It is a common error to confuse the archÆologist with the mere collector of ignoble trifles, equally pleased with an unusual postage stamp or a scarce example of an Italian primitive. Nor should the impertinent curiosity of local antiquaries, which sees in every disused chalk-pit traces of Roman civilisation, be compared with the rare predilection requisite for a nobler pursuit. The archÆologist preserves for us those objects which time has forgotten and passing fashion rejected; in the museums he buries our ancient eikons, where they become impervious to neglect, praise, or criticism; while the collector—a malicious atavist unless he possess accidental perceptions—merely rescues the mistakes of his forefathers, to crowd public galleries with an inconsequent lumber which a better taste has taught as to despise.

In the magic of escaped conventions surely none is more powerful than the Greek, and even now, though we yawn over the enthusiasm of the Renaissance mirrored in our more cadenced prose, there are some who can still catch the delightful contagion which seized the princes and philosophers of Europe in that Martin’s Summer of Middle Age.

Of the New Learning already become old, Professor Lachsyrma is reputed a master. Scarcely any one in England holds a like position. He is sixty, and, though his youth is said to have been eventful, he hardly looks his age. He speaks English with a delightful accent, and there always hangs about his presence a melancholy halo of mystery and Italy. His quiet unassumed familiarity with every museum and library on the Continent astonishes even the most erudite Teuton. Among archÆologists he is thought a pre-eminent palÆographer, among palÆographers a great archÆologist. I have heard him called the FurtwÄngler of Britain. His facsimiles and collated texts of the classics are familiar throughout the world. He has independent means, and from time to time entertains English and foreign cognoscenti with elegant simplicity at his wonderful house in Kensington. His conversation is more informing than brilliant. Yet you may detect an unaccountable melancholy in his voice and manner, attributed by the irreverent to his constant visits to the Museum. Religious people, of course, refer to his loss of faith at Oxford; for I regret to say the Professor has been an habitual freethinker these many years.

However it may be, Professor Lachsyrma is sad, and has not yet issued his edition of the newly discovered poems of Sappho unearthed in Egypt some time since—an edition awaited so impatiently by poets and scholars.

Some years ago, on retiring from his official appointment, Professor Lachsyrma, being a married man, searched for some apartment remote from his home, where he might work undisturbed at labours long since become important pleasures. You cannot grapple with uncials, cursives, and the like in a domestic environment. The preparation of facsimiles, transcripts, and palÆographical observations, reports of excavations and catalogues, demands isolation and complete immunity from the trivialities of social existence.

In a large Bloomsbury studio he found a retreat suitable to his requirements. The uninviting entrance, up a stone staircase leading immediately from the street, was open till nightfall, the rest of the house being used for storage by second-hand dealers in Portland Street. No one slept on the premises, but a caretaker came at stated intervals to light fires and close the front door; for which, however, the Professor owned a pass-key, each room having, as in modern flats, an independent door that might be locked at pleasure. The general gloom of the building never tempted casual callers. The Professor purposely abstained from the decoration or even ordinary furnishing of his chamber. The whitewashed walls were covered with dust-bitten maps, casts of bas-reliefs, engravings of ruins. Behind the door were stacked huge packing-cases containing the harvest of a recent journey to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. Along one wall mutilated statues and torsos were promiscuously mounted on trestles or temporary pedestals made of inverted wooden boxes. Above them a large series of shelves bulging with folios, manuscript notebooks, pamphlets, and catalogues ran up to the window, which faced north-east, admitting a strong top-light through panes of ground glass; the lower sash was hidden by permanent blinds in order to shut out all view of the opposite houses and the street below. A long narrow table occupied the centre of the room. It was always strewn with magnifying-glasses, proofs, printers’ slips, negatives—the litter of a palÆographic student. There were three or four wooden chairs for the benefit of scholarly friends, and an armchair upholstered in green rep near the stove. In a corner stood the most striking, perhaps the only striking, object in the room—a huge mummy from the FayyÛm. The canopic jars and outer coffins belonging to it were still unpacked in the freight cases. It had been purchased from a bankrupt Armenian dealer in Cairo along with a number of GrÆco-Egyptian antiquities and papyri, of far greater interest to the Professor than the mummy itself. As soon as the interior was examined it was to be presented to the Museum; but more entertaining and important studies delayed its removal. For many months, with a curious grave smile, the face on the shell seemed to look down with amused and permanent interest on Professor Lachsyrma struggling with the orthography of some forgotten scribe, and arguing with a friend on mutilated or corrupt passages in a Greek palimpsest.

