The Mummy gnashed his teeth as he spoke, and the gloom which gathered on his dark brow grew black as night. All shuddered as that horrid glance of eternal hatred seemed to freeze their blood. They turned away involuntarily; and when they looked again, the spectre had disappeared. The shattered remains of the balloon alone lay before them rent to atoms; for happening to cross London just at the moment of the greatest confusion, it had become entangled in the crowd, and, notwithstanding the strong material of which it was composed, it had been torn asunder in the scuffle, and had fallen with its fearful occupier to the ground.
“Good God!” cried Father Morris, after a short pause; “what a horrid vision! what can it mean?”
“It seemed an Egyptian Mummy,” said Edmund, shuddering; “and it spoke that language. But what can have resuscitated it? What human power can have recalled to life, a being so long immured in the silent tomb!”
“Perhaps the vehicle in which it came may contain something to explain the mystery,” said Henry Seymour.
At this moment several persons ran past, screaming with terror, and exclaiming that they had seen a demon. When the confusion excited by these trembling fugitives had a little subsided, a few of the courtiers began also to make their appearance, and return to their posts near the Queen. But all were pale, starting at every sound, and seeming ready, at the least alarm, to take flight again as expeditiously as before.
Claudia still lay insensible; her heaving chest and deep convulsive sobs for breath, alone betraying signs of life. But her fate no longer excited a deep, overwhelming interest. Whispers of wonder and superstitious horror mingled with the hopes and fears inspired by her danger; and her removal to the palace was almost regarded with indifference, so completely were the minds of men occupied by the strange spectacle they had so lately witnessed.
Everyone, indeed, neither thought nor spoke of anything but the Mummy; and a thousand rumours, each more extravagant than the last, spread from mouth to mouth respecting it. Men stood in groups whispering to each other, and scarcely daring to stir without a companion: nay, even then, creeping from place to place, looking cautiously around, and starting at every noise, as though they feared the awful visitor was returned: whilst the sages of the country gravely shook their heads, and declared that what had taken place was evidently a visitation from Heaven, in punishment of the sins of mankind. An indefinable presentiment of evil hung over the spirits of all. Gloom, indeed, spread through every class of society: all dreaded they knew not what—and all shrunk with horror from the thought of supernatural agency. There is indeed an invincible feeling implanted by Nature in the mind of man, which makes him shudder with disgust at anything that invades her laws.
The body of the Queen being removed, attended by her physicians and the ladies of her household, the rest of the assembled courtiers gathered round the balloon; and exclamations of terror and surprise broke from their lips when they discovered it to be the same in which Edric and Dr. Entwerfen had so short a time before taken their departure for Egypt. The whole truth now seemed to flash upon them.
“I thought how it would be,” said Lord Maysworth; “you know I told you, Lord Gustavus, that in my opinion it was an expedition that could never possibly do any good—but you were of a different belief.”
“My Lord,” returned Lord Gustavus, solemnly, “thinking as I think, and as I am convinced everyone who hears me must think, or at least ought to think, it is my deliberate opinion, that the expedition of my youthful friend and his learned tutor was both admirably planned and well concocted, and that if it have failed in its ulterior object, it has been solely owing to some of those unforeseen events which sometimes do occur even in the best regulated arrangements, and which it was utterly impossible for any human ability entirely to ward off or avert.”
“Edric’s balloon! Impossible!” cried Sir Ambrose, rushing forward to ascertain the fact, and forgetting all his anger against his son in his anxiety for his fate. “Yes! yes!” continued he, looking at some of the things, as they were drawn forth and exhibited by different persons in the crowd; “those were Edric’s books—that was his desk. Oh! my son! my son! what is become of him?”
Many sympathized with the unfortunate father, and more eagerly questioned each other as to the probable meaning of what they saw. No one, however, could give any explanation; and all was confusion and dismay. In one individual alone the arrival of the Mummy produced no emotion. The bosom of Edmund, after the first moment of excitation had passed, was racked with anguish too bitter to allow him to feel curious even to know his brother’s fate. Only a few hours before, love and fortune seemed to unite in showering their choicest blessings upon his head, and now he was the most wretched of mankind; for if Claudia died, Rosabella or Elvira must be queen; and if Elvira should be chosen, all hopes of becoming her husband must be lost.
“Oh, God!” cried he, striking his forehead in agony, “why was I reserved for this? Why did I not perish fighting the battles of my country? And why was I saved only to be mocked with the hope of happiness, which, just as it seemed within my grasp, flies from me forever? Wretch that I am! would that I had never been born, or at least had died in my nurse’s arms, that I might have thus escaped the tormenting pangs which now drive me to distraction!”
Whilst Edmund
