Living! Breathing! The Arab was a mummy! an animated corpse. Oh! Of course I dreamed. I must have dreamed. I have told myself that so many thousand times that it is a marvel the constant reiteration has not forced me to believe it. But I do not. Nor do I know what to believe. I am in as great a maze to understand now as I was then. At first I conceived an almost intolerable horror of the thing before me. But finding that the Arab did not menace me, I gradually became accustomed to its most unpleasant and almost ghastly proximity. And after a time I felt so strong a fever of thirst that I forced myself to speak to it again. I asked it for water. It did not move. I became convinced it heard but did not comprehend the language I employed. I spoke to it in French and German and in Arabic, but still it did not move. Finally I said to myself, "If it is a mummy, it will be an Egyptian and will understand the tongue of ancient Egypt." Then I gasped out such a term as I believed might have been used by a thirsty Theban asking for alleviation of his famine. The thing instantly moved off behind me. Presently I heard the sound of falling water, and a moment later a glass was pressed to my parched lips. I drained it thankfully, eyeing the while, with a feeling of deep, unconquerable repulsion, the sinewy black mummy hand that served me. I then thanked the Arab in the same tongue which had persuaded him to be my minister. He gazed at me a while and then moved to the table and looked at it. He appeared to be writing, but I could not be sure. I heard a curious, raucous scratching sound. Thus ten minutes sped by. Meanwhile, I shut my eyes and tried hard to persuade myself that I dreamed. Then a sound disturbed me. I opened my eyes with a start and saw that the Arab had returned to my side. He held a slate before me covered with hieroglyphics. Never had I greater occasion to bless my knowledge of that ancient language and to gratefully regard the patient years of labour I had spent acquiring it. But likewise never had I greater occasion to lament the imperfections of my knowledge and defects in my memory. I could understand a portion of the message--the greater part indeed--but still a part escaped me. Briefly translated, the part I comprehended ran: