For no less a period than five days and six nights Pharos kept me in the
same hypnotic condition, and, incredible though it may seem, I have not
the slightest recollection of any one single circumstance that occurred
during the whole of that time. Valerie has since informed me that I
moved about the house very much as usual, that I went in and out with
Pharos, but that I never spoke to her, and while I seemed conscious of
my actions and well enough in my bodily health, I did everything with
that peculiar listless air that one notices in a man while walking in
his sleep. I also gather from the same source that Pharos's behaviour
during that terrible period was equally extraordinary. Never for one
instant did he allow her to remain alone with me. The greater portion of
his time was spent out of the house with myself, though in what pursuit
he was engaged she could not discover. He would take me away with him
early in the morning and not return until late at night, when he would
conduct me to my room and then retire himself. At times he would
scarcely speak a word, then a fit of loquacity would come over him, and
he would openly boast to her of the misery he had caused, and find a
diabolical delight in every bulletin that proclaimed the increasing
virulence of the plague. To this day the picture of that impish creature
perambulating the death-stricken streets and alleys to the accompaniment
of tolling bells, watching with ghoulish satisfaction the futile
efforts of the authorities to cope with the disease, haunts me like a
nightmare. Every day fresh tidings were pouring in of the spread of the
infection into other cities and towns until the entire kingdom was
riddled like a honeycomb.
How long Pharos would have kept me under his influence, had he possessed
the power, I cannot say. I only know that on the morning of the sixth
day I woke with a strange and confused feeling in my head. Though my
eyes were open and I was to all outward appearances wide awake, I was
like a man hovering on the borderland of sleep. My senses were gradually
coming back to me; the strength of my brain was reasserting itself, and
by some strange process, how arrived at it is impossible for me to say,
the hold Pharos had obtained upon me was slowly weakening. Then it was
as if I suddenly awoke to find myself standing fully dressed in my own
room. My bed had been slept in, and one glance out of my window showed
me that it was early morning. And yet I had not the least recollection
of having been in bed or of having made my toilet. Then the scene with
Pharos, and the awful knowledge if had given rise to, came back to me,
and I remembered how he had pointed his hand at me, and how I had fallen
asleep before him. Here was the logical explanation of the whole thing.
It was plain that after I had become unconscious, Pharos had caused me
to be carried to my room and put to bed. This, then, I argued, must be
the morning following. Now that the effect he had produced had worn off,
there was still time for me to do what I had originally intended. Having
arrived at this decision I opened my door and went downstairs. A curious
silence prevailed, not only in the house, but outside. I stopped on the
first landing and looked out of the window. So far as I could see there
were no cabs or carriages in the street, no riders in the Row, no
children with their nurses upon the pavements, and yet the old
Chippendale timepiece in the hall told me that the hour was considerably
past nine o'clock. A curious feeling of drowsiness still possessed me,
but it was fast leaving me, and, what was more, leaving me filled with
but one purpose in life, which was to seek out the authorities and
proclaim to them the devilry of Pharos and the part I had myself played
in his abominable wickedness. After that I would wait for Fate to say
what should become of me.
Putting on my hat I opened the front door and stepped out into the
street. At any cost I would endeavour to reach the Home Office, and tell
my story there, before Pharos could prevent me. With this end in view I
hurried toward Piccadilly, intending to take a cab there and so save
time. But when I set out I had not the least notion of the misery that
had befallen London, nor of anything that had happened since Pharos had
pointed his finger at me. In my wildest dreams I had never imagined such
a picture of desolation as that which was now presented to me. It seemed
impossible that so terrible a change should have come over a city in so
short a time (I must remind you here that I still believed that only
twenty hours had elapsed since I had had my fatal interview with
Pharos). In all Park Lane not a house, save that occupied by Pharos,
showed any sign of being inhabited. Without exception the blinds were
down, and in most cases the shutters had been put up, while in numerous
instances broad lines of red paint had been drawn across the pavement
opposite them, but for what purpose, or their indication, I had not the
remotest idea. In Piccadilly, from Apsley House to Berkeley Street, it
was the same, though here a few solitary foot-passengers were to be
seen. Thinking I must have mistaken the hour, and that it was earlier
than I supposed, I looked at my watch, but it said a quarter to ten. In
vain I searched for a cab of any sort. In the road, usually so crowded
at that hour with vehicles of all descriptions, omnibuses, hansoms,
private carriages, vans, and even costermongers' barrows, two dogs were
fighting over a piece of food. But the silence was the worst part of it
all. Not a sound, save the chirruping of the sparrows in the trees of
the park, was to be heard. Realising that it was useless waiting for a
cab, I crossed the road and entered the Green Park, intending to make my
way to St. James's Park, and thence to the Home Office. With feverish
haste I pushed on, walking as if every life in England depended on my
speed.
