Mr. John Vansittart Smith, F.R.S., of 147-A Gower Street, was a man
whose energy of purpose and clearness of thought might have placed
him in the very first rank of scientific observers. He was the
victim, however, of a universal ambition which prompted him to aim at
distinction in many subjects rather than preeminence in one.
In his early days he had shown an aptitude for zoology and for botany
which caused his friends to look upon him as a second Darwin, but when
a professorship was almost within his reach he had suddenly discontinued
his studies and turned his whole attention to chemistry. Here his
researches upon the spectra of the metals had won him his fellowship in
the Royal Society; but again he played the coquette with his subject,
and after a year’s absence from the laboratory he joined the Oriental
Society, and delivered a paper on the Hieroglyphic and Demotic
inscriptions of El Kab, thus giving a crowning example both of the
versatility and of the inconstancy of his talents.
The most fickle of wooers, however, is apt to be caught at last, and
so it was with John Vansittart Smith. The more he burrowed his way
into Egyptology the more impressed he became by the vast field which it
opened to the inquirer, and by the extreme importance of a subject which
promised to throw a light upon the first germs of human civilisation and
the origin of the greater part of our arts and sciences. So struck was
Mr. Smith that he straightway married an Egyptological young lady who
had written upon the sixth dynasty, and having thus secured a sound
base of operations he set himself to collect materials for a work which
should unite the research of Lepsius and the ingenuity of Champollion.
The preparation of this magnum opus entailed many hurried visits to the
magnificent Egyptian collections of the Louvre, upon the last of which,
no longer ago than the middle of last October, he became involved in a
most strange and noteworthy adventure.
The trains had been slow and the Channel had been rough, so that the
student arrived in Paris in a somewhat befogged and feverish condition.
On reaching the Hotel de France, in the Rue Laffitte, he had thrown
himself upon a sofa for a couple of hours, but finding that he was
unable to sleep, he determined, in spite of his fatigue, to make his way
to the Louvre, settle the point which he had come to decide, and take
the evening train back to Dieppe. Having come to this conclusion, he
donned his greatcoat, for it was a raw rainy day, and made his way
across the Boulevard des Italiens and down the Avenue de l’Opera. Once
in the Louvre he was on familiar ground, and he speedily made his way to
the collection of papyri which it was his intention to consult.
The warmest admirers of John Vansittart Smith could hardly claim for him
that he was a handsome man. His high-beaked nose and prominent chin had
something of the same acute and incisive character which distinguished
his intellect. He held his head in a birdlike fashion, and birdlike,
too, was the pecking motion with which, in conversation, he threw out
his objections and retorts. As he stood, with the high collar of his
greatcoat raised to his ears, he might have seen from the reflection in
the glass-case before him that his appearance was a singular one. Yet it
came upon him as a sudden jar when an English voice behind him exclaimed
in very audible tones, “What a queer-looking mortal!”
The student had a large amount of petty vanity in his composition which
manifested itself by an ostentatious and overdone disregard of all
personal considerations. He straightened his lips and looked rigidly at
the roll of papyrus, while his heart filled with bitterness against the
whole race of travelling Britons.
“Yes,” said another voice, “he really is an extraordinary fellow.”
“Do you know,” said the first speaker, “one could almost believe that by
the continual contemplation of mummies the chap has become half a mummy
himself?”
“He has certainly an Egyptian cast of countenance,” said the other.
John Vansittart Smith spun round upon his heel with the intention of
shaming his countrymen by a corrosive remark or two. To his surprise
and relief, the two young fellows who had been conversing had their
shoulders turned towards him, and were gazing at one of the Louvre
attendants who was polishing some brass-work at the other side of the
room.
“Carter will be waiting for us at the Palais Royal,” said one tourist to
the other, glancing at his watch, and they clattered away, leaving the
student to his labours.
“I wonder what these chatterers call an Egyptian cast of countenance,”
thought John Vansittart Smith, and he moved his position slightly in
order to catch a glimpse of the man’s face. He started as his eyes fell
upon it. It was indeed the very face with which his studies had made
him familiar. The regular statuesque features, broad brow, well-rounded
chin, and dusky complexion were the exact counterpart of the innumerable
statues, mummy-cases, and pictures which adorned the walls of the
apartment.
