“But this hand was strange to see, for it was the real hand of her who lay enwrapped there; the arm projecting from the cerements being of flesh, seemingly made as like marble in the process of embalming.  Arm and hand were of dusky white, being of the hue of ivory that hath lain long in air.  The skin and the nails were complete and whole, as though the body had been placed for burial over night.  I touched the hand and moved it, the arm being something flexible as a live arm; though stiff with long disuse, as are the arms of those faqueers which I have seen in the Indees.  There was, too, an added wonder that on this ancient hand were no less than seven fingers, the same all being fine and long, and of great beauty.  Sooth to say, it made me shudder and my flesh creep to touch that hand that had lain there undisturbed for so many thousands of years, and yet was like unto living flesh.  Underneath the hand, as though guarded by it, lay a huge jewel of ruby; a great stone of wondrous bigness, for the ruby is in the main a small jewel.  This one was of wondrous colour, being as of fine blood whereon the light shineth.  But its wonder lay not in its size or colour, though these were, as I have said, of priceless rarity; but in that the light of it shone from seven stars, each of seven points, as clearly as though the stars were in reality there imprisoned.  When that the hand was lifted, the sight of that wondrous stone lying there struck me with a shock almost to momentary paralysis.  I stood gazing on it, as did those with me, as though it were that faded head of the Gorgon Medusa with the snakes in her hair, whose sight struck into stone those who beheld.  So strong was the feeling that I wanted to hurry away from the place.  So, too, those with me; therefore, taking this rare jewel, together with certain amulets of strangeness and richness being wrought of jewel-stones, I made haste to depart.  I would have remained longer, and made further research in the wrappings of the mummy, but that I feared so to do.  For it came to me all at once that I was in a desert place, with strange men who were with me because they were not over-scrupulous.  That we were in a lone cavern of the dead, an hundred feet above the ground, where none could find me were ill done to me, nor would any ever seek.  But in secret I determined that I would come again, though with more secure following.  Moreover, was I tempted to seek further, as in examining the wrappings I saw many things of strange import in that wondrous tomb; including a casket of eccentric shape made of some strange stone, which methought might have contained other jewels, inasmuch as it had secure lodgment in the great sarcophagus itself.  There was in the tomb also another coffer which, though of rare proportion and adornment, was more simply shaped.  It was of ironstone of great thickness; but the cover was lightly cemented down with what seemed gum and Paris plaster, as though to insure that no air could penetrate.