Mr. John Vansittart Smith, F.R.S., of 147-A Gower Street, was a man whose
energy of purpose and clearness of thought might have placed him in the
very first rank of scientific observers. He was the victim, however, of a
universal ambition which prompted him to aim at distinction in many
subjects rather than preeminence in one.
In his early days he had shown an aptitude for zoology and for botany
which caused his friends to look upon him as a second Darwin, but when a
professorship was almost within his reach he had suddenly discontinued his
studies and turned his whole attention to chemistry. Here his researches
upon the spectra of the metals had won him his fellowship in the Royal
Society; but again he played the coquette with his subject, and after a
year's absence from the laboratory he joined the Oriental Society, and
delivered a paper on the Hieroglyphic and Demotic inscriptions of El Kab,
thus giving a crowning example both of the versatility and of the
inconstancy of his talents.
The most fickle of wooers, however, is apt to be caught at last, and so it
was with John Vansittart Smith. The more he burrowed his way into
Egyptology the more impressed he became by the vast field which it opened
to the inquirer, and by the extreme importance of a subject which promised
to throw a light upon the first germs of human civilisation and the origin
of the greater part of our arts and sciences. So struck was Mr. Smith that
he straightway married an Egyptological young lady who had written upon
the sixth dynasty, and having thus secured a sound base of operations he
set himself to collect materials for a work which should unite the
research of Lepsius and the ingenuity of Champollion. The preparation of
this magnum opus entailed many hurried visits to the magnificent Egyptian
collections of the Louvre, upon the last of which, no longer ago than the
middle of last October, he became involved in a most strange and
noteworthy adventure.
The trains had been slow and the Channel had been rough, so that the
student arrived in Paris in a somewhat befogged and feverish condition. On
reaching the Hotel de France, in the Rue Laffitte, he had thrown himself
upon a sofa for a couple of hours, but finding that he was unable to
sleep, he determined, in spite of his fatigue, to make his way to the
Louvre, settle the point which he had come to decide, and take the evening
train back to Dieppe. Having come to this conclusion, he donned his
greatcoat, for it was a raw rainy day, and made his way across the
Boulevard des Italiens and down the Avenue de l'Opera. Once in the Louvre
he was on familiar ground, and he speedily made his way to the collection
of papyri which it was his intention to consult.
The warmest admirers of John Vansittart Smith could hardly claim for him
that he was a handsome man. His high-beaked nose and prominent chin had
something of the same acute and incisive character which distinguished his
intellect. He held his head in a birdlike fashion, and birdlike, too, was
the pecking motion with which, in conversation, he threw out his
objections and retorts. As he stood, with the high collar of his greatcoat
raised to his ears, he might have seen from the reflection in the
glass-case before him that his appearance was a singular one. Yet it came
upon him as a sudden jar when an English voice behind him exclaimed in
very audible tones, "What a queer-looking mortal!"
The student had a large amount of petty vanity in his composition which
manifested itself by an ostentatious and overdone disregard of all
personal considerations. He straightened his lips and looked rigidly at
the roll of papyrus, while his heart filled with bitterness against the
whole race of travelling Britons.
"Yes," said another voice, "he really is an extraordinary fellow."
"Do you know," said the first speaker, "one could almost believe that by
the continual contemplation of mummies the chap has become half a mummy
himself?"
"He has certainly an Egyptian cast of countenance," said the other.
John Vansittart Smith spun round upon his heel with the intention of
shaming his countrymen by a corrosive remark or two. To his surprise and
relief, the two young fellows who had been conversing had their shoulders
turned towards him, and were gazing at one of the Louvre attendants who
was polishing some brass-work at the other side of the room.
"Carter will be waiting for us at the Palais Royal," said one tourist to
the other, glancing at his watch, and they clattered away, leaving the
student to his labours.
"I wonder what these chatterers call an Egyptian cast of countenance,"
thought John Vansittart Smith, and he moved his position slightly in order
to catch a glimpse of the man's face. He started as his eyes fell upon it.
It was indeed the very face with which his studies had made him familiar.
The regular statuesque features, broad brow, well-rounded chin, and dusky
complexion were the exact counterpart of the innumerable statues,
mummy-cases, and pictures which adorned the walls of the apartment.
The thing was beyond all coincidence. The man must be an Egyptian.
The national angularity of the shoulders and narrowness of the hips were
alone sufficient to identify him.
