The Jewel of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker (ebook and pdf reader .txt) 📖
- Author: Bram Stoker
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tell you later. You will be able to tell Doctor Winchester all that
would aid him. For I take it that our work will branch out pretty soon.
We shall each have our own end to hold up; and it will take each of us
all our time and understanding to get through his own tasks. It will
not be necessary for you to read the whole book. All that will interest
you—with regard to our matter I mean of course, for the whole book is
interesting as a record of travel in a country then quite unknown—is the
preface, and two or three chapters which I shall mark for you.”
He shook hands warmly with Doctor Winchester who had stood up to go.
Whilst he was away I sat lonely, thinking. As I thought, the world
around me seemed to be illimitably great. The only little spot in which
I was interested seemed like a tiny speck in the midst of a wilderness.
Without and around it were darkness and unknown danger, pressing in from
every side. And the central figure in our little oasis was one of
sweetness and beauty. A figure one could love; could work for; could
die for … !
Mr. Corbeck came back in a very short time with the book; he had found
it at once in the spot where he had seen it three years before. Having
placed in it several slips of paper, marking the places where I was to
read, he put it into my hands, saying:
“That is what started Mr. Trelawny; what started me when I read it; and
which will, I have no doubt, be to you an interesting beginning to a
special study—whatever the end may be. If, indeed, any of us here may
ever see the end.”
At the door he paused and said:
“I want to take back one thing. That Detective is a good fellow. What
you have told me of him puts him in a new light. The best proof of it
is that I can go quietly to sleep tonight, and leave the lamps in his
care!”
When he had gone I took the book with me, put on my respirator, and went
to my spell of duty in the sick-room!
I placed the book on the little table on which the shaded lamp rested
and moved the screen to one side. Thus I could have the light on my
book; and by looking up, see the bed, and the Nurse, and the door. I
cannot say that the conditions were enjoyable, or calculated to allow of
that absorption in the subject which is advisable for effective study.
However, I composed myself to the work as well as I could. The book was
one which, on the very face of it, required special attention. It was a
folio in Dutch, printed in Amsterdam in 1650. Some one had made a
literal translation, writing generally the English word under the Dutch,
so that the grammatical differences between the two tongues made even
the reading of the translation a difficult matter. One had to dodge
backward and forward among the words. This was in addition to the
difficulty of deciphering a strange handwriting of two hundred years
ago. I found, however, that after a short time I got into the habit of
following in conventional English the Dutch construction; and, as I
became more familiar with the writing, my task became easier.
At first the circumstances of the room, and the fear lest Miss Trelawny
should return unexpectedly and find me reading the book, disturbed me
somewhat. For we had arranged amongst us, before Doctor Winchester had
gone home, that she was not to be brought into the range of the coming
investigation. We considered that there might be some shock to a
woman’s mind in matters of apparent mystery; and further, that she,
being Mr. Trelawny’s daughter, might be placed in a difficult position
with him afterward if she took part in, or even had a personal knowledge
of, the disregarding of his expressed wishes. But when I remembered
that she did not come on nursing duty till two o’clock, the fear of
interruption passed away. I had still nearly three house before me.
Nurse Kennedy sat in her chair by the bedside, patient and alert. A
clock ticked on the landing; other clocks in the house ticked; the life
of the city without manifested itself in the distant hum, now and again
swelling into a roar as a breeze floating westward took the concourse of
sounds with it. But still the dominant idea was of silence. The light
on my book, and the soothing fringe of green silk round the shade
intensified, whenever I looked up, the gloom of the sick-room. With
every line I read, this seemed to grow deeper and deeper; so that when
my eyes came back to the page the light seemed to dazzle me. I stuck to
my work, however, and presently began to get sufficiently into the
subject to become interested in it.
The book was by one Nicholas van Huyn of Hoorn. In the preface he told
how, attracted by the work of John Greaves of Merton College,
Pyramidographia, he himself visited Egypt, where he became so interested
in its wonders that he devoted some years of his life to visiting
strange places, and exploring the ruins of many temples and tombs. He
had come across many variants of the story of the building of the
Pyramids as told by the Arabian historian, Ibn Abd Alhokin, some of
which he set down. These I did not stop to read, but went on to the
marked pages.
As soon as I began to read these, however, there grew on me some sense
of a disturbing influence. Once or twice I looked to see if the Nurse
had moved, for there was a feeling as though some one were near me.
