Francis Worcester Doughty

“ Suddenly this ceased and a moment of stillness followed, and then began a movement of a wholly different sort.
“Gad!” broke in the Doctor; “the top of the tower must be filled with people! No one voice could produce such sounds as those.”
“Hark! Hark!” whispered Maurice. “Was anything ever so heavenly, so divine!” ”

“ You heard me singing.”
“How many voices do you usually keep about you? I’ll swear I heard at least six at once.”
“As I was saying, Mr. De Veber,” continued Mirrikh, ignoring the question; “it is useless for me to attempt to explain what your minds—and I say it without the slightest desire to cast reflection—are incapable of comprehending. You ask me how I passed down from the top of the tower to the bottom without meeting you on the stairs——”
“I beg your pardon, I didn’t ask it,” said Maurice; “but I’d like to.” ”

“ I have long been of the opinion that the day is at hand when many matters understood only by a narrow circle of Oriental adepts, should be given to the world at large. Possibly this is my mission; I have for some time suspected it. Possibly my meeting with Mr. Wylde at Panompin was but the preliminary step toward the fulfilment of this mission; at all events I shall permit myself so to consider it, and——”
“And what?” exclaimed Maurice, eagerly. Philpot had the grace to hold his tongue.
“And ask you to repeat the question which you put to me on the tower of the Nagkon Wat, Mr. De Veber.” ”

“ For several seconds no one spoke.
“Wonderful!” breathed Maurice at last. “Never in all my life have I listened to music so heavenly. George, what can it mean?”
“I propose to find out what it means,” cried the Doctor, seizing a burning brand from the fire. “Follow me, gentlemen. We shall soon know.”
He moved towards the stone staircase which communicated with the upper portion of the tower. ”

“ Maurice said nothing, but Philpot was entirely incredulous. He took another brand from the fire and passed behind the big stone Buddha, calling out that there was no one concealed there. In no other part of the enclosure could a man have successfully hidden, so we found ourselves just where we started out.
“It won’t wash, Wylde,” said the Doctor, coarsely. “You didn’t see him.”
“But I did, though.”
“An optical illusion. You were scared, puzzled; thinking of Mirrikh is what brought it about.” ”

“ I perform on no instrument nor do I sing, but I love music and in my time have attended operas and philharmonics sufficient to know something of what is what, and I can truthfully affirm that no more remarkable performance was ever heard by the ears of mortal man. ”

“ In an instant, we heard the echoing roll of that stupendous conflict in progress among the clouds.
I threw more wood on the fire, but did not speak—I could not. This last had struck me dumb.
Not the thunder of course; I do not refer to that! It was the letter. Could it by any possibility be that—but no. It was too absurd.
Meanwhile Maurice had seated himself again and Philpot returned to the fire.
“It is a good thing I found it,” he said. “It proves conclusively that the fellow is only a paltry trickster after all. ”

“ No doubt the letter was written for your express benefit Wylde. He has some object in view in crossing your path as he does, you may rest assured.”
“Have you formed so low an estimate of my intelligence Doctor, that you think for an instant I could believe such a claim as that letter puts forth?”
“No—oh, no! I was only joking.”
“How dumb you are! Can’t you see that the letter is a cipher—that the allusions to Mars mean something altogether different—that——”
“Do you believe that George?” interposed Maurice. ”

“ I stick to it. No man would write a cipher that way. His eagerness to recover the letter proves that it was nothing of the sort.”
“And I,” persisted Philpot, “believe that Wylde is right, and has hit the true solution. A journey to Mars! Transmigration to another planet! By Jove! that beats all the Buddhistic claims which have come to my knowledge yet. When I was a lad I used to dream of such a possibility, but——”
“But it is a startling conclusion to our acquaintance with Mr. Mirrikh,” interrupted Maurice. ”

“ It would never do for me to claim too much, or I should run the risk of being classed in the same category as this Englishman. I tell you I possess no supernatural powers. What I did was done on purely scientific principles. ”