mentioned this to anybody?" I asked him.
"Not to a soul."
"Then if I may be permitted to advise," I said, "I should say no word toanybody--not even to Miss Seymour. I will assist you, and we willcontinue to watch and act together."
"Good!" he cried. "Your hand upon it, Kemball." And we grasped hands.
"I somehow fear that something will happen to Asta," he said in a lowhoarse voice. "I may be foolish and unjust in my suspicions, yet I seemto have a distinct presage of evil."
"Personally, I don't think you need have any uneasiness upon thatscore," I said. "Miss Seymour is his sole companion--probably hisconfidante--for he has but few friends."
"Exactly. But perhaps she knows just a little too much, eh?"
I had not looked at the matter in that light. My companion's discoverywas certainly one that must cause anybody to pause and think, butsuspicion of Shaw's hatred of Asta was, I felt, too absurd. But when aman is in love he is very prone to jump to hasty conclusions.
"Well," I said, "now that you have been frank with me so far, and havetaken me into your confidence, Nicholson, will you not tell me what youreally do suspect?"
"You are Shaw's friend. Perhaps I ought not to have spoken as I have,"he said.
"I am no more his friend than you are," I replied, recollecting Arnold'swarning regarding the Hand--whatever that might be. "Have I not agreedwith you that the circumstances are suspicious, and have I not promisedto help you to watch? What actual conclusions have you formed?"
"H-s-s-h!" he said, and next moment I heard a light footstep behind me,and turning, found myself face to face again with Asta.
"They're worrying Dad on the telephone from London," she exclaimed,laughing merrily. "He gets so out of patience with it. But really itis awfully trying sometimes. They ring you up and then keep you half anhour waiting."
"I know," laughed Guy. "My own experience is exactly the same. Why,only the other day I wanted to ring you up, and it took nearly half anhour."
As she stood there with the sunlight full upon her face she lookedinexpressibly dainty and charming. Truly Guy Nicholson was a lucky man.They were not actually engaged, it seemed, for he had not yet askedShaw for her hand. Probably Guy hesitated because of the dark suspicionwhich had entered his mind.
I saw the love-light in her magnificent brown eyes, she stood laughingwith him, while he took from his case a cigarette, tapped its endlightly, as is the habit of some men, and lit it.
A few moments later Shaw joined us, smiling merrily, and as he came uphe clapped Guy on the back heartily, saying--
"You two fellows will stay and have dinner, won't you? I'm glad you arefriends, as you ought to be."
"I really think I must go," I said. "It will take me hours to get homeby train."
"Train! Why, Gray will drive you back, of course," he cried. "No,never mind about dressing. Asta will excuse us, and you'll stay."
So, having glanced at each other meaningly, we both accepted, and verysoon were seated in the long handsome dining-room, where the table,laden with splendid old silver, was decorated tastefully with roses.
Wheaton served us with due stateliness, yet as I sat watching his greyclean-shaven face, I felt somehow that there was a strange mysteriouscraftiness in its expression, unusual in the countenance of agentleman's servant. The manner in which he performed his service was,however, perfect. More than once, during the merry meal, I glancedacross at Guy Nicholson, and wondered what were his thoughts.
Fortunately he betrayed nothing in his face, for he joked and laughedwith his host, and praised the excellent claret which Wheaton had servedwith such dignity.
The girl had eyes only for her lover, while Shaw himself, seated at thehead of the table, was full of fun and overflowing geniality. How verystrange was the situation!
After dinner we took our coffee and liqueurs on the verandah, for thenight was breathless and balmy, and the air full of the sweet scent ofthe flowers.
Then after a long gossip alone with Shaw, at half-past ten the car wasordered for me and came round to the front entrance.
Before leaving I managed to obtain a word alone with Nicholson.
"You'll come over and see me," I asked. "Now, don't disappoint me, willyou?"
