this discovery in King Merenptah's tomb?" I asked.

"About four years," was Shaw's reply, and I saw that he was trembling with excitement. "And from that day until the day of his death poor Melvill Arnold was, alas! never the same man. What he found within the Thing, as he used to call it, made such a terrible impression upon him that he, bold and fearless and defiant as he used to be, became suddenly weak, timid, and nervous, lest the secret contained in the cylinder should be revealed. That message of the hieroglyphics, whatever it was, haunted him night and day, and he often declared to me that, in consequence of his foolish disobedience of the injunction contained in the papyri, he had become a doomed man,--doomed, Mr Kemball!" he added, in a low, strange voice, looking straight and earnestly into my lace--"doomed, as I fear, alas! that you too are now doomed!"

CHAPTER NINE. REVEALS GUY'S SUSPICIONS.

All endeavour to discover from Shaw something further concerning the mysterious cylinder proved unavailing. Apparently he was entirely in ignorance of its actual contents--of the Thing referred to by the man now dead.

Later I had an opportunity of chatting with Guy Nicholson as we strolled about the beautiful gardens in the sunset. He was a bright, merry, easy-going fellow, who had been a year or two in a cavalry regiment, had retired on the death of his father, and who now expressed an ambition for foreign travel. He lived at Titmarsh Court, between Rockingham and Corby, he explained, and he invited me over to see him. 

Long ago, I had heard of old Nathaniel Nicholson, the great Sheffield ironmaster, who had purchased the place from a bankrupt peer, and who had spent many thousands on improvements. My father had known him but slightly, for they met in the hunting-field, and now I was much gratified to know his son.

From the first I took to him greatly, and we mutually expressed friendship towards each other. We were both bachelors, and I saw that we had many tastes in common. His airy carelessness of manner and his overflowing good-humour attracted me, while it was plain that he was the devoted slave of the pretty Asta.

Wheaton, the butler, a grey-faced, grey-haired, and rather superior person, called Shaw in to speak on the telephone, and I was left alone with Nicholson on the terrace.

"Have you known Asta long?" he asked me suddenly.

My reply was a little 

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