This
will not be long, for already our movement is in train. I have sent
word to Marvin to have all preparation for our transport ready. He is
to have a special train, which is to run at night so as to avoid
notice. Also a number of carts and stone-wagons, with sufficient men
and appliances to take all our packing-cases to Paddington. We shall
be away before the Argus-eyed Pressman is on the watch. We shall today
begin our packing up; and I dare say that by tomorrow night we shall be
ready. In the outhouses I have all the packing-cases which were used
for bringing the things from Egypt, and I am satisfied that as they
were sufficient for the journey across the desert and down the Nile to
Alexandria and thence on to London, they will serve without fail
between here and Kyllion. We four men, with Margaret to hand us such
things as we may require, will be able to get the things packed safely;
and the carrier’s men will take them to the trucks. “Today the servants go to Kyllion, and Mrs. Grant will make such
arrangements as may be required. She will take a stock of necessaries
with her, so that we will not attract local attention by our daily
needs; and will keep us supplied with perishable food from London. Thanks to Margaret’s wise and generous treatment of the servants who
decided to remain, we have got a staff on which we can depend. They
have been already cautioned to secrecy, so that we need not fear gossip
from within. Indeed, as the servants will be in London after their
preparations at Kyllion are complete, there will not be much subject
for gossip, in detail at any rate. “As, however, we should commence the immediate work of packing at once,
we will leave over the after proceedings till later when we have
leisure.”

Accordingly we set about our work. Under Mr. Trelawny’s guidance, and
aided by the servants, we took from the outhouses great packing-cases. Some of these were of enormous strength, fortified by many thicknesses
of wood, and by iron bands and rods with screw-ends and nuts. We
placed them throughout the house, each close to the object which it was
to contain. When this preliminary work had been effected, and there
had been placed in each room and in the hall great masses of new hay,
cotton-waste and paper, the servants were sent away. Then we set about
packing. No one, not accustomed to packing, could have the slightest idea of
the amount of work involved in such a task as that in which in we were
engaged. For my own part I had had a vague idea that there were a large
number of Egyptian objects in Mr. Trelawny’s house; but until I came to
deal with them seriatim I had little idea of either their importance,
the size of some of them, or of their endless number. Far into the
night we worked. At times we used all the strength which we could
muster on a single object; again we worked separately, but always under
Mr. Trelawny’s immediate direction. He himself, assisted by Margaret,
kept an exact tally of each piece. It was only when we sat down, utterly wearied, to a long-delayed supper
that we began to realise that a large part of the work was done. Only
a few of the packing-cases, however, were closed; for a vast amount of
work still remained. We had finished some of the cases, each of which
held only one of the great sarcophagi. The cases which held many
objects could not be closed till all had been differentiated and packed. I slept that night without movement or without dreams; and on our
comparing notes in the morning, I found that each of the others had had
the same experience. By dinner-time next evening the whole work was complete, and all was
ready for the carriers who were to come at midnight. A little before
the appointed time we heard the rumble of carts; then we were shortly
invaded by an army of workmen, who seemed by sheer force of numbers to
move without effort, in an endless procession, all our prepared
packages. A little over an hour sufficed them, and when the carts had
rumbled away, we all got ready to follow them to Paddington. Silvio
was of course to be taken as one of our party. Before leaving we went in a body over the house, which looked desolate
indeed. As the servants had all gone to Cornwall there had been no
attempt at tidying-up; every room and passage in which we had worked,
and all the stairways, were strewn with paper and waste, and marked
with dirty feet. The last thing which Mr. Trelawny did before coming away was to take
from the great safe the Ruby with the Seven Stars. As he put it safely
into his pocket-book, Margaret, who had all at once seemed to grow
deadly tired and stood beside her father pale and rigid, suddenly
became all aglow, as though the sight of the Jewel had inspired her. She smiled at her father approvingly as she said:

“You are right, Father. There will not be any more trouble tonight. She will not wreck your arrangements for any cause. I would stake my
life upon it.”

“She—or something—wrecked us in the desert when we had come from the
tomb in the Valley of the Sorcerer!” was the grim comment of Corbeck,
who was standing by. Margaret answered him like a flash:

“Ah! she was then near her tomb from which for thousands of years her
body had not been moved. She must know that things are different now.”

“How must she know?” asked Corbeck keenly. “If she has that astral body that Father spoke of, surely she must
know! How can she fail to, with an invisible presence and an intellect
that can roam abroad even to the stars and the worlds beyond us!”  She
paused, and her father said solemnly:

“It is on that supposition that we are proceeding. We must have the
courage of our convictions, and act on them—to the last!”

Margaret took his hand and held it in a dreamy kind of way as we filed
out of the house. She was holding it still when he locked the hall
door, and when we moved up the road to the gateway, whence we took a
cab to Paddington. When all the goods were loaded at the station, the whole of the workmen
went on to the train; this took also some of the stone-wagons used for
carrying the cases with the great sarcophagi. Ordinary carts and
plenty of horses were to be found at Westerton, which was our station
for Kyllion. Mr. Trelawny had ordered a sleeping-carriage for our
party; as soon as the train had started we all turned into our cubicles. That night I slept sound. There was over me a conviction of security
which was absolute and supreme. Margaret’s definite announcement:
“There will not be any trouble tonight!” seemed to carry assurance with
it. I did not question it; nor did anyone else. It was only
afterwards that I began to think as to how she was so sure. The train
was a slow one, stopping many times and for considerable intervals. As
Mr. Trelawny did not wish to arrive at Westerton before dark, there was
no need to hurry; and arrangements had been made to feed the workmen at
certain places on the journey. We had our own hamper with us in the
private car.