Andrew Lang

“ Leonora and I descended with agility to some monstrous basin in the abyss—the Pit, Jambres called it. Here Jambres met us, and bade us light the railway reading-lamps which, as I forgot to mention, we had brought with us. Then, jumping off with the lead, he advanced along the floor, picking his way with great care, as indeed it was most necessary to do, for the floor was strewn with strange forms, stumbling over the legs and backs of which it would have been easy to break one's own. ”

“ When she rushed into my lonely rooms, one wild winter night, with a cradle in her arms and a baby in the cradle; when she besought me to teach that infant Hittite, Hebrew, and the Differential Calculus, and to bring it up in college, on commons (where the air is salubrious) , what could I do but acquiesce? It is unusual, I know, for a student of my sex, however learned, to educate an infant in college and bring her up on commons. But for once the uncompromising nature of my charms strangled the breath of scandal in the bud, and little Leonora O'Dolite became the darling of the university. ”

“ Then followed through that vasty hall a sharp and rattling crash, as of the descent of innumerable slates.
'Great heavens!' whispered Leonora, 'remember the writing; the place where they slate strangers!'
As we were strangers, and wholly unknown to the Lo-grollas, we thought they might slate us, and, beating a hasty retreat, soon found ourselves with Pellmelli in the dark outer air. ”

“ So indeed it proved, for the mage began rapidly to divest himself of his mysterious swathings. Wrapper by wrapper he undid, cerement on cerement, till both Leonora and I wondered when he would stop.
Stop he did, however, and, with a practised hand, shot his linen into one long rope, which he carefully attached to an erect and smoking pillar, perhaps of basaltic formation, perhaps an ancient altar of St. Simeon Skylitês. When all was taut, Jambres approached a slanting slope, smooth and transparent, perhaps of glacial origin. ”

“ Even in this moment the Boshman glided like a serpent among us, picked up the paper-knife, and triumphantly performed the very miracle in which the wizard had failed. A harsh cackle of laughter announced his success. But the mage was even with him, or rather he was 'odds and evens.' Rapidly he drew his forefinger across the Boshman's face, perpendicularly and horizontally—
On the skin of Ustâni, azure with terror, appeared the above diagram in lines of white! ”

“ Old Gooseberry Jamberries,' he added solemnly. 'No other is genuine!'
'You are playing, sir, on our credulity,' replied the girl; 'no living man can be a mummy,—outside of the House of Lords or the Royal Academy.'
'You speak,' he said tenderly, 'with the haste of youth and inexperience. When you have lived as long as I have, you will know better. Hearken to my story.
'Three or four thousand years ago—for what is time?—I was the authorised magician at the Court of Ptolemy Patriarchus. I had a rival—the noted witch Theodolitê. ”

“ Look at his name!—Ed.
'Ah!' cried Ustâni, 'he's going for him!'
The expression was ambiguous, but we understood it.
The catawampuss, cunning as the dread jerboa, crept to the edge of the pool, took a header into it, and then, still true to the feline instincts, swimming on its back, made its way to the crocodile. In this manner it caught the crocodile by the tail and waked it. When the tail of a crocodile awakes the head awakes also. The crocodile's head, then, waking as the catawampuss seized its tail, caught the tail of the catawampuss. ”

“ He was quivering with indignation; and Leonora, to soothe him, told him the story of our quest for the mummy, and asked him if he could help us.
'We are your man,' said he. 'We propose to-morrow to send our representative to interview a magician who has just arrived in this country. He is a mysterious character; his name is Asher,21 and it is said that he is the Wandering Jew, or, at all events, has lived for many centuries. He, if any one, can direct you in your search.'
21 ”

“ Happily we chanced to meet an old man, clothed in a whitish robe of some unknown substance, not unlike paper. This fluttering vesture was marked with strange characters, in black and red, which Leonora was able to interpret. ”

