. "If so, Petrie will send for you. After all, we're quite in his hands. I don't want you to hope for too much, darling. This mysterious 'antidote' seems like sheer lunacy to me. Such things are clean outside the scope of ordinary human knowledge. "
"Poor old boy," said Rima, and smoothed my hair caress-ingly.
Her touch was thrilling, yet soothing; and I resigned myself very gladly to those gentle fingers. There is nothing so healing as the magnetism of human sympathy. And after a while:
"I think a cigarette might be a good idea, Rima," I said. "I'm beginning to recover consciousness!"
She offered me one from a little enam- elled case which I had bought in Cairo on the occasion of her last birthday--the only present I had ever given her. And we smoked for a while in that silence which is better than speech; then:
"I saw something queer," said Rima suddenly, "while you were away with Mr. Weymouth. Are you too weary--or do you want me to tell you?"
Her tone was peculiar, and:
"Yes--tell me what you saw," I replied, looking into her eyes.
"Well," she went on, "Captain Hunter came along after you had gone. Naturally, he was as restless as any of us. And after a while --leaving the hut door open, of course--I went and stood outside to see if there was any sign of your return...."
She spoke with unwonted rapidity and I could see that in some way she had grown more agitated. Of course I had to allow for the dreadful suspense she was suffering.
"You know the path, at the back of the small hut," she continued, "which leads up to the plateau. "
"The path to Lafleur's Shaft?"
Rima nodded.
"Well, I saw a woman--at least, it looked like a woman-- walking very quickly across the top! She was just an outline against the sky, and I'm not positive about it at all. Besides, I only saw her for a moment. But I can't possibly have been dreaming, can I? What I wondered, and what I've been wondering ever since is: What native woman --she looked like a native woman--would be up there at this time of night?"
She was sitting at my feet now, her arm resting on my knees. She looked up at me appealingly.
"What are you really thinking?" I asked "I'm thinking about that photograph!" she confessed. "I believe it was--Madame Ingomar! And, Shan, that woman terrifies me! I begged uncle not to allow her to come here-- and he just laughed at me! I don't know why he couldn't see it... but she is dreadfully evil! I have caught her watching you, when you didn't know, in a way...."