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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Brood of the Witch-Queen, by Sax Rohmer
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Brood of the Witch-Queen
+
+Author: Sax Rohmer
+
+Release Date: November 3, 2006 [EBook #19706]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BROOD OF THE WITCH-QUEEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Clarke, Sankar Viswanathan, and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                             BROOD OF THE
+
+                             WITCH-QUEEN
+
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+                              SAX ROHMER
+
+
+
+
+                                LONDON
+
+                      C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LIMITED
+
+                        HENRIETTA STREET, W.C.
+
+                                 1918
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I.      ANTONY FERRARA
+
+II.     THE PHANTOM HANDS
+
+III.    THE RING OF THOTH
+
+IV.     AT FERRARA'S CHAMBERS
+
+V.      THE RUSTLING SHADOWS
+
+VI.     THE BEETLES
+
+VII.    SIR ELWIN GROVES' PATIENT
+
+VIII.   THE SECRET OF DHOON
+
+IX.     THE POLISH JEWESS
+
+X.      THE LAUGHTER
+
+XI.     CAIRO
+
+XII.    THE MASK OF SET
+
+XIII.   THE SCORPION WIND
+
+XIV.    DR. CAIRN ARRIVES
+
+XV.     THE WITCH-QUEEN
+
+XVI.    LAIR OF THE SPIDERS
+
+XVII.   THE STORY OF ALI MOHAMMED
+
+XVIII.  THE BATS
+
+XIX.    ANTHROPOMANCY
+
+XX.     THE INCENSE
+
+XXI.    THE MAGICIAN
+
+XXII.   MYRA
+
+XXIII.  THE FACE IN THE ORCHID-HOUSE
+
+XXIV.   FLOWERING OF THE LOTUS
+
+XXV.    CAIRN MEETS FERRARA
+
+XXVI.   THE IVORY HAND
+
+XXVII.  THE THUG'S CORD
+
+XXVIII. THE HIGH PRIEST HORTOTEF
+
+XXIX.   THE WIZARD'S DEN
+
+XXX.    THE ELEMENTAL
+
+XXXI.   THE BOOK OF THOTH
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PREFATORY NOTICE
+
+
+The strange deeds of Antony Ferrara, as herein related, are intended
+to illustrate certain phases of Sorcery as it was formerly practised
+(according to numerous records) not only in Ancient Egypt but also in
+Europe, during the Middle Ages. In no case do the powers attributed to
+him exceed those which are claimed for a fully equipped Adept.
+
+S. R.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BROOD OF THE WITCH-QUEEN
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ANTONY FERRARA
+
+
+Robert Cairn looked out across the quadrangle. The moon had just
+arisen, and it softened the beauty of the old college buildings,
+mellowed the harshness of time, casting shadow pools beneath the
+cloisteresque arches to the west and setting out the ivy in stronger
+relief upon the ancient walls. The barred shadow on the lichened
+stones beyond the elm was cast by the hidden gate; and straight ahead,
+where, between a quaint chimney-stack and a bartizan, a triangular
+patch of blue showed like spangled velvet, lay the Thames. It was from
+there the cooling breeze came.
+
+But Cairn's gaze was set upon a window almost directly ahead, and west
+below the chimneys. Within the room to which it belonged a lambent
+light played.
+
+Cairn turned to his companion, a ruddy and athletic looking man,
+somewhat bovine in type, who at the moment was busily tracing out
+sections on a human skull and checking his calculations from Ross's
+_Diseases of the Nervous System_.
+
+"Sime," he said, "what does Ferrara always have a fire in his rooms
+for at this time of the year?"
+
+Sime glanced up irritably at the speaker. Cairn was a tall, thin
+Scotsman, clean-shaven, square jawed, and with the crisp light hair
+and grey eyes which often bespeak unusual virility.
+
+"Aren't you going to do any work?" he inquired pathetically. "I
+thought you'd come to give me a hand with my _basal ganglia_. I shall
+go down on that; and there you've been stuck staring out of the
+window!"
+
+"Wilson, in the end house, has got a most unusual brain," said Cairn,
+with apparent irrelevance.
+
+"Has he!" snapped Sime.
+
+"Yes, in a bottle. His governor is at Bart's; he sent it up yesterday.
+You ought to see it."
+
+"Nobody will ever want to put _your_ brain in a bottle," predicted the
+scowling Sime, and resumed his studies.
+
+Cairn relighted his pipe, staring across the quadrangle again. Then--
+
+"You've never been in Ferrara's rooms, have you?" he inquired.
+
+Followed a muffled curse, crash, and the skull went rolling across the
+floor.
+
+"Look here, Cairn," cried Sime, "I've only got a week or so now, and
+my nervous system is frantically rocky; I shall go all to pieces on my
+nervous system. If you want to talk, go ahead. When you're finished, I
+can begin work."
+
+"Right-oh," said Cairn calmly, and tossed his pouch across. "I want to
+talk to you about Ferrara."
+
+"Go ahead then. What is the matter with Ferrara?"
+
+"Well," replied Cairn, "he's queer."
+
+"That's no news," said Sime, filling his pipe; "we all know he's a
+queer chap. But he's popular with women. He'd make a fortune as a
+nerve specialist."
+
+"He doesn't have to; he inherits a fortune when Sir Michael dies."
+
+"There's a pretty cousin, too, isn't there?" inquired Sime slyly.
+
+"There is," replied Cairn. "Of course," he continued, "my governor and
+Sir Michael are bosom friends, and although I've never seen much of
+young Ferrara, at the same time I've got nothing against him. But--"
+he hesitated.
+
+"Spit it out," urged Sime, watching him oddly.
+
+"Well, it's silly, I suppose, but what does he want with a fire on a
+blazing night like this?"
+
+Sime stared.
+
+"Perhaps he's a throw-back," he suggested lightly. "The Ferraras,
+although they're counted Scotch--aren't they?--must have been Italian
+originally--"
+
+"Spanish," corrected Cairn. "They date from the son of Andrea Ferrara,
+the sword-maker, who was a Spaniard. Cæsar Ferrara came with the
+Armada in 1588 as armourer. His ship was wrecked up in the Bay of
+Tobermory and he got ashore--and stopped."
+
+"Married a Scotch lassie?"
+
+"Exactly. But the genealogy of the family doesn't account for Antony's
+habits."
+
+"What habits?"
+
+"Well, look." Cairn waved in the direction of the open window. "What
+does he do in the dark all night, with a fire going?"
+
+"Influenza?"
+
+"Nonsense! You've never been in his rooms, have you?"
+
+"No. Very few men have. But as I said before, he's popular with the
+women."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean there have been complaints. Any other man would have been sent
+down."
+
+"You think he has influence--"
+
+"Influence of some sort, undoubtedly."
+
+"Well, I can see you have serious doubts about the man, as I have
+myself, so I can unburden my mind. You recall that sudden thunderstorm
+on Thursday?"
+
+"Rather; quite upset me for work."
+
+"I was out in it. I was lying in a punt in the backwater--you know,
+_our_ backwater."
+
+"Lazy dog."
+
+"To tell you the truth, I was trying to make up my mind whether I
+should abandon bones and take the post on the _Planet_ which has been
+offered me."
+
+"Pills for the pen--Harley for Fleet? Did you decide?"
+
+"Not then; something happened which quite changed my line of
+reflection."
+
+The room was becoming cloudy with tobacco smoke.
+
+"It was delightfully still," Cairn resumed. "A water rat rose within
+a foot of me and a kingfisher was busy on a twig almost at my elbow.
+Twilight was just creeping along, and I could hear nothing but faint
+creakings of sculls from the river and sometimes the drip of a
+punt-pole. I thought the river seemed to become suddenly deserted; it
+grew quite abnormally quiet--and abnormally dark. But I was so deep in
+reflection that it never occurred to me to move.
+
+"Then the flotilla of swans came round the bend, with Apollo--you know
+Apollo, the king-swan?--at their head. By this time it had grown
+tremendously dark, but it never occurred to me to ask myself why. The
+swans, gliding along so noiselessly, might have been phantoms. A hush,
+a perfect hush, settled down. Sime, that hush was the prelude to a
+strange thing--an unholy thing!"
+
+Cairn rose excitedly and strode across to the table, kicking the skull
+out of his way.
+
+"It was the storm gathering," snapped Sime.
+
+"It was something else gathering! Listen! It got yet darker, but for
+some inexplicable reason, although I must have heard the thunder
+muttering, I couldn't take my eyes off the swans. Then it
+happened--the thing I came here to tell you about; I must tell
+somebody--the thing that I am not going to forget in a hurry."
+
+He began to knock out the ash from his pipe.
+
+"Go on," directed Sime tersely.
+
+"The big swan--Apollo--was within ten feet of me; he swam in open
+water, clear of the others; no living thing touched him. Suddenly,
+uttering a cry that chilled my very blood, a cry that I never heard
+from a swan in my life, he rose in the air, his huge wings
+extended--like a tortured phantom, Sime; I can never forget it--six
+feet clear of the water. The uncanny wail became a stifled hiss, and
+sending up a perfect fountain of water--I was deluged--the poor old
+king-swan fell, beat the surface with his wings--and was still."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The other swans glided off like ghosts. Several heavy raindrops
+pattered on the leaves above. I admit I was scared. Apollo lay with
+one wing right in the punt. I was standing up; I had jumped to my feet
+when the thing occurred. I stooped and touched the wing. The bird was
+quite dead! Sime, I pulled the swan's head out of the water, and--his
+neck was broken; no fewer than three vertebrae fractured!"
+
+A cloud of tobacco smoke was wafted towards the open window.
+
+"It isn't one in a million who could wring the neck of a bird like
+Apollo, Sime; but it was done before my eyes without the visible
+agency of God or man! As I dropped him and took to the pole, the storm
+burst. A clap of thunder spoke with the voice of a thousand cannon,
+and I poled for bare life from that haunted backwater. I was drenched
+to the skin when I got in, and I ran up all the way from the stage."
+
+"Well?" rapped the other again, as Cairn paused to refill his pipe.
+
+"It was seeing the firelight flickering at Ferrara's window that led
+me to do it. I don't often call on him; but I thought that a rub down
+before the fire and a glass of toddy would put me right. The storm had
+abated as I got to the foot of his stair--only a distant rolling of
+thunder.
+
+"Then, out of the shadows--it was quite dark--into the flickering
+light of the lamp came somebody all muffled up. I started horribly. It
+was a girl, quite a pretty girl, too, but very pale, and with
+over-bright eyes. She gave one quick glance up into my face, muttered
+something, an apology, I think, and drew back again into her
+hiding-place."
+
+"He's been warned," growled Sime. "It will be notice to quit next
+time."
+
+"I ran upstairs and banged on Ferrara's door. He didn't open at first,
+but shouted out to know who was knocking. When I told him, he let me
+in, and closed the door very quickly. As I went in, a pungent cloud
+met me--incense."
+
+"Incense?"
+
+"His rooms smelt like a joss-house; I told him so. He said he was
+experimenting with _Kyphi_--the ancient Egyptian stuff used in the
+temples. It was all dark and hot; phew! like a furnace. Ferrara's
+rooms always were odd, but since the long vacation I hadn't been in.
+Good lord, they're disgusting!"
+
+"How? Ferrara spent vacation in Egypt; I suppose he's brought things
+back?"
+
+"Things--yes! Unholy things! But that brings me to something too. I
+ought to know more about the chap than anybody; Sir Michael Ferrara
+and the governor have been friends for thirty years; but my father is
+oddly reticent--quite singularly reticent--regarding Antony. Anyway,
+have you heard about him, in Egypt?"
+
+"I've heard he got into trouble. For his age, he has a devil of a
+queer reputation; there's no disguising it."
+
+"What sort of trouble?"
+
+"I've no idea. Nobody seems to know. But I heard from young Ashby that
+Ferrara was asked to leave."
+
+"There's some tale about Kitchener--"
+
+"_By_ Kitchener, Ashby says; but I don't believe it."
+
+"Well--Ferrara lighted a lamp, an elaborate silver thing, and I found
+myself in a kind of nightmare museum. There was an unwrapped mummy
+there, the mummy of a woman--I can't possibly describe it. He had
+pictures, too--photographs. I shan't try to tell you what they
+represented. I'm not thin-skinned; but there are some subjects that no
+man anxious to avoid Bedlam would willingly investigate. On the table
+by the lamp stood a number of objects such as I had never seen in my
+life before, evidently of great age. He swept them into a cupboard
+before I had time to look long. Then he went off to get a bath towel,
+slippers, and so forth. As he passed the fire he threw something in. A
+hissing tongue of flame leapt up--and died down again."
+
+"What did he throw in?"
+
+"I am not absolutely certain; so I won't say what I _think_ it was,
+at the moment. Then he began to help me shed my saturated flannels,
+and he set a kettle on the fire, and so forth. You know the personal
+charm of the man? But there was an unpleasant sense of something--what
+shall I say?--sinister. Ferrara's ivory face was more pale than usual,
+and he conveyed the idea that he was chewed up--exhausted. Beads of
+perspiration were on his forehead."
+
+"Heat of his rooms?"
+
+"No," said Cairn shortly. "It wasn't that. I had a rub down and
+borrowed some slacks. Ferrara brewed grog and pretended to make me
+welcome. Now I come to something which I can't forget; it may be a
+mere coincidence, but--. He has a number of photographs in his rooms,
+good ones, which he has taken himself. I'm not speaking now of the
+monstrosities, the outrages; I mean views, and girls--particularly
+girls. Well, standing on a queer little easel right under the lamp was
+a fine picture of Apollo, the swan, lord of the backwater."
+
+Sime stared dully through the smoke haze.
+
+"It gave me a sort of shock," continued Cairn. "It made me think,
+harder than ever, of the thing he had thrown in the fire. Then, in his
+photographic zenana, was a picture of a girl whom I am almost sure was
+the one I had met at the bottom of the stair. Another was of Myra
+Duquesne."
+
+"His cousin?"
+
+"Yes. I felt like tearing it from the wall. In fact, the moment I saw
+it, I stood up to go. I wanted to run to my rooms and strip the man's
+clothes off my back! It was a struggle to be civil any longer. Sime,
+if you had seen that swan die--"
+
+Sime walked over to the window.
+
+"I have a glimmering of your monstrous suspicions," he said slowly.
+"The last man to be kicked out of an English varsity for this sort of
+thing, so far as I know, was Dr. Dee of St. John's, Cambridge, and
+that's going back to the sixteenth century."
+
+"I know; it's utterly preposterous, of course. But I had to confide in
+somebody. I'll shift off now, Sime."
+
+Sime nodded, staring from the open window. As Cairn was about to close
+the outer door:
+
+"Cairn," cried Sime, "since you are now a man of letters and leisure,
+you might drop in and borrow Wilson's brains for me."
+
+"All right," shouted Cairn.
+
+Down in the quadrangle he stood for a moment, reflecting; then, acting
+upon a sudden resolution, he strode over towards the gate and ascended
+Ferrara's stair.
+
+For some time he knocked at the door in vain, but he persisted in his
+clamouring, arousing the ancient echoes. Finally, the door was opened.
+
+Antony Ferrara faced him. He wore a silver-grey dressing gown, trimmed
+with white swansdown, above which his ivory throat rose statuesque.
+The almond-shaped eyes, black as night, gleamed strangely beneath the
+low, smooth brow. The lank black hair appeared lustreless by
+comparison. His lips were very red. In his whole appearance there was
+something repellently effeminate.
+
+"Can I come in?" demanded Cairn abruptly.
+
+"Is it--something important?" Ferrara's voice was husky but not
+unmusical.
+
+"Why, are you busy?"
+
+"Well--er--" Ferrara smiled oddly.
+
+"Oh, a visitor?" snapped Cairn.
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"Accounts for your delay in opening," said Cairn, and turned on his
+heel. "Mistook me for the proctor, in person, I suppose. Good-night."
+
+Ferrara made no reply. But, although he never once glanced back, Cairn
+knew that Ferrara, leaning over the rail, above, was looking after
+him; it was as though elemental heat were beating down upon his head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE PHANTOM HANDS
+
+
+A week later Robert Cairn quitted Oxford to take up the newspaper
+appointment offered to him in London. It may have been due to some
+mysterious design of a hidden providence that Sime 'phoned him early
+in the week about an unusual case in one of the hospitals.
+
+"Walton is junior house-surgeon there," he said, "and he can arrange
+for you to see the case. She (the patient) undoubtedly died from some
+rare nervous affection. I have a theory," etc.; the conversation
+became technical.
+
+Cairn went to the hospital, and by courtesy of Walton, whom he had
+known at Oxford, was permitted to view the body.
+
+"The symptoms which Sime has got to hear about," explained the
+surgeon, raising the sheet from the dead woman's face, "are--"
+
+He broke off. Cairn had suddenly exhibited a ghastly pallor; he
+clutched at Walton for support.
+
+"My God!"
+
+Cairn, still holding on to the other, stooped over the discoloured
+face. It had been a pretty face when warm life had tinted its curves;
+now it was congested--awful; two heavy discolorations showed, one on
+either side of the region of the larynx.
+
+"What on earth is wrong with you?" demanded Walton.
+
+"I thought," gasped Cairn, "for a moment, that I knew--"
+
+"Really! I wish you did! We can't find out anything about her. Have a
+good look."
+
+"No," said Cairn, mastering himself with an effort--"a chance
+resemblance, that's all." He wiped the beads of perspiration from his
+forehead.
+
+"You look jolly shaky," commented Walton. "Is she like someone you
+know very well?"
+
+"No, not at all, now that I come to consider the features; but it was
+a shock at first. What on earth caused death?"
+
+"Asphyxia," answered Walton shortly. "Can't you see?"
+
+"Someone strangled her, and she was brought here too late?"
+
+"Not at all, my dear chap; nobody strangled her. She was brought here
+in a critical state four or five days ago by one of the slum priests
+who keep us so busy. We diagnosed it as exhaustion from lack of
+food--with other complications. But the case was doing quite well up
+to last night; she was recovering strength. Then, at about one
+o'clock, she sprang up in bed, and fell back choking. By the time the
+nurse got to her it was all over."
+
+"But the marks on her throat?"
+
+Walton shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"There they are! Our men are keenly interested. It's absolutely
+unique. Young Shaw, who has a mania for the nervous system, sent a
+long account up to Sime, who suffers from a similar form of
+aberration."
+
+"Yes; Sime 'phoned me."
+
+"It's nothing to do with nerves," said Walton contemptuously. "Don't
+ask me to explain it, but it's certainly no nerve case."
+
+"One of the other patients--"
+
+"My dear chap, the other patients were all fast asleep! The nurse was
+at her table in the corner, and in full view of the bed the whole
+time. I tell you no one touched her!"
+
+"How long elapsed before the nurse got to her?"
+
+"Possibly half a minute. But there is no means of learning when the
+paroxysm commenced. The leaping up in bed probably marked the end and
+not the beginning of the attack."
+
+Cairn experienced a longing for the fresh air; it was as though some
+evil cloud hovered around and about the poor unknown. Strange ideas,
+horrible ideas, conjectures based upon imaginings all but insane,
+flooded his mind darkly.
+
+Leaving the hospital, which harboured a grim secret, he stood at the
+gate for a moment, undecided what to do. His father, Dr. Cairn, was
+out of London, or he would certainly have sought him in this hour of
+sore perplexity.
+
+"What in Heaven's name is behind it all!" he asked himself.
+
+For he knew beyond doubt that the girl who lay in the hospital was the
+same that he had seen one night at Oxford, was the girl whose
+photograph he had found in Antony Ferrara's rooms!
+
+He formed a sudden resolution. A taxi-cab was passing at that moment,
+and he hailed it, giving Sir Michael Ferrara's address. He could
+scarcely trust himself to think, but frightful possibilities presented
+themselves to him, repel them how he might. London seemed to grow
+dark, overshadowed, as once he had seen a Thames backwater grow. He
+shuddered, as though from a physical chill.
+
+The house of the famous Egyptian scholar, dull white behind its
+rampart of trees, presented no unusual appearances to his anxious
+scrutiny. What he feared he scarcely knew; what he suspected he could
+not have defined.
+
+Sir Michael, said the servant, was unwell and could see no one. That
+did not surprise Cairn; Sir Michael had not enjoyed good health since
+malaria had laid him low in Syria. But Miss Duquesne was at home.
+
+Cairn was shown into the long, low-ceiled room which contained so many
+priceless relics of a past civilisation. Upon the bookcase stood the
+stately ranks of volumes which had carried the fame of Europe's
+foremost Egyptologist to every corner of the civilised world. This
+queerly furnished room held many memories for Robert Cairn, who had
+known it from childhood, but latterly it had always appeared to him in
+his daydreams as the setting for a dainty figure. It was here that he
+had first met Myra Duquesne, Sir Michael's niece, when, fresh from a
+Norman convent, she had come to shed light and gladness upon the
+somewhat, sombre household of the scholar. He often thought of that
+day; he could recall every detail of the meeting--
+
+Myra Duquesne came in, pulling aside the heavy curtains that hung in
+the arched entrance. With a granite Osiris flanking her slim figure on
+one side and a gilded sarcophagus on the other, she burst upon the
+visitor, a radiant vision in white. The light gleamed through her
+soft, brown hair forming a halo for a face that Robert Cairn knew for
+the sweetest in the world.
+
+"Why, Mr. Cairn," she said, and blushed entrancingly--"we thought you
+had forgotten us."
+
+"That's not a little bit likely," he replied, taking her proffered
+hand, and there was that in his voice and in his look which made her
+lower her frank grey eyes. "I have only been in London a few days, and
+I find that Press work is more exacting than I had anticipated!"
+
+"Did you want to see my uncle very particularly?" asked Myra.
+
+"In a way, yes. I suppose he could not manage to see me--"
+
+Myra shook her head. Now that the flush of excitement had left her
+face, Cairn was concerned to see how pale she was and what dark
+shadows lurked beneath her eyes.
+
+"Sir Michael is not seriously ill?" he asked quickly. "Only one of the
+visual attacks--"
+
+"Yes--at least it began with one."
+
+She hesitated, and Cairn saw to his consternation that her eyes became
+filled with tears. The real loneliness of her position, now that her
+guardian was ill, the absence of a friend in whom she could confide
+her fears, suddenly grew apparent to the man who sat watching her.
+
+"You are tired out," he said gently. "You have been nursing him?"
+
+She nodded and tried to smile.
+
+"Who is attending?"
+
+"Sir Elwin Groves, but--"
+
+"Shall I wire for my father?"
+
+"We wired for him yesterday!"
+
+"What! to Paris?"
+
+"Yes, at my uncle's wish."
+
+Cairn started.
+
+"Then--he thinks he is seriously ill, himself?"
+
+"I cannot say," answered the girl wearily. "His behaviour is--queer.
+He will allow no one in his room, and barely consents to see Sir
+Elwin. Then, twice recently, he has awakened in the night and made a
+singular request."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"He has asked me to send for his solicitor in the morning, speaking
+harshly and almost as though--he hated me...."
+
+"I don't understand. Have you complied?"
+
+"Yes, and on each occasion he has refused to see the solicitor when he
+has arrived!"
+
+"I gather that you have been acting as night-attendant?"
+
+"I remain in an adjoining room; he is always worse at night. Perhaps
+it is telling on my nerves, but last night--"
+
+Again she hesitated, as though doubting the wisdom of further speech;
+but a brief scrutiny of Cairn's face, with deep anxiety to be read in
+his eyes, determined her to proceed.
+
+"I had been asleep, and I must have been dreaming, for I thought that
+a voice was chanting, quite near to me."
+
+"Chanting?"
+
+"Yes--it was horrible, in some way. Then a sensation of intense
+coldness came; it was as though some icily cold creature fanned me
+with its wings! I cannot describe it, but it was numbing; I think I
+must have felt as those poor travellers do who succumb to the
+temptation to sleep in the snow."
+
+Cairn surveyed her anxiously, for in its essentials this might be a
+symptom of a dreadful ailment.
+
+"I aroused myself, however," she continued, "but experienced an
+unaccountable dread of entering my uncle's room. I could hear him
+muttering strangely, and--I forced myself to enter! I saw--oh, how
+can I tell you! You will think me mad!"
+
+She raised her hands to her face; she was trembling. Robert Cairn took
+them in his own, forcing her to look up.
+
+"Tell me," he said quietly.
+
+"The curtains were drawn back; I distinctly remembered having closed
+them, but they were drawn back; and the moonlight was shining on to
+the bed."
+
+"Bad; he was dreaming."
+
+"But was _I_ dreaming? Mr. Cairn, two hands were stretched out over my
+uncle, two hands that swayed slowly up and down in the moonlight!"
+
+Cairn leapt to his feet, passing his hand over his forehead.
+
+"Go on," he said.
+
+"I--I cried out, but not loudly--I think I was very near to swooning.
+The hands were withdrawn into the shadow, and my uncle awoke and sat
+up. He asked, in a low voice, if I were there, and I ran to him."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He ordered me, very coldly, to 'phone for his solicitor at nine
+o'clock this morning, and then fell back, and was asleep again almost
+immediately. The solicitor came, and was with him for nearly an hour.
+He sent for one of his clerks, and they both went away at half-past
+ten. Uncle has been in a sort of dazed condition ever since; in fact
+he has only once aroused himself, to ask for Dr. Cairn. I had a
+telegram sent immediately."
+
+"The governor will be here to-night," said Cairn confidently. "Tell
+me, the hands which you thought you saw: was there anything peculiar
+about them?"
+
+"In the moonlight they seemed to be of a dull white colour. There was
+a ring on one finger--a green ring. Oh!" she shuddered. "I can see it
+now."
+
+"You would know it again?"
+
+"Anywhere!"
+
+"Actually, there was no one in the room, of course?"
+
+"No one. It was some awful illusion; but I can never forget it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE RING OF THOTH
+
+
+Half-Moon Street was very still; midnight had sounded nearly
+half-an-hour; but still Robert Cairn paced up and down his father's
+library. He was very pale, and many times he glanced at a book which
+lay open upon the table. Finally he paused before it and read once
+again certain passages.
+
+"In the year 1571," it recorded, "the notorious Trois Echelles was
+executed in the Place de Grève. He confessed before the king, Charles
+IX.... that he performed marvels.... Admiral de Coligny, who also was
+present, recollected ... the death of two gentlemen.... He added that
+they were found black and swollen."
+
+He turned over the page, with a hand none too steady.
+
+"The famous Maréchal d'Ancre, Concini Concini," he read, "was killed
+by a pistol shot on the drawbridge of the Louvre by Vitry, Captain of
+the Bodyguard, on the 24th of April, 1617.... It was proved that the
+Maréchal and his wife made use of wax images, which they kept in
+coffins...."
+
+Cairn shut the book hastily and began to pace the room again.
+
+"Oh, it is utterly, fantastically incredible!" he groaned. "Yet, with
+my own eyes I saw--"
+
+He stepped to a bookshelf and began to look for a book which, so far
+as his slight knowledge of the subject bore him, would possibly throw
+light upon the darkness. But he failed to find it. Despite the heat of
+the weather, the library seemed to have grown chilly. He pressed the
+bell.
+
+"Marston," he said to the man who presently came, "you must be very
+tired, but Dr. Cairn will be here within an hour. Tell him that I
+have gone to Sir Michael Ferrara's."
+
+"But it's after twelve o'clock, sir!"
+
+"I know it is; nevertheless I am going."
+
+"Very good, sir. You will wait there for the Doctor?"
+
+"Exactly, Marston. Good-night!"
+
+"Good-night, sir."
+
+Robert Cairn went out into Half-Moon Street. The night was perfect,
+and the cloudless sky lavishly gemmed with stars. He walked on
+heedlessly, scarce noting in which direction. An awful conviction was
+with him, growing stronger each moment, that some mysterious menace,
+some danger unclassifiable, threatened Myra Duquesne. What did he
+suspect? He could give it no name. How should he act? He had no idea.
+
+Sir Elwin Groves, whom he had seen that evening, had hinted broadly at
+mental trouble as the solution of Sir Michael Ferrara's peculiar
+symptoms. Although Sir Michael had had certain transactions with his
+solicitor during the early morning, he had apparently forgotten all
+about the matter, according to the celebrated physician.
+
+"Between ourselves, Cairn," Sir Elwin had confided, "I believe he
+altered his will."
+
+The inquiry of a taxi driver interrupted Cairn's meditations. He
+entered the vehicle, giving Sir Michael Ferrara's address.
+
+His thoughts persistently turned to Myra Duquesne, who at that moment
+would be lying listening for the slightest sound from the sick-room;
+who would be fighting down fear, that she might do her duty to her
+guardian--fear of the waving phantom hands. The cab sped through the
+almost empty streets, and at last, rounding a corner, rolled up the
+tree-lined avenue, past three or four houses lighted only by the
+glitter of the moon, and came to a stop before that of Sir Michael
+Ferrara.
+
+Lights shone from the many windows. The front door was open, and light
+streamed out into the porch.
+
+"My God!" cried Cairn, leaping from the cab. "My God! what has
+happened?"
+
+A thousand fears, a thousand reproaches, flooded his brain with
+frenzy. He went racing up to the steps and almost threw himself upon
+the man who stood half-dressed in the doorway.
+
+"Felton, Felton!" he whispered hoarsely. "What has happened? Who--"
+
+"Sir Michael, sir," answered the man. "I thought"--his voice
+broke--"you were the doctor, sir?"
+
+"Miss Myra--"
+
+"She fainted away, sir. Mrs. Hume is with her in the library, now."
+
+Cairn thrust past the servant and ran into the library. The
+housekeeper and a trembling maid were bending over Myra Duquesne, who
+lay fully dressed, white and still, upon a Chesterfield. Cairn
+unceremoniously grasped her wrist, dropped upon his knees and placed
+his ear to the still breast.
+
+"Thank God!" he said. "It is only a swoon. Look after her, Mrs. Hume."
+
+The housekeeper, with set face, lowered her head, but did not trust
+herself to speak. Cairn went out into the hall and tapped Felton on
+the shoulder. The man turned with a great start.
+
+"What happened?" he demanded. "Is Sir Michael--?"
+
+Felton nodded.
+
+"Five minutes before you came, sir." His voice was hoarse with
+emotion. "Miss Myra came out of her room. She thought someone called
+her. She rapped on Mrs. Hume's door, and Mrs. Hume, who was just
+retiring, opened it. She also thought she had heard someone calling
+Miss Myra out on the stairhead."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"There was no one there, sir. Everyone was in bed; I was just
+undressing, myself. But there was a sort of faint perfume--something
+like a church, only disgusting, sir--"
+
+"How--disgusting! Did _you_ smell it?"
+
+"No, sir, never. Mrs. Hume and Miss Myra have noticed it in the house
+on other nights, and one of the maids, too. It was very strong, I'm
+told, last night. Well, sir, as they stood by the door they heard a
+horrid kind of choking scream. They both rushed to Sir Michael's
+room, and--"
+
+"Yes, yes?"
+
+"He was lying half out of bed, sir--"
+
+"Dead?"
+
+"Seemed like he'd been strangled, they told me, and--"
+
+"Who is with him now?"
+
+The man grew even paler.
+
+"No one, Mr. Cairn, sir. Miss Myra screamed out that there were two
+hands just unfastening from his throat as she and Mrs. Hume got to the
+door, and there was no living soul in the room, sir. I might as well
+out with it! We're all afraid to go in!"
+
+Cairn turned and ran up the stairs. The upper landing was in darkness
+and the door of the room which he knew to be Sir Michael's stood wide
+open. As he entered, a faint scent came to his nostrils. It brought
+him up short at the threshold, with a chill of supernatural dread.
+
+The bed was placed between the windows, and one curtain had been
+pulled aside, admitting a flood, of moonlight. Cairn remembered that
+Myra had mentioned this circumstance in connection with the
+disturbance of the previous night.
+
+"Who, in God's name, opened that curtain!" he muttered.
+
+Fully in the cold white light lay Sir Michael Ferrara, his silver hair
+gleaming and his strong, angular face upturned to the intruding rays.
+His glazed eyes were starting from their sockets; his face was nearly
+black; and his fingers were clutching the sheets in a death grip.
+Cairn had need of all his courage to touch him.
+
+He was quite dead.
+
+Someone was running up the stairs. Cairn turned, half dazed,
+anticipating the entrance of a local medical man. Into the room ran
+his father, switching on the light as he did so. A greyish tinge
+showed through his ruddy complexion. He scarcely noticed his son.
+
+"Ferrara!" he cried, coming up to the bed. "Ferrara!"
+
+He dropped on his knees beside the dead man.
+
+"Ferrara, old fellow--"
+
+His cry ended in something like a sob. Robert Cairn turned, choking,
+and went downstairs.
+
+In the hall stood Felton and some other servants.
+
+"Miss Duquesne?"
+
+"She has recovered, sir. Mrs. Hume has taken her to another bedroom."
+
+Cairn hesitated, then walked into the deserted library, where a light
+was burning. He began to pace up and down, clenching and unclenching
+his fists. Presently Felton knocked and entered. Clearly the man was
+glad of the chance to talk to someone.
+
+"Mr. Antony has been 'phoned at Oxford, sir. I thought you might like
+to know. He is motoring down, sir, and will be here at four o'clock."
+
+"Thank you," said Cairn shortly.
+
+Ten minutes later his father joined him. He was a slim, well-preserved
+man, alert-eyed and active, yet he had aged five years in his son's
+eyes. His face was unusually pale, but he exhibited no other signs of
+emotion.
+
+"Well, Rob," he said, tersely. "I can see you have something to tell
+me. I am listening."
+
+Robert Cairn leant back against a bookshelf.
+
+"I _have_ something to tell you, sir, and something to ask you."
+
+"Tell your story, first; then ask your question."
+
+"My story begins in a Thames backwater--"
+
+Dr. Cairn stared, squaring his jaw, but his son proceeded to relate,
+with some detail, the circumstances attendant upon the death of the
+king-swan. He went on to recount what took place in Antony Ferrara's
+rooms, and at the point where something had been taken from the table
+and thrown in the fire--
+
+"Stop!" said Dr. Cairn. "What did he throw in the fire?"
+
+The doctor's nostrils quivered, and his eyes were ablaze with some
+hardly repressed emotion.
+
+"I cannot swear to it, sir--"
+
+"Never mind. What do you _think_ he threw in the fire?"
+
+"A little image, of wax or something similar--an image of--a swan."
+
+At that, despite his self-control, Dr. Cairn became so pale that his
+son leapt forward.
+
+"All right, Rob," his father waved him away, and turning, walked
+slowly down the room.
+
+"Go on," he said, rather huskily.
+
+Robert Cairn continued his story up to the time that he visited the
+hospital where the dead girl lay.
+
+"You can swear that she was the original of the photograph in Antony's
+rooms and the same who was waiting at the foot of the stair?"
+
+"I can, sir."
+
+"Go on."
+
+Again the younger man resumed his story, relating what he had learnt
+from Myra Duquesne; what she had told him about the phantom hands;
+what Felton had told him about the strange perfume perceptible in the
+house.
+
+"The ring," interrupted Dr. Cairn--"she would recognise it again?"
+
+"She says so."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"Only that if some of your books are to be believed, sir, Trois
+Echelle, D'Ancre and others have gone to the stake for such things in
+a less enlightened age!"
+
+"Less enlightened, boy!" Dr. Cairn turned his blazing eyes upon him.
+"_More_ enlightened where the powers of hell were concerned!"
+
+"Then you think--"
+
+"_Think_! Have I spent half my life in such studies in vain? Did I
+labour with poor Michael Ferrara in Egypt and learn _nothing_? Just
+God! what an end to his labour! What a reward for mine!"
+
+He buried his face in quivering hands.
+
+"I cannot tell exactly what you mean by that, sir," said Robert Cairn;
+"but it brings me to my question."
+
+Dr. Cairn did not speak, did not move.
+
+"_Who is Antony Ferrara_?"
+
+The doctor looked up at that; and it was a haggard face he raised from
+his hands.
+
+"You have tried to ask me that before."
+
+"I ask now, sir, with better prospect of receiving an answer."
+
+"Yet I can give you none, Rob."
+
+"Why, sir? Are you bound to secrecy?"
+
+"In a degree, yes. But the real reason is this--I don't know."
+
+"You don't know!"
+
+"I have said so."
+
+"Good God, sir, you amaze me! I have always felt certain that he was
+really no Ferrara, but an adopted son; yet it had never entered my
+mind that you were ignorant of his origin."
+
+"You have not studied the subjects which I have studied; nor do I wish
+that you should; therefore it is impossible, at any rate now, to
+pursue that matter further. But I may perhaps supplement your
+researches into the history of Trois Echelles and Concini Concini. I
+believe you told me that you were looking in my library for some work
+which you failed to find?"
+
+"I was looking for M. Chabas' translation of the _Papyrus Harris_."
+
+"What do you know of it?"
+
+"I once saw a copy in Antony Ferrara's rooms."
+
+Dr. Cairn started slightly.
+
+"Indeed. It happens that my copy is here; I lent it quite recently
+to--Sir Michael. It is probably somewhere on the shelves."
+
+He turned on more lights and began to scan the rows of books.
+Presently--
+
+"Here it is," he said, and took down and opened the book on the table.
+"This passage may interest you." He laid his finger upon it.
+
+His son bent over the book and read the following:--
+
+"Hai, the evil man, was a shepherd. He had said: 'O, that I might have
+a book of spells that would give me resistless power!' He obtained a
+book of the Formulas.... By the divine powers of these he enchanted
+men. He obtained a deep vault furnished with implements. He made waxen
+images of men, and love-charms. And then he perpetrated all the
+horrors that his heart conceived."
+
+"Flinders Petrie," said Dr. Cairn, "mentions the Book of Thoth as
+another magical work conferring similar powers."
+
+"But surely, sir--after all, it's the twentieth century--this is mere
+superstition!"
+
+"I thought so--_once_!" replied Dr. Cairn. "But I have lived to know
+that Egyptian magic was a real and a potent force. A great part of it
+was no more than a kind of hypnotism, but there were other branches.
+Our most learned modern works are as children's nursery rhymes beside
+such a writing as the Egyptian _Ritual of the Dead_! God forgive me!
+What have I done!"
+
+"You cannot reproach yourself in any way, sir!"
+
+"Can I not?" said Dr. Cairn hoarsely. "Ah, Rob, you don't know!"
+
+There came a rap on the door, and a local practitioner entered.
+
+"This is a singular case, Dr. Cairn," he began diffidently. "An
+autopsy--"
+
+"Nonsense!" cried Dr. Cairn. "Sir Elwin Groves had foreseen it--so had
+I!"
+
+"But there are distinct marks of pressure on either side of the
+windpipe--"
+
+"Certainly. These marks are not uncommon in such cases. Sir Michael
+had resided in the East and had contracted a form of plague. Virtually
+he died from it. The thing is highly contagious, and it is almost
+impossible to rid the system of it. A girl died in one of the
+hospitals this week, having identical marks on the throat." He turned
+to his son. "You saw her, Rob?"
+
+Robert Cairn nodded, and finally the local man withdrew, highly
+mystified, but unable to contradict so celebrated a physician as Dr.
+Bruce Cairn.
+
+The latter seated himself in an armchair, and rested his chin in the
+palm of his left hand. Robert Cairn paced restlessly about the
+library. Both were waiting, expectantly. At half-past two Felton
+brought in a tray of refreshments, but neither of the men attempted
+to avail themselves of the hospitality.
+
+"Miss Duquesne?" asked the younger.
+
+"She has just gone to sleep, sir."
+
+"Good," muttered Dr. Cairn. "Blessed is youth."
+
+Silence fell again, upon the man's departure, to be broken but rarely,
+despite the tumultuous thoughts of those two minds, until, at about a
+quarter to three, the faint sound of a throbbing motor brought Dr.
+Cairn sharply to his feet. He looked towards the window. Dawn was
+breaking. The car came roaring along the avenue and stopped outside
+the house.
+
+Dr. Cairn and his son glanced at one another. A brief tumult and
+hurried exchange of words sounded in the hall; footsteps were heard
+ascending the stairs, then came silence. The two stood side by side in
+front of the empty hearth, a haggard pair, fitly set in that desolate
+room, with the yellowing rays of the lamps shrinking before the first
+spears of dawn.
+
+Then, without warning, the door opened slowly and deliberately, and
+Antony Ferrara came in.
+
+His face was expressionless, ivory; his red lips were firm, and he
+drooped his head. But the long black eyes glinted and gleamed as if
+they reflected the glow from a furnace. He wore a motor coat lined
+with leopard skin and he was pulling off his heavy gloves.
+
+"It is good of you to have waited, Doctor," he said in his huskily
+musical voice--"you too, Cairn."
+
+He advanced a few steps into the room. Cairn was conscious of a kind
+of fear, but uppermost came a desire to pick up some heavy implement
+and crush this evilly effeminate thing with the serpent eyes. Then he
+found himself speaking; the words seemed to be forced from his throat.
+
+"Antony Ferrara," he said, "have you read the _Harris Papyrus_?"
+
+Ferrara dropped his glove, stooped and recovered it, and smiled
+faintly.
+
+"No," he replied. "Have you?" His eyes were nearly closed, mere
+luminous slits. "But surely," he continued, "this is no time, Cairn,
+to discuss books? As my poor father's heir, and therefore your host,
+I beg of you to partake--"
+
+A faint sound made him turn. Just within the door, where the light
+from the reddening library windows touched her as if with sanctity,
+stood Myra Duquesne, in her night robe, her hair unbound and her
+little bare feet gleaming whitely upon the red carpet. Her eyes were
+wide open, vacant of expression, but set upon Antony Ferrara's
+ungloved left hand.
+
+Ferrara turned slowly to face her, until his back was towards the two
+men in the library. She began to speak, in a toneless, unemotional
+voice, raising her finger and pointing at a ring which Ferrara wore.
+
+"I know you now," she said; "I know you, son of an evil woman, for you
+wear her ring, the sacred ring of Thoth. You have stained that ring
+with blood, as she stained it--with the blood of those who loved and
+trusted you. I could name you, but my lips are sealed--I could name
+you, brood of a witch, murderer, for I know you now."
+
+Dispassionately, mechanically, she delivered her strange indictment.
+Over her shoulder appeared the anxious face of Mrs. Hume, finger to
+lip.
+
+"My God!" muttered Cairn. "My God! What--"
+
+"S--sh!" his father grasped his arm. "She is asleep!"
+
+Myra Duquesne turned and quitted the room, Mrs. Hume hovering
+anxiously about her. Antony Ferrara faced around; his mouth was oddly
+twisted.
+
+"She is troubled with strange dreams," he said, very huskily.
+
+"Clairvoyant dreams!" Dr. Cairn addressed him for the first time. "Do
+not glare at me in that way, for it may be that _I_ know you, too!
+Come, Rob."
+
+"But Myra--"
+
+Dr. Cairn laid his hand upon his son's shoulder, fixing his eyes upon
+him steadily.
+
+"Nothing in this house can injure Myra," he replied quietly; "for Good
+is higher than Evil. For the present we can only go."
+
+Antony Ferrara stood aside, as the two walked out of the library.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AT FERRARA'S CHAMBERS
+
+
+Dr. Bruce Cairn swung around in his chair, lifting his heavy eyebrows
+interrogatively, as his son, Robert, entered the consulting-room.
+Half-Moon Street was bathed in almost tropical sunlight, but already
+the celebrated physician had sent those out from his house to whom the
+sky was overcast, whom the sun would gladden no more, and a group of
+anxious-eyed sufferers yet awaited his scrutiny in an adjoining room.
+
+"Hullo, Rob! Do you wish to see me professionally?"
+
+Robert Cairn seated himself upon a corner of the big table, shaking
+his head slowly.
+
+"No, thanks sir; I'm fit enough; but I thought you might like to know
+about the will--"
+
+"I do know. Since I was largely interested, Jermyn attended on my
+behalf; an urgent case detained me. He rang up earlier this morning."
+
+"Oh, I see. Then perhaps I'm wasting your time; but it was a
+surprise--quite a pleasant one--to find that Sir Michael had provided
+for Myra--Miss Duquesne."
+
+Dr. Cairn stared hard.
+
+"What led you to suppose that he had _not_ provided for his niece? She
+is an orphan, and he was her guardian."
+
+"Of course, he should have done so; but I was not alone in my belief
+that during the--peculiar state of mind--which preceded his death, he
+had altered his will--"
+
+"In favour of his adopted son, Antony?"
+
+"Yes. I know _you_ were afraid of it, sir! But as it turns out they
+inherit equal shares, and the house goes to Myra. Mr. Antony
+Ferrara"--he accentuated the name--"quite failed to conceal his
+chagrin."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"Rather. He was there in person, wearing one of his beastly fur
+coats--a fur coat, with the thermometer at Africa!--lined with
+civet-cat, of all abominations!"
+
+Dr. Cairn turned to his table, tapping at the blotting-pad with the
+tube of a stethoscope.
+
+"I regret your attitude towards young Ferrara, Rob."
+
+His son started.
+
+"Regret it! I don't understand. Why, you, yourself brought about an
+open rupture on the night of Sir Michael's death."
+
+"Nevertheless, I am sorry. You know, since you were present, that Sir
+Michael has left his niece--to my care--"
+
+"Thank God for that!"
+
+"I am glad, too, although there are many difficulties. But,
+furthermore, he enjoined me to--"
+
+"Keep an eye on Antony! Yes, yes--but, heavens! he didn't know him for
+what he is!"
+
+Dr. Cairn turned to him again.
+
+"He did not; by a divine mercy, he never knew--what we know. But"--his
+clear eyes were raised to his son's--"the charge is none the less
+sacred, boy!"
+
+The younger man stared perplexedly.
+
+"But he is nothing less than a ----"
+
+His father's upraised hand checked the word on his tongue.
+
+"_I_ know what he is, Rob, even better than you do. But cannot you see
+how this ties my hands, seals my lips?"
+
+Robert Cairn was silent, stupefied.
+
+"Give me time to see my way clearly, Rob. At the moment I cannot
+reconcile my duty and my conscience; I confess it. But give me time.
+If only as a move--as a matter of policy--keep in touch with Ferrara.
+You loathe him, I know; but we _must_ watch him! There are other
+interests--"
+
+"Myra!" Robert Cairn flushed hotly. "Yes, I see. I understand. By
+heavens, it's a hard part to play, but--"
+
+"Be advised by me, Rob. Meet stealth with stealth. My boy, we have
+seen strange ends come to those who stood in the path of someone. If
+you had studied the subjects that I have studied you would know that
+retribution, though slow, is inevitable. But be on your guard. I am
+taking precautions. We have an enemy; I do not pretend to deny it; and
+he fights with strange weapons. Perhaps I know something of those
+weapons, too, and I am adopting--certain measures. But one defence,
+and the one for you, is guile--stealth!"
+
+Robert Cairn spoke abruptly.
+
+"He is installed in palatial chambers in Piccadilly."
+
+"Have you been there?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Call upon him. Take the first opportunity to do so. Had it not been
+for your knowledge of certain things which happened in a top set at
+Oxford we might be groping in the dark now! You never liked Antony
+Ferrara--no men do; but you used to call upon him in college. Continue
+to call upon him, in town."
+
+Robert Cairn stood up, and lighted a cigarette.
+
+"Right you are, sir!" he said. "I'm glad I'm not alone in this thing!
+By the way, about--?"
+
+"Myra? For the present she remains at the house. There is Mrs. Hume,
+and all the old servants. We shall see what is to be done, later. You
+might run over and give her a look-up, though."
+
+"I will, sir! Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye," said Dr. Cairn, and pressed the bell which summoned
+Marston to usher out the caller, and usher in the next patient.
+
+In Half-Moon Street, Robert Cairn stood irresolute; for he was one of
+those whose mental moods are physically reflected. He might call upon
+Myra Duquesne, in which event he would almost certainly be asked to
+stay to lunch; or he might call upon Antony Ferrara. He determined
+upon the latter, though less pleasant course.
+
+Turning his steps in the direction of Piccadilly, he reflected that
+this grim and uncanny secret which he shared with his father was like
+to prove prejudicial to his success in journalism. It was eternally
+uprising, demoniac, between himself and his work. The feeling of
+fierce resentment towards Antony Ferrara which he cherished grew
+stronger at every step. _He_ was the spider governing the web, the web
+that clammily touched Dr. Cairn, himself, Robert Cairn, and--Myra
+Duquesne. Others there had been who had felt its touch, who had been
+drawn to the heart of the unclean labyrinth--and devoured. In the mind
+of Cairn, the figure of Antony Ferrara assumed the shape of a monster,
+a ghoul, an elemental spirit of evil.
+
+And now he was ascending the marble steps. Before the gates of the
+lift he stood and pressed the bell.
+
+Ferrara's proved to be a first-floor suite, and the doors were opened
+by an Eastern servant dressed in white.
+
+"His beastly theatrical affectation again!" muttered Cairn. "The man
+should have been a music-hall illusionist!"
+
+The visitor was salaamed into a small reception room. Of this
+apartment the walls and ceiling were entirely covered by a fretwork in
+sandalwood, evidently Oriental in workmanship. In niches, or doorless
+cup-boards; stood curious-looking vases and pots. Heavy curtains of
+rich fabric draped the doors. The floor was of mosaic, and a small
+fountain played in the centre. A cushioned divan occupied one side of
+the place, from which natural light was entirely excluded and which
+was illuminated only by an ornate lantern swung from the ceiling. This
+lantern had panes of blue glass, producing a singular effect. A silver
+_mibkharah_, or incense-burner, stood near to one corner of the divan
+and emitted a subtle perfume. As the servant withdrew:
+
+"Good heavens!" muttered Cairn, disgustedly; "poor Sir Michael's
+fortune won't last long at this rate!" He glanced at the smoking
+_mibkharah_. "Phew! effeminate beast! Ambergris!"
+
+No more singular anomaly could well be pictured than that afforded by
+the lean, neatly-groomed Scotsman, with his fresh, clean-shaven face
+and typically British air, in this setting of Eastern voluptuousness.
+
+The dusky servitor drew back a curtain and waved him to enter, bowing
+low as the visitor passed. Cairn found himself in Antony Ferrara's
+study. A huge fire was blazing in the grate, rendering the heat of the
+study almost insufferable.
+
+It was, he perceived, an elaborated copy of Ferrara's room at Oxford;
+infinitely more spacious, of course, and by reason of the rugs,
+cushions and carpets with which its floor was strewn, suggestive of
+great opulence. But the littered table was there, with its nameless
+instruments and its extraordinary silver lamp; the mummies were there;
+the antique volumes, rolls of papyrus, preserved snakes and cats and
+ibises, statuettes of Isis, Osiris and other Nile deities were there;
+the many photographs of women, too (Cairn had dubbed it at Oxford "the
+zenana"); above all, there was Antony Ferrara.
+
+He wore the silver-grey dressing-gown trimmed with white swansdown in
+which Cairn had seen him before. His statuesque ivory face was set in
+a smile, which yet was no smile of welcome; the over-red lips smiled
+alone; the long, glittering dark eyes were joyless; almost, beneath
+the straightly-pencilled brows, sinister. Save for the short,
+lustreless hair it was the face of a handsome, evil woman.
+
+"My dear Cairn--what a welcome interruption. How good of you!"
+
+There was strange music in his husky tones. He spoke unemotionally,
+falsely, but Cairn could not deny the charm of that unique voice. It
+was possible to understand how women--some women--would be as clay in
+the hands of the man who had such a voice as that.
+
+His visitor nodded shortly. Cairn was a poor actor; already his _rôle_
+was oppressing him. Whilst Ferrara was speaking one found a sort of
+fascination in listening, but when he was silent he repelled. Ferrara
+may have been conscious of this, for he spoke much, and well.
+
+"You have made yourself jolly comfortable," said Cairn.
+
+"Why not, my dear Cairn? Every man has within him something of the
+Sybarite. Why crush a propensity so delightful? The Spartan philosophy
+is palpably absurd; it is that of one who finds himself in a garden
+filled with roses and who holds his nostrils; who perceives there
+shady bowers, but chooses to burn in the sun; who, ignoring the choice
+fruits which tempt his hand and court his palate, stoops to pluck
+bitter herbs from the wayside!"
+
+"I see!" snapped Cairn. "Aren't you thinking of doing any more work,
+then?"
+
+"Work!" Antony Ferrara smiled and sank upon a heap of cushions.
+"Forgive me, Cairn, but I leave it, gladly and confidently, to more
+robust characters such as your own."
+
+He proffered a silver box of cigarettes, but Cairn shook his head,
+balancing himself on a corner of the table.
+
+"No; thanks. I have smoked too much already; my tongue is parched."
+
+"My dear fellow!" Ferrara rose. "I have a wine which, I declare, you
+will never have tasted but which you will pronounce to be nectar. It
+is made in Cyprus--"
+
+Cairn raised his hand in a way that might have reminded a nice
+observer of his father.
+
+"Thank you, nevertheless. Some other time, Ferrara; I am no wine man."
+
+"A whisky and soda, or a burly British B. and S., even a sporty
+'Scotch and Polly'?"
+
+There was a suggestion of laughter in the husky voice, now, of a sort
+of contemptuous banter. But Cairn stolidly shook his head and forced a
+smile.
+
+"Many thanks; but it's too early."
+
+He stood up and began to walk about the room, inspecting the
+numberless oddities which it contained. The photographs he examined
+with supercilious curiosity. Then, passing to a huge cabinet, he began
+to peer in at the rows of amulets, statuettes and other,
+unclassifiable, objects with which it was laden. Ferrara's voice came.
+
+"That head of a priestess on the left, Cairn, is of great interest.
+The brain had not been removed, and quite a colony of Dermestes
+Beetles had propagated in the cavity. Those creatures never saw the
+light, Cairn. Yet I assure you that they had eyes. I have nearly forty
+of them in the small glass case on the table there. You might like to
+examine them."
+
+Cairn shuddered, but felt impelled to turn and look at these gruesome
+relics. In a square, glass case he saw the creatures. They lay in rows
+on a bed of moss; one might almost have supposed that unclean life yet
+survived in the little black insects. They were an unfamiliar species
+to Cairn, being covered with unusually long, black hair, except upon
+the root of the wing-cases where they were of brilliant orange.
+
+"The perfect pupæ of this insect are extremely rare," added Ferrara
+informatively.
+
+"Indeed?" replied Cairn.
+
+He found something physically revolting in that group of beetles whose
+history had begun and ended in the skull of a mummy.
+
+"Filthy things!" he said. "Why do you keep them?"
+
+Ferrara shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Who knows?" he answered enigmatically. "They might prove useful, some
+day."
+
+A bell rang; and from Ferrara's attitude it occurred to Cairn that he
+was expecting a visitor.
+
+"I must be off," he said accordingly.
+
+And indeed he was conscious of a craving for the cool and
+comparatively clean air of Piccadilly. He knew something of the great
+evil which dwelt within this man whom he was compelled, by singular
+circumstances, to tolerate. But the duty began to irk.
+
+"If you must," was the reply. "Of course, your press work no doubt is
+very exacting."
+
+The note of badinage was discernible again, but Cairn passed out into
+the _mandarah_ without replying, where the fountain plashed coolly and
+the silver _mibkharah_ sent up its pencils of vapour. The outer door
+was opened by the Oriental servant, and Ferrara stood and bowed to his
+departing visitor. He did not proffer his hand.
+
+"Until our next meeting. Cairn, _es-selâm aleykûm_!" (peace be with
+you) he murmured, "as the Moslems say. But indeed I shall be with you
+in spirit, dear Cairn."
+
+There was something in the tone wherein he spoke those last words that
+brought Cairn up short. He turned, but the doors closed silently. A
+faint breath of ambergris was borne to his nostrils.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE RUSTLING SHADOWS
+
+
+Cairn stepped out of the lift, crossed the hall, and was about to walk
+out on to Piccadilly, when he stopped, staring hard at a taxi-cab
+which had slowed down upon the opposite side whilst the driver awaited
+a suitable opportunity to pull across.
+
+The occupant of the cab was invisible now, but a moment before Cairn
+had had a glimpse of her as she glanced out, apparently towards the
+very doorway in which he stood. Perhaps his imagination was playing
+him tricks. He stood and waited, until at last the cab drew up within
+a few yards of him.
+
+Myra Duquesne got out.
+
+Having paid the cabman, she crossed the pavement and entered the
+hall-way. Cairn stepped forward so that she almost ran into his arms.
+
+"Mr. Cairn!" she cried. "Why! have you been to see Antony?"
+
+"I have," he replied, and paused, at a loss for words.
+
+It had suddenly occurred to him that Antony Ferrara and Myra Duquesne
+had known one another from childhood; that the girl probably regarded
+Ferrara in the light of a brother.
+
+"There are so many things I want to talk to him about," she said. "He
+seems to know everything, and I am afraid I know very little."
+
+Cairn noted with dismay the shadows under her eyes--the grey eyes that
+he would have wished to see ever full of light and laughter. She was
+pale, too, or seemed unusually so in her black dress; but the tragic
+death of her guardian, Sir Michael Ferrara, had been a dreadful blow
+to this convent-bred girl who had no other kin in the world. A longing
+swept into Cairn's heart and set it ablaze; a longing to take all her
+sorrows, all her cares, upon his own broad shoulders, to take her and
+hold her, shielded from whatever of trouble or menace the future might
+bring.
+
+"Have you seen his rooms here?" he asked, trying to speak casually;
+but his soul was up in arms against the bare idea of this girl's
+entering that perfumed place where abominable and vile things were,
+and none of them so vile as the man she trusted, whom she counted a
+brother.
+
+"Not yet," she answered, with a sort of childish glee momentarily
+lighting her eyes. "Are they _very_ splendid?"
+
+"Very," he answered her, grimly.
+
+"Can't you come in with me for awhile? Only just a little while, then
+you can come home to lunch--you and Antony." Her eyes sparkled now.
+"Oh, do say yes!"
+
+Knowing what he did know of the man upstairs, he longed to accompany
+her; yet, contradictorily, knowing what he did he could not face him
+again, could not submit himself to the test of being civil to Antony
+Ferrara in the presence of Myra Duquesne.
+
+"Please don't tempt me," he begged, and forced a smile. "I shall find
+myself enrolled amongst the seekers of soup-tickets if I _completely_
+ignore the claims of my employer upon my time!"
+
+"Oh, what a shame!" she cried.
+
+Their eyes met, and something--something unspoken but cogent--passed
+between them; so that for the first time a pretty colour tinted the
+girl's cheeks. She suddenly grew embarrassed.
+
+"Good-bye, then," she said, holding out her hand. "Will you lunch with
+us to-morrow?"
+
+"Thanks awfully," replied Cairn. "Rather--if it's humanly possible.
+I'll ring you up."
+
+He released her hand, and stood watching her as she entered the lift.
+When it ascended, he turned and went out to swell the human tide of
+Piccadilly. He wondered what his father would think of the girl's
+visiting Ferrara. Would he approve? Decidedly the situation was a
+delicate one; the wrong kind of interference--the tactless kind--might
+merely render it worse. It would be awfully difficult, if not
+impossible, to explain to Myra. If an open rupture were to be avoided
+(and he had profound faith in his father's acumen), then Myra must
+remain in ignorance. But was she to be allowed to continue these
+visits?
+
+Should he have permitted her to enter Ferrara's rooms?
+
+He reflected that he had no right to question her movements. But, at
+least, he might have accompanied her.
+
+"Oh, heavens!" he muttered--"what a horrible tangle. It will drive me
+mad!"
+
+There could be no peace for him until he knew her to be safely home
+again, and his work suffered accordingly; until, at about midday, he
+rang up Myra Duquesne, on the pretence of accepting her invitation to
+lunch on the morrow, and heard, with inexpressible relief, her voice
+replying to him.
+
+In the afternoon he was suddenly called upon to do a big "royal"
+matinée, and this necessitated a run to his chambers in order to
+change from Harris tweed into vicuna and cashmere. The usual stream of
+lawyers' clerks and others poured under the archway leading to the
+court; but in the far corner shaded by the tall plane tree, where the
+ascending steps and worn iron railing, the small panes of glass in the
+solicitor's window on the ground floor and the general air of
+Dickens-like aloofness prevailed, one entered a sort of backwater. In
+the narrow hall-way, quiet reigned--a quiet profound as though motor
+'buses were not.
+
+Cairn ran up the stairs to the second landing, and began to fumble for
+his key. Although he knew it to be impossible, he was aware of a queer
+impression that someone was waiting for him, inside his chambers. The
+sufficiently palpable fact--that such a thing _was_ impossible--did
+not really strike him until he had opened the door and entered. Up to
+that time, in a sort of subconscious way, he had anticipated finding a
+visitor there.
+
+"What an ass I am!" he muttered; then, "Phew! there's a disgusting
+smell!"
+
+He threw open all the windows, and entering his bedroom, also opening
+both the windows there. The current of air thus established began to
+disperse the odour--a fusty one as of something decaying--and by the
+time that he had changed, it was scarcely perceptible. He had little
+time to waste in speculation, but when, as he ran out to the door,
+glancing at his watch, the nauseous odour suddenly rose again to his
+nostrils, he stopped with his hand on the latch.
+
+"What the deuce is it!" he said loudly.
+
+Quite mechanically he turned and looked back. As one might have
+anticipated, there was nothing visible to account for the odour.
+
+The emotion of fear is a strange and complex one. In this breath of
+decay rising to his nostril, Cairn found something fearsome. He opened
+the door, stepped out on to the landing, and closed the door behind
+him.
+
+At an hour close upon midnight, Dr. Bruce Cairn, who was about to
+retire, received a wholly unexpected visit from his son. Robert Cairn
+followed his father into the library and sat down in the big, red
+leathern easy-chair. The doctor tilted the lamp shade, directing the
+light upon Robert's face. It proved to be slightly pale, and in the
+clear eyes was an odd expression--almost a hunted look.
+
+"What's the trouble, Rob? Have a whisky and soda."
+
+Robert Cairn helped himself quietly.
+
+"Now take a cigar and tell me what has frightened you."
+
+"Frightened me!" He started, and paused in the act of reaching for a
+match. "Yes--you're right, sir. I _am_ frightened!"
+
+"Not at the moment. You have been."
+
+"Right again." He lighted his cigar. "I want to begin by saying
+that--well, how can I put it? When I took up newspaper work, we
+thought it would be better if I lived in chambers--"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Well, at that time--" he examined the lighted end of his
+cigar--"there was no reason--why I should not live alone. But now--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Now I feel, sir, that I have need of more or less constant
+companionship. Especially I feel that it would be desirable to have a
+friend handy at--er--at night time!"
+
+Dr. Cairn leant forward in his chair. His face was very stern.
+
+"Hold out your fingers," he said, "extended; left hand."
+
+His son obeyed, smiling slightly. The open hand showed in the
+lamplight steady as a carven hand.
+
+"Nerves quite in order, sir."
+
+Dr. Cairn inhaled a deep breath.
+
+"Tell me," he said.
+
+"It's a queer tale," his son began, "and if I told it to Craig Fenton,
+or Madderley round in Harley Street I know what they would say. But
+you will _understand_. It started this afternoon, when the sun was
+pouring in through the windows. I had to go to my chambers to change;
+and the rooms were filled with a most disgusting smell."
+
+His father started.
+
+"What kind of smell?" he asked. "Not--incense?"
+
+"No," replied Robert, looking hard at him--"I thought you would ask
+that. It was a smell of something putrid--something rotten, rotten
+with the rottenness of ages."
+
+"Did you trace where it came from?"
+
+"I opened all the windows, and that seemed to disperse it for a time.
+Then, just as I was going out, it returned; it seemed to envelop me
+like a filthy miasma. You know, sir, it's hard to explain just the way
+I felt about it--but it all amounts to this: I was glad to get
+outside!"
+
+Dr. Cairn stood up and began to pace about the room, his hands locked
+behind him.
+
+"To-night," he rapped suddenly, "what occurred to-night?"
+
+"To-night," continued his son, "I got in at about half-past nine. I
+had had such a rush, in one way and another, that the incident had
+quite lost its hold on my imagination; I hadn't forgotten it, of
+course, but I was not thinking of it when I unlocked the door. In fact
+I didn't begin to think of it again until, in slippers and
+dressing-gown, I had settled down for a comfortable read. There was
+nothing, absolutely nothing, to influence my imagination--in that way.
+The book was an old favourite, Mark Twain's _Up the Mississippi_, and
+I sat in the armchair with a large bottle of lager beer at my elbow
+and my pipe going strong."
+
+Becoming restless in turn, the speaker stood up and walking to the
+fireplace flicked off the long cone of grey ash from his cigar. He
+leant one elbow upon the mantel-piece, resuming his story:
+
+"St. Paul's had just chimed the half-hour--half-past ten--when my pipe
+went out. Before I had time to re-light it, came the damnable smell
+again. At the moment nothing was farther from my mind, and I jumped up
+with an exclamation of disgust. It seemed to be growing stronger and
+stronger. I got my pipe alight quickly. Still I could smell it; the
+aroma of the tobacco did not lessen its beastly pungency in the
+smallest degree.
+
+"I tilted the shade of my reading-lamp and looked all about. There was
+nothing unusual to be seen. Both windows were open and I went to one
+and thrust my head out, in order to learn if the odour came from
+outside. It did not. The air outside the window was fresh and clean.
+Then I remembered that when I had left my chambers in the afternoon,
+the smell had been stronger near the door than anywhere. I ran out to
+the door. In the passage I could smell nothing; but--"
+
+He paused, glancing at his father.
+
+"Before I had stood there thirty seconds it was rising all about me
+like the fumes from a crater. By God, sir! I realised then that it was
+something ... following me!"
+
+Dr. Cairn stood watching him, from the shadows beyond the big table,
+as he came forward and finished his whisky at a gulp.
+
+"That seemed to work a change in me," he continued rapidly; "I
+recognised there was something behind this disgusting manifestation,
+something directing it; and I recognised, too, that the next move was
+up to me. I went back to my room. The odour was not so pronounced, but
+as I stood by the table, waiting, it increased, and increased, until
+it almost choked me. My nerves were playing tricks, but I kept a fast
+hold on myself. I set to work, very methodically, and fumigated the
+place. Within myself I knew that it could do no good, but I felt that
+I had to put up some kind of opposition. You understand, sir?"
+
+"Quite," replied Dr. Cairn quietly. "It was an organised attempt to
+expel the invader, and though of itself it was useless, the mental
+attitude dictating it was good. Go on."
+
+"The clocks had chimed eleven when I gave up, and I felt physically
+sick. The air by this time was poisonous, literally poisonous. I
+dropped into the easy-chair and began to wonder what the end of it
+would be. Then, in the shadowy parts of the room, outside the circle
+of light cast by the lamp, I detected--darker patches. For awhile I
+tried to believe that they were imaginary, but when I saw one move
+along the bookcase, glide down its side, and come across the carpet,
+towards me, I knew that they were not. Before heaven, sir"--his voice
+shook--"either I am mad, or to-night my room was filled with things
+that _crawled_! They were everywhere; on the floor, on the walls, even
+on the ceiling above me! Where the light was I couldn't detect them,
+but the shadows were alive, alive with things--the size of my two
+hands; and in the growing stillness--"
+
+His voice had become husky. Dr. Cairn stood still, as a man of stone,
+watching him.
+
+"In the stillness, very faintly, _they rustled_!"
+
+Silence fell. A car passed outside in Half-Moon Street; its throb died
+away. A clock was chiming the half-hour after midnight. Dr. Cairn
+spoke:
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"One other thing, sir. I was gripping the chair arms; I felt that I
+had to grip something to prevent myself from slipping into madness. My
+left hand--" he glanced at it with a sort of repugnance--"something
+hairy--and indescribably loathsome--touched it; just brushed against
+it. But it was too much. I'm ashamed to tell you, sir; I screamed,
+screamed like any hysterical girl, and for the second time, ran! I ran
+from my own rooms, grabbed a hat and coat; and left my dressing gown
+on the floor!"
+
+He turned, leaning both elbows on the mantel-piece, and buried his
+face in his hands.
+
+"Have another drink," said Dr. Cairn. "You called on Antony Ferrara
+to-day, didn't you? How did he receive you?"
+
+"That brings me to something else I wanted to tell you," continued
+Robert, squirting soda-water into his glass. "Myra--goes there."
+
+"Where--to his chambers?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Dr. Cairn began to pace the room again.
+
+"I am not surprised," he admitted; "she has always been taught to
+regard him in the light of a brother. But nevertheless we must put a
+stop to it. How did you learn this?"
+
+Robert Cairn gave him an account of the morning's incidents,
+describing Ferrara's chambers with a minute exactness which revealed
+how deep, how indelible an impression their strangeness had made upon
+his mind.
+
+"There is one thing," he concluded, "against which I am always coming
+up, I puzzled over it at Oxford, and others did, too; I came against
+it to-day. Who _is_ Antony Ferrara? Where did Sir Michael find him?
+What kind of woman bore such a son?"
+
+"Stop boy!" cried Dr. Cairn.
+
+Robert started, looking at his father across the table.
+
+"You are already in danger, Rob. I won't disguise that fact from you.
+Myra Duquesne is no relation of Ferrara's; therefore, since she
+inherits half of Sir Michael's fortune, a certain course must have
+suggested itself to Antony. You, patently, are an obstacle! That's
+bad enough, boy; let us deal with it before we look for further
+trouble."
+
+"He took up a blackened briar from the table and began to load it.
+
+"Regarding your next move," he continued slowly, "there can be no
+question. You must return to your chambers!"
+
+"What!"
+
+"There can be no question, Rob. A kind of attack has been made upon
+you which only _you_ can repel. If you desert your chambers, it will
+be repeated here. At present it is evidently localised. There are laws
+governing these things; laws as immutable as any other laws in Nature.
+One of them is this: the powers of darkness (to employ a conventional
+and significant phrase) cannot triumph over the powers of Will. Below
+the Godhead, Will is the supreme force of the Universe. _Resist_! You
+_must_ resist, or you are lost!"
+
+"What do you mean, sir?"
+
+"I mean that destruction of mind, and of something more than mind,
+threatens you. If you retreat you are lost. Go back to your rooms.
+_Seek_ your foe; strive to haul him into the light and crush him! The
+phenomena at your rooms belong to one of two varieties; at present it
+seems impossible to classify them more closely. Both are dangerous,
+though in different ways. I suspect, however, that a purely mental
+effort will be sufficient to disperse these nauseous shadow-things.
+Probably you will not be troubled again to-night, but whenever the
+phenomena return, take off your coat to them! You require no better
+companion than the one you had:--Mark Twain! Treat your visitors as
+one might imagine he would have treated them; as a very poor joke! But
+whenever it begins again, ring me up. Don't hesitate, whatever the
+hour. I shall be at the hospital all day, but from seven onward I
+shall be here and shall make a point of remaining. Give me a call when
+you return, now, and if there is no earlier occasion, another in the
+morning. Then rely upon my active co-operation throughout the
+following night."
+
+"Active, sir?"
+
+"I said active, Rob. The next repetition of these manifestations shall
+be the last. Good-night. Remember, you have only to lift the receiver
+to know that you are not alone in your fight."
+
+Robert Cairn took a second cigar, lighted it, finished his whisky, and
+squared his shoulders.
+
+"Good-night, sir," he said. "I shan't run away a third time!"
+
+When the door had closed upon his exit, Dr. Cairn resumed his restless
+pacing up and down the library. He had given Roman counsel, for he had
+sent his son out to face, alone, a real and dreadful danger. Only thus
+could he hope to save him, but nevertheless it had been hard. The next
+fight would be a fight to the finish, for Robert had said, "I shan't
+run away a third time;" and he was a man of his word.
+
+As Dr. Cairn had declared, the manifestations belonged to one of two
+varieties. According to the most ancient science in the world, the
+science by which the Egyptians, and perhaps even earlier peoples,
+ordered their lives, we share this, our plane of existence, with
+certain other creatures, often called Elementals. Mercifully, these
+fearsome entities are invisible to our normal sight, just as the finer
+tones of music are inaudible to our normal powers of hearing.
+
+Victims of delirium tremens, opium smokers, and other debauchees,
+artificially open that finer, latent power of vision; and the horrors
+which surround them are not imaginary but are Elementals attracted to
+the victim by his peculiar excesses.
+
+The crawling things, then, which reeked abominably might be Elementals
+(so Dr. Cairn reasoned) superimposed upon Robert Cairn's consciousness
+by a directing, malignant intelligence. On the other hand they might
+be mere glamours--or thought-forms--thrust upon him by the same wizard
+mind; emanations from an evil, powerful will.
+
+His reflections were interrupted by the ringing of the 'phone bell. He
+took up the receiver.
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"That you, sir? All's clear here, now. I'm turning in."
+
+"Right. Good-night, Rob. Ring me in the morning."
+
+"Good-night, sir."
+
+Dr. Cairn refilled his charred briar, and, taking from a drawer in the
+writing table a thick MS., sat down and began to study the
+closely-written pages. The paper was in the cramped handwriting of the
+late Sir Michael Ferrara, his travelling companion through many
+strange adventures; and the sun had been flooding the library with
+dimmed golden light for several hours, and a bustle below stairs
+acclaiming an awakened household, ere the doctor's studies were
+interrupted. Again, it was the 'phone bell. He rose, switched off the
+reading-lamp, and lifted the instrument.
+
+"That you, Rob?"
+
+"Yes, sir. All's well, thank God! Can I breakfast with you?"
+
+"Certainly, my boy!" Dr. Cairn glanced at his watch. "Why, upon my
+soul it's seven o'clock!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE BEETLES
+
+
+Sixteen hours had elapsed and London's clocks were booming eleven that
+night, when the uncanny drama entered upon its final stage. Once more
+Dr. Cairn sat alone with Sir Michael's manuscript, but at frequent
+intervals his glance would stray to the telephone at his elbow. He had
+given orders to the effect that he was on no account to be disturbed
+and that his car should be ready at the door from ten o'clock onward.
+
+As the sound of the final strokes was dying away the expected summons
+came. Dr. Cairn's jaw squared and his mouth was very grim, when he
+recognised his son's voice over the wires.
+
+"Well, boy?"
+
+"They're here, sir--now, while I'm speaking! I have been
+fighting--fighting hard--for half an hour. The place smells like a
+charnel-house and the--shapes are taking definite, horrible form! They
+have ... _eyes_!" His voice sounded harsh. "Quite black the eyes are,
+and they shine like beads! It's gradually wearing me down, although I
+have myself in hand, so far. I mean I might crack up--at any moment.
+Bah!--"
+
+His voice ceased.
+
+"Hullo!" cried Dr. Cairn. "Hullo, Rob!"
+
+"It's all right, sir," came, all but inaudibly. "The--things are all
+around the edge of the light patch; they make a sort of rustling
+noise. It is a tremendous, conscious _effort_ to keep them at bay.
+While I was speaking, I somehow lost my grip of the situation.
+One--crawled ... it fastened on my hand ... a hairy, many-limbed
+horror.... Oh, my God! another is touching...."
+
+"Rob! Rob! Keep your nerve, boy! Do you hear?"
+
+"Yes--yes--" faintly.
+
+"_Pray_, my boy--pray for strength, and it will come to you! You
+_must_ hold out for another ten minutes. Ten minutes--do you
+understand?"
+
+"Yes! yes!--Merciful God!--if you can help me, do it, sir, or--"
+
+"Hold out, boy! In _ten minutes_ you'll have won."
+
+Dr. Cairn hung up the receiver, raced from the library, and grabbing a
+cap from the rack in the hall, ran down the steps and bounded into the
+waiting car, shouting an address to the man.
+
+Piccadilly was gay with supper-bound theatre crowds when he leapt out
+and ran into the hall-way which had been the scene of Robert's meeting
+with Myra Duquesne. Dr. Cairn ran past the lift doors and went up the
+stairs three steps at a time. He pressed his finger to the bell-push
+beside Antony Ferrara's door and held it there until the door opened
+and a dusky face appeared in the opening.
+
+The visitor thrust his way in, past the white-clad man holding out his
+arms to detain him.
+
+"Not at home, _effendim_--"
+
+Dr. Cairn shot out a sinewy hand, grabbed the man--he was a tall
+_fellahîn_--by the shoulder, and sent him spinning across the mosaic
+floor of the _mandarah_. The air was heavy with the perfume of
+ambergris.
+
+Wasting no word upon the reeling man, Dr. Cairn stepped to the
+doorway. He jerked the drapery aside and found himself in a dark
+corridor. From his son's description of the chambers he had no
+difficulty in recognising the door of the study.
+
+He turned the handle--the door proved to be unlocked--and entered the
+darkened room.
+
+In the grate a huge fire glowed redly; the temperature of the place
+was almost unbearable. On the table the light from the silver lamp
+shed a patch of radiance, but the rest of the study was veiled in
+shadow.
+
+A black-robed figure was seated in a high-backed, carved chair; one
+corner of the cowl-like garment was thrown across the table. Half
+rising, the figure turned--and, an evil apparition in the glow from
+the fire, Antony Ferrara faced the intruder.
+
+Dr. Cairn walked forward, until he stood over the other.
+
+"Uncover what you have on the table," he said succinctly.
+
+Ferrara's strange eyes were uplifted to the speaker's with an
+expression in their depths which, in the Middle Ages, alone would have
+sent a man to the stake.
+
+"Dr. Cairn--"
+
+The husky voice had lost something of its suavity.
+
+"You heard my order!"
+
+"Your _order_! Surely, doctor, since I am in my own--"
+
+"Uncover what you have on the table. Or must I do so for you!"
+
+Antony Ferrara placed his hand upon the end of the black robe which
+lay across the table.
+
+"Be careful, Dr. Cairn," he said evenly. "You--are taking risks."
+
+Dr. Cairn suddenly leapt, seized the shielding hand in a sure grip and
+twisted Ferrara's arm behind him. Then, with a second rapid movement,
+he snatched away the robe. A faint smell--a smell of corruption, of
+ancient rottenness--arose on the superheated air.
+
+A square of faded linen lay on the table, figured with all but
+indecipherable Egyptian characters, and upon it, in rows which formed
+a definite geometrical design, were arranged a great number of little,
+black insects.
+
+Dr. Cairn released the hand which he held, and Ferrara sat quite
+still, looking straight before him.
+
+"_Dermestes beetles!_ from the skull of a mummy! You filthy, obscene
+beast!"
+
+Ferrara spoke, with a calm suddenly regained:
+
+"Is there anything obscene in the study of beetles?"
+
+"My son saw these things here yesterday; and last night, and again
+to-night, you cast magnified doubles--glamours--of the horrible
+creatures into his rooms! By means which you know of, but which _I_
+know of, too, you sought to bring your thought-things down to the
+material plane."
+
+"Dr. Cairn, my respect for you is great; but I fear that much study
+has made you mad."
+
+Ferrara reached out his hand towards an ebony box; he was smiling.
+
+"Don't dare to touch that box!"
+
+He paused, glancing up.
+
+"More orders, doctor?"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+Dr. Cairn grabbed the faded linen, scooping up the beetles within it,
+and, striding across the room, threw the whole unsavoury bundle into
+the heart of the fire. A great flame leapt up; there came a series of
+squeaky explosions, so that, almost, one might have imagined those
+age-old insects to have had life. Then the doctor turned again.
+
+Ferrara leapt to his feet with a cry that had in it something inhuman,
+and began rapidly to babble in a tongue that was not European. He was
+facing Dr. Cairn, a tall, sinister figure, but one hand was groping
+behind him for the box.
+
+"Stop that!" rapped the doctor imperatively--"and for the last time do
+not dare to touch that box!"
+
+The flood of strange words was dammed. Ferrara stood quivering, but
+silent.
+
+"The laws by which such as you were burnt--the _wise_ laws of long
+ago--are no more," said Dr. Cairn. "English law cannot touch you, but
+God has provided for your kind!"
+
+"Perhaps," whispered Ferrara, "you would like also to burn this box to
+which you object so strongly?"
+
+"No power on earth would prevail upon me to touch it! But you--you
+_have_ touched it--and you know the penalty! You raise forces of evil
+that have lain dormant for ages and dare to wield them. Beware! I know
+of some whom you have murdered; I cannot know how many you have sent
+to the madhouse. But I swear that in future your victims shall be few.
+There is a way to deal with you!"
+
+He turned and walked to the door.
+
+"Beware also, dear Dr. Cairn," came softly. "As you say, I raise
+forces of evil--"
+
+Dr. Cairn spun about. In three strides he was standing over Antony
+Ferrara, fists clenched and his sinewy body tense in every fibre. His
+face was pale, as was apparent even in that vague light, and his eyes
+gleamed like steel.
+
+"You raise other forces," he said--and his voice, though steady was
+very low; "evil forces, also."
+
+Antony Ferrara, invoker of nameless horrors, shrank before him--before
+the primitive Celtic man whom unwittingly he had invoked. Dr. Cairn
+was spare and lean, but in perfect physical condition. Now he was
+strong, with the strength of a just cause. Moreover, he was dangerous,
+and Ferrara knew it well.
+
+"I fear--" began the latter huskily.
+
+"Dare to bandy words with me," said Dr. Cairn, with icy coolness,
+"answer me back but once again, and before God I'll strike you dead!"
+
+Ferrara sat silent, clutching at the arms of his chair, and not daring
+to raise his eyes. For ten magnetic seconds they stayed so, then again
+Dr. Cairn turned, and this time walked out.
+
+The clocks had been chiming the quarter after eleven as he had entered
+Antony Ferrara's chambers, and some had not finished their chimes when
+his son, choking, calling wildly upon Heaven to aid him, had fallen in
+the midst of crowding, obscene things, and, in the instant of his
+fall, had found the room clear of the waving antennæ, the beady eyes,
+and the beetle shapes. The whole horrible phantasmagoria--together
+with the odour of ancient rottenness--faded like a fevered dream, at
+the moment that Dr. Cairn had burst in upon the creator of it.
+
+Robert Cairn stood up, weakly, trembling; then dropped upon his knees
+and sobbed out prayers of thankfulness that came from his frightened
+soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SIR ELWIN GROVES' PATIENT
+
+
+When a substantial legacy is divided into two shares, one of which
+falls to a man, young, dissolute and clever, and the other to a girl,
+pretty and inexperienced, there is laughter in the hells. But, to the
+girl's legacy add another item--a strong, stern guardian, and the
+issue becomes one less easy to predict.
+
+In the case at present under consideration, such an arrangement led
+Dr. Bruce Cairn to pack off Myra Duquesne to a grim Scottish manor in
+Inverness upon a visit of indefinite duration. It also led to heart
+burnings on the part of Robert Cairn, and to other things about to be
+noticed.
+
+Antony Ferrara, the co-legatee, was not slow to recognise that a
+damaging stroke had been played, but he knew Dr. Cairn too well to put
+up any protest. In his capacity of fashionable physician, the doctor
+frequently met Ferrara in society, for a man at once rich, handsome,
+and bearing a fine name, is not socially ostracised on the mere
+suspicion that he is a dangerous blackguard. Thus Antony Ferrara was
+courted by the smartest women in town and tolerated by the men. Dr.
+Cairn would always acknowledge him, and then turn his back upon the
+dark-eyed, adopted son of his dearest friend.
+
+There was that between the two of which the world knew nothing. Had
+the world known what Dr. Cairn knew respecting Antony Ferrara, then,
+despite his winning manner, his wealth and his station, every door in
+London, from those of Mayfair to that of the foulest den in Limehouse,
+would have been closed to him--closed, and barred with horror and
+loathing. A tremendous secret was locked up within the heart of Dr.
+Bruce Cairn.
+
+Sometimes we seem to be granted a glimpse of the guiding Hand that
+steers men's destinies; then, as comprehension is about to dawn, we
+lose again our temporal lucidity of vision. The following incident
+illustrates this.
+
+Sir Elwin Groves, of Harley Street, took Dr. Cairn aside at the club
+one evening.
+
+"I am passing a patient on to you, Cairn," he said; "Lord Lashmore."
+
+"Ah!" replied Cairn, thoughtfully. "I have never met him."
+
+"He has only quite recently returned to England--you may have
+heard?--and brought a South American Lady Lashmore with him."
+
+"I had heard that, yes."
+
+"Lord Lashmore is close upon fifty-five, and his wife--a passionate
+Southern type--is probably less than twenty. They are an odd couple.
+The lady has been doing some extensive entertaining at the town
+house."
+
+Groves stared hard at Dr. Cairn.
+
+"Your young friend, Antony Ferrara, is a regular visitor."
+
+"No doubt," said Cairn; "he goes everywhere. I don't know how long his
+funds will last."
+
+"I have wondered, too. His chambers are like a scene from the 'Arabian
+Nights.'"
+
+"How do you know?" inquired the other curiously. "Have you attended
+him?"
+
+"Yes," was the reply. "His Eastern servant 'phoned for me one night
+last week; and I found Ferrara lying unconscious in a room like a
+pasha's harem. He looked simply ghastly, but the man would give me no
+account of what had caused the attack. It looked to me like sheer
+nervous exhaustion. He gave me quite an anxious five minutes.
+Incidentally, the room was blazing hot, with a fire roaring right up
+the chimney, and it smelt like a Hindu temple."
+
+"Ah!" muttered Cairn, "between his mode of life and his peculiar
+studies he will probably crack up. He has a fragile constitution."
+
+"Who the deuce is he, Cairn?" pursued Sir Elwin. "You must know all
+the circumstances of his adoption; you were with the late Sir Michael
+in Egypt at the time. The fellow is a mystery to me; he repels, in
+some way. I was glad to get away from his rooms."
+
+"You were going to tell me something about Lord Lashmore's case, I
+think?" said Cairn.
+
+Sir Elwin Groves screwed up his eyes and readjusted his pince-nez, for
+the deliberate way in which his companion had changed the conversation
+was unmistakable. However, Cairn's brusque manners were proverbial,
+and Sir Elwin accepted the lead.
+
+"Yes, yes, I believe I was," he agreed, rather lamely. "Well, it's
+very singular. I was called there last Monday, at about two o'clock in
+the morning. I found the house upside-down, and Lady Lashmore, with a
+dressing-gown thrown over her nightdress, engaged in bathing a bad
+wound in her husband's throat."
+
+"What! Attempted suicide?"
+
+"My first idea, naturally. But a glance at the wound set me wondering.
+It was bleeding profusely, and from its location I was afraid that it
+might have penetrated the internal jugular; but the external only was
+wounded. I arrested the flow of blood and made the patient
+comfortable. Lady Lashmore assisted me coolly and displayed some skill
+as a nurse. In fact she had applied a ligature before my arrival."
+
+"Lord Lashmore remained conscious?"
+
+"Quite. He was shaky, of course. I called again at nine o'clock that
+morning, and found him progressing favourably. When I had dressed the
+wounds--"
+
+"Wounds?"
+
+"There were two actually; I will tell you in a moment. I asked Lord
+Lashmore for an explanation. He had given out, for the benefit of the
+household, that, stumbling out of bed in the dark, he had tripped upon
+a rug, so that he fell forward almost into the fireplace. There is a
+rather ornate fender, with an elaborate copper scrollwork design, and
+his account was that he came down with all his weight upon this, in
+such a way that part of the copperwork pierced his throat. It was
+possible, just possible, Cairn; but it didn't satisfy me and I could
+see that it didn't satisfy Lady Lashmore. However, when we were alone,
+Lashmore told me the real facts."
+
+"He had been concealing the truth?"
+
+"Largely for his wife's sake, I fancy. He was anxious to spare her the
+alarm which, knowing the truth, she must have experienced. His story
+was this--related in confidence, but he wishes that you should know.
+He was awakened by a sudden, sharp pain in the throat; not very acute,
+but accompanied by a feeling of pressure. It was gone again, in a
+moment, and he was surprised to find blood upon his hands when he felt
+for the cause of the pain.
+
+"He got out of bed and experienced a great dizziness. The hemorrhage
+was altogether more severe than he had supposed. Not wishing to arouse
+his wife, he did not enter his dressing-room, which is situated
+between his own room and Lady Lashmore's; he staggered as far as the
+bell-push, and then collapsed. His man found him on the
+floor--sufficiently near to the fender to lend colour to the story of
+the accident."
+
+Dr. Cairn coughed drily.
+
+"Do you think it was attempted suicide after all, then?" he asked.
+
+"No--I don't," replied Sir Elwin emphatically. "I think it was
+something altogether more difficult to explain."
+
+"Not attempted murder?"
+
+"Almost impossible. Excepting Chambers, Lord Lashmore's valet, no one
+could possibly have gained access to that suite of rooms. They number
+four. There is a small boudoir, out of which opens Lady Lashmore's
+bedroom; between this and Lord Lashmore's apartment is the
+dressing-room. Lord Lashmore's door was locked and so was that of the
+boudoir. These are the only two means of entrance."
+
+"But you said that Chambers came in and found him."
+
+"Chambers has a key of Lord Lashmore's door. That is why I said
+'excepting Chambers.' But Chambers has been with his present master
+since Lashmore left Cambridge. It's out of the question."
+
+"Windows?"
+
+"First floor, no balcony, and overlook Hyde Park."
+
+"Is there no clue to the mystery?"
+
+"There are three!"
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"First: the nature of the wounds. Second: Lord Lashmore's idea that
+something was in the room at the moment of his awakening. Third: the
+fact that an identical attempt was made upon him last night!"
+
+"Last night! Good God! With what result?"
+
+"The former wounds, though deep, are very tiny, and had quite healed
+over. One of them partially reopened, but Lord Lashmore awoke
+altogether more readily and before any damage had been done. He says
+that some soft body rolled off the bed. He uttered a loud cry, leapt
+out and switched on the electric lights. At the same moment he heard a
+frightful scream from his wife's room. When I arrived--Lashmore
+himself summoned me on this occasion--I had a new patient."
+
+"Lady Lashmore?"
+
+"Exactly. She had fainted from fright, at hearing her husband's cry, I
+assume. There had been a slight hemorrhage from the throat, too."
+
+"What! Tuberculous?"
+
+"I fear so. Fright would not produce hemorrhage in the case of a
+healthy subject, would it?"
+
+Dr. Cairn shook his head. He was obviously perplexed.
+
+"And Lord Lashmore?" he asked.
+
+"The marks were there again," replied Sir Elwin; "rather lower on the
+neck. But they were quite superficial. He had awakened in time and had
+struck out--hitting something."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Some living thing; apparently covered with long, silky hair. It
+escaped, however."
+
+"And now," said Dr. Cairn--"these wounds; what are they like?"
+
+"They are like the marks of fangs," replied Sir Elwin; "of two long,
+sharp fangs!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE SECRET OF DHOON
+
+
+Lord Lashmore was a big, blonde man, fresh coloured, and having his
+nearly white hair worn close cut and his moustache trimmed in the neat
+military fashion. For a fair man, he had eyes of a singular colour.
+They were of so dark a shade of brown as to appear black: southern
+eyes; lending to his personality an oddness very striking.
+
+When he was shown into Dr. Cairn's library, the doctor regarded him
+with that searching scrutiny peculiar to men of his profession, at the
+same time inviting the visitor to be seated.
+
+Lashmore sat down in the red leathern armchair, resting his large
+hands upon his knees, with the fingers widely spread. He had a massive
+dignity, but was not entirely at his ease.
+
+Dr. Cairn opened the conversation, in his direct fashion.
+
+"You come to consult me, Lord Lashmore, in my capacity of occultist
+rather than in that of physician?"
+
+"In both," replied Lord Lashmore; "distinctly, in both."
+
+"Sir Elwin Groves is attending you for certain throat wounds--"
+
+Lord Lashmore touched the high stock which he was wearing.
+
+"The scars remain," he said. "Do you wish to see them?"
+
+"I am afraid I must trouble you."
+
+The stock was untied; and Dr. Cairn, through a powerful glass,
+examined the marks. One of them, the lower, was slightly inflamed.
+
+Lord Lashmore retied his stock, standing before the small mirror set
+in the overmantel.
+
+"You had an impression of some presence in the room at the time of the
+outrage?" pursued the doctor.
+
+"Distinctly; on both occasions."
+
+"Did you see anything?"
+
+"The room was too dark."
+
+"But you felt something?"
+
+"Hair; my knuckles, as I struck out--I am speaking of the second
+outrage--encountered a thick mass of hair."
+
+"The body of some animal?"
+
+"Probably the head."
+
+"But still you saw nothing?"
+
+"I must confess that I had a vague idea of some shape flitting away
+across the room; a white shape--therefore probably a figment of my
+imagination."
+
+"Your cry awakened Lady Lashmore?"
+
+"Unfortunately, yes. Her nerves were badly shaken already, and this
+second shock proved too severe. Sir Elwin fears chest trouble. I am
+taking her abroad as soon as possible."
+
+"She was found insensible. Where?"
+
+"At the door of the dressing-room--the door communicating with her own
+room, not that communicating with mine. She had evidently started to
+come to my assistance when faintness overcame her."
+
+"What is her own account?"
+
+"That is her own account."
+
+"Who discovered her?"
+
+"I did."
+
+Dr. Cairn was drumming his fingers on the table.
+
+"You have a theory, Lord Lashmore," he said suddenly. "Let me hear
+it."
+
+Lord Lashmore started, and glared across at the speaker with a sort of
+haughty surprise.
+
+"_I_ have a theory?"
+
+"I think so. Am I wrong?"
+
+Lashmore stood on the rug before the fireplace, with his hands locked
+behind him and his head lowered, looking out under his tufted eyebrows
+at Dr. Cairn. Thus seen, Lord Lashmore's strange eyes had a sinister
+appearance.
+
+"If I had had a theory--" he began.
+
+"You would have come to me to seek confirmation?" suggested Dr. Cairn.
+
+"Ah! yes, you may be right. Sir Elwin Groves, to whom I hinted
+something, mentioned your name. I am not quite clear upon one point,
+Dr. Cairn. Did he send me to you because he thought--in a word, are
+you a mental specialist?"
+
+"I am not. Sir Elwin has no doubts respecting your brain, Lord
+Lashmore. He has sent you here because I have made some study of what
+I may term psychical ailments. There is a chapter in your family
+history"--he fixed his searching gaze upon the other's face--"which
+latterly has been occupying your mind?"
+
+At that, Lashmore started in good earnest.
+
+"To what do you refer?"
+
+"Lord Lashmore, you have come to me for advice. A rare
+ailment--happily very rare in England--has assailed you. Circumstances
+have been in your favour thus far, but a recurrence is to be
+anticipated at any time. Be good enough to look upon me as a
+specialist, and give me all your confidence."
+
+Lashmore cleared his throat.
+
+"What do you wish to know, Dr. Cairn?" he asked, with a queer
+intermingling of respect and hauteur in his tones.
+
+"I wish to know about Mirza, wife of the third Baron Lashmore."
+
+Lord Lashmore took a stride forward. His large hands clenched, and his
+eyes were blazing.
+
+"What do you know about her?"
+
+Surprise was in his voice, and anger.
+
+"I have seen her portrait in Dhoon Castle; you were not in residence
+at the time. Mirza, Lady Lashmore, was evidently a very beautiful
+woman. What was the date of the marriage?"
+
+"1615."
+
+"The third Baron brought her to England from?--"
+
+"Poland."
+
+"She was a Pole?"
+
+"A Polish Jewess."
+
+"There was no issue of the marriage, but the Baron outlived her and
+married again?"
+
+Lord Lashmore shifted his feet nervously, and gnawed his finger-nails.
+
+"There _was_ issue of the marriage," he snapped. "She was--my
+ancestress."
+
+"Ah!" Dr. Cairn's grey eyes lighted up momentarily. "We get to the
+facts! Why was this birth kept secret?"
+
+"Dhoon Castle has kept many secrets!" It was a grim noble of the
+Middle Ages who was speaking. "For a Lashmore, there was no difficulty
+in suppressing the facts, arranging a hasty second marriage and
+representing the boy as the child of the later union. Had the second
+marriage proved fruitful, this had been unnecessary; but an heir to
+Dhoon was--essential."
+
+"I see. Had the second marriage proved fruitful, the child of Mirza
+would have been--what shall we say?--smothered?"
+
+"Damn it! What do you mean?"
+
+"He was the rightful heir."
+
+"Dr. Cairn," said Lashmore slowly, "you are probing an open wound. The
+fourth Baron Lashmore represents what the world calls 'The Curse of
+the House of Dhoon.' At Dhoon Castle there is a secret chamber, which
+has engaged the pens of many so-called occultists, but which no man,
+save every heir, has entered for generations. It's very location is a
+secret. Measurements do not avail to find it. You would appear to know
+much of my family's black secret; perhaps you know where that room
+lies at Dhoon?"
+
+"Certainly, I do," replied Dr. Cairn calmly; "it is under the moat,
+some thirty yards west of the former drawbridge."
+
+Lord Lashmore changed colour. When he spoke again his voice had lost
+its _timbre_.
+
+"Perhaps you know--what it contains."
+
+"I do. It contains Paul, fourth Baron Lashmore, son of Mirza, the
+Polish Jewess!"
+
+Lord Lashmore reseated himself in the big armchair, staring at the
+speaker, aghast.
+
+"I thought no other in the world knew that!" he said, hollowly. "Your
+studies have been extensive indeed. For three years--three whole years
+from the night of my twenty-first birthday--the horror hung over me,
+Dr. Cairn. It ultimately brought my grandfather to the madhouse, but
+my father was of sterner stuff, and so, it seems, was I. After those
+three years of horror I threw off the memories of Paul Dhoon, the
+third baron--"
+
+"It was on the night of your twenty-first birthday that you were
+admitted to the subterranean room?"
+
+"You know so much, Dr. Cairn, that you may as well know all."
+Lashmore's face was twitching. "But you are about to hear what no man
+has ever heard from the lips of one of my family before."
+
+He stood up again, restlessly.
+
+"Nearly thirty-five years have elapsed," he resumed, "since that
+December night; but my very soul trembles now, when I recall it! There
+was a big house-party at Dhoon, but I had been prepared, for some
+weeks, by my father, for the ordeal that awaited me. Our family
+mystery is historical, and there were many fearful glances bestowed
+upon me, when, at midnight, my father took me aside from the company
+and led me to the old library. By God! Dr. Cairn--fearful as these
+reminiscences are, it is a relief to relate them--to _someone_!"
+
+A sort of suppressed excitement was upon Lashmore, but his voice
+remained low and hollow.
+
+"He asked me," he continued, "the traditional question: if I had
+prayed for strength. God knows I had! Then, his stern face very pale,
+he locked the library door, and from a closet concealed beside the
+ancient fireplace--a closet which, hitherto, I had not known to
+exist--he took out a bulky key of antique workmanship. Together we set
+to work to remove all the volumes from one of the bookshelves.
+
+"Even when the shelves were empty, it called for our united efforts to
+move the heavy piece of furniture; but we accomplished the task
+ultimately, making visible a considerable expanse of panelling. Nearly
+forty years had elapsed since that case had been removed, and the
+carvings which it concealed were coated with all the dust which had
+accumulated there since the night of my father's coming of age.
+
+"A device upon the top of the centre panel represented the arms of the
+family; the helm which formed part of the device projected like a
+knob. My father grasped it, turned it, and threw his weight against
+the seemingly solid wall. It yielded, swinging inward upon concealed
+hinges, and a damp, earthy smell came out into the library. Taking up
+a lamp, which he had in readiness, my father entered the cavity,
+beckoning me to follow.
+
+"I found myself descending a flight of rough steps, and the roof above
+me was so low that I was compelled to stoop. A corner was come to,
+passed, and a further flight of steps appeared beneath. At that time
+the old moat was still flooded, and even had I not divined as much
+from the direction of the steps, I should have known, at this point,
+that we were beneath it. Between the stone blocks roofing us in oozed
+drops of moisture, and the air was at once damp and icily cold.
+
+"A short passage, commencing at the foot of the steps, terminated
+before a massive, iron-studded door. My father placed the key in the
+lock, and holding the lamp above his head, turned and looked at me. He
+was deathly pale.
+
+"'Summon all your fortitude,' he said.
+
+"He strove to turn the key, but for a long time without success for
+the lock was rusty. Finally, however--he was a strong man--his efforts
+were successful. The door opened, and an indescribable smell came out
+into the passage. Never before had I met with anything like it; I have
+never met with it since."
+
+Lord Lashmore wiped his brow with his handkerchief.
+
+"The first thing," he resumed, "upon which the lamplight shone, was
+what appeared to be a blood-stain spreading almost entirely over one
+wall of the cell which I perceived before me. I have learnt since that
+this was a species of fungus, not altogether uncommon, but at the
+time, and in that situation, it shocked me inexpressibly.
+
+"But let me hasten to that which we were come to see--let me finish
+my story as quickly as may be. My father halted at the entrance to
+this frightful cell; his hand, with which he held the lamp above his
+head, was not steady; and over his shoulder I looked into the place
+and saw ... _him_.
+
+"Dr. Cairn, for three years, night and day, that spectacle haunted me;
+for three years, night and day, I seemed to have before my eyes the
+dreadful face--the bearded, grinning face of Paul Dhoon. He lay there
+upon the floor of the dungeon, his fists clenched and his knees drawn
+up as if in agony. He had lain there for generations; yet, as God is
+my witness, there was flesh on his bones.
+
+"Yellow and seared it was, and his joints protruded through it, but
+his features were yet recognisable--horribly, dreadfully,
+recognisable. His black hair was like a mane, long and matted, his
+eyebrows were incredibly heavy and his lashes overhung his cheekbones.
+The nails of his fingers ... no! I will spare you! But his teeth, his
+ivory gleaming teeth--with the two wolf-fangs fully revealed by that
+death-grin!...
+
+"An aspen stake was driven through his breast, pinning him to the
+earthern floor, and there he lay in the agonised attitude of one who
+had died by such awful means. Yet--that stake was not driven through
+his unhallowed body until a whole year after his death!
+
+"How I regained the library I do not remember. I was unable to rejoin
+the guests, unable to face my fellow-men for days afterwards. Dr.
+Cairn, for three years I feared--feared the world--feared
+sleep--feared myself above all; for I knew that I had in my veins the
+blood of a _vampire_!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE POLISH JEWESS
+
+
+There was a silence of some minutes' duration. Lord Lashmore sat
+staring straight before him, his fists clenched upon his knees. Then:
+
+"It was after death that the third baron developed--certain
+qualities?" inquired Dr. Cairn.
+
+"There were six cases of death in the district within twelve months,"
+replied Lashmore. "The gruesome cry of 'vampire' ran through the
+community. The fourth baron--son of Paul Dhoon--turned a deaf ear to
+these reports, until the mother of a child--a child who had
+died--traced a man, or the semblance of a man, to the gate of the
+Dhoon family vault. By night, secretly, the son of Paul Dhoon visited
+the vault, and found....
+
+"The body, which despite twelve months in the tomb, looked as it had
+looked in life, was carried to the dungeon--in the Middle Ages a
+torture-room; no cry uttered there can reach the outer world--and was
+submitted to the ancient process for slaying a vampire. From that hour
+no supernatural visitant has troubled the district; but--"
+
+"But," said Dr. Cairn quietly, "the strain came from Mirza, the
+sorceress. What of her?"
+
+Lord Lashmore's eyes shone feverishly.
+
+"How do you know that she was a sorceress?" he asked, hoarsely. "These
+are family secrets."
+
+"They will remain so," Dr. Cairn answered. "But my studies have gone
+far, and I know that Mirza, wife of the third Baron Lashmore,
+practised the Black Art in life, and became after death a ghoul. Her
+husband surprised her in certain detestable magical operations and
+struck her head off. He had suspected her for some considerable time,
+and had not only kept secret the birth of her son but had secluded
+the child from the mother. No heir resulting from his second marriage,
+however, the son of Mirza became Baron Lashmore, and after death
+became what his mother had been before him.
+
+"Lord Lashmore, the curse of the house of Dhoon will prevail until the
+Polish Jewess who originated it has been treated as her son was
+treated!"
+
+"Dr. Cairn, it is not known where her husband had her body concealed.
+He died without revealing the secret. Do you mean that the taint, the
+devil's taint, may recur--Oh, my God! do you want to drive me mad?"
+
+"I do not mean that after so many generations which have been free
+from it, the vampirism will arise again in your blood; but I mean that
+the spirit, the unclean, awful spirit of that vampire woman, is still
+earth-bound. The son was freed, and with him went the hereditary
+taint, it seems; but the mother was _not_ freed! Her body was
+decapitated, but her vampire soul cannot go upon its appointed course
+until the ancient ceremonial has been performed!"
+
+Lord Lashmore passed his hand across his eyes.
+
+"You daze me, Dr. Cairn. In brief, what do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that the spirit of Mirza is to this day loose upon the world,
+and is forced, by a deathless, unnatural longing to seek incarnation
+in a human body. It is such awful pariahs as this, Lord Lashmore, that
+constitute the danger of so-called spiritualism. Given suitable
+conditions, such a spirit might gain control of a human being."
+
+"Do you suggest that the spirit of the second lady--"
+
+"It is distinctly possible that she haunts her descendants. I seem to
+remember a tradition of Dhoon Castle, to the effect that births and
+deaths are heralded by a woman's mocking laughter?"
+
+"I, myself, heard it on the night--I became Lord Lashmore."
+
+"That is the spirit who was known, in life, as Mirza, Lady Lashmore!"
+
+"But--"
+
+"It is possible to gain control of such a being."
+
+"By what means?"
+
+"By unhallowed means; yet there are those who do not hesitate to
+employ them. The danger of such an operation is, of course, enormous."
+
+"I perceive, Dr. Cairn, that a theory, covering the facts of my recent
+experiences, is forming in your mind."
+
+"That is so. In order that I may obtain corroborative evidence, I
+should like to call at your place this evening. Suppose I come
+ostensibly to see Lady Lashmore?"
+
+Lord Lashmore was watching the speaker.
+
+"There is someone in my household whose suspicions you do not wish to
+arouse?" he suggested.
+
+"There is. Shall we make it nine o'clock?"
+
+"Why not come to dinner?"
+
+"Thanks all the same, but I think it would serve my purpose better if
+I came later."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dr. Cairn and his son dined alone together in Half-Moon Street that
+night.
+
+"I saw Antony Ferrara in Regent Street to-day," said. Robert Cairn. "I
+was glad to see him."
+
+Dr. Cairn raised his heavy brows.
+
+"Why?" he asked.
+
+"Well, I was half afraid that he might have left London."
+
+"Paid a visit to Myra Duquesne in Inverness?"
+
+"It would not have surprised me."
+
+"Nor would it have surprised me, Rob, but I think he is stalking other
+game at present."
+
+Robert Cairn looked up quickly.
+
+"Lady Lashmore," he began--
+
+"Well?" prompted his father.
+
+"One of the Paul Pry brigade who fatten on scandal sent a veiled
+paragraph in to us at _The Planet_ yesterday, linking Ferrara's name
+with Lady Lashmores.' Of course we didn't use it; he had come to the
+wrong market; but--Ferrara was with Lady Lashmore when I met him
+to-day."
+
+"What of that?"
+
+"It is not necessarily significant, of course; Lord Lashmore in all
+probability will outlive Ferrara, who looked even more pallid than
+usual."
+
+"You regard him as an utterly unscrupulous fortune-hunter?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Did Lady Lashmore appear to be in good health?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+A silence fell, of some considerable duration, then:
+
+"Antony Ferrara is a menace to society," said Robert Cairn. "When I
+meet the reptilian glance of those black eyes of his and reflect upon
+what the man has attempted--what he has done--my blood boils. It is
+tragically funny to think that in our new wisdom we have abolished the
+only laws that could have touched him! He could not have existed in
+Ancient Chaldea, and would probably have been burnt at the stake even
+under Charles II.; but in this wise twentieth century he dallies in
+Regent Street with a prominent society beauty and laughs in the face
+of a man whom he has attempted to destroy!"
+
+"Be very wary," warned Dr. Cairn. "Remember that if you died
+mysteriously to-morrow, Ferrara would be legally immune. We must wait,
+and watch. Can you return here to-night, at about ten o'clock?"
+
+"I think I can manage to do so--yes."
+
+"I shall expect you. Have you brought up to date your record of those
+events which we know of, together with my notes and explanations?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I spent last evening upon the notes."
+
+"There may be something to add. This record, Rob, one day will be a
+weapon to destroy an unnatural enemy. I will sign two copies to-night
+and lodge one at my bank."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE LAUGHTER
+
+
+Lady Lashmore proved to be far more beautiful than Dr. Cairn had
+anticipated. She was a true brunette with a superb figure and eyes
+like the darkest passion flowers. Her creamy skin had a golden
+quality, as though it had absorbed within its velvet texture something
+of the sunshine of the South.
+
+She greeted Dr. Cairn without cordiality.
+
+"I am delighted to find you looking so well, Lady Lashmore," said the
+doctor. "Your appearance quite confirms my opinion."
+
+"Your opinion of what, Dr. Cairn?"
+
+"Of the nature of your recent seizure. Sir Elwin Groves invited my
+opinion and I gave it."
+
+Lady Lashmore paled perceptibly.
+
+"Lord Lashmore, I know," she said, "was greatly concerned, but indeed
+it was nothing serious--"
+
+"I quite agree. It was due to nervous excitement."
+
+Lady Lashmore held a fan before her face.
+
+"There have been recent happenings," she said--"as no doubt you are
+aware--which must have shaken anyone's nerves. Of course, I am
+familiar with your reputation, Dr. Cairn, as a psychical
+specialist--?"
+
+"Pardon me, but from whom have you learnt of it?"
+
+"From Mr. Ferrara," she answered simply. "He has assured me that you
+are the greatest living authority upon such matters."
+
+Dr. Cairn turned his head aside.
+
+"Ah!" he said grimly.
+
+"And I want to ask you a question," continued Lady Lashmore. "Have you
+any idea, any idea at all respecting the cause of the wounds upon my
+husband's throat? Do you think them due to--something supernatural?"
+
+Her voice shook, and her slight foreign accent became more marked.
+
+"Nothing is supernatural," replied Dr. Cairn; "but I think they are
+due to something supernormal. I would suggest that possibly you have
+suffered from evil dreams recently?"
+
+Lady Lashmore started wildly, and her eyes opened with a sort of
+sudden horror.
+
+"How can you know?" she whispered. "How can you know! Oh, Dr. Cairn!"
+She laid her hand upon his arm--"if you can prevent those dreams; if
+you can assure me that I shall never dream them again--!"
+
+It was a plea and a confession. This was what had lain behind her
+coldness--this horror which she had not dared to confide in another.
+
+"Tell me," he said gently. "You have dreamt these dreams twice?"
+
+She nodded, wide-eyed with wonder for his knowledge.
+
+"On the occasions of your husband's illnesses?"
+
+"Yes, yes!"
+
+"What did you dream?"
+
+"Oh! can I, dare I tell you!--"
+
+"You must."
+
+There was pity in his voice.
+
+"I dreamt that I lay in some very dark cavern. I could hear the sea
+booming, apparently over my head. But above all the noise a voice was
+audible, calling to me--not by name; I cannot explain in what way; but
+calling, calling imperatively. I seemed to be clothed but scantily, in
+some kind of ragged garments; and upon my knees I crawled toward the
+voice, through a place where there were other living things that
+crawled also--things with many legs and clammy bodies...."
+
+She shuddered and choked down an hysterical sob that was half a laugh.
+
+"My hair hung dishevelled about me and in some inexplicable way--oh!
+am I going mad!--my head seemed to be detached from my living body! I
+was filled with a kind of unholy anger which I cannot describe. Also,
+I was consumed with thirst, and this thirst...."
+
+"I think I understand," said Dr. Cairn quietly. "What followed?"
+
+"An interval--quite blank--after which I dreamt again. Dr. Cairn, I
+_cannot_ tell you of the dreadful, the blasphemous and foul thoughts,
+that then possessed me! I found myself resisting--resisting--something,
+some power that was dragging me back to that foul cavern with my thirst
+unslaked! I was frenzied; I dare not name, I tremble to think, of the
+ideas which filled my mind. Then, again came a blank, and I awoke."
+
+She sat trembling. Dr. Cairn noted that she avoided his gaze.
+
+"You awoke," he said, "on the first occasion, to find that your
+husband had met with a strange and dangerous accident?"
+
+"There was--something else."
+
+Lady Lashmore's voice had become a tremulous whisper.
+
+"Tell me; don't be afraid."
+
+She looked up; her magnificent eyes were wild with horror.
+
+"I believe you know!" she breathed. "Do you?"
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded.
+
+"And on the second occasion," he said, "you awoke earlier?"
+
+Lady Lashmore slightly moved her head.
+
+"The dream was identical?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Excepting these two occasions, you never dreamt it before?"
+
+"I dreamt _part_ of it on several other occasions; or only remembered
+part of it on waking."
+
+"Which part?"
+
+"The first; that awful cavern--"
+
+"And now, Lady Lashmore--you have recently been present at a
+spiritualistic _séance_."
+
+She was past wondering at his power of inductive reasoning, and merely
+nodded.
+
+"I suggest--I do not know--that the _séance_ was held under the
+auspices of Mr. Antony Ferrara, ostensibly for amusement."
+
+Another affirmative nod answered him.
+
+"You proved to be mediumistic?"
+
+It was admitted.
+
+"And now, Lady Lashmore"--Dr. Cairn's face was very stern--"I will
+trouble you no further."
+
+He prepared to depart; when--
+
+"Dr. Cairn!" whispered Lady Lashmore, tremulously, "some dreadful
+thing, something that I cannot comprehend but that I fear and loathe
+with all my soul, has come to me. Oh--for pity's sake, give me a word
+of hope! Save for you, I am alone with a horror I cannot name. Tell
+me--"
+
+At the door, he turned.
+
+"Be brave," he said--and went out.
+
+Lady Lashmore sat still as one who had looked upon Gorgon, her
+beautiful eyes yet widely opened and her face pale as death; for he
+had not even told her to hope.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Robert Cairn was sitting smoking in the library, a bunch of notes
+before him, when Dr. Cairn returned to Half-Moon Street. His face,
+habitually fresh coloured, was so pale that his son leapt up in alarm.
+But Dr. Cairn waved him away with a characteristic gesture of the
+hand.
+
+"Sit down, Rob," he said, quietly; "I shall be all right in a moment.
+But I have just left a woman--a young woman and a beautiful
+woman--whom a fiend of hell has condemned to that which my mind
+refuses to contemplate."
+
+Robert Cairn sat down again, watching his father.
+
+"Make out a report of the following facts," continued the latter,
+beginning to pace up and down the room.
+
+He recounted all that he had learnt of the history of the house of
+Dhoon and all that he had learnt of recent happenings from Lord and
+Lady Lashmore. His son wrote rapidly.
+
+"And now," said the doctor, "for our conclusions. Mirza, the Polish
+Jewess, who became Lady Lashmore in 1615, practised sorcery in life
+and became, after death, a ghoul--one who sustained an unholy
+existence by unholy means--a vampire."
+
+"But, sir! Surely that is but a horrible superstition of the Middle
+Ages!"
+
+"Rob, I could take you to a castle not ten miles from Cracow in Poland
+where there are--certain relics, which would for ever settle your
+doubts respecting the existence of vampires. Let us proceed. The son
+of Mirza, Paul Dhoon, inherited the dreadful proclivities of his
+mother, but his shadowy existence was cut short in the traditional,
+and effective, manner. Him we may neglect.
+
+"It is Mirza, the sorceress, who must engage our attention. She was
+decapitated by her husband. This punishment prevented her, in the
+unhallowed life which, for such as she, begins after ordinary decease,
+from practising the horrible rites of a vampire. Her headless body
+could not serve her as a vehicle for nocturnal wanderings, but the
+evil spirit of the woman might hope to gain control of some body more
+suitable.
+
+"Nurturing an implacable hatred against all of the house of Dhoon,
+that spirit, disembodied, would frequently be drawn to the
+neighbourhood of Mirza's descendants, both by hatred and by affinity.
+Two horrible desires of the Spirit Mirza would be gratified if a Dhoon
+could be made her victim--the desire for blood and the desire for
+vengeance! The fate of Lord Lashmore would be sealed if that spirit
+could secure incarnation!"
+
+Dr. Cairn paused, glancing at his son, who was writing at furious
+speed. Then--
+
+"A magician more mighty and more evil than Mirza ever was or could
+be," he continued, "a master of the Black Art, expelled a woman's
+spirit from its throne and temporarily installed in its place the
+blood-lustful spirit of Mirza!"
+
+"My God, sir!" cried Robert Cairn, and threw down his pencil. "I begin
+to understand!"
+
+"Lady Lashmore," said Dr. Cairn, "since she was weak enough to
+consent to be present at a certain _séance_, has, from time to time,
+been _possessed_; she has been possessed by the spirit of a vampire!
+Obedient to the nameless cravings of that control, she has sought out
+Lord Lashmore, the last of the House of Dhoon. The horrible attack
+made, a mighty will which, throughout her temporary incarnation, has
+held her like a hound in leash, has dragged her from her prey, has
+forced her to remove, from the garments clothing her borrowed body,
+all traces of the deed, and has cast her out again to the pit of
+abomination where her headless trunk was thrown by the third Baron
+Lashmore!
+
+"Lady Lashmore's brain retains certain memories. They have been
+received at the moment when possession has taken place and at the
+moment when the control has been cast out again. They thus are
+memories of some secret cavern near Dhoon Castle, where that headless
+but deathless body lies, and memories of the poignant moment when the
+vampire has been dragged back, her 'thirst unslaked,' by the ruling
+Will."
+
+"Merciful God!" muttered Robert Cairn, "Merciful God, can such things
+be!"
+
+"They can be--they are! Two ways have occurred to me of dealing with
+the matter," continued Dr. Cairn quietly. "One is to find that cavern
+and to kill, in the occult sense, by means of a stake, the vampire who
+lies there; the other which, I confess, might only result in the
+permanent 'possession' of Lady Lashmore--is to get at the power which
+controls this disembodied spirit--kill Antony Ferrara!"
+
+Robert Cairn went to the sideboard, and poured out brandy with a
+shaking hand.
+
+"What's his object?" he whispered.
+
+Dr. Cairn shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Lady Lashmore would be the wealthiest widow in society," he replied.
+
+"_He_ will know now," continued the younger man unsteadily, "that you
+are up against him. Have you--"
+
+"I have told Lord Lashmore to lock, at night, not only his outer door
+but also that of his dressing-room. For the rest--?" he dropped into
+an easy-chair,--"I cannot face the facts, I--"
+
+The telephone bell rang.
+
+Dr. Cairn came to his feet as though he had been electrified; and as
+he raised the receiver to his ear, his son knew, by the expression on
+his face, from where the message came and something of its purport.
+
+"Come with me," was all that he said, when he had replaced the
+instrument on the table.
+
+They went out together. It was already past midnight, but a cab was
+found at the corner of Half-Moon Street, and within the space of five
+minutes they were at Lord Lashmore's house.
+
+Excepting Chambers, Lord Lashmore's valet, no servants were to be
+seen.
+
+"They ran away, sir, out of the house," explained the man, huskily,
+"when it happened."
+
+Dr. Cairn delayed for no further questions, but raced upstairs, his
+son close behind him. Together they burst into Lord Lashmore's
+bedroom. But just within the door they both stopped, aghast.
+
+Sitting bolt upright in bed was Lord Lashmore, his face a dingy grey
+and his open eyes, though filming over, yet faintly alight with a
+stark horror ... dead. An electric torch was still gripped in his left
+hand.
+
+Bending over someone who lay upon the carpet near the bedside they
+perceived Sir Elwin Groves. He looked up. Some little of his usual
+self-possession had fled.
+
+"Ah, Cairn!" he jerked. "We've both come too late."
+
+The prostrate figure was that of Lady Lashmore, a loose kimono worn
+over her night-robe. She was white and still and the physician had
+been engaged in bathing a huge bruise upon her temple.
+
+"She'll be all right," said Sir Elwin; "she has sustained a tremendous
+blow, as you see. But Lord Lashmore--"
+
+Dr. Cairn stepped closer to the dead man.
+
+"Heart," he said. "He died of sheer horror."
+
+He turned to Chambers, who stood in the open doorway behind him.
+
+"The dressing-room door is open," he said. "I had advised Lord
+Lashmore to lock it."
+
+"Yes, sir; his lordship meant to, sir. But we found that the lock had
+been broken. It was to have been replaced to-morrow."
+
+Dr. Cairn turned to his son.
+
+"You hear?" he said. "No doubt you have some idea respecting which of
+the visitors to this unhappy house took the trouble to break that
+lock? It was to have been replaced to-morrow; hence the tragedy of
+to-night." He addressed Chambers again. "Why did the servants leave
+the house to-night?"
+
+The man was shaking pitifully.
+
+"It was the laughter, sir! the laughter! I can never forget it! I was
+sleeping in an adjoining room and I had the key of his lordship's door
+in case of need. But when I heard his lordship cry out--quick and
+loud, sir--like a man that's been stabbed--I jumped up to come to him.
+Then, as I was turning the doorknob--of my room, sir--someone,
+something, began to _laugh_! It was in here; it was in here,
+gentlemen! It wasn't--her ladyship; it wasn't like _any_ woman. I
+can't describe it; but it woke up every soul in the house."
+
+"When you came in?"
+
+"I daren't come in, sir! I ran downstairs and called up Sir Elwin
+Groves. Before he came, all the rest of the household huddled on their
+clothes and went away--"
+
+"It was I who found him," interrupted Sir Elwin--"as you see him now;
+with Lady Lashmore where she lies. I have 'phoned for nurses."
+
+"Ah!" said Dr. Cairn; "I shall come back, Groves, but I have a small
+matter to attend to."
+
+He drew his son from the room. On the stair:
+
+"You understand?" he asked. "The spirit of Mirza came to him again,
+clothed in his wife's body. Lord Lashmore felt the teeth at his
+throat, awoke instantly and struck out. As he did so, he turned the
+torch upon her, and recognised--his wife! His heart completed the
+tragedy, and so--to the laughter of the sorceress--passed the last of
+the house of Dhoon."
+
+The cab was waiting. Dr. Cairn gave an address in Piccadilly, and the
+two entered. As the cab moved off, the doctor took a revolver from his
+pocket, with some loose cartridges, charged the five chambers, and
+quietly replaced the weapon in his pocket again.
+
+One of the big doors of the block of chambers was found to be ajar,
+and a porter proved to be yet in attendance.
+
+"Mr. Ferrara?" began Dr. Cairn.
+
+"You are five minutes too late, sir," said the man. "He left by motor
+at ten past twelve. He's gone abroad, sir."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CAIRO
+
+
+The exact manner in which mental stress will effect a man's physical
+health is often difficult to predict. Robert Cairn was in the pink of
+condition at the time that he left Oxford to take up his London
+appointment; but the tremendous nervous strain wrought upon him by
+this series of events wholly outside the radius of normal things had
+broken him up physically, where it might have left unscathed a more
+highly strung, though less physically vigorous man.
+
+Those who have passed through a nerve storm such as this which had
+laid him low will know that convalescence seems like a welcome
+awakening from a dreadful dream. It was indeed in a state between
+awaking and dreaming that Robert Cairn took counsel with his
+father--the latter more pale than was his wont and somewhat
+anxious-eyed--and determined upon an Egyptian rest-cure.
+
+"I have made it all right at the office, Rob," said Dr. Cairn. "In
+three weeks or so you will receive instructions at Cairo to write up a
+series of local articles. Until then, my boy, complete rest and--don't
+worry; above all, don't worry. You and I have passed through a
+saturnalia of horror, and you, less inured to horrors than I, have
+gone down. I don't wonder."
+
+"Where is Antony Ferrara?"
+
+Dr. Cairn shook his head and his eyes gleamed with a sudden anger.
+"For God's sake don't mention his name!" he said. "That topic is
+taboo, Rob. I may tell you, however, that he has left England."
+
+In this unreal frame of mind, then, and as one but partly belonging to
+the world of things actual, Cairn found himself an invalid, who but
+yesterday had been a hale man; found himself shipped for Port Said;
+found himself entrained for Cairo; and with an awakening to the
+realities of life, an emerging from an ill-dream to lively interest in
+the novelties of Egypt, found himself following the red-jerseyed
+Shepheard's porter along the corridor of the train and out on to the
+platform.
+
+A short drive through those singular streets where East meets West and
+mingles, in the sudden, violet dusk of Lower Egypt, and he was amid
+the bustle of the popular hotel.
+
+Sime was there, whom he had last seen at Oxford, Sime the phlegmatic.
+He apologised for not meeting the train, but explained that his duties
+had rendered it impossible. Sime was attached temporarily to an
+archæological expedition as medical man, and his athletic and somewhat
+bovine appearance contrasted oddly with the unhealthy gauntness of
+Cairn.
+
+"I only got in from Wasta ten minutes ago, Cairn. You must come out to
+the camp when I return; the desert air will put you on your feet again
+in no time."
+
+Sime was unemotional, but there was concern in his voice and in his
+glance, for the change in Cairn was very startling. Although he knew
+something, if but very little, of certain happenings in
+London--gruesome happenings centering around the man called Antony
+Ferrara--he avoided any reference to them at the moment.
+
+Seated upon the terrace, Robert Cairn studied the busy life in the
+street below with all the interest of a new arrival in the Capital of
+the Near East. More than ever, now, his illness and the things which
+had led up to it seemed to belong to a remote dream existence. Through
+the railings at his feet a hawker was thrusting fly-whisks, and
+imploring him in complicated English to purchase one. Vendors of
+beads, of fictitious "antiques," of sweetmeats, of what-not;
+fortune-tellers--and all that chattering horde which some obscure
+process of gravitation seems to hurl against the terrace of
+Shepheard's, buzzed about him. Carriages and motor cars, camels and
+donkeys mingled, in the Shâria Kâmel Pasha. Voices American, voices
+Anglo-Saxon, guttural German tones, and softly murmured Arabic merged
+into one indescribable chord of sound; but to Robert Cairn it was all
+unspeakably restful. He was quite contented to sit there sipping his
+whisky and soda, and smoking his pipe. Sheer idleness was good for him
+and exactly what he wanted, and idling amid that unique throng is
+idleness _de luxe_.
+
+Sime watched him covertly, and saw that his face had acquired
+lines--lines which told of the fires through which he had passed.
+Something, it was evident--something horrible--had seared his mind.
+Considering the many indications of tremendous nervous disaster in
+Cairn, Sime wondered how near his companion had come to insanity, and
+concluded that he had stood upon the frontiers of that grim land of
+phantoms, and had only been plucked back in the eleventh hour.
+
+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 _Khamsîn_--the hot wind,
+you know. I was up the river a week ago and we struck it badly in
+Assouan. It grew as black as night and one couldn't breathe for sand.
+It's probably working down to Cairo."
+
+"From your description I am not anxious to make the acquaintance of
+_Khamsîn_!"
+
+Sime shook his head, knocking out his pipe into the ash-tray.
+
+"This is a funny country," he said reflectively. "The most weird ideas
+prevail here to this day--ideas which properly belong to the Middle
+Ages. For instance"--he began to recharge the hot bowl--"it is not
+really time for _Khamsîn_, consequently the natives feel called upon
+to hunt up some explanation of its unexpected appearance. Their ideas
+on the subject are interesting, if idiotic. One of our Arabs (we are
+excavating in the Fayûm, you know), solemnly assured me yesterday
+that the hot wind had been caused by an Efreet, a sort of Arabian
+Nights' demon, who has arrived in Egypt!"
+
+He laughed gruffly, but Cairn was staring at him with a curious
+expression. Sime continued:
+
+"When I got to Cairo this evening I found news of the Efreet had
+preceded me. Honestly, Cairn, it is all over the town--the native
+town, I mean. All the shopkeepers in the Mûski are talking about it.
+If a puff of _Khamsîn_ should come, I believe they would permanently
+shut up shop and hide in their cellars--if they have any! I am rather
+hazy on modern Egyptian architecture."
+
+Cairn nodded his head absently.
+
+"You laugh," he said, "but the active force of a superstition--what we
+call a superstition--is sometimes a terrible thing."
+
+Sime stared.
+
+"Eh!" The medical man had suddenly come uppermost; he recollected that
+this class of discussion was probably taboo.
+
+"You may doubt the existence of Efreets," 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 should you
+expect from a concentration of thousands of native minds upon the idea
+that an Efreet is visiting Egypt?"
+
+Sime stared in a dull way peculiar to him.
+
+"Rather a poser," he said. "I have a glimmer of a notion what you
+mean."
+
+"Don't you think--"
+
+"If you mean don't I think the result would be the creation of an
+Efreet, no, I don't!"
+
+"I hardly mean that, either," replied Cairn, "but this wave of
+superstition cannot be entirely unproductive; all that thought energy
+directed to one point--"
+
+Sime stood up.
+
+"We shall get out of our depth," he replied conclusively. He
+considered the ground of discussion an unhealthy one; this was the
+territory adjoining that of insanity.
+
+A fortune-teller from India proffered his services incessantly.
+
+"_Imshi_! _imshi_!" growled Sime.
+
+"Hold on," said Cairn smiling; "this chap is not an Egyptian; let us
+ask him if he has heard the rumour respecting the Efreet!"
+
+Sime reseated himself rather unwillingly. The fortune-teller spread
+his little carpet and knelt down in order to read the palm of his
+hypothetical client, but Cairn waved him aside.
+
+"I don't want my fortune told!" he said; "but I will give you your
+fee,"--with a smile at Sime--"for a few minutes' conversation."
+
+"Yes, sir, yes, sir!" The Indian was all attention.
+
+"Why"--Cairn pointed forensically at the fortune-teller--"why is
+_Khamsîn_ come so early this year?"
+
+The Indian spread his hands, palms upward.
+
+"How should I know?" he replied in his soft, melodious voice. "I am
+not of Egypt; I can only say what is told to me by the Egyptians."
+
+"And what is told to you?"
+
+Sime rested his hands upon his knees, bending forward curiously. He
+was palpably anxious that Cairn should have confirmation of the Efreet
+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; one that the great king, long, long ago, the king you
+call Wise ----"
+
+"Solomon?" suggested Cairn.
+
+"Yes, yes, Suleyman!--one that he, when he banish all the tribe of the
+demons from earth--one that he not found."
+
+"One he overlooked?" jerked Sime.
