Three John Silence Stories
Page 38
forciblythat I was only standing upright with difficulty in this littlesand-hole of a modern garden in the south of England, for it seemed tome that I stood, as in vision, at the entrance of some vast rock-hewnTemple far, far down the river of Time. The illusion was powerful, andpersisted. Granite columns, that rose to heaven, piled themselves aboutme, majestically uprearing, and a roof like the sky itself spread abovea line of colossal figures that moved in shadowy procession alongendless and stupendous aisles. This huge and splendid fantasy, borne Iknew not whence, possessed me so vividly that I was actually obliged toconcentrate my attention upon the small stooping figure of the doctor,as he groped about the walls, in order to keep the eye of imagination onthe scene before me.
But the limited space rendered a long search out of the question, andhis footsteps, instead of shuffling through loose sand, presently strucksomething of a different quality that gave forth a hollow and resoundingecho. He stooped to examine more closely.
He was standing exactly in the centre of the little chamber when thishappened, and he at once began scraping away the sand with his feet. Inless than a minute a smooth surface became visible--the surface of awooden covering. The next thing I saw was that he had raised it and waspeering down into a space below. Instantly, a strong odour of nitre andbitumen, mingled with the strange perfume of unknown and powderedaromatics, rose up from the uncovered space and filled the vault,stinging the throat and making the eyes water and smart.
"The mummy!" whispered Dr. Silence, looking up into our faces over hiscandle; and as he said the word I felt the soldier lurch against me, andheard his breathing in my very ear.
"The mummy!" he repeated under his breath, as we pressed forward tolook.
It is difficult to say exactly why the sight should have stirred in meso prodigious an emotion of wonder and veneration, for I have had not alittle to do with mummies, have unwound scores of them, and evenexperimented magically with not a few. But there was something in thesight of that grey and silent figure, lying in its modern box of leadand wood at the bottom of this sandy grave, swathed in the bandages ofcenturies and wrapped in the perfumed linen that the priests of Egypthad prayed over with their mighty enchantments thousands of yearsbefore--something in the sight of it lying there and breathing its ownspice-laden atmosphere even in the darkness of its exile in this remoteland, something that pierced to the very core of my being and touchedthat root of awe which slumbers in every man near the birth of tears andthe passion of true worship.
I remember turning quickly from the Colonel, lest he should see myemotion, yet fail to understand its cause, turn and clutch John Silenceby the arm, and then fall trembling to see that he, too, had lowered hishead and was hiding his face in his hands.
A kind of whirling storm came over me, rising out of I know not whatutter deeps of memory, and in a whiteness of vision I heard the magicalold chauntings from the Book of the Dead, and saw the Gods pass by indim procession, the mighty, immemorial Beings who were yet themselvesonly the personified attributes of the true Gods, the God with the Eyesof Fire, the God with the Face of Smoke. I saw again Anubis, thedog-faced deity, and the children of Horus, eternal watcher of the ages,as they swathed Osiris, the first mummy of the world, in the scented andmystic bands, and I tasted again something of the ecstasy of thejustified soul as it embarked in the golden Boat of Ra, and journeyedonwards to rest in the fields of the blessed.
And then, as Dr. Silence, with infinite reverence, stooped and touchedthe still face, so dreadfully staring with its painted eyes, there roseagain to our nostrils wave upon wave of this perfume of thousands ofyears, and time fled backwards like a thing of naught, showing me inhaunted panorama the most wonderful dream of the whole world.
A gentle hissing became audible in the air, and the doctor moved quicklybackwards. It came close to our faces and then seemed to play about thewalls and ceiling.
"The last of the Fire--still waiting for its full accomplishment," hemuttered; but I heard both words and hissing as things far away, for Iwas still busy with the journey of the soul through the Seven Halls ofDeath, listening for echoes of the grandest ritual ever known to men.
