“‘Do you know whither I go?’ he asked.
“‘Nay,’ I answered, ‘I cannot tell.’
“‘I go to her,’ said he. ‘She lies embalmed in the further tomb by the double palm-tree beyond the city wall.’
“‘Why do you go there?’ I asked.
“‘To die!’ he shrieked, ‘to die! I am not bound by earthen fetters.’
“‘But the elixir is in your blood,’ I cried.
“‘I can defy it,’ said he; ‘I have found a stronger principle which will destroy it. It is working in my veins at this moment, and in an hour I shall be a dead man. I shall join her, and you shall remain behind.’
“As I looked upon him I could see that he spoke words of truth. The light in his eye told me that he was indeed beyond the power of the elixir.
“‘You will teach me!’ I cried.
“‘Never!’ he answered.
“‘I implore you, by the wisdom of Thoth, by the majesty of Anubis!’
“‘It is useless,’ he said coldly.
“‘Then I will find it out,’ I cried.
“‘You cannot,’ he answered; ‘it came to me by chance. There is one ingredient which you can never get. Save that which is in the ring of Thoth, none will ever more be made.
“‘In the ring of Thoth!’ I repeated; ‘where then is the ring of Thoth?’
“‘That also you shall never know,’ he answered. ‘You won her love. Who has won in the end? I leave you to your sordid earth life. My chains are broken. I must go!’ He turned upon his heel and fled from the chamber. In the morning came the news that the Priest of Thoth was dead.
“My days after that were spent in study. I must find this subtle poison which was strong enough to undo the elixir. From early dawn to midnight I bent over the test-tube and the furnace. Above all, I collected the papyri and the chemical flasks of the Priest of Thoth. Alas! they taught me little. Here and there some hint or stray expression would raise hope in my bosom, but no good ever came of it. Still, month after month, I struggled on. When my heart grew faint I would make my way to the tomb by the palm-trees. There, standing by the dead casket from which the jewel had been rifled, I would feel her sweet presence, and would whisper to her that I would rejoin her if mortal wit could solve the riddle.
“Parmes had said that his discovery was connected with the ring of Thoth. I had some remembrance of the trinket. It was a large and weighty circlet, made, not of gold, but of a rarer and heavier metal brought from the mines of Mount Harbal. Platinum, you call it. The ring had, I remembered, a hollow crystal set in it, in which some few drops of liquid might be stored. Now, the secret of Parmes could not have to do with the metal alone, for there were many rings of that metal in the Temple. Was it not more likely that he had stored his precious poison within the cavity of the crystal? I had scarce come to this conclusion before, in hunting through his papers, I came upon one which told me that it was indeed so, and that there was still some of the liquid unused.
“But how to find the ring? It was not upon him when he was stripped for the embalmer. Of that I made sure. Neither was it among his private effects. In vain I searched every room that he had entered, every box, and vase, and chattel that he had owned. I sifted the very sand of the desert in the places where he had been wont to walk; but, do what I would, I could come upon no traces of the ring of Thoth. Yet it may be that my labours would have overcome all obstacles had it not been for a new and unlooked-for misfortune.
“A great war had been waged against the Hyksos, and the Captains of the Great King had been cut off in the desert, with all their bowmen and horsemen. The shepherd tribes were upon us like the locusts in a dry year. From the wilderness of Shur to the great bitter lake there was blood by day and fire by night. Abaris was the bulwark of Egypt, but we could not keep the savages back. The city fell. The Governor and the soldiers were put to the sword, and I, with many more, was led away into captivity.
“For years and years I tended cattle in the great plains by the Euphrates. My master died, and his son grew old, but I was still as far from death as ever. At last I escaped upon a swift camel, and made my way back to Egypt. The Hyksos had settled in the land which they had conquered, and their own King ruled over the country Abaris had been torn down, the city had been burned, and of the great Temple there was nothing left save an unsightly mound. Everywhere the tombs had been rifled and the monuments destroyed. Of my Atma’s grave no sign was left. It was buried in the sands of the desert, and the palm-trees which marked the spot had long disappeared. The papers of Parmes and the remains of the Temple of Thoth were either destroyed or scattered far and wide over the deserts of Syria. All search after them was vain.
