No one, not accustomed to packing, could have the slightest idea of the amount of the amount of work involved in such a task as that in which in we were engaged.  For my own part I had had a vague idea that there were a large number of Egyptian objects in Mr. Trelawny’s house; but until I came to deal with them seriatim I had little idea of either their importance, the size of some of them, or of their endless number.  Far into the night we worked.  At times we used all the strength which we could muster on a single object; again we worked separately, but always under Mr. Trelawny’s immediate direction.  He himself, assisted by Margaret, kept an exact tall of each piece.

It was only when we sat down, utterly wearied, to a long-delayed supper that we began to realised that a large part of the work was done.  Only a few of the packing-cases, however, were closed; for a vast amount of work still remained.  We had finished some of the cases, each of which held only one of the great sarcophagi.  The cases which held many objects could not be closed till all had been differentiated and packed.

I slept that night without movement or without dreams; and on our comparing notes in the morning, I found that each of the others had had the same experience.

By dinner-time next evening the whole work was complete, and all was ready for the carriers who were to come at midnight.  A little before the appointed time we heard the rumble of carts; then we were shortly invaded by an army of workmen, who seemed by sheer force of numbers to move without effort, in an endless procession, all our prepared packages.  A little over an hour sufficed them, and when the carts had rumbled away, we all got ready to follow them to Paddington.  Silvio was of course to be taken as one of our party.

Before leaving we went in a body over the house, which looked desolate indeed.  As the servants had all gone to Cornwall there had been no attempt at tidying-up; every room and passage in which we had worked, and all the stairways, were strewn with paper and waste, and marked with dirty feet.

The last thing which Mr. Trelawny did before coming away was to take from the great safe the Ruby with the Seven Stars.  As he put it safely into his pocket-book, Margaret, who had all at once seemed to grow deadly tired and stood beside her father pale and rigid, suddenly became all aglow, as though the sight of the Jewel had inspired her.  She smiled at her father approvingly as she said: 

“You are right, Father.  There will not be any more trouble tonight.  She will not wreck your arrangements for any cause.  I would stake my life upon it.”

“She—­or something—­wrecked us in the desert when we had come from the tomb in the Valley of the Sorcerer!” was the grim comment of Corbeck, who was standing by.  Margaret answered him like a flash: 

“Ah! she was then near her tomb from which for thousands of years her body had not been moved.  She must know that things are different now.”