The Mummy and Miss Nitocris

re I should have written you a note, asking you and the Professor to come and take lunch with us

of apartments which formed her home for the time being in London. I say her home advisedly, because, although her fath

ysical presence was concerned, she was just a "Gibson Girl" of the daintiest type-fair-skinned, blue-eyed, golden-haired-her hair had a darker gleam of bronze in it in certain lights-exquisitely moulded features which seemed capable of every sort of expression within a few changing moments, and a poise of head and carriage of body which only perfect

met, Mrs van Huysman got up

he's going to lecture before the Royal Society on the tenth, and I reckon we shall all be there to listen to him. I shouldn't wonder but there'll be trouble as usual between h

sides, I'm quite sure that they both enjoy it very thoroughly. It's their way of taking recreation, you see, just as a couple of pit

good time as when he thinks he's tearing one of Professor Marmion's theories into little piec

unexplained puzzles of human nature. As you know, my father hates fighting in the physical sense with a hatred w

re interesting subject. Sit down, and we'll talk about vanities. I'm just perishing to see what Regent Street and Bond Street are like. I don't think I've spent ten dollars in London yet. I'm twenty-two to-morrow, Niti, and my grandfather, who is just about the best grandfather a girl ever had, cabled across to the Napier people,

hrewd common sense, but she had been born in a different generation and in a different grade of life, and therefore her attire inclined rather to magnificence than to elegance, in spite of her daughter's restraining hand and frankly expressed counsel. She had

somewhat heavy features which would have been almost commonplace but for the broad, square forehead above them, and the brilliant steel-grey eyes which glittered restlessly under the thick brows, and also a certain sensitiveness about the nostrils and lips which seemed curious

of you to look us up so soon. How's the Professor? Well, I hope. I see he's scheduled for a lecture before the Royal Society.

s she took his hand, "I suppose y

't look half dead, do I? Just curious, that's all. Y

er father on the altered title of the lecture, "but if I did, you know, I should only, as we say in England, be s

anged instantly, and the warrior

ith something between a snort and a

some tea," said his daug

e could bear the entirely feminine conversation on a subject in which he hadn't the remotest interest, and then h

ide, and I've got quite a lot of things to attend to. Bring your father along to dinner to-morr

and Nitocris went and put on their wraps-not the imitation of the medi?val armour which is used for serious motor-driving, but just d

, I believe. Won't you join u

, Brenda," said her mother, with a mild touch of sarcasm in her tone, "I'll ask you to let

"Mamma's as healthy a woman as ever lived, and she's American too, and y

gine going. The gold-laced porters handed them into the two front seats, and the chauffeur effaced himself in the tonneau. Miss Brenda put one hand on t

oadway on to the pavement. For a moment they stared at the car in mute astonishment; then the man gripped

y things has she come-she, the daughter of the great Rameses! But it may be that she is held in bondage under the spell of the evil powe

iving in the midst of this vast, foul city of the infidels, clothed after the fashion of their women, and yet still beautiful and smiling. Pent-Ah, didst thou not even see her laugh as she rode past us? Alas! I tell the

eply, "and yet there may be a deep meaning in it. Nevertheless, to

ed houses, upon which many years of misery, poverty, and crime had set their unmistakable stamp. They crossed the court diagonally and entered a house in the right-hand corner. They went up the worn, carpetless stairs with a rickety handrail on one side and the torn, pe

em. His clothing was half Western, half Oriental. A pair of thin, creased, grey tweed trousers met, or almost met, a pair of Turkish slippers, showing an inch of bare, lean ankle in between. His body was covered with a dirty yellow robe of fi

e Queen? For without that surely ye w

th its tawdry Oriental curtains and ornaments, had been an audience-chamber in the palace of Pepi in old Memphis, for

and seated in a devil-chariot beside another woman, as fair almost as she. It is true, Lord, even as we said, that our La

but the command remains the same. Mummy or woman, she shall be taken back to her ancient home to await the day when the Divine Assessors shall determine the penalty of her guilt. The task will be hard, yet nothing is impossible to those who serve the High Gods faithfully. Ye have done we

of his own dress, but he gave them as though they had been coppers. Pent-Ah took them with a low obeisance, and dropped them one b

s he straightened himself up again. "From door to door the Queen shall be watched, and, if it be permi

law of his slave," she replie

c dealer in ancient Egyptian relics and curios in a humble way of business. "Serve faithfully, both

e, and although he knew their contents almost by heart, he pored over them for a good half-hour with scarcely so much as a movement of his lips. Then he put them away and locked the drawer with one of a small bunch of curiously shaped keys which were fastened round his waist by a chain. When he had concealed them in his girdle, he got up and began to pace the floor of the miserable room wit

souls of those who died by thy hand in the banqueting chamber of Pepi still call for vengeance out of the glooms of Amenti. The thirst of hate and the hunger of love are still unslaked and unsatisfied. I, Phadrig, the poor trader, who was once Anem

moke-blackened walls of the wretched houses opposite, and away through the mists of Time to where a vast city of temples and palaces

in the dust, and the owl rears her brood on thy crumbling altars, and hoots to the moon where once rose the solemn chant of priests and the sweet hymns of the Sacred Virgins; the jackal barks where once the mightiest monarchs of earth gave judgment and received tribute; thy tombs are desecrated, and the mummies of kings and queens and holy men have been ravished from them to adorn th

d began his walk again. Soon he spoke again, but now in a cha

e and death, each man and woman is a deathless soul which passes into the shadows only to return re-garbed in the flesh to live and work through the interlocked cycles of Eternal Destiny? Was he-ah Gods! was he once Ma-Rimōn, whose footsteps in the days that

hreshold and taken a place only a little lower than the seats of the gods, a place that I may not approach, barred by the penalty of my accursed folly and pride! Ah well, be it so or be it not,

dding, and a dirty-faced, ragged-frocked little girl shuffled into

and wot'll yer want for supper, and will yer give me the money?" she said in a piping mono

bread. I will mak

ced foreign man from mysterious regions beyond her ken, who was doubtless a magician of some

d for the delight of his richest and most lavish-handed votaries. Brenda spent her ten dollars and a few thousands more, and then, as it was getting on to dinner-time and Nitocris absolutely refused to let

winning ways she left in absolute ignoranc