Reaching the Mall, I crossed into St. James's Park and passed over the
bridge which spans the lake. Here the water-birds were swimming about as
happily as if nothing out of the common were occurring in the great city
around them. At last I reached the office for which I was making. The
Home Secretary at the time was a man I had known all my life, an
upright, honest Englishman in every sense of the word, beloved by
everybody, and respected even by his political opponents. If any man
would listen to my story, I felt convinced he would be that one. When,
however, I reached the office, what a change was there! Only the day
before, as I still imagined, the place had been teeming with life, every
room filled with clerks, and exhibiting all the machinery of a great
Government office. Now, at first glance, it appeared deserted. I entered
the hall in which I had been accustomed to inquire from the porter for
my friend, only to find it occupied by a sergeant of the Guards, who
rose on seeing me.
"What do you want?" he inquired brusquely.
"I desire to see the Home Secretary without loss of time," I answered.
"I am the bearer of very important information, and it is most
imperative that I should see him at once."
"What is the information?" the man inquired suspiciously. "The Home
Secretary sees no one except on the most urgent business now."
"My business is the most urgent possible," I returned. "If you will take
my name to him, I feel sure he will see me."
"I shall do nothing of the kind," replied the sergeant, "so you had
better take yourself off. We don't want any of your kind about here just
now. There's enough trouble without having you to look after."
"But I must see him!" I cried in despair. "You don't know what you are
doing when you try to stop me. I have a confession to make to him, and
make it I will at any hazard. Take me to him at once, or I shall find
him myself."
The man was moving toward me with the evident intention of putting me
into the street, when a door opened and the Home Secretary, Sir Edward
Grangerfield, stood before me. When last I had seen him at the Duchess
of Amersham's ball--I remembered that he congratulated me on my
engagement on that occasion--he had looked in the prime of life. Now he
was an old man, borne down by the weight of sorrow and responsibility
which the plague had placed upon his shoulders. From the way he looked
at me it was plain he did not recognise me.
"Sir Edward," I said, "is it possible I am so much changed that you do
not know me? I am Cyril Forrester."
"Cyril Forrester!" he cried in amazement, coming a step closer to me as
he spoke. "Surely not? But it is, I see. Why, man, how changed you are!
What brings you here, and what is it you want with me? I have not much
time to spare. I have an appointment with the Public Health Commission
in a quarter of an hour."
"So much the better," I answered, "for you will then be able to acquaint
them with the circumstances I am about to reveal to you. Sir Edward, I
must have a few moments' conversation with you alone. I have a
confession to make to you--the most hideous tale to pour into your ears
that ever man confided to another." Then, recollecting myself, I
continued, "But it must not be here. It must be in the open air, or I
shall infect you."
He looked at me in a curious fashion.
"You need have no fear on that score," he said. "I have had the plague,
and have recovered from it. So far it has not been known to attack
anyone twice. But since you wish to speak to me alone, come with me."
With this he led me down the long passage to an office at the further
end. Like the others this one was also deserted. Once inside he closed
the door.
"Be as brief as you can," he said, "for during this terribly trying
period my time is not my own. What is it you wish to say to me?"
"I wish to confess to you," I said, and my voice rang in my ears like a
death knell, "that I am the cause of the misery under the weight of
which England and Europe is groaning at the present time."
Once more Sir Edward looked at me as he had done in the passage outside.
"I am afraid I do not quite understand," he said, but this time in a
somewhat different tone. "Do you mean that you wish me to believe that
you, Cyril Forrester, are the cause of the plague which is decimating
England in this terrible manner?"
"I do," I answered, and then waited to hear what he would say.
In reply he inquired whether I had suffered from the disease myself.
"I was the first to have it," I answered. "My story is an extraordinary
one, but I assure you every particular of it is true. I was inoculated
with the virus while I was in Egypt--that is to say, in the Queen's Hall
of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh. I afterward nearly died of it in an Arab
tent out in the desert beyond Luxor. Later I was taken by a man, of whom
I will tell you more presently, to Constantinople, thence through
Austria and Germany, and finally was smuggled across the Channel into
England."
