For some time neither of us spoke. The glamour of this touching memorial of a long-buried grief had stolen over me, and I was content to stand silent by my beloved companion and revive, with a certain pensive pleasure, the ghosts of human emotions over which so many centuries had rolled. Presently she turned to me with a frank smile. “You have been weighed in the balance of friendship,” she said, “and not found wanting. You have the gift of sympathy, even with a woman’s sentimental fancies.”
I suspected that a good many men would have developed this precious quality under the circumstances, but I refrained from saying so. There is no use in crying down one’s own wares. I was glad enough to have earned her good opinion so easily, and when she at length turned away from the case and passed through into the adjoining room, it was a very complacent young man who bore her company.
“Here is Ahkhenaten—or Khu-en-aten, as the authorities here render the hieroglyphics. She indicated a fragment of a colored relief labeled: ‘Portion of a painted stone tablet with a portrait figure of Amenhotep IV,’ and we stopped to look at the frail, effeminate figure of the great king, with his large cranium, his queer, pointed chin, and the Aten rays stretching out their weird hands as if caressing him.
“We mustn’t stay here if you want to see my uncle’s gift, because this room closes at four today.” With this admonition she moved on to the other end of the room, where she halted before a large floor-case containing a mummy and a large number of other objects. A black label with white lettering set forth the various contents with a brief explanation as follows:
Mummy of Sebek-hotep, a scribe of the twenty-second dynasty, together with the objects found in the tomb. These include the four Canopic jars, in which the internal organs were deposited, the Ushabti figures, tomb provisions and various articles that had belonged to the deceased; his favorite chair, his headrest, his ink-palette, inscribed with his name and the name of the king, Osorkon I, in whose reign he lived, and other smaller articles. Presented by John Bellingham, Esq.
“They have put all the objects together in one case,” Miss Bellingham explained, “to show the contents of an ordinary tomb of the better class. You see that the dead man was provided with all his ordinary comforts; provisions, furniture, the ink-palette that he had been accustomed to use in writing on papyri, and a staff of servants to wait on him.”
“Where are the servants?” I asked.
“The little Ushabti figures,” she answered; “they were the attendants of the dead, you know, his servants in the underworld. It was a quaint idea, wasn’t it? But it was all very complete and consistent, and quite reasonable, too, if one once accepts the belief in the persistence of the individual apart from the body.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “and that is the only fair way to judge a religious system, by taking the main beliefs for granted. But what a business it must have been, bringing all these things from Egypt to London.”
“It is worth the trouble, though, for it is a fine and instructive collection. And the work is all very good of its kind. You notice that the Ushabti figures and the heads that form the stoppers of the Canopic jars are quite finely modeled. The mummy itself, too, is rather handsome, though that coat of bitumen on the back doesn’t improve it. But Sebek-hotep must have been a fine-looking man.”
“The mask on the face is a portrait, I suppose?”
“Yes; in fact, it’s rather more. To some extent it is the actual face of the man himself. This mummy is enclosed in what is called a cartonnage, that is a case molded on the figure. The cartonnage was formed of a number of layers of linen or papyrus united by glue or cement, and when the case had been fitted to a mummy it was molded to the body, so that the general form of the features and limbs was often apparent. After the cement was dry the case was covered with a thin layer of stucco and the face modeled more completely, and then decorations and inscriptions were painted on. So that, you see, in a cartonnage, the body was sealed up like a nut in its shell, unlike the more ancient forms in which the mummy was merely rolled up and enclosed in a wooden coffin.”
At this moment there smote upon our ears a politely protesting voice announcing in singsong tones that it was closing time; and simultaneously a desire for tea suggested the hospitable milkshop. With leisurely dignity that ignored the official who shepherded us along the galleries, we made our way to the entrance, still immersed in conversation on matters sepulchral.
It was rather earlier than our usual hour for leaving the Museum and, moreover, it was our last day—for the present. Wherefore we lingered over our tea to an extent that caused the milkshop lady to view us with some disfavor, and when at length we started homeward, we took so many shortcuts that six o’clock found us no nearer our destination than Lincoln’s Inn Fields; whither we had journeyed by a slightly indirect route that traversed (among other places) Russell Square, Red Lion Square, with the quaint passage of the same name, Bedford Row, Jockey’s Fields, Hand Court, and Great Turnstile.
It was in the last thoroughfare that our attention was attracted by a flaring poster outside a newsvendor’s bearing the startling inscription:
More Mementoes of Murdered Man
Miss Bellingham glanced at the poster and shuddered.
“Horrible, isn’t it?” she said. “Have you read about them?”
“I haven’t been noticing the papers the last few days,” I replied.
“No, of course you haven’t. You’ve
