The Mummy and Miss Nitocris

thinking, while Miss Nitocris, after seeing to certain household matters, sat down in his study and read the papers, in order that she might be able to g

e events happening in the world which really mattered, not even excepting the proceedings of learned societies and the criminal and civil Law Courts, could be adequately recorded on a couple of s

efore the general decadence of the English Press a day or two before, and this had got connected up in his thoughts with the amazing happenings of the last twelve hours, and he aske

eager to see miracles; and then they would go away and write lurid articles, some about the miracles, if they saw them, and some about an absolutely new form of conjuring that he had invented. Then the scientific Press would take it up, and a very merry battle of wits would beg

ied with disgusting regularity. So he quickly came to the conclusion that, if he were once to state in plain English that he could accomplish the seemingly impossible; that he, a mere mortal, could make himself independent of the ordinary conditions of time and space and break with impunity all the laws which govern the physical universe, he would sim

delivering a lecture, say, before the Royal Society, on the existence of a world of four dimensions, and then

at if he were to prove-as, of course, he could do now that this mysterious hand, outstretched through the mists of the far past, had led him across the horizon which divides the two states of Existence

plunging the scientific world into a hopeless state of intellec

nces certainly were not. He had taken off his ring without unbending his finger. Yes, he could do it again now; it was just as easy as taking it off in the ordinary way. He certainly had not been dreaming when the Mummy had become Queen Nitocris and given

he two ends, and then with the greatest ease tied a

much as a foot-track in sight. He made his way through the trees in what he remembered to be the direction of the road, and presently, through an opening avenue, he saw the sun glittering upon something moving, and heard voices; and then past the end of the avenue half

nly tenth-century armour that they're wearing. I mustn't let them see me, or there's no telling what they'd think of an elderly gentleman in a soft hat and a twentieth-century morning suit

Although he could see and move and hear, and, no doubt, eat and drink in this world, he was unexistent as regards the inhabitants of it, and yet he knew perfectly well he was standing by the side of

ng in two existences and different ages, but it was a mat

was on the Wimbledon Common of the twentieth century once more. He stroked his clean-shaven chin with his finger a

e and location are only realities to us in so far that we can see them. A human being born blind, dumb, deaf, and without feeling would still, I suppose, be a human being, because it would be conscious of existence; it would breathe and know that its heart was beating, but without sight

arguing silently with himself as to the correctn

human attributes-the ability to think, and therefore to reason. In other words, from a merely living organism it would, in the old Scriptural language, have become a living soul. That is, obviously, what the words in Genesis were really int

in. He walked another two or three hundred yards in sile

d started out to find the place where it rested? The simile is not bad, not by any means. Just in the same way, we try to imagine the limits of time and space, and we can't do it. Only infinity of space and duration

the vast snow-field dotted with hummocks of ice which lay bleak and lifeless about him: "Ah, I suppose ei

W

e knew, he might be standing upon what was now the earth's North Pole. Civilisation, as he had known it, might have been wiped off the face of the earth, and the remnant

edge of Wimbledon Common ten thousand years ago. He remembered, with a curious sort of thrill, some notes which he had to complete th

and which I almost attained to in Egypt. Wherefore, existence in a state of four dimensions, or the world of N^4, as I have always called it, is, roughly speaking, one. Time and space are, as it were, two sides of the same shield, and a person living in that world can see both of them at

n exaltation-confound the language of the third dimension-I can't say it! Although I understand what it is, it won't go into words. What am I to do with it? Its possibilities are, of course, a little appalling-that is to say, from the point of view of N^3. I have not the slightest desire to shake the fabric of Society to pieces, as I could

esty? That won't do at all-she has reached the Hig

im that, for those who had reached that plane, there was no death! Here was a ne

k of it?" he murmured, after a few moments o

yed exactly as she had been on that terrible night of her bridal with

ourse, Her Majesty is very lovely and all that; but what on earth would people think if any one saw me strolling acr

es met and they looked at each other across the gulf of fifty centuries. Impelled by an irresistible impulse coming f

en! What hath he done that he shou

a marvellous figure as that of the Queen. And then he remembered that, unless she willed it, no one in the world of N^3 could see her, since it was for her, as it was for him now, to make herself visible or invisible a

nour nor dishonour, neither ruler nor subject, neither good nor evil, since all these are absorbed in the Perfect Knowledge. Yet it is the will of the High Gods that I should help thee and guid

honour, sometimes in dishonour, yet ever struggling on to regain the heights which then we had so nearly won. The High G

ghtly. Forget not that in that other world sin and shame, oppression and misery, are as rife as, within the limits of time, they have ever

watch and guard her, for she, too-although she knows it not-is approaching the light never seen by the Eye of Flesh, and, though strange things should befall her, it will be

strous eyes looked at him for a moment and grew d

his watch, and he turned and walked slowly with bent