ANTHROPOMANCY
"There is no one here!"
Sime looked about the place excitedly.
"Fortunately for us!" answered Dr. Cairn.
He breathed rather heavily yet with his exertions, and, moreover, the
air of the chamber was disgusting. But otherwise he was perfectly
calm, although his face was pale and bathed in perspiration.
"Make as little noise as possible."
Sime, who, now that the place proved to be empty, began to cast off
that dread which had possessed him in the passage-way, found something
ominous in the words.
Dr. Cairn, stepping carefully over the rubbish of the floor, advanced
to the east corner of the chamber, waving his companion to follow.
Side by side they stood there.
"Do you notice that the abominable smell of the incense is more
overpowering here than anywhere?"
Sime nodded.
"You are right. What does that mean?"
Dr. Cairn directed the ray of light down behind a little mound of
rubbish into a corner of the wall.
"It means," he said, with a subdued expression of excitement, "that we
have got to crawl in _there_!"
Sime stifled an exclamation.
One of the blocks of the bottom tier was missing, a fact which he had
not detected before by reason of the presence of the mound of rubbish
before the opening.
"Silence again!" whispered Dr. Cairn.
He lay down flat, and, without hesitation, crept into the gap. As his
feet disappeared, Sime followed. Here it was possible to crawl upon
hands and knees. The passage was formed of square stone blocks. It
was but three yards or so in length; then it suddenly turned upward
at a tremendous angle of about one in four. Square foot-holds were cut
in the lower face. The smell of incense was almost unbearable.
Dr. Cairn bent to Sime's ear.
"Not a word, now," he said. "No light--pistol ready!"
He began to mount. Sime, following, counted the steps. When they had
mounted sixty he knew that they must have come close to the top of the
original _mastabah_, and close to the first stage of the pyramid.
Despite the shaft beneath, there was little danger of falling, for one
could lean back against the wall while seeking for the foothold above.
Dr. Cairn mounted very slowly, fearful of striking his head upon some
obstacle. Then on the seventieth step, he found that he could thrust
his foot forward and that no obstruction met his knee. They had
reached a horizontal passage.
Very softly he whispered back to Sime:
"Take my hand. I have reached the top."
They entered the passage. The heavy, sickly sweet odour almost
overpowered them, but, grimly set upon their purpose, they, after one
moment of hesitancy, crept on.
A fitful light rose and fell ahead of them. It gleamed upon the polished
walls of the corridor in which they now found themselves--that
inexplicable light burning in a place which had known no light since the
dim ages of the early Pharaohs!
The events of that incredible night had afforded no such emotion as
this. This was the crowning wonder, and, in its dreadful mystery, the
crowning terror of Méydûm.
When first that lambent light played upon the walls of the passage
both stopped, stricken motionless with fear and amazement. Sime, who
would have been prepared to swear that the Méydûm Pyramid contained no
apartment other than the King's Chamber, now was past mere wonder,
past conjecture. But he could still fear. Dr. Cairn, although he had
anticipated this, temporarily also fell a victim to the supernatural
character of the phenomenon.
They advanced.
They looked into a square chamber of about the same size as the King's
Chamber. In fact, although they did not realise it until later, this
second apartment, no doubt was situated directly above the first.
The only light was that of a fire burning in a tripod, and by means of
this illumination, which rose and fell in a strange manner, it was
possible to perceive the details of the place. But, indeed, at the
moment they were not concerned with these; they had eyes only for the
black-robed figure beside the tripod.
It was that of a man, who stood with his back towards them, and he
chanted monotonously in a tongue unfamiliar to Sime. At certain points
in his chant he would raise his arms in such a way that, clad in the
black robe, he assumed the appearance of a gigantic bat. Each time
that he acted thus the fire in the tripod, as if fanned into new life,
would leap up, casting a hellish glare about the place. Then, as the
chanter dropped his arms again, the flame would drop also.
A cloud of reddish vapour floated low in the apartment. There were a
number of curiously-shaped vessels upon the floor, and against the
farther wall, only rendered visible when the flames leapt high, was
some motionless white object, apparently hung from the roof.
Dr. Cairn drew a hissing breath and grasped Sime's wrist.
"We are too late!" he said strangely.
He spoke at a moment when his companion, peering through the ruddy
gloom of the place, had been endeavouring more clearly to perceive
that ominous shape which hung, horrible, in the shadow. He spoke, too,
at a moment when the man in the black robe, raised his arms--when, as
if obedient to his will, the flames leapt up fitfully.
Although Sime could not be sure of what he saw, the recollection came
to him of words recently spoken by Dr. Cairn. He remembered the story
of Julian the Apostate, Julian the Emperor--the Necromancer. He
remembered what had been found in the Temple of the Moon after
Julian's death. He remembered that Lady Lashmore--
And thereupon he experienced such a nausea that but for the fact that
Dr. Cairn gripped him he must have fallen.
Tutored in a materialistic school, he could not even now admit that
such monstrous things could be. With a necromantic operation taking
place before his eyes; with the unholy perfume of the secret incense
all but suffocating him; with the dreadful Oracle dully gleaming in
the shadows of that temple of evil--his reason would not accept the
evidences. Any man of the ancient world--of the middle ages--would
have known that he looked upon a professed wizard, upon a magician,
who, according to one of the most ancient formulæ known to mankind,
was seeking to question the dead respecting the living.
