THE WIZARD UNBOSOMS.
'Sir,' said Leonora, 'may I request you to inform me why we find you,
rampaging an unbidden guest, in the chamber which is sacred to
hospitality?'
'[Greek: Ten d' apameibomenos prosephe koruthaiolos] Asher,' answered
the magician, dreamily. 'Do my senses deceive me, or--that voice, that
winsome bearing--am I once more with Helen on the walls of Ilion?'
'No, sir, you are in 30 Acacia Gardens,' replied Leonora, severely.
'_Why_, permit me to repeat myself, do I find you here, an unbidden
guest?'
'To say that I never guessed you'd find me here,' answered the
magician, 'might seem a mere trifling with language and with your
feelings.'
'My feelings!' exclaimed the proud girl, indignantly, 'just as if----
But answer me!'
'When a man has seen as much of life as I have,' answered the magician,
'when the AEons are to him merely as drops in a bucket which he will
never kick--and when he suffers,' he added mournfully, 'from attacks of
multiplex personality, he recognises the futility of personal
explanations.'
'At least I can compel you to tell us _Where is the mummy?_' said
Leonora.
'I am, or lately was, that mummy,' said the wizard, haughtily; then,
drawing himself up to his full height, he added, 'I am the REAL
JAMBRES! Old Gooseberry Jamberries,' he added solemnly. 'No other is
genuine!'
'You are playing, sir, on our credulity,' replied the girl; 'no living
man can be a mummy,--outside of the House of Lords or the Royal
Academy.'
'You speak,' he said tenderly, 'with the haste of youth and
inexperience. When you have lived as long as I have, you will know
better. Hearken to my story.
'Three or four thousand years ago--for what is time?--I was the
authorised magician at the Court of Ptolemy Patriarchus. I had a
rival--the noted witch Theodolite. In an evil hour she won me by a show
of false affection, and, taking advantage of my passion, mummified me
alive. To this I owe my remarkable state of preservation at an advanced
age. _Tres bien conserve_,' he added fatuously.
'But she only half accomplished her purpose. By some accident, which
has never been explained, and in spite of the stress of competition,
she had purchased _pure_ salts of potash for the execution of her fell
purpose in place of _adulterated_ salts of soda.
'To this I owe it that I am now a living man; and in a moment----'
A certain stiffness of demeanour, which we had noticed, but ascribed to
pride, worked an unspeakable change in the mage. As we looked at him
_he hardened into our cheap mummy_.
'Here's a jolly go!' said Leonora, her mind submerged in terror.
I sprang to the bell, '_Soda water at once!_' I cried, and the _slavi_
appeared with the fluid. We applied it to the parched lips of the
mummy, and Jambres was himself again.
'Now will you tell me?' I asked, when he had been given a cigarette and
made comfortable, 'why we found you--I mean the mummy--under the Three
Balls?'
''Twas a pledge,' he replied. 'When my resources ran low, and my rent
was unpaid, the landlady used to take advantage of my condition and
raise a small sum on me.'
All seemed now explained; but Leonora was not yet satisfied.
'You have----' she began.
'Yes, a strawberry mark,' he replied wearily, 'on the usual place!'
'The quest is accomplished,' I said.
'Nay,' replied Jambres, to give him his real name. 'There is still the
adventure of the Siege Perilous.'