+
+"Yes, yes, overlook! A very evil man, my gentlemen. They tell me he
+has come to Egypt. He come not from the sea, but across the great
+desert--"
+
+"The Libyan Desert?" suggested Sime.
+
+The man shook, his head, seeking for words.
+
+"The Arabian Desert?"
+
+"No, no! Away beyond, far up in Africa"--he waved his long arms
+dramatically--"far, far up beyond the Sûdan."
+
+"The Sahara Desert?" proposed Sime.
+
+"Yes, yes! it is Sahara Desert!--come across the Sahara Desert, and is
+come to Khartûm."
+
+"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 Assouan,
+and from Assouan he come down to Luxor! Yesterday an Egyptian friend
+told me _Khamsîn_ is in the Fayûm. Therefore _he_ is there--the man of
+evil--for he bring the hot wind with him."
+
+The Indian was growing impressive, and two American tourists stopped
+to listen to his words.
+
+"To-night--to-morrow,"--he spoke now almost in a whisper, glancing
+about him as if apprehensive of being overheard--"he may be here, in
+Cairo, bringing with him the scorching breath of the desert--the
+scorpion wind!"
+
+He stood up, casting off the mystery with which he had invested his
+story, and smiling insinuatingly. His work was done; his fee was due.
+Sime rewarded him with five piastres, and he departed, bowing.
+
+"You know, Sime--" Cairn began to speak, staring absently the while
+after the fortune-teller, as he descended the carpeted steps and
+rejoined the throng on the sidewalk below--"you know, if a
+man--anyone, 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?"
+
+"By what process should you propose to make yourself such a focus?"
+
+"I was speaking impersonally, Sime. It might be possible--"
+
+"It might be possible to dress for dinner," snapped Sime, "if we shut
+up talking nonsense! There's a carnival here to-night; great fun.
+Suppose we concentrate our brain-waves on another Scotch and soda?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE MASK OF SET
+
+
+Above the palm trees swept the jewelled vault of Egypt's sky, and set
+amid the clustering leaves gleamed little red electric lamps; fairy
+lanterns outlined the winding paths and paper Japanese lamps hung
+dancing in long rows, whilst in the centre of the enchanted garden a
+fountain spurned diamond spray high in the air, to fall back coolly
+plashing into the marble home of the golden carp. The rustling of
+innumerable feet upon the sandy pathway and the ceaseless murmur of
+voices, with pealing laughter rising above all, could be heard amid
+the strains of the military band ensconced in a flower-covered arbour.
+
+Into the brightly lighted places and back into the luminous shadows
+came and went fantastic forms. Sheikhs there were with flowing robes,
+dragomans who spoke no Arabic, Sultans and priests of Ancient Egypt,
+going arm-in-arm. Dancing girls of old Thebes, and harem ladies in
+silken trousers and high-heeled red shoes. Queens of Babylon and
+Cleopatras, many Geishas and desert Gypsies mingled, specks in a giant
+kaleidoscope. 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 piping 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 it is nearly the end of
+the season."
+
+Three silken ladies wearing gauzy white _yashmaks_ confronted Cairn
+and the speaker. A gleaming of jewelled fingers there was and Cairn
+found himself half-choked with confetti, which filled his eyes, his
+nose, his ears, and of which quite a liberal amount found access to
+his mouth. The three ladies of the _yashmak_ ran screaming from their
+vengeance-seeking victims, Sime pursuing two, and Cairn hard upon the
+heels of the third. Amid this scene of riotous carnival all else was
+forgotten, and only the madness, the infectious madness of the night,
+claimed his mind. In and out of the strangely attired groups darted
+his agile quarry, all but captured a score of times, but always
+eluding him.
+
+Sime he had hopelessly lost, as around fountain and flower-bed, arbour
+and palm trunk he leapt in pursuit of the elusive _yashmak_.
+
+Then, in a shadowed corner of the garden, he trapped her. Plunging his
+hand into the bag of confetti, which he carried, he leapt, exulting,
+to his revenge: when a sudden gust of wind passed sibilantly through
+the palm tops, and glancing upward, Cairn saw that the blue sky was
+overcast and the stars gleaming dimly, as through a veil. That moment
+of hesitancy proved fatal to his project, for with a little excited
+scream the girl dived under his outstretched arm and fled back towards
+the fountain. He turned to pursue again, when a second puff of wind,
+stronger than the first, set waving the palm fronds and showered dry
+leaves upon the confetti carpet of the garden. The band played loudly,
+the murmur of conversation rose to something like a roar, but above it
+whistled the increasing breeze, and there was a sort of grittiness in
+the air.
+
+Then, proclaimed by a furious lashing of the fronds above, burst the
+wind in all its fury. It seemed to beat down into the garden in waves
+of heat. Huge leaves began to fall from the tree tops and the
+mast-like trunks bent before the fury from the desert. The atmosphere
+grew hazy with impalpable dust; and the stars were wholly obscured.
+
+Commenced a stampede from the garden. Shrill with fear, rose a woman's
+scream from the heart of the throng:
+
+"A scorpion! a scorpion!"
+
+Panic threatened, but fortunately the doors were wide, so that,
+without disaster the whole fantastic company passed into the hotel;
+and even the military band retired.
+
+Cairn perceived that he alone remained in the garden, and glancing
+along the path in the direction of the fountain, he saw a blotchy drab
+creature, fully four inches in length, running zigzag towards him. It
+was a huge scorpion; but, even as he leapt forward to crush it, it
+turned and crept in amid the tangle of flowers beside the path, where
+it was lost from view.
+
+The scorching wind grew momentarily fiercer, and Cairn, entering
+behind a few straggling revellers, found something ominous and
+dreadful in its sudden fury. At the threshold, he turned and looked
+back upon the gaily lighted garden. The paper lamps were thrashing in
+the wind, many extinguished; others were in flames; a number of
+electric globes fell from their fastenings amid the palm tops, and
+burst bomb-like upon the ground. The pleasure garden was now a
+battlefield, beset with dangers, and he fully appreciated the anxiety
+of the company to get within doors. Where chrysanthemum and _yashmak_
+turban and _tarboosh_, uraeus and Indian plume had mingled gaily, no
+soul remained; but yet--he was in error ... someone did remain.
+
+As if embodying the fear that in a few short minutes had emptied the
+garden, out beneath the waving lanterns, the flying _débris_, the
+whirling dust, pacing sombrely from shadow to light, and to shadow
+again, advancing towards the hotel steps, came the figure of one
+sandalled, and wearing the short white tunic of Ancient Egypt. His
+arms were bare, and he carried a long staff; but rising hideously upon
+his shoulders was a crocodile-mask, which seemed to grin--the mask of
+Set, Set the Destroyer, God of the underworld.
+
+Cairn, alone of all the crowd, saw the strange figure, for the reason
+that Cairn alone faced towards the garden. The gruesome mask seemed to
+fascinate him; he could not take his gaze from that weird advancing
+god; he felt impelled hypnotically to stare at the gleaming eyes set
+in the saurian head. The mask was at the foot of the steps, and still
+Cairn stood rigid. When, as the sandalled foot was set upon the first
+step, a breeze, dust-laden, and hot as from a furnace door, blew fully
+into the hotel, blinding him. A chorus arose from the crowd at his
+back; and many voices cried out for doors to be shut. Someone tapped
+him on the shoulder, and spun him about.
+
+"By God!"--it was Sime who now had him by the arm--"_Khamsîn_ has come
+with a vengeance! They tell me that they have never had anything like
+it!"
+
+The native servants were closing and fastening the doors. The night
+was now as black as Erebus, and the wind was howling about the
+building with the voices of a million lost souls. Cairn glanced back
+across his shoulder. Men were drawing heavy curtains across the doors
+and windows.
+
+"They have shut him out, Sime!" he said.
+
+Sime stared in his dull fashion.
+
+"You surely saw him?" persisted Cairn irritably; "the man in the mask
+of Set--he was coming in just behind me."
+
+Sime strode forward, pulled the curtains aside, and peered out into
+the deserted garden.
+
+"Not a soul, old man," he declared. "You must have seen the Efreet!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE SCORPION WIND
+
+
+This sudden and appalling change of weather had sadly affected the
+mood of the gathering. That part of the carnival planned to take place
+in the garden was perforce abandoned, together with the firework
+display. A halfhearted attempt was made at dancing, but the howling of
+the wind, and the omnipresent dust, perpetually reminded the
+pleasure-seekers that _Khamsîn_ raged without--raged with a violence
+unparalleled in the experience of the oldest residents. This was a
+full-fledged sand-storm, a terror of the Sahara descended upon Cairo.
+
+But there were few departures, although many of the visitors who had
+long distances to go, especially those from Mena House, discussed the
+advisability of leaving before this unique storm should have grown
+even worse. The general tendency, though, was markedly gregarious;
+safety seemed to be with the crowd, amid the gaiety, where music and
+laughter were, rather than in the sand-swept streets.
+
+"Guess we've outstayed our welcome!" confided an American lady to
+Sime. "Egypt wants to drive us all home now."
+
+"Possibly," he replied with a smile. "The season has run very late,
+this year, and so this sort of thing is more or less to be expected."
+
+The orchestra struck up a lively one-step, and a few of the more
+enthusiastic dancers accepted the invitation, but the bulk of the
+company thronged around the edge of the floor, acting as spectators.
+
+Cairn and Sime wedged a way through the heterogeneous crowd to the
+American Bar.
+
+"I prescribe a 'tango,'" said Sime.
+
+"A 'tango' is--?"
+
+"A 'tango,'" explained Sime, "is a new kind of cocktail sacred to this
+buffet. Try it. It will either kill you or cure you."
+
+Cairn smiled rather wanly.
+
+"I must confess that I need bucking up a bit," he said: "that
+confounded sand seems to have got me by the throat."
+
+Sime briskly gave his orders to the bar attendant.
+
+"You know," pursued Cairn, "I cannot get out of my head the idea that
+there was someone wearing a crocodile mask in the garden a while ago."
+
+"Look here," growled Sime, studying the operations of the cocktail
+manufacturer, "suppose there were--what about it?"
+
+"Well, it's odd that nobody else saw him."
+
+"I suppose it hasn't occurred to you that the fellow might have
+removed his mask?"
+
+Cairn shook his head slowly.
+
+"I don't think so," he declared; "I haven't seen him anywhere in the
+hotel."
+
+"Seen him?" Sime turned his dull gaze upon the speaker. "How should
+you know him?"
+
+Cairn raised his hand to his forehead in an oddly helpless way.
+
+"No, of course not--it's very extraordinary."
+
+They took their seats at a small table, and in mutual silence loaded
+and lighted their pipes. 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 back of all
+this erratic talk; he had clearly invested the Mask of Set with a
+curious individuality.
+
+"I gather that you had a stiff bout of it in London?" Sime said
+suddenly.
+
+Cairn nodded.
+
+"Beastly stiff. There is a lot of sound reason in your nervous theory,
+Sime. It was touch and go with me for days, I am told; yet,
+pathologically, I was a hale man. That would seem to show how nerves
+can kill. Just a series of shocks--horrors--one piled upon another,
+did as much for me as influenza, pneumonia, and two or three other
+ailments together could have done."
+
+Sime shook his head wisely; this was in accordance with his 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 him intently.
+
+"It will give you some idea, Sime, of the pitch to which things had
+come, when I tell you that my father drove to Ferrara's rooms one
+night, with a loaded revolver in his pocket--"
+
+"For"--Sime hesitated--"for protection?"
+
+"No." Cairn leant forward across the table--"to shoot him, Sime, 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 shocking scandal."
+
+"It would have been a martyrdom. The man who removes Antony Ferrara
+from the earth will be doing mankind a service worthy of the highest
+reward. 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, you remember a girl I told
+you about at Oxford one evening, a girl who came to visit him?"
+
+Sime nodded slowly.
+
+"Well--he killed her! Oh! there is no doubt about it; I saw her body
+in the hospital."
+
+"_How_ had he killed her, then?"
+
+"How? Only he and the God who permits him to exist can answer that,
+Sime. He killed her without coming anywhere near her--and he killed
+his adoptive father, Sir Michael Ferrara, by the same unholy means!"
+
+Sime watched him, but offered no comment.
+
+"It was hushed up, of course; there is no existing law which could be
+used against him."
+
+"_Existing_ law?"
+
+"They are ruled out, Sime, the laws that _could_ have reached him; but
+he would have been burnt at the stake in the Middle Ages!"
+
+"I see." Sime drummed his fingers upon the table. "You had those ideas
+about him at Oxford; and does Dr. Cairn seriously believe the same?"
+
+"He does. So would you--you could not doubt it, Sime, not for a
+moment, if you had seen what we have seen!" His eyes blazed into a
+sudden fury, suggestive of his old, robust self. "He tried night after
+night, by means of the same accursed sorcery, which everyone thought
+buried in the ruins of Thebes, to kill _me_! He projected--things--"
+
+"Suggested these--things, to your mind?"
+
+"Something like that. I saw, or thought I saw, and smelt--pah!--I seem
+to smell them now!--beetles, mummy-beetles, you know, from the skull
+of a mummy! My rooms were thick with them. It brought me very near to
+Bedlam, Sime. Oh! it was not merely imaginary. My father and I caught
+him red-handed." He glanced across at the other. "You read of the
+death of Lord Lashmore? It was just after you came out."
+
+"Yes--heart."
+
+"It was his heart, yes--but Ferrara was responsible! That was the
+business which led my father to drive to Ferrara's rooms with a loaded
+revolver in his pocket."
+
+The wind was shaking the windows, and whistling about the building
+with demoniacal fury as if seeking admission; the band played a
+popular waltz; and in and out of the open doors came and went groups
+representative of many ages and many nationalities.
+
+"Ferrara," began Sime slowly, "was always a detestable man, with his
+sleek black hair, and ivory face. Those long eyes of his had an
+expression which always tempted me to hit him. Sir Michael, if what
+you say is true--and after all, Cairn, it only goes to show how little
+we know of the nervous system--literally took a viper to his bosom."
+
+"He did. Antony Ferrara was his adopted son, of course; God knows to
+what evil brood he really belongs."
+
+Both were silent for a while. Then:
+
+"Gracious heavens!"
+
+Cairn started to his feet so wildly as almost to upset the table.
+
+"Look, Sime! look!" he cried.
+
+Sime was not the only man in the bar to hear, and to heed his words.
+Sime, looking in the direction indicated by Cairn's extended finger,
+received a vague impression that a grotesque, long-headed figure had
+appeared momentarily in the doorway opening upon the room where the
+dancers were; then it was gone again, if it had ever been there, and
+he was supporting Cairn, who swayed dizzily, and had become ghastly
+pale. Sime imagined that the heated air had grown suddenly even more
+heated. Curious eyes were turned upon, his companion, who now sank
+back into his chair, muttering:
+
+"The Mask, the Mask!"
+
+"I think I saw the chap who seems to worry you so much," said Sime
+soothingly. "Wait here; I will tell the waiter to bring you a dose of
+brandy; and whatever you do, don't get excited."
+
+He made for the door, pausing and giving an order to a waiter on his
+way, and pushed into the crowd outside. It was long past midnight, and
+the gaiety, which had been resumed, seemed of a forced and feverish
+sort. Some of the visitors were leaving, and a breath of hot wind
+swept in from the open doors.
+
+A pretty girl wearing a _yashmak_, who, with two similarly attired
+companions, was making her way to the entrance, attracted his
+attention; she seemed to be on the point of swooning. He recognised
+the trio for the same that had pelted Cairn and himself with confetti
+earlier in the evening.
+
+"The sudden heat has affected your friend," he said, stepping up to
+them. "My name is Dr. Sime; may I offer you my assistance?"
+
+The offer was accepted, and with the three he passed out on to the
+terrace, where the dust grated beneath the tread, and helped the
+fainting girl into an _arabîyeh_. The night was thunderously black,
+the heat almost insufferable, and the tall palms in front of the hotel
+bowed before the might of the scorching wind.
+
+As the vehicle drove off, Sime stood for a moment looking after it.
+His face was very grave, for there was a look in the bright eyes of
+the girl in the _yashmak_ which, professionally, he did not like.
+Turning up the steps, he learnt from the manager that several visitors
+had succumbed to the heat. There was something furtive in the manner
+of his informant's glance, and Sime looked at him significantly.
+
+"_Khamsîn_ brings clouds of septic dust with it," he said. "Let us
+hope that these attacks are due to nothing more than the unexpected
+rise in the temperature."
+
+An air of uneasiness prevailed now throughout the hotel. The wind had
+considerably abated, and crowds were leaving, pouring from the steps
+into the deserted street, a dreamlike company.
+
+Colonel Royland took Sime aside, as the latter was making his way back
+to the buffet. The Colonel, whose regiment was stationed at the
+Citadel, had known Sime almost from childhood.
+
+"You know, my boy," he said, "I should never have allowed Eileen" (his
+daughter) "to remain in Cairo, if I had foreseen this change in the
+weather. This infernal wind, coming right through the native town, is
+loaded with infection."
+
+"Has it affected her, then?" asked Sime anxiously.
+
+"She nearly fainted in the ball-room," replied the Colonel. "Her
+mother took her home half an hour ago. I looked for you everywhere,
+but couldn't find you."
+
+"Quite a number have succumbed," said Sime.
+
+"Eileen seemed to be slightly hysterical," continued the Colonel. "She
+persisted that someone wearing a crocodile mask had been standing
+beside her at the moment that she was taken ill."
+
+Sime started; perhaps Cairn's story was not a matter of imagination
+after all.
+
+"There is someone here, dressed like that, I believe," he replied,
+with affected carelessness. "He seems to have frightened several
+people. Any idea who he is?"
+
+"My dear chap!" cried the Colonel, "I have been searching the place
+for him! But I have never once set eyes upon him. I was about to ask
+if _you_ knew anything about it!"
+
+Sime returned to the table where Cairn was sitting. The latter seemed
+to have recovered somewhat; but he looked far from well. Sime stared
+at him critically.
+
+"I should turn in," he said, "if I were you. _Khamsîn_ is playing the
+deuce with people. I only hope it does not justify its name and blow
+for fifty days."
+
+"Have you seen the man in the mask!" asked Cairn.
+
+"No," replied Sime, "but he's here alright; others have seen him."
+
+Cairn stood up rather unsteadily, and with Sime made his way through
+the moving crowd to the stairs. The band was still playing, but the
+cloud of gloom which had settled upon the place, refused to be
+dissipated.
+
+"Good-night, Cairn," said Sime, "see you in the morning."
+
+Robert Cairn, with aching head and a growing sensation of nausea,
+paused on the landing, looking down into the court below. He could not
+disguise from himself that he felt ill, not nervously ill as in
+London, but physically sick. This superheated air was difficult to
+breathe; it seemed to rise in waves from below.
+
+Then, from a weary glancing at the figures beneath him, his attitude
+changed to one of tense watching.
+
+A man, wearing the crocodile mask of Set, stood by a huge urn
+containing a palm, looking up to the landing!
+
+Cairn's weakness left him, and in its place came an indescribable
+anger, a longing to drive his fist into that grinning mask. He turned
+and ran lightly down the stairs, conscious of a sudden glow of energy.
+Reaching the floor, he saw the mask making across the hall, in the
+direction of the outer door. As rapidly as possible, for he could not
+run, without attracting undesirable attention, Cairn followed. The
+figure of Set passed out on to the terrace, but when Cairn in turn
+swung open the door, his quarry had vanished.
+
+Then, in an _arabîyeh_ just driving off, he detected the hideous mask.
+Hatless as he was, he ran down the steps and threw himself into
+another. The carriage-controller was in attendance, and Cairn rapidly
+told him to instruct the driver to follow the _arabîyeh_ which had
+just left. The man lashed up his horses, turned the carriage, and went
+galloping on after the retreating figure. Past the Esbekîya Gardens
+they went, through several narrow streets, and on to the quarter of
+the Mûski. Time after time he thought he had lost the carriage ahead,
+but his own driver's knowledge of the tortuous streets enabled him
+always to overtake it again. They went rocking along lanes so narrow
+that with outstretched arms one could almost have touched the walls on
+either side; past empty shops and unlighted houses. Cairn had not the
+remotest idea of his whereabouts, save that he was evidently in the
+district of the bazaars. A right-angled corner was abruptly
+negotiated--and there, ahead of him, stood the pursued vehicle! The
+driver was turning his horses around, to return; his fare was
+disappearing from sight into the black shadows of a narrow alley on
+the left.
+
+Cairn leaped from the _arabîyeh_, shouting to the man to wait, and
+went dashing down the sloping lane after the retreating figure. A sort
+of blind fury possessed him, but he never paused to analyse it, never
+asked himself by what right he pursued this man, what wrong the latter
+had done him. His action was wholly unreasoning; he knew that he
+wished to overtake the wearer of the mask and to tear it from his
+head; upon that he acted!
+
+He discovered that despite the tropical heat of the night, he was
+shuddering with cold, but he disregarded this circumstance, and ran
+on.
+
+The pursued stopped before an iron-studded door, which was opened
+instantly; he entered as the runner came up with him. And, before the
+door could be reclosed, Cairn thrust his way in.
+
+Blackness, utter blackness, was before him. The figure which he had
+pursued seemed to have been swallowed up. He stumbled on, gropingly,
+hands outstretched, then fell--fell, as he realised in the moment of
+falling, down a short flight of stone steps.
+
+Still amid utter blackness, he got upon his feet, shaken but otherwise
+unhurt by his fall. He turned about, expecting to see some glimmer of
+light from the stairway, but the blackness was unbroken. Silence and
+gloom hemmed him in. He stood for a moment, listening intently.
+
+A shaft of light pierced the darkness, as a shutter was thrown open.
+Through an iron-barred window the light shone; and with the light came
+a breath of stifling perfume. That perfume carried his imagination
+back instantly to a room at Oxford, and he advanced and looked through
+into the place beyond. He drew a swift breath, clutched the bars, and
+was silent--stricken speechless.
+
+He looked into a large and lofty room, lighted by several hanging
+lamps. It had a carpeted divan at one end and was otherwise scantily
+furnished, in the Eastern manner. A silver incense-burner smoked upon
+a large praying-carpet, and by it stood the man in the crocodile mask.
+An Arab girl, fantastically attired, who had evidently just opened the
+shutters, was now helping him to remove the hideous head-dress.
+
+She presently untied the last of the fastenings and lifted the thing
+from the man's shoulders, moving away with the gliding step of the
+Oriental, and leaving him standing there in his short white tunic,
+bare-legged and sandalled.
+
+The smoke of the incense curled upward and played around the straight,
+slim figure, drew vaporous lines about the still, ivory face--the
+handsome, sinister face, sometimes partly veiling the long black eyes
+and sometimes showing them in all their unnatural brightness. So the
+man stood, looking towards the barred window.
+
+It was Antony Ferrara!
+
+"Ah, dear Cairn--" the husky musical voice smote upon Cairn's ears as
+the most hated sound in nature--"you have followed me. Not content
+with driving me from London, you would also render Cairo--my dear
+Cairo--untenable for me."
+
+Cairn clutched the bars but was silent.
+
+"How wrong of you, Cairn!" the soft voice mocked. "This attention is
+so harmful--to you. Do you know, Cairn, the Sudanese formed the
+extraordinary opinion that I was an _efreet_, and this strange
+reputation has followed me right down the Nile. 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 direction of the _Khamsîn_, 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, and
+Cairn kept his eyes upon the evil face, and with trembling hands
+clutched the bars.
+
+"It is certainly odd, is it not," resumed the taunting voice, "that
+_Khamsîn_, so violent, too, should thus descend upon the Cairene
+season? I only arrived from the Fayûm this evening, Cairn, and, do you
+know, they have the pestilence there! I trust the hot wind does not
+carry it to Cairo; there are so many distinguished European and
+American visitors here. It would be a thousand pities!"
+
+Cairn released his grip of the bars, raised his clenched fists above
+his head, and in a voice and with a maniacal fury that were neither
+his own, cursed the man who stood there mocking him. Then he reeled,
+fell, and remembered no more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"All right, old man--you'll do quite nicely now."
+
+It was Sime speaking.
+
+Cairn struggled upright ... and found himself in bed! Sime was seated
+beside him.
+
+"Don't talk!" said Sime, "you're in hospital! I'll do the talking; you
+listen. I saw you bolt out of Shepheard's last night--shut up! I
+followed, but lost you. We got up a search party, and with the aid of
+the man who had driven you, ran you to earth in a dirty alley behind
+the mosque of El-Azhar. Four kindly mendicants, who reside upon the
+steps of the establishment, had been awakened by your blundering in
+among them. They were holding you--yes, you were raving pretty badly.
+You are a lucky man, Cairn. You were inoculated before you left home?"
+
+Cairn nodded weakly.
+
+"Saved you. Be all right in a couple of days. That damned _Khamsîn_
+has brought a whiff of the plague from somewhere! Curiously enough,
+over fifty per cent. of the cases spotted so far are people who were
+at the carnival! Some of them, Cairn--but we won't discuss that now. I
+was afraid of it, last night. That's why I kept my eye on you. My boy,
+you were delirious when you bolted out of the hotel!"
+
+"Was I?" said Cairn wearily, and lay back on the pillow. "Perhaps I
+was."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+DR. CAIRN ARRIVES
+
+
+Dr. Bruce Cairn stepped into the boat which was to take him ashore,
+and as it swung away from the side of the liner sought to divert his
+thoughts by a contemplation of the weird scene. Amid the smoky flare
+of many lights, amid rising clouds of dust, a line of laden toilers
+was crawling ant-like from the lighters into the bowels of the big
+ship; and a second line, unladen, was descending by another gangway.
+Above, the jewelled velvet of the sky swept in a glorious arc; beyond,
+the lights of Port Said broke through the black curtain of the night,
+and the moving ray from the lighthouse intermittently swept the
+harbour waters; whilst, amid the indescribable clamour, the grimily
+picturesque turmoil, so characteristic of the place, the liner took in
+coal for her run to Rangoon.
+
+Dodging this way and that, rounding the sterns of big ships, and
+disputing the water-way with lesser craft, the boat made for shore.
+
+The usual delay at the Custom House, the usual soothing of the excited
+officials in the usual way, and his _arabîyeh_ was jolting Dr. Cairn
+through the noise and the smell of those rambling streets, a noise and
+a smell entirely peculiar to this clearing-house of the Near East.
+
+He accepted the room which was offered to him at the hotel, without
+troubling to inspect it, and having left instructions that he was to
+be called in time for the early train to Cairo, he swallowed a whisky
+and soda at the buffet, and wearily ascended the stairs. There were
+tourists in the hotel, English and American, marked by a gaping
+wonderment, and loud with plans of sightseeing; but Port Said, nay all
+Egypt, had nothing of novelty to offer Dr. Cairn. He was there at
+great inconvenience; a practitioner of his repute may not easily
+arrange to quit London at a moment's notice. But the business upon
+which he was come was imperative. For him the charm of the place had
+not existence, but somewhere in Egypt his son stood in deadly peril,
+and Dr. Cairn counted the hours that yet divided them. His soul was up
+in arms against the man whose evil schemes had led to his presence in
+Port Said, at a time when many sufferers required his ministrations in
+Half-Moon Street. He was haunted by a phantom, a ghoul in human shape;
+Antony Ferrara, the adopted son of his dear friend, the adopted son,
+who had murdered his adopter, who whilst guiltless in the eyes of the
+law, was blood-guilty in the eyes of God!
+
+Dr. Cairn switched on the light and seated himself upon the side of
+the bed, knitting his brows and staring straight before him, with an
+expression in his clear grey eyes whose significance he would have
+denied hotly, had any man charged him with it. He was thinking of
+Antony Ferrara's record; the victims of this fiendish youth (for
+Antony Ferrara was barely of age) seemed to stand before him with
+hands stretched out appealingly.
+
+"You alone," they seemed to cry, "know who and what he is! You alone
+know of our awful wrongs; you alone can avenge them!"
+
+And yet he had hesitated! It had remained for his own flesh and blood
+to be threatened ere he had taken decisive action. The viper had lain
+within his reach, and he had neglected to set his heel upon it. Men
+and women had suffered and had died of its venom; and he had not
+crushed it. Then Robert, his son, had felt the poison fang, and Dr.
+Cairn, who had hesitated to act upon the behalf of all humanity, had
+leapt to arms. He charged himself with a parent's selfishness, and his
+conscience would hear no defence.
+
+Dimly, the turmoil from the harbour reached him where he sat. He
+listened dully to the hooting of a syren--that of some vessel coming
+out of the canal.
+
+His thoughts were evil company, and, with a deep sigh, he rose,
+crossed the room and threw open the double windows, giving access to
+the balcony.
+
+Port Said, a panorama of twinkling lights, lay beneath him. The beam
+from the lighthouse swept the town searchingly like the eye of some
+pagan god lustful for sacrifice. He imagined that he could hear the
+shouting of the gangs coaling the liner in the harbour; but the night
+was full of the remote murmuring inseparable from that gateway of the
+East. The streets below, white under the moon, looked empty and
+deserted, and the hotel beneath him gave up no sound to tell of the
+many birds of passage who sheltered within it. A stunning sense of his
+loneliness came to him; his physical loneliness was symbolic of that
+which characterised his place in the world. He, alone, had the
+knowledge and the power to crush Antony Ferrara. He, alone, could rid
+the world of the unnatural menace embodied in the person bearing that
+name.
+
+The town lay beneath his eyes, but now he saw nothing of it; before
+his mental vision loomed--exclusively--the figure of a slim and
+strangely handsome young man, having jet black hair, lustreless, a
+face of uniform ivory hue, long dark eyes wherein lurked lambent
+fires, and a womanish grace expressed in his whole bearing and
+emphasised by his long white hands. Upon a finger of the left hand
+gleamed a strange green stone.
+
+Antony Ferrara! In the eyes of this solitary traveller, who stood
+looking down upon Port Said, that figure filled the entire landscape
+of Egypt!
+
+With a weary sigh, Dr. Cairn turned and began to undress. Leaving the
+windows open, he switched off the light and got into bed. He was very
+weary, with a weariness rather of the spirit than of the flesh, but it
+was of that sort which renders sleep all but impossible. Around and
+about one fixed point his thoughts circled; in vain he endeavoured to
+forget, for a while, Antony Ferrara and the things connected with him.
+Sleep was imperative, if he would be in fit condition to cope with the
+matters which demanded his attention in Cairo.
+
+Yet sleep defied him. Every trifling sound from the harbour and the
+canal seemed to rise upon the still air to his room. Through a sort of
+mist created by the mosquito curtains, he could see the open windows,
+and look out upon the stars. He found himself studying the heavens
+with sleepless eyes, and idly working out the constellations visible.
+Then one very bright star attracted the whole of his attention, and,
+with the dogged persistency of insomnia, he sought to place it, but
+could not determine to which group it belonged.
+
+So he lay with his eyes upon the stars until the other veiled lamps of
+heaven became invisible, and the patch of sky no more than a setting
+for that one white orb.
+
+In this contemplation he grew restful; his thoughts ceased feverishly
+to race along that one hateful groove; the bright star seemed to
+soothe him. As a result of his fixed gazing, it now appeared to have
+increased in size. This was a common optical delusion, upon which he
+scarcely speculated at all. He recognised the welcome approach of
+sleep, and deliberately concentrated his mind upon the globe of light.
+
+Yes, a globe of light indeed--for now it had assumed the dimensions of
+a lesser moon; and it seemed to rest in the space between the open
+windows. Then, he thought that it crept still nearer. The
+realities--the bed, the mosquito curtain, the room--were fading, and
+grateful slumber approached, and weighed upon his eyes in the form of
+that dazzling globe. The feeling of contentment was the last
+impression which he had, ere, with the bright star seemingly suspended
+just beyond the netting, he slept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE WITCH-QUEEN
+
+
+A man mentally over-tired sleeps either dreamlessly, or dreams with a
+vividness greater than that characterising the dreams of normal
+slumber. Dr. Cairn dreamt a vivid dream.
+
+He dreamt that he was awakened by the sound of a gentle rapping.
+Opening his eyes, he peered through the cloudy netting. He started up,
+and wrenched back the curtain. The rapping was repeated; and peering
+again across the room, he very distinctly perceived a figure upon the
+balcony by the open window. It was that of a woman who wore the black
+silk dress and the white _yashmak_ of the Moslem, and who was bending
+forward looking into the room.
+
+"Who is there?" he called. "What do you want?"
+
+"_S--sh_!"
+
+The woman raised her hand to her veiled lips, and looked right and
+left as if fearing to disturb the occupants of the adjacent rooms.
+
+Dr. Cairn reached out for his dressing-gown which lay upon the chair
+beside the bed, threw it over his shoulders, and stepped out upon the
+floor. He stooped and put on his slippers, never taking his eyes from
+the figure at the window. The room was flooded with moonlight.
+
+He began to walk towards the balcony, when the mysterious visitor
+spoke.
+
+"You are Dr. Cairn?"
+
+The words were spoken in the language of dreams; that is to say, that
+although he understood them perfectly, he knew that they had not been
+uttered in the English language, nor in any language known to him;
+yet, as is the way with one who dreams, he had understood.
+
+"I am he," he said. "Who are you?"
+
+"Make no noise, but follow me quickly. Someone is very ill."
+
+There was sincerity in the appeal, spoken in the softest, most silvern
+tone which he had ever heard. He stood beside the veiled woman, and
+met the glance of her dark eyes with a consciousness of some magnetic
+force in the glance, which seemed to set his nerves quivering.
+
+"Why do you come to the window? How do you know--"
+
+The visitor raised her hand again to her lips. It was of a gleaming
+ivory colour, and the long tapered fingers were laden with singular
+jewellery--exquisite enamel work, which he knew to be Ancient
+Egyptian, but which did not seem out of place in this dream adventure.
+
+"I was afraid to make any unnecessary disturbance," she replied.
+"Please do not delay, but come at once."
+
+Dr. Cairn adjusted his dressing-gown, and followed the veiled
+messenger along the balcony. For a dream city, Port Said appeared
+remarkably substantial, as it spread out at his feet, its dingy
+buildings whitened by the moonlight. But his progress was dreamlike,
+for he seemed to glide past many windows, around the corner of the
+building, and, without having consciously exerted any physical effort,
+found his hands grasped by warm jewelled fingers, found himself guided
+into some darkened room, and then, possessed by that doubting which
+sometimes comes in dreams, found himself hesitating. The moonlight did
+not penetrate to the apartment in which he stood, and the darkness
+about him was impenetrable.
+
+But the clinging fingers did not release their hold, and vaguely aware
+that he was acting in a manner which might readily be misconstrued, he
+nevertheless allowed his unseen guide to lead him forward.
+
+Stairs were descended in phantom silence--many stairs. The coolness of
+the air suggested that they were outside the hotel. But the darkness
+remained complete. Along what seemed to be a stone-paved passage they
+advanced mysteriously, and by this time Dr. Cairn was wholly resigned
+to the strangeness of his dream.
+
+Then, although the place lay in blackest shadow, he saw that they were
+in the open air, for the starry sky swept above them.
+
+It was a narrow street--at points, the buildings almost met
+above--wherein, he now found himself. In reality, had he been in
+possession of his usual faculties, awake, he would have asked himself
+how this veiled woman had gained admittance to the hotel, and why she
+had secretly led him out from it. But the dreamer's mental lethargy
+possessed him, and, with the blind faith of a child, he followed on,
+until he now began vaguely to consider the personality of his guide.
+
+She seemed to be of no more than average height, but she carried
+herself with unusual grace, and her progress was marked by a certain
+hauteur. At the point where a narrow lane crossed that which they were
+traversing the veiled figure was silhouetted for a moment against the
+light of the moon, and through the gauze-like fabric, he perceived the
+outlines of a perfect shape. His vague wonderment, concerned itself
+now with the ivory, jewel-laden hands. His condition differed from the
+normal dream state, in that he was not entirely resigned to the
+anomalous.
+
+Misty doubts were forming, when his dream guide paused before a heavy
+door of a typical native house which once had been of some
+consequence, and which faced the entrance to a mosque, indeed lay in
+the shadow of the minaret. It was opened from within, although she
+gave no perceptible signal, and its darkness, to Dr. Cairn's dulled
+perceptions, seemed to swallow them both up. He had an impression of a
+trap raised, of stone steps descended, of a new darkness almost
+palpable.
+
+The gloom of the place effected him as a mental blank, and, when a
+bright light shone out, it seemed to mark the opening of a second dream
+phase. From where the light came, he knew not, cared not, but it
+illuminated a perfectly bare room, with a floor of native mud bricks, a
+plastered wall, and wood-beamed ceiling. A tall sarcophagus stood
+upright against the wall before him; its lid leant close beside it ...
+and his black robed guide, her luminous eyes looking straightly over the
+yashmak, stood rigidly upright-within it!
+
+She raised the jewelled hands, and with a swift movement discarded
+robe and _yashmak_, and stood before him, in the clinging draperies of
+an ancient queen, wearing the leopard skin and the _uraeus_, and
+carrying the flail of royal Egypt!
+
+Her pale face formed a perfect oval; the long almond eyes had an evil
+beauty which seemed to chill; and the brilliantly red mouth was curved
+in a smile which must have made any man forget the evil in the eyes.
+But when we move in a dream world, our emotions become dreamlike too.
+She placed a sandalled foot upon the mud floor and stepped out of the
+sarcophagus, advancing towards Dr. Cairn, a vision of such sinful
+loveliness as he could never have conceived in his waking moments. In
+that strange dream language, in a tongue not of East nor West, she
+spoke; and her silvern voice had something of the tone of those
+Egyptian pipes whose dree fills the nights upon the Upper Nile--the
+seductive music of remote and splendid wickedness.
+
+"You know me, _now_?" she whispered.
+
+And in his dream she seemed to be a familiar figure, at once dreadful
+and worshipful.
+
+A fitful light played through the darkness, and seemed to dance upon a
+curtain draped behind the sarcophagus, picking out diamond points. The
+dreamer groped in the mental chaos of his mind, and found a clue to
+the meaning of this. The diamond points were the eyes of thousands of
+tarantula spiders with which the curtain was broidered.
+
+The sign of the spider! What did he know of it? Yes! of course; it was
+the secret mark of Egypt's witch-queen--of the beautiful woman whose
+name, after her mysterious death, had been erased from all her
+monuments. A sweet whisper stole to his ears:
+
+"You will befriend him, befriend my son--for _my_ sake."
+
+And in his dream-state he found himself prepared to foreswear all that
+he held holy--for her sake. She grasped both his hands, and her
+burning eyes looked closely into his.
+
+"Your reward shall be a great one," she whispered, even more softly.
+
+Came a sudden blank, and Dr. Cairn found himself walking again through
+the narrow street, led by the veiled woman. His impressions were
+growing dim; and now she seemed less real than hitherto. The streets
+were phantom streets, built of shadow stuff, and the stairs which
+presently he found himself ascending, were unsubstantial, and he
+seemed rather to float upward; until, with the jewelled fingers held
+fast in his own, he stood in a darkened apartment, and saw before him
+an open window, knew that he was once more back in the hotel. A dim
+light dawned in the blackness of the room and the musical voice
+breathed in his ear:
+
+"Your reward shall be easily earned. I did but test you. Strike--and
+strike truly!"
+
+The whisper grew sibilant--serpentine. Dr. Cairn felt the hilt of a
+dagger thrust into his right hand, and in the dimly-mysterious light
+looked down at one who lay in a bed close beside him.
+
+At sight of the face of the sleeper--the perfectly-chiselled face,
+with the long black lashes resting on the ivory cheeks--he forgot all
+else, forgot the place wherein he stood, forgot his beautiful guide,
+and only remembered that he held a dagger in his hand, and that Antony
+Ferrara lay there, sleeping!
+
+"Strike!" came the whisper again.
+
+Dr. Cairn felt a mad exultation boiling up within him. He raised his
+hand, glanced once more on the face of the sleeper, and nerved himself
+to plunge the dagger into the heart of this evil thing.
+
+A second more, and the dagger would have been buried to the hilt in
+the sleeper's breast--when there ensued a deafening, an appalling
+explosion. A wild red light illuminated the room, the building seemed
+to rock. Close upon that frightful sound followed a cry so piercing
+that it seemed to ice the blood in Dr. Cairn's veins.
+
+"Stop, sir, stop! My God! what are you doing!"
+
+A swift blow struck the dagger from his hand and the figure on the bed
+sprang upright. Swaying dizzily, Dr. Cairn stood there in the
+darkness, and as the voice of awakened sleepers reached his ears from
+adjoining rooms, the electric light was switched on, and across the
+bed, the bed upon which he had thought Antony Ferrara lay, he saw his
+son, Robert Cairn!
+
+No one else was in the room. But on the carpet at his feet lay an
+ancient dagger, the hilt covered with beautiful and intricate gold and
+enamel work.
+
+Rigid with a mutual horror, these two so strangely met stood staring
+at one another across the room. Everyone in the hotel, it would
+appear, had been awakened by the explosion, which, as if by the
+intervention of God, had stayed the hand of Dr. Cairn--had spared him
+from a deed impossible to contemplate.
+
+There were sounds of running footsteps everywhere; but the origin of
+the disturbance at that moment had no interest for these two. Robert
+was the first to break the silence.
+
+"Merciful God, sir!" he whispered huskily, "how did you come to be
+here? What is the matter? Are you ill?"
+
+Dr. Cairn extended his hands like one groping in darkness.
+
+"Rob, give me a moment, to think, to collect myself. Why am I here? By
+all that is wonderful, why are _you_ here?"
+
+"I am here to meet you."
+
+"To meet me! I had no idea that you were well enough for the journey,
+and if you came to meet me, why--"
+
+"That's it, sir! Why did you send me that wireless?"
+
+"I sent no wireless, boy!"
+
+Robert Cairn, with a little colour returning to his pale cheeks,
+advanced and grasped his father's hand.
+
+"But after I arrived here to meet the boat, sir I received a wireless
+from the P. and O. due in the morning, to say that you had changed
+your mind, and come _via_ Brindisi."
+
+Dr. Cairn glanced at the dagger upon the carpet, repressed a shudder,
+and replied in a voice which he struggled to make firm:
+
+"_I_ did not send that wireless!"
+
+"Then you actually came by the boat which arrived last night?--and to
+think that I was asleep in the same hotel! What an amazing--"
+
+"Amazing indeed, Rob, and the result of a cunning and well planned
+scheme." He raised his eyes, looking fixedly at his son. "You
+understand the scheme; the scheme that could only have germinated in
+one mind--a scheme to cause me, your father, to--"
+
+His voice failed and again his glance sought the weapon which lay so
+close to his feet. Partly in order to hide his emotion, he stooped,
+picked up the dagger, and threw it on the bed.
+
+"For God's sake, sir," groaned Robert, "what were you doing here in my
+room with--that!"
+
+Dr. Cairn stood straightly upright and replied in an even voice:
+
+"I was here to do murder!"
+
+"_Murder_!"
+
+"I was under a spell--no need to name its weaver; I thought that a
+poisonous thing at last lay at my mercy, and by cunning means the
+primitive evil within me was called up, and braving the laws of God
+and man, I was about to slay that thing. Thank God!--"
+
+He dropped upon his knees, silently bowed his head for a moment, and
+then stood up, self-possessed again, as his son had always known him.
+It had been a strange and awful awakening for Robert Cairn--to find
+his room illuminated by a lurid light, and to find his own father
+standing over him with a knife! But what had moved him even more
+deeply than the fear of these things, had been the sight of the
+emotion which had shaken that stern and unemotional man. Now, as he
+gathered together his scattered wits, he began to perceive that a
+malignant hand was moving above them, that his father, and himself,
+were pawns, which had been moved mysteriously to a dreadful end.
+
+A great disturbance had now arisen in the streets below, streams of
+people it seemed, were pouring towards the harbour; but Dr. Cairn
+pointed to an armchair.
+
+"Sit down, Rob," he said. "I will tell my story, and you shall tell
+yours. By comparing notes, we can arrive at some conclusion. Then we
+must act. This is a fight to a finish, and I begin to doubt if we are
+strong enough to win."
+
+He took up the dagger and ran a critical glance over it, from the keen
+point to the enamelled hilt.
+
+"This is unique," he muttered, whilst his son, spellbound, watched
+him; "the blade is as keen as if tempered but yesterday; yet it was
+made full five thousand years ago, as the workmanship of the hilt
+testifies. Rob, we deal with powers more than human! We have to cope
+with a force which might have awed the greatest Masters which the
+world has known. It would have called for all the knowledge, and all
+the power of Apollonius of Tyana to have dealt with--_him_!"
+
+"Antony Ferrara!"
+
+"Undoubtedly, Rob! it was by the agency of Antony Ferrara that the
+wireless message was sent to you from the P. and O. It was by the
+agency of Antony Ferrara that I dreamt a dream to-night. In fact it
+was no true dream; I was under the influence of--what shall I term
+it?--hypnotic suggestion. To what extent that malign will was
+responsible for you and I being placed in rooms communicating by means
+of a balcony, we probably shall never know; but if this proximity was
+merely accidental, the enemy did not fail to take advantage of the
+coincidence. I lay watching the stars before I slept, and one of them
+seemed to grow larger as I watched." He began to pace about the room
+in growing excitement. "Rob, I cannot doubt that a mirror, or a
+crystal, was actually suspended before my eyes by--someone, who had
+been watching for the opportunity. I yielded myself to the soothing
+influence, and thus deliberately--deliberately--placed myself in the
+power of--Antony Ferrara--"
+
+"You think that he is here, in this hotel?"
+
+"I cannot doubt that he is in the neighbourhood. The influence was too
+strong to have emanated from a mind at a great distance removed. I
+will tell you exactly what I dreamt."
+
+He dropped into a cane armchair. Comparative quiet reigned again in
+the streets below, but a distant clamour told of some untoward
+happening at the harbour.
+
+Dawn would break ere long, and there was a curious rawness in the
+atmosphere. Robert Cairn seated himself upon the side of the bed, and
+watched his father, whilst the latter related those happenings with
+which we are already acquainted.
+
+"You think, sir," said Robert, at the conclusion of the strange story,
+"that no part of your experience was real?"
+
+Dr. Cairn held up the antique dagger, glancing at the speaker
+significantly.
+
+"On the contrary," he replied, "I _do_ know that part of it was
+dreadfully real. My difficulty is to separate the real from the
+phantasmal."
+
+Silence fell for a moment. Then:
+
+"It is almost certain," said the younger man, frowning thoughtfully,
+"that you did not actually leave the hotel, but merely passed from
+your room to mine by way of the balcony."
+
+Dr. Cairn stood up, walked to the open window, and looked out, then
+turned and faced his son again.
+
+"I believe I can put that matter to the test," he declared. "In my
+dream, as I turned into the lane where the house was--the house of the
+mummy--there was a patch covered with deep mud, where at some time
+during the evening a quantity of water had been spilt. I stepped upon
+that patch, or dreamt that I did. We can settle the point."
+
+He sat down on the bed beside his son, and, stooping, pulled off one
+of his slippers. The night had been full enough of dreadful surprises;
+but here was yet another, which came to them as Dr. Cairn, with the
+inverted slipper in his hand, sat looking into his son's eyes.
+
+The sole of the slipper was caked with reddish brown mud.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+LAIR OF THE SPIDERS
+
+
+"We must find that house, find the sarcophagus--for I no longer doubt
+that it exists--drag it out, and destroy it."
+
+"Should you know it again, sir?"
+
+"Beyond any possibility of doubt. It is the sarcophagus of a queen."
+
+"What queen?"
+
+"A queen whose tomb the late Sir Michael Ferrara and I sought for many
+months, but failed to find."
+
+"Is this queen well known in Egyptian history?"
+
+Dr. Cairn stared at him with an odd expression in his eyes.
+
+"Some histories ignore her existence entirely," he said; and, with an
+evident desire to change the subject, added, "I shall return to my
+room to dress now. Do you dress also. We cannot afford to sleep whilst
+the situation of that house remains unknown to us."
+
+Robert Cairn nodded, and his father stood up, and went out of the
+room.
+
+Dawn saw the two of them peering from the balcony upon the streets of
+Port Said, already dotted with moving figures, for the Egyptian is an
+early riser.
+
+"Have you any clue," asked the younger man, "to the direction in which
+this place lies?"
+
+"Absolutely none, for the reason that I do not know where my dreaming
+left off, and reality commenced. Did someone really come to my window,
+and lead me out through another room, downstairs, and into the street,
+or did I wander out of my own accord and merely imagine the existence
+of the guide? In either event, I must have been guided in some way to
+a back entrance; for had I attempted to leave by the front door of the
+hotel in that trance-like condition, I should certainly have been
+detained by the _bowwab_. Suppose we commence, then, by inquiring if
+there is such another entrance?"
+
+The hotel staff was already afoot, and their inquiries led to the
+discovery of an entrance communicating with the native servants'
+quarters. This could not be reached from the main hall, but there was
+a narrow staircase to the left of the lift-shaft by which it might be
+gained. The two stood looking out across the stone-paved courtyard
+upon which the door opened.
+
+"Beyond doubt," said Dr. Cairn, "I might have come down that staircase
+and out by this door without arousing a soul, either by passing
+through my own room, or through any other on that floor."
+
+They crossed the yard, where members of the kitchen staff were busily
+polishing various cooking utensils, and opened the gate. Dr. Cairn
+turned to one of the men near by.
+
+"Is this gate bolted at night?" he asked, in Arabic.
+
+The man shook his head, and seemed to be much amused by the question,
+revealing his white teeth as he assured him that it was not.
+
+A narrow lane ran along behind the hotel, communicating with a maze of
+streets almost exclusively peopled by natives.
+
+"Rob," said Dr. Cairn slowly, "it begins to dawn upon me that this is
+the way I came."
+
+He stood looking to right and left, and seemed to be undecided. Then:
+
+"We will try right," he determined.
+
+They set off along the narrow way. Once clear of the hotel wall, high
+buildings rose upon either side, so that at no time during the day
+could the sun have penetrated to the winding lane. Suddenly Robert
+Cairn stopped.
+
+"Look!" he said, and pointed. "The mosque! You spoke of a mosque near
+to the house?"
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded; his eyes were gleaming, now that he felt himself to
+be upon the track of this great evil which had shattered his peace.
+
+They advanced until they stood before the door of the mosque--and
+there in the shadow of a low archway was just such an ancient,
+iron-studded door as Dr. Cairn remembered! Latticed windows overhung
+the street above, but no living creature was in sight.
+
+He very gently pressed upon the door, but as he had anticipated it was
+fastened from within. In the vague light, his face seemed strangely
+haggard as he turned to his son, raising his eyebrows interrogatively.
+
+"It is just possible that I may be mistaken," he said; "so that I
+scarcely know what to do."
+
+He stood looking about him in some perplexity.
+
+Adjoining the mosque, was a ruinous house, which clearly had had no
+occupants for many years. As Robert Cairn's gaze lighted upon its
+gaping window-frames and doorless porch, he seized his father by the
+arm.
+
+"We might hide up there," he suggested, "and watch for anyone entering
+or leaving the place opposite."
+
+"I have little doubt that this was the scene of my experience,"
+replied Dr. Cairn; "therefore I think we will adopt your plan. Perhaps
+there is some means of egress at the back. It will be useful if we
+have to remain on the watch for any considerable time."
+
+They entered the ruined building and, by means of a rickety staircase,
+gained the floor above. It moved beneath them unsafely, but from the
+divan which occupied one end of the apartment an uninterrupted view of
+the door below was obtainable.
+
+"Stay here," said Dr. Cairn, "and watch, whilst I reconnoitre."
+
+He descended the stairs again, to return in a minute or so and
+announce that another street could be reached through the back of the
+house. There and then they settled the plan of campaign. One at a time
+they would go to the hotel for their meals, so that the door would
+never be unwatched throughout the day. Dr. Cairn determined to make no
+inquiries respecting the house, as this might put the enemy upon his
+guard.
+
+"We are in his own country, Rob," he said. "Here, we can trust no
+one."
+
+Thereupon they commenced their singular and self-imposed task. In
+turn they went back to the hotel for breakfast, and watched
+fruitlessly throughout the morning. They lunched in the same way, and
+throughout the great midday heat sat hidden in the ruined building,
+mounting guard over that iron-studded door. It was a dreary and
+monotonous day, long to be remembered by both of them, and when the
+hour of sunset drew nigh, and their vigil remained unrewarded, they
+began to doubt the wisdom of their tactics. The street was but little
+frequented; there was not the slightest chance of their presence being
+discovered.
+
+It was very quiet, too, so that no one could have approached unheard.
+At the hotel they had learnt the cause of the explosion during the
+night; an accident in the engine-room of a tramp steamer, which had
+done considerable damage, but caused no bodily injury.
+
+"We may hope to win yet," said Dr. Cairn, in speaking of the incident.
+"It was the hand of God."
+
+Silence had prevailed between them for a long time, and he was about
+to propose that his son should go back to dinner, when the rare sound
+of a footstep below checked the words upon his lips. Both craned their
+necks to obtain a view of the pedestrian.
+
+An old man stooping beneath the burden of years and resting much of
+his weight upon a staff, came tottering into sight. The watchers
+crouched back, breathless with excitement, as the newcomer paused
+before the iron-studded door, and from beneath his cloak took out a
+big key.
+
+Inserting it into the lock, he swung open the door; it creaked upon
+ancient hinges as it opened inward, revealing a glimpse of a stone
+floor. As the old man entered, Dr. Cairn grasped his son by the wrist.
+
+"Down!" he whispered. "Now is our chance!"
+
+They ran down the rickety stairs, crossed the narrow street, and
+Robert Cairn cautiously looked in around the door which had been left
+ajar.
+
+Black against the dim light of another door at the further end of the
+large and barn-like apartment, showed the stooping figure. Tap, tap,
+tap! went the stick; and the old man had disappeared around a corner.
+
+"Where can we hide?" whispered Dr. Cairn. "He is evidently making a
+tour of inspection."
+
+The sound of footsteps mounting to the upper apartments came to their
+ears. They looked about them right and left, and presently the younger
+man detected a large wooden cupboard set in one wall. Opening it, he
+saw that it contained but one shelf only, near the top.
+
+"When he returns," he said, "we can hide in here until he has gone
+out."
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded; he was peering about the room intently.
+
+"This is the place I came to, Rob!" he said softly; "but there was a
+stone stair leading down to some room underneath. We must find it."
+
+The old man could be heard passing from room to room above; then his
+uneven footsteps sounded on the stair again, and glancing at one
+another the two stepped into the cupboard, and pulled the door gently
+inward. A few moments later, the old caretaker--since such appeared to
+be his office--passed out, slamming the door behind him. At that, they
+emerged from their hiding-place and began to examine the apartment
+carefully. It was growing very dark now; indeed with the door shut, it
+was difficult to detect the outlines of the room. Suddenly a loud cry
+broke the perfect stillness, seeming to come from somewhere above.
+Robert Cairn started violently, grasping his father's arm, but the
+older man smiled.
+
+"You forget that there is a mosque almost opposite," he said. "That is
+the _mueddin_!"
+
+His son laughed shortly.
+
+"My nerves are not yet all that they might be," he explained, and
+bending low began to examine the pavement.
+
+"There must be a trap-door in the floor?" he continued. "Don't you
+think so?"
+
+His father nodded silently, and upon hands and knees also began to
+inspect the cracks and crannies between the various stones. In the
+right-hand corner furthest from the entrance, their quest was
+rewarded. A stone some three feet square moved slightly when pressure
+was applied to it, and gave up a sound of hollowness beneath the
+tread. Dust and litter covered the entire floor, but having cleared
+the top of this particular stone, a ring was discovered, lying flat in
+a circular groove cut to receive it. The blade of a penknife served to
+raise it from its resting place, and Dr. Cairn, standing astride
+across the trap, tugged at the ring, and, without great difficulty,
+raised the stone block from its place.
+
+A square hole was revealed. There were irregular stone steps leading
+down into the blackness. A piece of candle, stuck in a crude wooden
+holder, lay upon the topmost. Dr. Cairn, taking a box of matches from
+his pocket, very quickly lighted the candle, and with it held in his
+left hand began to descend. His head was not yet below the level of
+the upper apartment when he paused.
+
+"You have your revolver?" he said.
+
+Robert nodded grimly, and took his revolver from his pocket.
+
+A singular and most disagreeable smell was arising from the trap which
+they had opened; but ignoring this they descended, and presently stood
+side by side in a low cellar. Here the odour was almost insupportable;
+it had in it something menacing, something definitely repellent; and
+at the foot of the steps they stood hesitating.
+
+Dr. Cairn slowly moved the candle, throwing the light along the floor,
+where it picked out strips of wood and broken cases, straw packing and
+kindred litter--until it impinged upon a brightly painted slab.
+Further, he moved it, and higher, and the end of a sarcophagus came
+into view. He drew a quick, hissing breath, and bending forward,
+directed the light into the interior of the ancient coffin. Then, he
+had need of all his iron nerve to choke down the cry that rose to his
+lips.
+
+"By God! _Look_!" whispered his son.
+
+Swathed in white wrappings, Antony Ferrara lay motionless before them.
+
+The seconds passed one by one, until a whole minute was told, and
+still the two remained inert and the cold light shone fully upon that
+ivory face.
+
+"Is he dead?"
+
+Robert Cairn spoke huskily, grasping his father's shoulder.
+
+"I think not," was the equally hoarse reply. "He is in the state of
+trance mentioned in--certain ancient writings; he is absorbing evil
+force from the sarcophagus of the Witch-Queen...."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: _Note_.--"It seems exceedingly probable that ... the
+mummy-case (sarcophagus), with its painted presentment of the living
+person, was the material basis for the preservation of the ... _Khu_
+(magical powers) of a fully-equipped Adept."
+
+_Collectanea Hermetica_. Vol. VIII.]
+
+There was a faint rustling sound in the cellar, which seemed to grow
+louder and more insistent, but Dr. Cairn, apparently, did not notice
+it, for he turned to his son, and albeit the latter could see him but
+vaguely, he knew that his face was grimly set.
+
+"It seems like butchery," he said evenly, "but, in the interests of
+the world, we must not hesitate. A shot might attract attention. Give
+me your knife."
+
+For a moment, the other scarcely comprehended the full purport of the
+words. Mechanically he took out his knife, and opened the big blade.
+
+"Good heavens, sir," he gasped breathlessly, "it is _too_ awful!"
+
+"Awful I grant you," replied Dr. Cairn, "but a duty--a duty, boy, and
+one that we must not shirk. I, alone among living men, know whom, and
+_what_, lies there, and my conscience directs me in what I do. His end
+shall be that which he had planned for you. Give me the knife."
+
+He took the knife from his son's hand. With the light directed upon
+the still, ivory face, he stepped towards the sarcophagus. As he did
+so, something dropped from the roof, narrowly missed falling upon his
+outstretched hand, and with a soft, dull thud dropped upon the mud
+brick floor. Impelled by some intuition, he suddenly directed the
+light to the roof above.
+
+Then with a shrill cry which he was wholly unable to repress, Robert
+Cairn seized his father's arm and began to pull him back towards the
+stair.
+
+"Quick, sir!" he screamed shrilly, almost hysterically. "My God! my
+God! _be quick_!"
+
+The appearance of the roof above had puzzled him for an instant as the
+light touched it, then in the next had filled his very soul with
+loathing and horror. For directly above them was moving a black patch,
+a foot or so in extent ... and it was composed of a dense moving mass
+of tarantula spiders! A line of the disgusting creatures was mounting
+the wall and crossing the ceiling, ever swelling the unclean group!
+
+Dr. Cairn did not hesitate to leap for the stair, and as he did so the
+spiders began to drop. Indeed, they seemed to leap towards the
+intruders, until the floor all about them and the bottom steps of the
+stair presented a mass of black, moving insects.
+
+A perfect panic fear seized upon them. At every step spiders
+_crunched_ beneath their feet. They seem to come from nowhere, to be
+conjured up out of the darkness, until the whole cellar, the stairs,
+the very fetid air about them, became black and nauseous with spiders.
+
+Half-way to the top Dr. Cairn turned, snatched out a revolver and
+began firing down into the cellar in the direction of the sarcophagus.
+
+A hairy, clutching thing ran up his arm, and his son, uttering a groan
+of horror, struck at it and stained the tweed with its poisonous
+blood.
+
+They staggered to the head of the steps, and there Dr. Cairn turned
+and hurled the candle at a monstrous spider that suddenly sprang into
+view. The candle, still attached to its wooden socket, went bounding
+down steps that now were literally carpeted with insects.
+
+Tarantulas began to run out from the trap, as if pursuing the
+intruders, and a faint light showed from below. Then came a crackling
+sound, and a wisp of smoke floated up.
+
+Dr. Cairn threw open the outer door, and the two panic-stricken men
+leapt out into the street and away from the spider army. White to the
+lips they stood leaning against the wall.
+
+"Was it really--Ferrara?" whispered Robert.
+
+"I hope so!" was the answer.
+
+Dr. Cairn pointed to the closed door. A fan of smoke was creeping from
+beneath it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The fire which ensued destroyed, not only the house in which it had
+broken out, but the two adjoining; and the neighbouring mosque was
+saved only with the utmost difficulty.
+
+When, in the dawn of the new day, Dr. Cairn looked down into the
+smoking pit which once had been the home of the spiders, he shook his
+head and turned to his son.
+
+"If our eyes did not deceive us, Rob," he said, "a just retribution at
+last has claimed him!"
+
+Pressing a way through the surrounding crowd of natives, they returned
+to the hotel. The hall porter stopped them as they entered.
+
+"Excuse me, sir," he said, "but which is Mr. Robert Cairn?"
+
+Robert Cairn stepped forward.
+
+"A young gentleman left this for you, sir, half an hour ago," said the
+man--"a very pale gentleman, with black eyes. He said you'd dropped
+it."
+
+Robert Cairn unwrapped the little parcel. It contained a penknife, the
+ivory handle charred as if it had been in a furnace. It was his
+own--which he had handed to his father in that awful cellar at the
+moment when the first spider had dropped; and a card was enclosed,
+bearing the pencilled words, "With Antony Ferrara's Compliments."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE STORY OF ALI MOHAMMED
+
+
+Saluting each of the three in turn, the tall Egyptian passed from Dr.
+Cairn's room. Upon his exit followed a brief but electric silence. Dr.
+Cairn's face was very stern and Sime, with his hands locked behind
+him, stood staring out of the window into the palmy garden of the
+hotel. Robert Cairn looked from one to the other excitedly.
+
+"What did he say, sir?" he cried, addressing his father. "It had
+something to do with--"
+
+Dr. Cairn turned. Sime did not move.
+
+"It had something to do with the matter which has brought me to
+Cairo," replied the former--"yes."
+
+"You see," said Robert, "my knowledge of Arabic is _nil_--"
+
+Sime turned in his heavy fashion, and directed a dull gaze upon the
+last speaker.
+
+"Ali Mohammed," he explained slowly, "who has just left, had come down
+from the Fayûm to report a singular matter. He was unaware of its real
+importance, but it was sufficiently unusual to disturb him, and Ali
+Mohammed es-Suefi is not easily disturbed."
+
+Dr. Cairn dropped into an armchair, nodding towards Sime.
+
+"Tell him all that we have heard," he said. "We stand together in this
+affair."
+
+"Well," continued Sime, in his deliberate fashion, "when we struck our
+camp beside the Pyramid of Méydûm, Ali Mohammed remained behind with a
+gang of workmen to finish off some comparatively unimportant work. He
+is an unemotional person. Fear is alien to his composition; it has no
+meaning for him. But last night something occurred at the camp--or
+what remained of the camp--which seems to have shaken even Ali
+Mohammed's iron nerve."
+
+Robert Cairn nodded, watching the speaker intently.
+
+"The entrance to the Méydûm Pyramid--," continued Sime.
+
+"_One_ of the entrances," interrupted Dr. Cairn, smiling slightly.
+
+"There is only one entrance," said Sime dogmatically.
+
+Dr. Cairn waved his hand.
+
+"Go ahead," he said. "We can discuss these archæological details
+later."
+
+Sime stared dully, but, without further comment, resumed:
+
+"The camp was situated on the slope immediately below the only _known_
+entrance to the Méydûm Pyramid; one might say that it lay in the
+shadow of the building. There are tumuli in the neighbourhood--part of
+a prehistoric cemetery--and it was work in connection with this which
+had detained Ali Mohammed in that part of the Fayûm. Last night about
+ten o'clock he was awakened by an unusual sound, or series of sounds,
+he reports. He came out of the tent into the moonlight, and looked up
+at the pyramid. The entrance was a good way above his head, of course,
+and quite fifty or sixty yards from the point where he was standing,
+but the moonbeams bathed that side of the building in dazzling light
+so that he was enabled to see a perfect crowd of bats whirling out of
+the pyramid."
+
+"Bats!" ejaculated Robert Cairn.
+
+"Yes. There is a small colony of bats in this pyramid, of course; but
+the bat does not hunt in bands, and the sight of these bats flying out
+from the place was one which Ali Mohammed had never witnessed before.
+Their concerted squeaking was very clearly audible. He could not
+believe that it was this which had awakened him, and which had
+awakened the ten or twelve workmen who also slept in the camp, for
+these were now clustering around him, and all looking up at the side
+of the pyramid.
+
+"Fayûm nights are strangely still. Except for the jackals and the
+village dogs, and some other sounds to which one grows accustomed,
+there is nothing--absolutely nothing--audible.
+
+"In this stillness, then, the flapping of the bat regiment made quite
+a disturbance overhead. Some of the men were only half awake, but
+most, of them were badly frightened. And now they began to compare
+notes, with the result that they determined upon the exact nature of
+the sound which had aroused them. It seemed almost certain that this
+had been a dreadful scream--the scream of a woman in the last agony."
+
+He paused, looking from Dr. Cairn to his son, with a singular
+expression upon his habitually immobile face.
+
+"Go on," said Robert Cairn.
+
+Slowly Sime resumed:
+
+"The bats had begun to disperse in various directions, but the panic
+which had seized upon the camp does not seem to have dispersed so
+readily. Ali Mohammed confesses that he himself felt almost afraid--a
+remarkable admission for a man of his class to make. Picture these
+fellows, then, standing looking at one another, and very frequently up
+at the opening in the side of the pyramid. Then the smell began to
+reach their nostrils--the smell which completed the panic, and which
+led to the abandonment of the camp--"
+
+"The smell--what kind of smell?" jerked Robert Cairn.
+
+Dr. Cairn turned himself in his chair, looking fully at his son.
+
+"The smell of Hades, boy!" he said grimly, and turned away again.
+
+"Naturally," continued Sime, "I can give you no particulars on the
+point, but it must have been something very fearful to have affected
+the Egyptian native! There was no breeze, but it swept down upon them,
+this poisonous smell, as though borne by a hot wind."
+
+"Was it actually hot?"
+
+"I cannot say. But Ali Mohammed is positive that it came from the
+opening in the pyramid. It was not apparently in disgust, but in
+sheer, stark horror, that the whole crowd of them turned tail and ran.
+They never stopped and never looked back until they came to Rekka on
+the railway."
+
+A short silence followed. Then:
+
+"That was last night?" questioned Cairn.
+
+His father nodded.
+
+"The man came in by the first train from Wasta," he said, "and we have
+not a moment to spare!"
+
+Sime stared at him.
+
+"I don't understand--"
+
+"I have a mission," said Dr. Cairn quietly. "It is to run to earth, to
+stamp out, as I would stamp out a pestilence, a certain _thing_--I
+cannot call it a man--Antony Ferrara. I believe, Sime, that you are at
+one with me in this matter?"
+
+Sime drummed his fingers upon the table, frowning thoughtfully, and
+looking from one to the other of his companions under his lowered
+brows.
+
+"With my own eyes," he said, "I have seen something of this secret
+drama which has brought you, Dr. Cairn, to Egypt; and, up to a point,
+I agree with you regarding Antony Ferrara. You have lost all trace of
+him?"
+
+"Since leaving Port Said," said Dr. Cairn, "I have seen and heard
+nothing of him; but Lady Lashmore, who was an intimate--and an
+innocent victim, God help her--of Ferrara in London, after staying at
+the Semiramis in Cairo for one day, departed. Where did she go?"
+
+"What has Lady Lashmore to do with the matter?" asked Sime.
+
+"If what I fear be true--" replied Dr. Cairn. "But I anticipate. At
+the moment it is enough for me that, unless my information be at
+fault, Lady Lashmore yesterday left Cairo by the Luxor train at 8.30."
+
+Robert Cairn looked in a puzzled way at his father.
+
+"What do you suspect, sir?" he said.
+
+"I suspect that she went no further than Wasta," replied Dr. Cairn.
+
+"Still I do not understand," declared Sime.
+
+"You may understand later," was the answer. "We must not waste a
+moment. You Egyptologists think that Egypt has little or nothing to
+teach you; the Pyramid of Méydûm lost interest directly you learnt
+that apparently it contained no treasure. How, little you know what it
+_really_ contained, Sime! Mariette did not suspect; Sir Gaston Maspero
+does not suspect! The late Sir Michael Ferrara and I once camped by
+the Pyramid of Méydûm, as you have camped there, and we made a
+discovery--"
+
+"Well?" said Sime, with growing interest.
+
+"It is a point upon which my lips are sealed, but--do you believe in
+black magic?"
+
+"I am not altogether sure that I do--"
+
+"Very well; you are entitled to your opinion. But although you appear
+to be ignorant of the fact, the Pyramid of Méydûm was formerly one of
+the strong-holds--the second greatest in all the land of the Nile--of
+Ancient Egyptian sorcery! I pray heaven I may be wrong, but in the
+disappearance of Lady Lashmore, and in the story of Ali Mohammed, I
+see a dreadful possibility. Ring for a time-table. We have not a
+moment to waste!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE BATS
+
+
+Rekka was a mile behind.
+
+"It will take us fully an hour yet," said Dr. Cairn, "to reach the
+pyramid, although it appears so near."
+
+Indeed, in the violet dusk, the great mastabah Pyramid of Méydûm
+seemed already to loom above them, although it was quite four miles
+away. The narrow path along which they trotted their donkeys ran
+through the fertile lowlands of the Fayûm. They had just passed a
+village, amid an angry chorus from the pariah dogs, and were now
+following the track along the top of the embankment. Where the green
+carpet merged ahead into the grey ocean of sand the desert began, and
+out in that desert, resembling some weird work of Nature rather than
+anything wrought by the hand of man, stood the gloomy and lonely
+building ascribed by the Egyptologists to the Pharaoh Sneferu.
+
+Dr. Cairn and his son rode ahead, and Sime, with Ali Mohammed, brought
+up the rear of the little company.
+
+"I am completely in the dark, sir," said Robert Cairn, "respecting the
+object of our present journey. What leads you to suppose that we shall
+find Antony Ferrara here?"
+
+"I scarcely hope to _find_ him here," was the enigmatical reply, "but
+I am almost certain that he _is_ here. I might have expected it, and I
+blame myself for not having provided against--this."
+
+"Against what?"
+
+"It is impossible, Rob, for you to understand this matter. Indeed, if
+I were to publish what I know--not what I imagine, but what I
+know--about the Pyramid of Méydûm I should not only call down upon
+myself the ridicule of every Egyptologist in Europe; I should be
+accounted mad by the whole world."
+
+His son was silent for a time; then:
+
+"According to the guide books," he said, "it is merely an empty tomb."
+
+"It is empty, certainly," replied Dr. Cairn grimly, "or that apartment
+known as the King's Chamber is now empty. But even the so-called
+King's Chamber was not empty once; and there is another chamber in the
+pyramid which is not empty _now_!"
+
+"If you know of the existence of such a chamber, sir, why have you
+kept it secret?"
+
+"Because I cannot _prove_ its existence. I do not know how to enter
+it, but I know it is there; I know what it was formerly used for, and
+I suspect that last night it was used for that same unholy purpose
+again--after a lapse of perhaps four thousand years! Even you would
+doubt me, I believe, if I were to tell you what I know, if I were to
+hint at what I suspect. But no doubt in your reading you have met with
+Julian the Apostate?"
+
+"Certainly, I have read of him. He is said to have practised
+necromancy."
+
+"When he was at Carra in Mesopotamia, he retired to the Temple of the
+Moon, with a certain sorcerer and some others, and, his nocturnal
+operations concluded, he left the temple locked, the door sealed, and
+placed a guard over the gate. He was killed in the war, and never
+returned to Carra, but when, in the reign of Jovian, the seal was
+broken and the temple opened, a body was found hanging by its hair--I
+will spare you the particulars; it was a case of that most awful form
+of sorcery--_anthropomancy_!"
+
+An expression of horror had crept over Robert Cairn's face.
+
+"Do you mean, sir, that this pyramid was used for similar purposes?"
+
+"In the past it has been used for many purposes," was the quiet reply.
+"The exodus of the bats points to the fact that it was again used for
+one of those purposes last night; the exodus of the bats--and
+something else."
+
+Sime, who had been listening to this strange conversation, cried out
+from the rear:
+
+"We cannot reach it before sunset!"
+
+"No," replied Dr. Cairn, turning in his saddle, "but that does not
+matter. Inside the pyramid, day and night make no difference."
+
+Having crossed a narrow wooden bridge, they turned now fully in the
+direction of the great ruin, pursuing a path along the opposite bank
+of the cutting. They rode in silence for some time, Robert Cairn deep
+in thought.
+
+"I suppose that Antony Ferrara actually visited this place last
+night," he said suddenly, "although I cannot follow your reasoning.
+But what leads you to suppose that he is there now?"
+
+"This," answered his father slowly. "The purpose for which I believe
+him to have come here would detain him at least two days and two
+nights. I shall say no more about it, because if I am wrong, or if for
+any reason I am unable to establish my suspicions as facts, you would
+certainly regard me as a madman if I had confided those suspicions to
+you."
+
+Mounted upon donkeys, the journey from Rekka to the Pyramid of Méydûm
+occupies fully an hour and a half, and the glories of the sunset had
+merged into the violet dusk of Egypt before the party passed the
+outskirts of the cultivated land and came upon the desert sands. The
+mountainous pile of granite, its peculiar orange hue a ghastly yellow
+in the moonlight, now assumed truly monstrous proportions, seeming
+like a great square tower rising in three stages from its mound of
+sand to some three hundred and fifty feet above the level of the
+desert.
+
+There is nothing more awesome in the world than to find one's self at
+night, far from all fellow-men, in the shadow of one of those edifices
+raised by unknown hands, by unknown means, to an unknown end; for,
+despite all the wisdom of our modern inquirers, these stupendous
+relics remain unsolved riddles set to posterity by a mysterious
+people.
+
+Neither Sime nor Ali Mohammed were of highly strung temperament,
+neither subject to those subtle impressions which more delicate
+organisations receive, as the nostrils receive an exhalation, from
+such a place as this. But Dr. Cairn and his son, though each in a
+different way, came now within the _aura_ of this temple of the dead
+ages.
+
+The great silence of the desert--a silence like no other in the world;
+the loneliness, which must be experienced to be appreciated, of that
+dry and tideless ocean; the traditions which had grown up like fungi
+about this venerable building; lastly, the knowledge that it was
+associated in some way with the sorcery, the unholy activity, of
+Antony Ferrara, combined to chill them with a supernatural dread which
+called for all their courage to combat.
+
+"What now?" said Sime, descending from his mount.
+
+"We must lead the donkeys up the slope," replied Dr. Cairn, "where
+those blocks of granite are, and tether them there."
+
+In silence, then, the party commenced the tedious ascent of the mound
+by the narrow path to the top, until at some hundred and twenty feet
+above the surrounding plain they found themselves actually under the
+wall of the mighty building. The donkeys were made fast.
+
+"Sime and I," said Dr. Cairn quietly, "will enter the pyramid."
+
+"But--" interrupted his son.
+
+"Apart from the fatigue of the operation," continued the doctor, "the
+temperature in the lower part of the pyramid is so tremendous, and the
+air so bad, that in your present state of health it would be absurd
+for you to attempt it. Apart from which there is a possibly more
+important task to be undertaken here, outside."
+
+He turned his eyes upon Sime, who was listening intently, then
+continued:
+
+"Whilst we are penetrating to the interior by means of the sloping
+passage on the north side, Ali Mohammed and yourself must mount guard
+on the south side."
+
+"What for?" said Sime rapidly.
+
+"For the reason," replied Dr. Cairn, "that there is an entrance on to
+the first stage--"
+
+"But the first stage is nearly seventy feet above us. Even assuming
+that there were an entrance there--which I doubt--escape by that means
+would be impossible. No one could climb down the face of the pyramid
+from above; no one has ever succeeded in climbing up. For the purpose
+of surveying the pyramid a scaffold had to be erected. Its sides are
+quite unscaleable."
+
+"That may be," agreed Dr. Cairn; "but, nevertheless, I have my reasons
+for placing a guard over the south side. If anything appears upon the
+stage above, Rob--_anything_--shoot, and shoot straight!"
+
+He repeated the same instructions to Ali Mohammed, to the evident
+surprise of the latter.
+
+"I don't understand at all," muttered Sime, "but as I presume you have
+a good reason for what you do, let it be as you propose. Can you give
+me any idea respecting what we may hope to find inside this place? I
+only entered once, and I am not anxious to repeat the experiment. The
+air is unbreathable, the descent to the level passage below is stiff
+work, and, apart from the inconvenience of navigating the latter
+passage, which as you probably know is only sixteen inches high, the
+climb up the vertical shaft into the tomb is not a particularly safe
+one. I exclude the possibility of snakes," he added ironically.
+
+"You have also omitted the possibility of Antony Ferrara," said Dr.
+Cairn.
+
+"Pardon my scepticism, doctor, but I cannot imagine any man
+voluntarily remaining in that awful place."
+
+"Yet I am greatly mistaken if he is not there!"
+
+"Then he is trapped!" said Sime grimly, examining a Browning pistol
+which he carried. "Unless--"
+
+He stopped, and an expression, almost of fear, crept over his stoical
+features.
+
+"That sixteen-inch passage," he muttered--"with Antony Ferrara at the
+further end!"
+
+"Exactly!" said Dr. Cairn. "But I consider it my duty to the world to
+proceed. I warn you that you are about to face the greatest peril,
+probably, which you will ever be called upon to encounter. I do not
+ask you to do this. I am quite prepared to go alone."
+
+"That remark was wholly unnecessary, doctor," said Sime rather
+truculently. "Suppose the other two proceed to their post."
+
+"But, sir--" began Robert Cairn.
+
+"You know the way," said the doctor, with an air of finality. "There
+is not a moment to waste, and although I fear that we are too late, it
+is just possible we may be in time to prevent a dreadful crime."
+
+The tall Egyptian and Robert Cairn went stumbling off amongst the
+heaps of rubbish and broken masonry, until an angle of the great wall
+concealed them from view. Then the two who remained continued the
+climb yet higher, following the narrow, zigzag path leading up to the
+entrance of the descending passage. Immediately under the square black
+hole they stood and glanced at one another.
+
+"We may as well leave our outer garments here," said Sime. "I note
+that you wear rubber-soled shoes, but I shall remove my boots, as
+otherwise I should be unable to obtain any foothold."
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded, and without more ado proceeded to strip off his
+coat, an example which was followed by Sime. It was as he stooped and
+placed his hat upon the little bundle of clothes at his feet that Dr.
+Cairn detected something which caused him to stoop yet lower and to
+peer at that dark object on the ground with a strange intentness.
+
+"What is it?" jerked Sime, glancing back at him.
+
+Dr. Cairn, from a hip pocket, took out an electric lamp, and directed
+the white ray upon something lying on the splintered fragments of
+granite.
+
+It was a bat, a fairly large one, and a clot of blood marked the place
+where its head had been. For the bat was decapitated!
+
+As though anticipating what he should find there, Dr. Cairn flashed
+the ray of the lamp all about the ground in the vicinity of the
+entrance to the pyramid. Scores of dead bats, headless, lay there.
+
+"For God's sake, what does this mean?" whispered Sime, glancing
+apprehensively into the black entrance beside him.
+
+"It means," answered Cairn, in a low voice, "that my suspicion, almost
+incredible though it seems, was well founded. Steel yourself against
+the task that is before you, Sime; we stand upon the borderland of
+strange horrors."
+
+Sime hesitated to touch any of the dead bats, surveying them with an
+ill-concealed repugnance.
+
+"What kind of creature," he whispered, "has done this?"
+
+"One of a kind that the world has not known for many ages! The most
+evil kind of creature conceivable--a man-devil!"
+
+"But what does he want with bats' heads?"
+
+"The Cynonycteris, or pyramid bat, has a leaf-like appendage beside
+the nose. A gland in this secretes a rare oil. This oil is one of the
+ingredients of the incense which is never named in the magical
+writings."
+
+Sime shuddered.
+
+"Here!" said Dr. Cairn, proffering a flask. "This is only the
+overture! No nerves."
+
+The other nodded shortly, and poured out a peg of brandy.
+
+"Now," said Dr. Cairn, "shall I go ahead?"
+
+"As you like," replied Sime quietly, and again quite master of
+himself. "Look out for snakes. I will carry the light and you can keep
+yours handy in case you may need it."
+
+Dr. Cairn drew himself up into the entrance. The passage was less than
+four feet high, and generations of sand-storms had polished its
+sloping granite floor so as to render it impossible to descend except
+by resting one's hands on the roof above and lowering one's self foot
+by foot.
+
+A passage of this description, descending at a sharp angle for over
+two hundred feet, is not particularly easy to negotiate, and progress
+was slow. Dr. Cairn at every five yards or so would stop, and, with
+the pocket-lamp which he carried, would examine the sandy floor and
+the crevices between the huge blocks composing the passage, in quest
+of those faint tracks which warn the traveller that a serpent has
+recently passed that way. Then, replacing his lamp, he would proceed.
+Sime followed in like manner, employing only one hand to support
+himself, and, with the other, constantly directing the ray of his
+pocket torch past his companion, and down into the blackness beneath.
+
+Out in the desert the atmosphere had been sufficiently hot, but now
+with every step it grew hotter and hotter. That indescribable smell,
+as of a decay begun in remote ages, that rises with the impalpable
+dust in these mysterious labyrinths of Ancient Egypt which never know
+the light of day, rose stiflingly; until, at some forty or fifty feet
+below the level of the sand outside, respiration became difficult, and
+the two paused, bathed in perspiration and gasping for air.
+
+"Another thirty or forty feet," panted Sime, "and we shall be in the
+level passage. There is a sort of low, artificial cavern there, you
+may remember, where, although we cannot stand upright, we can sit and
+rest for a few moments."
+
+Speech was exhausting, and no further words were exchanged until the
+bottom of the slope was reached, and the combined lights of the two
+pocket-lamps showed them that they had reached a tiny chamber
+irregularly hewn in the living rock. This also was less than four feet
+high, but its jagged floor being level, they were enabled to pause
+here for a while.
+
+"Do you notice something unfamiliar in the smell of the place?"
+
+Dr. Cairn was the speaker. Sime nodded, wiping the perspiration from
+his face the while.
+
+"It was bad enough when I came here before," he said hoarsely. "It is
+terrible work for a heavy man. But to-night it seems to be reeking. I
+have smelt nothing like it in my life."
+
+"Correct," replied Dr. Cairn grimly. "I trust that, once clear of this
+place, you will never smell it again."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"It is the _incense_," was the reply. "Come! The worst of our task is
+before us yet."
+
+The continuation of the passage now showed as an opening no more than
+fifteen to seventeen inches high. It was necessary, therefore, to lie
+prone upon the rubbish of the floor, and to proceed serpent fashion;
+one could not even employ one's knees, so low was the roof, but was
+compelled to progress by clutching at the irregularities in the wall,
+and by digging the elbows into the splintered stones one crawled upon!
+
+For three yards or so they proceeded thus. Then Dr. Cairn lay suddenly
+still.
+
+"What is it?" whispered Sime.
+
+A threat of panic was in his voice. He dared not conjecture what would
+happen if either should be overcome in that evil-smelling burrow, deep
+in the bowels of the ancient building. At that moment it seemed to
+him, absurdly enough, that the weight of the giant pile rested upon
+his back, was crushing him, pressing the life out from his body as he
+lay there prone, with his eyes fixed upon the rubber soles of Dr.
+Cairn's shoes, directly in front of him.
+
+But softly came a reply:
+
+"Do not speak again! Proceed as quietly as possible, and pray heaven
+we are not expected!"
+
+Sime understood. With a malignant enemy before them, this hole in the
+rock through which they crawled was a certain death-trap. He thought
+of the headless bats and of how he, in crawling out into the shaft
+ahead, must lay himself open to a similar fate!
+
+Dr. Cairn moved slowly onward. Despite their anxiety to avoid noise,
+neither he nor his companion could control their heavy breathing. Both
+were panting for air. The temperature was now deathly. A candle would
+scarcely have burnt in the vitiated air; and above that odour of
+ancient rottenness which all explorers of the monuments of Egypt know,
+rose that other indescribable odour which seemed to stifle one's very
+soul.
+
+Dr. Cairn stopped again.
+
+Sime knew, having performed this journey before, that his companion
+must have reached the end of the passage, that he must be lying
+peering out into the shaft, for which they were making. He
+extinguished his lamp.
+
+Again Dr. Cairn moved forward. Stretching out his hand, Sime found
+only emptiness. He wriggled forward, in turn, rapidly, all the time
+groping with his fingers. Then:
+
+"Take my hand," came a whisper. "Another two feet, and you can stand
+upright."
+
+He proceeded, grasped the hand which was extended to him in the
+impenetrable darkness, and panting, temporarily exhausted, rose
+upright beside Dr. Cairn, and stretched his cramped limbs.
+
+Side by side they stood, mantled about in such a darkness as cannot be
+described; in such a silence as dwellers in the busy world cannot
+conceive; in such an atmosphere of horror that only a man morally and
+physically brave could have retained his composure.
+
+Dr. Cairn bent to Sime's ear.
+
+"We _must_ have the light for the ascent," he whispered. "Have your
+pistol ready; I am about to press the button of the lamp."
+
+A shaft of white light shone suddenly up the rocky sides of the pit in
+which they stood, and lost itself in the gloom of the chamber above.
+
+"On to my shoulders," jerked Sime. "You are lighter than I. Then, as
+soon as you can reach, place your lamp on the floor above and mount up
+beside it. I will follow."
+
+Dr. Cairn, taking advantage of the rugged walls, and of the blocks of
+stone amid which they stood, mounted upon Sime's shoulders.
+
+"Could you carry your revolver in your teeth?" asked the latter. "I
+think you might hold it by the trigger-guard."
+
+"I proposed to do so," replied Dr. Cairn grimly. "Stand fast!"
+
+Gradually he rose upright upon the other's shoulders; then, placing
+his foot in a cranny of the rock, and with his left hand grasping a
+protruding fragment above, he mounted yet higher, all the time holding
+the lighted lamp in his right hand. Upward he extended his arms, and
+upward, until he could place the lamp upon the ledge above his head,
+where its white beam shone across the top of the shaft.
+
+"Mind it does not fall!" panted Sime, craning his head upward to watch
+these operations.
+
+Dr. Cairn, whose strength and agility were wonderful, twisted around
+sideways, and succeeded in placing his foot on a ledge of stone on the
+opposite side of the shaft. Resting his weight upon this, he extended
+his hand to the lip of the opening, and drew himself up to the top,
+where he crouched fully in the light of the lamp. Then, wedging his
+foot into a crevice a little below him, he reached out his hand to
+Sime. The latter, following much the same course as his companion,
+seized the extended hand, and soon found himself beside Dr. Cairn.
+
+Impetuously he snatched out his own lamp and shone its beams about the
+weird apartment in which they found themselves--the so-called King's
+Chamber of the pyramid. Right and left leapt the searching rays,
+touching the ends of the wooden beams, which, practically fossilised
+by long contact with the rock, still survive in that sepulchral place.
+Above and below and all around he directed the light--upon the litter
+covering the rock floor, upon the blocks of the higher walls, upon the
+frowning roof.
+
+They were alone in the King's Chamber!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+ANTHROPOMANCY
+
+
+"There is no one here!"
+
+Sime looked about the place excitedly.
+
+"Fortunately for us!" answered Dr. Cairn.
+
+He breathed rather heavily yet with his exertions, and, moreover, the
+air of the chamber was disgusting. But otherwise he was perfectly
+calm, although his face was pale and bathed in perspiration.
+
+"Make as little noise as possible."
+
+Sime, who, now that the place proved to be empty, began to cast off
+that dread which had possessed him in the passage-way, found something
+ominous in the words.
+
+Dr. Cairn, stepping carefully over the rubbish of the floor, advanced
+to the east corner of the chamber, waving his companion to follow.
+Side by side they stood there.
+
+"Do you notice that the abominable smell of the incense is more
+overpowering here than anywhere?"
+
+Sime nodded.
+
+"You are right. What does that mean?"
+
+Dr. Cairn directed the ray of light down behind a little mound of
+rubbish into a corner of the wall.
+
+"It means," he said, with a subdued expression of excitement, "that we
+have got to crawl in _there_!"
+
+Sime stifled an exclamation.
+
+One of the blocks of the bottom tier was missing, a fact which he had
+not detected before by reason of the presence of the mound of rubbish
+before the opening.
+
+"Silence again!" whispered Dr. Cairn.
+
+He lay down flat, and, without hesitation, crept into the gap. As his
+feet disappeared, Sime followed. Here it was possible to crawl upon
+hands and knees. The passage was formed of square stone blocks. It
+was but three yards or so in length; then it suddenly turned upward
+at a tremendous angle of about one in four. Square foot-holds were cut
+in the lower face. The smell of incense was almost unbearable.
+
+Dr. Cairn bent to Sime's ear.
+
+"Not a word, now," he said. "No light--pistol ready!"
+
+He began to mount. Sime, following, counted the steps. When they had
+mounted sixty he knew that they must have come close to the top of the
+original _mastabah_, and close to the first stage of the pyramid.
+Despite the shaft beneath, there was little danger of falling, for one
+could lean back against the wall while seeking for the foothold above.
+
+Dr. Cairn mounted very slowly, fearful of striking his head upon some
+obstacle. Then on the seventieth step, he found that he could thrust
+his foot forward and that no obstruction met his knee. They had
+reached a horizontal passage.
+
+Very softly he whispered back to Sime:
+
+"Take my hand. I have reached the top."
+
+They entered the passage. The heavy, sickly sweet odour almost
+overpowered them, but, grimly set upon their purpose, they, after one
+moment of hesitancy, crept on.
+
+A fitful light rose and fell ahead of them. It gleamed upon the polished
+walls of the corridor in which they now found themselves--that
+inexplicable light burning in a place which had known no light since the
+dim ages of the early Pharaohs!
+
+The events of that incredible night had afforded no such emotion as
+this. This was the crowning wonder, and, in its dreadful mystery, the
+crowning terror of Méydûm.
+
+When first that lambent light played upon the walls of the passage
+both stopped, stricken motionless with fear and amazement. Sime, who
+would have been prepared to swear that the Méydûm Pyramid contained no
+apartment other than the King's Chamber, now was past mere wonder,
+past conjecture. But he could still fear. Dr. Cairn, although he had
+anticipated this, temporarily also fell a victim to the supernatural
+character of the phenomenon.
+
+They advanced.
+
+They looked into a square chamber of about the same size as the King's
+Chamber. In fact, although they did not realise it until later, this
+second apartment, no doubt was situated directly above the first.
+
+The only light was that of a fire burning in a tripod, and by means of
+this illumination, which rose and fell in a strange manner, it was
+possible to perceive the details of the place. But, indeed, at the
+moment they were not concerned with these; they had eyes only for the
+black-robed figure beside the tripod.
+
+It was that of a man, who stood with his back towards them, and he
+chanted monotonously in a tongue unfamiliar to Sime. At certain points
+in his chant he would raise his arms in such a way that, clad in the
+black robe, he assumed the appearance of a gigantic bat. Each time
+that he acted thus the fire in the tripod, as if fanned into new life,
+would leap up, casting a hellish glare about the place. Then, as the
+chanter dropped his arms again, the flame would drop also.
+
+A cloud of reddish vapour floated low in the apartment. There were a
+number of curiously-shaped vessels upon the floor, and against the
+farther wall, only rendered visible when the flames leapt high, was
+some motionless white object, apparently hung from the roof.
+
+Dr. Cairn drew a hissing breath and grasped Sime's wrist.
+
+"We are too late!" he said strangely.
+
+He spoke at a moment when his companion, peering through the ruddy
+gloom of the place, had been endeavouring more clearly to perceive
+that ominous shape which hung, horrible, in the shadow. He spoke, too,
+at a moment when the man in the black robe, raised his arms--when, as
+if obedient to his will, the flames leapt up fitfully.
+
+Although Sime could not be sure of what he saw, the recollection came
+to him of words recently spoken by Dr. Cairn. He remembered the story
+of Julian the Apostate, Julian the Emperor--the Necromancer. He
+remembered what had been found in the Temple of the Moon after
+Julian's death. He remembered that Lady Lashmore--
+
+And thereupon he experienced such a nausea that but for the fact that
+Dr. Cairn gripped him he must have fallen.
+
+Tutored in a materialistic school, he could not even now admit that
+such monstrous things could be. With a necromantic operation taking
+place before his eyes; with the unholy perfume of the secret incense
+all but suffocating him; with the dreadful Oracle dully gleaming in
+the shadows of that temple of evil--his reason would not accept the
+evidences. Any man of the ancient world--of the middle ages--would
+have known that he looked upon a professed wizard, upon a magician,
+who, according to one of the most ancient formulæ known to mankind,
+was seeking to question the dead respecting the living.
+
+But how many modern men are there capable of realising such a
+circumstance? How many who would accept the statement that such
+operations are still performed, not only in the East, but in Europe?
+How many who, witnessing this mass of Satan, would accept it for
+verity, would not deny the evidence of their very senses?
+
+He could not believe such an orgie of wickedness possible. A Pagan
+emperor might have been capable of these things, but to-day--wondrous
+is our faith in the virtue of "to-day!"
+
+"Am I mad?" he whispered hoarsely, "or--"
+
+A thinly-veiled shape seemed to float out from that still form in the
+shadows; it assumed definite outlines; it became a woman, beautiful
+with a beauty that could only be described as awful.
+
+She wore upon her brow the _uraeus_ of Ancient Egyptian royalty; her
+sole garment was a robe of finest gauze. Like a cloud, like a vision,
+she floated into the light cast by the tripod.
+
+A voice--a voice which seemed to come from a vast distance, from
+somewhere outside the mighty granite walls of that unholy
+place--spoke. The language was unknown to Sime, but the fierce
+hand-grip upon his wrist grew fiercer. That dead tongue, that language
+unspoken since the dawn of Christianity, was known to the man who had
+been the companion of Sir Michael Ferrara.
+
+In upon Sime swept a swift conviction--that one could not witness such
+a scene as this and live and move again amongst one's fellow-men! In a
+sort of frenzy, then, he wrenched himself free from the detaining
+hand, and launched a retort of modern science against the challenge of
+ancient sorcery.
+
+Raising his Browning pistol, he fired--shot after shot--at that
+bat-like shape which stood between himself and the tripod!
+
+A thousand frightful echoes filled the chamber with a demon mockery,
+boomed along those subterranean passages beneath, and bore the
+conflict of sound into the hidden places of the pyramid which had
+known not sound for untold generations.
+
+"My God--!"
+
+Vaguely he became aware that Dr. Cairn was seeking to drag him away.
+Through a cloud of smoke he saw the black-robed figure turn; dream
+fashion, he saw the pallid, glistening face of Antony Ferrara; the
+long, evil eyes, alight like the eyes of a serpent, were fixed upon
+him. He seemed to stand amid a chaos, in a mad world beyond the
+borders of reason, beyond the dominions of God. But to his stupefied
+mind one astounding fact found access.
+
+He had fired at least seven shots at the black-robed figure, and it
+was not humanly possible that all could have gone wide of their mark.
+
+Yet Antony Ferrara lived!
+
+Utter darkness blotted out the evil vision. Then there was a white
+light ahead; and feeling that he was struggling for sanity, Sime
+managed to realise that Dr. Cairn, retreating along the passage, was
+crying to him, in a voice rising almost to a shriek, to run--run for
+his life--for his salvation!
+
+"_You should not have fired_!" he seemed to hear.
+
+Unconscious of any contact with the stones--although afterwards he
+found his knees and shins to be bleeding--he was scrambling down that
+long, sloping shaft.
+
+He had a vague impression that Dr. Cairn, descending beneath him,
+sometimes grasped his ankles and placed his feet into the footholes. A
+continuous roaring sound filled his ears, as if a great ocean were
+casting its storm waves against the structure around him. The place
+seemed to rock.
+
+"Down flat!"
+
+Some sense of reality was returning to him. Now he perceived that Dr.
+Cairn was urging him to crawl back along the short passage by which
+they had entered from the King's Chamber.
+
+Heedless of hurt, he threw himself down and pressed on.
+
+A blank, like the sleep of exhaustion which follows delirium, came.
+Then Sime found himself standing in the King's Chamber, Dr. Cairn, who
+held an electric lamp in his hand, beside him, and half supporting
+him.
+
+The realities suddenly reasserting themselves,
+
+"I have dropped my pistol!" muttered Sime.
+
+He threw off the supporting arm, and turned to that corner behind the
+heap of _débris_ where was the opening through which they had entered
+the Satanic temple.
+
+No opening was visible!
+
+"He has closed it!" cried Dr. Cairn. "There are six stone doors
+between here and the place above! If he had succeeded in shutting
+_one_ of them before we--?"
+
+"My God!" whispered Sime. "Let us get out! I am nearly at the end of
+my tether!"
+
+Fear lends wings, and it was with something like the lightness of a
+bird that Sime descended the shaft. At the bottom--
+
+"On to my shoulders!" he cried, looking up.
+
+Dr. Cairn lowered himself to the foot of the shaft. "You go first," he
+said.
+
+He was gasping, as if nearly suffocated, but retained a wonderful
+self-control. Once over into the Borderland, and bravery assumes a new
+guise; the courage which can face physical danger undaunted, melts in
+the fires of the unknown.
+
+Sime, his breath whistling sibilantly between his clenched teeth,
+hauled himself through the low passage, with incredible speed. The two
+worked their way arduously, up the long slope. They saw the blue sky
+above them....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Something like a huge bat," said Robert Cairn, "crawled out upon the
+first stage. We both fired--"
+
+Dr. Cairn raised his hand. He lay exhausted at the foot of the mound.
+
+"He had lighted the incense," he replied, "and was reciting the secret
+ritual. I cannot explain. But your shots were wasted. We came too
+late--"
+
+"Lady Lashmore--"
+
+"Until the Pyramid of Méydûm is pulled down, stone by stone, the world
+will never know her fate! Sime and I have looked in at the gate of
+hell! Only the hand of God plucked us back! Look!"
+
+He pointed to Sime. He lay, pallid, with closed eyes--and his hair was
+abundantly streaked with white!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE INCENSE
+
+
+To Robert Cairn it seemed that the boat-train would never reach
+Charing Cross. His restlessness was appalling. He perpetually glanced
+from his father, with whom he shared the compartment, to the flying
+landscape with its vistas of hop-poles; and Dr. Cairn, although he
+exhibited less anxiety, was, nevertheless, strung to highest tension.
+
+That dash from Cairo homeward had been something of a fevered dream to
+both men. To learn, whilst one is searching for a malign and
+implacable enemy in Egypt, that that enemy, having secretly returned
+to London, is weaving his evil spells around "some we loved, the
+loveliest and the best," is to know the meaning of ordeal.
+
+In pursuit of Antony Ferrara--the incarnation of an awful evil--Dr.
+Cairn had deserted his practice, had left England for Egypt. Now he
+was hurrying back again; for whilst he had sought in strange and dark
+places of that land of mystery for Antony Ferrara, the latter had been
+darkly active in London!
+
+Again and again Robert Cairn read the letter which, surely as a royal
+command, had recalled them. It was from Myra Duquesne. One line in it
+had fallen upon them like a bomb, had altered all their plans, had
+shattered the one fragment of peace remaining to them.
+
+In the eyes of Robert Cairn, the whole universe centred around Myra
+Duquesne; she was the one being in the world of whom he could not bear
+to think in conjunction with Antony Ferrara. Now he knew that Antony
+Ferrara was beside her, was, doubtless at this very moment, directing
+those Black Arts of which he was master, to the destruction of her
+mind and body--perhaps of her very soul.
+
+Again he drew the worn envelope from his pocket and read that ominous
+sentence, which, when his eyes had first fallen upon it, had blotted
+out the sunlight of Egypt.
+
+"... And you will be surprised to hear that Antony is back in London ...
+and is a frequent visitor here. It is quite like old times...."
+
+Raising his haggard eyes, Robert Cairn saw that his father was
+watching him.
+
+"Keep calm, my boy," urged the doctor; "it can profit us nothing, it
+can profit Myra nothing, for you to shatter your nerves at a time when
+real trials are before you. You are inviting another breakdown. Oh! I
+know it is hard; but for everybody's sake try to keep yourself in
+hand."
+
+"I am trying, sir," replied Robert hollowly.
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded, drumming his fingers upon his knee.
+
+"We must be diplomatic," he continued. "That James Saunderson proposed
+to return to London, I had no idea. I thought that Myra would be far
+outside the Black maelström in Scotland. Had I suspected that
+Saunderson would come to London, I should have made other
+arrangements."
+
+"Of course, sir, I know that. But even so we could never have foreseen
+this."
+
+Dr. Cairn shook his head.
+
+"To think that whilst we have been scouring Egypt from Port Said to
+Assouan--_he_ has been laughing at us in London!" he said. "Directly
+after the affair at Méydûm he must have left the country--how, Heaven
+only knows. That letter is three weeks old, now?"
+
+Robert Cairn nodded. "What may have happened since--what may have
+happened!"
+
+"You take too gloomy a view. James Saunderson is a Roman guardian.
+Even Antony Ferrara could make little headway there."
+
+"But Myra says that--Ferrara is--a frequent visitor."
+
+"And Saunderson," replied Dr. Cairn with a grim smile, "is a
+Scotchman! Rely upon his diplomacy, Rob. Myra will be safe enough."
+
+"God grant that she is!"
+
+At that, silence fell between them, until punctually to time, the
+train slowed into Charing Cross. Inspired by a common anxiety, Dr.
+Cairn and his son were first among the passengers to pass the barrier.
+The car was waiting for them; and within five minutes of the arrival
+of the train they were whirling through London's traffic to the house
+of James Saunderson.
+
+It lay in that quaint backwater, remote from motor-bus
+high-ways--Dulwich Common, and was a rambling red-tiled building which
+at some time had been a farmhouse. As the big car pulled up at the
+gate, Saunderson, a large-boned Scotchman, tawny-eyed, and with his
+grey hair worn long and untidily, came out to meet them. Myra Duquesne
+stood beside him. A quick blush coloured her face momentarily; then
+left it pale again.
+
+Indeed, her pallor was alarming. As Robert Cairn, leaping from the
+car, seized both her hands and looked into her eyes, it seemed to him
+that the girl had almost an ethereal appearance. Something clutched at
+his heart, iced his blood; for Myra Duquesne seemed a creature
+scarcely belonging to the world of humanity--seemed already half a
+spirit. The light in her sweet eyes was good to see; but her
+fragility, and a certain transparency of complexion, horrified him.
+
+Yet, he knew that he must hide these fears from her; and turning to
+Mr. Saunderson, he shook him warmly by the hand, and the party of four
+passed by the low porch into the house.
+
+In the hall-way Miss Saunderson, a typical Scottish housekeeper, stood
+beaming welcome; but in the very instant of greeting her, Robert Cairn
+stopped suddenly as if transfixed.
+
+Dr. Cairn also pulled up just within the door, his nostrils quivering
+and his clear grey eyes turning right and left--searching the shadows.
+
+Miss Saunderson detected this sudden restraint.
+
+"Is anything the matter?" she asked anxiously.
+
+Myra, standing beside Mr. Saunderson, began to look frightened. But
+Dr. Cairn, shaking off the incubus which had descended upon him,
+forced a laugh, and clapping his hand upon Robert's shoulder cried:
+
+"Wake up, my boy! I know it is good to be back in England again, but
+keep your day-dreaming for after lunch!"
+
+Robert Cairn forced a ghostly smile in return, and the odd incident
+promised soon to be forgotten.
+
+"How good of you," said Myra as the party entered the dining-room, "to
+come right from the station to see us. And you must be expected in
+Half-Moon Street, Dr. Cairn?"
+
+"Of course we came to see _you_ first," replied Robert Cairn
+significantly.
+
+Myra lowered her face and pursued that subject no further.
+
+No mention was made of Antony Ferrara, and neither Dr. Cairn nor his
+son cared to broach the subject. The lunch passed off, then, without
+any reference to the very matter which had brought them there that
+day.
+
+It was not until nearly an hour later that Dr. Cairn and his son found
+themselves alone for a moment. Then, with a furtive glance about him,
+the doctor spoke of that which had occupied his mind, to the exclusion
+of all else, since first they had entered the house of James
+Saunderson.
+
+"You noticed it, Rob?" he whispered.
+
+"My God! it nearly choked me!"
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded grimly.
+
+"It is all over the house," he continued, "in every room that I have
+entered. They are used to it, and evidently do not notice it, but
+coming in from the clean air, it is--"
+
+"Abominable, unclean--unholy!"
+
+"We know it," continued Dr. Cairn softly--"that smell of unholiness;
+we have good reason to know it. It heralded the death of Sir Michael
+Ferrara. It heralded the death of--another."
+
+"With a just God in heaven, can such things be?"
+
+"It is the secret incense of Ancient Egypt," whispered Dr. Cairn,
+glancing towards the open door; "it is the odour of that Black Magic
+which, by all natural law, should be buried and lost for ever in the
+tombs of the ancient wizards. Only two living men within my knowledge
+know the use and the hidden meaning of that perfume; only one living
+man has ever dared to make it--to use it...."
+
+"Antony Ferrara--"
+
+"We knew he was here, boy; now we know that he is using his powers
+here. Something tells me that we come to the end of the fight. May
+victory be with the just."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE MAGICIAN
+
+
+Half-Moon Street was bathed in tropical sunlight. Dr. Cairn, with his
+hands behind him, stood looking out of the window. He turned to his
+son, who leant against a corner of the bookcase in the shadows of the
+big room.
+
+"Hot enough for Egypt, Rob," he said.
+
+Robert Cairn nodded.
+
+"Antony Ferrara," he replied, "seemingly travels his own atmosphere
+with him. I first became acquainted with his hellish activities during
+a phenomenal thunderstorm. In Egypt his movements apparently
+corresponded with those of the _Khamsîn_. Now,"--he waved his hand
+vaguely towards the window--"this is Egypt in London."
+
+"Egypt is in London, indeed," muttered Dr. Cairn. "Jermyn has decided
+that our fears are well-founded."
+
+"You mean, sir, that the will--?"
+
+"Antony Ferrara would have an almost unassailable case in the event
+of--of Myra--"
+
+"You mean that her share of the legacy would fall to that fiend, if
+she--"
+
+"If she died? Exactly."
+
+Robert Cairn began to stride up and down the room, clenching and
+unclenching his fists. He was a shadow of his former self, but now his
+cheeks were flushed and his eyes feverishly bright.
+
+"Before Heaven!" he cried suddenly, "the situation is becoming
+unbearable. A thing more deadly than the Plague is abroad here in
+London. Apart from the personal aspect of the matter--of which I dare
+not think!--what do we know of Ferrara's activities? His record is
+damnable. To our certain knowledge his victims are many. If the murder
+of his adoptive father, Sir Michael, was actually the first of his
+crimes, we know of three other poor souls who beyond any shadow of
+doubt were launched into eternity by the Black Arts of this ghastly
+villain--"
+
+"We do, Rob," replied Dr. Cairn sternly.
+
+"He has made attempts upon you; he has made attempts upon me. We owe
+our survival"--he pointed to a row of books upon a corner shelf--"to
+the knowledge which you have accumulated in half a life-time of
+research. In the face of science, in the face of modern scepticism, in
+the face of our belief in a benign God, this creature, Antony Ferrara,
+has proved himself conclusively to be--"
+
+"He is what the benighted ancients called a magician," interrupted Dr.
+Cairn quietly. "He is what was known in the Middle Ages as a wizard.
+What that means, exactly, few modern thinkers know; but I know, and
+one day others will know. Meanwhile his shadow lies upon a certain
+house."
+
+Robert Cairn shook his clenched fists in the air. In some men the
+gesture had seemed melodramatic; in him it was the expression of a
+soul's agony.
+
+"But, sir!" he cried--"are we to wait, inert, helpless? Whatever he
+is, he has a human body and there are bullets, there are knives, there
+are a hundred drugs in the British Pharmacopoeia!"
+
+"Quite so," answered Dr. Cairn, watching his son closely, and, by his
+own collected manner, endeavouring to check the other's growing
+excitement. "I am prepared at any personal risk to crush Antony
+Ferrara as I would crush a scorpion; but where is he?"
+
+Robert Cairn groaned, dropping into the big red-leathern armchair, and
+burying his face in his hands.
+
+"Our position is maddening," continued the elder man. "We know that
+Antony Ferrara visits Mr. Saunderson's house; we know that he is
+laughing at our vain attempts to trap him. Crowning comedy of all,
+Saunderson does not know the truth; he is not the type of man who
+could ever understand; in fact we dare not tell him--and we dare not
+tell Myra. The result is that those whom we would protect, unwittingly
+are working against us, and against themselves."
+
+"That perfume!" burst out Robert Cairn; "that hell's incense which
+loads the atmosphere of Saunderson's house! To think that we know what
+it means--that we know what it means!"
+
+"Perhaps _I_ know even better than you do, Rob. The occult uses of
+perfume are not understood nowadays; but you, from experience, know
+that certain perfumes have occult uses. At the Pyramid of Méydûm in
+Egypt, Antony Ferrara dared--and the just God did not strike him
+dead--to make a certain incense. It was often made in the remote past,
+and a portion of it, probably in a jar hermetically sealed, had come
+into his possession. I once detected its dreadful odour in his rooms
+in London. Had you asked me prior to that occasion if any of the
+hellish stuff had survived to the present day, I should most
+emphatically have said _no_; I should have been wrong. Ferrara had
+some. He used it all--and went to the Méydûm pyramid to renew his
+stock."
+
+Robert Cairn was listening intently.
+
+"All this brings me back to a point which I have touched upon before,
+sir," he said: "To my certain knowledge, the late Sir Michael and
+yourself have delved into the black mysteries of Egypt more deeply
+than any men of the present century. Yet Antony Ferrara, little more
+than a boy, has mastered secrets which you, after years of research,
+have failed to grasp. What does this mean, sir?"
+
+Dr. Cairn, again locking his hands behind him, stared out of the
+window.
+
+"He is not an ordinary mortal," continued his son. "He is
+supernormal--and supernaturally wicked. You have admitted--indeed it
+was evident--that he is merely the adopted son of the late Sir
+Michael. Now that we have entered upon the final struggle--for I feel
+that this is so--I will ask you again: _Who is Antony Ferrara_?"
+
+Dr. Cairn spun around upon the speaker; his grey eyes were very
+bright.
+
+"There is one little obstacle," he answered, "which has deterred me
+from telling you what you have asked so often. Although--and you have
+had dreadful opportunities to peer behind the veil--you will find it
+hard to believe, I hope very shortly to be able to answer that
+question, and to tell you who Antony Ferrara really is."
+
+Robert Cairn beat his fist upon the arm of the chair.
+
+"I sometimes wonder," he said, "that either of us has remained sane.
+Oh! what does it mean? What can we do? What can we do?"
+
+"We must watch, Rob. To enlist the services of Saunderson, would be
+almost impossible; he lives in his orchid houses; they are his world.
+In matters of ordinary life I can trust him above most men, but in
+this--"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Could we suggest to him a reason--any reason but the real one--why he
+should refuse to receive Ferrara?"
+
+"It might destroy our last chance."
+
+"But sir," cried Robert wildly, "it amounts to this: we are using Myra
+as a lure!"
+
+"In order to save her, Rob--simply in order to save her," retorted Dr.
+Cairn sternly.
+
+"How ill she looks," groaned the other; "how pale and worn. There are
+great shadows under her eyes--oh! I cannot bear to think about her!"
+
+"When was _he_ last there?"
+
+"Apparently some ten days ago. You may depend upon him to be aware of
+our return! He will not come there again, sir. But there are other
+ways in which he might reach her--does he not command a whole shadow
+army! And Mr. Saunderson is entirely unsuspicious--and Myra thinks of
+the fiend as a brother! Yet--she has never once spoken of him. I
+wonder...."
+
+Dr. Cairn sat deep in reflection. Suddenly he took out his watch.
+
+"Go around now," he said--"you will be in time for lunch--and remain
+there until I come. From to-day onward, although actually your health
+does not permit of the strain, we must watch, watch night and day."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+MYRA
+
+
+Myra Duquesne came under an arch of roses to the wooden seat where
+Robert Cairn awaited her. In her plain white linen frock, with the sun
+in her hair and her eyes looking unnaturally large, owing to the
+pallor of her beautiful face, she seemed to the man who rose to greet
+her an ethereal creature, but lightly linked to the flesh and blood
+world.
+
+An impulse, which had possessed him often enough before, but which
+hitherto he had suppressed, suddenly possessed him anew, set his heart
+beating, and filled his veins with fire. As a soft blush spread over
+the girl's pale cheeks, and, with a sort of timidity, she held out her
+hand, he leapt to his feet, threw his arms around her, and kissed her;
+kissed her eyes, her hair, her lips!
+
+There was a moment of frightened hesitancy ... and then she had
+resigned herself to this sort of savage tenderness which was better in
+its very brutality than any caress she had ever known, which thrilled
+her with a glorious joy such as, she realised now, she had dreamt of
+and lacked, and wanted; which was a harbourage to which she came,
+blushing, confused--but glad, conquered, and happy in the thrall of
+that exquisite slavery.
+
+"Myra," he whispered, "Myra! have I frightened you? Will you forgive
+me?--"
+
+She nodded her head quickly and nestled upon his shoulder.
+
+"I could wait no longer," he murmured in her ear. "Words seemed
+unnecessary; I just wanted you; you are everything in the world;
+and,"--he concluded simply--"I took you."
+
+She whispered his name, very softly. What a serenity there is in such
+a moment, what a glow of secure happiness, of immunity from the pains
+and sorrows of the world!
+
+Robert Cairn, his arms about this girl, who, from his early boyhood,
+had been his ideal of womanhood, of love, and of all that love meant,
+forgot those things which had shaken his life and brought him to the
+threshold of death, forgot those evidences of illness which marred the
+once glorious beauty of the girl, forgot the black menace of the
+future, forgot the wizard enemy whose hand was stretched over that
+house and that garden--and was merely happy.
+
+But this paroxysm of gladness--which Eliphas Lévi, last of the Adepts,
+has so marvellously analysed in one of his works--is of short
+duration, as are all joys. It is needless to recount, here, the broken
+sentences (punctuated with those first kisses which sweeten the memory
+of old age) that now passed for conversation, and which lovers have
+believed to be conversation since the world began. As dusk creeps over
+a glorious landscape, so the shadow of Antony Ferrara crept over the
+happiness of these two.
+
+Gradually that shadow fell between them and the sun; the grim thing
+which loomed big in the lives of them both, refused any longer to be
+ignored. Robert Cairn, his arm about the girl's waist, broached the
+hated subject.
+
+"When did you last see--Ferrara?"
+
+Myra looked up suddenly.
+
+"Over a week--nearly a fortnight, ago--"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+Cairn noted that the girl spoke of Ferrara with an odd sort of
+restraint for which he was at a loss to account. Myra had always
+regarded her guardian's adopted son in the light of a brother;
+therefore her present attitude was all the more singular.
+
+"You did not expect him to return to England so soon?" he asked.
+
+"I had no idea that he was in England," said Myra, "until he walked
+in here one day. I was glad to see him--then."
+
+"And should you not be glad to see him now?" inquired Cairn eagerly.
+
+Myra, her head lowered, deliberately pressed out a crease in her white
+skirt.
+
+"One day, last week," she replied slowly, "he--came here, and--acted
+strangely--"
+
+"In what way?" jerked Cairn.
+
+"He pointed out to me that actually we--he and I--were in no way
+related."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You know how I have always liked Antony? I have always thought of him
+as my brother."
+
+Again she hesitated, and a troubled expression crept over her pale
+face. Cairn raised his arm and clasped it about her shoulders.
+
+"Tell me all about it," he whispered reassuringly.
+
+"Well," continued Myra in evident confusion, "his behaviour
+became--embarrassing; and suddenly--he asked me if I could ever love
+him, not as a brother, but--"
+
+"I understand!" said Cairn grimly. "And you replied?"
+
+"For some time I could not reply at all: I was so surprised, and
+so--horrified. I cannot explain how I felt about it, but it seemed
+horrible--it seemed horrible!--"
+
+"But of course, you told him?"
+
+"I told him that I could never be fond of him in any different
+way--that I could never _think_ of it. And although I endeavoured to
+avoid hurting his feelings, he--took it very badly. He said, in such a
+queer, choking voice, that he was going away--"
+
+"Away!--from England?"
+
+"Yes; and--he made a strange request."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"In the circumstances--you see--I felt sorry for him--I did not like
+to refuse him; it was only a trifling thing. He asked for a lock of my
+hair!"
+
+"A lock of your hair! And you--"
+
+"I told you that I did not like to refuse--and I let him snip off a
+tiny piece, with a pair of pocket scissors which he had. Are you
+angry?"
+
+"Of course not! You--were almost brought up together. You--?"
+
+"Then--" she paused--"he seemed to change. Suddenly, I found myself
+afraid--dreadfully afraid--"
+
+"Of Ferrara?"
+
+"Not of Antony, exactly. But what is the good of my trying to explain!
+A most awful dread seized me. His face was no longer the face that I
+have always known; something--"
+
+Her voice trembled, and she seemed disposed to leave the sentence
+unfinished; then:
+
+"Something evil--sinister, had come into it."
+
+"And since then," said Cairn, "you have not seen him?"
+
+"He has not been here since then--no."
+
+Cairn, his hands resting upon the girl's shoulders, leant back in the
+seat, and looked into her troubled eyes with a kind of sad scrutiny.
+
+"You have not been fretting about him?"
+
+Myra shook her head.
+
+"Yet you look as though something were troubling you. This house"--he
+indicated the low-lying garden with a certain irritation--"is not
+healthily situated. This place lies in a valley; look at the rank
+grass--and there are mosquitoes everywhere. You do not look well,
+Myra."
+
+The girl smiled--a little wistful smile.
+
+"But I was so tired of Scotland," she said. "You do not know how I
+looked forward to London again. I must admit, though, that I was in
+better health there; I was quite ashamed of my dairy-maid appearance."
+
+"You have nothing to amuse you here," said Cairn tenderly; "no
+company, for Mr. Saunderson only lives for his orchids."
+
+"They are very fascinating," said Myra dreamily, "I, too, have felt
+their glamour. I am the only member of the household whom he allows
+amongst his orchids--"
+
+"Perhaps you spend too much time there," interrupted Cairn; "that
+superheated, artificial atmosphere--"
+
+Myra shook her head playfully, patting his arm.
+
+"There is nothing in the world the matter with me," she said, almost
+in her old bright manner--"now that you are back--"
+
+"I do not approve of orchids," jerked Cairn doggedly. "They are
+parodies of what a flower should be. Place an Odontoglossum beside a
+rose, and what a distorted unholy thing it looks!"
+
+"Unholy?" laughed Myra.
+
+"Unholy,--yes!--they are products of feverish swamps and deathly
+jungles. I hate orchids. The atmosphere of an orchid-house cannot
+possibly be clean and healthy. One might as well spend one's time in a
+bacteriological laboratory!"
+
+Myra shook her head with affected seriousness.
+
+"You must not let Mr. Saunderson hear you," she said. "His orchids are
+his children. Their very mystery enthrals him--and really it is most
+fascinating. To look at one of those shapeless bulbs, and to speculate
+upon what kind of bloom it will produce, is almost as thrilling as
+reading a sensational novel! He has one growing now--it will bloom
+some time this week--about which he is frantically excited."
+
+"Where did he get it?" asked Cairn without interest.
+
+"He bought it from a man who had almost certainly stolen it! There
+were six bulbs in the parcel; only two have lived and one of these is
+much more advanced than the other; it is _so_ high--"
+
+She held out her hand, indicating a height of some three feet from the
+ground.
+
+"It has not flowered yet?"
+
+"No. But the buds--huge, smooth, egg-shaped things--seem on the point
+of bursting at any moment. We call it the 'Mystery,' and it is my
+special care. Mr. Saunderson has shown me how to attend to its simple
+needs, and if it proves to be a new species--which is almost
+certain--he is going to exhibit it, and name it after me! Shall you
+be proud of having an orchid named after--"
+
+"After my wife?" Cairn concluded, seizing her hands. "I could never be
+more proud of you than I am already...."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE FACE IN THE ORCHID-HOUSE
+
+
+Dr. Cairn walked to the window, with its old-fashioned leaded panes. A
+lamp stood by the bedside, and he had tilted the shade so that it
+shone upon the pale face of the patient--Myra Duquesne.
+
+Two days had wrought a dreadful change in her. She lay with closed
+eyes, and sunken face upon which ominous shadows played. Her
+respiration was imperceptible. The reputation of Dr. Bruce Cairn was a
+well deserved one, but this case puzzled him. He knew that Myra
+Duquesne was dying before his eyes; he could still see the agonised
+face of his son, Robert, who at that moment was waiting, filled with
+intolerable suspense, downstairs in Mr. Saunderson's study; but,
+withal, he was helpless. He looked out from the rose-entwined casement
+across the shrubbery, to where the moonlight glittered among the
+trees.
+
+Those were the orchid-houses; and with his back to the bed, Dr. Cairn
+stood for long, thoughtfully watching the distant gleams of reflected
+light. Craig Fenton and Sir Elwin Groves, with whom he had been
+consulting, were but just gone. The nature of Myra Duquesne's illness
+had utterly puzzled them, and they had left, mystified.
+
+Downstairs, Robert Cairn was pacing the study, wondering if his reason
+would survive this final blow which threatened. He knew, and his
+father knew, that a sinister something underlay this strange
+illness--an illness which had commenced on the day that Antony Ferrara
+had last visited the house.
+
+The evening was insufferably hot; not a breeze stirred in the leaves;
+and despite open windows, the air of the room was heavy and lifeless.
+A faint perfume, having a sort of sweetness, but which yet was
+unutterably revolting, made itself perceptible to the nostrils.
+Apparently it had pervaded the house by slow degrees. The occupants
+were so used to it that they did not notice it at all.
+
+Dr. Cairn had busied himself that evening in the sick-room, burning
+some pungent preparation, to the amazement of the nurse and of the
+consultants. Now the biting fumes of his pastilles had all been wafted
+out of the window and the faint sweet smell was as noticeable as ever.
+
+Not a sound broke the silence of the house; and when the nurse quietly
+opened the door and entered, Dr. Cairn was still standing staring
+thoughtfully out of the window in the direction of the orchid-houses.
+He turned, and walking back to the bedside, bent over the patient.
+
+Her face was like a white mask; she was quite unconscious; and so far
+as he could see showed no change either for better or worse. But her
+pulse was slightly more feeble and the doctor suppressed a groan of
+despair; for this mysterious progressive weakness could only have one
+end. All his experience told him that unless something could be
+done--and every expedient thus far attempted had proved futile--Myra
+Duquesne would die about dawn.
+
+He turned on his heel, and strode from the room, whispering a few
+words of instruction to the nurse. Descending the stairs, he passed
+the closed study door, not daring to think of his son who waited
+within, and entered the dining-room. A single lamp burnt there, and
+the gaunt figure of Mr. Saunderson was outlined dimly where he sat in
+the window seat. Crombie, the gardener, stood by the table.
+
+"Now, Crombie," said Dr. Cairn, quietly, closing the door behind him,
+"what is this story about the orchid-houses, and why did you not
+mention it before?"
+
+The man stared persistently into the shadows of the room, avoiding Dr.
+Cairn's glance.
+
+"Since he has had the courage to own up," interrupted Mr. Saunderson,
+"I have overlooked the matter: but he was afraid to speak before,
+because he had no business to be in the orchid-houses." His voice
+grew suddenly fierce--"He knows it well enough!"
+
+"I know, sir, that you don't want me to interfere with the orchids,"
+replied the man, "but I only ventured in because I thought I saw a
+light moving there--"
+
+"Rubbish!" snapped Mr. Saunderson.
+
+"Pardon me, Saunderson," said Dr. Cairn, "but a matter of more
+importance than the welfare of all the orchids in the world is under
+consideration now."
+
+Saunderson coughed dryly.
+
+"You are right, Cairn," he said. "I shouldn't have lost my temper for
+such a trifle, at a time like this. Tell your own tale, Crombie; I
+won't interrupt."
+
+"It was last night then," continued the man. "I was standing at the
+door of my cottage smoking a pipe before turning in, when I saw a
+faint light moving over by the orchid-houses--"
+
+"Reflection of the moon," muttered Saunderson. "I am sorry. Go on,
+Crombie!"
+
+"I knew that some of the orchids were very valuable, and I thought
+there would not be time to call you; also I did not want to worry you,
+knowing you had worry enough already. So I knocked out my pipe and put
+it in my pocket, and went through the shrubbery. I saw the light
+again--it seemed to be moving from the first house into the second. I
+couldn't see what it was."
+
+"Was it like a candle, or a pocket-lamp?" jerked Dr. Cairn.
+
+"Nothing like that, sir; a softer light, more like a glow-worm; but
+much brighter. I went around and tried the door, and it was locked.
+Then I remembered the door at the other end, and I cut round by the
+path between the houses and the wall, so that I had no chance to see
+the light again, until I got to the other door. I found this unlocked.
+There was a close kind of smell in there, sir, and the air was very
+hot--"
+
+"Naturally, it was hot," interrupted Saunderson.
+
+"I mean much hotter than it should have been. It was like an oven, and
+the smell was stifling--"
+
+"What smell?" asked Dr. Cairn. "Can you describe it?"
+
+"Excuse me, sir, but I seem to notice it here in this room to-night,
+and I think I noticed it about the place before--never so strong as in
+the orchid-houses."
+
+"Go on!" said Dr. Cairn.
+
+"I went through the first house, and saw nothing. The shadow of the
+wall prevented the moonlight from shining in there. But just as I was
+about to enter the middle house, I thought I saw--a face."
+
+"What do you mean you _thought_ you saw?" snapped Mr. Saunderson.
+
+"I mean, sir, that it was so horrible and so strange that I could not
+believe it was real--which is one of the reasons why I did not speak
+before. It reminded me of the face of a gentleman I have seen
+here--Mr. Ferrara--"
+
+Dr. Cairn stifled an exclamation.
+
+"But in other ways it was quite unlike the gentleman. In some ways it
+was more like the face of a woman--a very bad woman. It had a sort of
+bluish light on it, but where it could have come from, I don't know.
+It seemed to be smiling, and two bright eyes looked straight out at
+me."
+
+Crombie stopped, raising his hand to his head confusedly.
+
+"I could see nothing but just this face--low down as if the person it
+belonged to was crouching on the floor; and there was a tall plant of
+some kind just beside it--"
+
+"Well," said Dr. Cairn, "go on! What did you do?"
+
+"I turned to run!" confessed the man. "If you had seen that horrible
+face, you would understand how frightened I was. Then when I got to
+the door, I looked back."
+
+"I hope you had closed the door behind you," snapped Saunderson.
+
+"Never mind that, never mind that!" interrupted Dr. Cairn.
+
+"I had closed the door behind me--yes, sir--but just as I was going to
+open it again, I took a quick glance back, and the face had gone! I
+came out, and I was walking over the lawn, wondering whether I should
+tell you, when it occurred to me that I hadn't noticed whether the
+key had been left in or not."
+
+"Did you go back to see?" asked Dr. Cairn.
+
+"I didn't want to," admitted Crombie, "but I did--and--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The door was locked, sir!"
+
+"So you concluded that your imagination had been playing you tricks,"
+said Saunderson grimly. "In my opinion you were right."
+
+Dr. Cairn dropped into an armchair.
+
+"All right, Crombie; that will do."
+
+Crombie, with a mumbled "Good-night, gentlemen," turned and left the
+room.
+
+"Why are you worrying about this matter," inquired Saunderson, when
+the door had closed, "at a time like the present?"
+
+"Never mind," replied Dr. Cairn wearily. "I must return to Half-Moon
+Street, now, but I shall be back within an hour."
+
+With no other word to Saunderson, he stood up and walked out to the
+hall. He rapped at the study door, and it was instantly opened by
+Robert Cairn. No spoken word was necessary; the burning question could
+be read in his too-bright eyes. Dr. Cairn laid his hand upon his son's
+shoulder.
+
+"I won't excite false hopes, Rob," he said huskily. "I am going back
+to the house, and I want you to come with me."
+
+Robert Cairn turned his head aside, groaning aloud, but his father
+grasped him by the arm, and together they left that house of shadows,
+entered the car which waited at the gate, and without exchanging a
+word _en route_, came to Half-Moon Street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+FLOWERING OF THE LOTUS
+
+
+Dr. Cairn led the way into the library, switching on the reading-lamp
+upon the large table. His son stood just within the doorway, his arms
+folded and his chin upon his breast.
+
+The doctor sat down at the table, watching the other.
+
+Suddenly Robert spoke:
+
+"Is it possible, sir, is it possible--" his voice was barely
+audible--"that her illness can in any way be due to the orchids?"
+
+Dr. Cairn frowned thoughtfully.
+
+"What do you mean, exactly?" he asked.
+
+"Orchids are mysterious things. They come from places where there are
+strange and dreadful diseases. Is it not possible that they may
+convey--"
+
+"Some sort of contagion?" concluded Dr. Cairn. "It is a point that I
+have seen raised, certainly. But nothing of the sort has ever been
+established. I have heard something, to-night, though, which--"
+
+"What have you heard, sir?" asked his son eagerly, stepping forward to
+the table.
+
+"Never mind at the moment, Rob; let me think."