The thing was beyond all coincidence. The man must be an Egyptian.
The national angularity of the shoulders and narrowness of the hips were
alone sufficient to identify him.
John Vansittart Smith shuffled towards the attendant with some intention
of addressing him. He was not light of touch in conversation, and found
it difficult to strike the happy mean between the brusqueness of the
superior and the geniality of the equal. As he came nearer, the man
presented his side face to him, but kept his gaze still bent upon his
work. Vansittart Smith, fixing his eyes upon the fellow’s skin, was
conscious of a sudden impression that there was something inhuman and
preternatural about its appearance. Over the temple and cheek-bone
it was as glazed and as shiny as varnished parchment. There was no
suggestion of pores. One could not fancy a drop of moisture upon that
arid surface. From brow to chin, however, it was cross-hatched by a
million delicate wrinkles, which shot and interlaced as though Nature
in some Maori mood had tried how wild and intricate a pattern she could
devise.
“Ou est la collection de Memphis?” asked the student, with the awkward
air of a man who is devising a question merely for the purpose of
opening a conversation.
“C’est la,” replied the man brusquely, nodding his head at the other
side of the room.
“Vous etes un Egyptien, n’est-ce pas?” asked the Englishman.
The attendant looked up and turned his strange dark eyes upon his
questioner. They were vitreous, with a misty dry shininess, such as
Smith had never seen in a human head before. As he gazed into them he
saw some strong emotion gather in their depths, which rose and deepened
until it broke into a look of something akin both to horror and to
hatred.
“Non, monsieur; je suis Francais.” The man turned abruptly and bent
low over his polishing. The student gazed at him for a moment in
astonishment, and then turning to a chair in a retired corner behind
one of the doors he proceeded to make notes of his researches among
the papyri. His thoughts, however refused to return into their
natural groove. They would run upon the enigmatical attendant with the
sphinx-like face and the parchment skin.
“Where have I seen such eyes?” said Vansittart Smith to himself. “There
is something saurian about them, something reptilian. There’s the
membrana nictitans of the snakes,” he mused, bethinking himself of his
zoological studies. “It gives a shiny effect. But there was something
more here. There was a sense of power, of wisdom--so I read them--and
of weariness, utter weariness, and ineffable despair. It may be all
imagination, but I never had so strong an impression. By Jove, I must
have another look at them!” He rose and paced round the Egyptian rooms,
but the man who had excited his curiosity had disappeared.
The student sat down again in his quiet corner, and continued to work
at his notes. He had gained the information which he required from the
papyri, and it only remained to write it down while it was still fresh
in his memory. For a time his pencil travelled rapidly over the paper,
but soon the lines became less level, the words more blurred, and
finally the pencil tinkled down upon the floor, and the head of the
student dropped heavily forward upon his chest.
Tired out by his journey, he slept so soundly in his lonely post behind
the door that neither the clanking civil guard, nor the footsteps of
sightseers, nor even the loud hoarse bell which gives the signal for
closing, were sufficient to arouse him.
Twilight deepened into darkness, the bustle from the Rue de Rivoli waxed
and then waned, distant Notre Dame clanged out the hour of midnight, and
still the dark and lonely figure sat silently in the shadow. It was
not until close upon one in the morning that, with a sudden gasp and an
intaking of the breath, Vansittart Smith returned to consciousness.
For a moment it flashed upon him that he had dropped asleep in
his study-chair at home. The moon was shining fitfully through the
unshuttered window, however, and, as his eye ran along the lines of
mummies and the endless array of polished cases, he remembered clearly
where he was and how he came there. The student was not a nervous man.
He possessed that love of a novel situation which is peculiar to his
race. Stretching out his cramped limbs, he looked at his watch, and
burst into a chuckle as he observed the hour. The episode would make an
admirable anecdote to be introduced into his next paper as a relief
to the graver and heavier speculations. He was a little cold, but
wide awake and much refreshed. It was no wonder that the guardians had
overlooked him, for the door threw its heavy black shadow right across
him.