John Vansittart Smith shuffled towards the attendant with some intention
of addressing him. He was not light of touch in conversation, and found it
difficult to strike the happy mean between the brusqueness of the superior
and the geniality of the equal. As he came nearer, the man presented his
side face to him, but kept his gaze still bent upon his work. Vansittart
Smith, fixing his eyes upon the fellow's skin, was conscious of a sudden
impression that there was something inhuman and preternatural about its
appearance. Over the temple and cheek-bone it was as glazed and as shiny
as varnished parchment. There was no suggestion of pores. One could not
fancy a drop of moisture upon that arid surface. From brow to chin,
however, it was cross-hatched by a million delicate wrinkles, which shot
and interlaced as though Nature in some Maori mood had tried how wild and
intricate a pattern she could devise.
"Ou est la collection de Memphis?" asked the student, with the awkward air
of a man who is devising a question merely for the purpose of opening a
conversation.
"C'est la," replied the man brusquely, nodding his head at the other side
of the room.
"Vous etes un Egyptien, n'est-ce pas?" asked the Englishman.
The attendant looked up and turned his strange dark eyes upon his
questioner. They were vitreous, with a misty dry shininess, such as Smith
had never seen in a human head before. As he gazed into them he saw some
strong emotion gather in their depths, which rose and deepened until it
broke into a look of something akin both to horror and to hatred.
"Non, monsieur; je suis Fransais." The man turned abruptly and bent low
over his polishing. The student gazed at him for a moment in astonishment,
and then turning to a chair in a retired corner behind one of the doors he
proceeded to make notes of his researches among the papyri. His thoughts,
however refused to return into their natural groove. They would run upon
the enigmatical attendant with the sphinx-like face and the parchment
skin.
"Where have I seen such eyes?" said Vansittart Smith to himself. "There is
something saurian about them, something reptilian. There's the membrana
nictitans of the snakes," he mused, bethinking himself of his zoological
studies. "It gives a shiny effect. But there was something more here.
There was a sense of power, of wisdom—so I read them—and of
weariness, utter weariness, and ineffable despair. It may be all
imagination, but I never had so strong an impression. By Jove, I must have
another look at them!" He rose and paced round the Egyptian rooms, but the
man who had excited his curiosity had disappeared.
The student sat down again in his quiet corner, and continued to work at
his notes. He had gained the information which he required from the
papyri, and it only remained to write it down while it was still fresh in
his memory. For a time his pencil travelled rapidly over the paper, but
soon the lines became less level, the words more blurred, and finally the
pencil tinkled down upon the floor, and the head of the student dropped
heavily forward upon his chest.
Tired out by his journey, he slept so soundly in his lonely post behind
the door that neither the clanking civil guard, nor the footsteps of
sightseers, nor even the loud hoarse bell which gives the signal for
closing, were sufficient to arouse him.
Twilight deepened into darkness, the bustle from the Rue de Rivoli waxed
and then waned, distant Notre Dame clanged out the hour of midnight, and
still the dark and lonely figure sat silently in the shadow. It was not
until close upon one in the morning that, with a sudden gasp and an
intaking of the breath, Vansittart Smith returned to consciousness. For a
moment it flashed upon him that he had dropped asleep in his study-chair
at home. The moon was shining fitfully through the unshuttered window,
however, and, as his eye ran along the lines of mummies and the endless
array of polished cases, he remembered clearly where he was and how he
came there. The student was not a nervous man. He possessed that love of a
novel situation which is peculiar to his race. Stretching out his cramped
limbs, he looked at his watch, and burst into a chuckle as he observed the
hour. The episode would make an admirable anecdote to be introduced into
his next paper as a relief to the graver and heavier speculations. He was
a little cold, but wide awake and much refreshed. It was no wonder that
the guardians had overlooked him, for the door threw its heavy black
shadow right across him.
The complete silence was impressive. Neither outside nor inside was there
a creak or a murmur. He was alone with the dead men of a dead
civilisation. What though the outer city reeked of the garish nineteenth
century! In all this chamber there was scarce an article, from the
shrivelled ear of wheat to the pigment-box of the painter, which had not
held its own against four thousand years. Here was the flotsam and jetsam
washed up by the great ocean of time from that far-off empire. From
stately Thebes, from lordly Luxor, from the great temples of Heliopolis,
from a hundred rifled tombs, these relics had been brought. The student
glanced round at the long silent figures who flickered vaguely up through
the gloom, at the busy toilers who were now so restful, and he fell into a
reverent and thoughtful mood. An unwonted sense of his own youth and
insignificance came over him. Leaning back in his chair, he gazed dreamily
down the long vista of rooms, all silvery with the moonshine, which extend
through the whole wing of the widespread building. His eyes fell upon the
yellow glare of a distant lamp.