Nurse Kennedy sat in her place, as steady and alert as ever; and I came
back to my book again.
The narrative went on to tell how, after passing for several days
through the mountains to the east of Aswan, the explorer came to a
certain place. Here I give his own words, simply putting the
translation into modern English:
“Toward evening we came to the entrance of a narrow, deep valley,
running east and west. I wished to proceed through this; for the sun,
now nearly down on the horizon, showed a wide opening beyond the
narrowing of the cliffs. But the fellaheen absolutely refused to enter
the valley at such a time, alleging that they might be caught by the
night before they could emerge from the other end. At first they would
give no reason for their fear. They had hitherto gone anywhere I
wished, and at any time, without demur. On being pressed, however, they
said that the place was the Valley of the Sorcerer, where none might
come in the night. On being asked to tell of the Sorcerer, they
refused, saying that there was no name, and that they knew nothing. On
the next morning, however, when the sun was up and shining down the
valley, their fears had somewhat passed away. Then they told me that a
great Sorcerer in ancient days—‘millions of millions of years’ was the
term they used—a King or a Queen, they could not say which, was buried
there. They could not give the name, persisting to the last that there
was no name; and that anyone who should name it would waste away in life
so that at death nothing of him would remain to be raised again in the
Other World. In passing through the valley they kept together in a
cluster, hurrying on in front of me. None dared to remain behind. They
gave, as their reason for so proceeding, that the arms of the Sorcerer
were long, and that it was dangerous to be the last. The which was of
little comfort to me who of this necessity took that honourable post.
In the narrowest part of the valley, on the south side, was a great
cliff of rock, rising sheer, of smooth and even surface. Hereon were
graven certain cabalistic signs, and many figures of men and animals,
fishes, reptiles and birds; suns and stars; and many quaint symbols.
Some of these latter were disjointed limbs and features, such as arms
and legs, fingers, eyes, noses, ears, and lips. Mysterious symbols
which will puzzle the Recording Angel to interpret at the Judgment Day.
The cliff faced exactly north. There was something about it so strange,
and so different from the other carved rocks which I had visited, that I
called a halt and spent the day in examining the rock front as well as I
could with my telescope. The Egyptians of my company were terribly
afraid, and used every kind of persuasion to induce me to pass on. I
stayed till late in the afternoon, by which time I had failed to make
out aright the entry of any tomb, for I suspected that such was the
purpose of the sculpture of the rock. By this time the men were
rebellious; and I had to leave the valley if I did not wish my whole
retinue to desert. But I secretly made up my mind to discover the tomb,
and explore it. To this end I went further into the mountains, where I
met with an Arab Sheik who was willing to take service with me. The
Arabs were not bound by the same superstitious fears as the Egyptians;
Sheik Abu Some and his following were willing to take a part in the
explorations.
“When I returned to the valley with these Bedouins, I made effort to
climb the face of the rock, but failed, it being of one impenetrable
smoothness. The stone, generally flat and smooth by nature, had been
chiselled to completeness. That there had been projecting steps was
manifest, for there remained, untouched by the wondrous climate of that
strange land, the marks of saw and chisel and mallet where the steps had
been cut or broken away.
“Being thus baffled of winning the tomb from below, and being unprovided
with ladders to scale, I found a way by much circuitous journeying to
the top of the cliff. Thence I caused myself to be lowered by ropes,
till I had investigated that portion of the rock face wherein I expected
to find the opening. I found that there was an entrance, closed however
by a great stone slab. This was cut in the rock more than a hundred
feet up, being two-thirds the height of the cliff. The hieroglyphic and
cabalistic symbols cut in the rock were so managed as to disguise it.
The cutting was deep, and was continued through the rock and the portals
of the doorway, and through the great slab which formed the door itself.
This was fixed in place with such incredible exactness that no stone
chisel or cutting implement which I had with me could find a lodgment in
the interstices. I used much force, however; and by many heavy strokes
won a way into the tomb, for such I found it to be. The stone door
having fallen into the entrance I passed over it into the tomb, noting
as I went a long iron chain which hung coiled on a bracket close to the
doorway.
“The tomb I found to be complete, after the manner of the finest
Egyptian tombs, with chamber and shaft leading down to the corridor,
ending in the Mummy Pit. It had the table of pictures, which seems some
kind of record—whose meaning is now for ever lost—graven in
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