Reuel employed himself in making entries in his journal, Charlie continued to smoke, at times evincing by a musical snore that he was in the land of dreams. Jim sat at some distance reading a letter that he held in his hand.
The night was sultry, the curtains of the tent undrawn; from out the silent solitude came the booming call of a lion to his mate.
Suddenly a rush of balmy air seemed to pass over the brow of the scribe, and a dim shadow fell across the tent door. It was the form of the handsome Negress who had appeared to Dianthe, and signed herself “Mira.”
There was no fear in Reuel’s gaze, no surprise; it was as if a familiar and welcome visitor had called upon him. For a moment an impulse to spring away into the wide, wide realms of air, seemed to possess him; the next, the still, dreamy ecstasy of a past time; and then he saw Jim—who sat directly behind him—placed like a picture on his very table. He saw him knit his brow, contract his lip, and then, with a face all seamed with discontent, draw from his vest a letter, seemingly hidden in a private pocket, reading thus:—
Use your discretion about the final act, but be sure the letters are destroyed. I have advised the letters sent in your care as you will probably be detailed for the mail. But to avoid mishap call for the mail for both parties. Address me at Laurel Hill—Thomas Johnson.
A. L.
Twice did the visionary scene, passing behind the seer, recross his entranced eyes; and twice did the shadowy finger of the shining apparition in the tent door point, letter by letter, to the pictured page of the billet, which Jim was at that very moment perusing with his natural, and Reuel Briggs with his spiritual eyes. When both had concluded the reading, Jim put up his letter. The curtains of the tent slightly waved; a low, long sigh, like the night’s wind wail, passed over the cold, damp brow of the seer. A shudder, a blank. He looked out into the desert beyond. All was still. The stars were out for him, but the vision was gone.
Thus was explained to Reuel, by mesmeric forces, the fact that his letters had been withheld.
He had not once suspected Jim of perfidy. What did it mean? he asked himself. The letter was in Livingston’s handwriting! His head swam; he could not think. Over and over again he turned the problem and then, wishing that something more definite had been given him, retired, but not to sleep.
Try as he would to throw it off, the most minute act of Jim since entering his service persisted in coming before his inner vision. The night when he was attacked by the leopard and Jim’s tardiness in offering help, returned with great significance. What could he do but conclude that he was the victim of a conspiracy.
“There is no doubt about it,” was his last thought as he dropped into a light doze. How long he slept he could not tell, but he woke with a wild, shrill cry in his ears: “Reuel, Reuel, save me!”
Three times it was repeated, clear, distinct, and close beside his ear, a pause between the repetitions.
He roused his sleeping friend. “Charlie, Charlie! Wake up and listen!”
Charlie, still half asleep, looked with blinking eyes at the candle with dazzled sight.
“Charlie, for the love of God wake up!”
At this, so full of mortal fear were his words, Adonis shook off his drowsiness and sat up in bed, wide awake and staring at him in wonder.
“What the deuce!” he began, and then stopped, gazing in surprise at the white face and trembling hands of his friend.
“Charlie,” he cried, “some terrible event has befallen Dianthe, or like a sword hangs over our heads. Listen, listen!”
Charlie did listen but heard nothing but the lion’s boom which now broke the stillness.
“I hear nothing, Reuel.”
“O Charlie, are you sure?”
“Nothing but the lion. But that’ll be enough if he should take it into his mind to come into camp for his supper.”
“I suppose you are right, for you can hear nothing, and I can hear nothing now. But, oh Charlie! It was so terrible, and I heard it so plainly; though I daresay it was only my—Oh God! There it is again! Listen! Listen!”
This time Charlie heard—heard clearly and unmistakably, and hearing, felt the blood in his veins turn to ice.
Shrill and clear above the lion’s call rose a prolonged wail, or rather shriek, as of a human voice rising to heaven in passionate appeal for mercy, and dying away in sobbing and shuddering despair. Then came the words:
“Charlie, brother, save me!”
Adonis sprang to his feet, threw back the curtain of the tent and looked out. All was calm and silent, not even a cloud flecked the sky where the moon’s light cast a steady radiance.
