THE HOUSE OF THE LADY ZENOBIA.
The three men looked at each other and at the match-box. Mansfield
broke the silence first.
“Then all this beastly journey has been for nothing?” he cried, with
youthful outspokenness. “We are no nearer Sitt Zeynab than we were at
first!”
“Look out, Count!” said Mr Hicks quickly. “Put that thing away, or the
Arabs will twig that it was not here for its health.”
“That’s just what I want. It’s no good mincing matters now. Put your
heads together and take a good squint at the thing, and then look as
angry and excited as you like, but say nothing to those fellows. After
supper we will have an ostentatiously serious talk.”
Quite in the dark as to Cyril’s intentions, the others nevertheless
obeyed him, casting glances of suspicion and dislike, which it needed
no dissimulation to render realistic, at the Arabs in the intervals of
picketing and rubbing down the horses and gathering sticks for the
fire. This change of demeanour did not pass unnoticed, and after their
frugal meal the hostile camps met separately in serious consultation.
Mr Hicks and Mansfield failed to receive the enlightenment they
expected and desired. Cyril let them say what they liked, but offered
no suggestions of his own, listening to all that was said with an air
of languor, almost of boredom.
“Tell the sheikh that I wish to speak to him in the morning before we
start, Hicks,” he said at last, and Mr Hicks obeyed, wondering.
“That the boss should give them free leave to vamoose the ranche in
the hours of darkness throws me out,” he said, and Mansfield
determined to balance this extraordinary failure of judgment on his
leader’s part by keeping watch on his own account all night. But a
hard day’s riding in sun and sand is not the best method of
preparation for a vigil, and not so very long after his usual hour
Mansfield was comfortably asleep. It was Cyril’s voice which aroused
his two companions from their dreamless slumbers.
“Mansfield! Hicks! wake up! Your revolvers!”
Mr Hicks was on the alert in a moment, revolver in hand. There was no
moon, and the fire was almost out, but his ear told him that the words
came from the neighbourhood of the horses, which were plunging and
kicking.
“Strike a light,” continued the voice, “and let’s see who it is I’ve
got here.”
The flickering gleam of the match showed that Cyril was holding the
loosened heel-rope of his own horse, while his revolver was pressed to
the forehead of the sheikh. The man was crouching on the ground in an
attitude which made it clear that he had been surprised when about to
release the other horses. Just outside the circle of the light the
dark forms of the two tribesmen were visible against the stars,
mounted and ready to ride away, but afraid of endangering their sheikh
if they attempted to attack Cyril. The sheikh’s own horse was close at
his heels.
“Is your revolver cocked, Hicks?” asked Cyril. “Mansfield, go and
fetch in the sheikh’s horse, but don’t fire unless I give the word.
Now, Hicks, ask the sheikh what he is doing here.”
“He says he never calculated to take you to Sitt Zeynab, Count,” said
Mr Hicks, receiving the sullen answers of the captive. “He and his
people have fixed up all the other travellers in this style, leading
them round and round until they were tired, and then sloping with
their horses. They were so glad to escape from the desert, when they
found their way out at last, that they never wanted to come back. He
says he saw that we suspected something last evening, and he concluded
it was time to travel.”
“Tell him,” said Cyril, smiling grimly, “that he may lead us round and
round as much as he likes, but he will have to take us to Sitt Zeynab
at last, unless he wishes to wander about with us for ever.”
“He says he guesses there’ll be some shooting first, Count.”
“I quite agree with him. Mansfield, cock your revolver, as loudly as
you can. Tell him that I shall have his horse and those of his men
shot if I hear much more of this.”
“You have him there, Count; but he says he can get fresh horses and
come back and lay you out.”
“Hardly,” was the suave reply. “I shall keep him and his men as guides
all the same; but they will have to walk.”
“Don’t mind him, Count; he’s just relieving his feelings a bit, I
guess. It seems to hurt him real badly, the way he’s walked into this
trap of yours.”
