the sensation of awakening informed me of the surprising fact that i had fallen asleep. i was rather proud under the circumstances that i had been able to do so. probably i had slept for a long while, too, for the laboratory was lighted up, and it was evident that it had been carefully dusted in the interval. there was a sound of sweeping behind my chair, but strain as i would i could not turn my head to see who was my companion. "i say," i called out. "i am thirsty. fetch me a glass of water, will you?"
the sweeping stopped. presently steps approached my chair. they passed it, and next second i saw the giant arab of the cave temple at rakh, the wretch who had attempted to strangle me at my camp, and whom i had released from the sarcophagus of ptahmes on the nile. he stood before me, his extraordinary blood-coloured eyes staring at me with the glazed expressionless regard of an automaton. he was clad in a long, yellow shapeless garment like a smock, and his feet were shod in leather sandals. in one hand he held a broom. very slowly he extended his other arm before my face, and i saw with a shock of aversion that the[pg 239] hand had gone. it had been severed from the wrist and nothing but a stump remained. involuntarily i thought of the mummy hand which poor weldon had given me. it still lay upon the table where dr. belleville had tossed it, full in my view. it was a left hand. the arab's left hand had been lost. the connection was obvious. but—but—of course a mummy hand thousands of years old perhaps, could not have grown upon a still living, breathing man. living! breathing! the words repeated themselves as i gazed at the arab. how like a mummy he appeared! his skin was of exactly the same colour as the mummy hand. it had the same shrivelled appearance, the same leather-like texture. and, good heavens! unless i dreamed he did not breathe! not a movement of his body disclosed the smallest sign of respiration. i stared at him, appalled. his features were fixed and set rigidly. his mouth was closed. his nostrils were fallen in and glued together. how then could he breathe? and yet there was life in his gaunt frame; some animating spirit that controlled its mechanism, for slowly his handless arm fell back to his side, and he continued to regard me with a steadfast, unwinking stare. i examined his eyes and found that they were lidless. the lids had shrunken back and disappeared. a closer inspection showed that the eyes themselves owed all their lustre to reflected light. the cornea was in each orb nothing but a thin gelatinous-like film filled with tiny little crinkles that caught up[pg 240] and refracted passing rays from all directions. the whites were opaque black teguments, dry and dead. behind the lenses was no sign of any pupil. there was nothing but an iris which seemed to be composed of dull red dust.
living! breathing! the arab was a mummy! an animated corpse. oh! of course i dreamed. i must have dreamed. i have told myself that so many thousand times that it is a marvel the constant reiteration has not forced me to believe it. but i do not. nor do i know what to believe. i am in as great a maze to understand now as i was then.
at first i conceived an almost intolerable horror of the thing before me. but finding that the arab did not menace me, i gradually became accustomed to its most unpleasant and almost ghastly proximity. and after a time i felt so strong a fever of thirst that i forced myself to speak to it again.
i asked it for water. it did not move. i became convinced it heard but did not comprehend the language i employed. i spoke to it in french and german and in arabic, but still it did not move. finally i said to myself, "if it is a mummy, it will be an egyptian and will understand the tongue of ancient egypt." then i gasped out such a term as i believed might have been used by a thirsty theban asking for alleviation of his famine. the thing instantly moved off behind me. presently i heard the sound of falling water, and a moment later a glass was pressed to my parched lips. i[pg 241] drained it thankfully, eyeing the while, with a feeling of deep, unconquerable repulsion, the sinewy black mummy hand that served me. i then thanked the arab in the same tongue which had persuaded him to be my minister. he gazed at me a while and then moved to the table and looked at it. he appeared to be writing, but i could not be sure. i heard a curious, raucous scratching sound. thus ten minutes sped by. meanwhile, i shut my eyes and tried hard to persuade myself that i dreamed. then a sound disturbed me. i opened my eyes with a start and saw that the arab had returned to my side. he held a slate before me covered with hieroglyphics. never had i greater occasion to bless my knowledge of that ancient language and to gratefully regard the patient years of labour i had spent acquiring it. but likewise never had i greater occasion to lament the imperfections of my knowledge and defects in my memory. i could understand a portion of the message—the greater part indeed—but still a part escaped me.
