IV
But not even the mysterious references to the mummy, or the prospect of a revelation by digging, were able to hinder the reaction that followed the intense excitement of the past twelve hours, and I slept the sleep of the dead, dreamless and undisturbed. A touch on the shoulder woke me, and I saw Dr. Silence standing beside the bed, dressed to go out.
“Come,” he said, “it’s tea-time. You’ve slept the best part of a dozen hours.”
I sprang up and made a hurried toilet, while my companion sat and talked. He looked fresh and rested, and his manner was even quieter than usual.
“Colonel Wragge has provided spades and pickaxes. We’re going out to unearth this mummy at once,” he said; “and there’s no reason we should not get away by the morning train.”
“I’m ready to go to-night, if you are,” I said honestly.
But Dr. Silence shook his head.
“I must see this through to the end,” he said gravely, and in a tone that made me think he still anticipated serious things, perhaps. He went on talking while I dressed.
“This case is really typical of all stories of mummy-haunting, and none of them are cases to trifle with,” he explained, “for the mummies of important people—kings, priests, magicians—were laid away with profoundly significant ceremonial, and were very effectively protected, as you have seen, against desecration, and especially against destruction.
“The general belief,” he went on, anticipating my questions, “held, of course, that the perpetuity of the mummy guaranteed that of its Ka,—the owner’s spirit,—but it is not improbable that the magical embalming was also used to retard reincarnation, the preservation of the body preventing the return of the spirit to the toil and discipline of earth-life; and, in any case, they knew how to attach powerful guardian-forces to keep off trespassers. And any one who dared to remove the mummy, or especially to unwind it—well,” he added, with meaning, “you have seen—and you will see.”