Book 1 — CHAPTER X.

CONTAINING A MORE WONDERFUL DISCOVERY ON THE PART OF SHEPPARD LEE, WITH PERHAPS THE MOST SURPRISING ADVENTURE THAT EVER BEFELL HIM.

Having thus completed his lecture, or oration, of which I must confess I had begun to grow tired, the German doctor suddenly stepped to a great round box, like a watchman's box, that stood at the further end of the room, and unlocking the folding leaves of which it was composed, swung them round with a jerk, exhibiting an inner case, evidently of glass, but entirely covered over with a thick curtain. This he proceeded to remove, by tugging at a string which hoisted it to the ceiling; and as it ascended there was disclosed to the eyes of the wondering spectators a human figure within the case, clad loosely in a sort of Roman garment, and for all the world looking entirely like a living being, except that the eyes were fixed in a set unnatural stare, and the attitude was a little stiff and awkward.

A murmur, with twenty or more faint shrieks from the females present, attested the admiration with which the spectators caught sight of this wonderful triumph of skill and science; but I—heavens and earth! what were my feelings, what was my astonishment, when I beheld in that lifeless mummy my own lost body! the mortal tenement in which I had first drawn the breath, and experienced the woes, of life! the body of Sheppard Lee the Jerseyman! This, then, was its fate—not to be anatomized and degraded into a skeleton, as the vile Samuel the kidnapper had told me, but converted into a mummy by a new process, for the especial benefit of science and the world; and Dr. Feuerteufel, the man for whom I had always cherished an instinctive dislike and horror, was the worthy personage who had stolen it, what time I had myself interrupted his designs upon the body of the farmer's boy, in the old graveyard near the Owl-roost! I looked upon my face—that is, the face of the mummy—and a thousand recollections of my original home and condition burst upon my mind; the tears started into my eyes with them. What had I gained by forsaking the lot to which Providence had assigned me? In a moment, the woes of Higginson, of Dawkins, Skinner, Longstraw, Tom the slave, and Megrim the dyspeptic, rushed over my memory, contrasted with those lesser ones of Sheppard Lee, which I had so falsely considered as rendering me the most miserable man in the world.

What other notions may have crowded my brain, what feeling may have entered my bosom, I am now unable to describe. The sight of my body thus restored to me, and in the midst of my sorrow and affliction, inviting me, as it were, back to my proper home, threw me into an indescribable ferment. I stretched out my arms, I uttered a cry, and then rushing forward, to the astonishment of all present, I struck my foot against the glass case with a fury that shivered it to atoms—or, at least, the portion of it serving as a door, which, being dislodged by the violence of the blow, fell upon the floor and was dashed to pieces. The next instant, disregarding the cries of surprise and fear which the act occasioned, I seized upon the cold and rigid hand of the mummy, murmuring, "Let me live again in my own body, and never—no! never more in another's!"

Happiness of happiness! although, while I uttered the words, a boding fear was on my mind, lest the long period the body had lain inanimate, and more especially the mummifying process to which it had been subjected, might have rendered it unfit for further habitation, I had scarce breathed the wish before I found myself in that very body, descending from the box which had so long been its prison, and stepping over the mortal frame of Mr. Arthur Megrim, now lying dead on the floor.

Indescribable was the terror produced among the spectators by this double catastrophe—the death of their townsman, and the revival of the mummy. The women fell down in fits, and the men took to their heels; and a little boy, who was frightened into a paroxysm of devotion, dropped on his knees, and began fervently to exclaim,

"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep."

In short, the agitation was truly inexpressible, and fear distracted all. But on no countenance was this passion (mingled with a due degree of amazement) more strikingly depicted than on that of the German doctor, who, thus compelled to witness the object of a thousand cares, the greatest and most perfect result of his wonderful discovery, slipping off its pedestal and out of his hands, as by a stroke of enchantment, stared upon me with eyes, nose, and mouth, speechless, rooted to the floor, and apparently converted into a mummy himself. As I stepped past him, however, hurrying to the door, with a vague idea that the sooner I reached it the better, his lips were unlocked, and his feelings found vent in a horrible exclamation—"Der tyfel!" which I believe means the devil—"Der tyfel! I have empalm him too well!"

Then making a dart at me, he cried, in tones of distraction, "Stop my mummy! mine gott! which has cost me so much expense!—stop my mummy!"

I saw that he designed seizing me, and being myself as much overcome with fear as the others, I made a bolt for the door, knocking down my friend Tibbikens and half a dozen other retreating spectators as I left it, darted into the air, and in a moment was flying out of the village on the wings of the wind.

I had a double cause for terror; for, first, before I had got twenty steps from the exhibition-room (for my Roman garments were in the way of my legs, and I did not run so fast as I managed to do afterward), I heard certain furious voices cry from the room—"It is all a cheat! the mummy was a living man! let us Lynch him and the doctor!" and, secondly, I could also hear, close at my heels, the voice of the doctor himself, who had escaped close behind me, eagerly vociferating, "Stop my mummy, and I will pay twenty dollare! stop my mummy!"—by both which noises it was made apparent that I was in danger of being Lynched, or subjected to a second process of mummification.

Nerved therefore by my fears, I gathered the skirts of my toga about my arms, and fled with all my might, blessing my stars that I had at last recovered that mortal tenement, which, with all its troubles, I was now convinced was the best for my purposes in the whole world.