The Perils of Pauline | Page 6

forehead; then she
stepped quickly back to the case.
Harry and Pauline rushed in, followed less hastily by Owen. They
grasped the old man's hands, and Harry, seizing the telephone, called
Dr. Stevens. But to the surprise of everybody Marvin suddenly shook
off the paralysis, spoke, moved and seemed none the worse for his
seizure.

CHAPTER II

THE WILL
Old Mr. Marvin's faculties returned with a snap. There was the library
just as it had been before his peculiar seizure. His son Harry was
summoning on the telephone Dr. Stevens, the heart specialist, and
Pauline, his adopted daughter, was on her knees chafing his hands and
anxiously watching his face, while Owen, the secretary, was pouring
out a dose of his medicine. But the peculiar yellow light had gone. And
what about the mummy? It stood just as he had left it, the lower half of
the case was in place, the upper half was out, revealing the loosened
bandages and just a glimpse of the forehead.
One strand of jet black hair hung down. All was just as it was when the
little vial had fallen out.
"I'm all right, I'm all right," protested Mr. Marvin, somewhat testily, as
he twisted about in his chair to get a good view of the mummy. "Look
out, Harry, don't step on that little bottle."
Harry looked down and picked up the tiny vial which had fallen from
the bandages wrapped about the ancient form.
"Smell of it," his father ordered. Harry sniffed it and remarked that it
smelled musty and passed it to Pauline. The girl carried it to her nostrils
spin and again. She looked perplexed.
"Well, what do you think it is?" asked the old man.
"Why -- I can't remember, but I ought to know. I'm sure I do know."
"The devil you do," muttered her faster father.
"What makes you think you ought to know?"
"Why, it is so familiar. I'm certain I've smelled it often before. Haven't
I?"
"Well, if you have, Polly, you are a lot older than I am, older than
anything in this country, as old as the pyramids. That bottle fell out of

the mummy, and I can assure you it has been there some three or four
thousand years. When I smelled of that bottle it had a queer effect on
me. I felt as if I were going to have one of my fainting spells and was
glad to get back to the chair. It's funny about that mummy. I thought
she came out and talked to me."
"Why, father, what a horrible thing!" sympathized Pauline.
"Not horrible at all. She was a beauty and a princess. She was
interested in your picture, Polly, and she looked like you, too, except,
let's see -- yes, her hair was black, jet black, like that one lock you see
hanging down."
"Oh," interrupted Pauline, "I wish my hair were black, and I often
dream that it is, and that I am walking around in a pretty, white pleated
dress and my feet are bare."
"And a bracelet on your wrist -- your right wrist?" questioned Marvin
eagerly.
"I don't remember," Pauline replied thoughtfully.
"Well, we'll see if you had one and also whether I was dreaming or
not," announced the old man with a half ashamed look as he rose
somewhat unsteadily to his feet. Harry and Pauline tried to keep him
quiet. He brushed their warnings aside and walked unsteadily to the
mummy.
"Let's see its face," suggested Harry carelessly.
"No," said his father. "I have an idea that this old but young lady would
not care to have us look at her. But there is one thing I must find out. I
want to know if she wears a bracelet of linked scarabs on her right wrist
or not."
All of this was rather a bore to Harry, who lived intensely in the present,
had no interest in Egypt, except that Pauline was born and adopted as
an orphan baby there, and asked nothing of the future except that it

allow him to marry this obstinate but fascinating little creature at the
earliest possible moment. The question had been brought up half an
hour before, and he wanted it settled at once. Harry wished they would
decide about the marriage instead of fussing around with an old
mummy.
"My son, I venture to say that you would have been interested in this
young woman had you met her."
"Possibly," the youth admitted with a slight yawn.
"Yes," continued his father, busily searching for the mummy's right
wrist, "she was probably what you would call a peach."
"She may have been a peach in her day," thought Harry, "but today
she's a dried apricot."
The elder Marvin's searching fingers encountered a hard object.