"And who was the man who inoculated you?" inquired the Home Secretary,
still with the same peculiar intonation. "Can you remember his name?"
"He is known in England as Pharos the Egyptian," I replied--"the foulest
fiend this world has ever seen. In reality he is Ptahmes the Magician,
and he has sworn vengeance on the human race. Among other things he was
the real murderer of Clausand, the curiosity dealer, in Bonwell Street
last June, and not the inoffensive German who shot himself after
confessing to the crime at Bow Street. He smuggled me into England from
Hamburg, and the night before last he took me all through London--to the
Antiquarian Club, to the Duchess of Amersham's ball, to the Fancy Dress
ball that was held at Covent Garden the same night, and to many other
places. Everyone I spoke to became infected, and that, I assure you, on
my word of honour, was how the plague originated here. Oh, Sir Edward,
you cannot realise what agonies I have suffered since I became possessed
of this terrible knowledge!"
A short silence followed, during which I am convinced I heard my
companion say very softly to himself, "That settles it."
Then, turning to me, he continued, "You say you were at the Duchess of
Amersham's ball the night before last? Do you mean this?"
"Of course I do," I replied. "Why, you spoke to me there yourself, and
congratulated me upon my engagement. And, now I come to think of it, I
saw you talking with Pharos there."
"Quite right," he said. "I did speak to Monsieur Pharos there. But are
you sure it was the night before last? That is what I want to get at."
"I am as sure of that as I am of anything in this world," I replied.
"What you tell me is very interesting," he said, rising from his
chair--"very interesting indeed, and I am sincerely obliged to you for
coming to me. Now, if you will excuse me, I must be going, for, as I
told you, I have a meeting of the Health Commission to attend in a few
minutes. If I were you I should go back to my house and keep quiet.
There is nothing to be gained by worrying oneself, as you have evidently
been doing."
"I can see that you do not believe what I have told you," I cried with
great bitterness. "Sir Edward, I implore you to do so. I assure you on
my honour as a gentleman, I will swear, by any oath you care to name,
that what I say is true in every particular. Pharos is still in London,
in Park Lane, and if you are quick you can capture him. But there is not
a moment to lose. For God's sake believe me before it is too late!"
"I have listened to all you have said, my dear Cyril," he answered
soothingly, "and I can quite understand that you believe it to be true.
You have been ill, and it is plain your always excitable imagination has
not yet recovered its equilibrium. Go home, as I say, and rest. Trust
me, you will soon be yourself once more. Now I must go."
"Oh, heavens! how can I convince you?" I groaned, wringing my hands. "Is
there nothing I can say or do that will make you believe my story? You
will find out when it is too late that I have told you the truth. Men
and women are dying like sheep to right and left of us, and yet the vile
author of all this sorrow and suffering will escape unpunished. Is it
any use, Sir Edward, for me to address one last appeal to you?"
Then a notion struck me. I thrust my hand into my coat pocket and
produced the prescription which Pharos had given me for Valerie in
Hamburg, and which, since it had done her so much good, I had been
careful not to let out of my possession.
"Take that, Sir Edward," I said. "I came to make my confession to you
because I deemed it my duty, and because of the load upon my brain,
which I thought it might help to lighten. You will not believe me, so
what can I do? This paper contains the only prescription which has yet
been effectual in checking the disease. It saved the life of Valerie de
Vocxqal, and I can vouch for its efficacy. Show it to the medical
authorities. It is possible it may convince them that I am not as mad as
you think me."
He took it from me, but it was plain to me, from the look upon his face,
that he believed it to be only another part of my delusion.
"If it will make your mind any easier," he said, "I will give you my
word that it shall be placed before the members of the Commission. If
they deem it likely that any good can result from it, you may be sure it
will be used."
He then wished me good-bye, and, with a feeling of unavailing rage and
disappointment in my heart, I left the Offices and passed out into
Whitehall. Once more I made my way into St. James's Park, and reaching a
secluded spot, threw myself down upon the turf and buried my face in my
arms. At first I could think of nothing but my own shame; then my
thoughts turned to Valerie. In my trouble I had for the moment forgotten
her. Coward that I was, I had considered my own safety before hers. If
anything happened to me, who would protect her? I was still debating
this with myself when my ears caught the sound of a footstep on the hard
ground, and then the rustle of a dress. A moment later a voice sounded
in my ears like the sweetest music. "Thank God!" it said, "Oh! thank
God! I have found you."
