The Living Mummy E-Book

Ambrose Pratt

• Herausgeber: Publisher s11838
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

The Living Mummy written by Ambrose Pratt who was an Australian writer. This book was published in 1910. And now republish in ebook format. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy reading this book.

Leseprobe

The Living Mummy

By

Ambrose Pratt

Illustrator: Louis D. Fancher

Table of Contents

Chapter I. Concerning the Son of Hap

Chapter II. A Patient of the Desert

Chapter III. Two Lies

Chapter IV. The Sarcophagus's Perfume

Chapter V. The Shadow in the Cave

Chapter VI. Enter Dr. Belleville

Chapter VII. The One Goddess

Chapter VIII. Ottley Shows His Hand

Chapter IX. A Cool Defiance

Chapter X. The Capture of the Coffin

Chapter XI. Good-bye to the Nile

Chapter XII. The Meeting

Chapter XIII. Hubbard Is Jealous

Chapter XIV. The Pushful Man

Chapter XV. A Quaint Love Pact

Chapter XVI. Lady Helen Prescribes for Her Husband

Chapter XVII. The Séance

Chapter XVIII. The Unseen

Chapter XIX. The First Victim

Chapter XX. Lady Helen's Medicine Operates

Chapter XXI. Hubbard's Philosophy of Life

Chapter XXII. The Dead Hand

Chapter XXIII. I Set Out for the East

Chapter XXIV. The Gin Is Sprung

Chapter XXV. The Mummy Talks

Chapter XXVI. A Pleasant Chat With a Murderer

Chapter XXVII. Unbound

Chapter XXVIII. The Struggle in the Chamber

Chapter XXIX. Saved by fire

Chapter XXX. The Last

Chapter I. Concerning the Son of Hap

I was hard at work in my tent. I had almost completed translating the inscription of a small stele of Amen-hotep III, dated B. C., 1382, which with my own efforts I had discovered, and I was feeling wonderfully self-satisfied in consequence, when of a sudden I heard a great commotion without. Almost immediately the tent flap was lifted, and Migdal Abu's black face appeared. He looked vastly excited for an Arab, and he rolled his eyes horribly. "What do you want?" I demanded irritably. "Did I not tell you I was not to be disturbed?"

He bent almost double. "Excellency—a white sheik has come riding on an ass, and with him a shameless female, also white."

"The dickens!" I exclaimed, for I had not seen a European for nine weeks.

Migdal Abu advanced with hand outstretched. "Excellency, he would have me give you this."

I took "this," and swore softly underbreath at the humourless pomposity of my unknown countryman. It was a pasteboard carte-de-visite. And we—in the heart of the Libyan desert!

With a laugh I looked at the thing and read his name—"Sir Robert Ottley."

"What!" I said, then sprang a-foot. Ottley the great Egyptologist. Ottley the famous explorer. Ottley the eminent decipherer of cuneiform inscriptions. Ottley the millionaire whose prodigality in the cause of learning had in ten short years more than doubled the common stock of knowledge of the history of the Shepherd kings of the Nile. I had been longing since a lad to meet him, and now he had come unasked to see me out on the burning sands of Yatibiri.

Trembling with excitement, I caught up a jacket, and hardly waiting to thrust my arms into the sleeves, rushed out of the tent.

Before me, sitting on an ass that was already sound asleep, despite a plague of flies that played about its eyes, was a little bronze-faced, grizzled old man attired from head to foot in glistening white duck and wearing on his head an enormous pith helmet. My Arabs, glad of an excuse to cease work, squatted round him in a semi-circle.

"Sir Robert Ottley!" I cried. "A thousand welcomes."

"You are very good," he drawled. "I presume you are Dr. Pinsent."

"At your service."

He stooped a little forward and offered me his hand.

"Will you not dismount?" I asked.

"Thank you, no. I have come to ask a favour." Then he glanced round him and began deliberately to count my Arabs.

I surveyed him in blank astonishment. He possessed a large hawk-like nose, a small thin-lipped mouth and little eyes twinkling under brows that beetled.

