The Living Mummy

The advantage I possessed was dangerously minimised by my physical incapacity, but I hoped, given time, to get back some measure of strength. The great thing was to preserve my...

Navarro evidently belonged to the highest and most ingenious order of charlatanry. He had no assistant, no machinery, no accomplice. It was almost impossible to suspect any of t...

I awoke so much refreshed and free from pain that I must have slept for many hours. Belleville was pinching my shoulder. His black-visaged face was curiously bilious-looking, an...

The Captain's linen he had laid out for my use on his damask-covered cot was composed of the very finest silk. Even the socks were silk. I was positively ashamed to draw my stai...

I spent the rest of the day covering up the stele I had unearthed with sand. There was no use thinking of attempting to transport it to Cairo under existing circumstances. But I...

It is not worth while describing the next few days. They were quite or almost colourless. Once each four and twenty hours, Belleville, taking sound precautions, released me for...

I spent the next two days in absolute solitude, and got through a tremendous quantity of toil. In fact, I added two whole chapters to my treatise on the Nile monuments and I arr...

Towards morning my mind grew much easier. Sir Robert awoke and took a few mouthfuls of liquid nourishment. But although too weak to speak, he was sensible and the fever had left...

Belleville's first act, after tossing the Arab's corpse upon the floor and bolting the laboratory door, was to rush over to the couch and remove therefrom the mummy of Ptahmes....

"For my sake, watch! It is but for two days longer,--the fatal week will then be over. Oh! I implore you not to let your scepticism make you careless. I trust you and depend upo...

Whenever in London my practice for years had been to put up at my friend Dixon Hubbard's rooms in Bruton Street. We had been schoolfellows. He was one of the most fortunate and...

I was hard at work in my tent. I had almost completed translating the inscription of a small stele of Amen-hotep III, dated B. C., 1382, which with my own efforts I had discover...

On arrival at Jermyn Street I changed my clothes and, having collected all my belongings, I repaired at once to Dixon Hubbard's flat. I could not endure the thought of spending...

It was another signal. Something hard and heavy crashed against my skull. For a second I fought for breath against a horrible feeling of sickness and impotence, then came blank...

We ate heartily, the pair of us, that evening. The effect on me was comforting and humanising. I felt well disposed to my fellow man--and woman, and inclined to sanguine expecta...

I expected Miss Ottley next afternoon, and Hubbard, as though aware I wished to be alone, went out soon after three. But she did not come. Hubbard returned an hour after midnigh...

Next morning early I picked a quarrel with Hubbard, and left him biting his finger nails. I went straight to Jermyn Street with my valise. Weldon was in bed. I told him I had ha...

When Weldon woke he did one of the three things of which only gentlemen of the finest sensitiveness are capable. He gave me one quick, laughing glance, but perceiving in my sole...

While waiting for the kettle to boil I happened to glance in the direction of the Nile. A column of moving smoke at once attracted my attention. A launch, of course, and what mo...

I awoke in the grey light of dawn, stiff with cold and aching in every limb. Arising, I left my hiding-place and went into the vestibule. The night porter sat on a stool in his...

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...

About noon--I saw no one but blacks in the meanwhile--the Captain came with a letter. "From Sir Robert--catch!" said he. I tore it open. A single sheet of note enclosed a cheque...

The Englishman was evidently something of a gourmet. I found foie gras, camembert cheese, pressed sheep's tongues and bottled British ale in his private locker. But he was as su...

I encountered the Captain on his doorstep. He was just going out, hatted and gloved, but on seeing me he abandoned his intention. His delight was that of a child, and so manifes...

Weldon's funeral was held on the afternoon of the third day following his death. His body was interred in the vault of his family at their seat at Sartley, in Norfolk. I was not...

A day or two afterwards, while spending an hour in the rooms of the Egyptology Society I was introduced to a new Fellow, who had been appointed during my absence from England. H...

One evening after a hard morning's work on my book, and a particularly fatiguing afternoon spent in vainly trying to lift Hubbard out of a funereal mood, I thought I should make...

Of course, I had swooned, and equally, of course, not on the bank of a rivulet and under the cool shade of palm trees, but in the full blaze of the mid-day sun and on the smooth...

It was the hand of a mummy. It had been half snapped, half torn from the forearm, just above the wrist. Thus the edges of the stock were ragged and the tendons were drawn out an...

Sleep was not to be dreamed of that night for either of us well people. I had thought of a plan. Leaving Miss Ottley to watch the unconscious but ceaselessly babbling patient, I...

I set out wearing rubber shoes and armed with a loaded revolver. This I concealed in my breast pocket. I timed myself so nicely that I arrived at Sir Robert Ottley's mansion on...