"I marvel at your candour!"
"My dear Pinsent," he said, smiling, "complete candour is the privilege of the all-powerful, and that am I—at least in your regard. I can perfectly afford to be perfectly frank with you, because I can compel you to serve me even should you decide to disobey me."
"Indeed, and how?"
"The thing is as simple as A, B, C. If you are so foolish as to refuse to play the part I have assigned, I shall render you three parts—instead of entirely invisible. I shall make your bonds, however, entirely invisible. You will then be put to certain electrical tortures of my invention, and I shall invite Miss Ottley to observe the spectacle of a soul in pain. I confess I should prefer you to behave like a sensible ghost and talk to her in the manner I have indicated; but you must admit that in the alternative she will, nevertheless, be forced toa conclusion flattering alike to my ambition and my pride."
"Is it possible that you are all the heartless scoundrel you pretend? Can you really find pleasure in the notion of winning the woman you are presumed to love—by a trick so infamous and despicable?"
"Yes, Pinsent, yes."
"You must be animated by a devil."
"On the contrary, my dear enemy, I am just an ordinary human being who has been seduced by the most extraordinary temptation that has ever been offered to a living being. A power has been placed at my disposal which puts me on a level with the immortal gods of ancient Greece. In deciding to make use of it, I have adopted their ideas of morality, almost, as it were, perforce. I now make a cult of my convenience, and a religion of the indulgence of my instincts. I intend henceforth to kill always what I hate, to possess what I love, to seize what I covet, and to enjoy what I desire. Miss Ottley dislikes and despises me. That has irritated my vanity to such an extent that it is necessary to my happiness that I should convert her dislike into subjection, her contempt into the unbounded reverence of fear. When she becomes my wife I shall be the master of her millions—her father is on the point of dissolution—and I shall be the tyrant of her person. I shall rule her with a rod of iron terror. Thatdomination will give me a far greater joy than the vulgar pleasure of reciprocated passion. And not the least part of it will dwell in the reflection that you, my dear enemy, will have so largely and so unwillingly contributed to the gratification of my sweet will. Now you have all the facts before you. My cards are all exposed. It is for you to make up your mind what you will do. Don't decide immediately! There is no hurry. Think the matter over. As I am rather weary" (he yawned in my face), "I shall now leave you to your meditations till the morning. Good-night."
He rose, bowed to me with mock politeness and moved over to the door. A moment later he had gone, and with him the light vanished. I was left in the profoundest darkness, and my thoughts were nearly as colourless and sombre as the gloom in which I sat.
The sensation of awakening informed me of the surprising fact that I had fallen asleep. I was rather proud under the circumstances that I had been able to do so. Probably I had slept for a long while, too, for the laboratory was lighted up, and it was evident that it had been carefully dusted in the interval. There was a sound of sweeping behind my chair, but strain as I would I could not turn my head to see who was my companion. "I say," I called out. "I am thirsty. Fetch me a glass of water, will you?"
The sweeping stopped. Presently steps approached my chair. They passed it, and next second I saw the giant Arab of the cave temple at Rakh, the wretch who had attempted to strangle me at my camp, and whom I had released from the sarcophagus of Ptahmes on the Nile. He stood before me, his extraordinary blood-coloured eyes staring at me with the glazed expressionless regard of an automaton. He was clad in a long, yellow shapeless garment like a smock, and his feet were shod in leather sandals. In one hand he held a broom. Very slowly he extended his other arm before my face, and I saw with a shock of aversion that thehand had gone. It had been severed from the wrist and nothing but a stump remained. Involuntarily I thought of the mummy hand which poor Weldon had given me. It still lay upon the table where Dr. Belleville had tossed it, full in my view. It was a left hand. The Arab's left hand had been lost. The connection was obvious. But—but—of course a mummy hand thousands of years old perhaps, could not have grown upon a still living, breathing man. Living! Breathing! The words repeated themselves as I gazed at the Arab. How like a mummy he appeared! His skin was of exactly the same colour as the mummy hand. It had the same shrivelled appearance, the same leather-like texture. And, good heavens! unless I dreamed he did not breathe! Not a movement of his body disclosed the smallest sign of respiration. I stared at him, appalled. His features were fixed and set rigidly. His mouth was closed. His nostrils were fallen in and glued together. How then could he breathe? And yet there was life in his gaunt frame; some animating spirit that controlled its mechanism, for slowly his handless arm fell back to his side, and he continued to regard me with a steadfast, unwinking stare. I examined his eyes and found that they were lidless. The lids had shrunken back and disappeared. A closer inspection showed that the eyes themselves owed all their lustre to reflected light. The cornea was in each orb nothing but a thin gelatinous-like film filled with tiny little crinkles that caught upand refracted passing rays from all directions. The whites were opaque black teguments, dry and dead. Behind the lenses was no sign of any pupil. There was nothing but an iris which seemed to be composed of dull red dust.
Living! Breathing! The Arab was a mummy! an animated corpse. Oh! Of course I dreamed. I must have dreamed. I have told myself that so many thousand times that it is a marvel the constant reiteration has not forced me to believe it. But I do not. Nor do I know what to believe. I am in as great a maze to understand now as I was then.
At first I conceived an almost intolerable horror of the thing before me. But finding that the Arab did not menace me, I gradually became accustomed to its most unpleasant and almost ghastly proximity. And after a time I felt so strong a fever of thirst that I forced myself to speak to it again.
I asked it for water. It did not move. I became convinced it heard but did not comprehend the language I employed. I spoke to it in French and German and in Arabic, but still it did not move. Finally I said to myself, "If it is a mummy, it will be an Egyptian and will understand the tongue of ancient Egypt." Then I gasped out such a term as I believed might have been used by a thirsty Theban asking for alleviation of his famine. The thing instantly moved off behind me. Presently I heard the sound of falling water, and a moment later a glass was pressed to my parched lips. Idrained it thankfully, eyeing the while, with a feeling of deep, unconquerable repulsion, the sinewy black mummy hand that served me. I then thanked the Arab in the same tongue which had persuaded him to be my minister. He gazed at me a while and then moved to the table and looked at it. He appeared to be writing, but I could not be sure. I heard a curious, raucous scratching sound. Thus ten minutes sped by. Meanwhile, I shut my eyes and tried hard to persuade myself that I dreamed. Then a sound disturbed me. I opened my eyes with a start and saw that the Arab had returned to my side. He held a slate before me covered with hieroglyphics. Never had I greater occasion to bless my knowledge of that ancient language and to gratefully regard the patient years of labour I had spent acquiring it. But likewise never had I greater occasion to lament the imperfections of my knowledge and defects in my memory. I could understand a portion of the message—the greater part indeed—but still a part escaped me.
