Ambrose Pratt

“ That is the way clever women bind foolish men to the furtherance of their caprices. A cuff, a kiss, a piece of subtle, thrilling flattery, and the trick is done. I was heart and soul in love with another woman, and yet from that moment Lady Helen Hubbard possessed the right to walk over me, if she wished to do it. And, mind you, I am not an out-of-the-way brand of idiot as fools go. It's just a matter of armour and the weak spot. No suit of armour ever existed that hadn't one. Some women are born with the faculty of being able to put their soft little fingers on those places right away. ”

“ It was just an ordinary flat-bottomed Nile abomination, towed by a tiny, panting, puffing-billy, with twenty yards of good Manilla. Twelve Arabs squatted round the sarcophagus. Seated on the sarcophagus, under a double awning, was a burly-looking Englishman. He was smoking a pipe, and one look at his face told me exactly why he had been entrusted with Sir Robert Ottley's priceless treasure. He was, as plain as daylight, a gentleman if one ever lived, a brave man, too, shrewd and self-reliant and as incorruptibly devoted to his duty as a bull-dog with a thief's hand between his jaws. ”

“ And now—Miss Ottley was his prisoner in her own father's house; and, no doubt, Sir Robert Ottley, sick, enfeebled in body and intellect, was Belleville's puppet instrument to the furtherance of his atrocious purposes. What chance had I—fighting a man so utterly unscrupulous, so strong-willed and remorseless, and endowed with a power so tremendous and far-reaching as the possession of a chemical agent capable of rendering himself imperceptible to mortal sight whenever it should please him to make use of it? How could I or anybody bring such a man to justice? ”

“ Hubbard turned crimson. He snapped his teeth together and rapped out: "See here, Pinsent, we are very old friends, but I'll be damned if I allow you to disparage my wife. Is that plain?"
I took out my cigarette case. "Perfectly," I murmured.
He glared at me for a moment, then scowled still more blackly and growled deep in throat: "I can't think what has come over you. You haven't the least right or cause to hate her. It's positively unmanly. Especially as she thinks of you far more highly than you deserve. She feels it, too. You must have shown her how you regard her. ”

“ Whenever in London my practice for years had been to put up at my friend Dixon Hubbard's rooms in Bruton Street. We had been schoolfellows. He was one of the most fortunate and unfortunate creatures in the world. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he had inherited from some cross-grained ancestor a biting tongue and a gloomy disposition. He was an incurable misanthrope and unpopular beyond words. At college he had been detested. Being a sickly lad, his tongue had earned him many a thrashing which he had had to endure without other reprisal than sarcasm. ”

“ There was no sign of tent, so I concluded that Sir Robert had made his camp within the temple. I hitched the ass to a stake and cooled off, thanking Providence for a cool breeze that swept up from the placid surface of the Nile. Day was already showing signs of breaking, and a broad flight of long-legged flamingoes hurried its coming with a flash of scarlet just above the eastern horizon. The distant howling of a hyena was borne to me in fitful snatches on the wind. The earth was wrapped in mystery and melancholy. Oh, Egypt! Egypt, land of sun-lit spaces and illimitable shadows ”

“ Able to make himself invisible—as I believed he could—he might as a last resort rob her of her honour and so bend her proud spirit to his wish. It was this thought that finally determined me. I looked up and said quietly to the patient, waiting Arab: "Ptahmes, son of Mery, son of Hap, once High Priest of Amen-Ra, but now I know not what—I swear by the King of Earth and Heaven to destroy the stele and papyri unread if I shall find them, to burn your body and scatter the ashes, and to kill your enemy and mine." ”

“ Belleville bared his teeth just as I have seen a jackal grin. "You know how women love to glorify the objects of their admiration," he said slowly. "In their opinion the men they—they love—are always the wisest, the strongest, the most astute and the best. I am free to admit, my dear Pinsent, that you are by no means a fool. You have no doubt a fairly keen intelligence—but Miss Ottley has placed you on an alabaster pedestal—pedestal do I say? ”

“ I sprang up, but even as I moved I heard a loud sigh in the cavern. "The sick man first," I muttered, and let the girl lie. But at the door of the cavern chamber I stood transfixed. A dark shape bent over the patient's cot, hiding Sir Robert Ottley's face from view. It seemed to be a man, but its back was presented to my gaze. "What the deuce are you doing here, whoever you are?" I cried out, and started forward. The shape melted on the instant into thinnest air. "Nothing but a shadow," I said to myself. ”

