Page:Weird Tales Volume 7 Number 3 (1926-03).djvu/116

402 taken overland and at last the burial place had been built and sealed.

"Poor little girl," repeated Bennett. And then there came to him that thought which had recurred in his mind again and again: "For each man kills the thing he loves—"

The Egyptian soldier had killed what he loved best. Bennett, too, had killed the thing he loved.

"—and so he had to die!"

The thought came over him like a blight. It withered his soul. It crushed his heart. It blasted his hope for the future.

It was then that Bennett noticed something he not not seen before. It was a tiny piece of the papyrus, and the writing upon it differed from that of the tale of the Princess. Slowly Bennett deciphered the meaning of the rude markings.

"Poor little girl," said Bennett again. "I don't blame you. I'm glad I'm not your false lover."

For many minutes he pondered. The girl's message brought up a startling paradox. Contrary to common belief there has been found in the records of ancient Egypt no account of a belief in metempsychosis—the transmigration of the human soul. And yet, here

went into the tomb again, this time with a light, as the day was dying. He lifted the cover of the ancient casket. The heat was oppressive; the stench of the dead swirled about his head. The presence of the unseen became almost tangible. Terror dwelt in that tomb.

And by the dim light Bennett looked upon the swathed figure of the Little Princess. The walls of the sepulcher revolved about him. Lights flashed and gleamed across his vision. His brain seethed. The sickening horror in the heart of him increased till it was a monstrosity. The walls of the tomb stopped revolving, stood still a moment, then with a terrible crunching, moaning sound, with a flashing of lights, with the ruthless crush of pitiless death they closed in upon him. For the eyes that seemed to look upon him from the sarcophagus, the face that seemed to lie there, could belong to no other than the girl he had wronged.

The strength in his knees melted, but his body jerked spasomodically. The outstretched, clutching hands caught in the swathings of the mummy in such a manner that as he fell he flung it over him toward the entrance. At the same moment he swooned.

When Bennett came back to his senses he was lying on the floor of the tomb. There was in his head a terrible throbbing which seemed nearly to tear out his soul. But with the returning of consciousness came memory of what had been. And as he lay there Bennett began to think logically and quite sanely on what had happened. He had, he told himself, been the victim of an illusion. He had been thinking of the dead girl, and the first sight of the mummy had startled him into believing the illusion. The story of the princess and the dead air of the tomb had combined to make his senses reel and leave him. There could be nothing true about it; he had translated incorrectly—there was no reincarnation; surely it was preposterous even to dream that he had lived and died and lived again through a hundred centuries, each time killing the woman he loved, each time paying for it with his life. Ridiculous!

He rose to his feet rather shakily and turned to look at the mummy. Little resemblance there would be