Here, late one afternoon, Professor Lachsyrma was deciphering some yellow leaves of papyrus. The dusk was falling, and he laid down the pen with which he was delicately transcribing uncials on sheets of foolscap, in order to light a lamp on the table. It was 6.30 by an irritating little American clock recently presented him by one of his children, noisy symbol and only indication that he held commune with a modern life he so heartily despised. As the housekeeper entered with some tea he took up a copy of a morning paper (a violent transition from uncials), and glanced at the first lines of the leader:

The Trustees of the British Museum announce one of the most sensational literary discoveries in recent years, a discovery which must startle the world of scholars, and even the apathetic public at large. This is none other than the recovery of the long-lost poems of Sappho, manuscripts of which were last heard of in the tenth century, when they were burnt at Rome and Byzantium. We shall have to go back to the fifteenth century, to the Fall of Constantinople, to the Revival of Learning, ere we can find a fitting parallel to match the importance of this recent find. Not since the spade of the excavator uncovered from its shroud of earth the flawless beauty of the Olympian Hermes has such a delightful acquisition been made to our knowledge of Greek literature. The name of Professor Lachsyrma has long been one to conjure with, and all of us should experience pleasure (where surprise in his case is out of the question) on learning that his recent tour to Egypt, besides greatly benefiting his health, was the means of restoring to eager posterity one of the most precious monuments of Hellenic culture.

‘Dear me, I had no idea the press could be so entertaining,’ thought the Professor, as a smile of satisfaction spread over his well-chiselled face. ArchÆologists are not above reading personal paragraphs and leaders about themselves, though current events do not interest them. So absorbing is their pursuit of antiquity that they are obliged to affect a plausible indifference and a refined ignorance about modern affairs. Nor are they very generous members of the community. Perhaps dealing in dead gods, perpetually handling precious objects which have ceased to have any relation to life, or quarrelling about languages no one ever uses, blunts their sensibilities. At all events, they have none of that loyalty distinguishing members of other learned professions. The canker of jealousy eats perpetually at their hearts.

Professor Lachsyrma was too well endowed by fortune to grudge his former colleagues their little incomes or inadequate salaries at the Museum. Still, his recent discovery would not only enhance his fame in the learned world and his reputed flair for manuscripts—it would irritate those rivals in England and Germany who, in the more solemn reviews, resisted some of his conclusions, canvassed his facts, and occasionally found glaring errors in his texts. How jealous the discovery would make young Fairleigh, for all his unholy knowledge of Greek vases, his handsome profile, and his predilection for going too frequently into society!—a taste not approved by other officials. How it would anger old Gully! Professor Lachsyrma drank some more tea with further satisfaction. Sappho herself could not have felt more elated on the completion of one of her odes; we know she was poignant and sensitive. Thus for a whole hour he idled with his thoughts—rare occupation for so industrious a man. He was startled from the reverie by a slight knock at his door.

‘Come in,’ he said coldly. There was a touch of annoyance in his tone. Visitors, frequent enough in the morning, rarely disturbed him in the afternoon.

‘To whom have I the—duty of speaking?’ He raised his well-preserved spare form to its full height. The long loose alpaca coat, velvet skull-cap, and pointed beard gave him the appearance of an eminent ecclesiastic.

The subdued light in the room presented only a dim figure on the threshold, and the piercing eyes of the Professor could only see a blurred white face against the black frame of the open door. A strange voice replied:

‘I am sorry to disturb you, Professor Lachsyrma. I shall not detain you for more than—an hour.’

‘If you will kindly write and state the nature of your business, I can give you an appointment to-morrow or the day after. At the present moment, you will observe, I am busy. I never see visitors except by appointment.’

