Page:Strange Tales Volume 02 Number 03 (1932-10).djvu/27

mythical Menes, the princess' lover of centuries before.

Again I looked at the face of the dead princess in the light of the electric cluster. What fools one's imagination can make of one! I had been as sure as I could be sure of anything that a sort of semivitality lingered in her, that her mouth and eyelids had moved, though I had refused to believe my senses.

And my senses had tricked me. For now I could see that the face, beautiful though it still was, and looking almost as natural as life, was simply the well-preserved face of a mummy. There was no trace of vitality about those waxen features.

I heard Neil on the telephone: "Yes, Coyne, Dewey's here. Got here about an hour ago. I've told him we're dining with you, and we'll be over right away. The experiment? To-night, maybe, if you're agreeable. Yes, indeed, Jim Dewey's the right man. I trust him more than I'd trust another living soul."

I heard Neil hang the receiver up, and he came back to me.

"Yes, it's Coyne," he said. "He wants me to bring you over. He's a fine fellow, and you'll enjoy meeting him. We’ll have to hurry. I must wrap up this mummy first, though. The air's too damp. I oughtn't to have unrolled the bandages, but do you know, Jim," he laughed, "I've taken quite a liking to the little lady. Odd a fellow falling in love with a mummy, eh?"

He kneeled down and with deft, experienced fingers rerolled the linen bandages, until nothing of the princess was visible except the contours. Then he replaced the inner and the outer shells.

"Ready, Jim?" he asked. "Let's start, then. It's only five minutes' walk over there. You go out first, and I'll see that none of those damned hawks gets in."

I STEPPED out of the house. High overhead, against the moon, I saw the soaring covey, but this time the hawks made no attempt to interfere with us, and in another moment Neil had joined me, closing and locking the door behind him.

"I keep this place shut up tight," he said. "Those villagers have an insatiable curiosity, and they learned all about the mummies from one of the Sunday newspapers. There's a fellow named Jones who runs the ferry, who's the worst of the lot. Always prowling around here. Coyne calls him the Old Incorruptible, because he once refused an offer of five thousand dollars from the brother of one of the patients to get his brother out of the sanitarium."

We walked along side by side, striking a track that ran inland in the direction of the asylum. A storm was coming up, and great waves were pounding the beach steadily, yet the air was deathly still, oppressive and suffocating. I was wondering if Neil remembered anything of what had happened.

"We'll have to shoot off those hawks," he said. "I believe the smell of natron from the mummies affects them as catnip affects the feline tribe. I've tried to shoot them, but they're too wary."

But he had told me that the hawks wouldn't die, and I had seen him almost tear the head of one from its body, without destroying its life!

I glanced sidewise at him. He was again the Neil Farrant whom I had known, save that he was leaned and bronzed by the Egyptian suns.

I determined to speak to Doctor Coyne about him, if I found the doctor approachable.

We passed beneath some fine old live-oaks, of massive size, then crossed a wide and well-kept lawn.