“From that time I gave up all hope of ever finding the ring or discovering the subtle drug. I set myself to live as patiently as might be until the effect of the elixir should wear away. How can you understand how terrible a thing time is, you who have experience only of the narrow course which lies between the cradle and the grave! I know it to my cost, I who have floated down the whole stream of history. I was old when Ilium fell. I was very old when Herodotus came to Memphis. I was bowed down with years when the new gospel came upon earth. Yet you see me much as other men are, with the cursed elixir still sweetening my blood, and guarding me against that which I would court. Now at last, at last I have come to the end of it!
“I have travelled in all lands and I have dwelt with all nations. Every tongue is the same to me. I learned them all to help pass the weary time. I need not tell you how slowly they drifted by, the long dawn of modern civilisation, the dreary middle years, the dark times of barbarism. They are all behind me now, I have never looked with the eyes of love upon another woman. Atma knows that I have been constant to her.
“It was my custom to read all that the scholars had to say upon Ancient Egypt. I have been in many positions, sometimes affluent, sometimes poor, but I have always found enough to enable me to buy the journals which deal with such matters. Some nine months ago I was in San Francisco, when I read an account of some discoveries made in the neighbourhood of Abaris. My heart leapt into my mouth as I read it. It said that the excavator had busied himself in exploring some tombs recently unearthed. In one there had been found an unopened mummy with an inscription upon the outer case setting forth that it contained the body of the daughter of the Governor of the city in the days of Tuthmosis. It added that on removing the outer case there had been exposed a large platinum ring set with a crystal, which had been laid upon the breast of the embalmed woman. This, then was where Parmes had hid the ring of Thoth. He might well say that it was safe, for no Egyptian would ever stain his soul by moving even the outer case of a buried friend.
“That very night I set off from San Francisco, and in a few weeks I found myself once more at Abaris, if a few sand-heaps and crumbling walls may retain the name of the great city. I hurried to the Frenchmen who were digging there and asked them for the ring. They replied that both the ring and the mummy had been sent to the Boulak Museum at Cairo. To Boulak I went, but only to be told that Mariette Bey had claimed them and had shipped them to the Louvre. I followed them, and there at last, in the Egyptian chamber, I came, after close upon four thousand years, upon the remains of my Atma, and upon the ring for which I had sought so long.
“But how was I to lay hands upon them? How was I to have them for my very own? It chanced that the office of attendant was vacant. I went to the Director. I convinced him that I knew much about Egypt. In my eagerness I said too much. He remarked that a Professor’s chair would suit me better than a seat in the Conciergerie. I knew more, he said, than he did. It was only by blundering, and letting him think that he had over-estimated my knowledge, that I prevailed upon him to let me move the few effects which I have retained into this chamber. It is my first and my last night here.
“Such is my story, Mr. Vansittart Smith. I need not say more to a man of your perception. By a strange chance you have this night looked upon the face of th
e woman whom I loved in those far-off days. There were many rings with crystals in the case, and I had to test for the platinum to be sure of the one which I wanted. A glance at the crystal has shown me that the liquid is indeed within it, and that I shall at last be able to shake off that accursed health which has been worse to me than the foulest disease. I have nothing more to say to you. I have unburdened myself. You may tell my story or you may withhold it at your pleasure. The choice rests with you. I owe you some amends, for you have had a narrow escape of your life this night. I was a desperate man, and not to be baulked in my purpose. Had I seen you before the thing was done, I might have put it beyond your power to oppose me or to raise an alarm. This is the door. It leads into the Rue de Rivoli. Good night!”
The Englishman glanced back. For a moment the lean figure of Sosra the Egyptian stood framed in the narrow doorway. The next the door had slammed, and the heavy rasping of a bolt broke on the silent night.
