It was all mysterious, but surely most mysterious of all was that bronze cylinder. Why should the dead man have feared to expose its contents to the world? Civilisation would be staggered by the revelation, it was declared. What terrible secret of ages past could be therein contained? Why had the dead man called it a Thing? Was it really some living thing imprisoned in that strong unbreakable casing? I carried it across to the green-shaded lamp upon my writing-table, and taking up a strong magnifying glass examined it closely, and at last determined that the welding by which it had been closed had been done ages ago. As far as I could detect it had never been opened. How, therefore, could Arnold have known what it contained?--unless the papyri that had been discovered with it had given an explanation. Suddenly it occurred to me that the existence of any papyri of great interest would probably be known in the Egyptian Department of the British Museum. Therefore by inquiry there I might perhaps learn something. So I resolved, after Guy's visit, to run up to London and see one of the officials. As Arnold was an Egyptologist, he would, no doubt, be known and his discoveries noted. I was holding the cylinder in my hand, carrying it across the room to replace it in the safe, when my eye caught a dark shadow thrown across the lawn. So quickly, however, did it disappear that I stood half inclined to believe it to exist only in my imagination. It seemed to be a long shadow, as though some person had crossed in the moonlight the high bank on the opposite side. Yet my collie, who would bark at the slightest sound in the night, lay near and uttered neither bark nor growl. I went out to the verandah and looked about me; but all was perfectly still. The world lay asleep beneath the great full moon. For a few moments I stood puzzled. No intruder should be there at that hour. Yet the fact that Prince had not been disturbed reassured me, so I closed the window, locked the cylinder and the correspondence carefully in the safe, and then went upstairs to bed. My room was directly over the library, and something prompted me to watch. So I extinguished my light and sat peering through the chink between the blind and the window-sash. For nearly half an hour I waited, my eyes fixed upon the great wide, moonlit lawn. Suddenly I saw the shadow again, plainly and distinctly--the dark silhouette passed bay again. It was probably a poacher from the wood beyond. I knew that my rabbits were being trapped with wires; therefore resolving to tell Johnson, the keeper, in the morning, I retired to bed. Next day, among my letters, I found one from my solicitors, which made it necessary for me to go at once to London; and after doing my business in Bedford Row, I strolled along to the British Museum. I had but little difficulty in discovering Professor Stewart, whose knowledge of Egyptology is probably the widest of any living man.