“You will perceive, messieurs,” declared Ryder in mocking irony, “that no human being is within this last fold of wax—­especially a being,” he added thoughtfully with a glance at the stolid sheik, “of the proportions of her papa....  This daughter, was she a large young lady?” he inquired politely of the Arab.

The sheik vouchsafed no reply, but from across his ample person the general leaned forward.

“She was small, Monsieur Ryder,” he said in silken tones, “but she can raise a man as high as the gallows—­or as low as the grave.”

“A marvel!” returned young Ryder smoothly.  “And was she also of charm—­a charm that could kindle fires—?”

It appeared to McLean that he caught the flaunting implications of the taunt.

He wished to heaven that Ryder would hold his reckless tongue.

Ryder was turning now to the official in charge of the police.

“If you have satisfied yourselves that this place is empty—­”

The man, a rather apologetic, pleasant fellow, shrugged and smiled.  “We have examined all—­”

There was a moment in which the searchers regarded one another through the gloom in the inquiring embarrassment of the discountenanced and considered departure.  But Hamdi Bey had more insistent eyes.

He was circling the place again like a wolf for the scent, flashing his search light over the carved walls, the dancing gleam picking out now a relief of Osiris, now a fishing boat upon the Nile, now the judgment hall of Maat.  Suddenly he stopped and began examining a limestone slab.

“These stones—­these have been merely piled here,” he cried excitedly.  “This is a hole—­an entrance.  Dig them out, men.  There is a door there, I tell you.”

Hastily Ryder addressed the police.  “It is simply the burial vault,” he told them.  “The sarcophagi are there, ready for transportation.  Mr. Thatcher will tell you—­”

“I assure you it is merely the actual tomb,” said Thatcher nervously.  “I have myself assisted my colleague with the preparation.”

The slabs had been displaced now, disclosing the small door, with its fine wrought stele.  Hamdi flashed a look of triumph upon the man who had obviously tried to conceal that door from them, a look which Ryder ignored as he turned to McLean.

“That is the door which is sealed forever upon the dead, and upon the Ka, the spiritual double,” he said in a low conversational tone.  “It has some remarkable representations of the jackal Anubis—­”

It seemed to McLean a most extraordinary time for a disquisition upon Anubis.  If Ryder was attempting to prove himself at his ease he had certainly misjudged his manner.

“Damn Anubis,” McLean gave back under his breath.  “He’s not the only jackal—­What the devil’s the meaning of this?”

Ryder made no reply.  The stone had been pushed back and the searchers were stooping beneath the narrow entrance.  Then as McLean’s head bent at the door he heard his friend whispering, “I say—­you haven’t a gun you could slip me—?”