The earthen plates covered with hieroglyphics still lay beside themummy, and round it, carefully arranged at the points of the compass,stood the four jars with the heads of the hawk, the jackal, thecynocephalus, and man, the jars in which were placed the hair, the nailparings, the heart, and other special portions of the body. Even theamulets, the mirror, the blue clay statues of the Ka, and the lamp withseven wicks were there. Only the sacred scarabaeus was missing.
"Not only has it been torn from its ancient resting-place," I heard Dr.Silence saying in a solemn voice as he looked at Colonel Wragge withfixed gaze, "but it has been partially unwound,"--he pointed to thewrappings of the breast,--"and--the scarabaeus has been removed from thethroat."
The hissing, that was like the hissing of an invisible flame, hadceased; only from time to time we heard it as though it passed backwardsand forwards in the tunnel; and we stood looking into each other's faceswithout speaking.
Presently Colonel Wragge made a great effort and braced himself. I heardthe sound catch in his throat before the words actually became audible.
"My sister," he said, very low. And then there followed a long pause,broken at length by John Silence.
"It must be replaced," he said significantly.
"I knew nothing," the soldier said, forcing himself to speak the wordshe hated saying. "Absolutely nothing."
"It must be returned," repeated the other, "if it is not now too late.For I fear--I fear--"
Colonel Wragge made a movement of assent with his head.
"It shall be," he said.
The place was still as the grave.
I do not know what it was then that made us all three turn round with sosudden a start, for there was no sound audible to my ears, at least.
The doctor was on the point of replacing the lid over the mummy, when hestraightened up as if he had been shot.
"There's something coming," said Colonel Wragge under his breath, andthe doctor's eyes, peering down the small opening of the tunnel, showedme the true direction.
A distant shuffling noise became distinctly audible coming from a pointabout half-way down the tunnel we had so laboriously penetrated.
"It's the sand falling in," I said, though I knew it was foolish.
"No," said the Colonel calmly, in a voice that seemed to have the ringof iron, "I've heard it for some time past. It is something alive--andit is coming nearer."
He stared about him with a look of resolution that made his face almostnoble. The horror in his heart was overmastering, yet he stood thereprepared for anything that might come.
"There's no other way out," John Silence said.
He leaned the lid against the sand, and waited. I knew by the masklikeexpression of his face, the pallor, and the steadiness of the eyes, thathe anticipated something that might be very terrible--appalling.
The Colonel and myself stood on either side of the opening. I still heldmy candle and was ashamed of the way it shook, dripping the grease allover me; but the soldier had set his into the sand just behind his feet.
Thoughts of being buried alive, of being smothered like rats in a trap,of being caught and done to death by some invisible and merciless forcewe could not grapple with, rushed into my mind. Then I thought offire--of suffocation--of being roasted alive. The perspiration began topour from my face.
"Steady!" came the voice of Dr. Silence to me through the vault.
For five minutes, that seemed fifty, we stood waiting, looking fromeach other's faces to the mummy, and from the mummy to the hole, and allthe time the shuffling sound, soft and stealthy, came gradually nearer.The tension, for me at least, was very near the breaking point when atlast the cause of the disturbance reached the edge. It was hidden for amoment just behind the broken rim of soil. A jet of sand, shaken by theclose vibration, trickled down on to the ground; I have never in my lifeseen anything fall
with such laborious leisure. The next second,uttering a cry of curious quality, it came into view.
And it was far more distressingly horrible than anything I hadanticipated.
For the sight of some Egyptian monster, some god of the tombs, or evenof some demon of fire, I think I was already half prepared; but when,instead, I saw the white visage of Miss Wragge framed in that roundopening of sand, followed by her body crawling on all fours, her eyesbulging and reflecting the yellow glare of the candles, my firstinstinct was to turn and run like a frantic animal seeking a way ofescape.
But Dr. Silence, who seemed no whit surprised, caught my arm andsteadied me, and we both saw the Colonel then drop upon his knees andcome thus to a level with his sister. For more than a whole minute, asthough struck in stone, the two faces gazed silently at each other:hers, for all the dreadful emotion in it, more like a gargoyle thananything