“Precisely what I expected,” the doctor said calmly; “a fire-elemental sent upon its mission in the days of Thebes, centuries before Christ, and tonight, for the first time all these thousands of years, released from the spell that originally bound it.”
We stared at him in amazement, Colonel Wragge opening his lips for words that refused to shape themselves.
“And, if we dig,” he continued significantly, pointing to the floor where the blackness had poured up, “we shall find some underground connection—a tunnel most likely—leading to the Twelve Acre Wood. It was made by—your predecessor.”
“A tunnel made by my brother!” gasped the soldier. “Then my sister should know—she lived here with him—” He stopped suddenly.
John Silence inclined his head slowly. “I think so,” he said quietly. “Your brother, no doubt, was as much tormented as you have been,” he continued after a pause in which Colonel Wragge seemed deeply preoccupied with his thoughts, “and tried to find peace by burying it in the wood, and surrounding the wood then, like a large magic circle, with the enchantments of the old formulae. So the stars the man saw blazing—”
“But burying what?” asked the soldier faintly, stepping backwards towards the support of the wall.
Dr. Silence regarded us both intently for a moment before he replied. I think he weighed in his mind whether to tell us now, or when the investigation was absolutely complete.
“The mummy,” he said softly, after a moment; “the mummy that your brother took from its resting place of centuries, and brought home—here.”
Colonel Wragge dropped down upon the nearest chair, hanging breathlessly on every word. He was far too amazed for speech.
“The mummy of some important person—a priest most likely—protected from disturbance and desecration by the ceremonial magic of the time. For they understood how to attach to the mummy, to lock up with it in the tomb, an elemental force that would direct itself even after ages upon any one who dared to molest it. In this case it was an elemental of fire.”