“ Stealing out by the canal as we had entered, we found to our comfort that this must be the very city mentioned by Theodolitê. As the seeress had declared, a deep and noisome night always prevailed, only broken here and there as a wanderer scratched one of Bryant & May's matches and painfully endeavoured to decipher the number on the door of his house. The streets, moreover, were strewn and interwoven with long strings of iron fallen from the sky.
'The people who wire themselves with wires,' whispered Leonora ”

“ These were halcyon hours, happier as Leonora grew up and received the education prescribed for her by her parent. Her Hebrew was fair, and her Hittite up to a first class, but, to my distress, she mainly devoted herself to Celtic studies.
I should tell you that Leonora's chief interest in life was the decipherment of the inscriptions on her cradle—the mummy case which had rocked her ancestors since Abraham's time, and which is now in your possession. Of itself it is a sufficient proof of the accuracy of this narrative. The mummy case is not the ordinary coffin of Egyptian commerce. ”

“ The fierce rapidity of the stream finally carried us out of the reach of the infuriated Barghîz (who, moreover, were providentially slain by lightning—a common enough occurrence in that favoured climate, where nobody thinks anything of it) , and we rested, weary and wounded, in a sheltered backwater.17
17
Are you not gliding insensibly into Bess?—Publisher.
No; all right. It is a tremendous country for storms; can't use them too often; adds to the sense of reality.—Ed.
'The dhow's looking rather dowdy,' said Leonora, glancing at the shattered craft. ”

“ There, when we pushed our way within the swinging portal, lay around us, in vast and solemn pyramids of portable property, the silent and touching monuments of human existence. The busy life of a nation lay sleeping here! ”

“ I was about to make some appropriate moral remarks, when I heard Leonora (whose command of tongues is simply marvellous) address an attendant priestess in the local dialect.
'Here, miss,' said she, ''ow much can yer let us 'ave on this 'ere ticker?' (producing her watch) .
The priestess, whose clear-cut features and two lovely black eyes betrayed a mixture of Semitic blood, was examining the 'turnip'—as she called the watch—when Leonora, saying 'Mum's the word,' rather violently called my attention (with her elbow) to a strange parcel lying apart from the rest. ”

“ The chair was still there, but the wizard was gone. Leonora turned to me, horror in her eyes, her golden curls changed to a pale German silver.
'It is the chair of the Vanishing Lady,' she said.
'It is the Confidence Trick,' I cried; and we both lost consciousness as the true state of the case flashed on our minds. The wizard was off with 300,000l. in high-class American securities.
CHAPTER XV.
THE END.
What remains to be told is of little public interest. When we came to ourselves, all was darkness. Escape seemed impossible. ”

“ The elephant now walked round, the wolves also circulated, the bear climbed his pole, the great gorilla beat his breast and roared.
Leonora was their match.
For the elephant she had a rusk, a bun for the bear, and the gorilla was pacified by an offering of nuts from his native Brazil.
THIS WAY TO THE CROCODILE HOUSE
we now read, on an inscription in black letters, and, following the path indicated, we reached the dank tank where the monsters dwell. We had arrived at a place which I find it difficult to describe. The floor was smooth and hard. ”

“ I dreaded, it is true, lest some such fate as Ustâni's might punish me for my temerity, but for reasons which doubtless seemed sufficient to himself the wizard merely looked at me through his veil, shook himself a little in his swathings, and said in a matter-of-fact voice, 'Well, well, perhaps we have had enough of such talk as this. Let's get ahead with the business before us. That business is to reach the Siege Perilous, or Magic Chair. ”

“ There is no magic in it, only a little knowledge of the secrets, mutable yet immutable, of Nature. And this is an old secret. I did not find it. It was known of yore in Atlantis and in Chichimec, in Ur and in Lycosura. Even now the rude Boshmen keep up the tradition among their medicine-men. Vill any lady ask the coin a qvestion?' he continued, in a hoarse Semitic whisper, for all currencies and all languages were alike to him. ”