"Twelve, and two of them are good for nothing; mere weeds," said Sir Robert.

Then he turned to me with a smile. "You will forgive me?" he asked, adding quickly, "but then Arabs are cattle. There was no personal reflection."

"A cup of coffee," I suggested. "The sun is dreadful. It would refresh you."

"The sun is nothing," he replied, "and I have work to do. I am camped on the southern slope of the Hill of Rakh. It is twelve miles. I have found the tomb for which I have been searching seven years. I thought I had enough Arabs. I was mistaken."

"You may have the use of mine and welcome," I observed.

He gave a queer little bow. "He gives twice who gives quickly. The sarcophagus is in a rock hole forty feet beneath the level of the desert. I simply must have it up to-night."

"They shall start at once, and I shall go with them; I am as strong as six," I replied. Then I shouted some orders to Migdal Abu. When I turned it was to gasp. A woman had materialised from the sunbeams. I had completely forgotten that Sir Robert had a female companion. All my eyes had been for him. I swung off my hat and stammered some tardy words of welcome and invitation.

Sir Robert interrupted me. "My daughter—Dr. Pinsent," he drawled in slow, passionless tones. "My daughter does not require any refreshment, thank you, Doctor."

"I am too excited," said a singularly sweet voice. "Father's discovery has put me into a fever. I really could not eat, and coffee would choke me. But if you could give me a little water."

I rushed into my tent and returned with a brimming metal cup. "The Arabs have broken all my glass ware," I said apologetically.

She lifted her veil and our eyes met. She was lovely. She smiled and showed a set of dazzling teeth. The incisors were inlaid with gold. I remarked the fact in a sort of self-defensive panic, for the truth is I am a shy idiot with pretty women. Thank goodness she was thirsty and did not notice my confusion. Two minutes afterwards I was mounted on my donkey, and we were off on the long tramp to the Hill of Rakh, the Arabs trailing behind us in a thin ill-humoured line. We maintained the silence of bad temper and excessive heat until the sun sank into the sand. Then, however, we wiped our foreheads, said a cheerful good-bye to the flies that had been tormenting us, and woke up.

"I am immensely obliged to you, Dr. Pinsent," said Sir Robert.

"So am I," said Miss Ottley.

"The boot is on the other foot," I replied. "It's kind of you to permit me to be present at your triumph. Is it a king?"

"No," said Miss Ottley, "a priest of Amen of the eighteenth dynasty."

"Oh, a priest."

Miss Ottley bridled at my tone. "No king was ever half as interesting as our priest," she declared. "He was a wonderful man in every way, a prophet, a magician, and enormously powerful. Besides, he is believed to have committed suicide for the sake of principle, and he predicted his own resurrection after a sleep of two thousand years."

"He has been dead 3285 years," sighed Sir Robert.

"Is that his fault?" cried the girl.

"It falsifies his prophecy."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Ptahmes was his name," said Sir Robert, turning to me. "He was the right-hand man of Amen-hotep IV; but when that king changed his religion and his name and became Akhenaten and a devotee of the old worship of Heliopolis, Ptahmes apparently killed himself as a protest against the deposition of Amen, his particular divinity."

"Read that," said Miss Ottley.

She handed me a page of type-written manuscript.

It ran as follows:

"Hearken to the orders which are put upon you by Ptahmes, named Tahutimes, son of Mery, son of Hap.

