The Algernon Blackwood Collection

by Algernon Blackwood

  But what has left an even sharper impression on my memory was the blackness that then began crawling over his face, obliterating the features, concealing their human outline, and hiding him inch by inch from view. This was my first realisation that the process of materialisation was at work. His visage became shrouded. I moved from one side to the other to keep him in view, and it was only then I understood that, properly speaking, the blackness was not upon the countenance of Colonel Wragge, but that something had inserted itself between me and him, thus screening his face with the effect of a dark veil. Something that apparently rose through the floor was passing slowly into the air above the table and above the bowl. The blood in the bowl, moreover, was considerably less than before.

  And, with this change in the air before us, there came at the same time a further change, I thought, in the face of the soldier. One-half was turned towards the red lamps, while the other caught the pale illumination of the moonlight falling aslant from the high windows, so that it was difficult to estimate this change with accuracy of detail. But it seemed to me that, while the features—eyes, nose, mouth—remained the same, the life informing them had undergone some profound transformation. The signature of a new power had crept into the face and left its traces there—an expression dark, and in some unexplained way, terrible.

  Then suddenly he opened his mouth and spoke, and the sound of this changed voice, deep and musical though it was, made me cold and set my heart beating with uncomfortable rapidity. The Being, as he had dreaded, was already in control of his brain, using his mouth.

  “I see a blackness like the blackness of Egypt before my face,” said the tones of this unknown voice that seemed half his own and half another’s. “And out of this darkness they come, they come.”

  I gave a dreadful start. The doctor turned to look at me for an instant, and then turned to centre his attention upon the figure of our host, and I understood in some intuitive fashion that he was there to watch over the strangest contest man ever saw—to watch over and, if necessary, to protect.

  “He is being controlled—possessed,” he whispered to me through the shadows. His face wore a wonderful expression, half triumph, half admiration.

  Even as Colonel Wragge spoke, it seemed to me that this visible darkness began to increase, pouring up thickly out of the ground by the hearth, rising up in sheets and veils, shrouding our eyes and faces. It stole up from below—an awful blackness that seemed to drink in all the radiations of light in the building, leaving nothing but the ghost of a radiance in their place. Then, out of this rising sea of shadows, issued a pale and spectral light that gradually spread itself about us, and from the heart of this light I saw the shapes of fire crowd and gather. And these were not human shapes, or the shapes of anything I recognised as alive in the world, but outlines of fire that traced globes, triangles, crosses, and the luminous bodies of various geometrical figures. They grew bright, faded, and then grew bright again with an effect almost of pulsation. They passed swiftly to and fro through the air, rising and falling, and particularly in the immediate neighbourhood of the Colonel, often gathering about his head and shoulders, and even appearing to settle upon him like giant insects of flame. They were accompanied, moreover, by a faint sound of hissing—the same sound we had heard that afternoon in the plantation.

  “The fire-elementals that precede their master,” the doctor said in an undertone. “Be ready.”

  And while this weird display of the shapes of fire alternately flashed and faded, and the hissing echoed faintly among the dim rafters overhead, we heard the awful voice issue at intervals from the lips of the afflicted soldier. It was a voice of power, splendid in some way I cannot describe, and with a certain sense of majesty in its cadences, and, as I listened to it with quickly beating heart, I could fancy it was some ancient voice of Time itself, echoing down immense corridors of stone, from the depths of vast temples, from the very heart of mountain tombs.

  “I have seen my divine Father, Osiris,” thundered the great tones. “I have scattered the gloom of the night. I have burst through the earth, and am one with the starry Deities!”

  Something grand came into the soldier’s face. He was staring fixedly before him, as though seeing nothing.

  “Watch,” whispered Dr. Silence in my ear, and his whisper seemed to come from very far away.

  Again the mouth opened and the awesome voice issued forth.

  “Thoth,” it boomed, “has loosened the bandages of Set which fettered my mouth. I have taken my place in the great winds of heaven.”