The complete silence was impressive. Neither outside nor inside was
there a creak or a murmur. He was alone with the dead men of a dead
civilisation. What though the outer city reeked of the garish nineteenth
century! In all this chamber there was scarce an article, from the
shrivelled ear of wheat to the pigment-box of the painter, which had
not held its own against four thousand years. Here was the flotsam and
jetsam washed up by the great ocean of time from that far-off empire.
From stately Thebes, from lordly Luxor, from the great temples of
Heliopolis, from a hundred rifled tombs, these relics had been brought.
The student glanced round at the long silent figures who flickered
vaguely up through the gloom, at the busy toilers who were now so
restful, and he fell into a reverent and thoughtful mood. An unwonted
sense of his own youth and insignificance came over him. Leaning back in
his chair, he gazed dreamily down the long vista of rooms, all
silvery with the moonshine, which extend through the whole wing of the
widespread building. His eyes fell upon the yellow glare of a distant
lamp.
John Vansittart Smith sat up on his chair with his nerves all on edge.
The light was advancing slowly towards him, pausing from time to time,
and then coming jerkily onwards. The bearer moved noiselessly. In the
utter silence there was no suspicion of the pat of a footfall. An idea
of robbers entered the Englishman’s head. He snuggled up further into
the corner. The light was two rooms off. Now it was in the next chamber,
and still there was no sound. With something approaching to a thrill of
fear the student observed a face, floating in the air as it were, behind
the flare of the lamp. The figure was wrapped in shadow, but the light
fell full upon the strange eager face. There was no mistaking the
metallic glistening eyes and the cadaverous skin. It was the attendant
with whom he had conversed.
Vansittart Smith’s first impulse was to come forward and address him. A
few words of explanation would set the matter clear, and lead doubtless
to his being conducted to some side door from which he might make his
way to his hotel. As the man entered the chamber, however, there
was something so stealthy in his movements, and so furtive in his
expression, that the Englishman altered his intention. This was clearly
no ordinary official walking the rounds. The fellow wore felt-soled
slippers, stepped with a rising chest, and glanced quickly from left
to right, while his hurried gasping breathing thrilled the flame of
his lamp. Vansittart Smith crouched silently back into the corner and
watched him keenly, convinced that his errand was one of secret and
probably sinister import.
There was no hesitation in the other’s movements. He stepped lightly and
swiftly across to one of the great cases, and, drawing a key from his
pocket, he unlocked it. From the upper shelf he pulled down a mummy,
which he bore away with him, and laid it with much care and solicitude
upon the ground. By it he placed his lamp, and then squatting down
beside it in Eastern fashion he began with long quivering fingers to
undo the cerecloths and bandages which girt it round. As the crackling
rolls of linen peeled off one after the other, a strong aromatic odour
filled the chamber, and fragments of scented wood and of spices pattered
down upon the marble floor.
It was clear to John Vansittart Smith that this mummy had never been
unswathed before. The operation interested him keenly. He thrilled all
over with curiosity, and his birdlike head protruded further and further
from behind the door. When, however, the last roll had been removed from
the four-thousand-year-old head, it was all that he could do to stifle
an outcry of amazement. First, a cascade of long, black, glossy tresses
poured over the workman’s hands and arms. A second turn of the bandage
revealed a low, white forehead, with a pair of delicately arched
eyebrows. A third uncovered a pair of bright, deeply fringed eyes, and
a straight, well-cut nose, while a fourth and last showed a sweet, full,
sensitive mouth, and a beautifully curved chin. The whole face was one
of extraordinary loveliness, save for the one blemish that in the centre
of the forehead there was a single irregular, coffee-coloured splotch.
It was a triumph of the embalmer’s art. Vansittart Smith’s eyes grew
larger and larger as he gazed upon it, and he chirruped in his throat
with satisfaction.