"All my ways were regulated even as the pace of an ibis. The Hawk-headed Horus was my protector like amulets upon my body. I trained the troops of my lord. I made his pylon 60 cubits long in the noble rock of quartzite, most great in height and firm as heaven. I did not imitate what had been done before. I was the royal scribe of the recruits. Mustering was done under me. I was appointed Judge of the Palace; overseer of all the prophets of the south and of the north. I was appointed High Priest of Amen in the Capital—King of all the Gods. I was made the eyes and ears of the king: keeper of my lord's heart and fan-bearer at the King's right hand. Great men have come from afar to bow themselves before me, bringing presents of ivory and gold, copper, silver and emery, lazuli, malachite, green felspar and vases of mern wood inlaid with white precious stones sometimes bearing gold at one time 1000 deben (200 pounds weight). For my fame was carried abroad even as the fame of the king, 'lord of the sweet wind.' And there was spoken of me by the son of Paapis that my wisdom was of a divine nature, because of my knowledge of futurities. Yet on the sixth day of the month of Pakhons in the 18th year I desire to rest. My lord, at the solicitation of the great royal wife and mother Nefertiti, has put off the worship of his predecessors. The name of Amen is proscribed from the country. Ra is proscribed from the country. Horus is proscribed from the country. Aten is set up in their place and worshipped in the land. My lord has even changed his name. Apiy is the high priest of the new God that is from the Mesopotamian wilderness. Amen, king of the Gods, dandled my lord and is forsaken and proscribed. I am an old man and would rest: although my lord has not forsaken me. He has appointed me overseer of all his works. Therefore, shall you carry me to the temple of Kak, and give my body to the hands of the priests of Amen who will wrap me in the linen sheets of Horus without removing my heart, my entrails or my lungs. Then you shall carry me to Khizebh and enclose me in the place prepared for me; and cover my tomb to a depth of five fathoms with the sand of the desert at that hour when no man looks or listens. Do this even as I command, and as royal scribe I trace the order with my pen. But you shall place my papyri and the sign by which I shall be known, and the stele of ivory engraved with the directions to the priests of Amen who are to wake me from my sleep at the distant hour, in the tomb that is prepared for my body in the temple of Merenptah and in such manner that I shall there appear to sleep. And all these things you shall do, or my curse shall pursue you and your children and their children for the space of four hundred lives. Nor shall you remove the endowment of my gifts nor touch them where they lie under a penalty of great moment."

I strained my eyes to catch the last words, for the darkness was already setting down upon the desert; and I was profoundly interested.

"Wonderful!" I said, as I returned her the document. "A papyrus, of course?"

"Yes, one of several. Father found it seven years ago at Dier el Batiri."

"I had not heard."

Sir Robert coughed. "No," said he, "nor anyone else. I have never published it. It did not come to me in the usual way. I bought it from an Arab who had rifled the tomb in which it was discovered."

"And the other papyri and the ivory stele?" I questioned.

"They are in my possession, too."

"They enabled you doubtless to locate the real tomb that holds the body?"

"They helped."

Then silence supervened. To me it was filled with wonder. I could not help asking myself what circumstances could possibly have induced Ottley to withhold so valuable an historic treasure for so many years from the world. Such a course of action was utterly opposed to all practice, and the unwritten but immutable laws of scientific research. It seemed strangely at odds, too, with the man's reputed character. It would have covered him with glory to have placed his discovery before the Society to which we both belonged. And a dozen incidents related of him far and wide, proved that he was not indifferent to praise and fame. He read my thoughts probably, for at length he cleared his throat and spoke.

"There were reasons why I should not blazon the find abroad," he said.

"No doubt," I observed, with unintentioned dryness.

"One papyrus speaks of a golden treasure," he went on quietly. "If published, it would have set thousands looking for the tomb. In that case the chances are that the body of Ptahmes would have been destroyed by some vandal intent solely on pillage."

"You assumed a great responsibility," I remarked. I simply had to say it, for I was angry, and his explanation appeared puerile to me.

"Do you dispute my right?" he demanded coldly.

I shrugged my shoulders. "It is not for me to say, Sir Robert. Doubtless when the time comes you will be able to satisfy the Society and the world that you have acted rightly."

"I admit no responsibility," he answered; "and permit me to observe that you are talking nonsense. I owe no duty to communicate the results of my purchases or discoveries to any Society or to the world."

"True, Sir Robert. An action for damages could not lie against you."

"Sir!" he cried.

"Father," said Miss Ottley, "how can Dr. Pinsent's foolish sarcasm affect you? Besides, we need his Arabs."

