"Crime! Did he dare to call it crime?"
"He did indeed, and it is not possible to describe the torture that rent my bosom as he spoke. I always knew my father had been unfortunate, but I never before even suspected him of having been guilty."
"Nor was he guilty, girl! none but fools or idiots dare breathe such an accusation against his name."
"Ten thousand blessings on you for relieving my mind from the agony of believing him unworthy of my love. I am perfectly satisfied with your assurance; and yet, methinks, I would fain know his history."
"Rosabella, you never knew your father; you were but three years old when circumstances occurred that urged him to commit a deed of desperation. Seek not to inquire farther; and endeavour, since misfortune has thrown a shade over your father's name, to redeem it by the lustre of your own."
"As an obscure individual, whatever might be my will, power would be wanting."
"But it shall not be wanting. You shall be Queen. I swear it, though all the powers of heaven and earth should unite to oppose my designs, and though even blood should be necessary to seal the compact—"
He was going on when a fiendish laugh rang in his ears; and, looking up, he beheld the gigantic form of Cheops standing over him. The bright moonbeams showed, with horrible distinctness, the strange attire, savage features, and unearthly gaze of the Mummy, as his horrid laugh echoed from the wall behind them and pealed across the water. Rosabella had not before seen him, except when she knelt before the dying Queen; and, shrieking with horror, she fled for refuge to her uncle's garden, whilst Cheops thus tauntingly addressed the priest.
"You were conspiring mischief. Though the language your lips employed was unknown to me, that of your looks was clear. Men do not cast their eyes upon the earth, and murmur forth their accents as though they trembled at the sound of their own voices, when their purposes are such as will bear avowal. Make me your confidant, and by the aid of my serpent deity, my guardian Cneph, I may assist you: but force me to become your enemy, and Typhon himself never pursued Isis and the infant Horus with more unrelenting vengeance than I will follow you and destroy your plans."
Dreading alike to trust, or enrage this mysterious being, and cursing the evil chance that had led him to that spot, Father Morris, who, like all the English in those days, was an universal linguist, found himself obliged partially to obey this injunction, and inform the Mummy of his design. Cheops burst into one of his terrific laughs of derision. "And so," he said, "you would make yonder feeble girl who fled screaming at my approach, a Queen. A fit monarch for a warlike people. Can a woman's arm resist an invasion of the Palli, or a woman's hands direct the reins of Mizraim's government? Alas! alas! where am I wandering? I forgot the change wrought in my destiny, and that your people seem powerless as the sovereign you would give them. Be satisfied, I will not betray thee. Indeed, so do I hate thy countrymen, that I shall rejoice to see thee triumph in deceiving them. Beware, however, how thou attemptest to deceive me, lest my vengeance, quick, sure, and unforeseen as the secret agency of the Epoptæ, should fall upon and crush thee at the very moment of the fruition of thy wishes."