The Living Mummy by Ambrose Pratt — Read

While waiting for the kettle to boil I happened to glance in the direction of the Nile. A column of moving smoke at once attracted my attention. A launch, of course, and what more likely than that it should contain soldiers, Arabs, servants, and a surgeon. "I shall soon be free to return to my work, it seems!" I said aloud, and it is wonderful what a lot of dissatisfaction the reflection gave me. I came within an ace, indeed, of consigning the Nile Monuments to literary perdition. But only temporarily. For I felt that I should need as engrossing mental occupation soon. Work is a fine consoler. The party arrived a few minutes before noon. It consisted of Sir Robert Ottley's dragoman, half a company of Egyptian camel corps under command of a fussy little English-French lieutenant named Thomas Dubois, some twenty swart-faced fellaheen labourers, and two English friends of Sir Robert and his daughter.

The latter were rather singular personages. One was middle-aged, short and thick and "bearded like the pard" up to his very eyes. He rejoiced in the name of William Belleville and was a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. The other one was tall and thin and marvellously good-looking. He called himself Captain Frankfort Weldon, and I soon discovered was an Honourable. Preparatory to discharging myself in toto of my responsibilities, I took charge of the entire crowd. I have been assured by my best friends that I am a natural autocrat. Those who are not my friends have sometimes described me as an arrogant and self-assertive egotist. I contend, however, that I was eminently well qualified to judge what was best to be done, in that instance, at all events, and it is not my fault that Weldon and Belleville chose to consider themselves slighted because I did not ask their advice.