Sir Robert's eyes, seen across the sights, glittered like a maniac's. "Go away!" he whispered. "Go—or——"
I thought of an old, old policeman trick and assumed an expression of sudden horror. "Take care," I cried. "Look out—he will get you."
The baronet swung around, gasping and ghastly. In a second I had him by the wrist.
"What was it?" he almost shrieked.
"A policeman's trick," I answered coldly, and disarmed him.
"Curse you! Curse you!" he howled, and doubling his fists, he rushed at me, calling on his blacks the while. The latter gave me momentary trouble. But it was soon over. I propped them up like lay figures against the columns, facing each other, afterwards, and extracted the charges from their guns. Looking over the sand, I saw Miss Ottley and Dr. Belleville and the Captain walking under umbrellas towards the tanks. I felt glad not to have disturbed them. Sir Robert had disappeared within the cavern. I followed him. He had put on a large masque which entirely covered his face, and he was fumbling with the screw stopper of a huge glass jar at the farthest corner of the cavern. The sarcophagus had been overturned. It now rested in the centre of the cavern, bottom upwards. And on the flat, leaden surface of the bottom was stretched out, stiff and stark, the naked body of a tall, brown-skinned man. The body glistened as if it had been rubbed with oil. It was almost fleshless, but sinews and tendons stood out everywhere like tightened cords. One might almost have taken it for a mummy. It had, however, an appearance of life—or rather, of suspended animation, for it did not move. I wondered and stepped closer to examine it. I looked at the face, and recognised the Arab who had attacked me on the previous night, the Arab who had frightened Miss Ottley and myself more than once. His mouth was tight shut; his eyes were, however, open slightly. He did not seem to breathe. I put my finger on his cheek, and pressed. The flesh did not yield. I ran my eyes down his frame and uttered a cry. Three of his ribs were broken. Then I felt his pulse; it was still. The wrist was as rigid as steel—the arm, too—nay, the whole man. "He is dead," I exclaimed at last, and looked at Sir Robert. The little baronet was re-stoppering the glass jar, but he held a glass in one hand half filled with some sort of liquid. Presently he approached me—but most marvellously slowly.
"This man is dead," I said to him. "He attacked me last night. I threw him and perhaps broke his ribs. But I did not kill him, for he fled. How comes it he is dead?"
Sir Robert, for answer, threw at my feet the contents of the jar. Then I understood why he wore the masque. The cavern was filled with the fumes of the deadly perfume of the sarcophagus on instant. One sniff and my senses were rocking. I held my breath, but in spite of that the cavern swung round me with vertiginous rapidity.