"I tell you, my purpose is changed:—I will no longer plot against the duke; and Elvira, if she will, may be Queen."
"'And do you think a crown so enviable then,'" said the Mummy, repeating the friar's own words, once addressed to him, "'that you think you would injure her by depriving her of its cares?'"
"Devil!" cried the father, unable to resist the feelings these words had conjured up.
"And these are mortals," said Cheops; "they sin, and they repent! Thus adding hypocrisy to guilt, and doubling their crimes by the knowledge they have of their enormity!"
"Demon!" returned Father Morris; "the words of that old man wrung my heart; and I would sacrifice all the world can give, to throw myself upon his breast, and obtain his forgiveness."
"I believe you think so now," said Cheops maliciously; "but when Rosabella shall be Queen, and wealth and dignities shall be dispensed by Father Morris; when nobles shall bend humbly before him, and, hanging upon his smile, beg favours from his hand, then—"
"Curses on thee, fiend!" cried Father Morris, rushing from the grove, and pressing his cowl round his head with both his hands, as though he feared the horrid laugh of Cheops should echo in his ears, and sting him into madness.
"Weak, feeble worm!" exclaimed Cheops, with a scornful laugh, looking after the friar as he darted from his sight; "and yet this man boasts of his intellect; ay, and rules his fellow-men almost to his will! Degenerate wretches! O powerful Osiris! if from thy dread abode thou deignest to look down upon thy votary, pity him now! condemned to waste his days amongst this hated race! And thou, fell Typhon! dread avenging deity! say, will thy awful wrath accept of victims such as these? Alas! I fear vengeance like thine will not be thus appeased! and that thy never-dying fire, will still gnaw my vitals. Oh! these mortals think they suffer: but what are their torments when compared to mine?"
As he spoke, he gnashed his teeth in fury, whilst again the expression of passions, too tremendous to be conceived by mortals, darkened on his brow.