I felt his pulse
"This man is dead," I said to him. "He attacked me last night. I threw him and perhaps broke his ribs. But I did not kill him, for he fled. How comes it he is dead?"
Sir Robert, for answer, threw at my feet the contents of the jar. Then I understood why he wore the masque. The cavern was filled with the fumes of the deadly perfume of the sarcophagus on instant. One sniff and my senses were rocking. I held my breath, but in spite of that the cavern swung round me with vertiginous rapidity.
It seemed best to retire. I did so, but how I hardly know. Somehow or another I reached the pylon, passed the blacks and stepped upon the sand. About fifty paces off I saw a beautiful grove of palm trees suddenly spring up out of the desert.Such magic was most astonishing. I said to myself, "They cannot be real, of course. I am merely imagining them." But their shade was so deliciously inviting that I simply had to accept its challenge. I entered the grove and sat down beside a little purling stream of crystal water. It was very pleasant to dip my hands in it. Presently a lovely Naiad rose up out of the pool, seized my hands and pressed them to her lips. That was pleasant, too. Then she came and sat quite near me on the banks of the rill and drew my head upon her lap and stroked cool fingers through my hair, crooning a tender love song all the while. That was pleasantest of all. But her crooning made me drowsy. Like the Lorelei's song, it charmed away my senses, and I slept.
Of course, I had swooned, and equally, of course, not on the bank of a rivulet and under the cool shade of palm trees, but in the full blaze of the mid-day sun and on the smooth, unprotected burning surface of the desert. It was the accursed sarcophagus perfume that had worked the mischief. Fortunately Miss Ottley saw me fall; otherwise I might have had a sunstroke. Belleville and the Captain carried me between them to the shade of one of the pylons, and Belleville opened a vein in my left arm—a proceeding I am prevented from commenting on by considerations of professional etiquette. Happily, I recovered consciousness in time to save a little of my precious blood. I told Belleville my opinion of him in one comprehensive scowl, which he interpreted correctly, I am glad to say, and then got up. I bandaged my arm myself and made off for the Captain's tent. That gentleman followed me. There arrived, I cast myself upon the cot and swore at ease. Weldon listened in spellbound admiration. He afterwards assured me that he had never before encountered such proficient fluency in objurgationand invective. I was madder than a hatter, and the more because I was as weak as a cat, and I wanted to be strong, with all my soul. Yet, five days passed before I felt well enough to be able to attack the task in front of me. Meanwhile, I told the Captain very little and Miss Ottley nothing. How could I let her know I knew her father to be a confounded old rascal? She was very good. She visited me every day and spent hours reading aloud by my bedside, while the Captain and I watched her face and thought much the same thoughts; though I took care, for my own part, not to let my features reflect the fatuous devotion of the Captain's. On the sixth morning I found I could lift that young man shoulder-high with one hand without wanting to sit down and pant afterwards, so I got up. It was just after daylight. The Captain wanted to accompany me, but I thought differently. He was annoyed, but I let him watch me from the tent flap. I found Sir Robert talking to Dr. Belleville at the door of the cave temple. His greeting was quite affectionate. "So glad you are better again, my dear young friend," he said, and he warmly invited me into the chamber. It was almost empty. The jar of perfume had gone; the sarcophagus had disappeared. It contained only a table and a cot. "Sit down," said Sir Robert.
"Where is the sarcophagus?" I demanded.
The old rascal grinned. "I had it quietly transferred last night on a truck to a punt," he replied,"while you were enjoying your beauty sleep. Dr. Belleville and I have not been to bed at all. It is now on the road to Cairo—and England."
I sat down on the cot. "And the dead Arab?" I questioned.
Dr. Belleville choked back a laugh. Sir Robert smiled.
"The dead Arab you saw was the mortal casket of Ptahmes," said he. "I am not surprised at your mistake. The body is in a perfect state of preservation. It is not a mummy in any sense of the expression. I regret very much that your sudden indisposition prevented you from examining it closely and me from explaining the circumstances of its preservation and discovery on the spot. However, I can tell you this much now. We found it steeped in an essential oil which an hermetic process had defended from evaporation. The oil began to evaporate immediately it was exposed to the air: but I contrived to save a certain quantity with which, later, I purpose to experiment in London. The Egyptian authorities have been very good to me. They have given me all necessary powers to deal with my discovery as I please. I tell you this lest professional jealousy should lead you to attempt any interference with my actions."
"In plain words, Sir Robert, you wish me to understand that your discovery is for you and not for the world."
"Hardly that, my dear Pinsent. Merely that Ipropose to choose my own time for taking the world into my confidence—and that of Dr. Belleville," he added, bowing to his friend.
"An unusual course for a professed scientist to adopt."
"I have very little sympathy with conventionality," cooed Sir Robert.
"And I," said Belleville.
"The point of view of two burglars," I observed. I scowled at Belleville.
"You shall be as rude as you please. You saved my life," said Sir Robert.
Dr. Belleville cleared his throat. "Ahem—Ahem," said he, "the discourtesy of the disappointed is—ahem—is a tribute to the merits of the more successful."
In my rage I descended to abuse. "You are a nasty old swindler," I said to Sir Robert, "but your grey hair protects you for the present. But, as for you, sir," I turned to Belleville, "you black bull-dog—if you dare so much as to open your lips to me again, I'll wring your flabby nose off."
The baronet turned scarlet; the Doctor went livid; but neither of them said a word.
I strode to the door intending to quit, but there rage mastered me again. I swung on heel and once more faced them. "One word more," I grated out; "you're not done with me yet, either of you. I'm a peaceful man by nature, but no man treads on my toes with impunity. Spiritualists orspirit-summoners you are, I hear. Weldon calls you spook-hunters—a very proper term. You'll need all the money you possess between you and all the spirits' help you'll buy from your rascal spirit-rappers to keep me from your trail. Looking for the elixir of life, I'm told. It will go hard if I don't help you find it. The elixir of public ridicule, that I'll turn upon you, will hand your names down to posterity. I'll help you to that much immortality, at least, and gratis, too. Good-day to you!"
"Dr. Pinsent!" shouted Ottley.
I paused and glanced at him across my shoulder. He gazed at me with eyes that simply blazed.
"Be warned," he hissed, "if you value your life, let me and mine alone. I'll send a cheque to your tent to-day; keep it, call quits, and I'm done with you. I owe you that consideration, but no more."
"And suppose, on the other hand——"
"Cross me and you shall see. You sleep sometimes, I suppose. My emissary will not always find you wakeful. He never sleeps."
"Your rascal Arab!" I shouted.
"Pah!" he cried.