‘I am sorry to inconvenience you. Necessity compels me to choose my own hours for interviewing any one.’

The Professor then suddenly removed the green cardboard shade from the lamp. The discourteous intruder was now visible for his inspection.

He was a fair man of uncertain age, but could not be more than twenty-eight. He wore his flaxen hair rather long and ill-kempt; his face might have been handsome, but the flesh was white and flaccid; the features, though regular, devoid of character; the blue eyes had so little expression that a professed physiognomist would have found difficulty in ‘placing’ their possessor. His black clothes were shiny with age; his gait was shuffling and awkward.

‘My name, though it will not convey very much to you, is Frank Carrel. I am a scholar, an archÆologist, a palÆographer, and—other things besides.’

‘A beggar and a British Museum reader,’ was the mental observation of the Professor. The other seemed to read his thoughts.

‘You think I want pecuniary assistance; well, I do.’

‘I fear you have come to the wrong person, at the wrong time, and if I may say so, in the wrong way. I do not like to be disturbed at this hour. Will you kindly leave me this instant?’

Carrel’s manner changed and became more deferential.

‘If you will allow me to show you something on which I want your opinion, something I can leave with you, I will go away at once and come back to-morrow at any time you name.’

‘Very well,’ said the Professor, wearily, ready to compromise the matter for the moment.

From a small bag he was carrying Carrel produced a roll of papyrus. The Professor’s eyes gleamed; he held out his hands greedily to receive it, fixing a searching, suspicious glance on Carrel.

‘Where did you get this, may I ask?’

‘I want your opinion first, and then I will tell you.’

The Professor moved towards the lamp, replaced the cardboard green shade, sat down, and with a strong magnifying-glass examined the papyrus with evident interest. Carrel, appreciating the interest he was exciting, talked on in rapid jerky sentences.

‘Yes. I think you will be able to help me. I am sure you will do so. Like yourself, I am a scholar, and might have occupied a position in Europe similar to your own.’

The Professor smiled grimly, but did not look up from the table as Carrel continued:

‘Mine has been a strange career. I was educated abroad. I became a scholar at Cambridge. There was no prize I did not carry off. I knew more Greek than both Universities put together. Then I was cursed not only with inclination for vices, but with capacity and courage to practise them—liquor, extravagance, gambling—amusements for rich people; but I was poor.’

‘It is a very sad and a very common story,’ said the Professor sententiously, but without looking up from the table. ‘I myself was an Oxford man. Your name is quite unfamiliar to me.’

‘I fancy if you asked them at Cambridge they would certainly remember me.’

‘I shall make a point of doing so,’ said the professor drily. He affected to be giving only partial attention to the narrative; but though he seemed to be sedulous in his examination of the papyrus, he was listening intently.

‘I was a great disappointment to the Dons,’ Carrel said with a short laugh, and he lit a cigarette with all the swagger of an undergraduate.

‘And to your parents?’ queried Lachsyrma.

‘My mother was dead. I don’t exactly know who my father was. I fear these details bore you, however. To-morrow—’ he added satirically.

‘A very romantic story, no doubt,’ said the Professor, rising from his chair, ‘and it interests me—moderately; but before we go on any further, I will be candid with you. That papyrus is a forgery—a very clever forgery, too. I wonder why the writer tried Euripides; we have almost enough of him.’

‘So do I sometimes,’ returned Carrel cheerfully. The Professor arched his eyebrows in surprise.

He removed the green cardboard lampshade to keep his equivocal visitor under strict observation.

‘If you knew it was a forgery, why did you waste my time and your own in bringing it here? In order to tell me a long story about yourself, which if true is extraordinarily dull?’

It is almost an established convention for experts to be rude when they have given an adverse opinion on anything submitted to them. It gives weight to their statements. In the present case, however, the Professor was really annoyed.

‘I wanted to know if you recognised the papyrus,’ said Carrel, and he smiled disingenuously. The Professor was startled.

‘Yes; it was offered to me in Cairo last winter by a German dealer in antiquities. I recognised it at once. May I felicitate the talented author?’

