“I am tired of writing, and this ship rolls. This letter, of course, goes overland, and I am coming by ‘long sea,’ but I hope to be in London within ten days after you get it. Then I will tell you of my pleasing experiences in the course of the ascent from the tomb-chamber, and of how that prince of rascals, Ali Baba, and his thieves tried to frighten me into handing over the papyri, and how I worsted them. Then, too, we will get the rolls deciphered. I expect that they only contain the usual thing, copies of the ‘Book of the Dead,’ but there _may_ be something else in them. Needless to say, I did not narrate this little adventure in Egypt, or I should have had the Boulac Museum people on my track. Good-bye, ‘Mafish Fineesh,’ as Ali Baba always said.” In due course, my friend, the writer of the letter from which I have quoted, arrived in London, and on the very next day we paid a visit to a learned acquaintance well versed in Hieroglyphics and Demotic writing. The anxiety with which we watched him skilfully damping and unfolding one of the rolls and peering through his gold-rimmed glasses at the mysterious characters may well be imagined. “Hum,” he said, “whatever it is, this is _not_ a copy of the ‘Book of the Dead.’ By George, what’s this? Cle--Cleo--Cleopatra----Why, my dear Sirs, as I am a living man, this is the history of somebody who lived in the days of Cleopatra, _the_ Cleopatra, for here’s Antony’s name with hers! Well, there’s six months’ work before me here--six months, at the very least!” And in that joyful prospect he fairly lost control of himself, and skipped about the room, shaking hands with us at intervals, and saying “I’ll translate--I’ll translate it if it kills me, and we will publish it; and, by the living Osiris, it shall drive every Egyptologist in Europe mad with envy! Oh, what a find! what a most glorious find!” And O you whose eyes fall upon these pages, see, they have been translated, and they have been printed, and here they lie before you--an undiscovered land wherein you are free to travel! Harmachis speaks to you from his forgotten tomb. The walls of Time fall down, and, as at the lightning’s leap, a picture from the past starts upon your view, framed in the darkness of the ages. He shows you those two Egypts which the silent pyramids looked down upon long centuries ago--the Egypt of the Greek, the Roman, and the Ptolemy, and that other outworn Egypt of the Hierophant, hoary with years, heavy with the legends of antiquity and the memory of long-lost honours. He tells you how the smouldering loyalty of the land of Khem blazed up before it died, and how fiercely the old Time-consecrated Faith struggled against the conquering tide of Change that rose, like Nile at flood, and drowned the ancient Gods of Egypt.