‘Are you sure?—think!’
‘I shouldn’t like to answer such a question positively, offhand, but I don’t, on the spur of the moment, recall any supposition of the kind.’
‘Don’t laugh at me—I’m not a lunatic!—but I understand that recent researches have shown that even in some of the most astounding of the ancient legends there was a substratum of fact. Is it absolutely certain that there could be no shred of truth in such a belief?’
‘In what belief?’
‘In the belief that a priest of Isis—or anyone—assumed after death the form of a scarabaeus?’
‘It seems to me, Lessingham, that you have lately come across some uncommonly interesting data, of a kind, too, which it is your bounden duty to give to the world,—or, at any rate, to that portion of the world which is represented by me. Come,—tell us all about it!—what are you afraid of?’
‘I am afraid of nothing,—and some day you shall be told,—but not now. At present, answer my question.’
‘Then repeat your question,—clearly.’
‘Is it absolutely certain that there could be no foundation of truth in the belief that a priest of Isis—or anyone—assumed after death the form of a beetle?’
‘I know no more than the man in the moon,—how the dickens should I? Such a belief may have been symbolical. Christians believe that after death the body takes the shape of worms—and so, in a sense, it does,—and, sometimes, eels.’