  I heard the little wind of night, with its mournful voice of ages, sighing round the walls and over the roof.

  “Listen!” came from the doctor at my side, and the thunder of the voice continued—

  “I have hidden myself with you, O ye stars that never diminish. I remember my name—in—the—House—of—Fire!”

  The voice ceased and the sound died away. Something about the face and figure of Colonel Wragge relaxed, I thought. The terrible look passed from his face. The Being that obsessed him was gone.

  “The great Ritual,” said Dr. Silence aside to me, very low, “the Book of the Dead. Now it’s leaving him. Soon the blood will fashion it a body.”

  Colonel Wragge, who had stood absolutely motionless all this time, suddenly swayed, so that I thought he was going to fall,—and, but for the quick support of the doctor’s arm, he probably would have fallen, for he staggered as in the beginning of collapse.

  “I am drunk with the wine of Osiris,” he cried,—and it was half with his own voice this time—"but Horus, the Eternal Watcher, is about my path—for—safety.” The voice dwindled and failed, dying away into something almost like a cry of distress.

  “Now, watch closely,” said Dr. Silence, speaking loud, “for after the cry will come the Fire!”

  I began to tremble involuntarily; an awful change had come without warning into the air; my legs grew weak as paper beneath my weight and I had to support myself by leaning on the table. Colonel Wragge, I saw, was also leaning forward with a kind of droop. The shapes of fire had vanished all, but his face was lit by the red lamps and the pale, shifting moonlight rose behind him like mist.

  We were both gazing at the bowl, now almost empty; the Colonel stooped so low I feared every minute he would lose his balance and drop into it; and the shadow, that had so long been in process of forming, now at length began to assume material outline in the air before us.

  Then John Silence moved forward quickly. He took his place between us and the shadow. Erect, formidable, absolute master of the situation, I saw him stand there, his face calm and almost smiling, and fire in his eyes. His protective influence was astounding and incalculable. Even the abhorrent dread I felt at the sight of the creature growing into life and substance before us, lessened in some way so that I was able to keep my eyes fixed on the air above the bowl without too vivid a terror.

  But as it took shape, rising out of nothing as it were, and growing momentarily more defined in outline, a period of utter and wonderful silence settled down upon the building and all it contained. A hush of ages, like the sudden centre of peace at the heart of the travelling cyclone, descended through the night, and out of this hush, as out of the emanations of the steaming blood, issued the form of the ancient being who had first sent the elemental of fire upon its mission. It grew and darkened and solidified before our eyes. It rose from just beyond the table so that the lower portions remained invisible, but I saw the outline limn itself upon the air, as though slowly revealed by the rising of a curtain. It apparently had not then quite concentrated to the normal proportions, but was spread out on all sides into space, huge, though rapidly condensing, for I saw the colossal shoulders, the neck, the lower portion of the dark jaws, the terrible mouth, and then the teeth and lips—and, as the veil seemed to lift further upon the tremendous face—I saw the nose and cheek bones. In another moment I should have looked straight into the eyes—

  But what Dr. Si
lence did at that moment was so unexpected, and took me so by surprise, that I have never yet properly understood its nature, and he has never yet seen fit to explain in detail to me. He uttered some sound that had a note of command in it—and, in so doing, stepped forward and intervened between me and the face. The figure, just nearing completeness, he therefore hid from my sight—and I have always thought purposely hid from my sight.

  “The fire!” he cried out. “The fire! Beware!”

  There was a sudden roar as of flame from the very mouth of the pit, and for the space of a single second all grew light as day. A blinding flash passed across my face, and there was heat for an instant that seemed to shrivel skin, and flesh, and bone. Then came steps, and I heard Colonel Wragge utter a great cry, wilder than any human cry I have ever known. The heat sucked all the breath out of my lungs with a rush, and the blaze of light, as it vanished, swept my vision with it into enveloping darkness.

