VENGEANCE OF JHAPOO THE GOND 277 



" photographic material " lay hidden behind the leafage 

 near the foot of my tree. 



My orderly, after feigning that amount of hesitation 

 which he considered suitable to the situation, slowly per- 

 mitted the meaning of my pantomime to break in on 

 him : and, taking the coolie with him, disappeared through 

 the scrub. He was to proceea 10 a distant shoulder of the 

 hill and there await events. And mightily relieved did he 

 appear ! 



Since I had gone so far in lending countenance to this 

 childish affair, I had determined to follow out the old 

 Colonel's recipe to the letter. No sooner therefore were 

 the men out of sight than I proceeded to clamber down 

 from my perch, alighting on terra finna with a final drop, 

 which had the effect of electrifying the unfortunate goat, 

 who forthwith stood on his head and then indulged in 

 outrageous leapings, under the impression that his last 

 hour had arrived with even greater rapidity than he had 

 expected. 



Brushing aside the branches which screened the chest, 

 I unlocked and raised the lid. 



To my belief the mummy had been locked up for close 

 on a year and a half, so I had expected a somewhat musty 

 smell to accompany an airing so long deferred. But I 

 found myself totally unprepared for the very peculiar 

 exhalation which now assailed my nostrils. Casket and 

 stuffed man alike were usually impregnated with more or 

 less recognisable Eastern aromas, but this faintly subtle 

 quintessence which overtopped them all was utterly un- 

 familiar to my senses and indescribably strange. Yet 

 had there not been just the slightest suspicion of such an 

 odour when first I had seen the box opened that night 

 long ago in the hall at Alt-na-skiach ? something in- 

 determinate, and volatile, that seemed as if it possessed 

 a power of giving off wave after wave of far-travelling 

 scent-rays ? Some emanation of this kind, indeed, seemed 