Her cry of happiness ended in a little choking sob, and I turned and
looked up to discover Valerie, her beautiful eyes streaming with tears,
bending over me.
"How did you find me?" I inquired, in a voice that my love and longing
for her rendered almost inaudible. "How did you know that I was here?"
"Love told me," she answered softly. "My heart led me to you. You forget
the strange power with which I am gifted. Though I did not see you leave
the house, I knew that you were gone, and my instinct warned me not only
where you were going, but what you were going to do. Cyril, it was brave
of you to go."
"It was useless," I cried. "I have failed. He would not believe me,
Valerie, and I am lost eternally!"
"Hush!" she said. "Dear love, you must not say such things. They are not
true. But rise. You must come to him. All this morning he has not been
at all the same. I do not know what to think, but something is going to
happen, I am certain."
There was no need for her to say to whom she referred.
I did as she commanded me, and side by side we crossed the park.
"He has made arrangements to leave England this afternoon," she
continued, as we passed into Piccadilly. "The yacht is in the Thames,
and orders have been sent to hold her in readiness for a long voyage."
"And what does he intend doing with us?"
"I know nothing of that," she answered. "But there is something very
strange about him to-day. When he sent for me this morning I scarcely
knew him, he was so changed."
We made our way along the deserted streets and presently reached Park
Lane. As soon as we were inside the house I ascended the stairs beside
her, and it was not until we had reached the top floor, on which
Pharos's room was situated, that we paused before a door. Listening
before it, we could plainly hear someone moving about inside. When we
knocked, a voice I failed to recognise called upon us to enter. It was a
strange picture we saw when we did so. In a large armchair before a
roaring fire, though it was the middle of summer, sat Pharos, but so
changed that I hardly knew him. He looked half his usual size; his skin
hung loose about his face, as if the bones had shrunken underneath it;
his eyes, always so deep-set in his head, were now so much sunken that
they could scarcely be seen, while his hands were shrivelled until they
resembled those of a mummy more than a man. The monkey also, which was
huddled beside him in the chair, looked smaller than I had ever seen it.
As if this were not enough, the room was filled with Egyptian curios
from floor to ceiling. So many were there, indeed, that there barely
remained room for Pharos's chair. How he had obtained possession of them
I did not understand; but since Sir George Legrath's confession, written
shortly before his tragic death by his own hand, the mystery has been
solved, and Pharos confronts us in an even more unenviable light than
before. Hating, loathing, and yet fearing the man as I did, there was
something in his look now that roused an emotion in me that was almost
akin to pity.
"Thou hast come in time," he said to Valerie, but in a different voice
and without that harshness to which we had so long grown accustomed. "I
have been anxiously awaiting thee."
He signed to her to approach him.
"Give me your hand," he whispered faintly. "Through you it is decreed
that I must learn my fate. Courage, courage--there is naught for thee to
fear!"
Taking her hand, he bade her close her eyes and describe to him what she
saw. She did as she was ordered, and for upward of a minute perfect
silence reigned in the room. The picture they made--the worn-out,
shrivelled body of the man and the lovely woman--I cannot hope to make
you understand.
"I see a great hall, supported by pillars," she said at last, speaking
in that hard, measured voice I remembered to have heard on board the
yacht. "The walls are covered with paintings, and two sphinxes guard the
door. In the centre is an old man with a long white beard, who holds his
arms above his head."
"It is Paduamen, the mouthpiece of the Gods," moaned Pharos, with a look
of terror in his face that there was no disguising. "I am lost for
ever--for ever; not for to-day, not for to-morrow, but for all time!
Tell me, woman, what judgment the Mighty Ones pronounce against me?"
"Hush--he speaks!" Valerie continued slowly; and then a wonderful thing
happened.
Whether it was the first warning of the illness that was presently to
fall upon me, or whether I was so much in sympathy with Valerie that I
saw what she and Pharos saw, I cannot say; at any rate, I suddenly found
myself transported from Park Lane away to that mysterious hall below the
Temple of Ammon, of which I retained so vivid a recollection. The place
was in semi-darkness, and in the centre, as Valerie had described, stood
the old man who had acted as my guide on the other occasion that I had
been there. His arms were raised above his head, and his voice when he
spoke was stern yet full of sadness.
