“A mummy, a mummy?” he said finally.  “You deceive yourself, sir, this is no mummy.”

“Accurately speaking, no,” replied M. Le Mesge.  “This is not a mummy.  None the less, you have before you the mortal remains of Sir Archibald Russell.  I must point out to you, here, my dear sir, that the processes of embalming used by Antinea differ from the processes employed in ancient Egypt.  Here, there is no natron, nor bands, nor spices.  The industry of Ahaggar, in a single effort, has achieved a result obtained by European science only after long experiments.  Imagine my surprise, when I arrived here and found that they were employing a method I supposed known only to the civilized world.”

M. Le Mesge struck a light tap with his finger on the forehead of Sir Archibald Russell.  It rang like metal.

“It is bronze,” I said.  “That is not a human forehead:  it is bronze.”

M. Le Mesge shrugged his shoulders.

“It is a human forehead,” he affirmed curtly, “and not bronze.  Bronze is darker, sir.  This is the great unknown metal of which Plato speaks in the Critias, and which is something between gold and silver:  it is the special metal of the mountains of the Atlantides.  It is orichalch.”

Bending again, I satisfied myself that this metal was the same as that with which the walls of the library were overcast.

“It is orichalch,” continued M. Le Mesge.  “You look as if you had no idea how a human body can look like a statue of orichalch.  Come, Captain Morhange, you whom I gave credit for a certain amount of knowledge, have you never heard of the method of Dr. Variot, by which a human body can be preserved without embalming?  Have you never read the book of that practitioner?[11] He explains a method called electro-plating.  The skin is coated with a very thin layer of silver salts, to make it a conductor.  The body then is placed in a solution, of copper sulphate, and the polar currents do their work.  The body of this estimable English major has been metalized in the same manner, except that a solution of orichalch sulphate, a very rare substance, has been substituted for that of copper sulphate.  Thus, instead of the statue of a poor slave, a copper statue, you have before you a statue of metal more precious than silver or gold, in a word, a statue worthy of the granddaughter of Neptune.”

[Footnote 11:  Variot:  L’anthropologie galvanique.  Paris, 1890. (Note by M. Leroux.)]

M. Le Mesge waved his arm.  The black slaves seized the body.  In a few seconds, they slid the orichalch ghost into its painted wooden sheath.  That was set on end and slid into its niche, beside the niche where an exactly similar sheath was labelled “Number 52.”

Upon finishing their task, they retired without a word.  A draught of cold air from the door again made the flames of the copper torches flicker and threw great shadows about us.

Morhange and I remained as motionless as the pale metal specters which surrounded us.  Suddenly I pulled myself together and staggered forward to the niche beside that in which they just had laid the remains of the English major.  I looked for the label.