The Mummy smiled as he read the thoughts that passed over Lord Edmund’s expressive countenance. “Thus I too thought,” muttered he; “and as I was, so will he be deceived! Human nature is still the same even in this remote corner of the globe. Fool that I was, then, to attempt to reverse her decrees! Forgive me, mighty Isis!” The rest was lost in inarticulate murmurs as the Mummy’s head sank upon his breast.
“Oh, God!” cried Edmund to Father Morris; “whence comes this fearful spectre? what does it import?”
“I know not,” said Father Morris in a hoarse unnatural whisper, his eyes still strained upon the Mummy. Edmund started, for the unusual abstraction of Father Morris added fresh horror to the scene: his senses seemed bewildered; he scarcely knew where he was, or what was passing around him; he rubbed his eyes, and tried to wake from what appeared a frightful dream; but in vain: the vision was still there in all its horrible distinctness, and Edmund felt a terrific creeping steal along his nerves as the hollow sepulchral voice of the Mummy again fell upon his ears.
“Alas! where am I?” continued he; “can that river be a ramification of my beloved Nile? or am I indeed torn from all I prize and love, to be cast upon this secluded spot, where all seems strange and insignificant? O deity of the foaming waters! holy Sirius, hear me! Calm my troubled spirit, and grant some gracious manifestation of thy divinity to chase my growing doubts. But I deceive myself; this is not the Nile! No papyrine boats glide o’er its polished surface. No acanthus groves nor forests of lofty palm border its banks. No, no! the immortal palm, fit emblem of the soul, grows only in those favoured realms, where, spurning at oppression, it resists the feeble efforts of man to bend it to the earth, and springs upward with only added vigour from the feeble attempts made to subdue it!”
The Mummy ceased, and a solemn silence prevailed; whilst passions fierce as the whirlwind’s fury flitted across his face, chilling the beholder’s heart with horror at the fearful being whose bosom could conceive them.
Father Morris was not naturally timid; he even possessed uncommon strength both of nerves and mind; yet an unwonted shuddering ran through his frame as he gazed upon Cheops, and traced the workings of that demoniac mind as they were successively imprinted on his features. Involuntarily he turned away in disgust. “For God’s sake, let us go!” cried he, gasping for breath; for a strange feeling that he could not define, seemed to impede his respiration.
“Yes, yes—let us go!” stammered forth Edmund; still, however, keeping his eyes fixed upon the awful object of his fear, as he slowly moved towards the door.
“Stay!” cried Cheops in a voice of thunder. Involuntarily they obeyed. “How feeble is this race of men!” resumed the Mummy; “how different from the sons of ancient Mizraim, from the Macrobian Ethiopians, or even our Pallic foes; degenerate in form as well as spirit, their souls no longer seem emanations from the Divinity, though perhaps the immortal spark becomes degraded and abased from its long continuance in clay, and is sunk forever from its pristine greatness! Stay, then!” continued he; “why should you fly me? I mean you no harm, and I swear by the sacred tomb of Osiris in Philae, that I will not hurt you. Drive me not then from amongst you, and I may aid your projects: at least, it is your duty to receive me as the destined instrument of Fate, since Osiris decrees that my soul shall quit its transmigrations in the form of animals to reanimate this worthless body. Take me then into your counsels, confide in my power and I swear by the holy dust of Isis that you shall not repent.”
“Avaunt, demon!” cried Lord Edmund, and, bursting from the room, he rushed out of the house.
What farther passed between the priest and his awful visitor, was known only to themselves; for when Father Morris descended to breakfast, he appeared absorbed in his usual studies, without taking the slightest notice of the terrific occurrences of the night.
The death of the Queen being now generally known, her remains, laid in state, were exposed to the lamentations of her subjects, and innumerable visitors (with that strange fondness for seeing sights, which can make even death considered as a show,) crowded to the mournful spectacle.
In an immense hall, hung with black, was placed a kind of bier, covered with black cloth, supporting the body of the deceased Queen, over which was thrown a velvet pall, so disposed as to display the beautiful features of the deceased, which, though now fixed in death, still retained their native expression of majestic dignity.
Immense tapers of an enormous thickness lighted the sombre walls, hung with black cloth; whilst chorister boys walked up and down chanting hymns in honour of the deceased, and flinging incense in the air from silver vessels suspended by silver chains, which they carried in their hands; thus shedding fragrance around, and chasing the fearful odour of mortality even from the very chamber of death. Priests wrapped in funereal garments also slowly paraded the room, muttering prayers, and joining occasionally their full, deep-toned voices with the shriller chant of the boys.
The space where the public were admitted, was railed off from the lower end of the hall; but near the body knelt a beautiful female arrayed in black velvet, and her fair face and arms shaded by a veil of black crape.
“O Osiris!” cried a figure wrapped in a long dark cloak, grasping the arm of Father Morris, “who is that lovely creature? There, bending over the last awful relics of mortality, methinks she looks beauteous as the phoenix rising from the funeral pile, and triumphing in glory over the impotent malice of the grave.”
“Hush! hush! for Heaven’s sake!” whispered the deep, full voice of Father