"No, I won't." Then he whispered quickly: "I told you that I hadcertain proofs. I've been upstairs. When I come I will show them toyou. They will astound you, and they are fully corroborated by what Ihave noticed to-night. Perhaps it escaped you. Beware of Wheaton.He's only been here six months, but I know something--have _seen_something?"
And we shook hands and parted.
CHAPTER TEN.
THE EVIL OF THE TEN PLAGUES.
In the days that followed I was intensely anxious to visit Lydford Hallagain, but I had received a warning note from Shaw, urging me not to doso without taking every precaution. I might be followed, for the dangerof detection was not yet at an end.
Therefore I remained in eager expectancy of Guy's visit. He had vaguelypromised to come over "in a day or two." But as a week passed and Iheard nothing from him, I wrote, and by return of post received a replythat he would motor over and lunch with me on Sunday.
"I have something of greatest importance to tell you," his letterconcluded; "so I hope you can make it convenient to be in on that day."
I received the letter on Thursday morning, and at once replied that Iwould be at home. I would await his visit with keenest impatience.
The warm breathless days at Upton End passed but slowly. Truth to tell,I found life there extremely dull. I had many friends in theneighbourhood, but they were mostly elderly persons, or angular girls ofsuperior education. I had little in common with them, and already foundmyself longing to travel again.
More than once when smoking my lonely cigar before going to bed, I hadtaken out the mysterious cylinder from the big safe built in the wall ofthe library and held it in my hand pondering. What could be the Thingit contained--the thing which would amaze the world!
The weird story told to me by Shaw concerning it haunted me; yet whatevil could its possession bring upon me? I had heard, of course, ofauthenticated stories of certain Egyptian mummies which have broughtdisaster and death to those who disturbed their long sleep; yet in mycase I had become the unwilling agent of another.
On the night of receiving Nicholson's letter, after every one hadretired, I was sitting as usual smoking, with the long window open tothe verandah, for the air was close and oppressive. Outside the nightwas glorious, the moon shone brightly, and not a breath of wind stirred.
I opened the steel door in the wall by the fireplace, and from the safetook out the dead man's letter to me with the heavy cylinder. It was acurious fancy of mine to handle and examine it.
I read and re-read that letter traced by the hand of the man whom I hadknown as Arnold, but whose real name seemed most probably to have beenEdgcumbe. Then I read that strange letter threatening vengeance, andheld in my hand the old copy of the newspaper which told the curiousstory of Lady Lettice Lancaster.
It was all mysterious, but surely most mysterious of all was that bronzecylinder. Why should the dead man have feared to expose its contents tothe world?
Civilisation would be staggered by the revelation, it was declared.What terrible secret of ages past could be therein contained? Why hadthe dead man called it a Thing? Was it really some living thingimprisoned in that strong unbreakable casing?
I carried it across to the green-shaded lamp upon my writing-table, andtaking up a strong magnifying glass examined it closely, and at lastdetermined that the welding by which it had been closed had been doneages ago. As far as I could detect it had never been opened. How,therefore, could Arnold have known what it contained?--unless the papyrithat had been discovered with it had given an explanation.
Suddenly it occurred to me that the existence of any papyri of greatinterest would probably be known in the Egyptian Department of theBritish Museum. Therefore by inquiry
there I might perhaps learnsomething. So I resolved, after Guy's visit, to run up to London andsee one of the officials. As Arnold was an Egyptologist, he would, nodoubt, be known and his discoveries noted.
I was holding the cylinder in my hand, carrying it across the room toreplace it in the safe, when my eye caught a dark shadow thrown acrossthe lawn. So quickly, however, did it disappear that I stood halfinclined to believe it to exist only in my imagination. It seemed to bea long shadow, as though some person had crossed in the moonlight thehigh bank on the opposite side. Yet my collie, who would bark at theslightest sound in the night, lay near and uttered neither bark norgrowl. I went out to the verandah and looked about me; but all wasperfectly still. The world lay asleep beneath the great full moon.
For a few moments I stood puzzled. No intruder should be there at thathour. Yet the fact that Prince had not been disturbed reassured me, soI closed the window, locked the cylinder and the correspondencecarefully in the safe, and then went upstairs to bed.