‘No. You would have been taken in if I were the author.’

Professor Lachsyrma waved a white hand, loaded with scarabs and gems, in a deprecatory, patronising manner towards Carrel.

‘I must apologise if I have wronged you. I am hardened to these little amenities between brother palÆographers. Envy, jealousy, call it what you will, attacks those in high places. There may be unrecognised artists, mute inglorious Miltons, Chattertons, starving in garrets, Shakespeares in the workhouse, while dull modern productions are applauded on the silly English stage, and poetasters are crowned by the Academies; but believe me that in ArchÆology, in the deciphering of manuscripts, the quack is detected immediately. The science has been carried to such a state of perfection that, if our knowledge is still unhappily imperfect, our materials inadequate, the public recognition of our services quite out of proportion to our labours, there is now no permanent place for the charlatan or the forger. The first would do better as an art critic for the daily papers; the other might turn his attention to the simple necessary cheque, or the safer and more enticing Bank of England note. If you are an honest expert, there is a wide field for your talents; and if I do not believe you to be anything of the kind, you have yourself to blame for my scepticism. You came here without an introduction, without any warning of your arrival. You refuse to leave my room. You inform me that you want money with a candour unusual among beggars. You then ask me to inspect a forged manuscript which you either know or suspect me to have seen before. Should you have no explanation to offer for this outrageous intrusion, may I ask you to leave the premises immediately?’

As he finished this somewhat pompous harangue he pointed menacingly towards the door. He was slightly nervous, for Carrel, who was sitting down, remained seated, his hands folded, gazing up with an insolent childish stare. He might have been listening to an eloquent preacher whom he thoroughly despised.

‘Professor Lachsyrma,’ Carrel said in a sweet winning voice, ‘I will go away if you like now, but I have nearly finished my errand and we may as well dispatch an affair tiresome to both of us, this evening, instead of postponing it. I want you to give me 1000l.’

The Professor rubbed his eyes. Was he dreaming? Was this some elaborate practical joke? Was it the confidence trick? He seemed to lose his self-possession, gaped on Carrel for some seconds, then controlled himself.

‘And why should I give you 1000l.?’

‘I am a blackmailer. I am a forger of manuscripts. I have more Greek in my little finger than you have in your long body. I began to tell you my history. I thought it might interest you. I do not propose to burden you with it any further. To-night I ask you for 1000l., to-morrow I shall ask you for 2000l., and the day after—’

‘The Sibyl was scarcely so extortionate when she offered the Tarquin literary wares that no subsequent research with which I am acquainted has proved to be spurious. And you, Mr. Carrel, offer me forgeries—merely forgeries.’

Fear expressed itself in clumsy satire. He was thoroughly alarmed. He began rapidly to review his own antecedents, and to scrape his memory for discreditable incidents. He could think of nothing he need feel ashamed of, nothing the world might not thoroughly investigate. There were mean actions, but many generous ones to balance in the scale.

His knowledge of life was really slight, as his intimacy with ArchÆology (so he told himself) was profound. One foolish incident, a midsummer madness, before he went to Oxford, was all he had to blush for. This, he frequently confessed, not without certain pride, to his wife, the daughter of a respectable man of letters from Massachusetts. He firmly and privately believed an omission in a catalogue a far greater sin than a breach of the Decalogue. But ethics are of little consequence where conduct is above reproach. When buying antiquities he would come across odd people from time to time, but never any one who openly avowed himself a blackmailer and a forger. The novel experience was embarrassing and unpleasant, but there was really little to fear. In all the delight of a clear conscience, since Carrel vouchsafed no reply to his sardonic Sibylline allusion, he said:

‘You have advanced no reason why I should hand you to-day or to-morrow these modest sums you demand.’

