Languidly inquisitive, Professor Lachsyrma groped for it.  Such objects are generally found beneath the head.  There was a seal at each end, both of which he broke.  A roll of papyrus was inside.  He trembled, and with forced deliberation made for the table, his knees tottering from exhaustion.  Excitement at this unexpected discovery made him forget Carrel.  The ghastly events of the evening were for the moment blotted from his memory.  After all, he was a palaeographer—­an archaeologist first, a murderer afterwards.  Eagerly, painfully, he began to read, adjusting his spectacles from time to time, the muscles of his face twitching with anxiety and expectation.  For a long time the words were strange to him.  Suddenly his glasses became dim.  There were tears in his eyes; he was reading aloud, unconsciously to himself, the beautiful verses familiar to all students of Greek poetry:—­

   [Greek verse]

and to students of English, in the marvellous, rendering of them by the late Mr. Rossetti: 

   ’Like the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough,
   A-top on the topmost twig,—­which the pluckers forgot, somehow,—­
   Forgot it not, nay, but got it not, for none could get it till now.’

The papyrus was of great length, and contained the poems of Sappho in a cursive literary handwriting of the third century—­the real poems, lost to the world for over eight hundred years.  It was morning now—­a London spring morning; dawn was creeping through the great north-east light of the studio; birds were twittering outside.  The murderer sobbed hysterically.

* * * * *

On referring to ‘Euterpe,’ the second book of the Histories of Herodotus, Professor Lachsyrma selected the second method of embalming as less troublesome and more expeditious.  The whole matter lasted little longer than the seventy prescribed days.  At the end of which time he was able, in accordance with his original intention, to deposit in a handsome glass case at the British Museum the Mummy of Heliodorus, a Greek settler in Egypt who held some official appointment at the Court of Ptolemy Philadelphus.  It is described in the catalogue as one of the best examples of its kind in Europe.  Indeed, it is probably unique.

Professor Lachsyrma often pauses before the case when visiting our gaunt House of Art.  Even the policeman on duty has noticed this peculiarity, and smiles respectfully.  The Professor has ceased to ridicule Egyptology; and his confidence in the resources and sufficiency of antiquity, so rudely shaken for one long evening, is completely re-established.

To S. S. SPRIGGE, ESQ., M.D.

THE BRAND OF ISIS.

   ’Videant irreligiosi videant et errorem suum recognoscant.  En ecce
   pristinis aerumnis absolutus, Isidis magnae providentia gaudens Lucius
   de sua fortuna triumphat.’  APULEIUS.