But how many modern men are there capable of realising such a
circumstance? How many who would accept the statement that such
operations are still performed, not only in the East, but in Europe?
How many who, witnessing this mass of Satan, would accept it for
verity, would not deny the evidence of their very senses?
He could not believe such an orgie of wickedness possible. A Pagan
emperor might have been capable of these things, but to-day--wondrous
is our faith in the virtue of "to-day!"
"Am I mad?" he whispered hoarsely, "or--"
A thinly-veiled shape seemed to float out from that still form in the
shadows; it assumed definite outlines; it became a woman, beautiful
with a beauty that could only be described as awful.
She wore upon her brow the _uraeus_ of Ancient Egyptian royalty; her
sole garment was a robe of finest gauze. Like a cloud, like a vision,
she floated into the light cast by the tripod.
A voice--a voice which seemed to come from a vast distance, from
somewhere outside the mighty granite walls of that unholy
place--spoke. The language was unknown to Sime, but the fierce
hand-grip upon his wrist grew fiercer. That dead tongue, that language
unspoken since the dawn of Christianity, was known to the man who had
been the companion of Sir Michael Ferrara.
In upon Sime swept a swift conviction--that one could not witness such
a scene as this and live and move again amongst one's fellow-men! In a
sort of frenzy, then, he wrenched himself free from the detaining
hand, and launched a retort of modern science against the challenge of
ancient sorcery.
Raising his Browning pistol, he fired--shot after shot--at that
bat-like shape which stood between himself and the tripod!
A thousand frightful echoes filled the chamber with a demon mockery,
boomed along those subterranean passages beneath, and bore the
conflict of sound into the hidden places of the pyramid which had
known not sound for untold generations.
"My God--!"
Vaguely he became aware that Dr. Cairn was seeking to drag him away.
Through a cloud of smoke he saw the black-robed figure turn; dream
fashion, he saw the pallid, glistening face of Antony Ferrara; the
long, evil eyes, alight like the eyes of a serpent, were fixed upon
him. He seemed to stand amid a chaos, in a mad world beyond the
borders of reason, beyond the dominions of God. But to his stupefied
mind one astounding fact found access.
He had fired at least seven shots at the black-robed figure, and it
was not humanly possible that all could have gone wide of their mark.
Yet Antony Ferrara lived!
Utter darkness blotted out the evil vision. Then there was a white
light ahead; and feeling that he was struggling for sanity, Sime
managed to realise that Dr. Cairn, retreating along the passage, was
crying to him, in a voice rising almost to a shriek, to run--run for
his life--for his salvation!
"_You should not have fired_!" he seemed to hear.
Unconscious of any contact with the stones--although afterwards he
found his knees and shins to be bleeding--he was scrambling down that
long, sloping shaft.
He had a vague impression that Dr. Cairn, descending beneath him,
sometimes grasped his ankles and placed his feet into the footholes. A
continuous roaring sound filled his ears, as if a great ocean were
casting its storm waves against the structure around him. The place
seemed to rock.
"Down flat!"
Some sense of reality was returning to him. Now he perceived that Dr.
Cairn was urging him to crawl back along the short passage by which
they had entered from the King's Chamber.
Heedless of hurt, he threw himself down and pressed on.
A blank, like the sleep of exhaustion which follows delirium, came.
Then Sime found himself standing in the King's Chamber, Dr. Cairn, who
held an electric lamp in his hand, beside him, and half supporting
him.
The realities suddenly reasserting themselves,
"I have dropped my pistol!" muttered Sime.
He threw off the supporting arm, and turned to that corner behind the
heap of _débris_ where was the opening through which they had entered
the Satanic temple.
No opening was visible!
"He has closed it!" cried Dr. Cairn. "There are six stone doors
between here and the place above! If he had succeeded in shutting
_one_ of them before we--?"
"My God!" whispered Sime. "Let us get out! I am nearly at the end of
my tether!"
Fear lends wings, and it was with something like the lightness of a
bird that Sime descended the shaft. At the bottom--
"On to my shoulders!" he cried, looking up.
Dr. Cairn lowered himself to the foot of the shaft. "You go first," he
said.
He was gasping, as if nearly suffocated, but retained a wonderful
self-control. Once over into the Borderland, and bravery assumes a new
guise; the courage which can face physical danger undaunted, melts in
the fires of the unknown.
Sime, his breath whistling sibilantly between his clenched teeth,
hauled himself through the low passage, with incredible speed. The two
worked their way arduously, up the long slope. They saw the blue sky
above them....
* * * * *
"Something like a huge bat," said Robert Cairn, "crawled out upon the
first stage. We both fired--"
Dr. Cairn raised his hand. He lay exhausted at the foot of the mound.
"He had lighted the incense," he replied, "and was reciting the secret
ritual. I cannot explain. But your shots were wasted. We came too
late--"
"Lady Lashmore--"
"Until the Pyramid of Méydûm is pulled down, stone by stone, the world
will never know her fate! Sime and I have looked in at the gate of
hell! Only the hand of God plucked us back! Look!"
He pointed to Sime. He lay, pallid, with closed eyes--and his hair was
abundantly streaked with white!