John Vansittart Smith sat up on his chair with his nerves all on edge. The
light was advancing slowly towards him, pausing from time to time, and
then coming jerkily onwards. The bearer moved noiselessly. In the utter
silence there was no suspicion of the pat of a footfall. An idea of
robbers entered the Englishman's head. He snuggled up further into the
corner. The light was two rooms off. Now it was in the next chamber, and
still there was no sound. With something approaching to a thrill of fear
the student observed a face, floating in the air as it were, behind the
flare of the lamp. The figure was wrapped in shadow, but the light fell
full upon the strange eager face. There was no mistaking the metallic
glistening eyes and the cadaverous skin. It was the attendant with whom he
had conversed.
Vansittart Smith's first impulse was to come forward and address him. A
few words of explanation would set the matter clear, and lead doubtless to
his being conducted to some side door from which he might make his way to
his hotel. As the man entered the chamber, however, there was something so
stealthy in his movements, and so furtive in his expression, that the
Englishman altered his intention. This was clearly no ordinary official
walking the rounds. The fellow wore felt-soled slippers, stepped with a
rising chest, and glanced quickly from left to right, while his hurried
gasping breathing thrilled the flame of his lamp. Vansittart Smith
crouched silently back into the corner and watched him keenly, convinced
that his errand was one of secret and probably sinister import.
There was no hesitation in the other's movements. He stepped lightly and
swiftly across to one of the great cases, and, drawing a key from his
pocket, he unlocked it. From the upper shelf he pulled down a mummy, which
he bore away with him, and laid it with much care and solicitude upon the
ground. By it he placed his lamp, and then squatting down beside it in
Eastern fashion he began with long quivering fingers to undo the
cerecloths and bandages which girt it round. As the crackling rolls of
linen peeled off one after the other, a strong aromatic odour filled the
chamber, and fragments of scented wood and of spices pattered down upon
the marble floor.
It was clear to John Vansittart Smith that this mummy had never been
unswathed before. The operation interested him keenly. He thrilled all
over with curiosity, and his birdlike head protruded further and further
from behind the door. When, however, the last roll had been removed from
the four-thousand-year-old head, it was all that he could do to stifle an
outcry of amazement. First, a cascade of long, black, glossy tresses
poured over the workman's hands and arms. A second turn of the bandage
revealed a low, white forehead, with a pair of delicately arched eyebrows.
A third uncovered a pair of bright, deeply fringed eyes, and a straight,
well-cut nose, while a fourth and last showed a sweet, full, sensitive
mouth, and a beautifully curved chin. The whole face was one of
extraordinary loveliness, save for the one blemish that in the centre of
the forehead there was a single irregular, coffee-coloured splotch. It was
a triumph of the embalmer's art. Vansittart Smith's eyes grew larger and
larger as he gazed upon it, and he chirruped in his throat with satisfaction.
Its effect upon the Egyptologist was as nothing, however, compared with
that which it produced upon the strange attendant. He threw his hands up
into the air, burst into a harsh clatter of words, and then, hurling
himself down upon the ground beside the mummy, he threw his arms round
her, and kissed her repeatedly upon the lips and brow. "Ma petite!" he
groaned in French. "Ma pauvre petite!" His voice broke with emotion, and
his innumerable wrinkles quivered and writhed, but the student observed in
the lamplight that his shining eyes were still as dry and tearless as two
beads of steel. For some minutes he lay, with a twitching face, crooning
and moaning over the beautiful head. Then he broke into a sudden smile,
said some words in an unknown tongue, and sprang to his feet with the
vigorous air of one who has braced himself for an effort.
In the centre of the room there was a large circular case which contained,
as the student had frequently remarked, a magnificent collection of early
Egyptian rings and precious stones. To this the attendant strode, and,
unlocking it, he threw it open. On the ledge at the side he placed his
lamp, and beside it a small earthenware jar which he had drawn from his
pocket. He then took a handful of rings from the case, and with a most
serious and anxious face he proceeded to smear each in turn with some
liquid substance from the earthen pot, holding them to the light as he did
so. He was clearly disappointed with the first lot, for he threw them
petulantly back into the case, and drew out some more. One of these, a
massive ring with a large crystal set in it, he seized and eagerly tested
with the contents of the jar. Instantly he uttered a cry of joy, and threw
out his arms in a wild gesture which upset the pot and sent the liquid
streaming across the floor to the very feet of the Englishman. The
attendant drew a red handkerchief from his bosom, and, mopping up the
mess, he followed it into the corner, where in a moment he found himself
face to face with his observer.
"Excuse me," said John Vansittart Smith, with all imaginable politeness;
"I have been unfortunate enough to fall asleep behind this door."
"And you have been watching me?" the other asked in English, with a most
venomous look on his corpse-like face.
The student was a man of veracity. "I confess," said he, "that I have
noticed your movements, and that they have aroused my curiosity and
interest in the highest degree."
