Pharos, The Egyptian by Guy Boothby (reading rainbow books .txt) 📖

signs of overwhelming sorrow were to be seen.

Suddenly a murmur of astonishment and anger ran through the crowd, which separated hurriedly to right and left. A moment later a man came through the lane thus formed. He was short and curiously misshapen, and as he walked he covered his face with the sleeve of his robe, as though he were stricken with grief or shame.

Turning to a man who stood beside me, and who seemed even more excited than his neighbours, I inquired who the new-comer might be.

"Who art thou, stranger?" he answered, turning sharply on me. "And whence comest thou that thou knowest not Ptahmes, Chief of the King's Magicians? Learn, then, that he hath fallen from his high estate, inasmuch as he made oath before Pharaoh that the first-born of the King should take no hurt from the spell this Israelitish sorcerer, Moses, hath cast upon the land. Now the child and all the first-born of Egypt are dead, and the heart of Pharaoh being hardened against his servant, he hath shamed him and driven him from before his face."

As he finished speaking, the disgraced man withdrew his robe from his face, and I realised the astounding fact _that Ptahmes the Magician and Pharos the Egyptian were not ancestor and descendant, but one and the same person_.



CHAPTER XI.

Of the circumstances under which my senses returned to me after the remarkable vision, for that is the only name I can assign to it, which I have described in the preceding chapter, only the vaguest recollection remains to me.

When Pharos had ordered me to drink the stuff he had poured out, we were standing before the Sphinx at Gizeh; now, when I opened my eyes, I was back once more in my bedroom at the hotel in Cairo. Brilliant sunshine was streaming in through the jalousies, and I could hear footsteps in the corridor outside. At first I felt inclined to treat the whole as a dream; but the marks upon my hands, made when I had beaten them on the rough walls of that terrible chamber in the Pyramid, soon showed me the futility of so doing. I remembered how I had run round and round that dreadful place in search of a way out, and the horror of the recollection was sufficient to bring a cold sweat out once more upon my forehead. Strange to say, I mean strange in the light of all that has transpired since, the memory of the threat Pharos had used to me caused me no uneasiness, and yet, permeating my whole being, was a loathing for him and a haunting fear that was beyond description in words. This dislike was the outcome not so much of a physical animosity, if I may so designate it, as of a peculiar description of supernatural fear. Reason with myself as I would I could not get rid of the belief that the man was more than he pretended to be, that there was some link between him and the Unseen which it was impossible for me to understand. Arguing with myself in this way I was the more disposed to believe in the vision of the preceding night.

On consulting my watch I was amazed to find that it wanted only a few minutes of ten o'clock. I sprang from my bed, and a moment later came within an ace of measuring my length upon the floor. What occasioned this weakness I could not tell, but the fact remains that I was as feeble as a little child. The room spun round and round until I became so giddy that I was compelled to clutch at a table for support. What was even stranger, I was conscious of a sharp pricking on my left arm a little above the elbow, which eventually became so sharp that it could be felt not only on the tips of my fingers but for some distance down my side. To examine the place was the work of a moment. On the fleshy part of the arm, three inches or so above the elbow, was a small spot, such as might have been made by some sharp pointed instrument, a hypodermic syringe for instance, and which was fast changing from a pale pink to a purple hue. My wonderment was increased when I discovered that the spot itself, and the flesh surrounding it for more than an inch, was incapable of sensation. I puzzled my brains in vain to account for its presence there. I could not remember scratching myself with anything in my room, nor could I discover that the coat I bad worn on the preceding evening showed any signs of a puncture.

After a few moments the feeling of weakness which had seized me when I first left my bed wore off. I accordingly dressed myself with as much despatch as I could put into the operation, and my toilet being completed, left my room and went in search of the Fraeulein Valerie. To my disappointment she was not visible. I, however, discovered Pharos seated in the veranda, in the full glare of the morning sun, with the monkey, Pehtes, on his knee. For once he was in the very best of tempers. Indeed, since I had first made his acquaintance I never remembered to have known him so merry. At a sign I seated myself beside him.

"My friend," he began, "I am rejoiced to see you. Permit me to inform you that you had a narrow escape last night. However, since you are up and about this morning I presume you are feeling none the worse for it."

I described the fit of vertigo which had overtaken me when I rose from my bed, and went on to question him as to what had happened after I had become unconscious on the preceding night.