"Quite so," said Sir Robert. "We need his Arabs. How brightly the stars shine to-night, Dr. Pinsent."

The cool impudence of the pair struck me dumb. I shook with passion. For a moment I thought of calling a halt and returning the way we had come to my own camp with my Arabs. But for my curiosity to see the tomb of Ptahmes very probably I should have done so. In a few seconds, however, my rage cooled, and my uppermost feeling was admiration mixed with mirth. I had never been treated with such open and absurd contempt before. It was a refreshing experience. I burst of a sudden into a peal of laughter. Miss Ottley joined me in the exercise. But Sir Robert rode on like a hook-nosed Sphinx.

"I knew I could not be mistaken," said Miss Ottley. "You should thank God for your sense of humour, Dr. Pinsent."

"And who is benefiting from it at this moment, I should like to know?" I retorted. "The thanks are due from you, I fancy."

"Deo gratias!" she flashed. "In sober truth, we need your Arabs sadly."

"I repeat, I am glad to be of use."

"We shall use you, but not necessarily in the cause of your Society. Understand that fully."

"You mean?"

"That you must not expect to share our secrets."

"In plain words, you will not let me help you open the sarcophagus."

"Your penetration is remarkable."

"And if——"

"And if," she interrupted quickly, "you require a reward for the courtesy we asked and you accorded or have promised to accord, you have but to name a sum in cash to have it paid."

"Or——" said I, stung to the quick.

"Or," she flashed, "return! You are at liberty to make your choice. Yours are not the only Arabs in Egypt. At a pinch we can wait a day or two. It is for you to say."

I tore off my hat. "Miss Ottley—my Arabs are yours for as long as you require them!" I furiously announced. "Good day to you. Sir Robert, good day!"

Then I dragged the head of my ass round and set his face to my camp. The beast, however, would hardly budge, and I had to belabour him unmercifully to induce him to trot. Never did man make a more undignified exit from circumstances of indignity. And it did not need Miss Ottley's mocking laughter to assure me that I looked ridiculous. I could have strangled her with all the cheerfulness in life; and from that moment I have cherished an ineradicable hatred of donkeys. Sir Robert did not open his lips. He did not even return my angry salute. Almost choking with rage, I finally got out of range of Miss Ottley's laughter. Then I dismounted and told the desert just what I thought of her and her father. It was almost midnight when I reached my camp, for, to crown all, I neglected the stars in my passion, and for two hours lost my way.

Chapter II. A Patient of the Desert

I spent the next two days in absolute solitude, and got through a tremendous quantity of toil. In fact, I added two whole chapters to my treatise on the Nile monuments and I arranged the details of a third. By the end of that time, however, I was ravenously hungry. I had been too engrossed in labour to think of eating anything but biscuits. And appetite at last turned me out of the tent. I looked around for my Arabs and saw sand and sky—no living thing—oh, yes, there was my donkey. The little beast had eaten his way through a truss of straw, and was asleep. Strolling over to the ruined pylon, I glanced down into the hole my Arabs had excavated. It was empty. "Gad!" I exclaimed. "They must still be working for Ottley." I had to build a fire and turn cook, willy nilly. Later, fortified with the pleasant conviction of a good dinner, I turned my telescope on the Hill of Rakh. An Arab stood on the treeless summit leaning on a rifle whose barrel glittered in the sunlight. I was puzzled. He was manifestly posted there as sentinel, but why? I watched him till dark, but he did not move. That night I shot a jackal—omen of disaster. It was long before I slept. Yet I seemed only to have slumbered a moment or two when I awoke. A voice called my name aloud. "Dr. Pinsent! Dr. Pinsent!" I started upright and listened, nerves on edge.

"Dr. Pinsent!"

"Who calls?" I shouted.

"I—May Ottley."

"Miss Ottley!" I hopped out of my bag bed like a cricket. "Just a moment." I struck a light and, grabbing at my clothes, proceeded to dress like mad. Thus for thirty seconds; then I remembered how I had been treated, and went slower. Then I thought—"Pinsent, you're a cad—she's a woman, and perhaps in trouble." So I got up steam again and called out, "Nothing wrong, I hope?"

