CHAPTER XXI
In the Labyrinth
All the culture and self-restraint acquired in years was stripped from Zeta Phalos for the moment, even his religion dropped away, and the superstition of his ancestors took possession of him, as he lay moaning and beating his head on the floor of the cave in the hope of propitiating the angry gods of his remote forebears who were making those weird, ghost-like noises.
It would have been idle for the captain and Professor Bruce to have denied that they were terribly frightened. They were brave men who had often faced death unflinchingly. But just now cold, stark terror had a grip on their souls.
Again that awful scream rang through the vaulted halls, and this time after one mighty paroxysm of fear, the Egyptian lay still. He had fainted.
The necessity of doing something to help him broke the spell that had fastened on his companions, and they sprang to his relief. They chafed his hands and wrists. After a long time he opened his eyes, only to close them again with a cry, as he remembered his experience.
“The gods! The gods of my forebears!” he moaned. “They would not be defied. They are punishing us for our presumption.”
“Come, now! Come!” urged the captain, not unkindly, his own self-possession having been restored to him by the necessity of action. “Pull yourself together. After all, a sound doesn’t kill anybody.”
It was a long time, however, before the old Egyptian regained his composure. He maintained a listening attitude, and at intervals kept casting uneasy glances toward the unseen body with the severed head that lay there so quietly, but, as he thought, so menacingly, in the darkness.
The professor rightly interpreted his thought.
“It won’t do any harm to remove the mummy to some other place, Frank,” he suggested quietly to his brother. “They used to pass them around at Egyptian banquets to remind the diners of the brevity of life. But to my mind they’re not very cheerful adjuncts of a feast.”