Its effect upon the Egyptologist was as nothing, however, compared with
that which it produced upon the strange attendant. He threw his hands
up into the air, burst into a harsh clatter of words, and then, hurling
himself down upon the ground beside the mummy, he threw his arms round
her, and kissed her repeatedly upon the lips and brow. “Ma petite!” he
groaned in French. “Ma pauvre petite!” His voice broke with emotion, and
his innumerable wrinkles quivered and writhed, but the student observed
in the lamplight that his shining eyes were still as dry and tearless
as two beads of steel. For some minutes he lay, with a twitching face,
crooning and moaning over the beautiful head. Then he broke into a
sudden smile, said some words in an unknown tongue, and sprang to his
feet with the vigorous air of one who has braced himself for an effort.
In the centre of the room there was a large circular case which
contained, as the student had frequently remarked, a magnificent
collection of early Egyptian rings and precious stones. To this the
attendant strode, and, unlocking it, he threw it open. On the ledge at
the side he placed his lamp, and beside it a small earthenware jar which
he had drawn from his pocket. He then took a handful of rings from the
case, and with a most serious and anxious face he proceeded to smear
each in turn with some liquid substance from the earthen pot, holding
them to the light as he did so. He was clearly disappointed with the
first lot, for he threw them petulantly back into the case, and drew out
some more. One of these, a massive ring with a large crystal set in it,
he seized and eagerly tested with the contents of the jar. Instantly
he uttered a cry of joy, and threw out his arms in a wild gesture which
upset the pot and sent the liquid streaming across the floor to the very
feet of the Englishman. The attendant drew a red handkerchief from his
bosom, and, mopping up the mess, he followed it into the corner, where
in a moment he found himself face to face with his observer.
“Excuse me,” said John Vansittart Smith, with all imaginable politeness;
“I have been unfortunate enough to fall asleep behind this door.”
“And you have been watching me?” the other asked in English, with a most
venomous look on his corpse-like face.
The student was a man of veracity. “I confess,” said he, “that I have
noticed your movements, and that they have aroused my curiosity and
interest in the highest degree.”
The man drew a long flamboyant-bladed knife from his bosom. “You have
had a very narrow escape,” he said; “had I seen you ten minutes ago, I
should have driven this through your heart. As it is, if you touch me or
interfere with me in any way you are a dead man.”
“I have no wish to interfere with you,” the student answered. “My
presence here is entirely accidental. All I ask is that you will have
the extreme kindness to show me out through some side door.” He spoke
with great suavity, for the man was still pressing the tip of his dagger
against the palm of his left hand, as though to assure himself of its
sharpness, while his face preserved its malignant expression.
“If I thought----” said he. “But no, perhaps it is as well. What is your
name?”
The Englishman gave it.
“Vansittart Smith,” the other repeated. “Are you the same Vansittart
Smith who gave a paper in London upon El Kab? I saw a report of it. Your
knowledge of the subject is contemptible.”
“Sir!” cried the Egyptologist.
“Yet it is superior to that of many who make even greater pretensions.
The whole keystone of our old life in Egypt was not the inscriptions or
monuments of which you make so much, but was our hermetic philosophy and
mystic knowledge, of which you say little or nothing.”
“Our old life!” repeated the scholar, wide-eyed; and then suddenly,
“Good God, look at the mummy’s face!”
The strange man turned and flashed his light upon the dead woman,
uttering a long doleful cry as he did so. The action of the air had
already undone all the art of the embalmer. The skin had fallen away,
the eyes had sunk inwards, the discoloured lips had writhed away from
the yellow teeth, and the brown mark upon the forehead alone showed that
it was indeed the same face which had shown such youth and beauty a few
short minutes before.
The man flapped his hands together in grief and horror. Then mastering
himself by a strong effort he turned his hard eyes once more upon the
Englishman.
“It does not matter,” he said, in a shaking voice. “It does not
really matter. I came here to-night with the fixed determination to
do something. It is now done. All else is as nothing. I have found my
quest. The old curse is broken. I can rejoin her. What matter about her
inanimate shell so long as her spirit is awaiting me at the other side
of the veil!”
“These are wild words,” said Vansittart Smith. He was becoming more and
more convinced that he had to do with a madman.
“Time presses, and I must go,” continued the other. “The moment is at
hand for which I have waited this weary time. But I must show you out
first. Come with me.”
