A moment of critical study and he straightened up with a laugh. His companions looked at him with amazement.
“Glad you can see something to laugh about,” said the captain grimly.
“Why shouldn’t I laugh?” was the reply. “Here we’ve had all our grief for nothing. This isn’t the coffin and that isn’t the mummy of Ras-Ameses.”
“Are you sure?” asked the captain, while Phalos ceased his moaning and hurried to his side.
“Certain!” was the reply. “Look at the symbols on this cover. Do you see the vulture? Do you see the sacred cobra? Do you see the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt? Of course you don’t. None of them is there. Yet they would be there if this were the coffin of the royal Ras-Ameses. This is the coffin of one of his relatives—see, here is his name, Horum-Aleb. Perhaps a nephew or a son-in-law.”
A cry of vast relief broke from the lips of Phalos when he perceived that the professor was right in his conclusions.
“You are right,” he said. “I jumped too soon at conclusions. I should have remembered that large numbers of the royal family were buried in close proximity to the Pharaoh himself.”
His relief, however, though great, was not of long duration, and his brow clouded as another thought occurred to him.
“But if men have broken in here and despoiled this tomb, is it likely that they would stop here?” he asked. “Would they not persist until they found the vastly more valuable one of the king himself?”
“That, of course, is possible,” conceded the professor. “But we’ll not assume that until we know it. Besides, everything here shows that they acted with the wildest haste. They may have been alarmed and made off with their booty without going any farther.”