+
+He rested his elbow upon the table, and his chin in his hand. His
+professional instincts had told him that unless something could be
+done--something which the highest medical skill in London had thus far
+been unable to devise--Myra Duquesne had but four hours to live.
+Somewhere in his mind a memory lurked, evasive, taunting him. This
+wild suggestion of his son's, that the girl's illness might be due in
+some way to her contact with the orchids, was in part responsible for
+this confused memory, but it seemed to be associated, too, with the
+story of Crombie the gardener--and with Antony Ferrara. He felt that
+somewhere in the darkness surrounding him there was a speck of light,
+if he could but turn in the right direction to see it. So, whilst
+Robert Cairn walked restlessly about the big room, the doctor sat with
+his chin resting in the palm of his hand, seeking to concentrate his
+mind upon that vague memory, which defied him, whilst the hand of the
+library clock crept from twelve towards one; whilst he knew that the
+faint life in Myra Duquesne was slowly ebbing away in response to some
+mysterious condition, utterly outside his experience.
+
+Distant clocks chimed _One_! Three hours only!
+
+Robert Cairn began to beat his fist into the palm of his left hand
+convulsively. Yet his father did not stir, but sat there, a
+black-shadowed wrinkle between his brows....
+
+"By God!"
+
+The doctor sprang to his feet, and with feverish haste began to fumble
+amongst a bunch of keys.
+
+"What is it, sir! What is it?"
+
+The doctor unlocked the drawer of the big table, and drew out a thick
+manuscript written in small and exquisitely neat characters. He placed
+it under the lamp, and rapidly began to turn the pages.
+
+"It is hope, Rob!" he said with quiet self-possession.
+
+Robert Cairn came round the table, and leant over his father's
+shoulder.
+
+"Sir Michael Ferrara's writing!"
+
+"His unpublished book, Rob. We were to have completed it, together,
+but death claimed him, and in view of the contents, I--perhaps
+superstitiously--decided to suppress it.... Ah!"
+
+He placed the point of his finger upon a carefully drawn sketch,
+designed to illustrate the text. It was evidently a careful copy from
+the Ancient Egyptian. It represented a row of priestesses, each having
+her hair plaited in a thick queue, standing before a priest armed with
+a pair of scissors. In the centre of the drawing was an altar, upon
+which stood vases of flowers; and upon the right ranked a row of
+mummies, corresponding in number with the priestesses upon the left.
+
+"By God!" repeated Dr. Cairn, "we were both wrong, we were both
+wrong!"
+
+"What do you mean, sir? for Heaven's sake, what do you mean?"
+
+"This drawing," replied Dr. Cairn, "was copied from the wall of a
+certain tomb--now reclosed. Since we knew that the tomb was that of
+one of the greatest wizards who ever lived in Egypt, we knew also that
+the inscription had some magical significance. We knew that the
+flowers represented here, were a species of the extinct sacred Lotus.
+All our researches did not avail us to discover for what purpose or by
+what means these flowers were cultivated. Nor could we determine the
+meaning of the cutting off,"--he ran his fingers over the sketch--"of
+the priestesses' hair by the high priest of the goddess--"
+
+"What goddess, sir?"
+
+"A goddess, Rob, of which Egyptology knows nothing!--a mystical
+religion the existence of which has been vaguely suspected by a living
+French _savant_ ... but this is no time--"
+
+Dr. Cairn closed the manuscript, replaced it and relocked the drawer.
+He glanced at the clock.
+
+"A quarter past one," he said. "Come, Rob!"
+
+Without hesitation, his son followed him from the house. The car was
+waiting, and shortly they were speeding through the deserted streets,
+back to the house where death in a strange guise was beckoning to Myra
+Duquesne. As the car started--
+
+"Do you know," asked Dr. Cairn, "if Saunderson has bought any
+orchids--_quite_ recently, I mean?"
+
+"Yes," replied his son dully; "he bought a small parcel only a
+fortnight ago."
+
+"A fortnight!" cried Dr. Cairn excitedly--"you are sure of that? You
+mean that the purchase was made since Ferrara--"
+
+"Ceased to visit the house? Yes. Why!--it must have been the very day
+after!"
+
+Dr. Cairn clearly was labouring under tremendous excitement.
+
+"Where did he buy these orchids?" he asked, evenly.
+
+"From someone who came to the house--someone he had never dealt with
+before."
+
+The doctor, his hands resting upon his knees, was rapidly drumming
+with his fingers.
+
+"And--did he cultivate them?"
+
+"Two only proved successful. One is on the point of blooming--if it is
+not blooming already. He calls it the 'Mystery.'"
+
+At that, the doctor's excitement overcame him. Suddenly leaning out of
+the window, he shouted to the chauffeur:
+
+"Quicker! Quicker! Never mind risks. Keep on top speed!"
+
+"What is it, sir?" cried his son. "Heavens! what is it?"
+
+"Did you say that it might have bloomed, Rob?"
+
+"Myra"--Robert Cairn swallowed noisily--"told me three days ago that
+it was expected to bloom before the end of the week."
+
+"What is it like?"
+
+"A thing four feet high, with huge egg-shaped buds."
+
+"Merciful God grant that we are in time," whispered Dr. Cairn. "I
+could believe once more in the justice of Heaven, if the great
+knowledge of Sir Michael Ferrara should prove to be the weapon to
+destroy the fiend whom we raised!--he and I--may we be forgiven!"'
+
+Robert Cairn's excitement was dreadful.
+
+"Can you tell me nothing?" he cried. "What do you hope? What do you
+fear?"
+
+"Don't ask me, Rob," replied his father; "you will know within five
+minutes."
+
+The car indeed was leaping along the dark suburban roads at a speed
+little below that of an express train. Corners the chauffeur
+negotiated in racing fashion, so that at times two wheels thrashed the
+empty air; and once or twice the big car swung round as upon a pivot
+only to recover again in response to the skilled tactics of the
+driver.
+
+They roared down the sloping narrow lane to the gate of Mr.
+Saunderson's house with a noise like the coming of a great storm, and
+were nearly hurled from their seats when the brakes were applied, and
+the car brought to a standstill.
+
+Dr. Cairn leapt out, pushed open the gate and ran up to the house, his
+son closely following. There was a light in the hall and Miss
+Saunderson who had expected them, and had heard their stormy approach,
+already held the door open. In the hall--
+
+"Wait here one moment," said Dr. Cairn.
+
+Ignoring Saunderson, who had come out from the library, he ran
+upstairs. A minute later, his face very pale, he came running down
+again.
+
+"She is worse?" began Saunderson, "but--"
+
+"Give me the key of the orchid-house!" said Dr. Cairn tersely.
+
+"Orchid-house!--"
+
+"Don't hesitate. Don't waste a second. Give me the key."
+
+Saunderson's expression showed that he thought Dr. Cairn to be mad,
+but nevertheless he plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled out a
+key-ring. Dr. Cairn snatched it in a flash.
+
+"Which key?" he snapped.
+
+"The Chubb, but--"
+
+"Follow me, Rob!"
+
+Down the hall he raced, his son beside him, and Mr. Saunderson
+following more slowly. Out into the garden he went and over the lawn
+towards the shrubbery.
+
+The orchid-houses lay in dense shadow; but the doctor almost threw
+himself against the door.
+
+"Strike a match!" he panted. Then--"Never mind--I have it!"
+
+The door flew open with a bang. A sickly perfume swept out to them.
+
+"Matches! matches, Rob! this way!"
+
+They went stumbling in. Robert Cairn took out a box of matches--and
+struck one. His father was further along, in the centre building.
+
+"Your knife, boy--quick! _quick_!"
+
+As the dim light crept along the aisle between the orchids, Robert
+Cairn saw his father's horror-stricken face ... and saw a vivid green
+plant growing in a sort of tub, before which the doctor stood. Four
+huge, smooth, egg-shaped buds grew upon the leafless stems; two of
+them were on the point of opening, and one already showed a delicious,
+rosy flush about its apex.
+
+Dr. Cairn grasped the knife which Robert tremblingly offered him. The
+match went out. There was a sound of hacking, a soft _swishing_, and a
+dull thud upon the tiled floor.
+
+As another match fluttered into brief life, the mysterious orchid,
+severed just above the soil, fell from the tub. Dr. Cairn stamped the
+swelling buds under his feet. A profusion of colourless sap was
+pouring out upon the floor.
+
+Above the intoxicating odour of the place, a smell like that of blood
+made itself perceptible.
+
+The second match went out.
+
+"Another--"
+
+Dr. Cairn's voice rose barely above a whisper. With fingers quivering,
+Robert Cairn managed to light a third match. His father, from a second
+tub, tore out a smaller plant and ground its soft tentacles beneath
+his feet. The place smelt like an operating theatre. The doctor swayed
+dizzily as the third match became extinguished, clutching at his son
+for support.
+
+"Her life was in it, boy!" he whispered. "She would have died in the
+hour that it bloomed! The priestesses--were consecrated to this....
+Let me get into the air--"
+
+Mr. Saunderson, silent with amazement, met them.
+
+"Don't speak," said Dr. Cairn to him. "Look at the dead stems of your
+'Mystery.' You will find a thread of bright hair in the heart of
+each!..."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dr. Cairn opened the door of the sick-room and beckoned to his son,
+who, haggard, trembling, waited upon the landing.
+
+"Come in, boy," he said softly--"and thank God!"
+
+Robert Cairn, on tiptoe, entered. Myra Duquesne, pathetically pale but
+with that dreadful, ominous shadow gone from her face, turned her
+wistful eyes towards the door; and their wistfulness became gladness.
+
+"Rob!" she sighed--and stretched out her arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+CAIRN MEETS FERRARA
+
+
+Not the least of the trials which Robert Cairn experienced during the
+time that he and his father were warring with their supernaturally
+equipped opponent was that of preserving silence upon this matter
+which loomed so large in his mind, and which already had changed the
+course of his life.
+
+Sometimes he met men who knew Ferrara, but who knew him only as a man
+about town of somewhat evil reputation. Yet even to these he dared not
+confide what he knew of the true Ferrara; undoubtedly they would have
+deemed him mad had he spoken of the knowledge and of the deeds of this
+uncanny, this fiendish being. How would they have listened to him had
+he sought to tell them of the den of spiders in Port Said; of the bats
+of Méydûm; of the secret incense and of how it was made; of the
+numberless murders and atrocities, wrought by means not human, which
+stood to the account of this adopted son of the late Sir Michael
+Ferrara?
+
+So, excepting his father, he had no confidant; for above all it was
+necessary to keep the truth from Myra Duquesne--from Myra around whom
+his world circled, but who yet thought of the dreadful being who
+wielded the sorcery of forgotten ages, as a brother. Whilst Myra lay
+ill--not yet recovered from the ghastly attack made upon her life by
+the man whom she trusted--whilst, having plentiful evidence of his
+presence in London, Dr. Cairn and himself vainly sought for Antony
+Ferrara; whilst any night might bring some unholy visitant to his
+rooms, obedient to the will of this modern wizard; whilst these fears,
+anxieties, doubts, and surmises danced, impish, through his brain, it
+was all but impossible to pursue with success, his vocation of
+journalism. Yet for many reasons it was necessary that he should do
+so, and so he was employed upon a series of articles which were the
+outcome of his recent visit to Egypt--his editor having given him that
+work as being less exacting than that which properly falls to the lot
+of the Fleet Street copy-hunter.
+
+He left his rooms about three o'clock in the afternoon, in order to
+seek, in the British Museum library, a reference which he lacked. The
+day was an exceedingly warm one, and he derived some little
+satisfaction from the fact that, at his present work, he was not
+called upon to endue the armour of respectability. Pipe in mouth, he
+made his way across the Strand towards Bloomsbury.
+
+As he walked up the steps, crossed the hall-way, and passed in beneath
+the dome of the reading-room, he wondered if, amid those mountains of
+erudition surrounding him, there was any wisdom so strange, and so
+awful, as that of Antony Ferrara.
+
+He soon found the information for which he was looking, and having
+copied it into his notebook, he left the reading-room. Then, as he was
+recrossing the hall near the foot of the principal staircase, he
+paused. He found himself possessed by a sudden desire to visit the
+Egyptian Rooms, upstairs. He had several times inspected the exhibits
+in those apartments, but never since his return from the land to whose
+ancient civilisation they bore witness.
+
+Cairn was not pressed for time in these days, therefore he turned and
+passed slowly up the stairs.
+
+There were but few visitors to the grove of mummies that afternoon.
+When he entered the first room he found a small group of tourists
+passing idly from case to case; but on entering the second, he saw
+that he had the apartment to himself. He remembered that his father
+had mentioned on one occasion that there was a ring in this room which
+had belonged to the Witch-Queen. Robert Cairn wondered in which of the
+cases it was exhibited, and by what means he should be enabled to
+recognise it.
+
+Bending over a case containing scarabs and other amulets, many set in
+rings, he began to read the inscriptions upon the little tickets
+placed beneath some of them; but none answered to the description,
+neither the ticketed nor the unticketed. A second case he examined
+with like results. But on passing to a third, in an angle near the
+door, his gaze immediately lighted upon a gold ring set with a strange
+green stone, engraved in a peculiar way. It bore no ticket, yet as
+Robert Cairn eagerly bent over it, he knew, beyond the possibility of
+doubt, that this was the ring of the Witch-Queen.
+
+Where had he seen it, or its duplicate?
+
+With his eyes fixed upon the gleaming stone, he sought to remember.
+That he had seen this ring before, or one exactly like it, he knew,
+but strangely enough he was unable to determine where and upon what
+occasion. So, his hands resting upon the case, he leant, peering down
+at the singular gem. And as he stood thus, frowning in the effort of
+recollection, a dull white hand, having long tapered fingers, glided
+across the glass until it rested directly beneath his eyes. Upon one
+of the slim fingers was an exact replica of the ring in the case!
+
+Robert Cairn leapt back with a stifled exclamation.
+
+Antony Ferrara stood before him!
+
+"The Museum ring is a copy, dear Cairn," came the huskily musical,
+hateful voice; "the one upon my finger is the real one."
+
+Cairn realised in his own person, the literal meaning of the
+overworked phrase, "frozen with amazement." Before him stood the most
+dangerous man in Europe; a man who had done murder and worse; a man
+only in name, a demon in nature. His long black eyes half-closed, his
+perfectly chiselled ivory face expressionless, and his blood-red lips
+parted in a mirthless smile, Antony Ferrara watched Cairn--Cairn whom
+he had sought to murder by means of hellish art.
+
+Despite the heat of the day, he wore a heavy overcoat, lined with
+white fox fur. In his right hand--for his left still rested upon the
+case--he held a soft hat. With an easy nonchalance, he stood regarding
+the man who had sworn to kill him, and the latter made no move,
+uttered no word. Stark amazement held him inert.
+
+"I knew that you were in the Museum, Cairn," Ferrara continued, still
+having his basilisk eyes fixed upon the other from beneath the
+drooping lids, "and I called to you to join me here."
+
+Still Cairn did not move, did not speak.
+
+"You have acted very harshly towards me in the past, dear Cairn; but
+because my philosophy consists in an admirable blending of that
+practised in Sybaris with that advocated by the excellent Zeno;
+because whilst I am prepared to make my home in a Diogenes' tub, I,
+nevertheless, can enjoy the fragrance of a rose, the flavour of a
+peach--"
+
+The husky voice seemed to be hypnotising Cairn; it was a siren's
+voice, thralling him.
+
+"Because," continued Ferrara evenly, "in common with all humanity I am
+compound of man and woman, I can resent the enmity which drives me
+from shore to shore, but being myself a connoisseur of the red lips
+and laughing eyes of maidenhood--I am thinking, more particularly of
+Myra--I can forgive you, dear Cairn--"
+
+Then Cairn recovered himself.
+
+"You white-faced cur!" he snarled through clenched teeth; his knuckles
+whitened as he stepped around the case. "You dare to stand there
+mocking me--"
+
+Ferrara again placed the case between himself and his enemy.
+
+"Pause, my dear Cairn," he said, without emotion. "What would you do?
+Be discreet, dear Cairn; reflect that I have only to call an attendant
+in order to have you pitched ignominiously into the street."
+
+"Before God! I will throttle the life from you!" said Cairn, in a
+voice savagely hoarse.
+
+He sprang again towards Ferrara. Again the latter dodged around the
+case with an agility which defied the heavier man.
+
+"Your temperament is so painfully Celtic, Cairn," he protested
+mockingly. "I perceive quite clearly that you will not discuss this
+matter judicially. Must I then call for the attendant?"
+
+Cairn clenched his fists convulsively. Through all the tumult of his
+rage, the fact had penetrated--that he was helpless. He could not
+attack Ferrara in that place; he could not detain him against his
+will. For Ferrara had only to claim official protection to bring about
+the complete discomfiture of his assailant. Across the case containing
+the duplicate ring, he glared at this incarnate fiend, whom the law,
+which he had secretly outraged, now served to protect. Ferrara spoke
+again in his huskily musical voice.
+
+"I regret that you will not be reasonable, Cairn. There is so much
+that I should like to say to you; there are so many things of interest
+which I could tell you. Do you know in some respects I am peculiarly
+gifted, Cairn? At times I can recollect, quite distinctly, particulars
+of former incarnations. Do you see that priestess lying there, just
+through the doorway? I can quite distinctly remember having met her
+when she was a girl; she was beautiful, Cairn. And I can even recall
+how, one night beside the Nile--but I see that you are growing
+impatient! If you will not avail yourself of this opportunity, I must
+bid you good-day--"
+
+He turned and walked towards the door. Cairn leapt after him; but
+Ferrara, suddenly beginning to run, reached the end of the Egyptian
+Room and darted out on to the landing, before his pursuer had time to
+realise what he was about.
+
+At the moment that Ferrara turned the corner ahead of him, Cairn saw
+something drop. Coming to the end of the room, he stooped and picked
+up this object, which was a plaited silk cord about three feet in
+length. He did not pause to examine it more closely, but thrust it
+into his pocket and raced down the steps after the retreating figure
+of Ferrara. At the foot, a constable held out his arm, detaining him.
+Cairn stopped in surprise.
+
+"I must ask you for your name and address," said the constable,
+gruffly.
+
+"For Heaven's sake! what for?"
+
+"A gentleman has complained--"
+
+"My good man!" exclaimed Cairn, and proffered his card--"it is--it is
+a practical joke on his part. I know him well--"
+
+The constable looked at the card and from the card, suspiciously, back
+to Cairn. Apparently the appearance of the latter reassured him--or he
+may have formed a better opinion of Cairn, from the fact that
+half-a-crown had quickly changed hands.
+
+"All right, sir," he said, "it is no affair of mine; he did not charge
+you with anything--he only asked me to prevent you from following
+him."
+
+"Quite so," snapped Cairn irritably, and dashed off along the gallery
+in the hope of overtaking Ferrara.
+
+But, as he had feared, Ferrara had made good use of his ruse to
+escape. He was nowhere to be seen; and Cairn was left to wonder with
+what object he had risked the encounter in the Egyptian Room--for that
+it had been deliberate, and not accidental, he quite clearly
+perceived.
+
+He walked down the steps of the Museum, deep in reflection. The
+thought that he and his father for months had been seeking the fiend
+Ferrara, that they were sworn to kill him as they would kill a mad
+dog; and that he, Robert Cairn, had stood face to face with Ferrara,
+had spoken with him; and had let him go free, unscathed, was
+maddening. Yet, in the circumstances, how could he have acted
+otherwise?
+
+With no recollection of having traversed the intervening streets, he
+found himself walking under the archway leading to the court in which
+his chambers were situated; in the far corner, shadowed by the tall
+plane tree, where the worn iron railings of the steps and the small
+panes of glass in the solicitor's window on the ground floor called up
+memories of Charles Dickens, he paused, filled with a sort of
+wonderment. It seemed strange to him that such an air of peace could
+prevail, anywhere, whilst Antony Ferrara lived and remained at large.
+
+He ran up the stairs to the second landing, opened the door, and
+entered his chambers. He was oppressed to-day with a memory, the
+memory of certain gruesome happenings whereof these rooms had been the
+scene. Knowing the powers of Antony Ferrara he often doubted the
+wisdom of living there alone, but he was persuaded that to allow
+these fears to make headway, would be to yield a point to the enemy.
+Yet there were nights when he found himself sleepless, listening for
+sounds which had seemed to arouse him; imagining sinister whispers in
+his room--and imagining that he could detect the dreadful odour of the
+secret incense.
+
+Seating himself by the open window, he took out from his pocket the
+silken cord which Ferrara had dropped in the Museum, and examined it
+curiously. His examination of the thing did not serve to enlighten him
+respecting its character. It was merely a piece of silken cord, very
+closely and curiously plaited. He threw it down on the table,
+determined to show it to Dr. Cairn at the earliest opportunity. He was
+conscious of a sort of repugnance; and prompted by this, he carefully
+washed his hands as though the cord had been some unclean thing. Then,
+he sat down to work, only to realise immediately, that work was
+impossible until he had confided in somebody his encounter with
+Ferrara.
+
+Lifting the telephone receiver, he called up Dr. Cairn, but his father
+was not at home.
+
+He replaced the receiver, and sat staring vaguely at his open
+notebook.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+THE IVORY HAND
+
+
+For close upon an hour Robert Cairn sat at his writing-table,
+endeavouring to puzzle out a solution to the mystery of Ferrara's
+motive. His reflections served only to confuse his mind.
+
+A tangible clue lay upon the table before him--the silken cord. But it
+was a clue of such a nature that, whatever deductions an expert
+detective might have based upon it, Robert Cairn could base none. Dusk
+was not far off, and he knew that his nerves were not what they had
+been before those events which had led to his Egyptian journey. He was
+back in his own chamber--scene of one gruesome outrage in Ferrara's
+unholy campaign; for darkness is the ally of crime, and it had always
+been in the darkness that Ferrara's activities had most fearfully
+manifested themselves.
+
+What was that?
+
+Cairn ran to the window, and, leaning out, looked down into the court
+below. He could have sworn that a voice--a voice possessing a strange
+music, a husky music, wholly hateful--had called him by name. But at
+the moment the court was deserted, for it was already past the hour at
+which members of the legal fraternity desert their business premises
+to hasten homewards. Shadows were creeping under the quaint old
+archways; shadows were draping the ancient walls. And there was
+something in the aspect of the place which reminded him of a
+quadrangle at Oxford, across which, upon a certain fateful evening, he
+and another had watched the red light rising and falling in Antony
+Ferrara's rooms.
+
+Clearly his imagination was playing him tricks; and against this he
+knew full well that he must guard himself. The light in his rooms was
+growing dim, but instinctively his gaze sought out and found the
+mysterious silken cord amid the litter on the table. He contemplated
+the telephone, but since he had left a message for his father, he knew
+that the latter would ring him up directly he returned.
+
+Work, he thought, should be the likeliest antidote to the poisonous
+thoughts which oppressed his mind, and again he seated himself at the
+table and opened his notes before him. The silken rope lay close to
+his left hand, but he did not touch it. He was about to switch on the
+reading lamp, for it was now too dark to write, when his mind wandered
+off along another channel of reflection. He found himself picturing
+Myra as she had looked the last time that he had seen her.
+
+She was seated in Mr. Saunderson's garden, still pale from her
+dreadful illness, but beautiful--more beautiful in the eyes of Robert
+Cairn than any other woman in the world. The breeze was blowing her
+rebellious curls across her eyes--eyes bright with a happiness which
+he loved to see.
+
+Her cheeks were paler than they were wont to be, and the sweet lips
+had lost something of their firmness. She wore a short cloak, and a
+wide-brimmed hat, unfashionable, but becoming. No one but Myra could
+successfully have worn that hat, he thought.
+
+Wrapt in such lover-like memories, he forgot that he had sat down to
+write--forgot that he held a pen in his hand--and that this same hand
+had been outstretched to ignite the lamp.
+
+When he ultimately awoke again to the hard facts of his lonely
+environment, he also awoke to a singular circumstance; he made the
+acquaintance of a strange phenomenon.
+
+He had been writing unconsciously!
+
+And this was what he had written:
+
+"Robert Cairn--renounce your pursuit of me, and renounce Myra; or
+to-night--" The sentence was unfinished.
+
+Momentarily, he stared at the words, endeavouring to persuade himself
+that he had written them consciously, in idle mood. But some voice
+within gave him the lie; so that with a suppressed groan he muttered
+aloud:
+
+"It has begun!"
+
+Almost as he spoke there came a sound, from the passage outside, that
+led him to slide his hand across the table--and to seize his revolver.
+
+The visible presence of the little weapon reassured him; and, as a
+further sedative, he resorted to tobacco, filled and lighted his pipe,
+and leant back in the chair, blowing smoke rings towards the closed
+door.
+
+He listened intently--and heard the sound again.
+
+It was a soft _hiss_!
+
+And now, he thought he could detect another noise--as of some creature
+dragging its body along the floor.
+
+"A lizard!" he thought; and a memory of the basilisk eyes of Antony
+Ferrara came to him.
+
+Both the sounds seemed to come slowly nearer and nearer--the dragging
+thing being evidently responsible for the hissing; until Cairn decided
+that the creature must be immediately outside the door.
+
+Revolver in hand, he leapt across the room, and threw the door open.
+
+The red carpet, to right and left, was innocent of reptiles!
+
+Perhaps the creaking of the revolving chair, as he had prepared to
+quit it, had frightened the thing. With the idea before him, he
+systematically searched all the rooms into which it might have gone.
+
+His search was unavailing; the mysterious reptile was not to be found.
+
+Returning again to the study he seated himself behind the table,
+facing the door--which he left ajar.
+
+Ten minutes passed in silence--only broken by the dim murmur of the
+distant traffic.
+
+He had almost persuaded himself that his imagination--quickened by the
+atmosphere of mystery and horror wherein he had recently moved--was
+responsible for the hiss, when a new sound came to confute his
+reasoning.
+
+The people occupying the chambers below were moving about so that
+their footsteps were faintly audible; but, above these dim footsteps,
+a rustling--vague, indefinite, demonstrated itself. As in the case of
+the hiss, it proceeded from the passage.
+
+A light burnt inside the outer door, and this, as Cairn knew, must
+cast a shadow before any thing--or person--approaching the room.
+
+_Sssf! ssf!_--came, like the rustle of light draperies.
+
+The nervous suspense was almost unbearable. He waited.
+
+_What_ was creeping, slowly, cautiously, towards the open door?
+
+Cairn toyed with the trigger of his revolver.
+
+"The arts of the West shall try conclusions with those of the East,"
+he said.
+
+A shadow!...
+
+Inch upon inch it grew--creeping across the door, until it covered all
+the threshold visible.
+
+Someone was about to appear.
+
+He raised the revolver.
+
+The shadow moved along.
+
+Cairn saw the tail of it creep past the door, until no shadow was
+there!
+
+The shadow had come--and gone ... but there was _no substance_!
+
+"I am going mad!"
+
+The words forced themselves to his lips. He rested his chin upon his
+hands and clenched his teeth grimly. Did the horrors of insanity stare
+him in the face!
+
+From that recent illness in London--when his nervous system had
+collapsed, utterly--despite his stay in Egypt he had never fully
+recovered. "A month will see you fit again," his father had said;
+but?--perhaps he had been wrong--perchance the affection had been
+deeper than he had suspected; and now this endless carnival of
+supernatural happenings had strained the weakened cells, so that he
+was become as a man in a delirium!
+
+Where did reality end and phantasy begin? Was it all merely
+subjective?
+
+He had read of such aberrations.
+
+And now he sat wondering if he were the victim of a like
+affliction--and while he wondered he stared at the rope of silk. That
+was real.
+
+Logic came to his rescue. If he had seen and heard strange things, so,
+too, had Sime in Egypt--so had his father, both in Egypt and in
+London! Inexplicable things were happening around him; and all could
+not be mad!
+
+"I'm getting morbid again," he told himself; "the tricks of our
+damnable Ferrara are getting on my nerves. Just what he desires and
+intends!"
+
+This latter reflection spurred him to new activity; and, pocketing the
+revolver, he switched off the light in the study and looked out of the
+window.
+
+Glancing across the court, he thought that he saw a man standing
+below, peering upward. With his hands resting upon the window ledge,
+Cairn looked long and steadily.
+
+There certainly was someone standing in the shadow of the tall plane
+tree--but whether man or woman he could not determine.
+
+The unknown remaining in the same position, apparently watching, Cairn
+ran downstairs, and, passing out into the Court, walked rapidly across
+to the tree. There he paused in some surprise; there was no one
+visible by the tree and the whole court was quite deserted.
+
+"Must have slipped off through the archway," he concluded; and,
+walking back, he remounted the stair and entered his chambers again.
+
+Feeling a renewed curiosity regarding the silken rope which had so
+strangely come into his possession, he sat down at the table, and
+mastering his distaste for the thing, took it in his hands and
+examined it closely by the light of the lamp.
+
+He was seated with his back to the windows, facing the door, so that
+no one could possibly have entered the room unseen by him. It was as
+he bent down to scrutinise the curious plaiting, that he felt a
+sensation stealing over him, as though someone were standing very
+close to his chair.
+
+Grimly determined to resist any hypnotic tricks that might be
+practised against him, and well assured that there could be no person
+actually present in the chambers, he sat back, resting his revolver on
+his knee. Prompted by he knew not what, he slipped the silk cord into
+the table drawer and turned the key upon it.
+
+As he did so a hand crept over his shoulder--followed by a bare arm of
+the hue of old ivory--a woman's arm!
+
+Transfixed he sat, his eyes fastened upon the ring of dull metal,
+bearing a green stone inscribed with a complex figure vaguely
+resembling a spider, which adorned the index finger.
+
+A faint perfume stole to his nostrils--that of the secret incense; and
+the ring was the ring of the Witch-Queen!
+
+In this incredible moment he relaxed that iron control of his mind,
+which, alone, had saved him before. Even as he realised it, and strove
+to recover himself, he knew that it was too late; he knew that he was
+lost!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gloom ... blackness, unrelieved by any speck of light; murmuring,
+subdued, all around; the murmuring of a concourse of people. The
+darkness was odorous with a heavy perfume.
+
+A voice came--followed by complete silence.
+
+Again the voice sounded, chanting sweetly.
+
+A response followed in deep male voices.
+
+The response was taken up all around--what time a tiny speck grew, in
+the gloom--and grew, until it took form; and out of the darkness, the
+shape of a white-robed woman appeared--high up--far away.
+
+Wherever the ray that illumined her figure emanated from, it did not
+perceptibly dispel the Stygian gloom all about her. She was bathed in
+dazzling light, but framed in impenetrable darkness.
+
+Her dull gold hair was encircled by a band of white metal--like
+silver, bearing in front a round, burnished disk, that shone like a
+minor sun. Above the disk projected an ornament having the shape of a
+spider.
+
+The intense light picked out every detail vividly. Neck and shoulders
+were bare--and the gleaming ivory arms were uplifted--the long slender
+fingers held aloft a golden casket covered with dim figures, almost
+undiscernible at that distance.
+
+A glittering zone of the same white metal confined the snowy
+draperies. Her bare feet peeped out from beneath the flowing robe.
+
+Above, below, and around her was--Memphian darkness!
+
+Silence--the perfume was stifling.... A voice, seeming to come from a
+great distance, cried:--"On your knees to the Book of Thoth! on your
+knees to the Wisdom Queen, who is deathless, being unborn, who is dead
+though living, whose beauty is for all men--that all men may die...."
+
+The whole invisible concourse took up the chant, and the light faded,
+until only the speck on the disk below the spider was visible.
+
+Then that, too, vanished.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A bell was ringing furiously. Its din grew louder and louder; it
+became insupportable. Cairn threw out his arms and staggered up like a
+man intoxicated. He grasped at the table-lamp only just in time to
+prevent it overturning.
+
+The ringing was that of his telephone bell. He had been unconscious,
+then--under some spell!
+
+He unhooked the receiver--and heard his father's voice.
+
+"That you, Rob?" asked the doctor anxiously.
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Cairn, eagerly, and he opened the drawer and slid
+his hand in for the silken cord.
+
+"There is something you have to tell me?"
+
+Cairn, without preamble, plunged excitedly into an account of his
+meeting with Ferrara. "The silk cord," he concluded, "I have in my
+hand at the present moment, and--"
+
+"Hold on a moment!" came Dr. Cairn's voice, rather grimly.
+
+Followed a short interval; then--
+
+"Hullo, Rob! Listen to this, from to-night's paper: 'A curious
+discovery was made by an attendant in one of the rooms, of the Indian
+Section of the British Museum late this evening. A case had been
+opened in some way, and, although it contained more valuable objects,
+the only item which the thief had abstracted was a Thug's
+strangling-cord from Kundélee (district of Nursingpore).'"
+
+"But, I don't understand--"
+
+"Ferrara _meant_ you to find that cord, boy! Remember, he is
+unacquainted with your chambers and he requires a _focus_ for his
+damnable forces! He knows well that you will have the thing somewhere
+near to you, and probably he knows something of its awful history! You
+are in danger! Keep a fast hold upon yourself. I shall be with you in
+less than half-an-hour!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE THUG'S CORD
+
+
+As Robert Cairn hung up the receiver and found himself cut off again
+from the outer world, he realised, with terror beyond his control, how
+in this quiet backwater, so near to the main stream, he yet was far
+from human companionship.
+
+He recalled a night when, amid such a silence as this which now
+prevailed about him, he had been made the subject of an uncanny
+demonstration; how his sanity, his life, had been attacked; how he had
+fled from the crowding horrors which had been massed against him by
+his supernaturally endowed enemy.
+
+There was something very terrifying in the quietude of the court--a
+quietude which to others might have spelt peace, but which, to Robert
+Cairn, spelled menace. That Ferrara's device was aimed at his freedom,
+that his design was intended to lead to the detention of his enemy
+whilst he directed his activities in other directions, seemed
+plausible, if inadequate. The carefully planned incident at the Museum
+whereby the constable had become possessed of Cairn's card; the
+distinct possibility that a detective might knock upon his door at any
+moment--with the inevitable result of his detention pending
+inquiries--formed a chain which had seemed complete, save that Antony
+Ferrara, was the schemer. For another to have compassed so much, would
+have been a notable victory; for Ferrara, such a victory would be
+trivial.
+
+What then, did it mean? His father had told him, and the uncanny
+events of the evening stood evidence of Dr. Cairn's wisdom. The
+mysterious and evil force which Antony Ferrara controlled was being
+focussed upon him!
+
+Slight sounds from time to time disturbed the silence and to these he
+listened attentively. He longed for the arrival of his father--for the
+strong, calm counsel of the one man in England fitted to cope with the
+Hell Thing which had uprisen in their midst. That he had already been
+subjected to some kind of hypnotic influence, he was unable to doubt;
+and having once been subjected to this influence, he might at any
+moment (it Was a terrible reflection) fall a victim to it again.
+
+Cairn directed all the energies of his mind to resistance; ill-defined
+reflection must at all costs be avoided, for the brain vaguely
+employed he knew to be more susceptible to attack than that directed
+in a well-ordered channel.
+
+Clocks were chiming the hour--he did not know what hour, nor did he
+seek to learn. He felt that he was at rapier play with a skilled
+antagonist, and that to glance aside, however momentarily, was to lay
+himself open to a fatal thrust.
+
+He had not moved from the table, so that only the reading lamp upon it
+was lighted, and much of the room lay in half shadow. The silken cord,
+coiled snake-like, was close to his left hand; the revolver was close
+to his right. The muffled roar of traffic--diminished, since the hour
+grew late--reached his ears as he sat. But nothing disturbed the
+stillness of the court, and nothing disturbed the stillness of the
+room.
+
+The notes which he had made in the afternoon at the Museum, were still
+spread open before him, and he suddenly closed the book, fearful of
+anything calculated to distract him from the mood of tense resistance.
+His life, and more than his life, depended upon his successfully
+opposing the insidious forces which beyond doubt, invisibly surrounded
+that lighted table.
+
+There is a courage which is not physical, nor is it entirely moral; a
+courage often lacking in the most intrepid soldier. And this was the
+kind of courage which Robert Cairn now called up to his aid. The
+occult inquirer can face, unmoved, horrors which would turn the brain
+of many a man who wears the V.C.; on the other hand it is questionable
+if the possessor of this peculiar type of bravery could face a bayonet
+charge. Pluck of the physical sort, Cairn had in plenty; pluck of
+that more subtle kind he was acquiring from growing intimacy with the
+terrors of the Borderland.
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+He spoke the words aloud, and the eerie sound of his own voice added a
+new dread to the enveloping shadows.
+
+His revolver grasped in his hand, he stood up, but slowly and
+cautiously, in order that his own movements might not prevent him from
+hearing any repetition of that which had occasioned his alarm. And
+what had occasioned this alarm?
+
+Either he was become again a victim of the strange trickery which
+already had borne him, though not physically, from Fleet Street to the
+secret temple of Méydûm, or with his material senses he had detected a
+soft rapping upon the door of his room.
+
+He knew that his outer door was closed; he knew that there was no one
+else in his chambers; yet he had heard a sound as of knuckles beating
+upon the panels of the door--the closed door of the room in which he
+sat!
+
+Standing upright, he turned deliberately, and faced in that direction.
+
+The light pouring out from beneath the shade of the table-lamp
+scarcely touched upon the door at all. Only the edges of the lower
+panels were clearly perceptible; the upper part of the door was masked
+in greenish shadow.
+
+Intent, tensely strung, he stood; then advanced in the direction of the
+switch in order to light the lamp fixed above the mantel-piece and to
+illuminate the whole of the room. One step forward he took, then ... the
+soft rapping was repeated.
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+This time he cried the words loudly, and acquired some new assurance
+from the imperative note in his own voice. He ran to the switch and
+pressed it down. The lamp did not light!
+
+"The filament has burnt out," he muttered.
+
+Terror grew upon him--a terror akin to that which children experience
+in the darkness. But he yet had a fair mastery of his emotions;
+when--not suddenly, as is the way of a failing electric lamp--but
+slowly, uncannily, unnaturally, the table-lamp became extinguished!
+
+Darkness.... Cairn turned towards the window. This was a moonless
+night, and little enough illumination entered the room from the court.
+
+Three resounding raps were struck upon the door.
+
+At that, terror had no darker meaning for Cairn; he had plumbed its
+ultimate deeps; and now, like a diver, he arose again to the surface.
+
+Heedless of the darkness, of the seemingly supernatural means by which
+it had been occasioned, he threw open the door and thrust his revolver
+out into the corridor.
+
+For terrors, he had been prepared--for some gruesome shape such as we
+read of in _The Magus_. But there was nothing. Instinctively he had
+looked straight ahead of him, as one looks who expects to encounter a
+human enemy. But the hall-way was empty. A dim light, finding access
+over the door from the stair, prevailed there, yet, it was sufficient
+to have revealed the presence of anyone or anything, had anyone or
+anything been present.
+
+Cairn stepped out from the room and was about to walk to the outer
+door. The idea of flight was strong upon him, for no man can fight the
+invisible; when, on a level with his eyes--flat against the wall, as
+though someone crouched there--he saw two white hands!
+
+They were slim hands, like the hands of a woman, and, upon one of the
+tapered fingers, there dully gleamed a green stone.
+
+A peal of laughter came chokingly from his lips; he knew that his
+reason was tottering. For these two white hands which now moved along
+the wall, as though they were sidling to the room which Cairn had just
+quitted, were attached to no visible body; just two ivory hands were
+there ... _and nothing more_!
+
+That he was in deadly peril, Cairn realised fully. His complete
+subjection by the will-force of Ferrara had been interrupted by the
+ringing of the telephone bell But now, the attack had been renewed!
+
+The hands vanished.
+
+Too well he remembered the ghastly details attendant upon the death of
+Sir Michael Ferrara to doubt that these slim hands were directed upon
+murderous business.
+
+A soft swishing sound reached him. Something upon the writing-table
+had been moved.
+
+The strangling cord!
+
+Whilst speaking to his father he had taken it out from the drawer, and
+when he quitted the room it had lain upon the blotting-pad.
+
+He stepped back towards the outer door.
+
+Something fluttered past his face, and he turned in a mad panic. The
+dreadful, bodiless hands groped in the darkness between himself and
+the exit!
+
+Vaguely it came home to him that the menace might be avoidable. He was
+bathed in icy perspiration.
+
+He dropped the revolver into his pocket, and placed his hands upon his
+throat. Then he began to grope his way towards the closed door of his
+bedroom.
+
+Lowering his left hand, he began to feel for the doorknob. As he did
+so, he saw--and knew the crowning horror of the night--that he had
+made a false move. In retiring he had thrown away his last, his only,
+chance.
+
+The phantom hands, a yard apart and holding the silken cord stretched
+tightly between them, were approaching him swiftly!
+
+He lowered his head, and charged along the passage, with a wild cry.
+
+The cord, stretched taut, struck him under the chin.
+
+Back he reeled.
+
+The cord was about his throat!
+
+"God!" he choked, and thrust up his hands.
+
+Madly, he strove to pluck the deadly silken thing from his neck. It
+was useless. A grip of steel was drawing it tightly--and ever more
+tightly--about him....
+
+Despair touched him, and almost he resigned himself. Then,
+
+"Rob! Rob! open the door!"
+
+Dr. Cairn was outside.
+
+A new strength came--and he knew that it was the last atom left to
+him. To remove the rope was humanly impossible. He dropped his cramped
+hands, bent his body by a mighty physical effort, and hurled himself
+forward upon the door.
+
+The latch, now, was just above his head.
+
+He stretched up ... and was plucked back. But the fingers of his right
+hand grasped the knob convulsively.
+
+Even as that superhuman force jerked him back, he turned the knob--and
+fell.
+
+All his weight hung upon the fingers which were locked about that
+brass disk in a grip which even the powers of Darkness could not
+relax.
+
+The door swung open, and Cairn swung back with it.
+
+He collapsed, an inert heap, upon the floor. Dr. Cairn leapt in over
+him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he reopened his eyes, he lay in bed, and his father was bathing
+his inflamed throat.
+
+"All right, boy! There's no damage done, thank God...."
+
+"The hands!--"
+
+"I quite understand. But _I_ saw no hands but your own, Rob; and if it
+had come to an inquest I could not even have raised my voice against a
+verdict of suicide!"
+
+"But I--opened the door!"
+
+"They would have said that you repented your awful act, too late.
+Although it is almost impossible for a man to strangle himself under
+such conditions, there is no jury in England who would have believed
+that Antony Ferrara had done the deed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE HIGH PRIEST, HORTOTEF
+
+
+The breakfast-room of Dr. Cairn's house in Half-Moon Street presented
+a cheery appearance, and this despite the gloom of the morning; for
+thunderous clouds hung low in the sky, and there were distant
+mutterings ominous of a brewing storm.
+
+Robert Cairn stood looking out of the window. He was thinking of an
+afternoon at Oxford, when, to such an accompaniment as this, he had
+witnessed the first scene in the drama of evil wherein the man called
+Antony Ferrara sustained the leading _rôle_.
+
+That the _denouément_ was at any moment to be anticipated, his reason
+told him; and some instinct that was not of his reason forewarned him,
+too, that he and his father, Dr. Cairn, were now upon the eve of that
+final, decisive struggle which should determine the triumph of good
+over evil--or of evil over good. Already the doctor's house was
+invested by the uncanny forces marshalled by Antony Ferrara against
+them. The distinguished patients, who daily flocked to the
+consulting-room of the celebrated specialist, who witnessed his
+perfect self-possession and took comfort from his confidence, knowing
+it for the confidence of strength, little suspected that a greater ill
+than any flesh is heir to, assailed the doctor to whom they came for
+healing.
+
+A menace, dreadful and unnatural, hung over that home as now the
+thunder clouds hung over it. This well-ordered household, so modern,
+so typical of twentieth century culture and refinement, presented none
+of the appearances of a beleaguered garrison; yet the house of Dr.
+Cairn in Half-Moon Street, was nothing less than an invested
+fortress.
+
+A peal of distant thunder boomed from the direction of Hyde Park.
+Robert Cairn looked up at the lowering sky as if seeking a portent. To
+his eyes it seemed that a livid face, malignant with the malignancy of
+a devil, looked down out of the clouds.
+
+Myra Duquesne came into the breakfast-room.
+
+He turned to greet her, and, in his capacity of accepted lover, was
+about to kiss the tempting lips, when he hesitated--and contented
+himself with kissing her hand. A sudden sense of the proprieties had
+assailed him; he reflected that the presence of the girl beneath the
+same roof as himself--although dictated by imperative need--might be
+open to misconstruction by the prudish. Dr. Cairn had decided that for
+the present Myra Duquesne must dwell beneath his own roof, as, in
+feudal days, the Baron at first hint of an approaching enemy formerly
+was, accustomed to call within the walls of the castle, those whom it
+was his duty to protect. Unknown to the world, a tremendous battle
+raged in London, the outer works were in the possession of the
+enemy--and he was now before their very gates.
+
+Myra, though still pale from her recent illness, already was
+recovering some of the freshness of her beauty, and in her simple
+morning dress, as she busied herself about the breakfast table, she
+was a sweet picture enough, and good to look upon. Robert Cairn stood
+beside her, looking into her eyes, and she smiled up at him with a
+happy contentment, which filled him with a new longing. But:
+
+"Did you dream again, last night?" he asked, in a voice which he
+strove to make matter-of-fact.
+
+Myra nodded--and her face momentarily clouded over.
+
+"The same dream?"
+
+"Yes," she said in a troubled way; "at least--in some respects--"
+
+Dr. Cairn came in, glancing at his watch.
+
+"Good morning!" he cried, cheerily. "I have actually overslept
+myself."
+
+They took their seats at the table.
+
+"Myra has been dreaming again, sir," said Robert Cairn slowly.
+
+The doctor, serviette in hand, glanced up with an inquiry in his grey
+eyes.
+
+"We must not overlook any possible weapon," he replied. "Give us
+particulars of your dream, Myra."
+
+As Marston entered silently with the morning fare, and, having placed
+the dishes upon the table, as silently withdrew, Myra began:
+
+"I seemed to stand again in the barn-like building which I have
+described to you before. Through the rafters of the roof I could see
+the cracks in the tiling, and the moonlight shone through, forming
+light and irregular patches upon the floor. A sort of door, like that
+of a stable, with a heavy bar across, was dimly perceptible at the
+further end of the place. The only furniture was a large deal table
+and a wooden chair of a very common kind. Upon the table, stood a
+lamp--"
+
+"What kind of lamp?" jerked Dr. Cairn.
+
+"A silver lamp"--she hesitated, looking from Robert to his
+father--"one that I have seen in--Antony's rooms. Its shaded light
+shone upon a closed iron box. I immediately recognised this box. You
+know that I described to you a dream which--terrified me on the
+previous night?"
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded, frowning darkly.
+
+"Repeat your account of the former dream," he said. "I regard it as
+important."
+
+"In my former dream," the girl resumed--and her voice had an odd,
+far-away quality--"the scene was the same, except that the light of
+the lamp was shining down upon the leaves of an open book--a very,
+very old book, written in strange characters. These characters
+appeared to dance before my eyes--almost as though they lived."
+
+She shuddered slightly; then:
+
+"The same iron box, but open, stood upon the table, and a number of
+other, smaller, boxes, around it. Each of these boxes was of a
+different material. Some were wooden; one, I think, was of ivory; one
+was of silver--and one, of some dull metal, which might have been
+gold. In the chair, by the table, Antony was sitting. His eyes were
+fixed upon me, with such a strange expression that I awoke, trembling
+frightfully--"
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded again.
+
+"And last night?" he prompted.
+
+"Last night," continued Myra, with a note of trouble in her sweet
+voice--"at four points around this table, stood four smaller lamps and
+upon the floor were rows of characters apparently traced in luminous
+paint. They flickered up and then grew dim, then flickered up again,
+in a sort of phosphorescent way. They extended from lamp to lamp, so
+as entirely to surround the table and the chair.
+
+"In the chair Antony Ferrara was sitting. He held a wand in his right
+hand--a wand with several copper rings about it; his left hand rested
+upon the iron box. In my dream, although I could see this all very
+clearly, I seemed to see it from a distance; yet, at the same time, I
+stood apparently close by the tables--I cannot explain. But I could
+hear nothing; only by the movements of his lips, could I tell that he
+was speaking--or chanting."
+
+She looked across at Dr. Cairn as if fearful to proceed, but presently
+continued:
+
+"Suddenly, I saw a frightful shape appear on the far side of the
+circle; that is to say, the table was between me and this shape. It
+was just like a grey cloud having the vague outlines of a man, but
+with two eyes of red fire glaring out from it--horribly--oh! horribly!
+It extended its shadowy arms as if saluting Antony. He turned and
+seemed to question it. Then with a look of ferocious anger--oh! it was
+frightful! he dismissed the shape, and began to walk up and down
+beside the table, but never beyond the lighted circle, shaking his
+fists in the air, and, to judge by the movements of his lips, uttering
+most awful imprecations. He looked gaunt and ill. I dreamt no more,
+but awoke conscious of a sensation as though some dead weight, which
+had been pressing upon me had been suddenly removed."
+
+Dr. Cairn glanced across at his son significantly, but the subject was
+not renewed throughout breakfast.
+
+Breakfast concluded:
+
+"Come into the library, Rob," said Dr. Cairn, "I have half-an-hour to
+spare, and there are some matters to be discussed."
+
+He led the way into the library with its orderly rows of obscure
+works, its store of forgotten wisdom, and pointed to the red leathern
+armchair. As Robert Cairn seated himself and looked across at his
+father, who sat at the big writing-table, that scene reminded him of
+many dangers met and overcome in the past; for the library at
+Half-Moon Street was associated in his mind with some of the blackest
+pages in the history of Antony Ferrara.
+
+"Do you understand the position, Rob?" asked the doctor, abruptly.
+
+"I think so, sir. This I take it is his last card; this outrageous,
+ungodly Thing which he has loosed upon us."
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded grimly.
+
+"The exact frontier," he said, "dividing what we may term hypnotism
+from what we know as sorcery, has yet to be determined; and to which
+territory the doctrine of Elemental Spirits belongs, it would be
+purposeless at the moment to discuss. We may note, however,
+remembering with whom we are dealing, that the one-hundred-and-eighth
+chapter of the Ancient Egyptian _Book of the Dead_, is entitled 'The
+Chapter of Knowing the Spirits of the West.' Forgetting, _pro tem._,
+that we dwell in the twentieth century, and looking at the situation
+from the point of view, say, of Eliphas Lévi, Cornelius Agrippa, or
+the Abbé de Villars--the man whom we know as Antony Ferrara, is
+directing against this house, and those within it, a type of elemental
+spirit, known as a Salamander!"
+
+Robert Cairn smiled slightly.
+
+"Ah!" said the doctor, with an answering smile in which there was
+little mirth, "we are accustomed to laugh at this mediæval
+terminology; but by what other can we speak of the activities of
+Ferrara?"
+
+"Sometimes I think that we are the victims of a common madness," said
+his son, raising his hand to his head in a manner almost pathetic.
+
+"We are the victims of a common enemy," replied his father sternly.
+"He employs weapons which, often enough, in this enlightened age of
+ours, have condemned poor souls, as sane as you or I, to the madhouse!
+Why, in God's name," he cried with a sudden excitement, "does science
+persistently ignore all those laws which cannot be examined in the
+laboratory! Will the day never come when some true man of science
+shall endeavour to explain the movements of a table upon which a ring
+of hands has been placed? Will no exact scientist condescend to
+examine the properties of a _planchette_? Will no one do for the
+phenomena termed thought-forms, what Newton did for that of the
+falling apple? Ah! Rob, in some respects, this is a darker age than
+those which bear the stigma of darkness."
+
+Silence fell for a few moments between them; then:
+
+"One thing is certain," said Robert Cairn, deliberately, "we are in
+danger!"
+
+"In the greatest danger!"
+
+"Antony Ferrara, realising that we are bent upon his destruction, is
+making a final, stupendous effort to compass ours. I know that you
+have placed certain seals upon the windows of this house, and that
+after dusk these windows are never opened. I know that imprints,
+strangely like the imprints of _fiery hands_, may be seen at this
+moment upon the casements of Myra's room, your room, my room, and
+elsewhere. I know that Myra's dreams are not ordinary, meaningless
+dreams. I have had other evidence. I don't want to analyse these
+things; I confess that my mind is not capable of the task. I do not
+even want to know the meaning of it all; at the present moment, I only
+want to know one thing: _Who is Antony Ferrara?_"
+
+Dr. Cairn stood up, and turning, faced his son.
+
+"The time has come," he said, "when that question, which you have
+asked me so many times before, shall be answered. I will tell you all
+I know, and leave you to form your own opinion. For ere we go any
+further, I assure you that I do not know for certain who he is!"
+
+"You have said so before, sir. Will you explain what you mean?"
+
+"When his adoptive father, Sir Michael Ferrara," resumed the doctor,
+beginning to pace up and down the library--"when Sir Michael and I
+were in Egypt, in the winter of 1893, we conducted certain inquiries
+in the Fayûm. We camped for over three months beside the Méydûm
+Pyramid. The object of our inquiries was to discover the tomb of a
+certain queen. I will not trouble you with the details, which could be
+of no interest to anyone but an Egyptologist, I will merely say that
+apart from the name and titles by which she is known to the ordinary
+student, this queen is also known to certain inquirers as the
+Witch-Queen. She was not an Egyptian, but an Asiatic. In short, she
+was the last high priestess of a cult which became extinct at her
+death. Her secret mark--I am not referring to a cartouche or anything
+of that kind--was a spider; it was the mark of the religion or cult
+which she practised. The high priest of the principal Temple of Ra,
+during the reign of the Pharaoh who was this queen's husband, was one
+Hortotef. This was his official position, but secretly he was also the
+high-priest of the sinister creed to which I have referred. The temple
+of this religion--a religion allied to Black Magic--was the Pyramid of
+Méydûm.
+
+"So much we knew--or Ferrara knew, and imparted to me--but for any
+corroborative evidence of this cult's existence we searched in vain.
+We explored the interior of the pyramid foot by foot, inch by
+inch--and found nothing. We knew that there was some other apartment
+in the pyramid, but in spite of our soundings, measurements and
+laborious excavations, we did not come upon the entrance to it. The
+tomb of the queen we failed to discover, also, and therefore concluded
+that her mummy was buried in the secret chamber of the pyramid. We had
+abandoned our quest in despair, when, excavating in one of the
+neighbouring mounds, we made a discovery."
+
+He opened a box of cigars, selected one, and pushed the box towards
+his son. Robert shook his head, almost impatiently, but Dr. Cairn
+lighted the cigar ere resuming:
+
+"Directed, as I now believe, by a malignant will, we blundered upon
+the tomb of the high priest--"
+
+"You found his mummy?"
+
+"We found his mummy--yes. But owing to the carelessness--and the
+fear--of the native labourers it was exposed to the sun and
+crumpled--was lost. I would a similar fate had attended the other one
+which we found!"
+
+"What, another mummy?"
+
+"We discovered"--Dr. Cairn spoke very deliberately--"a certain
+papyrus. The translation of this is contained"--he rested the point of
+his finger upon the writing-table--"in the unpublished book of Sir
+Michael Ferrara, which lies here. That book, Rob, will never be
+published now! Furthermore, we discovered the mummy of a child--"
+
+"A child."
+
+"A boy. Not daring to trust the natives, we removed it secretly at
+night to our own tent. Before we commenced the task of unwrapping it,
+Sir Michael--the most brilliant scholar of his age--had proceeded so
+far in deciphering the papyrus, that he determined to complete his
+reading before we proceeded further. It contained directions for
+performing a certain process. This process had reference to the mummy
+of the child."
+
+"Do I understand--?"
+
+"Already, you are discrediting the story! Ah! I can see it! but let me
+finish. Unaided, we performed this process upon the embalmed body of
+the child. Then, in accordance with the directions of that dead
+magician--that accursed, malignant being, who thus had sought to
+secure for himself a new tenure of evil life--we laid the mummy,
+treated in a certain fashion, in the King's Chamber of the Méydûm
+Pyramid. It remained there for thirty days; from moon to moon--"
+
+"You guarded the entrance?"
+
+"You may assume what you like, Rob; but I could swear before any jury,
+that no one entered the pyramid throughout that time. Yet since we
+were only human, we may have been deceived in this. I have only to
+add, that when at the rising of the new moon in the ancient Sothic
+month of Panoi, we again entered the chamber, a living baby, some six
+months old, perfectly healthy, solemnly blinked up at the lights which
+we held in our trembling hands!"
+
+Dr. Cairn reseated himself at the table, and turned the chair so that
+he faced his son. With the smouldering cigar between his teeth, he
+sat, a slight smile upon his lips.
+
+Now it was Robert's turn to rise and begin feverishly to pace the
+floor.
+
+"You mean, sir, that this infant--which lay in the
+pyramid--was--adopted by Sir Michael?"
+
+"Was adopted, yes. Sir Michael engaged nurses for him, reared him here
+in England, educating him as an Englishman, sent him to a public
+school, sent him to--"
+
+"To Oxford! Antony Ferrara! What! Do you seriously tell me that this
+is the history of Antony Ferrara?"
+
+"On my word of honour, boy, that is all I know of Antony Ferrara. Is
+it not enough?"
+
+"Merciful God! it is incredible," groaned Robert Cairn.
+
+"From the time that he attained to manhood," said Dr. Cairn evenly,
+"this adopted son of my poor old friend has passed from crime to
+crime. By means which are beyond my comprehension, and which alone
+serve to confirm his supernatural origin, he has acquired--knowledge.
+According to the Ancient Egyptian beliefs the _Khu_ (or magical
+powers) of a fully-equipped Adept, at the death of the body, could
+enter into anything prepared for its reception. According to these
+ancient beliefs, then, the _Khu_ of the high priest Hortotef entered
+into the body of this infant who was his son, and whose mother was the
+Witch-Queen; and to-day in this modern London, a wizard of Ancient
+Egypt, armed with the lost lore of that magical land, walks amongst
+us! What that lore is worth, it would be profitless for us to discuss,
+but that he possesses it--_all_ of it--I know, beyond doubt. The most
+ancient and most powerful magical book which has ever existed was the
+_Book of Thoth_."
+
+He walked across to a distant shelf, selected a volume, opened it at a
+particular page, and placed it on his son's knees.
+
+"Read there!" he said, pointing.
+
+The words seemed to dance before the younger man's eyes, and this is
+what he read:
+
+"To read two pages, enables you to enchant the heavens, the earth, the
+abyss, the mountains, and the sea; you shall know what the birds of
+the sky and the crawling things are saying ... and when the second
+page is read, if you are in the world of ghosts, you will grow again
+in the shape you were on earth...."
+
+"Heavens!" whispered Robert Cairn, "is this the writing of a madman?
+or can such things possibly be!" He read on:
+
+"This book is in the middle of the river at Koptos, in an iron box--"
+
+"An iron box," he muttered--"an iron box."
+
+"So you recognise the iron box?" jerked Dr. Cairn.
+
+His son read on:
+
+"In the iron box, is a bronze box; in the bronze box, is a sycamore
+box; in the sycamore box, is an ivory and ebony box; in the ivory and
+ebony box, is a silver box; in the silver box, is a golden box; and in
+that is the book. It is twisted all round with snakes, and scorpions,
+and all the other crawling things...."
+
+"The man who holds the _Book of Thoth_," said Dr. Cairn, breaking the
+silence, "holds a power which should only belong to God. The creature
+who is known to the world as Antony Ferrara, holds that book--do you
+doubt it?--therefore you know now, as I have known long enough, with
+what manner of enemy we are fighting. You know that, this time, it is
+a fight to the death--"
+
+He stopped abruptly, staring out of the window.
+
+A man with a large photographic camera, standing upon the opposite
+pavement, was busily engaged in focussing the house!
+
+"What is this?" muttered Robert Cairn, also stepping to the window.
+
+"It is a link between sorcery and science!" replied the doctor. "You
+remember Ferrara's photographic gallery at Oxford?--the Zenana, you
+used to call it!--You remember having seen in his collection
+photographs of persons who afterwards came to violent ends?"
+
+"I begin to understand!"
+
+"Thus far, his endeavours to concentrate the whole of the evil forces
+at his command upon this house have had but poor results: having
+merely caused Myra to dream strange dreams--clairvoyant dreams,
+instructive dreams, more useful to us than to the enemy; and having
+resulted in certain marks upon the outside of the house adjoining the
+windows--windows which I have sealed in a particular manner. You
+understand?"
+
+"By means of photographs he--concentrates, in some way, malignant
+forces upon certain points--"
+
+"He focusses his will--yes! The man who can really control his will,
+Rob, is supreme, below the Godhead. Ferrara can almost do this now.
+Before he has become wholly proficient--"
+
+"I understand, sir," snapped his son grimly.
+
+"He is barely of age, boy," Dr. Cairn said, almost in a whisper. "In
+another year, he would menace the world. Where are you going?"
+
+He grasped his son's arm as Robert started for the door.
+
+"That man yonder--"
+
+"Diplomacy, Rob!--Guile against guile. Let the man do his work, which
+he does in all innocence; _then_ follow him. Learn where his studio is
+situated, and, from that point, proceed to learn--"
+
+"The situation of Ferrara's hiding-place?" cried his son, excitedly.
+"I understand! Of course; you are right, sir."
+
+"I will leave the inquiry in your hands, Rob. Unfortunately other
+duties call me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+THE WIZARD'S DEN
+
+
+Robert Cairn entered a photographer's shop in Baker Street.
+
+"You recently arranged to do views of some houses in the West End for
+a gentleman?" he said to the girl in charge.
+
+"That is so," she replied, after a moment's hesitation. "We did
+pictures of the house of some celebrated specialist--for a magazine
+article they were intended. Do you wish us to do something similar?"
+
+"Not at the moment," replied Robert Cairn, smiling slightly. "I merely
+want the address of your client."
+
+"I do not know that I can give you that," replied the girl doubtfully,
+"but he will be here about eleven o'clock for proofs, if you wish to
+see him."
+
+"I wonder if I can confide in you," said Robert Cairn, looking the
+girl frankly in the eyes.
+
+She seemed rather confused.
+
+"I hope there is nothing wrong," she murmured.
+
+"You have nothing to fear," he replied, "but unfortunately there _is_
+something wrong, which, however, I cannot explain. Will you promise me
+not to tell your client--I do not ask his name--that I have been here,
+or have been making any inquiries respecting him?"
+
+"I think I can promise that," she replied.
+
+"I am much indebted to you."
+
+Robert Cairn hastily left the shop, and began to look about him for a
+likely hiding-place from whence, unobserved, he might watch the
+photographer's. An antique furniture dealer's, some little distance
+along on the opposite side, attracted his attention. He glanced at his
+watch. It was half-past ten.
+
+If, upon the pretence of examining some of the stock, he could linger
+in the furniture shop for half-an-hour, he would be enabled to get
+upon the track of Ferrara!
+
+His mind made up, he walked along and entered the shop. For the next
+half-an-hour, he passed from item to item of the collection displayed
+there, surveying each in the leisurely manner of a connoisseur; but
+always he kept a watch, through the window, upon the photographer's
+establishment beyond.
+
+Promptly at eleven o'clock a taxi cab drew up at the door, and from it
+a slim man alighted. He wore, despite the heat of the morning, an
+overcoat of some woolly material; and in his gait, as he crossed the
+pavement to enter the shop, there was something revoltingly
+effeminate; a sort of cat-like grace which had been noticeable in a
+woman, but which in a man was unnatural, and for some obscure reason,
+sinister.
+
+It was Antony Ferrara!
+
+Even at that distance and in that brief time, Robert Cairn could see
+the ivory face, the abnormal, red lips, and the long black eyes of
+this arch fiend, this monster masquerading as a man. He had much ado
+to restrain his rising passion; but, knowing that all depended upon
+his cool action, he waited until Ferrara had entered the
+photographer's. With a word of apology to the furniture dealer, he
+passed quickly into Baker Street. Everything rested, now, upon his
+securing a cab before Ferrara came out again. Ferrara's cabman,
+evidently, was waiting for him.
+
+A taxi driver fortunately hailed Cairn at the very moment that he
+gained the pavement; and Cairn, concealing himself behind the vehicle,
+gave the man rapid instructions:
+
+"You see that taxi outside the photographer's?" he said.
+
+The man nodded.
+
+"Wait until someone comes out of the shop and is driven off in it;
+then follow. Do not lose sight of the cab for a moment. When it draws
+up, and wherever it draws up, drive right past it. Don't attract
+attention by stopping. You understand?"
+
+"Quite, sir," said the man, smiling slightly. And Cairn entered the
+cab.
+
+The cabman drew up at a point some little distance beyond, from whence
+he could watch. Two minutes later Ferrara came out and was driven off.
+The pursuit commenced.
+
+His cab, ahead, proceeded to Westminster Bridge, across to the south
+side of the river, and by way of that commercial thoroughfare at the
+back of St. Thomas' Hospital, emerged at Vauxhall. Thence the pursuit
+led to Stockwell, Herne Hill, and yet onward towards Dulwich.
+
+It suddenly occurred to Robert Cairn that Ferrara was making in the
+direction of Mr. Saunderson's house at Dulwich Common; the house in
+which Myra had had her mysterious illness, in which she had remained
+until it had become evident that her safety depended upon her never
+being left alone for one moment.
+
+"What can be his object?" muttered Cairn.
+
+He wondered if Ferrara, for some inscrutable reason, was about to call
+upon Mr. Saunderson. But when the cab ahead, having passed the park,
+continued on past the lane in which the house was situated, he began
+to search for some other solution to the problem of Ferrara's
+destination.
+
+Suddenly he saw that the cab ahead had stopped. The driver of his own
+cab without slackening speed, pursued his way. Cairn crouched down
+upon the floor, fearful of being observed. No house was visible to
+right nor left, merely open fields; and he knew that it would be
+impossible for him to delay in such a spot without attracting
+attention.
+
+Ferrara's cab passed:
+
+"Keep on till I tell you to stop!" cried Cairn.
+
+He dropped the speaking-tube, and, turning, looked out through the
+little window at the back.
+
+Ferrara had dismissed his cab; he saw him entering a gate and crossing
+a field on the right of the road. Cairn turned again and took up the
+tube.
+
+"Stop at the first house we come to!" he directed. "Hurry!"
+
+Presently a deserted-looking building was reached, a large straggling
+house which obviously had no tenant. Here the man pulled up and Cairn
+leapt out. As he did so, he heard Ferrara's cab driving back by the
+way it had come.
+
+"Here," he said, and gave the man half a sovereign, "wait for me."
+
+He started back along the road at a run. Even had he suspected that he
+was followed, Ferrara could not have seen him. But when Cairn came up
+level with the gate through which Ferrara had gone, he slowed down and
+crept cautiously forward.
+
+Ferrara, who by this time had reached the other side of the field, was
+in the act of entering a barn-like building which evidently at some
+time had formed a portion of a farm. As the distant figure, opening
+one of the big doors, disappeared within:
+
+"The place of which Myra has been dreaming!" muttered Cairn.
+
+Certainly, viewed from that point, it seemed to answer, externally, to
+the girl's description. The roof was of moss-grown red tiles, and
+Cairn could imagine how the moonlight would readily find access
+through the chinks which beyond doubt existed in the weather-worn
+structure. He had little doubt that this was the place dreamt of, or
+seen clairvoyantly, by Myra, that this was the place to which Ferrara
+had retreated in order to conduct his nefarious operations.
+
+It was eminently suited to the purpose, being entirely surrounded by
+unoccupied land. For what ostensible purpose Ferrara has leased it, he
+could not conjecture, nor did he concern himself with the matter. The
+purpose for which actually he had leased the place was sufficiently
+evident to the man who had suffered so much at the hands of this
+modern sorcerer.
+
+To approach closer would have been indiscreet; this he knew; and he
+was sufficiently diplomatic to resist the temptation to obtain a
+nearer view of the place. He knew that everything depended upon
+secrecy. Antony Ferrara must not suspect that his black laboratory was
+known. Cairn decided to return to Half-Moon Street without delay,
+fully satisfied with the result of his investigation.
+
+He walked rapidly back to where the cab waited, gave the man his
+father's address, and, in three-quarters of an hour, was back in
+Half-Moon Street.
+
+Dr. Cairn had not yet dismissed the last of his patients; Myra,
+accompanied by Miss Saunderson, was out shopping; and Robert found
+himself compelled to possess his soul in patience. He paced restlessly
+up and down the library, sometimes taking a book at random, scanning
+its pages with unseeing eyes, and replacing it without having formed
+the slightest impression of its contents. He tried to smoke; but his
+pipe was constantly going out, and he had littered the hearth untidily
+with burnt matches, when Dr. Cairn suddenly opened the library door,
+and entered.
+
+"Well?" he said eagerly.
+
+Robert Cairn leapt forward.
+
+"I have tracked him, sir!" he cried. "My God! while Myra was at
+Saunderson's, she was almost next door to the beast! His den is in a
+field no more than a thousand yards from the garden wall--from
+Saunderson's orchid-houses!"
+
+"He is daring," muttered Dr. Cairn, "but his selection of that site
+served two purposes. The spot was suitable in many ways; and we were
+least likely to look for him next-door, as it were. It was a move
+characteristic of the accomplished criminal."
+
+Robert Cairn nodded.
+
+"It is the place of which Myra dreamt, sir. I have not the slightest
+doubt about that. What we have to find out is at what times of the day
+and night he goes there--"
+
+"I doubt," interrupted Dr. Cairn, "if he often visits the place during
+the day. As you know, he has abandoned his rooms in Piccadilly, but I
+have no doubt, knowing his sybaritic habits, that he has some other
+palatial place in town. I have been making inquiries in several
+directions, especially in--certain directions--"
+
+He paused, raising his eyebrows, significantly.
+
+"Additions to the Zenana!" inquired Robert.
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded his head grimly.
+
+"Exactly," he replied. "There is not a scrap of evidence upon which,
+legally, he could be convicted; but since his return from Egypt, Rob,
+he has added other victims to the list!"
+
+"The fiend!" cried the younger man, "the unnatural fiend!"
+
+"Unnatural is the word; he is literally unnatural; but many women find
+him irresistible; he is typical of the unholy brood to which he
+belongs. The evil beauty of the Witch-Queen sent many a soul to
+perdition; the evil beauty of her son has zealously carried on the
+work."
+
+"What must we do?"
+
+"I doubt if we can do anything to-day. Obviously the early morning is
+the most suitable time to visit his den at Dulwich Common."
+
+"But the new photographs of the house? There will be another attempt
+upon us to-night."
+
+"Yes, there will be another attempt upon us, to-night," said the
+doctor wearily. "This is the year 1914; yet, here in Half-Moon Street,
+when dusk falls, we shall be submitted to an attack of a kind to which
+mankind probably has not been submitted for many ages. We shall be
+called upon to dabble in the despised magical art; we shall be called
+upon to place certain seals upon our doors and windows; to protect
+ourselves against an enemy, who, like Eros, laughs at locks and bars."
+
+"Is it possible for him to succeed?"
+
+"Quite possible, Rob, in spite of all our precautions. I feel in my
+very bones that to-night he will put forth a supreme effort."
+
+A bell rang.
+
+"I think," continued the doctor, "that this is Myra. She must get all
+the sleep she can, during the afternoon; for to-night I have
+determined that she, and you, and I, must not think of sleep, but must
+remain together, here in the library. We must not lose sight of one
+another--you understand?"
+
+"I am glad that you have proposed it!" cried Robert Cairn eagerly,
+"I, too, feel that we have come to a critical moment in the contest."
+
+"To-night," continued the doctor, "I shall be prepared to take certain
+steps. My preparations will occupy me throughout the rest of to-day."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE ELEMENTAL
+
+
+At dusk that evening, Dr. Cairn, his son, and Myra Duquesne met
+together in the library. The girl looked rather pale.
+
+An odour of incense pervaded the house, coming from the doctor's
+study, wherein he had locked himself early in the evening, issuing
+instructions that he was not to be disturbed. The exact nature of the
+preparations which he had been making, Robert Cairn was unable to
+conjecture; and some instinct warned him that his father would not
+welcome any inquiry upon the matter. He realised that Dr. Cairn
+proposed to fight Antony Ferrara with his own weapons, and now, when
+something in the very air of the house seemed to warn them of a
+tremendous attack impending, that the doctor, much against his will,
+was entering the arena in the character of a practical magician--a
+character new to him, and obviously abhorrent.
+
+At half-past ten, the servants all retired in accordance With Dr.
+Cairn's orders. From where he stood by the tall mantel-piece, Robert
+Cairn could watch Myra Duquesne, a dainty picture in her simple
+evening-gown, where she sat reading in a distant corner, her delicate
+beauty forming a strong contrast to the background of sombre volumes.
+Dr. Cairn sat by the big table, smoking, and apparently listening. A
+strange device which he had adopted every evening for the past week,
+he had adopted again to-night--there were little white seals, bearing
+a curious figure, consisting in interlaced triangles, upon the insides
+of every window in the house, upon the doors, and even upon the
+fire-grates.
+
+Robert Cairn at another time might have thought his father mad,
+childish, thus to play at wizardry; but he had had experiences which
+had taught him to recognise that upon such seemingly trivial matters,
+great issues might turn, that in the strange land over the Border,
+there were stranger laws--laws which he could but dimly understand.
+There he acknowledged the superior wisdom of Dr. Cairn; and did not
+question it.
+
+At eleven o'clock a comparative quiet had come upon Half-Moon Street.
+The sound of the traffic had gradually subsided, until it seemed to
+him that the house stood, not in the busy West End of London, but
+isolated, apart from its neighbours; it seemed to him an abode, marked
+out and separated from the other abodes of man, a house enveloped in
+an impalpable cloud, a cloud of evil, summoned up and directed by the
+wizard hand of Antony Ferrara, son of the Witch-Queen.
+
+Although Myra pretended to read, and Dr. Cairn, from his fixed
+expression, might have been supposed to be pre-occupied, in point of
+fact they were all waiting, with nerves at highest tension, for the
+opening of the attack. In what form it would come--whether it would be
+vague moanings and tappings upon the windows, such as they had already
+experienced, whether it would be a phantasmal storm, a clap of
+phenomenal thunder--they could not conjecture, if the enemy would
+attack suddenly, or if his menace would grow, threatening from afar
+off, and then gradually penetrating into the heart of the garrison.
+
+It came, then, suddenly and dramatically.
+
+Dropping her book, Myra uttered a piercing scream, and with eyes
+glaring madly, fell forward on the carpet, unconscious!
+
+Robert Cairn leapt to his feet with clenched fists. His father stood
+up so rapidly as to overset his chair, which fell crashingly upon the
+floor.
+
+Together they turned and looked in the direction in which the girl had
+been looking. They fixed their eyes upon the drapery of the library
+window--which was drawn together. The whole window was luminous as
+though a bright light shone outside, but luminous, as though that
+light were the light of some unholy fire!
+
+Involuntarily they both stepped back, and Robert Cairn clutched his
+father's arm convulsively.
+
+The curtains seemed to be rendered transparent, as if some powerful
+ray were directed upon them; the window appeared through them as a
+rectangular blue patch. Only two lamps were burning in the library,
+that in the corner by which Myra had been reading, and the green
+shaded lamp upon the table. The best end of the room by the window,
+then, was in shadow, against which this unnatural light shone
+brilliantly.
+
+"My God!" whispered Robert Cairn--"that's Half-Moon Street--outside.
+There can be no light--"
+
+He broke off, for now he perceived the Thing which had occasioned the
+girl's scream of horror.
+
+In the middle of the rectangular patch of light, a grey shape, but
+partially opaque, moved--shifting, luminous clouds about it--was
+taking form, growing momentarily more substantial!
+
+It had some remote semblance of a man; but its unique characteristic
+was its awful _greyness_. It had the greyness of a rain cloud, yet
+rather that of a column of smoke. And from the centre of the dimly
+defined head, two eyes--balls of living fire--glared out into the
+room!
+
+Heat was beating into the library from the window--physical heat, as
+though a furnace door had been opened ... and the shape, ever growing
+more palpable, was moving forward towards them--approaching--the heat
+every instant growing greater.
+
+It was impossible to look at those two eyes of fire; it was almost
+impossible to move. Indeed Robert Cairn was transfixed in such horror
+as, in all his dealings with the monstrous Ferrara, he had never known
+before. But his father, shaking off the dread which possessed him
+also, leapt at one bound to the library table.
+
+Robert Cairn vaguely perceived that a small group of objects, looking
+like balls of wax, lay there. Dr. Cairn had evidently been preparing
+them in the locked study. Now he took them all up in his left hand,
+and confronted the Thing--which seemed to be _growing_ into the
+room--for it did not advance in the ordinary sense of the word.
+
+One by one he threw the white pellets into that vapoury greyness. As
+they touched the curtain, they hissed as if they had been thrown into
+a fire; they melted; and upon the transparency of the drapings, as
+upon a sheet of gauze, showed faint streaks, where, melting, they
+trickled down the tapestry.
+
+As he cast each pellet from his hand, Dr. Cairn took a step forward,
+and cried out certain words in a loud voice--words which Robert Cairn
+knew he had never heard uttered before, words in a language which some
+instinct told him to be Ancient Egyptian.
+
+Their effect was to force that dreadful shape gradually to disperse,
+as a cloud of smoke might disperse when the fire which occasions it is
+extinguished slowly. Seven pellets in all he threw towards the
+window--and the seventh struck the curtains, now once more visible in
+their proper form.
+
+The Fire Elemental had been vanquished!
+
+Robert Cairn clutched his hair in a sort of frenzy. He glared at the
+draped window, feeling that he was making a supreme effort to retain
+his sanity. Had it ever looked otherwise? Had the tapestry ever faded
+before him, becoming visible in a great light which had shone through
+it from behind? Had the Thing, a Thing unnameable, indescribable,
+stood there?
+
+He read his answer upon the tapestry.
+
+Whitening streaks showed where the pellets, melting, had trickled down
+the curtain!
+
+"Lift Myra on the settee!"
+
+It was Dr. Cairn speaking, calmly, but in a strained voice.
+
+Robert Cairn, as if emerging from a mist, turned to the recumbent
+white form upon the carpet. Then, with a great cry, he leapt forward
+and raised the girl's head.
+
+"Myra!" he groaned. "Myra, speak to me."
+
+"Control yourself, boy," rapped Dr. Cairn, sternly; "she cannot speak
+until you have revived her! She has swooned--nothing worse."
+
+"And--"
+
+"We have conquered!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE BOOK OF THOTH
+
+
+The mists of early morning still floated over the fields, when these
+two, set upon strange business, walked through the damp grass to the
+door of the barn, where-from radiated the deathly waves which on the
+previous night had reached them, or almost reached them, in the
+library at Half-Moon Street.
+
+The big double doors were padlocked, but for this they had come
+provided. Ten minutes work upon the padlock sufficed--and Dr. Cairn
+swung wide the doors.
+
+A suffocating smell--the smell of that incense with which they had too
+often come in contact, was wafted out to them. There was a dim light
+inside the place, and without hesitation both entered.
+
+A deal table and chair constituted the sole furniture of the interior.
+A part of the floor was roughly boarded, and a brief examination of
+the boarding sufficed to discover the hiding place in which Antony
+Ferrara kept the utensils of his awful art.
+
+Dr. Cairn lifted out two heavy boards; and in a recess below lay a
+number of singular objects. There were four antique lamps of most
+peculiar design; there was a larger silver lamp, which both of them
+had seen before in various apartments occupied by Antony Ferrara.
+There were a number of other things which Robert Cairn could not have
+described, had he been called upon to do so, for the reason that he
+had seen nothing like them before, and had no idea of their nature or
+purpose.
+
+But, conspicuous amongst this curious hoard, was a square iron box of
+workmanship dissimilar from any workmanship known to Robert Cairn. Its
+lid was covered with a sort of scroll work, and he was about to reach
+down, in order to lift it out, when:
+
+"Do not touch it!" cried the doctor--"for God's sake, do not touch
+it!"
+
+Robert Cairn started back, as though he had seen a snake. Turning to
+his father, he saw that the latter was pulling on a pair of white
+gloves. As he fixed his eyes upon these in astonishment, he perceived
+that they were smeared all over with some white preparation.
+
+"Stand aside, boy," said the doctor--and for once his voice shook
+slightly. "Do not look again until I call to you. Turn your head
+aside!"
+
+Silent with amazement, Robert Cairn obeyed. He heard his father lift
+out the iron box. He heard him open it, for he had already perceived
+that it was not locked. Then quite distinctly, he heard him close it
+again, and replace it in the _cache_.
+
+"Do not turn, boy!" came a hoarse whisper.
+
+He did not turn, but waited, his heart beating painfully, for what
+should happen next.
+
+"Stand aside from the door," came the order, "and when I have gone
+out, do not look after me. I will call to you when it is finished."
+
+He obeyed, without demur.
+
+His father passed him, and he heard him walking through the damp grass
+outside the door of the barn. There followed an intolerable interval.
+From some place, not very distant, he could hear Dr. Cairn moving,
+hear the chink of glass upon glass, as though he were pouring out
+something from a stoppered bottle. Then a faint acrid smell was wafted
+to his nostrils, perceptible even above the heavy odour of the incense
+from the barn.
+
+"Relock the door!" came the cry.
+
+Robert Cairn reclosed the door, snapped the padlock fast, and began to
+fumble with the skeleton keys with which they had come provided. He
+discovered that to reclose the padlock was quite as difficult as to
+open it. His hands were trembling too; he was all anxiety to see what
+had taken place behind him. So that when at last a sharp click told of
+the task accomplished, he turned in a flash and saw his father placing
+tufts of grass upon a charred patch from which a faint haze of smoke
+still arose. He walked over and joined him.
+
+"What have you done, sir?"
+
+"I have robbed him of his armour," replied the doctor, grimly. His
+face was very pale, his eyes were very bright. "I have destroyed the
+_Book of Thoth_!"
+
+"Then, he will be unable--"
+
+"He will still be able to summon his dreadful servant, Rob. Having
+summoned him once, he can summon him again, but--"
+
+"Well, sir?"
+
+"He cannot control him."
+
+"Good God!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That night brought no repetition of the uncanny attack; and in the
+grey half light before the dawn, Dr. Cairn and his son, themselves
+like two phantoms, again crept across the field to the barn.
+
+The padlock hung loose in the ring.
+
+"Stay where you are, Rob!" cautioned the doctor.
+
+He gently pushed the door open--wider--wider--and looked in. There was
+an overpowering odour of burning flesh. He turned to Robert, and spoke
+in a steady voice.
+
+"The brood of the Witch-Queen is extinct!" he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+THE MYSTERY OF DR. FU-MANCHU
+THE DEVIL DOCTOR
+THE SI-FAN MYSTERIES
+THE YELLOW CLAW
+EXPLOITS OF CAPT. O'HAGAN
+TALES OF SECRET EGYPT
+THE ROMANCE OF SORCERY
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Brood of the Witch-Queen, by Sax Rohmer
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Brood of the Witch-Queen, by Sax Rohmer
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Brood of the Witch-Queen
+
+Author: Sax Rohmer
+
+Release Date: November 3, 2006 [EBook #19706]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BROOD OF THE WITCH-QUEEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Clarke, Sankar Viswanathan, and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<h1>BROOD OF THE<br />
+WITCH-QUEEN
+</h1>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>SAX ROHMER</h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>LONDON</h3>
+
+<h3>C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LIMITED</h3>
+
+<h3>HENRIETTA STREET, W.C.</h3>
+
+<h3>1918
+</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+<table summary="Contents">
+<tr><td class="tocch f1">CHAPTER</td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td></td><td class="tocpg f1">PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">I.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">Antony Ferrara</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">II.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">The Phantom Hands</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">III.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">The Ring of Thoth</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">IV.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">At Ferrara's Chambers</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">V.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">The Rustling Shadows</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">VI.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">The Beetles</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">VII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">Sir Elwin Groves' Patient</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">VIII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">The Secret of Dhoon</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">IX.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">The Polish Jewess</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">X.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">The Laughter</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XI.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">Cairo</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">The Mask of Set</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XIII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">The Scorpion Wind</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XIV.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">Dr. Cairn Arrives</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XV.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><span class="smcap">The Witch-Queen</span></a></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XVI.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">Lair of the Spiders</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XVII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">The Story of Ali Mohammed</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XVIII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">The Bats</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XIX.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">Anthropomancy</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XX.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">The Incense</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_141">141</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXI.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">The Magician</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">Myra</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_150">150</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXIII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">The Face in the Orchid-House</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXIV.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">Flowering of the Lotus</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_161">161</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXV.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">Cairn meets Ferrara</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXVI.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">The Ivory Hand</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXVII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">The Thug's Cord</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_182">182</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXVIII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">The High Priest Hortotef</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_188">188</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXIX.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">The Wizard's Den</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXX.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">The Elemental</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_206">206</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXXI.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">The Book of Thoth</a></span></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_210">210</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PREFATORY NOTICE</h2>
+
+
+<p>The strange deeds of Antony Ferrara, as herein related, are intended
+to illustrate certain phases of Sorcery as it was formerly practised
+(according to numerous records) not only in Ancient Egypt but also in
+Europe, during the Middle Ages. In no case do the powers attributed to
+him exceed those which are claimed for a fully equipped Adept.</p>
+
+<p class="sig">S. R.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>BROOD OF THE WITCH-QUEEN</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>ANTONY FERRARA</h3>
+
+
+<p>Robert Cairn looked out across the quadrangle. The moon had just
+arisen, and it softened the beauty of the old college buildings,
+mellowed the harshness of time, casting shadow pools beneath the
+cloisteresque arches to the west and setting out the ivy in stronger
+relief upon the ancient walls. The barred shadow on the lichened
+stones beyond the elm was cast by the hidden gate; and straight ahead,
+where, between a quaint chimney-stack and a bartizan, a triangular
+patch of blue showed like spangled velvet, lay the Thames. It was from
+there the cooling breeze came.</p>
+
+<p>But Cairn's gaze was set upon a window almost directly ahead, and west
+below the chimneys. Within the room to which it belonged a lambent
+light played.</p>
+
+<p>Cairn turned to his companion, a ruddy and athletic looking man,
+somewhat bovine in type, who at the moment was busily tracing out
+sections on a human skull and checking his calculations from Ross's
+<i>Diseases of the Nervous System</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Sime," he said, "what does Ferrara always have a fire in his rooms
+for at this time of the year?"</p>
+
+<p>Sime glanced up irritably at the speaker. Cairn was a tall, thin
+Scotsman, clean-shaven, square jawed, and with the crisp light hair
+and grey eyes which often bespeak unusual virility.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you going to do any work?" he inquired pathetically. "I
+thought you'd come to give me a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> hand with my <i>basal ganglia</i>. I shall
+go down on that; and there you've been stuck staring out of the
+window!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wilson, in the end house, has got a most unusual brain," said Cairn,
+with apparent irrelevance.</p>
+
+<p>"Has he!" snapped Sime.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, in a bottle. His governor is at Bart's; he sent it up yesterday.
+You ought to see it."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody will ever want to put <i>your</i> brain in a bottle," predicted the
+scowling Sime, and resumed his studies.</p>
+
+<p>Cairn relighted his pipe, staring across the quadrangle again. Then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You've never been in Ferrara's rooms, have you?" he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>Followed a muffled curse, crash, and the skull went rolling across the
+floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Cairn," cried Sime, "I've only got a week or so now, and
+my nervous system is frantically rocky; I shall go all to pieces on my
+nervous system. If you want to talk, go ahead. When you're finished, I
+can begin work."</p>
+
+<p>"Right-oh," said Cairn calmly, and tossed his pouch across. "I want to
+talk to you about Ferrara."</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead then. What is the matter with Ferrara?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," replied Cairn, "he's queer."</p>
+
+<p>"That's no news," said Sime, filling his pipe; "we all know he's a
+queer chap. But he's popular with women. He'd make a fortune as a
+nerve specialist."</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't have to; he inherits a fortune when Sir Michael dies."</p>
+
+<p>"There's a pretty cousin, too, isn't there?" inquired Sime slyly.</p>
+
+<p>"There is," replied Cairn. "Of course," he continued, "my governor and
+Sir Michael are bosom friends, and although I've never seen much of
+young Ferrara, at the same time I've got nothing against him. But&mdash;"
+he hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Spit it out," urged Sime, watching him oddly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's silly, I suppose, but what does he want with a fire on a
+blazing night like this?"</p>
+
+<p>Sime stared.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps he's a throw-back," he suggested lightly. "The Ferraras,
+although they're counted Scotch&mdash;aren't they?&mdash;must have been Italian
+originally&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Spanish," corrected Cairn. "They date from the son of Andrea Ferrara,
+the sword-maker, who was a Spaniard. C&aelig;sar Ferrara came with the
+Armada in 1588 as armourer. His ship was wrecked up in the Bay of
+Tobermory and he got ashore&mdash;and stopped."</p>
+
+<p>"Married a Scotch lassie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly. But the genealogy of the family doesn't account for Antony's
+habits."</p>
+
+<p>"What habits?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, look." Cairn waved in the direction of the open window. "What
+does he do in the dark all night, with a fire going?"</p>
+
+<p>"Influenza?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! You've never been in his rooms, have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Very few men have. But as I said before, he's popular with the
+women."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean there have been complaints. Any other man would have been sent
+down."</p>
+
+<p>"You think he has influence&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Influence of some sort, undoubtedly."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I can see you have serious doubts about the man, as I have
+myself, so I can unburden my mind. You recall that sudden thunderstorm
+on Thursday?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather; quite upset me for work."</p>
+
+<p>"I was out in it. I was lying in a punt in the backwater&mdash;you know,
+<i>our</i> backwater."</p>
+
+<p>"Lazy dog."</p>
+
+<p>"To tell you the truth, I was trying to make up my mind whether I
+should abandon bones and take the post on the <i>Planet</i> which has been
+offered me."</p>
+
+<p>"Pills for the pen&mdash;Harley for Fleet? Did you decide?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not then; something happened which quite changed my line of
+reflection."</p>
+
+<p>The room was becoming cloudy with tobacco smoke.</p>
+
+<p>"It was delightfully still," Cairn resumed. "A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> water rat rose within
+a foot of me and a kingfisher was busy on a twig almost at my elbow.
+Twilight was just creeping along, and I could hear nothing but faint
+creakings of sculls from the river and sometimes the drip of a
+punt-pole. I thought the river seemed to become suddenly deserted; it
+grew quite abnormally quiet&mdash;and abnormally dark. But I was so deep in
+reflection that it never occurred to me to move.</p>
+
+<p>"Then the flotilla of swans came round the bend, with Apollo&mdash;you know
+Apollo, the king-swan?&mdash;at their head. By this time it had grown
+tremendously dark, but it never occurred to me to ask myself why. The
+swans, gliding along so noiselessly, might have been phantoms. A hush,
+a perfect hush, settled down. Sime, that hush was the prelude to a
+strange thing&mdash;an unholy thing!"</p>
+
+<p>Cairn rose excitedly and strode across to the table, kicking the skull
+out of his way.</p>
+
+<p>"It was the storm gathering," snapped Sime.</p>
+
+<p>"It was something else gathering! Listen! It got yet darker, but for
+some inexplicable reason, although I must have heard the thunder
+muttering, I couldn't take my eyes off the swans. Then it
+happened&mdash;the thing I came here to tell you about; I must tell
+somebody&mdash;the thing that I am not going to forget in a hurry."</p>
+
+<p>He began to knock out the ash from his pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," directed Sime tersely.</p>
+
+<p>"The big swan&mdash;Apollo&mdash;was within ten feet of me; he swam in open
+water, clear of the others; no living thing touched him. Suddenly,
+uttering a cry that chilled my very blood, a cry that I never heard
+from a swan in my life, he rose in the air, his huge wings
+extended&mdash;like a tortured phantom, Sime; I can never forget it&mdash;six
+feet clear of the water. The uncanny wail became a stifled hiss, and
+sending up a perfect fountain of water&mdash;I was deluged&mdash;the poor old
+king-swan fell, beat the surface with his wings&mdash;and was still."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"The other swans glided off like ghosts. Several<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> heavy raindrops
+pattered on the leaves above. I admit I was scared. Apollo lay with
+one wing right in the punt. I was standing up; I had jumped to my feet
+when the thing occurred. I stooped and touched the wing. The bird was
+quite dead! Sime, I pulled the swan's head out of the water, and&mdash;his
+neck was broken; no fewer than three vertebrae fractured!"</p>
+
+<p>A cloud of tobacco smoke was wafted towards the open window.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't one in a million who could wring the neck of a bird like
+Apollo, Sime; but it was done before my eyes without the visible
+agency of God or man! As I dropped him and took to the pole, the storm
+burst. A clap of thunder spoke with the voice of a thousand cannon,
+and I poled for bare life from that haunted backwater. I was drenched
+to the skin when I got in, and I ran up all the way from the stage."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" rapped the other again, as Cairn paused to refill his pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"It was seeing the firelight flickering at Ferrara's window that led
+me to do it. I don't often call on him; but I thought that a rub down
+before the fire and a glass of toddy would put me right. The storm had
+abated as I got to the foot of his stair&mdash;only a distant rolling of
+thunder.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, out of the shadows&mdash;it was quite dark&mdash;into the flickering
+light of the lamp came somebody all muffled up. I started horribly. It
+was a girl, quite a pretty girl, too, but very pale, and with
+over-bright eyes. She gave one quick glance up into my face, muttered
+something, an apology, I think, and drew back again into her
+hiding-place."</p>
+
+<p>"He's been warned," growled Sime. "It will be notice to quit next
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"I ran upstairs and banged on Ferrara's door. He didn't open at first,
+but shouted out to know who was knocking. When I told him, he let me
+in, and closed the door very quickly. As I went in, a pungent cloud
+met me&mdash;incense."</p>
+
+<p>"Incense?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"His rooms smelt like a joss-house; I told him so. He said he was
+experimenting with <i>Kyphi</i>&mdash;the ancient Egyptian stuff used in the
+temples. It was all dark and hot; phew! like a furnace. Ferrara's
+rooms always were odd, but since the long vacation I hadn't been in.
+Good lord, they're disgusting!"</p>
+
+<p>"How? Ferrara spent vacation in Egypt; I suppose he's brought things
+back?"</p>
+
+<p>"Things&mdash;yes! Unholy things! But that brings me to something too. I
+ought to know more about the chap than anybody; Sir Michael Ferrara
+and the governor have been friends for thirty years; but my father is
+oddly reticent&mdash;quite singularly reticent&mdash;regarding Antony. Anyway,
+have you heard about him, in Egypt?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard he got into trouble. For his age, he has a devil of a
+queer reputation; there's no disguising it."</p>
+
+<p>"What sort of trouble?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've no idea. Nobody seems to know. But I heard from young Ashby that
+Ferrara was asked to leave."</p>
+
+<p>"There's some tale about Kitchener&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>By</i> Kitchener, Ashby says; but I don't believe it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;Ferrara lighted a lamp, an elaborate silver thing, and I found
+myself in a kind of nightmare museum. There was an unwrapped mummy
+there, the mummy of a woman&mdash;I can't possibly describe it. He had
+pictures, too&mdash;photographs. I shan't try to tell you what they
+represented. I'm not thin-skinned; but there are some subjects that no
+man anxious to avoid Bedlam would willingly investigate. On the table
+by the lamp stood a number of objects such as I had never seen in my
+life before, evidently of great age. He swept them into a cupboard
+before I had time to look long. Then he went off to get a bath towel,
+slippers, and so forth. As he passed the fire he threw something in. A
+hissing tongue of flame leapt up&mdash;and died down again."</p>
+
+<p>"What did he throw in?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not absolutely certain; so I won't say what I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> <i>think</i> it was,
+at the moment. Then he began to help me shed my saturated flannels,
+and he set a kettle on the fire, and so forth. You know the personal
+charm of the man? But there was an unpleasant sense of something&mdash;what
+shall I say?&mdash;sinister. Ferrara's ivory face was more pale than usual,
+and he conveyed the idea that he was chewed up&mdash;exhausted. Beads of
+perspiration were on his forehead."</p>
+
+<p>"Heat of his rooms?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Cairn shortly. "It wasn't that. I had a rub down and
+borrowed some slacks. Ferrara brewed grog and pretended to make me
+welcome. Now I come to something which I can't forget; it may be a
+mere coincidence, but&mdash;. He has a number of photographs in his rooms,
+good ones, which he has taken himself. I'm not speaking now of the
+monstrosities, the outrages; I mean views, and girls&mdash;particularly
+girls. Well, standing on a queer little easel right under the lamp was
+a fine picture of Apollo, the swan, lord of the backwater."</p>
+
+<p>Sime stared dully through the smoke haze.</p>
+
+<p>"It gave me a sort of shock," continued Cairn. "It made me think,
+harder than ever, of the thing he had thrown in the fire. Then, in his
+photographic zenana, was a picture of a girl whom I am almost sure was
+the one I had met at the bottom of the stair. Another was of Myra
+Duquesne."</p>
+
+<p>"His cousin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I felt like tearing it from the wall. In fact, the moment I saw
+it, I stood up to go. I wanted to run to my rooms and strip the man's
+clothes off my back! It was a struggle to be civil any longer. Sime,
+if you had seen that swan die&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Sime walked over to the window.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a glimmering of your monstrous suspicions," he said slowly.
+"The last man to be kicked out of an English varsity for this sort of
+thing, so far as I know, was Dr. Dee of St. John's, Cambridge, and
+that's going back to the sixteenth century."</p>
+
+<p>"I know; it's utterly preposterous, of course. But I had to confide in
+somebody. I'll shift off now, Sime."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Sime nodded, staring from the open window. As Cairn was about to close
+the outer door:</p>
+
+<p>"Cairn," cried Sime, "since you are now a man of letters and leisure,
+you might drop in and borrow Wilson's brains for me."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," shouted Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>Down in the quadrangle he stood for a moment, reflecting; then, acting
+upon a sudden resolution, he strode over towards the gate and ascended
+Ferrara's stair.</p>
+
+<p>For some time he knocked at the door in vain, but he persisted in his
+clamouring, arousing the ancient echoes. Finally, the door was opened.</p>
+
+<p>Antony Ferrara faced him. He wore a silver-grey dressing gown, trimmed
+with white swansdown, above which his ivory throat rose statuesque.
+The almond-shaped eyes, black as night, gleamed strangely beneath the
+low, smooth brow. The lank black hair appeared lustreless by
+comparison. His lips were very red. In his whole appearance there was
+something repellently effeminate.</p>
+
+<p>"Can I come in?" demanded Cairn abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it&mdash;something important?" Ferrara's voice was husky but not
+unmusical.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, are you busy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;er&mdash;" Ferrara smiled oddly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, a visitor?" snapped Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Accounts for your delay in opening," said Cairn, and turned on his
+heel. "Mistook me for the proctor, in person, I suppose. Good-night."</p>
+
+<p>Ferrara made no reply. But, although he never once glanced back, Cairn
+knew that Ferrara, leaning over the rail, above, was looking after
+him; it was as though elemental heat were beating down upon his head.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PHANTOM HANDS</h3>
+
+
+<p>A week later Robert Cairn quitted Oxford to take up the newspaper
+appointment offered to him in London. It may have been due to some
+mysterious design of a hidden providence that Sime 'phoned him early
+in the week about an unusual case in one of the hospitals.</p>
+
+<p>"Walton is junior house-surgeon there," he said, "and he can arrange
+for you to see the case. She (the patient) undoubtedly died from some
+rare nervous affection. I have a theory," etc.; the conversation
+became technical.</p>
+
+<p>Cairn went to the hospital, and by courtesy of Walton, whom he had
+known at Oxford, was permitted to view the body.</p>
+
+<p>"The symptoms which Sime has got to hear about," explained the
+surgeon, raising the sheet from the dead woman's face, "are&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He broke off. Cairn had suddenly exhibited a ghastly pallor; he
+clutched at Walton for support.</p>
+
+<p>"My God!"</p>
+
+<p>Cairn, still holding on to the other, stooped over the discoloured
+face. It had been a pretty face when warm life had tinted its curves;
+now it was congested&mdash;awful; two heavy discolorations showed, one on
+either side of the region of the larynx.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth is wrong with you?" demanded Walton.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought," gasped Cairn, "for a moment, that I knew&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Really! I wish you did! We can't find out anything about her. Have a
+good look."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Cairn, mastering himself with an effort&mdash;"a chance
+resemblance, that's all." He wiped the beads of perspiration from his
+forehead.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You look jolly shaky," commented Walton. "Is she like someone you
+know very well?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not at all, now that I come to consider the features; but it was
+a shock at first. What on earth caused death?"</p>
+
+<p>"Asphyxia," answered Walton shortly. "Can't you see?"</p>
+
+<p>"Someone strangled her, and she was brought here too late?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, my dear chap; nobody strangled her. She was brought here
+in a critical state four or five days ago by one of the slum priests
+who keep us so busy. We diagnosed it as exhaustion from lack of
+food&mdash;with other complications. But the case was doing quite well up
+to last night; she was recovering strength. Then, at about one
+o'clock, she sprang up in bed, and fell back choking. By the time the
+nurse got to her it was all over."</p>
+
+<p>"But the marks on her throat?"</p>
+
+<p>Walton shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"There they are! Our men are keenly interested. It's absolutely
+unique. Young Shaw, who has a mania for the nervous system, sent a
+long account up to Sime, who suffers from a similar form of
+aberration."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; Sime 'phoned me."</p>
+
+<p>"It's nothing to do with nerves," said Walton contemptuously. "Don't
+ask me to explain it, but it's certainly no nerve case."</p>
+
+<p>"One of the other patients&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear chap, the other patients were all fast asleep! The nurse was
+at her table in the corner, and in full view of the bed the whole
+time. I tell you no one touched her!"</p>
+
+<p>"How long elapsed before the nurse got to her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly half a minute. But there is no means of learning when the
+paroxysm commenced. The leaping up in bed probably marked the end and
+not the beginning of the attack."</p>
+
+<p>Cairn experienced a longing for the fresh air; it was as though some
+evil cloud hovered around and about the poor unknown. Strange ideas,
+horrible ideas,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> conjectures based upon imaginings all but insane,
+flooded his mind darkly.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the hospital, which harboured a grim secret, he stood at the
+gate for a moment, undecided what to do. His father, Dr. Cairn, was
+out of London, or he would certainly have sought him in this hour of
+sore perplexity.</p>
+
+<p>"What in Heaven's name is behind it all!" he asked himself.</p>
+
+<p>For he knew beyond doubt that the girl who lay in the hospital was the
+same that he had seen one night at Oxford, was the girl whose
+photograph he had found in Antony Ferrara's rooms!</p>
+
+<p>He formed a sudden resolution. A taxi-cab was passing at that moment,
+and he hailed it, giving Sir Michael Ferrara's address. He could
+scarcely trust himself to think, but frightful possibilities presented
+themselves to him, repel them how he might. London seemed to grow
+dark, overshadowed, as once he had seen a Thames backwater grow. He
+shuddered, as though from a physical chill.</p>
+
+<p>The house of the famous Egyptian scholar, dull white behind its
+rampart of trees, presented no unusual appearances to his anxious
+scrutiny. What he feared he scarcely knew; what he suspected he could
+not have defined.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Michael, said the servant, was unwell and could see no one. That
+did not surprise Cairn; Sir Michael had not enjoyed good health since
+malaria had laid him low in Syria. But Miss Duquesne was at home.</p>
+
+<p>Cairn was shown into the long, low-ceiled room which contained so many
+priceless relics of a past civilisation. Upon the bookcase stood the
+stately ranks of volumes which had carried the fame of Europe's
+foremost Egyptologist to every corner of the civilised world. This
+queerly furnished room held many memories for Robert Cairn, who had
+known it from childhood, but latterly it had always appeared to him in
+his daydreams as the setting for a dainty figure. It was here that he
+had first met Myra Duquesne, Sir Michael's niece, when, fresh from a
+Norman convent, she had come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> to shed light and gladness upon the
+somewhat, sombre household of the scholar. He often thought of that
+day; he could recall every detail of the meeting&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Myra Duquesne came in, pulling aside the heavy curtains that hung in
+the arched entrance. With a granite Osiris flanking her slim figure on
+one side and a gilded sarcophagus on the other, she burst upon the
+visitor, a radiant vision in white. The light gleamed through her
+soft, brown hair forming a halo for a face that Robert Cairn knew for
+the sweetest in the world.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Mr. Cairn," she said, and blushed entrancingly&mdash;"we thought you
+had forgotten us."</p>
+
+<p>"That's not a little bit likely," he replied, taking her proffered
+hand, and there was that in his voice and in his look which made her
+lower her frank grey eyes. "I have only been in London a few days, and
+I find that Press work is more exacting than I had anticipated!"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you want to see my uncle very particularly?" asked Myra.</p>
+
+<p>"In a way, yes. I suppose he could not manage to see me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Myra shook her head. Now that the flush of excitement had left her
+face, Cairn was concerned to see how pale she was and what dark
+shadows lurked beneath her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Michael is not seriously ill?" he asked quickly. "Only one of the
+visual attacks&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;at least it began with one."</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated, and Cairn saw to his consternation that her eyes became
+filled with tears. The real loneliness of her position, now that her
+guardian was ill, the absence of a friend in whom she could confide
+her fears, suddenly grew apparent to the man who sat watching her.</p>
+
+<p>"You are tired out," he said gently. "You have been nursing him?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded and tried to smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is attending?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Elwin Groves, but&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Shall I wire for my father?"</p>
+
+<p>"We wired for him yesterday!"</p>
+
+<p>"What! to Paris?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, at my uncle's wish."</p>
+
+<p>Cairn started.</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;he thinks he is seriously ill, himself?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot say," answered the girl wearily. "His behaviour is&mdash;queer.
+He will allow no one in his room, and barely consents to see Sir
+Elwin. Then, twice recently, he has awakened in the night and made a
+singular request."</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has asked me to send for his solicitor in the morning, speaking
+harshly and almost as though&mdash;he hated me...."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand. Have you complied?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and on each occasion he has refused to see the solicitor when he
+has arrived!"</p>
+
+<p>"I gather that you have been acting as night-attendant?"</p>
+
+<p>"I remain in an adjoining room; he is always worse at night. Perhaps
+it is telling on my nerves, but last night&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Again she hesitated, as though doubting the wisdom of further speech;
+but a brief scrutiny of Cairn's face, with deep anxiety to be read in
+his eyes, determined her to proceed.</p>
+
+<p>"I had been asleep, and I must have been dreaming, for I thought that
+a voice was chanting, quite near to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Chanting?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;it was horrible, in some way. Then a sensation of intense
+coldness came; it was as though some icily cold creature fanned me
+with its wings! I cannot describe it, but it was numbing; I think I
+must have felt as those poor travellers do who succumb to the
+temptation to sleep in the snow."</p>
+
+<p>Cairn surveyed her anxiously, for in its essentials this might be a
+symptom of a dreadful ailment.</p>
+
+<p>"I aroused myself, however," she continued, "but experienced an
+unaccountable dread of entering my uncle's room. I could hear him
+muttering strangely,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> and&mdash;I forced myself to enter! I saw&mdash;oh, how
+can I tell you! You will think me mad!"</p>
+
+<p>She raised her hands to her face; she was trembling. Robert Cairn took
+them in his own, forcing her to look up.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me," he said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"The curtains were drawn back; I distinctly remembered having closed
+them, but they were drawn back; and the moonlight was shining on to
+the bed."</p>
+
+<p>"Bad; he was dreaming."</p>
+
+<p>"But was <i>I</i> dreaming? Mr. Cairn, two hands were stretched out over my
+uncle, two hands that swayed slowly up and down in the moonlight!"</p>
+
+<p>Cairn leapt to his feet, passing his hand over his forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I cried out, but not loudly&mdash;I think I was very near to swooning.
+The hands were withdrawn into the shadow, and my uncle awoke and sat
+up. He asked, in a low voice, if I were there, and I ran to him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"He ordered me, very coldly, to 'phone for his solicitor at nine
+o'clock this morning, and then fell back, and was asleep again almost
+immediately. The solicitor came, and was with him for nearly an hour.
+He sent for one of his clerks, and they both went away at half-past
+ten. Uncle has been in a sort of dazed condition ever since; in fact
+he has only once aroused himself, to ask for Dr. Cairn. I had a
+telegram sent immediately."</p>
+
+<p>"The governor will be here to-night," said Cairn confidently. "Tell
+me, the hands which you thought you saw: was there anything peculiar
+about them?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the moonlight they seemed to be of a dull white colour. There was
+a ring on one finger&mdash;a green ring. Oh!" she shuddered. "I can see it
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"You would know it again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Anywhere!"</p>
+
+<p>"Actually, there was no one in the room, of course?"</p>
+
+<p>"No one. It was some awful illusion; but I can never forget it."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>THE RING OF THOTH</h3>
+
+
+<p>Half-Moon Street was very still; midnight had sounded nearly
+half-an-hour; but still Robert Cairn paced up and down his father's
+library. He was very pale, and many times he glanced at a book which
+lay open upon the table. Finally he paused before it and read once
+again certain passages.</p>
+
+<p>"In the year 1571," it recorded, "the notorious Trois Echelles was
+executed in the Place de Gr&egrave;ve. He confessed before the king, Charles
+IX.... that he performed marvels.... Admiral de Coligny, who also was
+present, recollected ... the death of two gentlemen.... He added that
+they were found black and swollen."</p>
+
+<p>He turned over the page, with a hand none too steady.</p>
+
+<p>"The famous Mar&eacute;chal d'Ancre, Concini Concini," he read, "was killed
+by a pistol shot on the drawbridge of the Louvre by Vitry, Captain of
+the Bodyguard, on the 24th of April, 1617.... It was proved that the
+Mar&eacute;chal and his wife made use of wax images, which they kept in
+coffins...."</p>
+
+<p>Cairn shut the book hastily and began to pace the room again.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it is utterly, fantastically incredible!" he groaned. "Yet, with
+my own eyes I saw&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He stepped to a bookshelf and began to look for a book which, so far
+as his slight knowledge of the subject bore him, would possibly throw
+light upon the darkness. But he failed to find it. Despite the heat of
+the weather, the library seemed to have grown chilly. He pressed the
+bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Marston," he said to the man who presently came, "you must be very
+tired, but Dr. Cairn will be here<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> within an hour. Tell him that I
+have gone to Sir Michael Ferrara's."</p>
+
+<p>"But it's after twelve o'clock, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know it is; nevertheless I am going."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, sir. You will wait there for the Doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly, Marston. Good-night!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn went out into Half-Moon Street. The night was perfect,
+and the cloudless sky lavishly gemmed with stars. He walked on
+heedlessly, scarce noting in which direction. An awful conviction was
+with him, growing stronger each moment, that some mysterious menace,
+some danger unclassifiable, threatened Myra Duquesne. What did he
+suspect? He could give it no name. How should he act? He had no idea.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Elwin Groves, whom he had seen that evening, had hinted broadly at
+mental trouble as the solution of Sir Michael Ferrara's peculiar
+symptoms. Although Sir Michael had had certain transactions with his
+solicitor during the early morning, he had apparently forgotten all
+about the matter, according to the celebrated physician.</p>
+
+<p>"Between ourselves, Cairn," Sir Elwin had confided, "I believe he
+altered his will."</p>
+
+<p>The inquiry of a taxi driver interrupted Cairn's meditations. He
+entered the vehicle, giving Sir Michael Ferrara's address.</p>
+
+<p>His thoughts persistently turned to Myra Duquesne, who at that moment
+would be lying listening for the slightest sound from the sick-room;
+who would be fighting down fear, that she might do her duty to her
+guardian&mdash;fear of the waving phantom hands. The cab sped through the
+almost empty streets, and at last, rounding a corner, rolled up the
+tree-lined avenue, past three or four houses lighted only by the
+glitter of the moon, and came to a stop before that of Sir Michael
+Ferrara.</p>
+
+<p>Lights shone from the many windows. The front door was open, and light
+streamed out into the porch.</p>
+
+<p>"My God!" cried Cairn, leaping from the cab. "My God! what has
+happened?"</p>
+
+<p>A thousand fears, a thousand reproaches, flooded his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> brain with
+frenzy. He went racing up to the steps and almost threw himself upon
+the man who stood half-dressed in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"Felton, Felton!" he whispered hoarsely. "What has happened? Who&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Michael, sir," answered the man. "I thought"&mdash;his voice
+broke&mdash;"you were the doctor, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Myra&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She fainted away, sir. Mrs. Hume is with her in the library, now."</p>
+
+<p>Cairn thrust past the servant and ran into the library. The
+housekeeper and a trembling maid were bending over Myra Duquesne, who
+lay fully dressed, white and still, upon a Chesterfield. Cairn
+unceremoniously grasped her wrist, dropped upon his knees and placed
+his ear to the still breast.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God!" he said. "It is only a swoon. Look after her, Mrs. Hume."</p>
+
+<p>The housekeeper, with set face, lowered her head, but did not trust
+herself to speak. Cairn went out into the hall and tapped Felton on
+the shoulder. The man turned with a great start.</p>
+
+<p>"What happened?" he demanded. "Is Sir Michael&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>Felton nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Five minutes before you came, sir." His voice was hoarse with
+emotion. "Miss Myra came out of her room. She thought someone called
+her. She rapped on Mrs. Hume's door, and Mrs. Hume, who was just
+retiring, opened it. She also thought she had heard someone calling
+Miss Myra out on the stairhead."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"There was no one there, sir. Everyone was in bed; I was just
+undressing, myself. But there was a sort of faint perfume&mdash;something
+like a church, only disgusting, sir&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"How&mdash;disgusting! Did <i>you</i> smell it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir, never. Mrs. Hume and Miss Myra have noticed it in the house
+on other nights, and one of the maids, too. It was very strong, I'm
+told, last night. Well, sir, as they stood by the door they heard a
+horrid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> kind of choking scream. They both rushed to Sir Michael's
+room, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was lying half out of bed, sir&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Dead?"</p>
+
+<p>"Seemed like he'd been strangled, they told me, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Who is with him now?"</p>
+
+<p>The man grew even paler.</p>
+
+<p>"No one, Mr. Cairn, sir. Miss Myra screamed out that there were two
+hands just unfastening from his throat as she and Mrs. Hume got to the
+door, and there was no living soul in the room, sir. I might as well
+out with it! We're all afraid to go in!"</p>
+
+<p>Cairn turned and ran up the stairs. The upper landing was in darkness
+and the door of the room which he knew to be Sir Michael's stood wide
+open. As he entered, a faint scent came to his nostrils. It brought
+him up short at the threshold, with a chill of supernatural dread.</p>
+
+<p>The bed was placed between the windows, and one curtain had been
+pulled aside, admitting a flood, of moonlight. Cairn remembered that
+Myra had mentioned this circumstance in connection with the
+disturbance of the previous night.</p>
+
+<p>"Who, in God's name, opened that curtain!" he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>Fully in the cold white light lay Sir Michael Ferrara, his silver hair
+gleaming and his strong, angular face upturned to the intruding rays.
+His glazed eyes were starting from their sockets; his face was nearly
+black; and his fingers were clutching the sheets in a death grip.
+Cairn had need of all his courage to touch him.</p>
+
+<p>He was quite dead.</p>
+
+<p>Someone was running up the stairs. Cairn turned, half dazed,
+anticipating the entrance of a local medical man. Into the room ran
+his father, switching on the light as he did so. A greyish tinge
+showed through his ruddy complexion. He scarcely noticed his son.</p>
+
+<p>"Ferrara!" he cried, coming up to the bed. "Ferrara!"</p>
+
+<p>He dropped on his knees beside the dead man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ferrara, old fellow&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>His cry ended in something like a sob. Robert Cairn turned, choking,
+and went downstairs.</p>
+
+<p>In the hall stood Felton and some other servants.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Duquesne?"</p>
+
+<p>"She has recovered, sir. Mrs. Hume has taken her to another bedroom."</p>
+
+<p>Cairn hesitated, then walked into the deserted library, where a light
+was burning. He began to pace up and down, clenching and unclenching
+his fists. Presently Felton knocked and entered. Clearly the man was
+glad of the chance to talk to someone.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Antony has been 'phoned at Oxford, sir. I thought you might like
+to know. He is motoring down, sir, and will be here at four o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Cairn shortly.</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later his father joined him. He was a slim, well-preserved
+man, alert-eyed and active, yet he had aged five years in his son's
+eyes. His face was unusually pale, but he exhibited no other signs of
+emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Rob," he said, tersely. "I can see you have something to tell
+me. I am listening."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn leant back against a bookshelf.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>have</i> something to tell you, sir, and something to ask you."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell your story, first; then ask your question."</p>
+
+<p>"My story begins in a Thames backwater&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn stared, squaring his jaw, but his son proceeded to relate,
+with some detail, the circumstances attendant upon the death of the
+king-swan. He went on to recount what took place in Antony Ferrara's
+rooms, and at the point where something had been taken from the table
+and thrown in the fire&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Stop!" said Dr. Cairn. "What did he throw in the fire?"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor's nostrils quivered, and his eyes were ablaze with some
+hardly repressed emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot swear to it, sir&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind. What do you <i>think</i> he threw in the fire?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A little image, of wax or something similar&mdash;an image of&mdash;a swan."</p>
+
+<p>At that, despite his self-control, Dr. Cairn became so pale that his
+son leapt forward.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Rob," his father waved him away, and turning, walked
+slowly down the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," he said, rather huskily.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn continued his story up to the time that he visited the
+hospital where the dead girl lay.</p>
+
+<p>"You can swear that she was the original of the photograph in Antony's
+rooms and the same who was waiting at the foot of the stair?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on."</p>
+
+<p>Again the younger man resumed his story, relating what he had learnt
+from Myra Duquesne; what she had told him about the phantom hands;
+what Felton had told him about the strange perfume perceptible in the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>"The ring," interrupted Dr. Cairn&mdash;"she would recognise it again?"</p>
+
+<p>"She says so."</p>
+
+<p>"Anything else?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only that if some of your books are to be believed, sir, Trois
+Echelle, D'Ancre and others have gone to the stake for such things in
+a less enlightened age!"</p>
+
+<p>"Less enlightened, boy!" Dr. Cairn turned his blazing eyes upon him.
+"<i>More</i> enlightened where the powers of hell were concerned!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you think&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Think</i>! Have I spent half my life in such studies in vain? Did I
+labour with poor Michael Ferrara in Egypt and learn <i>nothing</i>? Just
+God! what an end to his labour! What a reward for mine!"</p>
+
+<p>He buried his face in quivering hands.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot tell exactly what you mean by that, sir," said Robert Cairn;
+"but it brings me to my question."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn did not speak, did not move.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Who is Antony Ferrara</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor looked up at that; and it was a haggard face he raised from
+his hands.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You have tried to ask me that before."</p>
+
+<p>"I ask now, sir, with better prospect of receiving an answer."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet I can give you none, Rob."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, sir? Are you bound to secrecy?"</p>
+
+<p>"In a degree, yes. But the real reason is this&mdash;I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have said so."</p>
+
+<p>"Good God, sir, you amaze me! I have always felt certain that he was
+really no Ferrara, but an adopted son; yet it had never entered my
+mind that you were ignorant of his origin."</p>
+
+<p>"You have not studied the subjects which I have studied; nor do I wish
+that you should; therefore it is impossible, at any rate now, to
+pursue that matter further. But I may perhaps supplement your
+researches into the history of Trois Echelles and Concini Concini. I
+believe you told me that you were looking in my library for some work
+which you failed to find?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was looking for M. Chabas' translation of the <i>Papyrus Harris</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you know of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I once saw a copy in Antony Ferrara's rooms."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn started slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed. It happens that my copy is here; I lent it quite recently
+to&mdash;Sir Michael. It is probably somewhere on the shelves."</p>
+
+<p>He turned on more lights and began to scan the rows of books.
+Presently&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Here it is," he said, and took down and opened the book on the table.
+"This passage may interest you." He laid his finger upon it.</p>
+
+<p>His son bent over the book and read the following:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hai, the evil man, was a shepherd. He had said: 'O, that I might have
+a book of spells that would give me resistless power!' He obtained a
+book of the Formulas.... By the divine powers of these he enchanted
+men. He obtained a deep vault furnished with implements. He made waxen
+images of men, and love-charms.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> And then he perpetrated all the
+horrors that his heart conceived."</p>
+
+<p>"Flinders Petrie," said Dr. Cairn, "mentions the Book of Thoth as
+another magical work conferring similar powers."</p>
+
+<p>"But surely, sir&mdash;after all, it's the twentieth century&mdash;this is mere
+superstition!"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so&mdash;<i>once</i>!" replied Dr. Cairn. "But I have lived to know
+that Egyptian magic was a real and a potent force. A great part of it
+was no more than a kind of hypnotism, but there were other branches.
+Our most learned modern works are as children's nursery rhymes beside
+such a writing as the Egyptian <i>Ritual of the Dead</i>! God forgive me!
+What have I done!"</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot reproach yourself in any way, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"Can I not?" said Dr. Cairn hoarsely. "Ah, Rob, you don't know!"</p>
+
+<p>There came a rap on the door, and a local practitioner entered.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a singular case, Dr. Cairn," he began diffidently. "An
+autopsy&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" cried Dr. Cairn. "Sir Elwin Groves had foreseen it&mdash;so had
+I!"</p>
+
+<p>"But there are distinct marks of pressure on either side of the
+windpipe&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. These marks are not uncommon in such cases. Sir Michael
+had resided in the East and had contracted a form of plague. Virtually
+he died from it. The thing is highly contagious, and it is almost
+impossible to rid the system of it. A girl died in one of the
+hospitals this week, having identical marks on the throat." He turned
+to his son. "You saw her, Rob?"</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn nodded, and finally the local man withdrew, highly
+mystified, but unable to contradict so celebrated a physician as Dr.
+Bruce Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>The latter seated himself in an armchair, and rested his chin in the
+palm of his left hand. Robert Cairn paced restlessly about the
+library. Both were waiting, expectantly. At half-past two Felton
+brought in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> tray of refreshments, but neither of the men attempted
+to avail themselves of the hospitality.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Duquesne?" asked the younger.</p>
+
+<p>"She has just gone to sleep, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Good," muttered Dr. Cairn. "Blessed is youth."</p>
+
+<p>Silence fell again, upon the man's departure, to be broken but rarely,
+despite the tumultuous thoughts of those two minds, until, at about a
+quarter to three, the faint sound of a throbbing motor brought Dr.
+Cairn sharply to his feet. He looked towards the window. Dawn was
+breaking. The car came roaring along the avenue and stopped outside
+the house.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn and his son glanced at one another. A brief tumult and
+hurried exchange of words sounded in the hall; footsteps were heard
+ascending the stairs, then came silence. The two stood side by side in
+front of the empty hearth, a haggard pair, fitly set in that desolate
+room, with the yellowing rays of the lamps shrinking before the first
+spears of dawn.</p>
+
+<p>Then, without warning, the door opened slowly and deliberately, and
+Antony Ferrara came in.</p>
+
+<p>His face was expressionless, ivory; his red lips were firm, and he
+drooped his head. But the long black eyes glinted and gleamed as if
+they reflected the glow from a furnace. He wore a motor coat lined
+with leopard skin and he was pulling off his heavy gloves.</p>
+
+<p>"It is good of you to have waited, Doctor," he said in his huskily
+musical voice&mdash;"you too, Cairn."</p>
+
+<p>He advanced a few steps into the room. Cairn was conscious of a kind
+of fear, but uppermost came a desire to pick up some heavy implement
+and crush this evilly effeminate thing with the serpent eyes. Then he
+found himself speaking; the words seemed to be forced from his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Antony Ferrara," he said, "have you read the <i>Harris Papyrus</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>Ferrara dropped his glove, stooped and recovered it, and smiled
+faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he replied. "Have you?" His eyes were nearly closed, mere
+luminous slits. "But surely," he continued, "this is no time, Cairn,
+to discuss books?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> As my poor father's heir, and therefore your host,
+I beg of you to partake&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A faint sound made him turn. Just within the door, where the light
+from the reddening library windows touched her as if with sanctity,
+stood Myra Duquesne, in her night robe, her hair unbound and her
+little bare feet gleaming whitely upon the red carpet. Her eyes were
+wide open, vacant of expression, but set upon Antony Ferrara's
+ungloved left hand.</p>
+
+<p>Ferrara turned slowly to face her, until his back was towards the two
+men in the library. She began to speak, in a toneless, unemotional
+voice, raising her finger and pointing at a ring which Ferrara wore.</p>
+
+<p>"I know you now," she said; "I know you, son of an evil woman, for you
+wear her ring, the sacred ring of Thoth. You have stained that ring
+with blood, as she stained it&mdash;with the blood of those who loved and
+trusted you. I could name you, but my lips are sealed&mdash;I could name
+you, brood of a witch, murderer, for I know you now."</p>
+
+<p>Dispassionately, mechanically, she delivered her strange indictment.
+Over her shoulder appeared the anxious face of Mrs. Hume, finger to
+lip.</p>
+
+<p>"My God!" muttered Cairn. "My God! What&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"S&mdash;sh!" his father grasped his arm. "She is asleep!"</p>
+
+<p>Myra Duquesne turned and quitted the room, Mrs. Hume hovering
+anxiously about her. Antony Ferrara faced around; his mouth was oddly
+twisted.</p>
+
+<p>"She is troubled with strange dreams," he said, very huskily.</p>
+
+<p>"Clairvoyant dreams!" Dr. Cairn addressed him for the first time. "Do
+not glare at me in that way, for it may be that <i>I</i> know you, too!
+Come, Rob."</p>
+
+<p>"But Myra&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn laid his hand upon his son's shoulder, fixing his eyes upon
+him steadily.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing in this house can injure Myra," he replied quietly; "for Good
+is higher than Evil. For the present we can only go."</p>
+
+<p>Antony Ferrara stood aside, as the two walked out of the library.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>AT FERRARA'S CHAMBERS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Dr. Bruce Cairn swung around in his chair, lifting his heavy eyebrows
+interrogatively, as his son, Robert, entered the consulting-room.
+Half-Moon Street was bathed in almost tropical sunlight, but already
+the celebrated physician had sent those out from his house to whom the
+sky was overcast, whom the sun would gladden no more, and a group of
+anxious-eyed sufferers yet awaited his scrutiny in an adjoining room.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, Rob! Do you wish to see me professionally?"</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn seated himself upon a corner of the big table, shaking
+his head slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thanks sir; I'm fit enough; but I thought you might like to know
+about the will&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I do know. Since I was largely interested, Jermyn attended on my
+behalf; an urgent case detained me. He rang up earlier this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I see. Then perhaps I'm wasting your time; but it was a
+surprise&mdash;quite a pleasant one&mdash;to find that Sir Michael had provided
+for Myra&mdash;Miss Duquesne."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn stared hard.</p>
+
+<p>"What led you to suppose that he had <i>not</i> provided for his niece? She
+is an orphan, and he was her guardian."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, he should have done so; but I was not alone in my belief
+that during the&mdash;peculiar state of mind&mdash;which preceded his death, he
+had altered his will&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"In favour of his adopted son, Antony?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I know <i>you</i> were afraid of it, sir! But as it turns out they
+inherit equal shares, and the house<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> goes to Myra. Mr. Antony
+Ferrara"&mdash;he accentuated the name&mdash;"quite failed to conceal his
+chagrin."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather. He was there in person, wearing one of his beastly fur
+coats&mdash;a fur coat, with the thermometer at Africa!&mdash;lined with
+civet-cat, of all abominations!"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn turned to his table, tapping at the blotting-pad with the
+tube of a stethoscope.</p>
+
+<p>"I regret your attitude towards young Ferrara, Rob."</p>
+
+<p>His son started.</p>
+
+<p>"Regret it! I don't understand. Why, you, yourself brought about an
+open rupture on the night of Sir Michael's death."</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless, I am sorry. You know, since you were present, that Sir
+Michael has left his niece&mdash;to my care&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God for that!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad, too, although there are many difficulties. But,
+furthermore, he enjoined me to&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Keep an eye on Antony! Yes, yes&mdash;but, heavens! he didn't know him for
+what he is!"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn turned to him again.</p>
+
+<p>"He did not; by a divine mercy, he never knew&mdash;what we know. But"&mdash;his
+clear eyes were raised to his son's&mdash;"the charge is none the less
+sacred, boy!"</p>
+
+<p>The younger man stared perplexedly.</p>
+
+<p>"But he is nothing less than a &mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>His father's upraised hand checked the word on his tongue.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> know what he is, Rob, even better than you do. But cannot you see
+how this ties my hands, seals my lips?"</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn was silent, stupefied.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me time to see my way clearly, Rob. At the moment I cannot
+reconcile my duty and my conscience; I confess it. But give me time.
+If only as a move&mdash;as a matter of policy&mdash;keep in touch with Ferrara.
+You loathe him, I know; but we <i>must</i> watch him! There are other
+interests&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Myra!" Robert Cairn flushed hotly. "Yes, I see. I understand. By
+heavens, it's a hard part to play, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Be advised by me, Rob. Meet stealth with stealth. My boy, we have
+seen strange ends come to those who stood in the path of someone. If
+you had studied the subjects that I have studied you would know that
+retribution, though slow, is inevitable. But be on your guard. I am
+taking precautions. We have an enemy; I do not pretend to deny it; and
+he fights with strange weapons. Perhaps I know something of those
+weapons, too, and I am adopting&mdash;certain measures. But one defence,
+and the one for you, is guile&mdash;stealth!"</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn spoke abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"He is installed in palatial chambers in Piccadilly."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you been there?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Call upon him. Take the first opportunity to do so. Had it not been
+for your knowledge of certain things which happened in a top set at
+Oxford we might be groping in the dark now! You never liked Antony
+Ferrara&mdash;no men do; but you used to call upon him in college. Continue
+to call upon him, in town."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn stood up, and lighted a cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"Right you are, sir!" he said. "I'm glad I'm not alone in this thing!