Taking up the lamp, he turned from the disordered chamber, and led the
student swiftly through the long series of the Egyptian, Assyrian, and
Persian apartments. At the end of the latter he pushed open a small door
let into the wall and descended a winding stone stair. The Englishman
felt the cold fresh air of the night upon his brow. There was a door
opposite him which appeared to communicate with the street. To the right
of this another door stood ajar, throwing a spurt of yellow light across
the passage. “Come in here!” said the attendant shortly.
Vansittart Smith hesitated. He had hoped that he had come to the end
of his adventure. Yet his curiosity was strong within him. He could not
leave the matter unsolved, so he followed his strange companion into the
lighted chamber.
It was a small room, such as is devoted to a concierge. A wood fire
sparkled in the grate. At one side stood a truckle bed, and at the other
a coarse wooden chair, with a round table in the centre, which bore the
remains of a meal. As the visitor’s eye glanced round he could not but
remark with an ever-recurring thrill that all the small details of
the room were of the most quaint design and antique workmanship. The
candlesticks, the vases upon the chimney-piece, the fire-irons, the
ornaments upon the walls, were all such as he had been wont to associate
with the remote past. The gnarled heavy-eyed man sat himself down upon
the edge of the bed, and motioned his guest into the chair.
“There may be design in this,” he said, still speaking excellent
English. “It may be decreed that I should leave some account behind as a
warning to all rash mortals who would set their wits up against workings
of Nature. I leave it with you. Make such use as you will of it. I speak
to you now with my feet upon the threshold of the other world.
“I am, as you surmised, an Egyptian--not one of the down-trodden race
of slaves who now inhabit the Delta of the Nile, but a survivor of that
fiercer and harder people who tamed the Hebrew, drove the Ethiopian back
into the southern deserts, and built those mighty works which have been
the envy and the wonder of all after generations. It was in the reign
of Tuthmosis, sixteen hundred years before the birth of Christ, that
I first saw the light. You shrink away from me. Wait, and you will see
that I am more to be pitied than to be feared.
“My name was Sosra. My father had been the chief priest of Osiris in
the great temple of Abaris, which stood in those days upon the Bubastic
branch of the Nile. I was brought up in the temple and was trained in
all those mystic arts which are spoken of in your own Bible. I was
an apt pupil. Before I was sixteen I had learned all which the wisest
priest could teach me. From that time on I studied Nature’s secrets for
myself, and shared my knowledge with no man.
“Of all the questions which attracted me there were none over which I
laboured so long as over those which concern themselves with the nature
of life. I probed deeply into the vital principle. The aim of medicine
had been to drive away disease when it appeared. It seemed to me that a
method might be devised which should so fortify the body as to prevent
weakness or death from ever taking hold of it. It is useless that I
should recount my researches. You would scarce comprehend them if I
did. They were carried out partly upon animals, partly upon slaves, and
partly on myself. Suffice it that their result was to furnish me with a
substance which, when injected into the blood, would endow the body with
strength to resist the effects of time, of violence, or of disease. It
would not indeed confer immortality, but its potency would endure for
many thousands of years. I used it upon a cat, and afterwards drugged
the creature with the most deadly poisons. That cat is alive in Lower
Egypt at the present moment. There was nothing of mystery or magic in
the matter. It was simply a chemical discovery, which may well be made
again.
“Love of life runs high in the young. It seemed to me that I had broken
away from all human care now that I had abolished pain and driven death
to such a distance. With a light heart I poured the accursed stuff into
my veins. Then I looked round for some one whom I could benefit. There
was a young priest of Thoth, Parmes by name, who had won my goodwill by
his earnest nature and his devotion to his studies. To him I whispered
my secret, and at his request I injected him with my elixir. I should
now, I reflected, never be without a companion of the same age as
myself.
“After this grand discovery I relaxed my studies to some extent, but
Parmes continued his with redoubled energy. Every day I could see him
working with his flasks and his distiller in the Temple of Thoth, but
he said little to me as to the result of his labours. For my own part,
I used to walk through the city and look around me with exultation as
I reflected that all this was destined to pass away, and that only I
should remain. The people would bow to me as they passed me, for the
fame of my knowledge had gone abroad.