The sheikh was groaning vigorously, and alternately muttering and
shouting imprecations in Arabic. At last he became somewhat calmer.
“What does the Prince of the Jews want?” he demanded of Mr Hicks.
“To get to Sitt Zeynab, and you may bet your boots he’ll do it.”
“What does he desire there?”
“According to the stars,” said Cyril solemnly, “the fate of your
Princess is linked with mine. If we meet, it will be a very good thing
for both of us; if not, great disasters will follow.”
“Say, Count, pile it on!” murmured Mr Hicks, in ecstasies of
admiration. “Guess I’ll most believe you myself soon. He says that
even if you get to Sitt Zeynab, that wouldn’t help you to see the
Princess or make a treaty with her.”
“Tell him I’ll take my chance of that.”
“He says the Princess is safe to imprison you and hold you to ransom.”
“Let her. I am going to Sitt Zeynab.”
“He concludes to give in, Count; but he is using improper language
about the day he inaugurated this personally conducted trip business.”
“Quite possible and very natural. Tell him to make his men dismount,
Hicks, and let one of them bring their horses over here. Then he can
go back with them to their side of the fire. Point out to him the
space between the horses and that rock over there. If any of them
cross that before daybreak we shall not hesitate to shoot. On the
march he himself will ride between you and Mansfield, his men in
single file in front of me.”
The contest was over, to the unbounded admiration of the Arabs, who
began to regard Cyril as a being little short of miraculous, since he
could see and hear in his sleep. That this feeling on their part was
to a certain extent a guarantee of safety to the travellers became
evident the next day, when a large body of mounted Arabs swooped down
upon the party as they approached the wells at which the unwilling
guides suggested a mid-day halt. It was clear that the new-comers were
prepared to congratulate their sheikh on his success in misleading a
fresh band of Roumi spies, and it was a shock to them to perceive that
the spies had not yet allowed themselves to be shaken off. The sheikh
displayed extreme tact in making the best of the situation. He
explained matters to his followers in a speech which was designed to
show that he was effecting a long-planned _coup_ in carrying off the
Prince of the Jews to Sitt Zeynab to hold him to ransom, without so
much as allowing the captive to suspect that he was a prisoner. But
whether the sheikh’s hearers were equally accomplished liars with
himself, and thus naturally prone to discount his assertions, or
whether his two original followers failed to corroborate him as they
should, the awe with which Cyril was regarded spread quickly to the
larger circle. This was highly satisfactory, since, as Mr Hicks
pointed out to Mansfield, the tribe might easily have annihilated the
three intruders without a possibility of resistance, in one of the
paroxysms of powder-play and spear-flourishing with which they
celebrated the sheikh’s return. Portents began to multiply around
Cyril. At one time it was a stray stork, called by the Arabs the
father of luck, which stood meditatively behind him for some time,
undisturbed by the eager whispers around; at another a scorpion, which
had ensconced itself under one of his boots for the night. It left the
marks of its claws on his finger when he took up the boot in the
morning, but Mansfield killed it with a stone before it had time to
turn round and sting him.
Four days longer the march lasted, crossing a strip of desert more
sandy, stony, sunny, hot, and thirsty than any passed hitherto. This
pathless, waterless tract was the true defence of Sitt Zeynab, the
real reason why neither Roumi nor hostile tribesman had ever succeeded
in making his way thither. The Beni Ismail knew their desert as well
as if it had been traversed by a high road, but they economised their
stock of water and curtailed their halts as far as possible while they
were passing through it. This added discomfort pressed with special
severity upon those unaccustomed to desert travelling. Mr Hicks and
Mansfield, riding on in the baking sun hour after hour, with dry
mouths and parched tongues, were both heartily sick of the adventure;
but neither of them breathed a word of complaint or remonstrance to
Cyril. Nor--which was a far stronger testimony to their loyalty--did
they even exchange murmurs with one another; their nearest approach to
doing so was an occasional lament over the joys of civilisation. If a
bath was Mansfield’s ideal of unattainable happiness, Mr Hicks’s was a
sherry cobbler. His dreams, he averred, were haunted by the pleasant
tinkle of the ice in the glass, and as he lifted the straw to his
parched lips the thought would cross his mind that it was worth while
to have a real thirst on, for the pleasure of quenching it; but at
this point he invariably awoke. Cyril alone appeared unconscious of
the fresh hardships of this portion of the journey. Riding by himself,
he was nevertheless ready, when his companions addressed him, to
exchange with them the grim pleasantries which suited the situation.
