Without giving the newcomers time to take in the wonderful sight, the Arabs led the way through this chamber down and down through another passage. After traversing 60 yards they came to a chamber that was even more amazing, more wonderful than the last. The strangers could hardly believe their eyes. All around the burial chamber were royal mummies, the glitter of gold and colour showing up under the flickering candles. The cases were exquisitely carved and decorated, so well preserved that it was as though they were made but yesterday. So intensely excited was the Egyptologist, that it required an effort of will to make him realize this was not a dream, but reality, that he was the first white man in the history of the world to gaze on such a glorious sight; to see the ancient kings and queens as they had slumbered through the centuries. He looked around him, examined the royal names and titles. Here were Seti I, Thothmes II, Thothmes III, Rameses II. Wherever he looked the mummy of a king or queen greeted his astonished gaze. He was literally astounded, hardly able to take it all in. The magnitude of the find overwhelmed him. He counted the mummies one by one—eleven kings, nine queens, a prince and a princess! It was unbelievable. In a little while, when the first excitement had passed away, he became the man of action once more. Realizing to the full that only the promptest measures could save the tomb from being looted, he quickly collected three hundred Arabs, and he and his assistant began to remove the treasures. They never halted, never rested, labouring on all through that day and the next without a moment’s sleep, removing the kings and queens from their resting-place, sewing them up in sailcloth, and getting them into the open. In forty-eight hours they cleared the tomb of everything it contained, and in another three days they had conveyed the mummies over the plain of Thebes to the Nile. The natives were ugly, threatening, angry that their kings should be disturbed—still more angry that there was no chance for them to plunder the tomb any more. Not for a moment dared the Egyptologist and his assistant leave their precious charge, not until the steamer arrived that was to take the royal mummies down to Cairo. The news of the discovery spread like wildfire through the villages, and as the steamer passed slowly down the Nile, the Egyptian women hailed the passing with the death wail, running along the banks, tearing their hair and uttering their awful cries. Men wailed and fired their guns. It was one of the most remarkable sights ever witnessed, the natives of our own time mourning the Pharaohs who reigned thousands of years ago.