I thought it amazing. There was nothing odd in a dilettante Englishman
of highly cultivated mind taking to Egyptology and, being, as it
chanced, one of the richest men in the kingdom, spending a fraction of
his wealth in excavating temples. Nor was it strange that he should
have happened to die by accident when engaged in that pursuit, which I
can imagine to be very fascinating in the delightful winter climate of
Egypt. He was not the first person to be buried by a fall of sand.
Why, only a little while ago the same fate overtook a nursery-
governess and the child in her charge who were trying to dig out a
martin's nest in a pit in this very parish. Their operations brought
down a huge mass of the overhanging bank beneath which the sand-vein
had been hollowed by workmen who deserted the pit when they saw that
it had become unsafe. Next day I and my gardeners helped to recover
their bodies, for their whereabouts was not discovered until the
following morning, and a sad business it was.

Yet, taken in conjunction with the history of this couple, the whole
Ragnall affair was very strange. When but a child Lady Ragnall, then
the Hon. Miss Holmes, had been identified by the priests of a remote
African tribe as the oracle of their peculiar faith, which we
afterwards proved to be derived from old Egypt, in short the worship
of Isis and Horus. Subsequently they tried to steal her away and
through the accident of my intervention, failed. Later on, after her
marriage when shock had deprived her of her mind, these priests
renewed the attempt, this time in Egypt, and succeeded. In the end we
rescued her in Central Africa, where she was playing the part of the
Mother-goddess Isis and even wearing her ancient robes. Next she and
her husband came home with their minds turned towards a branch of
study that took them back to Egypt. Here they devote themselves to
unearthing a temple and find out that among all the gods of Egypt, who