‘Then I will tell you,’ said Carrel, standing up suddenly. ‘I fabricated the poems of Sappho,—yes, the manuscript from which you are reaping so much credit’—he took up the newspaper—‘from the morning press. When I take to art criticism, as you kindly suggested a dishonest man might do, it will be of a livelier description than any to which you are usually accustomed. Vain dupe, you think yourself impeccable. Infallible ass, there is hardly a museum in Europe where my manuscripts are not carefully preserved for the greatest and rarest treasures by senile curators, too ignorant to know their errors or too vain to acknowledge them. I fancied you clever; until now I do not know that I ever caught you out, though you may have bought many of my wares for all I know. I find you, however, like the rest—dull, pedantic, and Pecksniffian. At Cambridge we were not taught pretty manners, but we knew enough not to give fellowships to pretentious charlatans like yourself.’

The room swam round Professor Lachsyrma, and the mummy behind the door grinned. The plaster casts and the statues seemed to wave their mutilated limbs with the joy of demoniacal possession. Dead things were startled into life. Sick giddiness permeated his brain. It was some horrible nightmare. Yet his soul’s tempest was entirely subjective; outwardly his demeanour suffered no change. His tormentor noted with astonishment and admiration his apparent self-control. There was merely a slight falter in his speech.

‘What proofs have you? A blackmailer must have some token—something on which to base a ridiculous libel.’

‘A few minutes ago I handed you a spurious papyrus, which you tell me you recognise. In the same lot of rubbish, purporting to come from the FayyÛm, were the alleged poems of Sappho. You swallowed the bait which has waited for you so long, and, if it is any consolation to you, I will admit that in the opinion of the profession, to continue my piscatorial simile, I have landed the largest salmon.’

‘I am deeply sensible of the compliment, but I must point out to you, my friend, that your coming to tell me that a papyrus I happen to have purchased from one of your shady friends is counterfeit, does not necessarily prove it to be so.’

The Professor realised that he must act cautiously, and consider his position quietly. Each word must be charged with suppressed meaning. His eyes wandered over the room, resting now and again on the majestic, impassive smile of the mummy. It seemed to restore his nerve. He found himself unconsciously looking towards it over Carrel’s head each time he spoke. While the blackmailer, seated once more, gazed up to his face with a defiant, insolent stare, swinging his chair backwards and forwards, unconcerned at the length of the interview, apparently careless of its issue. The Professor brooded on the terrible chagrin, the wounded vanity of discovering himself the victim of an obviously long-contrived hoax. At his asking for a proof, Carrel laughed.

‘You are sceptical at last,’ he sneered. ‘I have the missing portions of the papyrus here with me. You can have them for a song. I was afraid to leave the roll too complete, lest I should invite detection. It would be a pity to let them go to some other museum. Berlin is longing for a new acquisition.’

Then he produced from his bag damning evidence of the truth of his story—deftly confected sheets of papyrus, brown with the months it had taken to fabricate them, and cracked with forger’s inks and acids—ghastly replicas of the former purchase. Nervously the Professor replaced the green cardboard shade over the lamp, as though the glare affected his eyes.

‘But how do you know I have not discovered the forgery already?’ he said, craftily. Carrel started. ‘And see what I am sending to the press this evening,’ he added.

Walking to the end of the table, he picked up a sheet of paper where there was writing, and another object which Carrel could not see in the gloom, so quickly and adroitly was the action accomplished.

‘Shall I read it to you, or will you read it yourself?’

He advanced again towards the lamp, held the paper in the light, and beckoned to Carrel, who leant over the table to see what was written. Then Professor Lachsyrma plunged a long Greek knife into his back. A toreador could hardly have done it more skilfully; the bull was pinned through the heart, and expired instantaneously.

