"It is not meet that Ptahmes--named Tahutimes--son of Mery, son of Hap, High Priest of Amen-Ra and the Hawk-headed Horus, should be a wicked unbeliever's slave.... Death explains.... The spirit of a good man hurried hence accuses me unanswered at the ... throne.... For time unending.... Fanet.... King of all the Gods.... Thus only shall you escape the death that threatens. You shall swear to break my stele of ivory, to commit my papyri to the flames unread, to burn my body and scatter my ashes to the winds of Heaven. You shall swear by Amen-Ra, King of Earth and Heaven, to destroy ... the oppressor and your enemy. He has deciphered the inscriptions. He has mastered their meaning. He knows. He cannot be permitted to live lest I ... and he the enemy exalt himself and triumph over you and me.... Swear then, and aid shall be accorded in your hour of need." I gathered from this message that the ghost of Ptahmes inhabitated the mummy before me; that Belleville had possessed himself of some stupendous wizard power which enabled him to compel the soul and dust of Ptahmes to obey his infamous behests, but that Ptahmes was his most unwilling slave. I also gathered that Ptahmes promised me help if I would take an oath to kill Belleville, to destroy certain papyri and an ivory stele in Belleville's possession which I must promise not to attempt to read, and also to burn the mummified remains of Ptahmes, and so, I suppose, secure the rest of his troubled spirit. I did not pause to reflect on the wild unreality of the happenings my senses registered. They did not appear indeed unreal to me at all--then. On the contrary, I felt that I was confronted with a very grave and serious proposal, which if I decided to accept would be carried out to the letter as regards the assistance promised me, a circumstance that would oblige me as an honest man to keep my part of the contract. The question remained: Would I be justified in solemnly swearing to compass Belleville's death? Why not? Surely he deserved capital punishment if ever a man did. By his own confession he had either murdered Frankfort Weldon or procured his murder; and he had cold-bloodedly assured me that he was relentlessly resolved to murder me. And there were other things to think of. He had given me positive proof of the possession of some unknown power over the laws of Nature which had enabled him already to commit crimes without incurring a shadow of legal suspicion. Were I then to effect my escape from him, it would be my duty as a citizen of the State to do all in my power to prevent him working further ill in the community. Yet I could not bring him to justice. I had no evidence to produce against him which the courts would not scorn and ridicule. The attempt to convict him of the murder he had confessed to me, would only result in branding me in all men's eyes as a lunatic. He would meanwhile be at liberty to go abroad to work his evil will upon the world.