"Murderer, it was to you I owe that rough and tumble a week ago at my own camp in the desert."
"To me," he mumbled. "To me. Whom else? My agents are spirits and invisible. They do not love you for despising them. They have tortures in reserve for you when you are dead and you, too, are a spirit. But I would be merciful—I shall sendyou a cheque. Return it at your peril. Now go, go, go."
On a sudden I was cold as ice. The man was evidently insane. He seemed on the brink of a fit. He was frothing at the mouth.
"Softly, softly, Sir Robert," I said soothingly. "No need for excitement. Calm yourself; after all this is a business transaction."
"Oh!" he gasped, then broke into a wild laugh. "A mere matter of price. I should have known it; a Scotchman!"
"Exactly," said I. "And my price is a million. Good-morning."
The whole camp was astir. The negroes' tents were all down and rolled. The mules and asses were being loaded heavily. Evidently Sir Robert was about to flit after the corpse of Ptahmes. I found Miss Ottley and the Captain talking over the apparent move. The girl was agitated. She had not been consulted. It was not a time to mince matters. I told her frankly everything that had passed between her father and myself, and hardly had I finished, when she rushed off hot foot to visit him. The Captain went with her. I made a passably good breakfast.
About noon—I saw no one but blacks in the meanwhile—the Captain came with a letter. "From Sir Robert—catch!" said he. I tore it open. A single sheet of note enclosed a cheque signed in blank. "Dear Dr. Pinsent," ran the letter. "You will find that my signature will be honoured for any sum it may please you to put upon my life in your esteem. Permit me to express a hope that you will not hurt my vanity in your selection of numerals.
"Sincerely yours,Robert Ottley."
I handed the note to Weldon. He read it and whistled loud and long.
"You might beggar him!" he cried. "The man is stark mad."
"Either that or he has made a truly wonderful discovery," I rejoined. "And there is Belleville to consider. That man, I fancy, is a rascal—but also a sane one."
"It has me beat," said the handsome Captain. "The whole thing from start to finish. Ottley is up there now spooning his daughter like a lover. He was as sweet as pie to me, too. I feel like a stranded jelly-fish. What will you do?"
I enclosed the cheque in a blank cover, sealed it and gave it to the Captain.
"Will you be my courier?"
"Of course," said he, and swung off.
He returned at the end of my third cigar, with a second letter. It ran, "My dear young friend, Your refusal has deeply pained me. The more, because it deprives me of the pleasure of your company on the road to Cairo. I beg you, nevertheless, to choose from my stores all that you may require that may serve you during your continued sojourn at Rakh. We start at sunset for the Nile and north.
"Ever yours attachedly,"R. Ottley."
When the Captain had mastered this precious effusion, he collapsed upon a stool. "He intends to leave you here alone in the desert. It's—it's marooning, nothing less!" he gasped.
I lighted a fourth cigar and lay back thinking hard. In ten minutes I had made up my mind. I sat up. The Captain was anxiously watching me. "See here, my lad," I said, "in that bundle yonder is the manuscript of a book I have been working hard upon for three years and more. It is the very heart of me. Take good care of it. One of these days—if I live—I'll call for it at your diggings in London. I have your address in my notebook."
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" said the Captain. "But what's the game?"
"Diamond cut diamond. I'm going a journey.But I'll say no more. Mad or sane, you are eating Ottley's salt, and are beholden to him for his paternity of the exceptionally gifted young woman you propose to marry. Good-bye to you."
I held out my hand. He sprang up and wrung it hard. "You are sure you are doing right?" he asked.
I filled my pockets with his cigars. "I am sure of nothing," I replied, as I did so, "except this—I have been abominably ill-used by a man who under Heaven owes his life to me—and this—I resent it."
I put on my helmet, nodded and left the tent.
The Captain cried out, "Good luck!" Five minutes later I turned and waved my hand to him. He was still standing by the tent flap gazing after me. I thought to myself, "He is as honest as he is good to look upon. He will make May Ottley a gallant husband." I am a reasonably bad Christian, and quite as selfish as many worse, but somehow or another the reflection brought no aftermath of bitterness. The handsome, happy-hearted boy—he was little else for all his three and thirty years—had crept into my heart, and I felt somehow the chamber he occupied was next door to that wherein May Ottley's visage was enshrined. But I had work to do; so I turned the key on both. The sun was so hideously hot that I was forced to hasten slowly. But I reached the Nile under two hours, and found, as I expected, Sir Robert Ottley's steam launch moored to the bank. Her smoking funnel hadbeen the beacon of my march. She was in charge of an old French pilot, a Turkish engineer, and four Levantines, piratical-looking stokers, mongrels all. I stalked aboard with an air of paramount authority. The Frenchman came forward, bowing. He wore a sort of uniform. "Steam up, Captain?" I asked.
"Since morning, monsieur!" he replied.
"Then kindly push off at once. I must overtake the punt that started last night without delay."
His mouth opened. "But monsieur," he protested, "I——"
"You waste time," I interrupted.
He rubbed his hands nervously together. "But monsieur is unknown to me. I have my written orders from Sare Roberrrrt. Doubtless monsieur has authority. But monsieur vill perrceive——"
"That you are a punctilious old fool," I retorted. "Here is my authority!" What I showed him was a revolver. He jumped, I vow, two feet in the air, and hastily retreated. But I followed more quickly still, and forced him to the bridge. There he became very voluble, however; so much so, indeed, that I was constrained to cock my pistol. That settled him. He thundered out his orders and we were soon racing at ten knots an hour down stream. When rounding the nearest bend to the Hill of Rakh the temptation was very strong in me to sound the steamer's whistle. But I am proud to say that I refrained. It would have been a little-mindedthing to do. About midnight, feeling weary, I ran the steamer's nose gently into a mud bank, drove the captain down to the deck and locked him with the rest of the crew in the engine-house. Then I foraged round for eatables, made a hearty supper and snatched about five hours' sleep. When morning came I awoke as fresh and strong as a young colt. After bath and breakfast, I released my prisoners, made them eat and then push off the bank. We lost an hour at that job, but, at length, it was accomplished, and our race for the punt recommenced. We overhauled it about four o'clock the same afternoon. It was just an ordinary flat-bottomed Nile abomination, towed by a tiny, panting, puffing-billy, with twenty yards of good Manilla. Twelve Arabs squatted round the sarcophagus. Seated on the sarcophagus, under a double awning, was a burly-looking Englishman. He was smoking a pipe, and one look at his face told me exactly why he had been entrusted with Sir Robert Ottley's priceless treasure. He was, as plain as daylight, a gentleman if one ever lived, a brave man, too, shrewd and self-reliant and as incorruptibly devoted to his duty as a bull-dog with a thief's hand between his jaws. I wondered if I would get the better of him. As a first step towards that desideratum, I assured the French captain that I entertained too much regard for him to put him to a lingering death should he disobey me. I had previously locked the rest of the crew in the engine-house.Then we bore down on the punt and I shouted for the tug to be stopped. This was done. As it lost way, we nosed up, going easy until we were alongside the punt. Then I ordered half speed astern until we, too, were stationary. Some power of suction or attraction began immediately to draw the two crafts together. The tug, however, continued to remain, say thirty feet off. The Englishman ordered out rope fenders and asked me what the blazes I was doing. I answered that I had come after him from Sir Robert Ottley—which was in a sense perfectly true—and that he could hardly expect me to shout out urgent private business before listeners, which was also a reasonably veracious statement of the facts. The Englishman—I never learned his name—observed, with some heat, that he would not leave his charge for a second for any man living except Sir Robert Ottley; and that if I had something to tell him I must go aboard the punt.