+By the way, about&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Myra? For the present she remains at the house. There is Mrs. Hume,
+and all the old servants. We shall see what is to be done, later. You
+might run over and give her a look-up, though."</p>
+
+<p>"I will, sir! Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye," said Dr. Cairn, and pressed the bell which summoned
+Marston to usher out the caller, and usher in the next patient.</p>
+
+<p>In Half-Moon Street, Robert Cairn stood irresolute; for he was one of
+those whose mental moods are physically reflected. He might call upon
+Myra Duquesne, in which event he would almost certainly be asked to
+stay to lunch; or he might call upon Antony Ferrara. He determined
+upon the latter, though less pleasant course.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Turning his steps in the direction of Piccadilly, he reflected that
+this grim and uncanny secret which he shared with his father was like
+to prove prejudicial to his success in journalism. It was eternally
+uprising, demoniac, between himself and his work. The feeling of
+fierce resentment towards Antony Ferrara which he cherished grew
+stronger at every step. <i>He</i> was the spider governing the web, the web
+that clammily touched Dr. Cairn, himself, Robert Cairn, and&mdash;Myra
+Duquesne. Others there had been who had felt its touch, who had been
+drawn to the heart of the unclean labyrinth&mdash;and devoured. In the mind
+of Cairn, the figure of Antony Ferrara assumed the shape of a monster,
+a ghoul, an elemental spirit of evil.</p>
+
+<p>And now he was ascending the marble steps. Before the gates of the
+lift he stood and pressed the bell.</p>
+
+<p>Ferrara's proved to be a first-floor suite, and the doors were opened
+by an Eastern servant dressed in white.</p>
+
+<p>"His beastly theatrical affectation again!" muttered Cairn. "The man
+should have been a music-hall illusionist!"</p>
+
+<p>The visitor was salaamed into a small reception room. Of this
+apartment the walls and ceiling were entirely covered by a fretwork in
+sandalwood, evidently Oriental in workmanship. In niches, or doorless
+cup-boards; stood curious-looking vases and pots. Heavy curtains of
+rich fabric draped the doors. The floor was of mosaic, and a small
+fountain played in the centre. A cushioned divan occupied one side of
+the place, from which natural light was entirely excluded and which
+was illuminated only by an ornate lantern swung from the ceiling. This
+lantern had panes of blue glass, producing a singular effect. A silver
+<i>mibkharah</i>, or incense-burner, stood near to one corner of the divan
+and emitted a subtle perfume. As the servant withdrew:</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens!" muttered Cairn, disgustedly; "poor Sir Michael's
+fortune won't last long at this rate!" He glanced at the smoking
+<i>mibkharah</i>. "Phew! effeminate beast! Ambergris!"</p>
+
+<p>No more singular anomaly could well be pictured than that afforded by
+the lean, neatly-groomed Scots<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>man, with his fresh, clean-shaven face
+and typically British air, in this setting of Eastern voluptuousness.</p>
+
+<p>The dusky servitor drew back a curtain and waved him to enter, bowing
+low as the visitor passed. Cairn found himself in Antony Ferrara's
+study. A huge fire was blazing in the grate, rendering the heat of the
+study almost insufferable.</p>
+
+<p>It was, he perceived, an elaborated copy of Ferrara's room at Oxford;
+infinitely more spacious, of course, and by reason of the rugs,
+cushions and carpets with which its floor was strewn, suggestive of
+great opulence. But the littered table was there, with its nameless
+instruments and its extraordinary silver lamp; the mummies were there;
+the antique volumes, rolls of papyrus, preserved snakes and cats and
+ibises, statuettes of Isis, Osiris and other Nile deities were there;
+the many photographs of women, too (Cairn had dubbed it at Oxford "the
+zenana"); above all, there was Antony Ferrara.</p>
+
+<p>He wore the silver-grey dressing-gown trimmed with white swansdown in
+which Cairn had seen him before. His statuesque ivory face was set in
+a smile, which yet was no smile of welcome; the over-red lips smiled
+alone; the long, glittering dark eyes were joyless; almost, beneath
+the straightly-pencilled brows, sinister. Save for the short,
+lustreless hair it was the face of a handsome, evil woman.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Cairn&mdash;what a welcome interruption. How good of you!"</p>
+
+<p>There was strange music in his husky tones. He spoke unemotionally,
+falsely, but Cairn could not deny the charm of that unique voice. It
+was possible to understand how women&mdash;some women&mdash;would be as clay in
+the hands of the man who had such a voice as that.</p>
+
+<p>His visitor nodded shortly. Cairn was a poor actor; already his <i>r&ocirc;le</i>
+was oppressing him. Whilst Ferrara was speaking one found a sort of
+fascination in listening, but when he was silent he repelled. Ferrara
+may have been conscious of this, for he spoke much, and well.</p>
+
+<p>"You have made yourself jolly comfortable," said Cairn.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why not, my dear Cairn? Every man has within him something of the
+Sybarite. Why crush a propensity so delightful? The Spartan philosophy
+is palpably absurd; it is that of one who finds himself in a garden
+filled with roses and who holds his nostrils; who perceives there
+shady bowers, but chooses to burn in the sun; who, ignoring the choice
+fruits which tempt his hand and court his palate, stoops to pluck
+bitter herbs from the wayside!"</p>
+
+<p>"I see!" snapped Cairn. "Aren't you thinking of doing any more work,
+then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Work!" Antony Ferrara smiled and sank upon a heap of cushions.
+"Forgive me, Cairn, but I leave it, gladly and confidently, to more
+robust characters such as your own."</p>
+
+<p>He proffered a silver box of cigarettes, but Cairn shook his head,
+balancing himself on a corner of the table.</p>
+
+<p>"No; thanks. I have smoked too much already; my tongue is parched."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow!" Ferrara rose. "I have a wine which, I declare, you
+will never have tasted but which you will pronounce to be nectar. It
+is made in Cyprus&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Cairn raised his hand in a way that might have reminded a nice
+observer of his father.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, nevertheless. Some other time, Ferrara; I am no wine man."</p>
+
+<p>"A whisky and soda, or a burly British B. and S., even a sporty
+'Scotch and Polly'?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a suggestion of laughter in the husky voice, now, of a sort
+of contemptuous banter. But Cairn stolidly shook his head and forced a
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Many thanks; but it's too early."</p>
+
+<p>He stood up and began to walk about the room, inspecting the
+numberless oddities which it contained. The photographs he examined
+with supercilious curiosity. Then, passing to a huge cabinet, he began
+to peer in at the rows of amulets, statuettes and other,
+unclassifiable, objects with which it was laden. Ferrara's voice came.</p>
+
+<p>"That head of a priestess on the left, Cairn, is of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> great interest.
+The brain had not been removed, and quite a colony of Dermestes
+Beetles had propagated in the cavity. Those creatures never saw the
+light, Cairn. Yet I assure you that they had eyes. I have nearly forty
+of them in the small glass case on the table there. You might like to
+examine them."</p>
+
+<p>Cairn shuddered, but felt impelled to turn and look at these gruesome
+relics. In a square, glass case he saw the creatures. They lay in rows
+on a bed of moss; one might almost have supposed that unclean life yet
+survived in the little black insects. They were an unfamiliar species
+to Cairn, being covered with unusually long, black hair, except upon
+the root of the wing-cases where they were of brilliant orange.</p>
+
+<p>"The perfect pup&aelig; of this insect are extremely rare," added Ferrara
+informatively.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed?" replied Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>He found something physically revolting in that group of beetles whose
+history had begun and ended in the skull of a mummy.</p>
+
+<p>"Filthy things!" he said. "Why do you keep them?"</p>
+
+<p>Ferrara shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Who knows?" he answered enigmatically. "They might prove useful, some
+day."</p>
+
+<p>A bell rang; and from Ferrara's attitude it occurred to Cairn that he
+was expecting a visitor.</p>
+
+<p>"I must be off," he said accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>And indeed he was conscious of a craving for the cool and
+comparatively clean air of Piccadilly. He knew something of the great
+evil which dwelt within this man whom he was compelled, by singular
+circumstances, to tolerate. But the duty began to irk.</p>
+
+<p>"If you must," was the reply. "Of course, your press work no doubt is
+very exacting."</p>
+
+<p>The note of badinage was discernible again, but Cairn passed out into
+the <i>mandarah</i> without replying, where the fountain plashed coolly and
+the silver <i>mibkharah</i> sent up its pencils of vapour. The outer door
+was opened by the Oriental servant, and Ferrara stood and bowed to his
+departing visitor. He did not proffer his hand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Until our next meeting. Cairn, <i>es-sel&acirc;m aleyk&ucirc;m</i>!" (peace be with
+you) he murmured, "as the Moslems say. But indeed I shall be with you
+in spirit, dear Cairn."</p>
+
+<p>There was something in the tone wherein he spoke those last words that
+brought Cairn up short. He turned, but the doors closed silently. A
+faint breath of ambergris was borne to his nostrils.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>THE RUSTLING SHADOWS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Cairn stepped out of the lift, crossed the hall, and was about to walk
+out on to Piccadilly, when he stopped, staring hard at a taxi-cab
+which had slowed down upon the opposite side whilst the driver awaited
+a suitable opportunity to pull across.</p>
+
+<p>The occupant of the cab was invisible now, but a moment before Cairn
+had had a glimpse of her as she glanced out, apparently towards the
+very doorway in which he stood. Perhaps his imagination was playing
+him tricks. He stood and waited, until at last the cab drew up within
+a few yards of him.</p>
+
+<p>Myra Duquesne got out.</p>
+
+<p>Having paid the cabman, she crossed the pavement and entered the
+hall-way. Cairn stepped forward so that she almost ran into his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Cairn!" she cried. "Why! have you been to see Antony?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have," he replied, and paused, at a loss for words.</p>
+
+<p>It had suddenly occurred to him that Antony Ferrara and Myra Duquesne
+had known one another from childhood; that the girl probably regarded
+Ferrara in the light of a brother.</p>
+
+<p>"There are so many things I want to talk to him about," she said. "He
+seems to know everything, and I am afraid I know very little."</p>
+
+<p>Cairn noted with dismay the shadows under her eyes&mdash;the grey eyes that
+he would have wished to see ever full of light and laughter. She was
+pale, too, or seemed unusually so in her black dress; but the tragic
+death of her guardian, Sir Michael Ferrara, had been a dreadful blow
+to this convent-bred girl who had no other kin in the world. A longing
+swept into Cairn's heart and set it ablaze; a longing to take all her
+sorrows, all her cares,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> upon his own broad shoulders, to take her and
+hold her, shielded from whatever of trouble or menace the future might
+bring.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen his rooms here?" he asked, trying to speak casually;
+but his soul was up in arms against the bare idea of this girl's
+entering that perfumed place where abominable and vile things were,
+and none of them so vile as the man she trusted, whom she counted a
+brother.</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet," she answered, with a sort of childish glee momentarily
+lighting her eyes. "Are they <i>very</i> splendid?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very," he answered her, grimly.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you come in with me for awhile? Only just a little while, then
+you can come home to lunch&mdash;you and Antony." Her eyes sparkled now.
+"Oh, do say yes!"</p>
+
+<p>Knowing what he did know of the man upstairs, he longed to accompany
+her; yet, contradictorily, knowing what he did he could not face him
+again, could not submit himself to the test of being civil to Antony
+Ferrara in the presence of Myra Duquesne.</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't tempt me," he begged, and forced a smile. "I shall find
+myself enrolled amongst the seekers of soup-tickets if I <i>completely</i>
+ignore the claims of my employer upon my time!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what a shame!" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>Their eyes met, and something&mdash;something unspoken but cogent&mdash;passed
+between them; so that for the first time a pretty colour tinted the
+girl's cheeks. She suddenly grew embarrassed.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, then," she said, holding out her hand. "Will you lunch with
+us to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks awfully," replied Cairn. "Rather&mdash;if it's humanly possible.
+I'll ring you up."</p>
+
+<p>He released her hand, and stood watching her as she entered the lift.
+When it ascended, he turned and went out to swell the human tide of
+Piccadilly. He wondered what his father would think of the girl's
+visiting Ferrara. Would he approve? Decidedly the situation was a
+delicate one; the wrong kind of interference&mdash;the tactless kind&mdash;might
+merely render it worse. It would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> be awfully difficult, if not
+impossible, to explain to Myra. If an open rupture were to be avoided
+(and he had profound faith in his father's acumen), then Myra must
+remain in ignorance. But was she to be allowed to continue these
+visits?</p>
+
+<p>Should he have permitted her to enter Ferrara's rooms?</p>
+
+<p>He reflected that he had no right to question her movements. But, at
+least, he might have accompanied her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, heavens!" he muttered&mdash;"what a horrible tangle. It will drive me
+mad!"</p>
+
+<p>There could be no peace for him until he knew her to be safely home
+again, and his work suffered accordingly; until, at about midday, he
+rang up Myra Duquesne, on the pretence of accepting her invitation to
+lunch on the morrow, and heard, with inexpressible relief, her voice
+replying to him.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon he was suddenly called upon to do a big "royal"
+matin&eacute;e, and this necessitated a run to his chambers in order to
+change from Harris tweed into vicuna and cashmere. The usual stream of
+lawyers' clerks and others poured under the archway leading to the
+court; but in the far corner shaded by the tall plane tree, where the
+ascending steps and worn iron railing, the small panes of glass in the
+solicitor's window on the ground floor and the general air of
+Dickens-like aloofness prevailed, one entered a sort of backwater. In
+the narrow hall-way, quiet reigned&mdash;a quiet profound as though motor
+'buses were not.</p>
+
+<p>Cairn ran up the stairs to the second landing, and began to fumble for
+his key. Although he knew it to be impossible, he was aware of a queer
+impression that someone was waiting for him, inside his chambers. The
+sufficiently palpable fact&mdash;that such a thing <i>was</i> impossible&mdash;did
+not really strike him until he had opened the door and entered. Up to
+that time, in a sort of subconscious way, he had anticipated finding a
+visitor there.</p>
+
+<p>"What an ass I am!" he muttered; then, "Phew! there's a disgusting
+smell!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He threw open all the windows, and entering his bedroom, also opening
+both the windows there. The current of air thus established began to
+disperse the odour&mdash;a fusty one as of something decaying&mdash;and by the
+time that he had changed, it was scarcely perceptible. He had little
+time to waste in speculation, but when, as he ran out to the door,
+glancing at his watch, the nauseous odour suddenly rose again to his
+nostrils, he stopped with his hand on the latch.</p>
+
+<p>"What the deuce is it!" he said loudly.</p>
+
+<p>Quite mechanically he turned and looked back. As one might have
+anticipated, there was nothing visible to account for the odour.</p>
+
+<p>The emotion of fear is a strange and complex one. In this breath of
+decay rising to his nostril, Cairn found something fearsome. He opened
+the door, stepped out on to the landing, and closed the door behind
+him.</p>
+
+<p>At an hour close upon midnight, Dr. Bruce Cairn, who was about to
+retire, received a wholly unexpected visit from his son. Robert Cairn
+followed his father into the library and sat down in the big, red
+leathern easy-chair. The doctor tilted the lamp shade, directing the
+light upon Robert's face. It proved to be slightly pale, and in the
+clear eyes was an odd expression&mdash;almost a hunted look.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the trouble, Rob? Have a whisky and soda."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn helped himself quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Now take a cigar and tell me what has frightened you."</p>
+
+<p>"Frightened me!" He started, and paused in the act of reaching for a
+match. "Yes&mdash;you're right, sir. I <i>am</i> frightened!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at the moment. You have been."</p>
+
+<p>"Right again." He lighted his cigar. "I want to begin by saying
+that&mdash;well, how can I put it? When I took up newspaper work, we
+thought it would be better if I lived in chambers&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, at that time&mdash;" he examined the lighted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> end of his
+cigar&mdash;"there was no reason&mdash;why I should not live alone. But now&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now I feel, sir, that I have need of more or less constant
+companionship. Especially I feel that it would be desirable to have a
+friend handy at&mdash;er&mdash;at night time!"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn leant forward in his chair. His face was very stern.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold out your fingers," he said, "extended; left hand."</p>
+
+<p>His son obeyed, smiling slightly. The open hand showed in the
+lamplight steady as a carven hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Nerves quite in order, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn inhaled a deep breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a queer tale," his son began, "and if I told it to Craig Fenton,
+or Madderley round in Harley Street I know what they would say. But
+you will <i>understand</i>. It started this afternoon, when the sun was
+pouring in through the windows. I had to go to my chambers to change;
+and the rooms were filled with a most disgusting smell."</p>
+
+<p>His father started.</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of smell?" he asked. "Not&mdash;incense?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Robert, looking hard at him&mdash;"I thought you would ask
+that. It was a smell of something putrid&mdash;something rotten, rotten
+with the rottenness of ages."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you trace where it came from?"</p>
+
+<p>"I opened all the windows, and that seemed to disperse it for a time.
+Then, just as I was going out, it returned; it seemed to envelop me
+like a filthy miasma. You know, sir, it's hard to explain just the way
+I felt about it&mdash;but it all amounts to this: I was glad to get
+outside!"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn stood up and began to pace about the room, his hands locked
+behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"To-night," he rapped suddenly, "what occurred to-night?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"To-night," continued his son, "I got in at about half-past nine. I
+had had such a rush, in one way and another, that the incident had
+quite lost its hold on my imagination; I hadn't forgotten it, of
+course, but I was not thinking of it when I unlocked the door. In fact
+I didn't begin to think of it again until, in slippers and
+dressing-gown, I had settled down for a comfortable read. There was
+nothing, absolutely nothing, to influence my imagination&mdash;in that way.
+The book was an old favourite, Mark Twain's <i>Up the Mississippi</i>, and
+I sat in the armchair with a large bottle of lager beer at my elbow
+and my pipe going strong."</p>
+
+<p>Becoming restless in turn, the speaker stood up and walking to the
+fireplace flicked off the long cone of grey ash from his cigar. He
+leant one elbow upon the mantel-piece, resuming his story:</p>
+
+<p>"St. Paul's had just chimed the half-hour&mdash;half-past ten&mdash;when my pipe
+went out. Before I had time to re-light it, came the damnable smell
+again. At the moment nothing was farther from my mind, and I jumped up
+with an exclamation of disgust. It seemed to be growing stronger and
+stronger. I got my pipe alight quickly. Still I could smell it; the
+aroma of the tobacco did not lessen its beastly pungency in the
+smallest degree.</p>
+
+<p>"I tilted the shade of my reading-lamp and looked all about. There was
+nothing unusual to be seen. Both windows were open and I went to one
+and thrust my head out, in order to learn if the odour came from
+outside. It did not. The air outside the window was fresh and clean.
+Then I remembered that when I had left my chambers in the afternoon,
+the smell had been stronger near the door than anywhere. I ran out to
+the door. In the passage I could smell nothing; but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He paused, glancing at his father.</p>
+
+<p>"Before I had stood there thirty seconds it was rising all about me
+like the fumes from a crater. By God, sir! I realised then that it was
+something ... following me!"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn stood watching him, from the shadows<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> beyond the big table,
+as he came forward and finished his whisky at a gulp.</p>
+
+<p>"That seemed to work a change in me," he continued rapidly; "I
+recognised there was something behind this disgusting manifestation,
+something directing it; and I recognised, too, that the next move was
+up to me. I went back to my room. The odour was not so pronounced, but
+as I stood by the table, waiting, it increased, and increased, until
+it almost choked me. My nerves were playing tricks, but I kept a fast
+hold on myself. I set to work, very methodically, and fumigated the
+place. Within myself I knew that it could do no good, but I felt that
+I had to put up some kind of opposition. You understand, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite," replied Dr. Cairn quietly. "It was an organised attempt to
+expel the invader, and though of itself it was useless, the mental
+attitude dictating it was good. Go on."</p>
+
+<p>"The clocks had chimed eleven when I gave up, and I felt physically
+sick. The air by this time was poisonous, literally poisonous. I
+dropped into the easy-chair and began to wonder what the end of it
+would be. Then, in the shadowy parts of the room, outside the circle
+of light cast by the lamp, I detected&mdash;darker patches. For awhile I
+tried to believe that they were imaginary, but when I saw one move
+along the bookcase, glide down its side, and come across the carpet,
+towards me, I knew that they were not. Before heaven, sir"&mdash;his voice
+shook&mdash;"either I am mad, or to-night my room was filled with things
+that <i>crawled</i>! They were everywhere; on the floor, on the walls, even
+on the ceiling above me! Where the light was I couldn't detect them,
+but the shadows were alive, alive with things&mdash;the size of my two
+hands; and in the growing stillness&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>His voice had become husky. Dr. Cairn stood still, as a man of stone,
+watching him.</p>
+
+<p>"In the stillness, very faintly, <i>they rustled</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Silence fell. A car passed outside in Half-Moon Street; its throb died
+away. A clock was chiming the half-hour after midnight. Dr. Cairn
+spoke:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Anything else?"</p>
+
+<p>"One other thing, sir. I was gripping the chair arms; I felt that I
+had to grip something to prevent myself from slipping into madness. My
+left hand&mdash;" he glanced at it with a sort of repugnance&mdash;"something
+hairy&mdash;and indescribably loathsome&mdash;touched it; just brushed against
+it. But it was too much. I'm ashamed to tell you, sir; I screamed,
+screamed like any hysterical girl, and for the second time, ran! I ran
+from my own rooms, grabbed a hat and coat; and left my dressing gown
+on the floor!"</p>
+
+<p>He turned, leaning both elbows on the mantel-piece, and buried his
+face in his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Have another drink," said Dr. Cairn. "You called on Antony Ferrara
+to-day, didn't you? How did he receive you?"</p>
+
+<p>"That brings me to something else I wanted to tell you," continued
+Robert, squirting soda-water into his glass. "Myra&mdash;goes there."</p>
+
+<p>"Where&mdash;to his chambers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn began to pace the room again.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not surprised," he admitted; "she has always been taught to
+regard him in the light of a brother. But nevertheless we must put a
+stop to it. How did you learn this?"</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn gave him an account of the morning's incidents,
+describing Ferrara's chambers with a minute exactness which revealed
+how deep, how indelible an impression their strangeness had made upon
+his mind.</p>
+
+<p>"There is one thing," he concluded, "against which I am always coming
+up, I puzzled over it at Oxford, and others did, too; I came against
+it to-day. Who <i>is</i> Antony Ferrara? Where did Sir Michael find him?
+What kind of woman bore such a son?"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop boy!" cried Dr. Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>Robert started, looking at his father across the table.</p>
+
+<p>"You are already in danger, Rob. I won't disguise that fact from you.
+Myra Duquesne is no relation of Ferrara's; therefore, since she
+inherits half of Sir Michael's fortune, a certain course must have
+suggested itself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> to Antony. You, patently, are an obstacle! That's
+bad enough, boy; let us deal with it before we look for further
+trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"He took up a blackened briar from the table and began to load it.</p>
+
+<p>"Regarding your next move," he continued slowly, "there can be no
+question. You must return to your chambers!"</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"There can be no question, Rob. A kind of attack has been made upon
+you which only <i>you</i> can repel. If you desert your chambers, it will
+be repeated here. At present it is evidently localised. There are laws
+governing these things; laws as immutable as any other laws in Nature.
+One of them is this: the powers of darkness (to employ a conventional
+and significant phrase) cannot triumph over the powers of Will. Below
+the Godhead, Will is the supreme force of the Universe. <i>Resist</i>! You
+<i>must</i> resist, or you are lost!"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that destruction of mind, and of something more than mind,
+threatens you. If you retreat you are lost. Go back to your rooms.
+<i>Seek</i> your foe; strive to haul him into the light and crush him! The
+phenomena at your rooms belong to one of two varieties; at present it
+seems impossible to classify them more closely. Both are dangerous,
+though in different ways. I suspect, however, that a purely mental
+effort will be sufficient to disperse these nauseous shadow-things.
+Probably you will not be troubled again to-night, but whenever the
+phenomena return, take off your coat to them! You require no better
+companion than the one you had:&mdash;Mark Twain! Treat your visitors as
+one might imagine he would have treated them; as a very poor joke! But
+whenever it begins again, ring me up. Don't hesitate, whatever the
+hour. I shall be at the hospital all day, but from seven onward I
+shall be here and shall make a point of remaining. Give me a call when
+you return, now, and if there is no earlier occasion, another in the
+morning. Then rely upon my active co-operation throughout the
+following night."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Active, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"I said active, Rob. The next repetition of these manifestations shall
+be the last. Good-night. Remember, you have only to lift the receiver
+to know that you are not alone in your fight."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn took a second cigar, lighted it, finished his whisky, and
+squared his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, sir," he said. "I shan't run away a third time!"</p>
+
+<p>When the door had closed upon his exit, Dr. Cairn resumed his restless
+pacing up and down the library. He had given Roman counsel, for he had
+sent his son out to face, alone, a real and dreadful danger. Only thus
+could he hope to save him, but nevertheless it had been hard. The next
+fight would be a fight to the finish, for Robert had said, "I shan't
+run away a third time;" and he was a man of his word.</p>
+
+<p>As Dr. Cairn had declared, the manifestations belonged to one of two
+varieties. According to the most ancient science in the world, the
+science by which the Egyptians, and perhaps even earlier peoples,
+ordered their lives, we share this, our plane of existence, with
+certain other creatures, often called Elementals. Mercifully, these
+fearsome entities are invisible to our normal sight, just as the finer
+tones of music are inaudible to our normal powers of hearing.</p>
+
+<p>Victims of delirium tremens, opium smokers, and other debauchees,
+artificially open that finer, latent power of vision; and the horrors
+which surround them are not imaginary but are Elementals attracted to
+the victim by his peculiar excesses.</p>
+
+<p>The crawling things, then, which reeked abominably might be Elementals
+(so Dr. Cairn reasoned) superimposed upon Robert Cairn's consciousness
+by a directing, malignant intelligence. On the other hand they might
+be mere glamours&mdash;or thought-forms&mdash;thrust upon him by the same wizard
+mind; emanations from an evil, powerful will.</p>
+
+<p>His reflections were interrupted by the ringing of the 'phone bell. He
+took up the receiver.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That you, sir? All's clear here, now. I'm turning in."</p>
+
+<p>"Right. Good-night, Rob. Ring me in the morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn refilled his charred briar, and, taking from a drawer in the
+writing table a thick MS., sat down and began to study the
+closely-written pages. The paper was in the cramped handwriting of the
+late Sir Michael Ferrara, his travelling companion through many
+strange adventures; and the sun had been flooding the library with
+dimmed golden light for several hours, and a bustle below stairs
+acclaiming an awakened household, ere the doctor's studies were
+interrupted. Again, it was the 'phone bell. He rose, switched off the
+reading-lamp, and lifted the instrument.</p>
+
+<p>"That you, Rob?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. All's well, thank God! Can I breakfast with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, my boy!" Dr. Cairn glanced at his watch. "Why, upon my
+soul it's seven o'clock!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BEETLES</h3>
+
+
+<p>Sixteen hours had elapsed and London's clocks were booming eleven that
+night, when the uncanny drama entered upon its final stage. Once more
+Dr. Cairn sat alone with Sir Michael's manuscript, but at frequent
+intervals his glance would stray to the telephone at his elbow. He had
+given orders to the effect that he was on no account to be disturbed
+and that his car should be ready at the door from ten o'clock onward.</p>
+
+<p>As the sound of the final strokes was dying away the expected summons
+came. Dr. Cairn's jaw squared and his mouth was very grim, when he
+recognised his son's voice over the wires.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"They're here, sir&mdash;now, while I'm speaking! I have been
+fighting&mdash;fighting hard&mdash;for half an hour. The place smells like a
+charnel-house and the&mdash;shapes are taking definite, horrible form! They
+have ... <i>eyes</i>!" His voice sounded harsh. "Quite black the eyes are,
+and they shine like beads! It's gradually wearing me down, although I
+have myself in hand, so far. I mean I might crack up&mdash;at any moment.
+Bah!&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>His voice ceased.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo!" cried Dr. Cairn. "Hullo, Rob!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right, sir," came, all but inaudibly. "The&mdash;things are all
+around the edge of the light patch; they make a sort of rustling
+noise. It is a tremendous, conscious <i>effort</i> to keep them at bay.
+While I was speaking, I somehow lost my grip of the situation.
+One&mdash;crawled ... it fastened on my hand ... a hairy, many-limbed
+horror.... Oh, my God! another is touching...."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Rob! Rob! Keep your nerve, boy! Do you hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;yes&mdash;" faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Pray</i>, my boy&mdash;pray for strength, and it will come to you! You
+<i>must</i> hold out for another ten minutes. Ten minutes&mdash;do you
+understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! yes!&mdash;Merciful God!&mdash;if you can help me, do it, sir, or&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hold out, boy! In <i>ten minutes</i> you'll have won."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn hung up the receiver, raced from the library, and grabbing a
+cap from the rack in the hall, ran down the steps and bounded into the
+waiting car, shouting an address to the man.</p>
+
+<p>Piccadilly was gay with supper-bound theatre crowds when he leapt out
+and ran into the hall-way which had been the scene of Robert's meeting
+with Myra Duquesne. Dr. Cairn ran past the lift doors and went up the
+stairs three steps at a time. He pressed his finger to the bell-push
+beside Antony Ferrara's door and held it there until the door opened
+and a dusky face appeared in the opening.</p>
+
+<p>The visitor thrust his way in, past the white-clad man holding out his
+arms to detain him.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at home, <i>effendim</i>&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn shot out a sinewy hand, grabbed the man&mdash;he was a tall
+<i>fellah&icirc;n</i>&mdash;by the shoulder, and sent him spinning across the mosaic
+floor of the <i>mandarah</i>. The air was heavy with the perfume of
+ambergris.</p>
+
+<p>Wasting no word upon the reeling man, Dr. Cairn stepped to the
+doorway. He jerked the drapery aside and found himself in a dark
+corridor. From his son's description of the chambers he had no
+difficulty in recognising the door of the study.</p>
+
+<p>He turned the handle&mdash;the door proved to be unlocked&mdash;and entered the
+darkened room.</p>
+
+<p>In the grate a huge fire glowed redly; the temperature of the place
+was almost unbearable. On the table the light from the silver lamp
+shed a patch of radiance, but the rest of the study was veiled in
+shadow.</p>
+
+<p>A black-robed figure was seated in a high-backed, carved chair; one
+corner of the cowl-like garment was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> thrown across the table. Half
+rising, the figure turned&mdash;and, an evil apparition in the glow from
+the fire, Antony Ferrara faced the intruder.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn walked forward, until he stood over the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncover what you have on the table," he said succinctly.</p>
+
+<p>Ferrara's strange eyes were uplifted to the speaker's with an
+expression in their depths which, in the Middle Ages, alone would have
+sent a man to the stake.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Cairn&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The husky voice had lost something of its suavity.</p>
+
+<p>"You heard my order!"</p>
+
+<p>"Your <i>order</i>! Surely, doctor, since I am in my own&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Uncover what you have on the table. Or must I do so for you!"</p>
+
+<p>Antony Ferrara placed his hand upon the end of the black robe which
+lay across the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Be careful, Dr. Cairn," he said evenly. "You&mdash;are taking risks."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn suddenly leapt, seized the shielding hand in a sure grip and
+twisted Ferrara's arm behind him. Then, with a second rapid movement,
+he snatched away the robe. A faint smell&mdash;a smell of corruption, of
+ancient rottenness&mdash;arose on the superheated air.</p>
+
+<p>A square of faded linen lay on the table, figured with all but
+indecipherable Egyptian characters, and upon it, in rows which formed
+a definite geometrical design, were arranged a great number of little,
+black insects.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn released the hand which he held, and Ferrara sat quite
+still, looking straight before him.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Dermestes beetles!</i> from the skull of a mummy! You filthy, obscene
+beast!"</p>
+
+<p>Ferrara spoke, with a calm suddenly regained:</p>
+
+<p>"Is there anything obscene in the study of beetles?"</p>
+
+<p>"My son saw these things here yesterday; and last night, and again
+to-night, you cast magnified doubles&mdash;glamours&mdash;of the horrible
+creatures into his rooms! By means which you know of, but which <i>I</i>
+know of,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> too, you sought to bring your thought-things down to the
+material plane."</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Cairn, my respect for you is great; but I fear that much study
+has made you mad."</p>
+
+<p>Ferrara reached out his hand towards an ebony box; he was smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't dare to touch that box!"</p>
+
+<p>He paused, glancing up.</p>
+
+<p>"More orders, doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn grabbed the faded linen, scooping up the beetles within it,
+and, striding across the room, threw the whole unsavoury bundle into
+the heart of the fire. A great flame leapt up; there came a series of
+squeaky explosions, so that, almost, one might have imagined those
+age-old insects to have had life. Then the doctor turned again.</p>
+
+<p>Ferrara leapt to his feet with a cry that had in it something inhuman,
+and began rapidly to babble in a tongue that was not European. He was
+facing Dr. Cairn, a tall, sinister figure, but one hand was groping
+behind him for the box.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop that!" rapped the doctor imperatively&mdash;"and for the last time do
+not dare to touch that box!"</p>
+
+<p>The flood of strange words was dammed. Ferrara stood quivering, but
+silent.</p>
+
+<p>"The laws by which such as you were burnt&mdash;the <i>wise</i> laws of long
+ago&mdash;are no more," said Dr. Cairn. "English law cannot touch you, but
+God has provided for your kind!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," whispered Ferrara, "you would like also to burn this box to
+which you object so strongly?"</p>
+
+<p>"No power on earth would prevail upon me to touch it! But you&mdash;you
+<i>have</i> touched it&mdash;and you know the penalty! You raise forces of evil
+that have lain dormant for ages and dare to wield them. Beware! I know
+of some whom you have murdered; I cannot know how many you have sent
+to the madhouse. But I swear that in future your victims shall be few.
+There is a way to deal with you!"</p>
+
+<p>He turned and walked to the door.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Beware also, dear Dr. Cairn," came softly. "As you say, I raise
+forces of evil&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn spun about. In three strides he was standing over Antony
+Ferrara, fists clenched and his sinewy body tense in every fibre. His
+face was pale, as was apparent even in that vague light, and his eyes
+gleamed like steel.</p>
+
+<p>"You raise other forces," he said&mdash;and his voice, though steady was
+very low; "evil forces, also."</p>
+
+<p>Antony Ferrara, invoker of nameless horrors, shrank before him&mdash;before
+the primitive Celtic man whom unwittingly he had invoked. Dr. Cairn
+was spare and lean, but in perfect physical condition. Now he was
+strong, with the strength of a just cause. Moreover, he was dangerous,
+and Ferrara knew it well.</p>
+
+<p>"I fear&mdash;" began the latter huskily.</p>
+
+<p>"Dare to bandy words with me," said Dr. Cairn, with icy coolness,
+"answer me back but once again, and before God I'll strike you dead!"</p>
+
+<p>Ferrara sat silent, clutching at the arms of his chair, and not daring
+to raise his eyes. For ten magnetic seconds they stayed so, then again
+Dr. Cairn turned, and this time walked out.</p>
+
+<p>The clocks had been chiming the quarter after eleven as he had entered
+Antony Ferrara's chambers, and some had not finished their chimes when
+his son, choking, calling wildly upon Heaven to aid him, had fallen in
+the midst of crowding, obscene things, and, in the instant of his
+fall, had found the room clear of the waving antenn&aelig;, the beady eyes,
+and the beetle shapes. The whole horrible phantasmagoria&mdash;together
+with the odour of ancient rottenness&mdash;faded like a fevered dream, at
+the moment that Dr. Cairn had burst in upon the creator of it.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn stood up, weakly, trembling; then dropped upon his knees
+and sobbed out prayers of thankfulness that came from his frightened
+soul.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>SIR ELWIN GROVES' PATIENT</h3>
+
+
+<p>When a substantial legacy is divided into two shares, one of which
+falls to a man, young, dissolute and clever, and the other to a girl,
+pretty and inexperienced, there is laughter in the hells. But, to the
+girl's legacy add another item&mdash;a strong, stern guardian, and the
+issue becomes one less easy to predict.</p>
+
+<p>In the case at present under consideration, such an arrangement led
+Dr. Bruce Cairn to pack off Myra Duquesne to a grim Scottish manor in
+Inverness upon a visit of indefinite duration. It also led to heart
+burnings on the part of Robert Cairn, and to other things about to be
+noticed.</p>
+
+<p>Antony Ferrara, the co-legatee, was not slow to recognise that a
+damaging stroke had been played, but he knew Dr. Cairn too well to put
+up any protest. In his capacity of fashionable physician, the doctor
+frequently met Ferrara in society, for a man at once rich, handsome,
+and bearing a fine name, is not socially ostracised on the mere
+suspicion that he is a dangerous blackguard. Thus Antony Ferrara was
+courted by the smartest women in town and tolerated by the men. Dr.
+Cairn would always acknowledge him, and then turn his back upon the
+dark-eyed, adopted son of his dearest friend.</p>
+
+<p>There was that between the two of which the world knew nothing. Had
+the world known what Dr. Cairn knew respecting Antony Ferrara, then,
+despite his winning manner, his wealth and his station, every door in
+London, from those of Mayfair to that of the foulest den in Limehouse,
+would have been closed to him&mdash;closed, and barred with horror and
+loathing. A tremendous secret was locked up within the heart of Dr.
+Bruce Cairn.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Sometimes we seem to be granted a glimpse of the guiding Hand that
+steers men's destinies; then, as comprehension is about to dawn, we
+lose again our temporal lucidity of vision. The following incident
+illustrates this.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Elwin Groves, of Harley Street, took Dr. Cairn aside at the club
+one evening.</p>
+
+<p>"I am passing a patient on to you, Cairn," he said; "Lord Lashmore."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" replied Cairn, thoughtfully. "I have never met him."</p>
+
+<p>"He has only quite recently returned to England&mdash;you may have
+heard?&mdash;and brought a South American Lady Lashmore with him."</p>
+
+<p>"I had heard that, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Lashmore is close upon fifty-five, and his wife&mdash;a passionate
+Southern type&mdash;is probably less than twenty. They are an odd couple.
+The lady has been doing some extensive entertaining at the town
+house."</p>
+
+<p>Groves stared hard at Dr. Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>"Your young friend, Antony Ferrara, is a regular visitor."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," said Cairn; "he goes everywhere. I don't know how long his
+funds will last."</p>
+
+<p>"I have wondered, too. His chambers are like a scene from the 'Arabian
+Nights.'"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know?" inquired the other curiously. "Have you attended
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," was the reply. "His Eastern servant 'phoned for me one night
+last week; and I found Ferrara lying unconscious in a room like a
+pasha's harem. He looked simply ghastly, but the man would give me no
+account of what had caused the attack. It looked to me like sheer
+nervous exhaustion. He gave me quite an anxious five minutes.
+Incidentally, the room was blazing hot, with a fire roaring right up
+the chimney, and it smelt like a Hindu temple."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" muttered Cairn, "between his mode of life and his peculiar
+studies he will probably crack up. He has a fragile constitution."</p>
+
+<p>"Who the deuce is he, Cairn?" pursued Sir Elwin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> "You must know all
+the circumstances of his adoption; you were with the late Sir Michael
+in Egypt at the time. The fellow is a mystery to me; he repels, in
+some way. I was glad to get away from his rooms."</p>
+
+<p>"You were going to tell me something about Lord Lashmore's case, I
+think?" said Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Elwin Groves screwed up his eyes and readjusted his pince-nez, for
+the deliberate way in which his companion had changed the conversation
+was unmistakable. However, Cairn's brusque manners were proverbial,
+and Sir Elwin accepted the lead.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I believe I was," he agreed, rather lamely. "Well, it's
+very singular. I was called there last Monday, at about two o'clock in
+the morning. I found the house upside-down, and Lady Lashmore, with a
+dressing-gown thrown over her nightdress, engaged in bathing a bad
+wound in her husband's throat."</p>
+
+<p>"What! Attempted suicide?"</p>
+
+<p>"My first idea, naturally. But a glance at the wound set me wondering.
+It was bleeding profusely, and from its location I was afraid that it
+might have penetrated the internal jugular; but the external only was
+wounded. I arrested the flow of blood and made the patient
+comfortable. Lady Lashmore assisted me coolly and displayed some skill
+as a nurse. In fact she had applied a ligature before my arrival."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Lashmore remained conscious?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite. He was shaky, of course. I called again at nine o'clock that
+morning, and found him progressing favourably. When I had dressed the
+wounds&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Wounds?"</p>
+
+<p>"There were two actually; I will tell you in a moment. I asked Lord
+Lashmore for an explanation. He had given out, for the benefit of the
+household, that, stumbling out of bed in the dark, he had tripped upon
+a rug, so that he fell forward almost into the fireplace. There is a
+rather ornate fender, with an elaborate copper scrollwork design, and
+his account was that he came down with all his weight upon this, in
+such a way that part of the copperwork pierced his throat. It was
+possible, just possible, Cairn; but it didn't satisfy me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> and I could
+see that it didn't satisfy Lady Lashmore. However, when we were alone,
+Lashmore told me the real facts."</p>
+
+<p>"He had been concealing the truth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Largely for his wife's sake, I fancy. He was anxious to spare her the
+alarm which, knowing the truth, she must have experienced. His story
+was this&mdash;related in confidence, but he wishes that you should know.
+He was awakened by a sudden, sharp pain in the throat; not very acute,
+but accompanied by a feeling of pressure. It was gone again, in a
+moment, and he was surprised to find blood upon his hands when he felt
+for the cause of the pain.</p>
+
+<p>"He got out of bed and experienced a great dizziness. The hemorrhage
+was altogether more severe than he had supposed. Not wishing to arouse
+his wife, he did not enter his dressing-room, which is situated
+between his own room and Lady Lashmore's; he staggered as far as the
+bell-push, and then collapsed. His man found him on the
+floor&mdash;sufficiently near to the fender to lend colour to the story of
+the accident."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn coughed drily.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think it was attempted suicide after all, then?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;I don't," replied Sir Elwin emphatically. "I think it was
+something altogether more difficult to explain."</p>
+
+<p>"Not attempted murder?"</p>
+
+<p>"Almost impossible. Excepting Chambers, Lord Lashmore's valet, no one
+could possibly have gained access to that suite of rooms. They number
+four. There is a small boudoir, out of which opens Lady Lashmore's
+bedroom; between this and Lord Lashmore's apartment is the
+dressing-room. Lord Lashmore's door was locked and so was that of the
+boudoir. These are the only two means of entrance."</p>
+
+<p>"But you said that Chambers came in and found him."</p>
+
+<p>"Chambers has a key of Lord Lashmore's door. That is why I said
+'excepting Chambers.' But Chambers has been with his present master
+since Lashmore left Cambridge. It's out of the question."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Windows?"</p>
+
+<p>"First floor, no balcony, and overlook Hyde Park."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there no clue to the mystery?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are three!"</p>
+
+<p>"What are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"First: the nature of the wounds. Second: Lord Lashmore's idea that
+something was in the room at the moment of his awakening. Third: the
+fact that an identical attempt was made upon him last night!"</p>
+
+<p>"Last night! Good God! With what result?"</p>
+
+<p>"The former wounds, though deep, are very tiny, and had quite healed
+over. One of them partially reopened, but Lord Lashmore awoke
+altogether more readily and before any damage had been done. He says
+that some soft body rolled off the bed. He uttered a loud cry, leapt
+out and switched on the electric lights. At the same moment he heard a
+frightful scream from his wife's room. When I arrived&mdash;Lashmore
+himself summoned me on this occasion&mdash;I had a new patient."</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Lashmore?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly. She had fainted from fright, at hearing her husband's cry, I
+assume. There had been a slight hemorrhage from the throat, too."</p>
+
+<p>"What! Tuberculous?"</p>
+
+<p>"I fear so. Fright would not produce hemorrhage in the case of a
+healthy subject, would it?"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn shook his head. He was obviously perplexed.</p>
+
+<p>"And Lord Lashmore?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"The marks were there again," replied Sir Elwin; "rather lower on the
+neck. But they were quite superficial. He had awakened in time and had
+struck out&mdash;hitting something."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some living thing; apparently covered with long, silky hair. It
+escaped, however."</p>
+
+<p>"And now," said Dr. Cairn&mdash;"these wounds; what are they like?"</p>
+
+<p>"They are like the marks of fangs," replied Sir Elwin; "of two long,
+sharp fangs!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SECRET OF DHOON</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lord Lashmore was a big, blonde man, fresh coloured, and having his
+nearly white hair worn close cut and his moustache trimmed in the neat
+military fashion. For a fair man, he had eyes of a singular colour.
+They were of so dark a shade of brown as to appear black: southern
+eyes; lending to his personality an oddness very striking.</p>
+
+<p>When he was shown into Dr. Cairn's library, the doctor regarded him
+with that searching scrutiny peculiar to men of his profession, at the
+same time inviting the visitor to be seated.</p>
+
+<p>Lashmore sat down in the red leathern armchair, resting his large
+hands upon his knees, with the fingers widely spread. He had a massive
+dignity, but was not entirely at his ease.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn opened the conversation, in his direct fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"You come to consult me, Lord Lashmore, in my capacity of occultist
+rather than in that of physician?"</p>
+
+<p>"In both," replied Lord Lashmore; "distinctly, in both."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Elwin Groves is attending you for certain throat wounds&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Lord Lashmore touched the high stock which he was wearing.</p>
+
+<p>"The scars remain," he said. "Do you wish to see them?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid I must trouble you."</p>
+
+<p>The stock was untied; and Dr. Cairn, through a powerful glass,
+examined the marks. One of them, the lower, was slightly inflamed.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Lashmore retied his stock, standing before the small mirror set
+in the overmantel.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You had an impression of some presence in the room at the time of the
+outrage?" pursued the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Distinctly; on both occasions."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"The room was too dark."</p>
+
+<p>"But you felt something?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hair; my knuckles, as I struck out&mdash;I am speaking of the second
+outrage&mdash;encountered a thick mass of hair."</p>
+
+<p>"The body of some animal?"</p>
+
+<p>"Probably the head."</p>
+
+<p>"But still you saw nothing?"</p>
+
+<p>"I must confess that I had a vague idea of some shape flitting away
+across the room; a white shape&mdash;therefore probably a figment of my
+imagination."</p>
+
+<p>"Your cry awakened Lady Lashmore?"</p>
+
+<p>"Unfortunately, yes. Her nerves were badly shaken already, and this
+second shock proved too severe. Sir Elwin fears chest trouble. I am
+taking her abroad as soon as possible."</p>
+
+<p>"She was found insensible. Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"At the door of the dressing-room&mdash;the door communicating with her own
+room, not that communicating with mine. She had evidently started to
+come to my assistance when faintness overcame her."</p>
+
+<p>"What is her own account?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is her own account."</p>
+
+<p>"Who discovered her?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn was drumming his fingers on the table.</p>
+
+<p>"You have a theory, Lord Lashmore," he said suddenly. "Let me hear
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Lord Lashmore started, and glared across at the speaker with a sort of
+haughty surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> have a theory?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so. Am I wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>Lashmore stood on the rug before the fireplace, with his hands locked
+behind him and his head lowered, looking out under his tufted eyebrows
+at Dr. Cairn. Thus seen, Lord Lashmore's strange eyes had a sinister
+appearance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If I had had a theory&mdash;" he began.</p>
+
+<p>"You would have come to me to seek confirmation?" suggested Dr. Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! yes, you may be right. Sir Elwin Groves, to whom I hinted
+something, mentioned your name. I am not quite clear upon one point,
+Dr. Cairn. Did he send me to you because he thought&mdash;in a word, are
+you a mental specialist?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not. Sir Elwin has no doubts respecting your brain, Lord
+Lashmore. He has sent you here because I have made some study of what
+I may term psychical ailments. There is a chapter in your family
+history"&mdash;he fixed his searching gaze upon the other's face&mdash;"which
+latterly has been occupying your mind?"</p>
+
+<p>At that, Lashmore started in good earnest.</p>
+
+<p>"To what do you refer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Lashmore, you have come to me for advice. A rare
+ailment&mdash;happily very rare in England&mdash;has assailed you. Circumstances
+have been in your favour thus far, but a recurrence is to be
+anticipated at any time. Be good enough to look upon me as a
+specialist, and give me all your confidence."</p>
+
+<p>Lashmore cleared his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you wish to know, Dr. Cairn?" he asked, with a queer
+intermingling of respect and hauteur in his tones.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish to know about Mirza, wife of the third Baron Lashmore."</p>
+
+<p>Lord Lashmore took a stride forward. His large hands clenched, and his
+eyes were blazing.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you know about her?"</p>
+
+<p>Surprise was in his voice, and anger.</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen her portrait in Dhoon Castle; you were not in residence
+at the time. Mirza, Lady Lashmore, was evidently a very beautiful
+woman. What was the date of the marriage?"</p>
+
+<p>"1615."</p>
+
+<p>"The third Baron brought her to England from?&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Poland."</p>
+
+<p>"She was a Pole?"</p>
+
+<p>"A Polish Jewess."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There was no issue of the marriage, but the Baron outlived her and
+married again?"</p>
+
+<p>Lord Lashmore shifted his feet nervously, and gnawed his finger-nails.</p>
+
+<p>"There <i>was</i> issue of the marriage," he snapped. "She was&mdash;my
+ancestress."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" Dr. Cairn's grey eyes lighted up momentarily. "We get to the
+facts! Why was this birth kept secret?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dhoon Castle has kept many secrets!" It was a grim noble of the
+Middle Ages who was speaking. "For a Lashmore, there was no difficulty
+in suppressing the facts, arranging a hasty second marriage and
+representing the boy as the child of the later union. Had the second
+marriage proved fruitful, this had been unnecessary; but an heir to
+Dhoon was&mdash;essential."</p>
+
+<p>"I see. Had the second marriage proved fruitful, the child of Mirza
+would have been&mdash;what shall we say?&mdash;smothered?"</p>
+
+<p>"Damn it! What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was the rightful heir."</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Cairn," said Lashmore slowly, "you are probing an open wound. The
+fourth Baron Lashmore represents what the world calls 'The Curse of
+the House of Dhoon.' At Dhoon Castle there is a secret chamber, which
+has engaged the pens of many so-called occultists, but which no man,
+save every heir, has entered for generations. It's very location is a
+secret. Measurements do not avail to find it. You would appear to know
+much of my family's black secret; perhaps you know where that room
+lies at Dhoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, I do," replied Dr. Cairn calmly; "it is under the moat,
+some thirty yards west of the former drawbridge."</p>
+
+<p>Lord Lashmore changed colour. When he spoke again his voice had lost
+its <i>timbre</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you know&mdash;what it contains."</p>
+
+<p>"I do. It contains Paul, fourth Baron Lashmore, son of Mirza, the
+Polish Jewess!"</p>
+
+<p>Lord Lashmore reseated himself in the big armchair, staring at the
+speaker, aghast.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I thought no other in the world knew that!" he said, hollowly. "Your
+studies have been extensive indeed. For three years&mdash;three whole years
+from the night of my twenty-first birthday&mdash;the horror hung over me,
+Dr. Cairn. It ultimately brought my grandfather to the madhouse, but
+my father was of sterner stuff, and so, it seems, was I. After those
+three years of horror I threw off the memories of Paul Dhoon, the
+third baron&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It was on the night of your twenty-first birthday that you were
+admitted to the subterranean room?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know so much, Dr. Cairn, that you may as well know all."
+Lashmore's face was twitching. "But you are about to hear what no man
+has ever heard from the lips of one of my family before."</p>
+
+<p>He stood up again, restlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Nearly thirty-five years have elapsed," he resumed, "since that
+December night; but my very soul trembles now, when I recall it! There
+was a big house-party at Dhoon, but I had been prepared, for some
+weeks, by my father, for the ordeal that awaited me. Our family
+mystery is historical, and there were many fearful glances bestowed
+upon me, when, at midnight, my father took me aside from the company
+and led me to the old library. By God! Dr. Cairn&mdash;fearful as these
+reminiscences are, it is a relief to relate them&mdash;to <i>someone</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>A sort of suppressed excitement was upon Lashmore, but his voice
+remained low and hollow.</p>
+
+<p>"He asked me," he continued, "the traditional question: if I had
+prayed for strength. God knows I had! Then, his stern face very pale,
+he locked the library door, and from a closet concealed beside the
+ancient fireplace&mdash;a closet which, hitherto, I had not known to
+exist&mdash;he took out a bulky key of antique workmanship. Together we set
+to work to remove all the volumes from one of the bookshelves.</p>
+
+<p>"Even when the shelves were empty, it called for our united efforts to
+move the heavy piece of furniture; but we accomplished the task
+ultimately, making visible a considerable expanse of panelling. Nearly
+forty years had elapsed since that case had been removed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> and the
+carvings which it concealed were coated with all the dust which had
+accumulated there since the night of my father's coming of age.</p>
+
+<p>"A device upon the top of the centre panel represented the arms of the
+family; the helm which formed part of the device projected like a
+knob. My father grasped it, turned it, and threw his weight against
+the seemingly solid wall. It yielded, swinging inward upon concealed
+hinges, and a damp, earthy smell came out into the library. Taking up
+a lamp, which he had in readiness, my father entered the cavity,
+beckoning me to follow.</p>
+
+<p>"I found myself descending a flight of rough steps, and the roof above
+me was so low that I was compelled to stoop. A corner was come to,
+passed, and a further flight of steps appeared beneath. At that time
+the old moat was still flooded, and even had I not divined as much
+from the direction of the steps, I should have known, at this point,
+that we were beneath it. Between the stone blocks roofing us in oozed
+drops of moisture, and the air was at once damp and icily cold.</p>
+
+<p>"A short passage, commencing at the foot of the steps, terminated
+before a massive, iron-studded door. My father placed the key in the
+lock, and holding the lamp above his head, turned and looked at me. He
+was deathly pale.</p>
+
+<p>"'Summon all your fortitude,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>"He strove to turn the key, but for a long time without success for
+the lock was rusty. Finally, however&mdash;he was a strong man&mdash;his efforts
+were successful. The door opened, and an indescribable smell came out
+into the passage. Never before had I met with anything like it; I have
+never met with it since."</p>
+
+<p>Lord Lashmore wiped his brow with his handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"The first thing," he resumed, "upon which the lamplight shone, was
+what appeared to be a blood-stain spreading almost entirely over one
+wall of the cell which I perceived before me. I have learnt since that
+this was a species of fungus, not altogether uncommon, but at the
+time, and in that situation, it shocked me inexpressibly.</p>
+
+<p>"But let me hasten to that which we were come to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> see&mdash;let me finish
+my story as quickly as may be. My father halted at the entrance to
+this frightful cell; his hand, with which he held the lamp above his
+head, was not steady; and over his shoulder I looked into the place
+and saw ... <i>him</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Cairn, for three years, night and day, that spectacle haunted me;
+for three years, night and day, I seemed to have before my eyes the
+dreadful face&mdash;the bearded, grinning face of Paul Dhoon. He lay there
+upon the floor of the dungeon, his fists clenched and his knees drawn
+up as if in agony. He had lain there for generations; yet, as God is
+my witness, there was flesh on his bones.</p>
+
+<p>"Yellow and seared it was, and his joints protruded through it, but
+his features were yet recognisable&mdash;horribly, dreadfully,
+recognisable. His black hair was like a mane, long and matted, his
+eyebrows were incredibly heavy and his lashes overhung his cheekbones.
+The nails of his fingers ... no! I will spare you! But his teeth, his
+ivory gleaming teeth&mdash;with the two wolf-fangs fully revealed by that
+death-grin!...</p>
+
+<p>"An aspen stake was driven through his breast, pinning him to the
+earthern floor, and there he lay in the agonised attitude of one who
+had died by such awful means. Yet&mdash;that stake was not driven through
+his unhallowed body until a whole year after his death!</p>
+
+<p>"How I regained the library I do not remember. I was unable to rejoin
+the guests, unable to face my fellow-men for days afterwards. Dr.
+Cairn, for three years I feared&mdash;feared the world&mdash;feared
+sleep&mdash;feared myself above all; for I knew that I had in my veins the
+blood of a <i>vampire</i>!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE POLISH JEWESS</h3>
+
+
+<p>There was a silence of some minutes' duration. Lord Lashmore sat
+staring straight before him, his fists clenched upon his knees. Then:</p>
+
+<p>"It was after death that the third baron developed&mdash;certain
+qualities?" inquired Dr. Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>"There were six cases of death in the district within twelve months,"
+replied Lashmore. "The gruesome cry of 'vampire' ran through the
+community. The fourth baron&mdash;son of Paul Dhoon&mdash;turned a deaf ear to
+these reports, until the mother of a child&mdash;a child who had
+died&mdash;traced a man, or the semblance of a man, to the gate of the
+Dhoon family vault. By night, secretly, the son of Paul Dhoon visited
+the vault, and found....</p>
+
+<p>"The body, which despite twelve months in the tomb, looked as it had
+looked in life, was carried to the dungeon&mdash;in the Middle Ages a
+torture-room; no cry uttered there can reach the outer world&mdash;and was
+submitted to the ancient process for slaying a vampire. From that hour
+no supernatural visitant has troubled the district; but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Dr. Cairn quietly, "the strain came from Mirza, the
+sorceress. What of her?"</p>
+
+<p>Lord Lashmore's eyes shone feverishly.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know that she was a sorceress?" he asked, hoarsely. "These
+are family secrets."</p>
+
+<p>"They will remain so," Dr. Cairn answered. "But my studies have gone
+far, and I know that Mirza, wife of the third Baron Lashmore,
+practised the Black Art in life, and became after death a ghoul. Her
+husband surprised her in certain detestable magical operations and
+struck her head off. He had suspected her for some considerable time,
+and had not only kept secret<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> the birth of her son but had secluded
+the child from the mother. No heir resulting from his second marriage,
+however, the son of Mirza became Baron Lashmore, and after death
+became what his mother had been before him.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Lashmore, the curse of the house of Dhoon will prevail until the
+Polish Jewess who originated it has been treated as her son was
+treated!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Cairn, it is not known where her husband had her body concealed.
+He died without revealing the secret. Do you mean that the taint, the
+devil's taint, may recur&mdash;Oh, my God! do you want to drive me mad?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not mean that after so many generations which have been free
+from it, the vampirism will arise again in your blood; but I mean that
+the spirit, the unclean, awful spirit of that vampire woman, is still
+earth-bound. The son was freed, and with him went the hereditary
+taint, it seems; but the mother was <i>not</i> freed! Her body was
+decapitated, but her vampire soul cannot go upon its appointed course
+until the ancient ceremonial has been performed!"</p>
+
+<p>Lord Lashmore passed his hand across his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You daze me, Dr. Cairn. In brief, what do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that the spirit of Mirza is to this day loose upon the world,
+and is forced, by a deathless, unnatural longing to seek incarnation
+in a human body. It is such awful pariahs as this, Lord Lashmore, that
+constitute the danger of so-called spiritualism. Given suitable
+conditions, such a spirit might gain control of a human being."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suggest that the spirit of the second lady&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is distinctly possible that she haunts her descendants. I seem to
+remember a tradition of Dhoon Castle, to the effect that births and
+deaths are heralded by a woman's mocking laughter?"</p>
+
+<p>"I, myself, heard it on the night&mdash;I became Lord Lashmore."</p>
+
+<p>"That is the spirit who was known, in life, as Mirza, Lady Lashmore!"</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It is possible to gain control of such a being."</p>
+
+<p>"By what means?"</p>
+
+<p>"By unhallowed means; yet there are those who do not hesitate to
+employ them. The danger of such an operation is, of course, enormous."</p>
+
+<p>"I perceive, Dr. Cairn, that a theory, covering the facts of my recent
+experiences, is forming in your mind."</p>
+
+<p>"That is so. In order that I may obtain corroborative evidence, I
+should like to call at your place this evening. Suppose I come
+ostensibly to see Lady Lashmore?"</p>
+
+<p>Lord Lashmore was watching the speaker.</p>
+
+<p>"There is someone in my household whose suspicions you do not wish to
+arouse?" he suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"There is. Shall we make it nine o'clock?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not come to dinner?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks all the same, but I think it would serve my purpose better if
+I came later."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn and his son dined alone together in Half-Moon Street that
+night.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw Antony Ferrara in Regent Street to-day," said. Robert Cairn. "I
+was glad to see him."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn raised his heavy brows.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I was half afraid that he might have left London."</p>
+
+<p>"Paid a visit to Myra Duquesne in Inverness?"</p>
+
+<p>"It would not have surprised me."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor would it have surprised me, Rob, but I think he is stalking other
+game at present."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn looked up quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Lashmore," he began&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" prompted his father.</p>
+
+<p>"One of the Paul Pry brigade who fatten on scandal sent a veiled
+paragraph in to us at <i>The Planet</i> yesterday, linking Ferrara's name
+with Lady Lashmores.' Of course we didn't use it; he had come to the
+wrong market; but&mdash;Ferrara was with Lady Lashmore when I met him
+to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"What of that?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It is not necessarily significant, of course; Lord Lashmore in all
+probability will outlive Ferrara, who looked even more pallid than
+usual."</p>
+
+<p>"You regard him as an utterly unscrupulous fortune-hunter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"Did Lady Lashmore appear to be in good health?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!"</p>
+
+<p>A silence fell, of some considerable duration, then:</p>
+
+<p>"Antony Ferrara is a menace to society," said Robert Cairn. "When I
+meet the reptilian glance of those black eyes of his and reflect upon
+what the man has attempted&mdash;what he has done&mdash;my blood boils. It is
+tragically funny to think that in our new wisdom we have abolished the
+only laws that could have touched him! He could not have existed in
+Ancient Chaldea, and would probably have been burnt at the stake even
+under Charles II.; but in this wise twentieth century he dallies in
+Regent Street with a prominent society beauty and laughs in the face
+of a man whom he has attempted to destroy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Be very wary," warned Dr. Cairn. "Remember that if you died
+mysteriously to-morrow, Ferrara would be legally immune. We must wait,
+and watch. Can you return here to-night, at about ten o'clock?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I can manage to do so&mdash;yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall expect you. Have you brought up to date your record of those
+events which we know of, together with my notes and explanations?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, I spent last evening upon the notes."</p>
+
+<p>"There may be something to add. This record, Rob, one day will be a
+weapon to destroy an unnatural enemy. I will sign two copies to-night
+and lodge one at my bank."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LAUGHTER</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lady Lashmore proved to be far more beautiful than Dr. Cairn had
+anticipated. She was a true brunette with a superb figure and eyes
+like the darkest passion flowers. Her creamy skin had a golden
+quality, as though it had absorbed within its velvet texture something
+of the sunshine of the South.</p>
+
+<p>She greeted Dr. Cairn without cordiality.</p>
+
+<p>"I am delighted to find you looking so well, Lady Lashmore," said the
+doctor. "Your appearance quite confirms my opinion."</p>
+
+<p>"Your opinion of what, Dr. Cairn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of the nature of your recent seizure. Sir Elwin Groves invited my
+opinion and I gave it."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Lashmore paled perceptibly.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Lashmore, I know," she said, "was greatly concerned, but indeed
+it was nothing serious&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I quite agree. It was due to nervous excitement."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Lashmore held a fan before her face.</p>
+
+<p>"There have been recent happenings," she said&mdash;"as no doubt you are
+aware&mdash;which must have shaken anyone's nerves. Of course, I am
+familiar with your reputation, Dr. Cairn, as a psychical
+specialist&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, but from whom have you learnt of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"From Mr. Ferrara," she answered simply. "He has assured me that you
+are the greatest living authority upon such matters."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn turned his head aside.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" he said grimly.</p>
+
+<p>"And I want to ask you a question," continued Lady Lashmore. "Have you
+any idea, any idea at all respecting the cause of the wounds upon my
+husband's throat? Do you think them due to&mdash;something supernatural?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Her voice shook, and her slight foreign accent became more marked.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing is supernatural," replied Dr. Cairn; "but I think they are
+due to something supernormal. I would suggest that possibly you have
+suffered from evil dreams recently?"</p>
+
+<p>Lady Lashmore started wildly, and her eyes opened with a sort of
+sudden horror.</p>
+
+<p>"How can you know?" she whispered. "How can you know! Oh, Dr. Cairn!"
+She laid her hand upon his arm&mdash;"if you can prevent those dreams; if
+you can assure me that I shall never dream them again&mdash;!"</p>
+
+<p>It was a plea and a confession. This was what had lain behind her
+coldness&mdash;this horror which she had not dared to confide in another.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me," he said gently. "You have dreamt these dreams twice?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded, wide-eyed with wonder for his knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>"On the occasions of your husband's illnesses?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes!"</p>
+
+<p>"What did you dream?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! can I, dare I tell you!&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You must."</p>
+
+<p>There was pity in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I dreamt that I lay in some very dark cavern. I could hear the sea
+booming, apparently over my head. But above all the noise a voice was
+audible, calling to me&mdash;not by name; I cannot explain in what way; but
+calling, calling imperatively. I seemed to be clothed but scantily, in
+some kind of ragged garments; and upon my knees I crawled toward the
+voice, through a place where there were other living things that
+crawled also&mdash;things with many legs and clammy bodies...."</p>
+
+<p>She shuddered and choked down an hysterical sob that was half a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"My hair hung dishevelled about me and in some inexplicable way&mdash;oh!
+am I going mad!&mdash;my head seemed to be detached from my living body! I
+was filled with a kind of unholy anger which I cannot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> describe. Also,
+I was consumed with thirst, and this thirst...."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I understand," said Dr. Cairn quietly. "What followed?"</p>
+
+<p>"An interval&mdash;quite blank&mdash;after which I dreamt again. Dr. Cairn, I
+<i>cannot</i> tell you of the dreadful, the blasphemous and foul thoughts,
+that then possessed me! I found myself resisting&mdash;resisting&mdash;something,
+some power that was dragging me back to that foul cavern with my thirst
+unslaked! I was frenzied; I dare not name, I tremble to think, of the
+ideas which filled my mind. Then, again came a blank, and I awoke."</p>
+
+<p>She sat trembling. Dr. Cairn noted that she avoided his gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"You awoke," he said, "on the first occasion, to find that your
+husband had met with a strange and dangerous accident?"</p>
+
+<p>"There was&mdash;something else."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Lashmore's voice had become a tremulous whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me; don't be afraid."</p>
+
+<p>She looked up; her magnificent eyes were wild with horror.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you know!" she breathed. "Do you?"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"And on the second occasion," he said, "you awoke earlier?"</p>
+
+<p>Lady Lashmore slightly moved her head.</p>
+
+<p>"The dream was identical?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Excepting these two occasions, you never dreamt it before?"</p>
+
+<p>"I dreamt <i>part</i> of it on several other occasions; or only remembered
+part of it on waking."</p>
+
+<p>"Which part?"</p>
+
+<p>"The first; that awful cavern&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And now, Lady Lashmore&mdash;you have recently been present at a
+spiritualistic <i>s&eacute;ance</i>."</p>
+
+<p>She was past wondering at his power of inductive reasoning, and merely
+nodded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I suggest&mdash;I do not know&mdash;that the <i>s&eacute;ance</i> was held under the
+auspices of Mr. Antony Ferrara, ostensibly for amusement."</p>
+
+<p>Another affirmative nod answered him.</p>
+
+<p>"You proved to be mediumistic?"</p>
+
+<p>It was admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"And now, Lady Lashmore"&mdash;Dr. Cairn's face was very stern&mdash;"I will
+trouble you no further."</p>
+
+<p>He prepared to depart; when&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Cairn!" whispered Lady Lashmore, tremulously, "some dreadful
+thing, something that I cannot comprehend but that I fear and loathe
+with all my soul, has come to me. Oh&mdash;for pity's sake, give me a word
+of hope! Save for you, I am alone with a horror I cannot name. Tell
+me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>At the door, he turned.</p>
+
+<p>"Be brave," he said&mdash;and went out.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Lashmore sat still as one who had looked upon Gorgon, her
+beautiful eyes yet widely opened and her face pale as death; for he
+had not even told her to hope.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Robert Cairn was sitting smoking in the library, a bunch of notes
+before him, when Dr. Cairn returned to Half-Moon Street. His face,
+habitually fresh coloured, was so pale that his son leapt up in alarm.
+But Dr. Cairn waved him away with a characteristic gesture of the
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down, Rob," he said, quietly; "I shall be all right in a moment.
+But I have just left a woman&mdash;a young woman and a beautiful
+woman&mdash;whom a fiend of hell has condemned to that which my mind
+refuses to contemplate."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn sat down again, watching his father.</p>
+
+<p>"Make out a report of the following facts," continued the latter,
+beginning to pace up and down the room.</p>
+
+<p>He recounted all that he had learnt of the history of the house of
+Dhoon and all that he had learnt of recent happenings from Lord and
+Lady Lashmore. His son wrote rapidly.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," said the doctor, "for our conclusions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> Mirza, the Polish
+Jewess, who became Lady Lashmore in 1615, practised sorcery in life
+and became, after death, a ghoul&mdash;one who sustained an unholy
+existence by unholy means&mdash;a vampire."</p>
+
+<p>"But, sir! Surely that is but a horrible superstition of the Middle
+Ages!"</p>
+
+<p>"Rob, I could take you to a castle not ten miles from Cracow in Poland
+where there are&mdash;certain relics, which would for ever settle your
+doubts respecting the existence of vampires. Let us proceed. The son
+of Mirza, Paul Dhoon, inherited the dreadful proclivities of his
+mother, but his shadowy existence was cut short in the traditional,
+and effective, manner. Him we may neglect.</p>
+
+<p>"It is Mirza, the sorceress, who must engage our attention. She was
+decapitated by her husband. This punishment prevented her, in the
+unhallowed life which, for such as she, begins after ordinary decease,
+from practising the horrible rites of a vampire. Her headless body
+could not serve her as a vehicle for nocturnal wanderings, but the
+evil spirit of the woman might hope to gain control of some body more
+suitable.</p>
+
+<p>"Nurturing an implacable hatred against all of the house of Dhoon,
+that spirit, disembodied, would frequently be drawn to the
+neighbourhood of Mirza's descendants, both by hatred and by affinity.
+Two horrible desires of the Spirit Mirza would be gratified if a Dhoon
+could be made her victim&mdash;the desire for blood and the desire for
+vengeance! The fate of Lord Lashmore would be sealed if that spirit
+could secure incarnation!"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn paused, glancing at his son, who was writing at furious
+speed. Then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"A magician more mighty and more evil than Mirza ever was or could
+be," he continued, "a master of the Black Art, expelled a woman's
+spirit from its throne and temporarily installed in its place the
+blood-lustful spirit of Mirza!"</p>
+
+<p>"My God, sir!" cried Robert Cairn, and threw down his pencil. "I begin
+to understand!"</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Lashmore," said Dr. Cairn, "since she was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> weak enough to
+consent to be present at a certain <i>s&eacute;ance</i>, has, from time to time,
+been <i>possessed</i>; she has been possessed by the spirit of a vampire!
+Obedient to the nameless cravings of that control, she has sought out
+Lord Lashmore, the last of the House of Dhoon. The horrible attack
+made, a mighty will which, throughout her temporary incarnation, has
+held her like a hound in leash, has dragged her from her prey, has
+forced her to remove, from the garments clothing her borrowed body,
+all traces of the deed, and has cast her out again to the pit of
+abomination where her headless trunk was thrown by the third Baron
+Lashmore!</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Lashmore's brain retains certain memories. They have been
+received at the moment when possession has taken place and at the
+moment when the control has been cast out again. They thus are
+memories of some secret cavern near Dhoon Castle, where that headless
+but deathless body lies, and memories of the poignant moment when the
+vampire has been dragged back, her 'thirst unslaked,' by the ruling
+Will."</p>
+
+<p>"Merciful God!" muttered Robert Cairn, "Merciful God, can such things
+be!"</p>
+
+<p>"They can be&mdash;they are! Two ways have occurred to me of dealing with
+the matter," continued Dr. Cairn quietly. "One is to find that cavern
+and to kill, in the occult sense, by means of a stake, the vampire who
+lies there; the other which, I confess, might only result in the
+permanent 'possession' of Lady Lashmore&mdash;is to get at the power which
+controls this disembodied spirit&mdash;kill Antony Ferrara!"</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn went to the sideboard, and poured out brandy with a
+shaking hand.</p>
+
+<p>"What's his object?" he whispered.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Lashmore would be the wealthiest widow in society," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>He</i> will know now," continued the younger man unsteadily, "that you
+are up against him. Have you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I have told Lord Lashmore to lock, at night, not only his outer door
+but also that of his dressing-room.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> For the rest&mdash;?" he dropped into
+an easy-chair,&mdash;"I cannot face the facts, I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The telephone bell rang.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn came to his feet as though he had been electrified; and as
+he raised the receiver to his ear, his son knew, by the expression on
+his face, from where the message came and something of its purport.</p>
+
+<p>"Come with me," was all that he said, when he had replaced the
+instrument on the table.</p>
+
+<p>They went out together. It was already past midnight, but a cab was
+found at the corner of Half-Moon Street, and within the space of five
+minutes they were at Lord Lashmore's house.</p>
+
+<p>Excepting Chambers, Lord Lashmore's valet, no servants were to be
+seen.</p>
+
+<p>"They ran away, sir, out of the house," explained the man, huskily,
+"when it happened."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn delayed for no further questions, but raced upstairs, his
+son close behind him. Together they burst into Lord Lashmore's
+bedroom. But just within the door they both stopped, aghast.</p>
+
+<p>Sitting bolt upright in bed was Lord Lashmore, his face a dingy grey
+and his open eyes, though filming over, yet faintly alight with a
+stark horror ... dead. An electric torch was still gripped in his left
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>Bending over someone who lay upon the carpet near the bedside they
+perceived Sir Elwin Groves. He looked up. Some little of his usual
+self-possession had fled.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Cairn!" he jerked. "We've both come too late."</p>
+
+<p>The prostrate figure was that of Lady Lashmore, a loose kimono worn
+over her night-robe. She was white and still and the physician had
+been engaged in bathing a huge bruise upon her temple.</p>
+
+<p>"She'll be all right," said Sir Elwin; "she has sustained a tremendous
+blow, as you see. But Lord Lashmore&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn stepped closer to the dead man.</p>
+
+<p>"Heart," he said. "He died of sheer horror."</p>
+
+<p>He turned to Chambers, who stood in the open doorway behind him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The dressing-room door is open," he said. "I had advised Lord
+Lashmore to lock it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir; his lordship meant to, sir. But we found that the lock had
+been broken. It was to have been replaced to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn turned to his son.</p>
+
+<p>"You hear?" he said. "No doubt you have some idea respecting which of
+the visitors to this unhappy house took the trouble to break that
+lock? It was to have been replaced to-morrow; hence the tragedy of
+to-night." He addressed Chambers again. "Why did the servants leave
+the house to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>The man was shaking pitifully.</p>
+
+<p>"It was the laughter, sir! the laughter! I can never forget it! I was
+sleeping in an adjoining room and I had the key of his lordship's door
+in case of need. But when I heard his lordship cry out&mdash;quick and
+loud, sir&mdash;like a man that's been stabbed&mdash;I jumped up to come to him.
+Then, as I was turning the doorknob&mdash;of my room, sir&mdash;someone,
+something, began to <i>laugh</i>! It was in here; it was in here,
+gentlemen! It wasn't&mdash;her ladyship; it wasn't like <i>any</i> woman. I
+can't describe it; but it woke up every soul in the house."</p>
+
+<p>"When you came in?"</p>
+
+<p>"I daren't come in, sir! I ran downstairs and called up Sir Elwin
+Groves. Before he came, all the rest of the household huddled on their
+clothes and went away&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It was I who found him," interrupted Sir Elwin&mdash;"as you see him now;
+with Lady Lashmore where she lies. I have 'phoned for nurses."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Dr. Cairn; "I shall come back, Groves, but I have a small
+matter to attend to."</p>
+
+<p>He drew his son from the room. On the stair:</p>
+
+<p>"You understand?" he asked. "The spirit of Mirza came to him again,
+clothed in his wife's body. Lord Lashmore felt the teeth at his
+throat, awoke instantly and struck out. As he did so, he turned the
+torch upon her, and recognised&mdash;his wife! His heart completed the
+tragedy, and so&mdash;to the laughter of the sorceress&mdash;passed the last of
+the house of Dhoon."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The cab was waiting. Dr. Cairn gave an address in Piccadilly, and the
+two entered. As the cab moved off, the doctor took a revolver from his
+pocket, with some loose cartridges, charged the five chambers, and
+quietly replaced the weapon in his pocket again.</p>
+
+<p>One of the big doors of the block of chambers was found to be ajar,
+and a porter proved to be yet in attendance.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Ferrara?" began Dr. Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>"You are five minutes too late, sir," said the man. "He left by motor
+at ten past twelve. He's gone abroad, sir."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>CAIRO</h3>
+
+
+<p>The exact manner in which mental stress will effect a man's physical
+health is often difficult to predict. Robert Cairn was in the pink of
+condition at the time that he left Oxford to take up his London
+appointment; but the tremendous nervous strain wrought upon him by
+this series of events wholly outside the radius of normal things had
+broken him up physically, where it might have left unscathed a more
+highly strung, though less physically vigorous man.</p>
+
+<p>Those who have passed through a nerve storm such as this which had
+laid him low will know that convalescence seems like a welcome
+awakening from a dreadful dream. It was indeed in a state between
+awaking and dreaming that Robert Cairn took counsel with his
+father&mdash;the latter more pale than was his wont and somewhat
+anxious-eyed&mdash;and determined upon an Egyptian rest-cure.</p>
+
+<p>"I have made it all right at the office, Rob," said Dr. Cairn. "In
+three weeks or so you will receive instructions at Cairo to write up a
+series of local articles. Until then, my boy, complete rest and&mdash;don't
+worry; above all, don't worry. You and I have passed through a
+saturnalia of horror, and you, less inured to horrors than I, have
+gone down. I don't wonder."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Antony Ferrara?"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn shook his head and his eyes gleamed with a sudden anger.
+"For God's sake don't mention his name!" he said. "That topic is
+taboo, Rob. I may tell you, however, that he has left England."</p>
+
+<p>In this unreal frame of mind, then, and as one but partly belonging to
+the world of things actual, Cairn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> found himself an invalid, who but
+yesterday had been a hale man; found himself shipped for Port Said;
+found himself entrained for Cairo; and with an awakening to the
+realities of life, an emerging from an ill-dream to lively interest in
+the novelties of Egypt, found himself following the red-jerseyed
+Shepheard's porter along the corridor of the train and out on to the
+platform.</p>
+
+<p>A short drive through those singular streets where East meets West and
+mingles, in the sudden, violet dusk of Lower Egypt, and he was amid
+the bustle of the popular hotel.</p>
+
+<p>Sime was there, whom he had last seen at Oxford, Sime the phlegmatic.
+He apologised for not meeting the train, but explained that his duties
+had rendered it impossible. Sime was attached temporarily to an
+arch&aelig;ological expedition as medical man, and his athletic and somewhat
+bovine appearance contrasted oddly with the unhealthy gauntness of
+Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>"I only got in from Wasta ten minutes ago, Cairn. You must come out to
+the camp when I return; the desert air will put you on your feet again
+in no time."</p>
+
+<p>Sime was unemotional, but there was concern in his voice and in his
+glance, for the change in Cairn was very startling. Although he knew
+something, if but very little, of certain happenings in
+London&mdash;gruesome happenings centering around the man called Antony
+Ferrara&mdash;he avoided any reference to them at the moment.</p>
+
+<p>Seated upon the terrace, Robert Cairn studied the busy life in the
+street below with all the interest of a new arrival in the Capital of
+the Near East. More than ever, now, his illness and the things which
+had led up to it seemed to belong to a remote dream existence. Through
+the railings at his feet a hawker was thrusting fly-whisks, and
+imploring him in complicated English to purchase one. Vendors of
+beads, of fictitious "antiques," of sweetmeats, of what-not;
+fortune-tellers&mdash;and all that chattering horde which some obscure
+process of gravitation seems to hurl against the terrace of
+Shepheard's, buzzed about him. Carriages and motor cars, camels and
+donkeys mingled, in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> Sh&acirc;ria K&acirc;mel Pasha. Voices American, voices
+Anglo-Saxon, guttural German tones, and softly murmured Arabic merged
+into one indescribable chord of sound; but to Robert Cairn it was all
+unspeakably restful. He was quite contented to sit there sipping his
+whisky and soda, and smoking his pipe. Sheer idleness was good for him
+and exactly what he wanted, and idling amid that unique throng is
+idleness <i>de luxe</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Sime watched him covertly, and saw that his face had acquired
+lines&mdash;lines which told of the fires through which he had passed.
+Something, it was evident&mdash;something horrible&mdash;had seared his mind.
+Considering the many indications of tremendous nervous disaster in
+Cairn, Sime wondered how near his companion had come to insanity, and
+concluded that he had stood upon the frontiers of that grim land of
+phantoms, and had only been plucked back in the eleventh hour.</p>
+
+<p>Cairn glanced around with a smile, from the group of hawkers who
+solicited his attention upon the pavement below.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather!" replied Sime. "They are expecting <i>Khams&icirc;n</i>&mdash;the hot wind,
+you know. I was up the river a week ago and we struck it badly in
+Assouan. It grew as black as night and one couldn't breathe for sand.
+It's probably working down to Cairo."</p>
+
+<p>"From your description I am not anxious to make the acquaintance of
+<i>Khams&icirc;n</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Sime shook his head, knocking out his pipe into the ash-tray.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a funny country," he said reflectively. "The most weird ideas
+prevail here to this day&mdash;ideas which properly belong to the Middle
+Ages. For instance"&mdash;he began to recharge the hot bowl&mdash;"it is not
+really time for <i>Khams&icirc;n</i>, consequently the natives feel called upon
+to hunt up some explanation of its unexpected appearance. Their ideas
+on the subject are interesting, if idiotic. One of our Arabs (we are
+excavating in the Fay&ucirc;m, you know), solemnly assured<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> me yesterday
+that the hot wind had been caused by an Efreet, a sort of Arabian
+Nights' demon, who has arrived in Egypt!"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed gruffly, but Cairn was staring at him with a curious
+expression. Sime continued:</p>
+
+<p>"When I got to Cairo this evening I found news of the Efreet had
+preceded me. Honestly, Cairn, it is all over the town&mdash;the native
+town, I mean. All the shopkeepers in the M&ucirc;ski are talking about it.
+If a puff of <i>Khams&icirc;n</i> should come, I believe they would permanently
+shut up shop and hide in their cellars&mdash;if they have any! I am rather
+hazy on modern Egyptian architecture."</p>
+
+<p>Cairn nodded his head absently.</p>
+
+<p>"You laugh," he said, "but the active force of a superstition&mdash;what we
+call a superstition&mdash;is sometimes a terrible thing."</p>
+
+<p>Sime stared.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh!" The medical man had suddenly come uppermost; he recollected that
+this class of discussion was probably taboo.</p>
+
+<p>"You may doubt the existence of Efreets," 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 should you
+expect from a concentration of thousands of native minds upon the idea
+that an Efreet is visiting Egypt?"</p>
+
+<p>Sime stared in a dull way peculiar to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Rather a poser," he said. "I have a glimmer of a notion what you
+mean."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If you mean don't I think the result would be the creation of an
+Efreet, no, I don't!"</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly mean that, either," replied Cairn, "but this wave of
+superstition cannot be entirely unproductive; all that thought energy
+directed to one point&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Sime stood up.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall get out of our depth," he replied conclu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>sively. He
+considered the ground of discussion an unhealthy one; this was the
+territory adjoining that of insanity.</p>
+
+<p>A fortune-teller from India proffered his services incessantly.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Imshi</i>! <i>imshi</i>!" growled Sime.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on," said Cairn smiling; "this chap is not an Egyptian; let us
+ask him if he has heard the rumour respecting the Efreet!"</p>
+
+<p>Sime reseated himself rather unwillingly. The fortune-teller spread
+his little carpet and knelt down in order to read the palm of his
+hypothetical client, but Cairn waved him aside.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want my fortune told!" he said; "but I will give you your
+fee,"&mdash;with a smile at Sime&mdash;"for a few minutes' conversation."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, yes, sir!" The Indian was all attention.</p>
+
+<p>"Why"&mdash;Cairn pointed forensically at the fortune-teller&mdash;"why is
+<i>Khams&icirc;n</i> come so early this year?"</p>
+
+<p>The Indian spread his hands, palms upward.</p>
+
+<p>"How should I know?" he replied in his soft, melodious voice. "I am
+not of Egypt; I can only say what is told to me by the Egyptians."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is told to you?"</p>
+
+<p>Sime rested his hands upon his knees, bending forward curiously. He
+was palpably anxious that Cairn should have confirmation of the Efreet
+story from the Indian.</p>
+
+<p>"They tell me, sir,"&mdash;the man's voice sank musically low&mdash;"that a
+thing very evil"&mdash;he tapped a long brown finger upon his breast&mdash;"not
+as I am"&mdash;he tapped Sime upon the knee&mdash;"not as he, your friend"&mdash;he
+thrust the long finger at Cairn&mdash;"not as you, sir; not a man at all,
+though something like a man! not having any father and mother&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You mean," suggested Sime, "a spirit?"</p>
+
+<p>The fortune-teller shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"They tell me, sir, not a spirit&mdash;a man, but not as other men; a very,
+very bad man; one that the great king, long, long ago, the king you
+call Wise &mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Solomon?" suggested Cairn.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, Suleyman!&mdash;one that he, when he banish all the tribe of the
+demons from earth&mdash;one that he not found."</p>
+
+<p>"One he overlooked?" jerked Sime.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, overlook! A very evil man, my gentlemen. They tell me he
+has come to Egypt. He come not from the sea, but across the great
+desert&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The Libyan Desert?" suggested Sime.</p>
+
+<p>The man shook, his head, seeking for words.</p>
+
+<p>"The Arabian Desert?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! Away beyond, far up in Africa"&mdash;he waved his long arms
+dramatically&mdash;"far, far up beyond the S&ucirc;dan."</p>
+
+<p>"The Sahara Desert?" proposed Sime.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes! it is Sahara Desert!&mdash;come across the Sahara Desert, and is
+come to Khart&ucirc;m."</p>
+
+<p>"How did he get there?" asked Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>The Indian shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot say, but next he come to Wady Halfa, then he is in Assouan,
+and from Assouan he come down to Luxor! Yesterday an Egyptian friend
+told me <i>Khams&icirc;n</i> is in the Fay&ucirc;m. Therefore <i>he</i> is there&mdash;the man of
+evil&mdash;for he bring the hot wind with him."</p>
+
+<p>The Indian was growing impressive, and two American tourists stopped
+to listen to his words.</p>
+
+<p>"To-night&mdash;to-morrow,"&mdash;he spoke now almost in a whisper, glancing
+about him as if apprehensive of being overheard&mdash;"he may be here, in
+Cairo, bringing with him the scorching breath of the desert&mdash;the
+scorpion wind!"</p>
+
+<p>He stood up, casting off the mystery with which he had invested his
+story, and smiling insinuatingly. His work was done; his fee was due.
+Sime rewarded him with five piastres, and he departed, bowing.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, Sime&mdash;" Cairn began to speak, staring absently the while
+after the fortune-teller, as he descended the carpeted steps and
+rejoined the throng on the sidewalk below&mdash;"you know, if a
+man&mdash;anyone, could take advantage of such a wave of thought as this
+which is now sweeping through Egypt&mdash;if he could cause it to
+concentrate upon him, as it were,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> don't you think that it would
+enable him to transcend the normal, to do phenomenal things?"</p>
+
+<p>"By what process should you propose to make yourself such a focus?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was speaking impersonally, Sime. It might be possible&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It might be possible to dress for dinner," snapped Sime, "if we shut
+up talking nonsense! There's a carnival here to-night; great fun.
+Suppose we concentrate our brain-waves on another Scotch and soda?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MASK OF SET</h3>
+
+
+<p>Above the palm trees swept the jewelled vault of Egypt's sky, and set
+amid the clustering leaves gleamed little red electric lamps; fairy
+lanterns outlined the winding paths and paper Japanese lamps hung
+dancing in long rows, whilst in the centre of the enchanted garden a
+fountain spurned diamond spray high in the air, to fall back coolly
+plashing into the marble home of the golden carp. The rustling of
+innumerable feet upon the sandy pathway and the ceaseless murmur of
+voices, with pealing laughter rising above all, could be heard amid
+the strains of the military band ensconced in a flower-covered arbour.</p>
+
+<p>Into the brightly lighted places and back into the luminous shadows
+came and went fantastic forms. Sheikhs there were with flowing robes,
+dragomans who spoke no Arabic, Sultans and priests of Ancient Egypt,
+going arm-in-arm. Dancing girls of old Thebes, and harem ladies in
+silken trousers and high-heeled red shoes. Queens of Babylon and
+Cleopatras, many Geishas and desert Gypsies mingled, specks in a giant
+kaleidoscope. 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 piping 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.</p>
+
+<p>"A tremendous crowd," said Sime, "considering it is nearly the end of
+the season."</p>
+
+<p>Three silken ladies wearing gauzy white <i>yashmaks</i> confronted Cairn
+and the speaker. A gleaming of jewelled fingers there was and Cairn
+found himself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> half-choked with confetti, which filled his eyes, his
+nose, his ears, and of which quite a liberal amount found access to
+his mouth. The three ladies of the <i>yashmak</i> ran screaming from their
+vengeance-seeking victims, Sime pursuing two, and Cairn hard upon the
+heels of the third. Amid this scene of riotous carnival all else was
+forgotten, and only the madness, the infectious madness of the night,
+claimed his mind. In and out of the strangely attired groups darted
+his agile quarry, all but captured a score of times, but always
+eluding him.</p>
+
+<p>Sime he had hopelessly lost, as around fountain and flower-bed, arbour
+and palm trunk he leapt in pursuit of the elusive <i>yashmak</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Then, in a shadowed corner of the garden, he trapped her. Plunging his
+hand into the bag of confetti, which he carried, he leapt, exulting,
+to his revenge: when a sudden gust of wind passed sibilantly through
+the palm tops, and glancing upward, Cairn saw that the blue sky was
+overcast and the stars gleaming dimly, as through a veil. That moment
+of hesitancy proved fatal to his project, for with a little excited
+scream the girl dived under his outstretched arm and fled back towards
+the fountain. He turned to pursue again, when a second puff of wind,
+stronger than the first, set waving the palm fronds and showered dry
+leaves upon the confetti carpet of the garden. The band played loudly,
+the murmur of conversation rose to something like a roar, but above it
+whistled the increasing breeze, and there was a sort of grittiness in
+the air.</p>
+
+<p>Then, proclaimed by a furious lashing of the fronds above, burst the
+wind in all its fury. It seemed to beat down into the garden in waves
+of heat. Huge leaves began to fall from the tree tops and the
+mast-like trunks bent before the fury from the desert. The atmosphere
+grew hazy with impalpable dust; and the stars were wholly obscured.</p>
+
+<p>Commenced a stampede from the garden. Shrill with fear, rose a woman's
+scream from the heart of the throng:</p>
+
+<p>"A scorpion! a scorpion!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Panic threatened, but fortunately the doors were wide, so that,
+without disaster the whole fantastic company passed into the hotel;
+and even the military band retired.</p>
+
+<p>Cairn perceived that he alone remained in the garden, and glancing
+along the path in the direction of the fountain, he saw a blotchy drab
+creature, fully four inches in length, running zigzag towards him. It
+was a huge scorpion; but, even as he leapt forward to crush it, it
+turned and crept in amid the tangle of flowers beside the path, where
+it was lost from view.</p>
+
+<p>The scorching wind grew momentarily fiercer, and Cairn, entering
+behind a few straggling revellers, found something ominous and
+dreadful in its sudden fury. At the threshold, he turned and looked
+back upon the gaily lighted garden. The paper lamps were thrashing in
+the wind, many extinguished; others were in flames; a number of
+electric globes fell from their fastenings amid the palm tops, and
+burst bomb-like upon the ground. The pleasure garden was now a
+battlefield, beset with dangers, and he fully appreciated the anxiety
+of the company to get within doors. Where chrysanthemum and <i>yashmak</i>
+turban and <i>tarboosh</i>, uraeus and Indian plume had mingled gaily, no
+soul remained; but yet&mdash;he was in error ... someone did remain.</p>
+
+<p>As if embodying the fear that in a few short minutes had emptied the
+garden, out beneath the waving lanterns, the flying <i>d&eacute;bris</i>, the
+whirling dust, pacing sombrely from shadow to light, and to shadow
+again, advancing towards the hotel steps, came the figure of one
+sandalled, and wearing the short white tunic of Ancient Egypt. His
+arms were bare, and he carried a long staff; but rising hideously upon
+his shoulders was a crocodile-mask, which seemed to grin&mdash;the mask of
+Set, Set the Destroyer, God of the underworld.</p>
+
+<p>Cairn, alone of all the crowd, saw the strange figure, for the reason
+that Cairn alone faced towards the garden. The gruesome mask seemed to
+fascinate him; he could not take his gaze from that weird advancing
+god; he felt impelled hypnotically to stare at the gleaming eyes set
+in the saurian head. The mask was at the foot of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> the steps, and still
+Cairn stood rigid. When, as the sandalled foot was set upon the first
+step, a breeze, dust-laden, and hot as from a furnace door, blew fully
+into the hotel, blinding him. A chorus arose from the crowd at his
+back; and many voices cried out for doors to be shut. Someone tapped
+him on the shoulder, and spun him about.</p>
+
+<p>"By God!"&mdash;it was Sime who now had him by the arm&mdash;"<i>Khams&icirc;n</i> has come
+with a vengeance! They tell me that they have never had anything like
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>The native servants were closing and fastening the doors. The night
+was now as black as Erebus, and the wind was howling about the
+building with the voices of a million lost souls. Cairn glanced back
+across his shoulder. Men were drawing heavy curtains across the doors
+and windows.</p>
+
+<p>"They have shut him out, Sime!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>Sime stared in his dull fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"You surely saw him?" persisted Cairn irritably; "the man in the mask
+of Set&mdash;he was coming in just behind me."</p>
+
+<p>Sime strode forward, pulled the curtains aside, and peered out into
+the deserted garden.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a soul, old man," he declared. "You must have seen the Efreet!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SCORPION WIND</h3>
+
+
+<p>This sudden and appalling change of weather had sadly affected the
+mood of the gathering. That part of the carnival planned to take place
+in the garden was perforce abandoned, together with the firework
+display. A halfhearted attempt was made at dancing, but the howling of
+the wind, and the omnipresent dust, perpetually reminded the
+pleasure-seekers that <i>Khams&icirc;n</i> raged without&mdash;raged with a violence
+unparalleled in the experience of the oldest residents. This was a
+full-fledged sand-storm, a terror of the Sahara descended upon Cairo.</p>
+
+<p>But there were few departures, although many of the visitors who had
+long distances to go, especially those from Mena House, discussed the
+advisability of leaving before this unique storm should have grown
+even worse. The general tendency, though, was markedly gregarious;
+safety seemed to be with the crowd, amid the gaiety, where music and
+laughter were, rather than in the sand-swept streets.</p>
+
+<p>"Guess we've outstayed our welcome!" confided an American lady to
+Sime. "Egypt wants to drive us all home now."</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly," he replied with a smile. "The season has run very late,
+this year, and so this sort of thing is more or less to be expected."</p>
+
+<p>The orchestra struck up a lively one-step, and a few of the more
+enthusiastic dancers accepted the invitation, but the bulk of the
+company thronged around the edge of the floor, acting as spectators.</p>
+
+<p>Cairn and Sime wedged a way through the heterogeneous crowd to the
+American Bar.</p>
+
+<p>"I prescribe a 'tango,'" said Sime.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A 'tango' is&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"A 'tango,'" explained Sime, "is a new kind of cocktail sacred to this
+buffet. Try it. It will either kill you or cure you."</p>
+
+<p>Cairn smiled rather wanly.</p>
+
+<p>"I must confess that I need bucking up a bit," he said: "that
+confounded sand seems to have got me by the throat."</p>
+
+<p>Sime briskly gave his orders to the bar attendant.</p>
+
+<p>"You know," pursued Cairn, "I cannot get out of my head the idea that
+there was someone wearing a crocodile mask in the garden a while ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," growled Sime, studying the operations of the cocktail
+manufacturer, "suppose there were&mdash;what about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's odd that nobody else saw him."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it hasn't occurred to you that the fellow might have
+removed his mask?"</p>
+
+<p>Cairn shook his head slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so," he declared; "I haven't seen him anywhere in the
+hotel."</p>
+
+<p>"Seen him?" Sime turned his dull gaze upon the speaker. "How should
+you know him?"</p>
+
+<p>Cairn raised his hand to his forehead in an oddly helpless way.</p>
+
+<p>"No, of course not&mdash;it's very extraordinary."</p>
+
+<p>They took their seats at a small table, and in mutual silence loaded
+and lighted their pipes. Sime, in common with many young and
+enthusiastic medical men, had theories&mdash;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 back of all
+this erratic talk; he had clearly invested the Mask of Set with a
+curious individuality.</p>
+
+<p>"I gather that you had a stiff bout of it in London?" Sime said
+suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>Cairn nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Beastly stiff. There is a lot of sound reason in your nervous theory,
+Sime. It was touch and go with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> me for days, I am told; yet,
+pathologically, I was a hale man. That would seem to show how nerves
+can kill. Just a series of shocks&mdash;horrors&mdash;one piled upon another,
+did as much for me as influenza, pneumonia, and two or three other
+ailments together could have done."</p>
+
+<p>Sime shook his head wisely; this was in accordance with his ideas.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;he is a murderer. He controls&mdash;forces&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Sime was watching him intently.</p>
+
+<p>"It will give you some idea, Sime, of the pitch to which things had
+come, when I tell you that my father drove to Ferrara's rooms one
+night, with a loaded revolver in his pocket&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"For"&mdash;Sime hesitated&mdash;"for protection?"</p>
+
+<p>"No." Cairn leant forward across the table&mdash;"to shoot him, Sime, shoot
+him on sight, as one shoots a mad dog!"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you serious?"</p>
+
+<p>"As God is my witness, if Antony Ferrara had been in his rooms that
+night, my father would have killed him!"</p>
+
+<p>"It would have been a shocking scandal."</p>
+
+<p>"It would have been a martyrdom. The man who removes Antony Ferrara
+from the earth will be doing mankind a service worthy of the highest
+reward. 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."</p>
+
+<p>"This incident&mdash;the call at his rooms&mdash;occurred just before your
+illness?"</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> knowledge that no
+breath of suspicion has touched him. Sime, you remember a girl I told
+you about at Oxford one evening, a girl who came to visit him?"</p>
+
+<p>Sime nodded slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;he killed her! Oh! there is no doubt about it; I saw her body
+in the hospital."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>How</i> had he killed her, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"How? Only he and the God who permits him to exist can answer that,
+Sime. He killed her without coming anywhere near her&mdash;and he killed
+his adoptive father, Sir Michael Ferrara, by the same unholy means!"</p>
+
+<p>Sime watched him, but offered no comment.</p>
+
+<p>"It was hushed up, of course; there is no existing law which could be
+used against him."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Existing</i> law?"</p>
+
+<p>"They are ruled out, Sime, the laws that <i>could</i> have reached him; but
+he would have been burnt at the stake in the Middle Ages!"</p>
+
+<p>"I see." Sime drummed his fingers upon the table. "You had those ideas
+about him at Oxford; and does Dr. Cairn seriously believe the same?"</p>
+
+<p>"He does. So would you&mdash;you could not doubt it, Sime, not for a
+moment, if you had seen what we have seen!" His eyes blazed into a
+sudden fury, suggestive of his old, robust self. "He tried night after
+night, by means of the same accursed sorcery, which everyone thought
+buried in the ruins of Thebes, to kill <i>me</i>! He projected&mdash;things&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Suggested these&mdash;things, to your mind?"</p>
+
+<p>"Something like that. I saw, or thought I saw, and smelt&mdash;pah!&mdash;I seem
+to smell them now!&mdash;beetles, mummy-beetles, you know, from the skull
+of a mummy! My rooms were thick with them. It brought me very near to
+Bedlam, Sime. Oh! it was not merely imaginary. My father and I caught
+him red-handed." He glanced across at the other. "You read of the
+death of Lord Lashmore? It was just after you came out."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;heart."</p>
+
+<p>"It was his heart, yes&mdash;but Ferrara was responsible! That was the
+business which led my father to drive to Ferrara's rooms with a loaded
+revolver in his pocket."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The wind was shaking the windows, and whistling about the building
+with demoniacal fury as if seeking admission; the band played a
+popular waltz; and in and out of the open doors came and went groups
+representative of many ages and many nationalities.</p>
+
+<p>"Ferrara," began Sime slowly, "was always a detestable man, with his
+sleek black hair, and ivory face. Those long eyes of his had an
+expression which always tempted me to hit him. Sir Michael, if what
+you say is true&mdash;and after all, Cairn, it only goes to show how little
+we know of the nervous system&mdash;literally took a viper to his bosom."</p>
+
+<p>"He did. Antony Ferrara was his adopted son, of course; God knows to
+what evil brood he really belongs."</p>
+
+<p>Both were silent for a while. Then:</p>
+
+<p>"Gracious heavens!"</p>
+
+<p>Cairn started to his feet so wildly as almost to upset the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, Sime! look!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>Sime was not the only man in the bar to hear, and to heed his words.
+Sime, looking in the direction indicated by Cairn's extended finger,
+received a vague impression that a grotesque, long-headed figure had
+appeared momentarily in the doorway opening upon the room where the
+dancers were; then it was gone again, if it had ever been there, and
+he was supporting Cairn, who swayed dizzily, and had become ghastly
+pale. Sime imagined that the heated air had grown suddenly even more
+heated. Curious eyes were turned upon, his companion, who now sank
+back into his chair, muttering:</p>
+
+<p>"The Mask, the Mask!"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I saw the chap who seems to worry you so much," said Sime
+soothingly. "Wait here; I will tell the waiter to bring you a dose of
+brandy; and whatever you do, don't get excited."</p>
+
+<p>He made for the door, pausing and giving an order to a waiter on his
+way, and pushed into the crowd outside. It was long past midnight, and
+the gaiety, which had been resumed, seemed of a forced and feverish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
+sort. Some of the visitors were leaving, and a breath of hot wind
+swept in from the open doors.</p>
+
+<p>A pretty girl wearing a <i>yashmak</i>, who, with two similarly attired
+companions, was making her way to the entrance, attracted his
+attention; she seemed to be on the point of swooning. He recognised
+the trio for the same that had pelted Cairn and himself with confetti
+earlier in the evening.</p>
+
+<p>"The sudden heat has affected your friend," he said, stepping up to
+them. "My name is Dr. Sime; may I offer you my assistance?"</p>
+
+<p>The offer was accepted, and with the three he passed out on to the
+terrace, where the dust grated beneath the tread, and helped the
+fainting girl into an <i>arab&icirc;yeh</i>. The night was thunderously black,
+the heat almost insufferable, and the tall palms in front of the hotel
+bowed before the might of the scorching wind.</p>
+
+<p>As the vehicle drove off, Sime stood for a moment looking after it.
+His face was very grave, for there was a look in the bright eyes of
+the girl in the <i>yashmak</i> which, professionally, he did not like.
+Turning up the steps, he learnt from the manager that several visitors
+had succumbed to the heat. There was something furtive in the manner
+of his informant's glance, and Sime looked at him significantly.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Khams&icirc;n</i> brings clouds of septic dust with it," he said. "Let us
+hope that these attacks are due to nothing more than the unexpected
+rise in the temperature."</p>
+
+<p>An air of uneasiness prevailed now throughout the hotel. The wind had
+considerably abated, and crowds were leaving, pouring from the steps
+into the deserted street, a dreamlike company.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Royland took Sime aside, as the latter was making his way back
+to the buffet. The Colonel, whose regiment was stationed at the
+Citadel, had known Sime almost from childhood.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, my boy," he said, "I should never have allowed Eileen" (his
+daughter) "to remain in Cairo, if I had foreseen this change in the
+weather. This infernal wind, coming right through the native town, is
+loaded with infection."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Has it affected her, then?" asked Sime anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"She nearly fainted in the ball-room," replied the Colonel. "Her
+mother took her home half an hour ago. I looked for you everywhere,
+but couldn't find you."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite a number have succumbed," said Sime.</p>
+
+<p>"Eileen seemed to be slightly hysterical," continued the Colonel. "She
+persisted that someone wearing a crocodile mask had been standing
+beside her at the moment that she was taken ill."</p>
+
+<p>Sime started; perhaps Cairn's story was not a matter of imagination
+after all.</p>
+
+<p>"There is someone here, dressed like that, I believe," he replied,
+with affected carelessness. "He seems to have frightened several
+people. Any idea who he is?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear chap!" cried the Colonel, "I have been searching the place
+for him! But I have never once set eyes upon him. I was about to ask
+if <i>you</i> knew anything about it!"</p>
+
+<p>Sime returned to the table where Cairn was sitting. The latter seemed
+to have recovered somewhat; but he looked far from well. Sime stared
+at him critically.</p>
+
+<p>"I should turn in," he said, "if I were you. <i>Khams&icirc;n</i> is playing the
+deuce with people. I only hope it does not justify its name and blow
+for fifty days."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen the man in the mask!" asked Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Sime, "but he's here alright; others have seen him."</p>
+
+<p>Cairn stood up rather unsteadily, and with Sime made his way through
+the moving crowd to the stairs. The band was still playing, but the
+cloud of gloom which had settled upon the place, refused to be
+dissipated.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, Cairn," said Sime, "see you in the morning."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn, with aching head and a growing sensation of nausea,
+paused on the landing, looking down into the court below. He could not
+disguise from himself that he felt ill, not nervously ill as in
+London, but physically sick. This superheated air was difficult to
+breathe; it seemed to rise in waves from below.</p>
+
+<p>Then, from a weary glancing at the figures beneath him, his attitude
+changed to one of tense watching.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A man, wearing the crocodile mask of Set, stood by a huge urn
+containing a palm, looking up to the landing!</p>
+
+<p>Cairn's weakness left him, and in its place came an indescribable
+anger, a longing to drive his fist into that grinning mask. He turned
+and ran lightly down the stairs, conscious of a sudden glow of energy.
+Reaching the floor, he saw the mask making across the hall, in the
+direction of the outer door. As rapidly as possible, for he could not
+run, without attracting undesirable attention, Cairn followed. The
+figure of Set passed out on to the terrace, but when Cairn in turn
+swung open the door, his quarry had vanished.</p>
+
+<p>Then, in an <i>arab&icirc;yeh</i> just driving off, he detected the hideous mask.
+Hatless as he was, he ran down the steps and threw himself into
+another. The carriage-controller was in attendance, and Cairn rapidly
+told him to instruct the driver to follow the <i>arab&icirc;yeh</i> which had
+just left. The man lashed up his horses, turned the carriage, and went
+galloping on after the retreating figure. Past the Esbek&icirc;ya Gardens
+they went, through several narrow streets, and on to the quarter of
+the M&ucirc;ski. Time after time he thought he had lost the carriage ahead,
+but his own driver's knowledge of the tortuous streets enabled him
+always to overtake it again. They went rocking along lanes so narrow
+that with outstretched arms one could almost have touched the walls on
+either side; past empty shops and unlighted houses. Cairn had not the
+remotest idea of his whereabouts, save that he was evidently in the
+district of the bazaars. A right-angled corner was abruptly
+negotiated&mdash;and there, ahead of him, stood the pursued vehicle! The
+driver was turning his horses around, to return; his fare was
+disappearing from sight into the black shadows of a narrow alley on
+the left.</p>
+
+<p>Cairn leaped from the <i>arab&icirc;yeh</i>, shouting to the man to wait, and
+went dashing down the sloping lane after the retreating figure. A sort
+of blind fury possessed him, but he never paused to analyse it, never
+asked himself by what right he pursued this man, what wrong the latter
+had done him. His action was wholly unreasoning; he knew that he
+wished to overtake the wearer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> of the mask and to tear it from his
+head; upon that he acted!</p>
+
+<p>He discovered that despite the tropical heat of the night, he was
+shuddering with cold, but he disregarded this circumstance, and ran
+on.</p>
+
+<p>The pursued stopped before an iron-studded door, which was opened
+instantly; he entered as the runner came up with him. And, before the
+door could be reclosed, Cairn thrust his way in.</p>
+
+<p>Blackness, utter blackness, was before him. The figure which he had
+pursued seemed to have been swallowed up. He stumbled on, gropingly,
+hands outstretched, then fell&mdash;fell, as he realised in the moment of
+falling, down a short flight of stone steps.</p>
+
+<p>Still amid utter blackness, he got upon his feet, shaken but otherwise
+unhurt by his fall. He turned about, expecting to see some glimmer of
+light from the stairway, but the blackness was unbroken. Silence and
+gloom hemmed him in. He stood for a moment, listening intently.</p>
+
+<p>A shaft of light pierced the darkness, as a shutter was thrown open.
+Through an iron-barred window the light shone; and with the light came
+a breath of stifling perfume. That perfume carried his imagination
+back instantly to a room at Oxford, and he advanced and looked through
+into the place beyond. He drew a swift breath, clutched the bars, and
+was silent&mdash;stricken speechless.</p>
+
+<p>He looked into a large and lofty room, lighted by several hanging
+lamps. It had a carpeted divan at one end and was otherwise scantily
+furnished, in the Eastern manner. A silver incense-burner smoked upon
+a large praying-carpet, and by it stood the man in the crocodile mask.
+An Arab girl, fantastically attired, who had evidently just opened the
+shutters, was now helping him to remove the hideous head-dress.</p>
+
+<p>She presently untied the last of the fastenings and lifted the thing
+from the man's shoulders, moving away with the gliding step of the
+Oriental, and leaving him standing there in his short white tunic,
+bare-legged and sandalled.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The smoke of the incense curled upward and played around the straight,
+slim figure, drew vaporous lines about the still, ivory face&mdash;the
+handsome, sinister face, sometimes partly veiling the long black eyes
+and sometimes showing them in all their unnatural brightness. So the
+man stood, looking towards the barred window.</p>
+
+<p>It was Antony Ferrara!</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, dear Cairn&mdash;" the husky musical voice smote upon Cairn's ears as
+the most hated sound in nature&mdash;"you have followed me. Not content
+with driving me from London, you would also render Cairo&mdash;my dear
+Cairo&mdash;untenable for me."</p>
+
+<p>Cairn clutched the bars but was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"How wrong of you, Cairn!" the soft voice mocked. "This attention is
+so harmful&mdash;to you. Do you know, Cairn, the Sudanese formed the
+extraordinary opinion that I was an <i>efreet</i>, and this strange
+reputation has followed me right down the Nile. 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 direction of the <i>Khams&icirc;n</i>, and so
+many worthy Egyptians have made up their minds that I travel with the
+storm&mdash;or that the storm follows me&mdash;that something of the kind has
+really come to pass! Or is it merely coincidence, Cairn? Who can say?"</p>
+
+<p>Motionless, immobile, save for a slow smile, Antony Ferrara stood, and
+Cairn kept his eyes upon the evil face, and with trembling hands
+clutched the bars.</p>
+
+<p>"It is certainly odd, is it not," resumed the taunting voice, "that
+<i>Khams&icirc;n</i>, so violent, too, should thus descend upon the Cairene
+season? I only arrived from the Fay&ucirc;m this evening, Cairn, and, do you
+know, they have the pestilence there! I trust the hot wind does not
+carry it to Cairo; there are so many distinguished European and
+American visitors here. It would be a thousand pities!"</p>
+
+<p>Cairn released his grip of the bars, raised his clenched fists above
+his head, and in a voice and with a maniacal fury that were neither
+his own, cursed the man who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> stood there mocking him. Then he reeled,
+fell, and remembered no more.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"All right, old man&mdash;you'll do quite nicely now."</p>
+
+<p>It was Sime speaking.</p>
+
+<p>Cairn struggled upright ... and found himself in bed! Sime was seated
+beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't talk!" said Sime, "you're in hospital! I'll do the talking; you
+listen. I saw you bolt out of Shepheard's last night&mdash;shut up! I
+followed, but lost you. We got up a search party, and with the aid of
+the man who had driven you, ran you to earth in a dirty alley behind
+the mosque of El-Azhar. Four kindly mendicants, who reside upon the
+steps of the establishment, had been awakened by your blundering in
+among them. They were holding you&mdash;yes, you were raving pretty badly.
+You are a lucky man, Cairn. You were inoculated before you left home?"</p>
+
+<p>Cairn nodded weakly.</p>
+
+<p>"Saved you. Be all right in a couple of days. That damned <i>Khams&icirc;n</i>
+has brought a whiff of the plague from somewhere! Curiously enough,
+over fifty per cent. of the cases spotted so far are people who were
+at the carnival! Some of them, Cairn&mdash;but we won't discuss that now. I
+was afraid of it, last night. That's why I kept my eye on you. My boy,
+you were delirious when you bolted out of the hotel!"</p>
+
+<p>"Was I?" said Cairn wearily, and lay back on the pillow. "Perhaps I
+was."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>DR. CAIRN ARRIVES</h3>
+
+
+<p>Dr. Bruce Cairn stepped into the boat which was to take him ashore,
+and as it swung away from the side of the liner sought to divert his
+thoughts by a contemplation of the weird scene. Amid the smoky flare
+of many lights, amid rising clouds of dust, a line of laden toilers
+was crawling ant-like from the lighters into the bowels of the big
+ship; and a second line, unladen, was descending by another gangway.
+Above, the jewelled velvet of the sky swept in a glorious arc; beyond,
+the lights of Port Said broke through the black curtain of the night,
+and the moving ray from the lighthouse intermittently swept the
+harbour waters; whilst, amid the indescribable clamour, the grimily
+picturesque turmoil, so characteristic of the place, the liner took in
+coal for her run to Rangoon.</p>
+
+<p>Dodging this way and that, rounding the sterns of big ships, and
+disputing the water-way with lesser craft, the boat made for shore.</p>
+
+<p>The usual delay at the Custom House, the usual soothing of the excited
+officials in the usual way, and his <i>arab&icirc;yeh</i> was jolting Dr. Cairn
+through the noise and the smell of those rambling streets, a noise and
+a smell entirely peculiar to this clearing-house of the Near East.</p>
+
+<p>He accepted the room which was offered to him at the hotel, without
+troubling to inspect it, and having left instructions that he was to
+be called in time for the early train to Cairo, he swallowed a whisky
+and soda at the buffet, and wearily ascended the stairs. There were
+tourists in the hotel, English and American, marked by a gaping
+wonderment, and loud with plans of sightseeing; but Port Said, nay all
+Egypt, had nothing of novelty to offer Dr. Cairn. He was there at
+great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> inconvenience; a practitioner of his repute may not easily
+arrange to quit London at a moment's notice. But the business upon
+which he was come was imperative. For him the charm of the place had
+not existence, but somewhere in Egypt his son stood in deadly peril,
+and Dr. Cairn counted the hours that yet divided them. His soul was up
+in arms against the man whose evil schemes had led to his presence in
+Port Said, at a time when many sufferers required his ministrations in
+Half-Moon Street. He was haunted by a phantom, a ghoul in human shape;
+Antony Ferrara, the adopted son of his dear friend, the adopted son,
+who had murdered his adopter, who whilst guiltless in the eyes of the
+law, was blood-guilty in the eyes of God!</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn switched on the light and seated himself upon the side of
+the bed, knitting his brows and staring straight before him, with an
+expression in his clear grey eyes whose significance he would have
+denied hotly, had any man charged him with it. He was thinking of
+Antony Ferrara's record; the victims of this fiendish youth (for
+Antony Ferrara was barely of age) seemed to stand before him with
+hands stretched out appealingly.</p>
+
+<p>"You alone," they seemed to cry, "know who and what he is! You alone
+know of our awful wrongs; you alone can avenge them!"</p>
+
+<p>And yet he had hesitated! It had remained for his own flesh and blood
+to be threatened ere he had taken decisive action. The viper had lain
+within his reach, and he had neglected to set his heel upon it. Men
+and women had suffered and had died of its venom; and he had not
+crushed it. Then Robert, his son, had felt the poison fang, and Dr.
+Cairn, who had hesitated to act upon the behalf of all humanity, had
+leapt to arms. He charged himself with a parent's selfishness, and his
+conscience would hear no defence.</p>
+
+<p>Dimly, the turmoil from the harbour reached him where he sat. He
+listened dully to the hooting of a syren&mdash;that of some vessel coming
+out of the canal.</p>
+
+<p>His thoughts were evil company, and, with a deep sigh, he rose,
+crossed the room and threw open the double windows, giving access to
+the balcony.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Port Said, a panorama of twinkling lights, lay beneath him. The beam
+from the lighthouse swept the town searchingly like the eye of some
+pagan god lustful for sacrifice. He imagined that he could hear the
+shouting of the gangs coaling the liner in the harbour; but the night
+was full of the remote murmuring inseparable from that gateway of the
+East. The streets below, white under the moon, looked empty and
+deserted, and the hotel beneath him gave up no sound to tell of the
+many birds of passage who sheltered within it. A stunning sense of his
+loneliness came to him; his physical loneliness was symbolic of that
+which characterised his place in the world. He, alone, had the
+knowledge and the power to crush Antony Ferrara. He, alone, could rid
+the world of the unnatural menace embodied in the person bearing that
+name.</p>
+
+<p>The town lay beneath his eyes, but now he saw nothing of it; before
+his mental vision loomed&mdash;exclusively&mdash;the figure of a slim and
+strangely handsome young man, having jet black hair, lustreless, a
+face of uniform ivory hue, long dark eyes wherein lurked lambent
+fires, and a womanish grace expressed in his whole bearing and
+emphasised by his long white hands. Upon a finger of the left hand
+gleamed a strange green stone.</p>
+
+<p>Antony Ferrara! In the eyes of this solitary traveller, who stood
+looking down upon Port Said, that figure filled the entire landscape
+of Egypt!</p>
+
+<p>With a weary sigh, Dr. Cairn turned and began to undress. Leaving the
+windows open, he switched off the light and got into bed. He was very
+weary, with a weariness rather of the spirit than of the flesh, but it
+was of that sort which renders sleep all but impossible. Around and
+about one fixed point his thoughts circled; in vain he endeavoured to
+forget, for a while, Antony Ferrara and the things connected with him.
+Sleep was imperative, if he would be in fit condition to cope with the
+matters which demanded his attention in Cairo.</p>
+
+<p>Yet sleep defied him. Every trifling sound from the harbour and the
+canal seemed to rise upon the still air to his room. Through a sort of
+mist created by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> mosquito curtains, he could see the open windows,
+and look out upon the stars. He found himself studying the heavens
+with sleepless eyes, and idly working out the constellations visible.
+Then one very bright star attracted the whole of his attention, and,
+with the dogged persistency of insomnia, he sought to place it, but
+could not determine to which group it belonged.</p>
+
+<p>So he lay with his eyes upon the stars until the other veiled lamps of
+heaven became invisible, and the patch of sky no more than a setting
+for that one white orb.</p>
+
+<p>In this contemplation he grew restful; his thoughts ceased feverishly
+to race along that one hateful groove; the bright star seemed to
+soothe him. As a result of his fixed gazing, it now appeared to have
+increased in size. This was a common optical delusion, upon which he
+scarcely speculated at all. He recognised the welcome approach of
+sleep, and deliberately concentrated his mind upon the globe of light.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, a globe of light indeed&mdash;for now it had assumed the dimensions of
+a lesser moon; and it seemed to rest in the space between the open
+windows. Then, he thought that it crept still nearer. The
+realities&mdash;the bed, the mosquito curtain, the room&mdash;were fading, and
+grateful slumber approached, and weighed upon his eyes in the form of
+that dazzling globe. The feeling of contentment was the last
+impression which he had, ere, with the bright star seemingly suspended
+just beyond the netting, he slept.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE WITCH-QUEEN</h3>
+
+
+<p>A man mentally over-tired sleeps either dreamlessly, or dreams with a
+vividness greater than that characterising the dreams of normal
+slumber. Dr. Cairn dreamt a vivid dream.</p>
+
+<p>He dreamt that he was awakened by the sound of a gentle rapping.
+Opening his eyes, he peered through the cloudy netting. He started up,
+and wrenched back the curtain. The rapping was repeated; and peering
+again across the room, he very distinctly perceived a figure upon the
+balcony by the open window. It was that of a woman who wore the black
+silk dress and the white <i>yashmak</i> of the Moslem, and who was bending
+forward looking into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is there?" he called. "What do you want?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>S&mdash;sh</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>The woman raised her hand to her veiled lips, and looked right and
+left as if fearing to disturb the occupants of the adjacent rooms.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn reached out for his dressing-gown which lay upon the chair
+beside the bed, threw it over his shoulders, and stepped out upon the
+floor. He stooped and put on his slippers, never taking his eyes from
+the figure at the window. The room was flooded with moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>He began to walk towards the balcony, when the mysterious visitor
+spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"You are Dr. Cairn?"</p>
+
+<p>The words were spoken in the language of dreams; that is to say, that
+although he understood them perfectly, he knew that they had not been
+uttered in the English language, nor in any language known to him;
+yet, as is the way with one who dreams, he had understood.</p>
+
+<p>"I am he," he said. "Who are you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Make no noise, but follow me quickly. Someone is very ill."</p>
+
+<p>There was sincerity in the appeal, spoken in the softest, most silvern
+tone which he had ever heard. He stood beside the veiled woman, and
+met the glance of her dark eyes with a consciousness of some magnetic
+force in the glance, which seemed to set his nerves quivering.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you come to the window? How do you know&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The visitor raised her hand again to her lips. It was of a gleaming
+ivory colour, and the long tapered fingers were laden with singular
+jewellery&mdash;exquisite enamel work, which he knew to be Ancient
+Egyptian, but which did not seem out of place in this dream adventure.</p>
+
+<p>"I was afraid to make any unnecessary disturbance," she replied.
+"Please do not delay, but come at once."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn adjusted his dressing-gown, and followed the veiled
+messenger along the balcony. For a dream city, Port Said appeared
+remarkably substantial, as it spread out at his feet, its dingy
+buildings whitened by the moonlight. But his progress was dreamlike,
+for he seemed to glide past many windows, around the corner of the
+building, and, without having consciously exerted any physical effort,
+found his hands grasped by warm jewelled fingers, found himself guided
+into some darkened room, and then, possessed by that doubting which
+sometimes comes in dreams, found himself hesitating. The moonlight did
+not penetrate to the apartment in which he stood, and the darkness
+about him was impenetrable.</p>
+
+<p>But the clinging fingers did not release their hold, and vaguely aware
+that he was acting in a manner which might readily be misconstrued, he
+nevertheless allowed his unseen guide to lead him forward.</p>
+
+<p>Stairs were descended in phantom silence&mdash;many stairs. The coolness of
+the air suggested that they were outside the hotel. But the darkness
+remained complete. Along what seemed to be a stone-paved passage they
+advanced mysteriously, and by this time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> Dr. Cairn was wholly resigned
+to the strangeness of his dream.</p>
+
+<p>Then, although the place lay in blackest shadow, he saw that they were
+in the open air, for the starry sky swept above them.</p>
+
+<p>It was a narrow street&mdash;at points, the buildings almost met
+above&mdash;wherein, he now found himself. In reality, had he been in
+possession of his usual faculties, awake, he would have asked himself
+how this veiled woman had gained admittance to the hotel, and why she
+had secretly led him out from it. But the dreamer's mental lethargy
+possessed him, and, with the blind faith of a child, he followed on,
+until he now began vaguely to consider the personality of his guide.</p>
+
+<p>She seemed to be of no more than average height, but she carried
+herself with unusual grace, and her progress was marked by a certain
+hauteur. At the point where a narrow lane crossed that which they were
+traversing the veiled figure was silhouetted for a moment against the
+light of the moon, and through the gauze-like fabric, he perceived the
+outlines of a perfect shape. His vague wonderment, concerned itself
+now with the ivory, jewel-laden hands. His condition differed from the
+normal dream state, in that he was not entirely resigned to the
+anomalous.</p>
+
+<p>Misty doubts were forming, when his dream guide paused before a heavy
+door of a typical native house which once had been of some
+consequence, and which faced the entrance to a mosque, indeed lay in
+the shadow of the minaret. It was opened from within, although she
+gave no perceptible signal, and its darkness, to Dr. Cairn's dulled
+perceptions, seemed to swallow them both up. He had an impression of a
+trap raised, of stone steps descended, of a new darkness almost
+palpable.</p>
+
+<p>The gloom of the place effected him as a mental blank, and, when a
+bright light shone out, it seemed to mark the opening of a second
+dream phase. From where the light came, he knew not, cared not, but it
+illuminated a perfectly bare room, with a floor of native mud bricks,
+a plastered wall, and wood-beamed ceiling. A tall sarcophagus stood
+upright against the wall before him;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> its lid leant close beside it
+... and his black robed guide, her luminous eyes looking straightly
+over the yashmak, stood rigidly upright-within it!</p>
+
+<p>She raised the jewelled hands, and with a swift movement discarded
+robe and <i>yashmak</i>, and stood before him, in the clinging draperies of
+an ancient queen, wearing the leopard skin and the <i>uraeus</i>, and
+carrying the flail of royal Egypt!</p>
+
+<p>Her pale face formed a perfect oval; the long almond eyes had an evil
+beauty which seemed to chill; and the brilliantly red mouth was curved
+in a smile which must have made any man forget the evil in the eyes.
+But when we move in a dream world, our emotions become dreamlike too.
+She placed a sandalled foot upon the mud floor and stepped out of the
+sarcophagus, advancing towards Dr. Cairn, a vision of such sinful
+loveliness as he could never have conceived in his waking moments. In
+that strange dream language, in a tongue not of East nor West, she
+spoke; and her silvern voice had something of the tone of those
+Egyptian pipes whose dree fills the nights upon the Upper Nile&mdash;the
+seductive music of remote and splendid wickedness.</p>
+
+<p>"You know me, <i>now</i>?" she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>And in his dream she seemed to be a familiar figure, at once dreadful
+and worshipful.</p>
+
+<p>A fitful light played through the darkness, and seemed to dance upon a
+curtain draped behind the sarcophagus, picking out diamond points. The
+dreamer groped in the mental chaos of his mind, and found a clue to
+the meaning of this. The diamond points were the eyes of thousands of
+tarantula spiders with which the curtain was broidered.</p>
+
+<p>The sign of the spider! What did he know of it? Yes! of course; it was
+the secret mark of Egypt's witch-queen&mdash;of the beautiful woman whose
+name, after her mysterious death, had been erased from all her
+monuments. A sweet whisper stole to his ears:</p>
+
+<p>"You will befriend him, befriend my son&mdash;for <i>my</i> sake."</p>
+
+<p>And in his dream-state he found himself prepared to foreswear all that
+he held holy&mdash;for her sake. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> grasped both his hands, and her
+burning eyes looked closely into his.</p>
+
+<p>"Your reward shall be a great one," she whispered, even more softly.</p>
+
+<p>Came a sudden blank, and Dr. Cairn found himself walking again through
+the narrow street, led by the veiled woman. His impressions were
+growing dim; and now she seemed less real than hitherto. The streets
+were phantom streets, built of shadow stuff, and the stairs which
+presently he found himself ascending, were unsubstantial, and he
+seemed rather to float upward; until, with the jewelled fingers held
+fast in his own, he stood in a darkened apartment, and saw before him
+an open window, knew that he was once more back in the hotel. A dim
+light dawned in the blackness of the room and the musical voice
+breathed in his ear:</p>
+
+<p>"Your reward shall be easily earned. I did but test you. Strike&mdash;and
+strike truly!"</p>
+
+<p>The whisper grew sibilant&mdash;serpentine. Dr. Cairn felt the hilt of a
+dagger thrust into his right hand, and in the dimly-mysterious light
+looked down at one who lay in a bed close beside him.</p>
+
+<p>At sight of the face of the sleeper&mdash;the perfectly-chiselled face,
+with the long black lashes resting on the ivory cheeks&mdash;he forgot all
+else, forgot the place wherein he stood, forgot his beautiful guide,
+and only remembered that he held a dagger in his hand, and that Antony
+Ferrara lay there, sleeping!</p>
+
+<p>"Strike!" came the whisper again.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn felt a mad exultation boiling up within him. He raised his
+hand, glanced once more on the face of the sleeper, and nerved himself
+to plunge the dagger into the heart of this evil thing.</p>
+
+<p>A second more, and the dagger would have been buried to the hilt in
+the sleeper's breast&mdash;when there ensued a deafening, an appalling
+explosion. A wild red light illuminated the room, the building seemed
+to rock. Close upon that frightful sound followed a cry so piercing
+that it seemed to ice the blood in Dr. Cairn's veins.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop, sir, stop! My God! what are you doing!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A swift blow struck the dagger from his hand and the figure on the bed
+sprang upright. Swaying dizzily, Dr. Cairn stood there in the
+darkness, and as the voice of awakened sleepers reached his ears from
+adjoining rooms, the electric light was switched on, and across the
+bed, the bed upon which he had thought Antony Ferrara lay, he saw his
+son, Robert Cairn!</p>
+
+<p>No one else was in the room. But on the carpet at his feet lay an
+ancient dagger, the hilt covered with beautiful and intricate gold and
+enamel work.</p>
+
+<p>Rigid with a mutual horror, these two so strangely met stood staring
+at one another across the room. Everyone in the hotel, it would
+appear, had been awakened by the explosion, which, as if by the
+intervention of God, had stayed the hand of Dr. Cairn&mdash;had spared him
+from a deed impossible to contemplate.</p>
+
+<p>There were sounds of running footsteps everywhere; but the origin of
+the disturbance at that moment had no interest for these two. Robert
+was the first to break the silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Merciful God, sir!" he whispered huskily, "how did you come to be
+here? What is the matter? Are you ill?"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn extended his hands like one groping in darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"Rob, give me a moment, to think, to collect myself. Why am I here? By
+all that is wonderful, why are <i>you</i> here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am here to meet you."</p>
+
+<p>"To meet me! I had no idea that you were well enough for the journey,
+and if you came to meet me, why&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's it, sir! Why did you send me that wireless?"</p>
+
+<p>"I sent no wireless, boy!"</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn, with a little colour returning to his pale cheeks,
+advanced and grasped his father's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"But after I arrived here to meet the boat, sir I received a wireless
+from the P. and O. due in the morning, to say that you had changed
+your mind, and come <i>via</i> Brindisi."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn glanced at the dagger upon the carpet,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> repressed a shudder,
+and replied in a voice which he struggled to make firm:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> did not send that wireless!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you actually came by the boat which arrived last night?&mdash;and to
+think that I was asleep in the same hotel! What an amazing&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Amazing indeed, Rob, and the result of a cunning and well planned
+scheme." He raised his eyes, looking fixedly at his son. "You
+understand the scheme; the scheme that could only have germinated in
+one mind&mdash;a scheme to cause me, your father, to&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>His voice failed and again his glance sought the weapon which lay so
+close to his feet. Partly in order to hide his emotion, he stooped,
+picked up the dagger, and threw it on the bed.</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, sir," groaned Robert, "what were you doing here in my
+room with&mdash;that!"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn stood straightly upright and replied in an even voice:</p>
+
+<p>"I was here to do murder!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Murder</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"I was under a spell&mdash;no need to name its weaver; I thought that a
+poisonous thing at last lay at my mercy, and by cunning means the
+primitive evil within me was called up, and braving the laws of God
+and man, I was about to slay that thing. Thank God!&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He dropped upon his knees, silently bowed his head for a moment, and
+then stood up, self-possessed again, as his son had always known him.
