"Is it possible that you are all the heartless scoundrel you pretend? Can you really find pleasure in the notion of winning the woman you are presumed to love—by a trick so infamous and despicable?"
"Yes, Pinsent, yes."
"You must be animated by a devil."
"On the contrary, my dear enemy, I am just an ordinary human being who has been seduced by the most extraordinary temptation that has ever been offered to a living being. A power has been placed at my disposal which puts me on a level with the immortal gods of ancient Greece. In deciding to make use of it, I have adopted their ideas of morality, almost, as it were, perforce. I now make a cult of my convenience, and a religion of the indulgence of my instincts. I intend henceforth to kill always what I hate, to possess what I love, to seize what I covet, and to enjoy what I desire. Miss Ottley dislikes and despises me. That has irritated my vanity to such an extent that it is necessary to my happiness that I should convert her dislike into subjection, her contempt into the unbounded reverence of fear. When she becomes my wife I shall be the master of her millions—her father is on the point of dissolution—and I shall be the tyrant of her person. I shall rule her with a rod of iron terror. That domination will give me a far greater joy than the vulgar pleasure of reciprocated passion. And not the least part of it will dwell in the reflection that you, my dear enemy, will have so largely and so unwillingly contributed to the gratification of my sweet will. Now you have all the facts before you. My cards are all exposed. It is for you to make up your mind what you will do. Don't decide immediately! There is no hurry. Think the matter over. As I am rather weary" (he yawned in my face), "I shall now leave you to your meditations till the morning. Good-night."
He rose, bowed to me with mock politeness and moved over to the door. A moment later he had gone, and with him the light vanished. I was left in the profoundest darkness, and my thoughts were nearly as colourless and sombre as the gloom in which I sat.
Chapter XXV The Mummy Talks
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 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 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.