When I had carried it across to him, he looked me straight in the face with those deep-set glassy eyes, which haunted me for long afterwards, and said--"I trust you with that, Mr Kemball, because--because--I feel assured that you will act as I direct. Do not attempt to seek--to discover what is within. That secret must be withheld--from you. In this I hope--that you will respect my desire--I hope so, for--for your own sake."

I held the mysterious cylinder in my hand in wonder. Evidently he treasured it even far greater than his riches, and had brought it to London with some distinct purpose which he was now--owing to his heart-trouble--unable to accomplish.

"There are other things--other things in the bag. Bring them to me," he said, in a low, weak voice.

I brought the bag over to him and turned its contents pell-mell upon the floor. Among the several articles of clothing were a few old letters which, at his direction, I burned amid the tinder of the banknotes. Then, on searching further, I found a small, and evidently very antique, statuette of a figure standing, holding a kind of spear. It was about seven inches high, much worn, with a square base, and of solid gold. Around it I noticed an inscription in hieroglyphics.

"That," my dying friend managed to gasp, "is an ancient image--of the Egyptian God Osiris, son of Seb, and Nut, or Heaven and Earth, and married to Isis. He was held to have gone through sufferings--to have died--to have risen again, and finally to have become the Judge of the Dead, His mysteries and rites were--were the most important part of Egyptian wisdom. The inscription upon it shows that it was made by one Mersekha, in the reign of King Radadef, in the Fourth Dynasty--or about three thousand five hundred years before the Christian era. Take it for yourself, Mr Kemball," added the old man, his voice distinctly weaker. "It will serve as your mascot and will perhaps remind you of the friendless man whom you have to-day befriended."

I stood by in silence, for I saw a distinct change had crept over him.

I took a glass in which the doctor had placed some drug, giving me instructions to administer it to him, and I forced a few drops of it between his teeth.The evening was warm and oppressive. Twilight was just falling, and through the open window came the low hum of the motor traffic a few hundred yards away in the Strand. The hotel in which we were was a quiet, unostentatious little place in Surrey Street, to which, on leaving the ship two days before, he had persuaded me to 

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