+It had been a strange and awful awakening for Robert Cairn&mdash;to find
+his room illuminated by a lurid light, and to find his own father
+standing over him with a knife! But what had moved him even more
+deeply than the fear of these things, had been the sight of the
+emotion which had shaken that stern and unemotional man. Now, as he
+gathered together his scattered wits, he began to perceive that a
+malignant hand was moving above them, that his father, and himself,
+were pawns, which had been moved mysteriously to a dreadful end.</p>
+
+<p>A great disturbance had now arisen in the streets below, streams of
+people it seemed, were pouring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> towards the harbour; but Dr. Cairn
+pointed to an armchair.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down, Rob," he said. "I will tell my story, and you shall tell
+yours. By comparing notes, we can arrive at some conclusion. Then we
+must act. This is a fight to a finish, and I begin to doubt if we are
+strong enough to win."</p>
+
+<p>He took up the dagger and ran a critical glance over it, from the keen
+point to the enamelled hilt.</p>
+
+<p>"This is unique," he muttered, whilst his son, spellbound, watched
+him; "the blade is as keen as if tempered but yesterday; yet it was
+made full five thousand years ago, as the workmanship of the hilt
+testifies. Rob, we deal with powers more than human! We have to cope
+with a force which might have awed the greatest Masters which the
+world has known. It would have called for all the knowledge, and all
+the power of Apollonius of Tyana to have dealt with&mdash;<i>him</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Antony Ferrara!"</p>
+
+<p>"Undoubtedly, Rob! it was by the agency of Antony Ferrara that the
+wireless message was sent to you from the P. and O. It was by the
+agency of Antony Ferrara that I dreamt a dream to-night. In fact it
+was no true dream; I was under the influence of&mdash;what shall I term
+it?&mdash;hypnotic suggestion. To what extent that malign will was
+responsible for you and I being placed in rooms communicating by means
+of a balcony, we probably shall never know; but if this proximity was
+merely accidental, the enemy did not fail to take advantage of the
+coincidence. I lay watching the stars before I slept, and one of them
+seemed to grow larger as I watched." He began to pace about the room
+in growing excitement. "Rob, I cannot doubt that a mirror, or a
+crystal, was actually suspended before my eyes by&mdash;someone, who had
+been watching for the opportunity. I yielded myself to the soothing
+influence, and thus deliberately&mdash;deliberately&mdash;placed myself in the
+power of&mdash;Antony Ferrara&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You think that he is here, in this hotel?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot doubt that he is in the neighbourhood. The influence was too
+strong to have emanated from a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> mind at a great distance removed. I
+will tell you exactly what I dreamt."</p>
+
+<p>He dropped into a cane armchair. Comparative quiet reigned again in
+the streets below, but a distant clamour told of some untoward
+happening at the harbour.</p>
+
+<p>Dawn would break ere long, and there was a curious rawness in the
+atmosphere. Robert Cairn seated himself upon the side of the bed, and
+watched his father, whilst the latter related those happenings with
+which we are already acquainted.</p>
+
+<p>"You think, sir," said Robert, at the conclusion of the strange story,
+"that no part of your experience was real?"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn held up the antique dagger, glancing at the speaker
+significantly.</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary," he replied, "I <i>do</i> know that part of it was
+dreadfully real. My difficulty is to separate the real from the
+phantasmal."</p>
+
+<p>Silence fell for a moment. Then:</p>
+
+<p>"It is almost certain," said the younger man, frowning thoughtfully,
+"that you did not actually leave the hotel, but merely passed from
+your room to mine by way of the balcony."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn stood up, walked to the open window, and looked out, then
+turned and faced his son again.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I can put that matter to the test," he declared. "In my
+dream, as I turned into the lane where the house was&mdash;the house of the
+mummy&mdash;there was a patch covered with deep mud, where at some time
+during the evening a quantity of water had been spilt. I stepped upon
+that patch, or dreamt that I did. We can settle the point."</p>
+
+<p>He sat down on the bed beside his son, and, stooping, pulled off one
+of his slippers. The night had been full enough of dreadful surprises;
+but here was yet another, which came to them as Dr. Cairn, with the
+inverted slipper in his hand, sat looking into his son's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The sole of the slipper was caked with reddish brown mud.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>LAIR OF THE SPIDERS</h3>
+
+
+<p>"We must find that house, find the sarcophagus&mdash;for I no longer doubt
+that it exists&mdash;drag it out, and destroy it."</p>
+
+<p>"Should you know it again, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Beyond any possibility of doubt. It is the sarcophagus of a queen."</p>
+
+<p>"What queen?"</p>
+
+<p>"A queen whose tomb the late Sir Michael Ferrara and I sought for many
+months, but failed to find."</p>
+
+<p>"Is this queen well known in Egyptian history?"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn stared at him with an odd expression in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Some histories ignore her existence entirely," he said; and, with an
+evident desire to change the subject, added, "I shall return to my
+room to dress now. Do you dress also. We cannot afford to sleep whilst
+the situation of that house remains unknown to us."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn nodded, and his father stood up, and went out of the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>Dawn saw the two of them peering from the balcony upon the streets of
+Port Said, already dotted with moving figures, for the Egyptian is an
+early riser.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any clue," asked the younger man, "to the direction in which
+this place lies?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely none, for the reason that I do not know where my dreaming
+left off, and reality commenced. Did someone really come to my window,
+and lead me out through another room, downstairs, and into the street,
+or did I wander out of my own accord and merely imagine the existence
+of the guide? In either event, I must have been guided in some way to
+a back entrance; for had I attempted to leave by the front door of the
+hotel in that trance-like condition, I should certainly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> have been
+detained by the <i>bowwab</i>. Suppose we commence, then, by inquiring if
+there is such another entrance?"</p>
+
+<p>The hotel staff was already afoot, and their inquiries led to the
+discovery of an entrance communicating with the native servants'
+quarters. This could not be reached from the main hall, but there was
+a narrow staircase to the left of the lift-shaft by which it might be
+gained. The two stood looking out across the stone-paved courtyard
+upon which the door opened.</p>
+
+<p>"Beyond doubt," said Dr. Cairn, "I might have come down that staircase
+and out by this door without arousing a soul, either by passing
+through my own room, or through any other on that floor."</p>
+
+<p>They crossed the yard, where members of the kitchen staff were busily
+polishing various cooking utensils, and opened the gate. Dr. Cairn
+turned to one of the men near by.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this gate bolted at night?" he asked, in Arabic.</p>
+
+<p>The man shook his head, and seemed to be much amused by the question,
+revealing his white teeth as he assured him that it was not.</p>
+
+<p>A narrow lane ran along behind the hotel, communicating with a maze of
+streets almost exclusively peopled by natives.</p>
+
+<p>"Rob," said Dr. Cairn slowly, "it begins to dawn upon me that this is
+the way I came."</p>
+
+<p>He stood looking to right and left, and seemed to be undecided. Then:</p>
+
+<p>"We will try right," he determined.</p>
+
+<p>They set off along the narrow way. Once clear of the hotel wall, high
+buildings rose upon either side, so that at no time during the day
+could the sun have penetrated to the winding lane. Suddenly Robert
+Cairn stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"Look!" he said, and pointed. "The mosque! You spoke of a mosque near
+to the house?"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn nodded; his eyes were gleaming, now that he felt himself to
+be upon the track of this great evil which had shattered his peace.</p>
+
+<p>They advanced until they stood before the door of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> the mosque&mdash;and
+there in the shadow of a low archway was just such an ancient,
+iron-studded door as Dr. Cairn remembered! Latticed windows overhung
+the street above, but no living creature was in sight.</p>
+
+<p>He very gently pressed upon the door, but as he had anticipated it was
+fastened from within. In the vague light, his face seemed strangely
+haggard as he turned to his son, raising his eyebrows interrogatively.</p>
+
+<p>"It is just possible that I may be mistaken," he said; "so that I
+scarcely know what to do."</p>
+
+<p>He stood looking about him in some perplexity.</p>
+
+<p>Adjoining the mosque, was a ruinous house, which clearly had had no
+occupants for many years. As Robert Cairn's gaze lighted upon its
+gaping window-frames and doorless porch, he seized his father by the
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>"We might hide up there," he suggested, "and watch for anyone entering
+or leaving the place opposite."</p>
+
+<p>"I have little doubt that this was the scene of my experience,"
+replied Dr. Cairn; "therefore I think we will adopt your plan. Perhaps
+there is some means of egress at the back. It will be useful if we
+have to remain on the watch for any considerable time."</p>
+
+<p>They entered the ruined building and, by means of a rickety staircase,
+gained the floor above. It moved beneath them unsafely, but from the
+divan which occupied one end of the apartment an uninterrupted view of
+the door below was obtainable.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay here," said Dr. Cairn, "and watch, whilst I reconnoitre."</p>
+
+<p>He descended the stairs again, to return in a minute or so and
+announce that another street could be reached through the back of the
+house. There and then they settled the plan of campaign. One at a time
+they would go to the hotel for their meals, so that the door would
+never be unwatched throughout the day. Dr. Cairn determined to make no
+inquiries respecting the house, as this might put the enemy upon his
+guard.</p>
+
+<p>"We are in his own country, Rob," he said. "Here, we can trust no
+one."</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon they commenced their singular and self-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>imposed task. In
+turn they went back to the hotel for breakfast, and watched
+fruitlessly throughout the morning. They lunched in the same way, and
+throughout the great midday heat sat hidden in the ruined building,
+mounting guard over that iron-studded door. It was a dreary and
+monotonous day, long to be remembered by both of them, and when the
+hour of sunset drew nigh, and their vigil remained unrewarded, they
+began to doubt the wisdom of their tactics. The street was but little
+frequented; there was not the slightest chance of their presence being
+discovered.</p>
+
+<p>It was very quiet, too, so that no one could have approached unheard.
+At the hotel they had learnt the cause of the explosion during the
+night; an accident in the engine-room of a tramp steamer, which had
+done considerable damage, but caused no bodily injury.</p>
+
+<p>"We may hope to win yet," said Dr. Cairn, in speaking of the incident.
+"It was the hand of God."</p>
+
+<p>Silence had prevailed between them for a long time, and he was about
+to propose that his son should go back to dinner, when the rare sound
+of a footstep below checked the words upon his lips. Both craned their
+necks to obtain a view of the pedestrian.</p>
+
+<p>An old man stooping beneath the burden of years and resting much of
+his weight upon a staff, came tottering into sight. The watchers
+crouched back, breathless with excitement, as the newcomer paused
+before the iron-studded door, and from beneath his cloak took out a
+big key.</p>
+
+<p>Inserting it into the lock, he swung open the door; it creaked upon
+ancient hinges as it opened inward, revealing a glimpse of a stone
+floor. As the old man entered, Dr. Cairn grasped his son by the wrist.</p>
+
+<p>"Down!" he whispered. "Now is our chance!"</p>
+
+<p>They ran down the rickety stairs, crossed the narrow street, and
+Robert Cairn cautiously looked in around the door which had been left
+ajar.</p>
+
+<p>Black against the dim light of another door at the further end of the
+large and barn-like apartment, showed the stooping figure. Tap, tap,
+tap! went the stick; and the old man had disappeared around a corner.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Where can we hide?" whispered Dr. Cairn. "He is evidently making a
+tour of inspection."</p>
+
+<p>The sound of footsteps mounting to the upper apartments came to their
+ears. They looked about them right and left, and presently the younger
+man detected a large wooden cupboard set in one wall. Opening it, he
+saw that it contained but one shelf only, near the top.</p>
+
+<p>"When he returns," he said, "we can hide in here until he has gone
+out."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn nodded; he was peering about the room intently.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the place I came to, Rob!" he said softly; "but there was a
+stone stair leading down to some room underneath. We must find it."</p>
+
+<p>The old man could be heard passing from room to room above; then his
+uneven footsteps sounded on the stair again, and glancing at one
+another the two stepped into the cupboard, and pulled the door gently
+inward. A few moments later, the old caretaker&mdash;since such appeared to
+be his office&mdash;passed out, slamming the door behind him. At that, they
+emerged from their hiding-place and began to examine the apartment
+carefully. It was growing very dark now; indeed with the door shut, it
+was difficult to detect the outlines of the room. Suddenly a loud cry
+broke the perfect stillness, seeming to come from somewhere above.
+Robert Cairn started violently, grasping his father's arm, but the
+older man smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"You forget that there is a mosque almost opposite," he said. "That is
+the <i>mueddin</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>His son laughed shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"My nerves are not yet all that they might be," he explained, and
+bending low began to examine the pavement.</p>
+
+<p>"There must be a trap-door in the floor?" he continued. "Don't you
+think so?"</p>
+
+<p>His father nodded silently, and upon hands and knees also began to
+inspect the cracks and crannies between the various stones. In the
+right-hand corner furthest from the entrance, their quest was
+rewarded. A stone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> some three feet square moved slightly when pressure
+was applied to it, and gave up a sound of hollowness beneath the
+tread. Dust and litter covered the entire floor, but having cleared
+the top of this particular stone, a ring was discovered, lying flat in
+a circular groove cut to receive it. The blade of a penknife served to
+raise it from its resting place, and Dr. Cairn, standing astride
+across the trap, tugged at the ring, and, without great difficulty,
+raised the stone block from its place.</p>
+
+<p>A square hole was revealed. There were irregular stone steps leading
+down into the blackness. A piece of candle, stuck in a crude wooden
+holder, lay upon the topmost. Dr. Cairn, taking a box of matches from
+his pocket, very quickly lighted the candle, and with it held in his
+left hand began to descend. His head was not yet below the level of
+the upper apartment when he paused.</p>
+
+<p>"You have your revolver?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>Robert nodded grimly, and took his revolver from his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>A singular and most disagreeable smell was arising from the trap which
+they had opened; but ignoring this they descended, and presently stood
+side by side in a low cellar. Here the odour was almost insupportable;
+it had in it something menacing, something definitely repellent; and
+at the foot of the steps they stood hesitating.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn slowly moved the candle, throwing the light along the floor,
+where it picked out strips of wood and broken cases, straw packing and
+kindred litter&mdash;until it impinged upon a brightly painted slab.
+Further, he moved it, and higher, and the end of a sarcophagus came
+into view. He drew a quick, hissing breath, and bending forward,
+directed the light into the interior of the ancient coffin. Then, he
+had need of all his iron nerve to choke down the cry that rose to his
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>"By God! <i>Look</i>!" whispered his son.</p>
+
+<p>Swathed in white wrappings, Antony Ferrara lay motionless before them.</p>
+
+<p>The seconds passed one by one, until a whole minute<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> was told, and
+still the two remained inert and the cold light shone fully upon that
+ivory face.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he dead?"</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn spoke huskily, grasping his father's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"I think not," was the equally hoarse reply. "He is in the state of
+trance mentioned in&mdash;certain ancient writings; he is absorbing evil
+force from the sarcophagus of the Witch-Queen...."<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> <i>Note</i>.&mdash;"It seems exceedingly probable that ... the
+mummy-case (sarcophagus), with its painted presentment of the living
+person, was the material basis for the preservation of the ... <i>Khu</i>
+(magical powers) of a fully-equipped Adept."
+</p><p>
+<i>Collectanea Hermetica</i>. Vol. VIII.</p></div>
+
+<p>There was a faint rustling sound in the cellar, which seemed to grow
+louder and more insistent, but Dr. Cairn, apparently, did not notice
+it, for he turned to his son, and albeit the latter could see him but
+vaguely, he knew that his face was grimly set.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems like butchery," he said evenly, "but, in the interests of
+the world, we must not hesitate. A shot might attract attention. Give
+me your knife."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment, the other scarcely comprehended the full purport of the
+words. Mechanically he took out his knife, and opened the big blade.</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens, sir," he gasped breathlessly, "it is <i>too</i> awful!"</p>
+
+<p>"Awful I grant you," replied Dr. Cairn, "but a duty&mdash;a duty, boy, and
+one that we must not shirk. I, alone among living men, know whom, and
+<i>what</i>, lies there, and my conscience directs me in what I do. His end
+shall be that which he had planned for you. Give me the knife."</p>
+
+<p>He took the knife from his son's hand. With the light directed upon
+the still, ivory face, he stepped towards the sarcophagus. As he did
+so, something dropped from the roof, narrowly missed falling upon his
+outstretched hand, and with a soft, dull thud dropped upon the mud
+brick floor. Impelled by some intuition, he suddenly directed the
+light to the roof above.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then with a shrill cry which he was wholly unable to repress, Robert
+Cairn seized his father's arm and began to pull him back towards the
+stair.</p>
+
+<p>"Quick, sir!" he screamed shrilly, almost hysterically. "My God! my
+God! <i>be quick</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>The appearance of the roof above had puzzled him for an instant as the
+light touched it, then in the next had filled his very soul with
+loathing and horror. For directly above them was moving a black patch,
+a foot or so in extent ... and it was composed of a dense moving mass
+of tarantula spiders! A line of the disgusting creatures was mounting
+the wall and crossing the ceiling, ever swelling the unclean group!</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn did not hesitate to leap for the stair, and as he did so the
+spiders began to drop. Indeed, they seemed to leap towards the
+intruders, until the floor all about them and the bottom steps of the
+stair presented a mass of black, moving insects.</p>
+
+<p>A perfect panic fear seized upon them. At every step spiders
+<i>crunched</i> beneath their feet. They seem to come from nowhere, to be
+conjured up out of the darkness, until the whole cellar, the stairs,
+the very fetid air about them, became black and nauseous with spiders.</p>
+
+<p>Half-way to the top Dr. Cairn turned, snatched out a revolver and
+began firing down into the cellar in the direction of the sarcophagus.</p>
+
+<p>A hairy, clutching thing ran up his arm, and his son, uttering a groan
+of horror, struck at it and stained the tweed with its poisonous
+blood.</p>
+
+<p>They staggered to the head of the steps, and there Dr. Cairn turned
+and hurled the candle at a monstrous spider that suddenly sprang into
+view. The candle, still attached to its wooden socket, went bounding
+down steps that now were literally carpeted with insects.</p>
+
+<p>Tarantulas began to run out from the trap, as if pursuing the
+intruders, and a faint light showed from below. Then came a crackling
+sound, and a wisp of smoke floated up.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn threw open the outer door, and the two panic-stricken men
+leapt out into the street and away from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> the spider army. White to the
+lips they stood leaning against the wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Was it really&mdash;Ferrara?" whispered Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so!" was the answer.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn pointed to the closed door. A fan of smoke was creeping from
+beneath it.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The fire which ensued destroyed, not only the house in which it had
+broken out, but the two adjoining; and the neighbouring mosque was
+saved only with the utmost difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>When, in the dawn of the new day, Dr. Cairn looked down into the
+smoking pit which once had been the home of the spiders, he shook his
+head and turned to his son.</p>
+
+<p>"If our eyes did not deceive us, Rob," he said, "a just retribution at
+last has claimed him!"</p>
+
+<p>Pressing a way through the surrounding crowd of natives, they returned
+to the hotel. The hall porter stopped them as they entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, sir," he said, "but which is Mr. Robert Cairn?"</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn stepped forward.</p>
+
+<p>"A young gentleman left this for you, sir, half an hour ago," said the
+man&mdash;"a very pale gentleman, with black eyes. He said you'd dropped
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn unwrapped the little parcel. It contained a penknife, the
+ivory handle charred as if it had been in a furnace. It was his
+own&mdash;which he had handed to his father in that awful cellar at the
+moment when the first spider had dropped; and a card was enclosed,
+bearing the pencilled words, "With Antony Ferrara's Compliments."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE STORY OF ALI MOHAMMED</h3>
+
+
+<p>Saluting each of the three in turn, the tall Egyptian passed from Dr.
+Cairn's room. Upon his exit followed a brief but electric silence. Dr.
+Cairn's face was very stern and Sime, with his hands locked behind
+him, stood staring out of the window into the palmy garden of the
+hotel. Robert Cairn looked from one to the other excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"What did he say, sir?" he cried, addressing his father. "It had
+something to do with&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn turned. Sime did not move.</p>
+
+<p>"It had something to do with the matter which has brought me to
+Cairo," replied the former&mdash;"yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You see," said Robert, "my knowledge of Arabic is <i>nil</i>&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Sime turned in his heavy fashion, and directed a dull gaze upon the
+last speaker.</p>
+
+<p>"Ali Mohammed," he explained slowly, "who has just left, had come down
+from the Fay&ucirc;m to report a singular matter. He was unaware of its real
+importance, but it was sufficiently unusual to disturb him, and Ali
+Mohammed es-Suefi is not easily disturbed."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn dropped into an armchair, nodding towards Sime.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him all that we have heard," he said. "We stand together in this
+affair."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," continued Sime, in his deliberate fashion, "when we struck our
+camp beside the Pyramid of M&eacute;yd&ucirc;m, Ali Mohammed remained behind with a
+gang of workmen to finish off some comparatively unimportant work. He
+is an unemotional person. Fear is alien to his composition; it has no
+meaning for him. But last night something occurred at the camp&mdash;or
+what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> remained of the camp&mdash;which seems to have shaken even Ali
+Mohammed's iron nerve."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn nodded, watching the speaker intently.</p>
+
+<p>"The entrance to the M&eacute;yd&ucirc;m Pyramid&mdash;," continued Sime.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>One</i> of the entrances," interrupted Dr. Cairn, smiling slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"There is only one entrance," said Sime dogmatically.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn waved his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead," he said. "We can discuss these arch&aelig;ological details
+later."</p>
+
+<p>Sime stared dully, but, without further comment, resumed:</p>
+
+<p>"The camp was situated on the slope immediately below the only <i>known</i>
+entrance to the M&eacute;yd&ucirc;m Pyramid; one might say that it lay in the
+shadow of the building. There are tumuli in the neighbourhood&mdash;part of
+a prehistoric cemetery&mdash;and it was work in connection with this which
+had detained Ali Mohammed in that part of the Fay&ucirc;m. Last night about
+ten o'clock he was awakened by an unusual sound, or series of sounds,
+he reports. He came out of the tent into the moonlight, and looked up
+at the pyramid. The entrance was a good way above his head, of course,
+and quite fifty or sixty yards from the point where he was standing,
+but the moonbeams bathed that side of the building in dazzling light
+so that he was enabled to see a perfect crowd of bats whirling out of
+the pyramid."</p>
+
+<p>"Bats!" ejaculated Robert Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. There is a small colony of bats in this pyramid, of course; but
+the bat does not hunt in bands, and the sight of these bats flying out
+from the place was one which Ali Mohammed had never witnessed before.
+Their concerted squeaking was very clearly audible. He could not
+believe that it was this which had awakened him, and which had
+awakened the ten or twelve workmen who also slept in the camp, for
+these were now clustering around him, and all looking up at the side
+of the pyramid.</p>
+
+<p>"Fay&ucirc;m nights are strangely still. Except for the jackals and the
+village dogs, and some other sounds<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> to which one grows accustomed,
+there is nothing&mdash;absolutely nothing&mdash;audible.</p>
+
+<p>"In this stillness, then, the flapping of the bat regiment made quite
+a disturbance overhead. Some of the men were only half awake, but
+most, of them were badly frightened. And now they began to compare
+notes, with the result that they determined upon the exact nature of
+the sound which had aroused them. It seemed almost certain that this
+had been a dreadful scream&mdash;the scream of a woman in the last agony."</p>
+
+<p>He paused, looking from Dr. Cairn to his son, with a singular
+expression upon his habitually immobile face.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," said Robert Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly Sime resumed:</p>
+
+<p>"The bats had begun to disperse in various directions, but the panic
+which had seized upon the camp does not seem to have dispersed so
+readily. Ali Mohammed confesses that he himself felt almost afraid&mdash;a
+remarkable admission for a man of his class to make. Picture these
+fellows, then, standing looking at one another, and very frequently up
+at the opening in the side of the pyramid. Then the smell began to
+reach their nostrils&mdash;the smell which completed the panic, and which
+led to the abandonment of the camp&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The smell&mdash;what kind of smell?" jerked Robert Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn turned himself in his chair, looking fully at his son.</p>
+
+<p>"The smell of Hades, boy!" he said grimly, and turned away again.</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally," continued Sime, "I can give you no particulars on the
+point, but it must have been something very fearful to have affected
+the Egyptian native! There was no breeze, but it swept down upon them,
+this poisonous smell, as though borne by a hot wind."</p>
+
+<p>"Was it actually hot?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot say. But Ali Mohammed is positive that it came from the
+opening in the pyramid. It was not apparently in disgust, but in
+sheer, stark horror, that the whole crowd of them turned tail and ran.
+They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> never stopped and never looked back until they came to Rekka on
+the railway."</p>
+
+<p>A short silence followed. Then:</p>
+
+<p>"That was last night?" questioned Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>His father nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"The man came in by the first train from Wasta," he said, "and we have
+not a moment to spare!"</p>
+
+<p>Sime stared at him.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I have a mission," said Dr. Cairn quietly. "It is to run to earth, to
+stamp out, as I would stamp out a pestilence, a certain <i>thing</i>&mdash;I
+cannot call it a man&mdash;Antony Ferrara. I believe, Sime, that you are at
+one with me in this matter?"</p>
+
+<p>Sime drummed his fingers upon the table, frowning thoughtfully, and
+looking from one to the other of his companions under his lowered
+brows.</p>
+
+<p>"With my own eyes," he said, "I have seen something of this secret
+drama which has brought you, Dr. Cairn, to Egypt; and, up to a point,
+I agree with you regarding Antony Ferrara. You have lost all trace of
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Since leaving Port Said," said Dr. Cairn, "I have seen and heard
+nothing of him; but Lady Lashmore, who was an intimate&mdash;and an
+innocent victim, God help her&mdash;of Ferrara in London, after staying at
+the Semiramis in Cairo for one day, departed. Where did she go?"</p>
+
+<p>"What has Lady Lashmore to do with the matter?" asked Sime.</p>
+
+<p>"If what I fear be true&mdash;" replied Dr. Cairn. "But I anticipate. At
+the moment it is enough for me that, unless my information be at
+fault, Lady Lashmore yesterday left Cairo by the Luxor train at 8.30."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn looked in a puzzled way at his father.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you suspect, sir?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I suspect that she went no further than Wasta," replied Dr. Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>"Still I do not understand," declared Sime.</p>
+
+<p>"You may understand later," was the answer. "We must not waste a
+moment. You Egyptologists<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> think that Egypt has little or nothing to
+teach you; the Pyramid of M&eacute;yd&ucirc;m lost interest directly you learnt
+that apparently it contained no treasure. How, little you know what it
+<i>really</i> contained, Sime! Mariette did not suspect; Sir Gaston Maspero
+does not suspect! The late Sir Michael Ferrara and I once camped by
+the Pyramid of M&eacute;yd&ucirc;m, as you have camped there, and we made a
+discovery&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" said Sime, with growing interest.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a point upon which my lips are sealed, but&mdash;do you believe in
+black magic?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not altogether sure that I do&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well; you are entitled to your opinion. But although you appear
+to be ignorant of the fact, the Pyramid of M&eacute;yd&ucirc;m was formerly one of
+the strong-holds&mdash;the second greatest in all the land of the Nile&mdash;of
+Ancient Egyptian sorcery! I pray heaven I may be wrong, but in the
+disappearance of Lady Lashmore, and in the story of Ali Mohammed, I
+see a dreadful possibility. Ring for a time-table. We have not a
+moment to waste!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BATS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Rekka was a mile behind.</p>
+
+<p>"It will take us fully an hour yet," said Dr. Cairn, "to reach the
+pyramid, although it appears so near."</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, in the violet dusk, the great mastabah Pyramid of M&eacute;yd&ucirc;m
+seemed already to loom above them, although it was quite four miles
+away. The narrow path along which they trotted their donkeys ran
+through the fertile lowlands of the Fay&ucirc;m. They had just passed a
+village, amid an angry chorus from the pariah dogs, and were now
+following the track along the top of the embankment. Where the green
+carpet merged ahead into the grey ocean of sand the desert began, and
+out in that desert, resembling some weird work of Nature rather than
+anything wrought by the hand of man, stood the gloomy and lonely
+building ascribed by the Egyptologists to the Pharaoh Sneferu.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn and his son rode ahead, and Sime, with Ali Mohammed, brought
+up the rear of the little company.</p>
+
+<p>"I am completely in the dark, sir," said Robert Cairn, "respecting the
+object of our present journey. What leads you to suppose that we shall
+find Antony Ferrara here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I scarcely hope to <i>find</i> him here," was the enigmatical reply, "but
+I am almost certain that he <i>is</i> here. I might have expected it, and I
+blame myself for not having provided against&mdash;this."</p>
+
+<p>"Against what?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is impossible, Rob, for you to understand this matter. Indeed, if
+I were to publish what I know&mdash;not what I imagine, but what I
+know&mdash;about the Pyramid of M&eacute;yd&ucirc;m I should not only call down upon
+myself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> the ridicule of every Egyptologist in Europe; I should be
+accounted mad by the whole world."</p>
+
+<p>His son was silent for a time; then:</p>
+
+<p>"According to the guide books," he said, "it is merely an empty tomb."</p>
+
+<p>"It is empty, certainly," replied Dr. Cairn grimly, "or that apartment
+known as the King's Chamber is now empty. But even the so-called
+King's Chamber was not empty once; and there is another chamber in the
+pyramid which is not empty <i>now</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"If you know of the existence of such a chamber, sir, why have you
+kept it secret?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I cannot <i>prove</i> its existence. I do not know how to enter
+it, but I know it is there; I know what it was formerly used for, and
+I suspect that last night it was used for that same unholy purpose
+again&mdash;after a lapse of perhaps four thousand years! Even you would
+doubt me, I believe, if I were to tell you what I know, if I were to
+hint at what I suspect. But no doubt in your reading you have met with
+Julian the Apostate?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, I have read of him. He is said to have practised
+necromancy."</p>
+
+<p>"When he was at Carra in Mesopotamia, he retired to the Temple of the
+Moon, with a certain sorcerer and some others, and, his nocturnal
+operations concluded, he left the temple locked, the door sealed, and
+placed a guard over the gate. He was killed in the war, and never
+returned to Carra, but when, in the reign of Jovian, the seal was
+broken and the temple opened, a body was found hanging by its hair&mdash;I
+will spare you the particulars; it was a case of that most awful form
+of sorcery&mdash;<i>anthropomancy</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>An expression of horror had crept over Robert Cairn's face.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean, sir, that this pyramid was used for similar purposes?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the past it has been used for many purposes," was the quiet reply.
+"The exodus of the bats points to the fact that it was again used for
+one of those purposes last night; the exodus of the bats&mdash;and
+something else."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Sime, who had been listening to this strange conversation, cried out
+from the rear:</p>
+
+<p>"We cannot reach it before sunset!"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Dr. Cairn, turning in his saddle, "but that does not
+matter. Inside the pyramid, day and night make no difference."</p>
+
+<p>Having crossed a narrow wooden bridge, they turned now fully in the
+direction of the great ruin, pursuing a path along the opposite bank
+of the cutting. They rode in silence for some time, Robert Cairn deep
+in thought.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose that Antony Ferrara actually visited this place last
+night," he said suddenly, "although I cannot follow your reasoning.
+But what leads you to suppose that he is there now?"</p>
+
+<p>"This," answered his father slowly. "The purpose for which I believe
+him to have come here would detain him at least two days and two
+nights. I shall say no more about it, because if I am wrong, or if for
+any reason I am unable to establish my suspicions as facts, you would
+certainly regard me as a madman if I had confided those suspicions to
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Mounted upon donkeys, the journey from Rekka to the Pyramid of M&eacute;yd&ucirc;m
+occupies fully an hour and a half, and the glories of the sunset had
+merged into the violet dusk of Egypt before the party passed the
+outskirts of the cultivated land and came upon the desert sands. The
+mountainous pile of granite, its peculiar orange hue a ghastly yellow
+in the moonlight, now assumed truly monstrous proportions, seeming
+like a great square tower rising in three stages from its mound of
+sand to some three hundred and fifty feet above the level of the
+desert.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing more awesome in the world than to find one's self at
+night, far from all fellow-men, in the shadow of one of those edifices
+raised by unknown hands, by unknown means, to an unknown end; for,
+despite all the wisdom of our modern inquirers, these stupendous
+relics remain unsolved riddles set to posterity by a mysterious
+people.</p>
+
+<p>Neither Sime nor Ali Mohammed were of highly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> strung temperament,
+neither subject to those subtle impressions which more delicate
+organisations receive, as the nostrils receive an exhalation, from
+such a place as this. But Dr. Cairn and his son, though each in a
+different way, came now within the <i>aura</i> of this temple of the dead
+ages.</p>
+
+<p>The great silence of the desert&mdash;a silence like no other in the world;
+the loneliness, which must be experienced to be appreciated, of that
+dry and tideless ocean; the traditions which had grown up like fungi
+about this venerable building; lastly, the knowledge that it was
+associated in some way with the sorcery, the unholy activity, of
+Antony Ferrara, combined to chill them with a supernatural dread which
+called for all their courage to combat.</p>
+
+<p>"What now?" said Sime, descending from his mount.</p>
+
+<p>"We must lead the donkeys up the slope," replied Dr. Cairn, "where
+those blocks of granite are, and tether them there."</p>
+
+<p>In silence, then, the party commenced the tedious ascent of the mound
+by the narrow path to the top, until at some hundred and twenty feet
+above the surrounding plain they found themselves actually under the
+wall of the mighty building. The donkeys were made fast.</p>
+
+<p>"Sime and I," said Dr. Cairn quietly, "will enter the pyramid."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;" interrupted his son.</p>
+
+<p>"Apart from the fatigue of the operation," continued the doctor, "the
+temperature in the lower part of the pyramid is so tremendous, and the
+air so bad, that in your present state of health it would be absurd
+for you to attempt it. Apart from which there is a possibly more
+important task to be undertaken here, outside."</p>
+
+<p>He turned his eyes upon Sime, who was listening intently, then
+continued:</p>
+
+<p>"Whilst we are penetrating to the interior by means of the sloping
+passage on the north side, Ali Mohammed and yourself must mount guard
+on the south side."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What for?" said Sime rapidly.</p>
+
+<p>"For the reason," replied Dr. Cairn, "that there is an entrance on to
+the first stage&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But the first stage is nearly seventy feet above us. Even assuming
+that there were an entrance there&mdash;which I doubt&mdash;escape by that means
+would be impossible. No one could climb down the face of the pyramid
+from above; no one has ever succeeded in climbing up. For the purpose
+of surveying the pyramid a scaffold had to be erected. Its sides are
+quite unscaleable."</p>
+
+<p>"That may be," agreed Dr. Cairn; "but, nevertheless, I have my reasons
+for placing a guard over the south side. If anything appears upon the
+stage above, Rob&mdash;<i>anything</i>&mdash;shoot, and shoot straight!"</p>
+
+<p>He repeated the same instructions to Ali Mohammed, to the evident
+surprise of the latter.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand at all," muttered Sime, "but as I presume you have
+a good reason for what you do, let it be as you propose. Can you give
+me any idea respecting what we may hope to find inside this place? I
+only entered once, and I am not anxious to repeat the experiment. The
+air is unbreathable, the descent to the level passage below is stiff
+work, and, apart from the inconvenience of navigating the latter
+passage, which as you probably know is only sixteen inches high, the
+climb up the vertical shaft into the tomb is not a particularly safe
+one. I exclude the possibility of snakes," he added ironically.</p>
+
+<p>"You have also omitted the possibility of Antony Ferrara," said Dr.
+Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon my scepticism, doctor, but I cannot imagine any man
+voluntarily remaining in that awful place."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet I am greatly mistaken if he is not there!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then he is trapped!" said Sime grimly, examining a Browning pistol
+which he carried. "Unless&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He stopped, and an expression, almost of fear, crept over his stoical
+features.</p>
+
+<p>"That sixteen-inch passage," he muttered&mdash;"with Antony Ferrara at the
+further end!"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly!" said Dr. Cairn. "But I consider it my duty to the world to
+proceed. I warn you that you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> are about to face the greatest peril,
+probably, which you will ever be called upon to encounter. I do not
+ask you to do this. I am quite prepared to go alone."</p>
+
+<p>"That remark was wholly unnecessary, doctor," said Sime rather
+truculently. "Suppose the other two proceed to their post."</p>
+
+<p>"But, sir&mdash;" began Robert Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>"You know the way," said the doctor, with an air of finality. "There
+is not a moment to waste, and although I fear that we are too late, it
+is just possible we may be in time to prevent a dreadful crime."</p>
+
+<p>The tall Egyptian and Robert Cairn went stumbling off amongst the
+heaps of rubbish and broken masonry, until an angle of the great wall
+concealed them from view. Then the two who remained continued the
+climb yet higher, following the narrow, zigzag path leading up to the
+entrance of the descending passage. Immediately under the square black
+hole they stood and glanced at one another.</p>
+
+<p>"We may as well leave our outer garments here," said Sime. "I note
+that you wear rubber-soled shoes, but I shall remove my boots, as
+otherwise I should be unable to obtain any foothold."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn nodded, and without more ado proceeded to strip off his
+coat, an example which was followed by Sime. It was as he stooped and
+placed his hat upon the little bundle of clothes at his feet that Dr.
+Cairn detected something which caused him to stoop yet lower and to
+peer at that dark object on the ground with a strange intentness.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" jerked Sime, glancing back at him.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn, from a hip pocket, took out an electric lamp, and directed
+the white ray upon something lying on the splintered fragments of
+granite.</p>
+
+<p>It was a bat, a fairly large one, and a clot of blood marked the place
+where its head had been. For the bat was decapitated!</p>
+
+<p>As though anticipating what he should find there, Dr. Cairn flashed
+the ray of the lamp all about the ground in the vicinity of the
+entrance to the pyramid. Scores of dead bats, headless, lay there.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, what does this mean?" whispered Sime, glancing
+apprehensively into the black entrance beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"It means," answered Cairn, in a low voice, "that my suspicion, almost
+incredible though it seems, was well founded. Steel yourself against
+the task that is before you, Sime; we stand upon the borderland of
+strange horrors."</p>
+
+<p>Sime hesitated to touch any of the dead bats, surveying them with an
+ill-concealed repugnance.</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of creature," he whispered, "has done this?"</p>
+
+<p>"One of a kind that the world has not known for many ages! The most
+evil kind of creature conceivable&mdash;a man-devil!"</p>
+
+<p>"But what does he want with bats' heads?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Cynonycteris, or pyramid bat, has a leaf-like appendage beside
+the nose. A gland in this secretes a rare oil. This oil is one of the
+ingredients of the incense which is never named in the magical
+writings."</p>
+
+<p>Sime shuddered.</p>
+
+<p>"Here!" said Dr. Cairn, proffering a flask. "This is only the
+overture! No nerves."</p>
+
+<p>The other nodded shortly, and poured out a peg of brandy.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said Dr. Cairn, "shall I go ahead?"</p>
+
+<p>"As you like," replied Sime quietly, and again quite master of
+himself. "Look out for snakes. I will carry the light and you can keep
+yours handy in case you may need it."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn drew himself up into the entrance. The passage was less than
+four feet high, and generations of sand-storms had polished its
+sloping granite floor so as to render it impossible to descend except
+by resting one's hands on the roof above and lowering one's self foot
+by foot.</p>
+
+<p>A passage of this description, descending at a sharp angle for over
+two hundred feet, is not particularly easy to negotiate, and progress
+was slow. Dr. Cairn at every five yards or so would stop, and, with
+the pocket-lamp which he carried, would examine the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> sandy floor and
+the crevices between the huge blocks composing the passage, in quest
+of those faint tracks which warn the traveller that a serpent has
+recently passed that way. Then, replacing his lamp, he would proceed.
+Sime followed in like manner, employing only one hand to support
+himself, and, with the other, constantly directing the ray of his
+pocket torch past his companion, and down into the blackness beneath.</p>
+
+<p>Out in the desert the atmosphere had been sufficiently hot, but now
+with every step it grew hotter and hotter. That indescribable smell,
+as of a decay begun in remote ages, that rises with the impalpable
+dust in these mysterious labyrinths of Ancient Egypt which never know
+the light of day, rose stiflingly; until, at some forty or fifty feet
+below the level of the sand outside, respiration became difficult, and
+the two paused, bathed in perspiration and gasping for air.</p>
+
+<p>"Another thirty or forty feet," panted Sime, "and we shall be in the
+level passage. There is a sort of low, artificial cavern there, you
+may remember, where, although we cannot stand upright, we can sit and
+rest for a few moments."</p>
+
+<p>Speech was exhausting, and no further words were exchanged until the
+bottom of the slope was reached, and the combined lights of the two
+pocket-lamps showed them that they had reached a tiny chamber
+irregularly hewn in the living rock. This also was less than four feet
+high, but its jagged floor being level, they were enabled to pause
+here for a while.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you notice something unfamiliar in the smell of the place?"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn was the speaker. Sime nodded, wiping the perspiration from
+his face the while.</p>
+
+<p>"It was bad enough when I came here before," he said hoarsely. "It is
+terrible work for a heavy man. But to-night it seems to be reeking. I
+have smelt nothing like it in my life."</p>
+
+<p>"Correct," replied Dr. Cairn grimly. "I trust that, once clear of this
+place, you will never smell it again."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It is the <i>incense</i>," was the reply. "Come! The worst of our task is
+before us yet."</p>
+
+<p>The continuation of the passage now showed as an opening no more than
+fifteen to seventeen inches high. It was necessary, therefore, to lie
+prone upon the rubbish of the floor, and to proceed serpent fashion;
+one could not even employ one's knees, so low was the roof, but was
+compelled to progress by clutching at the irregularities in the wall,
+and by digging the elbows into the splintered stones one crawled upon!</p>
+
+<p>For three yards or so they proceeded thus. Then Dr. Cairn lay suddenly
+still.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" whispered Sime.</p>
+
+<p>A threat of panic was in his voice. He dared not conjecture what would
+happen if either should be overcome in that evil-smelling burrow, deep
+in the bowels of the ancient building. At that moment it seemed to
+him, absurdly enough, that the weight of the giant pile rested upon
+his back, was crushing him, pressing the life out from his body as he
+lay there prone, with his eyes fixed upon the rubber soles of Dr.
+Cairn's shoes, directly in front of him.</p>
+
+<p>But softly came a reply:</p>
+
+<p>"Do not speak again! Proceed as quietly as possible, and pray heaven
+we are not expected!"</p>
+
+<p>Sime understood. With a malignant enemy before them, this hole in the
+rock through which they crawled was a certain death-trap. He thought
+of the headless bats and of how he, in crawling out into the shaft
+ahead, must lay himself open to a similar fate!</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn moved slowly onward. Despite their anxiety to avoid noise,
+neither he nor his companion could control their heavy breathing. Both
+were panting for air. The temperature was now deathly. A candle would
+scarcely have burnt in the vitiated air; and above that odour of
+ancient rottenness which all explorers of the monuments of Egypt know,
+rose that other indescribable odour which seemed to stifle one's very
+soul.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn stopped again.</p>
+
+<p>Sime knew, having performed this journey before,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> that his companion
+must have reached the end of the passage, that he must be lying
+peering out into the shaft, for which they were making. He
+extinguished his lamp.</p>
+
+<p>Again Dr. Cairn moved forward. Stretching out his hand, Sime found
+only emptiness. He wriggled forward, in turn, rapidly, all the time
+groping with his fingers. Then:</p>
+
+<p>"Take my hand," came a whisper. "Another two feet, and you can stand
+upright."</p>
+
+<p>He proceeded, grasped the hand which was extended to him in the
+impenetrable darkness, and panting, temporarily exhausted, rose
+upright beside Dr. Cairn, and stretched his cramped limbs.</p>
+
+<p>Side by side they stood, mantled about in such a darkness as cannot be
+described; in such a silence as dwellers in the busy world cannot
+conceive; in such an atmosphere of horror that only a man morally and
+physically brave could have retained his composure.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn bent to Sime's ear.</p>
+
+<p>"We <i>must</i> have the light for the ascent," he whispered. "Have your
+pistol ready; I am about to press the button of the lamp."</p>
+
+<p>A shaft of white light shone suddenly up the rocky sides of the pit in
+which they stood, and lost itself in the gloom of the chamber above.</p>
+
+<p>"On to my shoulders," jerked Sime. "You are lighter than I. Then, as
+soon as you can reach, place your lamp on the floor above and mount up
+beside it. I will follow."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn, taking advantage of the rugged walls, and of the blocks of
+stone amid which they stood, mounted upon Sime's shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Could you carry your revolver in your teeth?" asked the latter. "I
+think you might hold it by the trigger-guard."</p>
+
+<p>"I proposed to do so," replied Dr. Cairn grimly. "Stand fast!"</p>
+
+<p>Gradually he rose upright upon the other's shoulders; then, placing
+his foot in a cranny of the rock, and with his left hand grasping a
+protruding fragment above, he mounted yet higher, all the time holding
+the lighted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> lamp in his right hand. Upward he extended his arms, and
+upward, until he could place the lamp upon the ledge above his head,
+where its white beam shone across the top of the shaft.</p>
+
+<p>"Mind it does not fall!" panted Sime, craning his head upward to watch
+these operations.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn, whose strength and agility were wonderful, twisted around
+sideways, and succeeded in placing his foot on a ledge of stone on the
+opposite side of the shaft. Resting his weight upon this, he extended
+his hand to the lip of the opening, and drew himself up to the top,
+where he crouched fully in the light of the lamp. Then, wedging his
+foot into a crevice a little below him, he reached out his hand to
+Sime. The latter, following much the same course as his companion,
+seized the extended hand, and soon found himself beside Dr. Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>Impetuously he snatched out his own lamp and shone its beams about the
+weird apartment in which they found themselves&mdash;the so-called King's
+Chamber of the pyramid. Right and left leapt the searching rays,
+touching the ends of the wooden beams, which, practically fossilised
+by long contact with the rock, still survive in that sepulchral place.
+Above and below and all around he directed the light&mdash;upon the litter
+covering the rock floor, upon the blocks of the higher walls, upon the
+frowning roof.</p>
+
+<p>They were alone in the King's Chamber!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>ANTHROPOMANCY</h3>
+
+
+<p>"There is no one here!"</p>
+
+<p>Sime looked about the place excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Fortunately for us!" answered Dr. Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>He breathed rather heavily yet with his exertions, and, moreover, the
+air of the chamber was disgusting. But otherwise he was perfectly
+calm, although his face was pale and bathed in perspiration.</p>
+
+<p>"Make as little noise as possible."</p>
+
+<p>Sime, who, now that the place proved to be empty, began to cast off
+that dread which had possessed him in the passage-way, found something
+ominous in the words.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn, stepping carefully over the rubbish of the floor, advanced
+to the east corner of the chamber, waving his companion to follow.
+Side by side they stood there.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you notice that the abominable smell of the incense is more
+overpowering here than anywhere?"</p>
+
+<p>Sime nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"You are right. What does that mean?"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn directed the ray of light down behind a little mound of
+rubbish into a corner of the wall.</p>
+
+<p>"It means," he said, with a subdued expression of excitement, "that we
+have got to crawl in <i>there</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Sime stifled an exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>One of the blocks of the bottom tier was missing, a fact which he had
+not detected before by reason of the presence of the mound of rubbish
+before the opening.</p>
+
+<p>"Silence again!" whispered Dr. Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>He lay down flat, and, without hesitation, crept into the gap. As his
+feet disappeared, Sime followed. Here it was possible to crawl upon
+hands and knees. The passage was formed of square stone blocks. It
+was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> but three yards or so in length; then it suddenly turned upward
+at a tremendous angle of about one in four. Square foot-holds were cut
+in the lower face. The smell of incense was almost unbearable.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn bent to Sime's ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a word, now," he said. "No light&mdash;pistol ready!"</p>
+
+<p>He began to mount. Sime, following, counted the steps. When they had
+mounted sixty he knew that they must have come close to the top of the
+original <i>mastabah</i>, and close to the first stage of the pyramid.
+Despite the shaft beneath, there was little danger of falling, for one
+could lean back against the wall while seeking for the foothold above.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn mounted very slowly, fearful of striking his head upon some
+obstacle. Then on the seventieth step, he found that he could thrust
+his foot forward and that no obstruction met his knee. They had
+reached a horizontal passage.</p>
+
+<p>Very softly he whispered back to Sime:</p>
+
+<p>"Take my hand. I have reached the top."</p>
+
+<p>They entered the passage. The heavy, sickly sweet odour almost
+overpowered them, but, grimly set upon their purpose, they, after one
+moment of hesitancy, crept on.</p>
+
+<p>A fitful light rose and fell ahead of them. It gleamed upon the polished
+walls of the corridor in which they now found themselves&mdash;that
+inexplicable light burning in a place which had known no light since the
+dim ages of the early Pharaohs!</p>
+
+<p>The events of that incredible night had afforded no such emotion as
+this. This was the crowning wonder, and, in its dreadful mystery, the
+crowning terror of M&eacute;yd&ucirc;m.</p>
+
+<p>When first that lambent light played upon the walls of the passage
+both stopped, stricken motionless with fear and amazement. Sime, who
+would have been prepared to swear that the M&eacute;yd&ucirc;m Pyramid contained no
+apartment other than the King's Chamber, now was past mere wonder,
+past conjecture. But he could still fear. Dr. Cairn, although he had
+anticipated this,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> temporarily also fell a victim to the supernatural
+character of the phenomenon.</p>
+
+<p>They advanced.</p>
+
+<p>They looked into a square chamber of about the same size as the King's
+Chamber. In fact, although they did not realise it until later, this
+second apartment, no doubt was situated directly above the first.</p>
+
+<p>The only light was that of a fire burning in a tripod, and by means of
+this illumination, which rose and fell in a strange manner, it was
+possible to perceive the details of the place. But, indeed, at the
+moment they were not concerned with these; they had eyes only for the
+black-robed figure beside the tripod.</p>
+
+<p>It was that of a man, who stood with his back towards them, and he
+chanted monotonously in a tongue unfamiliar to Sime. At certain points
+in his chant he would raise his arms in such a way that, clad in the
+black robe, he assumed the appearance of a gigantic bat. Each time
+that he acted thus the fire in the tripod, as if fanned into new life,
+would leap up, casting a hellish glare about the place. Then, as the
+chanter dropped his arms again, the flame would drop also.</p>
+
+<p>A cloud of reddish vapour floated low in the apartment. There were a
+number of curiously-shaped vessels upon the floor, and against the
+farther wall, only rendered visible when the flames leapt high, was
+some motionless white object, apparently hung from the roof.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn drew a hissing breath and grasped Sime's wrist.</p>
+
+<p>"We are too late!" he said strangely.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke at a moment when his companion, peering through the ruddy
+gloom of the place, had been endeavouring more clearly to perceive
+that ominous shape which hung, horrible, in the shadow. He spoke, too,
+at a moment when the man in the black robe, raised his arms&mdash;when, as
+if obedient to his will, the flames leapt up fitfully.</p>
+
+<p>Although Sime could not be sure of what he saw, the recollection came
+to him of words recently spoken by Dr. Cairn. He remembered the story
+of Julian the Apostate, Julian the Emperor&mdash;the Necromancer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> He
+remembered what had been found in the Temple of the Moon after
+Julian's death. He remembered that Lady Lashmore&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>And thereupon he experienced such a nausea that but for the fact that
+Dr. Cairn gripped him he must have fallen.</p>
+
+<p>Tutored in a materialistic school, he could not even now admit that
+such monstrous things could be. With a necromantic operation taking
+place before his eyes; with the unholy perfume of the secret incense
+all but suffocating him; with the dreadful Oracle dully gleaming in
+the shadows of that temple of evil&mdash;his reason would not accept the
+evidences. Any man of the ancient world&mdash;of the middle ages&mdash;would
+have known that he looked upon a professed wizard, upon a magician,
+who, according to one of the most ancient formul&aelig; known to mankind,
+was seeking to question the dead respecting the living.</p>
+
+<p>But how many modern men are there capable of realising such a
+circumstance? How many who would accept the statement that such
+operations are still performed, not only in the East, but in Europe?
+How many who, witnessing this mass of Satan, would accept it for
+verity, would not deny the evidence of their very senses?</p>
+
+<p>He could not believe such an orgie of wickedness possible. A Pagan
+emperor might have been capable of these things, but to-day&mdash;wondrous
+is our faith in the virtue of "to-day!"</p>
+
+<p>"Am I mad?" he whispered hoarsely, "or&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A thinly-veiled shape seemed to float out from that still form in the
+shadows; it assumed definite outlines; it became a woman, beautiful
+with a beauty that could only be described as awful.</p>
+
+<p>She wore upon her brow the <i>uraeus</i> of Ancient Egyptian royalty; her
+sole garment was a robe of finest gauze. Like a cloud, like a vision,
+she floated into the light cast by the tripod.</p>
+
+<p>A voice&mdash;a voice which seemed to come from a vast distance, from
+somewhere outside the mighty granite walls of that unholy
+place&mdash;spoke. The language<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> was unknown to Sime, but the fierce
+hand-grip upon his wrist grew fiercer. That dead tongue, that language
+unspoken since the dawn of Christianity, was known to the man who had
+been the companion of Sir Michael Ferrara.</p>
+
+<p>In upon Sime swept a swift conviction&mdash;that one could not witness such
+a scene as this and live and move again amongst one's fellow-men! In a
+sort of frenzy, then, he wrenched himself free from the detaining
+hand, and launched a retort of modern science against the challenge of
+ancient sorcery.</p>
+
+<p>Raising his Browning pistol, he fired&mdash;shot after shot&mdash;at that
+bat-like shape which stood between himself and the tripod!</p>
+
+<p>A thousand frightful echoes filled the chamber with a demon mockery,
+boomed along those subterranean passages beneath, and bore the
+conflict of sound into the hidden places of the pyramid which had
+known not sound for untold generations.</p>
+
+<p>"My God&mdash;!"</p>
+
+<p>Vaguely he became aware that Dr. Cairn was seeking to drag him away.
+Through a cloud of smoke he saw the black-robed figure turn; dream
+fashion, he saw the pallid, glistening face of Antony Ferrara; the
+long, evil eyes, alight like the eyes of a serpent, were fixed upon
+him. He seemed to stand amid a chaos, in a mad world beyond the
+borders of reason, beyond the dominions of God. But to his stupefied
+mind one astounding fact found access.</p>
+
+<p>He had fired at least seven shots at the black-robed figure, and it
+was not humanly possible that all could have gone wide of their mark.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Antony Ferrara lived!</p>
+
+<p>Utter darkness blotted out the evil vision. Then there was a white
+light ahead; and feeling that he was struggling for sanity, Sime
+managed to realise that Dr. Cairn, retreating along the passage, was
+crying to him, in a voice rising almost to a shriek, to run&mdash;run for
+his life&mdash;for his salvation!</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You should not have fired</i>!" he seemed to hear.</p>
+
+<p>Unconscious of any contact with the stones&mdash;although<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> afterwards he
+found his knees and shins to be bleeding&mdash;he was scrambling down that
+long, sloping shaft.</p>
+
+<p>He had a vague impression that Dr. Cairn, descending beneath him,
+sometimes grasped his ankles and placed his feet into the footholes. A
+continuous roaring sound filled his ears, as if a great ocean were
+casting its storm waves against the structure around him. The place
+seemed to rock.</p>
+
+<p>"Down flat!"</p>
+
+<p>Some sense of reality was returning to him. Now he perceived that Dr.
+Cairn was urging him to crawl back along the short passage by which
+they had entered from the King's Chamber.</p>
+
+<p>Heedless of hurt, he threw himself down and pressed on.</p>
+
+<p>A blank, like the sleep of exhaustion which follows delirium, came.
+Then Sime found himself standing in the King's Chamber, Dr. Cairn, who
+held an electric lamp in his hand, beside him, and half supporting
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The realities suddenly reasserting themselves,</p>
+
+<p>"I have dropped my pistol!" muttered Sime.</p>
+
+<p>He threw off the supporting arm, and turned to that corner behind the
+heap of <i>d&eacute;bris</i> where was the opening through which they had entered
+the Satanic temple.</p>
+
+<p>No opening was visible!</p>
+
+<p>"He has closed it!" cried Dr. Cairn. "There are six stone doors
+between here and the place above! If he had succeeded in shutting
+<i>one</i> of them before we&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"My God!" whispered Sime. "Let us get out! I am nearly at the end of
+my tether!"</p>
+
+<p>Fear lends wings, and it was with something like the lightness of a
+bird that Sime descended the shaft. At the bottom&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"On to my shoulders!" he cried, looking up.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn lowered himself to the foot of the shaft. "You go first," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>He was gasping, as if nearly suffocated, but retained a wonderful
+self-control. Once over into the Borderland, and bravery assumes a new
+guise; the courage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> which can face physical danger undaunted, melts in
+the fires of the unknown.</p>
+
+<p>Sime, his breath whistling sibilantly between his clenched teeth,
+hauled himself through the low passage, with incredible speed. The two
+worked their way arduously, up the long slope. They saw the blue sky
+above them....</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"Something like a huge bat," said Robert Cairn, "crawled out upon the
+first stage. We both fired&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn raised his hand. He lay exhausted at the foot of the mound.</p>
+
+<p>"He had lighted the incense," he replied, "and was reciting the secret
+ritual. I cannot explain. But your shots were wasted. We came too
+late&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Lashmore&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Until the Pyramid of M&eacute;yd&ucirc;m is pulled down, stone by stone, the world
+will never know her fate! Sime and I have looked in at the gate of
+hell! Only the hand of God plucked us back! Look!"</p>
+
+<p>He pointed to Sime. He lay, pallid, with closed eyes&mdash;and his hair was
+abundantly streaked with white!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE INCENSE</h3>
+
+
+<p>To Robert Cairn it seemed that the boat-train would never reach
+Charing Cross. His restlessness was appalling. He perpetually glanced
+from his father, with whom he shared the compartment, to the flying
+landscape with its vistas of hop-poles; and Dr. Cairn, although he
+exhibited less anxiety, was, nevertheless, strung to highest tension.</p>
+
+<p>That dash from Cairo homeward had been something of a fevered dream to
+both men. To learn, whilst one is searching for a malign and
+implacable enemy in Egypt, that that enemy, having secretly returned
+to London, is weaving his evil spells around "some we loved, the
+loveliest and the best," is to know the meaning of ordeal.</p>
+
+<p>In pursuit of Antony Ferrara&mdash;the incarnation of an awful evil&mdash;Dr.
+Cairn had deserted his practice, had left England for Egypt. Now he
+was hurrying back again; for whilst he had sought in strange and dark
+places of that land of mystery for Antony Ferrara, the latter had been
+darkly active in London!</p>
+
+<p>Again and again Robert Cairn read the letter which, surely as a royal
+command, had recalled them. It was from Myra Duquesne. One line in it
+had fallen upon them like a bomb, had altered all their plans, had
+shattered the one fragment of peace remaining to them.</p>
+
+<p>In the eyes of Robert Cairn, the whole universe centred around Myra
+Duquesne; she was the one being in the world of whom he could not bear
+to think in conjunction with Antony Ferrara. Now he knew that Antony
+Ferrara was beside her, was, doubtless at this very moment, directing
+those Black Arts of which he was master, to the destruction of her
+mind and body&mdash;perhaps of her very soul.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Again he drew the worn envelope from his pocket and read that ominous
+sentence, which, when his eyes had first fallen upon it, had blotted
+out the sunlight of Egypt.</p>
+
+<p>"... And you will be surprised to hear that Antony is back in London
+... and is a frequent visitor here. It is quite like old times...."</p>
+
+<p>Raising his haggard eyes, Robert Cairn saw that his father was
+watching him.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep calm, my boy," urged the doctor; "it can profit us nothing, it
+can profit Myra nothing, for you to shatter your nerves at a time when
+real trials are before you. You are inviting another breakdown. Oh! I
+know it is hard; but for everybody's sake try to keep yourself in
+hand."</p>
+
+<p>"I am trying, sir," replied Robert hollowly.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn nodded, drumming his fingers upon his knee.</p>
+
+<p>"We must be diplomatic," he continued. "That James Saunderson proposed
+to return to London, I had no idea. I thought that Myra would be far
+outside the Black maelstr&ouml;m in Scotland. Had I suspected that
+Saunderson would come to London, I should have made other
+arrangements."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, sir, I know that. But even so we could never have foreseen
+this."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"To think that whilst we have been scouring Egypt from Port Said to
+Assouan&mdash;<i>he</i> has been laughing at us in London!" he said. "Directly
+after the affair at M&eacute;yd&ucirc;m he must have left the country&mdash;how, Heaven
+only knows. That letter is three weeks old, now?"</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn nodded. "What may have happened since&mdash;what may have
+happened!"</p>
+
+<p>"You take too gloomy a view. James Saunderson is a Roman guardian.
+Even Antony Ferrara could make little headway there."</p>
+
+<p>"But Myra says that&mdash;Ferrara is&mdash;a frequent visitor."</p>
+
+<p>"And Saunderson," replied Dr. Cairn with a grim smile, "is a
+Scotchman! Rely upon his diplomacy, Rob. Myra will be safe enough."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"God grant that she is!"</p>
+
+<p>At that, silence fell between them, until punctually to time, the
+train slowed into Charing Cross. Inspired by a common anxiety, Dr.
+Cairn and his son were first among the passengers to pass the barrier.
+The car was waiting for them; and within five minutes of the arrival
+of the train they were whirling through London's traffic to the house
+of James Saunderson.</p>
+
+<p>It lay in that quaint backwater, remote from motor-bus
+high-ways&mdash;Dulwich Common, and was a rambling red-tiled building which
+at some time had been a farmhouse. As the big car pulled up at the
+gate, Saunderson, a large-boned Scotchman, tawny-eyed, and with his
+grey hair worn long and untidily, came out to meet them. Myra Duquesne
+stood beside him. A quick blush coloured her face momentarily; then
+left it pale again.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, her pallor was alarming. As Robert Cairn, leaping from the
+car, seized both her hands and looked into her eyes, it seemed to him
+that the girl had almost an ethereal appearance. Something clutched at
+his heart, iced his blood; for Myra Duquesne seemed a creature
+scarcely belonging to the world of humanity&mdash;seemed already half a
+spirit. The light in her sweet eyes was good to see; but her
+fragility, and a certain transparency of complexion, horrified him.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, he knew that he must hide these fears from her; and turning to
+Mr. Saunderson, he shook him warmly by the hand, and the party of four
+passed by the low porch into the house.</p>
+
+<p>In the hall-way Miss Saunderson, a typical Scottish housekeeper, stood
+beaming welcome; but in the very instant of greeting her, Robert Cairn
+stopped suddenly as if transfixed.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn also pulled up just within the door, his nostrils quivering
+and his clear grey eyes turning right and left&mdash;searching the shadows.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Saunderson detected this sudden restraint.</p>
+
+<p>"Is anything the matter?" she asked anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>Myra, standing beside Mr. Saunderson, began to look frightened. But
+Dr. Cairn, shaking off the incubus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> which had descended upon him,
+forced a laugh, and clapping his hand upon Robert's shoulder cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Wake up, my boy! I know it is good to be back in England again, but
+keep your day-dreaming for after lunch!"</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn forced a ghostly smile in return, and the odd incident
+promised soon to be forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>"How good of you," said Myra as the party entered the dining-room, "to
+come right from the station to see us. And you must be expected in
+Half-Moon Street, Dr. Cairn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we came to see <i>you</i> first," replied Robert Cairn
+significantly.</p>
+
+<p>Myra lowered her face and pursued that subject no further.</p>
+
+<p>No mention was made of Antony Ferrara, and neither Dr. Cairn nor his
+son cared to broach the subject. The lunch passed off, then, without
+any reference to the very matter which had brought them there that
+day.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until nearly an hour later that Dr. Cairn and his son found
+themselves alone for a moment. Then, with a furtive glance about him,
+the doctor spoke of that which had occupied his mind, to the exclusion
+of all else, since first they had entered the house of James
+Saunderson.</p>
+
+<p>"You noticed it, Rob?" he whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"My God! it nearly choked me!"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn nodded grimly.</p>
+
+<p>"It is all over the house," he continued, "in every room that I have
+entered. They are used to it, and evidently do not notice it, but
+coming in from the clean air, it is&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Abominable, unclean&mdash;unholy!"</p>
+
+<p>"We know it," continued Dr. Cairn softly&mdash;"that smell of unholiness;
+we have good reason to know it. It heralded the death of Sir Michael
+Ferrara. It heralded the death of&mdash;another."</p>
+
+<p>"With a just God in heaven, can such things be?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is the secret incense of Ancient Egypt," whispered Dr. Cairn,
+glancing towards the open door; "it is the odour of that Black Magic
+which, by all natural law,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> should be buried and lost for ever in the
+tombs of the ancient wizards. Only two living men within my knowledge
+know the use and the hidden meaning of that perfume; only one living
+man has ever dared to make it&mdash;to use it...."</p>
+
+<p>"Antony Ferrara&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We knew he was here, boy; now we know that he is using his powers
+here. Something tells me that we come to the end of the fight. May
+victory be with the just."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MAGICIAN</h3>
+
+
+<p>Half-Moon Street was bathed in tropical sunlight. Dr. Cairn, with his
+hands behind him, stood looking out of the window. He turned to his
+son, who leant against a corner of the bookcase in the shadows of the
+big room.</p>
+
+<p>"Hot enough for Egypt, Rob," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Antony Ferrara," he replied, "seemingly travels his own atmosphere
+with him. I first became acquainted with his hellish activities during
+a phenomenal thunderstorm. In Egypt his movements apparently
+corresponded with those of the <i>Khams&icirc;n</i>. Now,"&mdash;he waved his hand
+vaguely towards the window&mdash;"this is Egypt in London."</p>
+
+<p>"Egypt is in London, indeed," muttered Dr. Cairn. "Jermyn has decided
+that our fears are well-founded."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean, sir, that the will&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Antony Ferrara would have an almost unassailable case in the event
+of&mdash;of Myra&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that her share of the legacy would fall to that fiend, if
+she&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If she died? Exactly."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn began to stride up and down the room, clenching and
+unclenching his fists. He was a shadow of his former self, but now his
+cheeks were flushed and his eyes feverishly bright.</p>
+
+<p>"Before Heaven!" he cried suddenly, "the situation is becoming
+unbearable. A thing more deadly than the Plague is abroad here in
+London. Apart from the personal aspect of the matter&mdash;of which I dare
+not think!&mdash;what do we know of Ferrara's activities? His record is
+damnable. To our certain knowledge his victims are many. If the murder
+of his adoptive father, Sir Michael, was actually the first of his
+crimes, we know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> of three other poor souls who beyond any shadow of
+doubt were launched into eternity by the Black Arts of this ghastly
+villain&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We do, Rob," replied Dr. Cairn sternly.</p>
+
+<p>"He has made attempts upon you; he has made attempts upon me. We owe
+our survival"&mdash;he pointed to a row of books upon a corner shelf&mdash;"to
+the knowledge which you have accumulated in half a life-time of
+research. In the face of science, in the face of modern scepticism, in
+the face of our belief in a benign God, this creature, Antony Ferrara,
+has proved himself conclusively to be&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He is what the benighted ancients called a magician," interrupted Dr.
+Cairn quietly. "He is what was known in the Middle Ages as a wizard.
+What that means, exactly, few modern thinkers know; but I know, and
+one day others will know. Meanwhile his shadow lies upon a certain
+house."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn shook his clenched fists in the air. In some men the
+gesture had seemed melodramatic; in him it was the expression of a
+soul's agony.</p>
+
+<p>"But, sir!" he cried&mdash;"are we to wait, inert, helpless? Whatever he
+is, he has a human body and there are bullets, there are knives, there
+are a hundred drugs in the British Pharmacop&oelig;ia!"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite so," answered Dr. Cairn, watching his son closely, and, by his
+own collected manner, endeavouring to check the other's growing
+excitement. "I am prepared at any personal risk to crush Antony
+Ferrara as I would crush a scorpion; but where is he?"</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn groaned, dropping into the big red-leathern armchair, and
+burying his face in his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Our position is maddening," continued the elder man. "We know that
+Antony Ferrara visits Mr. Saunderson's house; we know that he is
+laughing at our vain attempts to trap him. Crowning comedy of all,
+Saunderson does not know the truth; he is not the type of man who
+could ever understand; in fact we dare not tell him&mdash;and we dare not
+tell Myra. The result is that those whom we would protect, unwittingly
+are working against us, and against themselves."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That perfume!" burst out Robert Cairn; "that hell's incense which
+loads the atmosphere of Saunderson's house! To think that we know what
+it means&mdash;that we know what it means!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps <i>I</i> know even better than you do, Rob. The occult uses of
+perfume are not understood nowadays; but you, from experience, know
+that certain perfumes have occult uses. At the Pyramid of M&eacute;yd&ucirc;m in
+Egypt, Antony Ferrara dared&mdash;and the just God did not strike him
+dead&mdash;to make a certain incense. It was often made in the remote past,
+and a portion of it, probably in a jar hermetically sealed, had come
+into his possession. I once detected its dreadful odour in his rooms
+in London. Had you asked me prior to that occasion if any of the
+hellish stuff had survived to the present day, I should most
+emphatically have said <i>no</i>; I should have been wrong. Ferrara had
+some. He used it all&mdash;and went to the M&eacute;yd&ucirc;m pyramid to renew his
+stock."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn was listening intently.</p>
+
+<p>"All this brings me back to a point which I have touched upon before,
+sir," he said: "To my certain knowledge, the late Sir Michael and
+yourself have delved into the black mysteries of Egypt more deeply
+than any men of the present century. Yet Antony Ferrara, little more
+than a boy, has mastered secrets which you, after years of research,
+have failed to grasp. What does this mean, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn, again locking his hands behind him, stared out of the
+window.</p>
+
+<p>"He is not an ordinary mortal," continued his son. "He is
+supernormal&mdash;and supernaturally wicked. You have admitted&mdash;indeed it
+was evident&mdash;that he is merely the adopted son of the late Sir
+Michael. Now that we have entered upon the final struggle&mdash;for I feel
+that this is so&mdash;I will ask you again: <i>Who is Antony Ferrara</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn spun around upon the speaker; his grey eyes were very
+bright.</p>
+
+<p>"There is one little obstacle," he answered, "which has deterred me
+from telling you what you have asked <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>so often. Although&mdash;and you have
+had dreadful opportunities to peer behind the veil&mdash;you will find it
+hard to believe, I hope very shortly to be able to answer that
+question, and to tell you who Antony Ferrara really is."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn beat his fist upon the arm of the chair.</p>
+
+<p>"I sometimes wonder," he said, "that either of us has remained sane.
+Oh! what does it mean? What can we do? What can we do?"</p>
+
+<p>"We must watch, Rob. To enlist the services of Saunderson, would be
+almost impossible; he lives in his orchid houses; they are his world.
+In matters of ordinary life I can trust him above most men, but in
+this&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Could we suggest to him a reason&mdash;any reason but the real one&mdash;why he
+should refuse to receive Ferrara?"</p>
+
+<p>"It might destroy our last chance."</p>
+
+<p>"But sir," cried Robert wildly, "it amounts to this: we are using Myra
+as a lure!"</p>
+
+<p>"In order to save her, Rob&mdash;simply in order to save her," retorted Dr.
+Cairn sternly.</p>
+
+<p>"How ill she looks," groaned the other; "how pale and worn. There are
+great shadows under her eyes&mdash;oh! I cannot bear to think about her!"</p>
+
+<p>"When was <i>he</i> last there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Apparently some ten days ago. You may depend upon him to be aware of
+our return! He will not come there again, sir. But there are other
+ways in which he might reach her&mdash;does he not command a whole shadow
+army! And Mr. Saunderson is entirely unsuspicious&mdash;and Myra thinks of
+the fiend as a brother! Yet&mdash;she has never once spoken of him. I
+wonder...."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn sat deep in reflection. Suddenly he took out his watch.</p>
+
+<p>"Go around now," he said&mdash;"you will be in time for lunch&mdash;and remain
+there until I come. From to-day onward, although actually your health
+does not permit of the strain, we must watch, watch night and day."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>MYRA</h3>
+
+
+<p>Myra Duquesne came under an arch of roses to the wooden seat where
+Robert Cairn awaited her. In her plain white linen frock, with the sun
+in her hair and her eyes looking unnaturally large, owing to the
+pallor of her beautiful face, she seemed to the man who rose to greet
+her an ethereal creature, but lightly linked to the flesh and blood
+world.</p>
+
+<p>An impulse, which had possessed him often enough before, but which
+hitherto he had suppressed, suddenly possessed him anew, set his heart
+beating, and filled his veins with fire. As a soft blush spread over
+the girl's pale cheeks, and, with a sort of timidity, she held out her
+hand, he leapt to his feet, threw his arms around her, and kissed her;
+kissed her eyes, her hair, her lips!</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment of frightened hesitancy ... and then she had
+resigned herself to this sort of savage tenderness which was better in
+its very brutality than any caress she had ever known, which thrilled
+her with a glorious joy such as, she realised now, she had dreamt of
+and lacked, and wanted; which was a harbourage to which she came,
+blushing, confused&mdash;but glad, conquered, and happy in the thrall of
+that exquisite slavery.</p>
+
+<p>"Myra," he whispered, "Myra! have I frightened you? Will you forgive
+me?&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded her head quickly and nestled upon his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"I could wait no longer," he murmured in her ear. "Words seemed
+unnecessary; I just wanted you; you are everything in the world;
+and,"&mdash;he concluded simply&mdash;"I took you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She whispered his name, very softly. What a serenity there is in such
+a moment, what a glow of secure happiness, of immunity from the pains
+and sorrows of the world!</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn, his arms about this girl, who, from his early boyhood,
+had been his ideal of womanhood, of love, and of all that love meant,
+forgot those things which had shaken his life and brought him to the
+threshold of death, forgot those evidences of illness which marred the
+once glorious beauty of the girl, forgot the black menace of the
+future, forgot the wizard enemy whose hand was stretched over that
+house and that garden&mdash;and was merely happy.</p>
+
+<p>But this paroxysm of gladness&mdash;which Eliphas L&eacute;vi, last of the Adepts,
+has so marvellously analysed in one of his works&mdash;is of short
+duration, as are all joys. It is needless to recount, here, the broken
+sentences (punctuated with those first kisses which sweeten the memory
+of old age) that now passed for conversation, and which lovers have
+believed to be conversation since the world began. As dusk creeps over
+a glorious landscape, so the shadow of Antony Ferrara crept over the
+happiness of these two.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually that shadow fell between them and the sun; the grim thing
+which loomed big in the lives of them both, refused any longer to be
+ignored. Robert Cairn, his arm about the girl's waist, broached the
+hated subject.</p>
+
+<p>"When did you last see&mdash;Ferrara?"</p>
+
+<p>Myra looked up suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Over a week&mdash;nearly a fortnight, ago&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!"</p>
+
+<p>Cairn noted that the girl spoke of Ferrara with an odd sort of
+restraint for which he was at a loss to account. Myra had always
+regarded her guardian's adopted son in the light of a brother;
+therefore her present attitude was all the more singular.</p>
+
+<p>"You did not expect him to return to England so soon?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I had no idea that he was in England," said Myra,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> "until he walked
+in here one day. I was glad to see him&mdash;then."</p>
+
+<p>"And should you not be glad to see him now?" inquired Cairn eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>Myra, her head lowered, deliberately pressed out a crease in her white
+skirt.</p>
+
+<p>"One day, last week," she replied slowly, "he&mdash;came here, and&mdash;acted
+strangely&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"In what way?" jerked Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>"He pointed out to me that actually we&mdash;he and I&mdash;were in no way
+related."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know how I have always liked Antony? I have always thought of him
+as my brother."</p>
+
+<p>Again she hesitated, and a troubled expression crept over her pale
+face. Cairn raised his arm and clasped it about her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me all about it," he whispered reassuringly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," continued Myra in evident confusion, "his behaviour
+became&mdash;embarrassing; and suddenly&mdash;he asked me if I could ever love
+him, not as a brother, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I understand!" said Cairn grimly. "And you replied?"</p>
+
+<p>"For some time I could not reply at all: I was so surprised, and
+so&mdash;horrified. I cannot explain how I felt about it, but it seemed
+horrible&mdash;it seemed horrible!&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But of course, you told him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I told him that I could never be fond of him in any different
+way&mdash;that I could never <i>think</i> of it. And although I endeavoured to
+avoid hurting his feelings, he&mdash;took it very badly. He said, in such a
+queer, choking voice, that he was going away&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Away!&mdash;from England?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and&mdash;he made a strange request."</p>
+
+<p>"What was it?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the circumstances&mdash;you see&mdash;I felt sorry for him&mdash;I did not like
+to refuse him; it was only a trifling thing. He asked for a lock of my
+hair!"</p>
+
+<p>"A lock of your hair! And you&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I told you that I did not like to refuse&mdash;and I let him snip off a
+tiny piece, with a pair of pocket scissors which he had. Are you
+angry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not! You&mdash;were almost brought up together. You&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;" she paused&mdash;"he seemed to change. Suddenly, I found myself
+afraid&mdash;dreadfully afraid&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of Ferrara?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not of Antony, exactly. But what is the good of my trying to explain!
+A most awful dread seized me. His face was no longer the face that I
+have always known; something&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Her voice trembled, and she seemed disposed to leave the sentence
+unfinished; then:</p>
+
+<p>"Something evil&mdash;sinister, had come into it."</p>
+
+<p>"And since then," said Cairn, "you have not seen him?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has not been here since then&mdash;no."</p>
+
+<p>Cairn, his hands resting upon the girl's shoulders, leant back in the
+seat, and looked into her troubled eyes with a kind of sad scrutiny.</p>
+
+<p>"You have not been fretting about him?"</p>
+
+<p>Myra shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Yet you look as though something were troubling you. This house"&mdash;he
+indicated the low-lying garden with a certain irritation&mdash;"is not
+healthily situated. This place lies in a valley; look at the rank
+grass&mdash;and there are mosquitoes everywhere. You do not look well,
+Myra."</p>
+
+<p>The girl smiled&mdash;a little wistful smile.</p>
+
+<p>"But I was so tired of Scotland," she said. "You do not know how I
+looked forward to London again. I must admit, though, that I was in
+better health there; I was quite ashamed of my dairy-maid appearance."</p>
+
+<p>"You have nothing to amuse you here," said Cairn tenderly; "no
+company, for Mr. Saunderson only lives for his orchids."</p>
+
+<p>"They are very fascinating," said Myra dreamily, "I, too, have felt
+their glamour. I am the only member of the household whom he allows
+amongst his orchids&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you spend too much time there," interrupted Cairn; "that
+superheated, artificial atmosphere&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Myra shook her head playfully, patting his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing in the world the matter with me," she said, almost
+in her old bright manner&mdash;"now that you are back&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not approve of orchids," jerked Cairn doggedly. "They are
+parodies of what a flower should be. Place an Odontoglossum beside a
+rose, and what a distorted unholy thing it looks!"</p>
+
+<p>"Unholy?" laughed Myra.</p>
+
+<p>"Unholy,&mdash;yes!&mdash;they are products of feverish swamps and deathly
+jungles. I hate orchids. The atmosphere of an orchid-house cannot
+possibly be clean and healthy. One might as well spend one's time in a
+bacteriological laboratory!"</p>
+
+<p>Myra shook her head with affected seriousness.</p>
+
+<p>"You must not let Mr. Saunderson hear you," she said. "His orchids are
+his children. Their very mystery enthrals him&mdash;and really it is most
+fascinating. To look at one of those shapeless bulbs, and to speculate
+upon what kind of bloom it will produce, is almost as thrilling as
+reading a sensational novel! He has one growing now&mdash;it will bloom
+some time this week&mdash;about which he is frantically excited."</p>
+
+<p>"Where did he get it?" asked Cairn without interest.</p>
+
+<p>"He bought it from a man who had almost certainly stolen it! There
+were six bulbs in the parcel; only two have lived and one of these is
+much more advanced than the other; it is <i>so</i> high&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She held out her hand, indicating a height of some three feet from the
+ground.</p>
+
+<p>"It has not flowered yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. But the buds&mdash;huge, smooth, egg-shaped things&mdash;seem on the point
+of bursting at any moment. We call it the 'Mystery,' and it is my
+special care. Mr. Saunderson has shown me how to attend to its simple
+needs, and if it proves to be a new species&mdash;which is almost
+certain&mdash;he is going to exhibit it, and name it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> after me! Shall you
+be proud of having an orchid named after&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"After my wife?" Cairn concluded, seizing her hands. "I could never be
+more proud of you than I am already...."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FACE IN THE ORCHID-HOUSE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn walked to the window, with its old-fashioned leaded panes. A
+lamp stood by the bedside, and he had tilted the shade so that it
+shone upon the pale face of the patient&mdash;Myra Duquesne.</p>
+
+<p>Two days had wrought a dreadful change in her. She lay with closed
+eyes, and sunken face upon which ominous shadows played. Her
+respiration was imperceptible. The reputation of Dr. Bruce Cairn was a
+well deserved one, but this case puzzled him. He knew that Myra
+Duquesne was dying before his eyes; he could still see the agonised
+face of his son, Robert, who at that moment was waiting, filled with
+intolerable suspense, downstairs in Mr. Saunderson's study; but,
+withal, he was helpless. He looked out from the rose-entwined casement
+across the shrubbery, to where the moonlight glittered among the
+trees.</p>
+
+<p>Those were the orchid-houses; and with his back to the bed, Dr. Cairn
+stood for long, thoughtfully watching the distant gleams of reflected
+light. Craig Fenton and Sir Elwin Groves, with whom he had been
+consulting, were but just gone. The nature of Myra Duquesne's illness
+had utterly puzzled them, and they had left, mystified.</p>
+
+<p>Downstairs, Robert Cairn was pacing the study, wondering if his reason
+would survive this final blow which threatened. He knew, and his
+father knew, that a sinister something underlay this strange
+illness&mdash;an illness which had commenced on the day that Antony Ferrara
+had last visited the house.</p>
+
+<p>The evening was insufferably hot; not a breeze stirred in the leaves;
+and despite open windows, the air of the room was heavy and lifeless.
+A faint perfume, having a sort of sweetness, but which yet was
+unutterably<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> revolting, made itself perceptible to the nostrils.
+Apparently it had pervaded the house by slow degrees. The occupants
+were so used to it that they did not notice it at all.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn had busied himself that evening in the sick-room, burning
+some pungent preparation, to the amazement of the nurse and of the
+consultants. Now the biting fumes of his pastilles had all been wafted
+out of the window and the faint sweet smell was as noticeable as ever.</p>
+
+<p>Not a sound broke the silence of the house; and when the nurse quietly
+opened the door and entered, Dr. Cairn was still standing staring
+thoughtfully out of the window in the direction of the orchid-houses.
+He turned, and walking back to the bedside, bent over the patient.</p>
+
+<p>Her face was like a white mask; she was quite unconscious; and so far
+as he could see showed no change either for better or worse. But her
+pulse was slightly more feeble and the doctor suppressed a groan of
+despair; for this mysterious progressive weakness could only have one
+end. All his experience told him that unless something could be
+done&mdash;and every expedient thus far attempted had proved futile&mdash;Myra
+Duquesne would die about dawn.</p>
+
+<p>He turned on his heel, and strode from the room, whispering a few
+words of instruction to the nurse. Descending the stairs, he passed
+the closed study door, not daring to think of his son who waited
+within, and entered the dining-room. A single lamp burnt there, and
+the gaunt figure of Mr. Saunderson was outlined dimly where he sat in
+the window seat. Crombie, the gardener, stood by the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Crombie," said Dr. Cairn, quietly, closing the door behind him,
+"what is this story about the orchid-houses, and why did you not
+mention it before?"</p>
+
+<p>The man stared persistently into the shadows of the room, avoiding Dr.
+Cairn's glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Since he has had the courage to own up," interrupted Mr. Saunderson,
+"I have overlooked the matter: but he was afraid to speak before,
+because he had no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> business to be in the orchid-houses." His voice
+grew suddenly fierce&mdash;"He knows it well enough!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know, sir, that you don't want me to interfere with the orchids,"
+replied the man, "but I only ventured in because I thought I saw a
+light moving there&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Rubbish!" snapped Mr. Saunderson.</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, Saunderson," said Dr. Cairn, "but a matter of more
+importance than the welfare of all the orchids in the world is under
+consideration now."</p>
+
+<p>Saunderson coughed dryly.</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Cairn," he said. "I shouldn't have lost my temper for
+such a trifle, at a time like this. Tell your own tale, Crombie; I
+won't interrupt."</p>
+
+<p>"It was last night then," continued the man. "I was standing at the
+door of my cottage smoking a pipe before turning in, when I saw a
+faint light moving over by the orchid-houses&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Reflection of the moon," muttered Saunderson. "I am sorry. Go on,
+Crombie!"</p>
+
+<p>"I knew that some of the orchids were very valuable, and I thought
+there would not be time to call you; also I did not want to worry you,
+knowing you had worry enough already. So I knocked out my pipe and put
+it in my pocket, and went through the shrubbery. I saw the light
+again&mdash;it seemed to be moving from the first house into the second. I
+couldn't see what it was."</p>
+
+<p>"Was it like a candle, or a pocket-lamp?" jerked Dr. Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing like that, sir; a softer light, more like a glow-worm; but
+much brighter. I went around and tried the door, and it was locked.
+Then I remembered the door at the other end, and I cut round by the
+path between the houses and the wall, so that I had no chance to see
+the light again, until I got to the other door. I found this unlocked.
+There was a close kind of smell in there, sir, and the air was very
+hot&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally, it was hot," interrupted Saunderson.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean much hotter than it should have been. It was like an oven, and
+the smell was stifling&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What smell?" asked Dr. Cairn. "Can you describe it?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me,
+sir, but I seem to notice it here in this room to-night, and I think I
+noticed it about the place before&mdash;never so strong as in the
+orchid-houses."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on!" said Dr. Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>"I went through the first house, and saw nothing. The shadow of the
+wall prevented the moonlight from shining in there. But just as I was
+about to enter the middle house, I thought I saw&mdash;a face."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean you <i>thought</i> you saw?" snapped Mr. Saunderson.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean, sir, that it was so horrible and so strange that I could not
+believe it was real&mdash;which is one of the reasons why I did not speak
+before. It reminded me of the face of a gentleman I have seen
+here&mdash;Mr. Ferrara&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn stifled an exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>"But in other ways it was quite unlike the gentleman. In some ways it
+was more like the face of a woman&mdash;a very bad woman. It had a sort of
+bluish light on it, but where it could have come from, I don't know.
+It seemed to be smiling, and two bright eyes looked straight out at
+me."</p>
+
+<p>Crombie stopped, raising his hand to his head confusedly.</p>
+
+<p>"I could see nothing but just this face&mdash;low down as if the person it
+belonged to was crouching on the floor; and there was a tall plant of
+some kind just beside it&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Dr. Cairn, "go on! What did you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I turned to run!" confessed the man. "If you had seen that horrible
+face, you would understand how frightened I was. Then when I got to
+the door, I looked back."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you had closed the door behind you," snapped Saunderson.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind that, never mind that!" interrupted Dr. Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>"I had closed the door behind me&mdash;yes, sir&mdash;but just as I was going to
+open it again, I took a quick glance back, and the face had gone! I
+came out, and I was walking over the lawn, wondering whether I should
+tell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> you, when it occurred to me that I hadn't noticed whether the
+key had been left in or not."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you go back to see?" asked Dr. Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't want to," admitted Crombie, "but I did&mdash;and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"The door was locked, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"So you concluded that your imagination had been playing you tricks,"
+said Saunderson grimly. "In my opinion you were right."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn dropped into an armchair.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Crombie; that will do."</p>
+
+<p>Crombie, with a mumbled "Good-night, gentlemen," turned and left the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>"Why are you worrying about this matter," inquired Saunderson, when
+the door had closed, "at a time like the present?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind," replied Dr. Cairn wearily. "I must return to Half-Moon
+Street, now, but I shall be back within an hour."</p>
+
+<p>With no other word to Saunderson, he stood up and walked out to the
+hall. He rapped at the study door, and it was instantly opened by
+Robert Cairn. No spoken word was necessary; the burning question could
+be read in his too-bright eyes. Dr. Cairn laid his hand upon his son's
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't excite false hopes, Rob," he said huskily. "I am going back
+to the house, and I want you to come with me."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn turned his head aside, groaning aloud, but his father
+grasped him by the arm, and together they left that house of shadows,
+entered the car which waited at the gate, and without exchanging a
+word <i>en route</i>, came to Half-Moon Street.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>FLOWERING OF THE LOTUS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn led the way into the library, switching on the reading-lamp
+upon the large table. His son stood just within the doorway, his arms
+folded and his chin upon his breast.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor sat down at the table, watching the other.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Robert spoke:</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible, sir, is it possible&mdash;" his voice was barely
+audible&mdash;"that her illness can in any way be due to the orchids?"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn frowned thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, exactly?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Orchids are mysterious things. They come from places where there are
+strange and dreadful diseases. Is it not possible that they may
+convey&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Some sort of contagion?" concluded Dr. Cairn. "It is a point that I
+have seen raised, certainly. But nothing of the sort has ever been
+established. I have heard something, to-night, though, which&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What have you heard, sir?" asked his son eagerly, stepping forward to
+the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind at the moment, Rob; let me think."</p>
+
+<p>He rested his elbow upon the table, and his chin in his hand. His
+professional instincts had told him that unless something could be
+done&mdash;something which the highest medical skill in London had thus far
+been unable to devise&mdash;Myra Duquesne had but four hours to live.
+Somewhere in his mind a memory lurked, evasive, taunting him. This
+wild suggestion of his son's, that the girl's illness might be due in
+some way to her contact with the orchids, was in part responsible for
+this confused memory, but it seemed to be associated, too, with the
+story of Crombie the gardener&mdash;and with Antony Ferrara. He felt that
+somewhere in the darkness surrounding him there was a speck of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> light,
+if he could but turn in the right direction to see it. So, whilst
+Robert Cairn walked restlessly about the big room, the doctor sat with
+his chin resting in the palm of his hand, seeking to concentrate his
+mind upon that vague memory, which defied him, whilst the hand of the
+library clock crept from twelve towards one; whilst he knew that the
+faint life in Myra Duquesne was slowly ebbing away in response to some
+mysterious condition, utterly outside his experience.</p>
+
+<p>Distant clocks chimed <i>One</i>! Three hours only!</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn began to beat his fist into the palm of his left hand
+convulsively. Yet his father did not stir, but sat there, a
+black-shadowed wrinkle between his brows....</p>
+
+<p>"By God!"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor sprang to his feet, and with feverish haste began to fumble
+amongst a bunch of keys.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, sir! What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor unlocked the drawer of the big table, and drew out a thick
+manuscript written in small and exquisitely neat characters. He placed
+it under the lamp, and rapidly began to turn the pages.</p>
+
+<p>"It is hope, Rob!" he said with quiet self-possession.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn came round the table, and leant over his father's
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Michael Ferrara's writing!"</p>
+
+<p>"His unpublished book, Rob. We were to have completed it, together,
+but death claimed him, and in view of the contents, I&mdash;perhaps
+superstitiously&mdash;decided to suppress it.... Ah!"</p>
+
+<p>He placed the point of his finger upon a carefully drawn sketch,
+designed to illustrate the text. It was evidently a careful copy from
+the Ancient Egyptian. It represented a row of priestesses, each having
+her hair plaited in a thick queue, standing before a priest armed with
+a pair of scissors. In the centre of the drawing was an altar, upon
+which stood vases of flowers; and upon the right ranked a row of
+mummies, corresponding in number with the priestesses upon the left.</p>
+
+<p>"By God!" repeated Dr. Cairn, "we were both wrong, we were both
+wrong!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, sir? for Heaven's sake, what do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"This drawing," replied Dr. Cairn, "was copied from the wall of a
+certain tomb&mdash;now reclosed. Since we knew that the tomb was that of
+one of the greatest wizards who ever lived in Egypt, we knew also that
+the inscription had some magical significance. We knew that the
+flowers represented here, were a species of the extinct sacred Lotus.
+All our researches did not avail us to discover for what purpose or by
+what means these flowers were cultivated. Nor could we determine the
+meaning of the cutting off,"&mdash;he ran his fingers over the sketch&mdash;"of
+the priestesses' hair by the high priest of the goddess&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What goddess, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"A goddess, Rob, of which Egyptology knows nothing!&mdash;a mystical
+religion the existence of which has been vaguely suspected by a living
+French <i>savant</i> ... but this is no time&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn closed the manuscript, replaced it and relocked the drawer.
+He glanced at the clock.</p>
+
+<p>"A quarter past one," he said. "Come, Rob!"</p>
+
+<p>Without hesitation, his son followed him from the house. The car was
+waiting, and shortly they were speeding through the deserted streets,
+back to the house where death in a strange guise was beckoning to Myra
+Duquesne. As the car started&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," asked Dr. Cairn, "if Saunderson has bought any
+orchids&mdash;<i>quite</i> recently, I mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied his son dully; "he bought a small parcel only a
+fortnight ago."</p>
+
+<p>"A fortnight!" cried Dr. Cairn excitedly&mdash;"you are sure of that? You
+mean that the purchase was made since Ferrara&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ceased to visit the house? Yes. Why!&mdash;it must have been the very day
+after!"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn clearly was labouring under tremendous excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Where did he buy these orchids?" he asked, evenly.</p>
+
+<p>"From someone who came to the house&mdash;someone he had never dealt with
+before."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The doctor, his hands resting upon his knees, was rapidly drumming
+with his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"And&mdash;did he cultivate them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two only proved successful. One is on the point of blooming&mdash;if it is
+not blooming already. He calls it the 'Mystery.'"</p>
+
+<p>At that, the doctor's excitement overcame him. Suddenly leaning out of
+the window, he shouted to the chauffeur:</p>
+
+<p>"Quicker! Quicker! Never mind risks. Keep on top speed!"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, sir?" cried his son. "Heavens! what is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you say that it might have bloomed, Rob?"</p>
+
+<p>"Myra"&mdash;Robert Cairn swallowed noisily&mdash;"told me three days ago that
+it was expected to bloom before the end of the week."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it like?"</p>
+
+<p>"A thing four feet high, with huge egg-shaped buds."</p>
+
+<p>"Merciful God grant that we are in time," whispered Dr. Cairn. "I
+could believe once more in the justice of Heaven, if the great
+knowledge of Sir Michael Ferrara should prove to be the weapon to
+destroy the fiend whom we raised!&mdash;he and I&mdash;may we be forgiven!"'</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn's excitement was dreadful.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you tell me nothing?" he cried. "What do you hope? What do you
+fear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't ask me, Rob," replied his father; "you will know within five
+minutes."</p>
+
+<p>The car indeed was leaping along the dark suburban roads at a speed
+little below that of an express train. Corners the chauffeur
+negotiated in racing fashion, so that at times two wheels thrashed the
+empty air; and once or twice the big car swung round as upon a pivot
+only to recover again in response to the skilled tactics of the
+driver.</p>
+
+<p>They roared down the sloping narrow lane to the gate of Mr.
+Saunderson's house with a noise like the coming of a great storm, and
+were nearly hurled from their seats when the brakes were applied, and
+the car brought to a standstill.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn leapt out, pushed open the gate and ran up to the house, his
+son closely following. There was a light in the hall and Miss
+Saunderson who had expected them, and had heard their stormy approach,
+already held the door open. In the hall&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Wait here one moment," said Dr. Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>Ignoring Saunderson, who had come out from the library, he ran
+upstairs. A minute later, his face very pale, he came running down
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"She is worse?" began Saunderson, "but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Give me the key of the orchid-house!" said Dr. Cairn tersely.</p>
+
+<p>"Orchid-house!&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't hesitate. Don't waste a second. Give me the key."</p>
+
+<p>Saunderson's expression showed that he thought Dr. Cairn to be mad,
+but nevertheless he plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled out a
+key-ring. Dr. Cairn snatched it in a flash.</p>
+
+<p>"Which key?" he snapped.</p>
+
+<p>"The Chubb, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Follow me, Rob!"</p>
+
+<p>Down the hall he raced, his son beside him, and Mr. Saunderson
+following more slowly. Out into the garden he went and over the lawn
+towards the shrubbery.</p>
+
+<p>The orchid-houses lay in dense shadow; but the doctor almost threw
+himself against the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Strike a match!" he panted. Then&mdash;"Never mind&mdash;I have it!"</p>
+
+<p>The door flew open with a bang. A sickly perfume swept out to them.</p>
+
+<p>"Matches! matches, Rob! this way!"</p>
+
+<p>They went stumbling in. Robert Cairn took out a box of matches&mdash;and
+struck one. His father was further along, in the centre building.</p>
+
+<p>"Your knife, boy&mdash;quick! <i>quick</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>As the dim light crept along the aisle between the orchids, Robert
+Cairn saw his father's horror-stricken face ... and saw a vivid green
+plant growing in a sort of tub, before which the doctor stood. Four
+huge, smooth, egg-shaped buds grew upon the leafless stems;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> two of
+them were on the point of opening, and one already showed a delicious,
+rosy flush about its apex.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn grasped the knife which Robert tremblingly offered him. The
+match went out. There was a sound of hacking, a soft <i>swishing</i>, and a
+dull thud upon the tiled floor.</p>
+
+<p>As another match fluttered into brief life, the mysterious orchid,
+severed just above the soil, fell from the tub. Dr. Cairn stamped the
+swelling buds under his feet. A profusion of colourless sap was
+pouring out upon the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Above the intoxicating odour of the place, a smell like that of blood
+made itself perceptible.</p>
+
+<p>The second match went out.</p>
+
+<p>"Another&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn's voice rose barely above a whisper. With fingers quivering,
+Robert Cairn managed to light a third match. His father, from a second
+tub, tore out a smaller plant and ground its soft tentacles beneath
+his feet. The place smelt like an operating theatre. The doctor swayed
+dizzily as the third match became extinguished, clutching at his son
+for support.</p>
+
+<p>"Her life was in it, boy!" he whispered. "She would have died in the
+hour that it bloomed! The priestesses&mdash;were consecrated to this....
+Let me get into the air&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Saunderson, silent with amazement, met them.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't speak," said Dr. Cairn to him. "Look at the dead stems of your
+'Mystery.' You will find a thread of bright hair in the heart of
+each!..."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn opened the door of the sick-room and beckoned to his son,
+who, haggard, trembling, waited upon the landing.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, boy," he said softly&mdash;"and thank God!"</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn, on tiptoe, entered. Myra Duquesne, pathetically pale but
+with that dreadful, ominous shadow gone from her face, turned her
+wistful eyes towards the door; and their wistfulness became gladness.</p>
+
+<p>"Rob!" she sighed&mdash;and stretched out her arms.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>CAIRN MEETS FERRARA</h3>
+
+
+<p>Not the least of the trials which Robert Cairn experienced during the
+time that he and his father were warring with their supernaturally
+equipped opponent was that of preserving silence upon this matter
+which loomed so large in his mind, and which already had changed the
+course of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes he met men who knew Ferrara, but who knew him only as a man
+about town of somewhat evil reputation. Yet even to these he dared not
+confide what he knew of the true Ferrara; undoubtedly they would have
+deemed him mad had he spoken of the knowledge and of the deeds of this
+uncanny, this fiendish being. How would they have listened to him had
+he sought to tell them of the den of spiders in Port Said; of the bats
+of M&eacute;yd&ucirc;m; of the secret incense and of how it was made; of the
+numberless murders and atrocities, wrought by means not human, which
+stood to the account of this adopted son of the late Sir Michael
+Ferrara?</p>
+
+<p>So, excepting his father, he had no confidant; for above all it was
+necessary to keep the truth from Myra Duquesne&mdash;from Myra around whom
+his world circled, but who yet thought of the dreadful being who
+wielded the sorcery of forgotten ages, as a brother. Whilst Myra lay
+ill&mdash;not yet recovered from the ghastly attack made upon her life by
+the man whom she trusted&mdash;whilst, having plentiful evidence of his
+presence in London, Dr. Cairn and himself vainly sought for Antony
+Ferrara; whilst any night might bring some unholy visitant to his
+rooms, obedient to the will of this modern wizard; whilst these fears,
+anxieties, doubts, and surmises danced, impish, through his brain, it
+was all but impossible to pursue with success, his vocation of
+journalism. Yet for many reasons it was necessary that he should do
+so, and so he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> employed upon a series of articles which were the
+outcome of his recent visit to Egypt&mdash;his editor having given him that
+work as being less exacting than that which properly falls to the lot
+of the Fleet Street copy-hunter.</p>
+
+<p>He left his rooms about three o'clock in the afternoon, in order to
+seek, in the British Museum library, a reference which he lacked. The
+day was an exceedingly warm one, and he derived some little
+satisfaction from the fact that, at his present work, he was not
+called upon to endue the armour of respectability. Pipe in mouth, he
+made his way across the Strand towards Bloomsbury.</p>
+
+<p>As he walked up the steps, crossed the hall-way, and passed in beneath
+the dome of the reading-room, he wondered if, amid those mountains of
+erudition surrounding him, there was any wisdom so strange, and so
+awful, as that of Antony Ferrara.</p>
+
+<p>He soon found the information for which he was looking, and having
+copied it into his notebook, he left the reading-room. Then, as he was
+recrossing the hall near the foot of the principal staircase, he
+paused. He found himself possessed by a sudden desire to visit the
+Egyptian Rooms, upstairs. He had several times inspected the exhibits
+in those apartments, but never since his return from the land to whose
+ancient civilisation they bore witness.</p>
+
+<p>Cairn was not pressed for time in these days, therefore he turned and
+passed slowly up the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>There were but few visitors to the grove of mummies that afternoon.
+When he entered the first room he found a small group of tourists
+passing idly from case to case; but on entering the second, he saw
+that he had the apartment to himself. He remembered that his father
+had mentioned on one occasion that there was a ring in this room which
+had belonged to the Witch-Queen. Robert Cairn wondered in which of the
+cases it was exhibited, and by what means he should be enabled to
+recognise it.</p>
+
+<p>Bending over a case containing scarabs and other amulets, many set in
+rings, he began to read the inscriptions upon the little tickets
+placed beneath some of them; but none answered to the description,
+neither the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> ticketed nor the unticketed. A second case he examined
+with like results. But on passing to a third, in an angle near the
+door, his gaze immediately lighted upon a gold ring set with a strange
+green stone, engraved in a peculiar way. It bore no ticket, yet as
+Robert Cairn eagerly bent over it, he knew, beyond the possibility of
+doubt, that this was the ring of the Witch-Queen.</p>
+
+<p>Where had he seen it, or its duplicate?</p>
+
+<p>With his eyes fixed upon the gleaming stone, he sought to remember.
+That he had seen this ring before, or one exactly like it, he knew,
+but strangely enough he was unable to determine where and upon what
+occasion. So, his hands resting upon the case, he leant, peering down
+at the singular gem. And as he stood thus, frowning in the effort of
+recollection, a dull white hand, having long tapered fingers, glided
+across the glass until it rested directly beneath his eyes. Upon one
+of the slim fingers was an exact replica of the ring in the case!</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn leapt back with a stifled exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>Antony Ferrara stood before him!</p>
+
+<p>"The Museum ring is a copy, dear Cairn," came the huskily musical,
+hateful voice; "the one upon my finger is the real one."</p>
+
+<p>Cairn realised in his own person, the literal meaning of the
+overworked phrase, "frozen with amazement." Before him stood the most
+dangerous man in Europe; a man who had done murder and worse; a man
+only in name, a demon in nature. His long black eyes half-closed, his
+perfectly chiselled ivory face expressionless, and his blood-red lips
+parted in a mirthless smile, Antony Ferrara watched Cairn&mdash;Cairn whom
+he had sought to murder by means of hellish art.</p>
+
+<p>Despite the heat of the day, he wore a heavy overcoat, lined with
+white fox fur. In his right hand&mdash;for his left still rested upon the
+case&mdash;he held a soft hat. With an easy nonchalance, he stood regarding
+the man who had sworn to kill him, and the latter made no move,
+uttered no word. Stark amazement held him inert.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew that you were in the Museum, Cairn," Ferrara continued, still
+having his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>basilisk eyes fixed upon the other from beneath the
+drooping lids, "and I called to you to join me here."</p>
+
+<p>Still Cairn did not move, did not speak.</p>
+
+<p>"You have acted very harshly towards me in the past, dear Cairn; but
+because my philosophy consists in an admirable blending of that
+practised in Sybaris with that advocated by the excellent Zeno;
+because whilst I am prepared to make my home in a Diogenes' tub, I,
+nevertheless, can enjoy the fragrance of a rose, the flavour of a
+peach&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The husky voice seemed to be hypnotising Cairn; it was a siren's
+voice, thralling him.</p>
+
+<p>"Because," continued Ferrara evenly, "in common with all humanity I am
+compound of man and woman, I can resent the enmity which drives me
+from shore to shore, but being myself a connoisseur of the red lips
+and laughing eyes of maidenhood&mdash;I am thinking, more particularly of
+Myra&mdash;I can forgive you, dear Cairn&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Then Cairn recovered himself.</p>
+
+<p>"You white-faced cur!" he snarled through clenched teeth; his knuckles
+whitened as he stepped around the case. "You dare to stand there
+mocking me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Ferrara again placed the case between himself and his enemy.</p>
+
+<p>"Pause, my dear Cairn," he said, without emotion. "What would you do?
+Be discreet, dear Cairn; reflect that I have only to call an attendant
+in order to have you pitched ignominiously into the street."</p>
+
+<p>"Before God! I will throttle the life from you!" said Cairn, in a
+voice savagely hoarse.</p>
+
+<p>He sprang again towards Ferrara. Again the latter dodged around the
+case with an agility which defied the heavier man.</p>
+
+<p>"Your temperament is so painfully Celtic, Cairn," he protested
+mockingly. "I perceive quite clearly that you will not discuss this
+matter judicially. Must I then call for the attendant?"</p>
+
+<p>Cairn clenched his fists convulsively. Through all the tumult of his
+rage, the fact had penetrated&mdash;that he was helpless. He could not
+attack Ferrara in that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> place; he could not detain him against his
+will. For Ferrara had only to claim official protection to bring about
+the complete discomfiture of his assailant. Across the case containing
+the duplicate ring, he glared at this incarnate fiend, whom the law,
+which he had secretly outraged, now served to protect. Ferrara spoke
+again in his huskily musical voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I regret that you will not be reasonable, Cairn. There is so much
+that I should like to say to you; there are so many things of interest
+which I could tell you. Do you know in some respects I am peculiarly
+gifted, Cairn? At times I can recollect, quite distinctly, particulars
+of former incarnations. Do you see that priestess lying there, just
+through the doorway? I can quite distinctly remember having met her
+when she was a girl; she was beautiful, Cairn. And I can even recall
+how, one night beside the Nile&mdash;but I see that you are growing
+impatient! If you will not avail yourself of this opportunity, I must
+bid you good-day&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He turned and walked towards the door. Cairn leapt after him; but
+Ferrara, suddenly beginning to run, reached the end of the Egyptian
+Room and darted out on to the landing, before his pursuer had time to
+realise what he was about.</p>
+
+<p>At the moment that Ferrara turned the corner ahead of him, Cairn saw
+something drop. Coming to the end of the room, he stooped and picked
+up this object, which was a plaited silk cord about three feet in
+length. He did not pause to examine it more closely, but thrust it
+into his pocket and raced down the steps after the retreating figure
+of Ferrara. At the foot, a constable held out his arm, detaining him.
+Cairn stopped in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"I must ask you for your name and address," said the constable,
+gruffly.</p>
+
+<p>"For Heaven's sake! what for?"</p>
+
+<p>"A gentleman has complained&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My good man!" exclaimed Cairn, and proffered his card&mdash;"it is&mdash;it is
+a practical joke on his part. I know him well&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The constable looked at the card and from the card, suspiciously, back
+to Cairn. Apparently the appearance of the latter reassured him&mdash;or he
+may have formed a better opinion of Cairn, from the fact that
+half-a-crown had quickly changed hands.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, sir," he said, "it is no affair of mine; he did not charge
+you with anything&mdash;he only asked me to prevent you from following
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite so," snapped Cairn irritably, and dashed off along the gallery
+in the hope of overtaking Ferrara.</p>
+
+<p>But, as he had feared, Ferrara had made good use of his ruse to
+escape. He was nowhere to be seen; and Cairn was left to wonder with
+what object he had risked the encounter in the Egyptian Room&mdash;for that
+it had been deliberate, and not accidental, he quite clearly
+perceived.</p>
+
+<p>He walked down the steps of the Museum, deep in reflection. The
+thought that he and his father for months had been seeking the fiend
+Ferrara, that they were sworn to kill him as they would kill a mad
+dog; and that he, Robert Cairn, had stood face to face with Ferrara,
+had spoken with him; and had let him go free, unscathed, was
+maddening. Yet, in the circumstances, how could he have acted
+otherwise?</p>
+
+<p>With no recollection of having traversed the intervening streets, he
+found himself walking under the archway leading to the court in which
+his chambers were situated; in the far corner, shadowed by the tall
+plane tree, where the worn iron railings of the steps and the small
+panes of glass in the solicitor's window on the ground floor called up
+memories of Charles Dickens, he paused, filled with a sort of
+wonderment. It seemed strange to him that such an air of peace could
+prevail, anywhere, whilst Antony Ferrara lived and remained at large.</p>
+
+<p>He ran up the stairs to the second landing, opened the door, and
+entered his chambers. He was oppressed to-day with a memory, the
+memory of certain gruesome happenings whereof these rooms had been the
+scene. Knowing the powers of Antony Ferrara he often doubted the
+wisdom of living there alone, but he was persuaded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> that to allow
+these fears to make headway, would be to yield a point to the enemy.
+Yet there were nights when he found himself sleepless, listening for
+sounds which had seemed to arouse him; imagining sinister whispers in
+his room&mdash;and imagining that he could detect the dreadful odour of the
+secret incense.</p>
+
+<p>Seating himself by the open window, he took out from his pocket the
+silken cord which Ferrara had dropped in the Museum, and examined it
+curiously. His examination of the thing did not serve to enlighten him
+respecting its character. It was merely a piece of silken cord, very
+closely and curiously plaited. He threw it down on the table,
+determined to show it to Dr. Cairn at the earliest opportunity. He was
+conscious of a sort of repugnance; and prompted by this, he carefully
+washed his hands as though the cord had been some unclean thing. Then,
+he sat down to work, only to realise immediately, that work was
+impossible until he had confided in somebody his encounter with
+Ferrara.</p>
+
+<p>Lifting the telephone receiver, he called up Dr. Cairn, but his father
+was not at home.</p>
+
+<p>He replaced the receiver, and sat staring vaguely at his open
+notebook.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE IVORY HAND</h3>
+
+
+<p>For close upon an hour Robert Cairn sat at his writing-table,
+endeavouring to puzzle out a solution to the mystery of Ferrara's
+motive. His reflections served only to confuse his mind.</p>
+
+<p>A tangible clue lay upon the table before him&mdash;the silken cord. But it
+was a clue of such a nature that, whatever deductions an expert
+detective might have based upon it, Robert Cairn could base none. Dusk
+was not far off, and he knew that his nerves were not what they had
+been before those events which had led to his Egyptian journey. He was
+back in his own chamber&mdash;scene of one gruesome outrage in Ferrara's
+unholy campaign; for darkness is the ally of crime, and it had always
+been in the darkness that Ferrara's activities had most fearfully
+manifested themselves.</p>
+
+<p>What was that?</p>
+
+<p>Cairn ran to the window, and, leaning out, looked down into the court
+below. He could have sworn that a voice&mdash;a voice possessing a strange
+music, a husky music, wholly hateful&mdash;had called him by name. But at
+the moment the court was deserted, for it was already past the hour at
+which members of the legal fraternity desert their business premises
+to hasten homewards. Shadows were creeping under the quaint old
+archways; shadows were draping the ancient walls. And there was
+something in the aspect of the place which reminded him of a
+quadrangle at Oxford, across which, upon a certain fateful evening, he
+and another had watched the red light rising and falling in Antony
+Ferrara's rooms.</p>
+
+<p>Clearly his imagination was playing him tricks; and against this he
+knew full well that he must guard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> himself. The light in his rooms was
+growing dim, but instinctively his gaze sought out and found the
+mysterious silken cord amid the litter on the table. He contemplated
+the telephone, but since he had left a message for his father, he knew
+that the latter would ring him up directly he returned.</p>
+
+<p>Work, he thought, should be the likeliest antidote to the poisonous
+thoughts which oppressed his mind, and again he seated himself at the
+table and opened his notes before him. The silken rope lay close to
+his left hand, but he did not touch it. He was about to switch on the
+reading lamp, for it was now too dark to write, when his mind wandered
+off along another channel of reflection. He found himself picturing
+Myra as she had looked the last time that he had seen her.</p>
+
+<p>She was seated in Mr. Saunderson's garden, still pale from her
+dreadful illness, but beautiful&mdash;more beautiful in the eyes of Robert
+Cairn than any other woman in the world. The breeze was blowing her
+rebellious curls across her eyes&mdash;eyes bright with a happiness which
+he loved to see.</p>
+
+<p>Her cheeks were paler than they were wont to be, and the sweet lips
+had lost something of their firmness. She wore a short cloak, and a
+wide-brimmed hat, unfashionable, but becoming. No one but Myra could
+successfully have worn that hat, he thought.</p>
+
+<p>Wrapt in such lover-like memories, he forgot that he had sat down to
+write&mdash;forgot that he held a pen in his hand&mdash;and that this same hand
+had been outstretched to ignite the lamp.</p>
+
+<p>When he ultimately awoke again to the hard facts of his lonely
+environment, he also awoke to a singular circumstance; he made the
+acquaintance of a strange phenomenon.</p>
+
+<p>He had been writing unconsciously!</p>
+
+<p>And this was what he had written:</p>
+
+<p>"Robert Cairn&mdash;renounce your pursuit of me, and renounce Myra; or
+to-night&mdash;" The sentence was unfinished.</p>
+
+<p>Momentarily, he stared at the words, endeavouring to persuade himself
+that he had written them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> consciously, in idle mood. But some voice
+within gave him the lie; so that with a suppressed groan he muttered
+aloud:</p>
+
+<p>"It has begun!"</p>
+
+<p>Almost as he spoke there came a sound, from the passage outside, that
+led him to slide his hand across the table&mdash;and to seize his revolver.</p>
+
+<p>The visible presence of the little weapon reassured him; and, as a
+further sedative, he resorted to tobacco, filled and lighted his pipe,
+and leant back in the chair, blowing smoke rings towards the closed
+door.</p>
+
+<p>He listened intently&mdash;and heard the sound again.</p>
+
+<p>It was a soft <i>hiss</i>!</p>
+
+<p>And now, he thought he could detect another noise&mdash;as of some creature
+dragging its body along the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"A lizard!" he thought; and a memory of the basilisk eyes of Antony
+Ferrara came to him.</p>
+
+<p>Both the sounds seemed to come slowly nearer and nearer&mdash;the dragging
+thing being evidently responsible for the hissing; until Cairn decided
+that the creature must be immediately outside the door.</p>
+
+<p>Revolver in hand, he leapt across the room, and threw the door open.</p>
+
+<p>The red carpet, to right and left, was innocent of reptiles!</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the creaking of the revolving chair, as he had prepared to
+quit it, had frightened the thing. With the idea before him, he
+systematically searched all the rooms into which it might have gone.</p>
+
+<p>His search was unavailing; the mysterious reptile was not to be found.</p>
+
+<p>Returning again to the study he seated himself behind the table,
+facing the door&mdash;which he left ajar.</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes passed in silence&mdash;only broken by the dim murmur of the
+distant traffic.</p>
+
+<p>He had almost persuaded himself that his imagination&mdash;quickened by the
+atmosphere of mystery and horror wherein he had recently moved&mdash;was
+responsible for the hiss, when a new sound came to confute his
+reasoning.</p>
+
+<p>The people occupying the chambers below were moving about so that
+their footsteps were faintly audible;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> but, above these dim footsteps,
+a rustling&mdash;vague, indefinite, demonstrated itself. As in the case of
+the hiss, it proceeded from the passage.</p>
+
+<p>A light burnt inside the outer door, and this, as Cairn knew, must
+cast a shadow before any thing&mdash;or person&mdash;approaching the room.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sssf! ssf!</i>&mdash;came, like the rustle of light draperies.</p>
+
+<p>The nervous suspense was almost unbearable. He waited.</p>
+
+<p><i>What</i> was creeping, slowly, cautiously, towards the open door?</p>
+
+<p>Cairn toyed with the trigger of his revolver.</p>
+
+<p>"The arts of the West shall try conclusions with those of the East,"
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>A shadow!...</p>
+
+<p>Inch upon inch it grew&mdash;creeping across the door, until it covered all
+the threshold visible.</p>
+
+<p>Someone was about to appear.</p>
+
+<p>He raised the revolver.</p>
+
+<p>The shadow moved along.</p>
+
+<p>Cairn saw the tail of it creep past the door, until no shadow was
+there!</p>
+
+<p>The shadow had come&mdash;and gone ... but there was <i>no substance</i>!</p>
+
+<p>"I am going mad!"</p>
+
+<p>The words forced themselves to his lips. He rested his chin upon his
+hands and clenched his teeth grimly. Did the horrors of insanity stare
+him in the face!</p>
+
+<p>From that recent illness in London&mdash;when his nervous system had
+collapsed, utterly&mdash;despite his stay in Egypt he had never fully
+recovered. "A month will see you fit again," his father had said;
+but?&mdash;perhaps he had been wrong&mdash;perchance the affection had been
+deeper than he had suspected; and now this endless carnival of
+supernatural happenings had strained the weakened cells, so that he
+was become as a man in a delirium!</p>
+
+<p>Where did reality end and phantasy begin? Was it all merely
+subjective?</p>
+
+<p>He had read of such aberrations.</p>
+
+<p>And now he sat wondering if he were the victim of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> like
+affliction&mdash;and while he wondered he stared at the rope of silk. That
+was real.</p>
+
+<p>Logic came to his rescue. If he had seen and heard strange things, so,
+too, had Sime in Egypt&mdash;so had his father, both in Egypt and in
+London! Inexplicable things were happening around him; and all could
+not be mad!</p>
+
+<p>"I'm getting morbid again," he told himself; "the tricks of our
+damnable Ferrara are getting on my nerves. Just what he desires and
+intends!"</p>
+
+<p>This latter reflection spurred him to new activity; and, pocketing the
+revolver, he switched off the light in the study and looked out of the
+window.</p>
+
+<p>Glancing across the court, he thought that he saw a man standing
+below, peering upward. With his hands resting upon the window ledge,
+Cairn looked long and steadily.</p>
+
+<p>There certainly was someone standing in the shadow of the tall plane
+tree&mdash;but whether man or woman he could not determine.</p>
+
+<p>The unknown remaining in the same position, apparently watching, Cairn
+ran downstairs, and, passing out into the Court, walked rapidly across
+to the tree. There he paused in some surprise; there was no one
+visible by the tree and the whole court was quite deserted.</p>
+
+<p>"Must have slipped off through the archway," he concluded; and,
+walking back, he remounted the stair and entered his chambers again.</p>
+
+<p>Feeling a renewed curiosity regarding the silken rope which had so
+strangely come into his possession, he sat down at the table, and
+mastering his distaste for the thing, took it in his hands and
+examined it closely by the light of the lamp.</p>
+
+<p>He was seated with his back to the windows, facing the door, so that
+no one could possibly have entered the room unseen by him. It was as
+he bent down to scrutinise the curious plaiting, that he felt a
+sensation stealing over him, as though someone were standing very
+close to his chair.</p>
+
+<p>Grimly determined to resist any hypnotic tricks that might be
+practised against him, and well assured that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> there could be no person
+actually present in the chambers, he sat back, resting his revolver on
+his knee. Prompted by he knew not what, he slipped the silk cord into
+the table drawer and turned the key upon it.</p>
+
+<p>As he did so a hand crept over his shoulder&mdash;followed by a bare arm of
+the hue of old ivory&mdash;a woman's arm!</p>
+
+<p>Transfixed he sat, his eyes fastened upon the ring of dull metal,
+bearing a green stone inscribed with a complex figure vaguely
+resembling a spider, which adorned the index finger.</p>
+
+<p>A faint perfume stole to his nostrils&mdash;that of the secret incense; and
+the ring was the ring of the Witch-Queen!</p>
+
+<p>In this incredible moment he relaxed that iron control of his mind,
+which, alone, had saved him before. Even as he realised it, and strove
+to recover himself, he knew that it was too late; he knew that he was
+lost!</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Gloom ... blackness, unrelieved by any speck of light; murmuring,
+subdued, all around; the murmuring of a concourse of people. The
+darkness was odorous with a heavy perfume.</p>
+
+<p>A voice came&mdash;followed by complete silence.</p>
+
+<p>Again the voice sounded, chanting sweetly.</p>
+
+<p>A response followed in deep male voices.</p>
+
+<p>The response was taken up all around&mdash;what time a tiny speck grew, in
+the gloom&mdash;and grew, until it took form; and out of the darkness, the
+shape of a white-robed woman appeared&mdash;high up&mdash;far away.</p>
+
+<p>Wherever the ray that illumined her figure emanated from, it did not
+perceptibly dispel the Stygian gloom all about her. She was bathed in
+dazzling light, but framed in impenetrable darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Her dull gold hair was encircled by a band of white metal&mdash;like
+silver, bearing in front a round, burnished disk, that shone like a
+minor sun. Above the disk projected an ornament having the shape of a
+spider.</p>
+
+<p>The intense light picked out every detail vividly. Neck and shoulders
+were bare&mdash;and the gleaming ivory arms were uplifted&mdash;the long slender
+fingers held<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> aloft a golden casket covered with dim figures, almost
+undiscernible at that distance.</p>
+
+<p>A glittering zone of the same white metal confined the snowy
+draperies. Her bare feet peeped out from beneath the flowing robe.</p>
+
+<p>Above, below, and around her was&mdash;Memphian darkness!</p>
+
+<p>Silence&mdash;the perfume was stifling.... A voice, seeming to come from a
+great distance, cried:&mdash;"On your knees to the Book of Thoth! on your
+knees to the Wisdom Queen, who is deathless, being unborn, who is dead
+though living, whose beauty is for all men&mdash;that all men may die...."</p>
+
+<p>The whole invisible concourse took up the chant, and the light faded,
+until only the speck on the disk below the spider was visible.</p>
+
+<p>Then that, too, vanished.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A bell was ringing furiously. Its din grew louder and louder; it
+became insupportable. Cairn threw out his arms and staggered up like a
+man intoxicated. He grasped at the table-lamp only just in time to
+prevent it overturning.</p>
+
+<p>The ringing was that of his telephone bell. He had been unconscious,
+then&mdash;under some spell!</p>
+
+<p>He unhooked the receiver&mdash;and heard his father's voice.</p>
+
+<p>"That you, Rob?" asked the doctor anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," replied Cairn, eagerly, and he opened the drawer and slid
+his hand in for the silken cord.</p>
+
+<p>"There is something you have to tell me?"</p>
+
+<p>Cairn, without preamble, plunged excitedly into an account of his
+meeting with Ferrara. "The silk cord," he concluded, "I have in my
+hand at the present moment, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on a moment!" came Dr. Cairn's voice, rather grimly.</p>
+
+<p>Followed a short interval; then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, Rob! Listen to this, from to-night's paper: 'A curious
+discovery was made by an attendant in one of the rooms, of the Indian
+Section of the British<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> Museum late this evening. A case had been
+opened in some way, and, although it contained more valuable objects,
+the only item which the thief had abstracted was a Thug's
+strangling-cord from Kund&eacute;lee (district of Nursingpore).'"</p>
+
+<p>"But, I don't understand&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ferrara <i>meant</i> you to find that cord, boy! Remember, he is
+unacquainted with your chambers and he requires a <i>focus</i> for his
+damnable forces! He knows well that you will have the thing somewhere
+near to you, and probably he knows something of its awful history! You
+are in danger! Keep a fast hold upon yourself. I shall be with you in
+less than half-an-hour!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE THUG'S CORD</h3>
+
+
+<p>As Robert Cairn hung up the receiver and found himself cut off again
+from the outer world, he realised, with terror beyond his control, how
+in this quiet backwater, so near to the main stream, he yet was far
+from human companionship.</p>
+
+<p>He recalled a night when, amid such a silence as this which now
+prevailed about him, he had been made the subject of an uncanny
+demonstration; how his sanity, his life, had been attacked; how he had
+fled from the crowding horrors which had been massed against him by
+his supernaturally endowed enemy.</p>
+
+<p>There was something very terrifying in the quietude of the court&mdash;a
+quietude which to others might have spelt peace, but which, to Robert
+Cairn, spelled menace. That Ferrara's device was aimed at his freedom,
+that his design was intended to lead to the detention of his enemy
+whilst he directed his activities in other directions, seemed
+plausible, if inadequate. The carefully planned incident at the Museum
+whereby the constable had become possessed of Cairn's card; the
+distinct possibility that a detective might knock upon his door at any
+moment&mdash;with the inevitable result of his detention pending
+inquiries&mdash;formed a chain which had seemed complete, save that Antony
+Ferrara, was the schemer. For another to have compassed so much, would
+have been a notable victory; for Ferrara, such a victory would be
+trivial.</p>
+
+<p>What then, did it mean? His father had told him, and the uncanny
+events of the evening stood evidence of Dr. Cairn's wisdom. The
+mysterious and evil force which Antony Ferrara controlled was being
+focussed upon him!</p>
+
+<p>Slight sounds from time to time disturbed the silence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> and to these he
+listened attentively. He longed for the arrival of his father&mdash;for the
+strong, calm counsel of the one man in England fitted to cope with the
+Hell Thing which had uprisen in their midst. That he had already been
+subjected to some kind of hypnotic influence, he was unable to doubt;
+and having once been subjected to this influence, he might at any
+moment (it Was a terrible reflection) fall a victim to it again.</p>
+
+<p>Cairn directed all the energies of his mind to resistance; ill-defined
+reflection must at all costs be avoided, for the brain vaguely
+employed he knew to be more susceptible to attack than that directed
+in a well-ordered channel.</p>
+
+<p>Clocks were chiming the hour&mdash;he did not know what hour, nor did he
+seek to learn. He felt that he was at rapier play with a skilled
+antagonist, and that to glance aside, however momentarily, was to lay
+himself open to a fatal thrust.</p>
+
+<p>He had not moved from the table, so that only the reading lamp upon it
+was lighted, and much of the room lay in half shadow. The silken cord,
+coiled snake-like, was close to his left hand; the revolver was close
+to his right. The muffled roar of traffic&mdash;diminished, since the hour
+grew late&mdash;reached his ears as he sat. But nothing disturbed the
+stillness of the court, and nothing disturbed the stillness of the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>The notes which he had made in the afternoon at the Museum, were still
+spread open before him, and he suddenly closed the book, fearful of
+anything calculated to distract him from the mood of tense resistance.