My room was directly over the library, and something prompted me towatch. So I extinguished my light and sat peering through the chinkbetween the blind and the window-sash. For nearly half an hour Iwaited, my eyes fixed upon the great wide, moonlit lawn.
Suddenly I saw the shadow again, plainly and distinctly--the darksilhouette passed bade again.
It was probably a poacher from the wood beyond. I knew that my rabbitswere being trapped with wires; therefore resolving to tell Johnson, thekeeper, in the morning, I retired to bed.
Next day, among my letters, I found one from my solicitors, which madeit necessary for me to go at once to London; and after doing my businessin Bedford Row, I strolled along to the British Museum.
I had but little difficulty in discovering Professor Stewart, whoseknowledge of Egyptology is probably the widest of any living man.
Without telling him too many details, I related the story I had heard ofthe finding of a bronze cylinder in the tomb of King Merenptah, and thatcertain papyri were discovered with it. Could he give me anyinformation upon the subject.
"Well--a little," replied the tall, grey-bearded, bald-headed man,looking at me through his spectacles with great deliberation. "It istrue, I believe, that an interesting cylinder of metal was found in thetomb of Merenptah, coeval with Moses, and with it were some fragments ofpapyri fairly well-preserved, but on examination they were found not tobe of the nineteenth dynasty, as would have been expected."
"Who examined them?" I asked eagerly.
"I did myself, about two years ago, if I recollect aright," replied theProfessor. "They were brought to me one day for my opinion by a manwhose name I now forget. He was elderly, grey-bearded, and apparentlypossessed considerable knowledge of Egyptian subjects. He left themwith me, so that I might decipher them, as he wished to compare his owndecipher with mine. But, curiously enough, I have never seen him since.The papyri I have still locked away, awaiting his return."
"Then they are here?" I cried eagerly.
"Certainly. Would you like to see them?"
I replied eagerly in the affirmative, and he left me for some minutes,returning with a big cardboard portfolio, which he opened, showing halfa dozen pieces of brown crumbling paper-like substance covered withpuzzling hieroglyphics. With them were several sheets of blue foolscap,upon which he had written his translation.
"Here is what the record contains," he said.
"Perhaps, if you are interested in such matters, you would like to readit. It is a curious piece of literature of apparently the Pharaonicdynasty of the Ptolemies--or 323-30 B.C., which ended with Cleopatra."
I took the folios of modern paper in my hand and from them read asfollows, written in the Professor's own crabbed writing:--
"...For of a Verity death, sickness, and sorrow, who knoweth which, mayfall upon thee. Therefore, beware of the wrath of Ra, beware lest thiscylinder of bronze be opened and its secret be revealed to men, fortherein lieth the Thing that shall not speak until the Day of Awakening.
"For:
"He that seeketh knowledge of that which is hidden is accursed of Amonwith the ten plagues and doeth so at his own risk, and must meet hisfate being cursed of the wolf-god Osiris, ruler of the underworld.Truly, cutting off the head of, or the forsaking life is better than thesatisfaction of curiosity of what is therein contained.
"Touch not the cylinder with thine hand, for if...
"Let it remain here in the tomb of the Great Merenptah, King of Kings,Lord... wherein it has been placed to slumber until released by Osiris,to whom all kings and princes bow the knee and to whom...
"Observe, He is all-glorious, on whose pleasure fortune waiteth, inwhose valour victory, and in whose anger death.
"Since:
"...a gem be tied at the feet and a piece of glass be worn upon thehead, yet still glass is glass, and gems are gems.
"It is said:
"Wisdom is of more consequence than strength. The want of it is a stateof misery. And as in the night darkness is kept at a distance by thelord of shades (the moon) thus love by seeing and being seen delightsthe young. The woman...