"Yes," said Miss Ottley. Well, here was a woman of business, at any rate. She seemed to know the use of words, and valued them accordingly. Waste not, want not. I drew on my jacket and lifted the flap. An Arab rustled past me.

"Hello!" said I. "Not so fast, my man."

But it was Miss Ottley. I stepped back, bewildered. Her hair was tucked away in a sort of turban, and she was wrapped from head to heel in a burnous that had once been white—very long ago. But the costume, though dirty, was becoming. She sank upon a camp stool and asked at once for water. She seemed very tired. My bag was empty. I hurried off without a word to the barrel in the temple. When I returned she was asleep where she sat. I touched her shoulder and she started up, suppressing a scream. "Now," said I, as she put down the cup. Miss Ottley stood up. "A bad thing has happened," she began. "The sarcophagus was filled with treasure, gold and silver in bars, and other things. The Arabs went mad. My father fought like a paladin and held them off for a day and a half. But soon after dark this evening a caravan arrived. The fight was renewed and my father was wounded. The Arabs secured the treasure and fled into the desert. The dragoman only kept faith with us. He has gone by the river to Khonsu for troops. I hurried here for you. I ran almost all the way. Will you come? Father is very ill. He has lost a lot of blood. He was shot in the shoulder."

I nodded, caught up my revolver and surgical pack and rushed out of the tent. In two minutes I had saddled the donkey. Miss Ottley was standing by the door of the tent. I lifted her on the beast and we started off in silence. An hour later she spoke.

"There is one thing I like about you," she announced. "You haven't much to say for yourself, but you are a worker."

"Tu quoque," I replied. "You must have done that twelve miles in record time. It is not yet two o'clock."

"I made it in two hours, I think."

"You are an athlete, by Jove!"

"I am no bread-and-butter miss, at any rate. This donkey has a bad pace, don't you think?"

I kicked the brute into a trot and ran beside it. The Hill of Rakh soon began to loom large among the stars on the horizon. "I suppose you were pretty wild at our cavalier treatment of you the other evening," said Miss Ottley.

"Well, yes," I admitted.

"We were sorry when the fight came."

"No doubt," said I.

"It served us right, eh?"

"That is my opinion."

"Do you bear malice still?"

"I am thinking of your father's wound."

"That atones?"

"Your twelve-mile run helps."

"But you are still angry with us?"

"Does it matter? I am serving you."

"Be generous," said Miss Ottley. "We have been sufficiently punished. Not only have we lost the treasure, but there was no mummy in the sarcophagus."

"Be a lady and apologise," I retorted.

"No," said she, with a most spirited inflection. "It is not a woman's place."

"Then be silent or change the topic," I growled.

She was silent. We arrived an hour later at the mountain. I was bathed in perspiration and as tired as a dog. But Miss Ottley had no time to notice my condition. She slipped off the donkey and hurried away through the smaller of the three pylons that fronted a small temple hollowed out of the rock face of the hill. There was no sign of tent, so I concluded that Sir Robert had made his camp within the temple. I hitched the ass to a stake and cooled off, thanking Providence for a cool breeze that swept up from the placid surface of the Nile. Day was already showing signs of breaking, and a broad flight of long-legged flamingoes hurried its coming with a flash of scarlet just above the eastern horizon. The distant howling of a hyena was borne to me in fitful snatches on the wind. The earth was wrapped in mystery and melancholy. Oh, Egypt! Egypt, land of sun-lit spaces and illimitable shadows; of grandeur and of squalor without peer; of happy dreams and sad awakenings; of centuries ingloriously oblivious of glory; of sleep and sphinx-browed, age-bound silences; of darkly smiling and impotent despair. What a mistress for a man of curiosity and of imagination! Little wonder that since I had been caught in her magic and most jealous spell the face of no human being had possessed the power to threaten her supremacy or cancel my allegiance to the mystic desert queen.

"Dr. Pinsent!"

