The silent Arab replenished the guests’ glasses, except the Professor’s; for Blackwell, who was already lost in thought, waved him aside. The distinguished scientist was a tall man, though not so tall as Danbazzar, and built bonily. He was clean-shaven, with a long strong nose; and from his high brow, hair which was beginning to go gray was carelessly brushed back. His clothes would have fitted someone else better than they fitted the Professor, and he wore a low double collar with his dinner jacket, allowing free play to an enormously developed Adam’s apple. His eyes, behind the thick pebbles of his glasses, resembled two interrogation marks. “I never jump to conclusions,” he began, thoughtfully selecting a cigar from a box which Danbazzar slid across the table in his direction. The box was an Ancient Egyptian curiosity, but Professor Blackwell had not even noticed the fact: his thoughts were elsewhere. “Life,” he went on, “considered in the abstract, is the one thing of which Science knows nothing. Adolf Weisman maintained that duration of life is dependent upon adaptation to external conditions. We may take the case of what is sometimes termed ‘mummy wheat.’ Personally, I cannot vouch for these stories.” “_I_ can,” Danbazzar said gravely. “I myself have seen grains of wheat taken from a tomb of the fourteenth dynasty cultivated.” “Did they yield any crop?” the Professor inquired. “No,” Danbazzar acknowledged. “They shot up a very tender green to a height of six inches and then died.” “Quite, quite,” murmured the Professor, “but the life principle was present, you see--dormant, but present. There is the case of a toad imprisoned in a rock cavity for several generations, vouched for by persons of repute, and I once examined, in India, a fakir who claimed the power to unhitch his spirit from his body. Under these conditions he presented every appearance of death and existed without visible wasting for a long period unsustained by food or drink of any kind. The question really is whether the tissues could be preserved over so long a period as this”--nodding toward the papyrus--“indicated.” “If for three hundred years, why not for three thousand?” John Cumberland demanded. “Quite, quite,” the professor murmured; “but unfortunately this fact rests upon what I may term ‘hearsay.’ The people who wrote it have been dead for some little time, you must remember!” There was a short silence, broken by Danbazzar. “Have you ever seen the mummy of Seti the First?” he demanded in his deep, impressive tone.