Page:"The Mummy" Volume 2.djvu/21

Rh the majestic Thames, whilst Mr. and Mrs. Montagu gazed with trembling limbs and pallid lips at their strange guest, without daring either to approach or disturb him.

"Thus have I watched the Nile," said Cheops, his awful voice sounding as from the tomb, "whilst the gently rising waters have gradually swelled into the flood which was to pour joy and plenty over the land:—and thus, too, have I lain, gazing upon its streams, when, the purpose of all-bounteous Nature having been fulfilled, it has sunk back, slowly retiring to its natural bed. But, oh! how different were the feelings that then throbbed in my breast, to the corroding fire that now consumes me!—Oh! Osiris! what horrid thoughts flash through my brain!—they come like overwhelming floods pouring from heaven to the great deep, sweeping all before them in one mighty ruin.—Oh! Arsinöe! by the fell rites of Typhon, there's madness in the thought!"

Then springing from the couch, his eyes glared with yet fiercer brilliancy as he flashed