He set the flagon down, and as he raised the goblet to his lips, he heard his own voice saying in the ancient language of Khem: "As was, and is, and ever shall be; ever, yet never--never, yet ever.
Nitocris the Queen, in the name of Nebzec I greet thee! From thy hands I take the gift of the Perfect Knowledge!" As he drained the goblet he turned towards the mummy-case.

It might have been fancy, it might have been the effect of that miraculous old wine of Cos which, if he had really drunk it, must now be more than thirty centuries old: it might have been the result of the hard thinking that he had been doing now for several days and half-nights; but he certainly thought that the Queen's head suddenly became endowed with life, that the eyes opened, and the grey of the parchment skin softened into a delicate olive tinge with a faint rosy blush showing through it.

The brown, shrivelled lips seemed to fill out, grow red, and smile.

The eyelids lifted, and the eyes of the Nitocris of old looked down on him for a moment.

He shook his head and looked, and there was the Mummy just as it had been when he opened the case.
"Really, this is strange, almost to the point of bewilderment," he went on.