Brood of the Witch-Queen Part 24

Yet sleep defied him. Every trifling sound from the harbour and the ca.n.a.l 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 a.s.sumed the dimensions of a lesser moon; and it seemed to rest in the s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.sage 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.