I awoke from my reverie with a start. "This way," said Miss Ottley. I bowed and followed her into the temple, through a broad but low stone doorway, past a row of broken granite columns. A light within showed us the path. The chamber was about eighteen feet square; there was another of equal size beyond it, in the heart of the hill. An immense sarcophagus composed entirely of lead almost blocked the door. The lid, carved to represent the figure and face of a tall grave-featured man, was propped up on end against a pillar. The sarcophagus was empty. Beyond stood a trestle cot, a table and a lamp. Sir Robert Ottley lay upon the cot. He was awake, but evidently unconscious, and in a high fever. I examined his wound and prepared for action. There was an oil stove in the room. I lighted it and set water to boil. Miss Ottley watched me with an expression I shall not forget easily. Her face was as wan as that of a ghost; and her big red-brown eyes glowed like coals, and were ringed with purple hollows. She was manifestly worn out and on the verge of a breakdown. But although I begged her to retire, she curtly refused. Judging by her eyes, she was my enemy, and a critical enemy at that. When everything was ready I walked over to her, picked her up in my arms and carried her struggling like a wildcat to the door. Then I put her out and blocked the entrance with the lid of the sarcophagus. She panted—"I hate you," from behind it. Then she began to cry. I said nothing. It seemed one of those occasions wherein silence was golden. I tied Sir Robert to the cot and set to work. Half an hour later I found the bullet under his clavicle, and then dressed the wound and bound him up. He came out of the influence of the anæsthetic in his sober senses; but he was so eager to tell me all his disappointment that I gave him a hypodermic dose of morphia, and he dropped asleep in the middle of a rabid diatribe against Arabs in general and our Arabs in particular.

I found Miss Ottley reclining against a ruined pillar in an angle of the pylon. She had cried herself to sleep and was breathing like a child. I slipped out and found the Arab's store-house and kitchen. Luckily the gold had exhausted their cupidity. The stores were untouched. I lighted a fire and prepared a meal—coffee and curry for Miss Ottley and myself; beef tea and arrowroot for the invalid. By that time the sun was riding high in the heavens, but Miss Ottley still slept. Willing to assist her rest I secured a cushion from the chamber and pushed it gently beneath her head. She sighed and turned over, allowing me to see her face. I examined it and found it good. The features were well-nigh perfect, from the little Grecian nose to the round chin. But it was a face instinct with pride, the pride of a female Lucifer. And her form was in keeping. "God save her husband," was my conclusion. And I ate a hearty breakfast, watching her and pitying him, whoever he should be.

Sir Robert woke about noon, and although a little feverish, I was quite satisfied with his progress. After eating a dish of what he feelingly described as "muck" he went to sleep again. I prepared a second meal and brought it on a box to where Miss Ottley still lay sleeping. Then I sat down and coughed. Her eyes opened at once and she looked at me. It is marvellous what a woman's glance can do. I became instantly conscious of a dirty face, unkempt hair, and a nine-weeks' growth of beard. In order to conceal my appreciation of my ugliness I grinned.

"Ugh!" murmured Miss Ottley, and she got up.

"Sir Robert is asleep," I observed. "I found the bullet. He has had lunch and is going on nicely. You had better eat something."

She gave me a glance of scorn and glided into the temple. I helped her to a plate of curry, poured out a cup of coffee and made myself scarce. Returning a quarter of an hour later, I found the plate bare, the cup empty and not a crumb left on the box. I took the things away and washed them, and my own face. Then I shaved with a pocket amputation knife, using for mirror a pot of soapy water; and I brushed my too abundant locks into something like order with a bunch of stubble which I converted into a hair brush with a tomahawk and a piece of twine. Feeling prodigiously civilised and almost respectable, I strolled back to the pylon, sat down on Miss Ottley's cushion, and lighted my pipe.

About two minutes later Miss Ottley appeared.

"Patient awake?" I asked.

"No," said Miss Ottley. "What an objectionable smell of tobacco!"