It was clear, however, that his thoughts were not bounded by the
present scene, and Mr Hicks hazarded the suggestion that his brain was
evolving schemes of universal dominion. The Arabs viewed him with
ever-increasing respect, and it was with genuine awe that the sheikh
rode up to him one afternoon, and, pointing out a hill upon the
horizon, the summit of which seemed more regular in form than those on
either side, said--
“Behold, O Prince of the Jews, the house of Sitt Zeynab!”
The response to the announcement was as alarming as it was unexpected.
Cyril fell forward unconscious upon his horse’s neck.
“Guessed it would come to this,” muttered Mr Hicks. “No, sheikh,” when
Mansfield and he had tried various remedies in vain, “it’s no good
trying to revive him out here. We must get him in somewhere cool and
shady, with plenty of water.”
“But why should the Prince of the Jews become as one dead when I show
him the house of Sitt Zeynab?” asked the sheikh.
“Well,” said Mr Hicks meditatively, for he was busy superintending the
construction of a litter from spears and cloaks, “I guess he thinks
you’ve kept him so long upon the road that he hasn’t much time to ward
off those disasters he spoke of from your Princess.”
Much subdued by this reply, the sheikh detailed four of his followers
to carry the litter, and ordered four others to be ready to relieve
them, betraying by such unexpected complaisance the ascendency which
Cyril had gained over his mind. Mansfield, in his deep anxiety,
dismounted and walked beside the litter, fearing lest the bearers
might stumble; but Mr Hicks laughed at him and maintained his position
beside the sheikh, with the cheering assurance that this period of
insensibility would ensure to Cyril the very rest his brain needed.
Mansfield had no attention to give to anything unconnected with the
patient, but the American’s restless eyes were everywhere. He noticed
the broken columns and other fragments of stonework which began to
make their appearance in the sand, and which showed that a
considerable town had once stood on this spot, looking for its defence
to the fortified hill of Sitt Zeynab. As he approached the fortress he
was able to distinguish that the massive wall enclosing the summit of
the hill bore evident traces of having been repaired at various
points, and probably at very varying dates, with masses of rock and
pieces of sculptured marble in place of its own bevelled stone. Above
the top of the wall a flat roof supported by pillars was just visible,
and at one corner stood a watch-tower of considerable height. Under
the shadow of the hill nestled a motley group of black tents and mud
huts, keeping guard over an oasis of moderate extent, the greenness of
which looked heaven-like to eyes wearied by the glare of the desert.
Palm-groves and leafy thickets marked the course of a stream, and
fringed the borders of the marsh in which it terminated, and Mr Hicks
perceived at once that some attempt was made to cultivate corn and
melons with the help of irrigation. The water, the sheikh told him,
came from hidden springs in the heart of the hill, and served to keep
filled an underground reservoir, for use in the event of a siege,
before it was allowed to issue forth into the plain. This information
was given as the travellers began to mount the zigzag path which led
to the gateway of the fortress. It was evident that their approach had
been observed, for one of the heavy doors stood open, and a woman,
wrapped from head to foot in a white veil, had stepped outside to
await them.
“Is that the Princess?” asked Mr Hicks of the sheikh, looking up at
the white figure with involuntary awe.
“Nay, it is only her scribe, but she also is a great woman, one in
whom is much wisdom, and the Princess is guided by her counsels. The
_khawaja_ will see her eyes like the clouds when the snow is falling
upon Lebanon, but I who speak to him have seen them black like the sky
in a midnight without stars. That is when the Princess is in great
straits.”