* * * * *

Now he paced the room in deep thought. For the first time he found himself an actor in modern life, which hitherto for him meant digging among excavations, or making romantic restoration for jaded connoisseurs, of some faultless work of art described by Pausanias and hidden for centuries beneath the rubbish of modern Greece. The entire absence of horror appalled him. Even the dignity of tragedy was not there. He was wrestling with hideous melodrama, often described to him by patrons of Thespian art at transpontine theatres. The vulgarity—the anachronism—made him shudder. Having till now ignored the issue of the present, he began to be sceptical about the virtues of antiquity. Antiquity, his only religion, his god, whose mangled incompleteness endeared it to him, was crumbling away. He wondered if there were friends with whom he might share his ugly secret. There was young Fairleigh, who was always so modern, and actually read modern books. He might have coped with the blackmailer alive, but hardly with his corpse. You cannot run round and ask neighbours for coffins, false beards, and rope in the delightful convention of the Arabian Nights, because you have grazed modern life at a sharp angle, without exciting suspicion or running the risk of positive refusal. There was his wife, to whom he confided everything; but she was a lady from Massachusetts, and her father was European correspondent to many American papers of the highest repute. How could their pure ears be soiled with so sordid a confidence? Poor Irene! she was to have an ‘At Home’ the following afternoon. It would have to be postponed. Professor Lachsyrma fell to thinking of such trivial matters, contemptible in their unimportance, as we do at the terrible moments of our lives. He wondered if they would wait dinner for him. He often remained at his club—the Serapeum—to finish a discussion with some erudite antagonist. His absence would therefore cause no alarm. He consulted the little American clock; it had stopped. How like America! The only recorded instance, he would explain to Irene, of an export from that country being required—the commodity proved inadequate. No, that would make Irene cry. . . . The folly of hopeless, futile thoughts jingled on. Suddenly he heard the cry of a belated newsvendor, howling some British victory, some horrible scandal in Paris. Scandal, exposure, publicity—there was the horror. He could almost hear the journalists stropping their pens. If his thoughts drifted towards any potential expiation demanded by officialism, he put them aside. A social dÉbÂcle was more fearful and vivid than the dock and its inevitable consequence. . . . Presently his eyes rested again on the mummy case. A brilliant inspiration! Here, at all events, was a temporary hiding-place for the corpse of the blackmailer. If it was putting new wine into old bottles, circumstances surely justified a violation of the proverb. Till now a severe unromantic Hellenist, he held Egyptology in some contempt; and for Egypt, except in so far as it illustrated the art of Greece or remained a treasure-house for Greek manuscripts, his distaste was only surpassed by that of the Prophet Isaiah. A bias so striking in the immortal Herodotus is hardly shared by your modern encyclopÆdist. While the science of Egyptology and its adepts command rather awe and wonder than sympathy from the uninitiated, who keep their praises for the more attractive study of Greek art. Yet some of us still turn with relief from the serene material masterpieces of Greece, soulless in their very realism and truth of expression, to the vague and happily unexplained monsters, the rigid gods and hieratic princes, who are given new names by each succeeding generation. A knowledge that behind painted masks and gilded, tawdry gew-gaws are the remains of a once living person gives even the mummy a human interest denied to the most exquisite handiwork of Pheidias.

Professor Lachsyrma at present felt only the impossibility of a situation that would have been difficult for many a weaker man to face. Humiliation overwhelms the strongest. Modern agencies for the concealment of a body having failed to suggest themselves, he must needs fall back on the despised expedient of Egypt. PalÆography and Greek art were obviously useless in the present instance. He understood at last why deplorable people wanted to abolish Greek from the University curriculum.

The coffin was of varnished sycamore wood, ornamented on the outside with gods in their shrines and inscriptions relating to the name and titles of the deceased, painted in red and green. The face was carved out of a separate piece of wood, with the conventional beard attached to the chin; the eyelids were of bronze; the eyes of obsidian; wooden hands were crossed on the breast. Inside the lid were pictures of apes in yellow on a purple background, symbolising the Spirits of the East adoring the Gods of the Morning and Evening. The mummy itself was enclosed in a handsome cartonnage case laced up the back. The Professor lifted it gently out on the table, and substituted Carrel’s body. He staunched as he best could the blood which trickled on to the glaring pictures of the Judgment of Osiris and the goddess Nut imparting the Waters of Life; then he turned to examine the former occupant, whom two thousand years, even at such a moment endowed with a greater interest than could attach to the corpse of a defunct blackmailer. It now occurred to him that he might profitably utilise the mummy cerements along with the coffin for more effectually concealing Carrel’s body until he could arrange for its final disposal. He hastened to carry his idea into effect.