Briefly translated, the part I comprehended ran:
"It is not meet that Ptahmes—named Tahutimes—son of Mery, son of Hap, High Priest of Amen-Ra and the Hawk-headed Horus, should be a wicked unbeliever's slave.... Death explains.... The spirit of a good man hurried hence accuses me unanswered at the ... throne.... For time unending.... Fanet.... King of all the Gods.... Thus only shallyou escape the death that threatens. You shall swear to break my stele of ivory, to commit my papyri to the flames unread, to burn my body and scatter my ashes to the winds of Heaven. You shall swear by Amen-Ra, King of Earth and Heaven, to destroy ... the oppressor and your enemy. He has deciphered the inscriptions. He has mastered their meaning. He knows. He cannot be permitted to live lest I ... and he the enemy exalt himself and triumph over you and me.... Swear then, and aid shall be accorded in your hour of need."
I gathered from this message that the ghost of Ptahmes inhabitated the mummy before me; that Belleville had possessed himself of some stupendous wizard power which enabled him to compel the soul and dust of Ptahmes to obey his infamous behests, but that Ptahmes was his most unwilling slave. I also gathered that Ptahmes promised me help if I would take an oath to kill Belleville, to destroy certain papyri and an ivory stele in Belleville's possession which I must promise not to attempt to read, and also to burn the mummified remains of Ptahmes, and so, I suppose, secure the rest of his troubled spirit. I did not pause to reflect on the wild unreality of the happenings my senses registered. They did not appear indeed unreal to me at all—then. On the contrary, I felt that I was confronted with a very grave and serious proposal, which if I decided to accept would be carried out tothe letter as regards the assistance promised me, a circumstance that would oblige me as an honest man to keep my part of the contract. The question remained: Would I be justified in solemnly swearing to compass Belleville's death? Why not? Surely he deserved capital punishment if ever a man did. By his own confession he had either murdered Frankfort Weldon or procured his murder; and he had cold-bloodedly assured me that he was relentlessly resolved to murder me. And there were other things to think of. He had given me positive proof of the possession of some unknown power over the laws of Nature which had enabled him already to commit crimes without incurring a shadow of legal suspicion. Were I then to effect my escape from him, it would be my duty as a citizen of the State to do all in my power to prevent him working further ill in the community. Yet I could not bring him to justice. I had no evidence to produce against him which the courts would not scorn and ridicule. The attempt to convict him of the murder he had confessed to me, would only result in branding me in all men's eyes as a lunatic. He would meanwhile be at liberty to go abroad to work his evil will upon the world. He would very soon revenge himself upon me, and destroy me in the same diabolically ingenious fashion, perhaps, in which he had killed poor Weldon. And Miss Ottley would then be at his mercy, with no man living to defend her. She might continue to resist him for a time, but inthe end a man so unscrupulous and implacably determined would be sure to have his way. Able to make himself invisible—as I believed he could—he might as a last resort rob her of her honour and so bend her proud spirit to his wish. It was this thought that finally determined me. I looked up and said quietly to the patient, waiting Arab: "Ptahmes, son of Mery, son of Hap, once High Priest of Amen-Ra, but now I know not what—I swear by the King of Earth and Heaven to destroy the stele and papyri unread if I shall find them, to burn your body and scatter the ashes, and to kill your enemy and mine."
The dark, fixed, corpse-like face of the Arab turned forthwith from me. He pressed the slate to his bosom with the stump of his left wrist and with the right hand rubbed out the hieroglyphic writing. He then glided over to the table and replaced the slate. I followed his movements with the most passionate attention, expecting him to return and immediately release me from my bonds. But he did no such thing. In the contrary, he moved slowly forward to the great sarcophagus and to my great astonishment I saw him climb over the edge and repose himself within the tomb. Presently he had entirely vanished from my sight. I could hardly credit my eyes. What was the meaning of his strange act? I waited for a few minutes, but he did not reappear. Then I called out his name aloud: "Ptahmes! Ptahmes!"
Nothing answered me.
I racked my brains to string together an imploring sentence in the ancient tongue of Egypt, and having fashioned one, I cried it forth in tones of passionate entreaty, by turns commanding and beseeching him to keep his pledge. And not once or twice, but a hundred times, did I address him in these ways. But I might as well have cried out to the stars. My efforts were all unavailing, and at length, wearied out with them, I desisted and abandoned my remaining energy to the bitter task of reactionary self-reviling. I caustically informed myself that my brain had gone wandering. Thus until I was hot all over with shame. Then in a more kindly spirit I cast about for excuses to salve my intellectual vanity. I ascribed the whole wild dream that I had dreamed to the blow my poor head had received last night. But all the while, deep at heart, I did not believe I had dreamed. I pretended to, in order to make sure that I still possessed a critical, scientific faculty. But I did not believe it really. I could not. And this fact is one more proof to me that faith in all its forms depends more upon feeling than intellectual conviction.
I awoke so much refreshed and free from pain that I must have slept for many hours. Belleville was pinching my shoulder. His black-visaged face was curiously bilious-looking, and puffy purple hollows underhung his eyes.
"You didn't sleep thus on the banks of the Nile," he muttered, with a sick man's frown. "You were wakeful enough then. One would think you had been drugged."
"Indeed," said I. "But I had need to be wakeful then."
"Who set on the light," he demanded. "I swear I left you in dark. Who has been here?"
"Your Arab," I replied. "He swept out the room and gave me a drink. Then he climbed into the sarcophagus yonder, and unless he went away while I slept, there you'll find him."
The rascal looked perfectly astounded. "My Arab!" he repeated, staring sharply into my eyes. Then of a sudden he turned and simply rushed over to the big lead coffin. Stooping over the edge, he peeped into the interior and seemed to be shiftingsomething with his hands. His back was all I saw, but it moved to and fro, and he strained on tiptoe. When he stood up his face was scarlet and his eyes were troubled. "Swept the room, you said, and gave you a drink?" he muttered half to himself. With that he took to examining the floor, crawling on hands and knees. His peregrinations took him behind me, and what he did there or found there I do not know; but he rapped out an oath and I heard him pacing up and down, swearing in an angry undertone. So five minutes passed, then he stalked into my view and showed me a very troubled and a very angry countenance.
"You asked my Arab for a drink?" he cried.
"I did," said I.
"In English?"
"What else?"
"Did he answer you?"
"In the kindliest fashion possible. He assuaged my thirst."
"Blast him!" cried Belleville, all of a tremble with rage. "The villain has been tricking me. Like enough I've loosed a force I'll yet have to reckon with."
"I don't comprehend," said I.
"Nor need you," he rapped back. "Shut your mouth till I address you or I'll cut your prying tongue out." The rascal was beside himself, that was evident. And since I was quite at his mercy I thought it best to do his bidding. He clapped ahand to his head and rushed once more to the sarcophagus. He glared over the edge for a minute, then turned and flung out his arms. "For two pins I'd do it now," he gasped. "Cut him to pieces and burn the parts. It's doubtful if I'll ever get more good out of him. But if I do that I'll kill the chance. And yet he's played me false already. Been laughing in his sleeve at me! But no—he can't have meant hurt or he'd have freed the prisoner. As easy that as fetch him a drink. No doubt he was asked. Yet he's not to be trusted now, that is evident. I'll have to gaol him, too. Let's see!"