  When I recovered the use of my senses a few moments later I saw that Colonel Wragge with a face of death, its whiteness strangely stained, had moved closer to me. Dr. Silence stood beside him, an expression of triumph and success in his eyes. The next minute the soldier tried to clutch me with his hand. Then he reeled, staggered, and, unable to save himself, fell with a great crash upon the brick floor.

  After the sheet of flame, a wind raged round the building as though it would lift the roof off, but then passed as suddenly as it came. And in the intense calm that followed I saw that the form had vanished, and the doctor was stooping over Colonel Wragge upon the floor, trying to lift him to a sitting position.

  “Light,” he said quietly, “more light. Take the shades off.”

  Colonel Wragge sat up and the glare of the unshaded lamps fell upon his face. It was grey and drawn, still running heat, and there was a look in the eyes and about the corners of the mouth that seemed in this short space of time to have added years to its age. At the same time, the expression of effort and anxiety had left it. It showed relief.

  “Gone!” he said, looking up at the doctor in a dazed fashion, and struggling to his feet. “Thank God! it’s gone at last.” He stared round the laundry as though to find out where he was. “Did it control me—take possession of me? Did I talk nonsense?” he asked bluntly. “After the heat came, I remember nothing—”

  “You’ll feel yourself again in a few minutes,” the doctor said. To my infinite horror I saw that he was surreptitiously wiping sundry dark stains from the face. “Our experiment has been a success and—”

  He gave me a swift glance to hide the bowl, standing between me and our host while I hurriedly stuffed it down under the lid of the nearest cauldron.

  “—and none of us the worse for it,” he finished.

  “And fires?” he asked, still dazed, “there’ll be no more fires?”

  “It is dissipated—partly, at any rate,” replied Dr. Silence cautiously.

  “And the man behind the gun,” he went on, only half realising what he was saying, I think; “have you discovered that?”

  “A form materialised,” said the doctor briefly. “I know for certain now what the directing intelligence was behind it all.”

  Colonel Wragge pulled himself together and got upon his feet. The words conveyed no clear meaning to him yet. But his memory was returning gradually, and he was trying to piece together the fragments into a connected whole. He shivered a little, for the place had grown suddenly chilly. The air was empty again, lifeless.

  “You feel all right again now,” Dr. Silence said, in the tone of a man stating a fact rather than asking a question.

  “Thanks to you—both, yes.” He drew a deep breath, and mopped his face, and even attempted a smile. He made me think of a man coming from the battlefield with the stains of fighting still upon him, but scornful of his wounds. Then he turned gravely towards the doctor with a question in his eyes. Memory had returned and he was himself again.

  “Precisely what I expected,” the doctor said calmly; “a fire-elemental sent upon its mission in the days of Thebes, centuries before Christ, and tonight, for the first time all these thousands of years, released from the spell that originally bound it.”

  We stared at him in amazement, Colonel Wragge opening his lips for words that refused to shape themselves.

  “And, if we dig,” he continued significantly, pointing to the floor where the blackness had poured up, “we shall find some underground connection—a tunnel most likely—leading to the Twelve Acre Wood. It was made by—your predecessor.”

  “A tunnel made by my brother!” gasped the soldier. “Then my sister should know—she lived here with him—” He stopped suddenly.

  John Silence inclined his head slowly. “I think so,” he said quietly. “Your brother, no doubt, was as much tormented as you have been,” he continued after a pause in which Colonel Wragge seemed deeply preoccupied with his thoughts, “and tried to find peace by burying it in the wood, and surrounding the wood then, like a large magic circle, with the enchantments of the old formulae. So the stars the man saw blazing—”

  “But burying what?” asked the soldier faintly, stepping backwards towards the support of the wall.

  Dr. Silence regarded us both intently for a moment before he replied. I think he weighed in his mind whether to tell us now, or when the investigation was absolutely complete.

  “The mummy,” he said softly, after a moment; “the mummy that your brother took from its resting place of centuries, and brought home—here.”

  Colonel Wragge dropped down upon the nearest chair, hanging breathlessly on every word. He was far too amazed for speech.

