Page:"The Mummy" Volume 2.djvu/79

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THE MUMMY.
71

banks. No, no! the immortal palm, fit emblem of the soul, grows only in those favoured realms, where, spurning at oppression, it resists the feeble efforts of man to bend it to the earth, and springs upward with only added vigour from the feeble attempts made to subdue it!"

The Mummy ceased, and a solemn silence prevailed; whilst passions fierce as the whirlwind's fury flitted across his face, chilling the beholder's heart with horror at the fearful being whose bosom could conceive them.

Father Morris was not naturally timid; he even possessed uncommon strength both of nerves and mind; yet an unwonted shuddering ran through his frame as he gazed upon Cheops, and traced the workings of that demoniac mind as they were successively imprinted on his features. Involuntarily he turned away in disgust. "For God's sake, let us go!" cried he, gasping for breath; for a strange feeling that he could not define, seemed to impede his respiration.

"Yes, yes—let us go!" stammered forth