He crossed the room and caught hold of the lid of the sarcophagus; but do what he could he was unable to shift it. I regarded his efforts with a deal of secret amusement. He emerged from the struggle panting and with disordered dress, and his temper in a molten glow. But he was not beaten. Leaving the lid alone, he wheeled a big lounge over to the sarcophagus and, tipping it on edge, heaved it up athwart the mouth. Then he piled everything of weight he could find atop of the lounge and soon he had built up a pyramid which would have taken a Hercules to shift, if shut up in the sarcophagus beneath. It was then that I began to feel I had been a notable fool in telling Belleville anything about the "Arab." But it was little use crying over spilt milk.
His labours over, the rascal sank into a chairbefore me, and began fanning his hot face with a piece of cardboard.
"Now for our business," he presently observed. "You've probably come to some decision, Pinsent. I wait to hear it."
"Well," I said, "the thing is in a nutshell. You've promised me nothing but a choice of deaths. I may be a fool, but I like life so well that I prefer a lingering sort to any other, however painless."
"You're a fool," he answered shortly, and pouted out his loose thick lips beyond his beard, so that he seemed to have the snout of a hairy pig. "You don't know what a pleasure it will be to me to torture you," he continued. "I'll make you suffer like the damned before you die."
"I don't doubt your will; it's your ability which is in question," I said, as coolly as I was able. "You may think you have me laid here very nicely by the heels, Dr. Belleville, and so you have in seeming. But you're not the only man who has a knowledge of the old magic arts of ancient Egypt. I tell you to your face that I possess a charm no whit less potent than the one you found the secret of in yonder tomb. And if you force me to use it, why, I shall use it. Now put that in your pipe and smoke it."
He stood up at once, greatly surprised, much incredulous, but also a little troubled and dubious, as I could see.
"You think you can bluff me?" he snarled. But Ihadbluffed him. I could read it in his eyes.
I answered him with nothing but a smile.
He assumed a sneer. His eyes glinted. He put his hand in his pocket and produced a revolver. He cocked the weapon and put it to my temple.
"Well, you've challenged me," he jeered. "In just one minute I'll blow your brains out. Your charm is now in question!"
For a few seconds a dark haze of blind terror shut off my power of vision. I felt the villain meant to do what he had threatened. His nerves had been shaken by what I had said to him about the Arab—though why, I could not fathom—and my challenge, although the merest bluff, had completed their disorder. He was in a spell of panic and it had swept his reason and his resolution to the winds. He intended to kill me in order to restore his own sense of security, and at once. And I was impotent to prevent him. He was counting aloud, "One, two, three, four." He had got up to fifteen before I even partially awoke out of my trance of craven fear. But in the next five seconds I had lived a whole series of lifetimes and I had received an inspiration born of wrath and hate and desperate necessity.
"Look in my eyes," I shrieked at him. "And listen if you want to live."
He looked at me. I put the strength of my existence into my gaze, and I felt a strange, wildthrill of exultation as I saw his eyes dilate encountering the glance I threw at him.
"My death means yours," I hissed. "My monitor stands over you. You'll be shrivelled as by lightning. We'll go together to the throne of God! Now shoot if you will and damn your soul for all eternity! Shoot—shoot!"
But Dr. Belleville did not shoot. His hand fell to his side. He staggered back, staring at me open-mouthed until the chair arrested him. I saw my advantage and pressed it home.
"Stop!" I shouted. "As you value your dirty life. Stop! Stand still and do not turn your head. One movement and we both die. I don't want to die for a dog like you."
He stood like a frozen image. Holding his glance with mine, I began to mutter in a sing-song way a string of meaningless Egyptian phrases. Then the more powerfully to impress the superstitious fool-scoundrel, all of a sudden I uttered a loud heart-rending groan and allowed my head to fall over on the strap that encircled and sustained my neck. But though I only affected to swoon, the frightful amount of will force and nervous energy I had expended in the crisis had induced a consequential lassitude so enthralling that I came very near to fainting in reality. And, indeed, it is quite likely that I lost my senses for a time. Soon, however, I felt water sprinkled on my face and slowly I raised my head. "A drink!" I gasped.
A glass was pressed to my lips. I drank thirstily and opened my eyes. Belleville, white-faced but composed now and gloomily frowning, was my minister.
"I make you my compliments," he said in cold, slow, even tones. "You have a quick wit and a nerve of iron. I am glad, because they saved me from a folly. You would cease to be of use to me dead, curse you, though I wish you carrion, and will make you worm food before I am much older."
"You'll not live to repent it," I replied. "I've bound your fate with mine by ties no mortal can unsolve."
"Enough of that rubbish," he retorted harshly. "You cannot haze me twice. You could not have at all if I had stopped to think or been quite well. But I'm liverish and out of sorts to-day—the result of staying up all night nursing Ottley."
"You'll see when the time comes—if you have the courage," I responded in an acrid tone. "You cannot scare me, Belleville, because you cannot harm me without hurting yourself—and in your deeps of heart, you rogue, you know it."
He burst out laughing, but there was a note of nervousness in his mocking mirth that pleased me passing well.
"Pah!" he said at last. "Would you sit there trussed up like a chooky skewered for the table if you had the power you pretend?"
"Idiot!" I snapped. "Can electricity unbuckle straps without machinery? Yet it can splinter rocks without an effort and without assistance."
"Ah!" said he, "ah! So you pretend——"
"Try me!" I interrupted.
"Not I," cried he. "I've encountered so many wonders lately that I'm now beginning to regard what I of old considered the impossible as the most likely thing of all to happen. I don't believe you, Pinsent, but neither do I disbelieve you. Therefore, acting on the kindly hint you dropped, I'll take all sane precautions. Au revoir."
He marched to the door, passed out and disappeared. I chewed the bitter cud of thought for some hours. Meanwhile I grew desperately hungry, ay, and thirsty, too. There came a time when I would have given the last of my possessions for a beef-steak and a jug of water. And, oh! how tired I was of my position. The blood gradually ceased to circulate properly through all my parts. My hands became purple. My legs went to sleep. My limbs were on a rack of pins and needles and even breathing hurt me. I did my best by straining at the bonds at intervals to promote the arterial flow and stop the agony of muscular irritation. But it was a poor best, and I sank welcomely at length into a benumbed lethargic state near akin to stupor, from which I knew I could wake to anguish by the merest movement.
As near as I can guess twelve hours haduncoiled their lethal folds before my infernal captor returned to the laboratory. One instant I was sharply sensible and suffering most damnably. The rogue looked positively sick and he smelt like a gin palace. He had evidently drunk a deal of spirit, but he was not the least intoxicated. "It is over!" he cried and threw himself into a chair.
"What?" I questioned.
"Ottley is dead," said he, "and I am glad of it, all said and done, though I worked like a galley slave to keep him by me. He was a fine cloak for my doings, but he grew wearisome—the fractious old fool—at times. And I'm not sure I'd bring him back now—were I able."
