Page:"The Mummy" Volume 2.djvu/27

Rh the most incredible stories invented of all that had passed. The minds of men became bewildered; they knew not what to credit nor what to think; a gloomy presentiment hung over them; they seemed to feel some fearful change was at hand, but scarcely knew what to hope or what to fear. Business was at a stand: people indeed gathered together in the shops, but it was only to whisper secretly to each other, strange mysterious stories of the late marvellous events, which they dared not breathe in public. The extremes of ignorance and civilization tend alike to produce credulity, and the wildest and most improbable stories were as greedily swallowed by the most enlightened people in the world, as they could have been even by a horde of uncultivated barbarians.

The family of Mr. Montagu retired early to rest at the close of the eventful day we have been speaking of, hoping to lose in sleep the remembrance of the harassing events they had so lately witnessed. Lord Edmund had returned soon after the disappearance of the