"Come with me for a few minutes into the museum; I wish to talk to you."

"What about,--an experiment?"

"Yes, an experiment."

"Then I am at your service."

In a minute more, he had followed me into the desolate dead museum. I
looked round, but did not see Sir Philip.




CHAPTER XXXII.

MARGRAVE threw himself on a seat just under the great anaconda; I closed
and locked the door. When I had done so, my eye fell on the young man's
face, and I was surprised to see that it had lost its colour; that it
showed great anxiety, great distress; that his hands were visibly
trembling.

"What is this?" he said in feeble tones, and raising himself half from his
seat as if with great effort. "Help me up! come away! Something in this
room is hostile to me, hostile, overpowering! What can it be?"

"Truth and my presence," answered a stern, low voice; and Sir Philip
Derval, whose slight form the huge bulk of the dead elephant had before
obscured from my view, came suddenly out from the shadow into the full
rays of the lamps which lit up, as if for Man's revel, that mocking