be found. He reflected that perhaps this lower half had remained in the
thief's hand, who, in his vexation, had thrown it far away, leaving
the head to lie where it fell. Again Smith examined this head, and more
closely. Now he saw that just beneath the breasts was a delicately cut
cartouche.

Being by this time a master of hieroglyphics, he read it without
trouble. It ran: "Ma-Mee, Great Royal Lady. Beloved of ----" Here the
cartouche was broken away.

"Ma-Me, or it might be Ma-Mi," he reflected. "I never heard of a queen
called Ma-Me, or Ma-Mi, or Ma-Mu. She must be quite new to history. I
wonder of whom she was beloved? Amen, or Horus, or Isis, probably. Of
some god, I have no doubt, at least I hope so!"

He stared at the beautiful portrait in his hand, as once he had stared
at the cast on the Museum wall, and the beautiful portrait, emerging
from the dust of ages, smiled back at him there in the solemn moonlight
as once the cast had smiled from the museum wall. Only that had been but
a cast, whereas this was real. This had slept with the dead from whose
features it had been fashioned, the dead who lay, or who had lain,
within.

A sudden resolution took hold of Smith. He would explore that tomb, at
once and alone. No one should accompany him on this his first visit;
it would be a sacrilege that anyone save himself should set foot there
until he had looked on what it might contain.

Why should he not enter? His lamp, of what is called the "hurricane"
brand, was very good and bright, and would burn for many hours.