I said "Very well," and as the crafts touched I helped myself to the punt with a rope.
"Well, what is it?" he demanded, and he eyed me most suspiciously, one hand in his breast. Doubtless he had there a revolver. Had he been warned? And of me? It is a thing I have still my doubts about. But I looked him frankly in the eyes and told him the truth to the very best of my ability.
"It has lately come to Sir Robert Ottley'sknowledge," I began, "that one of his guests—a man named Pinsent" (he started at the name) "has conceived a bold design of relieving you of this very charge of yours, which you are guarding with such praiseworthy solicitude."
"Oh!" said the Englishman, "and how would he go about it?" The idea appeared to tickle him. He laughed.
"He would follow you and attack you," said I.
The Englishman put his hands on his thighs and simply roared. "He would have to swim after me," he chuckled. "There is not another launch save these two between here and Ham!"
"I am honestly glad to hear it," I replied, and, indeed, I was.
"It's a mare's nest," declared the Englishman.
"Oh!" said I. "This Pinsent is a desperate fellow and resourceful. Do you know, he actually tried single-handed to seize that launch."
"TheSwallow!" cried the Englishman. "Impossible."
"On the contrary!" I retorted. "He succeeded. He stands before you. My name is Pinsent. Permit me!"
He was a trifle slow-witted, I fancy. He still looked puzzled, when his face emerged above the Nile water, after his dive. But I would not let him return to the punt. Immediately I discovered that the Arabs were only armed with knives. I had taken the trouble to throw overboard all the firearms that I could find on theSwallow; so I justdrove them aboard the launch and ordered the Frenchman to sheer off and return to Rakh. He was charmed at the permission.
The Englishman fired at me twice from the water, but he had to keep himself afloat, so he naturally missed. When he was well-nigh drowned I hauled him up with a boat hook. It was easy to disarm him in that condition. I had intended to put him on the tug, but I waited too long. The tug cut the tow rope before my eyes and without so much as by your leave puffed after theSwallow. The Englishman and I were thus left lonely on the punt; in middle stream. The current was fairly strong at that point and making towards a long, low-lying sweep of reedy flats. I had no mind to land there, however, so after tying up the Englishman neck and crop, I contrived to hoist a sail and steered for the opposite bank.
The Englishman and I had nothing to say to each other. No doubt he recognised the futility of conversation in the circumstances; as for me, I never felt less inclined to talk. About five o'clock we grounded under the lee of a pretty little promontory. It was populated with crocodiles. Nice companions—at a distance—crocodiles—musky-smelling brutes.
The Englishman was evidently something of a gourmet. I found foie gras, camembert cheese, pressed sheep's tongues and bottled British ale in his private locker. But he was as sullen as a sore-headed grizzly. He sourly declined to eat even though I offered to free his hands, and he strove to make my dinner unpleasant by volunteering pungent information on the punishment provided by law for the crimes of piracy, robbery under arms, burglary, assault and battery, and false imprisonment. Those, it seems, were the titular heads of some of my delinquencies. He felt sure that I would get ten years' hard labour, at least. I did not argue the point with him. After dinner I examined the sarcophagus. The lid was fastened on with crosswise-running bands of hinged steel, padlocked in the centre. But it was, strange to say, wedged at one end with iron bolts about an inch ajar, as if on purpose to allow air to pass into the coffin. After a little search I discovered a toolbox in the shallow hold of the punt; and I attacked the bands with cold chisels and a mallet. Ten minutes' work sufficed. I tossed the broken bands asideand levered off the lid. My heart beat like a trip-hammer as I looked into the coffin. I was prepared for a surprise. I received one. My Arab gazed up at me. The mysterious Arab with the three broken ribs, who had frightened Miss Ottley and tried to throttle me and whom I had last seen lying—a corpse—in the cave temple at Rakh. Of course, Sir Robert Ottley had declared the corpse in the temple to be identical with that of Ptahmes, the four thousand years dead High Priest of Amen-Ra. But that was ridiculous. I had only had time to make a cursory examination of the dead Arab in the cave temple, it is true, but I am a surgeon, and I had convinced myself that the fellow, so far from being a mummy, had not been long dead. I had yet to discover an essential error in my cave temple investigation. My very first impression had been not death, but suspended animation. And I must have been right. The later speedy diagnosis had, in sober truth, misled me. The man was not dead. It had been a case of suspended animation. The Arab lying in the sarcophagus before me was alive. His broken ribs were neatly set and bandaged. Otherwise he was swathed from head to foot in oiled rags. He was lying in an easy position on his back—upon a doubled feather tick. He was breathing softly but unmistakably. And he was awake. His extraordinary eyes—they were set fully five inches apart in his abnormally broad skull—were wide open and staring at me in a way to make the fleshcreep. They were horrible eyes. The whites were sepia-coloured, the pupils were yellowish, and the iris of each a different shade of black flecked with scarlet spots. His cone-shaped forehead was moist and glistening with oil or perspiration. His mouth was held open by two small rubber-tipped metal bars joined together, against which his teeth—great brown fangs—pressed with manifest spasmodic energy.
Now what was Ottley's purpose in taking such extraordinary pains to transport a living Arab in a dead man's coffin from Rakh to Cairo, and, perhaps, London?