“ It had been severed from the wrist and nothing but a stump remained. Involuntarily I thought of the mummy hand which poor Weldon had given me. It still lay upon the table where Dr. Belleville had tossed it, full in my view. It was a left hand. The Arab's left hand had been lost. The connection was obvious. But—but—of course a mummy hand thousands of years old perhaps, could not have grown upon a still living, breathing man. Living! Breathing! The words repeated themselves as I gazed at the Arab. How like a mummy he appeared! His skin was of exactly the same colour as the mummy hand. ”

“ Beside the plate lay my revolver, and every one of the knives I had given Yazouk to carry. Yazouk himself stood at the flap of the tent, a monstrous, stolid sentinel. When I arose he bent almost double. I swept the armoury into a drawer and attacked my breakfast with the relish of a famished man. Then I set to work with the energy of a giant refreshed; and with short intervals for meals, sleep and exercise, I toiled at my book thereafter till it was roughly finished. So twenty days sped by. Throughout Yazouk waited upon me like the slave of Aladdin's lamp. I had not a fault to find with him. ”

“ Next instant he was joined by a companion, but no negro, an Arab, a tall, thin Arab, who was the living counterpart of the mummified corpse of Ptahmes I had left in the laboratory, and of the mysterious scoundrel who had attempted my life in the cave temple at Rakh, and at my camp on the banks of the Nile. I was so utterly astounded that I wonder I did not shout out my amazement.
The negro spoke in Arabic. "By Allah, he has eaten and alone," he cried. "Now tell me, Ptahmes, how a man shall serve a master with so little feeling for his servants." ”

“ Leaving Miss Ottley to watch the unconscious but ceaselessly babbling patient, I scoured out the sarcophagus, and then built an enormous fire before the pylon. Over this I hung the Arab's cauldron. By nightfall I had the sarcophagus nigh abrim with hot water. It formed a huge but most admirable bath. It was a heroic experiment to make; but the dark angel was in the cavern and I had little chance left. Kill or cure. It seemed a toss of the coin either way, for Sir Robert was dying fast. ”

“ After all, had I fallen asleep against my will and dreamed the whole thing, as Weldon believed? It might be so. The intellect is a strange, elusive, shadowy affair. It slips from one's control at times. The memory easily clogs. The imagination is easily overheated. And one is not the best judge of one's own experiences. Science had taught me so much, at least, that one cannot always accept the evidence of sense. I began to doubt, to cast about me, and to vote myself absurd. ”

“ There was an insidious pleasure mingled with it, an intangible titillation of the nerves; but that only alarmed me the more. The poisons that are most to be feared are those which captivate the senses; they convey no warning to the body, and betray the mind, however watchful, by effecting a paralysis of will. Perhaps—unwittingly—I had been very near death. The notion was disturbing. I began to regard the sarcophagus much in the light of an infernal machine possessing dangerous potentialities for ill. ”

“ I fell into a dreamy mood and I think I must have indulged in forty winks, when all of a sudden Miss Ottley's hand aroused me. Her fingers were gripping mine with the force of a vice. She was breathing hard.
"What is it?" I whispered.
"There is some—presence in the room," she gasped. "Don't you feel it?"
And as I live, I did. I struck a match and sprang afoot. Three paces off a man's face glowered at us in the fitful glimmer of the lucifer. Its characteristics were so unusual that it is not possible ever to forget them. The eyes were large, dark and singularly dull. ”

“ He declared that Weldon was the best fellow in the world and that he would miss him dreadfully. Then he said in the midst of life we are in death, and laughed, and without asking permission, he began to smoke a cigarette. It is strange how differently people are affected by emotion. I was mentally dazed, and I fancy part of my brain was benumbed. Miss Ottley was poignantly awake, but her pride, and her strength of mind served her for a mask. ”

“ When she had finished she arose and vanished—without a word. I followed and found her standing beside the great lead coffin, my kerchief in her hand. She had reopened the chisel hole, and the cavern was already saturated with the infernal gas. I snatched my handkerchief away and once more blocked the vent. Then I exerted all my strength and with a prodigious effort placed the lid on the sarcophagus. With a woman's curiosity to reckon with, such a precaution seemed a vital safeguard. I found her standing in the pylon, breathing like a spent runner. ”

