"And I am tall," I answered. "One of your men will give me a leg up."
In another moment I was letting myself cautiously down on a dark, dewy garden fragrant with the scent of orange blossoms. There was broken glass on the top of the wall, and my hands were cut: but that was a detail.
Noiselessly I slid back the big bolt which fastened the gate. The men filed in like a troop of ghosts, and followed me as I tiptoed along, crouching under trees as I walked.
The voices, speaking together in low, hushed tones, became more audible, though, even when we came near, we could catch no words. A singularly broad-shouldered man in European dress, with a fez on his rather small head, stood with his back to us, giving orders to four negroes. They were out in the open, where the moon touched their faces, and we in the shadow could see them distinctly. They had a long, narrow box somewhat resembling a coffin, which, by their master's directions, they were about to lower by means of ropes into a grave-like hole they had dug in the soft earth.
My heart gave a bound, and then missed a beat, as if my life had come to an end. I sprang on the man from behind, and the beggar king with his band followed my lead. Just what happened next I could hardly tell: I was too busy fighting. Down on the ground we two went together. Essain—whom I knew as Rameses—fought like a lion. Surprised as he was, he flashed out a knife somehow, and I felt its point bite between my ribs, before I got a chance to shoot. Even then, I shot at random, and it was only the sudden start and collapse of the body writhing under mine which told me that my bullet had found its billet. The man lay still. I jumped up, released from his hold. His face I could not see, but when I shook him he was limp as a marionette. "Dead!" I said to myself. "Well, it's all to the good!" and wasted no more time on him.
The four negroes were down: they had shown no fight; and already Haroun had begun with a great knife to prise open the coffin-shaped box. It lay on the ground in the moonlight and I saw that it was the mummy-case I had seen last in Maida's shrine in New York. There was no doubt—no hope, then! I had come too late!
Like a madman I snatched the knife from Haroun, and finished the work he had begun. There she lay—my darling—where the mummy had lain so long. But I was not too late after all. As the air touched her she gasped and opened her eyes.
There, you would say, with the girl I loved coming to life in my arms, the story of my fight against her enemies might end. But it was not to be so. There was still the one supreme struggle to come. For Essain, alias Rameses, was not dead. He had feigned death to save himself, and while we forgot him he crept away.