locked the door, and as we wenton tiptoe upstairs to our rooms, the Colonel, peering at us over hiscandle as he nodded good-night, whispered that if we were ready thedigging should be begun that very day.
Then I saw him steal along to his sister's room and disappear.
IV
But not even the mysterious references to the mummy, or the prospect ofa revelation by digging, were able to hinder the reaction that followedthe intense excitement of the past twelve hours, and I slept the sleepof the dead, dreamless and undisturbed. A touch on the shoulder woke me,and I saw Dr. Silence standing beside the bed, dressed to go out.
"Come," he said, "it's tea-time. You've slept the best part of a dozenhours."
I sprang up and made a hurried toilet, while my companion sat andtalked. He looked fresh and rested, and his manner was even quieter thanusual.
"Colonel Wragge has provided spades and pickaxes. We're going out tounearth this mummy at once," he said; "and there's no reason we shouldnot get away by the morning train."
"I'm ready to go tonight, if you are," I said honestly.
But Dr. Silence shook his head.
"I must see this through to the end," he said gravely, and in a tonethat made me think he still anticipated serious things, perhaps. He wenton talking while I dressed.
"This case is really typical of all stories of mummy-haunting, and noneof them are cases to trifle with," he explained, "for the mummies ofimportant people--kings, priests, magicians--were laid away withprofoundly significant ceremonial, and were very effectively protected,as you have seen, against desecration, and especially againstdestruction.
"The general belief," he went on, anticipating my questions, "held, ofcourse, that the perpetuity of the mummy guaranteed that of its Ka,--theowner's spirit,--but it is not improbable that the magical embalmingwas also used to retard reincarnation, the preservation of the bodypreventing the return of the spirit to the toil and discipline ofearth-life; and, in any case, they knew how to attach powerfulguardian-forces to keep off trespassers. And any one who dared to removethe 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 wasdeeply serious. There could be no question that he spoke of what hebelieved 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 amagic circle to enclose it. Something of genuine ceremonial he must haveknown, for the stars the man saw were of course the remains of the stillflaming pentagrams he traced at intervals in the circle. Only he did notknow enough, or possibly was ignorant that the mummy's guardian was afire-force. Fire cannot be enclosed by fire, though, as you saw, it canbe released by it."
"Then that awful figure in the laundry?" I asked, thrilled to find himso communicative.
"Undoubtedly the actual Ka of the mummy operating always behind itsagent, 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, andthe Colonel had sent to ask if we were coming down. The thread wasbroken. Dr. Silence moved to the door and signed to me to follow. Buthis manner told me that in any case no real answer would have beenforthcoming 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 tofinish my dressing.
It was growing dark when the three of us silently made our way to theTwelve Acre Plantation; the sky was overcast, and a black wind came outof the east. Gloom hung about the old house and the air seemed full ofsighings. We found the tools ready laid at the edge of the wood, andeach shouldering his piece, we followed our leader at once in among thetrees. 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 wasjust discernible against the surrounding white grass.
"There are three of these," he said, "and they all lie in a line withone another. Any one of them will tap the tunnel that connects thelaundry--the former Museum--with the chamber where the mummy now liesburied."
He at once cleared away the burnt grass and began to dig; we all beganto dig. While I used the pick, the others shovelled vigorously. No onespoke. Colonel Wragge worked the hardest of the three. The soil waslight and sandy, and there were only a few snake-like roots andoccasional loose stones to delay us. The pick made short work of these.And meanwhile the darkness settled about us and the biting wind sweptroaring through the trees overhead.
Then, quite suddenly, without a cry, Colonel Wragge disappeared up tohis neck.
"The tunnel!" cried the doctor, helping to drag him out, red,breathless, and covered with sand and perspiration. "Now, let me leadthe way." And he slipped down nimbly into the hole, so that a momentlater we heard his voice, muffled by sand and distance, rising up to us.
"Hubbard, you come next, and then Colonel Wragge--if he wishes," weheard.
"I'll follow you, of course," he said, looking at me as I scrambled in.
The hole was bigger now, and I got down on all-fours in a channel notmuch bigger than a large sewer-pipe and found myself in total darkness.A minute later a heavy thud, followed by a cataract of loose sand,announced the arrival of the Colonel.
"Catch hold of my heel," called Dr. Silence, "and Colonel Wragge cantake yours."
In this slow, laborious fashion we wormed our way along a tunnel thathad been roughly dug out of the shifting sand, and was shored upclumsily by means of wooden pillars and posts. Any moment, it seemed tome, we might be buried alive. We could not see an inch before our eyes,but had to grope our way feeling the pillars and the walls. It wasdifficult to breathe, and the Colonel behind me made but slow progress,for the cramped position of our bodies was very severe.
We had travelled in this way for ten minutes, and gone perhaps as muchas ten yards, when I lost my grasp of the doctor's heel.
"Ah!" I heard his voice, sounding above me somewhere. He was standing upin a clear space, and the next moment I was standing beside him. ColonelWragge came heavily after, and he too rose up and stood. Then Dr.Silence produced his candles and we heard preparations for strikingmatches.
Yet even before there was light, an indefinable sensation of awe cameover us all. In this hole in the sand, some three feet under ground, westood side by side, cramped and huddled, struck suddenly with an overwhelming apprehension of something ancient, something formidable,something incalculably wonderful, that touched in each one of us a senseof the sublime and the terrible even before we could see an inch beforeour faces. I know not how to express in language this singular emotionthat caught us here in utter darkness, touching no sense directly, itseemed, yet with the recognition that before us in the blackness of thisunderground night there lay something that was mighty with themightiness of long past ages.
I felt Colonel Wragge press in closely to my side, and I understood thepressure and welcomed it. No human touch, to me at least, has ever beenmore eloquent.
Then the match flared, a thousand shadows fled on black wings, and I sawJohn Silence fumbling with the candle, his face lit up grotesquely bythe flickering light below it.
I had dreaded this light, yet when it came there was apparently nothingto explain the profound sensations of dread that preceded it. We stoodin a small vaulted chamber in the sand, the sides and roof shored withbars of wood, and the ground laid roughly with what seemed to be tiles.It was six feet high, so that we could all stand comfortably, and mayhave been ten feet long by eight feet wide. Upon the wooden pillars atthe side I saw that Egyptian hieroglyphics had been rudely traced byburning.
Dr. Silence lit three candles and handed one to each of us. He placed afourth in the sand against the wall on his right
, and another to markthe entrance to the tunnel. We stood and stared about us, instinctivelyholding our breath.
"Empty, by God!" exclaimed Colonel Wragge. His voice trembled withexcitement. And then, as his eyes rested on the ground, he added, "Andfootsteps--look--footsteps in the sand!"
Dr. Silence said nothing. He stooped down and began to make a search ofthe chamber, and as he moved, my eyes followed his crouching figure andnoted the queer distorted shadows that poured over the walls and ceilingafter him. Here and there thin trickles of loose sand ran fizzing downthe sides. The atmosphere, heavily charged with faint yet pungentodours, lay utterly still, and the flames of the candles might have beenpainted on the air for all the movement they betrayed.
And, as I watched, it was almost necessary to persuade myself