  “The mummy of some important person—a priest most likely—protected from disturbance and desecration by the ceremonial magic of the time. For they understood how to attach to the mummy, to lock up with it in the tomb, an elemental force that would direct itself even after ages upon any one who dared to molest it. In this case it was an elemental of fire.”

  Dr. Silence crossed the floor and turned out the lamps one by one. He had nothing more to say for the moment. Following his example, I folded the table together and took up the chairs, and our host, still dazed and silent, mechanically obeyed him and moved to the door.

  We removed all traces of the experiment, taking the empty bowl back to the house concealed beneath an ulster.

  The air was cool and fragrant as we walked to the house, the stars beginning to fade overhead and a fresh wind of early morning blowing up out of the east where the sky was already hinting of the coming day. It was after five o’clock.

  Stealthily we entered the front hall and locked the door, and as we went on tiptoe upstairs to our rooms, the Colonel, peering at us over his candle as he nodded good-night, whispered that if we were ready the digging should be begun that very day.

  Then I saw him steal along to his sister’s room and disappear.

  IV

  But not even the mysterious references to the mummy, or the prospect of a revelation by digging, were able to hinder the reaction that followed the intense excitement of the past twelve hours, and I slept the sleep of the dead, dreamless and undisturbed. A touch on the shoulder woke me, and I saw Dr. Silence standing beside the bed, dressed to go out.

  “Come,” he said, “it’s tea-time. You’ve slept the best part of a dozen hours.”

  I sprang up and made a hurried toilet, while my companion sat and talked. He looked fresh and rested, and his manner was even quieter than usual.

  “Colonel Wragge has provided spades and pickaxes. We’re going out to unearth this mummy at once,” he said; “and there’s no reason we should not get away by the morning train.”

  “I’m ready to go tonight, if you are,” I said honestly.

  But Dr. Silence shook his head.

  “I must see this through to the end,” he said gravely, and in a tone that made me think he still anticipated serious things, perhaps. He went on talking while I dressed.

  “This case is really typical of all
stories of mummy-haunting, and none of them are cases to trifle with,” he explained, “for the mummies of important people—kings, priests, magicians—were laid away with profoundly significant ceremonial, and were very effectively protected, as you have seen, against desecration, and especially against destruction.

  “The general belief,” he went on, anticipating my questions, “held, of course, that the perpetuity of the mummy guaranteed that of its Ka,—the owner’s spirit,—but it is not improbable that the magical embalming was also used to retard reincarnation, the preservation of the body preventing the return of the spirit to the toil and discipline of earth-life; and, in any case, they knew how to attach powerful guardian-forces to keep off trespassers. And any one who dared to remove the mummy, or especially to unwind it—well,” he added, with meaning, “you have seen—and you will see.”

  I caught his face in the mirror while I struggled with my collar. It was deeply serious. There could be no question that he spoke of what he believed and knew.

  “The traveller-brother who brought it here must have been haunted too,” he continued, “for he tried to banish it by burial in the wood, making a magic circle to enclose it. Something of genuine ceremonial he must have known, for the stars the man saw were of course the remains of the still flaming pentagrams he traced at intervals in the circle. Only he did not know enough, or possibly was ignorant that the mummy’s guardian was a fire-force. Fire cannot be enclosed by fire, though, as you saw, it can be released by it.”

  “Then that awful figure in the laundry?” I asked, thrilled to find him so communicative.

  “Undoubtedly the actual Ka of the mummy operating always behind its agent, the elemental, and most likely thousands of years old.”

  “And Miss Wragge—?” I ventured once more.

  “Ah, Miss Wragge,” he repeated with increased gravity, “Miss Wragge—”

  A knock at the door brought a servant with word that tea was ready, and the Colonel had sent to ask if we were coming down. The thread was broken. Dr. Silence moved to the door and signed to me to follow. But his manner told me that in any case no real answer would have been forthcoming to my question.