"And Miss Ottley?"
"A pretty scene!" He shrugged his shoulders, then grimaced and whistled. "I'm her father's murderer, it seems!" He stretched out his arms and yawned. "But she's not responsible, poor thing—grief demented. The two consulting physicians heartily sympathised with me. They knew how I had worked, you see, and Sir Philip Lang himself suggested morphia. They've signed a paper giving me control of her—under their directions I'm trustee of the estate under the will besides. Lang thinks she may recover—ultimately, but it is evident that she must be confined. She raved of mummies, and spirits, and dead men come to life from the sleep of ages, and so forth. It impressed Lang, vastly. He tapped his sage old head andmuttered 'Too much learning.' He has a fad that woman's brains are nurtured best on pap, and I had the tact to humour him. Oh! I'm a devilish clever fellow, Pinsent. What do you think?"
"There is little doubt of it," I said politely, very politely, indeed, for I wished to get as much information from him as I could and also something to eat and drink. "With your brains you might do anything. I suspect I have hitherto misjudged you. Still, I wonder that you are not an archbishop. It seems to me the Church would give you the proper cloak you need to exercise your talents in."
"Gad!" he cried. "There's point in that remark. But between ourselves, Pinsent, I aim at higher game than spiritual power."
"Temporal," I suggested.
"The highest," he answered, sitting up. "And what's to prevent me?" he asked defiantly. "No man's life is safe from me."
I was puzzled. "You'd not make yourself eligible for kingship by killing kings," I said.
"Kingship be damned," he sneered. "My father was an earl's bastard, but as for me, I'm a pure democrat. No, no, I'm going to abolish royalty. It has served its turn."
"But where do you come in?"
"The pleasure of the game is mine, the knowledge and the ecstasy of power unlimited to make and break."
"Oh! oh! my tiger, having tasted blood already, once at least, the thirst grows on you."
"Once at least—bah!" he jeered, grinning like a fiend.
"Pardon my ignorance," I entreated. "Who was your latest victim."
"Navarro," he answered, grinning still. "The scamp is a true clairvoyant and had to be shut up. He leaped from London Bridge the night you came here and stepped like a poor rabbit into the trap I laid for you."
"Well," said I, in tones husky with throat dryness and apparent admiration, "that makes two—Weldon and Navarro?"
"There is a third still," he answered, fairly snapping at the bait. "My old grandfather, the Earl of Havelock."
"And why did you murder him?"
"For his snobbish refusal to receive me as his kin ten years ago."
"Might one ask how?"
"It's a story to entertain," he answered, licking his lips. "He was over eighty, but he'd kept all his faculties, else ther'd been no joy in killing him. A week since, I went to him invisible, entering the house with my blood cousin, now the Earl, soon after midnight returning from a carousal. He did not see me, of course, and I took care not to let him hear. But little care was needed, the degenerate was filthy drunk. It was easy to find the oldearl's room, the young man got so sober passing it. The door was unlocked, too, so I had no trouble first and last. I went over to the old chap's bed and looked at him and laughed to see. He slept with his mouth wide and his toothless gums were hideously funny. His teeth were in a glass of H2O beside the bed. I pulled his nose to waken him, having first turned on the lights full. Then I played the ghost of my dead father. 'Your hour is come,' says I. 'I'm the spirit of your bastard son come to warn you.' He shook all over, palsied with fear. 'No—no—no,' he gasped, 'I'm not fit to die.' 'You're not fit to live,' I whispered, stern as fate. 'How have you treated the son of your bastard son? Have you been kind to him and helped him in the world.' 'Mercy, mercy!' he whined. 'I know I have been remiss, but give one more chance—another year—a week—a day—and I'll do my duty. I'll bar the entail, I'll give him all.'
"'Wretch!' I hissed—and sat me on his chest. It was heaven sweet to hear his stifled moans. He did not struggle at all. And my only regret was it was so soon over. He broke a vessel and smothered in his own blood. The papers announced next day that he had died of the syncope of senility peacefully while sleeping. Ha, ha, ha!"
I echoed the heartless villain's laugh, croaking out guffaws. The sound irritated him. "Stop that raucous row!" he ordered.
"Then stop telling me funny stories, or else give me something to drink!" I snapped.
He sprang afoot at once. "Lord!" he cried, "I'm not proposing to starve you to death. Why the deuce did you not remind me? You've been—let's see—sixty hours without food."
"Sixty!" I gasped. "Impossible."
"It's a fact," he said, and stalked out of the room. But he returned within a few minutes carrying a tray set with cold meats and wine which he set on a little table and wheeled before me. Then he freed my right hand and stood over me with a revolver while I ate. But I could not eat at once, for the good reason that my arm was paralyzed, and minutes passed before I could make use of it. Even then it pained like a raw scald. But I suppressed a reference to its condition and at the earliest instant cleared the board in the fashion of a famished wolf. Afterwards he bound me up again, standing behind me to do it, out of respect for my strength, no doubt. Then he put up his pistol and resumed his chair.
"Upon my soul, I enjoy a chat with you," he assured me. "You see, I have no one else to confide in"—here he grinned—"and there's a peculiar pleasure in unbosoming to a helpless enemy."
"The pleasure is mutual," I protested courteously. "No other man has given me such mental pabulum."
He closed one eye in a very vulgar manner,"Confess you expire with curiosity to hear more of my beautiful fiancée—the woman you love!"
"The more readily," I responded, "because I know you'll be delighted to taunt me with the satisfaction of that same curiosity."
"Ah!" said he. "You are a foeman worthy of my steel. My heart warms with hate for you; respectful hate." He took out a silver pocket flask of spirit and filled the cup.
At this he began to sip, eyeing me the while with secret delight at my carefully repressed impatience. But he was too anxious to torture me directly to keep me waiting long.
"She's in a drugged sleep this moment," he announced. "I'll keep her like that till after the funeral."
"That's unlike you," I remarked. "It's almost kind."
"Pish!" said he, "I can't afford to let her out of my control even for a moment."
"So?"
"So."
"But you will have to let her see her relatives, eh?"
"Fortunately she hasn't one blood relation in England. Her mother was an Australian, a Victorian farmer's daughter, and Ottley took good care not to marry the family. She has never even seen one of her mother's people."
"But her father's?"
"She is just as fortunately placed, from my point of view, in this regard. Ottley was the only son. And although I believe there is an old maiden aunt twice removed knocking round somewhere in Wales, I'm not afraid of her. She's bed-ridden and a pensioner. As I'm trustee of the estate she'll do what I tell her and stay where she is or I'll know the reason why."
"I'm sure you will," I agreed with pious fervour.
"The Fates seem to have deliberately conspired to assist me in every possible way," continued Belleville. "The only real woman friend Miss Ottley had, Lady Helen Hubbard, has gone to South America with her husband, and the only man friend who might have helped her sits in that chair. There is not another soul in England who has either the shadow of a right or interest to question my treatment. I'm her sole trustee and as well as that her legal guardian, for although she is over age she does not come into control of her fortune until she is twenty-seven unless she marries in the meanwhile."