“There was war at this time, and the Great King had sent down his
soldiers to the eastern boundary to drive away the Hyksos. A Governor,
too, was sent to Abaris, that he might hold it for the King. I had heard
much of the beauty of the daughter of this Governor, but one day as
I walked out with Parmes we met her, borne upon the shoulders of her
slaves. I was struck with love as with lightning. My heart went out from
me. I could have thrown myself beneath the feet of her bearers. This was
my woman. Life without her was impossible. I swore by the head of Horus
that she should be mine. I swore it to the Priest of Thoth. He turned
away from me with a brow which was as black as midnight.
“There is no need to tell you of our wooing. She came to love me even
as I loved her. I learned that Parmes had seen her before I did, and had
shown her that he too loved her, but I could smile at his passion, for
I knew that her heart was mine. The white plague had come upon the city
and many were stricken, but I laid my hands upon the sick and nursed
them without fear or scathe. She marvelled at my daring. Then I told her
my secret, and begged her that she would let me use my art upon her.
“‘Your flower shall then be unwithered, Atma,’ I said. ‘Other things
may pass away, but you and I, and our great love for each other, shall
outlive the tomb of King Chefru.’
“But she was full of timid, maidenly objections. ‘Was it right?’ she
asked, ‘was it not a thwarting of the will of the gods? If the great
Osiris had wished that our years should be so long, would he not himself
have brought it about?’
“With fond and loving words I overcame her doubts, and yet she
hesitated. It was a great question, she said. She would think it over
for this one night. In the morning I should know her resolution. Surely
one night was not too much to ask. She wished to pray to Isis for help
in her decision.
“With a sinking heart and a sad foreboding of evil I left her with her
tirewomen. In the morning, when the early sacrifice was over, I hurried
to her house. A frightened slave met me upon the steps. Her mistress
was ill, she said, very ill. In a frenzy I broke my way through the
attendants, and rushed through hall and corridor to my Atma’s chamber.
She lay upon her couch, her head high upon the pillow, with a pallid
face and a glazed eye. On her forehead there blazed a single angry
purple patch. I knew that hell-mark of old. It was the scar of the white
plague, the sign-manual of death.
“Why should I speak of that terrible time? For months I was mad,
fevered, delirious, and yet I could not die. Never did an Arab thirst
after the sweet wells as I longed after death. Could poison or steel
have shortened the thread of my existence, I should soon have rejoined
my love in the land with the narrow portal. I tried, but it was of no
avail. The accursed influence was too strong upon me. One night as I lay
upon my couch, weak and weary, Parmes, the priest of Thoth, came to my
chamber. He stood in the circle of the lamplight, and he looked down
upon me with eyes which were bright with a mad joy.
“‘Why did you let the maiden die?’ he asked; ‘why did you not strengthen
her as you strengthened me?’
“‘I was too late,’ I answered. ‘But I had forgot. You also loved her.
You are my fellow in misfortune. Is it not terrible to think of the
centuries which must pass ere we look upon her again? Fools, fools, that
we were to take death to be our enemy!’
“‘You may say that,’ he cried with a wild laugh; ‘the words come well
from your lips. For me they have no meaning.’
“‘What mean you?’ I cried, raising myself upon my elbow. ‘Surely,
friend, this grief has turned your brain.’ His face was aflame with joy,
and he writhed and shook like one who hath a devil.
“‘Do you know whither I go?’ he asked.
“‘Nay,’ I answered, ‘I cannot tell.’
“‘I go to her,’ said he. ‘She lies embalmed in the further tomb by the
double palm-tree beyond the city wall.’
“‘Why do you go there?’ I asked.
“‘To die!’ he shrieked, ‘to die! I am not bound by earthen fetters.’
“‘But the elixir is in your blood,’ I cried.
“‘I can defy it,’ said he; ‘I have found a stronger principle which will
destroy it. It is working in my veins at this moment, and in an hour I
shall be a dead man. I shall join her, and you shall remain behind.’
“As I looked upon him I could see that he spoke words of truth. The
light in his eye told me that he was indeed beyond the power of the
elixir.
“‘You will teach me!’ I cried.
