Then and there, with this feeling strong upon me, I determined to warn Margaret and her father of dire possibilities; and to await, as well content as I could in my ignorance, the development of things over which I had no power.

I returned to the house in a different frame of mind to that in which I had left it; and was enchanted to find Margaret—­the old Margaret—­ waiting for me.

After dinner, when I was alone for a time with the father and daughter, I opened the subject, though with considerable hesitation: 

“Would it not be well to take every possible precaution, in case the Queen may not wish what we are doing, with regard to what may occur before the Experiment; and at or after her waking, if it comes off?” Margaret’s answer came back quickly; so quickly that I was convinced she must have had it ready for some one: 

“But she does approve!  Surely it cannot be otherwise.  Father is doing, with all his brains and all his energy and all his great courage, just exactly what the great Queen had arranged!”

“But,” I answered, “that can hardly be.  All that she arranged was in a tomb high up in a rock, in a desert solitude, shut away from the world by every conceivable means.  She seems to have depended on this isolation to insure against accident.  Surely, here in another country and age, with quite different conditions, she may in her anxiety make mistakes and treat any of you—­of us—­as she did those others in times gone past.  Nine men that we know of have been slain by her own hand or by her instigation.  She can be remorseless if she will.”  It did not strike me till afterwards when I was thinking over this conversation, how thoroughly I had accepted the living and conscious condition of Queen Tera as a fact.  Before I spoke, I had feared I might offend Mr. Trelawny; but to my pleasant surprise he smiled quite genially as he answered me: 

“My dear fellow, in a way you are quite right.  The Queen did undoubtedly intend isolation; and, all told, it would be best that her experiment should be made as she arranged it.  But just think, that became impossible when once the Dutch explorer had broken into her tomb.  That was not my doing.  I am innocent of it, though it was the cause of my setting out to rediscover the sepulchre.  Mind, I do not say for a moment that I would not have done just the same as Van Huyn.  I went into the tomb from curiosity; and I took away what I did, being fired with the zeal of acquisitiveness which animates the collector.  But, remember also, that at this time I did not know of the Queen’s intention of resurrection; I had no idea of the completeness of her preparations.  All that came long afterwards.  But when it did come, I have done all that I could to carry out her wishes to the full.  My only fear is that I may have misinterpreted some of her cryptic instructions, or have omitted or overlooked something.  But of this I am certain; I have left