"You propose, of course, that she shall marry you. When?"
"Oh, in a few days' time. It will naturally be a secret marriage in order to save scandal. But I'm determined it shall take place immediately."
"And afterwards—how will you treat her?" I had hard work to grind this question out.
Belleville gave a nasty laugh. "That depends on herself," he answered. "If she is a dutiful, docile wife she will have little cause to grumble."
"And—if not?"
"You know me and ask that?" he cried. Then he laughed again, stood up and shook himself. "I'm going to indulge in a nice comfortable sleep," he said. "You may not know it, Pinsent, but it's almost midnight. Take my advice and go to by-by, too! Pleasant dreams to you and au revoir." He went out gaping with yawns, but he turned out the lights as he went, and once more darkness enfolded me.
It is not worth while describing the next few days. They were quite or almost colourless. Once each four and twenty hours, Belleville, taking sound precautions, released me for a short while from my prison chair to let me stretch my limbs and in the interests of keeping me alive for his own purposes. We had very little conversation, for he had fallen into a morose and gloomy mood, the result of an attack of insomnia. In answer to direct questions I learned that Sir Robert Ottley's funeral had passed without incident, but that Miss Ottley's violent grief had been succeeded by a long stupor. She was being nursed by a creature of Belleville's, an old Frenchwoman named Elise Lorraine in whom he evidently reposed a deal of confidence. Belleville spent most of his time at work in the laboratory, but what he did I could not see, for he conducted his labours behind my chair. On one occasion he gave way to a savage fit of passion, and without any cause whatever that I could perceive, he broke a number of glass implements upon the floor. Another time, having cut his hand in some experiment, he revenged himself by floggingme with a piece of whalebone until my flesh wherever he could reach it was covered with weals and blisters. He was not a nice man to live with and my hatred of him grew daily more intense. But perforce I was civil to him. On the eighth day he entered the room with a chalk-white face. I knew at once that something had happened; but I was not to learn what it was immediately. He disappeared forthwith behind my chair and for ten minutes stamped about swearing like a pagan. Then the lights went out of a sudden and he departed in the dark. He returned about four hours later, but I did not see him enter, although he put on the lights immediately. I heard him pass my chair; that was all. But a few seconds later a sharp and most acridly irritating odour filled the room, and soon afterwards he came forward and sank into his accustomed chair, opposite to mine. He looked positively ghastly. "To-morrow morning England will mourn the loss of her greatest physician," he announced in quivering tones. "Sir Philip Lang has just committed suicide."
"What!" I cried in deep astonishment. "Sir Philip Lang!"
He bared his teeth. "The world will think so," he snarled. "But in reality—but there, you shall judge. This afternoon without giving me notice the fool came to this house, forced his way into the sick room and had a long private conversation with May Ottley. I do not know to what conclusionhe came, but she must have persuaded him of her sanity, for he ordered Elise to take her out for a walk; and if it had not been that Elise refused to obey him pending my arrival there would have been a pretty kettle of fish for me to fry. However, he won't trouble me again."
"You murdered him!" I gasped.
"Like an artist," said Belleville. "I stole upon him while he sat in his private sitting-room at supper and, standing opposite to him unseen, I reached out and poured some aconite into his wine. He was dead inside a quarter hour, and I took care that he made no outcry. The verdict should be suicide, I think. Don't you?"
With that he got up and left me.
That night while I slept he dosed me with chloroform, and while I was senseless he drew over my clothes a suit of rubber overalls. He also did whatever was necessary to render me invisible, and he gagged me with a piece of steel thrust under my tongue and secured around my throat and neck with fine wire that bit deep in the flesh. I awoke groaning with agony to find that I was stretched out on the naked framework of an iron bed.
Belleville stood over me grasping Miss Ottley by the hand. When I saw her I stopped groaning as if by instinct. I knew at once that she did not see anything except the bed. She looked well, but tragically sorrowful and wild. She was staring as it were through me.
"You see nothing," said Belleville's hollow voice, "but his spirit lies there for all that. It is in my power and cannot escape without I set it free. You know my price. It is for you to rule his fate, through me if so you wish.
"What!" he continued, "do you not believe—well, then, look now!"
Of a sudden he flashed a blue lighted lanthorn into my face and he did something else which sent a thousand stinging currents of electric anguish quivering along my nerves. I uttered a shriek, but the gag stifled it to a hissing wail, and then I fell to breathing groans. Hell can have no worse torments than that villain had devised for my undoing. Had my mouth been unfettered I should have besought the woman I adored for death at any price for rest of pain. As it was I prayed her with my eyes—and she saw and took a message.
"Let him go!" she sobbed, "and I will marry you. Oh, this is horrible!"
On instant the blue light faded out and a blessed heaven of diminished torture gave me peace.
Belleville took from his breast a naked dagger which he put into the girl's hand. "Strike, then!" he said, "Strike here," and he put his finger on my breast.
The devil proposed to make his innocent victim a murderess. I saw his purpose, and with every atom of my strength I groaned. It was the only warning I could send.
But I had played right into Belleville's hands.
"Hear him implore you!" cried Belleville.
"Oh! I can't, I can't," she wailed.
"'Tis only a spirit—and it's the only way," he protested warmly.
Miss Ottley swung around suddenly and drove the dagger at his heart, but he had been expecting it. He caught her wrist and laughed. Then all my anguish recommenced. In the midst of it, made desperate, the girl leaned right across the bed and struck. The blade glanced down upon a rib and deeply pierced my side. Providence, surely, had directed the blow. She withdrew the dagger, then screamed aloud to see it dripping with blood. Belleville caught her in his arms and bore her roughly back. He bent her body on a table until she was as helpless as a dove, then took the blade and drew the horrid thing across her lips; so they were carmined with my blood.
"By this and this you'll remember you are mine," he said, and kissed her lips till his were bloody, too. Then the two stared deep into each other's eyes.
"I've killed his body; you, his soul," said Belleville. "We're well mated, you and I. There—I've no longer any fear you'll hurt yourself. You'll be henceforth too much afraid of him to die."
He let her go, and stood away from her. She swayed erect, then came forward till she stood beside me. I held my very breath for fear that she would hear. I don't know why.
"It is all a trick—a cruel, devilish trick. There's nothing there!" said the girl, her bosom heaving as she spoke.
Belleville laughed like a hyena. "Feel—if you dare!" he cried.
But she took him at his word. Her hands went out and, guided by a dark blotch which, as afterwards I learned she saw, she put them on my wound and drew them swiftly back ensanguined. Then horror settled on her like a black cloud on a mountain top. She turned about with one loud gasping sigh and sank down in a lifeless heap at Belleville's feet.
Soon afterwards I swooned, too, from pain and loss of blood. When I awoke my wound was neatly bandaged, and I was once more seated in my chair.
