a person hopping about on one foot.
I must admit that I grew hot and cold by turns, that I felt a mysterious
breeze blowing down my back, and that my hair stood on end so suddenly
that it forced my night-cap to a leap of several degrees.

The curtains partly opened, and I saw the strangest figure possible
advancing.

It was a young girl, as coffee-coloured as Amani the dancer, and of a
perfect beauty of the purest Egyptian type. She had slanting
almond-shaped eyes, with eyebrows so black that they appeared blue; her
nose was finely chiseled, almost Grecian in its delicacy; she might have
been taken for a Corinthian statue of bronze, had not her prominent
cheekbones and rather African fullness of lips indicated without a doubt
the hieroglyphic race which dwelt on the banks of the Nile.

Her arms, thin, spindle shaped, like those of very young girls, were
encircled with a kind of metal ornament, and bracelets of glass beads;
her hair was twisted into little cords; on her breast hung a green paste
idol, identified by her whip of seven lashes as Isis, guide of souls--a
golden ornament shone on her forehead, and slight traces of rouge were
visible on the coppery tints of her cheeks.

As for her costume, it was very odd.

Imagine a _pagne_ made of narrow strips bedizened with red and black
hieroglyphics, weighted with bitumen, and apparently belonging to a
mummy newly unswathed.

In one of those flights of fancy usual in dreams, I could hear the
hoarse, rough voice of the dealer of bric-a-brac reciting in a
monotonous refrain, the phrase he had kept repeating in his shop in so
enigmatic a manner.

"Old Pharaoh will not be pleased--he loved his daughter very much--that
dear man."

One peculiar detail, which was hardly reassuring, was that the
apparition had but one foot, the other was broken off at the ankle.

She approached the table, where the mummy's foot was fidgeting and
tossing about with redoubled energy. She leaned against the edge, and I
saw her eyes fill with pearly tears.

Although she did not speak, I fully understood her feelings. She looked
at the foot, for it was in truth her own, with an expression of
coquettish sadness, which was extremely charming; but the foot kept
jumping and running about as though it were moved by springs of steel.

Two or three times she stretched out her hand to grasp it, but did not
succeed.

Then began between the Princess Hermonthis and her foot, which seemed to
be e