In frantic haste he caught up the knife and hacked at the figure of the
mummy, ever glancing round to see the eye and the weapon of his
terrible visitor bent upon him.  The creature crackled and snapped
under every stab of the keen blade.  A thick yellow dust rose up from
it.  Spices and dried essences rained down upon the floor.  Suddenly,
with a rending crack, its backbone snapped asunder, and it fell, a
brown heap of sprawling limbs, upon the floor.

"Now into the fire!" said Smith.

The flames leaped and roared as the dried and tinderlike debris was
piled upon it.  The little room was like the stoke-hole of a steamer
and the sweat ran down the faces of the two men; but still the one
stooped and worked, while the other sat watching him with a set face.
A thick, fat smoke oozed out from the fire, and a heavy smell of burned
rosin and singed hair filled the air.  In a quarter of an hour a few
charred and brittle sticks were all that was left of Lot No. 249.