"Ptahmes, son of Netruhotep," he was saying, "across the seas I speak to
thee. For the second time thou hast been found wanting in the trust
reposed in thee. Thou hast used the power vouchsafed thee by the Gods
for thine own purposes and to enrich thyself in the goods of the earth.
Therefore thy doom is decreed, and in the Valley of Amenti thy
punishment awaits thee. Prepare, for that time is even now upon thee."
Then the hall grew dark, there was a rushing sound as of a great wind,
and once more I was back in Park Lane. Pharos was crouching in his
chair, moaning feebly, and evidently beside himself with terror.
"What more dost thou see?" he said at length, and his voice was growing
perceptibly weaker. "Tell me all."
There was another pause, and then Valerie spoke again.
"I see a rocky hillside and a newly-opened tomb. I see three white men
and five Arabs who surround it. They are lifting a mummy from the vault
below with cords."
On hearing this Pharos sprang to his feet with a loud cry, and for a
moment fought wildly with the air. Meanwhile the monkey clung
tenaciously to him, uttering strange cries, which grew feebler every
moment. Valerie, released from her trance, if by such a name I may
describe it, and unable to bear more, fled the room, while I stood
rooted to the spot, powerless to move hand or foot, watching Pharos with
fascinated eyes.
As if he were choking, he tore at his throat with his skeleton fingers
till the blood spurted out on either side. Little by little, however,
his struggles grew weaker, until they ceased altogether, and he fell
back into his chair, to all intents and purposes a dead man, with the
dying monkey still clinging to his coat.
After all I had lately gone through, the strain this terrible scene put
upon my mind was too great for me to bear, and I fell back against the
wall in a dead faint.
* * * * *
When I recovered from the attack of brain fever which followed the
ghastly event I have just described, I found myself lying in my bunk in
my old cabin on board the yacht. Valerie was sitting beside me holding
my hand in hers and gazing lovingly into my face. Surprised at finding
myself where I was, I endeavoured to obtain an explanation from her.
"Hush," she said, "you must not talk! Let it suffice that I have saved
you, and now we are away from England and at sea together. Pharos is
dead, and the past is only a bitter memory."
As she spoke, as if to bear out what she had said, a ray of sunshine
streamed in through the porthole and fell upon us both.
THE END.
GUY BOOTHBY'S NOVELS.
PHAROS, THE EGYPTIAN.
Mr. Boothby has proved himself a master of the art of story-telling from
the point of view of the reader who asks for a succession of stirring
events, a suspicion of mystery, and an interest not only maintained but
culminating. It would be unfair to explain the extraordinary character
of "Pharos," or to do more than allude to the series of strange
adventures wherein he plays a leading part. It is enough to assure Mr.
Boothby's readers of delightful thrills and an interest which this vivid
romancer never permits to flag.
THE LUST OF HATE.
Mr. Boothby is at his best in this romance, which is characterized by
unflagging interest and by most stirring adventures in which Dr. Nikola
plays a leading part. "Dr. Nikola" was considered "one of the most
thrilling stories ever published."
THE BEAUTIFUL WHITE DEVIL.
"Here we have, in modern form, the same old hairbreadth escapes, the
same extraordinary adventures following one another at breathless speed,
and the same splendid disregard for mere probability that marked the
efforts of these wizards of an earlier day."--_New York Sun._
DR. NIKOLA.
"Crowded to the covers with the mysterious, the startling, and the
supernatural."--NEW YORK MAIL AND EXPRESS.
"A novel containing a more ingenious, exciting, and absorbing romance
has not appeared upon our book table this season."--_Boston Courier._
A BID FOR FORTUNE.
"Mr. Boothby never allows the interest of their doings to drop from
first page to last; and he tells his tale in a pleasant, brisk fashion
that carries the reader along, and is as convincing a vehicle as could
be chosen for the relation of strange adventures such as befell the hero
and his friends."--_London Times._
THE MARRIAGE OF ESTHER.
"Abounds in dramatic situations, and is bright in dialogue, graphic in
description, and subtle in character analysis."--_Boston Advertiser._
End of Project Gutenberg's Pharos, The Egyptian, by Guy Newell Boothby