Page:"The Mummy" Volume 2.djvu/72

64 to remain some time amongst your fellow-men, I will endeavour to assume their manners. You seem to have influence amongst them; try, then, to pacify their fears, and teach them to regard me as a fellow-being."

At this moment the solemn clang of a deep-toned bell fell heavily upon their ears. Cheops started at the sound, and, springing from the couch on which he had reclined, bent forward eagerly to listen as it slowly pealed through the deep silence of the night. It was the great bell of the ancient cathedral of St. Paul, which tolled to announce that on the following day the body of the deceased Queen would lie in state.

"What is it?" cried Cheops; "whence comes that fearful knell, awful as the sound which is doomed to sink into the souls of the initiate of the Isian mysteries? Again it tolls; speak! whence comes it? what does it foretell? Is it the signal of another change of existence, strange, awful, and mysterious, as that I have already experienced? Let it come, I am prepared. The gods cannot inflict tortures more