ssessours of these dreadful vaults will start up
before us, and, perhaps, shut us in for ever[a]." She spoke, and threw
her arms round the neck of her mistress.

"If all your fear be of apparitions," said the prince, "I will promise
you safety: there is no danger from the dead; he that is once buried
will be seen no more."

"That the dead are seen no more," said Imlac, "I will not undertake to
maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all ages, and
of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, among whom
apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion,
which perhaps, prevails, as far as human nature is diffused, could
become universal only by its truth: those that never heard of one
another, would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience
can make credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers, can very
little weaken the general evidence; and some, who deny it with their
tongues, confess it by their fears".[b]

"Yet I do not mean to add new terrours to those which have already
seized upon Pekuah. There can be no reason, why spectres should haunt
the pyramid more than other places, or why they should have power or
will to hurt innocence and purity. Our entrance is no violation of their
privileges; we can take nothing from them, how then can we offend them?"

"My dear Pekuah," said the princess, "I will always go before you, and
Imlac shall follow you. Remember that you are the companion of the
princess of Abissinia."

"If the princess is pleased that her servant should die," returned the
lady, "let her command some death less dreadful than enclosure in this
horrid cavern. You know, I dare not disobey you: I must go, if you
command me; but, if I once enter, I never shall come back."

The princess saw that her fear was too strong for expostulation or
reproof, and, embracing her, told her, that she should stay in the tent,
till their return. Pekuah was yet not satisfied, but entreated the
princess not to pursue so dreadful a purpose, as that of entering the
rececess of the pyramid. "Though I cannot teach courage," said Nekayah,
"I must not learn cowardice; nor leave, at last, undone what I came
hither only to do."

[a] It may not be unacceptable to our readers, to quote, in this place,
a stanza, from an Ode to Horror in the Student, ii. 313. It alludes
to the story of a French gentleman, who, going into the catacombs,
not far from Cairo, with some Arab guides