The Perils of Pauline | Page 4

instead.
"I'll show you what reason I have to think I can write. My first story has just been published in the biggest magazine in the country. I have had a copy of it lying around here for days with my story in it, and nobody has even looked at it."
Out she flashed, and Harry after her, almost upsetting the butler and gardener, who appeared in the library doorway. These two worthies advanced upon the statue of Pallas without noticing the master of the house sitting behind his big desk. The butler did notice that a large hound from the stable had followed the gardener into the room.
"That's what one gets for letting outdoor servants into the house," muttered the butler, as he hustled the big dog to the front door and ejected him.
"Is he addressing himself to me or to the pup, I wonder?" asked the gardener, a fat, good-natured Irishman, as he placed himself in front of the statue.
He read the name "Pallas," forced his rusty derby hat down over his ears in imitation of the statue's helmet, and mimicked the pose.
Together they staggered out with their burden. A moment later they returned, carrying, with the help of two other men, the mummy in its big case. Owen also entered, and Marvin, with the joy of an Egyptologist, grasped a magnifying glass and examined the case.
The old man's bobby had been Egypt, his liberal checks had assisted in many an excavation, and his knowledge of her relics was remarkable. Inserting a steel paper cutter in a crack he deftly pried open the upper half of the mummy's front. Beneath lay the mass of wrappings in which thousands of years ago the priests of the Nile had swathed some lady of wealth and rank. It was a woman, Marvin was sure, from the inscriptions on her tomb, and he believed her to be a princess.
The secretary excused himself and went to his room, where his precious morphine pills were hidden. The old man, left alone, deftly opened the many layers of cloth which bound the ancient form. A faint scent that was almost like a presence came forth from the unwrapped folds. Long lost balms they were, ancient spices, forgotten antiseptics of a great race that blossomed and Fell -- thousands of years before its time.
"I smell the dead centuries," whispered Marvin to himself, "I can almost feel their weight. The world was young when this woman breathed. Perhaps she was pretty and foolish like my Polly -- yes, and maybe as stubborn, too. Manetho says they had a good deal to say in those days. Ah, now we shall see her face."
He had uncovered a bit of the mummy's forehead when out of the bandages fell a tiny vial. Marvin quickly picked it up. The vial was carved from some sort of green crystal in the shape of a two-headed Egyptian bird god. Without effort the stopper came out and Marvin held the small bottle to his nostrils, only to drop it at the mummy's feet. It exhaled the odor of the mummy which the reek of the centuries intensified a thousand times.
It was too much for the old man. He had overtaxed his feeble vitality and felt his senses leaving him. With the entire force of his will he was able to get to a chair, into which he sank. The odor of the vial was still in his nostrils. His eyes were fixed and stared straight ahead, but he could see, in a faint, unnatural yellow light that bathed the room.
From the vial, lying at the mummy's feet a vapor appeared to rise. It floated toward the swathed figure, enveloped it and seemed to be absorbed by it.
"Perhaps this is death," thought Marvin, "for I cannot move or speak."
But something else moved. There was a flutter among the bandages of the mummy. The commotion increased. Something was moving inside. The bandages were becoming loosened. They fell away from the face, and then was Marvin amazed indeed. Instead of the tight, brown parchment-like skin one always finds in these ancient relics appeared a smooth, olive-tinted complexion. It was the face of a young and beautiful woman. The features were serene as if in death, but there was no sunken nose or mummy's hollow eyes.
A strand of black hair fell down, and the movement beneath the bandages increased. Out of the folds came an arm, a woman's arm, slender, yet rounded, an arm with light bones and fine sinews, clearly an arm and hand that had never known work. Marvin was well aware that a mummy's arm is invariably a black skeleton claw.
At this point the old man made a mental note that he was not dead, for he could feel his own breathing. The arm rapidly and gracefully