"Gods!" repeated the traveller.

"Mr. Gliddon, I really am astonished to hear you talk in this style," said
the Count, resuming his chair. "No nation upon the face of the earth has
ever acknowledged more than one god. The Scarabaeus, the Ibis, etc., were
with us (as similar creatures have been with others) the symbols, or
media, through which we offered worship to the Creator too august to be
more directly approached."

There was here a pause. At length the colloquy was renewed by Doctor
Ponnonner.

"It is not improbable, then, from what you have explained," said he, "that
among the catacombs near the Nile there may exist other mummies of the
Scarabaeus tribe, in a condition of vitality?"

"There can be no question of it," replied the Count; "all the Scarabaei
embalmed accidentally while alive, are alive now. Even some of those
purposely so embalmed, may have been overlooked by their executors, and
still remain in the tomb."

"Will you be kind enough to explain," I said, "what you mean by 'purposely
so embalmed'?"

"With great pleasure!" answered the Mummy, after surveying me leisurely
through his eye-glass -- for it was the first time I had ventured to
address him a direct question.

"With great pleasure," he said. "The usual duration of man's life, in my
time, was about eight hundred years. Few men died, unless by most