To his horror, the door opened.

She had forgotten to lock it.

They both crept in, and he followed them boldly enough now, knowing what he did.

The ray leapt rapidly about the room till it fell on the bed with its pale blue silken coverlet, and then on the pillow, on which rested the head of the sleeping, breathing image of the long-dead Queen.
With a half-stifled gasp the man shrank back and dropped the lamp, and the Professor heard him say to the woman in a shuddering whisper: "By the High Gods, Neb-Anat, it is a miracle! Do you not see her?
It is she--the Queen--alive again, as the ancient prophecy said she should be.
What magic have these heathens used ?" "Yes," replied the woman, whispering lower, "truly it is the Queen, and she is alive and sleeping--no doubt passing from the sleep of death through the sleep of life to life again.

Now, O Pent-Ah, is our task much harder, yet will its accomplishment be all the more glorious for you and me, and greatly will our Lord reward us if we can restore to his keeping, not the ravished mummy of Nitocris, but the Queen herself, warm and breathing and beautiful, as she was in the ancient days of the great Rameses." "I'll be hanged if you do!" said the Professor to himself, "not, at least, if Her Majesty's legacy to me is worth anything.