HE.
Next day Leonora was suffering from a slight feverish cold, and I don't
wonder at it considering what we suffered in the Zu. I therefore went
alone to the rendezvous where I was to meet 'our representative.'
To my surprise, nobody was there but old Pellmelli himself.
'Why, you said you would send your representative!' I exclaimed.
'We are our usual representative,' he answered rather sulkily. 'Come
on, for we have to call on Messrs. Apples, the famous advertisers.'
'Why?' said I.
'Can you ask?' he replied. 'Can aught be more interesting than an
advertiser?'
'_I_ call it log rolling,' I answered; but he was silent.
He went at a great pace, and presently, in a somewhat sordid street,
pointed his finger silently to an object over a door.
_It was the carven head of an Ethiopian!_
This new confirmation of the prophecy gave me quite a turn, especially
when I read the characters inscribed beneath--
TRY OUR FINE NEGRO'S HEAD!
'Here dwells the sorcerer, even Asher,' said Pellmelli, and began to
crawl upstairs on his hands and knees.
'Why do you do that?' I asked, determined, if I must follow Pellmelli,
at all events not to follow his example.
'It is the manner of the tribe of Interviewers, my daughter. Ours is a
blessed task, yet must we feign humility, or the savage people kick us
and drive us forth with our garments rent.'
He now humbly tapped at a door, and a strange voice cried,
'_Entrez!_'
Pellmelli (whose Russian is his strong point) paused in doubt, but I
explained that the word was French for 'come in.'
He crawled in on his stomach, while I followed him erect, and we found
ourselves before a strange kind of tent. It had four posts, and a
broidered veil was drawn all round it.
Within the veil the sorcerer was concealed, and he asked in a gruff
tone,
'Wadyerwant?'
Pellmelli explained that he had come to receive a brief personal
statement for the Budget.
The Voice replied, without hesitation, 'The Centuries and the AEons
pass, and I too make the pass. _Je saute la coupe_,' he added, in a
foreign tongue. 'While thy race wore naught but a little blue paint, I
dwelt among the forgotten peoples. The Red Sea knows me, and the Nile
has turned scarlet at my words. I am Khoot Hoomi, I am also the Chela
of the Mountain!'
'Now it is my turn to ask _you_ a few easy questions.
'Who sitteth on the throne of Hokey, Pokey, Winky Wum, the Monarch of
the Anthropophagi?
'Have the Jews yet come to their land, or have the owners of the land
gone to the Jews?
'Doth Darius the Mede yet rule, or hath his kingdom passed to the
Bassarids?'
As Pellmelli was utterly floored by these inquiries (which indicated
that the sorcerer had been for a considerable time out of the range of
the daily papers), I answered them as well as I could.
When his very natural curiosity had been satisfied by a course of
Mangnall's Questions, I ventured to broach my own business.
He said he did not deal in mummies himself, though he had a stuffed
crocodile very much at my service; but would I call to-morrow, and
bring Leonora? He added that he had known of our coming by virtue of
his secret art of divination. 'And thyself,' he added, 'shalt gaze
without extra charge in the Fountain of Knowledge.'
Thrusting a withered yellow hand out of the mystic tent, he pointed to
a table where stood a small circular dish or cup of white earthenware,
containing some brown milky liquid.
'Gaze therein!' said the sorcerer.
I gazed--_There was a Stranger in the tea!_
Deeply impressed with the belief (laugh at it if you will) that I was
in the presence of a being of more than mortal endowments, I was
withdrawing, when my glance fell on his weird familiars,--two tailless
cats. This prodigy made me shudder, and I said, in tones of the deepest
awe and sympathy, 'Poor puss!'
'Yes,' came the strange voice from within the tent, 'they are _born_
without tails. I bred them so; it hath taken many centuries and much
trouble, but at last I have triumphed. Once, too, I reared a breed of
dogs with two tails, but after a while they became a proverb for pride;
Nature loathed them, and they perished. [Greek: Chaire!] _Vale!_'[22]
[22]
I have consulted the authorities at the British Museum, who
tell me these are the Greek and the Latin words for 'Don't you
think you had better go? Get out!'--ED.
This, though not understood, of course, by Pellmelli, was as good as an
invitation to withdraw, so I induced the old man to come away,
promising the magician I would return on the morrow.
Who was this awful man, to whom centuries were as moments, whose very
correspondence, as I had noticed, came through the Dead Letter Office,
and who spoke in the tongues of the dead past?