The heat sucked all the breath out of my lungs with a
rush, and the blaze of light, as it vanished, swept my vision with it
into enveloping darkness. When I recovered the use of my senses a few moments later I saw that
Colonel Wragge with a face of death, its whiteness strangely stained,
had moved closer to me. Dr. Silence stood beside him, an expression of
triumph and success in his eyes. The next minute the soldier tried to
clutch me with his hand. Then he reeled, staggered, and, unable to save
himself, fell with a great crash upon the brick floor. After the sheet of flame, a wind raged round the building as though it
would lift the roof off, but then passed as suddenly as it came. And in
the intense calm that followed I saw that the form had vanished, and
the doctor was stooping over Colonel Wragge upon the floor, trying to
lift him to a sitting position. “Light,” he said quietly, “more light. Take the shades off.”

Colonel Wragge sat up and the glare of the unshaded lamps fell upon
his face. It was grey and drawn, still running heat, and there was a
look in the eyes and about the corners of the mouth that seemed in this
short space of time to have added years to its age. At the same time,
the expression of effort and anxiety had left it. It showed relief. “Gone!” he said, looking up at the doctor in a dazed fashion, and
struggling to his feet. “Thank God! it’s gone at last.” He stared
round the laundry as though to find out where he was. “Did it control
me--take possession of me? Did I talk nonsense?” he asked bluntly. “After the heat came, I remember nothing----”

“You’ll feel yourself again in a few minutes,” the doctor said. To my
infinite horror I saw that he was surreptitiously wiping sundry dark
stains from the face. “Our experiment has been a success and----”

He gave me a swift glance to hide the bowl, standing between me and our
host while I hurriedly stuffed it down under the lid of the nearest
cauldron. “----and none of us the worse for it,” he finished. “And fires?” he asked, still dazed, “there’ll be no more fires?”

“It is dissipated--partly, at any rate,” replied Dr. Silence cautiously. “And the man behind the gun,” he went on, only half realising what he
was saying, I think; “have you discovered _that_?”

“A form materialised,” said the doctor briefly. “I know for certain now
what the directing intelligence was behind it all.”

Colonel Wragge pulled himself together and got upon his feet. The words
conveyed no clear meaning to him yet. But his memory was returning
gradually, and he was trying to piece together the fragments into a
connected whole. He shivered a little, for the place had grown suddenly
chilly. The air was empty again, lifeless. “You feel all right again now,” Dr. Silence said, in the tone of a man
stating a fact rather than asking a question. “Thanks to you--both, yes.” He drew a deep breath, and mopped his face,
and even attempted a smile. He made me think of a man coming from the
battlefield with the stains of fighting still upon him, but scornful of
his wounds. Then he turned gravely towards the doctor with a question
in his eyes. Memory had returned and he was himself again. “Precisely what I expected,” the doctor said calmly; “a fire-elemental
sent upon its mission in the days of Thebes, centuries before Christ,
and to-night, for the first time all these thousands of years, released
from the spell that originally bound it.”

We stared at him in amazement, Colonel Wragge opening his lips for
words that refused to shape themselves. “And, if we dig,” he continued significantly, pointing to the floor
where the blackness had poured up, “we shall find some underground
connection--a tunnel most likely--leading to the Twelve Acre Wood. It
was made by--your predecessor.”

“A tunnel made by my brother!” gasped the soldier. “Then my sister
should know--she lived here with him----” He stopped suddenly. John Silence inclined his head slowly. “I think so,” he said quietly. “Your brother, no doubt, was as much tormented as you have been,”
he continued after a pause in which Colonel Wragge seemed deeply
preoccupied with his thoughts, “and tried to find peace by burying it
in the wood, and surrounding the wood then, like a large magic circle,
with the enchantments of the old formulæ. So the stars the man saw
blazing----”

“But burying _what_?” asked the soldier faintly, stepping backwards
towards the support of the wall. Dr. Silence regarded us both intently for a moment before he replied. I think he weighed in his mind whether to tell us now, or when the
investigation was absolutely complete. “The mummy,” he said softly, after a moment; “the mummy that your
brother took from its resting-place of centuries, and brought
home--here.”

Colonel Wragge dropped down upon the nearest chair, hanging
breathlessly on every word. He was far too amazed for speech. “The mummy of some important person--a priest most likely--protected
from disturbance and desecration by the ceremonial magic of the time. For they understood how to attach to the mummy, to lock up with it in
the tomb, an elemental force that would direct itself even after ages
upon any one who dared to molest it. In this case it was an elemental
of fire.”

Dr. Silence crossed the floor and turned out the lamps one by one. He
had nothing more to say for the moment. Following his example, I folded
the table together and took up the chairs, and our host, still dazed
and silent, mechanically obeyed him and moved to the door. We removed all traces of the experiment, taking the empty bowl back to
the house concealed beneath an ulster. The air was cool and fragrant as we walked to the house, the stars
beginning to fade overhead and a fresh wind of early morning blowing up
out of the east where the sky was already hinting of the coming day. It
was after five o’clock. Stealthily we entered the front hall and locked the door, and as we
went on tiptoe upstairs to our rooms, the Colonel, peering at us over
his candle as he nodded good-night, whispered that if we were ready
the digging 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 of
a revelation by digging, were able to hinder the reaction that followed
the intense excitement of the past twelve hours, and I slept the sleep
of 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 dozen
hours.”

I sprang up and made a hurried toilet, while my companion sat and
talked. He looked fresh and rested, and his manner was even quieter
than usual. “Colonel Wragge has provided spades and pickaxes. We’re going out to
unearth this mummy at once,” he said; “and there’s no reason we should
not get away by the morning train.”

“I’m ready to go to-night, if you are,” I said honestly. But Dr.