I journeyed on alone through the hot desert, till, by God's grace, I came upon an Arab tribe camping by a well, who gave me salt.
With them I rested till they had set me on my way.
"I know not what became of the mummy hand, or of those who had it.
What strife, or suspicion, or disaster, or greed went with it I know not; but some such cause there must have been, since those who had it fled with it.

It doubtless is used as a charm of potence by some desert tribe.
"At the earliest opportunity I made examination of the Star Ruby, as I wished to try to understand what was graven on it.

The symbols--whose meaning, however, I could not understand--were as follows..." Twice, whilst I had been reading this engrossing narrative, I had thought that I had seen across the page streaks of shade, which the weirdness of the subject had made to seem like the shadow of a hand.
On the first of these occasions I found that the illusion came from the fringe of green silk around the lamp; but on the second I had looked up, and my eyes had lit on the mummy hand across the room on which the starlight was falling under the edge of the blind.

It was of little wonder that I had connected it with such a narrative; for if my eyes told me truly, here, in this room with me, was the very hand of which the traveller Van Huyn had written.

I looked over at the bed; and it comforted me to think that the Nurse still sat there, calm and wakeful.
At such a time, with such surrounds, during such a narrative, it was well to have assurance of the presence of some living person.
I sat looking at the book on the table before me; and so many strange thoughts crowded on me that my mind began to whirl.