Page:Weird Tales volume 36 number 02.djvu/106

 Behind Hanley, Professor Blythe was bolting the laboratory door.

Hanley, turning, said: "You went on, Professor Blythe. Why did you call me then? You know what I said—"

"I know what you said," Blythe said, harshly. "I know what I said, too. That I was on the verge of a discovery that would rock the world and I would be false to my calling if I did not pursue it to the ultimate conclusion. Well—I have, Hanley."

A cold wind seemed to blow against Eric Hanley's spine. His eyes went to the sarcophagus that stood upright against the far wall. The hinged top was open and the sarcophagus was empty. His head swiveled automatically to the table that stood just behind Professor Shepard. There was a long, large object on the table and although it was covered with a sheet, Hanley knew what the object was.

Muscles stood out in bunches on his jaws. He shook his head, slowly. "It's impossible."

"Impossible?" cried Professor Shepard. "Why should it be impossible? Everyone knows that the ancient Egyptians knew more about embalming and preservation than the moderns. Witness the sarcophagi of—"

"Wait a minute, Shepard," Professor Blythe cut in. He came toward Hanley and the latter looking into his eyes, thought for a moment that Blythe was going to take up where they had let off several weeks ago. But after a moment, Professor Blythe's eyes hardened again.

He said, "Eric, you had no faith in the papyrus. You gave it up because it was unintelligible."

"It was mere gibberish and you know it," Hanley declared. "I've studied the 18th Dynasty papyri in the Egyptian Museum at Cairo and I know that this one we found is either a forgery of a later period, or the work of a maniac or fool of the 18th Dynasty. There were both in that period, you know," he finished with a note of irony.

Professor Blythe inhaled deeply. "And there are fools, today. You're one, Hanley. And I'll admit that I was, too, for awhile. Just because we found the papyrus in an 18th Dynasty tomb we took it for granted that it had to be of that period. That's where we were wrong, Hanley. We should have known from the accoutrements of the tomb that it had been prepared for a savant of that day—a great savant. His colleagues wanted to do him an especial honor. Perhaps—not an honor. An experiment. They buried with him—the original Book of the Dead!"

Hanley gasped. "What are you talking about? The Book of the Dead goes back to the 14th— "

"Farther than that, Eric; to the 4th Dynasty. Eighteen hundred years before Christ. That's why you thought the papyrus unintelligible. Well, I've read it—at last. And I give you my word that the text of it is entirely different from the later Book of the Dead, which deals mainly with instructions for the soul of the dead in its journeys. This papyrus, my papyrus tells—"

"Don't!" cried Professor Shepard. "Don't tell him, Blythe. He's a scoffing upstart, who wouldn't believe even if he saw it."

Eric Hanley's eyes glinted. "Let me see it; I'll believe my own eyes—"

ROFESSOR BLYTHE led him to a desk on which was spread out, held down at strategic points with weights, an ancient, brittle strip of papyrus.

Hanley leaned over the hieroglyphics and the smudged finger of Professor Blythe pointed out symbols to him. "That's where you made your mistake, Hanley. There were fifteen hundred years between those dynasties. Recall how much the