“ We presently took our leave of the mage, promising to call next day, and bring a policeman.
CHAPTER X.
A BODY IN PAWN.
'Gin a body meet a body!'—Burns.
Though Leonora's faith in the magician had been a good deal shaken by his failures in his black art, she admitted that, as a clairvoyant, he might be more inspired. We therefore went, as he had directed us, to the neighbourhood of Clare Market, where he had prophesied that we should find a Temple adorned with the Three Balls of Gold, which the Lombards bore with them from their far Aryan home in Frangipani. ”

“ Once, too, I reared a breed of dogs with two tails, but after a while they became a proverb for pride; Nature loathed them, and they perished. Χαιρε! Vale!'22
22
I have consulted the authorities at the British Museum, who tell me these are the Greek and the Latin words for 'Don't you think you had better go? Get out!'—Ed.
This, though not understood, of course, by Pellmelli, was as good as an invitation to withdraw, so I induced the old man to come away, promising the magician I would return on the morrow. ”

“ Within the veil the sorcerer was concealed, and he asked in a gruff tone,
'Wadyerwant?'
Pellmelli explained that he had come to receive a brief personal statement for the Budget.
The Voice replied, without hesitation, 'The Centuries and the Æons pass, and I too make the pass. Je saute la coupe,' he added, in a foreign tongue. 'While thy race wore naught but a little blue paint, I dwelt among the forgotten peoples. The Red Sea knows me, and the Nile has turned scarlet at my words. ”

“ As the only male person present was the Boshman, this appeared to me a futile question, and even the stately Magician seemed to be struck by some dim idea of the kind, for I could discern a pair of mysterious eyes peering anxiously through his swathings, and I heard him mutter to himself in several languages, 'Ought to have thought of that. No hat present. Don't know any trick to produce one. ”

“ I had no further opportunity of conversing with Leonora and Polly, nor indeed did I ever think of them again, till Polly's letter and mummy case recalled them to my memory.
Perhaps for pretty Leonora's sake I did, after all, take up and open the vast cylindrical roll of MS.4 in the mummy case. Dawn found me still reading the following record of unparalleled adventure.5
4
Don't you think it would stand being cut a little?—Publisher.
We shall see.—Ed.
5
There is just one thing that puzzles me. ”

“ Story can't possibly get on without it, as you'll see. You must have something of this sort in a romance. Look at Poe's cypher in the Gold Beetle, and the chart in Treasure Island, and the Portuguee's scroll in King Solomon's Mines.—Ed.
Now about this mummy case: you must know that it had been in Leonora's family ever since her ancestress, Theodolitê, Pharaoh's daughter, left Egypt, not knowing when she was well off, and settled in Ireland, of all places, where she founded the national prosperity.9
9
Is not this a little steep?—Publisher. ”

“ In the centre of the dark pool in the middle of the vague space lay one crocodile. The rest were sleeping on the banks. The catawampuss secretly emerged from its den—horror, I am not ashamed to say, prevented me from interfering—stealthily crept across the cold floor, and, true to the instincts of all the feline tribe,20 made straight for the water.
20
Is the catawampuss one of the Felidæ?—Publisher. ”

“ The mage then made the sign of a +, thus—
and challenged Leonora to a contest of skill in 'oughts and crosses.' But the Boshman, catching a view of his own altered aspect in a mirror, exclaimed, 'You 'standy Ustâni? Him no standy He! Him show hisself for tin! Adults one shilling, kids tizzy. ”

“ Being acquainted with the deleterious effects of a malarious tropical atmosphere, we secured a pair of overalls, advertised as sovran for 'all-overishness,' the dreaded curse of an African climate. These we got at the celebrated emporium of Messrs. ——.13
13
Name suppressed. When eligible opportunity for advertisement as a substitute for a cheque was hinted at, Messrs. —— brusquely replied, in the low Essex patois, 'Wadyermean?'
Our preparations being now exhaustively completed, Leonora and I returned to Oxford, packed our things, and consulted as to the route which we should adopt. ”

“ I, for my part, having seen the consequences in the case of Ustâni's hair, had no desire to do so.
'You see,' continued the sorcerer, 'I place the paper-knife there! It falls. Why? Because of gravity. What is gravity? Newton, as you know well, invented the art ”