War to the knife evidently. I stood up. "When you need me shout," I remarked, and strolled off, puffing stolidly. But I saw her face as I turned, and it was crimson, perhaps with surprise that I could be as rude as she, perhaps with mortification that I had dared. If ever a girl needed a dressing down it was she who stood in the pylon staring after me. I squatted in the shadow of a rock and spent the afternoon stupefying over-friendly flies with the fumes of prime Turkish. She shouted just before sundown. Her father was delirious, she said. I found him raving and tearing at his bandages. He was haunted with an hallucination of phantom cats. The whole cavern, he declared, was filled with cats; black as Erebus with flaming yellow eyes. I shooed them away and after some trouble calmed the poor old man. But it was going to be a bad case, that was plain. Luckily the cave temple was, comparatively speaking, cool. I spent the evening disinfecting every cranny, and quietly dispersing the suspicious dust of vanished centuries. When I had finished it smelt carbolically wholesome and was as clean as a London hospital, even to the ceiling. Miss Ottley sat all the while by her father's cot, and occasionally sneezed to relieve her feelings. I had very little sympathy for her distress. I said to her, "You will take first watch, I'll sleep in the pylon. Call me at midnight." Then I placed my watch on the edge of the sarcophagus and went out. She said nothing. I woke at dawn. She was sitting like a statue beside her father's bedside. Her face was grey. Sir Robert was asleep, but breathing stertorously. I beckoned her out to the pylon. "See here, Miss Ottley," I said, in a cold rage, "I'm not going to beat about the bush with you. I told you to call me at midnight. Kindly explain your disobedience."

"I am not your servant to obey your orders," she retorted icily.

"No," said I, "you prefer to serve your own prickly pride to behaving sensibly. But let me tell you this—your father's life depends on careful nursing. And that is impossible unless we apportion the work properly between us. You'll be fit for nothing today, and my task will be doubled in consequence. A little more of such folly and you'll break down altogether. You are strung up to more than concert pitch. As for me—I am not a machine, and though I am prepared to do my best out of mere humanity, I don't pretend to do the impossible. Nor shall I answer for your father's life if you force me to nurse two patients single-handed."

She looked me straight in the eye. "Very well, sir, I shall henceforth rigidly obey you."

"You must," I said and strode into the open. When I had prepared breakfast, she did not want to eat. But I had only to frown and she succumbed. Afterwards I made her lie down, and she slept through Sir Robert's groaning. It was a hideous day. The patient grew steadily worse, and so great was his strength, despite his diminutive size, that our struggles wore me out at last and I was obliged to strap him down. By nightfall he was a maniac, and his yells could be heard, I make no doubt, a mile around. And the worst of it was that my stock of bromide was gone. I had to dose him with morphia. But I had not to speak to Miss Ottley again. She woke me out of a delicious sleep at a quarter to the hour. She was quite composed, but as pale as a sheet.

"My father is going to die, I think," she whispered.

I went in and looked at him. He was straining like a tiger at his bonds. "Not to-night, at any rate," I observed. "He has the strength of six. You go straight to bed!"

She went off as meek as any lamb, and I began to talk to Sir Robert. Our conversation was somewhat entertaining. He was Ixion chained to the wheel. I was Sisyphus with a day off duty. We commiserated one another on our penalties, and bitterly assailed King Pluto's unsympathetic government. Finally we conspired to dethrone him and give the crown of Hades to Proserpine, whose putatively tender heart might be reckoned on occasionally to mitigate the anguish of our punishment. He fell into a fitful doze at last with his hand in mine, but he soon awoke, and with a yell announced the return of the imaginary plague of cats. On the whole, the night was worse than the day. And morning was no blessing. Sir Robert had shed five and forty years. He was once again at college, and if his unwilling confessions are to be relied upon, and his language, he must have been a precious handful for his masters. But now he steadily lost strength, and the flame of fever ate him up before our eyes. As the shadows lengthened into afternoon I began to look for the crisis.

