Brilliant, indeterminably oblique eyes... a strictly chiselled nose, somewhat too large for classic beauty... full lips, slightly parted... a long oval contour....
That's a dacoit!" came Petrie's voice. "Miss Barton, this is amazing! See the mark on his forehead! "
"I have seen it," Rima replied, "although I didn't know what it meant. "
"But," I interrupted excitedly, as: "Greville," Forester cried, "do you see! "
"I see very plainly," said I. "Weymouth-- the woman in this photograph is Madame Ingomar!"
2
"What is Lafleur's Shaft?" Weymouth asked. "And in what way is it connected with Lafleur's Tomb? "
"It isn't connected with it," I replied. "Lafleur's Tomb--also known as the Tomb of the Black Ape--was discovered, or rather suspected to exist, by the French Egyptologist Lafleur, about 1908. He accidentally unearthed a little votive chapel. All the frag- ments of offerings found were inscribed with the figure of what appeared to be a huge black ape--or perhaps an ape-man. There's been a lot of speculation about it. Certain authorities, notably Maspero, held the theory that some queer pet of an unknown Pharoah had been given a freak burial.
"Lafleur cut a shaft into a long zigzag passage belonging to another burial chamber, which he thought would lead him to the Tomb of the Black Ape. It led nowhere. It was abandoned in 1909. Sir Lionel started from a different point altogether and seems to have hit on the right entrance. "
"Ah!" said Weymouth. "Then my next step is clear." "What is that? "
"I want you to take me down to your excavation." "Good enough," said I; "shall we start now?" "I think it would be as well." He turned to Forester. "I want Greville to act as guide, and I want you and Petrie to look after Miss Barton in our absence. "
"We shall need Ali," I said, "to go ahead with lights." "Very well. Will you please make the necessary arrangements?"
Accordingly I relieved Ali Mahmoud of his sentry duties and had the lanterns lighted. They were kept in the smaller hut. And presently Weymouth and I were on the ladders....
The first part of our journey led us down a sheer pit of considerable depth. At the bottom it gave access to a sloping passage, the original entrance to which had defied all our efforts to discover it.
This was very commonplace to me, but I don't know how that first glimpse of the pit affected Weymouth. The night was black as pitch. Dawn was very near. Outlined by the light of the lanterns Ali carried, that ragged gap far below, to reach which we had been at work for many months, looked a likely enough portal to ghostly corridors.
An indescribable smell which charac- terises the tombs of Upper Egypt crept up like a hot miasma. Our ladders were fairly permanent fixtures, sloping down at easy gradients from platform to platform. The work had been fenced around; and, as we entered the doorway, watching the Arab descending from point to point and leaving a lantern at each stopping place, a sort of foreboding seemed to grab me by the throat.
It was unaccountable, or so I thought at the time, but it was well founded, as events were soon to show. I glanced at Weymouth.
The big man was looking doubtfully at the ladders, but:
"It's safe enough," I said, "even for your weight. The chief is as heavy. I'll lead the way."
And so we set out, descending slowly. When at last the rubble-covered floor of the tunnel was beneath our feet, Weymouth paused, breathing deeply.
"That's the way to the original entrance," I said, pointing, "up the slope; but it's completely blocked fifteen yards along. There must be a bend, or a series of bends, because where it originally came out heaven only knows. However, this is our way."
I turned to where the shadowy figure of Ali waited, a lantern swinging in either hand so that the light shining up on to his bearded face lent it an unfamiliar and mask-like appearance. I nodded; and we began to descend the tunnelled winding slope. At a point just before we came to the last bend, Ali paused and held up one of the lanterns wamingly.
"There's a pit just in front of us, Weymouth," I explained.
"It doesn't lead anywhere, but it's deep enough to break one's neck. Pass to the left."
We circled cautiously around the edge of this mysterious well, possibly designed as a trap for unwary tomb robbers. Then came the sharp bend, and here Ali left one of his two lanterns to light us on our return journey. The gradient became much steeper.
"We were starting on a stone portcullis which the chief believed to be that of the actual burial chamber," I explained, as we stumbled on downward in the wake of the dancing lantern. "He had a system of dealing with these formidable barriers which was all his own. Probably a few hours' work would have seen us through. Here we are!"
Ali paused, holding the lantern above his head..... And, as he did so he uttered a loud cry.
I pushed past Weymouth in the narrow passage and joined the headman. He turned to me in the lamplight. His face was ghastly.
"Good God!" I clutched the Arab's arm.
A triangular opening, large enough to admit a man, yawned in the bottom left-hand comer of the portcullis! Ali raised his lantern higher. I looked up at a jagged hole in the right top comer....
"What does this mean?" Weymouth demanded hoarsely.
"It means," I replied, in a voice as husky as his own, "that someone has finished the job ... and finished it as Sir Lionel had planned!"
3
The tomb of the Black Ape was extraordi- nary. Whilst structurally it resembled in its main features others with which I was familiar, it was notable in its possession of an endless fresco of huge black apes. There were no inscriptions. The sagging portcullis, viewed from the interior of the chamber, created an odd hiatus in the otherwise unbroken march of the apes.
Low down in the comer of one wall was a square opening which I surmised must lead to an antechamber, such as is sometimes found. The place contained absolutely nothing so far as I could see except a stone sarcophagus, the heavy lid of which had been removed and laid upon the floor. Within was a perfectly plain wooden mummy case, apparently of sycamore, its lid in position.
I was defeated. Either the mummy case was the least valuable object in the burial chamber, and everything else had been looted, or the thieves had been interrupted in the very hour of their triumph!
I hope I have made the scene clear, Ali standing almost as still as a statue, holding his lantern aloft; Weymouth a dim figure at one end of the sarcophagus, and I facing him from the other; the black apes marching eter- nally around us. Because this was the scene, deep there in the Egyptian rock, upon which eerily a sound intruded....
"What's that?" Weymouth whispered.
We stood listening, reduced to that frame of mind which makes sane men believe in ghosts.
And, as we listened, the sound grew nearer.
It was made by soft footsteps....
Weymouth recovered himself first; and: "Quick," he whispered to Ali, "through the opening!"
He pointed to that square gap which I have mentioned and which I supposed to communicate with an antechamber.
"Quiet!" he added. "Not a sound!"
Led by Ali, we crossed the chamber, and as the headman stooped and disappeared only a dim and ghostly light shone out to guide us.
"Go on!" Weymouth urged.
I ducked and entered. Weymouth followed.
"Cover the lantern!"
Ali began to speak rapidly in Arabic, but: "Cover the lantern!" Weymouth repeated angrily. "Be quiet!"
Ali threw something over the lantern and we found ourselves in utter darkness.
In a low tone, the headman began to speak again, but: "Silence!" Weymouth ordered.
Ali Mahmoud became silent. He was one of the bravest men I have ever known, but now his broken tones spoke of fear. Partially, I had gathered what he wanted to say. My recognition only added to the horror of the situation.