+His life, and more than his life, depended upon his successfully
+opposing the insidious forces which beyond doubt, invisibly surrounded
+that lighted table.</p>
+
+<p>There is a courage which is not physical, nor is it entirely moral; a
+courage often lacking in the most intrepid soldier. And this was the
+kind of courage which Robert Cairn now called up to his aid. The
+occult inquirer can face, unmoved, horrors which would turn the brain
+of many a man who wears the V.C.; on the other hand it is questionable
+if the possessor of this peculiar type of bravery could face a bayonet
+charge.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> Pluck of the physical sort, Cairn had in plenty; pluck of
+that more subtle kind he was acquiring from growing intimacy with the
+terrors of the Borderland.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's there?"</p>
+
+<p>He spoke the words aloud, and the eerie sound of his own voice added a
+new dread to the enveloping shadows.</p>
+
+<p>His revolver grasped in his hand, he stood up, but slowly and
+cautiously, in order that his own movements might not prevent him from
+hearing any repetition of that which had occasioned his alarm. And
+what had occasioned this alarm?</p>
+
+<p>Either he was become again a victim of the strange trickery which
+already had borne him, though not physically, from Fleet Street to the
+secret temple of M&eacute;yd&ucirc;m, or with his material senses he had detected a
+soft rapping upon the door of his room.</p>
+
+<p>He knew that his outer door was closed; he knew that there was no one
+else in his chambers; yet he had heard a sound as of knuckles beating
+upon the panels of the door&mdash;the closed door of the room in which he
+sat!</p>
+
+<p>Standing upright, he turned deliberately, and faced in that direction.</p>
+
+<p>The light pouring out from beneath the shade of the table-lamp
+scarcely touched upon the door at all. Only the edges of the lower
+panels were clearly perceptible; the upper part of the door was masked
+in greenish shadow.</p>
+
+<p>Intent, tensely strung, he stood; then advanced in the direction of
+the switch in order to light the lamp fixed above the mantel-piece and
+to illuminate the whole of the room. One step forward he took, then
+... the soft rapping was repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's there?"</p>
+
+<p>This time he cried the words loudly, and acquired some new assurance
+from the imperative note in his own voice. He ran to the switch and
+pressed it down. The lamp did not light!</p>
+
+<p>"The filament has burnt out," he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>Terror grew upon him&mdash;a terror akin to that which children experience
+in the darkness. But he yet had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> a fair mastery of his emotions;
+when&mdash;not suddenly, as is the way of a failing electric lamp&mdash;but
+slowly, uncannily, unnaturally, the table-lamp became extinguished!</p>
+
+<p>Darkness.... Cairn turned towards the window. This was a moonless
+night, and little enough illumination entered the room from the court.</p>
+
+<p>Three resounding raps were struck upon the door.</p>
+
+<p>At that, terror had no darker meaning for Cairn; he had plumbed its
+ultimate deeps; and now, like a diver, he arose again to the surface.</p>
+
+<p>Heedless of the darkness, of the seemingly supernatural means by which
+it had been occasioned, he threw open the door and thrust his revolver
+out into the corridor.</p>
+
+<p>For terrors, he had been prepared&mdash;for some gruesome shape such as we
+read of in <i>The Magus</i>. But there was nothing. Instinctively he had
+looked straight ahead of him, as one looks who expects to encounter a
+human enemy. But the hall-way was empty. A dim light, finding access
+over the door from the stair, prevailed there, yet, it was sufficient
+to have revealed the presence of anyone or anything, had anyone or
+anything been present.</p>
+
+<p>Cairn stepped out from the room and was about to walk to the outer
+door. The idea of flight was strong upon him, for no man can fight the
+invisible; when, on a level with his eyes&mdash;flat against the wall, as
+though someone crouched there&mdash;he saw two white hands!</p>
+
+<p>They were slim hands, like the hands of a woman, and, upon one of the
+tapered fingers, there dully gleamed a green stone.</p>
+
+<p>A peal of laughter came chokingly from his lips; he knew that his
+reason was tottering. For these two white hands which now moved along
+the wall, as though they were sidling to the room which Cairn had just
+quitted, were attached to no visible body; just two ivory hands were
+there ... <i>and nothing more</i>!</p>
+
+<p>That he was in deadly peril, Cairn realised fully. His complete
+subjection by the will-force of Ferrara had been interrupted by the
+ringing of the telephone bell But now, the attack had been renewed!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The hands vanished.</p>
+
+<p>Too well he remembered the ghastly details attendant upon the death of
+Sir Michael Ferrara to doubt that these slim hands were directed upon
+murderous business.</p>
+
+<p>A soft swishing sound reached him. Something upon the writing-table
+had been moved.</p>
+
+<p>The strangling cord!</p>
+
+<p>Whilst speaking to his father he had taken it out from the drawer, and
+when he quitted the room it had lain upon the blotting-pad.</p>
+
+<p>He stepped back towards the outer door.</p>
+
+<p>Something fluttered past his face, and he turned in a mad panic. The
+dreadful, bodiless hands groped in the darkness between himself and
+the exit!</p>
+
+<p>Vaguely it came home to him that the menace might be avoidable. He was
+bathed in icy perspiration.</p>
+
+<p>He dropped the revolver into his pocket, and placed his hands upon his
+throat. Then he began to grope his way towards the closed door of his
+bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>Lowering his left hand, he began to feel for the doorknob. As he did
+so, he saw&mdash;and knew the crowning horror of the night&mdash;that he had
+made a false move. In retiring he had thrown away his last, his only,
+chance.</p>
+
+<p>The phantom hands, a yard apart and holding the silken cord stretched
+tightly between them, were approaching him swiftly!</p>
+
+<p>He lowered his head, and charged along the passage, with a wild cry.</p>
+
+<p>The cord, stretched taut, struck him under the chin.</p>
+
+<p>Back he reeled.</p>
+
+<p>The cord was about his throat!</p>
+
+<p>"God!" he choked, and thrust up his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Madly, he strove to pluck the deadly silken thing from his neck. It
+was useless. A grip of steel was drawing it tightly&mdash;and ever more
+tightly&mdash;about him....</p>
+
+<p>Despair touched him, and almost he resigned himself. Then,</p>
+
+<p>"Rob! Rob! open the door!"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn was outside.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A new strength came&mdash;and he knew that it was the last atom left to
+him. To remove the rope was humanly impossible. He dropped his cramped
+hands, bent his body by a mighty physical effort, and hurled himself
+forward upon the door.</p>
+
+<p>The latch, now, was just above his head.</p>
+
+<p>He stretched up ... and was plucked back. But the fingers of his right
+hand grasped the knob convulsively.</p>
+
+<p>Even as that superhuman force jerked him back, he turned the knob&mdash;and
+fell.</p>
+
+<p>All his weight hung upon the fingers which were locked about that
+brass disk in a grip which even the powers of Darkness could not
+relax.</p>
+
+<p>The door swung open, and Cairn swung back with it.</p>
+
+<p>He collapsed, an inert heap, upon the floor. Dr. Cairn leapt in over
+him.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>When he reopened his eyes, he lay in bed, and his father was bathing
+his inflamed throat.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, boy! There's no damage done, thank God...."</p>
+
+<p>"The hands!&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I quite understand. But <i>I</i> saw no hands but your own, Rob; and if it
+had come to an inquest I could not even have raised my voice against a
+verdict of suicide!"</p>
+
+<p>"But I&mdash;opened the door!"</p>
+
+<p>"They would have said that you repented your awful act, too late.
+Although it is almost impossible for a man to strangle himself under
+such conditions, there is no jury in England who would have believed
+that Antony Ferrara had done the deed."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HIGH PRIEST, HORTOTEF</h3>
+
+
+<p>The breakfast-room of Dr. Cairn's house in Half-Moon Street presented
+a cheery appearance, and this despite the gloom of the morning; for
+thunderous clouds hung low in the sky, and there were distant
+mutterings ominous of a brewing storm.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn stood looking out of the window. He was thinking of an
+afternoon at Oxford, when, to such an accompaniment as this, he had
+witnessed the first scene in the drama of evil wherein the man called
+Antony Ferrara sustained the leading <i>r&ocirc;le</i>.</p>
+
+<p>That the <i>denou&eacute;ment</i> was at any moment to be anticipated, his reason
+told him; and some instinct that was not of his reason forewarned him,
+too, that he and his father, Dr. Cairn, were now upon the eve of that
+final, decisive struggle which should determine the triumph of good
+over evil&mdash;or of evil over good. Already the doctor's house was
+invested by the uncanny forces marshalled by Antony Ferrara against
+them. The distinguished patients, who daily flocked to the
+consulting-room of the celebrated specialist, who witnessed his
+perfect self-possession and took comfort from his confidence, knowing
+it for the confidence of strength, little suspected that a greater ill
+than any flesh is heir to, assailed the doctor to whom they came for
+healing.</p>
+
+<p>A menace, dreadful and unnatural, hung over that home as now the
+thunder clouds hung over it. This well-ordered household, so modern,
+so typical of twentieth century culture and refinement, presented none
+of the appearances of a beleaguered garrison; yet the house of Dr.
+Cairn in Half-Moon Street, was nothing less than an invested
+fortress.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A peal of distant thunder boomed from the direction of Hyde Park.
+Robert Cairn looked up at the lowering sky as if seeking a portent. To
+his eyes it seemed that a livid face, malignant with the malignancy of
+a devil, looked down out of the clouds.</p>
+
+<p>Myra Duquesne came into the breakfast-room.</p>
+
+<p>He turned to greet her, and, in his capacity of accepted lover, was
+about to kiss the tempting lips, when he hesitated&mdash;and contented
+himself with kissing her hand. A sudden sense of the proprieties had
+assailed him; he reflected that the presence of the girl beneath the
+same roof as himself&mdash;although dictated by imperative need&mdash;might be
+open to misconstruction by the prudish. Dr. Cairn had decided that for
+the present Myra Duquesne must dwell beneath his own roof, as, in
+feudal days, the Baron at first hint of an approaching enemy formerly
+was, accustomed to call within the walls of the castle, those whom it
+was his duty to protect. Unknown to the world, a tremendous battle
+raged in London, the outer works were in the possession of the
+enemy&mdash;and he was now before their very gates.</p>
+
+<p>Myra, though still pale from her recent illness, already was
+recovering some of the freshness of her beauty, and in her simple
+morning dress, as she busied herself about the breakfast table, she
+was a sweet picture enough, and good to look upon. Robert Cairn stood
+beside her, looking into her eyes, and she smiled up at him with a
+happy contentment, which filled him with a new longing. But:</p>
+
+<p>"Did you dream again, last night?" he asked, in a voice which he
+strove to make matter-of-fact.</p>
+
+<p>Myra nodded&mdash;and her face momentarily clouded over.</p>
+
+<p>"The same dream?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said in a troubled way; "at least&mdash;in some respects&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn came in, glancing at his watch.</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning!" he cried, cheerily. "I have actually overslept
+myself."</p>
+
+<p>They took their seats at the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Myra has been dreaming again, sir," said Robert Cairn slowly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The doctor, serviette in hand, glanced up with an inquiry in his grey
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"We must not overlook any possible weapon," he replied. "Give us
+particulars of your dream, Myra."</p>
+
+<p>As Marston entered silently with the morning fare, and, having placed
+the dishes upon the table, as silently withdrew, Myra began:</p>
+
+<p>"I seemed to stand again in the barn-like building which I have
+described to you before. Through the rafters of the roof I could see
+the cracks in the tiling, and the moonlight shone through, forming
+light and irregular patches upon the floor. A sort of door, like that
+of a stable, with a heavy bar across, was dimly perceptible at the
+further end of the place. The only furniture was a large deal table
+and a wooden chair of a very common kind. Upon the table, stood a
+lamp&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of lamp?" jerked Dr. Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>"A silver lamp"&mdash;she hesitated, looking from Robert to his
+father&mdash;"one that I have seen in&mdash;Antony's rooms. Its shaded light
+shone upon a closed iron box. I immediately recognised this box. You
+know that I described to you a dream which&mdash;terrified me on the
+previous night?"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn nodded, frowning darkly.</p>
+
+<p>"Repeat your account of the former dream," he said. "I regard it as
+important."</p>
+
+<p>"In my former dream," the girl resumed&mdash;and her voice had an odd,
+far-away quality&mdash;"the scene was the same, except that the light of
+the lamp was shining down upon the leaves of an open book&mdash;a very,
+very old book, written in strange characters. These characters
+appeared to dance before my eyes&mdash;almost as though they lived."</p>
+
+<p>She shuddered slightly; then:</p>
+
+<p>"The same iron box, but open, stood upon the table, and a number of
+other, smaller, boxes, around it. Each of these boxes was of a
+different material. Some were wooden; one, I think, was of ivory; one
+was of silver&mdash;and one, of some dull metal, which might have been
+gold. In the chair, by the table, Antony was sitting.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> His eyes were
+fixed upon me, with such a strange expression that I awoke, trembling
+frightfully&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn nodded again.</p>
+
+<p>"And last night?" he prompted.</p>
+
+<p>"Last night," continued Myra, with a note of trouble in her sweet
+voice&mdash;"at four points around this table, stood four smaller lamps and
+upon the floor were rows of characters apparently traced in luminous
+paint. They flickered up and then grew dim, then flickered up again,
+in a sort of phosphorescent way. They extended from lamp to lamp, so
+as entirely to surround the table and the chair.</p>
+
+<p>"In the chair Antony Ferrara was sitting. He held a wand in his right
+hand&mdash;a wand with several copper rings about it; his left hand rested
+upon the iron box. In my dream, although I could see this all very
+clearly, I seemed to see it from a distance; yet, at the same time, I
+stood apparently close by the tables&mdash;I cannot explain. But I could
+hear nothing; only by the movements of his lips, could I tell that he
+was speaking&mdash;or chanting."</p>
+
+<p>She looked across at Dr. Cairn as if fearful to proceed, but presently
+continued:</p>
+
+<p>"Suddenly, I saw a frightful shape appear on the far side of the
+circle; that is to say, the table was between me and this shape. It
+was just like a grey cloud having the vague outlines of a man, but
+with two eyes of red fire glaring out from it&mdash;horribly&mdash;oh! horribly!
+It extended its shadowy arms as if saluting Antony. He turned and
+seemed to question it. Then with a look of ferocious anger&mdash;oh! it was
+frightful! he dismissed the shape, and began to walk up and down
+beside the table, but never beyond the lighted circle, shaking his
+fists in the air, and, to judge by the movements of his lips, uttering
+most awful imprecations. He looked gaunt and ill. I dreamt no more,
+but awoke conscious of a sensation as though some dead weight, which
+had been pressing upon me had been suddenly removed."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn glanced across at his son significantly, but the subject was
+not renewed throughout breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>Breakfast concluded:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Come into the library, Rob," said Dr. Cairn, "I have half-an-hour to
+spare, and there are some matters to be discussed."</p>
+
+<p>He led the way into the library with its orderly rows of obscure
+works, its store of forgotten wisdom, and pointed to the red leathern
+armchair. As Robert Cairn seated himself and looked across at his
+father, who sat at the big writing-table, that scene reminded him of
+many dangers met and overcome in the past; for the library at
+Half-Moon Street was associated in his mind with some of the blackest
+pages in the history of Antony Ferrara.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you understand the position, Rob?" asked the doctor, abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"I think so, sir. This I take it is his last card; this outrageous,
+ungodly Thing which he has loosed upon us."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn nodded grimly.</p>
+
+<p>"The exact frontier," he said, "dividing what we may term hypnotism
+from what we know as sorcery, has yet to be determined; and to which
+territory the doctrine of Elemental Spirits belongs, it would be
+purposeless at the moment to discuss. We may note, however,
+remembering with whom we are dealing, that the one-hundred-and-eighth
+chapter of the Ancient Egyptian <i>Book of the Dead</i>, is entitled 'The
+Chapter of Knowing the Spirits of the West.' Forgetting, <i>pro tem.</i>,
+that we dwell in the twentieth century, and looking at the situation
+from the point of view, say, of Eliphas L&eacute;vi, Cornelius Agrippa, or
+the Abb&eacute; de Villars&mdash;the man whom we know as Antony Ferrara, is
+directing against this house, and those within it, a type of elemental
+spirit, known as a Salamander!"</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn smiled slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said the doctor, with an answering smile in which there was
+little mirth, "we are accustomed to laugh at this medi&aelig;val
+terminology; but by what other can we speak of the activities of
+Ferrara?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes I think that we are the victims of a common madness," said
+his son, raising his hand to his head in a manner almost pathetic.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We are the victims of a common enemy," replied his father sternly.
+"He employs weapons which, often enough, in this enlightened age of
+ours, have condemned poor souls, as sane as you or I, to the madhouse!
+Why, in God's name," he cried with a sudden excitement, "does science
+persistently ignore all those laws which cannot be examined in the
+laboratory! Will the day never come when some true man of science
+shall endeavour to explain the movements of a table upon which a ring
+of hands has been placed? Will no exact scientist condescend to
+examine the properties of a <i>planchette</i>? Will no one do for the
+phenomena termed thought-forms, what Newton did for that of the
+falling apple? Ah! Rob, in some respects, this is a darker age than
+those which bear the stigma of darkness."</p>
+
+<p>Silence fell for a few moments between them; then:</p>
+
+<p>"One thing is certain," said Robert Cairn, deliberately, "we are in
+danger!"</p>
+
+<p>"In the greatest danger!"</p>
+
+<p>"Antony Ferrara, realising that we are bent upon his destruction, is
+making a final, stupendous effort to compass ours. I know that you
+have placed certain seals upon the windows of this house, and that
+after dusk these windows are never opened. I know that imprints,
+strangely like the imprints of <i>fiery hands</i>, may be seen at this
+moment upon the casements of Myra's room, your room, my room, and
+elsewhere. I know that Myra's dreams are not ordinary, meaningless
+dreams. I have had other evidence. I don't want to analyse these
+things; I confess that my mind is not capable of the task. I do not
+even want to know the meaning of it all; at the present moment, I only
+want to know one thing: <i>Who is Antony Ferrara?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn stood up, and turning, faced his son.</p>
+
+<p>"The time has come," he said, "when that question, which you have
+asked me so many times before, shall be answered. I will tell you all
+I know, and leave you to form your own opinion. For ere we go any
+further, I assure you that I do not know for certain who he is!"</p>
+
+<p>"You have said so before, sir. Will you explain what you mean?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"When his adoptive father, Sir Michael Ferrara," resumed the doctor,
+beginning to pace up and down the library&mdash;"when Sir Michael and I
+were in Egypt, in the winter of 1893, we conducted certain inquiries
+in the Fay&ucirc;m. We camped for over three months beside the M&eacute;yd&ucirc;m
+Pyramid. The object of our inquiries was to discover the tomb of a
+certain queen. I will not trouble you with the details, which could be
+of no interest to anyone but an Egyptologist, I will merely say that
+apart from the name and titles by which she is known to the ordinary
+student, this queen is also known to certain inquirers as the
+Witch-Queen. She was not an Egyptian, but an Asiatic. In short, she
+was the last high priestess of a cult which became extinct at her
+death. Her secret mark&mdash;I am not referring to a cartouche or anything
+of that kind&mdash;was a spider; it was the mark of the religion or cult
+which she practised. The high priest of the principal Temple of Ra,
+during the reign of the Pharaoh who was this queen's husband, was one
+Hortotef. This was his official position, but secretly he was also the
+high-priest of the sinister creed to which I have referred. The temple
+of this religion&mdash;a religion allied to Black Magic&mdash;was the Pyramid of
+M&eacute;yd&ucirc;m.</p>
+
+<p>"So much we knew&mdash;or Ferrara knew, and imparted to me&mdash;but for any
+corroborative evidence of this cult's existence we searched in vain.
+We explored the interior of the pyramid foot by foot, inch by
+inch&mdash;and found nothing. We knew that there was some other apartment
+in the pyramid, but in spite of our soundings, measurements and
+laborious excavations, we did not come upon the entrance to it. The
+tomb of the queen we failed to discover, also, and therefore concluded
+that her mummy was buried in the secret chamber of the pyramid. We had
+abandoned our quest in despair, when, excavating in one of the
+neighbouring mounds, we made a discovery."</p>
+
+<p>He opened a box of cigars, selected one, and pushed the box towards
+his son. Robert shook his head, almost impatiently, but Dr. Cairn
+lighted the cigar ere resuming:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Directed, as I now believe, by a malignant will, we blundered upon
+the tomb of the high priest&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You found his mummy?"</p>
+
+<p>"We found his mummy&mdash;yes. But owing to the carelessness&mdash;and the
+fear&mdash;of the native labourers it was exposed to the sun and
+crumpled&mdash;was lost. I would a similar fate had attended the other one
+which we found!"</p>
+
+<p>"What, another mummy?"</p>
+
+<p>"We discovered"&mdash;Dr. Cairn spoke very deliberately&mdash;"a certain
+papyrus. The translation of this is contained"&mdash;he rested the point of
+his finger upon the writing-table&mdash;"in the unpublished book of Sir
+Michael Ferrara, which lies here. That book, Rob, will never be
+published now! Furthermore, we discovered the mummy of a child&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A child."</p>
+
+<p>"A boy. Not daring to trust the natives, we removed it secretly at
+night to our own tent. Before we commenced the task of unwrapping it,
+Sir Michael&mdash;the most brilliant scholar of his age&mdash;had proceeded so
+far in deciphering the papyrus, that he determined to complete his
+reading before we proceeded further. It contained directions for
+performing a certain process. This process had reference to the mummy
+of the child."</p>
+
+<p>"Do I understand&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Already, you are discrediting the story! Ah! I can see it! but let me
+finish. Unaided, we performed this process upon the embalmed body of
+the child. Then, in accordance with the directions of that dead
+magician&mdash;that accursed, malignant being, who thus had sought to
+secure for himself a new tenure of evil life&mdash;we laid the mummy,
+treated in a certain fashion, in the King's Chamber of the M&eacute;yd&ucirc;m
+Pyramid. It remained there for thirty days; from moon to moon&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You guarded the entrance?"</p>
+
+<p>"You may assume what you like, Rob; but I could swear before any jury,
+that no one entered the pyramid throughout that time. Yet since we
+were only human, we may have been deceived in this. I have only to
+add, that when at the rising of the new moon in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> ancient Sothic
+month of Panoi, we again entered the chamber, a living baby, some six
+months old, perfectly healthy, solemnly blinked up at the lights which
+we held in our trembling hands!"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn reseated himself at the table, and turned the chair so that
+he faced his son. With the smouldering cigar between his teeth, he
+sat, a slight smile upon his lips.</p>
+
+<p>Now it was Robert's turn to rise and begin feverishly to pace the
+floor.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean, sir, that this infant&mdash;which lay in the
+pyramid&mdash;was&mdash;adopted by Sir Michael?"</p>
+
+<p>"Was adopted, yes. Sir Michael engaged nurses for him, reared him here
+in England, educating him as an Englishman, sent him to a public
+school, sent him to&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"To Oxford! Antony Ferrara! What! Do you seriously tell me that this
+is the history of Antony Ferrara?"</p>
+
+<p>"On my word of honour, boy, that is all I know of Antony Ferrara. Is
+it not enough?"</p>
+
+<p>"Merciful God! it is incredible," groaned Robert Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>"From the time that he attained to manhood," said Dr. Cairn evenly,
+"this adopted son of my poor old friend has passed from crime to
+crime. By means which are beyond my comprehension, and which alone
+serve to confirm his supernatural origin, he has acquired&mdash;knowledge.
+According to the Ancient Egyptian beliefs the <i>Khu</i> (or magical
+powers) of a fully-equipped Adept, at the death of the body, could
+enter into anything prepared for its reception. According to these
+ancient beliefs, then, the <i>Khu</i> of the high priest Hortotef entered
+into the body of this infant who was his son, and whose mother was the
+Witch-Queen; and to-day in this modern London, a wizard of Ancient
+Egypt, armed with the lost lore of that magical land, walks amongst
+us! What that lore is worth, it would be profitless for us to discuss,
+but that he possesses it&mdash;<i>all</i> of it&mdash;I know, beyond doubt. The most
+ancient and most powerful magical book which has ever existed was the
+<i>Book of Thoth</i>."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He walked across to a distant shelf, selected a volume, opened it at a
+particular page, and placed it on his son's knees.</p>
+
+<p>"Read there!" he said, pointing.</p>
+
+<p>The words seemed to dance before the younger man's eyes, and this is
+what he read:</p>
+
+<p>"To read two pages, enables you to enchant the heavens, the earth, the
+abyss, the mountains, and the sea; you shall know what the birds of
+the sky and the crawling things are saying ... and when the second
+page is read, if you are in the world of ghosts, you will grow again
+in the shape you were on earth...."</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens!" whispered Robert Cairn, "is this the writing of a madman?
+or can such things possibly be!" He read on:</p>
+
+<p>"This book is in the middle of the river at Koptos, in an iron box&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"An iron box," he muttered&mdash;"an iron box."</p>
+
+<p>"So you recognise the iron box?" jerked Dr. Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>His son read on:</p>
+
+<p>"In the iron box, is a bronze box; in the bronze box, is a sycamore
+box; in the sycamore box, is an ivory and ebony box; in the ivory and
+ebony box, is a silver box; in the silver box, is a golden box; and in
+that is the book. It is twisted all round with snakes, and scorpions,
+and all the other crawling things...."</p>
+
+<p>"The man who holds the <i>Book of Thoth</i>," said Dr. Cairn, breaking the
+silence, "holds a power which should only belong to God. The creature
+who is known to the world as Antony Ferrara, holds that book&mdash;do you
+doubt it?&mdash;therefore you know now, as I have known long enough, with
+what manner of enemy we are fighting. You know that, this time, it is
+a fight to the death&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He stopped abruptly, staring out of the window.</p>
+
+<p>A man with a large photographic camera, standing upon the opposite
+pavement, was busily engaged in focussing the house!</p>
+
+<p>"What is this?" muttered Robert Cairn, also stepping to the window.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a link between sorcery and science!" replied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> the doctor. "You
+remember Ferrara's photographic gallery at Oxford?&mdash;the Zenana, you
+used to call it!&mdash;You remember having seen in his collection
+photographs of persons who afterwards came to violent ends?"</p>
+
+<p>"I begin to understand!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thus far, his endeavours to concentrate the whole of the evil forces
+at his command upon this house have had but poor results: having
+merely caused Myra to dream strange dreams&mdash;clairvoyant dreams,
+instructive dreams, more useful to us than to the enemy; and having
+resulted in certain marks upon the outside of the house adjoining the
+windows&mdash;windows which I have sealed in a particular manner. You
+understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"By means of photographs he&mdash;concentrates, in some way, malignant
+forces upon certain points&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He focusses his will&mdash;yes! The man who can really control his will,
+Rob, is supreme, below the Godhead. Ferrara can almost do this now.
+Before he has become wholly proficient&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I understand, sir," snapped his son grimly.</p>
+
+<p>"He is barely of age, boy," Dr. Cairn said, almost in a whisper. "In
+another year, he would menace the world. Where are you going?"</p>
+
+<p>He grasped his son's arm as Robert started for the door.</p>
+
+<p>"That man yonder&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Diplomacy, Rob!&mdash;Guile against guile. Let the man do his work, which
+he does in all innocence; <i>then</i> follow him. Learn where his studio is
+situated, and, from that point, proceed to learn&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The situation of Ferrara's hiding-place?" cried his son, excitedly.
+"I understand! Of course; you are right, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I will leave the inquiry in your hands, Rob. Unfortunately other
+duties call me."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE WIZARD'S DEN</h3>
+
+
+<p>Robert Cairn entered a photographer's shop in Baker Street.</p>
+
+<p>"You recently arranged to do views of some houses in the West End for
+a gentleman?" he said to the girl in charge.</p>
+
+<p>"That is so," she replied, after a moment's hesitation. "We did
+pictures of the house of some celebrated specialist&mdash;for a magazine
+article they were intended. Do you wish us to do something similar?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at the moment," replied Robert Cairn, smiling slightly. "I merely
+want the address of your client."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know that I can give you that," replied the girl doubtfully,
+"but he will be here about eleven o'clock for proofs, if you wish to
+see him."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if I can confide in you," said Robert Cairn, looking the
+girl frankly in the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>She seemed rather confused.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope there is nothing wrong," she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"You have nothing to fear," he replied, "but unfortunately there <i>is</i>
+something wrong, which, however, I cannot explain. Will you promise me
+not to tell your client&mdash;I do not ask his name&mdash;that I have been here,
+or have been making any inquiries respecting him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I can promise that," she replied.</p>
+
+<p>"I am much indebted to you."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn hastily left the shop, and began to look about him for a
+likely hiding-place from whence, unobserved, he might watch the
+photographer's. An antique furniture dealer's, some little distance
+along on the opposite side, attracted his attention. He glanced at his
+watch. It was half-past ten.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>If, upon the pretence of examining some of the stock, he could linger
+in the furniture shop for half-an-hour, he would be enabled to get
+upon the track of Ferrara!</p>
+
+<p>His mind made up, he walked along and entered the shop. For the next
+half-an-hour, he passed from item to item of the collection displayed
+there, surveying each in the leisurely manner of a connoisseur; but
+always he kept a watch, through the window, upon the photographer's
+establishment beyond.</p>
+
+<p>Promptly at eleven o'clock a taxi cab drew up at the door, and from it
+a slim man alighted. He wore, despite the heat of the morning, an
+overcoat of some woolly material; and in his gait, as he crossed the
+pavement to enter the shop, there was something revoltingly
+effeminate; a sort of cat-like grace which had been noticeable in a
+woman, but which in a man was unnatural, and for some obscure reason,
+sinister.</p>
+
+<p>It was Antony Ferrara!</p>
+
+<p>Even at that distance and in that brief time, Robert Cairn could see
+the ivory face, the abnormal, red lips, and the long black eyes of
+this arch fiend, this monster masquerading as a man. He had much ado
+to restrain his rising passion; but, knowing that all depended upon
+his cool action, he waited until Ferrara had entered the
+photographer's. With a word of apology to the furniture dealer, he
+passed quickly into Baker Street. Everything rested, now, upon his
+securing a cab before Ferrara came out again. Ferrara's cabman,
+evidently, was waiting for him.</p>
+
+<p>A taxi driver fortunately hailed Cairn at the very moment that he
+gained the pavement; and Cairn, concealing himself behind the vehicle,
+gave the man rapid instructions:</p>
+
+<p>"You see that taxi outside the photographer's?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>The man nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait until someone comes out of the shop and is driven off in it;
+then follow. Do not lose sight of the cab for a moment. When it draws
+up, and wherever it draws up, drive right past it. Don't attract
+attention by stopping. You understand?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Quite, sir," said the man, smiling slightly. And Cairn entered the
+cab.</p>
+
+<p>The cabman drew up at a point some little distance beyond, from whence
+he could watch. Two minutes later Ferrara came out and was driven off.
+The pursuit commenced.</p>
+
+<p>His cab, ahead, proceeded to Westminster Bridge, across to the south
+side of the river, and by way of that commercial thoroughfare at the
+back of St. Thomas' Hospital, emerged at Vauxhall. Thence the pursuit
+led to Stockwell, Herne Hill, and yet onward towards Dulwich.</p>
+
+<p>It suddenly occurred to Robert Cairn that Ferrara was making in the
+direction of Mr. Saunderson's house at Dulwich Common; the house in
+which Myra had had her mysterious illness, in which she had remained
+until it had become evident that her safety depended upon her never
+being left alone for one moment.</p>
+
+<p>"What can be his object?" muttered Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>He wondered if Ferrara, for some inscrutable reason, was about to call
+upon Mr. Saunderson. But when the cab ahead, having passed the park,
+continued on past the lane in which the house was situated, he began
+to search for some other solution to the problem of Ferrara's
+destination.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he saw that the cab ahead had stopped. The driver of his own
+cab without slackening speed, pursued his way. Cairn crouched down
+upon the floor, fearful of being observed. No house was visible to
+right nor left, merely open fields; and he knew that it would be
+impossible for him to delay in such a spot without attracting
+attention.</p>
+
+<p>Ferrara's cab passed:</p>
+
+<p>"Keep on till I tell you to stop!" cried Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>He dropped the speaking-tube, and, turning, looked out through the
+little window at the back.</p>
+
+<p>Ferrara had dismissed his cab; he saw him entering a gate and crossing
+a field on the right of the road. Cairn turned again and took up the
+tube.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop at the first house we come to!" he directed. "Hurry!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Presently a deserted-looking building was reached, a large straggling
+house which obviously had no tenant. Here the man pulled up and Cairn
+leapt out. As he did so, he heard Ferrara's cab driving back by the
+way it had come.</p>
+
+<p>"Here," he said, and gave the man half a sovereign, "wait for me."</p>
+
+<p>He started back along the road at a run. Even had he suspected that he
+was followed, Ferrara could not have seen him. But when Cairn came up
+level with the gate through which Ferrara had gone, he slowed down and
+crept cautiously forward.</p>
+
+<p>Ferrara, who by this time had reached the other side of the field, was
+in the act of entering a barn-like building which evidently at some
+time had formed a portion of a farm. As the distant figure, opening
+one of the big doors, disappeared within:</p>
+
+<p>"The place of which Myra has been dreaming!" muttered Cairn.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly, viewed from that point, it seemed to answer, externally, to
+the girl's description. The roof was of moss-grown red tiles, and
+Cairn could imagine how the moonlight would readily find access
+through the chinks which beyond doubt existed in the weather-worn
+structure. He had little doubt that this was the place dreamt of, or
+seen clairvoyantly, by Myra, that this was the place to which Ferrara
+had retreated in order to conduct his nefarious operations.</p>
+
+<p>It was eminently suited to the purpose, being entirely surrounded by
+unoccupied land. For what ostensible purpose Ferrara has leased it, he
+could not conjecture, nor did he concern himself with the matter. The
+purpose for which actually he had leased the place was sufficiently
+evident to the man who had suffered so much at the hands of this
+modern sorcerer.</p>
+
+<p>To approach closer would have been indiscreet; this he knew; and he
+was sufficiently diplomatic to resist the temptation to obtain a
+nearer view of the place. He knew that everything depended upon
+secrecy. Antony Ferrara must not suspect that his black laboratory was
+known. Cairn decided to return<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> to Half-Moon Street without delay,
+fully satisfied with the result of his investigation.</p>
+
+<p>He walked rapidly back to where the cab waited, gave the man his
+father's address, and, in three-quarters of an hour, was back in
+Half-Moon Street.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn had not yet dismissed the last of his patients; Myra,
+accompanied by Miss Saunderson, was out shopping; and Robert found
+himself compelled to possess his soul in patience. He paced restlessly
+up and down the library, sometimes taking a book at random, scanning
+its pages with unseeing eyes, and replacing it without having formed
+the slightest impression of its contents. He tried to smoke; but his
+pipe was constantly going out, and he had littered the hearth untidily
+with burnt matches, when Dr. Cairn suddenly opened the library door,
+and entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" he said eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn leapt forward.</p>
+
+<p>"I have tracked him, sir!" he cried. "My God! while Myra was at
+Saunderson's, she was almost next door to the beast! His den is in a
+field no more than a thousand yards from the garden wall&mdash;from
+Saunderson's orchid-houses!"</p>
+
+<p>"He is daring," muttered Dr. Cairn, "but his selection of that site
+served two purposes. The spot was suitable in many ways; and we were
+least likely to look for him next-door, as it were. It was a move
+characteristic of the accomplished criminal."</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the place of which Myra dreamt, sir. I have not the slightest
+doubt about that. What we have to find out is at what times of the day
+and night he goes there&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt," interrupted Dr. Cairn, "if he often visits the place during
+the day. As you know, he has abandoned his rooms in Piccadilly, but I
+have no doubt, knowing his sybaritic habits, that he has some other
+palatial place in town. I have been making inquiries in several
+directions, especially in&mdash;certain directions&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He paused, raising his eyebrows, significantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Additions to the Zenana!" inquired Robert.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn nodded his head grimly.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," he replied. "There is not a scrap of evidence upon which,
+legally, he could be convicted; but since his return from Egypt, Rob,
+he has added other victims to the list!"</p>
+
+<p>"The fiend!" cried the younger man, "the unnatural fiend!"</p>
+
+<p>"Unnatural is the word; he is literally unnatural; but many women find
+him irresistible; he is typical of the unholy brood to which he
+belongs. The evil beauty of the Witch-Queen sent many a soul to
+perdition; the evil beauty of her son has zealously carried on the
+work."</p>
+
+<p>"What must we do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt if we can do anything to-day. Obviously the early morning is
+the most suitable time to visit his den at Dulwich Common."</p>
+
+<p>"But the new photographs of the house? There will be another attempt
+upon us to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, there will be another attempt upon us, to-night," said the
+doctor wearily. "This is the year 1914; yet, here in Half-Moon Street,
+when dusk falls, we shall be submitted to an attack of a kind to which
+mankind probably has not been submitted for many ages. We shall be
+called upon to dabble in the despised magical art; we shall be called
+upon to place certain seals upon our doors and windows; to protect
+ourselves against an enemy, who, like Eros, laughs at locks and bars."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible for him to succeed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite possible, Rob, in spite of all our precautions. I feel in my
+very bones that to-night he will put forth a supreme effort."</p>
+
+<p>A bell rang.</p>
+
+<p>"I think," continued the doctor, "that this is Myra. She must get all
+the sleep she can, during the afternoon; for to-night I have
+determined that she, and you, and I, must not think of sleep, but must
+remain together, here in the library. We must not lose sight of one
+another&mdash;you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad that you have proposed it!" cried Robert<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> Cairn eagerly,
+"I, too, feel that we have come to a critical moment in the contest."</p>
+
+<p>"To-night," continued the doctor, "I shall be prepared to take certain
+steps. My preparations will occupy me throughout the rest of to-day."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE ELEMENTAL</h3>
+
+
+<p>At dusk that evening, Dr. Cairn, his son, and Myra Duquesne met
+together in the library. The girl looked rather pale.</p>
+
+<p>An odour of incense pervaded the house, coming from the doctor's
+study, wherein he had locked himself early in the evening, issuing
+instructions that he was not to be disturbed. The exact nature of the
+preparations which he had been making, Robert Cairn was unable to
+conjecture; and some instinct warned him that his father would not
+welcome any inquiry upon the matter. He realised that Dr. Cairn
+proposed to fight Antony Ferrara with his own weapons, and now, when
+something in the very air of the house seemed to warn them of a
+tremendous attack impending, that the doctor, much against his will,
+was entering the arena in the character of a practical magician&mdash;a
+character new to him, and obviously abhorrent.</p>
+
+<p>At half-past ten, the servants all retired in accordance With Dr.
+Cairn's orders. From where he stood by the tall mantel-piece, Robert
+Cairn could watch Myra Duquesne, a dainty picture in her simple
+evening-gown, where she sat reading in a distant corner, her delicate
+beauty forming a strong contrast to the background of sombre volumes.
+Dr. Cairn sat by the big table, smoking, and apparently listening. A
+strange device which he had adopted every evening for the past week,
+he had adopted again to-night&mdash;there were little white seals, bearing
+a curious figure, consisting in interlaced triangles, upon the insides
+of every window in the house, upon the doors, and even upon the
+fire-grates.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn at another time might have thought his father mad,
+childish, thus to play at wizardry; but he had had experiences which
+had taught him to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> recognise that upon such seemingly trivial matters,
+great issues might turn, that in the strange land over the Border,
+there were stranger laws&mdash;laws which he could but dimly understand.
+There he acknowledged the superior wisdom of Dr. Cairn; and did not
+question it.</p>
+
+<p>At eleven o'clock a comparative quiet had come upon Half-Moon Street.
+The sound of the traffic had gradually subsided, until it seemed to
+him that the house stood, not in the busy West End of London, but
+isolated, apart from its neighbours; it seemed to him an abode, marked
+out and separated from the other abodes of man, a house enveloped in
+an impalpable cloud, a cloud of evil, summoned up and directed by the
+wizard hand of Antony Ferrara, son of the Witch-Queen.</p>
+
+<p>Although Myra pretended to read, and Dr. Cairn, from his fixed
+expression, might have been supposed to be pre-occupied, in point of
+fact they were all waiting, with nerves at highest tension, for the
+opening of the attack. In what form it would come&mdash;whether it would be
+vague moanings and tappings upon the windows, such as they had already
+experienced, whether it would be a phantasmal storm, a clap of
+phenomenal thunder&mdash;they could not conjecture, if the enemy would
+attack suddenly, or if his menace would grow, threatening from afar
+off, and then gradually penetrating into the heart of the garrison.</p>
+
+<p>It came, then, suddenly and dramatically.</p>
+
+<p>Dropping her book, Myra uttered a piercing scream, and with eyes
+glaring madly, fell forward on the carpet, unconscious!</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn leapt to his feet with clenched fists. His father stood
+up so rapidly as to overset his chair, which fell crashingly upon the
+floor.</p>
+
+<p>Together they turned and looked in the direction in which the girl had
+been looking. They fixed their eyes upon the drapery of the library
+window&mdash;which was drawn together. The whole window was luminous as
+though a bright light shone outside, but luminous, as though that
+light were the light of some unholy fire!</p>
+
+<p>Involuntarily they both stepped back, and Robert Cairn clutched his
+father's arm convulsively.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The curtains seemed to be rendered transparent, as if some powerful
+ray were directed upon them; the window appeared through them as a
+rectangular blue patch. Only two lamps were burning in the library,
+that in the corner by which Myra had been reading, and the green
+shaded lamp upon the table. The best end of the room by the window,
+then, was in shadow, against which this unnatural light shone
+brilliantly.</p>
+
+<p>"My God!" whispered Robert Cairn&mdash;"that's Half-Moon Street&mdash;outside.
+There can be no light&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He broke off, for now he perceived the Thing which had occasioned the
+girl's scream of horror.</p>
+
+<p>In the middle of the rectangular patch of light, a grey shape, but
+partially opaque, moved&mdash;shifting, luminous clouds about it&mdash;was
+taking form, growing momentarily more substantial!</p>
+
+<p>It had some remote semblance of a man; but its unique characteristic
+was its awful <i>greyness</i>. It had the greyness of a rain cloud, yet
+rather that of a column of smoke. And from the centre of the dimly
+defined head, two eyes&mdash;balls of living fire&mdash;glared out into the
+room!</p>
+
+<p>Heat was beating into the library from the window&mdash;physical heat, as
+though a furnace door had been opened ... and the shape, ever growing
+more palpable, was moving forward towards them&mdash;approaching&mdash;the heat
+every instant growing greater.</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible to look at those two eyes of fire; it was almost
+impossible to move. Indeed Robert Cairn was transfixed in such horror
+as, in all his dealings with the monstrous Ferrara, he had never known
+before. But his father, shaking off the dread which possessed him
+also, leapt at one bound to the library table.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn vaguely perceived that a small group of objects, looking
+like balls of wax, lay there. Dr. Cairn had evidently been preparing
+them in the locked study. Now he took them all up in his left hand,
+and confronted the Thing&mdash;which seemed to be <i>growing</i> into the
+room&mdash;for it did not advance in the ordinary sense of the word.</p>
+
+<p>One by one he threw the white pellets into that vapoury greyness. As
+they touched the curtain, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> hissed as if they had been thrown into
+a fire; they melted; and upon the transparency of the drapings, as
+upon a sheet of gauze, showed faint streaks, where, melting, they
+trickled down the tapestry.</p>
+
+<p>As he cast each pellet from his hand, Dr. Cairn took a step forward,
+and cried out certain words in a loud voice&mdash;words which Robert Cairn
+knew he had never heard uttered before, words in a language which some
+instinct told him to be Ancient Egyptian.</p>
+
+<p>Their effect was to force that dreadful shape gradually to disperse,
+as a cloud of smoke might disperse when the fire which occasions it is
+extinguished slowly. Seven pellets in all he threw towards the
+window&mdash;and the seventh struck the curtains, now once more visible in
+their proper form.</p>
+
+<p>The Fire Elemental had been vanquished!</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn clutched his hair in a sort of frenzy. He glared at the
+draped window, feeling that he was making a supreme effort to retain
+his sanity. Had it ever looked otherwise? Had the tapestry ever faded
+before him, becoming visible in a great light which had shone through
+it from behind? Had the Thing, a Thing unnameable, indescribable,
+stood there?</p>
+
+<p>He read his answer upon the tapestry.</p>
+
+<p>Whitening streaks showed where the pellets, melting, had trickled down
+the curtain!</p>
+
+<p>"Lift Myra on the settee!"</p>
+
+<p>It was Dr. Cairn speaking, calmly, but in a strained voice.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn, as if emerging from a mist, turned to the recumbent
+white form upon the carpet. Then, with a great cry, he leapt forward
+and raised the girl's head.</p>
+
+<p>"Myra!" he groaned. "Myra, speak to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Control yourself, boy," rapped Dr. Cairn, sternly; "she cannot speak
+until you have revived her! She has swooned&mdash;nothing worse."</p>
+
+<p>"And&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We have conquered!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BOOK OF THOTH</h3>
+
+
+<p>The mists of early morning still floated over the fields, when these
+two, set upon strange business, walked through the damp grass to the
+door of the barn, where-from radiated the deathly waves which on the
+previous night had reached them, or almost reached them, in the
+library at Half-Moon Street.</p>
+
+<p>The big double doors were padlocked, but for this they had come
+provided. Ten minutes work upon the padlock sufficed&mdash;and Dr. Cairn
+swung wide the doors.</p>
+
+<p>A suffocating smell&mdash;the smell of that incense with which they had too
+often come in contact, was wafted out to them. There was a dim light
+inside the place, and without hesitation both entered.</p>
+
+<p>A deal table and chair constituted the sole furniture of the interior.
+A part of the floor was roughly boarded, and a brief examination of
+the boarding sufficed to discover the hiding place in which Antony
+Ferrara kept the utensils of his awful art.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cairn lifted out two heavy boards; and in a recess below lay a
+number of singular objects. There were four antique lamps of most
+peculiar design; there was a larger silver lamp, which both of them
+had seen before in various apartments occupied by Antony Ferrara.
+There were a number of other things which Robert Cairn could not have
+described, had he been called upon to do so, for the reason that he
+had seen nothing like them before, and had no idea of their nature or
+purpose.</p>
+
+<p>But, conspicuous amongst this curious hoard, was a square iron box of
+workmanship dissimilar from any workmanship known to Robert Cairn. Its
+lid was covered with a sort of scroll work, and he was about to reach
+down, in order to lift it out, when:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do not touch it!" cried the doctor&mdash;"for God's sake, do not touch
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn started back, as though he had seen a snake. Turning to
+his father, he saw that the latter was pulling on a pair of white
+gloves. As he fixed his eyes upon these in astonishment, he perceived
+that they were smeared all over with some white preparation.</p>
+
+<p>"Stand aside, boy," said the doctor&mdash;and for once his voice shook
+slightly. "Do not look again until I call to you. Turn your head
+aside!"</p>
+
+<p>Silent with amazement, Robert Cairn obeyed. He heard his father lift
+out the iron box. He heard him open it, for he had already perceived
+that it was not locked. Then quite distinctly, he heard him close it
+again, and replace it in the <i>cache</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not turn, boy!" came a hoarse whisper.</p>
+
+<p>He did not turn, but waited, his heart beating painfully, for what
+should happen next.</p>
+
+<p>"Stand aside from the door," came the order, "and when I have gone
+out, do not look after me. I will call to you when it is finished."</p>
+
+<p>He obeyed, without demur.</p>
+
+<p>His father passed him, and he heard him walking through the damp grass
+outside the door of the barn. There followed an intolerable interval.
+From some place, not very distant, he could hear Dr. Cairn moving,
+hear the chink of glass upon glass, as though he were pouring out
+something from a stoppered bottle. Then a faint acrid smell was wafted
+to his nostrils, perceptible even above the heavy odour of the incense
+from the barn.</p>
+
+<p>"Relock the door!" came the cry.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Cairn reclosed the door, snapped the padlock fast, and began to
+fumble with the skeleton keys with which they had come provided. He
+discovered that to reclose the padlock was quite as difficult as to
+open it. His hands were trembling too; he was all anxiety to see what
+had taken place behind him. So that when at last a sharp click told of
+the task accomplished, he turned in a flash and saw his father placing
+tufts of grass upon a charred patch from which a faint<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> haze of smoke
+still arose. He walked over and joined him.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you done, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have robbed him of his armour," replied the doctor, grimly. His
+face was very pale, his eyes were very bright. "I have destroyed the
+<i>Book of Thoth</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then, he will be unable&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He will still be able to summon his dreadful servant, Rob. Having
+summoned him once, he can summon him again, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"He cannot control him."</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>That night brought no repetition of the uncanny attack; and in the
+grey half light before the dawn, Dr. Cairn and his son, themselves
+like two phantoms, again crept across the field to the barn.</p>
+
+<p>The padlock hung loose in the ring.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay where you are, Rob!" cautioned the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>He gently pushed the door open&mdash;wider&mdash;wider&mdash;and looked in. There was
+an overpowering odour of burning flesh. He turned to Robert, and spoke
+in a steady voice.</p>
+
+<p>"The brood of the Witch-Queen is extinct!" he said.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<h3>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</h3>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li>THE MYSTERY OF DR. FU-MANCHU</li>
+<li>THE DEVIL DOCTOR</li>
+<li>THE SI-FAN MYSTERIES</li>
+<li>THE YELLOW CLAW</li>
+<li>EXPLOITS OF CAPT. O'HAGAN</li>
+<li>TALES OF SECRET EGYPT</li>
+<li>THE ROMANCE OF SORCERY</li>
+</ul>
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Brood of the Witch-Queen, by Sax Rohmer
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Brood of the Witch-Queen, by Sax Rohmer
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Brood of the Witch-Queen
+
+Author: Sax Rohmer
+
+Release Date: November 3, 2006 [EBook #19706]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BROOD OF THE WITCH-QUEEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Clarke, Sankar Viswanathan, and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                             BROOD OF THE
+
+                             WITCH-QUEEN
+
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+                              SAX ROHMER
+
+
+
+
+                                LONDON
+
+                      C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LIMITED
+
+                        HENRIETTA STREET, W.C.
+
+                                 1918
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I.      ANTONY FERRARA
+
+II.     THE PHANTOM HANDS
+
+III.    THE RING OF THOTH
+
+IV.     AT FERRARA'S CHAMBERS
+
+V.      THE RUSTLING SHADOWS
+
+VI.     THE BEETLES
+
+VII.    SIR ELWIN GROVES' PATIENT
+
+VIII.   THE SECRET OF DHOON
+
+IX.     THE POLISH JEWESS
+
+X.      THE LAUGHTER
+
+XI.     CAIRO
+
+XII.    THE MASK OF SET
+
+XIII.   THE SCORPION WIND
+
+XIV.    DR. CAIRN ARRIVES
+
+XV.     THE WITCH-QUEEN
+
+XVI.    LAIR OF THE SPIDERS
+
+XVII.   THE STORY OF ALI MOHAMMED
+
+XVIII.  THE BATS
+
+XIX.    ANTHROPOMANCY
+
+XX.     THE INCENSE
+
+XXI.    THE MAGICIAN
+
+XXII.   MYRA
+
+XXIII.  THE FACE IN THE ORCHID-HOUSE
+
+XXIV.   FLOWERING OF THE LOTUS
+
+XXV.    CAIRN MEETS FERRARA
+
+XXVI.   THE IVORY HAND
+
+XXVII.  THE THUG'S CORD
+
+XXVIII. THE HIGH PRIEST HORTOTEF
+
+XXIX.   THE WIZARD'S DEN
+
+XXX.    THE ELEMENTAL
+
+XXXI.   THE BOOK OF THOTH
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+PREFATORY NOTICE
+
+
+The strange deeds of Antony Ferrara, as herein related, are intended
+to illustrate certain phases of Sorcery as it was formerly practised
+(according to numerous records) not only in Ancient Egypt but also in
+Europe, during the Middle Ages. In no case do the powers attributed to
+him exceed those which are claimed for a fully equipped Adept.
+
+S. R.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BROOD OF THE WITCH-QUEEN
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ANTONY FERRARA
+
+
+Robert Cairn looked out across the quadrangle. The moon had just
+arisen, and it softened the beauty of the old college buildings,
+mellowed the harshness of time, casting shadow pools beneath the
+cloisteresque arches to the west and setting out the ivy in stronger
+relief upon the ancient walls. The barred shadow on the lichened
+stones beyond the elm was cast by the hidden gate; and straight ahead,
+where, between a quaint chimney-stack and a bartizan, a triangular
+patch of blue showed like spangled velvet, lay the Thames. It was from
+there the cooling breeze came.
+
+But Cairn's gaze was set upon a window almost directly ahead, and west
+below the chimneys. Within the room to which it belonged a lambent
+light played.
+
+Cairn turned to his companion, a ruddy and athletic looking man,
+somewhat bovine in type, who at the moment was busily tracing out
+sections on a human skull and checking his calculations from Ross's
+_Diseases of the Nervous System_.
+
+"Sime," he said, "what does Ferrara always have a fire in his rooms
+for at this time of the year?"
+
+Sime glanced up irritably at the speaker. Cairn was a tall, thin
+Scotsman, clean-shaven, square jawed, and with the crisp light hair
+and grey eyes which often bespeak unusual virility.
+
+"Aren't you going to do any work?" he inquired pathetically. "I
+thought you'd come to give me a hand with my _basal ganglia_. I shall
+go down on that; and there you've been stuck staring out of the
+window!"
+
+"Wilson, in the end house, has got a most unusual brain," said Cairn,
+with apparent irrelevance.
+
+"Has he!" snapped Sime.
+
+"Yes, in a bottle. His governor is at Bart's; he sent it up yesterday.
+You ought to see it."
+
+"Nobody will ever want to put _your_ brain in a bottle," predicted the
+scowling Sime, and resumed his studies.
+
+Cairn relighted his pipe, staring across the quadrangle again. Then--
+
+"You've never been in Ferrara's rooms, have you?" he inquired.
+
+Followed a muffled curse, crash, and the skull went rolling across the
+floor.
+
+"Look here, Cairn," cried Sime, "I've only got a week or so now, and
+my nervous system is frantically rocky; I shall go all to pieces on my
+nervous system. If you want to talk, go ahead. When you're finished, I
+can begin work."
+
+"Right-oh," said Cairn calmly, and tossed his pouch across. "I want to
+talk to you about Ferrara."
+
+"Go ahead then. What is the matter with Ferrara?"
+
+"Well," replied Cairn, "he's queer."
+
+"That's no news," said Sime, filling his pipe; "we all know he's a
+queer chap. But he's popular with women. He'd make a fortune as a
+nerve specialist."
+
+"He doesn't have to; he inherits a fortune when Sir Michael dies."
+
+"There's a pretty cousin, too, isn't there?" inquired Sime slyly.
+
+"There is," replied Cairn. "Of course," he continued, "my governor and
+Sir Michael are bosom friends, and although I've never seen much of
+young Ferrara, at the same time I've got nothing against him. But--"
+he hesitated.
+
+"Spit it out," urged Sime, watching him oddly.
+
+"Well, it's silly, I suppose, but what does he want with a fire on a
+blazing night like this?"
+
+Sime stared.
+
+"Perhaps he's a throw-back," he suggested lightly. "The Ferraras,
+although they're counted Scotch--aren't they?--must have been Italian
+originally--"
+
+"Spanish," corrected Cairn. "They date from the son of Andrea Ferrara,
+the sword-maker, who was a Spaniard. Caesar Ferrara came with the
+Armada in 1588 as armourer. His ship was wrecked up in the Bay of
+Tobermory and he got ashore--and stopped."
+
+"Married a Scotch lassie?"
+
+"Exactly. But the genealogy of the family doesn't account for Antony's
+habits."
+
+"What habits?"
+
+"Well, look." Cairn waved in the direction of the open window. "What
+does he do in the dark all night, with a fire going?"
+
+"Influenza?"
+
+"Nonsense! You've never been in his rooms, have you?"
+
+"No. Very few men have. But as I said before, he's popular with the
+women."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean there have been complaints. Any other man would have been sent
+down."
+
+"You think he has influence--"
+
+"Influence of some sort, undoubtedly."
+
+"Well, I can see you have serious doubts about the man, as I have
+myself, so I can unburden my mind. You recall that sudden thunderstorm
+on Thursday?"
+
+"Rather; quite upset me for work."
+
+"I was out in it. I was lying in a punt in the backwater--you know,
+_our_ backwater."
+
+"Lazy dog."
+
+"To tell you the truth, I was trying to make up my mind whether I
+should abandon bones and take the post on the _Planet_ which has been
+offered me."
+
+"Pills for the pen--Harley for Fleet? Did you decide?"
+
+"Not then; something happened which quite changed my line of
+reflection."
+
+The room was becoming cloudy with tobacco smoke.
+
+"It was delightfully still," Cairn resumed. "A water rat rose within
+a foot of me and a kingfisher was busy on a twig almost at my elbow.
+Twilight was just creeping along, and I could hear nothing but faint
+creakings of sculls from the river and sometimes the drip of a
+punt-pole. I thought the river seemed to become suddenly deserted; it
+grew quite abnormally quiet--and abnormally dark. But I was so deep in
+reflection that it never occurred to me to move.
+
+"Then the flotilla of swans came round the bend, with Apollo--you know
+Apollo, the king-swan?--at their head. By this time it had grown
+tremendously dark, but it never occurred to me to ask myself why. The
+swans, gliding along so noiselessly, might have been phantoms. A hush,
+a perfect hush, settled down. Sime, that hush was the prelude to a
+strange thing--an unholy thing!"
+
+Cairn rose excitedly and strode across to the table, kicking the skull
+out of his way.
+
+"It was the storm gathering," snapped Sime.
+
+"It was something else gathering! Listen! It got yet darker, but for
+some inexplicable reason, although I must have heard the thunder
+muttering, I couldn't take my eyes off the swans. Then it
+happened--the thing I came here to tell you about; I must tell
+somebody--the thing that I am not going to forget in a hurry."
+
+He began to knock out the ash from his pipe.
+
+"Go on," directed Sime tersely.
+
+"The big swan--Apollo--was within ten feet of me; he swam in open
+water, clear of the others; no living thing touched him. Suddenly,
+uttering a cry that chilled my very blood, a cry that I never heard
+from a swan in my life, he rose in the air, his huge wings
+extended--like a tortured phantom, Sime; I can never forget it--six
+feet clear of the water. The uncanny wail became a stifled hiss, and
+sending up a perfect fountain of water--I was deluged--the poor old
+king-swan fell, beat the surface with his wings--and was still."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The other swans glided off like ghosts. Several heavy raindrops
+pattered on the leaves above. I admit I was scared. Apollo lay with
+one wing right in the punt. I was standing up; I had jumped to my feet
+when the thing occurred. I stooped and touched the wing. The bird was
+quite dead! Sime, I pulled the swan's head out of the water, and--his
+neck was broken; no fewer than three vertebrae fractured!"
+
+A cloud of tobacco smoke was wafted towards the open window.
+
+"It isn't one in a million who could wring the neck of a bird like
+Apollo, Sime; but it was done before my eyes without the visible
+agency of God or man! As I dropped him and took to the pole, the storm
+burst. A clap of thunder spoke with the voice of a thousand cannon,
+and I poled for bare life from that haunted backwater. I was drenched
+to the skin when I got in, and I ran up all the way from the stage."
+
+"Well?" rapped the other again, as Cairn paused to refill his pipe.
+
+"It was seeing the firelight flickering at Ferrara's window that led
+me to do it. I don't often call on him; but I thought that a rub down
+before the fire and a glass of toddy would put me right. The storm had
+abated as I got to the foot of his stair--only a distant rolling of
+thunder.
+
+"Then, out of the shadows--it was quite dark--into the flickering
+light of the lamp came somebody all muffled up. I started horribly. It
+was a girl, quite a pretty girl, too, but very pale, and with
+over-bright eyes. She gave one quick glance up into my face, muttered
+something, an apology, I think, and drew back again into her
+hiding-place."
+
+"He's been warned," growled Sime. "It will be notice to quit next
+time."
+
+"I ran upstairs and banged on Ferrara's door. He didn't open at first,
+but shouted out to know who was knocking. When I told him, he let me
+in, and closed the door very quickly. As I went in, a pungent cloud
+met me--incense."
+
+"Incense?"
+
+"His rooms smelt like a joss-house; I told him so. He said he was
+experimenting with _Kyphi_--the ancient Egyptian stuff used in the
+temples. It was all dark and hot; phew! like a furnace. Ferrara's
+rooms always were odd, but since the long vacation I hadn't been in.
+Good lord, they're disgusting!"
+
+"How? Ferrara spent vacation in Egypt; I suppose he's brought things
+back?"
+
+"Things--yes! Unholy things! But that brings me to something too. I
+ought to know more about the chap than anybody; Sir Michael Ferrara
+and the governor have been friends for thirty years; but my father is
+oddly reticent--quite singularly reticent--regarding Antony. Anyway,
+have you heard about him, in Egypt?"
+
+"I've heard he got into trouble. For his age, he has a devil of a
+queer reputation; there's no disguising it."
+
+"What sort of trouble?"
+
+"I've no idea. Nobody seems to know. But I heard from young Ashby that
+Ferrara was asked to leave."
+
+"There's some tale about Kitchener--"
+
+"_By_ Kitchener, Ashby says; but I don't believe it."
+
+"Well--Ferrara lighted a lamp, an elaborate silver thing, and I found
+myself in a kind of nightmare museum. There was an unwrapped mummy
+there, the mummy of a woman--I can't possibly describe it. He had
+pictures, too--photographs. I shan't try to tell you what they
+represented. I'm not thin-skinned; but there are some subjects that no
+man anxious to avoid Bedlam would willingly investigate. On the table
+by the lamp stood a number of objects such as I had never seen in my
+life before, evidently of great age. He swept them into a cupboard
+before I had time to look long. Then he went off to get a bath towel,
+slippers, and so forth. As he passed the fire he threw something in. A
+hissing tongue of flame leapt up--and died down again."
+
+"What did he throw in?"
+
+"I am not absolutely certain; so I won't say what I _think_ it was,
+at the moment. Then he began to help me shed my saturated flannels,
+and he set a kettle on the fire, and so forth. You know the personal
+charm of the man? But there was an unpleasant sense of something--what
+shall I say?--sinister. Ferrara's ivory face was more pale than usual,
+and he conveyed the idea that he was chewed up--exhausted. Beads of
+perspiration were on his forehead."
+
+"Heat of his rooms?"
+
+"No," said Cairn shortly. "It wasn't that. I had a rub down and
+borrowed some slacks. Ferrara brewed grog and pretended to make me
+welcome. Now I come to something which I can't forget; it may be a
+mere coincidence, but--. He has a number of photographs in his rooms,
+good ones, which he has taken himself. I'm not speaking now of the
+monstrosities, the outrages; I mean views, and girls--particularly
+girls. Well, standing on a queer little easel right under the lamp was
+a fine picture of Apollo, the swan, lord of the backwater."
+
+Sime stared dully through the smoke haze.
+
+"It gave me a sort of shock," continued Cairn. "It made me think,
+harder than ever, of the thing he had thrown in the fire. Then, in his
+photographic zenana, was a picture of a girl whom I am almost sure was
+the one I had met at the bottom of the stair. Another was of Myra
+Duquesne."
+
+"His cousin?"
+
+"Yes. I felt like tearing it from the wall. In fact, the moment I saw
+it, I stood up to go. I wanted to run to my rooms and strip the man's
+clothes off my back! It was a struggle to be civil any longer. Sime,
+if you had seen that swan die--"
+
+Sime walked over to the window.
+
+"I have a glimmering of your monstrous suspicions," he said slowly.
+"The last man to be kicked out of an English varsity for this sort of
+thing, so far as I know, was Dr. Dee of St. John's, Cambridge, and
+that's going back to the sixteenth century."
+
+"I know; it's utterly preposterous, of course. But I had to confide in
+somebody. I'll shift off now, Sime."
+
+Sime nodded, staring from the open window. As Cairn was about to close
+the outer door:
+
+"Cairn," cried Sime, "since you are now a man of letters and leisure,
+you might drop in and borrow Wilson's brains for me."
+
+"All right," shouted Cairn.
+
+Down in the quadrangle he stood for a moment, reflecting; then, acting
+upon a sudden resolution, he strode over towards the gate and ascended
+Ferrara's stair.
+
+For some time he knocked at the door in vain, but he persisted in his
+clamouring, arousing the ancient echoes. Finally, the door was opened.
+
+Antony Ferrara faced him. He wore a silver-grey dressing gown, trimmed
+with white swansdown, above which his ivory throat rose statuesque.
+The almond-shaped eyes, black as night, gleamed strangely beneath the
+low, smooth brow. The lank black hair appeared lustreless by
+comparison. His lips were very red. In his whole appearance there was
+something repellently effeminate.
+
+"Can I come in?" demanded Cairn abruptly.
+
+"Is it--something important?" Ferrara's voice was husky but not
+unmusical.
+
+"Why, are you busy?"
+
+"Well--er--" Ferrara smiled oddly.
+
+"Oh, a visitor?" snapped Cairn.
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"Accounts for your delay in opening," said Cairn, and turned on his
+heel. "Mistook me for the proctor, in person, I suppose. Good-night."
+
+Ferrara made no reply. But, although he never once glanced back, Cairn
+knew that Ferrara, leaning over the rail, above, was looking after
+him; it was as though elemental heat were beating down upon his head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE PHANTOM HANDS
+
+
+A week later Robert Cairn quitted Oxford to take up the newspaper
+appointment offered to him in London. It may have been due to some
+mysterious design of a hidden providence that Sime 'phoned him early
+in the week about an unusual case in one of the hospitals.
+
+"Walton is junior house-surgeon there," he said, "and he can arrange
+for you to see the case. She (the patient) undoubtedly died from some
+rare nervous affection. I have a theory," etc.; the conversation
+became technical.
+
+Cairn went to the hospital, and by courtesy of Walton, whom he had
+known at Oxford, was permitted to view the body.
+
+"The symptoms which Sime has got to hear about," explained the
+surgeon, raising the sheet from the dead woman's face, "are--"
+
+He broke off. Cairn had suddenly exhibited a ghastly pallor; he
+clutched at Walton for support.
+
+"My God!"
+
+Cairn, still holding on to the other, stooped over the discoloured
+face. It had been a pretty face when warm life had tinted its curves;
+now it was congested--awful; two heavy discolorations showed, one on
+either side of the region of the larynx.
+
+"What on earth is wrong with you?" demanded Walton.
+
+"I thought," gasped Cairn, "for a moment, that I knew--"
+
+"Really! I wish you did! We can't find out anything about her. Have a
+good look."
+
+"No," said Cairn, mastering himself with an effort--"a chance
+resemblance, that's all." He wiped the beads of perspiration from his
+forehead.
+
+"You look jolly shaky," commented Walton. "Is she like someone you
+know very well?"
+
+"No, not at all, now that I come to consider the features; but it was
+a shock at first. What on earth caused death?"
+
+"Asphyxia," answered Walton shortly. "Can't you see?"
+
+"Someone strangled her, and she was brought here too late?"
+
+"Not at all, my dear chap; nobody strangled her. She was brought here
+in a critical state four or five days ago by one of the slum priests
+who keep us so busy. We diagnosed it as exhaustion from lack of
+food--with other complications. But the case was doing quite well up
+to last night; she was recovering strength. Then, at about one
+o'clock, she sprang up in bed, and fell back choking. By the time the
+nurse got to her it was all over."
+
+"But the marks on her throat?"
+
+Walton shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"There they are! Our men are keenly interested. It's absolutely
+unique. Young Shaw, who has a mania for the nervous system, sent a
+long account up to Sime, who suffers from a similar form of
+aberration."
+
+"Yes; Sime 'phoned me."
+
+"It's nothing to do with nerves," said Walton contemptuously. "Don't
+ask me to explain it, but it's certainly no nerve case."
+
+"One of the other patients--"
+
+"My dear chap, the other patients were all fast asleep! The nurse was
+at her table in the corner, and in full view of the bed the whole
+time. I tell you no one touched her!"
+
+"How long elapsed before the nurse got to her?"
+
+"Possibly half a minute. But there is no means of learning when the
+paroxysm commenced. The leaping up in bed probably marked the end and
+not the beginning of the attack."
+
+Cairn experienced a longing for the fresh air; it was as though some
+evil cloud hovered around and about the poor unknown. Strange ideas,
+horrible ideas, conjectures based upon imaginings all but insane,
+flooded his mind darkly.
+
+Leaving the hospital, which harboured a grim secret, he stood at the
+gate for a moment, undecided what to do. His father, Dr. Cairn, was
+out of London, or he would certainly have sought him in this hour of
+sore perplexity.
+
+"What in Heaven's name is behind it all!" he asked himself.
+
+For he knew beyond doubt that the girl who lay in the hospital was the
+same that he had seen one night at Oxford, was the girl whose
+photograph he had found in Antony Ferrara's rooms!
+
+He formed a sudden resolution. A taxi-cab was passing at that moment,
+and he hailed it, giving Sir Michael Ferrara's address. He could
+scarcely trust himself to think, but frightful possibilities presented
+themselves to him, repel them how he might. London seemed to grow
+dark, overshadowed, as once he had seen a Thames backwater grow. He
+shuddered, as though from a physical chill.
+
+The house of the famous Egyptian scholar, dull white behind its
+rampart of trees, presented no unusual appearances to his anxious
+scrutiny. What he feared he scarcely knew; what he suspected he could
+not have defined.
+
+Sir Michael, said the servant, was unwell and could see no one. That
+did not surprise Cairn; Sir Michael had not enjoyed good health since
+malaria had laid him low in Syria. But Miss Duquesne was at home.
+
+Cairn was shown into the long, low-ceiled room which contained so many
+priceless relics of a past civilisation. Upon the bookcase stood the
+stately ranks of volumes which had carried the fame of Europe's
+foremost Egyptologist to every corner of the civilised world. This
+queerly furnished room held many memories for Robert Cairn, who had
+known it from childhood, but latterly it had always appeared to him in
+his daydreams as the setting for a dainty figure. It was here that he
+had first met Myra Duquesne, Sir Michael's niece, when, fresh from a
+Norman convent, she had come to shed light and gladness upon the
+somewhat, sombre household of the scholar. He often thought of that
+day; he could recall every detail of the meeting--
+
+Myra Duquesne came in, pulling aside the heavy curtains that hung in
+the arched entrance. With a granite Osiris flanking her slim figure on
+one side and a gilded sarcophagus on the other, she burst upon the
+visitor, a radiant vision in white. The light gleamed through her
+soft, brown hair forming a halo for a face that Robert Cairn knew for
+the sweetest in the world.
+
+"Why, Mr. Cairn," she said, and blushed entrancingly--"we thought you
+had forgotten us."
+
+"That's not a little bit likely," he replied, taking her proffered
+hand, and there was that in his voice and in his look which made her
+lower her frank grey eyes. "I have only been in London a few days, and
+I find that Press work is more exacting than I had anticipated!"
+
+"Did you want to see my uncle very particularly?" asked Myra.
+
+"In a way, yes. I suppose he could not manage to see me--"
+
+Myra shook her head. Now that the flush of excitement had left her
+face, Cairn was concerned to see how pale she was and what dark
+shadows lurked beneath her eyes.
+
+"Sir Michael is not seriously ill?" he asked quickly. "Only one of the
+visual attacks--"
+
+"Yes--at least it began with one."
+
+She hesitated, and Cairn saw to his consternation that her eyes became
+filled with tears. The real loneliness of her position, now that her
+guardian was ill, the absence of a friend in whom she could confide
+her fears, suddenly grew apparent to the man who sat watching her.
+
+"You are tired out," he said gently. "You have been nursing him?"
+
+She nodded and tried to smile.
+
+"Who is attending?"
+
+"Sir Elwin Groves, but--"
+
+"Shall I wire for my father?"
+
+"We wired for him yesterday!"
+
+"What! to Paris?"
+
+"Yes, at my uncle's wish."
+
+Cairn started.
+
+"Then--he thinks he is seriously ill, himself?"
+
+"I cannot say," answered the girl wearily. "His behaviour is--queer.
+He will allow no one in his room, and barely consents to see Sir
+Elwin. Then, twice recently, he has awakened in the night and made a
+singular request."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"He has asked me to send for his solicitor in the morning, speaking
+harshly and almost as though--he hated me...."
+
+"I don't understand. Have you complied?"
+
+"Yes, and on each occasion he has refused to see the solicitor when he
+has arrived!"
+
+"I gather that you have been acting as night-attendant?"
+
+"I remain in an adjoining room; he is always worse at night. Perhaps
+it is telling on my nerves, but last night--"
+
+Again she hesitated, as though doubting the wisdom of further speech;
+but a brief scrutiny of Cairn's face, with deep anxiety to be read in
+his eyes, determined her to proceed.
+
+"I had been asleep, and I must have been dreaming, for I thought that
+a voice was chanting, quite near to me."
+
+"Chanting?"
+
+"Yes--it was horrible, in some way. Then a sensation of intense
+coldness came; it was as though some icily cold creature fanned me
+with its wings! I cannot describe it, but it was numbing; I think I
+must have felt as those poor travellers do who succumb to the
+temptation to sleep in the snow."
+
+Cairn surveyed her anxiously, for in its essentials this might be a
+symptom of a dreadful ailment.
+
+"I aroused myself, however," she continued, "but experienced an
+unaccountable dread of entering my uncle's room. I could hear him
+muttering strangely, and--I forced myself to enter! I saw--oh, how
+can I tell you! You will think me mad!"
+
+She raised her hands to her face; she was trembling. Robert Cairn took
+them in his own, forcing her to look up.
+
+"Tell me," he said quietly.
+
+"The curtains were drawn back; I distinctly remembered having closed
+them, but they were drawn back; and the moonlight was shining on to
+the bed."
+
+"Bad; he was dreaming."
+
+"But was _I_ dreaming? Mr. Cairn, two hands were stretched out over my
+uncle, two hands that swayed slowly up and down in the moonlight!"
+
+Cairn leapt to his feet, passing his hand over his forehead.
+
+"Go on," he said.
+
+"I--I cried out, but not loudly--I think I was very near to swooning.
+The hands were withdrawn into the shadow, and my uncle awoke and sat
+up. He asked, in a low voice, if I were there, and I ran to him."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He ordered me, very coldly, to 'phone for his solicitor at nine
+o'clock this morning, and then fell back, and was asleep again almost
+immediately. The solicitor came, and was with him for nearly an hour.
+He sent for one of his clerks, and they both went away at half-past
+ten. Uncle has been in a sort of dazed condition ever since; in fact
+he has only once aroused himself, to ask for Dr. Cairn. I had a
+telegram sent immediately."
+
+"The governor will be here to-night," said Cairn confidently. "Tell
+me, the hands which you thought you saw: was there anything peculiar
+about them?"
+
+"In the moonlight they seemed to be of a dull white colour. There was
+a ring on one finger--a green ring. Oh!" she shuddered. "I can see it
+now."
+
+"You would know it again?"
+
+"Anywhere!"
+
+"Actually, there was no one in the room, of course?"
+
+"No one. It was some awful illusion; but I can never forget it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE RING OF THOTH
+
+
+Half-Moon Street was very still; midnight had sounded nearly
+half-an-hour; but still Robert Cairn paced up and down his father's
+library. He was very pale, and many times he glanced at a book which
+lay open upon the table. Finally he paused before it and read once
+again certain passages.
+
+"In the year 1571," it recorded, "the notorious Trois Echelles was
+executed in the Place de Greve. He confessed before the king, Charles
+IX.... that he performed marvels.... Admiral de Coligny, who also was
+present, recollected ... the death of two gentlemen.... He added that
+they were found black and swollen."
+
+He turned over the page, with a hand none too steady.
+
+"The famous Marechal d'Ancre, Concini Concini," he read, "was killed
+by a pistol shot on the drawbridge of the Louvre by Vitry, Captain of
+the Bodyguard, on the 24th of April, 1617.... It was proved that the
+Marechal and his wife made use of wax images, which they kept in
+coffins...."
+
+Cairn shut the book hastily and began to pace the room again.
+
+"Oh, it is utterly, fantastically incredible!" he groaned. "Yet, with
+my own eyes I saw--"
+
+He stepped to a bookshelf and began to look for a book which, so far
+as his slight knowledge of the subject bore him, would possibly throw
+light upon the darkness. But he failed to find it. Despite the heat of
+the weather, the library seemed to have grown chilly. He pressed the
+bell.
+
+"Marston," he said to the man who presently came, "you must be very
+tired, but Dr. Cairn will be here within an hour. Tell him that I
+have gone to Sir Michael Ferrara's."
+
+"But it's after twelve o'clock, sir!"
+
+"I know it is; nevertheless I am going."
+
+"Very good, sir. You will wait there for the Doctor?"
+
+"Exactly, Marston. Good-night!"
+
+"Good-night, sir."
+
+Robert Cairn went out into Half-Moon Street. The night was perfect,
+and the cloudless sky lavishly gemmed with stars. He walked on
+heedlessly, scarce noting in which direction. An awful conviction was
+with him, growing stronger each moment, that some mysterious menace,
+some danger unclassifiable, threatened Myra Duquesne. What did he
+suspect? He could give it no name. How should he act? He had no idea.
+
+Sir Elwin Groves, whom he had seen that evening, had hinted broadly at
+mental trouble as the solution of Sir Michael Ferrara's peculiar
+symptoms. Although Sir Michael had had certain transactions with his
+solicitor during the early morning, he had apparently forgotten all
+about the matter, according to the celebrated physician.
+
+"Between ourselves, Cairn," Sir Elwin had confided, "I believe he
+altered his will."
+
+The inquiry of a taxi driver interrupted Cairn's meditations. He
+entered the vehicle, giving Sir Michael Ferrara's address.
+
+His thoughts persistently turned to Myra Duquesne, who at that moment
+would be lying listening for the slightest sound from the sick-room;
+who would be fighting down fear, that she might do her duty to her
+guardian--fear of the waving phantom hands. The cab sped through the
+almost empty streets, and at last, rounding a corner, rolled up the
+tree-lined avenue, past three or four houses lighted only by the
+glitter of the moon, and came to a stop before that of Sir Michael
+Ferrara.
+
+Lights shone from the many windows. The front door was open, and light
+streamed out into the porch.
+
+"My God!" cried Cairn, leaping from the cab. "My God! what has
+happened?"
+
+A thousand fears, a thousand reproaches, flooded his brain with
+frenzy. He went racing up to the steps and almost threw himself upon
+the man who stood half-dressed in the doorway.
+
+"Felton, Felton!" he whispered hoarsely. "What has happened? Who--"
+
+"Sir Michael, sir," answered the man. "I thought"--his voice
+broke--"you were the doctor, sir?"
+
+"Miss Myra--"
+
+"She fainted away, sir. Mrs. Hume is with her in the library, now."
+
+Cairn thrust past the servant and ran into the library. The
+housekeeper and a trembling maid were bending over Myra Duquesne, who
+lay fully dressed, white and still, upon a Chesterfield. Cairn
+unceremoniously grasped her wrist, dropped upon his knees and placed
+his ear to the still breast.
+
+"Thank God!" he said. "It is only a swoon. Look after her, Mrs. Hume."
+
+The housekeeper, with set face, lowered her head, but did not trust
+herself to speak. Cairn went out into the hall and tapped Felton on
+the shoulder. The man turned with a great start.
+
+"What happened?" he demanded. "Is Sir Michael--?"
+
+Felton nodded.
+
+"Five minutes before you came, sir." His voice was hoarse with
+emotion. "Miss Myra came out of her room. She thought someone called
+her. She rapped on Mrs. Hume's door, and Mrs. Hume, who was just
+retiring, opened it. She also thought she had heard someone calling
+Miss Myra out on the stairhead."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"There was no one there, sir. Everyone was in bed; I was just
+undressing, myself. But there was a sort of faint perfume--something
+like a church, only disgusting, sir--"
+
+"How--disgusting! Did _you_ smell it?"
+
+"No, sir, never. Mrs. Hume and Miss Myra have noticed it in the house
+on other nights, and one of the maids, too. It was very strong, I'm
+told, last night. Well, sir, as they stood by the door they heard a
+horrid kind of choking scream. They both rushed to Sir Michael's
+room, and--"
+
+"Yes, yes?"
+
+"He was lying half out of bed, sir--"
+
+"Dead?"
+
+"Seemed like he'd been strangled, they told me, and--"
+
+"Who is with him now?"
+
+The man grew even paler.
+
+"No one, Mr. Cairn, sir. Miss Myra screamed out that there were two
+hands just unfastening from his throat as she and Mrs. Hume got to the
+door, and there was no living soul in the room, sir. I might as well
+out with it! We're all afraid to go in!"
+
+Cairn turned and ran up the stairs. The upper landing was in darkness
+and the door of the room which he knew to be Sir Michael's stood wide
+open. As he entered, a faint scent came to his nostrils. It brought
+him up short at the threshold, with a chill of supernatural dread.
+
+The bed was placed between the windows, and one curtain had been
+pulled aside, admitting a flood, of moonlight. Cairn remembered that
+Myra had mentioned this circumstance in connection with the
+disturbance of the previous night.
+
+"Who, in God's name, opened that curtain!" he muttered.
+
+Fully in the cold white light lay Sir Michael Ferrara, his silver hair
+gleaming and his strong, angular face upturned to the intruding rays.
+His glazed eyes were starting from their sockets; his face was nearly
+black; and his fingers were clutching the sheets in a death grip.
+Cairn had need of all his courage to touch him.
+
+He was quite dead.
+
+Someone was running up the stairs. Cairn turned, half dazed,
+anticipating the entrance of a local medical man. Into the room ran
+his father, switching on the light as he did so. A greyish tinge
+showed through his ruddy complexion. He scarcely noticed his son.
+
+"Ferrara!" he cried, coming up to the bed. "Ferrara!"
+
+He dropped on his knees beside the dead man.
+
+"Ferrara, old fellow--"
+
+His cry ended in something like a sob. Robert Cairn turned, choking,
+and went downstairs.
+
+In the hall stood Felton and some other servants.
+
+"Miss Duquesne?"
+
+"She has recovered, sir. Mrs. Hume has taken her to another bedroom."
+
+Cairn hesitated, then walked into the deserted library, where a light
+was burning. He began to pace up and down, clenching and unclenching
+his fists. Presently Felton knocked and entered. Clearly the man was
+glad of the chance to talk to someone.
+
+"Mr. Antony has been 'phoned at Oxford, sir. I thought you might like
+to know. He is motoring down, sir, and will be here at four o'clock."
+
+"Thank you," said Cairn shortly.
+
+Ten minutes later his father joined him. He was a slim, well-preserved
+man, alert-eyed and active, yet he had aged five years in his son's
+eyes. His face was unusually pale, but he exhibited no other signs of
+emotion.
+
+"Well, Rob," he said, tersely. "I can see you have something to tell
+me. I am listening."
+
+Robert Cairn leant back against a bookshelf.
+
+"I _have_ something to tell you, sir, and something to ask you."
+
+"Tell your story, first; then ask your question."
+
+"My story begins in a Thames backwater--"
+
+Dr. Cairn stared, squaring his jaw, but his son proceeded to relate,
+with some detail, the circumstances attendant upon the death of the
+king-swan. He went on to recount what took place in Antony Ferrara's
+rooms, and at the point where something had been taken from the table
+and thrown in the fire--
+
+"Stop!" said Dr. Cairn. "What did he throw in the fire?"
+
+The doctor's nostrils quivered, and his eyes were ablaze with some
+hardly repressed emotion.
+
+"I cannot swear to it, sir--"
+
+"Never mind. What do you _think_ he threw in the fire?"
+
+"A little image, of wax or something similar--an image of--a swan."
+
+At that, despite his self-control, Dr. Cairn became so pale that his
+son leapt forward.
+
+"All right, Rob," his father waved him away, and turning, walked
+slowly down the room.
+
+"Go on," he said, rather huskily.
+
+Robert Cairn continued his story up to the time that he visited the
+hospital where the dead girl lay.
+
+"You can swear that she was the original of the photograph in Antony's
+rooms and the same who was waiting at the foot of the stair?"
+
+"I can, sir."
+
+"Go on."
+
+Again the younger man resumed his story, relating what he had learnt
+from Myra Duquesne; what she had told him about the phantom hands;
+what Felton had told him about the strange perfume perceptible in the
+house.
+
+"The ring," interrupted Dr. Cairn--"she would recognise it again?"
+
+"She says so."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"Only that if some of your books are to be believed, sir, Trois
+Echelle, D'Ancre and others have gone to the stake for such things in
+a less enlightened age!"
+
+"Less enlightened, boy!" Dr. Cairn turned his blazing eyes upon him.
+"_More_ enlightened where the powers of hell were concerned!"
+
+"Then you think--"
+
+"_Think_! Have I spent half my life in such studies in vain? Did I
+labour with poor Michael Ferrara in Egypt and learn _nothing_? Just
+God! what an end to his labour! What a reward for mine!"
+
+He buried his face in quivering hands.
+
+"I cannot tell exactly what you mean by that, sir," said Robert Cairn;
+"but it brings me to my question."
+
+Dr. Cairn did not speak, did not move.
+
+"_Who is Antony Ferrara_?"
+
+The doctor looked up at that; and it was a haggard face he raised from
+his hands.
+
+"You have tried to ask me that before."
+
+"I ask now, sir, with better prospect of receiving an answer."
+
+"Yet I can give you none, Rob."
+
+"Why, sir? Are you bound to secrecy?"
+
+"In a degree, yes. But the real reason is this--I don't know."
+
+"You don't know!"
+
+"I have said so."
+
+"Good God, sir, you amaze me! I have always felt certain that he was
+really no Ferrara, but an adopted son; yet it had never entered my
+mind that you were ignorant of his origin."
+
+"You have not studied the subjects which I have studied; nor do I wish
+that you should; therefore it is impossible, at any rate now, to
+pursue that matter further. But I may perhaps supplement your
+researches into the history of Trois Echelles and Concini Concini. I
+believe you told me that you were looking in my library for some work
+which you failed to find?"
+
+"I was looking for M. Chabas' translation of the _Papyrus Harris_."
+
+"What do you know of it?"
+
+"I once saw a copy in Antony Ferrara's rooms."
+
+Dr. Cairn started slightly.
+
+"Indeed. It happens that my copy is here; I lent it quite recently
+to--Sir Michael. It is probably somewhere on the shelves."
+
+He turned on more lights and began to scan the rows of books.
+Presently--
+
+"Here it is," he said, and took down and opened the book on the table.
+"This passage may interest you." He laid his finger upon it.
+
+His son bent over the book and read the following:--
+
+"Hai, the evil man, was a shepherd. He had said: 'O, that I might have
+a book of spells that would give me resistless power!' He obtained a
+book of the Formulas.... By the divine powers of these he enchanted
+men. He obtained a deep vault furnished with implements. He made waxen
+images of men, and love-charms. And then he perpetrated all the
+horrors that his heart conceived."
+
+"Flinders Petrie," said Dr. Cairn, "mentions the Book of Thoth as
+another magical work conferring similar powers."
+
+"But surely, sir--after all, it's the twentieth century--this is mere
+superstition!"
+
+"I thought so--_once_!" replied Dr. Cairn. "But I have lived to know
+that Egyptian magic was a real and a potent force. A great part of it
+was no more than a kind of hypnotism, but there were other branches.
+Our most learned modern works are as children's nursery rhymes beside
+such a writing as the Egyptian _Ritual of the Dead_! God forgive me!
+What have I done!"
+
+"You cannot reproach yourself in any way, sir!"
+
+"Can I not?" said Dr. Cairn hoarsely. "Ah, Rob, you don't know!"
+
+There came a rap on the door, and a local practitioner entered.
+
+"This is a singular case, Dr. Cairn," he began diffidently. "An
+autopsy--"
+
+"Nonsense!" cried Dr. Cairn. "Sir Elwin Groves had foreseen it--so had
+I!"
+
+"But there are distinct marks of pressure on either side of the
+windpipe--"
+
+"Certainly. These marks are not uncommon in such cases. Sir Michael
+had resided in the East and had contracted a form of plague. Virtually
+he died from it. The thing is highly contagious, and it is almost
+impossible to rid the system of it. A girl died in one of the
+hospitals this week, having identical marks on the throat." He turned
+to his son. "You saw her, Rob?"
+
+Robert Cairn nodded, and finally the local man withdrew, highly
+mystified, but unable to contradict so celebrated a physician as Dr.
+Bruce Cairn.
+
+The latter seated himself in an armchair, and rested his chin in the
+palm of his left hand. Robert Cairn paced restlessly about the
+library. Both were waiting, expectantly. At half-past two Felton
+brought in a tray of refreshments, but neither of the men attempted
+to avail themselves of the hospitality.
+
+"Miss Duquesne?" asked the younger.
+
+"She has just gone to sleep, sir."
+
+"Good," muttered Dr. Cairn. "Blessed is youth."
+
+Silence fell again, upon the man's departure, to be broken but rarely,
+despite the tumultuous thoughts of those two minds, until, at about a
+quarter to three, the faint sound of a throbbing motor brought Dr.
+Cairn sharply to his feet. He looked towards the window. Dawn was
+breaking. The car came roaring along the avenue and stopped outside
+the house.
+
+Dr. Cairn and his son glanced at one another. A brief tumult and
+hurried exchange of words sounded in the hall; footsteps were heard
+ascending the stairs, then came silence. The two stood side by side in
+front of the empty hearth, a haggard pair, fitly set in that desolate
+room, with the yellowing rays of the lamps shrinking before the first
+spears of dawn.
+
+Then, without warning, the door opened slowly and deliberately, and
+Antony Ferrara came in.
+
+His face was expressionless, ivory; his red lips were firm, and he
+drooped his head. But the long black eyes glinted and gleamed as if
+they reflected the glow from a furnace. He wore a motor coat lined
+with leopard skin and he was pulling off his heavy gloves.
+
+"It is good of you to have waited, Doctor," he said in his huskily
+musical voice--"you too, Cairn."
+
+He advanced a few steps into the room. Cairn was conscious of a kind
+of fear, but uppermost came a desire to pick up some heavy implement
+and crush this evilly effeminate thing with the serpent eyes. Then he
+found himself speaking; the words seemed to be forced from his throat.
+
+"Antony Ferrara," he said, "have you read the _Harris Papyrus_?"
+
+Ferrara dropped his glove, stooped and recovered it, and smiled
+faintly.
+
+"No," he replied. "Have you?" His eyes were nearly closed, mere
+luminous slits. "But surely," he continued, "this is no time, Cairn,
+to discuss books? As my poor father's heir, and therefore your host,
+I beg of you to partake--"
+
+A faint sound made him turn. Just within the door, where the light
+from the reddening library windows touched her as if with sanctity,
+stood Myra Duquesne, in her night robe, her hair unbound and her
+little bare feet gleaming whitely upon the red carpet. Her eyes were
+wide open, vacant of expression, but set upon Antony Ferrara's
+ungloved left hand.
+
+Ferrara turned slowly to face her, until his back was towards the two
+men in the library. She began to speak, in a toneless, unemotional
+voice, raising her finger and pointing at a ring which Ferrara wore.
+
+"I know you now," she said; "I know you, son of an evil woman, for you
+wear her ring, the sacred ring of Thoth. You have stained that ring
+with blood, as she stained it--with the blood of those who loved and
+trusted you. I could name you, but my lips are sealed--I could name
+you, brood of a witch, murderer, for I know you now."
+
+Dispassionately, mechanically, she delivered her strange indictment.
+Over her shoulder appeared the anxious face of Mrs. Hume, finger to
+lip.
+
+"My God!" muttered Cairn. "My God! What--"
+
+"S--sh!" his father grasped his arm. "She is asleep!"
+
+Myra Duquesne turned and quitted the room, Mrs. Hume hovering
+anxiously about her. Antony Ferrara faced around; his mouth was oddly
+twisted.
+
+"She is troubled with strange dreams," he said, very huskily.
+
+"Clairvoyant dreams!" Dr. Cairn addressed him for the first time. "Do
+not glare at me in that way, for it may be that _I_ know you, too!
+Come, Rob."
+
+"But Myra--"
+
+Dr. Cairn laid his hand upon his son's shoulder, fixing his eyes upon
+him steadily.
+
+"Nothing in this house can injure Myra," he replied quietly; "for Good
+is higher than Evil. For the present we can only go."
+
+Antony Ferrara stood aside, as the two walked out of the library.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AT FERRARA'S CHAMBERS
+
+
+Dr. Bruce Cairn swung around in his chair, lifting his heavy eyebrows
+interrogatively, as his son, Robert, entered the consulting-room.
+Half-Moon Street was bathed in almost tropical sunlight, but already
+the celebrated physician had sent those out from his house to whom the
+sky was overcast, whom the sun would gladden no more, and a group of
+anxious-eyed sufferers yet awaited his scrutiny in an adjoining room.
+
+"Hullo, Rob! Do you wish to see me professionally?"
+
+Robert Cairn seated himself upon a corner of the big table, shaking
+his head slowly.
+
+"No, thanks sir; I'm fit enough; but I thought you might like to know
+about the will--"
+
+"I do know. Since I was largely interested, Jermyn attended on my
+behalf; an urgent case detained me. He rang up earlier this morning."
+
+"Oh, I see. Then perhaps I'm wasting your time; but it was a
+surprise--quite a pleasant one--to find that Sir Michael had provided
+for Myra--Miss Duquesne."
+
+Dr. Cairn stared hard.
+
+"What led you to suppose that he had _not_ provided for his niece? She
+is an orphan, and he was her guardian."
+
+"Of course, he should have done so; but I was not alone in my belief
+that during the--peculiar state of mind--which preceded his death, he
+had altered his will--"
+
+"In favour of his adopted son, Antony?"
+
+"Yes. I know _you_ were afraid of it, sir! But as it turns out they
+inherit equal shares, and the house goes to Myra. Mr. Antony
+Ferrara"--he accentuated the name--"quite failed to conceal his
+chagrin."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"Rather. He was there in person, wearing one of his beastly fur
+coats--a fur coat, with the thermometer at Africa!--lined with
+civet-cat, of all abominations!"
+
+Dr. Cairn turned to his table, tapping at the blotting-pad with the
+tube of a stethoscope.
+
+"I regret your attitude towards young Ferrara, Rob."
+
+His son started.
+
+"Regret it! I don't understand. Why, you, yourself brought about an
+open rupture on the night of Sir Michael's death."
+
+"Nevertheless, I am sorry. You know, since you were present, that Sir
+Michael has left his niece--to my care--"
+
+"Thank God for that!"
+
+"I am glad, too, although there are many difficulties. But,
+furthermore, he enjoined me to--"
+
+"Keep an eye on Antony! Yes, yes--but, heavens! he didn't know him for
+what he is!"
+
+Dr. Cairn turned to him again.
+
+"He did not; by a divine mercy, he never knew--what we know. But"--his
+clear eyes were raised to his son's--"the charge is none the less
+sacred, boy!"
+
+The younger man stared perplexedly.
+
+"But he is nothing less than a ----"
+
+His father's upraised hand checked the word on his tongue.
+
+"_I_ know what he is, Rob, even better than you do. But cannot you see
+how this ties my hands, seals my lips?"
+
+Robert Cairn was silent, stupefied.
+
+"Give me time to see my way clearly, Rob. At the moment I cannot
+reconcile my duty and my conscience; I confess it. But give me time.
+If only as a move--as a matter of policy--keep in touch with Ferrara.
+You loathe him, I know; but we _must_ watch him! There are other
+interests--"
+
+"Myra!" Robert Cairn flushed hotly. "Yes, I see. I understand. By
+heavens, it's a hard part to play, but--"
+
+"Be advised by me, Rob. Meet stealth with stealth. My boy, we have
+seen strange ends come to those who stood in the path of someone. If
+you had studied the subjects that I have studied you would know that
+retribution, though slow, is inevitable. But be on your guard. I am
+taking precautions. We have an enemy; I do not pretend to deny it; and
+he fights with strange weapons. Perhaps I know something of those
+weapons, too, and I am adopting--certain measures. But one defence,
+and the one for you, is guile--stealth!"
+
+Robert Cairn spoke abruptly.
+
+"He is installed in palatial chambers in Piccadilly."
+
+"Have you been there?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Call upon him. Take the first opportunity to do so. Had it not been
+for your knowledge of certain things which happened in a top set at
+Oxford we might be groping in the dark now! You never liked Antony
+Ferrara--no men do; but you used to call upon him in college. Continue
+to call upon him, in town."
+
+Robert Cairn stood up, and lighted a cigarette.
+
+"Right you are, sir!" he said. "I'm glad I'm not alone in this thing!
+By the way, about--?"
+
+"Myra? For the present she remains at the house. There is Mrs. Hume,
+and all the old servants. We shall see what is to be done, later. You
+might run over and give her a look-up, though."
+
+"I will, sir! Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye," said Dr. Cairn, and pressed the bell which summoned
+Marston to usher out the caller, and usher in the next patient.
+
+In Half-Moon Street, Robert Cairn stood irresolute; for he was one of
+those whose mental moods are physically reflected. He might call upon
+Myra Duquesne, in which event he would almost certainly be asked to
+stay to lunch; or he might call upon Antony Ferrara. He determined
+upon the latter, though less pleasant course.
+
+Turning his steps in the direction of Piccadilly, he reflected that
+this grim and uncanny secret which he shared with his father was like
+to prove prejudicial to his success in journalism. It was eternally
+uprising, demoniac, between himself and his work. The feeling of
+fierce resentment towards Antony Ferrara which he cherished grew
+stronger at every step. _He_ was the spider governing the web, the web
+that clammily touched Dr. Cairn, himself, Robert Cairn, and--Myra
+Duquesne. Others there had been who had felt its touch, who had been
+drawn to the heart of the unclean labyrinth--and devoured. In the mind
+of Cairn, the figure of Antony Ferrara assumed the shape of a monster,
+a ghoul, an elemental spirit of evil.
+
+And now he was ascending the marble steps. Before the gates of the
+lift he stood and pressed the bell.
+
+Ferrara's proved to be a first-floor suite, and the doors were opened
+by an Eastern servant dressed in white.
+
+"His beastly theatrical affectation again!" muttered Cairn. "The man
+should have been a music-hall illusionist!"
+
+The visitor was salaamed into a small reception room. Of this
+apartment the walls and ceiling were entirely covered by a fretwork in
+sandalwood, evidently Oriental in workmanship. In niches, or doorless
+cup-boards; stood curious-looking vases and pots. Heavy curtains of
+rich fabric draped the doors. The floor was of mosaic, and a small
+fountain played in the centre. A cushioned divan occupied one side of
+the place, from which natural light was entirely excluded and which
+was illuminated only by an ornate lantern swung from the ceiling. This
+lantern had panes of blue glass, producing a singular effect. A silver
+_mibkharah_, or incense-burner, stood near to one corner of the divan
+and emitted a subtle perfume. As the servant withdrew:
+
+"Good heavens!" muttered Cairn, disgustedly; "poor Sir Michael's
+fortune won't last long at this rate!" He glanced at the smoking
+_mibkharah_. "Phew! effeminate beast! Ambergris!"
+
+No more singular anomaly could well be pictured than that afforded by
+the lean, neatly-groomed Scotsman, with his fresh, clean-shaven face
+and typically British air, in this setting of Eastern voluptuousness.
+
+The dusky servitor drew back a curtain and waved him to enter, bowing
+low as the visitor passed. Cairn found himself in Antony Ferrara's
+study. A huge fire was blazing in the grate, rendering the heat of the
+study almost insufferable.
+
+It was, he perceived, an elaborated copy of Ferrara's room at Oxford;
+infinitely more spacious, of course, and by reason of the rugs,
+cushions and carpets with which its floor was strewn, suggestive of
+great opulence. But the littered table was there, with its nameless
+instruments and its extraordinary silver lamp; the mummies were there;
+the antique volumes, rolls of papyrus, preserved snakes and cats and
+ibises, statuettes of Isis, Osiris and other Nile deities were there;
+the many photographs of women, too (Cairn had dubbed it at Oxford "the
+zenana"); above all, there was Antony Ferrara.
+
+He wore the silver-grey dressing-gown trimmed with white swansdown in
+which Cairn had seen him before. His statuesque ivory face was set in
+a smile, which yet was no smile of welcome; the over-red lips smiled
+alone; the long, glittering dark eyes were joyless; almost, beneath
+the straightly-pencilled brows, sinister. Save for the short,
+lustreless hair it was the face of a handsome, evil woman.
+
+"My dear Cairn--what a welcome interruption. How good of you!"
+
+There was strange music in his husky tones. He spoke unemotionally,
+falsely, but Cairn could not deny the charm of that unique voice. It
+was possible to understand how women--some women--would be as clay in
+the hands of the man who had such a voice as that.
+
+His visitor nodded shortly. Cairn was a poor actor; already his _role_
+was oppressing him. Whilst Ferrara was speaking one found a sort of
+fascination in listening, but when he was silent he repelled. Ferrara
+may have been conscious of this, for he spoke much, and well.
+
+"You have made yourself jolly comfortable," said Cairn.
+
+"Why not, my dear Cairn? Every man has within him something of the
+Sybarite. Why crush a propensity so delightful? The Spartan philosophy
+is palpably absurd; it is that of one who finds himself in a garden
+filled with roses and who holds his nostrils; who perceives there
+shady bowers, but chooses to burn in the sun; who, ignoring the choice
+fruits which tempt his hand and court his palate, stoops to pluck
+bitter herbs from the wayside!"
+
+"I see!" snapped Cairn. "Aren't you thinking of doing any more work,
+then?"
+
+"Work!" Antony Ferrara smiled and sank upon a heap of cushions.
+"Forgive me, Cairn, but I leave it, gladly and confidently, to more
+robust characters such as your own."
+
+He proffered a silver box of cigarettes, but Cairn shook his head,
+balancing himself on a corner of the table.
+
+"No; thanks. I have smoked too much already; my tongue is parched."
+
+"My dear fellow!" Ferrara rose. "I have a wine which, I declare, you
+will never have tasted but which you will pronounce to be nectar. It
+is made in Cyprus--"
+
+Cairn raised his hand in a way that might have reminded a nice
+observer of his father.
+
+"Thank you, nevertheless. Some other time, Ferrara; I am no wine man."
+
+"A whisky and soda, or a burly British B. and S., even a sporty
+'Scotch and Polly'?"
+
+There was a suggestion of laughter in the husky voice, now, of a sort
+of contemptuous banter. But Cairn stolidly shook his head and forced a
+smile.
+
+"Many thanks; but it's too early."
+
+He stood up and began to walk about the room, inspecting the
+numberless oddities which it contained. The photographs he examined
+with supercilious curiosity. Then, passing to a huge cabinet, he began
+to peer in at the rows of amulets, statuettes and other,
+unclassifiable, objects with which it was laden. Ferrara's voice came.
+
+"That head of a priestess on the left, Cairn, is of great interest.
+The brain had not been removed, and quite a colony of Dermestes
+Beetles had propagated in the cavity. Those creatures never saw the
+light, Cairn. Yet I assure you that they had eyes. I have nearly forty
+of them in the small glass case on the table there. You might like to
+examine them."
+
+Cairn shuddered, but felt impelled to turn and look at these gruesome
+relics. In a square, glass case he saw the creatures. They lay in rows
+on a bed of moss; one might almost have supposed that unclean life yet
+survived in the little black insects. They were an unfamiliar species
+to Cairn, being covered with unusually long, black hair, except upon
+the root of the wing-cases where they were of brilliant orange.
+
+"The perfect pupae of this insect are extremely rare," added Ferrara
+informatively.
+
+"Indeed?" replied Cairn.
+
+He found something physically revolting in that group of beetles whose
+history had begun and ended in the skull of a mummy.
+
+"Filthy things!" he said. "Why do you keep them?"
+
+Ferrara shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Who knows?" he answered enigmatically. "They might prove useful, some
+day."
+
+A bell rang; and from Ferrara's attitude it occurred to Cairn that he
+was expecting a visitor.
+
+"I must be off," he said accordingly.
+
+And indeed he was conscious of a craving for the cool and
+comparatively clean air of Piccadilly. He knew something of the great
+evil which dwelt within this man whom he was compelled, by singular
+circumstances, to tolerate. But the duty began to irk.
+
+"If you must," was the reply. "Of course, your press work no doubt is
+very exacting."
+
+The note of badinage was discernible again, but Cairn passed out into
+the _mandarah_ without replying, where the fountain plashed coolly and
+the silver _mibkharah_ sent up its pencils of vapour. The outer door
+was opened by the Oriental servant, and Ferrara stood and bowed to his
+departing visitor. He did not proffer his hand.
+
+"Until our next meeting. Cairn, _es-selam aleykum_!" (peace be with
+you) he murmured, "as the Moslems say. But indeed I shall be with you
+in spirit, dear Cairn."
+
+There was something in the tone wherein he spoke those last words that
+brought Cairn up short. He turned, but the doors closed silently. A
+faint breath of ambergris was borne to his nostrils.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE RUSTLING SHADOWS
+
+
+Cairn stepped out of the lift, crossed the hall, and was about to walk
+out on to Piccadilly, when he stopped, staring hard at a taxi-cab
+which had slowed down upon the opposite side whilst the driver awaited
+a suitable opportunity to pull across.
+
+The occupant of the cab was invisible now, but a moment before Cairn
+had had a glimpse of her as she glanced out, apparently towards the
+very doorway in which he stood. Perhaps his imagination was playing
+him tricks. He stood and waited, until at last the cab drew up within
+a few yards of him.
+
+Myra Duquesne got out.
+
+Having paid the cabman, she crossed the pavement and entered the
+hall-way. Cairn stepped forward so that she almost ran into his arms.
+
+"Mr. Cairn!" she cried. "Why! have you been to see Antony?"
+
+"I have," he replied, and paused, at a loss for words.
+
+It had suddenly occurred to him that Antony Ferrara and Myra Duquesne
+had known one another from childhood; that the girl probably regarded
+Ferrara in the light of a brother.
+
+"There are so many things I want to talk to him about," she said. "He
+seems to know everything, and I am afraid I know very little."
+
+Cairn noted with dismay the shadows under her eyes--the grey eyes that
+he would have wished to see ever full of light and laughter. She was
+pale, too, or seemed unusually so in her black dress; but the tragic
+death of her guardian, Sir Michael Ferrara, had been a dreadful blow
+to this convent-bred girl who had no other kin in the world. A longing
+swept into Cairn's heart and set it ablaze; a longing to take all her
+sorrows, all her cares, upon his own broad shoulders, to take her and
+hold her, shielded from whatever of trouble or menace the future might
+bring.
+
+"Have you seen his rooms here?" he asked, trying to speak casually;
+but his soul was up in arms against the bare idea of this girl's
+entering that perfumed place where abominable and vile things were,
+and none of them so vile as the man she trusted, whom she counted a
+brother.
+
+"Not yet," she answered, with a sort of childish glee momentarily
+lighting her eyes. "Are they _very_ splendid?"
+
+"Very," he answered her, grimly.
+
+"Can't you come in with me for awhile? Only just a little while, then
+you can come home to lunch--you and Antony." Her eyes sparkled now.
+"Oh, do say yes!"
+
+Knowing what he did know of the man upstairs, he longed to accompany
+her; yet, contradictorily, knowing what he did he could not face him
+again, could not submit himself to the test of being civil to Antony
+Ferrara in the presence of Myra Duquesne.
+
+"Please don't tempt me," he begged, and forced a smile. "I shall find
+myself enrolled amongst the seekers of soup-tickets if I _completely_
+ignore the claims of my employer upon my time!"
+
+"Oh, what a shame!" she cried.
+
+Their eyes met, and something--something unspoken but cogent--passed
+between them; so that for the first time a pretty colour tinted the
+girl's cheeks. She suddenly grew embarrassed.
+
+"Good-bye, then," she said, holding out her hand. "Will you lunch with
+us to-morrow?"
+
+"Thanks awfully," replied Cairn. "Rather--if it's humanly possible.
+I'll ring you up."
+
+He released her hand, and stood watching her as she entered the lift.
+When it ascended, he turned and went out to swell the human tide of
+Piccadilly. He wondered what his father would think of the girl's
+visiting Ferrara. Would he approve? Decidedly the situation was a
+delicate one; the wrong kind of interference--the tactless kind--might
+merely render it worse. It would be awfully difficult, if not
+impossible, to explain to Myra. If an open rupture were to be avoided
+(and he had profound faith in his father's acumen), then Myra must
+remain in ignorance. But was she to be allowed to continue these
+visits?
+
+Should he have permitted her to enter Ferrara's rooms?
+
+He reflected that he had no right to question her movements. But, at
+least, he might have accompanied her.
+
+"Oh, heavens!" he muttered--"what a horrible tangle. It will drive me
+mad!"
+
+There could be no peace for him until he knew her to be safely home
+again, and his work suffered accordingly; until, at about midday, he
+rang up Myra Duquesne, on the pretence of accepting her invitation to
+lunch on the morrow, and heard, with inexpressible relief, her voice
+replying to him.
+
+In the afternoon he was suddenly called upon to do a big "royal"
+matinee, and this necessitated a run to his chambers in order to
+change from Harris tweed into vicuna and cashmere. The usual stream of
+lawyers' clerks and others poured under the archway leading to the
+court; but in the far corner shaded by the tall plane tree, where the
+ascending steps and worn iron railing, the small panes of glass in the
+solicitor's window on the ground floor and the general air of
+Dickens-like aloofness prevailed, one entered a sort of backwater. In
+the narrow hall-way, quiet reigned--a quiet profound as though motor
+'buses were not.
+
+Cairn ran up the stairs to the second landing, and began to fumble for
+his key. Although he knew it to be impossible, he was aware of a queer
+impression that someone was waiting for him, inside his chambers. The
+sufficiently palpable fact--that such a thing _was_ impossible--did
+not really strike him until he had opened the door and entered. Up to
+that time, in a sort of subconscious way, he had anticipated finding a
+visitor there.
+
+"What an ass I am!" he muttered; then, "Phew! there's a disgusting
+smell!"
+
+He threw open all the windows, and entering his bedroom, also opening
+both the windows there. The current of air thus established began to
+disperse the odour--a fusty one as of something decaying--and by the
+time that he had changed, it was scarcely perceptible. He had little
+time to waste in speculation, but when, as he ran out to the door,
+glancing at his watch, the nauseous odour suddenly rose again to his
+nostrils, he stopped with his hand on the latch.
+
+"What the deuce is it!" he said loudly.
+
+Quite mechanically he turned and looked back. As one might have
+anticipated, there was nothing visible to account for the odour.
+
+The emotion of fear is a strange and complex one. In this breath of
+decay rising to his nostril, Cairn found something fearsome. He opened
+the door, stepped out on to the landing, and closed the door behind
+him.
+
+At an hour close upon midnight, Dr. Bruce Cairn, who was about to
+retire, received a wholly unexpected visit from his son. Robert Cairn
+followed his father into the library and sat down in the big, red
+leathern easy-chair. The doctor tilted the lamp shade, directing the
+light upon Robert's face. It proved to be slightly pale, and in the
+clear eyes was an odd expression--almost a hunted look.
+
+"What's the trouble, Rob? Have a whisky and soda."
+
+Robert Cairn helped himself quietly.
+
+"Now take a cigar and tell me what has frightened you."
+
+"Frightened me!" He started, and paused in the act of reaching for a
+match. "Yes--you're right, sir. I _am_ frightened!"
+
+"Not at the moment. You have been."
+
+"Right again." He lighted his cigar. "I want to begin by saying
+that--well, how can I put it? When I took up newspaper work, we
+thought it would be better if I lived in chambers--"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Well, at that time--" he examined the lighted end of his
+cigar--"there was no reason--why I should not live alone. But now--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Now I feel, sir, that I have need of more or less constant
+companionship. Especially I feel that it would be desirable to have a
+friend handy at--er--at night time!"
+
+Dr. Cairn leant forward in his chair. His face was very stern.
+
+"Hold out your fingers," he said, "extended; left hand."
+
+His son obeyed, smiling slightly. The open hand showed in the
+lamplight steady as a carven hand.
+
+"Nerves quite in order, sir."
+
+Dr. Cairn inhaled a deep breath.
+
+"Tell me," he said.
+
+"It's a queer tale," his son began, "and if I told it to Craig Fenton,
+or Madderley round in Harley Street I know what they would say. But
+you will _understand_. It started this afternoon, when the sun was
+pouring in through the windows. I had to go to my chambers to change;
+and the rooms were filled with a most disgusting smell."
+
+His father started.
+
+"What kind of smell?" he asked. "Not--incense?"
+
+"No," replied Robert, looking hard at him--"I thought you would ask
+that. It was a smell of something putrid--something rotten, rotten
+with the rottenness of ages."
+
+"Did you trace where it came from?"
+
+"I opened all the windows, and that seemed to disperse it for a time.
+Then, just as I was going out, it returned; it seemed to envelop me
+like a filthy miasma. You know, sir, it's hard to explain just the way
+I felt about it--but it all amounts to this: I was glad to get
+outside!"
+
+Dr. Cairn stood up and began to pace about the room, his hands locked
+behind him.
+
+"To-night," he rapped suddenly, "what occurred to-night?"
+
+"To-night," continued his son, "I got in at about half-past nine. I
+had had such a rush, in one way and another, that the incident had
+quite lost its hold on my imagination; I hadn't forgotten it, of
+course, but I was not thinking of it when I unlocked the door. In fact
+I didn't begin to think of it again until, in slippers and
+dressing-gown, I had settled down for a comfortable read. There was
+nothing, absolutely nothing, to influence my imagination--in that way.
+The book was an old favourite, Mark Twain's _Up the Mississippi_, and
+I sat in the armchair with a large bottle of lager beer at my elbow
+and my pipe going strong."
+
+Becoming restless in turn, the speaker stood up and walking to the
+fireplace flicked off the long cone of grey ash from his cigar. He
+leant one elbow upon the mantel-piece, resuming his story:
+
+"St. Paul's had just chimed the half-hour--half-past ten--when my pipe
+went out. Before I had time to re-light it, came the damnable smell
+again. At the moment nothing was farther from my mind, and I jumped up
+with an exclamation of disgust. It seemed to be growing stronger and
+stronger. I got my pipe alight quickly. Still I could smell it; the
+aroma of the tobacco did not lessen its beastly pungency in the
+smallest degree.
+
+"I tilted the shade of my reading-lamp and looked all about. There was
+nothing unusual to be seen. Both windows were open and I went to one
+and thrust my head out, in order to learn if the odour came from
+outside. It did not. The air outside the window was fresh and clean.
+Then I remembered that when I had left my chambers in the afternoon,
+the smell had been stronger near the door than anywhere. I ran out to
+the door. In the passage I could smell nothing; but--"
+
+He paused, glancing at his father.
+
+"Before I had stood there thirty seconds it was rising all about me
+like the fumes from a crater. By God, sir! I realised then that it was
+something ... following me!"
+
+Dr. Cairn stood watching him, from the shadows beyond the big table,
+as he came forward and finished his whisky at a gulp.
+
+"That seemed to work a change in me," he continued rapidly; "I
+recognised there was something behind this disgusting manifestation,
+something directing it; and I recognised, too, that the next move was
+up to me. I went back to my room. The odour was not so pronounced, but
+as I stood by the table, waiting, it increased, and increased, until
+it almost choked me. My nerves were playing tricks, but I kept a fast
+hold on myself. I set to work, very methodically, and fumigated the
+place. Within myself I knew that it could do no good, but I felt that
+I had to put up some kind of opposition. You understand, sir?"
+
+"Quite," replied Dr. Cairn quietly. "It was an organised attempt to
+expel the invader, and though of itself it was useless, the mental
+attitude dictating it was good. Go on."
+
+"The clocks had chimed eleven when I gave up, and I felt physically
+sick. The air by this time was poisonous, literally poisonous. I
+dropped into the easy-chair and began to wonder what the end of it
+would be. Then, in the shadowy parts of the room, outside the circle
+of light cast by the lamp, I detected--darker patches. For awhile I
+tried to believe that they were imaginary, but when I saw one move
+along the bookcase, glide down its side, and come across the carpet,
+towards me, I knew that they were not. Before heaven, sir"--his voice
+shook--"either I am mad, or to-night my room was filled with things
+that _crawled_! They were everywhere; on the floor, on the walls, even
+on the ceiling above me! Where the light was I couldn't detect them,
+but the shadows were alive, alive with things--the size of my two
+hands; and in the growing stillness--"
+
+His voice had become husky. Dr. Cairn stood still, as a man of stone,
+watching him.
+
+"In the stillness, very faintly, _they rustled_!"
+
+Silence fell. A car passed outside in Half-Moon Street; its throb died
+away. A clock was chiming the half-hour after midnight. Dr. Cairn
+spoke:
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"One other thing, sir. I was gripping the chair arms; I felt that I
+had to grip something to prevent myself from slipping into madness. My
+left hand--" he glanced at it with a sort of repugnance--"something
+hairy--and indescribably loathsome--touched it; just brushed against
+it. But it was too much. I'm ashamed to tell you, sir; I screamed,
+screamed like any hysterical girl, and for the second time, ran! I ran
+from my own rooms, grabbed a hat and coat; and left my dressing gown
+on the floor!"
+
+He turned, leaning both elbows on the mantel-piece, and buried his
+face in his hands.
+
+"Have another drink," said Dr. Cairn. "You called on Antony Ferrara
+to-day, didn't you? How did he receive you?"
+
+"That brings me to something else I wanted to tell you," continued
+Robert, squirting soda-water into his glass. "Myra--goes there."
+
+"Where--to his chambers?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Dr. Cairn began to pace the room again.
+
+"I am not surprised," he admitted; "she has always been taught to
+regard him in the light of a brother. But nevertheless we must put a
+stop to it. How did you learn this?"
+
+Robert Cairn gave him an account of the morning's incidents,
+describing Ferrara's chambers with a minute exactness which revealed
+how deep, how indelible an impression their strangeness had made upon
+his mind.
+
+"There is one thing," he concluded, "against which I am always coming
+up, I puzzled over it at Oxford, and others did, too; I came against
+it to-day. Who _is_ Antony Ferrara? Where did Sir Michael find him?
+What kind of woman bore such a son?"
+
+"Stop boy!" cried Dr. Cairn.
+
+Robert started, looking at his father across the table.
+
+"You are already in danger, Rob. I won't disguise that fact from you.
+Myra Duquesne is no relation of Ferrara's; therefore, since she
+inherits half of Sir Michael's fortune, a certain course must have
+suggested itself to Antony. You, patently, are an obstacle! That's
+bad enough, boy; let us deal with it before we look for further
+trouble."
+
+"He took up a blackened briar from the table and began to load it.
+
+"Regarding your next move," he continued slowly, "there can be no
+question. You must return to your chambers!"
+
+"What!"
+
+"There can be no question, Rob. A kind of attack has been made upon
+you which only _you_ can repel. If you desert your chambers, it will
+be repeated here. At present it is evidently localised. There are laws
+governing these things; laws as immutable as any other laws in Nature.
+One of them is this: the powers of darkness (to employ a conventional
+and significant phrase) cannot triumph over the powers of Will. Below
+the Godhead, Will is the supreme force of the Universe. _Resist_! You
+_must_ resist, or you are lost!"
+
+"What do you mean, sir?"
+
+"I mean that destruction of mind, and of something more than mind,
+threatens you. If you retreat you are lost. Go back to your rooms.
+_Seek_ your foe; strive to haul him into the light and crush him! The
+phenomena at your rooms belong to one of two varieties; at present it
+seems impossible to classify them more closely. Both are dangerous,
+though in different ways. I suspect, however, that a purely mental
+effort will be sufficient to disperse these nauseous shadow-things.
+Probably you will not be troubled again to-night, but whenever the
+phenomena return, take off your coat to them! You require no better
+companion than the one you had:--Mark Twain! Treat your visitors as
+one might imagine he would have treated them; as a very poor joke! But
+whenever it begins again, ring me up. Don't hesitate, whatever the
+hour. I shall be at the hospital all day, but from seven onward I
+shall be here and shall make a point of remaining. Give me a call when
+you return, now, and if there is no earlier occasion, another in the
+morning. Then rely upon my active co-operation throughout the
+following night."
+
+"Active, sir?"
+
+"I said active, Rob. The next repetition of these manifestations shall
+be the last. Good-night. Remember, you have only to lift the receiver
+to know that you are not alone in your fight."
+
+Robert Cairn took a second cigar, lighted it, finished his whisky, and
+squared his shoulders.
+
+"Good-night, sir," he said. "I shan't run away a third time!"
+
+When the door had closed upon his exit, Dr. Cairn resumed his restless
+pacing up and down the library. He had given Roman counsel, for he had
+sent his son out to face, alone, a real and dreadful danger. Only thus
+could he hope to save him, but nevertheless it had been hard. The next
+fight would be a fight to the finish, for Robert had said, "I shan't
+run away a third time;" and he was a man of his word.
+
+As Dr. Cairn had declared, the manifestations belonged to one of two
+varieties. According to the most ancient science in the world, the
+science by which the Egyptians, and perhaps even earlier peoples,
+ordered their lives, we share this, our plane of existence, with
+certain other creatures, often called Elementals. Mercifully, these
+fearsome entities are invisible to our normal sight, just as the finer
+tones of music are inaudible to our normal powers of hearing.
+
+Victims of delirium tremens, opium smokers, and other debauchees,
+artificially open that finer, latent power of vision; and the horrors
+which surround them are not imaginary but are Elementals attracted to
+the victim by his peculiar excesses.
+
+The crawling things, then, which reeked abominably might be Elementals
+(so Dr. Cairn reasoned) superimposed upon Robert Cairn's consciousness
+by a directing, malignant intelligence. On the other hand they might
+be mere glamours--or thought-forms--thrust upon him by the same wizard
+mind; emanations from an evil, powerful will.
+
+His reflections were interrupted by the ringing of the 'phone bell. He
+took up the receiver.
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"That you, sir? All's clear here, now. I'm turning in."
+
+"Right. Good-night, Rob. Ring me in the morning."
+
+"Good-night, sir."
+
+Dr. Cairn refilled his charred briar, and, taking from a drawer in the
+writing table a thick MS., sat down and began to study the
+closely-written pages. The paper was in the cramped handwriting of the
+late Sir Michael Ferrara, his travelling companion through many
+strange adventures; and the sun had been flooding the library with
+dimmed golden light for several hours, and a bustle below stairs
+acclaiming an awakened household, ere the doctor's studies were
+interrupted. Again, it was the 'phone bell. He rose, switched off the
+reading-lamp, and lifted the instrument.
+
+"That you, Rob?"
+
+"Yes, sir. All's well, thank God! Can I breakfast with you?"
+
+"Certainly, my boy!" Dr. Cairn glanced at his watch. "Why, upon my
+soul it's seven o'clock!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE BEETLES
+
+
+Sixteen hours had elapsed and London's clocks were booming eleven that
+night, when the uncanny drama entered upon its final stage. Once more
+Dr. Cairn sat alone with Sir Michael's manuscript, but at frequent
+intervals his glance would stray to the telephone at his elbow. He had
+given orders to the effect that he was on no account to be disturbed
+and that his car should be ready at the door from ten o'clock onward.
+
+As the sound of the final strokes was dying away the expected summons
+came. Dr. Cairn's jaw squared and his mouth was very grim, when he
+recognised his son's voice over the wires.
+
+"Well, boy?"
+
+"They're here, sir--now, while I'm speaking! I have been
+fighting--fighting hard--for half an hour. The place smells like a
+charnel-house and the--shapes are taking definite, horrible form! They
+have ... _eyes_!" His voice sounded harsh. "Quite black the eyes are,
+and they shine like beads! It's gradually wearing me down, although I
+have myself in hand, so far. I mean I might crack up--at any moment.
+Bah!--"
+
+His voice ceased.
+
+"Hullo!" cried Dr. Cairn. "Hullo, Rob!"
+
+"It's all right, sir," came, all but inaudibly. "The--things are all
+around the edge of the light patch; they make a sort of rustling
+noise. It is a tremendous, conscious _effort_ to keep them at bay.
+While I was speaking, I somehow lost my grip of the situation.
+One--crawled ... it fastened on my hand ... a hairy, many-limbed
+horror.... Oh, my God! another is touching...."
+
+"Rob! Rob! Keep your nerve, boy! Do you hear?"
+
+"Yes--yes--" faintly.
+
+"_Pray_, my boy--pray for strength, and it will come to you! You
+_must_ hold out for another ten minutes. Ten minutes--do you
+understand?"
+
+"Yes! yes!--Merciful God!--if you can help me, do it, sir, or--"
+
+"Hold out, boy! In _ten minutes_ you'll have won."
+
+Dr. Cairn hung up the receiver, raced from the library, and grabbing a
+cap from the rack in the hall, ran down the steps and bounded into the
+waiting car, shouting an address to the man.
+
+Piccadilly was gay with supper-bound theatre crowds when he leapt out
+and ran into the hall-way which had been the scene of Robert's meeting
+with Myra Duquesne. Dr. Cairn ran past the lift doors and went up the
+stairs three steps at a time. He pressed his finger to the bell-push
+beside Antony Ferrara's door and held it there until the door opened
+and a dusky face appeared in the opening.
+
+The visitor thrust his way in, past the white-clad man holding out his
+arms to detain him.
+
+"Not at home, _effendim_--"
+
+Dr. Cairn shot out a sinewy hand, grabbed the man--he was a tall
+_fellahin_--by the shoulder, and sent him spinning across the mosaic
+floor of the _mandarah_. The air was heavy with the perfume of
+ambergris.
+
+Wasting no word upon the reeling man, Dr. Cairn stepped to the
+doorway. He jerked the drapery aside and found himself in a dark
+corridor. From his son's description of the chambers he had no
+difficulty in recognising the door of the study.
+
+He turned the handle--the door proved to be unlocked--and entered the
+darkened room.
+
+In the grate a huge fire glowed redly; the temperature of the place
+was almost unbearable. On the table the light from the silver lamp
+shed a patch of radiance, but the rest of the study was veiled in
+shadow.
+
+A black-robed figure was seated in a high-backed, carved chair; one
+corner of the cowl-like garment was thrown across the table. Half
+rising, the figure turned--and, an evil apparition in the glow from
+the fire, Antony Ferrara faced the intruder.
+
+Dr. Cairn walked forward, until he stood over the other.
+
+"Uncover what you have on the table," he said succinctly.
+
+Ferrara's strange eyes were uplifted to the speaker's with an
+expression in their depths which, in the Middle Ages, alone would have
+sent a man to the stake.
+
+"Dr. Cairn--"
+
+The husky voice had lost something of its suavity.
+
+"You heard my order!"
+
+"Your _order_! Surely, doctor, since I am in my own--"
+
+"Uncover what you have on the table. Or must I do so for you!"
+
+Antony Ferrara placed his hand upon the end of the black robe which
+lay across the table.
+
+"Be careful, Dr. Cairn," he said evenly. "You--are taking risks."
+
+Dr. Cairn suddenly leapt, seized the shielding hand in a sure grip and
+twisted Ferrara's arm behind him. Then, with a second rapid movement,
+he snatched away the robe. A faint smell--a smell of corruption, of
+ancient rottenness--arose on the superheated air.
+
+A square of faded linen lay on the table, figured with all but
+indecipherable Egyptian characters, and upon it, in rows which formed
+a definite geometrical design, were arranged a great number of little,
+black insects.
+
+Dr. Cairn released the hand which he held, and Ferrara sat quite
+still, looking straight before him.
+
+"_Dermestes beetles!_ from the skull of a mummy! You filthy, obscene
+beast!"
+
+Ferrara spoke, with a calm suddenly regained:
+
+"Is there anything obscene in the study of beetles?"
+
+"My son saw these things here yesterday; and last night, and again
+to-night, you cast magnified doubles--glamours--of the horrible
+creatures into his rooms! By means which you know of, but which _I_
+know of, too, you sought to bring your thought-things down to the
+material plane."
+
+"Dr. Cairn, my respect for you is great; but I fear that much study
+has made you mad."
+
+Ferrara reached out his hand towards an ebony box; he was smiling.
+
+"Don't dare to touch that box!"
+
+He paused, glancing up.
+
+"More orders, doctor?"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+Dr. Cairn grabbed the faded linen, scooping up the beetles within it,
+and, striding across the room, threw the whole unsavoury bundle into
+the heart of the fire. A great flame leapt up; there came a series of
+squeaky explosions, so that, almost, one might have imagined those
+age-old insects to have had life. Then the doctor turned again.
+
+Ferrara leapt to his feet with a cry that had in it something inhuman,
+and began rapidly to babble in a tongue that was not European. He was
+facing Dr. Cairn, a tall, sinister figure, but one hand was groping
+behind him for the box.
+
+"Stop that!" rapped the doctor imperatively--"and for the last time do
+not dare to touch that box!"
+
+The flood of strange words was dammed. Ferrara stood quivering, but
+silent.
+
+"The laws by which such as you were burnt--the _wise_ laws of long
+ago--are no more," said Dr. Cairn. "English law cannot touch you, but
+God has provided for your kind!"
+
+"Perhaps," whispered Ferrara, "you would like also to burn this box to
+which you object so strongly?"
+
+"No power on earth would prevail upon me to touch it! But you--you
+_have_ touched it--and you know the penalty! You raise forces of evil
+that have lain dormant for ages and dare to wield them. Beware! I know
+of some whom you have murdered; I cannot know how many you have sent
+to the madhouse. But I swear that in future your victims shall be few.
+There is a way to deal with you!"
+
+He turned and walked to the door.
+
+"Beware also, dear Dr. Cairn," came softly. "As you say, I raise
+forces of evil--"
+
+Dr. Cairn spun about. In three strides he was standing over Antony
+Ferrara, fists clenched and his sinewy body tense in every fibre. His
+face was pale, as was apparent even in that vague light, and his eyes
+gleamed like steel.
+
+"You raise other forces," he said--and his voice, though steady was
+very low; "evil forces, also."
+
+Antony Ferrara, invoker of nameless horrors, shrank before him--before
+the primitive Celtic man whom unwittingly he had invoked. Dr. Cairn
+was spare and lean, but in perfect physical condition. Now he was
+strong, with the strength of a just cause. Moreover, he was dangerous,
+and Ferrara knew it well.
+
+"I fear--" began the latter huskily.
+
+"Dare to bandy words with me," said Dr. Cairn, with icy coolness,
+"answer me back but once again, and before God I'll strike you dead!"
+
+Ferrara sat silent, clutching at the arms of his chair, and not daring
+to raise his eyes. For ten magnetic seconds they stayed so, then again
+Dr. Cairn turned, and this time walked out.
+
+The clocks had been chiming the quarter after eleven as he had entered
+Antony Ferrara's chambers, and some had not finished their chimes when
+his son, choking, calling wildly upon Heaven to aid him, had fallen in
+the midst of crowding, obscene things, and, in the instant of his
+fall, had found the room clear of the waving antennae, the beady eyes,
+and the beetle shapes. The whole horrible phantasmagoria--together
+with the odour of ancient rottenness--faded like a fevered dream, at
+the moment that Dr. Cairn had burst in upon the creator of it.
+
+Robert Cairn stood up, weakly, trembling; then dropped upon his knees
+and sobbed out prayers of thankfulness that came from his frightened
+soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SIR ELWIN GROVES' PATIENT
+
+
+When a substantial legacy is divided into two shares, one of which
+falls to a man, young, dissolute and clever, and the other to a girl,
+pretty and inexperienced, there is laughter in the hells. But, to the
+girl's legacy add another item--a strong, stern guardian, and the
+issue becomes one less easy to predict.
+
+In the case at present under consideration, such an arrangement led
+Dr. Bruce Cairn to pack off Myra Duquesne to a grim Scottish manor in
+Inverness upon a visit of indefinite duration. It also led to heart
+burnings on the part of Robert Cairn, and to other things about to be
+noticed.