Perhaps the Arab could tell me. Burning with curiosity, I stooped down and took from his mouth the mechanical contrivances which held the jaws apart. The Arab uttered on the instant a deep, raucous sigh. His eyeballs rolled upwards and became fixed. He appeared to have fainted. I rushed away to procure some water. That water was in the hold. Seizing a dipper, I sprang down the steps, hurried to the cask and filled it. The whole business occupied only a few seconds. I certainly could not have been away from the deck half a minute, but when I returned the sarcophagus was empty. The Arab had disappeared. Utterly astounded, I gazed about me. Had the whole thing been a dream? It appeared so, but no—I caught sight of a tall, dark figure making off hot foot across the promontory. He had leaped ashore, a distance oftwelve feet or more, and was running towards the desert. In a second I was after him. I thought of the crocodiles while in mid air; but it was too late to turn back at that juncture. My feet landed in a patch of oozy sand. I scrambled out of it and up the slope among the reeds. A loud rustle and a stink of musk warned me of a saurian neighbour. I gave a mighty leap and cleared the reeds. Then I ran as I had never run before, for my Arab was in front, and a hungry monster came hard upon my heels. A log lay in my path. It was another crocodile. I cleared it with a bound and gained the desert. I was hunted for some seconds, I believe, but I never looked back, so I do not know at what point the saurian gave up the chase. The Arab was a marvel. He had a lead of one hundred yards and he maintained it. He had three broken ribs and I was as sound as a bell. Yet, at the end of twenty minutes not his breath but mine gave out. I was forced to pause for a spell. He ran on. His lead doubled. Setting my teeth, I resumed the chase. But I might have spared myself the trouble. He gradually grew farther and farther away from me. I did my best, but at last I was compelled to admit myself beaten. The Arab's tall form grew less and less distinguishable against the stars. Finally it melted into the mists of the horizon. I was alone on the desert. I sat down to rest and took counsel with myself. I had turned pirate and committed, technically, a number of other atrociouscrimes for absolutely nothing. Plainly I could not return to the punt.
First of all, in order to reach it I should have to face the crocodiles. And even should I escape their jaws again, what could I do on the river? Sooner or later I should be caught. And I had a very strong suspicion that Sir Robert Ottley would not hesitate, once I was in his power, to plunge me into an Egyptian prison. He had evidence enough to get me a long term of hard labour, and I felt little doubt but that he would go to a lot of trouble for that, andcon amoreafter the way that I had served him. It did not, therefore, take me long to resolve to risk the desert rather than rot in an Egyptian gaol. I had spilt a lot of milk. I was foodless, waterless, and Gods knows where. Also, I was as thirsty as a lime kiln. But no use crying. What to do? That was the question. For a start, I lay down and pressed my cheek against the ground. The horizon thus examined showed a faintly circled unbroken level line in all directions except the northwest. There it was interrupted for a space by a mound that was either a cloud-bank or a grove of trees. It proved to be the latter. I found there water to drink and dates to eat. Next morning I took my bearings from the sun, and giving the river a wide berth I pressed on north for two days and nights on an empty stomach. Then I shot an ibis with my revolver in a reedy marsh and ate it raw.Next day I climbed into the mountains and looked back on Assuan and Philæ. But it is not my purpose to describe my wanderings minutely. It would take too long. Suffice it to say that I changed clothes with an Arab near Redesieh and entered Eonah dyed as a Nubian a week later, after crossing the river at El-Kab in a fisherman's canoe. The Nile was still ringing with my doings, so I judged it best to proceed on foot to Luqsor. But there I got a job in a dahabeah that was conveying a party of French savants back from Elephantine to Abydos. I stayed with them three weeks, hearing much talk, meanwhile, of a certain rascally Scotch doctor named Pinsent. It was supposed he had perished in the desert. One day, however, hearing that Sir Robert Ottley, who had been lying at Thebes, had been seen at Lykopolis, I deserted from my employ, and walked back to Farschat. There I bought a passage on a store-boat and came by easy stages to Beni Hassan. Thence I tramped to Abu Girgeh, where I lay for a fortnight, ill of a wasting fever, in the house of a man I had formerly befriended. A large reward had been offered for my arrest, but he was an Arab of the better sort. So far from betraying me to outraged justice, he cashed my cheque for a respectable amount and procured me a passage to Cairo on a river steamer. I entered the ancient city of Memphis one day at dusk, a wreck of my old self and as black as the ace of spades. Not daring to reclaimmy goods at my lodging-house, I proceeded forthwith to Alexandria with no wardrobe save the clothes upon my back, and so anxious was I to escape from Egypt that I shipped as stoker on a French steamer bound for Marseilles. I could find none that would take a negro as passenger. The dye pretty well wore off my face and hands during the voyage, but the circumstance only excited remark among the motley scum of the stokehole, and I was permitted to land without dispute. Heavens! how beautiful it was to dress once more as a European, to eat European food, to sleep on a European bed, and not to be afraid to look a European in the face. In Europe I did not care a pin for Sir Robert Ottley and all that he could do to hurt me. In Egypt his money and influence would have left me helpless to resist him; but I felt myself something more than his match in the centre of modern civilisation. He had the law of me, of course, but I had a weapon to bring him to book. I could hold him up to public scorn and ridicule. Were he to prosecute me I could put him in the pillory as a wretch ungrateful for his life saved by my care and skill, a promise-breaker and something of a lunatic. On the whole, I decided he would not venture to put me in the dock. And so sure did I feel on that head that I proceeded to London as fast as steam could carry me.
Whenever in London my practice for years had been to put up at my friend Dixon Hubbard's rooms in Bruton Street. We had been schoolfellows. He was one of the most fortunate and unfortunate creatures in the world. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he had inherited from some cross-grained ancestor a biting tongue and a gloomy disposition. He was an incurable misanthrope and unpopular beyond words. At college he had been detested. Being a sickly lad, his tongue had earned him many a thrashing which he had had to endure without other reprisal than sarcasm. Yet he had never spared that. His spirit was unconquerable. I believe that he would have taunted his executioners while they burned him at the stake. I used to hate him myself once. But one day after giving him a fairly good hammering I fell so in love with the manly way in which he immediately thereafter gave me a sound excuse for wringing his neck that I begged his pardon for being a hulking bully in having lifted hand against a weaker body but a keener brain and moreuntamable spirit than my own. That conquered him. From that moment we were inseparable chums, and on an average the privilege cost me at least two hard fights a week, for my code was—hit my chum and you hit me. His gratitude lay in jibing at me if I lost the fight, and if I won informing me that I was a fool for my pains. But we understood each other, and our friendship bravely withstood the test of time and circumstance. I found him nursing an attack of splenitic rheumatism before a fire in his study, and we were still only in the middle of July. His man, Miller, had just broken a Sévres vase, and Hubbard was telling Miller in a gentle, measured way his views of clumsiness in serving-men. Miller—a meek, dog-like creature usually—stood before his master glowing but inarticulate with rage. His fists were clenched and his lips were drawn back from his teeth. Hubbard was evidently enjoying himself. He watched the effect of his placid exhortation with a sweet smile—and he applied his mordant softly uttered gibes with the pride of a sculptor at work upon an image. Each one produced some trifling but significant change in Miller's expression. Probably Hubbard was experimenting—seeking to discover either how far he could go with safety or exactly what it would be necessary to say in order to make Miller spring at his throat. They were both so engrossed that I entered without disturbing them. I listened for a moment and then created adiversion. Miller's tension was positively dangerous. I walked over, took him by the collar and propelled him from the room. "You'll find my bag downstairs," I said. "I've come to stay."
