Page:"The Mummy" Volume 3.djvu/74

 value of the prize, and they vanish before a determined spirit. What! shall I, before whose arm whole nations have fallen vanquished, shrink like a coward from the first trouble that assails me! Oh, no! I will not be so weak; opposition shall only animate my courage. Treasures would be scarcely worth acceptance if they lay beneath one's feet—a brave man spurns an easy victory! I will exert my powers, and Elvira shall be mine."

Father Morris was at the levee, and he watched with anxious eyes the fluctuations in Edmund's expressive countenance. "Perdition seize her beauty!" muttered he; "with one look she undoes whole months of labour. But he shall yet be mine—Cheops has sworn he shall,—and Rosabella shall be Queen. Be the Mummy mortal or fiend, he is resistless; he has unbounded power over the human heart, and what he wills must be accomplished."

Some weeks elapsed, during which Lord Edmund, restored to his former influence in the government, laboured assiduously to prepare