+
+Antony Ferrara, the co-legatee, was not slow to recognise that a
+damaging stroke had been played, but he knew Dr. Cairn too well to put
+up any protest. In his capacity of fashionable physician, the doctor
+frequently met Ferrara in society, for a man at once rich, handsome,
+and bearing a fine name, is not socially ostracised on the mere
+suspicion that he is a dangerous blackguard. Thus Antony Ferrara was
+courted by the smartest women in town and tolerated by the men. Dr.
+Cairn would always acknowledge him, and then turn his back upon the
+dark-eyed, adopted son of his dearest friend.
+
+There was that between the two of which the world knew nothing. Had
+the world known what Dr. Cairn knew respecting Antony Ferrara, then,
+despite his winning manner, his wealth and his station, every door in
+London, from those of Mayfair to that of the foulest den in Limehouse,
+would have been closed to him--closed, and barred with horror and
+loathing. A tremendous secret was locked up within the heart of Dr.
+Bruce Cairn.
+
+Sometimes we seem to be granted a glimpse of the guiding Hand that
+steers men's destinies; then, as comprehension is about to dawn, we
+lose again our temporal lucidity of vision. The following incident
+illustrates this.
+
+Sir Elwin Groves, of Harley Street, took Dr. Cairn aside at the club
+one evening.
+
+"I am passing a patient on to you, Cairn," he said; "Lord Lashmore."
+
+"Ah!" replied Cairn, thoughtfully. "I have never met him."
+
+"He has only quite recently returned to England--you may have
+heard?--and brought a South American Lady Lashmore with him."
+
+"I had heard that, yes."
+
+"Lord Lashmore is close upon fifty-five, and his wife--a passionate
+Southern type--is probably less than twenty. They are an odd couple.
+The lady has been doing some extensive entertaining at the town
+house."
+
+Groves stared hard at Dr. Cairn.
+
+"Your young friend, Antony Ferrara, is a regular visitor."
+
+"No doubt," said Cairn; "he goes everywhere. I don't know how long his
+funds will last."
+
+"I have wondered, too. His chambers are like a scene from the 'Arabian
+Nights.'"
+
+"How do you know?" inquired the other curiously. "Have you attended
+him?"
+
+"Yes," was the reply. "His Eastern servant 'phoned for me one night
+last week; and I found Ferrara lying unconscious in a room like a
+pasha's harem. He looked simply ghastly, but the man would give me no
+account of what had caused the attack. It looked to me like sheer
+nervous exhaustion. He gave me quite an anxious five minutes.
+Incidentally, the room was blazing hot, with a fire roaring right up
+the chimney, and it smelt like a Hindu temple."
+
+"Ah!" muttered Cairn, "between his mode of life and his peculiar
+studies he will probably crack up. He has a fragile constitution."
+
+"Who the deuce is he, Cairn?" pursued Sir Elwin. "You must know all
+the circumstances of his adoption; you were with the late Sir Michael
+in Egypt at the time. The fellow is a mystery to me; he repels, in
+some way. I was glad to get away from his rooms."
+
+"You were going to tell me something about Lord Lashmore's case, I
+think?" said Cairn.
+
+Sir Elwin Groves screwed up his eyes and readjusted his pince-nez, for
+the deliberate way in which his companion had changed the conversation
+was unmistakable. However, Cairn's brusque manners were proverbial,
+and Sir Elwin accepted the lead.
+
+"Yes, yes, I believe I was," he agreed, rather lamely. "Well, it's
+very singular. I was called there last Monday, at about two o'clock in
+the morning. I found the house upside-down, and Lady Lashmore, with a
+dressing-gown thrown over her nightdress, engaged in bathing a bad
+wound in her husband's throat."
+
+"What! Attempted suicide?"
+
+"My first idea, naturally. But a glance at the wound set me wondering.
+It was bleeding profusely, and from its location I was afraid that it
+might have penetrated the internal jugular; but the external only was
+wounded. I arrested the flow of blood and made the patient
+comfortable. Lady Lashmore assisted me coolly and displayed some skill
+as a nurse. In fact she had applied a ligature before my arrival."
+
+"Lord Lashmore remained conscious?"
+
+"Quite. He was shaky, of course. I called again at nine o'clock that
+morning, and found him progressing favourably. When I had dressed the
+wounds--"
+
+"Wounds?"
+
+"There were two actually; I will tell you in a moment. I asked Lord
+Lashmore for an explanation. He had given out, for the benefit of the
+household, that, stumbling out of bed in the dark, he had tripped upon
+a rug, so that he fell forward almost into the fireplace. There is a
+rather ornate fender, with an elaborate copper scrollwork design, and
+his account was that he came down with all his weight upon this, in
+such a way that part of the copperwork pierced his throat. It was
+possible, just possible, Cairn; but it didn't satisfy me and I could
+see that it didn't satisfy Lady Lashmore. However, when we were alone,
+Lashmore told me the real facts."
+
+"He had been concealing the truth?"
+
+"Largely for his wife's sake, I fancy. He was anxious to spare her the
+alarm which, knowing the truth, she must have experienced. His story
+was this--related in confidence, but he wishes that you should know.
+He was awakened by a sudden, sharp pain in the throat; not very acute,
+but accompanied by a feeling of pressure. It was gone again, in a
+moment, and he was surprised to find blood upon his hands when he felt
+for the cause of the pain.
+
+"He got out of bed and experienced a great dizziness. The hemorrhage
+was altogether more severe than he had supposed. Not wishing to arouse
+his wife, he did not enter his dressing-room, which is situated
+between his own room and Lady Lashmore's; he staggered as far as the
+bell-push, and then collapsed. His man found him on the
+floor--sufficiently near to the fender to lend colour to the story of
+the accident."
+
+Dr. Cairn coughed drily.
+
+"Do you think it was attempted suicide after all, then?" he asked.
+
+"No--I don't," replied Sir Elwin emphatically. "I think it was
+something altogether more difficult to explain."
+
+"Not attempted murder?"
+
+"Almost impossible. Excepting Chambers, Lord Lashmore's valet, no one
+could possibly have gained access to that suite of rooms. They number
+four. There is a small boudoir, out of which opens Lady Lashmore's
+bedroom; between this and Lord Lashmore's apartment is the
+dressing-room. Lord Lashmore's door was locked and so was that of the
+boudoir. These are the only two means of entrance."
+
+"But you said that Chambers came in and found him."
+
+"Chambers has a key of Lord Lashmore's door. That is why I said
+'excepting Chambers.' But Chambers has been with his present master
+since Lashmore left Cambridge. It's out of the question."
+
+"Windows?"
+
+"First floor, no balcony, and overlook Hyde Park."
+
+"Is there no clue to the mystery?"
+
+"There are three!"
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"First: the nature of the wounds. Second: Lord Lashmore's idea that
+something was in the room at the moment of his awakening. Third: the
+fact that an identical attempt was made upon him last night!"
+
+"Last night! Good God! With what result?"
+
+"The former wounds, though deep, are very tiny, and had quite healed
+over. One of them partially reopened, but Lord Lashmore awoke
+altogether more readily and before any damage had been done. He says
+that some soft body rolled off the bed. He uttered a loud cry, leapt
+out and switched on the electric lights. At the same moment he heard a
+frightful scream from his wife's room. When I arrived--Lashmore
+himself summoned me on this occasion--I had a new patient."
+
+"Lady Lashmore?"
+
+"Exactly. She had fainted from fright, at hearing her husband's cry, I
+assume. There had been a slight hemorrhage from the throat, too."
+
+"What! Tuberculous?"
+
+"I fear so. Fright would not produce hemorrhage in the case of a
+healthy subject, would it?"
+
+Dr. Cairn shook his head. He was obviously perplexed.
+
+"And Lord Lashmore?" he asked.
+
+"The marks were there again," replied Sir Elwin; "rather lower on the
+neck. But they were quite superficial. He had awakened in time and had
+struck out--hitting something."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Some living thing; apparently covered with long, silky hair. It
+escaped, however."
+
+"And now," said Dr. Cairn--"these wounds; what are they like?"
+
+"They are like the marks of fangs," replied Sir Elwin; "of two long,
+sharp fangs!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE SECRET OF DHOON
+
+
+Lord Lashmore was a big, blonde man, fresh coloured, and having his
+nearly white hair worn close cut and his moustache trimmed in the neat
+military fashion. For a fair man, he had eyes of a singular colour.
+They were of so dark a shade of brown as to appear black: southern
+eyes; lending to his personality an oddness very striking.
+
+When he was shown into Dr. Cairn's library, the doctor regarded him
+with that searching scrutiny peculiar to men of his profession, at the
+same time inviting the visitor to be seated.
+
+Lashmore sat down in the red leathern armchair, resting his large
+hands upon his knees, with the fingers widely spread. He had a massive
+dignity, but was not entirely at his ease.
+
+Dr. Cairn opened the conversation, in his direct fashion.
+
+"You come to consult me, Lord Lashmore, in my capacity of occultist
+rather than in that of physician?"
+
+"In both," replied Lord Lashmore; "distinctly, in both."
+
+"Sir Elwin Groves is attending you for certain throat wounds--"
+
+Lord Lashmore touched the high stock which he was wearing.
+
+"The scars remain," he said. "Do you wish to see them?"
+
+"I am afraid I must trouble you."
+
+The stock was untied; and Dr. Cairn, through a powerful glass,
+examined the marks. One of them, the lower, was slightly inflamed.
+
+Lord Lashmore retied his stock, standing before the small mirror set
+in the overmantel.
+
+"You had an impression of some presence in the room at the time of the
+outrage?" pursued the doctor.
+
+"Distinctly; on both occasions."
+
+"Did you see anything?"
+
+"The room was too dark."
+
+"But you felt something?"
+
+"Hair; my knuckles, as I struck out--I am speaking of the second
+outrage--encountered a thick mass of hair."
+
+"The body of some animal?"
+
+"Probably the head."
+
+"But still you saw nothing?"
+
+"I must confess that I had a vague idea of some shape flitting away
+across the room; a white shape--therefore probably a figment of my
+imagination."
+
+"Your cry awakened Lady Lashmore?"
+
+"Unfortunately, yes. Her nerves were badly shaken already, and this
+second shock proved too severe. Sir Elwin fears chest trouble. I am
+taking her abroad as soon as possible."
+
+"She was found insensible. Where?"
+
+"At the door of the dressing-room--the door communicating with her own
+room, not that communicating with mine. She had evidently started to
+come to my assistance when faintness overcame her."
+
+"What is her own account?"
+
+"That is her own account."
+
+"Who discovered her?"
+
+"I did."
+
+Dr. Cairn was drumming his fingers on the table.
+
+"You have a theory, Lord Lashmore," he said suddenly. "Let me hear
+it."
+
+Lord Lashmore started, and glared across at the speaker with a sort of
+haughty surprise.
+
+"_I_ have a theory?"
+
+"I think so. Am I wrong?"
+
+Lashmore stood on the rug before the fireplace, with his hands locked
+behind him and his head lowered, looking out under his tufted eyebrows
+at Dr. Cairn. Thus seen, Lord Lashmore's strange eyes had a sinister
+appearance.
+
+"If I had had a theory--" he began.
+
+"You would have come to me to seek confirmation?" suggested Dr. Cairn.
+
+"Ah! yes, you may be right. Sir Elwin Groves, to whom I hinted
+something, mentioned your name. I am not quite clear upon one point,
+Dr. Cairn. Did he send me to you because he thought--in a word, are
+you a mental specialist?"
+
+"I am not. Sir Elwin has no doubts respecting your brain, Lord
+Lashmore. He has sent you here because I have made some study of what
+I may term psychical ailments. There is a chapter in your family
+history"--he fixed his searching gaze upon the other's face--"which
+latterly has been occupying your mind?"
+
+At that, Lashmore started in good earnest.
+
+"To what do you refer?"
+
+"Lord Lashmore, you have come to me for advice. A rare
+ailment--happily very rare in England--has assailed you. Circumstances
+have been in your favour thus far, but a recurrence is to be
+anticipated at any time. Be good enough to look upon me as a
+specialist, and give me all your confidence."
+
+Lashmore cleared his throat.
+
+"What do you wish to know, Dr. Cairn?" he asked, with a queer
+intermingling of respect and hauteur in his tones.
+
+"I wish to know about Mirza, wife of the third Baron Lashmore."
+
+Lord Lashmore took a stride forward. His large hands clenched, and his
+eyes were blazing.
+
+"What do you know about her?"
+
+Surprise was in his voice, and anger.
+
+"I have seen her portrait in Dhoon Castle; you were not in residence
+at the time. Mirza, Lady Lashmore, was evidently a very beautiful
+woman. What was the date of the marriage?"
+
+"1615."
+
+"The third Baron brought her to England from?--"
+
+"Poland."
+
+"She was a Pole?"
+
+"A Polish Jewess."
+
+"There was no issue of the marriage, but the Baron outlived her and
+married again?"
+
+Lord Lashmore shifted his feet nervously, and gnawed his finger-nails.
+
+"There _was_ issue of the marriage," he snapped. "She was--my
+ancestress."
+
+"Ah!" Dr. Cairn's grey eyes lighted up momentarily. "We get to the
+facts! Why was this birth kept secret?"
+
+"Dhoon Castle has kept many secrets!" It was a grim noble of the
+Middle Ages who was speaking. "For a Lashmore, there was no difficulty
+in suppressing the facts, arranging a hasty second marriage and
+representing the boy as the child of the later union. Had the second
+marriage proved fruitful, this had been unnecessary; but an heir to
+Dhoon was--essential."
+
+"I see. Had the second marriage proved fruitful, the child of Mirza
+would have been--what shall we say?--smothered?"
+
+"Damn it! What do you mean?"
+
+"He was the rightful heir."
+
+"Dr. Cairn," said Lashmore slowly, "you are probing an open wound. The
+fourth Baron Lashmore represents what the world calls 'The Curse of
+the House of Dhoon.' At Dhoon Castle there is a secret chamber, which
+has engaged the pens of many so-called occultists, but which no man,
+save every heir, has entered for generations. It's very location is a
+secret. Measurements do not avail to find it. You would appear to know
+much of my family's black secret; perhaps you know where that room
+lies at Dhoon?"
+
+"Certainly, I do," replied Dr. Cairn calmly; "it is under the moat,
+some thirty yards west of the former drawbridge."
+
+Lord Lashmore changed colour. When he spoke again his voice had lost
+its _timbre_.
+
+"Perhaps you know--what it contains."
+
+"I do. It contains Paul, fourth Baron Lashmore, son of Mirza, the
+Polish Jewess!"
+
+Lord Lashmore reseated himself in the big armchair, staring at the
+speaker, aghast.
+
+"I thought no other in the world knew that!" he said, hollowly. "Your
+studies have been extensive indeed. For three years--three whole years
+from the night of my twenty-first birthday--the horror hung over me,
+Dr. Cairn. It ultimately brought my grandfather to the madhouse, but
+my father was of sterner stuff, and so, it seems, was I. After those
+three years of horror I threw off the memories of Paul Dhoon, the
+third baron--"
+
+"It was on the night of your twenty-first birthday that you were
+admitted to the subterranean room?"
+
+"You know so much, Dr. Cairn, that you may as well know all."
+Lashmore's face was twitching. "But you are about to hear what no man
+has ever heard from the lips of one of my family before."
+
+He stood up again, restlessly.
+
+"Nearly thirty-five years have elapsed," he resumed, "since that
+December night; but my very soul trembles now, when I recall it! There
+was a big house-party at Dhoon, but I had been prepared, for some
+weeks, by my father, for the ordeal that awaited me. Our family
+mystery is historical, and there were many fearful glances bestowed
+upon me, when, at midnight, my father took me aside from the company
+and led me to the old library. By God! Dr. Cairn--fearful as these
+reminiscences are, it is a relief to relate them--to _someone_!"
+
+A sort of suppressed excitement was upon Lashmore, but his voice
+remained low and hollow.
+
+"He asked me," he continued, "the traditional question: if I had
+prayed for strength. God knows I had! Then, his stern face very pale,
+he locked the library door, and from a closet concealed beside the
+ancient fireplace--a closet which, hitherto, I had not known to
+exist--he took out a bulky key of antique workmanship. Together we set
+to work to remove all the volumes from one of the bookshelves.
+
+"Even when the shelves were empty, it called for our united efforts to
+move the heavy piece of furniture; but we accomplished the task
+ultimately, making visible a considerable expanse of panelling. Nearly
+forty years had elapsed since that case had been removed, and the
+carvings which it concealed were coated with all the dust which had
+accumulated there since the night of my father's coming of age.
+
+"A device upon the top of the centre panel represented the arms of the
+family; the helm which formed part of the device projected like a
+knob. My father grasped it, turned it, and threw his weight against
+the seemingly solid wall. It yielded, swinging inward upon concealed
+hinges, and a damp, earthy smell came out into the library. Taking up
+a lamp, which he had in readiness, my father entered the cavity,
+beckoning me to follow.
+
+"I found myself descending a flight of rough steps, and the roof above
+me was so low that I was compelled to stoop. A corner was come to,
+passed, and a further flight of steps appeared beneath. At that time
+the old moat was still flooded, and even had I not divined as much
+from the direction of the steps, I should have known, at this point,
+that we were beneath it. Between the stone blocks roofing us in oozed
+drops of moisture, and the air was at once damp and icily cold.
+
+"A short passage, commencing at the foot of the steps, terminated
+before a massive, iron-studded door. My father placed the key in the
+lock, and holding the lamp above his head, turned and looked at me. He
+was deathly pale.
+
+"'Summon all your fortitude,' he said.
+
+"He strove to turn the key, but for a long time without success for
+the lock was rusty. Finally, however--he was a strong man--his efforts
+were successful. The door opened, and an indescribable smell came out
+into the passage. Never before had I met with anything like it; I have
+never met with it since."
+
+Lord Lashmore wiped his brow with his handkerchief.
+
+"The first thing," he resumed, "upon which the lamplight shone, was
+what appeared to be a blood-stain spreading almost entirely over one
+wall of the cell which I perceived before me. I have learnt since that
+this was a species of fungus, not altogether uncommon, but at the
+time, and in that situation, it shocked me inexpressibly.
+
+"But let me hasten to that which we were come to see--let me finish
+my story as quickly as may be. My father halted at the entrance to
+this frightful cell; his hand, with which he held the lamp above his
+head, was not steady; and over his shoulder I looked into the place
+and saw ... _him_.
+
+"Dr. Cairn, for three years, night and day, that spectacle haunted me;
+for three years, night and day, I seemed to have before my eyes the
+dreadful face--the bearded, grinning face of Paul Dhoon. He lay there
+upon the floor of the dungeon, his fists clenched and his knees drawn
+up as if in agony. He had lain there for generations; yet, as God is
+my witness, there was flesh on his bones.
+
+"Yellow and seared it was, and his joints protruded through it, but
+his features were yet recognisable--horribly, dreadfully,
+recognisable. His black hair was like a mane, long and matted, his
+eyebrows were incredibly heavy and his lashes overhung his cheekbones.
+The nails of his fingers ... no! I will spare you! But his teeth, his
+ivory gleaming teeth--with the two wolf-fangs fully revealed by that
+death-grin!...
+
+"An aspen stake was driven through his breast, pinning him to the
+earthern floor, and there he lay in the agonised attitude of one who
+had died by such awful means. Yet--that stake was not driven through
+his unhallowed body until a whole year after his death!
+
+"How I regained the library I do not remember. I was unable to rejoin
+the guests, unable to face my fellow-men for days afterwards. Dr.
+Cairn, for three years I feared--feared the world--feared
+sleep--feared myself above all; for I knew that I had in my veins the
+blood of a _vampire_!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE POLISH JEWESS
+
+
+There was a silence of some minutes' duration. Lord Lashmore sat
+staring straight before him, his fists clenched upon his knees. Then:
+
+"It was after death that the third baron developed--certain
+qualities?" inquired Dr. Cairn.
+
+"There were six cases of death in the district within twelve months,"
+replied Lashmore. "The gruesome cry of 'vampire' ran through the
+community. The fourth baron--son of Paul Dhoon--turned a deaf ear to
+these reports, until the mother of a child--a child who had
+died--traced a man, or the semblance of a man, to the gate of the
+Dhoon family vault. By night, secretly, the son of Paul Dhoon visited
+the vault, and found....
+
+"The body, which despite twelve months in the tomb, looked as it had
+looked in life, was carried to the dungeon--in the Middle Ages a
+torture-room; no cry uttered there can reach the outer world--and was
+submitted to the ancient process for slaying a vampire. From that hour
+no supernatural visitant has troubled the district; but--"
+
+"But," said Dr. Cairn quietly, "the strain came from Mirza, the
+sorceress. What of her?"
+
+Lord Lashmore's eyes shone feverishly.
+
+"How do you know that she was a sorceress?" he asked, hoarsely. "These
+are family secrets."
+
+"They will remain so," Dr. Cairn answered. "But my studies have gone
+far, and I know that Mirza, wife of the third Baron Lashmore,
+practised the Black Art in life, and became after death a ghoul. Her
+husband surprised her in certain detestable magical operations and
+struck her head off. He had suspected her for some considerable time,
+and had not only kept secret the birth of her son but had secluded
+the child from the mother. No heir resulting from his second marriage,
+however, the son of Mirza became Baron Lashmore, and after death
+became what his mother had been before him.
+
+"Lord Lashmore, the curse of the house of Dhoon will prevail until the
+Polish Jewess who originated it has been treated as her son was
+treated!"
+
+"Dr. Cairn, it is not known where her husband had her body concealed.
+He died without revealing the secret. Do you mean that the taint, the
+devil's taint, may recur--Oh, my God! do you want to drive me mad?"
+
+"I do not mean that after so many generations which have been free
+from it, the vampirism will arise again in your blood; but I mean that
+the spirit, the unclean, awful spirit of that vampire woman, is still
+earth-bound. The son was freed, and with him went the hereditary
+taint, it seems; but the mother was _not_ freed! Her body was
+decapitated, but her vampire soul cannot go upon its appointed course
+until the ancient ceremonial has been performed!"
+
+Lord Lashmore passed his hand across his eyes.
+
+"You daze me, Dr. Cairn. In brief, what do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that the spirit of Mirza is to this day loose upon the world,
+and is forced, by a deathless, unnatural longing to seek incarnation
+in a human body. It is such awful pariahs as this, Lord Lashmore, that
+constitute the danger of so-called spiritualism. Given suitable
+conditions, such a spirit might gain control of a human being."
+
+"Do you suggest that the spirit of the second lady--"
+
+"It is distinctly possible that she haunts her descendants. I seem to
+remember a tradition of Dhoon Castle, to the effect that births and
+deaths are heralded by a woman's mocking laughter?"
+
+"I, myself, heard it on the night--I became Lord Lashmore."
+
+"That is the spirit who was known, in life, as Mirza, Lady Lashmore!"
+
+"But--"
+
+"It is possible to gain control of such a being."
+
+"By what means?"
+
+"By unhallowed means; yet there are those who do not hesitate to
+employ them. The danger of such an operation is, of course, enormous."
+
+"I perceive, Dr. Cairn, that a theory, covering the facts of my recent
+experiences, is forming in your mind."
+
+"That is so. In order that I may obtain corroborative evidence, I
+should like to call at your place this evening. Suppose I come
+ostensibly to see Lady Lashmore?"
+
+Lord Lashmore was watching the speaker.
+
+"There is someone in my household whose suspicions you do not wish to
+arouse?" he suggested.
+
+"There is. Shall we make it nine o'clock?"
+
+"Why not come to dinner?"
+
+"Thanks all the same, but I think it would serve my purpose better if
+I came later."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dr. Cairn and his son dined alone together in Half-Moon Street that
+night.
+
+"I saw Antony Ferrara in Regent Street to-day," said. Robert Cairn. "I
+was glad to see him."
+
+Dr. Cairn raised his heavy brows.
+
+"Why?" he asked.
+
+"Well, I was half afraid that he might have left London."
+
+"Paid a visit to Myra Duquesne in Inverness?"
+
+"It would not have surprised me."
+
+"Nor would it have surprised me, Rob, but I think he is stalking other
+game at present."
+
+Robert Cairn looked up quickly.
+
+"Lady Lashmore," he began--
+
+"Well?" prompted his father.
+
+"One of the Paul Pry brigade who fatten on scandal sent a veiled
+paragraph in to us at _The Planet_ yesterday, linking Ferrara's name
+with Lady Lashmores.' Of course we didn't use it; he had come to the
+wrong market; but--Ferrara was with Lady Lashmore when I met him
+to-day."
+
+"What of that?"
+
+"It is not necessarily significant, of course; Lord Lashmore in all
+probability will outlive Ferrara, who looked even more pallid than
+usual."
+
+"You regard him as an utterly unscrupulous fortune-hunter?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Did Lady Lashmore appear to be in good health?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+A silence fell, of some considerable duration, then:
+
+"Antony Ferrara is a menace to society," said Robert Cairn. "When I
+meet the reptilian glance of those black eyes of his and reflect upon
+what the man has attempted--what he has done--my blood boils. It is
+tragically funny to think that in our new wisdom we have abolished the
+only laws that could have touched him! He could not have existed in
+Ancient Chaldea, and would probably have been burnt at the stake even
+under Charles II.; but in this wise twentieth century he dallies in
+Regent Street with a prominent society beauty and laughs in the face
+of a man whom he has attempted to destroy!"
+
+"Be very wary," warned Dr. Cairn. "Remember that if you died
+mysteriously to-morrow, Ferrara would be legally immune. We must wait,
+and watch. Can you return here to-night, at about ten o'clock?"
+
+"I think I can manage to do so--yes."
+
+"I shall expect you. Have you brought up to date your record of those
+events which we know of, together with my notes and explanations?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I spent last evening upon the notes."
+
+"There may be something to add. This record, Rob, one day will be a
+weapon to destroy an unnatural enemy. I will sign two copies to-night
+and lodge one at my bank."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE LAUGHTER
+
+
+Lady Lashmore proved to be far more beautiful than Dr. Cairn had
+anticipated. She was a true brunette with a superb figure and eyes
+like the darkest passion flowers. Her creamy skin had a golden
+quality, as though it had absorbed within its velvet texture something
+of the sunshine of the South.
+
+She greeted Dr. Cairn without cordiality.
+
+"I am delighted to find you looking so well, Lady Lashmore," said the
+doctor. "Your appearance quite confirms my opinion."
+
+"Your opinion of what, Dr. Cairn?"
+
+"Of the nature of your recent seizure. Sir Elwin Groves invited my
+opinion and I gave it."
+
+Lady Lashmore paled perceptibly.
+
+"Lord Lashmore, I know," she said, "was greatly concerned, but indeed
+it was nothing serious--"
+
+"I quite agree. It was due to nervous excitement."
+
+Lady Lashmore held a fan before her face.
+
+"There have been recent happenings," she said--"as no doubt you are
+aware--which must have shaken anyone's nerves. Of course, I am
+familiar with your reputation, Dr. Cairn, as a psychical
+specialist--?"
+
+"Pardon me, but from whom have you learnt of it?"
+
+"From Mr. Ferrara," she answered simply. "He has assured me that you
+are the greatest living authority upon such matters."
+
+Dr. Cairn turned his head aside.
+
+"Ah!" he said grimly.
+
+"And I want to ask you a question," continued Lady Lashmore. "Have you
+any idea, any idea at all respecting the cause of the wounds upon my
+husband's throat? Do you think them due to--something supernatural?"
+
+Her voice shook, and her slight foreign accent became more marked.
+
+"Nothing is supernatural," replied Dr. Cairn; "but I think they are
+due to something supernormal. I would suggest that possibly you have
+suffered from evil dreams recently?"
+
+Lady Lashmore started wildly, and her eyes opened with a sort of
+sudden horror.
+
+"How can you know?" she whispered. "How can you know! Oh, Dr. Cairn!"
+She laid her hand upon his arm--"if you can prevent those dreams; if
+you can assure me that I shall never dream them again--!"
+
+It was a plea and a confession. This was what had lain behind her
+coldness--this horror which she had not dared to confide in another.
+
+"Tell me," he said gently. "You have dreamt these dreams twice?"
+
+She nodded, wide-eyed with wonder for his knowledge.
+
+"On the occasions of your husband's illnesses?"
+
+"Yes, yes!"
+
+"What did you dream?"
+
+"Oh! can I, dare I tell you!--"
+
+"You must."
+
+There was pity in his voice.
+
+"I dreamt that I lay in some very dark cavern. I could hear the sea
+booming, apparently over my head. But above all the noise a voice was
+audible, calling to me--not by name; I cannot explain in what way; but
+calling, calling imperatively. I seemed to be clothed but scantily, in
+some kind of ragged garments; and upon my knees I crawled toward the
+voice, through a place where there were other living things that
+crawled also--things with many legs and clammy bodies...."
+
+She shuddered and choked down an hysterical sob that was half a laugh.
+
+"My hair hung dishevelled about me and in some inexplicable way--oh!
+am I going mad!--my head seemed to be detached from my living body! I
+was filled with a kind of unholy anger which I cannot describe. Also,
+I was consumed with thirst, and this thirst...."
+
+"I think I understand," said Dr. Cairn quietly. "What followed?"
+
+"An interval--quite blank--after which I dreamt again. Dr. Cairn, I
+_cannot_ tell you of the dreadful, the blasphemous and foul thoughts,
+that then possessed me! I found myself resisting--resisting--something,
+some power that was dragging me back to that foul cavern with my thirst
+unslaked! I was frenzied; I dare not name, I tremble to think, of the
+ideas which filled my mind. Then, again came a blank, and I awoke."
+
+She sat trembling. Dr. Cairn noted that she avoided his gaze.
+
+"You awoke," he said, "on the first occasion, to find that your
+husband had met with a strange and dangerous accident?"
+
+"There was--something else."
+
+Lady Lashmore's voice had become a tremulous whisper.
+
+"Tell me; don't be afraid."
+
+She looked up; her magnificent eyes were wild with horror.
+
+"I believe you know!" she breathed. "Do you?"
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded.
+
+"And on the second occasion," he said, "you awoke earlier?"
+
+Lady Lashmore slightly moved her head.
+
+"The dream was identical?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Excepting these two occasions, you never dreamt it before?"
+
+"I dreamt _part_ of it on several other occasions; or only remembered
+part of it on waking."
+
+"Which part?"
+
+"The first; that awful cavern--"
+
+"And now, Lady Lashmore--you have recently been present at a
+spiritualistic _seance_."
+
+She was past wondering at his power of inductive reasoning, and merely
+nodded.
+
+"I suggest--I do not know--that the _seance_ was held under the
+auspices of Mr. Antony Ferrara, ostensibly for amusement."
+
+Another affirmative nod answered him.
+
+"You proved to be mediumistic?"
+
+It was admitted.
+
+"And now, Lady Lashmore"--Dr. Cairn's face was very stern--"I will
+trouble you no further."
+
+He prepared to depart; when--
+
+"Dr. Cairn!" whispered Lady Lashmore, tremulously, "some dreadful
+thing, something that I cannot comprehend but that I fear and loathe
+with all my soul, has come to me. Oh--for pity's sake, give me a word
+of hope! Save for you, I am alone with a horror I cannot name. Tell
+me--"
+
+At the door, he turned.
+
+"Be brave," he said--and went out.
+
+Lady Lashmore sat still as one who had looked upon Gorgon, her
+beautiful eyes yet widely opened and her face pale as death; for he
+had not even told her to hope.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Robert Cairn was sitting smoking in the library, a bunch of notes
+before him, when Dr. Cairn returned to Half-Moon Street. His face,
+habitually fresh coloured, was so pale that his son leapt up in alarm.
+But Dr. Cairn waved him away with a characteristic gesture of the
+hand.
+
+"Sit down, Rob," he said, quietly; "I shall be all right in a moment.
+But I have just left a woman--a young woman and a beautiful
+woman--whom a fiend of hell has condemned to that which my mind
+refuses to contemplate."
+
+Robert Cairn sat down again, watching his father.
+
+"Make out a report of the following facts," continued the latter,
+beginning to pace up and down the room.
+
+He recounted all that he had learnt of the history of the house of
+Dhoon and all that he had learnt of recent happenings from Lord and
+Lady Lashmore. His son wrote rapidly.
+
+"And now," said the doctor, "for our conclusions. Mirza, the Polish
+Jewess, who became Lady Lashmore in 1615, practised sorcery in life
+and became, after death, a ghoul--one who sustained an unholy
+existence by unholy means--a vampire."
+
+"But, sir! Surely that is but a horrible superstition of the Middle
+Ages!"
+
+"Rob, I could take you to a castle not ten miles from Cracow in Poland
+where there are--certain relics, which would for ever settle your
+doubts respecting the existence of vampires. Let us proceed. The son
+of Mirza, Paul Dhoon, inherited the dreadful proclivities of his
+mother, but his shadowy existence was cut short in the traditional,
+and effective, manner. Him we may neglect.
+
+"It is Mirza, the sorceress, who must engage our attention. She was
+decapitated by her husband. This punishment prevented her, in the
+unhallowed life which, for such as she, begins after ordinary decease,
+from practising the horrible rites of a vampire. Her headless body
+could not serve her as a vehicle for nocturnal wanderings, but the
+evil spirit of the woman might hope to gain control of some body more
+suitable.
+
+"Nurturing an implacable hatred against all of the house of Dhoon,
+that spirit, disembodied, would frequently be drawn to the
+neighbourhood of Mirza's descendants, both by hatred and by affinity.
+Two horrible desires of the Spirit Mirza would be gratified if a Dhoon
+could be made her victim--the desire for blood and the desire for
+vengeance! The fate of Lord Lashmore would be sealed if that spirit
+could secure incarnation!"
+
+Dr. Cairn paused, glancing at his son, who was writing at furious
+speed. Then--
+
+"A magician more mighty and more evil than Mirza ever was or could
+be," he continued, "a master of the Black Art, expelled a woman's
+spirit from its throne and temporarily installed in its place the
+blood-lustful spirit of Mirza!"
+
+"My God, sir!" cried Robert Cairn, and threw down his pencil. "I begin
+to understand!"
+
+"Lady Lashmore," said Dr. Cairn, "since she was weak enough to
+consent to be present at a certain _seance_, has, from time to time,
+been _possessed_; she has been possessed by the spirit of a vampire!
+Obedient to the nameless cravings of that control, she has sought out
+Lord Lashmore, the last of the House of Dhoon. The horrible attack
+made, a mighty will which, throughout her temporary incarnation, has
+held her like a hound in leash, has dragged her from her prey, has
+forced her to remove, from the garments clothing her borrowed body,
+all traces of the deed, and has cast her out again to the pit of
+abomination where her headless trunk was thrown by the third Baron
+Lashmore!
+
+"Lady Lashmore's brain retains certain memories. They have been
+received at the moment when possession has taken place and at the
+moment when the control has been cast out again. They thus are
+memories of some secret cavern near Dhoon Castle, where that headless
+but deathless body lies, and memories of the poignant moment when the
+vampire has been dragged back, her 'thirst unslaked,' by the ruling
+Will."
+
+"Merciful God!" muttered Robert Cairn, "Merciful God, can such things
+be!"
+
+"They can be--they are! Two ways have occurred to me of dealing with
+the matter," continued Dr. Cairn quietly. "One is to find that cavern
+and to kill, in the occult sense, by means of a stake, the vampire who
+lies there; the other which, I confess, might only result in the
+permanent 'possession' of Lady Lashmore--is to get at the power which
+controls this disembodied spirit--kill Antony Ferrara!"
+
+Robert Cairn went to the sideboard, and poured out brandy with a
+shaking hand.
+
+"What's his object?" he whispered.
+
+Dr. Cairn shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Lady Lashmore would be the wealthiest widow in society," he replied.
+
+"_He_ will know now," continued the younger man unsteadily, "that you
+are up against him. Have you--"
+
+"I have told Lord Lashmore to lock, at night, not only his outer door
+but also that of his dressing-room. For the rest--?" he dropped into
+an easy-chair,--"I cannot face the facts, I--"
+
+The telephone bell rang.
+
+Dr. Cairn came to his feet as though he had been electrified; and as
+he raised the receiver to his ear, his son knew, by the expression on
+his face, from where the message came and something of its purport.
+
+"Come with me," was all that he said, when he had replaced the
+instrument on the table.
+
+They went out together. It was already past midnight, but a cab was
+found at the corner of Half-Moon Street, and within the space of five
+minutes they were at Lord Lashmore's house.
+
+Excepting Chambers, Lord Lashmore's valet, no servants were to be
+seen.
+
+"They ran away, sir, out of the house," explained the man, huskily,
+"when it happened."
+
+Dr. Cairn delayed for no further questions, but raced upstairs, his
+son close behind him. Together they burst into Lord Lashmore's
+bedroom. But just within the door they both stopped, aghast.
+
+Sitting bolt upright in bed was Lord Lashmore, his face a dingy grey
+and his open eyes, though filming over, yet faintly alight with a
+stark horror ... dead. An electric torch was still gripped in his left
+hand.
+
+Bending over someone who lay upon the carpet near the bedside they
+perceived Sir Elwin Groves. He looked up. Some little of his usual
+self-possession had fled.
+
+"Ah, Cairn!" he jerked. "We've both come too late."
+
+The prostrate figure was that of Lady Lashmore, a loose kimono worn
+over her night-robe. She was white and still and the physician had
+been engaged in bathing a huge bruise upon her temple.
+
+"She'll be all right," said Sir Elwin; "she has sustained a tremendous
+blow, as you see. But Lord Lashmore--"
+
+Dr. Cairn stepped closer to the dead man.
+
+"Heart," he said. "He died of sheer horror."
+
+He turned to Chambers, who stood in the open doorway behind him.
+
+"The dressing-room door is open," he said. "I had advised Lord
+Lashmore to lock it."
+
+"Yes, sir; his lordship meant to, sir. But we found that the lock had
+been broken. It was to have been replaced to-morrow."
+
+Dr. Cairn turned to his son.
+
+"You hear?" he said. "No doubt you have some idea respecting which of
+the visitors to this unhappy house took the trouble to break that
+lock? It was to have been replaced to-morrow; hence the tragedy of
+to-night." He addressed Chambers again. "Why did the servants leave
+the house to-night?"
+
+The man was shaking pitifully.
+
+"It was the laughter, sir! the laughter! I can never forget it! I was
+sleeping in an adjoining room and I had the key of his lordship's door
+in case of need. But when I heard his lordship cry out--quick and
+loud, sir--like a man that's been stabbed--I jumped up to come to him.
+Then, as I was turning the doorknob--of my room, sir--someone,
+something, began to _laugh_! It was in here; it was in here,
+gentlemen! It wasn't--her ladyship; it wasn't like _any_ woman. I
+can't describe it; but it woke up every soul in the house."
+
+"When you came in?"
+
+"I daren't come in, sir! I ran downstairs and called up Sir Elwin
+Groves. Before he came, all the rest of the household huddled on their
+clothes and went away--"
+
+"It was I who found him," interrupted Sir Elwin--"as you see him now;
+with Lady Lashmore where she lies. I have 'phoned for nurses."
+
+"Ah!" said Dr. Cairn; "I shall come back, Groves, but I have a small
+matter to attend to."
+
+He drew his son from the room. On the stair:
+
+"You understand?" he asked. "The spirit of Mirza came to him again,
+clothed in his wife's body. Lord Lashmore felt the teeth at his
+throat, awoke instantly and struck out. As he did so, he turned the
+torch upon her, and recognised--his wife! His heart completed the
+tragedy, and so--to the laughter of the sorceress--passed the last of
+the house of Dhoon."
+
+The cab was waiting. Dr. Cairn gave an address in Piccadilly, and the
+two entered. As the cab moved off, the doctor took a revolver from his
+pocket, with some loose cartridges, charged the five chambers, and
+quietly replaced the weapon in his pocket again.
+
+One of the big doors of the block of chambers was found to be ajar,
+and a porter proved to be yet in attendance.
+
+"Mr. Ferrara?" began Dr. Cairn.
+
+"You are five minutes too late, sir," said the man. "He left by motor
+at ten past twelve. He's gone abroad, sir."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CAIRO
+
+
+The exact manner in which mental stress will effect a man's physical
+health is often difficult to predict. Robert Cairn was in the pink of
+condition at the time that he left Oxford to take up his London
+appointment; but the tremendous nervous strain wrought upon him by
+this series of events wholly outside the radius of normal things had
+broken him up physically, where it might have left unscathed a more
+highly strung, though less physically vigorous man.
+
+Those who have passed through a nerve storm such as this which had
+laid him low will know that convalescence seems like a welcome
+awakening from a dreadful dream. It was indeed in a state between
+awaking and dreaming that Robert Cairn took counsel with his
+father--the latter more pale than was his wont and somewhat
+anxious-eyed--and determined upon an Egyptian rest-cure.
+
+"I have made it all right at the office, Rob," said Dr. Cairn. "In
+three weeks or so you will receive instructions at Cairo to write up a
+series of local articles. Until then, my boy, complete rest and--don't
+worry; above all, don't worry. You and I have passed through a
+saturnalia of horror, and you, less inured to horrors than I, have
+gone down. I don't wonder."
+
+"Where is Antony Ferrara?"
+
+Dr. Cairn shook his head and his eyes gleamed with a sudden anger.
+"For God's sake don't mention his name!" he said. "That topic is
+taboo, Rob. I may tell you, however, that he has left England."
+
+In this unreal frame of mind, then, and as one but partly belonging to
+the world of things actual, Cairn found himself an invalid, who but
+yesterday had been a hale man; found himself shipped for Port Said;
+found himself entrained for Cairo; and with an awakening to the
+realities of life, an emerging from an ill-dream to lively interest in
+the novelties of Egypt, found himself following the red-jerseyed
+Shepheard's porter along the corridor of the train and out on to the
+platform.
+
+A short drive through those singular streets where East meets West and
+mingles, in the sudden, violet dusk of Lower Egypt, and he was amid
+the bustle of the popular hotel.
+
+Sime was there, whom he had last seen at Oxford, Sime the phlegmatic.
+He apologised for not meeting the train, but explained that his duties
+had rendered it impossible. Sime was attached temporarily to an
+archaeological expedition as medical man, and his athletic and somewhat
+bovine appearance contrasted oddly with the unhealthy gauntness of
+Cairn.
+
+"I only got in from Wasta ten minutes ago, Cairn. You must come out to
+the camp when I return; the desert air will put you on your feet again
+in no time."
+
+Sime was unemotional, but there was concern in his voice and in his
+glance, for the change in Cairn was very startling. Although he knew
+something, if but very little, of certain happenings in
+London--gruesome happenings centering around the man called Antony
+Ferrara--he avoided any reference to them at the moment.
+
+Seated upon the terrace, Robert Cairn studied the busy life in the
+street below with all the interest of a new arrival in the Capital of
+the Near East. More than ever, now, his illness and the things which
+had led up to it seemed to belong to a remote dream existence. Through
+the railings at his feet a hawker was thrusting fly-whisks, and
+imploring him in complicated English to purchase one. Vendors of
+beads, of fictitious "antiques," of sweetmeats, of what-not;
+fortune-tellers--and all that chattering horde which some obscure
+process of gravitation seems to hurl against the terrace of
+Shepheard's, buzzed about him. Carriages and motor cars, camels and
+donkeys mingled, in the Sharia Kamel Pasha. Voices American, voices
+Anglo-Saxon, guttural German tones, and softly murmured Arabic merged
+into one indescribable chord of sound; but to Robert Cairn it was all
+unspeakably restful. He was quite contented to sit there sipping his
+whisky and soda, and smoking his pipe. Sheer idleness was good for him
+and exactly what he wanted, and idling amid that unique throng is
+idleness _de luxe_.
+
+Sime watched him covertly, and saw that his face had acquired
+lines--lines which told of the fires through which he had passed.
+Something, it was evident--something horrible--had seared his mind.
+Considering the many indications of tremendous nervous disaster in
+Cairn, Sime wondered how near his companion had come to insanity, and
+concluded that he had stood upon the frontiers of that grim land of
+phantoms, and had only been plucked back in the eleventh hour.
+
+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,
+you know. I was up the river a week ago and we struck it badly in
+Assouan. It grew as black as night and one couldn't breathe for sand.
+It's probably working down to Cairo."
+
+"From your description I am not anxious to make the acquaintance of
+_Khamsin_!"
+
+Sime shook his head, knocking out his pipe into the ash-tray.
+
+"This is a funny country," he said reflectively. "The most weird ideas
+prevail here to this day--ideas which properly belong to the Middle
+Ages. For instance"--he began to recharge the hot bowl--"it is not
+really time for _Khamsin_, consequently the natives feel called upon
+to hunt up some explanation of its unexpected appearance. Their ideas
+on the subject are interesting, if idiotic. One of our Arabs (we are
+excavating in the Fayum, you know), solemnly assured me yesterday
+that the hot wind had been caused by an Efreet, a sort of Arabian
+Nights' demon, who has arrived in Egypt!"
+
+He laughed gruffly, but Cairn was staring at him with a curious
+expression. Sime continued:
+
+"When I got to Cairo this evening I found news of the Efreet had
+preceded me. Honestly, Cairn, it is all over the town--the native
+town, I mean. All the shopkeepers in the Muski are talking about it.
+If a puff of _Khamsin_ should come, I believe they would permanently
+shut up shop and hide in their cellars--if they have any! I am rather
+hazy on modern Egyptian architecture."
+
+Cairn nodded his head absently.
+
+"You laugh," he said, "but the active force of a superstition--what we
+call a superstition--is sometimes a terrible thing."
+
+Sime stared.
+
+"Eh!" The medical man had suddenly come uppermost; he recollected that
+this class of discussion was probably taboo.
+
+"You may doubt the existence of Efreets," 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 should you
+expect from a concentration of thousands of native minds upon the idea
+that an Efreet is visiting Egypt?"
+
+Sime stared in a dull way peculiar to him.
+
+"Rather a poser," he said. "I have a glimmer of a notion what you
+mean."
+
+"Don't you think--"
+
+"If you mean don't I think the result would be the creation of an
+Efreet, no, I don't!"
+
+"I hardly mean that, either," replied Cairn, "but this wave of
+superstition cannot be entirely unproductive; all that thought energy
+directed to one point--"
+
+Sime stood up.
+
+"We shall get out of our depth," he replied conclusively. He
+considered the ground of discussion an unhealthy one; this was the
+territory adjoining that of insanity.
+
+A fortune-teller from India proffered his services incessantly.
+
+"_Imshi_! _imshi_!" growled Sime.
+
+"Hold on," said Cairn smiling; "this chap is not an Egyptian; let us
+ask him if he has heard the rumour respecting the Efreet!"
+
+Sime reseated himself rather unwillingly. The fortune-teller spread
+his little carpet and knelt down in order to read the palm of his
+hypothetical client, but Cairn waved him aside.
+
+"I don't want my fortune told!" he said; "but I will give you your
+fee,"--with a smile at Sime--"for a few minutes' conversation."
+
+"Yes, sir, yes, sir!" The Indian was all attention.
+
+"Why"--Cairn pointed forensically at the fortune-teller--"why is
+_Khamsin_ come so early this year?"
+
+The Indian spread his hands, palms upward.
+
+"How should I know?" he replied in his soft, melodious voice. "I am
+not of Egypt; I can only say what is told to me by the Egyptians."
+
+"And what is told to you?"
+
+Sime rested his hands upon his knees, bending forward curiously. He
+was palpably anxious that Cairn should have confirmation of the Efreet
+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; one that the great king, long, long ago, the king you
+call Wise ----"
+
+"Solomon?" suggested Cairn.
+
+"Yes, yes, Suleyman!--one that he, when he banish all the tribe of the
+demons from earth--one that he not found."
+
+"One he overlooked?" jerked Sime.
+
+"Yes, yes, overlook! A very evil man, my gentlemen. They tell me he
+has come to Egypt. He come not from the sea, but across the great
+desert--"
+
+"The Libyan Desert?" suggested Sime.
+
+The man shook, his head, seeking for words.
+
+"The Arabian Desert?"
+
+"No, no! Away beyond, far up in Africa"--he waved his long arms
+dramatically--"far, far up beyond the Sudan."
+
+"The Sahara Desert?" proposed Sime.
+
+"Yes, yes! it is Sahara Desert!--come 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 Assouan,
+and from Assouan 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 Indian was growing impressive, and two American tourists stopped
+to listen to his words.
+
+"To-night--to-morrow,"--he spoke now almost in a whisper, glancing
+about him as if apprehensive of being overheard--"he may be here, in
+Cairo, bringing with him the scorching breath of the desert--the
+scorpion wind!"
+
+He stood up, casting off the mystery with which he had invested his
+story, and smiling insinuatingly. His work was done; his fee was due.
+Sime rewarded him with five piastres, and he departed, bowing.
+
+"You know, Sime--" Cairn began to speak, staring absently the while
+after the fortune-teller, as he descended the carpeted steps and
+rejoined the throng on the sidewalk below--"you know, if a
+man--anyone, 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?"
+
+"By what process should you propose to make yourself such a focus?"
+
+"I was speaking impersonally, Sime. It might be possible--"
+
+"It might be possible to dress for dinner," snapped Sime, "if we shut
+up talking nonsense! There's a carnival here to-night; great fun.
+Suppose we concentrate our brain-waves on another Scotch and soda?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE MASK OF SET
+
+
+Above the palm trees swept the jewelled vault of Egypt's sky, and set
+amid the clustering leaves gleamed little red electric lamps; fairy
+lanterns outlined the winding paths and paper Japanese lamps hung
+dancing in long rows, whilst in the centre of the enchanted garden a
+fountain spurned diamond spray high in the air, to fall back coolly
+plashing into the marble home of the golden carp. The rustling of
+innumerable feet upon the sandy pathway and the ceaseless murmur of
+voices, with pealing laughter rising above all, could be heard amid
+the strains of the military band ensconced in a flower-covered arbour.
+
+Into the brightly lighted places and back into the luminous shadows
+came and went fantastic forms. Sheikhs there were with flowing robes,
+dragomans who spoke no Arabic, Sultans and priests of Ancient Egypt,
+going arm-in-arm. Dancing girls of old Thebes, and harem ladies in
+silken trousers and high-heeled red shoes. Queens of Babylon and
+Cleopatras, many Geishas and desert Gypsies mingled, specks in a giant
+kaleidoscope. 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 piping 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 it is nearly the end of
+the season."
+
+Three silken ladies wearing gauzy white _yashmaks_ confronted Cairn
+and the speaker. A gleaming of jewelled fingers there was and Cairn
+found himself half-choked with confetti, which filled his eyes, his
+nose, his ears, and of which quite a liberal amount found access to
+his mouth. The three ladies of the _yashmak_ ran screaming from their
+vengeance-seeking victims, Sime pursuing two, and Cairn hard upon the
+heels of the third. Amid this scene of riotous carnival all else was
+forgotten, and only the madness, the infectious madness of the night,
+claimed his mind. In and out of the strangely attired groups darted
+his agile quarry, all but captured a score of times, but always
+eluding him.
+
+Sime he had hopelessly lost, as around fountain and flower-bed, arbour
+and palm trunk he leapt in pursuit of the elusive _yashmak_.
+
+Then, in a shadowed corner of the garden, he trapped her. Plunging his
+hand into the bag of confetti, which he carried, he leapt, exulting,
+to his revenge: when a sudden gust of wind passed sibilantly through
+the palm tops, and glancing upward, Cairn saw that the blue sky was
+overcast and the stars gleaming dimly, as through a veil. That moment
+of hesitancy proved fatal to his project, for with a little excited
+scream the girl dived under his outstretched arm and fled back towards
+the fountain. He turned to pursue again, when a second puff of wind,
+stronger than the first, set waving the palm fronds and showered dry
+leaves upon the confetti carpet of the garden. The band played loudly,
+the murmur of conversation rose to something like a roar, but above it
+whistled the increasing breeze, and there was a sort of grittiness in
+the air.
+
+Then, proclaimed by a furious lashing of the fronds above, burst the
+wind in all its fury. It seemed to beat down into the garden in waves
+of heat. Huge leaves began to fall from the tree tops and the
+mast-like trunks bent before the fury from the desert. The atmosphere
+grew hazy with impalpable dust; and the stars were wholly obscured.
+
+Commenced a stampede from the garden. Shrill with fear, rose a woman's
+scream from the heart of the throng:
+
+"A scorpion! a scorpion!"
+
+Panic threatened, but fortunately the doors were wide, so that,
+without disaster the whole fantastic company passed into the hotel;
+and even the military band retired.
+
+Cairn perceived that he alone remained in the garden, and glancing
+along the path in the direction of the fountain, he saw a blotchy drab
+creature, fully four inches in length, running zigzag towards him. It
+was a huge scorpion; but, even as he leapt forward to crush it, it
+turned and crept in amid the tangle of flowers beside the path, where
+it was lost from view.
+
+The scorching wind grew momentarily fiercer, and Cairn, entering
+behind a few straggling revellers, found something ominous and
+dreadful in its sudden fury. At the threshold, he turned and looked
+back upon the gaily lighted garden. The paper lamps were thrashing in
+the wind, many extinguished; others were in flames; a number of
+electric globes fell from their fastenings amid the palm tops, and
+burst bomb-like upon the ground. The pleasure garden was now a
+battlefield, beset with dangers, and he fully appreciated the anxiety
+of the company to get within doors. Where chrysanthemum and _yashmak_
+turban and _tarboosh_, uraeus and Indian plume had mingled gaily, no
+soul remained; but yet--he was in error ... someone did remain.
+
+As if embodying the fear that in a few short minutes had emptied the
+garden, out beneath the waving lanterns, the flying _debris_, the
+whirling dust, pacing sombrely from shadow to light, and to shadow
+again, advancing towards the hotel steps, came the figure of one
+sandalled, and wearing the short white tunic of Ancient Egypt. His
+arms were bare, and he carried a long staff; but rising hideously upon
+his shoulders was a crocodile-mask, which seemed to grin--the mask of
+Set, Set the Destroyer, God of the underworld.
+
+Cairn, alone of all the crowd, saw the strange figure, for the reason
+that Cairn alone faced towards the garden. The gruesome mask seemed to
+fascinate him; he could not take his gaze from that weird advancing
+god; he felt impelled hypnotically to stare at the gleaming eyes set
+in the saurian head. The mask was at the foot of the steps, and still
+Cairn stood rigid. When, as the sandalled foot was set upon the first
+step, a breeze, dust-laden, and hot as from a furnace door, blew fully
+into the hotel, blinding him. A chorus arose from the crowd at his
+back; and many voices cried out for doors to be shut. Someone tapped
+him on the shoulder, and spun him about.
+
+"By God!"--it was Sime who now had him by the arm--"_Khamsin_ has come
+with a vengeance! They tell me that they have never had anything like
+it!"
+
+The native servants were closing and fastening the doors. The night
+was now as black as Erebus, and the wind was howling about the
+building with the voices of a million lost souls. Cairn glanced back
+across his shoulder. Men were drawing heavy curtains across the doors
+and windows.
+
+"They have shut him out, Sime!" he said.
+
+Sime stared in his dull fashion.
+
+"You surely saw him?" persisted Cairn irritably; "the man in the mask
+of Set--he was coming in just behind me."
+
+Sime strode forward, pulled the curtains aside, and peered out into
+the deserted garden.
+
+"Not a soul, old man," he declared. "You must have seen the Efreet!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE SCORPION WIND
+
+
+This sudden and appalling change of weather had sadly affected the
+mood of the gathering. That part of the carnival planned to take place
+in the garden was perforce abandoned, together with the firework
+display. A halfhearted attempt was made at dancing, but the howling of
+the wind, and the omnipresent dust, perpetually reminded the
+pleasure-seekers that _Khamsin_ raged without--raged with a violence
+unparalleled in the experience of the oldest residents. This was a
+full-fledged sand-storm, a terror of the Sahara descended upon Cairo.
+
+But there were few departures, although many of the visitors who had
+long distances to go, especially those from Mena House, discussed the
+advisability of leaving before this unique storm should have grown
+even worse. The general tendency, though, was markedly gregarious;
+safety seemed to be with the crowd, amid the gaiety, where music and
+laughter were, rather than in the sand-swept streets.
+
+"Guess we've outstayed our welcome!" confided an American lady to
+Sime. "Egypt wants to drive us all home now."
+
+"Possibly," he replied with a smile. "The season has run very late,
+this year, and so this sort of thing is more or less to be expected."
+
+The orchestra struck up a lively one-step, and a few of the more
+enthusiastic dancers accepted the invitation, but the bulk of the
+company thronged around the edge of the floor, acting as spectators.
+
+Cairn and Sime wedged a way through the heterogeneous crowd to the
+American Bar.
+
+"I prescribe a 'tango,'" said Sime.
+
+"A 'tango' is--?"
+
+"A 'tango,'" explained Sime, "is a new kind of cocktail sacred to this
+buffet. Try it. It will either kill you or cure you."
+
+Cairn smiled rather wanly.
+
+"I must confess that I need bucking up a bit," he said: "that
+confounded sand seems to have got me by the throat."
+
+Sime briskly gave his orders to the bar attendant.
+
+"You know," pursued Cairn, "I cannot get out of my head the idea that
+there was someone wearing a crocodile mask in the garden a while ago."
+
+"Look here," growled Sime, studying the operations of the cocktail
+manufacturer, "suppose there were--what about it?"
+
+"Well, it's odd that nobody else saw him."
+
+"I suppose it hasn't occurred to you that the fellow might have
+removed his mask?"
+
+Cairn shook his head slowly.
+
+"I don't think so," he declared; "I haven't seen him anywhere in the
+hotel."
+
+"Seen him?" Sime turned his dull gaze upon the speaker. "How should
+you know him?"
+
+Cairn raised his hand to his forehead in an oddly helpless way.
+
+"No, of course not--it's very extraordinary."
+
+They took their seats at a small table, and in mutual silence loaded
+and lighted their pipes. 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 back of all
+this erratic talk; he had clearly invested the Mask of Set with a
+curious individuality.
+
+"I gather that you had a stiff bout of it in London?" Sime said
+suddenly.
+
+Cairn nodded.
+
+"Beastly stiff. There is a lot of sound reason in your nervous theory,
+Sime. It was touch and go with me for days, I am told; yet,
+pathologically, I was a hale man. That would seem to show how nerves
+can kill. Just a series of shocks--horrors--one piled upon another,
+did as much for me as influenza, pneumonia, and two or three other
+ailments together could have done."
+
+Sime shook his head wisely; this was in accordance with his 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 him intently.
+
+"It will give you some idea, Sime, of the pitch to which things had
+come, when I tell you that my father drove to Ferrara's rooms one
+night, with a loaded revolver in his pocket--"
+
+"For"--Sime hesitated--"for protection?"
+
+"No." Cairn leant forward across the table--"to shoot him, Sime, 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 shocking scandal."
+
+"It would have been a martyrdom. The man who removes Antony Ferrara
+from the earth will be doing mankind a service worthy of the highest
+reward. 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, you remember a girl I told
+you about at Oxford one evening, a girl who came to visit him?"
+
+Sime nodded slowly.
+
+"Well--he killed her! Oh! there is no doubt about it; I saw her body
+in the hospital."
+
+"_How_ had he killed her, then?"
+
+"How? Only he and the God who permits him to exist can answer that,
+Sime. He killed her without coming anywhere near her--and he killed
+his adoptive father, Sir Michael Ferrara, by the same unholy means!"
+
+Sime watched him, but offered no comment.
+
+"It was hushed up, of course; there is no existing law which could be
+used against him."
+
+"_Existing_ law?"
+
+"They are ruled out, Sime, the laws that _could_ have reached him; but
+he would have been burnt at the stake in the Middle Ages!"
+
+"I see." Sime drummed his fingers upon the table. "You had those ideas
+about him at Oxford; and does Dr. Cairn seriously believe the same?"
+
+"He does. So would you--you could not doubt it, Sime, not for a
+moment, if you had seen what we have seen!" His eyes blazed into a
+sudden fury, suggestive of his old, robust self. "He tried night after
+night, by means of the same accursed sorcery, which everyone thought
+buried in the ruins of Thebes, to kill _me_! He projected--things--"
+
+"Suggested these--things, to your mind?"
+
+"Something like that. I saw, or thought I saw, and smelt--pah!--I seem
+to smell them now!--beetles, mummy-beetles, you know, from the skull
+of a mummy! My rooms were thick with them. It brought me very near to
+Bedlam, Sime. Oh! it was not merely imaginary. My father and I caught
+him red-handed." He glanced across at the other. "You read of the
+death of Lord Lashmore? It was just after you came out."
+
+"Yes--heart."
+
+"It was his heart, yes--but Ferrara was responsible! That was the
+business which led my father to drive to Ferrara's rooms with a loaded
+revolver in his pocket."
+
+The wind was shaking the windows, and whistling about the building
+with demoniacal fury as if seeking admission; the band played a
+popular waltz; and in and out of the open doors came and went groups
+representative of many ages and many nationalities.
+
+"Ferrara," began Sime slowly, "was always a detestable man, with his
+sleek black hair, and ivory face. Those long eyes of his had an
+expression which always tempted me to hit him. Sir Michael, if what
+you say is true--and after all, Cairn, it only goes to show how little
+we know of the nervous system--literally took a viper to his bosom."
+
+"He did. Antony Ferrara was his adopted son, of course; God knows to
+what evil brood he really belongs."
+
+Both were silent for a while. Then:
+
+"Gracious heavens!"
+
+Cairn started to his feet so wildly as almost to upset the table.
+
+"Look, Sime! look!" he cried.
+
+Sime was not the only man in the bar to hear, and to heed his words.
+Sime, looking in the direction indicated by Cairn's extended finger,
+received a vague impression that a grotesque, long-headed figure had
+appeared momentarily in the doorway opening upon the room where the
+dancers were; then it was gone again, if it had ever been there, and
+he was supporting Cairn, who swayed dizzily, and had become ghastly
+pale. Sime imagined that the heated air had grown suddenly even more
+heated. Curious eyes were turned upon, his companion, who now sank
+back into his chair, muttering:
+
+"The Mask, the Mask!"
+
+"I think I saw the chap who seems to worry you so much," said Sime
+soothingly. "Wait here; I will tell the waiter to bring you a dose of
+brandy; and whatever you do, don't get excited."
+
+He made for the door, pausing and giving an order to a waiter on his
+way, and pushed into the crowd outside. It was long past midnight, and
+the gaiety, which had been resumed, seemed of a forced and feverish
+sort. Some of the visitors were leaving, and a breath of hot wind
+swept in from the open doors.
+
+A pretty girl wearing a _yashmak_, who, with two similarly attired
+companions, was making her way to the entrance, attracted his
+attention; she seemed to be on the point of swooning. He recognised
+the trio for the same that had pelted Cairn and himself with confetti
+earlier in the evening.
+
+"The sudden heat has affected your friend," he said, stepping up to
+them. "My name is Dr. Sime; may I offer you my assistance?"
+
+The offer was accepted, and with the three he passed out on to the
+terrace, where the dust grated beneath the tread, and helped the
+fainting girl into an _arabiyeh_. The night was thunderously black,
+the heat almost insufferable, and the tall palms in front of the hotel
+bowed before the might of the scorching wind.
+
+As the vehicle drove off, Sime stood for a moment looking after it.
+His face was very grave, for there was a look in the bright eyes of
+the girl in the _yashmak_ which, professionally, he did not like.
+Turning up the steps, he learnt from the manager that several visitors
+had succumbed to the heat. There was something furtive in the manner
+of his informant's glance, and Sime looked at him significantly.
+
+"_Khamsin_ brings clouds of septic dust with it," he said. "Let us
+hope that these attacks are due to nothing more than the unexpected
+rise in the temperature."
+
+An air of uneasiness prevailed now throughout the hotel. The wind had
+considerably abated, and crowds were leaving, pouring from the steps
+into the deserted street, a dreamlike company.
+
+Colonel Royland took Sime aside, as the latter was making his way back
+to the buffet. The Colonel, whose regiment was stationed at the
+Citadel, had known Sime almost from childhood.
+
+"You know, my boy," he said, "I should never have allowed Eileen" (his
+daughter) "to remain in Cairo, if I had foreseen this change in the
+weather. This infernal wind, coming right through the native town, is
+loaded with infection."
+
+"Has it affected her, then?" asked Sime anxiously.
+
+"She nearly fainted in the ball-room," replied the Colonel. "Her
+mother took her home half an hour ago. I looked for you everywhere,
+but couldn't find you."
+
+"Quite a number have succumbed," said Sime.
+
+"Eileen seemed to be slightly hysterical," continued the Colonel. "She
+persisted that someone wearing a crocodile mask had been standing
+beside her at the moment that she was taken ill."
+
+Sime started; perhaps Cairn's story was not a matter of imagination
+after all.
+
+"There is someone here, dressed like that, I believe," he replied,
+with affected carelessness. "He seems to have frightened several
+people. Any idea who he is?"
+
+"My dear chap!" cried the Colonel, "I have been searching the place
+for him! But I have never once set eyes upon him. I was about to ask
+if _you_ knew anything about it!"
+
+Sime returned to the table where Cairn was sitting. The latter seemed
+to have recovered somewhat; but he looked far from well. Sime stared
+at him critically.
+
+"I should turn in," he said, "if I were you. _Khamsin_ is playing the
+deuce with people. I only hope it does not justify its name and blow
+for fifty days."
+
+"Have you seen the man in the mask!" asked Cairn.
+
+"No," replied Sime, "but he's here alright; others have seen him."
+
+Cairn stood up rather unsteadily, and with Sime made his way through
+the moving crowd to the stairs. The band was still playing, but the
+cloud of gloom which had settled upon the place, refused to be
+dissipated.
+
+"Good-night, Cairn," said Sime, "see you in the morning."
+
+Robert Cairn, with aching head and a growing sensation of nausea,
+paused on the landing, looking down into the court below. He could not
+disguise from himself that he felt ill, not nervously ill as in
+London, but physically sick. This superheated air was difficult to
+breathe; it seemed to rise in waves from below.
+
+Then, from a weary glancing at the figures beneath him, his attitude
+changed to one of tense watching.
+
+A man, wearing the crocodile mask of Set, stood by a huge urn
+containing a palm, looking up to the landing!
+
+Cairn's weakness left him, and in its place came an indescribable
+anger, a longing to drive his fist into that grinning mask. He turned
+and ran lightly down the stairs, conscious of a sudden glow of energy.
+Reaching the floor, he saw the mask making across the hall, in the
+direction of the outer door. As rapidly as possible, for he could not
+run, without attracting undesirable attention, Cairn followed. The
+figure of Set passed out on to the terrace, but when Cairn in turn
+swung open the door, his quarry had vanished.
+
+Then, in an _arabiyeh_ just driving off, he detected the hideous mask.
+Hatless as he was, he ran down the steps and threw himself into
+another. The carriage-controller was in attendance, and Cairn rapidly
+told him to instruct the driver to follow the _arabiyeh_ which had
+just left. The man lashed up his horses, turned the carriage, and went
+galloping on after the retreating figure. Past the Esbekiya Gardens
+they went, through several narrow streets, and on to the quarter of
+the Muski. Time after time he thought he had lost the carriage ahead,
+but his own driver's knowledge of the tortuous streets enabled him
+always to overtake it again. They went rocking along lanes so narrow
+that with outstretched arms one could almost have touched the walls on
+either side; past empty shops and unlighted houses. Cairn had not the
+remotest idea of his whereabouts, save that he was evidently in the
+district of the bazaars. A right-angled corner was abruptly
+negotiated--and there, ahead of him, stood the pursued vehicle! The
+driver was turning his horses around, to return; his fare was
+disappearing from sight into the black shadows of a narrow alley on
+the left.
+
+Cairn leaped from the _arabiyeh_, shouting to the man to wait, and
+went dashing down the sloping lane after the retreating figure. A sort
+of blind fury possessed him, but he never paused to analyse it, never
+asked himself by what right he pursued this man, what wrong the latter
+had done him. His action was wholly unreasoning; he knew that he
+wished to overtake the wearer of the mask and to tear it from his
+head; upon that he acted!
+
+He discovered that despite the tropical heat of the night, he was
+shuddering with cold, but he disregarded this circumstance, and ran
+on.
+
+The pursued stopped before an iron-studded door, which was opened
+instantly; he entered as the runner came up with him. And, before the
+door could be reclosed, Cairn thrust his way in.
+
+Blackness, utter blackness, was before him. The figure which he had
+pursued seemed to have been swallowed up. He stumbled on, gropingly,
+hands outstretched, then fell--fell, as he realised in the moment of
+falling, down a short flight of stone steps.
+
+Still amid utter blackness, he got upon his feet, shaken but otherwise
+unhurt by his fall. He turned about, expecting to see some glimmer of
+light from the stairway, but the blackness was unbroken. Silence and
+gloom hemmed him in. He stood for a moment, listening intently.
+
+A shaft of light pierced the darkness, as a shutter was thrown open.
+Through an iron-barred window the light shone; and with the light came
+a breath of stifling perfume. That perfume carried his imagination
+back instantly to a room at Oxford, and he advanced and looked through
+into the place beyond. He drew a swift breath, clutched the bars, and
+was silent--stricken speechless.
+
+He looked into a large and lofty room, lighted by several hanging
+lamps. It had a carpeted divan at one end and was otherwise scantily
+furnished, in the Eastern manner. A silver incense-burner smoked upon
+a large praying-carpet, and by it stood the man in the crocodile mask.
+An Arab girl, fantastically attired, who had evidently just opened the
+shutters, was now helping him to remove the hideous head-dress.
+
+She presently untied the last of the fastenings and lifted the thing
+from the man's shoulders, moving away with the gliding step of the
+Oriental, and leaving him standing there in his short white tunic,
+bare-legged and sandalled.
+
+The smoke of the incense curled upward and played around the straight,
+slim figure, drew vaporous lines about the still, ivory face--the
+handsome, sinister face, sometimes partly veiling the long black eyes
+and sometimes showing them in all their unnatural brightness. So the
+man stood, looking towards the barred window.
+
+It was Antony Ferrara!
+
+"Ah, dear Cairn--" the husky musical voice smote upon Cairn's ears as
+the most hated sound in nature--"you have followed me. Not content
+with driving me from London, you would also render Cairo--my dear
+Cairo--untenable for me."
+
+Cairn clutched the bars but was silent.
+
+"How wrong of you, Cairn!" the soft voice mocked. "This attention is
+so harmful--to you. Do you know, Cairn, the Sudanese formed the
+extraordinary opinion that I was an _efreet_, and this strange
+reputation has followed me right down the Nile. 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 direction of the _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, and
+Cairn kept his eyes upon the evil face, and with trembling hands
+clutched the bars.
+
+"It is certainly odd, is it not," resumed the taunting voice, "that
+_Khamsin_, so violent, too, should thus descend upon the Cairene
+season? I only arrived from the Fayum this evening, Cairn, and, do you
+know, they have the pestilence there! I trust the hot wind does not
+carry it to Cairo; there are so many distinguished European and
+American visitors here. It would be a thousand pities!"
+
+Cairn released his grip of the bars, raised his clenched fists above
+his head, and in a voice and with a maniacal fury that were neither
+his own, cursed the man who stood there mocking him. Then he reeled,
+fell, and remembered no more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"All right, old man--you'll do quite nicely now."
+
+It was Sime speaking.
+
+Cairn struggled upright ... and found himself in bed! Sime was seated
+beside him.
+
+"Don't talk!" said Sime, "you're in hospital! I'll do the talking; you
+listen. I saw you bolt out of Shepheard's last night--shut up! I
+followed, but lost you. We got up a search party, and with the aid of
+the man who had driven you, ran you to earth in a dirty alley behind
+the mosque of El-Azhar. Four kindly mendicants, who reside upon the
+steps of the establishment, had been awakened by your blundering in
+among them. They were holding you--yes, you were raving pretty badly.
+You are a lucky man, Cairn. You were inoculated before you left home?"
+
+Cairn nodded weakly.
+
+"Saved you. Be all right in a couple of days. That damned _Khamsin_
+has brought a whiff of the plague from somewhere! Curiously enough,
+over fifty per cent. of the cases spotted so far are people who were
+at the carnival! Some of them, Cairn--but we won't discuss that now. I
+was afraid of it, last night. That's why I kept my eye on you. My boy,
+you were delirious when you bolted out of the hotel!"
+
+"Was I?" said Cairn wearily, and lay back on the pillow. "Perhaps I
+was."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+DR. CAIRN ARRIVES
+
+
+Dr. Bruce Cairn stepped into the boat which was to take him ashore,
+and as it swung away from the side of the liner sought to divert his
+thoughts by a contemplation of the weird scene. Amid the smoky flare
+of many lights, amid rising clouds of dust, a line of laden toilers
+was crawling ant-like from the lighters into the bowels of the big
+ship; and a second line, unladen, was descending by another gangway.
+Above, the jewelled velvet of the sky swept in a glorious arc; beyond,
+the lights of Port Said broke through the black curtain of the night,
+and the moving ray from the lighthouse intermittently swept the
+harbour waters; whilst, amid the indescribable clamour, the grimily
+picturesque turmoil, so characteristic of the place, the liner took in
+coal for her run to Rangoon.
+
+Dodging this way and that, rounding the sterns of big ships, and
+disputing the water-way with lesser craft, the boat made for shore.
+
+The usual delay at the Custom House, the usual soothing of the excited
+officials in the usual way, and his _arabiyeh_ was jolting Dr. Cairn
+through the noise and the smell of those rambling streets, a noise and
+a smell entirely peculiar to this clearing-house of the Near East.
+
+He accepted the room which was offered to him at the hotel, without
+troubling to inspect it, and having left instructions that he was to
+be called in time for the early train to Cairo, he swallowed a whisky
+and soda at the buffet, and wearily ascended the stairs. There were
+tourists in the hotel, English and American, marked by a gaping
+wonderment, and loud with plans of sightseeing; but Port Said, nay all
+Egypt, had nothing of novelty to offer Dr. Cairn. He was there at
+great inconvenience; a practitioner of his repute may not easily
+arrange to quit London at a moment's notice. But the business upon
+which he was come was imperative. For him the charm of the place had
+not existence, but somewhere in Egypt his son stood in deadly peril,
+and Dr. Cairn counted the hours that yet divided them. His soul was up
+in arms against the man whose evil schemes had led to his presence in
+Port Said, at a time when many sufferers required his ministrations in
+Half-Moon Street. He was haunted by a phantom, a ghoul in human shape;
+Antony Ferrara, the adopted son of his dear friend, the adopted son,
+who had murdered his adopter, who whilst guiltless in the eyes of the
+law, was blood-guilty in the eyes of God!
+
+Dr. Cairn switched on the light and seated himself upon the side of
+the bed, knitting his brows and staring straight before him, with an
+expression in his clear grey eyes whose significance he would have
+denied hotly, had any man charged him with it. He was thinking of
+Antony Ferrara's record; the victims of this fiendish youth (for
+Antony Ferrara was barely of age) seemed to stand before him with
+hands stretched out appealingly.
+
+"You alone," they seemed to cry, "know who and what he is! You alone
+know of our awful wrongs; you alone can avenge them!"
+
+And yet he had hesitated! It had remained for his own flesh and blood
+to be threatened ere he had taken decisive action. The viper had lain
+within his reach, and he had neglected to set his heel upon it. Men
+and women had suffered and had died of its venom; and he had not
+crushed it. Then Robert, his son, had felt the poison fang, and Dr.
+Cairn, who had hesitated to act upon the behalf of all humanity, had
+leapt to arms. He charged himself with a parent's selfishness, and his
+conscience would hear no defence.
+
+Dimly, the turmoil from the harbour reached him where he sat. He
+listened dully to the hooting of a syren--that of some vessel coming
+out of the canal.
+
+His thoughts were evil company, and, with a deep sigh, he rose,
+crossed the room and threw open the double windows, giving access to
+the balcony.
+
+Port Said, a panorama of twinkling lights, lay beneath him. The beam
+from the lighthouse swept the town searchingly like the eye of some
+pagan god lustful for sacrifice. He imagined that he could hear the
+shouting of the gangs coaling the liner in the harbour; but the night
+was full of the remote murmuring inseparable from that gateway of the
+East. The streets below, white under the moon, looked empty and
+deserted, and the hotel beneath him gave up no sound to tell of the
+many birds of passage who sheltered within it. A stunning sense of his
+loneliness came to him; his physical loneliness was symbolic of that
+which characterised his place in the world. He, alone, had the
+knowledge and the power to crush Antony Ferrara. He, alone, could rid
+the world of the unnatural menace embodied in the person bearing that
+name.
+
+The town lay beneath his eyes, but now he saw nothing of it; before
+his mental vision loomed--exclusively--the figure of a slim and
+strangely handsome young man, having jet black hair, lustreless, a
+face of uniform ivory hue, long dark eyes wherein lurked lambent
+fires, and a womanish grace expressed in his whole bearing and
+emphasised by his long white hands. Upon a finger of the left hand
+gleamed a strange green stone.
+
+Antony Ferrara! In the eyes of this solitary traveller, who stood
+looking down upon Port Said, that figure filled the entire landscape
+of Egypt!
+
+With a weary sigh, Dr. Cairn turned and began to undress. Leaving the
+windows open, he switched off the light and got into bed. He was very
+weary, with a weariness rather of the spirit than of the flesh, but it
+was of that sort which renders sleep all but impossible. Around and
+about one fixed point his thoughts circled; in vain he endeavoured to
+forget, for a while, Antony Ferrara and the things connected with him.
+Sleep was imperative, if he would be in fit condition to cope with the
+matters which demanded his attention in Cairo.
+
+Yet sleep defied him. Every trifling sound from the harbour and the
+canal seemed to rise upon the still air to his room. Through a sort of
+mist created by the mosquito curtains, he could see the open windows,
+and look out upon the stars. He found himself studying the heavens
+with sleepless eyes, and idly working out the constellations visible.
+Then one very bright star attracted the whole of his attention, and,
+with the dogged persistency of insomnia, he sought to place it, but
+could not determine to which group it belonged.
+
+So he lay with his eyes upon the stars until the other veiled lamps of
+heaven became invisible, and the patch of sky no more than a setting
+for that one white orb.
+
+In this contemplation he grew restful; his thoughts ceased feverishly
+to race along that one hateful groove; the bright star seemed to
+soothe him. As a result of his fixed gazing, it now appeared to have
+increased in size. This was a common optical delusion, upon which he
+scarcely speculated at all. He recognised the welcome approach of
+sleep, and deliberately concentrated his mind upon the globe of light.
+
+Yes, a globe of light indeed--for now it had assumed the dimensions of
+a lesser moon; and it seemed to rest in the space between the open
+windows. Then, he thought that it crept still nearer. The
+realities--the bed, the mosquito curtain, the room--were fading, and
+grateful slumber approached, and weighed upon his eyes in the form of
+that dazzling globe. The feeling of contentment was the last
+impression which he had, ere, with the bright star seemingly suspended
+just beyond the netting, he slept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE WITCH-QUEEN
+
+
+A man mentally over-tired sleeps either dreamlessly, or dreams with a
+vividness greater than that characterising the dreams of normal
+slumber. Dr. Cairn dreamt a vivid dream.
+
+He dreamt that he was awakened by the sound of a gentle rapping.
+Opening his eyes, he peered through the cloudy netting. He started up,
+and wrenched back the curtain. The rapping was repeated; and peering
+again across the room, he very distinctly perceived a figure upon the
+balcony by the open window. It was that of a woman who wore the black
+silk dress and the white _yashmak_ of the Moslem, and who was bending
+forward looking into the room.
+
+"Who is there?" he called. "What do you want?"
+
+"_S--sh_!"
+
+The woman raised her hand to her veiled lips, and looked right and
+left as if fearing to disturb the occupants of the adjacent rooms.
+
+Dr. Cairn reached out for his dressing-gown which lay upon the chair
+beside the bed, threw it over his shoulders, and stepped out upon the
+floor. He stooped and put on his slippers, never taking his eyes from
+the figure at the window. The room was flooded with moonlight.
+
+He began to walk towards the balcony, when the mysterious visitor
+spoke.
+
+"You are Dr. Cairn?"
+
+The words were spoken in the language of dreams; that is to say, that
+although he understood them perfectly, he knew that they had not been
+uttered in the English language, nor in any language known to him;
+yet, as is the way with one who dreams, he had understood.
+
+"I am he," he said. "Who are you?"
+
+"Make no noise, but follow me quickly. Someone is very ill."
+
+There was sincerity in the appeal, spoken in the softest, most silvern
+tone which he had ever heard. He stood beside the veiled woman, and
+met the glance of her dark eyes with a consciousness of some magnetic
+force in the glance, which seemed to set his nerves quivering.
+
+"Why do you come to the window? How do you know--"
+
+The visitor raised her hand again to her lips. It was of a gleaming
+ivory colour, and the long tapered fingers were laden with singular
+jewellery--exquisite enamel work, which he knew to be Ancient
+Egyptian, but which did not seem out of place in this dream adventure.
+
+"I was afraid to make any unnecessary disturbance," she replied.
+"Please do not delay, but come at once."
+
+Dr. Cairn adjusted his dressing-gown, and followed the veiled
+messenger along the balcony. For a dream city, Port Said appeared
+remarkably substantial, as it spread out at his feet, its dingy
+buildings whitened by the moonlight. But his progress was dreamlike,
+for he seemed to glide past many windows, around the corner of the
+building, and, without having consciously exerted any physical effort,
+found his hands grasped by warm jewelled fingers, found himself guided
+into some darkened room, and then, possessed by that doubting which
+sometimes comes in dreams, found himself hesitating. The moonlight did
+not penetrate to the apartment in which he stood, and the darkness
+about him was impenetrable.
+
+But the clinging fingers did not release their hold, and vaguely aware
+that he was acting in a manner which might readily be misconstrued, he
+nevertheless allowed his unseen guide to lead him forward.
+
+Stairs were descended in phantom silence--many stairs. The coolness of
+the air suggested that they were outside the hotel. But the darkness
+remained complete. Along what seemed to be a stone-paved passage they
+advanced mysteriously, and by this time Dr. Cairn was wholly resigned
+to the strangeness of his dream.
+
+Then, although the place lay in blackest shadow, he saw that they were
+in the open air, for the starry sky swept above them.
+
+It was a narrow street--at points, the buildings almost met
+above--wherein, he now found himself. In reality, had he been in
+possession of his usual faculties, awake, he would have asked himself
+how this veiled woman had gained admittance to the hotel, and why she
+had secretly led him out from it. But the dreamer's mental lethargy
+possessed him, and, with the blind faith of a child, he followed on,
+until he now began vaguely to consider the personality of his guide.
+
+She seemed to be of no more than average height, but she carried
+herself with unusual grace, and her progress was marked by a certain
+hauteur. At the point where a narrow lane crossed that which they were
+traversing the veiled figure was silhouetted for a moment against the
+light of the moon, and through the gauze-like fabric, he perceived the
+outlines of a perfect shape. His vague wonderment, concerned itself
+now with the ivory, jewel-laden hands. His condition differed from the
+normal dream state, in that he was not entirely resigned to the
+anomalous.
+
+Misty doubts were forming, when his dream guide paused before a heavy
+door of a typical native house which once had been of some
+consequence, and which faced the entrance to a mosque, indeed lay in
+the shadow of the minaret. It was opened from within, although she
+gave no perceptible signal, and its darkness, to Dr. Cairn's dulled
+perceptions, seemed to swallow them both up. He had an impression of a
+trap raised, of stone steps descended, of a new darkness almost
+palpable.
+
+The gloom of the place effected him as a mental blank, and, when a
+bright light shone out, it seemed to mark the opening of a second dream
+phase. From where the light came, he knew not, cared not, but it
+illuminated a perfectly bare room, with a floor of native mud bricks, a
+plastered wall, and wood-beamed ceiling. A tall sarcophagus stood
+upright against the wall before him; its lid leant close beside it ...
+and his black robed guide, her luminous eyes looking straightly over the
+yashmak, stood rigidly upright-within it!
+
+She raised the jewelled hands, and with a swift movement discarded
+robe and _yashmak_, and stood before him, in the clinging draperies of
+an ancient queen, wearing the leopard skin and the _uraeus_, and
+carrying the flail of royal Egypt!
+
+Her pale face formed a perfect oval; the long almond eyes had an evil
+beauty which seemed to chill; and the brilliantly red mouth was curved
+in a smile which must have made any man forget the evil in the eyes.
+But when we move in a dream world, our emotions become dreamlike too.
+She placed a sandalled foot upon the mud floor and stepped out of the
+sarcophagus, advancing towards Dr. Cairn, a vision of such sinful
+loveliness as he could never have conceived in his waking moments. In
+that strange dream language, in a tongue not of East nor West, she
+spoke; and her silvern voice had something of the tone of those
+Egyptian pipes whose dree fills the nights upon the Upper Nile--the
+seductive music of remote and splendid wickedness.
+
+"You know me, _now_?" she whispered.
+
+And in his dream she seemed to be a familiar figure, at once dreadful
+and worshipful.
+
+A fitful light played through the darkness, and seemed to dance upon a
+curtain draped behind the sarcophagus, picking out diamond points. The
+dreamer groped in the mental chaos of his mind, and found a clue to
+the meaning of this. The diamond points were the eyes of thousands of
+tarantula spiders with which the curtain was broidered.
+
+The sign of the spider! What did he know of it? Yes! of course; it was
+the secret mark of Egypt's witch-queen--of the beautiful woman whose
+name, after her mysterious death, had been erased from all her
+monuments. A sweet whisper stole to his ears:
+
+"You will befriend him, befriend my son--for _my_ sake."
+
+And in his dream-state he found himself prepared to foreswear all that
+he held holy--for her sake. She grasped both his hands, and her
+burning eyes looked closely into his.
+
+"Your reward shall be a great one," she whispered, even more softly.
+
+Came a sudden blank, and Dr. Cairn found himself walking again through
+the narrow street, led by the veiled woman. His impressions were
+growing dim; and now she seemed less real than hitherto. The streets
+were phantom streets, built of shadow stuff, and the stairs which
+presently he found himself ascending, were unsubstantial, and he
+seemed rather to float upward; until, with the jewelled fingers held
+fast in his own, he stood in a darkened apartment, and saw before him
+an open window, knew that he was once more back in the hotel. A dim
+light dawned in the blackness of the room and the musical voice
+breathed in his ear:
+
+"Your reward shall be easily earned. I did but test you. Strike--and
+strike truly!"
+
+The whisper grew sibilant--serpentine. Dr. Cairn felt the hilt of a
+dagger thrust into his right hand, and in the dimly-mysterious light
+looked down at one who lay in a bed close beside him.
+
+At sight of the face of the sleeper--the perfectly-chiselled face,
+with the long black lashes resting on the ivory cheeks--he forgot all
+else, forgot the place wherein he stood, forgot his beautiful guide,
+and only remembered that he held a dagger in his hand, and that Antony
+Ferrara lay there, sleeping!
+
+"Strike!" came the whisper again.
+
+Dr. Cairn felt a mad exultation boiling up within him. He raised his
+hand, glanced once more on the face of the sleeper, and nerved himself
+to plunge the dagger into the heart of this evil thing.
+
+A second more, and the dagger would have been buried to the hilt in
+the sleeper's breast--when there ensued a deafening, an appalling
+explosion. A wild red light illuminated the room, the building seemed
+to rock. Close upon that frightful sound followed a cry so piercing
+that it seemed to ice the blood in Dr. Cairn's veins.
+
+"Stop, sir, stop! My God! what are you doing!"
+
+A swift blow struck the dagger from his hand and the figure on the bed
+sprang upright. Swaying dizzily, Dr. Cairn stood there in the
+darkness, and as the voice of awakened sleepers reached his ears from
+adjoining rooms, the electric light was switched on, and across the
+bed, the bed upon which he had thought Antony Ferrara lay, he saw his
+son, Robert Cairn!
+
+No one else was in the room. But on the carpet at his feet lay an
+ancient dagger, the hilt covered with beautiful and intricate gold and
+enamel work.
+
+Rigid with a mutual horror, these two so strangely met stood staring
+at one another across the room. Everyone in the hotel, it would
+appear, had been awakened by the explosion, which, as if by the
+intervention of God, had stayed the hand of Dr. Cairn--had spared him
+from a deed impossible to contemplate.
+
+There were sounds of running footsteps everywhere; but the origin of
+the disturbance at that moment had no interest for these two. Robert
+was the first to break the silence.
+
+"Merciful God, sir!" he whispered huskily, "how did you come to be
+here? What is the matter? Are you ill?"
+
+Dr. Cairn extended his hands like one groping in darkness.
+
+"Rob, give me a moment, to think, to collect myself. Why am I here? By
+all that is wonderful, why are _you_ here?"
+
+"I am here to meet you."
+
+"To meet me! I had no idea that you were well enough for the journey,
+and if you came to meet me, why--"
+
+"That's it, sir! Why did you send me that wireless?"
+
+"I sent no wireless, boy!"
+
+Robert Cairn, with a little colour returning to his pale cheeks,
+advanced and grasped his father's hand.
+
+"But after I arrived here to meet the boat, sir I received a wireless
+from the P. and O. due in the morning, to say that you had changed
+your mind, and come _via_ Brindisi."
+
+Dr. Cairn glanced at the dagger upon the carpet, repressed a shudder,
+and replied in a voice which he struggled to make firm:
+
+"_I_ did not send that wireless!"
+
+"Then you actually came by the boat which arrived last night?--and to
+think that I was asleep in the same hotel! What an amazing--"
+
+"Amazing indeed, Rob, and the result of a cunning and well planned
+scheme." He raised his eyes, looking fixedly at his son. "You
+understand the scheme; the scheme that could only have germinated in
+one mind--a scheme to cause me, your father, to--"
+
+His voice failed and again his glance sought the weapon which lay so
+close to his feet. Partly in order to hide his emotion, he stooped,
+picked up the dagger, and threw it on the bed.
+
+"For God's sake, sir," groaned Robert, "what were you doing here in my
+room with--that!"
+
+Dr. Cairn stood straightly upright and replied in an even voice:
+
+"I was here to do murder!"
+
+"_Murder_!"
+
+"I was under a spell--no need to name its weaver; I thought that a
+poisonous thing at last lay at my mercy, and by cunning means the
+primitive evil within me was called up, and braving the laws of God
+and man, I was about to slay that thing. Thank God!--"
+
+He dropped upon his knees, silently bowed his head for a moment, and
+then stood up, self-possessed again, as his son had always known him.
+It had been a strange and awful awakening for Robert Cairn--to find
+his room illuminated by a lurid light, and to find his own father
+standing over him with a knife! But what had moved him even more
+deeply than the fear of these things, had been the sight of the
+emotion which had shaken that stern and unemotional man. Now, as he
+gathered together his scattered wits, he began to perceive that a
+malignant hand was moving above them, that his father, and himself,
+were pawns, which had been moved mysteriously to a dreadful end.
+
+A great disturbance had now arisen in the streets below, streams of
+people it seemed, were pouring towards the harbour; but Dr. Cairn
+pointed to an armchair.
+
+"Sit down, Rob," he said. "I will tell my story, and you shall tell
+yours. By comparing notes, we can arrive at some conclusion. Then we
+must act. This is a fight to a finish, and I begin to doubt if we are
+strong enough to win."
+
+He took up the dagger and ran a critical glance over it, from the keen
+point to the enamelled hilt.
+
+"This is unique," he muttered, whilst his son, spellbound, watched
+him; "the blade is as keen as if tempered but yesterday; yet it was
+made full five thousand years ago, as the workmanship of the hilt
+testifies. Rob, we deal with powers more than human! We have to cope
+with a force which might have awed the greatest Masters which the
+world has known. It would have called for all the knowledge, and all
+the power of Apollonius of Tyana to have dealt with--_him_!"
+
+"Antony Ferrara!"
+
+"Undoubtedly, Rob! it was by the agency of Antony Ferrara that the
+wireless message was sent to you from the P. and O. It was by the
+agency of Antony Ferrara that I dreamt a dream to-night. In fact it
+was no true dream; I was under the influence of--what shall I term
+it?--hypnotic suggestion. To what extent that malign will was
+responsible for you and I being placed in rooms communicating by means
+of a balcony, we probably shall never know; but if this proximity was
+merely accidental, the enemy did not fail to take advantage of the
+coincidence. I lay watching the stars before I slept, and one of them
+seemed to grow larger as I watched." He began to pace about the room
+in growing excitement. "Rob, I cannot doubt that a mirror, or a
+crystal, was actually suspended before my eyes by--someone, who had
+been watching for the opportunity. I yielded myself to the soothing
+influence, and thus deliberately--deliberately--placed myself in the
+power of--Antony Ferrara--"
+
+"You think that he is here, in this hotel?"
+
+"I cannot doubt that he is in the neighbourhood. The influence was too
+strong to have emanated from a mind at a great distance removed. I
+will tell you exactly what I dreamt."
+
+He dropped into a cane armchair. Comparative quiet reigned again in
+the streets below, but a distant clamour told of some untoward
+happening at the harbour.
+
+Dawn would break ere long, and there was a curious rawness in the
+atmosphere. Robert Cairn seated himself upon the side of the bed, and
+watched his father, whilst the latter related those happenings with
+which we are already acquainted.
+
+"You think, sir," said Robert, at the conclusion of the strange story,
+"that no part of your experience was real?"
+
+Dr. Cairn held up the antique dagger, glancing at the speaker
+significantly.
+
+"On the contrary," he replied, "I _do_ know that part of it was
+dreadfully real. My difficulty is to separate the real from the
+phantasmal."
+
+Silence fell for a moment. Then:
+
+"It is almost certain," said the younger man, frowning thoughtfully,
+"that you did not actually leave the hotel, but merely passed from
+your room to mine by way of the balcony."
+
+Dr. Cairn stood up, walked to the open window, and looked out, then
+turned and faced his son again.
+
+"I believe I can put that matter to the test," he declared. "In my
+dream, as I turned into the lane where the house was--the house of the
+mummy--there was a patch covered with deep mud, where at some time
+during the evening a quantity of water had been spilt. I stepped upon
+that patch, or dreamt that I did. We can settle the point."
+
+He sat down on the bed beside his son, and, stooping, pulled off one
+of his slippers. The night had been full enough of dreadful surprises;
+but here was yet another, which came to them as Dr. Cairn, with the
+inverted slipper in his hand, sat looking into his son's eyes.
+
+The sole of the slipper was caked with reddish brown mud.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+LAIR OF THE SPIDERS
+
+
+"We must find that house, find the sarcophagus--for I no longer doubt
+that it exists--drag it out, and destroy it."
+
+"Should you know it again, sir?"
+
+"Beyond any possibility of doubt. It is the sarcophagus of a queen."
+
+"What queen?"
+
+"A queen whose tomb the late Sir Michael Ferrara and I sought for many
+months, but failed to find."
+
+"Is this queen well known in Egyptian history?"
+
+Dr. Cairn stared at him with an odd expression in his eyes.
+
+"Some histories ignore her existence entirely," he said; and, with an
+evident desire to change the subject, added, "I shall return to my
+room to dress now. Do you dress also. We cannot afford to sleep whilst
+the situation of that house remains unknown to us."
+
+Robert Cairn nodded, and his father stood up, and went out of the
+room.
+
+Dawn saw the two of them peering from the balcony upon the streets of
+Port Said, already dotted with moving figures, for the Egyptian is an
+early riser.
+
+"Have you any clue," asked the younger man, "to the direction in which
+this place lies?"
+
+"Absolutely none, for the reason that I do not know where my dreaming
+left off, and reality commenced. Did someone really come to my window,
+and lead me out through another room, downstairs, and into the street,
+or did I wander out of my own accord and merely imagine the existence
+of the guide? In either event, I must have been guided in some way to
+a back entrance; for had I attempted to leave by the front door of the
+hotel in that trance-like condition, I should certainly have been
+detained by the _bowwab_. Suppose we commence, then, by inquiring if
+there is such another entrance?"
+
+The hotel staff was already afoot, and their inquiries led to the
+discovery of an entrance communicating with the native servants'
+quarters. This could not be reached from the main hall, but there was
+a narrow staircase to the left of the lift-shaft by which it might be
+gained. The two stood looking out across the stone-paved courtyard
+upon which the door opened.
+
+"Beyond doubt," said Dr. Cairn, "I might have come down that staircase
+and out by this door without arousing a soul, either by passing
+through my own room, or through any other on that floor."
+
+They crossed the yard, where members of the kitchen staff were busily
+polishing various cooking utensils, and opened the gate. Dr. Cairn
+turned to one of the men near by.
+
+"Is this gate bolted at night?" he asked, in Arabic.
+
+The man shook his head, and seemed to be much amused by the question,
+revealing his white teeth as he assured him that it was not.
+
+A narrow lane ran along behind the hotel, communicating with a maze of
+streets almost exclusively peopled by natives.
+
+"Rob," said Dr. Cairn slowly, "it begins to dawn upon me that this is
+the way I came."
+
+He stood looking to right and left, and seemed to be undecided. Then:
+
+"We will try right," he determined.
+
+They set off along the narrow way. Once clear of the hotel wall, high
+buildings rose upon either side, so that at no time during the day
+could the sun have penetrated to the winding lane. Suddenly Robert
+Cairn stopped.
+
+"Look!" he said, and pointed. "The mosque! You spoke of a mosque near
+to the house?"
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded; his eyes were gleaming, now that he felt himself to
+be upon the track of this great evil which had shattered his peace.
+
+They advanced until they stood before the door of the mosque--and
+there in the shadow of a low archway was just such an ancient,
+iron-studded door as Dr. Cairn remembered! Latticed windows overhung
+the street above, but no living creature was in sight.
+
+He very gently pressed upon the door, but as he had anticipated it was
+fastened from within. In the vague light, his face seemed strangely
+haggard as he turned to his son, raising his eyebrows interrogatively.
+
+"It is just possible that I may be mistaken," he said; "so that I
+scarcely know what to do."
+
+He stood looking about him in some perplexity.
+
+Adjoining the mosque, was a ruinous house, which clearly had had no
+occupants for many years. As Robert Cairn's gaze lighted upon its
+gaping window-frames and doorless porch, he seized his father by the
+arm.
+
+"We might hide up there," he suggested, "and watch for anyone entering
+or leaving the place opposite."
+
+"I have little doubt that this was the scene of my experience,"
+replied Dr. Cairn; "therefore I think we will adopt your plan. Perhaps
+there is some means of egress at the back. It will be useful if we
+have to remain on the watch for any considerable time."
+
+They entered the ruined building and, by means of a rickety staircase,
+gained the floor above. It moved beneath them unsafely, but from the
+divan which occupied one end of the apartment an uninterrupted view of
+the door below was obtainable.
+
+"Stay here," said Dr. Cairn, "and watch, whilst I reconnoitre."
+
+He descended the stairs again, to return in a minute or so and
+announce that another street could be reached through the back of the
+house. There and then they settled the plan of campaign. One at a time
+they would go to the hotel for their meals, so that the door would
+never be unwatched throughout the day. Dr. Cairn determined to make no
+inquiries respecting the house, as this might put the enemy upon his
+guard.
+
+"We are in his own country, Rob," he said. "Here, we can trust no
+one."
+
+Thereupon they commenced their singular and self-imposed task. In
+turn they went back to the hotel for breakfast, and watched
+fruitlessly throughout the morning. They lunched in the same way, and
+throughout the great midday heat sat hidden in the ruined building,
+mounting guard over that iron-studded door. It was a dreary and
+monotonous day, long to be remembered by both of them, and when the
+hour of sunset drew nigh, and their vigil remained unrewarded, they
+began to doubt the wisdom of their tactics. The street was but little
+frequented; there was not the slightest chance of their presence being
+discovered.
+
+It was very quiet, too, so that no one could have approached unheard.
+At the hotel they had learnt the cause of the explosion during the
+night; an accident in the engine-room of a tramp steamer, which had
+done considerable damage, but caused no bodily injury.
+
+"We may hope to win yet," said Dr. Cairn, in speaking of the incident.
+"It was the hand of God."
+
+Silence had prevailed between them for a long time, and he was about
+to propose that his son should go back to dinner, when the rare sound
+of a footstep below checked the words upon his lips. Both craned their
+necks to obtain a view of the pedestrian.
+
+An old man stooping beneath the burden of years and resting much of
+his weight upon a staff, came tottering into sight. The watchers
+crouched back, breathless with excitement, as the newcomer paused
+before the iron-studded door, and from beneath his cloak took out a
+big key.
+
+Inserting it into the lock, he swung open the door; it creaked upon
+ancient hinges as it opened inward, revealing a glimpse of a stone
+floor. As the old man entered, Dr. Cairn grasped his son by the wrist.
+
+"Down!" he whispered. "Now is our chance!"
+
+They ran down the rickety stairs, crossed the narrow street, and
+Robert Cairn cautiously looked in around the door which had been left
+ajar.
+
+Black against the dim light of another door at the further end of the
+large and barn-like apartment, showed the stooping figure. Tap, tap,
+tap! went the stick; and the old man had disappeared around a corner.
+
+"Where can we hide?" whispered Dr. Cairn. "He is evidently making a
+tour of inspection."
+
+The sound of footsteps mounting to the upper apartments came to their
+ears. They looked about them right and left, and presently the younger
+man detected a large wooden cupboard set in one wall. Opening it, he
+saw that it contained but one shelf only, near the top.
+
+"When he returns," he said, "we can hide in here until he has gone
+out."
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded; he was peering about the room intently.
+
+"This is the place I came to, Rob!" he said softly; "but there was a
+stone stair leading down to some room underneath. We must find it."
+
+The old man could be heard passing from room to room above; then his
+uneven footsteps sounded on the stair again, and glancing at one
+another the two stepped into the cupboard, and pulled the door gently
+inward. A few moments later, the old caretaker--since such appeared to
+be his office--passed out, slamming the door behind him. At that, they
+emerged from their hiding-place and began to examine the apartment
+carefully. It was growing very dark now; indeed with the door shut, it
+was difficult to detect the outlines of the room. Suddenly a loud cry
+broke the perfect stillness, seeming to come from somewhere above.
+Robert Cairn started violently, grasping his father's arm, but the
+older man smiled.
+
+"You forget that there is a mosque almost opposite," he said. "That is
+the _mueddin_!"
+
+His son laughed shortly.
+
+"My nerves are not yet all that they might be," he explained, and
+bending low began to examine the pavement.
+
+"There must be a trap-door in the floor?" he continued. "Don't you
+think so?"
+
+His father nodded silently, and upon hands and knees also began to
+inspect the cracks and crannies between the various stones. In the
+right-hand corner furthest from the entrance, their quest was
+rewarded. A stone some three feet square moved slightly when pressure
+was applied to it, and gave up a sound of hollowness beneath the
+tread. Dust and litter covered the entire floor, but having cleared
+the top of this particular stone, a ring was discovered, lying flat in
+a circular groove cut to receive it. The blade of a penknife served to
+raise it from its resting place, and Dr. Cairn, standing astride
+across the trap, tugged at the ring, and, without great difficulty,
+raised the stone block from its place.
+
+A square hole was revealed. There were irregular stone steps leading
+down into the blackness. A piece of candle, stuck in a crude wooden
+holder, lay upon the topmost. Dr. Cairn, taking a box of matches from
+his pocket, very quickly lighted the candle, and with it held in his
+left hand began to descend. His head was not yet below the level of
+the upper apartment when he paused.
+
+"You have your revolver?" he said.
+
+Robert nodded grimly, and took his revolver from his pocket.
+
+A singular and most disagreeable smell was arising from the trap which
+they had opened; but ignoring this they descended, and presently stood
+side by side in a low cellar. Here the odour was almost insupportable;
+it had in it something menacing, something definitely repellent; and
+at the foot of the steps they stood hesitating.
+
+Dr. Cairn slowly moved the candle, throwing the light along the floor,
+where it picked out strips of wood and broken cases, straw packing and
+kindred litter--until it impinged upon a brightly painted slab.
+Further, he moved it, and higher, and the end of a sarcophagus came
+into view. He drew a quick, hissing breath, and bending forward,
+directed the light into the interior of the ancient coffin. Then, he
+had need of all his iron nerve to choke down the cry that rose to his
+lips.
+
+"By God! _Look_!" whispered his son.
+
+Swathed in white wrappings, Antony Ferrara lay motionless before them.
+
+The seconds passed one by one, until a whole minute was told, and
+still the two remained inert and the cold light shone fully upon that
+ivory face.
+
+"Is he dead?"
+
+Robert Cairn spoke huskily, grasping his father's shoulder.
+
+"I think not," was the equally hoarse reply. "He is in the state of
+trance mentioned in--certain ancient writings; he is absorbing evil
+force from the sarcophagus of the Witch-Queen...."[A]
+
+[Footnote A: _Note_.--"It seems exceedingly probable that ... the
+mummy-case (sarcophagus), with its painted presentment of the living
+person, was the material basis for the preservation of the ... _Khu_
+(magical powers) of a fully-equipped Adept."
+
+_Collectanea Hermetica_. Vol. VIII.]
+
+There was a faint rustling sound in the cellar, which seemed to grow
+louder and more insistent, but Dr. Cairn, apparently, did not notice
+it, for he turned to his son, and albeit the latter could see him but
+vaguely, he knew that his face was grimly set.
+
+"It seems like butchery," he said evenly, "but, in the interests of
+the world, we must not hesitate. A shot might attract attention. Give
+me your knife."
+
+For a moment, the other scarcely comprehended the full purport of the
+words. Mechanically he took out his knife, and opened the big blade.
+
+"Good heavens, sir," he gasped breathlessly, "it is _too_ awful!"
+
+"Awful I grant you," replied Dr. Cairn, "but a duty--a duty, boy, and
+one that we must not shirk. I, alone among living men, know whom, and
+_what_, lies there, and my conscience directs me in what I do. His end
+shall be that which he had planned for you. Give me the knife."
+
+He took the knife from his son's hand. With the light directed upon
+the still, ivory face, he stepped towards the sarcophagus. As he did
+so, something dropped from the roof, narrowly missed falling upon his
+outstretched hand, and with a soft, dull thud dropped upon the mud
+brick floor. Impelled by some intuition, he suddenly directed the
+light to the roof above.
+
+Then with a shrill cry which he was wholly unable to repress, Robert
+Cairn seized his father's arm and began to pull him back towards the
+stair.
+
+"Quick, sir!" he screamed shrilly, almost hysterically. "My God! my
+God! _be quick_!"
+
+The appearance of the roof above had puzzled him for an instant as the
+light touched it, then in the next had filled his very soul with
+loathing and horror. For directly above them was moving a black patch,
+a foot or so in extent ... and it was composed of a dense moving mass
+of tarantula spiders! A line of the disgusting creatures was mounting
+the wall and crossing the ceiling, ever swelling the unclean group!
+
+Dr. Cairn did not hesitate to leap for the stair, and as he did so the
+spiders began to drop. Indeed, they seemed to leap towards the
+intruders, until the floor all about them and the bottom steps of the
+stair presented a mass of black, moving insects.
+
+A perfect panic fear seized upon them. At every step spiders
+_crunched_ beneath their feet. They seem to come from nowhere, to be
+conjured up out of the darkness, until the whole cellar, the stairs,
+the very fetid air about them, became black and nauseous with spiders.
+
+Half-way to the top Dr. Cairn turned, snatched out a revolver and
+began firing down into the cellar in the direction of the sarcophagus.
+
+A hairy, clutching thing ran up his arm, and his son, uttering a groan
+of horror, struck at it and stained the tweed with its poisonous
+blood.
+
+They staggered to the head of the steps, and there Dr. Cairn turned
+and hurled the candle at a monstrous spider that suddenly sprang into
+view. The candle, still attached to its wooden socket, went bounding
+down steps that now were literally carpeted with insects.
+
+Tarantulas began to run out from the trap, as if pursuing the
+intruders, and a faint light showed from below. Then came a crackling
+sound, and a wisp of smoke floated up.
+
+Dr. Cairn threw open the outer door, and the two panic-stricken men
+leapt out into the street and away from the spider army. White to the
+lips they stood leaning against the wall.
+
+"Was it really--Ferrara?" whispered Robert.
+
+"I hope so!" was the answer.
+
+Dr. Cairn pointed to the closed door. A fan of smoke was creeping from
+beneath it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The fire which ensued destroyed, not only the house in which it had
+broken out, but the two adjoining; and the neighbouring mosque was
+saved only with the utmost difficulty.
+
+When, in the dawn of the new day, Dr. Cairn looked down into the
+smoking pit which once had been the home of the spiders, he shook his
+head and turned to his son.
+
+"If our eyes did not deceive us, Rob," he said, "a just retribution at
+last has claimed him!"
+
+Pressing a way through the surrounding crowd of natives, they returned
+to the hotel. The hall porter stopped them as they entered.
+
+"Excuse me, sir," he said, "but which is Mr. Robert Cairn?"
+
+Robert Cairn stepped forward.
+
+"A young gentleman left this for you, sir, half an hour ago," said the
+man--"a very pale gentleman, with black eyes. He said you'd dropped
+it."
+
+Robert Cairn unwrapped the little parcel. It contained a penknife, the
+ivory handle charred as if it had been in a furnace. It was his
+own--which he had handed to his father in that awful cellar at the
+moment when the first spider had dropped; and a card was enclosed,
+bearing the pencilled words, "With Antony Ferrara's Compliments."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE STORY OF ALI MOHAMMED
+
+
+Saluting each of the three in turn, the tall Egyptian passed from Dr.
+Cairn's room. Upon his exit followed a brief but electric silence. Dr.
+Cairn's face was very stern and Sime, with his hands locked behind
+him, stood staring out of the window into the palmy garden of the
+hotel. Robert Cairn looked from one to the other excitedly.
+
+"What did he say, sir?" he cried, addressing his father. "It had
+something to do with--"
+
+Dr. Cairn turned. Sime did not move.
+
+"It had something to do with the matter which has brought me to
+Cairo," replied the former--"yes."
+
+"You see," said Robert, "my knowledge of Arabic is _nil_--"
+
+Sime turned in his heavy fashion, and directed a dull gaze upon the
+last speaker.
+
+"Ali Mohammed," he explained slowly, "who has just left, had come down
+from the Fayum to report a singular matter. He was unaware of its real
+importance, but it was sufficiently unusual to disturb him, and Ali
+Mohammed es-Suefi is not easily disturbed."
+
+Dr. Cairn dropped into an armchair, nodding towards Sime.
+
+"Tell him all that we have heard," he said. "We stand together in this
+affair."
+
+"Well," continued Sime, in his deliberate fashion, "when we struck our
+camp beside the Pyramid of Meydum, Ali Mohammed remained behind with a
+gang of workmen to finish off some comparatively unimportant work. He
+is an unemotional person. Fear is alien to his composition; it has no
+meaning for him. But last night something occurred at the camp--or
+what remained of the camp--which seems to have shaken even Ali
+Mohammed's iron nerve."
+
+Robert Cairn nodded, watching the speaker intently.
+
+"The entrance to the Meydum Pyramid--," continued Sime.
+
+"_One_ of the entrances," interrupted Dr. Cairn, smiling slightly.
+
+"There is only one entrance," said Sime dogmatically.
+
+Dr. Cairn waved his hand.
+
+"Go ahead," he said. "We can discuss these archaeological details
+later."
+
+Sime stared dully, but, without further comment, resumed:
+
+"The camp was situated on the slope immediately below the only _known_
+entrance to the Meydum Pyramid; one might say that it lay in the
+shadow of the building. There are tumuli in the neighbourhood--part of
+a prehistoric cemetery--and it was work in connection with this which
+had detained Ali Mohammed in that part of the Fayum. Last night about
+ten o'clock he was awakened by an unusual sound, or series of sounds,
+he reports. He came out of the tent into the moonlight, and looked up
+at the pyramid. The entrance was a good way above his head, of course,
+and quite fifty or sixty yards from the point where he was standing,
+but the moonbeams bathed that side of the building in dazzling light
+so that he was enabled to see a perfect crowd of bats whirling out of
+the pyramid."
+
+"Bats!" ejaculated Robert Cairn.
+
+"Yes. There is a small colony of bats in this pyramid, of course; but
+the bat does not hunt in bands, and the sight of these bats flying out
+from the place was one which Ali Mohammed had never witnessed before.
+Their concerted squeaking was very clearly audible. He could not
+believe that it was this which had awakened him, and which had
+awakened the ten or twelve workmen who also slept in the camp, for
+these were now clustering around him, and all looking up at the side
+of the pyramid.
+
+"Fayum nights are strangely still. Except for the jackals and the
+village dogs, and some other sounds to which one grows accustomed,
+there is nothing--absolutely nothing--audible.
+
+"In this stillness, then, the flapping of the bat regiment made quite
+a disturbance overhead. Some of the men were only half awake, but
+most, of them were badly frightened. And now they began to compare
+notes, with the result that they determined upon the exact nature of
+the sound which had aroused them. It seemed almost certain that this
+had been a dreadful scream--the scream of a woman in the last agony."
+
+He paused, looking from Dr. Cairn to his son, with a singular
+expression upon his habitually immobile face.
+
+"Go on," said Robert Cairn.
+
+Slowly Sime resumed:
+
+"The bats had begun to disperse in various directions, but the panic
+which had seized upon the camp does not seem to have dispersed so
+readily. Ali Mohammed confesses that he himself felt almost afraid--a
+remarkable admission for a man of his class to make. Picture these
+fellows, then, standing looking at one another, and very frequently up
+at the opening in the side of the pyramid. Then the smell began to
+reach their nostrils--the smell which completed the panic, and which
+led to the abandonment of the camp--"
+
+"The smell--what kind of smell?" jerked Robert Cairn.
+
+Dr. Cairn turned himself in his chair, looking fully at his son.
+
+"The smell of Hades, boy!" he said grimly, and turned away again.
+
+"Naturally," continued Sime, "I can give you no particulars on the
+point, but it must have been something very fearful to have affected
+the Egyptian native! There was no breeze, but it swept down upon them,
+this poisonous smell, as though borne by a hot wind."
+
+"Was it actually hot?"
+
+"I cannot say. But Ali Mohammed is positive that it came from the
+opening in the pyramid. It was not apparently in disgust, but in
+sheer, stark horror, that the whole crowd of them turned tail and ran.
+They never stopped and never looked back until they came to Rekka on
+the railway."
+
+A short silence followed. Then:
+
+"That was last night?" questioned Cairn.
+
+His father nodded.
+
+"The man came in by the first train from Wasta," he said, "and we have
+not a moment to spare!"
+
+Sime stared at him.
+
+"I don't understand--"
+
+"I have a mission," said Dr. Cairn quietly. "It is to run to earth, to
+stamp out, as I would stamp out a pestilence, a certain _thing_--I
+cannot call it a man--Antony Ferrara. I believe, Sime, that you are at
+one with me in this matter?"
+
+Sime drummed his fingers upon the table, frowning thoughtfully, and
+looking from one to the other of his companions under his lowered
+brows.
+
+"With my own eyes," he said, "I have seen something of this secret
+drama which has brought you, Dr. Cairn, to Egypt; and, up to a point,
+I agree with you regarding Antony Ferrara. You have lost all trace of
+him?"
+
+"Since leaving Port Said," said Dr. Cairn, "I have seen and heard
+nothing of him; but Lady Lashmore, who was an intimate--and an
+innocent victim, God help her--of Ferrara in London, after staying at
+the Semiramis in Cairo for one day, departed. Where did she go?"
+
+"What has Lady Lashmore to do with the matter?" asked Sime.
+
+"If what I fear be true--" replied Dr. Cairn. "But I anticipate. At
+the moment it is enough for me that, unless my information be at
+fault, Lady Lashmore yesterday left Cairo by the Luxor train at 8.30."
+
+Robert Cairn looked in a puzzled way at his father.
+
+"What do you suspect, sir?" he said.
+
+"I suspect that she went no further than Wasta," replied Dr. Cairn.
+
+"Still I do not understand," declared Sime.
+
+"You may understand later," was the answer. "We must not waste a
+moment. You Egyptologists think that Egypt has little or nothing to
+teach you; the Pyramid of Meydum lost interest directly you learnt
+that apparently it contained no treasure. How, little you know what it
+_really_ contained, Sime! Mariette did not suspect; Sir Gaston Maspero
+does not suspect! The late Sir Michael Ferrara and I once camped by
+the Pyramid of Meydum, as you have camped there, and we made a
+discovery--"
+
+"Well?" said Sime, with growing interest.
+
+"It is a point upon which my lips are sealed, but--do you believe in
+black magic?"
+
+"I am not altogether sure that I do--"
+
+"Very well; you are entitled to your opinion. But although you appear
+to be ignorant of the fact, the Pyramid of Meydum was formerly one of
+the strong-holds--the second greatest in all the land of the Nile--of
+Ancient Egyptian sorcery! I pray heaven I may be wrong, but in the
+disappearance of Lady Lashmore, and in the story of Ali Mohammed, I
+see a dreadful possibility. Ring for a time-table. We have not a
+moment to waste!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE BATS
+
+
+Rekka was a mile behind.
+
+"It will take us fully an hour yet," said Dr. Cairn, "to reach the
+pyramid, although it appears so near."
+
+Indeed, in the violet dusk, the great mastabah Pyramid of Meydum
+seemed already to loom above them, although it was quite four miles
+away. The narrow path along which they trotted their donkeys ran
+through the fertile lowlands of the Fayum. They had just passed a
+village, amid an angry chorus from the pariah dogs, and were now
+following the track along the top of the embankment. Where the green
+carpet merged ahead into the grey ocean of sand the desert began, and
+out in that desert, resembling some weird work of Nature rather than
+anything wrought by the hand of man, stood the gloomy and lonely
+building ascribed by the Egyptologists to the Pharaoh Sneferu.
+
+Dr. Cairn and his son rode ahead, and Sime, with Ali Mohammed, brought
+up the rear of the little company.
+
+"I am completely in the dark, sir," said Robert Cairn, "respecting the
+object of our present journey. What leads you to suppose that we shall
+find Antony Ferrara here?"
+
+"I scarcely hope to _find_ him here," was the enigmatical reply, "but
+I am almost certain that he _is_ here. I might have expected it, and I
+blame myself for not having provided against--this."
+
+"Against what?"
+
+"It is impossible, Rob, for you to understand this matter. Indeed, if
+I were to publish what I know--not what I imagine, but what I
+know--about the Pyramid of Meydum I should not only call down upon
+myself the ridicule of every Egyptologist in Europe; I should be
+accounted mad by the whole world."
+
+His son was silent for a time; then:
+
+"According to the guide books," he said, "it is merely an empty tomb."
+
+"It is empty, certainly," replied Dr. Cairn grimly, "or that apartment
+known as the King's Chamber is now empty. But even the so-called
+King's Chamber was not empty once; and there is another chamber in the
+pyramid which is not empty _now_!"
+
+"If you know of the existence of such a chamber, sir, why have you
+kept it secret?"
+
+"Because I cannot _prove_ its existence. I do not know how to enter
+it, but I know it is there; I know what it was formerly used for, and
+I suspect that last night it was used for that same unholy purpose
+again--after a lapse of perhaps four thousand years! Even you would
+doubt me, I believe, if I were to tell you what I know, if I were to
+hint at what I suspect. But no doubt in your reading you have met with
+Julian the Apostate?"
+
+"Certainly, I have read of him. He is said to have practised
+necromancy."
+
+"When he was at Carra in Mesopotamia, he retired to the Temple of the
+Moon, with a certain sorcerer and some others, and, his nocturnal
+operations concluded, he left the temple locked, the door sealed, and
+placed a guard over the gate. He was killed in the war, and never
+returned to Carra, but when, in the reign of Jovian, the seal was
+broken and the temple opened, a body was found hanging by its hair--I
+will spare you the particulars; it was a case of that most awful form
+of sorcery--_anthropomancy_!"
+
+An expression of horror had crept over Robert Cairn's face.
+
+"Do you mean, sir, that this pyramid was used for similar purposes?"
+
+"In the past it has been used for many purposes," was the quiet reply.
+"The exodus of the bats points to the fact that it was again used for
+one of those purposes last night; the exodus of the bats--and
+something else."
+
+Sime, who had been listening to this strange conversation, cried out
+from the rear:
+
+"We cannot reach it before sunset!"
+
+"No," replied Dr. Cairn, turning in his saddle, "but that does not
+matter. Inside the pyramid, day and night make no difference."
+
+Having crossed a narrow wooden bridge, they turned now fully in the
+direction of the great ruin, pursuing a path along the opposite bank
+of the cutting. They rode in silence for some time, Robert Cairn deep
+in thought.
+
+"I suppose that Antony Ferrara actually visited this place last
+night," he said suddenly, "although I cannot follow your reasoning.
+But what leads you to suppose that he is there now?"
+
+"This," answered his father slowly. "The purpose for which I believe
+him to have come here would detain him at least two days and two
+nights. I shall say no more about it, because if I am wrong, or if for
+any reason I am unable to establish my suspicions as facts, you would
+certainly regard me as a madman if I had confided those suspicions to
+you."
+
+Mounted upon donkeys, the journey from Rekka to the Pyramid of Meydum
+occupies fully an hour and a half, and the glories of the sunset had
+merged into the violet dusk of Egypt before the party passed the
+outskirts of the cultivated land and came upon the desert sands. The
+mountainous pile of granite, its peculiar orange hue a ghastly yellow
+in the moonlight, now assumed truly monstrous proportions, seeming
+like a great square tower rising in three stages from its mound of
+sand to some three hundred and fifty feet above the level of the
+desert.
+
+There is nothing more awesome in the world than to find one's self at
+night, far from all fellow-men, in the shadow of one of those edifices
+raised by unknown hands, by unknown means, to an unknown end; for,
+despite all the wisdom of our modern inquirers, these stupendous
+relics remain unsolved riddles set to posterity by a mysterious
+people.
+
+Neither Sime nor Ali Mohammed were of highly strung temperament,
+neither subject to those subtle impressions which more delicate
+organisations receive, as the nostrils receive an exhalation, from
+such a place as this. But Dr. Cairn and his son, though each in a
+different way, came now within the _aura_ of this temple of the dead
+ages.
+
+The great silence of the desert--a silence like no other in the world;
+the loneliness, which must be experienced to be appreciated, of that
+dry and tideless ocean; the traditions which had grown up like fungi
+about this venerable building; lastly, the knowledge that it was
+associated in some way with the sorcery, the unholy activity, of
+Antony Ferrara, combined to chill them with a supernatural dread which
+called for all their courage to combat.
+
+"What now?" said Sime, descending from his mount.
+
+"We must lead the donkeys up the slope," replied Dr. Cairn, "where
+those blocks of granite are, and tether them there."
+
+In silence, then, the party commenced the tedious ascent of the mound
+by the narrow path to the top, until at some hundred and twenty feet
+above the surrounding plain they found themselves actually under the
+wall of the mighty building. The donkeys were made fast.
+
+"Sime and I," said Dr. Cairn quietly, "will enter the pyramid."
+
+"But--" interrupted his son.
+
+"Apart from the fatigue of the operation," continued the doctor, "the
+temperature in the lower part of the pyramid is so tremendous, and the
+air so bad, that in your present state of health it would be absurd
+for you to attempt it. Apart from which there is a possibly more
+important task to be undertaken here, outside."
+
+He turned his eyes upon Sime, who was listening intently, then
+continued:
+
+"Whilst we are penetrating to the interior by means of the sloping
+passage on the north side, Ali Mohammed and yourself must mount guard
+on the south side."
+
+"What for?" said Sime rapidly.
+
+"For the reason," replied Dr. Cairn, "that there is an entrance on to
+the first stage--"
+
+"But the first stage is nearly seventy feet above us. Even assuming
+that there were an entrance there--which I doubt--escape by that means
+would be impossible. No one could climb down the face of the pyramid
+from above; no one has ever succeeded in climbing up. For the purpose
+of surveying the pyramid a scaffold had to be erected. Its sides are
+quite unscaleable."
+
+"That may be," agreed Dr. Cairn; "but, nevertheless, I have my reasons
+for placing a guard over the south side. If anything appears upon the
+stage above, Rob--_anything_--shoot, and shoot straight!"
+
+He repeated the same instructions to Ali Mohammed, to the evident
+surprise of the latter.
+
+"I don't understand at all," muttered Sime, "but as I presume you have
+a good reason for what you do, let it be as you propose. Can you give
+me any idea respecting what we may hope to find inside this place? I
+only entered once, and I am not anxious to repeat the experiment. The
+air is unbreathable, the descent to the level passage below is stiff
+work, and, apart from the inconvenience of navigating the latter
+passage, which as you probably know is only sixteen inches high, the
+climb up the vertical shaft into the tomb is not a particularly safe
+one. I exclude the possibility of snakes," he added ironically.
+
+"You have also omitted the possibility of Antony Ferrara," said Dr.
+Cairn.
+
+"Pardon my scepticism, doctor, but I cannot imagine any man
+voluntarily remaining in that awful place."
+
+"Yet I am greatly mistaken if he is not there!"
+
+"Then he is trapped!" said Sime grimly, examining a Browning pistol
+which he carried. "Unless--"
+
+He stopped, and an expression, almost of fear, crept over his stoical
+features.
+
+"That sixteen-inch passage," he muttered--"with Antony Ferrara at the
+further end!"
+
+"Exactly!" said Dr. Cairn. "But I consider it my duty to the world to
+proceed. I warn you that you are about to face the greatest peril,
+probably, which you will ever be called upon to encounter. I do not
+ask you to do this. I am quite prepared to go alone."
+
+"That remark was wholly unnecessary, doctor," said Sime rather
+truculently. "Suppose the other two proceed to their post."
+
+"But, sir--" began Robert Cairn.
+
+"You know the way," said the doctor, with an air of finality. "There
+is not a moment to waste, and although I fear that we are too late, it
+is just possible we may be in time to prevent a dreadful crime."
+
+The tall Egyptian and Robert Cairn went stumbling off amongst the
+heaps of rubbish and broken masonry, until an angle of the great wall
+concealed them from view. Then the two who remained continued the
+climb yet higher, following the narrow, zigzag path leading up to the
+entrance of the descending passage. Immediately under the square black
+hole they stood and glanced at one another.
+
+"We may as well leave our outer garments here," said Sime. "I note
+that you wear rubber-soled shoes, but I shall remove my boots, as
+otherwise I should be unable to obtain any foothold."
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded, and without more ado proceeded to strip off his
+coat, an example which was followed by Sime. It was as he stooped and
+placed his hat upon the little bundle of clothes at his feet that Dr.
+Cairn detected something which caused him to stoop yet lower and to
+peer at that dark object on the ground with a strange intentness.
+
+"What is it?" jerked Sime, glancing back at him.
+
+Dr. Cairn, from a hip pocket, took out an electric lamp, and directed
+the white ray upon something lying on the splintered fragments of
+granite.
+
+It was a bat, a fairly large one, and a clot of blood marked the place
+where its head had been. For the bat was decapitated!
+
+As though anticipating what he should find there, Dr. Cairn flashed
+the ray of the lamp all about the ground in the vicinity of the
+entrance to the pyramid. Scores of dead bats, headless, lay there.
+
+"For God's sake, what does this mean?" whispered Sime, glancing
+apprehensively into the black entrance beside him.
+
+"It means," answered Cairn, in a low voice, "that my suspicion, almost
+incredible though it seems, was well founded. Steel yourself against
+the task that is before you, Sime; we stand upon the borderland of
+strange horrors."
+
+Sime hesitated to touch any of the dead bats, surveying them with an
+ill-concealed repugnance.
+
+"What kind of creature," he whispered, "has done this?"
+
+"One of a kind that the world has not known for many ages! The most
+evil kind of creature conceivable--a man-devil!"
+
+"But what does he want with bats' heads?"
+
+"The Cynonycteris, or pyramid bat, has a leaf-like appendage beside
+the nose. A gland in this secretes a rare oil. This oil is one of the
+ingredients of the incense which is never named in the magical
+writings."
+
+Sime shuddered.
+
+"Here!" said Dr. Cairn, proffering a flask. "This is only the
+overture! No nerves."
+
+The other nodded shortly, and poured out a peg of brandy.
+
+"Now," said Dr. Cairn, "shall I go ahead?"
+
+"As you like," replied Sime quietly, and again quite master of
+himself. "Look out for snakes. I will carry the light and you can keep
+yours handy in case you may need it."
+
+Dr. Cairn drew himself up into the entrance. The passage was less than
+four feet high, and generations of sand-storms had polished its
+sloping granite floor so as to render it impossible to descend except
+by resting one's hands on the roof above and lowering one's self foot
+by foot.
+
+A passage of this description, descending at a sharp angle for over
+two hundred feet, is not particularly easy to negotiate, and progress
+was slow. Dr. Cairn at every five yards or so would stop, and, with
+the pocket-lamp which he carried, would examine the sandy floor and
+the crevices between the huge blocks composing the passage, in quest
+of those faint tracks which warn the traveller that a serpent has
+recently passed that way. Then, replacing his lamp, he would proceed.
+Sime followed in like manner, employing only one hand to support
+himself, and, with the other, constantly directing the ray of his
+pocket torch past his companion, and down into the blackness beneath.
+
+Out in the desert the atmosphere had been sufficiently hot, but now
+with every step it grew hotter and hotter. That indescribable smell,
+as of a decay begun in remote ages, that rises with the impalpable
+dust in these mysterious labyrinths of Ancient Egypt which never know
+the light of day, rose stiflingly; until, at some forty or fifty feet
+below the level of the sand outside, respiration became difficult, and
+the two paused, bathed in perspiration and gasping for air.
+
+"Another thirty or forty feet," panted Sime, "and we shall be in the
+level passage. There is a sort of low, artificial cavern there, you
+may remember, where, although we cannot stand upright, we can sit and
+rest for a few moments."
+
+Speech was exhausting, and no further words were exchanged until the
+bottom of the slope was reached, and the combined lights of the two
+pocket-lamps showed them that they had reached a tiny chamber
+irregularly hewn in the living rock. This also was less than four feet
+high, but its jagged floor being level, they were enabled to pause
+here for a while.
+
+"Do you notice something unfamiliar in the smell of the place?"
+
+Dr. Cairn was the speaker. Sime nodded, wiping the perspiration from
+his face the while.
