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There was no return of the singular sound, and
Smith was about to turn to his work once more, when
suddenly there broke out in the silence of the night
a hoarse cry, a positive scream--the call of a man
who is moved and shaken beyond all control. Smith
sprang out of his chair and dropped his book. He was
a man of fairly firm fibre, but there was something
in this sudden, uncontrollable shriek of horror which
chilled his blood and pringled in his skin. Coming
in such a place and at such an hour, it brought a
thousand fantastic possibilities into his head.
Should he rush down, or was it better to wait? He
had all the national hatred of making a scene, and he
knew so little of his neighbour that he would not
lightly intrude upon his affairs. For a moment
he stood in doubt and even as he balanced the
matter there was a quick rattle of footsteps upon the
stairs, and young Monkhouse Lee, half dressed and as
white as ashes, burst into his room.
"Come down!" he gasped. "Bellingham's ill."
Abercrombie Smith followed him closely down
stairs into the sitting-room which was beneath his
own, and intent as he was upon the matter in hand, he
could not but take an amazed glance around him as he
crossed the threshold. It was such a chamber as he
had never seen before--a museum rather than a study.
Walls and ceiling were thickly covered with a
thousand strange relics from Egypt and the East.
Tall, angular figures bearing burdens or weapons
stalked in an uncouth frieze round the apartments.
Above were bull-headed, stork-headed, cat-headed,
owl-headed statues, with viper-crowned, almond-eyed
monarchs, and strange, beetle-like deities cut out of
the blue Egyptian lapis lazuli. Horus and Isis and
Osiris peeped down from every niche and shelf, while
across the ceiling a true son of Old Nile, a great,
hanging-jawed crocodile, was slung in a double noose.
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