“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 tonight, 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 formulae. 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 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 tone
that made me think he still anticipated serious things, perhaps. He
went on talking while I dressed. “This case is really typical of all stories of mummy-haunting, and none
of them are cases to trifle with,” he explained, “for the mummies of
important people—kings, priests, magicians—were laid away with
profoundly significant ceremonial, and were very effectively protected,
as you have seen, against desecration, and especially against
destruction. “The general belief,” he went on, anticipating my questions, “held, of
course, that the perpetuity of the mummy guaranteed that of its Ka,—the
owner’s spirit,—but it is not improbable that the magical embalming was
also used to retard reincarnation, the preservation of the body
preventing the return of the spirit to the toil and discipline of
earth-life; and, in any case, they knew how to attach powerful
guardian-forces to keep off trespassers. And any one who dared to
remove the 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
was deeply serious. There could be no question that he spoke of what he
believed 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
a magic circle to enclose it. Something of genuine ceremonial he must
have known, for the stars the man saw were of course the remains of the
still flaming pentagrams he traced at intervals in the circle. Only he
did not know enough, or possibly was ignorant that the mummy’s guardian
was a fire-force. Fire cannot be enclosed by fire, though, as you saw,
it can be released by it.”

“Then that awful figure in the laundry?” I asked, thrilled to find him
so communicative. “Undoubtedly the actual Ka of the mummy operating always behind its
agent, 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, and
the Colonel had sent to ask if we were coming down. The thread was
broken. Dr.