“I _have_ obtained them!” Danbazzar assured him. “When the time comes, you shall see them. Oh! I’ve been busy, Professor. Where the Ancient Egyptians got these things God only knows! They can’t have had a colony in Russia in those days.” “Russia!” the Professor echoed. “I said Russia,” Danbazzar affirmed. “One of the ingredients--the one we have been arguing about--I ultimately got from Russia!” “You refer to the substance which you tell me is of mammalian origin?” “Precisely.” “Mammals have been found in Africa,” the Professor murmured.… And so in the atmosphere of excited debate and unceasing toil the day wore on. Hassan es-Sugra never left the tomb. It would have been impossible for any workman to remove a grain of dust from it and escape the scrutiny of those gazelle-like eyes. Barry’s enthusiasm was such that the tedious methods employed by Danbazzar for raising the lid of the sarcophagus tortured him to the borders of frenzy. At one point: “Why all these precautions?” he cried. “It would need a steam hammer to crack that lid!” “Surely it would,” Danbazzar returned gravely. “What’s the big point?” “The point is,” said Barry, “that you are making a perfectly preposterous fuss about lifting it--as though it would matter very much if we dropped it!” “I see!” Danbazzar spoke softly, regarding the younger man through half-closed eyes. “If you were lying in a stone chest next to hermetically sealed, and somebody dropped half a ton of granite on top of it”--his voice suddenly rose, booming around the enclosed chamber--“where in hell do you think you’d be?” “Good Lord!” Barry was startled. “Of course! You are quite right!” “You’d be dead of concussion!” Danbazzar shouted. “Thundering concussion! This is my business--and I’ll do it my own way!” He was formidable in his sudden anger, and Barry realized that he had committed an unforgivable _faux pas_--that of criticizing an artist in the practice of his profession.… The coming of dusk found the raising gear in place to Danbazzar’s satisfaction, at which point he cleared the tomb, leaving Hassan es-Sugra on guard in the outer chamber. “The eight o’clock shift will start the lifting,” he pronounced. “We all want dinner, so we’ll all have it.” John Cumberland, sweat-grimed but happy, looked up from the task which he had been performing side by side with the Arab workmen. Barry leaned up against the rugged masonry beside the opening and mopped his forehead with a very dirty handkerchief. “It’s torture to quit,” he declared honestly, “but you are right, Danbazzar. I am dead tired. Aren’t you, Dad?” “I am!” his father admitted. “I would give a big price for a real hot bath before dinner!” “It would be most acceptable,” declared Professor Blackwell. “Association with these very worthy natives adds to one’s knowledge of humanity but results in so many fleas!”