Sax Rohmer

“ Your father, my dear friend, has studied these odd matters, and he would tell you that there is no power in nature higher than the human will. Actually, Cairn, they have ascribed to me the control of khamsin; and so many worthy Egyptians have made up their minds that I travel with the storm, or that the storm follows me, that something of the kind has really come to pass! Or is it merely coincidence, Cairn? Who can say?”
Motionless, immobile, save for a slow smile, Antony Ferrara stood, while Cairn kept his eyes upon the evil face, and with trembling hands clutched the bars. ”

“ Sime stared. The medical man had suddenly come uppermost, and he recollected that this sort of discussion was probably taboo.
“You may doubt the existence of afreets,” continued Cairn, “but neither you nor I can doubt the creative power of thought. If a trained hypnotist, by sheer concentration, can persuade his subject that the latter sits upon the brink of a river fishing when actually he sits upon a platform in a lecture room, what result would you expect from a concentration of thousands of native minds upon the idea that an afreet is abroad in Egypt?” ”

“ Cairn began to speak, staring absently the while after the fortune feller, as the Indian descended the carpeted steps and rejoined the heterogeneous throng on the sidewalk below.
“You know, Sime, if a man could take advantage of such a wave of thought as this which is now sweeping through Egypt—if he could cause it to concentrate upon him, as it were—don't you think that it would enable him to transcend the normal, to do phenomenal things?” ”

“ Sime, in common with many young and enthusiastic medical men, had theories—theories of that revolutionary sort which only harsh experience can shatter. Secretly he was disposed to ascribe all the ills to which flesh is heir primarily to a disordered nervous system. It was evident that Cairn's mind persistently ran along a particular groove. Something lay behind all this erratic talk; he had clearly invested the crocodile mask of Set with a curious individuality. ”

“ He is unfit to live. Sometimes I cannot believe that he does live; I expect to wake up and find that he was a figure of a particularly evil dream.”
“This incident—the call at his rooms—occurred just before your illness?”
“The thing which he had attempted that night was the last straw, Sime. It broke me down. From the time that he left Oxford, Antony Ferrara has pursued a deliberate course of crime—of crime so cunning, so unusual, and based upon such amazing and unholy knowledge, that no breath of suspicion has touched him. ”

“ Sime shook his head wisely. This was quite in accordance with his own ideas.
“You know Antony Ferrara?” continued Cairn. “Well, he has done this for me. His damnable practices are worse than any disease. Sime, the man is a pestilence! Although the law cannot touch him, although no jury can convict him, he is a murderer. He controls forces—”
Sime was watching his friend intently. ”

“ Cairn glanced around, with a smile, from the group of hawkers who solicited his attention upon the pavement below.
“This is a delightful scene,” he said. “I could sit here for hours; but considering that it's some time after sunset, it remains unusually hot, doesn't it?”
“Rather!” replied Sime. “They are expecting khamsin—the hot wind from the desert, you know. I was up the river a week ago, and we struck it badly in Assuan. It grew as black as night, and one couldn't breathe for sand. It's probably working down to Cairo.” ”

“ FIRST MYSTERY—THE MASK OF SET THE exact manner in which mental stress will affect a man's physical health is often difficult to predict. Robert Cairn was in the pink of condition when he left Oxford to take up his London journalistic appointment; but the tremendous nervous strain wrought upon him by a series of events wholly outside the radius of normal things had broken him physically, where it might have left unscathed a more highly strung, though less bodily vigorous man. ”

“ The thick carpet of confetti rustled to the tread. Girls ran screaming before those who pursued them armed with handfuls of the tiny paper disks. Pipers of a Highland regiment marched through the throng, their Scottish kilts seeming wildly incongruous amid such a scene. Within the hotel, where the mosque lanterns glowed, one might catch a glimpse of the heads of dancers gliding shadowlike.
“A tremendous crowd,” said Sime, “considering that it is nearly the end of the season.”
Three silken ladies wearing gauzy white yashmaks confronted Cairn and the speaker. ”

“ Cairn leaned forward across the table. “To shoot the fellow, Sime—to shoot him on sight, as one shoots a mad dog!”
“Are you serious?”
“As God is my witness, if Antony Ferrara had been in his rooms that night, my father would have killed him!”
“It would have been a most shocking scandal!”
“It would have been an act of self-devotion. The man who removes Antony Ferrara from the earth will be doing mankind a service worthy of the highest reward. ”

“ He was palpably anxious that Robert Cairn should have confirmation of the afreet story from the Indian.
“They tell me, sir”—the man's voice sank musically low—“that a thing very evil”—he tapped a long brown finger upon his breast—“not as I am”—he tapped Sime upon the knee—“not as he, your friend”—he thrust the long finger at Cairn—not as you, sir; not a man at all, though something like a man, not having any father and mother—”
“You mean,” suggested Sime, “a spirit?”
The fortune teller shook his head.
“They tell me, sir, not a spirit—a man, but not as other men; a very, very bad man ”

“ Away beyond, far up in Africa””—he waved his long arms dramatically—“far, far to the west, beyond the Sudan.”
“The Sahara Desert?” proposed Sime.
“Yes, yes! He is from the Sahara Desert. He journeys across the Sahara Desert, and is come to Khartum.”
“How did he get there?” asked Cairn.
The Indian shrugged his shoulders.
“I cannot say, but next he come to Wady Halfa, then he is in Assuan, and from Assuan he come down to Luxor. Yesterday an Egyptian friend told me khamsin is in the Fayum. Therefore he is there—the man of evil—for he bring the hot wind with him.” ”

“ The desert air will put you on your feet again in no time.”
Cairn shook his head. His expression was enigmatical.
“Sime,” he said, glancing nervously around him, “I owe my present condition to Antony Ferrara.”
“Eh?” grunted Sime, staring curiously. “He was a bugbear of yours at Oxford. What with his incense burning, his weakness for mummies, and the scandal about women, it was rather a wonder he wasn't sent down. But what's he been up to?”
“Listen!” Cairn bent forward urgently. “You may remember that I once met a girl at the foot of his stairs—a pretty girl, obviously in deep trouble.” ”

“ An Arab girl, fantastically attired, who had evidently just opened the shutters, was now helping the man to remove the hideous headdress. She presently untied the last of the fastenings and lifted the thing from his shoulders, moving away with the gliding step of the Oriental, and leaving him standing there in his short white tunic, bare-legged and sandaled. ”

“ It might be possible—”
“It might be possible to dress for dinner,” snapped Sime, “if we shut up talking nonsense! There's a carnival masquerade here to-night—great fun. Suppose we concentrate our brain waves on another Scotch and soda?”
III
Above the palm trees swept the jeweled vault of Egypt's sky, and set amid the clustering leaves gleamed little red electric lamps. ”