The Mummy and Miss Nitocris Part 3

"Come, Kefa, come, and bear me to my lord!"

The G.o.ddess answered in a mighty rush and roar of waters, long pent and swiftly loosed. Then above the tumult rose the hoa.r.s.e shouts of men and the shrill screams of women, and the crash and clash of tables overturned; then came the swirl and bubbling hiss of a flood that gleamed darkly under the golden lamps and swiftly rose towards them, bearing upon its surface white arms with outstretched hands gripping at the empty air, and gauzy robes which half hid gleaming limbs, white faces with wildly-staring eyes, and teeth that grinned between tight-drawn lips so lately smiling; strong swimmers fighting for another moment's breath, and one by one dragged down by many hidden hands: then the sharp hiss of swift-quenched flames, then darkness, and the stifling of sobbing groans into silence, and after that only the sibilant undertone of waters rushing swiftly past smooth walls through utter night.

"Dear me!" the Professor heard himself say as he sat up and rubbed his eyes, "what on earth can be the matter with me? Egypt--the Queen--Palace of Pepi--bridal feast of Nitocris and Menkau-Ra--yes, yes, of course I remember it all now. She made me impersonate Nefer in the mummy-case, and then, when she had frightened her guests half out of their wits, she avenged her lover by opening the sluice-gates and drowning the lot, herself included. A rare device, that of old Pepi's, for getting rid of hospitably entertained enemies. Not quite in accordance with our modern ideas of sport, I'm afraid, but in those days we thought a good deal more of effectiveness than sport. Good heavens! What sort of nonsense am I talking? Dreaming, I suppose."

He stopped as the reflection of a brilliant flash of lightning lit up his window, and bursts of rain dashed upon the panes.

"Ah yes, of course, that's it! Quite in accordance with the theory of dreams. It's only the difference between a thunder-shower and the Nile flood. The Genius of Dreams could easily account for the rest. Certainly this apparatus that we call our brain plays some very curious tricks with us sometimes. I suppose this is one of them. And yet if ever there was a dream that seemed like reality that one did. The Mummy and the long-dead Nitocris back to life! By the way, I wonder whether that flagon was really there, and whether there _was_ any wine in it? If there was, perhaps I took too much of it. Ah, there's the rain again!

"By the way now, suppose that this fourth dimension that has puzzled so many of us is, after all, duration? If so, it would solve a great many problems, because it would be possible to be and not to be at the same time, and, therefore, for two bodies to occupy the same s.p.a.ce. That would be perfectly easy of supposition to the being to whom time and eternity were one. Yes, I believe that when the great problem is solved, it will be found that the fourth dimension _is_ duration, extending in all directions like the circ.u.mference of a circle, the edges of a cube, and the curves of the conic sections.

"Yes, I really do think I have got it at last, and that confounded Mummy has taught it me. Still, I don't think I ought to speak as disrespectfully as that of a young lady who has been dead for the last fifty centuries or so and has come back. Yes, that is it. It _is_ duration."

Perfectly satisfied for the time being with this solution, he turned over on to his right side--for, to his disgust, he found that he had been lying on his back, a most pernicious position where dreaming is concerned--and went to sleep. Half an hour later he was awakened by another heaven-shaking crash of thunder.

CHAPTER IV

THIEVES IN THE NIGHT

This time he was very much awake. In fact, his sense of wakefulness seemed almost superhuman. His faculties were preternaturally alert, and he had a feeling of what might properly be called mental extension--it was not exaltation--- which seemed to widen his mental vision enormously. Problems which had puzzled him to desperation suddenly became as obvious as the first axioms of geometry. In short, he felt as though he had become a new man, re-born, or re-incarnated, into another world which contained the one he had so far lived in, but which was infinitely vaster in some undefined way which was not yet plain to him.

He lay for some time thinking over the extraordinary happenings of the evening and his dream, which he remembered with astonishing exactness of detail. Then a sudden turn of thought carried his mind to the subject of miracles, apparitions, ghosts, and mathematical impossibilities such as squaring the circle and doubling the cube--and to his amazement he found that the impossible of yesterday had become the possible--nay, the almost absurdly obvious of to-night.

He went on thinking and wondering until he began to half-believe that he was dreaming again, so he got up and switched on the electric light.

Then he turned involuntarily towards the wardrobe, which, as usual, had a long mirror running down the middle of it. To his amazement he did not see himself reflected in it. The mirror seemed to have vanished, and in its place was a window looking into his study.