It was on the second day after his return to London that Mr. John Vansittart Smith saw the following concise narrative in the Paris correspondence of the Times:
“Curious Occurrence in the Louvre.—Yesterday morning a strange discovery was made in the principal Egyptian Chamber. The ouvriers who are employed to clean out the rooms in the morning found one of the attendants lying dead upon the floor with his arms round one of the mummies. So close was his embrace that it was only with the utmost difficulty that they were separated. One of the cases containing valuable rings had been opened and rifled. The authorities are of opinion that the man was bearing away the mummy with some idea of selling it to a private collector, but that he was struck down in the very act by long-standing disease of the heart. It is said that he was a man of uncertain age and eccentric habits, without any living relations to mourn over his dramatic and untimely end.
THE GREEN GOD, by William Call Spencer
They were following the last of the storm, climbing soggily the great rollers, nursing the boat carefully through the white-caps, making consistently for the island with the dead tree spire.
Rill, with head sagging on his narrow chest, scraped rhythmically with the bailing-pail, along the bottom, over the side, scrape and over, scrape and over, never ceasing, rarely looking up, his thin face lined with fatigue.
The other man swung forlornly on a pair of great oars. His head was thrown back, exposing the neck-column that sat on the thick torso, beautiful as the neck of a Greek vase. The two rarely spoke, unless concerning the course.
They had not changed posture since the day before, when, after the delirium of the Bertha’s foundering, they had found themselves as they were now, the one rowing, the other, of lesser physique, bailing. The storm had driven the packet boat that plied north from Skagway out of her course. They were somewhere in the Aleutian Islands. That was all they knew, that, and a hunger that lost itself somewhere in thirst.
The danger of capsizing hourly had grown less, seeming queerly enough to lessen with the weakening of the men’s resistance; or possibly it was the other way round. Late in the afternoon, with the sun beginning to shine palely, they came to the island. The surf crashed upon the rocky line in a steady thunder. Sea-birds swooped and beat above it, their cawing inaudible.
“Guess it’s all up,” the big man at the oars said. “If we go round to make shore on the lee side, the current’ll carry us past like a shot. If we get in the surf, them rocks’ll chop us up—for the gulls.”
They both stared at the spuming shoreline that momentarily became plainer. The oarsman had the better eyes.
“There’s a cove,” he said presently. “Sometimes that means a stretch of sand. If the breakers catch you right, you kin carry through, sometimes. Try it?”
The slim man peered through the lank black hair that fell over his red-lidded eyes, noting his informant as he had the shore.
“I don’t know you yet,” he said. “You a sailor? Got good judgment? Can we do anything else?”
“Name’s Pug Norton, sir—cook on the Bertha, sailed regular before the mast in the old days up here. Ain’t much I don’t know about landin’ a boat. I’d ruther get it over quick, there in the pound, than take days to it. I’ve helped pick up fellows that croaked from the thirst—I swore when my turn came I’d go a quick way. You feel the same?”
Rill nodded his head, and went to baling again, head drooped forward, shoulders bent. The sailor, Pug, gazed more frequently over his shoulder and sent the boat along a bit faster. Perhaps he intended to try the wild ride before dusk put a false light on things. They had no more speech, for they had said quite all that was necessary to say with thickening tongues.
The moment came when the boat was opposite the little cove, and the sailor simply, without hesitation, headed in for the breakers. They were big, as they usually are in Alaska, and always after a storm. Pug had a parting fragment of advice to give:
“If this here boat founders way out, just hang on tight. If she busts on shore, keep away from her. I’ve seen a Malay get his nut cracked between the boat and the sand. An’ I guess you know enough not to fight—if we ain’t carried in, we don’t get it, that’s all.”