Long he looked and listened; but nothing could be seen or heard. But the cry still rang in his ears and clamored at his heart; while his mind said it was the effect of imagination.
Reuel’s agitation had swallowed up his usual foresight. He had forgotten his ability to resort to that far-seeing faculty which he had often employed for Charlie’s and Aubrey’s amusement when at home.
Charlie was very calm, however, and soothed his friend’s fears, and after several ineffectual attempts to concentrate his powers for the exercise of the clairvoyant sight of the hypnotic trance, was finally able to exercise the power.
In low, murmuring cadence, sitting statuesque and rigid beneath the magnetic spell, Reuel rehearsed the terrible scene which had taken place two months before in the United States in the ears of his deeply-moved friend.
“Ah, there is Molly, poor Molly; and see your father weeps, and the friends are there and they too weep, but where is my own sweet girl, Dianthe, love, wife! No, I cannot see her, I do not find the poor maimed body of my love. And Aubrey! What! Traitor, false friend! I shall return for vengeance.
“Wake me, Charlie,” was his concluding sentence.
A few upward passes of his friend’s hands, and the released spirit became lord of its casket once more. Consciousness returned, and with it memory. In short whispered sentences Reuel told Vance of his suspicions, of the letter he read while it lay in Jim’s hand, of his deliberate intention to leave him to his fate in the leopard’s claws.
The friends laid their plans,—they would go on to Meroe, and then return instantly to civilization as fast as steam could carry them, if satisfactory letters were not waiting them from America.
CHAPTER XII
LATE one afternoon two weeks later, the caravan halted at the edge of the dirty Arab town which forms the outposts to the island of Meroe.
Charlie Vance stood in the door of his tent and let his eyes wander over the landscape in curiosity. Clouds of dust swept over the sandy plains; when they disappeared the heated air began its dance again, and he was glad to re-enter the tent and stretch himself at full length in his hammock. The mail was not yet in from Cairo, consequently there were no letters; his eyes ached from straining them for a glimpse of the Ethiopian ruins across the glassy waters of the tributaries of the Nile which encircled the island.
It was not a simple thing to come all these thousands of miles to look at a pile of old ruins that promised nothing of interest to him after all. This was what he had come for—the desolation of an African desert, and the companionship of human fossils and savage beasts of prey. The loneliness made him shiver. It was a desolation that doubled desolateness, because his healthy American organization missed the march of progress attested by the sound of hammers on unfinished buildings that told of a busy future and cosy modern homeliness. Here there was no future. No railroads, no churches, no saloons, no schoolhouses to echo the voices of merry children, no promise or the life that produces within the range of his vision. Nothing but the monotony of past centuries dead and forgotten save by a few learned savants.
As he rolled over in his hammock, Charlie told himself that next to seeing the pater and Molly, he’d give ten dollars to be able to thrust his nose into twelve inches of whiskey and soda, and
remain there until there was no more. Then a flicker of memory made Charlie smile as he remembered the jollities of the past few months that he had shared with Cora Scott.
“Jolly little beggar,” he mentally termed her. “I wonder what sort of a fool she’d call me if she could see me now whistling around the ragged edge of this solid block of loneliness called a desert.”
Then he fell asleep and dreamed he was boating on the Charles, and that Molly was a mermaid sporting in a bed of water-lilies.
Ancient writers, among them Strabo, say that the Astabora unites its stream with the Nile, and forms the island of Meroe. The most famous historical city of Ethiopia is commonly called Carthage, but Meroe was the queenly city of this ancient people. Into it poured the traffic of the world in gold, frankincense and ivory. Diodorus states the island to be three hundred and seventy-five miles long and one hundred and twenty-five miles wide. The idea was borne in upon our travellers in crossing the Great Desert that formerly wells must have been established at different stations for the convenience of man and beast. Professor Stone and Reuel had discovered traces of a highway and the remains of cisterns which must have been marvellous in skill and prodigious in formation.