He saw the mummy-case leaning up against the wall, but it was empty. In front of it stood a man and a woman. Both were plainly, almost meanly, dressed; the man in a tightly-b.u.t.toned black frock-coat and baggy grey trousers; the woman in a plain gown of dark stuff, and a shawl which was draped round her head and shoulders in somewhat Eastern fashion.

He could see their faces distinctly in profile. They were of the cla.s.sic Coptic type which so persistently reproduces the features of the old Egyptians as we see them outlined in the wall-paintings of the temples and the half-mutilated carvings and statues. The window of the study was open, but the door was shut; so was the door of his own room, but for all that he distinctly heard the man say to the woman in Coptic, which, curiously enough, sounded as familiar to his ears as the faces seemed to his eyes:

"Neb-Anat, it is gone! These heathen ravishers have not been content with stealing the body of our Queen from its sacred resting-place and bringing it here, whither we have traced it with so much labour. See, it has been stolen again; hidden, no doubt, so that the servants of the King could not find it. It may be that even we have been suspected and watched, in spite of all our care. Yet it must be found, or the doom that may not be revoked will be ours."

"Even so, Pent-Ah," replied the woman in a soft, musical voice which well suited the comeliness of her face; "but though the priceless treasure has been taken from its casket, it cannot have been carried out of the house, for you know that every approach has been watched closely since it was brought here. Come, in this house it must be, and to find it is our task. Every one is asleep; take off thy shoes and let us search."

She took off her own shoes as she spoke, and he saw the man do the same.

Then, as the man opened the door and they pa.s.sed out of the study, the picture vanished from the mirror.

Amazement at what he had seen and heard--the disappearance of the Mummy, the presence of the man and woman, evidently charged with what they believed to be the sacred mission of stealing it back again, and their evident purpose of searching the house for it--instantly gave place to a quick thrill of fear.

His daughter's bedroom was on the same floor as the study, only a couple of doors away round the corner of the landing. These people would search every room. What if she had not locked her door securely, or if they had some means of opening it? She was the living image of the dead Nitocris. He did not dare to think of what might happen to her. Would these new-found, strangely-given powers of his suffice to protect her?

If not, he would have but little use for them, since she was his nearest and dearest on earth.

He pulled his stockings over the pants of his pyjamas and put on his velvet working jacket, forgetting for the moment that, if these things were true, it would be perfectly easy for him to make himself invisible to beings in the ordinary world of three dimensions. Then he turned out the light, opened the door very softly, and crept downstairs.

Yes, what he had seen was true. He heard the soft, shuffling patter of stockinged feet along the landing, though he could see nothing in the dark. A door opened gently. His sense of location told him that it was the door of the spare bedroom next but one to the study. He felt his way silently and softly along the wall, and as he did so his hand touched the electric switch. Should he turn the light on and alarm the house?

Whoever was there had "broken and entered" after midnight, and was therefore outside the law. No, he would not do that. If what he had seen was true, the intruders believed that their mission was a sacred one. No doubt the man was armed, and perhaps the woman also, and what would a knife-stab mean to them on such a desperate quest?

As these thoughts ran at lightning speed through his mind, he saw a faint glow inside the room. He crept forward and looked round the side of the doorway. The man had a little electric lamp in his hand and was flashing the slender rays all over the room. He drew his head back quickly as he heard him say:

"There is nothing here, Anat. Come, let us try the next room. Neither lock nor bolt nor even human life must stand in the way of our search now that we have begun it!"

He heard them coming towards the door. Instinctively he shrank back, and his heart stood still as he thought of what would happen if the man chanced to turn the little ray of his lamp on him. Almost involuntarily his thoughts went back to the promise of Queen Nitocris, and something like a prayer that it might be kept rose to his lips.

They came out, and the man flashed the thin electric ray up and down the pa.s.sage. It wavered hither and thither, and at last fell directly on his face. He was anything but a coward, but he was thinking of Niti--and what if a knife-stab left her undefended? But to his amazement, although they were both looking straight at him, the expression of neither face changed in the slightest. They had not seen him. The Queen had answered his prayer. He was no longer in the world of three dimensions, and so he was invisible to all dwellers in it. For him, then, there was evidently no danger--but Niti----?

They moved along to the next door. That was hers. The woman put her hand on the k.n.o.b and turned it. To his horror, the door opened. She had forgotten to lock it. They both crept in, and he followed them boldly enough now, knowing what he did. The ray leapt rapidly about the room till it fell on the bed with its pale blue silken coverlet, and then on the pillow, on which rested the head of the sleeping, breathing image of the long-dead Queen.

