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 of 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 place 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 Eastern 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.”
VIII
THE LOS AMIGOS FIASCO
I used to be the leading practitioner of Los Amigos. Of course, every
one has heard of the great electrical generating gear there. The town is
wide spread, and there are dozens of little townlets and villages all
around, which receive their supply from the same centre, so that the
works are on a very large scale. The Los Amigos folk say that they are
the largest upon earth, but then we claim that for everything in Los
Amigos except the gaol and the death-rate. Those are said to be the
smallest.
Now, with so fine an electrical supply, it seemed to be a sinful waste
of hemp that the Los Amigos criminals should perish in the old-fashioned
manner. And then came the news of the electrocutions in the East, and
how the results had not after all been so instantaneous as had been
hoped. The Western engineers raised their eyebrows when they read of the
puny shocks by which these men had perished, and they vowed in Los
Amigos that when an irreclaimable came their way he should be dealt
handsomely by, and have the run of all the big dynamos. There should be
no reserve, said the engineers, but he should have all that they had
got. And what the result of that would be none could predict, save that
it must be absolutely blasting and deadly. Never before had a man been
so charged with electricity as they would charge him. He was to be
smitten by the essence of ten thunderbolts. Some prophesied combustion,
and some disintegration and disappearance. They were waiting eagerly to
settle the question by actual demonstration, and it was just at that
moment that Duncan Warner came that way.
Warner had been wanted by the law, and by nobody else, for many years.
Desperado, murderer, train robber, and road agent, he was a man beyond
the pale of human pity. He had deserved a dozen deaths, and the Los
Amigos folk grudged him so gaudy a one as that. He seemed to feel
himself to be unworthy of it, for he made two frenzied attempts at
escape. He was a powerful, muscular man, with a lion heart, tangled
black locks, and a sweeping beard which covered his broad chest. When he
was tried, there was no finer head in all the crowded court. It’s no new
thing to find the best face looking from the dock. But his good looks
could not balance his bad deeds. His advocate did all he knew, but the
cards lay against him, and Duncan Warner was handed over to the mercy of
the big Los Amigos dynamos.
I was there at the committee meeting when the matter was discussed. The
town council had chosen four experts to look after the arrangements.
Three of them were admirable. There was Joseph M’Connor, the very man
who had designed the dynamos, and there was Joshua Westmacott, the
chairman of the Los Amigos Electrical Supply Company, Limited. Then
there was myself as the chief medical man, and lastly an old German of
the name of Peter Stulpnagel. The Germans were a strong body at Los
Amigos, and they all voted for their man. That was how he got on the
committee. It was said that he had been a wonderful electrician at
home, and he was eternally working with wires and insulators and Leyden
jars; but, as he never seemed to get any further, or to have any results
worth publishing, he came at last to be regarded as a harmless crank,
who had made science his hobby. We three practical men smiled when we
heard that he had been elected as our colleague, and at the meeting we
fixed it all up very nicely among ourselves without much thought of the
old fellow who sat with his ears scooped forward in his hands, for he
was a trifle hard of hearing, taking no more part in the proceedings
than the gentlemen of the press who scribbled their notes on the back
benches.
We did not take long to settle it all. In New York a strength of some
two thousand volts had been used, and death had not been instantaneous.
Evidently their shock had been too weak. Los Amigos should not fall into
that error. The charge should be six times greater, and therefore, of
course, it would be six times more effective. Nothing could possibly be
more logical. The whole concentrated force of the great dynamos should
be employed on Duncan Warner.
So we three settled it, and had already risen to break up the meeting,
when our silent companion opened his mouth for the first time.
“Gentlemen,” said he, “you appear to me to show an extraordinary
ignorance upon the subject of electricity. You have not mastered the
first principles of its actions upon a human being.”
The committee was about to break into an angry reply to this brusque
comment, but the chairman of the Electrical Company tapped his forehead
to claim its indulgence for the crankiness of the speaker.
“Pray tell us, sir,” said he, with an ironical smile, “what is there in
our conclusions with which you find fault?”
“With your assumption that a large dose of electricity will merely
increase the effect of a small dose. Do you not think it possible that
it might have an entirely different result? Do you know anything, by
actual experiment, of the effect of such powerful shocks?”
“We know it by analogy,” said the chairman pompously. “All drugs
increase their effect when they increase their dose; for example--for
example----”
“Whisky,” said Joseph M’Connor.
“Quite so. Whisky. You see it there.”
Peter Stulpnagel smiled and shook his head.
“Your argument is not very good,” said he. “When I used to take whisky,
I used to find that one glass would excite me, but that six would send
me to sleep, which is just the opposite. Now, suppose that electricity
were to act in just the opposite way also, what then?”
We three practical men burst out laughing. We had known that our
colleague was queer, but we never had thought that he would be as queer
as this.
“What then?” repeated Peter Stulpnagel.
“We’ll take our chances,” said the chairman.
“Pray consider,” said Peter, “that workmen who have touched the wires,
and who have received shocks of only a few hundred volts, have died
instantly. The fact is well known. And yet when a much greater force was
used upon a criminal at New York, the man struggled for some little
time. Do you not clearly see that the smaller dose is the more deadly?”
“I think, gentlemen, that this discussion has been carried on quite long
enough,” said the chairman, rising again. “The point, I take it, has
already been decided by the majority of the committee, and Duncan Warner
shall be electrocuted on Tuesday by the full strength of the Los Amigos
dynamos. Is it not so?”
“I agree,” said Joseph M’Connor.
“I agree,” said I.
“And I protest,” said Peter Stulpnagel.
“Then the motion is carried, and your protest will be duly entered in
the minutes,” said the chairman, and so the sitting was dissolved.
The attendance at the electrocution was a very small one. We four
members of the committee were, of course, present with the executioner,
who was to act under their orders. The others were the United States
Marshal, the governor of the gaol, the chaplain, and three members of
the press. The room was a small brick chamber, forming an out-house to
the Central Electrical station. It had been used as a laundry, and had
an oven and copper at one side, but no other furniture save a single
chair for the condemned man. A metal plate for his feet was placed in
front of it, to which ran a thick insulated wire. Above, another wire
depended from the ceiling, which could be connected with a small
metallic rod projecting from a cap which was to be placed upon his head.
When this connection was established Duncan Warner’s hour was come.
There was a solemn hush as we waited for the coming of the prisoner. The
practical engineers looked a little pale, and fidgeted nervously with
the wires. Even the hardened Marshal was ill at ease, for a mere hanging
was one thing, and this blasting of flesh and blood a very different
one. As to the pressmen, their faces were whiter than the sheets which
lay before them. The only man who appeared to feel none of the influence
of these preparations was the little German crank, who strolled from one
to the other with a smile on his lips and mischief in his eyes. More
than once he even went so far as to burst into a shout of laughter,
until the chaplain sternly rebuked him for his ill-timed levity.
“How can you so far forget yourself, Mr. Stulpnagel,” said he, “as to
jest in the presence of death?”
But the German was quite unabashed.
“If I were in the presence of death I should not jest,” said he, “but
since I am not I may do what I choose.”