Miller gave me the look of a dog that wants but does not dare to lick your hand. His gratitude was pathetic. I shut the door in his face.
Hubbard did not rise. He did not even offer to shake hands. He half closed his eyes and murmured in a tired voice: "The bad penny is back again, and uglier than ever."
I crossed the room and threw open a window. Then I marched into his bedroom, seized a water jug, returned and put out the fire.
"You've been coddling yourself too long," I remarked. "Get up and put on your hat. It's almost one. You are going to lunch with me at Verrey's."
"I have a stiff leg," he remonstrated.
"Fancy! Mere fancy," I returned.
The room was full of steam and smoke. Hubbard said a wicked thing and got afoot, coughing. I found his hat, crammed it on his skull and crooked my arm in his. He declined to budge and wagged a blistering tongue, but I laughed and, picking him up, I carried him bodily downstairs to a cab. He called me forty sorts of cowardly bully in his gentle sweetly courteous tones, but before two blocks were passed his ill-humour had evaporated. He remembered he had news to give me. We had not metfor eighteen months. Of a sudden he stopped beshrewing me and leaned back in the cushions. I knew his ways and talked about the weather. He endured it until we were seated within the grill-room. Then he begged me very civilly to let God manage His own affairs.
"I am very willing," I said.
He impaled an oyster on a fork and sniffed at it with brutal indifference to the waiter's feelings. Satisfied it was a good oyster, he swallowed it.
"I am no longer a bachelor," said he. "I have taken unto myself a wife."
"The deuce!" I cried.
"Exactly," he said. "But the prettiest imp imaginable."
"My dear Hubbard, I assure you——"
"My dear Pinsent, you have blundered on the truth."
"But——"
He held up a warning finger. "It occurred a year ago. We lived together for six weeks. Then we compromised. I gave her my house in Park Lane and returned myself to Bruton Street. Pish! man, don't look so shocked. Helen and I are friends—I see her once a week now at least, sometimes more often. I assure you I enjoy her conversation. She has a natural genius for gossip and uses all her opportunities. She has already become a fixed star in the firmament of society's smartest set and aspires to found a new solar system. I allow her fifteenthousand pounds a year. She spends twenty. My compensation is that I am never at a loss for a subject of reflection. We shall call on her this afternoon. A devil, but diverting. You will be amused."
"Do I know her, Hubbard?"
"No; you are merely acquainted. Her maiden name was Arbuthnot."
"Lady Helen Arbuthnot!" I cried.
He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "You will find her changed. Marriage has developed her. I remember before you went away—was it to Egypt?—she tried her blandishments on you. But then she was a mere apprentice. Heaven help you now—if she marks you for her victim."
"Poor wretch!" I commented. "I suppose you can't help it. But you ought to make an effort, Hubbard, really."
"An effort. What for?"
"To conceal how crudely in love with your wife you are."
He bit his lips and frowned. "Children and fools speak the truth," he murmured. Then he set to work on the champagne and drank much more than was good for him. The wine, however, only affected his appearance. It brought a flush to his pallid cheeks and made his dull eyes sparkle. He deluged me with politics till three o'clock. Then we drove to Park Lane. Lady Helen kept us waiting for twenty minutes. In the meantime, two othercallers joined us. Men. In order to show himself at home Hubbard smoked a cigarette. The men looked pensively appalled. They were poets. They wore long hair and exotic gardens in their buttonholes. And they rolled their eyes. They must have been poets. Also they carried bouquets. Certainly they were poets. When Lady Helen entered they surged up to her, uttering little artistic foreign cries. And they kissed her hand. She gave their bouquets to the footman with an air of fascinating disdain. Their dejection was delightful. But she consoled them with a smile and advanced to us. Certainly she had changed. I had known her as a somewhat unconventional and piquant débutante. She was now a brilliant siren, an accomplished coquette and a woman of the world. Her tiny stature made her attractive, for she was perfectly proportioned and her costume ravishingly emphasised the petite and dainty grace of her figure. Her face was reminiscent of one of those wild flowers of torrid regions which resemble nothing grown in an English garden, but which, nevertheless, arrest attention and charm by their bizarrerie. It was full of eerie wisdom, subtle wilfulness and quaint, half-humorous diablerie. In one word, she was a sprite. She greeted her husband with an unctuous affectation of interest which would have made me, in his place, wish to box her ears. Hubbard, however, was as good an actor as herself. He protested he was grateful for the audience and claimed credit forintroducing me. Lady Helen looked me up and down and remembered that I had owed her a letter for nearly thirty-seven months. She gave me the tips of her fingers and then rushed away to kiss on both cheeks a lady who had just entered. "Oh, you darling!" she twittered. "This is just too lovely of you. I have longed for you to come."
It was May Ottley. She did not see me at once. Lady Helen utterly engrossed her. I had, therefore, time to recover from the unexpected shock of her appearance. I was ridiculously agitated. I slipped into an alcove and picked up a book of plates. At first my hands shook so that I could hardly turn the pages. Hubbard glided to my side. I felt his smile without seeing it. "I smell a brother idiot," he whispered.
I met his eyes and nodded.
"In Egypt, of course?"
"Yes."
"She marries a guardsman next month, I hear."
"Indeed."
"The poor man," murmured Hubbard. "Come out and let us drink his health."
"No, thank you."
"You'd rather stay and singe your wings, poor moth."
"And you?"
"Mine," said he, "were amputated in St. James Church. She is a lovely creature, Pinsent."
"Which?"
He chuckled without replying. A footman pompously announced: "Mrs. Carr—Lord Edward Dutton."
"Bring the tea, please," said Lady Helen's voice.
"She is staring this way at you," murmured Hubbard. "She recognises your back. No, not quite, she is puzzled."
"She has never seen me in civilised apparel," I explained.
"Are you afraid of her, my boy?"
"Yes."
"Well, you are honest."
I began to listen for her voice. The air was filled with scraps of conversation.
"Three thousand, I tell you. He cannot go on like that. Shouldn't wonder if he went abroad. Like father, like son. Old Ranger had the same passion for bridge."