Belleville sat opposite smoking a cigar. He was dressed very smartly in a frock suit and a tall hat was set jauntily on his brow. He wore a geranium in his buttonhole. His face was wreathed in smiles. A bottle of champagne was set before him on a table and he sipped at a glass with an air of triumphant good-humour.
I found that I could speak; my gag had been removed.
"Water!" I implored him.
He started, then pressed forward with his glass. "Where the devil is your mouth?" he said.
He could not see me, that was plain.
"Here!" said I. "Water."
"It is my wedding morn—and you shall toast me in wine or go thirsting," he rapped out.
Then he found my lips and I drank life into my veins. I have never tasted draught one-half so glorious.
"I was married less than an hour ago," he said, "at a registrar's office. She's no longer Miss Ottley, Pinsent."
I was silent.
"Do you hear me, man?" he demanded.
"I hear," I answered.
He nodded his head and smiled. "I suppose you are wondering why you're still alive, eh?"
"You'll die when I die," I muttered wearily. "You are afraid to kill me, that is why."
"Bosh!" he flashed back. "I have a better reason far. To-morrow she will be my wife indeed—a maid no longer—Pinsent. It was worth keeping you alive to gloat on that."
"Oh! I see."
"But you don't see everything, Pinsent. She insists upon seeing your body to-day in order to be sure that you are dead."
"Ah!"
"She still has a lingering doubt that I have tricked her, and she has sworn on the cross that unless I produce your corpse for her inspection she will take her own life rather than—you can guess what, Pinsent."
"Yes—I can guess."
"So you see the time draws nigh for you to die."
"God only knows."
The villain frowned. "But before you go you must do something for me."
"And that?"
"You must write her a letter telling her that your only hope of soul resurrection and salvation lies in her obeying me. She now considers me a dangerous magician, but I want her to regard me as a sort of deity."
"I will not do it, Belleville. You ought to know me better by this."
"I think you will," said he. "That is if you really care for her. You see it will save her a lot of—let's call it inconvenience. With such a weapon as your message I can rule her kindly. But rule her in any case I shall. If you deny me I'll gag you this moment so you can't make a sound, then I'll bring her here and beat her as I would a dog. How will you like that?"
"I'll write the letter," I said huskily.
A few minutes later the thing was done, and I had signed my name to the atrocious expressions of his demand. To transcribe them I am too ashamed.
"What now?" I asked.
"The last scene in the last act," said he, as he put the letter in his pocket. "I may tell you that I intend always to keep your body by me—forher to look at—if she ever shows a mind to mutiny."
"In spirits?" I questioned.
"The embalming oil of the princes of old Egypt. I found the receipt in Ptahmes' tomb," he answered. "I propose to convert you into a mummy."
With that he took off his hat and coat, rolled up his sleeves and put on a huge oil-skin apron. "I'll not kill you till the last moment necessary," he observed. "In fact, you'll be half-mummy before you die; I have a curiosity to discover if the process of substitution is painful. I rather think it must be."
He moved over as he spoke to the sarcophagus and began to shift the objects that sealed up the mouth. It took him some minutes to do so, and as he put down the couch, last of all, one of the castors crashed upon his toe. He cursed the misfortune like a madman and danced about the floor on one foot like a dervish, winding up by striking me brutally with closed fist on the lips. That gave him back his self-control.
"I'll teach you to laugh at me," he growled. Then he returned to his work and stooping over the great coffin he hauled out the lifeless mummy that had rested there so long. For an instant I glimpsed the strange dead features of the dust of Ptahmes which so strikingly resembled the effigy carven on the lid of the sarcophagus and also the Arab who had twice in Egypt attempted todestroy me. Then Belleville carelessly threw the thing upon the couch; and traversed the room to where stood three glass jars filled with a dark viscous fluid. One by one he rolled these on end across the floor till all three stood beside the coffin. Afterwards he disappeared behind my chair, returning soon, his head covered with a long breathing mask. I watched him—one may guess with what passionate attention. He unscrewed the stopper of the nearest jar, seized the thing bodily in his arms and poured out the contents into the sarcophagus. A curious cloud-like steam arose that hazed the prospect, but soon it dissipated. The air was filled with the perfume I had first smelt in the cave temple of the Hill of Rakh. But it was not altogether overpowering. It made my pulses throb and brought a great rush of blood to my head and hands and feet much as would the scent of amyl nitrate. But it did not take away my senses. Belleville, protected by his mask, was in no way affected. He quickly unstoppered the second jar, and added its contents to the first. Then he turned and approached me, taking off his helmet as he came. The action apprised me that the wonderful perfume had almost died away. There was now a healthy and stimulating odour in the room that resembled boiling tar. Evidently the two jars had contained different chemicals. A loud, seething, bubbling sound was plainly to be heard; it came from the sarcophagus.
Belleville sat down and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. "We must give the stuff ten minutes to mix," he said and, taking out his watch, he glanced at the time. "It's twenty past eleven," he remarked. "You'll begin to mummify at the half hour precisely, Pinsent, so if you are a religious man you'd best compose your soul in prayer."
I am not ashamed to say that I followed his advice. I closed my eyes and asked the Omnipotent for remission of my sins. And since it seemed to me that my hour had come, I resolutely put aside my detestation of the monster who designed to murder me, and I even asked for his forgiveness, too. Then a great, deep, splendid peace mantled over me, and for the first time in my life I truly realised the littleness of man's existence and the majesty of resignation. It was almost worth while to go through all I had been compelled to endure to experience at the end that mood of grand, calm dignity. I felt almost sublimely detached from my surroundings. I opened my eyes at last and said with perfect calm:
"I am ready, Belleville."
He stood up and stretched out his arms, yawning widely. Then of a sudden everything was dark.
"What in Hell——?" shouted Belleville. I heard him rush forward cursing angrily, then he stumbled and fell headlong to the floor amidst a crash of glass. In the same instant unseen hands fumbled over me. My bonds suddenly relaxed andI was free. I stood up, stiff but quivering in every nerve. There followed a rasping sound, a match flickered into light, and I saw Belleville rising from the ruins of a broken jar. He held the lucifer above his head, and it showed standing at an angle between us the tall frame of the Arab of the cave temple at Rakh.
Belleville ripped out an oath. There came a blinding flash of light and the deafening report of a revolver. I staggered from the chair to the wall and leaned against it, helpless as a babe. The echoes were still thundering in rolling waves of brain-dazing sound from wall to wall when the pitch blackness of the room was again relieved by the glare of electricity. Belleville had succeeded in turning on the lights. He stood by the door peering all about him. For a moment I thought all was up. I was free, certainly, but my muscles were so cramped and tautened that I could hardly move a finger. I was not fit to contend against a breath of wind, let alone a burly ruffian like the Doctor. But the next instant I remembered I was still invisible. I could not see my own hand held before me, and I had immediate proof that he was unable to perceive me.
"Where are you, Pinsent? are you hurt?" he cried.