“But what sort of difficulties does the Princess get into?” asked Mr
Hicks curiously. The sheikh drew nearer, and spoke confidentially.
“There was a time, _Khawaja_, when I with certain of the tribe was
escorting the Princess and her women to Sitt Zeynab. On a sudden we
beheld a great host riding swiftly against us, with every sign of war.
Then I cried out, loudly, and with intent to deceive the women, ‘Lo!
it is the Beni Ayub who have heard that we are ruled by a woman, and
are coming to swallow us up.’ But when I looked to see the Princess
blench, she cried, as the scribe told us, ‘Let us have no bloodshed! I
will go and speak with them,’ and beckoning to the scribe, she urged
on her horse. But the scribe cried to me, ‘Stop the Princess! If aught
befall her, it were better for thee and thy tribe never to have been
born,’ and she dashed forward by herself. Then it was that I saw her
eyes black as Iblis, but it was not with fear, for she rode straight
up to those who came against us, and spoke boldly to them, I holding
fast to the Princess’s bridle, although she cursed me and struck at me
with her whip. But when the scribe reached the enemy, behold! they
were not the Beni Ayub at all, but the rest of our own tribe, come to
greet the Princess. And all the tribe said, ‘Lo! the spirit of a man
is in these women. It is no shame to be ruled by them,’ and we were
content.”
“And the ladies--were they content when they twigged your little
joke?” asked Mr Hicks.
“Nay, the scribe spoke very freely to us all. But who cares for a
woman’s tongue?”
“It don’t seem to strike you that it was a queer dodge to play tricks
of that sort on your Princess, sheikh. Was it just at the beginning of
her reign?”
The sheikh looked straight at Mr Hicks with blank, expressionless
eyes. His burst of confidence was clearly at an end. “This is the door
of the house of Sitt Zeynab, and here is the scribe of the Great
Princess,” he said. “Peace be upon thee, O lady!”
“And upon thee be peace!” replied the veiled woman, in Arabic. “Are
the Princess’s letters with thee?”
The sheikh took a leather bag from the front of his saddle, where it
had excited the unavailing curiosity of his guests throughout the
journey, and presented it respectfully.
“The Princess perceived that one of thy men was being carried in a
litter, and she desired to know what had happened, and whether he was
badly hurt. But who are these?” There was a wild alarm in her voice,
as she caught sight of the travel-stained Norfolk suits of Mr Hicks
and Mansfield, whose uniform of _abba_ and _kaffiyeh_ had rendered
them until this moment indistinguishable from the Arabs, and she
staggered back against the door-post.
“O lady, these men are the servants of the Prince of the Jews, whom we
have brought hither from Es Sham to see what is the will of the
Princess concerning him. He professes much goodwill towards our tribe,
desiring to enter into a treaty with the great lady, and we have
perceived that he is a lucky person.”
“Where is he? Let me see him.” The bearers of the litter had deposited
their burden upon the ground, and she bent forward to look at it. A
convulsive shiver ran through her frame, and she sprang back as though
she had seen a snake. “_That_ man?” she ejaculated, and Mr Hicks and
Mansfield both observed that her grey eyes, the only feature visible
between the folds of her veil, were dilated by anger or horror until
the black alone was visible. “O son of misfortune, why hast thou
brought him here? He is the Princess’s deadliest enemy, the man that
has most injured her in all the world.”
“It may be that he desires to make atonement, O lady,” suggested the
sheikh deprecatingly.
“To make atonement--he? Nay, rather to do more mischief,” and she
bestowed a dainty but vicious kick upon Cyril’s unconscious form.
“Take him and his companions to the vaults, O sheikh, and keep them
there safely until they shall return to their own country.”
