“She is dead, but lives,” solemnly said Reverend Tombstone. “She is dead, but lives.”
“Impossible,” angrily replied Don Arellano. “Impossible.”
Without making any reply the Reverend Tombstone stepped to the large casket recently placed in the tomb, and said, looking in the glass face plate: “The classic features of Marriet Motuble! She whom I knew in a life long since past lies before me.”
“Don Arellano,” cried Señor Martinez, “we have been deceived. This man is a believer in that accursed ‘Memory Fluid.’ The sooner we get away, from this tomb, back to the city, the better for us.”
They each glanced nervously at the waxen face before them, and without further comment started hastily to leave the tomb.
Rev. Isaac Tombstone made no sign that he heard them, but stood by the head of the metallic coffin, his eyes riveted upon the face he there saw.
As his two companions left the tomb, three men dressed as doctors of medicine entered, and stood with uncovered heads around the coffin. The cab in which the Reverend Tombstone and party had arrived stood in front of the door of the tomb.
At the moment the two men were stepping into it three policemen stepped forward, as the song of a bird rent the air, clapped iron bands around their wrists, and said: “You are prisoners of law. Make no disturbance or you will be roughly dealt with.”
Señor Martinez threw his head back haughtily, and asked: “Does the present régime permit the arrest of quiet, law-abiding citizens?”
“Certainly not, certainly not,” replied the officer. “It is not becoming to your present disguise for you to ask such a question.”