The Living Mummy

I was hard at work in my tent. I had almost completed translating the inscription of a small stele of Amen-hotep III, dated B. C., 1382, which with my own efforts I had discovered, and I was feeling wonderfully self-satisfied in consequence, when of a sudden I heard a great commotion without. Almost immediately the tent flap was lifted, and Migdal Abu's black face appeared. He looked vastly excited for an Arab, and he rolled his eyes horribly. "What do you want?" I demanded irritably. "Did I not tell you I was not to be disturbed?" He bent almost double. "Excellency—a white sheik has come riding on an ass, and with him a shameless female, also white." "The dickens!" I exclaimed, for I had not seen a European for nine weeks. Migdal Abu advanced with hand outstretched. "Excellency, he would have me give you this." I took "this," and swore softly underbreath at the humourless pomposity of my unknown countryman. It was a pasteboard carte-de-visite. And we—in the heart of the Libyan desert! With a laugh I looked at the thing and read his name—"Sir Robert Ottley." "What!" I said, then sprang a-foot. Ottley the great Egyptologist. Ottley the famous explorer. Ottley the eminent decipherer of cuneiform inscriptions. Ottley the millionaire whose prodigality in the cause of learning had in ten short years more than doubled the common stock of knowledge of the history of the Shepherd kings of the Nile. I had been longing since a lad to meet him, and now he had come unasked to see me out on the burning sands of Yatibiri. Trembling with excitement, I caught up a jacket, and hardly waiting to thrust my arms into the sleeves, rushed out of the tent. Before me, sitting on an ass that was already sound asleep, despite a plague of flies that played about its eyes, was a little bronze-faced, grizzled old man attired from head to foot in glistening white duck and wearing on his head an enormous pith helmet. My Arabs, glad of an excuse to cease work, squatted round him in a semi-circle. "Sir Robert Ottley!" I cried. "A thousand welcomes." "You are very good," he drawled. "I presume you are Dr. Pinsent." "At your service." He stooped a little forward and offered me his hand. "Will you not dismount?" I asked. "Thank you, no. I have come to ask a favour." Then he glanced round him and began deliberately to count my Arabs. I surveyed him in blank astonishment. He possessed a large hawk-like nose, a small thin-lipped mouth and little eyes twinkling under brows that beetled. "Twelve, and two of them are good for nothing; mere weeds," said Sir Robert. Then he turned to me with a smile. "You will forgive me?" he asked, adding quickly, "but then Arabs are cattle. There was no personal reflection." "A cup of coffee," I suggested. "The sun is dreadful. It would refresh you." "The sun is nothing," he replied, "and I have work to do. I am camped on the southern slope of the Hill of Rakh. It is twelve miles. I have found the tomb for which I have been searching seven years. I thought I had enough Arabs. I was mistaken." "You may have the use of mine and welcome," I observed. He gave a queer little bow. "He gives twice who gives quickly. The sarcophagus is in a rock hole forty feet beneath the level of the desert. I simply must have it up to-night." "They shall start at once, and I shall go with them; I am as strong as six," I replied. Then I shouted some orders to Migdal Abu. When I turned it was to gasp. A woman had materialised from the sunbeams. I had completely forgotten that Sir Robert had a female companion. All my eyes had been for him. I swung off my hat and stammered some tardy words of welcome and invitation. Sir Robert interrupted me. "My daughter—Dr. Pinsent," he drawled in slow, passionless tones. "My daughter does not require any refreshment, thank you, Doctor."