“Pardon me, madam; if you would allow me a few words with you----” Mr
Hicks came forward politely, and spoke in his best Arabic, but he was
in difficulties with his _kaffiyeh_, which he had naturally tried to
take off on addressing a lady. The heavy gold-worked handkerchief had
become mixed up with the twisted cord which held it to the head, and
the consciousness that he was appearing at a disadvantage embarrassed
Mr Hicks seriously.
“I will not listen. Take them away. Let no more be seen of them!”
cried the lady, escaping into the fortress and shutting the door
behind her.
“What a fiend!” ejaculated Mansfield, with blazing eyes, as the rattle
of bolts and bars showed that there was no hope of changing her mind.
“Excitable female, any way,” said Mr Hicks, his equanimity restored.
“Well, sheikh, I guess you had better march us off to these vaults of
yours. See what a pity it is that the Prince of the Jews wasn’t on
hand to blarney the lady!”
The sheikh assented gloomily, and giving an order to his followers,
they retraced their steps and descended the path.
“Of course you saw that our fair friend was a European?” remarked Mr
Hicks to Mansfield, as they followed the litter.
“What, that woman--that--that creature?”
“The lady who just honoured us with her attention. She wore Paris
shoes, any way, and a rustling frill round the edge of her gown.”
“I should think she has very good reasons for living out here, then,”
was the unchivalrous remark of Mansfield, for the insult offered to
Cyril had made his blood boil.
“Now that I would call one of the hasty judgments of youth,” drawled
Mr Hicks, and said no more until they arrived at the entrance to their
prison, which proved to be a cave at the foot of the hill, approached
by a low doorway almost buried in the sand. A man was sent to the
village for spades, and the sand was shovelled away until a large flat
stone, standing more or less perpendicularly, was laid bare. This
rested on rough hinges cut in the rock, and opened inwards like a
door. All was dark inside, but it seemed cool and airy. Mr Hicks
struck a match. Furniture there was none, with the exception of
various heaps of broken pottery and fragments of rock, and what seemed
a series of colossal bookshelves lining the walls.
“Look here, sheikh,” said the American, “you’ve got to give us food
and lights, and some tent-cloth to sleep on, if you run this
high-class hotel.”
“What will the Princess say?” was the lugubrious reply.
“What will she say when the Prince of the Jews speaks with her and
tells her how badly you treated us?”
“It shall be done, _Khawaja_,” and the sheikh gave the necessary
orders, which resulted in the arrival soon afterwards of three native
lamps, with a supply of oil, some fresh bread and a further provision
of the detestable compound of dates, and three pieces of goat’s-hair
cloth. Meanwhile, Mansfield had been laboriously bringing in sand, a
spadeful at a time, thus forming a substructure on which one of the
tent-cloths was laid to make a bed for Cyril. Then the door was shut,
and the prisoners were left to their reflections.
“They may call this place the house of the Lady Zenobia as much as
they like,” said Mr Hicks aggressively, “but I’ll stick out that it
was the Lady Zenobia’s burying-lot, no less.”
“This place--a mausoleum?” asked Mansfield, with marked disgust.
“I guess so. Look at those shelves--all empty, of course; but there’s
a choice collection of miscellaneous remains in the room down the
passage there, where the light comes in through a hole in the roof.
The Arabs have rifled the place, you bet, and lugged the corpses into
daylight that they might be sure of missing nothing. All mummied, of
course, so you needn’t look so sick.”
“But we can’t stay here!” cried Mansfield, in horror.
“I guess we’ve got to. The lady upstairs don’t calculate to be trifled
with, you see. But I’ve slept in many worse locations than this, for
it’s clear that the last interment took place several hundreds of
thousands of years back, so the deceased won’t interfere with our
physical comfort; and if you see a ghost, just hurry up and tell me,
and I’ll interview him for the ‘Crier.’ Suppose you fly around and fix
things up for the night now. Our supper don’t need much cooking,
unfortunately, but the water’s good, any way. You might put out two of
those lamps, for it’s past sundown, and I’d as lief keep a light going
all night. Guess we’ll fix up one of these pieces of tent-cloth to
keep off the draught from that passage. I’m going to sit up with the
boss, so I’m better without a bed.”
