“My last trip to Egypt—from which I just returned a fortnight ago—was to have been my final one, anyway. I’ve made six trips out there in my life, and I’ve collected enough information to fill a dozen volumes. Also, I’ve contributed many fine specimens to the museum and corrected many misapprehensions concerning the interpretation of some of the hieroglyphs. So, all in all, I think I’ve done pretty well.
“This last visit was in many respects the most satisfactory, and indeed it witnessed a triumph in my career as an Egyptologist that would be a crowning achievement, were it not for—but we won’t speak of that—yet.
“I wonder, Madden, if you know anything about the ancient Egyptian religious ceremonies and forms of worship? Anyway, I may tell you that the Nile dwellers, as they were called, recognized as their supreme deity, Osiris, lord of the underworld. By some he has been identified with the Sun and, with the forty assessors of the dead, he was supposed to have judged the souls brought before him by Horus in the double halls of truth, after their good and evil deeds had been weighed by Anubis.
“The Egyptians reverenced Osiris with as devout worship as the Chinese give to Buddha, and the high priests of Osiris were regarded with almost as much awe as the deity himself.
“In all our studies and investigations, however, we have never been able actually to identify Osiris, but it is now generally conceded that he was believed to have lived on earth at one time and that it was only after his death that he assumed deific prerogatives. In this respect the modern Christian theology may be said to resemble the more ancient form to some extent.
“Osiris was pictured on many of the tablets as a creature with the head of a bull, though there is some disagreement on this score. In any event, his tomb was said to exist near Heliopolis, and it was to investigate this tradition that I made my last trip to Egypt.”
Sir Richard paused to relight his cigar and listened to the storm which raged without. Again he gave that hasty, apprehensive glance about him, then proceeded:
“It would be impossible for me to explain to you, a layman, my inordinate joy at finding—by what means and after what tedious labor, I won’t stop to tell now—a deserted tomb which I knew, from certain hieroglyphic markings I found, was the very one of which I had been in search for the best part of half a year.
“Understand that this whole tradition of the tomb of Osiris was regarded by my fellow scientists as a myth, and if it had been publicly known that I was giving it sufficient credence to spend a lot of time and money searching for it I should have been looked upon as a madman and laughed out of the societies. This may enable you to appreciate more fully my sensations on actually locating at least the tomb. What I should find within, I hardly dared conjecture!
“The tomb of a God! Can you imagine it, Madden?