All was bustle and commotion in the camp that night. Permission had been obtained to visit and explore the ruins from the Arab governor of the Province. It had cost money, but Professor Stone counted nothing as lost that would aid in the solution of his pet theories.
The leaders of the enterprise sat together late that night, listening to the marvellous tales told by the Professor of the city’s ancient splendor, and examining closely the chart which had remained hidden for years before it fell into his hands. For twenty-five years this apostle of learning had held the key to immense wealth, he believed, in his hands. For years he had tried in vain to interest the wealthy and powerful in his scheme for finding the city described in his chart, wherein he believed lay the gold mines from which had come the streams of precious metal which made the ancient Ethiopians famous.
The paper was in a large envelope sealed with a black seal formed to resemble a lotus flower. It was addressed:
To the student who, having counted the cost, is resolute to once more reveal to the sceptical, the ancient glory of hoary Meroe.
Within the envelope was a faded parchment which the Professor drew forth with trembling hands. The little company drew more closely about the improvised table and its flickering candle which revealed the faded writing to be in Arabic. There was no comment, but each one listened intently to the reader, who translated very fully as he went along.
“Be it known to you, my brother, that the great and surpassing wealth mentioned in this parchment is not to be won without braving many dangers of a deadly nature. You who may read this message, then, I entreat to consider well the perils of your course. Within the mines of Meroe, four days’ journey from the city toward Arabia, are to be found gold in bars and gold in flakes, and diamonds, and rubies whose beauty excels all the jewels of the earth. For some of them were hidden by the priests of Osiris that had adorned the crown of the great Semiramis, and the royal line of Queen Candace,17 even from ancient Babylon’s pillage these jewels came, a spectacle glorious beyond compare. There, too, is the black diamond of Senechus’s crown (Senechus who suffered the captivity of Israel by the Assyrians), which exceeds all imagination for beauty and color.
“All these jewels with much treasure beside you will gain by following my plain directions.
“Four days’ journey from Meroe toward Arabia is a city founded by men from the Upper Nile; the site is near one of its upper sources, which still has one uniform existence. This city is situated on a forked tributary, which takes its rise from a range of high, rocky mountains, almost perpendicular on their face, from which descend two streams like cataracts, about two miles apart, and form a triangle, which holds the inner city. The outer city occupies the opposite banks on either side of the streams, which after joining, form a river of considerable size, and running some five miles, loses itself in the surrounding swamps. The cities are enclosed within two great walls, running parallel with the streams. There are also two bridges with gates, connecting the inner and outer cities; two great gates also are near the mountain ranges, connecting the outer city with the agricultural lands outside the walls. The whole area is surrounded by extensive swamps, through which a passage, known only to the initiated runs, and forms an impassible barrier to the ingress or egress of strangers.
“But there is another passage known to the priests and used by them, and this is the passage which the chart outlines beneath the third great pyramid, leading directly into the mines and giving access to the city.
“When Egypt rose in power and sent her hosts against the mother country, then did the priests close with skill and cunning this approach to the hidden city of refuge, where they finally retired, carrying with them the ancient records of Ethiopia’s greatness, and closing forever, as they thought, the riches of her marvellous mines, to the world.
“Beneath the Sphinx’ head lies the secret of the entrance, and yet not all, for the rest is graven on the sides of the cavern which will be seen when the mouth shall gape. But beware the tank to the right where dwells the sacred crocodile, still living, although centuries have rolled by and men have been gathered to the shades who once tended on his wants. And beware the fifth gallery to the right where abide the sacred serpents with jewelled crowns, for of a truth are they terrible.
“This the writer had from an aged priest whose bones lie embalmed in the third pyramid above the Sphinx.”
With this extraordinary document a chart was attached, which, while an enigma to the others, seemed to be perfectly clear to Professor Stone.
The letter ended abruptly, and the chart was a hopeless puzzle to the various eyes that gazed curiously at the straggling outlines.
“What do you make of it, Professor?” asked Reuel, who with all his knowledge, was at sea with the chart. “We have been looking for mystery, and we seem to have found it.”
“What do I make of it? Why, that we shall find the treasure and all return home rich,” replied the scholar testily.