“No,” said Mansfield, “I’m going to look after him.”
“Young man,” said Mr Hicks firmly, “this is my funeral. Your turn will
come to-morrow night, but as the distinguished sufferer’s medical
attendant, I calculate to do my obvious duty to-night. The boss is
taking a fine spell of rest just now, breathing natural, pulse
regular, everything first-rate, but I must be on hand when he wakes
up. Now don’t turn nasty, or I’ll sit up next night as well. I’m a
peaceable man, but when I get riz, there’s likely to be
unpleasantness.”
Accepting the inevitable with the worst possible grace, Mansfield
prepared the supper, assisted in hanging the curtain, and finally
betook himself to his couch of hair cloth, where he muffled his head
in his cloak in the way he had learnt from the Arabs, and was fast
asleep in two minutes. He slept until late the next day, and was only
awakened by the voices of Cyril and Mr Hicks, as they expressed their
heartfelt admiration of his powers of slumber, and suggested
exhibiting him to the Arabs as one of the Seven Sleepers. Cyril was in
the wildest spirits. The fatigue of the journey seemed to have
altogether passed away, and Mr Hicks’s account of the lady at the
gateway and her ungracious behaviour had filled him with delight. Mr
Hicks, on the contrary, was more silent than usual, and offered
presently to show Mansfield a rock-cut swimming-bath, supplied with
water from the reservoir of which the Arabs had spoken, which he had
discovered while exploring one of the passages branching from the
cave. After a few moments’ silence, as they groped their way between
the rocky walls, he turned suddenly.
“Mr Mansfield, do I look like a man that would see ghosts?”
“No, I should say not,” replied Mansfield, holding up the lamp to
scrutinise his companion’s features; “but you look as if you had seen
one now,” he added maliciously.
“That is so, Mr Mansfield. Or I have seen an apparition of a
surprising character, any way. About midnight I was sitting on a rock
beside the boss, and figuring out what I might clear by transporting
to the States that whole cargo of damaged Palmyrene antiquities in the
cellar back of ours, and selling them in small quantities to local
museums, when I distinctly saw that curtain move that we fixed up. You
bet I kept my eyes nailed on it. Well, it was drawn back slightly, and
there was an old woman--a little old woman--standing in the passage,
wrapped in a white sheet, like our friend at the door above, but I
could see her whole face. She never saw me, for the light was between
us; but she took a step forward and looked at the boss. I guess I was
hasty, but I cocked my six-shooter. She heard me, and in the minutest
fraction of a second she was gone. I caught up the light, and made
tracks after her, but there was nothing to be seen. I searched every
inch of the passage and the cave where the remains are, but she wasn’t
there, and there is no means of getting out that way, unless she
slithered up the roof to the hole where the light comes in, and that
isn’t what you would expect of an elderly female of respectable
appearance.”
“But was she a European, as you said the other one was?”
“Can’t say, Mr Mansfield. One old woman is pretty much like another.
Maybe she was the ghost of the Lady Zenobia. If that is so, I’ve lost
the best chance a newspaper man ever had, and I can tell you I feel
real mean.”
“Well,” said Mansfield, with ungenerous exultation, “I can tell you
something, and that is, it’s _my_ funeral to-night. You haven’t said
anything to the Count?”
“Do I look such a fool as all that, sir? But I’m real down. You could
most trample on me. I guess I ought to shove you into the
swimming-bath for your impudence, and I would do it, too, if it wasn’t
that maybe you would catch cold,” and having launched this Parthian
shaft, Mr Hicks departed.
