It was light,
much lighter I should say than it had been in the living state, and the
flesh to all appearance was still flesh, though about it there clung a
faintly aromatic odour. For the rest it was not shrunk or shrivelled, or
even black and unsightly, like the flesh of Egyptian mummies, but plump
and fair, and, except where it had been slightly burnt, perfect as on
the day of death--a very triumph of embalming.
Poor little foot! I set it down upon the stone bench where it had lain
for so many thousand years, and wondered whose was the beauty that
it had upborne through the pomp and pageantry of a forgotten
civilisation--first as a merry child's, then as a blushing maid's, and
lastly as a perfect woman's. Through what halls of Life had its soft
step echoed, and in the end, with what courage had it trodden down the
dusty ways of Death! To whose side had it stolen in the hush of night
when the black slave slept upon the marble floor, and who had listened
for its stealing? Shapely little foot! Well might it have been set upon
the proud neck of a conqueror bent at last to woman's beauty, and
well might the lips of nobles and of kings have been pressed upon its
jewelled whiteness.
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