Finally, through the mummy eyes, there seemed to come dim rays of light. Then the feeble soul stationed itself immediately behind them and prayed only for light. And, after a thousand years, enough light was given to see crevices in the tomb and shifting grains of sand drift through. Life before had been so bare that the mere seeing of the flight of a grain of sand into that place of utter calm and monotony was as an angel visit to the disconsolate of earth.
Now the all-absorbing desire was for more light; for freedom to break through the prison walls of flinty skin and have one peep at earth and sun. Then, remembering how I had stolen our most potent embalming fluid and used it on my own body, I attributed continued imprisonment to its preservative properties and looked upon myself as my own jailer.
As the soul grew, reason discarded this thought and fixed upon my imprisonment as punishment for disbelief. Seemingly, ages went by; the soul passed through a period of great remorse; remorse grew to repentance, and repentance to hope and faith.
Then my soul seemed to fill the whole mummied frame and gained strength until it acquired the power of motion. I could shift position and look out upon the valley of Aur-Aa, now called Nilus, where, as time passed, I saw the maturity and wane of Egyptian power and the iron hand of Rome reach out in conquest.
The vandal hand of a conquering Roman tore loose the stone portal of the tomb, and mummy and imprisoned soul were carried across the great sea and with other husks of former life exhibited in the triumph of Octavius; then placed in a museum to be gazed upon by the curious of Rome.
One night robbers broke into the room, thinking the dead carried their treasures with them, and unwound our grave cloths. My soul pounded and tore at its case, hoping pantingly that they might break the parchment shell; but all they did was to remove a string of turquoise and porphyry beetle-shaped beads. When morning came the mummies were rewrapped and returned to the exhibit slab.
As the crowds passed by, if one, perchance, looked into my sunken eyes, the soul, watching hungrily beneath, looked out with an intensity and read his very inmost mind and most secret thought; and some there were who seemed to know the meaning of my look.
When I read thoughts of doubt, such as I had known in life, I sought with utmost soul strength to convey to them some warning and some hope; and as I struggled thus, there came rifts of light into my prison as from a higher life.
One day a noble Roman youth came strolling by with a companion and, stooping, gazed upon my form.
"See, Marcus! How much better preserved this man of ancient Egypt is than the others. Look! In his sunken eyes you may discern a glimmer as of intense life; of consciousness; I feel his look, as though he read me through and through and would speak in advice or warning."