"You can say what you like, names tell one nothing. In my opinion the man is a Jew. What if he does call himself Fortescue? Consider his nose. I am tired of these rich colonials. I have no time for them. Heaven knows what they are after."
"She will spoil her lower register completely if she keeps on. Her voice is a mezzo and nothing else. You should have seen the way old Delman sneered when he listened to her last night."
"My test of a really fine soprano is the creepy feeling the high C gives one in the small of the back. Delicious. She never thrills me at all."
"Oh! Lord Edward, how malicious. What has the poor man done to you?"
"He plays billiards too well to have been anything but a marker in his youth. I believe he kept a saloon somewhere in the States."
"They say it will end in the divorce court. That is what comes of marrying a milkmaid. And, after all, she did not present him with a son. Ah, well, it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Young Carnarvon is his heir still, and his chances of succeeding grow rosier every day."
"My dear Mrs. Belvigne, if it was not for her red hair, she would be as commonplace as—as my dear friend Mrs. Sorenson. What you men see in red hair——"
"Conscience, Lady Helen, is a composition of indulgences. It is a marriage de convenance between the conventional instinct and the appetite."
"Dr. Pinsent," said Miss Ottley, "is it really you?"
I turned and looked into her eyes. They were all aglow and her cheeks were suffused with colour. She gave me both her hands. The room was already crowded. People entered every minute. Hubbard pointed significantly at the tea-cups. Miss Ottley and I drifted to the divan. We watched the crowd through the parted curtains, sipping our tea. We might as well have been in a box at the theatre watching the play.
"I knew you would escape," she murmured,presently. "The others believe you to have perished in the desert."
"They consoled themselves, no doubt?"
"My father especially."
"Did he recover his Arab?"
"What Arab?"
"The creature he had imprisoned in the sarcophagus."
"The mummy, you mean. The body of Pthames? Oh, yes, that was safe enough, but he was in a fearful state until we found the punt. He feared that you would either steal or destroy the mummy, I believe."
"Miss Ottley!" I cried.
"You must not blame him too much," she murmured; "you know how he had set heart——"
"Look here!" I interrupted. "Do you mean to tell me that you found the mummy in the sarcophagus?"
"Certainly. Why?"
"Did you see it?"
"Yes."
"The mummy?"
"Why, of course."
"A dead body, a mummy?"
"Dr. Pinsent, how strangely you insist."
"I'll tell you the reason. When I opened the sarcophagus——"
"Yes."
"It contained not a mummy, but a living man."
"Impossible."
"You think so? The Arab was the very man who frightened you so often in the temple at the Hill of Rakh."
"Dr. Pinsent!"
"When I removed the lid he leaped out of the sarcophagus, sprang ashore and fled to the desert. I followed him for several miles. But I could not catch him. I was compelled to give up the chase. And now you tell me that you afterwards found a mummy in the coffin which I had left empty."
"One of us is dreaming," said the girl.
"What was this mummy like?"
"A tall man—with a curious conical-shaped head—and eyes set hideously far apart in its skull—but you have seen the Arab who frightened me—and indeed he attacked you at your camp. His mummified counterpart."
"And some of his ribs were broken?"
"I do not know."
"But his body was bandaged. Otherwise he was almost nude."
"Good heavens!" she exclaimed. She put down her cup. "You make me very unhappy. You force me to recall my horror—in the cave temple. The wretched uncanny sense of the supernatural that oppressed me there. You make me remember that I was tortured into a fancy that the mummywas a ghost—that we were haunted—that—oh! oh! And father has been so kind to me lately, kinder than ever before."
"He is in London?"
"Yes."
"And the mummy?"
"Yes."
"And Dr. Belleville?"
"He is staying with us."
"Captain Weldon?"
She turned aside her head. "He is in London, too."
"You are shortly to be married, I am informed."
She stood up. "I must really be going," she observed constrainedly; then she held out her hand. I watched her pick her way through the crowd to our hostess. It was a well-bred crowd, but it stared at her. She was worth looking at. She walked just as a woman should and she bore herself with the proper touch of pride that is at the same time a personal protection and a provocative of curiosity. Some people call it dignity. Hubbard materialised from the shadow of a neighbouring curtain. "My wife has invited me to dinner," he announced. "You, too. I have made her your excuses because I have a money matter to discuss that should not be postponed."
"You have my deepest sympathy," I answered, and left him as puzzled to know what I meant as I was. Something was whispering over and overin my ear—"Work! work! work!" and whispering in the imperative mood. I determined to call upon Captain Weldon and procure from him my manuscript, at once. I remembered he lived in Jermyn Street. I walked thither as fast as I was able.
I encountered the Captain on his doorstep. He was just going out, hatted and gloved, but on seeing me he abandoned his intention. His delight was that of a child, and so manifestly genuine, so transparently sincere, that it warmed my heart. He dragged me into his sitting-room and wrung my hands again and again, expressing his pleasure in tones that made the windows rattle. One cannot help liking a man so simple and at the same time so kind. There are too many complex people in the world. He had grieved for my supposed loss more than at his own brother's death, he said, and I believed him. Very few men care much for their brothers. Then he told me all about his approaching marriage. It was to take place in five weeks and he was dreading the ordeal already. He had just finished furnishing his Wexford country house from top to bottom. They were to settle there after a honeymoon in Italy and adopt the life and manners of country magnates, only coming to town for the season. It was Miss Ottley's desire; she did not care for London smartsociety, it seemed, and although he did, he was quite willing to give it up or anything else indeed to please her. It was pleasant to hear him rhapsodise concerning her and to watch his happy face. Its spirit made him ten times handsomer, and although his speech was boyish it did not detract him from his exuberant virility. He was a man from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet,—a splendid animal, with just enough brains to be a force to command respect, and a heart big enough to fill the whole world with his affection. There was not a single bitter drop in the cup of his happiness. He was about to marry the woman he adored. He was enormously wealthy, and his wife-to-be was the only daughter of a millionaire. His plans for the future were Utopian. He dreamed of enlarging his estates and providing for at least the welfare of a hundred families. Wealth was given one in trust for others, he declared, and he was resolved to make every one around him happy and contented. As a wedding present to his tenants he had already ordered the rebuilding of their homes and cottages on a scale of almost lavish grandeur. Each farmhouse would be a model of luxury; each labourer's cottage would be a miniature castle with tiled walls, and hot and cold water attachments. Other landlords were annoyed with him and had not hesitated to express their resentment. He was spoiling his own tenants and making them dissatisfied, they said. But the Captain asked me with eyes aglow how could one want tokeep all the good things of life to benefit a single class? It was monstrous, impossible, absurd. He only wished he could at one stroke make all the poor in the world comfortable. "You ought to hear May on the subject," he cried out in a burst of confidence. "You'd think she was a socialist. But she is only an angel." Thence he wandered to her father. Sir Robert had given up all his old stupid ways. He had reformed and was as sane as any man in England. He had repudiated his ancient attachment to "spooks" and spirit-rapping, and Mahatmas, and had sent his famous medium, Navarro, to the right about, much to that gentleman's disgust and indignation. Sir Robert was now engaged with Dr. Belleville in compiling a history of the dynasty from papyri they had found in the tomb of Ptahmes. The Captain still thought that Ottley had treated me very badly, but he begged me to forgive the old man as he had evidently not been quite in his mind at the time. "You excited his professional jealousy, don't you know, old chap," said Weldon. "Sir Robert has one fault—he is dreadfully vain and he wanted to get all the credit out of his discovery. He told me so himself. He quite opened up to me on the voyage home."