"I assure you you came very near being a lost man," he answered. "As good luck had it I had not left the Pyramid and so heard you cry for help, otherwise you might be in the Queen's Hall at this minute. You were unconscious when we found you, and you had not recovered by the time we reached home again."

"Not recovered?" I cried in amazement. "But I walked out of the Pyramid unassisted, and accompanied you across the sands to the Sphinx, where you gave me something to drink and made me see a vision."

Pharos gazed incredulously at me.

"My dear fellow, you must have dreamed it," he said. "After all you had gone through it is scarcely likely I should have permitted you to walk, while as for the vision you speak of--well, I must leave that to your own common sense. If necessary my servants will testify to the difficulty we experienced in getting you out of the Pyramid, while the very fact that you yourself have no recollection of the homeward journey would help to corroborate what I say."

This was all very plausible; at the same time I was far from being convinced. I knew my man too well by this time to believe that because he denied any knowledge of the circumstance in question he was really as innocent as he was plainly anxious I should think him. The impression the vision, for I shall always call it by that name, had made upon me was still clear and distinct in my mind. I closed my eyes and once more saw the street filled with that strangely dressed crowd, which drew back on either hand to make a way for the disgraced Magician to pass through. It was all so real, and yet, as I am compelled to confess, so improbable, that I scarcely know what to think. Before I could come to any satisfactory decision Pharos turned to me again.

"Whatever your condition last night may have been," he said, "it is plain you are better this morning, and I am rejoiced to see it, for the reason I have made arrangements to complete the business which has brought us here. Had you not been well enough to travel I should have been compelled to leave you behind."

I searched his face for an explanation.

"The mummy?" I asked.

"Exactly," he replied. "The mummy. We leave Cairo this afternoon for Luxor. I have made the necessary arrangements, and we join the steamer at midday, that is to say in about two hours' time."

I inquired after the Fraeulein Valerie, whom I had not yet seen, whereupon Pharos informed me that she had gone to her cabin to prepare for the excursion up the Nile.

"And now, Mr. Forrester," he said, rising from his chair and returning the monkey to his place of shelter in the breast of his coat, "if I were you I should follow her example. It will be necessary for us to start as punctually as possible."

Sharp on the stroke of twelve a carriage made its appearance at the door of the hotel. The Fraeulein Valerie, Pharos, and myself took our places in it, the gigantic Arab whom I had seen at the Pyramid on the preceding night, and who I was quite certain had held my arms when Pharos compelled me to drink the potion before the Sphinx, took his place beside the driver, and we set off along the road to Bulak _en route_ to the Embabeh. Having reached this, one of the most characteristic spots in Cairo, we made our way along the bank toward a landing-stage, beside which a handsome steamer was moored. If anything had been wanting to convince me of the respect felt for Pharos by the Arabs, I should have found it in the behaviour of the crew of this vessel. Had he been imbued with the powers of life and death, they could scarcely have stood in greater awe of him.

Our party being on board, there was no occasion for any further delay, consequently, as soon as we had reached the upper deck, the ropes were cast off, and with prodigious fuss the steamer made her way out into mid stream, and began the voyage which was destined to end in such a strange fashion for all our party.

Full as my life had been of extraordinary circumstances during the last few weeks, I am not certain that my feelings as I stood upon the deck of the steamer while she made her way up stream, passed the Khedive's Palace, the Kasr-en-Nil barracks, Kasr-el-Ain, the Island of Rodah, and Gizeh, did not eclipse them. Our vessel was a most luxurious one, and to charter her must have cost Pharos a pretty penny. Immediately we got under way the latter departed to his cabin, while the Fraeulein Valerie and I stood side by side under the awning, watching the fast-changing landscape in silence. The day was hot, with scarcely a breath of wind to cool the air. Ever since the first week in June the Nile had been rising, and was now running a swift and muddy river only a few feet below the level of her banks. I looked at my companion, and as I did so thought of all that we had been through together in the short time we had known each other. Less than a month before, Pharos and I had to all intents and purposes been strangers, and Valerie and I had not met at all. Now I was embarking on a voyage up the Nile in their company, and for what purpose? To restore the body of Merenptah's Chief Magician to the tomb from which it had been taken by my own father nearly twenty years before. Could anything have seemed more unlikely, and yet could anything have been