"There is precious dust here," Ryder repeated. "You must understand—"
"We see for ourselves," said Hamdi Bey, and now his voice had a ring of triumphant steel through its soft smoothness. "Stand aside. This is in the name of the law."
It seemed to McLean that for one mad moment Ryder was tempted to resist. In the flickering light of the torches he stood defiantly above the painted mummy case, his eyes steadily upon the bey, his hands pressing down upon the vivid bloom of the dead woman's pictured face.
Then with a beaten but ironic smile he stood aside.
Slowly the men lifted the lid.... In that moment McLean became aware that his heart was pumping thickly somewhere in his throat and that the rest of him was a hollow, horrible void of suspense.
Hamdi Bey turned his arrogant stare from young Ryder and looked down.... Drawing closer, fearfully McLean's eyes followed him.
He could not believe their evidence. His heart could not stop its idiotic pumping.
But there he saw no terror-stricken girl, no pallid runaway of the harems, but a still, dark-shrouded form, swathed in the tight bandages of the ancient embalmer, a dry, dusty little mummy creature blankly and inscrutably confronting this unforeseen resurrection.
Over their dumbfounded heads he heard young Ryder's mocking laugh.