Along the margin Gardiner had added: “I send this to you, Ranney, knowing your interest in the period which the name of Hanit suggests. Can you unravel the mystery surrounding the mummy of this Queen who is not a Queen? “In regard to the sudden taking off of the seven workmen, and, by the way, the curator is now dead, I can hear you expatiate at length upon the fearful ‘_hekau-spells_’ and ‘_magic incantations_’ of the ancients! “Once more I ask you to prove to me that your ancients ever possessed such powers, or if they did, that they could by any possible chance have survived the wear and tear of three thousand years! And, meanwhile, allow me to submit myself, your unbelieving friend!” I smile even now, as I shake my head at Gardiner’s careless words. What can I but think? Childish, you say! A series of remarkable coincidences! Wait! It was from Burton that I first heard an account of what he and the other members of the expedition supposed, and rightly, had happened to me. It seemed that I left my tent about dawn and started for one of my favorite walks westward, taking the general direction of a certain lofty spur of the deep red Libyan Hills. This jutting ledge immediately overhung the ruins of King Mentuhotep’s temple. So close a part of the towering cliff is this sadly mutilated structure that one might easily slip from the shelf above and fall directly upon the great stone passage-way which conducts to the inner chamber. To this somewhat dangerous vantage-point, I had sometimes taken distinguished visitors to our camp, people who had come with letters from friends at home, or those who I felt sure would be willing to put up with the discomforts of a night spent beyond the walls of the luxurious Winter Palace Hotel. I think I may say truthfully, that not one of my visitors failed of being more than repaid for any trifling discomfort which was theirs, since few scenes can equal, certainly none surpass, the view presented by the extended vista north, south and eastward across the winding Nile Valley towards Karnak, Luxor, and the deep blue Eastern Hills. But to return to my story. That memorable morning the fever must assuredly have had me well within its clutches. Since, of that early morning walk, I remember but a single incident—Heaven knows, I am never likely to forget it—a great black void into which I suddenly pitched, a horrible tingling in all my veins, a shock and a myriad of little flames that seemed to burst from my very eyeballs! Was I conscious, I asked myself! I must be, for I seemed to realize at once what a dreadful thing had happened to me. Of course, I knew I had pitched headlong into the open mouth of one of those rock-hewn tombs with which the tumbled slopes below the Libyan Hills are perforated. Well might those crumbling hills been named a honey-comb of death!