Chapter III. Two Lies

Sleep was not to be dreamed of that night for either of us well people. I had thought of a plan. Leaving Miss Ottley to watch the unconscious but ceaselessly babbling patient, I scoured out the sarcophagus, and then built an enormous fire before the pylon. Over this I hung the Arab's cauldron. By nightfall I had the sarcophagus nigh abrim with hot water. It formed a huge but most admirable bath. It was a heroic experiment to make; but the dark angel was in the cavern and I had little chance left. Kill or cure. It seemed a toss of the coin either way, for Sir Robert was dying fast. After the bath he slipped into a state of blank insensibility. Miss Ottley thought him asleep, and she took heart to hope. I did not deceive her. For four hours I waited, my finger continually on his pulse. It grew continually weaker. I administered nitro-glycerine every half hour, but at length even that spur failed.

"Miss Ottley," said I, "you must prepare for the worst."

She showed me a face of more than mortal courage. Pride is not always amiss in characters like hers. "I have felt it all along," she said quietly. "Will he regain his senses?"

"Yes. At least I think he will—before the end."

"Is there no hope?"

"None—unless he can be miraculously aroused. Pardon me—is he very much attached to you?"

"No—his heart and soul are wrapped up in his work. He died, to all intents and purposes, the hour he was shot. His terrible disappointment had deprived him of his best support."

"The robbery, you mean?"

"No—the knowledge of his failure. He made certain of finding the body of Ptahmes."

"Ah!" said I—and gave myself to thought. When I looked up next Miss Ottley was gazing at her father with a marble countenance, but tears were streaming from her eyes.

"You love him," I whispered.

"More than all the world," she answered simply. Her voice rang as true and unbroken as the chiming of a bell. I began in spite of myself to admire Miss Ottley.

Ten minutes passed; minutes of hideously oppressive silence. Then, without warning, Sir Robert's eyelids flickered and opened. There was the light of reason in them. I bent over him and his glance encountered mine. I pressed his hand and said in brisk, cheerful tones, "You must hurry up and get well, Sir Robert, or I shall not be able to restrain my curiosity. This Ptahmes of yours is the most extraordinary mummy I have ever seen; and I am simply dying to take him from his shroud."

The dim eyes of the dying man actually glowed. His fingers clutched at my wrist, and with a superhuman effort he gasped forth, "No—No."

"Be easy," I returned, "I'll not touch him till you are well. But you must hurry. Remember we are of a trade, you and I."

He smiled and very slowly his eyes closed. His breathing was absolutely imperceptible; but his pulse, though faint, was regular. I made sure and then put down his hand.

"He is dead," said Miss Ottley, and her voice thrilled me to the core.

"No," said I, "he is sleeping like a babe. The crisis is over. He will live."

"Oh! my God!" she cried, and fell on her knees beside the bed shaken with a storm of sobbing.

I sneaked out of the temple and smoked my first pipe in three days. I was only half through it when I felt her at my side.

"No, please continue smoking," she said, "I like it, really. I have come to try and thank you."

"You can't," I replied; "I'm not a man to overestimate his own services, but this is the sort of thing that cannot be repaid by either gold or words."

"Oh!" she said.

"You see," I went on, "I lied. It was to save his life—for your sake. The sight of your distress touched me. I am glad that he will live, of course. Glad to have served you. But the fact remains, I am a liar."

"Dr. Pinsent!" she cried.

"Oh, I daresay I'll grow used to it," I interrupted cheerfully. "Perhaps I have only shed a superstition, after all. I confess to an unwonted feeling of freedom, too. Undoubtedly I was shackled, in a sense. Yet a convict chained for years feels naked, I am told, when he gets, suddenly, his liberty. I can easily believe it. My own experience—but enough; we leave the patient too long alone."

She flitted off like a phantom and as noiselessly. I refilled my pipe. An hour later I found them both asleep, she seated on the camp-stool leaning back against the tomb. Nature had been too strong for her, poor girl. I felt towards her the brotherhood of vice. She, too, had lied—in pretending a little while before—a hatred of tobacco.

I took her quietly and gently in my arms and carried her to her own cot in the inner cabin. She did not wake.