With a half-stifled gasp the man shrank back and dropped the lamp, and the Professor heard him say to the woman in a shuddering whisper:

"By the High G.o.ds, Neb-Anat, it is a miracle! Do you not see her? It is she--the Queen--alive again, as the ancient prophecy said she should be.

What magic have these heathens used?"

"Yes," replied the woman, whispering lower, "truly it is the Queen, and she is alive and sleeping--no doubt pa.s.sing from the sleep of death through the sleep of life to life again. Now, O Pent-Ah, is our task much harder, yet will its accomplishment be all the more glorious for you and me, and greatly will our Lord reward us if we can restore to his keeping, not the ravished mummy of Nitocris, but the Queen herself, warm and breathing and beautiful, as she was in the ancient days of the great Rameses."

"I'll be hanged if you do!" said the Professor to himself, "not, at least, if Her Majesty's legacy to me is worth anything. Abduct my daughter at the dead of night, would you, you scoundrels? We'll see about that. If you don't leave this house as thoroughly frightened as ever you were in your lives, I know nothing about the fourth dimension."

Meanwhile he heard them both groping about the floor after the lamp. The woman found it, and pressed the b.u.t.ton. The ray fell on the man's face, and he saw that the olive of his skin had turned to a ghastly grey. His eyes were wide open, and his mouth and nostrils were working with intense excitement. Then the woman turned the ray on Niti's face again.

"They will wake her if this goes on much longer," said the Professor to himself again. "I had better stop this little comedy before it becomes a tragedy. Poor Niti would go half mad if she found these two scoundrels by her bedside--and yet if I do anything out of the way they will yell.

Ah, I think I have it!"

He walked softly out of the room, and when he got into the pa.s.sage he whispered in the tongue that had become so strangely familiar to him:

"Pent-Ah, Neb-Anat, come hither instantly! Who are you that you should disturb the slumbers of your Lady the Queen!"

He saw them stare at each other with eyes wide with fear and wonder.

"It is the command of the Mighty One," whispered the woman, taking hold of the man's hand and drawing him towards the door.

"And He must be obeyed," said he in reply, bowing his head and following her.

They closed the door very softly behind them.

The Professor could not repress a sigh of thankfulness for Niti's escape from what, at best, would have been a very terrible fright.

"And now, my friends," he went on to himself, "I think I can teach you not to come into an English gentleman's house again with an idea of stealing his property, to say nothing of abducting his daughter."

The man and woman were still staring at each other by the light of the lamp, each holding each other's trembling hand, when the lamp was suddenly s.n.a.t.c.hed away from the woman and went out. Then, to their horror, the ray shot out again in front of them as though the lamp were floating by itself in the air. It flashed from face to face, both ghastly with fear. Then an invisible hand gripped the man's, and drew him with irresistible force along the pa.s.sage. The woman grasped his coat, and followed with shuffling feet and shaking limbs, dumb with wonder and fear. The hand led them down the pa.s.sage, round the corner, and into the study. Then it released them. They heard the door shut and the key turn in the lock. Then there was a click, and the electric cl.u.s.ter above the writing-table shone out, apparently of its own volition. The woman uttered a low scream, and cowered down in a corner of a big sofa that stood by the bay-window. The man, after one terrified glance round the room, began to creep towards the open sash; but the invisible hand gripped him by the collar and pulled him back. His trembling knees gave way under him, and he rolled in a heap on the floor.

Then, to his wondering horror, he saw a stout blackthorn stick which was standing in a corner of the room, jump up into the air and leap towards him. He put his head down on to the carpet, covered his eyes with his hands, and began to moan with terror. The stick came down with what seemed to him superhuman force again and again on his back and shoulders. He whimpered and moaned, and at last howled with pain. He rolled over and looked up, and there was the stick hanging in the air above him. He put up his hands clasped as though in prayer, and down it came on his knuckles. He did not howl this time. His hands unclasped and dropped beside him; his head went back, and he fainted in sheer terror.

"There, my friend," said the Professor aloud, forgetting the presence of the woman for the moment; "mummy or no mummy, I don't think you will come into this house again. And as for you, madam," he went on, "of course, I can't give you a hiding, so the sight of his punishment will have to be enough for you. Still, I think you have had enough of attempted mummy-stealing to last you some time."