The Mummy MEGAPACK ®: 20 Modern and Classic Tales by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: short stories, anthology
Publisher: Wildside Press
Published: 2011-07-24T16:00:00+00:00

“Cast down every man your rod as you whisper the magic word.”

The rods fell together with a sharp sound upon the stone slabs, and the wise men resumed their perpendicular attitude like the statues placed against the pillars of the tombs. They did not even deign to look at their feet to see if the miracle were being wrought, so sure were they of the power of their formula.

And then was seen a strange and horrible sight. The rods twisted like branches of green wood in the fire, the ends flattened out into the shape of heads, thinned out into the shape of tails. Some remained smooth, others became scaly, according to the kind of serpent. All these swarmed and crawled and hissed, interlaced and knotted into hideous knots. There were vipers bearing the mark of the spearhead upon their low brows, horned snakes with menacing protuberances, greenish, viscous hydras, asps with movable fangs, yellow trigonocephalæ, orvets or blind serpents, crotalidæ with short heads, black skins, and rattles on their tails, amphisbena, which can glide forward or backward, boas opening mouths wide enough to swallow an ox, serpents with eyes surrounded with discs like those of owls;—the pavement of the hall was covered with them.

Tahoser, who shared the throne of the Pharaoh, raised her beautiful bare feet and pulled them back under her, pale with terror.

“Well,” said the Pharaoh to Mosche, “you see that the skill of my magicians equals, and even surpasses yours; their rods have turned into serpents like that of Aharon. Invent another prodigy if you seek to convince me.”

Mosche stretched forth his hand, and Aharon’s serpent glided towards the twenty-four reptiles. The struggle was not long; it soon had swallowed the hideous things, real or seeming creations of the wise men of Egypt. Then it resumed its former wand shape.

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