“My friend,” said Moris Klaw, “I have a daughter whom I have named
Isis. Why did I name her Isis? Mr. Brearley, you must know that that
name has a mystic and beautiful significance. But I will say
something--I am glad that my daughter is not here! Mr.
Brearley--beware! Beware, I say: you play with burning fires; my
friend--beware!”
His words impressed us all immensely; for there was something
underlying them more portentous than appeared upon the surface.
Fairbank stared at Brearley, hard.
“Do I understand,” he began, quietly, “that you admit the first
possibility?”
“Certainly!” replied Brearley, with conviction.
“You are prepared to admit the existence, as an entity, of Isis?”
“I am prepared to admit the existence of _anything_ until it can be
proved not to exist!”
“Then, admitting the existence of Isis, what should you assume it, or
her, to be?”
“That is not a matter for presumption; it is a matter for inquiry!”
The doctor glanced quickly toward Ailsa Brearley, and her beautiful
face was troubled.
“And this inquiry--how should you propose to conduct it?”
“In surroundings as nearly as possible identical with those described
in the papyrus,” replied Brearley, with growing excitement. “I should
follow the ceremony, word by word, as Khamus did!”
His eyes gleamed with pent-up enthusiasm. We four listeners, again
stricken silent, watched him; and again it was the doctor who broke
the silence.
“Is the ceremony spoken?”
“In the first half there is a long prayer, which is chanted.”
“But Egyptian, as a _spoken_ language, is lost, surely?”
“The exact pronunciation, or accent, is lost, of course; but there are
many who can speak it. I can, for instance.”
“And I,” rumbled Moris Klaw, gloomily. “But these special
surroundings? Eh, my friend?”
“I have spent a year in searching for the necessary things, as
specified in the writing. At last my collection is complete. Some of
the things I have had made, in the proper materials mentioned. These
materials, in some cases, have been exceedingly difficult to procure.
But now I have a complete shrine of Isis fitted up! Khamus’s
initiation took place in a small chamber of which he gives a concise
and detailed account. It is because my duplicate of this chamber is
ready that I have asked you to meet me here to-night.”
“How long have you been at work upon this inquiry?” said Fairbank.
He put the question as he might have put one relating to a patient’s
symptoms; and this Brearley detected in his tone, with sudden
resentment.
“Fairbank,” he said, huskily, “I believe you think me insane!”
With his pale, drawn face and long, fair hair, he certainly looked
anything but normal, as he sat with bright, staring eyes fixed upon
the other across the table.
“My dear chap,” replied the doctor, soothingly, “what a strange idea!
My question was prompted by a professional spirit, I will admit, for I
thought you had been sticking to this business too closely. You are
the last man in the world I should expect to go mad, Brearley, but I
should not care to answer for your nerves if you don’t give this Isis
affair a rest.”
Brearley smiled, and waved his hand characteristically. “Excuse me,
Fairbank,” he said, “but to the average person my ideas do seem
fantastic, I know. That is what makes me so touchy on the point, I
suppose.”
“You are hoping for too much from what is at most only a wild
conjecture, Brearley. Your translation of the manuscript, alone, is a
sufficiently notable achievement. If I were in your place, I should
leave the occult business to the psychical societies. ‘Let the
cobbler,’ you know.”
“It has gone too far for that,” returned Brearley, “and I must see it
through, now.”
“You are putting too much into it,” said the doctor, severely. “I want
you to promise me that if nothing results from your final experiment,
you will drop the whole inquiry.”
Brearley frowned thoughtfully.
“Do you really think I am overdoing it?” he asked.
“Sure,” was the answer. “Drop the whole thing for a month or two.”
“That is impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because the ceremony must take place upon the first night of _Panoi_,
the tenth month of the Sacred Sothic year. This we take to correspond
to the April of the Julian year.”
“Yes,” rumbled Moris Klaw, “it is to-night!”
“Why!” I cried, “of course it is! Do you mean, Brearley, that you are
going to conduct your experiment _now?_”
“Exactly,” was the calm reply; “and I have asked you all--Mr. Moris
Klaw in particular--in order that it may take place in the presence of
competent witnesses!”
Moris Klaw shook his massive head and pulled at his scanty, toneless
beard in a very significant manner. All of us were vaguely startled, I
think, and through my mind the idea flashed that the first of April
was a date pathetically appropriate for such an undertaking. Frankly,
I was beginning to entertain serious doubts regarding Brearley’s
sanity.
“I have given the servants a holiday,” said the latter. “They are at a
theatre in town; so there is no possibility of the experiment being
interrupted.”
Something of his enthusiasm, unnatural though it seemed, strangely
enough began to communicate itself to me.
“Come upstairs,” he continued, “and I will explain what we all have to
do.”
Moris Klaw squirted verbena upon his brow.