"Why, Sir," replied Samuel, "ye see, my dame and I were sitting by the fire, and we'd got a black pudding, as we was a going to have for our dinners. And so says dame, 'I likes it cut in slices and fried,' and so says I——"
"Hold, fellow!" cried the judge, with great dignity. "Don't abuse the patience of the Court. We have nothing to do with your dame or the black pudding; it is quite irrelevant to the matter now before us. Go on."
But Samuel could not go on; and, like his predecessor in the witness-box, he only stood still and scratched his head.
"Why don't you speak, fellow?" asked the clerk.
"Because I doesn't know what to say," replied Samuel.
"You must tell all you know about this affair," pursued the clerk.
"But I doesn't know where to begin!" rejoined the perplexed witness; "his worship says it is not reverent."
"Begin with the Pyramid," said the judge; "and, if you can, give a clear account of all that happened after you left the old passage by the moveable block in the wall that was last discovered."
"Why I can't say there was any thing very particular happened, as I know of, Sir," said Samuel, "after that, till we got to the shaft, and then we went down, Sir, you know, as we always does, till we came to the tomb of King Cheops; and then I turned the gentlemen in by themselves, as we always does, for the 'fect, as Parson Snorum calls it. And then I sits me down i' the vault, to wait for 'em, and I'd just rolled myself up, and was dozed asleep, when I hears such a noise as if the Pyramids were all coming tumbling about my ears. So up I jumped and rubbed my eyes, for I did not know very well where I was; and then I saw something that seemed to strike the torches out of the hands of the two great sitting figures, and put them out; and then I saw a great tall figure come gliding by me; and when he came up to the light, I saw his great flaming eyes; and then I fell upon my knees, and he laid hold of my shoulder and griped it. Look, your honour!" laying bare his shoulder as he spoke, and showing the deeply indented marks of the bony fingers of the Mummy. Again a groan of horror and indignation ran through the Court; and when another witness proved that the sarcophagus of Cheops had been examined, and was found empty, the judge seemed to think it was a clear case, and called triumphantly upon Edric for his defence.
"I do not see that what has been proved," said Edric, shuddering in spite of himself, "can affect either my tutor or myself. These people say that a mummy has revived, and, quitting the Pyramid in which he had been so long immured, has flown away with our balloon: but, supposing the tale to be true, what proof have you that we were at all implicated in the business? We were in the Pyramid, it is true; but so was also this man, whom you have brought forward as a witness against us. Supposing it was the intervention of some human aid that roused the Mummy from its tomb—a fact, by the way, by no means proved, why may not he be the agent instead of us? What is there to fix the charge against us? Have we gained any thing by the adventure? Have we not, on the contrary, been serious losers by it? Where is our balloon, and the valuable articles it contained? If we are wizards, it must be confessed that we are very foolish ones; for we have lost our property, and thrown ourselves into prison, without reaping the smallest possible advantage! And if we have the power you seem to attribute to us, why do we stay here to be questioned, when we might so easily fly away in a flame of fire, or turn you all to statues, and walk quietly off without your being able to follow us?"