elwyse followed the priestly figure through the
low-browed door, He had seen too much of men to allow any instinctive
aversion to influence him, in the absence of logical evidence. And
this man's words sounded fair; his frank admission of occasional
insanity accounted for many anomalies. Nevertheless, and apart from
any question of personal danger, Balder felt ill at ease, like animals
before a thunder-storm. As he sat down beside his companion on the
steps of the black altar, and glanced up at the yellow visage that
presided over it, he tried to quiet his mind in vain; even the thought
of Gnulemah yielded a vague anxiety!

XXVIII.

BETROTHAL.

The ring, which Balder had taken off with the intention of returning
it to its owner, still remained between his thumb and finger; and as
he sat under the gloom of the altar, its excellent brilliancy caught
his eye. He had never examined it minutely. It was pure as virtue, and
possessed similar power to charm the dusky air into seven-hued beauty.
A fountain of lustre continually welled up from its interior, like an
exhaustless spring of wisdom. From amidst the strife of the little
serpents it shone serenely forth, with, divine assurance of
good,--eternal before the battle began, and immortal after it should
cease. The light refreshed the somewhat jaded Helwyse, and during the
ensuing interview he ever and anon renewed the draught.

But the Egyptian seemed to address a silent invocation to the mummy.
The anti-spiritual kind of immortality belonging to mummies may have
been congenial to Manetho's soul. Awful is that loneliness which even
the prospect of death has deserted, and which must prolong itself
throughout a lifeless and hopeless Forever! If Manetho could imagine
any bond of relationship between this perennial death's-head and
himself, no marvel that he cherished it jealously.

"You shall hear first about myself," said the priest; "yet, truly, I
know not how to begin! No mind can know another, nor even its own
essential secrets. My time has been full of visions and unrealities. I
am the victim of a thing which, for lack of a better name, I call
myself!"

"Not a rare sickness," remarked Balder.

"A ghost no spell can lay! It grasps the rudder, and steers towards
gulfs the will abhors. A crew of unholy, mutinous impulses fling
abroad words and thoughts unrecognizable. Not Manetho talked in the
blackness of that night; but a devil, to whom I listened shuddering