“ I felt a hunger for the desert and big open spaces; a need to hasten from the grinding, selfish life of cities, with their secret crimes and gilded vices and dull-herded groping after sordid happiness. But I did not wish to go alone. At a little after eight o'clock I entered the Walsingham and demanded to see Miss Ottley's head nurse. She was at breakfast, but the waiter told me that Miss Ottley had spent a good night and was still asleep, so I was content to wait. ”

“ A power has been placed at my disposal which puts me on a level with the immortal gods of ancient Greece. In deciding to make use of it, I have adopted their ideas of morality, almost, as it were, perforce. I now make a cult of my convenience, and a religion of the indulgence of my instincts. I intend henceforth to kill always what I hate, to possess what I love, to seize what I covet, and to enjoy what I desire. Miss Ottley dislikes and despises me. ”

“ I began in spite of myself to admire Miss Ottley.
Ten minutes passed; minutes of hideously oppressive silence. Then, without warning, Sir Robert's eyelids flickered and opened. There was the light of reason in them. I bent over him and his glance encountered mine. I pressed his hand and said in brisk, cheerful tones, "You must hurry up and get well, Sir Robert, or I shall not be able to [Pg 27] restrain my curiosity. This Ptahmes of yours is the most extraordinary mummy I have ever seen; and I am simply dying to take him from his shroud."
The dim eyes of the dying man actually glowed. ”

“ I have no sort of doubt but that a body lies in the coffin."
"Nor I," said he. "The papyrus speaks of an essential oil the mere scent of which arrests decay. Ptahmes alone knew the secret of its preparation. But the sarcophagus must be guarded, Pinsent." ”

“ There was nothing but an iris which seemed to be composed of dull red dust.
Living! Breathing! The Arab was a mummy! an animated corpse. Oh! Of course I dreamed. I must have dreamed. I have told myself that so many thousand times that it is a marvel the constant reiteration has not forced me to believe it. ”

“ His cone-shaped forehead was moist and glistening with oil or perspiration. His mouth was held open by two small rubber-tipped metal bars joined together, against which his teeth—great brown fangs—pressed with manifest spasmodic energy.
Now what was Ottley's purpose in taking such extraordinary pains to transport a living Arab in a dead man's coffin from Rakh to Cairo, and, perhaps, London?
Perhaps the Arab could tell me. Burning with curiosity, I stooped down and took from his mouth the mechanical contrivances which held the jaws apart. The Arab uttered on the instant a deep, raucous sigh. ”

“ I mendaciously informed him that my nerves were in rags and that I was obsessed with a horrible hallucination of a mysteriously threatened life at night. Would, then, he give me a shakedown in his own bedroom, just for a week? It is wonderful how easy lying comes to one after the first plunge. I did the thing thoroughly. Mind you, I felt all along the utmost scorn for Dr. Belleville's threats against young Weldon's life. But Miss Ottley had asked me to look after him, and I was determined to fulfil the trust to the very foot of the letter. He was a splendid fellow to live with. ”

“ He was in a sort of trance. From this moment he must never be left, even for a second."
"He was insensible?"
"He was inanimate."
"That perfume!" she cried.
I shrugged my shoulders. "No doubt."
We glanced at the sarcophagus, then at each other.
"Was there need?" she asked, colouring. Then her eyes sparkled. "Oh, for such strength!" she cried. "It took six Arabs to lift that coffin lid. You must be a Samson."
"Fortunately," I observed.
Her brows drew together and her lips. "You treat me in a way that I resent," she said. "I am as reasonable a being as yourself." ”

“ The perfume had absolutely disappeared. Sir Robert was sleeping like a babe. I took a nip of brandy and sitting down, gave myself to dreams watching the sarcophagus. What was its secret? And what the secret of Sir Robert Ottley's passionate interest in the corpse of Ptahmes that had been potent enough to call him back to life from the very brink of dissolution? But plainly I must wait to learn. For it would not do to trifle [Pg 32] with the perfume in the cavern. In that confined space it might bring about the destruction of us all. ”