“I knew nothing,” the soldier said, forcing himself to speak the words he hated saying. “Absolutely nothing.”

“It must be returned,” repeated the other, “if it is not now too late. For I fear⁠—I fear⁠—”

Colonel Wragge made a movement of assent with his head.

“It shall be,” he said.

The place was still as the grave.

I do not know what it was then that made us all three turn round with so sudden a start, for there was no sound audible to my ears, at least.

The doctor was on the point of replacing the lid over the mummy, when he straightened up as if he had been shot.

“There’s something coming,” said Colonel Wragge under his breath, and the doctor’s eyes, peering down the small opening of the tunnel, showed me the true direction.