briefly translated, the part i comprehended ran:
"it is not meet that ptahmes—named tahutimes—son of mery, son of hap, high priest of amen-ra and the hawk-headed horus, should be a wicked unbeliever's slave.... death explains.... the spirit of a good man hurried hence accuses me unanswered at the ... throne.... for time unending.... fanet.... king of all the gods.... thus only shall[pg 242] you escape the death that threatens. you shall swear to break my stele of ivory, to commit my papyri to the flames unread, to burn my body and scatter my ashes to the winds of heaven. you shall swear by amen-ra, king of earth and heaven, to destroy ... the oppressor and your enemy. he has deciphered the inscriptions. he has mastered their meaning. he knows. he cannot be permitted to live lest i ... and he the enemy exalt himself and triumph over you and me.... swear then, and aid shall be accorded in your hour of need."
i gathered from this message that the ghost of ptahmes inhabitated the mummy before me; that belleville had possessed himself of some stupendous wizard power which enabled him to compel the soul and dust of ptahmes to obey his infamous behests, but that ptahmes was his most unwilling slave. i also gathered that ptahmes promised me help if i would take an oath to kill belleville, to destroy certain papyri and an ivory stele in belleville's possession which i must promise not to attempt to read, and also to burn the mummified remains of ptahmes, and so, i suppose, secure the rest of his troubled spirit. i did not pause to reflect on the wild unreality of the happenings my senses registered. they did not appear indeed unreal to me at all—then. on the contrary, i felt that i was confronted with a very grave and serious proposal, which if i decided to accept would be carried out to[pg 243] the letter as regards the assistance promised me, a circumstance that would oblige me as an honest man to keep my part of the contract. the question remained: would i be justified in solemnly swearing to compass belleville's death? why not? surely he deserved capital punishment if ever a man did. by his own confession he had either murdered frankfort weldon or procured his murder; and he had cold-bloodedly assured me that he was relentlessly resolved to murder me. and there were other things to think of. he had given me positive proof of the possession of some unknown power over the laws of nature which had enabled him already to commit crimes without incurring a shadow of legal suspicion. were i then to effect my escape from him, it would be my duty as a citizen of the state to do all in my power to prevent him working further ill in the community. yet i could not bring him to justice. i had no evidence to produce against him which the courts would not scorn and ridicule. the attempt to convict him of the murder he had confessed to me, would only result in branding me in all men's eyes as a lunatic. he would meanwhile be at liberty to go abroad to work his evil will upon the world. he would very soon revenge himself upon me, and destroy me in the same diabolically ingenious fashion, perhaps, in which he had killed poor weldon. and miss ottley would then be at his mercy, with no man living to defend her. she might continue to resist him for a time, but in[pg 244] the end a man so unscrupulous and implacably determined would be sure to have his way. able to make himself invisible—as i believed he could—he might as a last resort rob her of her honour and so bend her proud spirit to his wish. it was this thought that finally determined me. i looked up and said quietly to the patient, waiting arab: "ptahmes, son of mery, son of hap, once high priest of amen-ra, but now i know not what—i swear by the king of earth and heaven to destroy the stele and papyri unread if i shall find them, to burn your body and scatter the ashes, and to kill your enemy and mine."
the dark, fixed, corpse-like face of the arab turned forthwith from me. he pressed the slate to his bosom with the stump of his left wrist and with the right hand rubbed out the hieroglyphic writing. he then glided over to the table and replaced the slate. i followed his movements with the most passionate attention, expecting him to return and immediately release me from my bonds. but he did no such thing. in the contrary, he moved slowly forward to the great sarcophagus and to my great astonishment i saw him climb over the edge and repose himself within the tomb. presently he had entirely vanished from my sight. i could hardly credit my eyes. what was the meaning of his strange act? i waited for a few minutes, but he did not reappear. then i called out his name aloud: "ptahmes! ptahmes!"
nothing answered me.
i racked my brains to string together an imploring sentence in the ancient tongue of egypt, and having fashioned one, i cried it forth in tones of passionate entreaty, by turns commanding and beseeching him to keep his pledge. and not once or twice, but a hundred times, did i address him in these ways. but i might as well have cried out to the stars. my efforts were all unavailing, and at length, wearied out with them, i desisted and abandoned my remaining energy to the bitter task of reactionary self-reviling. i caustically informed myself that my brain had gone wandering. thus until i was hot all over with shame. then in a more kindly spirit i cast about for excuses to salve my intellectual vanity. i ascribed the whole wild dream that i had dreamed to the blow my poor head had received last night. but all the while, deep at heart, i did not believe i had dreamed. i pretended to, in order to make sure that i still possessed a critical, scientific faculty. but i did not believe it really. i could not. and this fact is one more proof to me that faith in all its forms depends more upon feeling than intellectual conviction.
