ground, as Mrs. Bolton had done. Archie stared at the grotesque
rigidity of the body, as though he had been changed into stone,
while Professor Braddock stared likewise, scarcely able to credit
the evidence of his eyes. Only the Kanaka was unmoved and
squatted on his hams, indifferently surveying the living and the
dead. As a savage he could not be expected to have the nerves of
civilized man.

Braddock, who had dropped chisel and hammer in the first movement
of surprise, was the quickest to recover his powers of speech.
The sole question he asked, revealed the marvelous egotism of a
scientist, nominated by one idea. "Where is the mummy of Inca
Caxas?" he murmured with a bewildered air.

Widow Anne, groveling on the floor, pulled her gray locks into
wild confusion, and uttered a cry of mingled rage and grief. "He
asks that? he asks that?" she cried, stammering and choking,
"when he has murdered my poor boy Sid."

"What's that?" demanded Braddock sharply, and recovering from a
veritable stupor, which the disappearance of the mummy and the
sight of his dead assistant had thrown him into. "Kill your son:
how could I kill your son? What advantage would it have been to
me had I killed your son?"

"God knows! God knows!" sobbed the old woman, "but you--"

"Mrs. Bolton, you are raving," said Hope hastily, and strove to
raise her from the floor. "Let Miss Kendal take you away. And
you go, Lucy: this sight is too terrible for your eyes."