The Green Mummy | Page 5

discernible. It stood nakedly amidst the bare, bleak
meadows glittering with pools of still water, with not even the leaf of a
creeper to soften its menacing walls, although above them appeared the
full-foliaged tops of trees planted in the barrack-yard. It looked as
though the grim walls belted a secret orchard. What with the frowning
battlements, the very few windows diminutive and closely barred, the
sullen entrance and the absence of any gracious greenery, Gartley Fort
resembled the Castle of Giant Despair. On the hither side, but invisible
to the lovers, great cannons scowled on the river they protected, and,

when they spoke, received answer from smaller guns across the stream.
There less extensive forts were concealed amidst trees and masked by
turf embankments, to watch and guard the golden argosies of London
commerce.
Lucy, always impressionable, shivered with her hand in that of Archie's,
as she stared at the landscape, melancholy even in the brilliant
sunshine.
"I should hate to live in Gartley Fort," said she abruptly. "One might as
well be in jail."
"If you marry Random you will have to live there, or on a baggage
wagon. He is R.G.A. captain, remember, and has to go where glory
calls him, like a good soldier."
"Glory can call until glory is hoarse for me," retorted the girl candidly.
"I prefer an artist's studio to a camp."
"Why?" asked Hope, laughing at her vehemence.
"The reason is obvious. I love the artist."
"And if you loved the soldier?"
"I should mount the baggage wagon and make him Bovril when he was
wounded. But for you, dear, I shall cook and sew and bake and - "
"Stop! stop! I want a wife, not a housekeeper."
"Every sensible man wants the two in one."
"But you should be a, queen, darling."
"Not with my own consent, Archie: the work is much too hard.
Existence on six pounds a week with you will be more amusing. We
can take a cottage, you know, and live, the simple life in Gartley village,
until you become the P.R.A., and I can be Lady Hope, to walk in silk
attire."

"You shall be Queen of the Earth, darling, and walk alone."
"How dull! I would much rather walk with you. And that reminds me
that dinner is waiting. Let us take the short cut home through the
village. On the way you can tell me exactly how you bought me from
my step-father for one thousand pounds."
Archie Hope frowned at the incurable obstinacy of the sex. "I didn't
buy you, dearest: how many times do you wish me to deny a sale which
never took place? I merely obtained your step-father's consent to our
marriage in the near future."
"As if he had anything to do with my marriage, being only my
step-father, and having, in my eyes, no authority. In what way did you
get his consent - his unnecessary consent," she repeated with emphasis.
Of course it was waste of breath to argue with a woman who had made
up her mind. The two began to walk towards the village along the
causeway, and Hope cleared his throat to explain - patiently as to a
child.
"You know that your step-father - Professor Braddock - is crazy on the
subject of mummies?"
Lucy nodded in her pretty wilful way. "He is an Egyptologist."
"Quite so, but less famous and rich than he should be, considering his
knowledge of dry-as-dust antiquities. Well, then, to make a long story
short, he told me that he greatly desired to examine into the difference
between the Egyptians and the Peruvians, with regard to the embalming
of the dead."
"I always thought that he was too fond of Egypt to bother about any
other country," said Lucy sapiently.
"My dear, it isn't the country he cares about, but the civilization of the
past. The Incas embalmed their dead, as did the Egyptians, and in some
way the Professor heard of a Royal Mummy, swathed in green

bandages - so he described it to me."
"It should be called an Irish mummy," said Lucy flippantly. "Well?"
"This mummy is in possession of a man at Malta, and Professor
Braddock, hearing that it was for sale for one thousand pounds - "
"Oh!" interrupted the girl vivaciously, "so this was why father sent
Sidney Bolton away six weeks %go?"
"Yes. As you know, Bolton is your step-father's assistant, and is as
crazy as the Professor on the subject of Egypt. I asked the Professor if
he would allow me to marry you - "
"Quite unnecessary," interpolated Lucy briskly.
Archie passed over the remark to evade an argument.
"When I asked him, he said that he wished you to marry Random, who
is rich. I pointed out that you loved