A vision of Sir Robert Ottley "opening up" to the Captain occurred to me. The little, old, inscrutable, shut-in face of the baronet peering slyly into the frank and unsuspicious countenanceof the handsome, simple-minded guardsman and making a confession of his faults the while! For why? I could not guess, but I had a feeling that it was for no straightforward purpose. We dined together, and while we ate I questioned him about Dr. Belleville. For the first time I saw a shade on his face. He did not like the doctor. I pursued the investigation. For a while he fenced with my questions but finally it all came out. "I have an idea," said he, "that Belleville annoys May. He is in love with her. Of course one can't blame him for that, but as a guest in her father's house and her father's closest friend, he has opportunities to force his attentions, and I believe the brute abuses them. She does not complain and will tell me nothing—but all the same I have my opinion. You see, she worships her father so much that she will run no risk of hurting his feelings. She would put up with almost anything rather than distress him, and Belleville knows it. He has Sir Robert under his thumb far more than I like. I hate to think I may be wronging the fellow—but upon my soul I cannot help distrusting him."
"But you have nothing definite to go upon?"
"Nothing—except this: One day about two weeks ago I went in unannounced and found her—in tears. I had passed Belleville in the hall a second earlier. He looked as black as night. And she—well, she told me, weeping, that she would marry me when I pleased. Up till then she had always putoff naming the day. What would you make of it, Pinsent?"
"What did you?"
"I concluded that he had been persecuting her and that—well, that she felt safer with me than with her father. Don't rag me for being vain, old chap. If you'd seen her cry. She is not that sort of a girl either. It was the first time I ever knew her to break down, and I've known her all my life."
"Did you speak to Belleville about it?"
"She forbade me to—but all the same I did. I behaved like an idiot, of course. Lost my temper and all that sort of thing. He was as cool as a cucumber. He denied nothing and admitted nothing. He pretended to think I had been drinking, and that enraged me the more. I was fool enough to strike him. He got all the best of it. He picked himself up smiling sweetly and said that nothing could induce him to resent anything addressed by a person in whom Miss Ottley was interested. The inference was that he loved her in an infinitely superior way to me. I felt like choking him for a bit. And would you believe it—he actually offered to shake hands."
"A dangerous man, my lad. Beware of him."
"He gives me the creeps," said the Captain. "But let's talk of something else pleasanter."
We talked of Miss Ottley, or rather he did, while I listened, till midnight. Then he strolled with me to Bruton Street and we parted at Dixon Hubbard's doorstep as the clocks were striking one.
I found Hubbard seated before the fire, smoking, and staring dreamily up at a portrait of his wife that rested on the mantel.
"I've found out why I married her, Pinsent," he said slowly. "It was to benefit a Jew named Maurice Levi—the most awful bounder in London. She had been borrowing from him at twenty-five per cent. to pay some of her brother's gambling debts. Levi wanted to marry her, and would have, too, if I had not stepped in to save him. She is the dearest little woman in the world. She shed some tears. They cost me about a thousand pounds apiece."
"Good-night, Dixon," I said gently.
"Tears, idle tears," he murmured. "The poet, mark you, did not speak of woman's tears." Then he closed his eyes and heaved a deep sigh. "You find me changed, Pinsent?"
"A little."
"For better or worse? Be frank with me."
"For the better. This afternoon for the first time in our acquaintance I beheld you in a lady's drawing-room. You are growing tolerant of your kind."
"I am no longer a misanthrope, but I am rapidly becoming a misogynist. Yes, I am altered, old friend, greatly altered. At the bottom of my former misanthropy was a diseased conviction born of vanity that I was the only person in the world really worth thinking badly about. But marriage has compelled me to think more badly still ofsomebody else. The less selfish outlook thus induced has broadened my mind. I begin to look forward to a time when my perversion will be complete and I shall be able without blushing to look any woman in the face and acknowledge her superiority in innate viciousness."
"I begin to pity your wife, Dixon."
"A waste of sentiment. She has married five and twenty thousand pounds per annum, and she would be the last to tell you that the institution is a failure. Few women contrive to dispose as advantageously of the sort of goods they have to sell. Lady Helen would have made a fortune as a bagman. But there, I do not want to prejudice you against her. She likes you, I believe. Perhaps—who knows—but there—good-night."
I was glad to get away.
A day or two afterwards, while spending an hour in the rooms of the Egyptology Society I was introduced to a new Fellow, who had been appointed during my absence from England. His name was Louis Coen. He was in private life a broker, but his heart and soul were wrapped in the Cause. He evidently spelt it with a capital, in sympathy, perhaps, with the vast sums in cash he had already put at the disposal of the Society for exploration work. He was intensely entertaining. He took me aside and confided that it was his ambition to transform the Society into a sort of club. We needed a liquor license and more commodious premises, it seemed. Then we wouldboom. He offered to provide all the money requisite and he begged me to use my influence with other members to get his views adopted. He was one of those men whose mission in life is to "run" every concern into which they can manage to insinuate themselves. I was afraid I disappointed him, although I did my best to be polite. But he was nothing daunted. He declared he would galvanise the "old fogies" into fresh activity and make us see things from his point ofview or die in the attempt. We might be as serious as we pleased, but he would force us to be sociable. He had a nose like a parrot, and was already on the committee of management. He even proposed to change our name. The Royal Egyptian Club seemed to him a "real smart monniker." He saved me from an impending mental and physical collapse by mentioning the name of Sir Robert Ottley. Ottley, it appeared, was his latest convert. Ottley agreed with him that we wanted new blood, that our methods were too conservative. Ottley thought it was ridiculous that everything a member did or discovered should have to be reported to, and judged about, by a lot of old fossils. What right had those old "stick-at-homes" to appropriate the credit of the exertions of the energetic? "Would you believe it," cried Mr. Coen, "they have had the impudence to demand from him an account of his recent find—the tomb of an old johnny named Ptahmes—which he unearthed at his own expense entirely! They have had the 'hide' to insist that he shall immediately hand over the mummy to the British Museum and place the papyri before them—them—them—for the purpose of translation, et-cetera! I never heard a more cheeky proposition in my life. My friend Ottley would act rightly if he told them to go to the deuce!"