I did not answer, but, following his glance, I looked at the couch and there I saw what utterly astounded me. The mummy of Ptahmes lay uponthe couch in exactly the same attitude as when Belleville had flung it there aside from the sarcophagus. Who, then, or what, had set me free? I examined the apartment eagerly, but saw nothing living save Belleville, who with cocked revolver thrust out before him now stepped forward cautiously into the room, waving his arms about him as he walked, and muttering, as he walked, through clenched teeth a string of angry blasphemies.
The advantage I possessed was dangerously minimised by my physical incapacity, but I hoped, given time, to get back some measure of strength. The great thing was to preserve my liberty until I had acquired force enough to use it. I speedily realised that I could not remain where I was, for Belleville was making towards me and reflection would soon teach him that weakness would compel me to seek a prop for my support. But I feared to move lest the sound should betray my whereabouts. For the same reason I almost feared to breathe. I thought to myself, "Oh, that he would fire again so that I could move elsewhere under cover of the noise."
Once or twice he seemed to look me in the eye. He made a zigzag to my chair. There he paused and listened. I ceased to breathe. Only six feet separated us. But impatience consumed him. "Tell me where you are!" he growled, "or by the Lord when I catch you I'll tear you limb from limb." I breathed while he spoke and ceased when he stopped.
"You can't escape me!" he snarled. "I've onlyto light my blue lamp and I'll find you in a minute. But if you put me to that trouble and make me waste my precious oil besides, well, look out, that's all!"
I clenched and unclenched my hands; the use of them was coming back to me.
"Very well," said Belleville. He passed my chair and stalked to the other end of the room, where he opened a cabinet. I moved slowly and painfully to the very centre of the room. Then I stood stock still. Belleville, returning, paused within a foot of me. He carried a bull's-eye lanthorn. This he put upon the table, and presently he struck a match. A moment later a round shaft of intense blue radiance shot across the room and marked a moon-shaped sphere on the wall. It began to flit along the wall, up and down from the very floor to the height of a man's chest, until it touched the corner. Then it flashed back twice over the same path, and afterwards attacked the next wall. Sooner or later it would be bound to encounter and, perhaps, discover me. But Belleville was only a few feet off. Perhaps if I sank down the shaft would pass over me without touching. At least I could try. Suppressing a shriek of agony, I crouched upon my hands and knees. Then came another thought. Slowly and laboriously I began to crawl nearer and nearer to my enemy. The blue shaft was now shooting right over my head. I crept behind him and, breathing noiselessly, stoodup. If I had possessed a tithe of my strength I might have reached out and caught his neck and strangled him with ease. But I dared not risk it. All on a sudden he uttered an oath. The lamp had gone out. "Damn the thing!" he growled. Putting down his revolver on the table, he opened the lamp and peered in at the smoking wick. We were now face to face and his cocked weapon lay within eighteen inches of my hand. I tried my fingers and found that they were reasonably supple. The blood was streaming through the puffy veins and vesicles. The operation hurt horribly; in fact, I was one mass of crude, raw, painful man flesh. But now I was full of hope and despite the muscular torments of returning animation I felt that my vigour was returning. Belleville snuffed the wick and struck a match along the table. The head came off. He took another and rubbed it on the sole of his shoe, stooping slightly to do so. As he moved I reached out and twined my fingers round the hilt of his revolver. But I had not the strength to lift it up. I cannot paint the agony of that experience. I exerted every atom of my will, but my hand was like a putty puppet. Tantalus never suffered torture half as keen. Withdrawing my hand, I put the fingers in my mouth and sucked the still half-lifeless digits. Meanwhile, the lamp flickered alight; Belleville took up his revolver and resumed his task. I watched him hungrily. The blue shaft once more began to play and stab thewalls. It darted hither and thither, like an incandescent elf, dancing up and down and round and round, and into every hole and cranny of the room. But it did not find me out, because moving round and round the table as Belleville moved I always kept behind him. But this could not last for ever, and, indeed, the end came too soon. Belleville uttered suddenly a savage curse and swung round full upon me. Perhaps I had made some sound that had betrayed me to his nerve-strained senses. I do not know. He cried, "Ha! at last," and fired point blank. The bullet whistled past my temple. The smoke of the discharge flamed blue in the rays of the lanthorn. I fell upon the table and thrust it like a ram with all my force against my adversary. He fired again and once more missed, but ere he could repeat his tactics the table struck him and the lanthorn fell. He staggered back and the lanthorn rolled underneath the table. I pushed the table forward and kicked the lanthorn with my foot. It went out. Belleville, recovering his equilibrium, stood like an image peering straight at me and listening. Yet he did not see me: and for the moment I was safe, for the table was between us. But the man had brains. Judging swiftly where I was most likely to be, he gave an unexpected spring and vaulted clear across the obstacle. I had just time to step back ere he landed. He swung his arms about like flails, but failing immediately to find me, his ugly temper must needsflare up in curses. It was just what I needed to cover the sound of my movements. I evaded him and returned to the table, and then he knew not where I was. In a few moments he realised his folly and, once more relapsing into silence, he took up his lamp. But the oil had either been wasted or was exhausted. The wick refused to catch. He groaned out a blasphemous oath on this discovery, and rushed down to the cabinet, from which first he had procured the lanthorn. I followed him as swiftly as I could, having care to make no sound, and while he was filling the lamp with oil from a beautifully carven vase of solid gold Egyptian ware of the fifteenth dynasty, I once more put my hand upon the hilt of his revolver, which he had momentarily laid upon the edge of the cabinet. But this time I found I could hold and use it, too. Shadow-like, I caught it up and put my finger on the trigger. Then I backed away a yard or two and leaned upon a case of glass and steel.
"Belleville!" said I.
He started as though an adder had stung him, then seeing his pistol gone, he let both vase and lanthorn fall in his dismay and swung on heel to face my voice.
