It was hot, whereas the other chambers had been cool--or else McLean's disturbed blood was pumping too furiously through his pulses. Instinctively he drew close to Jack, as the party stood flashing their lights over the bare walls and empty corners, and then concentrated the pale illumination upon those caskets of the dead. "I told you that the place was empty," Ryder said with distinct impatience in his voice. "And now, if you have satisfied yourselves--" "You are in haste, monsieur," said Hamdi Bey's smooth voice. "If you will permit us to see what is within--" He approached the first sarcophagus. The sheik, who appeared to have committed the restoration of his daughter into the other's hands, remained imperturbably beside the entrance while the head of the police came forward to assist Hamdi in raising the painted lid. "I protest," said Ryder very sharply. He stood upon the other side of the case, eying them combatively. "It is useless to disturb this lid--I tell you that the Persians have been considerably before you." And indeed the case was empty. Hamdi moved to the next and again Ryder took up his post opposite. "Again I protest," he insisted. "The least jar or injury--" But the men raised the lid, and after the briefest look, moved on. "And now," Ryder spoke very clearly and authoritatively, addressing the head of the police, "I must ask you to stop. Even the dust that you are disturbing is precious. This thing has gone beyond all reason." The police official looked as if he agreed with him, but Hamdi Bey had moved determinedly to the third sarcophagus. The official hesitated, evidenced discomfort, but moved finally after the bey. "If there is nothing here," he murmured, "surely you cannot object--" "There is precious dust here," Ryder repeated. "You must understand--" "We see for ourselves," said Hamdi Bey, and now his voice had a ring of triumphant steel through its soft smoothness. "Stand aside. This is in the name of the law." It seemed to McLean that for one mad moment Ryder was tempted to resist. In the flickering light of the torches he stood defiantly above the painted mummy case, his eyes steadily upon the bey, his hands pressing down upon the vivid bloom of the dead woman's pictured face. Then with a beaten but ironic smile he stood aside. Slowly the men lifted the lid.... In that moment McLean became aware that his heart was pumping thickly somewhere in his throat and that the rest of him was a hollow, horrible void of suspense. Hamdi Bey turned his arrogant stare from young Ryder and looked down.... Drawing closer, fearfully McLean's eyes followed him. He could not believe their evidence. His heart could not stop its idiotic pumping. But there he saw no terror-stricken girl, no pallid runaway of the harems, but a still, dark-shrouded form, swathed in the tight bandages of the ancient embalmer, a dry, dusty little mummy creature blankly and inscrutably confronting this unforeseen resurrection.