+
+"It was bad enough when I came here before," he said hoarsely. "It is
+terrible work for a heavy man. But to-night it seems to be reeking. I
+have smelt nothing like it in my life."
+
+"Correct," replied Dr. Cairn grimly. "I trust that, once clear of this
+place, you will never smell it again."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"It is the _incense_," was the reply. "Come! The worst of our task is
+before us yet."
+
+The continuation of the passage now showed as an opening no more than
+fifteen to seventeen inches high. It was necessary, therefore, to lie
+prone upon the rubbish of the floor, and to proceed serpent fashion;
+one could not even employ one's knees, so low was the roof, but was
+compelled to progress by clutching at the irregularities in the wall,
+and by digging the elbows into the splintered stones one crawled upon!
+
+For three yards or so they proceeded thus. Then Dr. Cairn lay suddenly
+still.
+
+"What is it?" whispered Sime.
+
+A threat of panic was in his voice. He dared not conjecture what would
+happen if either should be overcome in that evil-smelling burrow, deep
+in the bowels of the ancient building. At that moment it seemed to
+him, absurdly enough, that the weight of the giant pile rested upon
+his back, was crushing him, pressing the life out from his body as he
+lay there prone, with his eyes fixed upon the rubber soles of Dr.
+Cairn's shoes, directly in front of him.
+
+But softly came a reply:
+
+"Do not speak again! Proceed as quietly as possible, and pray heaven
+we are not expected!"
+
+Sime understood. With a malignant enemy before them, this hole in the
+rock through which they crawled was a certain death-trap. He thought
+of the headless bats and of how he, in crawling out into the shaft
+ahead, must lay himself open to a similar fate!
+
+Dr. Cairn moved slowly onward. Despite their anxiety to avoid noise,
+neither he nor his companion could control their heavy breathing. Both
+were panting for air. The temperature was now deathly. A candle would
+scarcely have burnt in the vitiated air; and above that odour of
+ancient rottenness which all explorers of the monuments of Egypt know,
+rose that other indescribable odour which seemed to stifle one's very
+soul.
+
+Dr. Cairn stopped again.
+
+Sime knew, having performed this journey before, that his companion
+must have reached the end of the passage, that he must be lying
+peering out into the shaft, for which they were making. He
+extinguished his lamp.
+
+Again Dr. Cairn moved forward. Stretching out his hand, Sime found
+only emptiness. He wriggled forward, in turn, rapidly, all the time
+groping with his fingers. Then:
+
+"Take my hand," came a whisper. "Another two feet, and you can stand
+upright."
+
+He proceeded, grasped the hand which was extended to him in the
+impenetrable darkness, and panting, temporarily exhausted, rose
+upright beside Dr. Cairn, and stretched his cramped limbs.
+
+Side by side they stood, mantled about in such a darkness as cannot be
+described; in such a silence as dwellers in the busy world cannot
+conceive; in such an atmosphere of horror that only a man morally and
+physically brave could have retained his composure.
+
+Dr. Cairn bent to Sime's ear.
+
+"We _must_ have the light for the ascent," he whispered. "Have your
+pistol ready; I am about to press the button of the lamp."
+
+A shaft of white light shone suddenly up the rocky sides of the pit in
+which they stood, and lost itself in the gloom of the chamber above.
+
+"On to my shoulders," jerked Sime. "You are lighter than I. Then, as
+soon as you can reach, place your lamp on the floor above and mount up
+beside it. I will follow."
+
+Dr. Cairn, taking advantage of the rugged walls, and of the blocks of
+stone amid which they stood, mounted upon Sime's shoulders.
+
+"Could you carry your revolver in your teeth?" asked the latter. "I
+think you might hold it by the trigger-guard."
+
+"I proposed to do so," replied Dr. Cairn grimly. "Stand fast!"
+
+Gradually he rose upright upon the other's shoulders; then, placing
+his foot in a cranny of the rock, and with his left hand grasping a
+protruding fragment above, he mounted yet higher, all the time holding
+the lighted lamp in his right hand. Upward he extended his arms, and
+upward, until he could place the lamp upon the ledge above his head,
+where its white beam shone across the top of the shaft.
+
+"Mind it does not fall!" panted Sime, craning his head upward to watch
+these operations.
+
+Dr. Cairn, whose strength and agility were wonderful, twisted around
+sideways, and succeeded in placing his foot on a ledge of stone on the
+opposite side of the shaft. Resting his weight upon this, he extended
+his hand to the lip of the opening, and drew himself up to the top,
+where he crouched fully in the light of the lamp. Then, wedging his
+foot into a crevice a little below him, he reached out his hand to
+Sime. The latter, following much the same course as his companion,
+seized the extended hand, and soon found himself beside Dr. Cairn.
+
+Impetuously he snatched out his own lamp and shone its beams about the
+weird apartment in which they found themselves--the so-called King's
+Chamber of the pyramid. Right and left leapt the searching rays,
+touching the ends of the wooden beams, which, practically fossilised
+by long contact with the rock, still survive in that sepulchral place.
+Above and below and all around he directed the light--upon the litter
+covering the rock floor, upon the blocks of the higher walls, upon the
+frowning roof.
+
+They were alone in the King's Chamber!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+ANTHROPOMANCY
+
+
+"There is no one here!"
+
+Sime looked about the place excitedly.
+
+"Fortunately for us!" answered Dr. Cairn.
+
+He breathed rather heavily yet with his exertions, and, moreover, the
+air of the chamber was disgusting. But otherwise he was perfectly
+calm, although his face was pale and bathed in perspiration.
+
+"Make as little noise as possible."
+
+Sime, who, now that the place proved to be empty, began to cast off
+that dread which had possessed him in the passage-way, found something
+ominous in the words.
+
+Dr. Cairn, stepping carefully over the rubbish of the floor, advanced
+to the east corner of the chamber, waving his companion to follow.
+Side by side they stood there.
+
+"Do you notice that the abominable smell of the incense is more
+overpowering here than anywhere?"
+
+Sime nodded.
+
+"You are right. What does that mean?"
+
+Dr. Cairn directed the ray of light down behind a little mound of
+rubbish into a corner of the wall.
+
+"It means," he said, with a subdued expression of excitement, "that we
+have got to crawl in _there_!"
+
+Sime stifled an exclamation.
+
+One of the blocks of the bottom tier was missing, a fact which he had
+not detected before by reason of the presence of the mound of rubbish
+before the opening.
+
+"Silence again!" whispered Dr. Cairn.
+
+He lay down flat, and, without hesitation, crept into the gap. As his
+feet disappeared, Sime followed. Here it was possible to crawl upon
+hands and knees. The passage was formed of square stone blocks. It
+was but three yards or so in length; then it suddenly turned upward
+at a tremendous angle of about one in four. Square foot-holds were cut
+in the lower face. The smell of incense was almost unbearable.
+
+Dr. Cairn bent to Sime's ear.
+
+"Not a word, now," he said. "No light--pistol ready!"
+
+He began to mount. Sime, following, counted the steps. When they had
+mounted sixty he knew that they must have come close to the top of the
+original _mastabah_, and close to the first stage of the pyramid.
+Despite the shaft beneath, there was little danger of falling, for one
+could lean back against the wall while seeking for the foothold above.
+
+Dr. Cairn mounted very slowly, fearful of striking his head upon some
+obstacle. Then on the seventieth step, he found that he could thrust
+his foot forward and that no obstruction met his knee. They had
+reached a horizontal passage.
+
+Very softly he whispered back to Sime:
+
+"Take my hand. I have reached the top."
+
+They entered the passage. The heavy, sickly sweet odour almost
+overpowered them, but, grimly set upon their purpose, they, after one
+moment of hesitancy, crept on.
+
+A fitful light rose and fell ahead of them. It gleamed upon the polished
+walls of the corridor in which they now found themselves--that
+inexplicable light burning in a place which had known no light since the
+dim ages of the early Pharaohs!
+
+The events of that incredible night had afforded no such emotion as
+this. This was the crowning wonder, and, in its dreadful mystery, the
+crowning terror of Meydum.
+
+When first that lambent light played upon the walls of the passage
+both stopped, stricken motionless with fear and amazement. Sime, who
+would have been prepared to swear that the Meydum Pyramid contained no
+apartment other than the King's Chamber, now was past mere wonder,
+past conjecture. But he could still fear. Dr. Cairn, although he had
+anticipated this, temporarily also fell a victim to the supernatural
+character of the phenomenon.
+
+They advanced.
+
+They looked into a square chamber of about the same size as the King's
+Chamber. In fact, although they did not realise it until later, this
+second apartment, no doubt was situated directly above the first.
+
+The only light was that of a fire burning in a tripod, and by means of
+this illumination, which rose and fell in a strange manner, it was
+possible to perceive the details of the place. But, indeed, at the
+moment they were not concerned with these; they had eyes only for the
+black-robed figure beside the tripod.
+
+It was that of a man, who stood with his back towards them, and he
+chanted monotonously in a tongue unfamiliar to Sime. At certain points
+in his chant he would raise his arms in such a way that, clad in the
+black robe, he assumed the appearance of a gigantic bat. Each time
+that he acted thus the fire in the tripod, as if fanned into new life,
+would leap up, casting a hellish glare about the place. Then, as the
+chanter dropped his arms again, the flame would drop also.
+
+A cloud of reddish vapour floated low in the apartment. There were a
+number of curiously-shaped vessels upon the floor, and against the
+farther wall, only rendered visible when the flames leapt high, was
+some motionless white object, apparently hung from the roof.
+
+Dr. Cairn drew a hissing breath and grasped Sime's wrist.
+
+"We are too late!" he said strangely.
+
+He spoke at a moment when his companion, peering through the ruddy
+gloom of the place, had been endeavouring more clearly to perceive
+that ominous shape which hung, horrible, in the shadow. He spoke, too,
+at a moment when the man in the black robe, raised his arms--when, as
+if obedient to his will, the flames leapt up fitfully.
+
+Although Sime could not be sure of what he saw, the recollection came
+to him of words recently spoken by Dr. Cairn. He remembered the story
+of Julian the Apostate, Julian the Emperor--the Necromancer. He
+remembered what had been found in the Temple of the Moon after
+Julian's death. He remembered that Lady Lashmore--
+
+And thereupon he experienced such a nausea that but for the fact that
+Dr. Cairn gripped him he must have fallen.
+
+Tutored in a materialistic school, he could not even now admit that
+such monstrous things could be. With a necromantic operation taking
+place before his eyes; with the unholy perfume of the secret incense
+all but suffocating him; with the dreadful Oracle dully gleaming in
+the shadows of that temple of evil--his reason would not accept the
+evidences. Any man of the ancient world--of the middle ages--would
+have known that he looked upon a professed wizard, upon a magician,
+who, according to one of the most ancient formulae known to mankind,
+was seeking to question the dead respecting the living.
+
+But how many modern men are there capable of realising such a
+circumstance? How many who would accept the statement that such
+operations are still performed, not only in the East, but in Europe?
+How many who, witnessing this mass of Satan, would accept it for
+verity, would not deny the evidence of their very senses?
+
+He could not believe such an orgie of wickedness possible. A Pagan
+emperor might have been capable of these things, but to-day--wondrous
+is our faith in the virtue of "to-day!"
+
+"Am I mad?" he whispered hoarsely, "or--"
+
+A thinly-veiled shape seemed to float out from that still form in the
+shadows; it assumed definite outlines; it became a woman, beautiful
+with a beauty that could only be described as awful.
+
+She wore upon her brow the _uraeus_ of Ancient Egyptian royalty; her
+sole garment was a robe of finest gauze. Like a cloud, like a vision,
+she floated into the light cast by the tripod.
+
+A voice--a voice which seemed to come from a vast distance, from
+somewhere outside the mighty granite walls of that unholy
+place--spoke. The language was unknown to Sime, but the fierce
+hand-grip upon his wrist grew fiercer. That dead tongue, that language
+unspoken since the dawn of Christianity, was known to the man who had
+been the companion of Sir Michael Ferrara.
+
+In upon Sime swept a swift conviction--that one could not witness such
+a scene as this and live and move again amongst one's fellow-men! In a
+sort of frenzy, then, he wrenched himself free from the detaining
+hand, and launched a retort of modern science against the challenge of
+ancient sorcery.
+
+Raising his Browning pistol, he fired--shot after shot--at that
+bat-like shape which stood between himself and the tripod!
+
+A thousand frightful echoes filled the chamber with a demon mockery,
+boomed along those subterranean passages beneath, and bore the
+conflict of sound into the hidden places of the pyramid which had
+known not sound for untold generations.
+
+"My God--!"
+
+Vaguely he became aware that Dr. Cairn was seeking to drag him away.
+Through a cloud of smoke he saw the black-robed figure turn; dream
+fashion, he saw the pallid, glistening face of Antony Ferrara; the
+long, evil eyes, alight like the eyes of a serpent, were fixed upon
+him. He seemed to stand amid a chaos, in a mad world beyond the
+borders of reason, beyond the dominions of God. But to his stupefied
+mind one astounding fact found access.
+
+He had fired at least seven shots at the black-robed figure, and it
+was not humanly possible that all could have gone wide of their mark.
+
+Yet Antony Ferrara lived!
+
+Utter darkness blotted out the evil vision. Then there was a white
+light ahead; and feeling that he was struggling for sanity, Sime
+managed to realise that Dr. Cairn, retreating along the passage, was
+crying to him, in a voice rising almost to a shriek, to run--run for
+his life--for his salvation!
+
+"_You should not have fired_!" he seemed to hear.
+
+Unconscious of any contact with the stones--although afterwards he
+found his knees and shins to be bleeding--he was scrambling down that
+long, sloping shaft.
+
+He had a vague impression that Dr. Cairn, descending beneath him,
+sometimes grasped his ankles and placed his feet into the footholes. A
+continuous roaring sound filled his ears, as if a great ocean were
+casting its storm waves against the structure around him. The place
+seemed to rock.
+
+"Down flat!"
+
+Some sense of reality was returning to him. Now he perceived that Dr.
+Cairn was urging him to crawl back along the short passage by which
+they had entered from the King's Chamber.
+
+Heedless of hurt, he threw himself down and pressed on.
+
+A blank, like the sleep of exhaustion which follows delirium, came.
+Then Sime found himself standing in the King's Chamber, Dr. Cairn, who
+held an electric lamp in his hand, beside him, and half supporting
+him.
+
+The realities suddenly reasserting themselves,
+
+"I have dropped my pistol!" muttered Sime.
+
+He threw off the supporting arm, and turned to that corner behind the
+heap of _debris_ where was the opening through which they had entered
+the Satanic temple.
+
+No opening was visible!
+
+"He has closed it!" cried Dr. Cairn. "There are six stone doors
+between here and the place above! If he had succeeded in shutting
+_one_ of them before we--?"
+
+"My God!" whispered Sime. "Let us get out! I am nearly at the end of
+my tether!"
+
+Fear lends wings, and it was with something like the lightness of a
+bird that Sime descended the shaft. At the bottom--
+
+"On to my shoulders!" he cried, looking up.
+
+Dr. Cairn lowered himself to the foot of the shaft. "You go first," he
+said.
+
+He was gasping, as if nearly suffocated, but retained a wonderful
+self-control. Once over into the Borderland, and bravery assumes a new
+guise; the courage which can face physical danger undaunted, melts in
+the fires of the unknown.
+
+Sime, his breath whistling sibilantly between his clenched teeth,
+hauled himself through the low passage, with incredible speed. The two
+worked their way arduously, up the long slope. They saw the blue sky
+above them....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Something like a huge bat," said Robert Cairn, "crawled out upon the
+first stage. We both fired--"
+
+Dr. Cairn raised his hand. He lay exhausted at the foot of the mound.
+
+"He had lighted the incense," he replied, "and was reciting the secret
+ritual. I cannot explain. But your shots were wasted. We came too
+late--"
+
+"Lady Lashmore--"
+
+"Until the Pyramid of Meydum is pulled down, stone by stone, the world
+will never know her fate! Sime and I have looked in at the gate of
+hell! Only the hand of God plucked us back! Look!"
+
+He pointed to Sime. He lay, pallid, with closed eyes--and his hair was
+abundantly streaked with white!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE INCENSE
+
+
+To Robert Cairn it seemed that the boat-train would never reach
+Charing Cross. His restlessness was appalling. He perpetually glanced
+from his father, with whom he shared the compartment, to the flying
+landscape with its vistas of hop-poles; and Dr. Cairn, although he
+exhibited less anxiety, was, nevertheless, strung to highest tension.
+
+That dash from Cairo homeward had been something of a fevered dream to
+both men. To learn, whilst one is searching for a malign and
+implacable enemy in Egypt, that that enemy, having secretly returned
+to London, is weaving his evil spells around "some we loved, the
+loveliest and the best," is to know the meaning of ordeal.
+
+In pursuit of Antony Ferrara--the incarnation of an awful evil--Dr.
+Cairn had deserted his practice, had left England for Egypt. Now he
+was hurrying back again; for whilst he had sought in strange and dark
+places of that land of mystery for Antony Ferrara, the latter had been
+darkly active in London!
+
+Again and again Robert Cairn read the letter which, surely as a royal
+command, had recalled them. It was from Myra Duquesne. One line in it
+had fallen upon them like a bomb, had altered all their plans, had
+shattered the one fragment of peace remaining to them.
+
+In the eyes of Robert Cairn, the whole universe centred around Myra
+Duquesne; she was the one being in the world of whom he could not bear
+to think in conjunction with Antony Ferrara. Now he knew that Antony
+Ferrara was beside her, was, doubtless at this very moment, directing
+those Black Arts of which he was master, to the destruction of her
+mind and body--perhaps of her very soul.
+
+Again he drew the worn envelope from his pocket and read that ominous
+sentence, which, when his eyes had first fallen upon it, had blotted
+out the sunlight of Egypt.
+
+"... And you will be surprised to hear that Antony is back in London ...
+and is a frequent visitor here. It is quite like old times...."
+
+Raising his haggard eyes, Robert Cairn saw that his father was
+watching him.
+
+"Keep calm, my boy," urged the doctor; "it can profit us nothing, it
+can profit Myra nothing, for you to shatter your nerves at a time when
+real trials are before you. You are inviting another breakdown. Oh! I
+know it is hard; but for everybody's sake try to keep yourself in
+hand."
+
+"I am trying, sir," replied Robert hollowly.
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded, drumming his fingers upon his knee.
+
+"We must be diplomatic," he continued. "That James Saunderson proposed
+to return to London, I had no idea. I thought that Myra would be far
+outside the Black maelstroem in Scotland. Had I suspected that
+Saunderson would come to London, I should have made other
+arrangements."
+
+"Of course, sir, I know that. But even so we could never have foreseen
+this."
+
+Dr. Cairn shook his head.
+
+"To think that whilst we have been scouring Egypt from Port Said to
+Assouan--_he_ has been laughing at us in London!" he said. "Directly
+after the affair at Meydum he must have left the country--how, Heaven
+only knows. That letter is three weeks old, now?"
+
+Robert Cairn nodded. "What may have happened since--what may have
+happened!"
+
+"You take too gloomy a view. James Saunderson is a Roman guardian.
+Even Antony Ferrara could make little headway there."
+
+"But Myra says that--Ferrara is--a frequent visitor."
+
+"And Saunderson," replied Dr. Cairn with a grim smile, "is a
+Scotchman! Rely upon his diplomacy, Rob. Myra will be safe enough."
+
+"God grant that she is!"
+
+At that, silence fell between them, until punctually to time, the
+train slowed into Charing Cross. Inspired by a common anxiety, Dr.
+Cairn and his son were first among the passengers to pass the barrier.
+The car was waiting for them; and within five minutes of the arrival
+of the train they were whirling through London's traffic to the house
+of James Saunderson.
+
+It lay in that quaint backwater, remote from motor-bus
+high-ways--Dulwich Common, and was a rambling red-tiled building which
+at some time had been a farmhouse. As the big car pulled up at the
+gate, Saunderson, a large-boned Scotchman, tawny-eyed, and with his
+grey hair worn long and untidily, came out to meet them. Myra Duquesne
+stood beside him. A quick blush coloured her face momentarily; then
+left it pale again.
+
+Indeed, her pallor was alarming. As Robert Cairn, leaping from the
+car, seized both her hands and looked into her eyes, it seemed to him
+that the girl had almost an ethereal appearance. Something clutched at
+his heart, iced his blood; for Myra Duquesne seemed a creature
+scarcely belonging to the world of humanity--seemed already half a
+spirit. The light in her sweet eyes was good to see; but her
+fragility, and a certain transparency of complexion, horrified him.
+
+Yet, he knew that he must hide these fears from her; and turning to
+Mr. Saunderson, he shook him warmly by the hand, and the party of four
+passed by the low porch into the house.
+
+In the hall-way Miss Saunderson, a typical Scottish housekeeper, stood
+beaming welcome; but in the very instant of greeting her, Robert Cairn
+stopped suddenly as if transfixed.
+
+Dr. Cairn also pulled up just within the door, his nostrils quivering
+and his clear grey eyes turning right and left--searching the shadows.
+
+Miss Saunderson detected this sudden restraint.
+
+"Is anything the matter?" she asked anxiously.
+
+Myra, standing beside Mr. Saunderson, began to look frightened. But
+Dr. Cairn, shaking off the incubus which had descended upon him,
+forced a laugh, and clapping his hand upon Robert's shoulder cried:
+
+"Wake up, my boy! I know it is good to be back in England again, but
+keep your day-dreaming for after lunch!"
+
+Robert Cairn forced a ghostly smile in return, and the odd incident
+promised soon to be forgotten.
+
+"How good of you," said Myra as the party entered the dining-room, "to
+come right from the station to see us. And you must be expected in
+Half-Moon Street, Dr. Cairn?"
+
+"Of course we came to see _you_ first," replied Robert Cairn
+significantly.
+
+Myra lowered her face and pursued that subject no further.
+
+No mention was made of Antony Ferrara, and neither Dr. Cairn nor his
+son cared to broach the subject. The lunch passed off, then, without
+any reference to the very matter which had brought them there that
+day.
+
+It was not until nearly an hour later that Dr. Cairn and his son found
+themselves alone for a moment. Then, with a furtive glance about him,
+the doctor spoke of that which had occupied his mind, to the exclusion
+of all else, since first they had entered the house of James
+Saunderson.
+
+"You noticed it, Rob?" he whispered.
+
+"My God! it nearly choked me!"
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded grimly.
+
+"It is all over the house," he continued, "in every room that I have
+entered. They are used to it, and evidently do not notice it, but
+coming in from the clean air, it is--"
+
+"Abominable, unclean--unholy!"
+
+"We know it," continued Dr. Cairn softly--"that smell of unholiness;
+we have good reason to know it. It heralded the death of Sir Michael
+Ferrara. It heralded the death of--another."
+
+"With a just God in heaven, can such things be?"
+
+"It is the secret incense of Ancient Egypt," whispered Dr. Cairn,
+glancing towards the open door; "it is the odour of that Black Magic
+which, by all natural law, should be buried and lost for ever in the
+tombs of the ancient wizards. Only two living men within my knowledge
+know the use and the hidden meaning of that perfume; only one living
+man has ever dared to make it--to use it...."
+
+"Antony Ferrara--"
+
+"We knew he was here, boy; now we know that he is using his powers
+here. Something tells me that we come to the end of the fight. May
+victory be with the just."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE MAGICIAN
+
+
+Half-Moon Street was bathed in tropical sunlight. Dr. Cairn, with his
+hands behind him, stood looking out of the window. He turned to his
+son, who leant against a corner of the bookcase in the shadows of the
+big room.
+
+"Hot enough for Egypt, Rob," he said.
+
+Robert Cairn nodded.
+
+"Antony Ferrara," he replied, "seemingly travels his own atmosphere
+with him. I first became acquainted with his hellish activities during
+a phenomenal thunderstorm. In Egypt his movements apparently
+corresponded with those of the _Khamsin_. Now,"--he waved his hand
+vaguely towards the window--"this is Egypt in London."
+
+"Egypt is in London, indeed," muttered Dr. Cairn. "Jermyn has decided
+that our fears are well-founded."
+
+"You mean, sir, that the will--?"
+
+"Antony Ferrara would have an almost unassailable case in the event
+of--of Myra--"
+
+"You mean that her share of the legacy would fall to that fiend, if
+she--"
+
+"If she died? Exactly."
+
+Robert Cairn began to stride up and down the room, clenching and
+unclenching his fists. He was a shadow of his former self, but now his
+cheeks were flushed and his eyes feverishly bright.
+
+"Before Heaven!" he cried suddenly, "the situation is becoming
+unbearable. A thing more deadly than the Plague is abroad here in
+London. Apart from the personal aspect of the matter--of which I dare
+not think!--what do we know of Ferrara's activities? His record is
+damnable. To our certain knowledge his victims are many. If the murder
+of his adoptive father, Sir Michael, was actually the first of his
+crimes, we know of three other poor souls who beyond any shadow of
+doubt were launched into eternity by the Black Arts of this ghastly
+villain--"
+
+"We do, Rob," replied Dr. Cairn sternly.
+
+"He has made attempts upon you; he has made attempts upon me. We owe
+our survival"--he pointed to a row of books upon a corner shelf--"to
+the knowledge which you have accumulated in half a life-time of
+research. In the face of science, in the face of modern scepticism, in
+the face of our belief in a benign God, this creature, Antony Ferrara,
+has proved himself conclusively to be--"
+
+"He is what the benighted ancients called a magician," interrupted Dr.
+Cairn quietly. "He is what was known in the Middle Ages as a wizard.
+What that means, exactly, few modern thinkers know; but I know, and
+one day others will know. Meanwhile his shadow lies upon a certain
+house."
+
+Robert Cairn shook his clenched fists in the air. In some men the
+gesture had seemed melodramatic; in him it was the expression of a
+soul's agony.
+
+"But, sir!" he cried--"are we to wait, inert, helpless? Whatever he
+is, he has a human body and there are bullets, there are knives, there
+are a hundred drugs in the British Pharmacopoeia!"
+
+"Quite so," answered Dr. Cairn, watching his son closely, and, by his
+own collected manner, endeavouring to check the other's growing
+excitement. "I am prepared at any personal risk to crush Antony
+Ferrara as I would crush a scorpion; but where is he?"
+
+Robert Cairn groaned, dropping into the big red-leathern armchair, and
+burying his face in his hands.
+
+"Our position is maddening," continued the elder man. "We know that
+Antony Ferrara visits Mr. Saunderson's house; we know that he is
+laughing at our vain attempts to trap him. Crowning comedy of all,
+Saunderson does not know the truth; he is not the type of man who
+could ever understand; in fact we dare not tell him--and we dare not
+tell Myra. The result is that those whom we would protect, unwittingly
+are working against us, and against themselves."
+
+"That perfume!" burst out Robert Cairn; "that hell's incense which
+loads the atmosphere of Saunderson's house! To think that we know what
+it means--that we know what it means!"
+
+"Perhaps _I_ know even better than you do, Rob. The occult uses of
+perfume are not understood nowadays; but you, from experience, know
+that certain perfumes have occult uses. At the Pyramid of Meydum in
+Egypt, Antony Ferrara dared--and the just God did not strike him
+dead--to make a certain incense. It was often made in the remote past,
+and a portion of it, probably in a jar hermetically sealed, had come
+into his possession. I once detected its dreadful odour in his rooms
+in London. Had you asked me prior to that occasion if any of the
+hellish stuff had survived to the present day, I should most
+emphatically have said _no_; I should have been wrong. Ferrara had
+some. He used it all--and went to the Meydum pyramid to renew his
+stock."
+
+Robert Cairn was listening intently.
+
+"All this brings me back to a point which I have touched upon before,
+sir," he said: "To my certain knowledge, the late Sir Michael and
+yourself have delved into the black mysteries of Egypt more deeply
+than any men of the present century. Yet Antony Ferrara, little more
+than a boy, has mastered secrets which you, after years of research,
+have failed to grasp. What does this mean, sir?"
+
+Dr. Cairn, again locking his hands behind him, stared out of the
+window.
+
+"He is not an ordinary mortal," continued his son. "He is
+supernormal--and supernaturally wicked. You have admitted--indeed it
+was evident--that he is merely the adopted son of the late Sir
+Michael. Now that we have entered upon the final struggle--for I feel
+that this is so--I will ask you again: _Who is Antony Ferrara_?"
+
+Dr. Cairn spun around upon the speaker; his grey eyes were very
+bright.
+
+"There is one little obstacle," he answered, "which has deterred me
+from telling you what you have asked so often. Although--and you have
+had dreadful opportunities to peer behind the veil--you will find it
+hard to believe, I hope very shortly to be able to answer that
+question, and to tell you who Antony Ferrara really is."
+
+Robert Cairn beat his fist upon the arm of the chair.
+
+"I sometimes wonder," he said, "that either of us has remained sane.
+Oh! what does it mean? What can we do? What can we do?"
+
+"We must watch, Rob. To enlist the services of Saunderson, would be
+almost impossible; he lives in his orchid houses; they are his world.
+In matters of ordinary life I can trust him above most men, but in
+this--"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Could we suggest to him a reason--any reason but the real one--why he
+should refuse to receive Ferrara?"
+
+"It might destroy our last chance."
+
+"But sir," cried Robert wildly, "it amounts to this: we are using Myra
+as a lure!"
+
+"In order to save her, Rob--simply in order to save her," retorted Dr.
+Cairn sternly.
+
+"How ill she looks," groaned the other; "how pale and worn. There are
+great shadows under her eyes--oh! I cannot bear to think about her!"
+
+"When was _he_ last there?"
+
+"Apparently some ten days ago. You may depend upon him to be aware of
+our return! He will not come there again, sir. But there are other
+ways in which he might reach her--does he not command a whole shadow
+army! And Mr. Saunderson is entirely unsuspicious--and Myra thinks of
+the fiend as a brother! Yet--she has never once spoken of him. I
+wonder...."
+
+Dr. Cairn sat deep in reflection. Suddenly he took out his watch.
+
+"Go around now," he said--"you will be in time for lunch--and remain
+there until I come. From to-day onward, although actually your health
+does not permit of the strain, we must watch, watch night and day."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+MYRA
+
+
+Myra Duquesne came under an arch of roses to the wooden seat where
+Robert Cairn awaited her. In her plain white linen frock, with the sun
+in her hair and her eyes looking unnaturally large, owing to the
+pallor of her beautiful face, she seemed to the man who rose to greet
+her an ethereal creature, but lightly linked to the flesh and blood
+world.
+
+An impulse, which had possessed him often enough before, but which
+hitherto he had suppressed, suddenly possessed him anew, set his heart
+beating, and filled his veins with fire. As a soft blush spread over
+the girl's pale cheeks, and, with a sort of timidity, she held out her
+hand, he leapt to his feet, threw his arms around her, and kissed her;
+kissed her eyes, her hair, her lips!
+
+There was a moment of frightened hesitancy ... and then she had
+resigned herself to this sort of savage tenderness which was better in
+its very brutality than any caress she had ever known, which thrilled
+her with a glorious joy such as, she realised now, she had dreamt of
+and lacked, and wanted; which was a harbourage to which she came,
+blushing, confused--but glad, conquered, and happy in the thrall of
+that exquisite slavery.
+
+"Myra," he whispered, "Myra! have I frightened you? Will you forgive
+me?--"
+
+She nodded her head quickly and nestled upon his shoulder.
+
+"I could wait no longer," he murmured in her ear. "Words seemed
+unnecessary; I just wanted you; you are everything in the world;
+and,"--he concluded simply--"I took you."
+
+She whispered his name, very softly. What a serenity there is in such
+a moment, what a glow of secure happiness, of immunity from the pains
+and sorrows of the world!
+
+Robert Cairn, his arms about this girl, who, from his early boyhood,
+had been his ideal of womanhood, of love, and of all that love meant,
+forgot those things which had shaken his life and brought him to the
+threshold of death, forgot those evidences of illness which marred the
+once glorious beauty of the girl, forgot the black menace of the
+future, forgot the wizard enemy whose hand was stretched over that
+house and that garden--and was merely happy.
+
+But this paroxysm of gladness--which Eliphas Levi, last of the Adepts,
+has so marvellously analysed in one of his works--is of short
+duration, as are all joys. It is needless to recount, here, the broken
+sentences (punctuated with those first kisses which sweeten the memory
+of old age) that now passed for conversation, and which lovers have
+believed to be conversation since the world began. As dusk creeps over
+a glorious landscape, so the shadow of Antony Ferrara crept over the
+happiness of these two.
+
+Gradually that shadow fell between them and the sun; the grim thing
+which loomed big in the lives of them both, refused any longer to be
+ignored. Robert Cairn, his arm about the girl's waist, broached the
+hated subject.
+
+"When did you last see--Ferrara?"
+
+Myra looked up suddenly.
+
+"Over a week--nearly a fortnight, ago--"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+Cairn noted that the girl spoke of Ferrara with an odd sort of
+restraint for which he was at a loss to account. Myra had always
+regarded her guardian's adopted son in the light of a brother;
+therefore her present attitude was all the more singular.
+
+"You did not expect him to return to England so soon?" he asked.
+
+"I had no idea that he was in England," said Myra, "until he walked
+in here one day. I was glad to see him--then."
+
+"And should you not be glad to see him now?" inquired Cairn eagerly.
+
+Myra, her head lowered, deliberately pressed out a crease in her white
+skirt.
+
+"One day, last week," she replied slowly, "he--came here, and--acted
+strangely--"
+
+"In what way?" jerked Cairn.
+
+"He pointed out to me that actually we--he and I--were in no way
+related."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You know how I have always liked Antony? I have always thought of him
+as my brother."
+
+Again she hesitated, and a troubled expression crept over her pale
+face. Cairn raised his arm and clasped it about her shoulders.
+
+"Tell me all about it," he whispered reassuringly.
+
+"Well," continued Myra in evident confusion, "his behaviour
+became--embarrassing; and suddenly--he asked me if I could ever love
+him, not as a brother, but--"
+
+"I understand!" said Cairn grimly. "And you replied?"
+
+"For some time I could not reply at all: I was so surprised, and
+so--horrified. I cannot explain how I felt about it, but it seemed
+horrible--it seemed horrible!--"
+
+"But of course, you told him?"
+
+"I told him that I could never be fond of him in any different
+way--that I could never _think_ of it. And although I endeavoured to
+avoid hurting his feelings, he--took it very badly. He said, in such a
+queer, choking voice, that he was going away--"
+
+"Away!--from England?"
+
+"Yes; and--he made a strange request."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"In the circumstances--you see--I felt sorry for him--I did not like
+to refuse him; it was only a trifling thing. He asked for a lock of my
+hair!"
+
+"A lock of your hair! And you--"
+
+"I told you that I did not like to refuse--and I let him snip off a
+tiny piece, with a pair of pocket scissors which he had. Are you
+angry?"
+
+"Of course not! You--were almost brought up together. You--?"
+
+"Then--" she paused--"he seemed to change. Suddenly, I found myself
+afraid--dreadfully afraid--"
+
+"Of Ferrara?"
+
+"Not of Antony, exactly. But what is the good of my trying to explain!
+A most awful dread seized me. His face was no longer the face that I
+have always known; something--"
+
+Her voice trembled, and she seemed disposed to leave the sentence
+unfinished; then:
+
+"Something evil--sinister, had come into it."
+
+"And since then," said Cairn, "you have not seen him?"
+
+"He has not been here since then--no."
+
+Cairn, his hands resting upon the girl's shoulders, leant back in the
+seat, and looked into her troubled eyes with a kind of sad scrutiny.
+
+"You have not been fretting about him?"
+
+Myra shook her head.
+
+"Yet you look as though something were troubling you. This house"--he
+indicated the low-lying garden with a certain irritation--"is not
+healthily situated. This place lies in a valley; look at the rank
+grass--and there are mosquitoes everywhere. You do not look well,
+Myra."
+
+The girl smiled--a little wistful smile.
+
+"But I was so tired of Scotland," she said. "You do not know how I
+looked forward to London again. I must admit, though, that I was in
+better health there; I was quite ashamed of my dairy-maid appearance."
+
+"You have nothing to amuse you here," said Cairn tenderly; "no
+company, for Mr. Saunderson only lives for his orchids."
+
+"They are very fascinating," said Myra dreamily, "I, too, have felt
+their glamour. I am the only member of the household whom he allows
+amongst his orchids--"
+
+"Perhaps you spend too much time there," interrupted Cairn; "that
+superheated, artificial atmosphere--"
+
+Myra shook her head playfully, patting his arm.
+
+"There is nothing in the world the matter with me," she said, almost
+in her old bright manner--"now that you are back--"
+
+"I do not approve of orchids," jerked Cairn doggedly. "They are
+parodies of what a flower should be. Place an Odontoglossum beside a
+rose, and what a distorted unholy thing it looks!"
+
+"Unholy?" laughed Myra.
+
+"Unholy,--yes!--they are products of feverish swamps and deathly
+jungles. I hate orchids. The atmosphere of an orchid-house cannot
+possibly be clean and healthy. One might as well spend one's time in a
+bacteriological laboratory!"
+
+Myra shook her head with affected seriousness.
+
+"You must not let Mr. Saunderson hear you," she said. "His orchids are
+his children. Their very mystery enthrals him--and really it is most
+fascinating. To look at one of those shapeless bulbs, and to speculate
+upon what kind of bloom it will produce, is almost as thrilling as
+reading a sensational novel! He has one growing now--it will bloom
+some time this week--about which he is frantically excited."
+
+"Where did he get it?" asked Cairn without interest.
+
+"He bought it from a man who had almost certainly stolen it! There
+were six bulbs in the parcel; only two have lived and one of these is
+much more advanced than the other; it is _so_ high--"
+
+She held out her hand, indicating a height of some three feet from the
+ground.
+
+"It has not flowered yet?"
+
+"No. But the buds--huge, smooth, egg-shaped things--seem on the point
+of bursting at any moment. We call it the 'Mystery,' and it is my
+special care. Mr. Saunderson has shown me how to attend to its simple
+needs, and if it proves to be a new species--which is almost
+certain--he is going to exhibit it, and name it after me! Shall you
+be proud of having an orchid named after--"
+
+"After my wife?" Cairn concluded, seizing her hands. "I could never be
+more proud of you than I am already...."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE FACE IN THE ORCHID-HOUSE
+
+
+Dr. Cairn walked to the window, with its old-fashioned leaded panes. A
+lamp stood by the bedside, and he had tilted the shade so that it
+shone upon the pale face of the patient--Myra Duquesne.
+
+Two days had wrought a dreadful change in her. She lay with closed
+eyes, and sunken face upon which ominous shadows played. Her
+respiration was imperceptible. The reputation of Dr. Bruce Cairn was a
+well deserved one, but this case puzzled him. He knew that Myra
+Duquesne was dying before his eyes; he could still see the agonised
+face of his son, Robert, who at that moment was waiting, filled with
+intolerable suspense, downstairs in Mr. Saunderson's study; but,
+withal, he was helpless. He looked out from the rose-entwined casement
+across the shrubbery, to where the moonlight glittered among the
+trees.
+
+Those were the orchid-houses; and with his back to the bed, Dr. Cairn
+stood for long, thoughtfully watching the distant gleams of reflected
+light. Craig Fenton and Sir Elwin Groves, with whom he had been
+consulting, were but just gone. The nature of Myra Duquesne's illness
+had utterly puzzled them, and they had left, mystified.
+
+Downstairs, Robert Cairn was pacing the study, wondering if his reason
+would survive this final blow which threatened. He knew, and his
+father knew, that a sinister something underlay this strange
+illness--an illness which had commenced on the day that Antony Ferrara
+had last visited the house.
+
+The evening was insufferably hot; not a breeze stirred in the leaves;
+and despite open windows, the air of the room was heavy and lifeless.
+A faint perfume, having a sort of sweetness, but which yet was
+unutterably revolting, made itself perceptible to the nostrils.
+Apparently it had pervaded the house by slow degrees. The occupants
+were so used to it that they did not notice it at all.
+
+Dr. Cairn had busied himself that evening in the sick-room, burning
+some pungent preparation, to the amazement of the nurse and of the
+consultants. Now the biting fumes of his pastilles had all been wafted
+out of the window and the faint sweet smell was as noticeable as ever.
+
+Not a sound broke the silence of the house; and when the nurse quietly
+opened the door and entered, Dr. Cairn was still standing staring
+thoughtfully out of the window in the direction of the orchid-houses.
+He turned, and walking back to the bedside, bent over the patient.
+
+Her face was like a white mask; she was quite unconscious; and so far
+as he could see showed no change either for better or worse. But her
+pulse was slightly more feeble and the doctor suppressed a groan of
+despair; for this mysterious progressive weakness could only have one
+end. All his experience told him that unless something could be
+done--and every expedient thus far attempted had proved futile--Myra
+Duquesne would die about dawn.
+
+He turned on his heel, and strode from the room, whispering a few
+words of instruction to the nurse. Descending the stairs, he passed
+the closed study door, not daring to think of his son who waited
+within, and entered the dining-room. A single lamp burnt there, and
+the gaunt figure of Mr. Saunderson was outlined dimly where he sat in
+the window seat. Crombie, the gardener, stood by the table.
+
+"Now, Crombie," said Dr. Cairn, quietly, closing the door behind him,
+"what is this story about the orchid-houses, and why did you not
+mention it before?"
+
+The man stared persistently into the shadows of the room, avoiding Dr.
+Cairn's glance.
+
+"Since he has had the courage to own up," interrupted Mr. Saunderson,
+"I have overlooked the matter: but he was afraid to speak before,
+because he had no business to be in the orchid-houses." His voice
+grew suddenly fierce--"He knows it well enough!"
+
+"I know, sir, that you don't want me to interfere with the orchids,"
+replied the man, "but I only ventured in because I thought I saw a
+light moving there--"
+
+"Rubbish!" snapped Mr. Saunderson.
+
+"Pardon me, Saunderson," said Dr. Cairn, "but a matter of more
+importance than the welfare of all the orchids in the world is under
+consideration now."
+
+Saunderson coughed dryly.
+
+"You are right, Cairn," he said. "I shouldn't have lost my temper for
+such a trifle, at a time like this. Tell your own tale, Crombie; I
+won't interrupt."
+
+"It was last night then," continued the man. "I was standing at the
+door of my cottage smoking a pipe before turning in, when I saw a
+faint light moving over by the orchid-houses--"
+
+"Reflection of the moon," muttered Saunderson. "I am sorry. Go on,
+Crombie!"
+
+"I knew that some of the orchids were very valuable, and I thought
+there would not be time to call you; also I did not want to worry you,
+knowing you had worry enough already. So I knocked out my pipe and put
+it in my pocket, and went through the shrubbery. I saw the light
+again--it seemed to be moving from the first house into the second. I
+couldn't see what it was."
+
+"Was it like a candle, or a pocket-lamp?" jerked Dr. Cairn.
+
+"Nothing like that, sir; a softer light, more like a glow-worm; but
+much brighter. I went around and tried the door, and it was locked.
+Then I remembered the door at the other end, and I cut round by the
+path between the houses and the wall, so that I had no chance to see
+the light again, until I got to the other door. I found this unlocked.
+There was a close kind of smell in there, sir, and the air was very
+hot--"
+
+"Naturally, it was hot," interrupted Saunderson.
+
+"I mean much hotter than it should have been. It was like an oven, and
+the smell was stifling--"
+
+"What smell?" asked Dr. Cairn. "Can you describe it?"
+
+"Excuse me, sir, but I seem to notice it here in this room to-night,
+and I think I noticed it about the place before--never so strong as in
+the orchid-houses."
+
+"Go on!" said Dr. Cairn.
+
+"I went through the first house, and saw nothing. The shadow of the
+wall prevented the moonlight from shining in there. But just as I was
+about to enter the middle house, I thought I saw--a face."
+
+"What do you mean you _thought_ you saw?" snapped Mr. Saunderson.
+
+"I mean, sir, that it was so horrible and so strange that I could not
+believe it was real--which is one of the reasons why I did not speak
+before. It reminded me of the face of a gentleman I have seen
+here--Mr. Ferrara--"
+
+Dr. Cairn stifled an exclamation.
+
+"But in other ways it was quite unlike the gentleman. In some ways it
+was more like the face of a woman--a very bad woman. It had a sort of
+bluish light on it, but where it could have come from, I don't know.
+It seemed to be smiling, and two bright eyes looked straight out at
+me."
+
+Crombie stopped, raising his hand to his head confusedly.
+
+"I could see nothing but just this face--low down as if the person it
+belonged to was crouching on the floor; and there was a tall plant of
+some kind just beside it--"
+
+"Well," said Dr. Cairn, "go on! What did you do?"
+
+"I turned to run!" confessed the man. "If you had seen that horrible
+face, you would understand how frightened I was. Then when I got to
+the door, I looked back."
+
+"I hope you had closed the door behind you," snapped Saunderson.
+
+"Never mind that, never mind that!" interrupted Dr. Cairn.
+
+"I had closed the door behind me--yes, sir--but just as I was going to
+open it again, I took a quick glance back, and the face had gone! I
+came out, and I was walking over the lawn, wondering whether I should
+tell you, when it occurred to me that I hadn't noticed whether the
+key had been left in or not."
+
+"Did you go back to see?" asked Dr. Cairn.
+
+"I didn't want to," admitted Crombie, "but I did--and--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The door was locked, sir!"
+
+"So you concluded that your imagination had been playing you tricks,"
+said Saunderson grimly. "In my opinion you were right."
+
+Dr. Cairn dropped into an armchair.
+
+"All right, Crombie; that will do."
+
+Crombie, with a mumbled "Good-night, gentlemen," turned and left the
+room.
+
+"Why are you worrying about this matter," inquired Saunderson, when
+the door had closed, "at a time like the present?"
+
+"Never mind," replied Dr. Cairn wearily. "I must return to Half-Moon
+Street, now, but I shall be back within an hour."
+
+With no other word to Saunderson, he stood up and walked out to the
+hall. He rapped at the study door, and it was instantly opened by
+Robert Cairn. No spoken word was necessary; the burning question could
+be read in his too-bright eyes. Dr. Cairn laid his hand upon his son's
+shoulder.
+
+"I won't excite false hopes, Rob," he said huskily. "I am going back
+to the house, and I want you to come with me."
+
+Robert Cairn turned his head aside, groaning aloud, but his father
+grasped him by the arm, and together they left that house of shadows,
+entered the car which waited at the gate, and without exchanging a
+word _en route_, came to Half-Moon Street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+FLOWERING OF THE LOTUS
+
+
+Dr. Cairn led the way into the library, switching on the reading-lamp
+upon the large table. His son stood just within the doorway, his arms
+folded and his chin upon his breast.
+
+The doctor sat down at the table, watching the other.
+
+Suddenly Robert spoke:
+
+"Is it possible, sir, is it possible--" his voice was barely
+audible--"that her illness can in any way be due to the orchids?"
+
+Dr. Cairn frowned thoughtfully.
+
+"What do you mean, exactly?" he asked.
+
+"Orchids are mysterious things. They come from places where there are
+strange and dreadful diseases. Is it not possible that they may
+convey--"
+
+"Some sort of contagion?" concluded Dr. Cairn. "It is a point that I
+have seen raised, certainly. But nothing of the sort has ever been
+established. I have heard something, to-night, though, which--"
+
+"What have you heard, sir?" asked his son eagerly, stepping forward to
+the table.
+
+"Never mind at the moment, Rob; let me think."
+
+He rested his elbow upon the table, and his chin in his hand. His
+professional instincts had told him that unless something could be
+done--something which the highest medical skill in London had thus far
+been unable to devise--Myra Duquesne had but four hours to live.
+Somewhere in his mind a memory lurked, evasive, taunting him. This
+wild suggestion of his son's, that the girl's illness might be due in
+some way to her contact with the orchids, was in part responsible for
+this confused memory, but it seemed to be associated, too, with the
+story of Crombie the gardener--and with Antony Ferrara. He felt that
+somewhere in the darkness surrounding him there was a speck of light,
+if he could but turn in the right direction to see it. So, whilst
+Robert Cairn walked restlessly about the big room, the doctor sat with
+his chin resting in the palm of his hand, seeking to concentrate his
+mind upon that vague memory, which defied him, whilst the hand of the
+library clock crept from twelve towards one; whilst he knew that the
+faint life in Myra Duquesne was slowly ebbing away in response to some
+mysterious condition, utterly outside his experience.
+
+Distant clocks chimed _One_! Three hours only!
+
+Robert Cairn began to beat his fist into the palm of his left hand
+convulsively. Yet his father did not stir, but sat there, a
+black-shadowed wrinkle between his brows....
+
+"By God!"
+
+The doctor sprang to his feet, and with feverish haste began to fumble
+amongst a bunch of keys.
+
+"What is it, sir! What is it?"
+
+The doctor unlocked the drawer of the big table, and drew out a thick
+manuscript written in small and exquisitely neat characters. He placed
+it under the lamp, and rapidly began to turn the pages.
+
+"It is hope, Rob!" he said with quiet self-possession.
+
+Robert Cairn came round the table, and leant over his father's
+shoulder.
+
+"Sir Michael Ferrara's writing!"
+
+"His unpublished book, Rob. We were to have completed it, together,
+but death claimed him, and in view of the contents, I--perhaps
+superstitiously--decided to suppress it.... Ah!"
+
+He placed the point of his finger upon a carefully drawn sketch,
+designed to illustrate the text. It was evidently a careful copy from
+the Ancient Egyptian. It represented a row of priestesses, each having
+her hair plaited in a thick queue, standing before a priest armed with
+a pair of scissors. In the centre of the drawing was an altar, upon
+which stood vases of flowers; and upon the right ranked a row of
+mummies, corresponding in number with the priestesses upon the left.
+
+"By God!" repeated Dr. Cairn, "we were both wrong, we were both
+wrong!"
+
+"What do you mean, sir? for Heaven's sake, what do you mean?"
+
+"This drawing," replied Dr. Cairn, "was copied from the wall of a
+certain tomb--now reclosed. Since we knew that the tomb was that of
+one of the greatest wizards who ever lived in Egypt, we knew also that
+the inscription had some magical significance. We knew that the
+flowers represented here, were a species of the extinct sacred Lotus.
+All our researches did not avail us to discover for what purpose or by
+what means these flowers were cultivated. Nor could we determine the
+meaning of the cutting off,"--he ran his fingers over the sketch--"of
+the priestesses' hair by the high priest of the goddess--"
+
+"What goddess, sir?"
+
+"A goddess, Rob, of which Egyptology knows nothing!--a mystical
+religion the existence of which has been vaguely suspected by a living
+French _savant_ ... but this is no time--"
+
+Dr. Cairn closed the manuscript, replaced it and relocked the drawer.
+He glanced at the clock.
+
+"A quarter past one," he said. "Come, Rob!"
+
+Without hesitation, his son followed him from the house. The car was
+waiting, and shortly they were speeding through the deserted streets,
+back to the house where death in a strange guise was beckoning to Myra
+Duquesne. As the car started--
+
+"Do you know," asked Dr. Cairn, "if Saunderson has bought any
+orchids--_quite_ recently, I mean?"
+
+"Yes," replied his son dully; "he bought a small parcel only a
+fortnight ago."
+
+"A fortnight!" cried Dr. Cairn excitedly--"you are sure of that? You
+mean that the purchase was made since Ferrara--"
+
+"Ceased to visit the house? Yes. Why!--it must have been the very day
+after!"
+
+Dr. Cairn clearly was labouring under tremendous excitement.
+
+"Where did he buy these orchids?" he asked, evenly.
+
+"From someone who came to the house--someone he had never dealt with
+before."
+
+The doctor, his hands resting upon his knees, was rapidly drumming
+with his fingers.
+
+"And--did he cultivate them?"
+
+"Two only proved successful. One is on the point of blooming--if it is
+not blooming already. He calls it the 'Mystery.'"
+
+At that, the doctor's excitement overcame him. Suddenly leaning out of
+the window, he shouted to the chauffeur:
+
+"Quicker! Quicker! Never mind risks. Keep on top speed!"
+
+"What is it, sir?" cried his son. "Heavens! what is it?"
+
+"Did you say that it might have bloomed, Rob?"
+
+"Myra"--Robert Cairn swallowed noisily--"told me three days ago that
+it was expected to bloom before the end of the week."
+
+"What is it like?"
+
+"A thing four feet high, with huge egg-shaped buds."
+
+"Merciful God grant that we are in time," whispered Dr. Cairn. "I
+could believe once more in the justice of Heaven, if the great
+knowledge of Sir Michael Ferrara should prove to be the weapon to
+destroy the fiend whom we raised!--he and I--may we be forgiven!"'
+
+Robert Cairn's excitement was dreadful.
+
+"Can you tell me nothing?" he cried. "What do you hope? What do you
+fear?"
+
+"Don't ask me, Rob," replied his father; "you will know within five
+minutes."
+
+The car indeed was leaping along the dark suburban roads at a speed
+little below that of an express train. Corners the chauffeur
+negotiated in racing fashion, so that at times two wheels thrashed the
+empty air; and once or twice the big car swung round as upon a pivot
+only to recover again in response to the skilled tactics of the
+driver.
+
+They roared down the sloping narrow lane to the gate of Mr.
+Saunderson's house with a noise like the coming of a great storm, and
+were nearly hurled from their seats when the brakes were applied, and
+the car brought to a standstill.
+
+Dr. Cairn leapt out, pushed open the gate and ran up to the house, his
+son closely following. There was a light in the hall and Miss
+Saunderson who had expected them, and had heard their stormy approach,
+already held the door open. In the hall--
+
+"Wait here one moment," said Dr. Cairn.
+
+Ignoring Saunderson, who had come out from the library, he ran
+upstairs. A minute later, his face very pale, he came running down
+again.
+
+"She is worse?" began Saunderson, "but--"
+
+"Give me the key of the orchid-house!" said Dr. Cairn tersely.
+
+"Orchid-house!--"
+
+"Don't hesitate. Don't waste a second. Give me the key."
+
+Saunderson's expression showed that he thought Dr. Cairn to be mad,
+but nevertheless he plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled out a
+key-ring. Dr. Cairn snatched it in a flash.
+
+"Which key?" he snapped.
+
+"The Chubb, but--"
+
+"Follow me, Rob!"
+
+Down the hall he raced, his son beside him, and Mr. Saunderson
+following more slowly. Out into the garden he went and over the lawn
+towards the shrubbery.
+
+The orchid-houses lay in dense shadow; but the doctor almost threw
+himself against the door.
+
+"Strike a match!" he panted. Then--"Never mind--I have it!"
+
+The door flew open with a bang. A sickly perfume swept out to them.
+
+"Matches! matches, Rob! this way!"
+
+They went stumbling in. Robert Cairn took out a box of matches--and
+struck one. His father was further along, in the centre building.
+
+"Your knife, boy--quick! _quick_!"
+
+As the dim light crept along the aisle between the orchids, Robert
+Cairn saw his father's horror-stricken face ... and saw a vivid green
+plant growing in a sort of tub, before which the doctor stood. Four
+huge, smooth, egg-shaped buds grew upon the leafless stems; two of
+them were on the point of opening, and one already showed a delicious,
+rosy flush about its apex.
+
+Dr. Cairn grasped the knife which Robert tremblingly offered him. The
+match went out. There was a sound of hacking, a soft _swishing_, and a
+dull thud upon the tiled floor.
+
+As another match fluttered into brief life, the mysterious orchid,
+severed just above the soil, fell from the tub. Dr. Cairn stamped the
+swelling buds under his feet. A profusion of colourless sap was
+pouring out upon the floor.
+
+Above the intoxicating odour of the place, a smell like that of blood
+made itself perceptible.
+
+The second match went out.
+
+"Another--"
+
+Dr. Cairn's voice rose barely above a whisper. With fingers quivering,
+Robert Cairn managed to light a third match. His father, from a second
+tub, tore out a smaller plant and ground its soft tentacles beneath
+his feet. The place smelt like an operating theatre. The doctor swayed
+dizzily as the third match became extinguished, clutching at his son
+for support.
+
+"Her life was in it, boy!" he whispered. "She would have died in the
+hour that it bloomed! The priestesses--were consecrated to this....
+Let me get into the air--"
+
+Mr. Saunderson, silent with amazement, met them.
+
+"Don't speak," said Dr. Cairn to him. "Look at the dead stems of your
+'Mystery.' You will find a thread of bright hair in the heart of
+each!..."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dr. Cairn opened the door of the sick-room and beckoned to his son,
+who, haggard, trembling, waited upon the landing.
+
+"Come in, boy," he said softly--"and thank God!"
+
+Robert Cairn, on tiptoe, entered. Myra Duquesne, pathetically pale but
+with that dreadful, ominous shadow gone from her face, turned her
+wistful eyes towards the door; and their wistfulness became gladness.
+
+"Rob!" she sighed--and stretched out her arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+CAIRN MEETS FERRARA
+
+
+Not the least of the trials which Robert Cairn experienced during the
+time that he and his father were warring with their supernaturally
+equipped opponent was that of preserving silence upon this matter
+which loomed so large in his mind, and which already had changed the
+course of his life.
+
+Sometimes he met men who knew Ferrara, but who knew him only as a man
+about town of somewhat evil reputation. Yet even to these he dared not
+confide what he knew of the true Ferrara; undoubtedly they would have
+deemed him mad had he spoken of the knowledge and of the deeds of this
+uncanny, this fiendish being. How would they have listened to him had
+he sought to tell them of the den of spiders in Port Said; of the bats
+of Meydum; of the secret incense and of how it was made; of the
+numberless murders and atrocities, wrought by means not human, which
+stood to the account of this adopted son of the late Sir Michael
+Ferrara?
+
+So, excepting his father, he had no confidant; for above all it was
+necessary to keep the truth from Myra Duquesne--from Myra around whom
+his world circled, but who yet thought of the dreadful being who
+wielded the sorcery of forgotten ages, as a brother. Whilst Myra lay
+ill--not yet recovered from the ghastly attack made upon her life by
+the man whom she trusted--whilst, having plentiful evidence of his
+presence in London, Dr. Cairn and himself vainly sought for Antony
+Ferrara; whilst any night might bring some unholy visitant to his
+rooms, obedient to the will of this modern wizard; whilst these fears,
+anxieties, doubts, and surmises danced, impish, through his brain, it
+was all but impossible to pursue with success, his vocation of
+journalism. Yet for many reasons it was necessary that he should do
+so, and so he was employed upon a series of articles which were the
+outcome of his recent visit to Egypt--his editor having given him that
+work as being less exacting than that which properly falls to the lot
+of the Fleet Street copy-hunter.
+
+He left his rooms about three o'clock in the afternoon, in order to
+seek, in the British Museum library, a reference which he lacked. The
+day was an exceedingly warm one, and he derived some little
+satisfaction from the fact that, at his present work, he was not
+called upon to endue the armour of respectability. Pipe in mouth, he
+made his way across the Strand towards Bloomsbury.
+
+As he walked up the steps, crossed the hall-way, and passed in beneath
+the dome of the reading-room, he wondered if, amid those mountains of
+erudition surrounding him, there was any wisdom so strange, and so
+awful, as that of Antony Ferrara.
+
+He soon found the information for which he was looking, and having
+copied it into his notebook, he left the reading-room. Then, as he was
+recrossing the hall near the foot of the principal staircase, he
+paused. He found himself possessed by a sudden desire to visit the
+Egyptian Rooms, upstairs. He had several times inspected the exhibits
+in those apartments, but never since his return from the land to whose
+ancient civilisation they bore witness.
+
+Cairn was not pressed for time in these days, therefore he turned and
+passed slowly up the stairs.
+
+There were but few visitors to the grove of mummies that afternoon.
+When he entered the first room he found a small group of tourists
+passing idly from case to case; but on entering the second, he saw
+that he had the apartment to himself. He remembered that his father
+had mentioned on one occasion that there was a ring in this room which
+had belonged to the Witch-Queen. Robert Cairn wondered in which of the
+cases it was exhibited, and by what means he should be enabled to
+recognise it.
+
+Bending over a case containing scarabs and other amulets, many set in
+rings, he began to read the inscriptions upon the little tickets
+placed beneath some of them; but none answered to the description,
+neither the ticketed nor the unticketed. A second case he examined
+with like results. But on passing to a third, in an angle near the
+door, his gaze immediately lighted upon a gold ring set with a strange
+green stone, engraved in a peculiar way. It bore no ticket, yet as
+Robert Cairn eagerly bent over it, he knew, beyond the possibility of
+doubt, that this was the ring of the Witch-Queen.
+
+Where had he seen it, or its duplicate?
+
+With his eyes fixed upon the gleaming stone, he sought to remember.
+That he had seen this ring before, or one exactly like it, he knew,
+but strangely enough he was unable to determine where and upon what
+occasion. So, his hands resting upon the case, he leant, peering down
+at the singular gem. And as he stood thus, frowning in the effort of
+recollection, a dull white hand, having long tapered fingers, glided
+across the glass until it rested directly beneath his eyes. Upon one
+of the slim fingers was an exact replica of the ring in the case!
+
+Robert Cairn leapt back with a stifled exclamation.
+
+Antony Ferrara stood before him!
+
+"The Museum ring is a copy, dear Cairn," came the huskily musical,
+hateful voice; "the one upon my finger is the real one."
+
+Cairn realised in his own person, the literal meaning of the
+overworked phrase, "frozen with amazement." Before him stood the most
+dangerous man in Europe; a man who had done murder and worse; a man
+only in name, a demon in nature. His long black eyes half-closed, his
+perfectly chiselled ivory face expressionless, and his blood-red lips
+parted in a mirthless smile, Antony Ferrara watched Cairn--Cairn whom
+he had sought to murder by means of hellish art.
+
+Despite the heat of the day, he wore a heavy overcoat, lined with
+white fox fur. In his right hand--for his left still rested upon the
+case--he held a soft hat. With an easy nonchalance, he stood regarding
+the man who had sworn to kill him, and the latter made no move,
+uttered no word. Stark amazement held him inert.
+
+"I knew that you were in the Museum, Cairn," Ferrara continued, still
+having his basilisk eyes fixed upon the other from beneath the
+drooping lids, "and I called to you to join me here."
+
+Still Cairn did not move, did not speak.
+
+"You have acted very harshly towards me in the past, dear Cairn; but
+because my philosophy consists in an admirable blending of that
+practised in Sybaris with that advocated by the excellent Zeno;
+because whilst I am prepared to make my home in a Diogenes' tub, I,
+nevertheless, can enjoy the fragrance of a rose, the flavour of a
+peach--"
+
+The husky voice seemed to be hypnotising Cairn; it was a siren's
+voice, thralling him.
+
+"Because," continued Ferrara evenly, "in common with all humanity I am
+compound of man and woman, I can resent the enmity which drives me
+from shore to shore, but being myself a connoisseur of the red lips
+and laughing eyes of maidenhood--I am thinking, more particularly of
+Myra--I can forgive you, dear Cairn--"
+
+Then Cairn recovered himself.
+
+"You white-faced cur!" he snarled through clenched teeth; his knuckles
+whitened as he stepped around the case. "You dare to stand there
+mocking me--"
+
+Ferrara again placed the case between himself and his enemy.
+
+"Pause, my dear Cairn," he said, without emotion. "What would you do?
+Be discreet, dear Cairn; reflect that I have only to call an attendant
+in order to have you pitched ignominiously into the street."
+
+"Before God! I will throttle the life from you!" said Cairn, in a
+voice savagely hoarse.
+
+He sprang again towards Ferrara. Again the latter dodged around the
+case with an agility which defied the heavier man.
+
+"Your temperament is so painfully Celtic, Cairn," he protested
+mockingly. "I perceive quite clearly that you will not discuss this
+matter judicially. Must I then call for the attendant?"
+
+Cairn clenched his fists convulsively. Through all the tumult of his
+rage, the fact had penetrated--that he was helpless. He could not
+attack Ferrara in that place; he could not detain him against his
+will. For Ferrara had only to claim official protection to bring about
+the complete discomfiture of his assailant. Across the case containing
+the duplicate ring, he glared at this incarnate fiend, whom the law,
+which he had secretly outraged, now served to protect. Ferrara spoke
+again in his huskily musical voice.
+
+"I regret that you will not be reasonable, Cairn. There is so much
+that I should like to say to you; there are so many things of interest
+which I could tell you. Do you know in some respects I am peculiarly
+gifted, Cairn? At times I can recollect, quite distinctly, particulars
+of former incarnations. Do you see that priestess lying there, just
+through the doorway? I can quite distinctly remember having met her
+when she was a girl; she was beautiful, Cairn. And I can even recall
+how, one night beside the Nile--but I see that you are growing
+impatient! If you will not avail yourself of this opportunity, I must
+bid you good-day--"
+
+He turned and walked towards the door. Cairn leapt after him; but
+Ferrara, suddenly beginning to run, reached the end of the Egyptian
+Room and darted out on to the landing, before his pursuer had time to
+realise what he was about.
+
+At the moment that Ferrara turned the corner ahead of him, Cairn saw
+something drop. Coming to the end of the room, he stooped and picked
+up this object, which was a plaited silk cord about three feet in
+length. He did not pause to examine it more closely, but thrust it
+into his pocket and raced down the steps after the retreating figure
+of Ferrara. At the foot, a constable held out his arm, detaining him.
+Cairn stopped in surprise.
+
+"I must ask you for your name and address," said the constable,
+gruffly.
+
+"For Heaven's sake! what for?"
+
+"A gentleman has complained--"
+
+"My good man!" exclaimed Cairn, and proffered his card--"it is--it is
+a practical joke on his part. I know him well--"
+
+The constable looked at the card and from the card, suspiciously, back
+to Cairn. Apparently the appearance of the latter reassured him--or he
+may have formed a better opinion of Cairn, from the fact that
+half-a-crown had quickly changed hands.
+
+"All right, sir," he said, "it is no affair of mine; he did not charge
+you with anything--he only asked me to prevent you from following
+him."
+
+"Quite so," snapped Cairn irritably, and dashed off along the gallery
+in the hope of overtaking Ferrara.
+
+But, as he had feared, Ferrara had made good use of his ruse to
+escape. He was nowhere to be seen; and Cairn was left to wonder with
+what object he had risked the encounter in the Egyptian Room--for that
+it had been deliberate, and not accidental, he quite clearly
+perceived.
+
+He walked down the steps of the Museum, deep in reflection. The
+thought that he and his father for months had been seeking the fiend
+Ferrara, that they were sworn to kill him as they would kill a mad
+dog; and that he, Robert Cairn, had stood face to face with Ferrara,
+had spoken with him; and had let him go free, unscathed, was
+maddening. Yet, in the circumstances, how could he have acted
+otherwise?
+
+With no recollection of having traversed the intervening streets, he
+found himself walking under the archway leading to the court in which
+his chambers were situated; in the far corner, shadowed by the tall
+plane tree, where the worn iron railings of the steps and the small
+panes of glass in the solicitor's window on the ground floor called up
+memories of Charles Dickens, he paused, filled with a sort of
+wonderment. It seemed strange to him that such an air of peace could
+prevail, anywhere, whilst Antony Ferrara lived and remained at large.
+
+He ran up the stairs to the second landing, opened the door, and
+entered his chambers. He was oppressed to-day with a memory, the
+memory of certain gruesome happenings whereof these rooms had been the
+scene. Knowing the powers of Antony Ferrara he often doubted the
+wisdom of living there alone, but he was persuaded that to allow
+these fears to make headway, would be to yield a point to the enemy.
+Yet there were nights when he found himself sleepless, listening for
+sounds which had seemed to arouse him; imagining sinister whispers in
+his room--and imagining that he could detect the dreadful odour of the
+secret incense.
+
+Seating himself by the open window, he took out from his pocket the
+silken cord which Ferrara had dropped in the Museum, and examined it
+curiously. His examination of the thing did not serve to enlighten him
+respecting its character. It was merely a piece of silken cord, very
+closely and curiously plaited. He threw it down on the table,
+determined to show it to Dr. Cairn at the earliest opportunity. He was
+conscious of a sort of repugnance; and prompted by this, he carefully
+washed his hands as though the cord had been some unclean thing. Then,
+he sat down to work, only to realise immediately, that work was
+impossible until he had confided in somebody his encounter with
+Ferrara.
+
+Lifting the telephone receiver, he called up Dr. Cairn, but his father
+was not at home.
+
+He replaced the receiver, and sat staring vaguely at his open
+notebook.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+THE IVORY HAND
+
+
+For close upon an hour Robert Cairn sat at his writing-table,
+endeavouring to puzzle out a solution to the mystery of Ferrara's
+motive. His reflections served only to confuse his mind.
+
+A tangible clue lay upon the table before him--the silken cord. But it
+was a clue of such a nature that, whatever deductions an expert
+detective might have based upon it, Robert Cairn could base none. Dusk
+was not far off, and he knew that his nerves were not what they had
+been before those events which had led to his Egyptian journey. He was
+back in his own chamber--scene of one gruesome outrage in Ferrara's
+unholy campaign; for darkness is the ally of crime, and it had always
+been in the darkness that Ferrara's activities had most fearfully
+manifested themselves.
+
+What was that?
+
+Cairn ran to the window, and, leaning out, looked down into the court
+below. He could have sworn that a voice--a voice possessing a strange
+music, a husky music, wholly hateful--had called him by name. But at
+the moment the court was deserted, for it was already past the hour at
+which members of the legal fraternity desert their business premises
+to hasten homewards. Shadows were creeping under the quaint old
+archways; shadows were draping the ancient walls. And there was
+something in the aspect of the place which reminded him of a
+quadrangle at Oxford, across which, upon a certain fateful evening, he
+and another had watched the red light rising and falling in Antony
+Ferrara's rooms.
+
+Clearly his imagination was playing him tricks; and against this he
+knew full well that he must guard himself. The light in his rooms was
+growing dim, but instinctively his gaze sought out and found the
+mysterious silken cord amid the litter on the table. He contemplated
+the telephone, but since he had left a message for his father, he knew
+that the latter would ring him up directly he returned.
+
+Work, he thought, should be the likeliest antidote to the poisonous
+thoughts which oppressed his mind, and again he seated himself at the
+table and opened his notes before him. The silken rope lay close to
+his left hand, but he did not touch it. He was about to switch on the
+reading lamp, for it was now too dark to write, when his mind wandered
+off along another channel of reflection. He found himself picturing
+Myra as she had looked the last time that he had seen her.
+
+She was seated in Mr. Saunderson's garden, still pale from her
+dreadful illness, but beautiful--more beautiful in the eyes of Robert
+Cairn than any other woman in the world. The breeze was blowing her
+rebellious curls across her eyes--eyes bright with a happiness which
+he loved to see.
+
+Her cheeks were paler than they were wont to be, and the sweet lips
+had lost something of their firmness. She wore a short cloak, and a
+wide-brimmed hat, unfashionable, but becoming. No one but Myra could
+successfully have worn that hat, he thought.
+
+Wrapt in such lover-like memories, he forgot that he had sat down to
+write--forgot that he held a pen in his hand--and that this same hand
+had been outstretched to ignite the lamp.
+
+When he ultimately awoke again to the hard facts of his lonely
+environment, he also awoke to a singular circumstance; he made the
+acquaintance of a strange phenomenon.
+
+He had been writing unconsciously!
+
+And this was what he had written:
+
+"Robert Cairn--renounce your pursuit of me, and renounce Myra; or
+to-night--" The sentence was unfinished.
+
+Momentarily, he stared at the words, endeavouring to persuade himself
+that he had written them consciously, in idle mood. But some voice
+within gave him the lie; so that with a suppressed groan he muttered
+aloud:
+
+"It has begun!"
+
+Almost as he spoke there came a sound, from the passage outside, that
+led him to slide his hand across the table--and to seize his revolver.
+
+The visible presence of the little weapon reassured him; and, as a
+further sedative, he resorted to tobacco, filled and lighted his pipe,
+and leant back in the chair, blowing smoke rings towards the closed
+door.
+
+He listened intently--and heard the sound again.
+
+It was a soft _hiss_!
+
+And now, he thought he could detect another noise--as of some creature
+dragging its body along the floor.
+
+"A lizard!" he thought; and a memory of the basilisk eyes of Antony
+Ferrara came to him.
+
+Both the sounds seemed to come slowly nearer and nearer--the dragging
+thing being evidently responsible for the hissing; until Cairn decided
+that the creature must be immediately outside the door.
+
+Revolver in hand, he leapt across the room, and threw the door open.
+
+The red carpet, to right and left, was innocent of reptiles!
+
+Perhaps the creaking of the revolving chair, as he had prepared to
+quit it, had frightened the thing. With the idea before him, he
+systematically searched all the rooms into which it might have gone.
+
+His search was unavailing; the mysterious reptile was not to be found.
+
+Returning again to the study he seated himself behind the table,
+facing the door--which he left ajar.
+
+Ten minutes passed in silence--only broken by the dim murmur of the
+distant traffic.
+
+He had almost persuaded himself that his imagination--quickened by the
+atmosphere of mystery and horror wherein he had recently moved--was
+responsible for the hiss, when a new sound came to confute his
+reasoning.
+
+The people occupying the chambers below were moving about so that
+their footsteps were faintly audible; but, above these dim footsteps,
+a rustling--vague, indefinite, demonstrated itself. As in the case of
+the hiss, it proceeded from the passage.
+
+A light burnt inside the outer door, and this, as Cairn knew, must
+cast a shadow before any thing--or person--approaching the room.
+
+_Sssf! ssf!_--came, like the rustle of light draperies.
+
+The nervous suspense was almost unbearable. He waited.
+
+_What_ was creeping, slowly, cautiously, towards the open door?
+
+Cairn toyed with the trigger of his revolver.
+
+"The arts of the West shall try conclusions with those of the East,"
+he said.
+
+A shadow!...
+
+Inch upon inch it grew--creeping across the door, until it covered all
+the threshold visible.
+
+Someone was about to appear.
+
+He raised the revolver.
+
+The shadow moved along.
+
+Cairn saw the tail of it creep past the door, until no shadow was
+there!
+
+The shadow had come--and gone ... but there was _no substance_!
+
+"I am going mad!"
+
+The words forced themselves to his lips. He rested his chin upon his
+hands and clenched his teeth grimly. Did the horrors of insanity stare
+him in the face!
+
+From that recent illness in London--when his nervous system had
+collapsed, utterly--despite his stay in Egypt he had never fully
+recovered. "A month will see you fit again," his father had said;
+but?--perhaps he had been wrong--perchance the affection had been
+deeper than he had suspected; and now this endless carnival of
+supernatural happenings had strained the weakened cells, so that he
+was become as a man in a delirium!
+
+Where did reality end and phantasy begin? Was it all merely
+subjective?
+
+He had read of such aberrations.
+
+And now he sat wondering if he were the victim of a like
+affliction--and while he wondered he stared at the rope of silk. That
+was real.
+
+Logic came to his rescue. If he had seen and heard strange things, so,
+too, had Sime in Egypt--so had his father, both in Egypt and in
+London! Inexplicable things were happening around him; and all could
+not be mad!
+
+"I'm getting morbid again," he told himself; "the tricks of our
+damnable Ferrara are getting on my nerves. Just what he desires and
+intends!"
+
+This latter reflection spurred him to new activity; and, pocketing the
+revolver, he switched off the light in the study and looked out of the
+window.
+
+Glancing across the court, he thought that he saw a man standing
+below, peering upward. With his hands resting upon the window ledge,
+Cairn looked long and steadily.
+
+There certainly was someone standing in the shadow of the tall plane
+tree--but whether man or woman he could not determine.
+
+The unknown remaining in the same position, apparently watching, Cairn
+ran downstairs, and, passing out into the Court, walked rapidly across
+to the tree. There he paused in some surprise; there was no one
+visible by the tree and the whole court was quite deserted.
+
+"Must have slipped off through the archway," he concluded; and,
+walking back, he remounted the stair and entered his chambers again.
+
+Feeling a renewed curiosity regarding the silken rope which had so
+strangely come into his possession, he sat down at the table, and
+mastering his distaste for the thing, took it in his hands and
+examined it closely by the light of the lamp.
+
+He was seated with his back to the windows, facing the door, so that
+no one could possibly have entered the room unseen by him. It was as
+he bent down to scrutinise the curious plaiting, that he felt a
+sensation stealing over him, as though someone were standing very
+close to his chair.
+
+Grimly determined to resist any hypnotic tricks that might be
+practised against him, and well assured that there could be no person
+actually present in the chambers, he sat back, resting his revolver on
+his knee. Prompted by he knew not what, he slipped the silk cord into
+the table drawer and turned the key upon it.
+
+As he did so a hand crept over his shoulder--followed by a bare arm of
+the hue of old ivory--a woman's arm!
+
+Transfixed he sat, his eyes fastened upon the ring of dull metal,
+bearing a green stone inscribed with a complex figure vaguely
+resembling a spider, which adorned the index finger.
+
+A faint perfume stole to his nostrils--that of the secret incense; and
+the ring was the ring of the Witch-Queen!
+
+In this incredible moment he relaxed that iron control of his mind,
+which, alone, had saved him before. Even as he realised it, and strove
+to recover himself, he knew that it was too late; he knew that he was
+lost!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gloom ... blackness, unrelieved by any speck of light; murmuring,
+subdued, all around; the murmuring of a concourse of people. The
+darkness was odorous with a heavy perfume.
+
+A voice came--followed by complete silence.
+
+Again the voice sounded, chanting sweetly.
+
+A response followed in deep male voices.
+
+The response was taken up all around--what time a tiny speck grew, in
+the gloom--and grew, until it took form; and out of the darkness, the
+shape of a white-robed woman appeared--high up--far away.
+
+Wherever the ray that illumined her figure emanated from, it did not
+perceptibly dispel the Stygian gloom all about her. She was bathed in
+dazzling light, but framed in impenetrable darkness.
+
+Her dull gold hair was encircled by a band of white metal--like
+silver, bearing in front a round, burnished disk, that shone like a
+minor sun. Above the disk projected an ornament having the shape of a
+spider.
+
+The intense light picked out every detail vividly. Neck and shoulders
+were bare--and the gleaming ivory arms were uplifted--the long slender
+fingers held aloft a golden casket covered with dim figures, almost
+undiscernible at that distance.
+
+A glittering zone of the same white metal confined the snowy
+draperies. Her bare feet peeped out from beneath the flowing robe.
+
+Above, below, and around her was--Memphian darkness!
+
+Silence--the perfume was stifling.... A voice, seeming to come from a
+great distance, cried:--"On your knees to the Book of Thoth! on your
+knees to the Wisdom Queen, who is deathless, being unborn, who is dead
+though living, whose beauty is for all men--that all men may die...."
+
+The whole invisible concourse took up the chant, and the light faded,
+until only the speck on the disk below the spider was visible.
+
+Then that, too, vanished.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A bell was ringing furiously. Its din grew louder and louder; it
+became insupportable. Cairn threw out his arms and staggered up like a
+man intoxicated. He grasped at the table-lamp only just in time to
+prevent it overturning.
+
+The ringing was that of his telephone bell. He had been unconscious,
+then--under some spell!
+
+He unhooked the receiver--and heard his father's voice.
+
+"That you, Rob?" asked the doctor anxiously.
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Cairn, eagerly, and he opened the drawer and slid
+his hand in for the silken cord.
+
+"There is something you have to tell me?"
+
+Cairn, without preamble, plunged excitedly into an account of his
+meeting with Ferrara. "The silk cord," he concluded, "I have in my
+hand at the present moment, and--"
+
+"Hold on a moment!" came Dr. Cairn's voice, rather grimly.
+
+Followed a short interval; then--
+
+"Hullo, Rob! Listen to this, from to-night's paper: 'A curious
+discovery was made by an attendant in one of the rooms, of the Indian
+Section of the British Museum late this evening. A case had been
+opened in some way, and, although it contained more valuable objects,
+the only item which the thief had abstracted was a Thug's
+strangling-cord from Kundelee (district of Nursingpore).'"
+
+"But, I don't understand--"
+
+"Ferrara _meant_ you to find that cord, boy! Remember, he is
+unacquainted with your chambers and he requires a _focus_ for his
+damnable forces! He knows well that you will have the thing somewhere
+near to you, and probably he knows something of its awful history! You
+are in danger! Keep a fast hold upon yourself. I shall be with you in
+less than half-an-hour!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE THUG'S CORD
+
+
+As Robert Cairn hung up the receiver and found himself cut off again
+from the outer world, he realised, with terror beyond his control, how
+in this quiet backwater, so near to the main stream, he yet was far
+from human companionship.
+
+He recalled a night when, amid such a silence as this which now
+prevailed about him, he had been made the subject of an uncanny
+demonstration; how his sanity, his life, had been attacked; how he had
+fled from the crowding horrors which had been massed against him by
+his supernaturally endowed enemy.
+
+There was something very terrifying in the quietude of the court--a
+quietude which to others might have spelt peace, but which, to Robert
+Cairn, spelled menace. That Ferrara's device was aimed at his freedom,
+that his design was intended to lead to the detention of his enemy
+whilst he directed his activities in other directions, seemed
+plausible, if inadequate. The carefully planned incident at the Museum
+whereby the constable had become possessed of Cairn's card; the
+distinct possibility that a detective might knock upon his door at any
+moment--with the inevitable result of his detention pending
+inquiries--formed a chain which had seemed complete, save that Antony
+Ferrara, was the schemer. For another to have compassed so much, would
+have been a notable victory; for Ferrara, such a victory would be
+trivial.
+
+What then, did it mean? His father had told him, and the uncanny
+events of the evening stood evidence of Dr. Cairn's wisdom. The
+mysterious and evil force which Antony Ferrara controlled was being
+focussed upon him!
+
+Slight sounds from time to time disturbed the silence and to these he
+listened attentively. He longed for the arrival of his father--for the
+strong, calm counsel of the one man in England fitted to cope with the
+Hell Thing which had uprisen in their midst. That he had already been
+subjected to some kind of hypnotic influence, he was unable to doubt;
+and having once been subjected to this influence, he might at any
+moment (it Was a terrible reflection) fall a victim to it again.
+
+Cairn directed all the energies of his mind to resistance; ill-defined
+reflection must at all costs be avoided, for the brain vaguely
+employed he knew to be more susceptible to attack than that directed
+in a well-ordered channel.
+
+Clocks were chiming the hour--he did not know what hour, nor did he
+seek to learn. He felt that he was at rapier play with a skilled
+antagonist, and that to glance aside, however momentarily, was to lay
+himself open to a fatal thrust.
+
+He had not moved from the table, so that only the reading lamp upon it
+was lighted, and much of the room lay in half shadow. The silken cord,
+coiled snake-like, was close to his left hand; the revolver was close
+to his right. The muffled roar of traffic--diminished, since the hour
+grew late--reached his ears as he sat. But nothing disturbed the
+stillness of the court, and nothing disturbed the stillness of the
+room.
+
+The notes which he had made in the afternoon at the Museum, were still
+spread open before him, and he suddenly closed the book, fearful of
+anything calculated to distract him from the mood of tense resistance.
+His life, and more than his life, depended upon his successfully
+opposing the insidious forces which beyond doubt, invisibly surrounded
+that lighted table.
+
+There is a courage which is not physical, nor is it entirely moral; a
+courage often lacking in the most intrepid soldier. And this was the
+kind of courage which Robert Cairn now called up to his aid. The
+occult inquirer can face, unmoved, horrors which would turn the brain
+of many a man who wears the V.C.; on the other hand it is questionable
+if the possessor of this peculiar type of bravery could face a bayonet
+charge. Pluck of the physical sort, Cairn had in plenty; pluck of
+that more subtle kind he was acquiring from growing intimacy with the
+terrors of the Borderland.
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+He spoke the words aloud, and the eerie sound of his own voice added a
+new dread to the enveloping shadows.
+
+His revolver grasped in his hand, he stood up, but slowly and
+cautiously, in order that his own movements might not prevent him from
+hearing any repetition of that which had occasioned his alarm. And
+what had occasioned this alarm?
+
+Either he was become again a victim of the strange trickery which
+already had borne him, though not physically, from Fleet Street to the
+secret temple of Meydum, or with his material senses he had detected a
+soft rapping upon the door of his room.
+
+He knew that his outer door was closed; he knew that there was no one
+else in his chambers; yet he had heard a sound as of knuckles beating
+upon the panels of the door--the closed door of the room in which he
+sat!
+
+Standing upright, he turned deliberately, and faced in that direction.
+
+The light pouring out from beneath the shade of the table-lamp
+scarcely touched upon the door at all. Only the edges of the lower
+panels were clearly perceptible; the upper part of the door was masked
+in greenish shadow.
+
+Intent, tensely strung, he stood; then advanced in the direction of the
+switch in order to light the lamp fixed above the mantel-piece and to
+illuminate the whole of the room. One step forward he took, then ... the
+soft rapping was repeated.
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+This time he cried the words loudly, and acquired some new assurance
+from the imperative note in his own voice. He ran to the switch and
+pressed it down. The lamp did not light!
+
+"The filament has burnt out," he muttered.
+
+Terror grew upon him--a terror akin to that which children experience
+in the darkness. But he yet had a fair mastery of his emotions;
+when--not suddenly, as is the way of a failing electric lamp--but
+slowly, uncannily, unnaturally, the table-lamp became extinguished!
+
+Darkness.... Cairn turned towards the window. This was a moonless
+night, and little enough illumination entered the room from the court.
+
+Three resounding raps were struck upon the door.
+
+At that, terror had no darker meaning for Cairn; he had plumbed its
+ultimate deeps; and now, like a diver, he arose again to the surface.
+
+Heedless of the darkness, of the seemingly supernatural means by which
+it had been occasioned, he threw open the door and thrust his revolver
+out into the corridor.
+
+For terrors, he had been prepared--for some gruesome shape such as we
+read of in _The Magus_. But there was nothing. Instinctively he had
+looked straight ahead of him, as one looks who expects to encounter a
+human enemy. But the hall-way was empty. A dim light, finding access
+over the door from the stair, prevailed there, yet, it was sufficient
+to have revealed the presence of anyone or anything, had anyone or
+anything been present.
+
+Cairn stepped out from the room and was about to walk to the outer
+door. The idea of flight was strong upon him, for no man can fight the
+invisible; when, on a level with his eyes--flat against the wall, as
+though someone crouched there--he saw two white hands!
+
+They were slim hands, like the hands of a woman, and, upon one of the
+tapered fingers, there dully gleamed a green stone.
+
+A peal of laughter came chokingly from his lips; he knew that his
+reason was tottering. For these two white hands which now moved along
+the wall, as though they were sidling to the room which Cairn had just
+quitted, were attached to no visible body; just two ivory hands were
+there ... _and nothing more_!
+
+That he was in deadly peril, Cairn realised fully. His complete
+subjection by the will-force of Ferrara had been interrupted by the
+ringing of the telephone bell But now, the attack had been renewed!
+
+The hands vanished.
+
+Too well he remembered the ghastly details attendant upon the death of
+Sir Michael Ferrara to doubt that these slim hands were directed upon
+murderous business.
+
+A soft swishing sound reached him. Something upon the writing-table
+had been moved.
+
+The strangling cord!
+
+Whilst speaking to his father he had taken it out from the drawer, and
+when he quitted the room it had lain upon the blotting-pad.
+
+He stepped back towards the outer door.
+
+Something fluttered past his face, and he turned in a mad panic. The
+dreadful, bodiless hands groped in the darkness between himself and
+the exit!
+
+Vaguely it came home to him that the menace might be avoidable. He was
+bathed in icy perspiration.
+
+He dropped the revolver into his pocket, and placed his hands upon his
+throat. Then he began to grope his way towards the closed door of his
+bedroom.
+
+Lowering his left hand, he began to feel for the doorknob. As he did
+so, he saw--and knew the crowning horror of the night--that he had
+made a false move. In retiring he had thrown away his last, his only,
+chance.
+
+The phantom hands, a yard apart and holding the silken cord stretched
+tightly between them, were approaching him swiftly!
+
+He lowered his head, and charged along the passage, with a wild cry.
+
+The cord, stretched taut, struck him under the chin.
+
+Back he reeled.
+
+The cord was about his throat!
+
+"God!" he choked, and thrust up his hands.
+
+Madly, he strove to pluck the deadly silken thing from his neck. It
+was useless. A grip of steel was drawing it tightly--and ever more
+tightly--about him....
+
+Despair touched him, and almost he resigned himself. Then,
+
+"Rob! Rob! open the door!"
+
+Dr. Cairn was outside.
+
+A new strength came--and he knew that it was the last atom left to
+him. To remove the rope was humanly impossible. He dropped his cramped
+hands, bent his body by a mighty physical effort, and hurled himself
+forward upon the door.
+
+The latch, now, was just above his head.
+
+He stretched up ... and was plucked back. But the fingers of his right
+hand grasped the knob convulsively.
+
+Even as that superhuman force jerked him back, he turned the knob--and
+fell.
+
+All his weight hung upon the fingers which were locked about that
+brass disk in a grip which even the powers of Darkness could not
+relax.
+
+The door swung open, and Cairn swung back with it.
+
+He collapsed, an inert heap, upon the floor. Dr. Cairn leapt in over
+him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he reopened his eyes, he lay in bed, and his father was bathing
+his inflamed throat.
+
+"All right, boy! There's no damage done, thank God...."
+
+"The hands!--"
+
+"I quite understand. But _I_ saw no hands but your own, Rob; and if it
+had come to an inquest I could not even have raised my voice against a
+verdict of suicide!"
+
+"But I--opened the door!"
+
+"They would have said that you repented your awful act, too late.
+Although it is almost impossible for a man to strangle himself under
+such conditions, there is no jury in England who would have believed
+that Antony Ferrara had done the deed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE HIGH PRIEST, HORTOTEF
+
+
+The breakfast-room of Dr. Cairn's house in Half-Moon Street presented
+a cheery appearance, and this despite the gloom of the morning; for
+thunderous clouds hung low in the sky, and there were distant
+mutterings ominous of a brewing storm.
+
+Robert Cairn stood looking out of the window. He was thinking of an
+afternoon at Oxford, when, to such an accompaniment as this, he had
+witnessed the first scene in the drama of evil wherein the man called
+Antony Ferrara sustained the leading _role_.
+
+That the _denouement_ was at any moment to be anticipated, his reason
+told him; and some instinct that was not of his reason forewarned him,
+too, that he and his father, Dr. Cairn, were now upon the eve of that
+final, decisive struggle which should determine the triumph of good
+over evil--or of evil over good. Already the doctor's house was
+invested by the uncanny forces marshalled by Antony Ferrara against
+them. The distinguished patients, who daily flocked to the
+consulting-room of the celebrated specialist, who witnessed his
+perfect self-possession and took comfort from his confidence, knowing
+it for the confidence of strength, little suspected that a greater ill
+than any flesh is heir to, assailed the doctor to whom they came for
+healing.
+
+A menace, dreadful and unnatural, hung over that home as now the
+thunder clouds hung over it. This well-ordered household, so modern,
+so typical of twentieth century culture and refinement, presented none
+of the appearances of a beleaguered garrison; yet the house of Dr.
+Cairn in Half-Moon Street, was nothing less than an invested
+fortress.
+
+A peal of distant thunder boomed from the direction of Hyde Park.
+Robert Cairn looked up at the lowering sky as if seeking a portent. To
+his eyes it seemed that a livid face, malignant with the malignancy of
+a devil, looked down out of the clouds.
+
+Myra Duquesne came into the breakfast-room.
+
+He turned to greet her, and, in his capacity of accepted lover, was
+about to kiss the tempting lips, when he hesitated--and contented
+himself with kissing her hand. A sudden sense of the proprieties had
+assailed him; he reflected that the presence of the girl beneath the
+same roof as himself--although dictated by imperative need--might be
+open to misconstruction by the prudish. Dr. Cairn had decided that for
+the present Myra Duquesne must dwell beneath his own roof, as, in
+feudal days, the Baron at first hint of an approaching enemy formerly
+was, accustomed to call within the walls of the castle, those whom it
+was his duty to protect. Unknown to the world, a tremendous battle
+raged in London, the outer works were in the possession of the
+enemy--and he was now before their very gates.
+
+Myra, though still pale from her recent illness, already was
+recovering some of the freshness of her beauty, and in her simple
+morning dress, as she busied herself about the breakfast table, she
+was a sweet picture enough, and good to look upon. Robert Cairn stood
+beside her, looking into her eyes, and she smiled up at him with a
+happy contentment, which filled him with a new longing. But:
+
+"Did you dream again, last night?" he asked, in a voice which he
+strove to make matter-of-fact.
+
+Myra nodded--and her face momentarily clouded over.
+
+"The same dream?"
+
+"Yes," she said in a troubled way; "at least--in some respects--"
+
+Dr. Cairn came in, glancing at his watch.
+
+"Good morning!" he cried, cheerily. "I have actually overslept
+myself."
+
+They took their seats at the table.
+
+"Myra has been dreaming again, sir," said Robert Cairn slowly.
+
+The doctor, serviette in hand, glanced up with an inquiry in his grey
+eyes.
+
+"We must not overlook any possible weapon," he replied. "Give us
+particulars of your dream, Myra."
+
+As Marston entered silently with the morning fare, and, having placed
+the dishes upon the table, as silently withdrew, Myra began:
+
+"I seemed to stand again in the barn-like building which I have
+described to you before. Through the rafters of the roof I could see
+the cracks in the tiling, and the moonlight shone through, forming
+light and irregular patches upon the floor. A sort of door, like that
+of a stable, with a heavy bar across, was dimly perceptible at the
+further end of the place. The only furniture was a large deal table
+and a wooden chair of a very common kind. Upon the table, stood a
+lamp--"
+
+"What kind of lamp?" jerked Dr. Cairn.
+
+"A silver lamp"--she hesitated, looking from Robert to his
+father--"one that I have seen in--Antony's rooms. Its shaded light
+shone upon a closed iron box. I immediately recognised this box. You
+know that I described to you a dream which--terrified me on the
+previous night?"
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded, frowning darkly.
+
+"Repeat your account of the former dream," he said. "I regard it as
+important."
+
+"In my former dream," the girl resumed--and her voice had an odd,
+far-away quality--"the scene was the same, except that the light of
+the lamp was shining down upon the leaves of an open book--a very,
+very old book, written in strange characters. These characters
+appeared to dance before my eyes--almost as though they lived."
+
+She shuddered slightly; then:
+
+"The same iron box, but open, stood upon the table, and a number of
+other, smaller, boxes, around it. Each of these boxes was of a
+different material. Some were wooden; one, I think, was of ivory; one
+was of silver--and one, of some dull metal, which might have been
+gold. In the chair, by the table, Antony was sitting. His eyes were
+fixed upon me, with such a strange expression that I awoke, trembling
+frightfully--"
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded again.
+
+"And last night?" he prompted.
+
+"Last night," continued Myra, with a note of trouble in her sweet
+voice--"at four points around this table, stood four smaller lamps and
+upon the floor were rows of characters apparently traced in luminous
+paint. They flickered up and then grew dim, then flickered up again,
+in a sort of phosphorescent way. They extended from lamp to lamp, so
+as entirely to surround the table and the chair.
+
+"In the chair Antony Ferrara was sitting. He held a wand in his right
+hand--a wand with several copper rings about it; his left hand rested
+upon the iron box. In my dream, although I could see this all very
+clearly, I seemed to see it from a distance; yet, at the same time, I
+stood apparently close by the tables--I cannot explain. But I could
+hear nothing; only by the movements of his lips, could I tell that he
+was speaking--or chanting."
+
+She looked across at Dr. Cairn as if fearful to proceed, but presently
+continued:
+
+"Suddenly, I saw a frightful shape appear on the far side of the
+circle; that is to say, the table was between me and this shape. It
+was just like a grey cloud having the vague outlines of a man, but
+with two eyes of red fire glaring out from it--horribly--oh! horribly!
+It extended its shadowy arms as if saluting Antony. He turned and
+seemed to question it. Then with a look of ferocious anger--oh! it was
+frightful! he dismissed the shape, and began to walk up and down
+beside the table, but never beyond the lighted circle, shaking his
+fists in the air, and, to judge by the movements of his lips, uttering
+most awful imprecations. He looked gaunt and ill. I dreamt no more,
+but awoke conscious of a sensation as though some dead weight, which
+had been pressing upon me had been suddenly removed."
+
+Dr. Cairn glanced across at his son significantly, but the subject was
+not renewed throughout breakfast.
+
+Breakfast concluded:
+
+"Come into the library, Rob," said Dr. Cairn, "I have half-an-hour to
+spare, and there are some matters to be discussed."
+
+He led the way into the library with its orderly rows of obscure
+works, its store of forgotten wisdom, and pointed to the red leathern
+armchair. As Robert Cairn seated himself and looked across at his
+father, who sat at the big writing-table, that scene reminded him of
+many dangers met and overcome in the past; for the library at
+Half-Moon Street was associated in his mind with some of the blackest
+pages in the history of Antony Ferrara.
+
+"Do you understand the position, Rob?" asked the doctor, abruptly.
+
+"I think so, sir. This I take it is his last card; this outrageous,
+ungodly Thing which he has loosed upon us."
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded grimly.
+
+"The exact frontier," he said, "dividing what we may term hypnotism
+from what we know as sorcery, has yet to be determined; and to which
+territory the doctrine of Elemental Spirits belongs, it would be
+purposeless at the moment to discuss. We may note, however,
+remembering with whom we are dealing, that the one-hundred-and-eighth
+chapter of the Ancient Egyptian _Book of the Dead_, is entitled 'The
+Chapter of Knowing the Spirits of the West.' Forgetting, _pro tem._,
+that we dwell in the twentieth century, and looking at the situation
+from the point of view, say, of Eliphas Levi, Cornelius Agrippa, or
+the Abbe de Villars--the man whom we know as Antony Ferrara, is
+directing against this house, and those within it, a type of elemental
+spirit, known as a Salamander!"
+
+Robert Cairn smiled slightly.
+
+"Ah!" said the doctor, with an answering smile in which there was
+little mirth, "we are accustomed to laugh at this mediaeval
+terminology; but by what other can we speak of the activities of
+Ferrara?"
+
+"Sometimes I think that we are the victims of a common madness," said
+his son, raising his hand to his head in a manner almost pathetic.
+
+"We are the victims of a common enemy," replied his father sternly.
+"He employs weapons which, often enough, in this enlightened age of
+ours, have condemned poor souls, as sane as you or I, to the madhouse!
+Why, in God's name," he cried with a sudden excitement, "does science
+persistently ignore all those laws which cannot be examined in the
+laboratory! Will the day never come when some true man of science
+shall endeavour to explain the movements of a table upon which a ring
+of hands has been placed? Will no exact scientist condescend to
+examine the properties of a _planchette_? Will no one do for the
+phenomena termed thought-forms, what Newton did for that of the
+falling apple? Ah! Rob, in some respects, this is a darker age than
+those which bear the stigma of darkness."
+
+Silence fell for a few moments between them; then:
+
+"One thing is certain," said Robert Cairn, deliberately, "we are in
+danger!"
+
+"In the greatest danger!"
+
+"Antony Ferrara, realising that we are bent upon his destruction, is
+making a final, stupendous effort to compass ours. I know that you
+have placed certain seals upon the windows of this house, and that
+after dusk these windows are never opened. I know that imprints,
+strangely like the imprints of _fiery hands_, may be seen at this
+moment upon the casements of Myra's room, your room, my room, and
+elsewhere. I know that Myra's dreams are not ordinary, meaningless
+dreams. I have had other evidence. I don't want to analyse these
+things; I confess that my mind is not capable of the task. I do not
+even want to know the meaning of it all; at the present moment, I only
+want to know one thing: _Who is Antony Ferrara?_"
+
+Dr. Cairn stood up, and turning, faced his son.
+
+"The time has come," he said, "when that question, which you have
+asked me so many times before, shall be answered. I will tell you all
+I know, and leave you to form your own opinion. For ere we go any
+further, I assure you that I do not know for certain who he is!"
+
+"You have said so before, sir. Will you explain what you mean?"
+
+"When his adoptive father, Sir Michael Ferrara," resumed the doctor,
+beginning to pace up and down the library--"when Sir Michael and I
+were in Egypt, in the winter of 1893, we conducted certain inquiries
+in the Fayum. We camped for over three months beside the Meydum
+Pyramid. The object of our inquiries was to discover the tomb of a
+certain queen. I will not trouble you with the details, which could be
+of no interest to anyone but an Egyptologist, I will merely say that
+apart from the name and titles by which she is known to the ordinary
+student, this queen is also known to certain inquirers as the
+Witch-Queen. She was not an Egyptian, but an Asiatic. In short, she
+was the last high priestess of a cult which became extinct at her
+death. Her secret mark--I am not referring to a cartouche or anything
+of that kind--was a spider; it was the mark of the religion or cult
+which she practised. The high priest of the principal Temple of Ra,
+during the reign of the Pharaoh who was this queen's husband, was one
+Hortotef. This was his official position, but secretly he was also the
+high-priest of the sinister creed to which I have referred. The temple
+of this religion--a religion allied to Black Magic--was the Pyramid of
+Meydum.
+
+"So much we knew--or Ferrara knew, and imparted to me--but for any
+corroborative evidence of this cult's existence we searched in vain.
+We explored the interior of the pyramid foot by foot, inch by
+inch--and found nothing. We knew that there was some other apartment
+in the pyramid, but in spite of our soundings, measurements and
+laborious excavations, we did not come upon the entrance to it. The
+tomb of the queen we failed to discover, also, and therefore concluded
+that her mummy was buried in the secret chamber of the pyramid. We had
+abandoned our quest in despair, when, excavating in one of the
+neighbouring mounds, we made a discovery."
+
+He opened a box of cigars, selected one, and pushed the box towards
+his son. Robert shook his head, almost impatiently, but Dr. Cairn
+lighted the cigar ere resuming:
+
+"Directed, as I now believe, by a malignant will, we blundered upon
+the tomb of the high priest--"
+
+"You found his mummy?"
+
+"We found his mummy--yes. But owing to the carelessness--and the
+fear--of the native labourers it was exposed to the sun and
+crumpled--was lost. I would a similar fate had attended the other one
+which we found!"
+
+"What, another mummy?"
+
+"We discovered"--Dr. Cairn spoke very deliberately--"a certain
+papyrus. The translation of this is contained"--he rested the point of
+his finger upon the writing-table--"in the unpublished book of Sir
+Michael Ferrara, which lies here. That book, Rob, will never be
+published now! Furthermore, we discovered the mummy of a child--"
+
+"A child."
+
+"A boy. Not daring to trust the natives, we removed it secretly at
+night to our own tent. Before we commenced the task of unwrapping it,
+Sir Michael--the most brilliant scholar of his age--had proceeded so
+far in deciphering the papyrus, that he determined to complete his
+reading before we proceeded further. It contained directions for
+performing a certain process. This process had reference to the mummy
+of the child."
+
+"Do I understand--?"
+
+"Already, you are discrediting the story! Ah! I can see it! but let me
+finish. Unaided, we performed this process upon the embalmed body of
+the child. Then, in accordance with the directions of that dead
+magician--that accursed, malignant being, who thus had sought to
+secure for himself a new tenure of evil life--we laid the mummy,
+treated in a certain fashion, in the King's Chamber of the Meydum
+Pyramid. It remained there for thirty days; from moon to moon--"
+
+"You guarded the entrance?"
+
+"You may assume what you like, Rob; but I could swear before any jury,
+that no one entered the pyramid throughout that time. Yet since we
+were only human, we may have been deceived in this. I have only to
+add, that when at the rising of the new moon in the ancient Sothic
+month of Panoi, we again entered the chamber, a living baby, some six
+months old, perfectly healthy, solemnly blinked up at the lights which
+we held in our trembling hands!"
+
+Dr. Cairn reseated himself at the table, and turned the chair so that
+he faced his son. With the smouldering cigar between his teeth, he
+sat, a slight smile upon his lips.
+
+Now it was Robert's turn to rise and begin feverishly to pace the
+floor.
+
+"You mean, sir, that this infant--which lay in the
+pyramid--was--adopted by Sir Michael?"
+
+"Was adopted, yes. Sir Michael engaged nurses for him, reared him here
+in England, educating him as an Englishman, sent him to a public
+school, sent him to--"
+
+"To Oxford! Antony Ferrara! What! Do you seriously tell me that this
+is the history of Antony Ferrara?"
+
+"On my word of honour, boy, that is all I know of Antony Ferrara. Is
+it not enough?"
+
+"Merciful God! it is incredible," groaned Robert Cairn.
+
+"From the time that he attained to manhood," said Dr. Cairn evenly,
+"this adopted son of my poor old friend has passed from crime to
+crime. By means which are beyond my comprehension, and which alone
+serve to confirm his supernatural origin, he has acquired--knowledge.
+According to the Ancient Egyptian beliefs the _Khu_ (or magical
+powers) of a fully-equipped Adept, at the death of the body, could
+enter into anything prepared for its reception. According to these
+ancient beliefs, then, the _Khu_ of the high priest Hortotef entered
+into the body of this infant who was his son, and whose mother was the
+Witch-Queen; and to-day in this modern London, a wizard of Ancient
+Egypt, armed with the lost lore of that magical land, walks amongst
+us! What that lore is worth, it would be profitless for us to discuss,
+but that he possesses it--_all_ of it--I know, beyond doubt. The most
+ancient and most powerful magical book which has ever existed was the
+_Book of Thoth_."
+
+He walked across to a distant shelf, selected a volume, opened it at a
+particular page, and placed it on his son's knees.
+
+"Read there!" he said, pointing.
+
+The words seemed to dance before the younger man's eyes, and this is
+what he read:
+
+"To read two pages, enables you to enchant the heavens, the earth, the
+abyss, the mountains, and the sea; you shall know what the birds of
+the sky and the crawling things are saying ... and when the second
+page is read, if you are in the world of ghosts, you will grow again
+in the shape you were on earth...."
+
+"Heavens!" whispered Robert Cairn, "is this the writing of a madman?
+or can such things possibly be!" He read on:
+
+"This book is in the middle of the river at Koptos, in an iron box--"
+
+"An iron box," he muttered--"an iron box."
+
+"So you recognise the iron box?" jerked Dr. Cairn.
+
+His son read on:
+
+"In the iron box, is a bronze box; in the bronze box, is a sycamore
+box; in the sycamore box, is an ivory and ebony box; in the ivory and
+ebony box, is a silver box; in the silver box, is a golden box; and in
+that is the book. It is twisted all round with snakes, and scorpions,
+and all the other crawling things...."
+
+"The man who holds the _Book of Thoth_," said Dr. Cairn, breaking the
+silence, "holds a power which should only belong to God. The creature
+who is known to the world as Antony Ferrara, holds that book--do you
+doubt it?--therefore you know now, as I have known long enough, with
+what manner of enemy we are fighting. You know that, this time, it is
+a fight to the death--"
+
+He stopped abruptly, staring out of the window.
+
+A man with a large photographic camera, standing upon the opposite
+pavement, was busily engaged in focussing the house!
+
+"What is this?" muttered Robert Cairn, also stepping to the window.
+
+"It is a link between sorcery and science!" replied the doctor. "You
+remember Ferrara's photographic gallery at Oxford?--the Zenana, you
+used to call it!--You remember having seen in his collection
+photographs of persons who afterwards came to violent ends?"
+
+"I begin to understand!"
+
+"Thus far, his endeavours to concentrate the whole of the evil forces
+at his command upon this house have had but poor results: having
+merely caused Myra to dream strange dreams--clairvoyant dreams,
+instructive dreams, more useful to us than to the enemy; and having
+resulted in certain marks upon the outside of the house adjoining the
+windows--windows which I have sealed in a particular manner. You
+understand?"
+
+"By means of photographs he--concentrates, in some way, malignant
+forces upon certain points--"
+
+"He focusses his will--yes! The man who can really control his will,
+Rob, is supreme, below the Godhead. Ferrara can almost do this now.
+Before he has become wholly proficient--"
+
+"I understand, sir," snapped his son grimly.
+
+"He is barely of age, boy," Dr. Cairn said, almost in a whisper. "In
+another year, he would menace the world. Where are you going?"
+
+He grasped his son's arm as Robert started for the door.
+
+"That man yonder--"
+
+"Diplomacy, Rob!--Guile against guile. Let the man do his work, which
+he does in all innocence; _then_ follow him. Learn where his studio is
+situated, and, from that point, proceed to learn--"
+
+"The situation of Ferrara's hiding-place?" cried his son, excitedly.
+"I understand! Of course; you are right, sir."
+
+"I will leave the inquiry in your hands, Rob. Unfortunately other
+duties call me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+THE WIZARD'S DEN
+
+
+Robert Cairn entered a photographer's shop in Baker Street.
+
+"You recently arranged to do views of some houses in the West End for
+a gentleman?" he said to the girl in charge.
+
+"That is so," she replied, after a moment's hesitation. "We did
+pictures of the house of some celebrated specialist--for a magazine
+article they were intended. Do you wish us to do something similar?"
+
+"Not at the moment," replied Robert Cairn, smiling slightly. "I merely
+want the address of your client."
+
+"I do not know that I can give you that," replied the girl doubtfully,
+"but he will be here about eleven o'clock for proofs, if you wish to
+see him."
+
+"I wonder if I can confide in you," said Robert Cairn, looking the
+girl frankly in the eyes.
+
+She seemed rather confused.
+
+"I hope there is nothing wrong," she murmured.
+
+"You have nothing to fear," he replied, "but unfortunately there _is_
+something wrong, which, however, I cannot explain. Will you promise me
+not to tell your client--I do not ask his name--that I have been here,
+or have been making any inquiries respecting him?"
+
+"I think I can promise that," she replied.
+
+"I am much indebted to you."
+
+Robert Cairn hastily left the shop, and began to look about him for a
+likely hiding-place from whence, unobserved, he might watch the
+photographer's. An antique furniture dealer's, some little distance
+along on the opposite side, attracted his attention. He glanced at his
+watch. It was half-past ten.
+
+If, upon the pretence of examining some of the stock, he could linger
+in the furniture shop for half-an-hour, he would be enabled to get
+upon the track of Ferrara!
+
+His mind made up, he walked along and entered the shop. For the next
+half-an-hour, he passed from item to item of the collection displayed
+there, surveying each in the leisurely manner of a connoisseur; but
+always he kept a watch, through the window, upon the photographer's
+establishment beyond.
+
+Promptly at eleven o'clock a taxi cab drew up at the door, and from it
+a slim man alighted. He wore, despite the heat of the morning, an
+overcoat of some woolly material; and in his gait, as he crossed the
+pavement to enter the shop, there was something revoltingly
+effeminate; a sort of cat-like grace which had been noticeable in a
+woman, but which in a man was unnatural, and for some obscure reason,
+sinister.
+
+It was Antony Ferrara!
+
+Even at that distance and in that brief time, Robert Cairn could see
+the ivory face, the abnormal, red lips, and the long black eyes of
+this arch fiend, this monster masquerading as a man. He had much ado
+to restrain his rising passion; but, knowing that all depended upon
+his cool action, he waited until Ferrara had entered the
+photographer's. With a word of apology to the furniture dealer, he
+passed quickly into Baker Street. Everything rested, now, upon his
+securing a cab before Ferrara came out again. Ferrara's cabman,
+evidently, was waiting for him.
+
+A taxi driver fortunately hailed Cairn at the very moment that he
+gained the pavement; and Cairn, concealing himself behind the vehicle,
+gave the man rapid instructions:
+
+"You see that taxi outside the photographer's?" he said.
+
+The man nodded.
+
+"Wait until someone comes out of the shop and is driven off in it;
+then follow. Do not lose sight of the cab for a moment. When it draws
+up, and wherever it draws up, drive right past it. Don't attract
+attention by stopping. You understand?"
+
+"Quite, sir," said the man, smiling slightly. And Cairn entered the
+cab.
+
+The cabman drew up at a point some little distance beyond, from whence
+he could watch. Two minutes later Ferrara came out and was driven off.
+The pursuit commenced.
+
+His cab, ahead, proceeded to Westminster Bridge, across to the south
+side of the river, and by way of that commercial thoroughfare at the
+back of St. Thomas' Hospital, emerged at Vauxhall. Thence the pursuit
+led to Stockwell, Herne Hill, and yet onward towards Dulwich.
+
+It suddenly occurred to Robert Cairn that Ferrara was making in the
+direction of Mr. Saunderson's house at Dulwich Common; the house in
+which Myra had had her mysterious illness, in which she had remained
+until it had become evident that her safety depended upon her never
+being left alone for one moment.
+
+"What can be his object?" muttered Cairn.
+
+He wondered if Ferrara, for some inscrutable reason, was about to call
+upon Mr. Saunderson. But when the cab ahead, having passed the park,
+continued on past the lane in which the house was situated, he began
+to search for some other solution to the problem of Ferrara's
+destination.
+
+Suddenly he saw that the cab ahead had stopped. The driver of his own
+cab without slackening speed, pursued his way. Cairn crouched down
+upon the floor, fearful of being observed. No house was visible to
+right nor left, merely open fields; and he knew that it would be
+impossible for him to delay in such a spot without attracting
+attention.
+
+Ferrara's cab passed:
+
+"Keep on till I tell you to stop!" cried Cairn.
+
+He dropped the speaking-tube, and, turning, looked out through the
+little window at the back.
+
+Ferrara had dismissed his cab; he saw him entering a gate and crossing
+a field on the right of the road. Cairn turned again and took up the
+tube.
+
+"Stop at the first house we come to!" he directed. "Hurry!"
+
+Presently a deserted-looking building was reached, a large straggling
+house which obviously had no tenant. Here the man pulled up and Cairn
+leapt out. As he did so, he heard Ferrara's cab driving back by the
+way it had come.
+
+"Here," he said, and gave the man half a sovereign, "wait for me."
+
+He started back along the road at a run. Even had he suspected that he
+was followed, Ferrara could not have seen him. But when Cairn came up
+level with the gate through which Ferrara had gone, he slowed down and
+crept cautiously forward.
+
+Ferrara, who by this time had reached the other side of the field, was
+in the act of entering a barn-like building which evidently at some
+time had formed a portion of a farm. As the distant figure, opening
+one of the big doors, disappeared within:
+
+"The place of which Myra has been dreaming!" muttered Cairn.
+
+Certainly, viewed from that point, it seemed to answer, externally, to
+the girl's description. The roof was of moss-grown red tiles, and
+Cairn could imagine how the moonlight would readily find access
+through the chinks which beyond doubt existed in the weather-worn
+structure. He had little doubt that this was the place dreamt of, or
+seen clairvoyantly, by Myra, that this was the place to which Ferrara
+had retreated in order to conduct his nefarious operations.
+
+It was eminently suited to the purpose, being entirely surrounded by
+unoccupied land. For what ostensible purpose Ferrara has leased it, he
+could not conjecture, nor did he concern himself with the matter. The
+purpose for which actually he had leased the place was sufficiently
+evident to the man who had suffered so much at the hands of this
+modern sorcerer.
+
+To approach closer would have been indiscreet; this he knew; and he
+was sufficiently diplomatic to resist the temptation to obtain a
+nearer view of the place. He knew that everything depended upon
+secrecy. Antony Ferrara must not suspect that his black laboratory was
+known. Cairn decided to return to Half-Moon Street without delay,
+fully satisfied with the result of his investigation.
+
+He walked rapidly back to where the cab waited, gave the man his
+father's address, and, in three-quarters of an hour, was back in
+Half-Moon Street.
+
+Dr. Cairn had not yet dismissed the last of his patients; Myra,
+accompanied by Miss Saunderson, was out shopping; and Robert found
+himself compelled to possess his soul in patience. He paced restlessly
+up and down the library, sometimes taking a book at random, scanning
+its pages with unseeing eyes, and replacing it without having formed
+the slightest impression of its contents. He tried to smoke; but his
+pipe was constantly going out, and he had littered the hearth untidily
+with burnt matches, when Dr. Cairn suddenly opened the library door,
+and entered.
+
+"Well?" he said eagerly.
+
+Robert Cairn leapt forward.
+
+"I have tracked him, sir!" he cried. "My God! while Myra was at
+Saunderson's, she was almost next door to the beast! His den is in a
+field no more than a thousand yards from the garden wall--from
+Saunderson's orchid-houses!"
+
+"He is daring," muttered Dr. Cairn, "but his selection of that site
+served two purposes. The spot was suitable in many ways; and we were
+least likely to look for him next-door, as it were. It was a move
+characteristic of the accomplished criminal."
+
+Robert Cairn nodded.
+
+"It is the place of which Myra dreamt, sir. I have not the slightest
+doubt about that. What we have to find out is at what times of the day
+and night he goes there--"
+
+"I doubt," interrupted Dr. Cairn, "if he often visits the place during
+the day. As you know, he has abandoned his rooms in Piccadilly, but I
+have no doubt, knowing his sybaritic habits, that he has some other
+palatial place in town. I have been making inquiries in several
+directions, especially in--certain directions--"
+
+He paused, raising his eyebrows, significantly.
+
+"Additions to the Zenana!" inquired Robert.
+
+Dr. Cairn nodded his head grimly.
+
+"Exactly," he replied. "There is not a scrap of evidence upon which,
+legally, he could be convicted; but since his return from Egypt, Rob,
+he has added other victims to the list!"
+
+"The fiend!" cried the younger man, "the unnatural fiend!"
+
+"Unnatural is the word; he is literally unnatural; but many women find
+him irresistible; he is typical of the unholy brood to which he
+belongs. The evil beauty of the Witch-Queen sent many a soul to
+perdition; the evil beauty of her son has zealously carried on the
+work."
+
+"What must we do?"
+
+"I doubt if we can do anything to-day. Obviously the early morning is
+the most suitable time to visit his den at Dulwich Common."
+
+"But the new photographs of the house? There will be another attempt
+upon us to-night."
+
+"Yes, there will be another attempt upon us, to-night," said the
+doctor wearily. "This is the year 1914; yet, here in Half-Moon Street,
+when dusk falls, we shall be submitted to an attack of a kind to which
+mankind probably has not been submitted for many ages. We shall be
+called upon to dabble in the despised magical art; we shall be called
+upon to place certain seals upon our doors and windows; to protect
+ourselves against an enemy, who, like Eros, laughs at locks and bars."
+
+"Is it possible for him to succeed?"
+
+"Quite possible, Rob, in spite of all our precautions. I feel in my
+very bones that to-night he will put forth a supreme effort."
+
+A bell rang.
+
+"I think," continued the doctor, "that this is Myra. She must get all
+the sleep she can, during the afternoon; for to-night I have
+determined that she, and you, and I, must not think of sleep, but must
+remain together, here in the library. We must not lose sight of one
+another--you understand?"
+
+"I am glad that you have proposed it!" cried Robert Cairn eagerly,
+"I, too, feel that we have come to a critical moment in the contest."
+
+"To-night," continued the doctor, "I shall be prepared to take certain
+steps. My preparations will occupy me throughout the rest of to-day."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE ELEMENTAL
+
+
+At dusk that evening, Dr. Cairn, his son, and Myra Duquesne met
+together in the library. The girl looked rather pale.
+
+An odour of incense pervaded the house, coming from the doctor's
+study, wherein he had locked himself early in the evening, issuing
+instructions that he was not to be disturbed. The exact nature of the
+preparations which he had been making, Robert Cairn was unable to
+conjecture; and some instinct warned him that his father would not
+welcome any inquiry upon the matter. He realised that Dr. Cairn
+proposed to fight Antony Ferrara with his own weapons, and now, when
+something in the very air of the house seemed to warn them of a
+tremendous attack impending, that the doctor, much against his will,
+was entering the arena in the character of a practical magician--a
+character new to him, and obviously abhorrent.
+
+At half-past ten, the servants all retired in accordance With Dr.
+Cairn's orders. From where he stood by the tall mantel-piece, Robert
+Cairn could watch Myra Duquesne, a dainty picture in her simple
+evening-gown, where she sat reading in a distant corner, her delicate
+beauty forming a strong contrast to the background of sombre volumes.
+Dr. Cairn sat by the big table, smoking, and apparently listening. A
+strange device which he had adopted every evening for the past week,
+he had adopted again to-night--there were little white seals, bearing
+a curious figure, consisting in interlaced triangles, upon the insides
+of every window in the house, upon the doors, and even upon the
+fire-grates.
+
+Robert Cairn at another time might have thought his father mad,
+childish, thus to play at wizardry; but he had had experiences which
+had taught him to recognise that upon such seemingly trivial matters,
+great issues might turn, that in the strange land over the Border,
+there were stranger laws--laws which he could but dimly understand.
+There he acknowledged the superior wisdom of Dr. Cairn; and did not
+question it.
+
+At eleven o'clock a comparative quiet had come upon Half-Moon Street.
+The sound of the traffic had gradually subsided, until it seemed to
+him that the house stood, not in the busy West End of London, but
+isolated, apart from its neighbours; it seemed to him an abode, marked
+out and separated from the other abodes of man, a house enveloped in
+an impalpable cloud, a cloud of evil, summoned up and directed by the
+wizard hand of Antony Ferrara, son of the Witch-Queen.
+
+Although Myra pretended to read, and Dr. Cairn, from his fixed
+expression, might have been supposed to be pre-occupied, in point of
+fact they were all waiting, with nerves at highest tension, for the
+opening of the attack. In what form it would come--whether it would be
+vague moanings and tappings upon the windows, such as they had already
+experienced, whether it would be a phantasmal storm, a clap of
+phenomenal thunder--they could not conjecture, if the enemy would
+attack suddenly, or if his menace would grow, threatening from afar
+off, and then gradually penetrating into the heart of the garrison.
+
+It came, then, suddenly and dramatically.
+
+Dropping her book, Myra uttered a piercing scream, and with eyes
+glaring madly, fell forward on the carpet, unconscious!
+
+Robert Cairn leapt to his feet with clenched fists. His father stood
+up so rapidly as to overset his chair, which fell crashingly upon the
+floor.
+
+Together they turned and looked in the direction in which the girl had
+been looking. They fixed their eyes upon the drapery of the library
+window--which was drawn together. The whole window was luminous as
+though a bright light shone outside, but luminous, as though that
+light were the light of some unholy fire!
+
+Involuntarily they both stepped back, and Robert Cairn clutched his
+father's arm convulsively.
+
+The curtains seemed to be rendered transparent, as if some powerful
+ray were directed upon them; the window appeared through them as a
+rectangular blue patch. Only two lamps were burning in the library,
+that in the corner by which Myra had been reading, and the green
+shaded lamp upon the table. The best end of the room by the window,
+then, was in shadow, against which this unnatural light shone
+brilliantly.
+
+"My God!" whispered Robert Cairn--"that's Half-Moon Street--outside.
+There can be no light--"
+
+He broke off, for now he perceived the Thing which had occasioned the
+girl's scream of horror.
+
+In the middle of the rectangular patch of light, a grey shape, but
+partially opaque, moved--shifting, luminous clouds about it--was
+taking form, growing momentarily more substantial!
+
+It had some remote semblance of a man; but its unique characteristic
+was its awful _greyness_. It had the greyness of a rain cloud, yet
+rather that of a column of smoke. And from the centre of the dimly
+defined head, two eyes--balls of living fire--glared out into the
+room!
+
+Heat was beating into the library from the window--physical heat, as
+though a furnace door had been opened ... and the shape, ever growing
+more palpable, was moving forward towards them--approaching--the heat
+every instant growing greater.
+
+It was impossible to look at those two eyes of fire; it was almost
+impossible to move. Indeed Robert Cairn was transfixed in such horror
+as, in all his dealings with the monstrous Ferrara, he had never known
+before. But his father, shaking off the dread which possessed him
+also, leapt at one bound to the library table.
+
+Robert Cairn vaguely perceived that a small group of objects, looking
+like balls of wax, lay there. Dr. Cairn had evidently been preparing
+them in the locked study. Now he took them all up in his left hand,
+and confronted the Thing--which seemed to be _growing_ into the
+room--for it did not advance in the ordinary sense of the word.
+
+One by one he threw the white pellets into that vapoury greyness. As
+they touched the curtain, they hissed as if they had been thrown into
+a fire; they melted; and upon the transparency of the drapings, as
+upon a sheet of gauze, showed faint streaks, where, melting, they
+trickled down the tapestry.
+
+As he cast each pellet from his hand, Dr. Cairn took a step forward,
+and cried out certain words in a loud voice--words which Robert Cairn
+knew he had never heard uttered before, words in a language which some
+instinct told him to be Ancient Egyptian.
+
+Their effect was to force that dreadful shape gradually to disperse,
+as a cloud of smoke might disperse when the fire which occasions it is
+extinguished slowly. Seven pellets in all he threw towards the
+window--and the seventh struck the curtains, now once more visible in
+their proper form.
+
+The Fire Elemental had been vanquished!
+
+Robert Cairn clutched his hair in a sort of frenzy. He glared at the
+draped window, feeling that he was making a supreme effort to retain
+his sanity. Had it ever looked otherwise? Had the tapestry ever faded
+before him, becoming visible in a great light which had shone through
+it from behind? Had the Thing, a Thing unnameable, indescribable,
+stood there?
+
+He read his answer upon the tapestry.
+
+Whitening streaks showed where the pellets, melting, had trickled down
+the curtain!
+
+"Lift Myra on the settee!"
+
+It was Dr. Cairn speaking, calmly, but in a strained voice.
+
+Robert Cairn, as if emerging from a mist, turned to the recumbent
+white form upon the carpet. Then, with a great cry, he leapt forward
+and raised the girl's head.
+
+"Myra!" he groaned. "Myra, speak to me."
+
+"Control yourself, boy," rapped Dr. Cairn, sternly; "she cannot speak
+until you have revived her! She has swooned--nothing worse."
+
+"And--"
+
+"We have conquered!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE BOOK OF THOTH
+
+
+The mists of early morning still floated over the fields, when these
+two, set upon strange business, walked through the damp grass to the
+door of the barn, where-from radiated the deathly waves which on the
+previous night had reached them, or almost reached them, in the
+library at Half-Moon Street.
+
+The big double doors were padlocked, but for this they had come
+provided. Ten minutes work upon the padlock sufficed--and Dr. Cairn
+swung wide the doors.
+
+A suffocating smell--the smell of that incense with which they had too
+often come in contact, was wafted out to them. There was a dim light
+inside the place, and without hesitation both entered.
+
+A deal table and chair constituted the sole furniture of the interior.
+A part of the floor was roughly boarded, and a brief examination of
+the boarding sufficed to discover the hiding place in which Antony
+Ferrara kept the utensils of his awful art.
+
+Dr. Cairn lifted out two heavy boards; and in a recess below lay a
+number of singular objects. There were four antique lamps of most
+peculiar design; there was a larger silver lamp, which both of them
+had seen before in various apartments occupied by Antony Ferrara.
+There were a number of other things which Robert Cairn could not have
+described, had he been called upon to do so, for the reason that he
+had seen nothing like them before, and had no idea of their nature or
+purpose.
+
+But, conspicuous amongst this curious hoard, was a square iron box of
+workmanship dissimilar from any workmanship known to Robert Cairn. Its
+lid was covered with a sort of scroll work, and he was about to reach
+down, in order to lift it out, when:
+
+"Do not touch it!" cried the doctor--"for God's sake, do not touch
+it!"
+
+Robert Cairn started back, as though he had seen a snake. Turning to
+his father, he saw that the latter was pulling on a pair of white
+gloves. As he fixed his eyes upon these in astonishment, he perceived
+that they were smeared all over with some white preparation.
+
+"Stand aside, boy," said the doctor--and for once his voice shook
+slightly. "Do not look again until I call to you. Turn your head
+aside!"
+
+Silent with amazement, Robert Cairn obeyed. He heard his father lift
+out the iron box. He heard him open it, for he had already perceived
+that it was not locked. Then quite distinctly, he heard him close it
+again, and replace it in the _cache_.
+
+"Do not turn, boy!" came a hoarse whisper.
+
+He did not turn, but waited, his heart beating painfully, for what
+should happen next.
+
+"Stand aside from the door," came the order, "and when I have gone
+out, do not look after me. I will call to you when it is finished."
+
+He obeyed, without demur.
+
+His father passed him, and he heard him walking through the damp grass
+outside the door of the barn. There followed an intolerable interval.
+From some place, not very distant, he could hear Dr. Cairn moving,
+hear the chink of glass upon glass, as though he were pouring out
+something from a stoppered bottle. Then a faint acrid smell was wafted
+to his nostrils, perceptible even above the heavy odour of the incense
+from the barn.
+
+"Relock the door!" came the cry.
+
+Robert Cairn reclosed the door, snapped the padlock fast, and began to
+fumble with the skeleton keys with which they had come provided. He
+discovered that to reclose the padlock was quite as difficult as to
+open it. His hands were trembling too; he was all anxiety to see what
+had taken place behind him. So that when at last a sharp click told of
+the task accomplished, he turned in a flash and saw his father placing
+tufts of grass upon a charred patch from which a faint haze of smoke
+still arose. He walked over and joined him.
+
+"What have you done, sir?"
+
+"I have robbed him of his armour," replied the doctor, grimly. His
+face was very pale, his eyes were very bright. "I have destroyed the
+_Book of Thoth_!"
+
+"Then, he will be unable--"
+
+"He will still be able to summon his dreadful servant, Rob. Having
+summoned him once, he can summon him again, but--"
+
+"Well, sir?"
+
+"He cannot control him."
+
+"Good God!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That night brought no repetition of the uncanny attack; and in the
+grey half light before the dawn, Dr. Cairn and his son, themselves
+like two phantoms, again crept across the field to the barn.
+
+The padlock hung loose in the ring.
+
+"Stay where you are, Rob!" cautioned the doctor.
+
+He gently pushed the door open--wider--wider--and looked in. There was
+an overpowering odour of burning flesh. He turned to Robert, and spoke
+in a steady voice.
+
+"The brood of the Witch-Queen is extinct!" he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+THE MYSTERY OF DR. FU-MANCHU
+THE DEVIL DOCTOR
+THE SI-FAN MYSTERIES
+THE YELLOW CLAW
+EXPLOITS OF CAPT. O'HAGAN
+TALES OF SECRET EGYPT
+THE ROMANCE OF SORCERY
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Brood of the Witch-Queen, by Sax Rohmer
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BROOD OF THE WITCH-QUEEN ***
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+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #19706 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19706)