Rill dropped the bucket and hung on to the gunwales as the other, choosing his time, strained at the oars. They shot in, lifted by a swell, dropped, were carried again, and again dropped just before the wave foamed and curled. The sailor had timed it well. He had the boat further in by the next break, so that at any rate the tremendous fall of water did not bash them. Instead they met the crazy blanket of foam. Rill perceived vaguely the other flashing the oars frantically, then the boat sank from under him, and he went down, clinging like a barnacle to the gunwale. He remembered coming to the top again, and swirling madly, giddily over and under the boat. Finally he let go. He felt his arm seized, and then his consciousness went.
When it came back he was lying with his face in the sand a foot or so beyond high-water line. He coughed weakly and opened his eyes to see the sailor, Pug, reeling toward him through the dusk, carrying something in his cap. Rill wondered pettishly how the sailor had kept that cap.
“Pool of rain-water back there,” Pug said. “Scummy-like, but good enough to rinse the salt water out of your mouth. Here.”
He lay down on the sand above Rill, and before the latter was through with the water he was sleeping. Rill had time to note the brine still dripping from him into the sand and to observe the same phenomenon occurring in his own case before he too fell back with a relaxing sigh into deep slumber. That was the end of their first day.
The second held other problems, chiefly those of food and water and shelter. They spread their clothes to dry on the sand, and occupied that time in collecting sections of the boat that had come ashore. Tangled and caught with sea-weed they found the long painter-rope. Norton patiently worked it free and coiled it to dry. But most pressing was the question of food. Later they could unravel a bit of the rope and form a fish-line, but the need was immediate. They put on their shoes and scoured among the rocks, catching little crabs and minnows, of which six might make a mouthful. They ate these raw for an hour or so, with the help of Norton’s jack-knife.
“I got a tin of matches in my pants for next time,” the latter explained. “But they eat good this way, huh?”
The sailor was the provident man, forehanded, capable. The thin-faced one with the wide forehead and loose lip would not have seen the practical wisdom of carrying matches in a water-tight receptacle.
In the afternoon they circuited the island and partially explored the interior, which indicates its size. Of man they found no trace, except, on the highest point, charred wood from some signal-fire. They were concerned chiefly at their failure to discover running water, for what pools they found in the rocks were brackish and filled with life, both animal and vegetable.
“If we had a kettle we could cook it”
Pug observed. “But we ain’t.”
The dead tree they had seen the day before was a pine, and they collected the b
rown needles for a bed. The day passed very quickly with the multitude of tasks. At night they slept close together for the warmth. The sailor got up once to see to the fire, but the other slept through without a wink of the eyelid.
They fashioned a low shelter, roofing it with needles and with green from the profuse underbrush. They made a fireplace that would endure the heavy rains. In all these things the sailor advised and directed, and Rill, unaccustomed to that, had to conceal his irritation. He did as the other advised, however, because invariably that was the best method. He had to admit that to himself, and the sailor took it as a matter of course. The latter would not have comprehended passing a mistake for the sake of the other’s self-satisfaction.
For instance, the cook had made a bird-snare and caught a gull. After their meal from it Rill threw carelessly the bones into the fire and leaned back. Pug swore and forked them out.
“You got to be more careful,” he admonished the other. “Them bones is valuable.”
Rill considered Pug, sucking his loose under lip.
“You got the bulge on me out here,” he answered. “If we were in town I might appear in other light—what an you doing?”
Pug had cleaned the clavicles or furcula, which in a chicken is the wishbone, and was carving it.
“Fish-hook,” he replied, and opened up the other phase. “I knew you was a city guy. I piped you stringing along with the other passengers on the Bertha. You was mostly at the tables in the smoking-room, wasn’t you? But I ain’t placed you—sometimes I think you’re educated, and next minute you’re spielin’ as if you was raised on the water-front.”
Rill did not avail himself of the request for an autobiography. He got to his feet and scanned lazily the empty sea.
“Yep, Pug, I’ve been arbiter elegantia, so to speak, among the esthetes and the patricians, and again I’ve mooched a plate of beans from a Cholo tamale man. While you’re fishing this afternoon, I’ll go over the island again.”
The Mummy Megapack Page 8