"Again:
"Women are never to be rendered faithful and obedient; no, not by gifts,nor by honours, nor by sincerity, nor by services, nor by severity, norby precept!... What women eat is twofold; their cunning fourfold; theirperseverance sixfold; their passions eightfold; and their patiencetenfold. Wherefore the understanding which upon unexpected occurrencesremaineth unaffected, may pass through the greatest difficulties. Hewho hath sense and worshippeth the Sun-God hath strength. Where hath hestrength who wanteth judgment? Where hath...
"To the unkind the ruin of the worthy bringeth delight, and...
"It is not proper to be alarmed at a mere sound when the cause of thatsound is unknown.
"For:
"Upon the great river the city of Thebes there was in the days ofSekhomab a city where... called Aa-tenen, the inhabitants of which usedto believe that a certain giant crocodile, whom they called Nefer-biu,infested the waters. The fact was this: a thief, as he was swimmingaway with a bell he had stolen, was overcome and devoured by acrocodile, and the bell, falling from his hand, was washed upon theriver-bank there and picked up by some apes, who every now and then usedto ring it in the trees by the river... The people of the town, findinga man had been killed there, and hearing continually the noise of thebell, used to declare that the giant Nefer-biu, being enraged, wasdevouring a man and ringing a bell, so that the city was abandoned byall the principal inhabitants.
"And so...
"At length, guided by the god Horus... of Stars of Sopdu, a certain poorwoman, having considered the subject, discovered that the bell was rungby the apes. She accordingly went unto King Sekhomab, loved of Ra,favourite of Mentu, and before the priests of Amon, and said: `If, OKing. Lord of both Lands, I may expect a very great reward, I willengage to silence this Nefer-biu.' The King was exceedingly wellpleased, and gave her some silver. So having described some circles andexhibited the worship of strange gods in a conspicuous manner, shesecretly provided such fruits as she conceived the apes were fond of andwent unto the river; where, strewing them about, they presently quittedthe bell and attached themselves to the fruit. The poor woman, in themeantime, took away the bell and carried it into Sekhomab, who honouredher and gave her great reward. And in the city of Aa-tenen she becamean object of adoration to its inhabitants, and her cartouche wasinscribed upon the Temple of Amon-Ra... and of the Sun-God...
"Wherefore I say that it is not proper to be alarmed at a mere soundwhen the cause of that sound is unknown.
"And wherefore, I repeat that, for fear of great disaster to thyself,let not thine hand touch this brazen cylinder which containeth the Thingwhich shall remain imprisoned therein in the realms of Tuat (theunderworld) until released by Osiris on the Day of Awakening... this25th of the month Tybi.
"Be ye therefore warned, for by disobedience assuredly the anger of theSun-God and of Os
iris the Eternal will fall heavily upon thee. AndHarnekht shall smite them.
"May disaster happen but in the house of thine enemies. May traitors,day by day, be led by Time to their destruction, and may they remain forever in Amentet, the place of gloom..."
"Curious," I said, looking up to the Professor's grave bearded face ashe peered over to me through his glasses.
"Yes. The fable is very interesting. I have not yet decided the actualdate of the papyri. But it is certainly much later than KingMerenptah," he said. "We have many cartouches of his time here in theMuseum, and there are many others about Europe, as St Petersburg andDarmstadt. But in certain ways the hieroglyphics are different. HenceI am of opinion that the bronze cylinder referred to--if it has beenfound and still exists--was placed with these papyri in the tomb at amuch later date."
"You have no knowledge of the person who brought this to you?" I asked.
"Only that his name was Arnold--I see that I made a note at the time--and that he was staying at the Savoy Hotel."
"Strange that he did not return to claim his find."
"Very. My own idea is that he may have been called abroad suddenly, andwill return one day. He seemed extremely intelligent."
"And the cylinder. What do you think it could have contained--what isthe Thing to which the papyri refers!"
The old professor shrugged his shoulders.
"How can we tell if the cylinder is non-existent? Probably it wasrifled from the royal tomb a thousand years ago and broken open bysacrilegious persons who were unable to decipher these writings, and whocared nothing for the curse of the ten plagues
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