“Rubbish!” snorted Charlie with fine scorn.
“How about the sacred crocodile and the serpents? My word, gentlemen, if you find the back door key of the Sphinx’ head, there’s a chance that a warm welcome is awaiting us.”
Charlie’s words met with approval from the others, but the Professor and Reuel said nothing. There was silence for a time, each man drawing at his pipe in silent meditation.
“Well, I’m only travelling for pleasure, so it matters not to me how the rest of you elect to shuffle off this mortal coil, I intend to get some fun out of this thing,” continued Charlie.
There was a shout of laughter from his companions.
“Pleasure!” cried one. “O Lord! You’ve come to the wrong place. This is business, solid business. If we get out with our skins it will be something to be thankful for.”
“Well,” said Reuel, rousing himself from a fit of abstraction, “I come out to do business and I have determined to see the matter through if all is well at home. We’ll prove whether there’s a hidden city or not before we leave Africa.”
The Professor grasped his hand in gratitude, and then silence fell upon the group. The curtains of the tent were thrown back. Bright fell the moonlight on the sandy plain, the Nile, the indistinct ruins of Meroe, hiding all imperfections by its magic fingers. It was a wonderful sight to see the full moon looking down on the ruins of centuries. The weird light increased, the shadows lengthened and silence fell on the group, broken only by the low tones of Professor Stone as he told in broken sentences the story of ancient Ethiopia.
“For three thousand years the world has been mainly indebted for its advancement to the Romans, Greeks, Hebrews, Germans and Anglo-Saxons; but it was otherwise in the first years. Babylon and Egypt�
��Nimrod and Mizraim—both descendants of Ham—led the way, and acted as the pioneers of mankind in the untrodden fields of knowledge. The Ethiopians, therefore, manifested great superiority over all the nations among whom they dwelt, and their name became illustrious throughout Europe, Asia and Africa.
“The father of this distinguished race was Cush, the grandson of Noah, an Ethiopian.
“Old Chaldea, between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, was the first home of the Cushites. Nimrod, Ham’s grandson, founded Babylon. The Babylonians early developed the energy of mind which made their country the first abode of civilization. Canals covered the land, serving the purposes of traffic, defense and irrigation. Lakes were dug and stored with water, dykes built along the banks of rivers to fertilize the land, and it is not surprising to learn that from the earliest times Babylonia was crowded with populous cities. This grandeur was brought about by Nimrod the Ethiopian.”
“Great Scott!” cried Charlie, “you don’t mean to tell me that all this was done by niggers?”
The Professor smiled. Being English, he could not appreciate Charlie’s horror at its full value.
“Undoubtedly your Afro-Americans are a branch of the wonderful and mysterious Ethiopians who had a prehistoric existence of magnificence, the full record of which is lost in obscurity.
“We associate with the name ‘Chaldea’ the sciences of astronomy and philosophy and chronology. It was to the Wise Men of the East to whom the birth of Christ was revealed; they were Chaldeans—of the Ethiopians. Eighty-eight years before the birth of Abraham, these people, known in history as ‘Shepherd Kings,’ subjugated the whole of Upper Egypt, which they held in bondage more than three hundred years.”
“It is said that Egyptian civilization antedates that of Ethiopia,” broke in Reuel. “How do you say, Professor?”
“Nothing of the sort, nothing of the sort. I know that in connecting Egypt with Ethiopia, one meets with most bitter denunciation from most modern scholars. Science has done its best to separate the race from Northern Africa, but the evidence is with the Ethiopians. If I mistake not, the ruins of Meroe will prove my words. Traditions with respect to Memnon connect Egypt and Ethiopia with the country at the head of the Nile. Memnon personifies the ethnic identity of the two races. Ancient Greeks believed it. All the traditions of Armenia, where lies Mt. Ararat, are in accordance with this fact. The Armenian geography applies the name of Cush to four great regions—Media, Persia, Susiana, Asia, or the whole territory between the Indus and the Tigris. Moses of Chorene identifies Belus, king of Babylon with Nimrod.
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