The man drew a long flamboyant-bladed knife from his bosom. "You have had
a very narrow escape," he said; "had I seen you ten minutes ago, I should
have driven this through your heart. As it is, if you touch me or
interfere with me in any way you are a dead man."
"I have no wish to interfere with you," the student answered. "My presence
here is entirely accidental. All I ask is that you will have the extreme
kindness to show me out through some side door." He spoke with great
suavity, for the man was still pressing the tip of his dagger against the
palm of his left hand, as though to assure himself of its sharpness, while
his face preserved its malignant expression.
"If I thought——" said he. "But no, perhaps it is as well. What is your name?"
The Englishman gave it.
"Vansittart Smith," the other repeated. "Are you the same Vansittart Smith
who gave a paper in London upon El Kab? I saw a report of it. Your knowledge of the subject is contemptible."
"Sir!" cried the Egyptologist.
"Yet it is superior to that of many who make even greater pretensions. The
whole keystone of our old life in Egypt was not the inscriptions or
monuments of which you make so much, but was our hermetic philosophy and
mystic knowledge, of which you say little or nothing."
"Our old life!" repeated the scholar, wide-eyed; and then suddenly, "Good
God, look at the mummy's face!"
The strange man turned and flashed his light upon the dead woman, uttering
a long doleful cry as he did so. The action of the air had already undone
all the art of the embalmer. The skin had fallen away, the eyes had sunk
inwards, the discoloured lips had writhed away from the yellow teeth, and
the brown mark upon the forehead alone showed that it was indeed the same
face which had shown such youth and beauty a few short minutes before.
The man flapped his hands together in grief and horror. Then mastering
himself by a strong effort he turned his hard eyes once more upon the Englishman.
"It does not matter," he said, in a shaking voice. "It does not really
matter. I came here to-night with the fixed determination to do something.
It is now done. All else is as nothing. I have found my quest. The old
curse is broken. I can rejoin her. What matter about her inanimate shell
so long as her spirit is awaiting me at the other side of the veil!"
"These are wild words," said Vansittart Smith. He was becoming more and
more convinced that he had to do with a madman.
"Time presses, and I must go," continued the other. "The moment is at hand
for which I have waited this weary time. But I must show you out first. Come with me."
Taking up the lamp, he turned from the disordered chamber, and led the
student swiftly through the long series of the Egyptian, Assyrian, and
Persian apartments. At the end of the latter he pushed open a small door
let into the wall and descended a winding stone stair. The Englishman felt
the cold fresh air of the night upon his brow. There was a door opposite
him which appeared to communicate with the street. To the right of this
another door stood ajar, throwing a spurt of yellow light across the
passage. "Come in here!" said the attendant shortly.
Vansittart Smith hesitated. He had hoped that he had come to the end of
his adventure. Yet his curiosity was strong within him. He could not leave
the matter unsolved, so he followed his strange companion into the lighted chamber.
It was a small room, such as is devoted to a concierge. A wood fire
sparkled in the grate. At one side stood a truckle bed, and at the other a
coarse wooden chair, with a round table in the centre, which bore the
remains of a meal. As the visitor's eye glanced round he could not but
remark with an ever-recurring thrill that all the small details of the
room were of the most quaint design and antique workmanship. The
candlesticks, the vases upon the chimney-piece, the fire-irons, the
ornaments upon the walls, were all such as he had been wont to associate
with the remote past. The gnarled heavy-eyed man sat himself down upon the
edge of the bed, and motioned his guest into the chair.
"There may be design in this," he said, still speaking excellent English.
"It may be decreed that I should leave some account behind as a warning to
all rash mortals who would set their wits up against workings of Nature. I
leave it with you. Make such use as you will of it. I speak to you now
with my feet upon the threshold of the other world.
"I am, as you surmised, an Egyptian—not one of the down-trodden race
of slaves who now inhabit the Delta of the Nile, but a survivor of that
fiercer and harder people who tamed the Hebrew, drove the Ethiopian back
into the southern deserts, and built those mighty works which have been
the envy and the wonder of all after generations. It was in the reign of
Tuthmosis, sixteen hundred years before the birth of Christ, that I first
saw the light. You shrink away from me. Wait, and you will see that I am
more to be pitied than to be feared.
"My name was Sosra. My father had been the chief priest of Osiris in the
great temple of Abaris, which stood in those days upon the Bubastic branch
of the Nile. I was brought up in the temple and was trained in all those
mystic arts which are spoken of in your own Bible. I was an apt pupil.
Before I was sixteen I had learned all which the wisest priest could teach
me. From that time on I studied Nature's secrets for myself, and shared my
knowledge with no man.
"Of all the questions which attracted me there were none over which I
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 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 places 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 Egyptian 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."
