"A boy. Not daring to trust the natives, we removed it secretly at night to our own tent. Before we commenced the task of unwrapping it, Sir Michael--the most brilliant scholar of his age--had proceeded so far in deciphering the papyrus, that he determined to complete his reading before we proceeded further. It contained directions for performing a certain process. This process had reference to the mummy of the child." "Do I understand--?" "Already, you are discrediting the story! Ah! I can see it! but let me finish. Unaided, we performed this process upon the embalmed body of the child. Then, in accordance with the directions of that dead magician--that accursed, malignant being, who thus had sought to secure for himself a new tenure of evil life--we laid the mummy, treated in a certain fashion, in the King's Chamber of the Meydum Pyramid. It remained there for thirty days; from moon to moon--" "You guarded the entrance?" "You may assume what you like, Rob; but I could swear before any jury, that no one entered the pyramid throughout that time. Yet since we were only human, we may have been deceived in this. I have only to add, that when at the rising of the new moon in the ancient Sothic month of Panoi, we again entered the chamber, a living baby, some six months old, perfectly healthy, solemnly blinked up at the lights which we held in our trembling hands!" Dr. Cairn reseated himself at the table, and turned the chair so that he faced his son. With the smouldering cigar between his teeth, he sat, a slight smile upon his lips. Now it was Robert's turn to rise and begin feverishly to pace the floor. "You mean, sir, that this infant--which lay in the pyramid--was--adopted by Sir Michael?" "Was adopted, yes. Sir Michael engaged nurses for him, reared him here in England, educating him as an Englishman, sent him to a public school, sent him to--" "To Oxford! Antony Ferrara! What! Do you seriously tell me that this is the history of Antony Ferrara?" "On my word of honour, boy, that is all I know of Antony Ferrara. Is it not enough?" "Merciful God! it is incredible," groaned Robert Cairn.