“‘Never!’ he answered.
“‘I implore you, by the wisdom of Thoth, by the majesty of Anubis!’
“‘It is useless,’ he said coldly.
“‘Then I will find it out,’ I cried.
“‘You cannot,’ he answered; ‘it came to me by chance. There is one
ingredient which you can never get. Save that which is in the ring of
Thoth, none will ever more be made.
“‘In the ring of Thoth!’ I repeated; ‘where then is the ring of Thoth?’
“‘That also you shall never know,’ he answered. ‘You won her love.
Who has won in the end? I leave you to your sordid earth life. My
chains are broken. I must go!’ He turned upon his heel and fled from the
chamber. In the morning came the news that the Priest of Thoth was dead.
“My days after that were spent in study. I must find this subtle poison
which was strong enough to undo the elixir. From early dawn to midnight
I bent over the test-tube and the furnace. Above all, I collected the
papyri and the chemical flasks of the Priest of Thoth. Alas! they taught
me little. Here and there some hint or stray expression would raise hope
in my bosom, but no good ever came of it. Still, month after month, I
struggled on. When my heart grew faint I would make my way to the tomb
by the palm-trees. There, standing by the dead casket from which the
jewel had been rifled, I would feel her sweet presence, and would
whisper to her that I would rejoin her if mortal wit could solve the
riddle.
“Parmes had said that his discovery was connected with the ring of
Thoth. I had some remembrance of the trinket. It was a large and weighty
circlet, made, not of gold, but of a rarer and heavier metal brought
from the mines of Mount Harbal. Platinum, you call it. The ring had,
I remembered, a hollow crystal set in it, in which some few drops of
liquid might be stored. Now, the secret of Parmes could not have to do
with the metal alone, for there were many rings of that metal in the
Temple. Was it not more likely that he had stored his precious poison
within the cavity of the crystal? I had scarce come to this conclusion
before, in hunting through his papers, I came upon one which told me
that it was indeed so, and that there was still some of the liquid
unused.
“But how to find the ring? It was not upon him when he was stripped
for the embalmer. Of that I made sure. Neither was it among his private
effects. In vain I searched every room that he had entered, every box,
and vase, and chattel that he had owned. I sifted the very sand of the
desert in the places where he had been wont to walk; but, do what I
would, I could come upon no traces of the ring of Thoth. Yet it may be
that my labours would have overcome all obstacles had it not been for a
new and unlooked-for misfortune.
“A great war had been waged against the Hyksos, and the Captains of the
Great King had been cut off in the desert, with all their bowmen and
horsemen. The shepherd tribes were upon us like the locusts in a dry
year. From the wilderness of Shur to the great bitter lake there was
blood by day and fire by night. Abaris was the bulwark of Egypt, but
we could not keep the savages back. The city fell. The Governor and the
soldiers were put to the sword, and I, with many more, was led away into
captivity.
“For years and years I tended cattle in the great plains by the
Euphrates. My master died, and his son grew old, but I was still as far
from death as ever. At last I escaped upon a swift camel, and made my
way back to Egypt. The Hyksos had settled in the land which they had
conquered, and their own King ruled over the country. Abaris had been
torn down, the city had been burned, and of the great Temple there was
nothing left save an unsightly mound. Everywhere the tombs had been
rifled and the monuments destroyed. Of my Atma’s grave no sign was
left. It was buried in the sands of the desert, and the palm-trees
which marked the spot had long disappeared. The papers of Parmes and the
remains of the Temple of Thoth were either destroyed or scattered far
and wide over the deserts of Syria. All search after them was vain.
“From that time I gave up all hope of ever finding the ring or
discovering the subtle drug. I set myself to live as patiently as
might be until the effect of the elixir should wear away. How can you
understand how terrible a thing time is, you who have experience only of
the narrow course which lies between the cradle and the grave! I know it
to my cost, I who have floated down the whole stream of history. I was
old when Ilium fell. I was very old when Herodotus came to Memphis. I
was bowed down with years when the new gospel came upon earth. Yet you
see me much as other men are, with the cursed elixir still sweetening my
blood, and guarding me against that which I would court. Now at last, at
last I have come to the end of it!
