Page:Weird Tales v01n02 (1923-04).djvu/42

Rh listened indulgently, patiently, then, laying his white, hot hand upon my shoulder, he looked earnestly into my eyes, and with a voice that carried conviction he said:

"I know what I felt in that room that night. It had a hold on me, and it is waiting for me, and I am not going back!"

Mac is well again now. and one can see him at the club most any night. But whenever anybody starts to speak of the Hereafter he rises and hurriedly leaves the room.



HE opening of King Tutankhamen's tomb, with its attendant world-wide publicity, has brought upon the head of Lord Carnarvon and his brother Egyptologists a good deal of sharp censure. Prof. W. A. Hammond, dean of Cornell University, deeply deplores the motive "that leads men like Lord Carnarvon to show such utter irreverence for dead men's bones." Other critics declare that the Englishman and his party waxed over-enthusiastic, and that their discovery, after all, wasn't as important as they thought it was.

"The Twentieth century," said Prof. Hammond, addressing his class in philosophy, "shows too little reverence. How would you like it if, 3,000 years from now, the Saracens had superseded our civilization and had broken into George Washington's tomb at Mount Vernon? How would you like it if Abraham Lincoln's bones were carried off to Constantinople and placed on display in a Saracen museum? Yet that is precisely what Lord Carnarvon now is doing, while the scientific world applauds. What we need is more conservative scientific investigation, coupled with more reverence for departed human life."

Meanwhile, Senor Schiaparelli of Turin, Italy's greatest Egyptologist, makes the assertion that the tomb is not really Tutankhamen's, but is merely a storehouse of precious objects, placed there either by the jealous successor of the dead king or saved from destruction by his partisans. This Italian archaeologist—and he is supported by Réne Ple of the Louvre and Georges Benedite of the University of Paris—believes that "Tut's" tomb was destroyed by his successor, Armais; and he points out that the tombs of Rameses III and Rameses IX, when opened, disclosed vastly more wealth and luxury, although "Tut's" reign is known to have been of greater splendor.

Prof. Roger W. Rogers of Drew Theological Seminary, an authority on archaeology, says that the jewels and ornaments found in the tomb are stolen goods, hidden there by native priests, who took them from some wealthy corpse. It was the custom of the priests in ancient times to remove valuable articles from a tomb they feared would be looted and hide them elsewhere.