"What has he told them?" I inquired.
"Oh, he is temporising. He has written to say that he will place his discoveries at their disposalwhen he has satisfied himself of their authenticity, et-cetera. Of course that's all 'gyver.' The mummy is genuine enough, so are the papyri. But he naturally wants to have first 'go' at them, and he is fighting for time. Meanwhile, I am organising the progressives. We can never hope to get this show properly on the move till we shake things up and reform on sound commercial lines. I tell you, sir, before I've done with it, I'll make this Society a power in the land. I'm going to take it up in both hands and chuck it right in the eyes of the B. P., that means the British Public. And you take it from me, it's going to stay there. Good-day to you. I'm glad to have met you. You are a bit antiquated in your notions; but you're a young man yet, and you'll find you'll have to join my crowd. S'long!"
He shook my hand very energetically and bustled off. I sank into a chair and began to fan myself. A moment later the president, Lord Ballantine, entered the room. The poor old gentleman was purple in the face, spluttering: "Has-has-has that man Coen been can-can-canvassing you?" he thundered.
I nodded.
"I-I-I'll resign—by God!" cried Lord Ballantine. "It-it-it's too much. I-I-I," he stopped——gasping for a word, the picture of impotent rage and misery.
But I felt no sympathy for him. "Why did you let him in?" I asked.
"We-we-we were short of funds."
"And now?"
"He's bought us, or thinks he has, body and soul."
"Who nominated him?"
"Ottley."
I was not surprised to hear it. "He—he's Ottley's broker. Ottley and he are running the market-change—together. Have you heard. They have cornered South Africans. They made half a million between them yesterday. All London is talking about it. And they want to turn us into a beer garden."
"You'll have to turn them out."
"How can we? We owe them, Lord knows how much."
"Then if you cannot," I said calmly, rising as I spoke, "you'll have to grin and bear the infliction you have brought upon yourselves. After all, it's a question of voting."
"You'll stand by us, Pinsent?" he implored.
"My resignation is at any time at your disposal, Ballantine. All the same, I don't pity you a scrap. You are getting little more than you deserve. I have been working for three years for the Society without remuneration, and I am a poor man. Many of your older members are as rich as Crœsus, and yet you must needs import a vulgar semitic broker to help you out of a hole. Good-afternoon."
I left the poor old fellow helpless and speechless, staring after me with anguished eyes and mouth agape. That evening I received a letter from Louis Coen offering to finance my book on the Nile Monuments. He said he felt sure it would prove a work of rare educational value, and on that account he was willing to furnish every library in the English-speaking world with a free copy. Aware, however, that I was not a business man, he would conduct all the business arrangements himself. On receipt of the manuscript, therefore, he would forward me a cheque for £1000 as an instalment in advance of my share of the profits—fifteen per cent. he proposed to allow me—and he wound up as follows: "Your acceptance of my offer will commit you to nothing as regards our chat of this morning. My good friend, Sir Robert Ottley, put me up to this venture. He has the brightest opinion of your ability and he is sure your book will prove a success. I am going blind on his say so. Let me have an answer right away."
I thought a good deal over this precious epistle, but in the end I did not see why I should not make a little money. I knew very well that under ordinary circumstances it would be impossible for me to make £100, let alone a thousand, out of the Nile Monuments. But I felt little doubt that Mr. Coen had a plan to make even more—somehow or other. But I had done the man injustice—it was not money he was after. Reading theTimestwo mornings later I came upon the following announcement:
"A Patron of Learning""We are informed that Mr. Louis Coen, F. R. E. S., has induced the well-known Egyptologist, Dr. Hugh Pinsent, to commit the results of his recent archæological researches on the Nile to the enduring care of the printer's ink. Mr. Coen has purchased the rights in advance for a large sum of the projected volume, which it is said will take the form of an exhaustive treatise on the Nile Monuments. It is not, however, Mr. Coen's object to direct his enterprise to his own financial benefit. It is his intention to produce a splendidly illustrated edition of the book for presentation to educational establishments all over the United Kingdom in the hope of thus fixing public attention upon the enormous historical importance of the work now being carried on by the Royal Egyptologist Society, of which Society Mr. Coen is a member, and a generous supporter. Mr. Coen is to be congratulated upon his latest effort in the interest of popular education. It will be remembered that last year he endowed a chair in the University of Newcome for study of the ancient Egyptian tongue; but it may be confidently expected that his exploitation of Dr. Pinsent's history will go much further in popularising a subjectwhich is now practically confined to the ranks of leisured scholars."
"A Patron of Learning"
"We are informed that Mr. Louis Coen, F. R. E. S., has induced the well-known Egyptologist, Dr. Hugh Pinsent, to commit the results of his recent archæological researches on the Nile to the enduring care of the printer's ink. Mr. Coen has purchased the rights in advance for a large sum of the projected volume, which it is said will take the form of an exhaustive treatise on the Nile Monuments. It is not, however, Mr. Coen's object to direct his enterprise to his own financial benefit. It is his intention to produce a splendidly illustrated edition of the book for presentation to educational establishments all over the United Kingdom in the hope of thus fixing public attention upon the enormous historical importance of the work now being carried on by the Royal Egyptologist Society, of which Society Mr. Coen is a member, and a generous supporter. Mr. Coen is to be congratulated upon his latest effort in the interest of popular education. It will be remembered that last year he endowed a chair in the University of Newcome for study of the ancient Egyptian tongue; but it may be confidently expected that his exploitation of Dr. Pinsent's history will go much further in popularising a subjectwhich is now practically confined to the ranks of leisured scholars."
It was not pleasant to think that I had been idiot enough to allow Mr. Coen to use me as a stepping-stone to notoriety. But it was too late to object. The thing was done. My consolation was a bigger banking account than I had had for years. Not even the fact that during the day I received a score of sarcastic congratulatory telegrams from members of the Society, could rob me of that satisfaction. But I sent in my resignation all the same. I felt that I had no right to belong to any institution run by Mr. Coen. I might meet him there—and if I did, a police court case of assault and battery would infallibly result.