When Mansfield returned to the cave, he found that Cyril was giving
audience to the sheikh, who had come to announce their fate to the
prisoners. They need cherish no hope of being admitted to the presence
of the Princess, or even to an interview with her secretary. The doors
of the fortress were irrevocably closed against them, and they would
remain in their gloomy prison until they chose to return to
civilisation, when they would be escorted across the desert and set
down in the neighbourhood of Damascus. The sheikh’s mental discomfort
as he made this announcement was very evident, and it was clear that
he feared Cyril’s wrath only less than that of his sovereign; but the
placid smile with which his message was received served to reassure
him, and he retired puzzled but contented. Cyril remained in high
spirits all day, his gaiety only increasing towards evening. It was in
vain that Mr Hicks attempted to write to his paper, and that Mansfield
sat down resolutely with the intention of renovating the clothes of
the party, for he gave them no peace. He had a plan, which he
persisted in setting before them, conceived in the regulation
boys’-book-of-adventure style, for overpowering the sheikh and the
guard outside the cave, and scaling the walls of the fortress by the
aid of rope-ladders made of twisted strips of hair-cloth, thus
literally “dropping in” on the Princess with an urgency that would
admit of no denial. He seemed unable to turn his mind to anything
else, and at last Mr Hicks took the matter into his own hands.
“Say, Count,” he observed, as he returned, carrying a tray, from a
colloquy at the prison-door with some person unknown, “I guess it’s my
duty as your medical adviser to warn you against all this excitement.
Now here’s some real good coffee that the sheikh has sent us, and I’ve
concluded to allow you a cup if you’ll do your level best to sleep
after it, but otherwise not so much as a drop.”
“Tyrant!” groaned Cyril. “You know that two days ago we should have
been thankful to get drinkable water, but that, having got it, the
soul of man refuses to be satisfied without coffee, especially when
you tantalise him with the smell. Well, I give in.” He took the cup
and sipped it, but his tone changed immediately. “Hicks, you villain!
you’ve put some beastly stuff into this coffee.”
“Just to make you sure of a night’s rest, Count. How do you intend to
go on the bust to-morrow if you don’t sleep?”
The narcotic produced the desired effect, and before long Cyril was
sleeping as soundly as he had done the night before. As soon as this
had become evident, Mansfield jumped up.
“Now then, Hicks, off you go!” he said, “and no keeping awake, mind.
Honour bright!”
“Honest Injun!” assented Mr Hicks, accepting his dismissal to the
recess which Mansfield had occupied the night before. “Guess I
couldn’t keep awake if I tried, any way. But mind, you’re to call me
if there’s any spiritual manifestation.”
“If I can do it without disturbing the manifestation,” agreed
Mansfield, and went on with his preparations for observing, in a
thoroughly scientific spirit, any phenomenon that might occur. He
looped back the curtain which had been hung over the entrance to the
passage, and arranged his bed directly opposite the opening, so that
he could command both sides of the passage as far as the light of the
lamp would extend. The lamp itself he placed in such a position that
he himself was left in shadow, while the eyes of any intruder would be
dazzled. Then he wrapped himself in his cloak, leaving a peep-hole
through which he could see without being seen, lay down with his
cocked revolver in his hand, and waited.
He waited so long, with every sense on the alert, yet disturbed only
by purely imaginary noises, that he rebuked himself impatiently when
it seemed to him that he felt a breath of cold air in his face, and
that he heard at the same moment a slight rustle. But no, this time
there was no delusion. From the darkness of the passage emerged the
little old woman of whom Mr Hicks had spoken. She gave a quick glance
round the cave, then turned her head for a moment, and a taller woman,
also wrapped in the swathing white draperies, followed her out into
the light. Mansfield’s heart stood still as the two white figures
moved softly to Cyril’s side, and stood looking down at him. Could
they intend to murder him? But even as he raised his revolver
noiselessly to cover them, the taller woman’s veil dropped from her
face, and he saw that her hands were clasped convulsively on her
breast. Still she stood looking down at the sleeper, until her
companion touched her gently, when, to Mansfield’s utter bewilderment,
she stooped and kissed Cyril softly on the forehead. The old woman
drew her away, and they vanished.