"It's my turn now," I muttered. "Hands above your head—up, man, up—higher—higher!" He saw the muzzle pointing at his breast and sullenly obeyed. I made him walk backwards to the chair that formerly had prisoned me and sit in it. Andthen, the steel pressed to his ear to keep him still, I managed, with one hand, to pass a strap around his throat and buckle it. Afterwards I similarly bound his wrists and ankles. When all was done I was so sore spent, so hideously full of weary pain, that I lay upon the floor and sank immediately into a troubled sleep. Belleville woke me with his struggles to get free. Somehow or other he had pryed himself on tiptoe backward, and the heavy chair, overbalancing, had dragged him over in its fall. That I had not heard, but the weight of iron and his own body was all curiously pressed upon one forearm, and the pain of it set him groaning like a wounded bull. The strangest thing of all was that this arm was free. Somehow or other he had writhed it loose. After I had tied it up again I sat down to think what I should do. I was not, however, in the mood to sit in judgment on him then, for although much stronger from my sleep, the exertion hurt, and every pang I suffered was too powerful an advocate of vengeance to let me try the rascal soberly. I needed food and drink. Not finding any in the room, I tried the door and after some short search, made out its fastening—a simple but clever slip of prodigious strength. I found the key to it in Belleville's pocket. He was madly anxious to be made acquainted with his fate, but I turned a deaf ear to all his questions, and slipping out of the room, I slammed the door on his solicitations. I found myself in a long, blindpassage, lighted with a single jet, with another padded door set in its farthest end. This opened to the same key as the first. It gave me egress on a second passage, which led by three right angles to a big velvet-draped arch and a bifurcated maze of broad-balconied corridors. Here I saw the natural light of day for the first time in more than a week. Ah! how I revelled in it. I stopped before an open window and peered forth on a walled courtyard and the blank, tall wall of a neighbouring mansion beyond. Street sounds percolated to my ears. It was like coming back to life from the grave. Drawing back from the window, after some deep, delicious moments, I looked to find my body and my hands and feet. But I could not see aught but vague, delusive shadows, though the sunbeams glistened on me. The phenomenon filled me with a new sense of marvel and uncertainty. I had to pinch myself to make sure I was not a disembodied phantom—such stuff as dreams are made of. Yet I was real enough to touch, thank Heaven. Reassured, I made for the nearest door and softly tried it. Within was a man's bedroom—Belleville's, perhaps. It was untenanted. The next apartment was a sitting-room. It was also untenanted, but it contained a table, cover-spread for two. With a sigh of joy, I entered and hurried to the table. Under the first cover was a cold partridge pie. I did not touch the others, but, Lord, how I enjoyed that pie! I might have been a wolf—and thenchampagne! Later, seduced by an open cigar-box on the mantel, I threw myself upon a lounge and lit a weed. In ten minutes I was my own man again, and almost comfortable, for the torments that had racked my wretched muscles on reawakening from their tethered lethargy, were disappearing fast. But I was not permitted longer rest. Warned by a tap on the door, I had barely time to toss my cigar into the grate, when the door opened and a short, squat negro stepped into the room. He carried a salver of sweetmeats to the table; he stopped short and uttered a guttural exclamation of surprise. Next instant he was joined by a companion, but no negro, an Arab, a tall, thin Arab, who was the living counterpart of the mummified corpse of Ptahmes I had left in the laboratory, and of the mysterious scoundrel who had attempted my life in the cave temple at Rakh, and at my camp on the banks of the Nile. I was so utterly astounded that I wonder I did not shout out my amazement.
The negro spoke in Arabic. "By Allah, he has eaten and alone," he cried. "Now tell me, Ptahmes, how a man shall serve a master with so little feeling for his servants."
The Arab stalked solemnly over to the table and eyed the ruined pie.
"He hungered. He ate. May his shadow increase," he drawled.
"For my part," retorted the Nubian, with an ill-natured scowl, "his shadow may wither and I shall not grieve. It is impossible to please him."
"His gold is good and hard and yellow and much," said the Arab, in a sort of sing-song.
"Add to that ill-got," replied the negro, "and I shall be an echo to your speech. Natamkin tells me that the lady weeps still, though no more a prisoner, and he took her forth into his whirling Babel town this morning. He has put a spell on her to deprive her of her gold."
"What matter if he shares it with his slaves?" demanded the Arab.
"I fear him," said the Nubian.
"I also," drawled the Arab. "But guard your idle tongue Uromi! He may be listening to us now."
The negro shuddered and made as if to hastily depart. But the Arab laughed, and he stopped looking both angry and ashamed.
"Allah!" he exclaimed, "you laugh, but you may have spoken true."
"Ugh!" said the Arab, "he has bigger fish to fry—the white man you enticed into the room of wonders dies to-day."
"You—know that, Ptahmes!"
"Ay—I am to help him to embalm the body. Now I think of it, I wonder he has eaten. I was to stir the pot while he made merry with the lady over wine—the unbelieving dog. At one of the clock he ordered me to go to him. 'Tis almost time."
"Will you not fear to stay alone in that great room of magic, Ptahmes?"
"Like enough, Uromi, but I shall think me of the pay and work with tight-shut eyes till he returns."
"What has he promised you?"
"Five pieces of gold, Uromi. Do you covet them?"
"I would not cross the threshold of that room for ten times five."
"You have a chicken's heart, Uromi."
"And you a miser's gizzard."
The Arab uttered a sardonic laugh. "Get to your woman's work!" he sneered. "And clear those things away! You had better tell Natamkin to serve the lady in her room!"
"And you—oh, great Lord!" growled the Nubian, with elephantine sarcasm.
The Arab, however, did not trouble himself to answer. With a mien of princely dignity he stalked in silence to the door and vanished.
I said to myself, "There, without doubt, goes the man who, in the nick of time, released me from my bonds. He is my friend." The reflection gave me substantial satisfaction, for much against my will I had hitherto been compelled to ascribe my salvation to a supernatural agency. But now all was changed. Without doubt the Arab had been secretly watching over me, and when the time came he turned out the lights, rushed into the laboratory and unfastened my straps. Afterwards, he had adroitly managed to escape before Belleville couldturn on the lights again. No doubt, too, this Arab was the man of my dream, who had bargained with me to kill Belleville when I got free, to destroy the mummy of Ptahmes, the Priest of Amen-Ra—and his papyri and steles. Why he should have driven such a bargain I could not fathom. And why, moreover, he should have taken the trouble to impersonate the mummy and pretend he could not speak, I was also at a loss to understand. Suddenly I remembered that the animated mummy of my dream had conversed with me in the tongue of Ancient Egypt per medium of a slate and had seemed not to understand modern Arabic. Also, his left hand had been removed—and this Arab enjoyed the undiminished use of his. My head whirled at the contemplation of these essential contradictions. Were they one and the same man or not? Was it possible that Belleville's Arab servant could be a professor of the language of Sesostris? And I recollected, too, how closely I had scrutinised the ghostly mummy's face and realised its utter deadness. The mystery, after all, was not to be as easily solved as my first warm flush of fancy had conceived. Realising this, I put it out of mind and arose to address myself to the practical affair that lay before me. The Nubian was in the act of quitting the room, laden with a heavy tray of dishes. I followed him out into the corridor and leisurely made back to the laboratory. I met nobody en route, but once inside the blindpassage, which opened on my old prison chamber, I became aware that something had gone wrong. The air was heavy with the mysterious scent of the sarcophagus. Moreover, the door of the laboratory which I had been careful to shut close was now ajar. Instinctively, I slipped the key I had just used on the outer door, into my mouth and hurried softly up the passage. There a bewildering surprise awaited me. The laboratory was apparently untenanted by living beings. The mummy of Ptahmes still lay upon the couch. The straps which had fastened Belleville to the chair were all unfastened and Belleville himself had disappeared. Yet there were noises in the room, noises of footfalls and the tinkling of glass. Presently I saw a large glass phial move quietly from a marble slab and stand poised in air. A second later the stopper, which had been laid beside it, sprang up, too, and settled neatly in the phial's mouth. Then the bottle leaped up high into the air and settled, with mysterious precision, on a shelf. I stared at these wonders half-understanding, half-dazed. But soon I comprehended all. Belleville's voice speaking in Arabic came to me through the hush.