"Nobody. Yet I have a distinct recollection of having been touched by, and having actually seen, the hand being withdrawn from my pillow. I rushed out of the room and alarmed the house. In a few moments every one came out of their rooms, but when I told my story they laughed at me in ridicule, and Louise took me back to bed, declaring that I must have had a bad dream. But I could sleep there no longer, and returned home next day. I did not tell Dad, because I knew that he would only poke fun at me." For some moments I did not speak. Surely ours was a strange conversation in that busy modern thoroughfare, amid the cafe idlers seated out in the roadway, and the lounging groups enjoying the cool air from the river after the heat and burden of the day. Strange it was--very strange--that almost the same inexplicable circumstances had occurred to her as to me. Had I been superstitious I certainly should have been inclined to the belief that the uncanny hand--which was so material that it had left its imprint upon my flesh--was actually some evil foreboding connected with the bronze cylinder--the Thing which the papyri decreed shall not speak until the Day of Awakening. Was not the curse of the Wolf-god placed upon any one who sought knowledge of the contents of that cylinder, which had been placed for security in the tomb of the Great Merenptah, King of Kings? Even contact with the human hand was forbidden under pain of the wrath of the Sun-god, and of Osiris the Eternal. As I walked there I recalled the quaint decipher of those ancient hieroglyphics. Yes, the incident was the most weird and inexplicable that had ever happened to me. The whole problem indeed defied solution. I had not attempted to open the cylinder, nor to seek knowledge of what was contained therein. It still reposed in the safe in the library at Upton End, together with that old newspaper, the threatening letter, and the translation of the papyri. We wandered along the quay, Asta appearing unusually pale and pensive. "I wonder you did not recount your strange experience to your father," I exclaimed presently. "It happened in the house of a friend, and not at home. Therefore I resolved to say nothing. Indeed I had grown to believe that, after all, it must have been mere imagination--until you described what happened to you last night. That has caused me to think--it has convinced me that what I saw was material and real." "It's a mystery, Miss Seymour," I said; "one which we must both endeavour to elucidate. Let us say nothing--not even to your father. We will keep our own counsel and watch." When we returned to the hotel we found Shaw awaiting us. Asta, being fatigued, retired to her room, and afterwards he and I strolled down to one of those big cafes in the Place Bellecour. A string band was playing a waltz, and hundreds of people were sitting out upon the pavement drinking their _bock_ or _mazagran_.