“I have travelled in all lands and I have dwelt with all nations. Every
tongue is the same to me. I learned them all to help pass the weary
time. I need not tell you how slowly they drifted by, the long dawn
of modern civilisation, the dreary middle years, the dark times of
barbarism. They are all behind me now, I have never looked with the eyes
of love upon another woman. Atma knows that I have been constant to her.
“It was my custom to read all that the scholars had to say upon Ancient
Egypt. I have been in many positions, sometimes affluent, sometimes
poor, but I have always found enough to enable me to buy the journals
which deal with such matters. Some nine months ago I was in San
Francisco, when I read an account of some discoveries made in the
neighbourhood of Abaris. My heart leapt into my mouth as I read it.
It said that the excavator had busied himself in exploring some tombs
recently unearthed. In one there had been found an unopened mummy with
an inscription upon the outer case setting forth that it contained
the body of the daughter of the Governor of the city in the days of
Tuthmosis. It added that on removing the outer case there had been
exposed a large platinum ring set with a crystal, which had been laid
upon the breast of the embalmed woman. This, then was where Parmes
had hid the ring of Thoth. He might well say that it was safe, for no
Egyptian would ever stain his soul by moving even the outer case of a
buried friend.
“That very night I set off from San Francisco, and in a few weeks I
found myself once more at Abaris, if a few sand-heaps and crumbling
walls may retain the name of the great city. I hurried to the Frenchmen
who were digging there and asked them for the ring. They replied that
both the ring and the mummy had been sent to the Boulak Museum at Cairo.
To Boulak I went, but only to be told that Mariette Bey had claimed them
and had shipped them to the Louvre. I followed them, and there at last,
in the Egyptian chamber, I came, after close upon four thousand years,
upon the remains of my Atma, and upon the ring for which I had sought so
long.
“But how was I to lay hands upon them? How was I to have them for my
very own? It chanced that the office of attendant was vacant. I went
to the Director. I convinced him that I knew much about Egypt. In my
eagerness I said too much. He remarked that a Professor’s chair would
suit me better than a seat in the Conciergerie. I knew more, he said,
than he did. It was only by blundering, and letting him think that he
had over-estimated my knowledge, that I prevailed upon him to let me
move the few effects which I have retained into this chamber. It is my
first and my last night here.
“Such is my story, Mr. Vansittart Smith. I need not say more to a man of
your perception. By a strange chance you have this night looked upon the
face of the woman whom I loved in those far-off days. There were many
rings with crystals in the case, and I had to test for the platinum to
be sure of the one which I wanted. A glance at the crystal has shown me
that the liquid is indeed within it, and that I shall at last be able
to shake off that accursed health which has been worse to me than the
foulest disease. I have nothing more to say to you. I have unburdened
myself. You may tell my story or you may withhold it at your pleasure.
The choice rests with you. I owe you some amends, for you have had a
narrow escape of your life this night. I was a desperate man, and not
to be baulked in my purpose. Had I seen you before the thing was done,
I might have put it beyond your power to oppose me or to raise an alarm.
This is the door. It leads into the Rue de Rivoli. Good night!”
The Englishman glanced back. For a moment the lean figure of Sosra
the Egyptian stood framed in the narrow doorway. The next the door had
slammed, and the heavy rasping of a bolt broke on the silent night.
It was on the second day after his return to London that Mr. John
Vansittart Smith saw the following concise narrative in the Paris
correspondence of the Times:--
“Curious Occurrence in the Louvre.--Yesterday morning a strange
discovery was made in the principal Egyptian Chamber. The ouvriers who
are employed to clean out the rooms in the morning found one of the
attendants lying dead upon the floor with his arms round one of the
mummies. So close was his embrace that it was only with the utmost
difficulty that they were separated. One of the cases containing
valuable rings had been opened and rifled. The authorities are of
opinion that the man was bearing away the mummy with some idea of
selling it to a private collector, but that he was struck down in the
very act by long-standing disease of the heart. It is said that he was a
man of uncertain age and eccentric habits, without any living relations
to mourn over his dramatic and untimely end.”