What the history of this particular scarab may
have been we can now, unfortunately, never know, but I have
little doubt but that it played some part in the tragic
story of the Princess Amenartas and her lover Kallikrates,
the forsworn priest of Isis.--Editor.
As for me, I stumbled from her presence, and I do not remember how I
reached my own cave.
XIV
A SOUL IN HELL
It was nearly ten o'clock at night when I cast myself down upon my bed,
and began to gather my scattered wits, and reflect upon what I had seen
and heard. But the more I reflected the less I could make of it. Was I
mad, or drunk, or dreaming, or was I merely the victim of a gigantic
and most elaborate hoax? How was it possible that I, a rational man,
not unacquainted with the leading scientific facts of our history, and
hitherto an absolute and utter disbeliever in all the hocus-pocus which
in Europe goes by the name of the supernatural, could believe that I had
within the last few minutes been engaged in conversation with a woman
two thousand and odd years old? The thing was contrary to the experience
of human nature, and absolutely and utterly impossible.
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