in Egypt, or I should have had the Boulac Museum people on my track.
Good-bye, 'Mafish Fineesh,' as Ali Baba always said."


In due course, my friend, the writer of the letter from which I have
quoted, arrived in London, and on the very next day we paid a visit to
a learned acquaintance well versed in Hieroglyphics and Demotic writing.
The anxiety with which we watched him skilfully damping and unfolding
one of the rolls and peering through his gold-rimmed glasses at the
mysterious characters may well be imagined.

"Hum," he said, "whatever it is, this is _not_ a copy of the 'Book of
the Dead.' By George, what's this? Cle--Cleo--Cleopatra----Why, my dear
Sirs, as I am a living man, this is the history of somebody who lived
in the days of Cleopatra, _the_ Cleopatra, for here's Antony's name with
hers! Well, there's six months' work before me here--six months, at
the very least!" And in that joyful prospect he fairly lost control of
himself, and skipped about the room, shaking hands with us at intervals,
and saying "I'll translate--I'll translate it if it kills me, and
we will publish it; and, by the living Osiris, it shall drive every
Egyptologist in Europe mad with envy! Oh, what a find! what a most
glorious find!"


And O you whose eyes fall upon these pages, see, they have been
translated, and they have been printed, and here they lie before you--an
undiscovered land wherein you are free to travel!

Harmachis speaks to you from his forgotten tomb. The walls of Time fall
down, and, as at the lightning's leap, a picture from the past starts