The cartonnage case, composed of waste papyrus fragments glued together, was painted with figures of deities. The face was a gilded mask, on the headdress were lotus flowers, and the collar was studded to imitate precious stones. Over the breast were representations of Horus, Apis, and Thoth, and lower down the dead man was seen on his bier attended by Anubis and the children of Horus, while the soul in the form of a hawk hovered above. The Professor observed that an earlier method had been employed for the preservation and protection of the body than is usually found among Ptolemaic mummies.

Beneath a network of blue porcelain bugles and a row of sepulchral gods suspended by a wire to the neck was a dusky, red-hued sheet, sewn at the head and feet and fastened with brown strips of linen. Under this last shroud were the bandages which swathed the actual corpse, inscribed with passages from the Book of the Dead, the mysterious fantastic directions for the life hereafter. The symbolism requisite for the external decoration of the mummy had been scrupulously executed by skilful artists, and the conscientious method of wrapping again indicated the pristine mode of embalmment practised when the craft was at its zenith, long before the Greek conquest of Egypt.

A considerable time was occupied in unrolling the three or four hundred yards of linen. Meanwhile a strange fragrance of myrrh, cassia, cinnamon, the sweet spices and aromatic unguents used in embalming, filled the room. Gradually the yellow skin preserved by the natron began to appear through the cross-hatchings of the bandages. Attached to a thick gold wire round the neck and placed over the heart was a scarab of green basalt, mounted in a gold setting; and on the henna-stained little finger of the left hand was another of steatite. As the right arm was freed from its artificially tightened grasp a peculiar wooden cylinder rolled on to the floor into the heap of scented mummy dust and bandages.

Languidly inquisitive, Professor Lachsyrma groped for it. Such objects are generally found beneath the head. There was a seal at each end, both of which he broke. A roll of papyrus was inside. He trembled, and with forced deliberation made for the table, his knees tottering from exhaustion. Excitement at this unexpected discovery made him forget Carrel. The ghastly events of the evening were for the moment blotted from his memory. After all, he was a palÆographer—an archÆologist first, a murderer afterwards. Eagerly, painfully, he began to read, adjusting his spectacles from time to time, the muscles of his face twitching with anxiety and expectation. For a long time the words were strange to him. Suddenly his glasses became dim. There were tears in his eyes; he was reading aloud, unconsciously to himself, the beautiful verses familiar to all students of Greek poetry:—

Οιον το γλυκυμαλον ερευθεται ακρω επ’ υσδω
ακρον επ ακροτατω’ λελαθοντο δε μαλοδροπηες,
ου μαν εκλελαθοντ’, αλλ’ ουκ εδυναντ’ εφικεσθαι—

and to students of English, in the marvellous, rendering of them by the late Mr. Rossetti:

‘Like the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough,
A-top on the topmost twig,—which the pluckers forgot, somehow,—
Forgot it not, nay, but got it not, for none could get it till now.’

The papyrus was of great length, and contained the poems of Sappho in a cursive literary handwriting of the third century—the real poems, lost to the world for over eight hundred years. It was morning now—a London spring morning; dawn was creeping through the great north-east light of the studio; birds were twittering outside. The murderer sobbed hysterically.

* * * * *

On referring to ‘Euterpe,’ the second book of the Histories of Herodotus, Professor Lachsyrma selected the second method of embalming as less troublesome and more expeditious. The whole matter lasted little longer than the seventy prescribed days. At the end of which time he was able, in accordance with his original intention, to deposit in a handsome glass case at the British Museum the Mummy of Heliodorus, a Greek settler in Egypt who held some official appointment at the Court of Ptolemy Philadelphus. It is described in the catalogue as one of the best examples of its kind in Europe. Indeed, it is probably unique.

Professor Lachsyrma often pauses before the case when visiting our gaunt House of Art. Even the policeman on duty has noticed this peculiarity, and smiles respectfully. The Professor has ceased to ridicule Egyptology; and his confidence in the resources and sufficiency of antiquity, so rudely shaken for one long evening, is completely re-established.

To S. S. Sprigge, Esq., M.D.