The same dark, unstirring form of the tomb scene. The same dry, dusty little mummy.... But with hands strangely reckless for an archaeologist dealing with the priceless stuff of time Ryder tore at those bandages; he unwrapped, he unwound, and in a lightning's flash-- To McLean's tense, expectant nerves it was like a scene at the pantomime. He had divined it; he had foreseen and yet there was the shock and eerie thrill of magic, the appealing unreality of the supernatural in the revelation. In a wave of an enchanter's wand the mummy was gone. And in its place lay a Sleeping Beauty, the dark hair in sculptured closeness to the head, the long, black lashes sweeping the still cheeks. CHAPTER XXVI THE PAINTED CASE "She's fainted," said Ryder in a voice that shook. From his pocket he drew swiftly a thermos bottle but before the top was off those long lashes fluttered, and from under their shadow the soft, dark eyes looked up at him with a smile of very gallant reassurance. "Not--faint," said the girl, in a breath of a voice. "But it was so long--so hot--" "Drink this." Ryder slipped an arm about her, offering the filled top of the thermos. "It's over, all over," he murmured as she drank. "You're safe now, safe.... You're at the museum.... Then we'll get you to the hotel--" "Hotel--?" the girl echoed with a faint implication of humor in that silver bell of a voice. She put her hands to her hair and to her face in which the hues of life mingled with the pallor of exhaustion; on her small fingers sparkled the gleam of diamonds and from her slender arms fell back the gold and jade tissues of her chiffon robe. To McLean she had increasingly the appearance of a creature of enchantments. And to see that young loveliness in its strange gleam of color lying against his friend's supporting tan linen arm-- Sardonically his eyes sought Ryder. "So that was your mummy!" "There was nothing else to do." Ryder had withdrawn his arm; the two men faced each other across the girl. "I was in a blue funk--you see, I was hiding her in the inner chamber until I could smuggle her away. And when those wolves came on the scent, and not an instant to lose--I got the bandages off the real mummy and about Aimée.... Lord, it was a close call!" He drew a long breath. "I hadn't a gun. I hadn't a thing--and I had to grin and play it through ... And I was deathly afraid of Thatcher." "Thatcher?" "Yes, Thatcher. You see I'd popped the mummy into a case without its bandages and if Thatcher had glimpsed that he'd have said something--Oh, innocently--that would have given the show away. He knew there was only one mummy and it was wrapped. But the Lord was with me. The men opened the empty case first and at the second they said nothing to show it wasn't empty and Thatcher didn't look in. Then they went on to the third."