Brood of the Witch-Queen Part 25

"Stop, sir, stop! My G.o.d! 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d and man, I was about to slay that thing. Thank G.o.d!--"

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 p.a.w.ns, 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 pa.s.sed 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 quant.i.ty 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."