He

CHAPTER XI.

THE WIZARD UNBOSOMS

'Sir,' said Leonora, 'may I request you to inform me why we find you, rampaging an unbidden guest, in the chamber which is sacred to hospitality?'

Την δ απαμεβομενος προσεΦη κορυθαιολος Asher,' answered the magician, dreamily. 'Do my senses deceive me, or – that voice, that winsome bearing – am I once more with Helen on the walls of Ilion?'

'No, sir, you are in 30 Acacia Gardens,' replied Leonora, severely. 'Why, permit me to repeat myself, do I find you here, an unbidden guest?'

'To say that I never guessed you'd find me here,' answered the magician, 'might seem a mere trifling with language and with your feelings.'

'My feelings!' exclaimed the proud girl, indignantly, 'just as if – But answer me!'

'When a man has seen as much of life as I have,' answered the magician, 'when the Æons are to him merely as drops in a bucket which he will never kick – and when he suffers,' he added mournfully, 'from attacks of multiplex personality, he recognises the futility of personal explanations.'

'At least I can compel you to tell us Where is the mummy?' said Leonora.

'I am, or lately was, that mummy,' said the wizard, haughtily; then, drawing himself up to his full height, he added, 'I am the Real Jambres! Old Gooseberry Jamberries,' he added solemnly. 'No other is genuine!'

'You are playing, sir, on our credulity,' replied the girl; 'no living man can be a mummy, – outside of the House of Lords or the Royal Academy.'

'You speak,' he said tenderly, 'with the haste of youth and inexperience. When you have lived as long as I have, you will know better. Hearken to my story.

'Three or four thousand years ago – for what is time? – I was the authorised magician at the Court of Ptolemy Patriarchus. I had a rival – the noted witch Theodolitê. In an evil hour she won me by a show of false affection, and, taking advantage of my passion, mummified me alive. To this I owe my remarkable state of preservation at an advanced age. Très bien conservé,' he added fatuously.

'But she only half accomplished her purpose. By some accident, which has never been explained, and in spite of the stress of competition, she had purchased pure salts of potash for the execution of her fell purpose in place of adulterated salts of soda.

'To this I owe it that I am now a living man; and in a moment – '

A certain stiffness of demeanour, which we had noticed, but ascribed to pride, worked an unspeakable change in the mage. As we looked at him he hardened into our cheap mummy.

'Here's a jolly go!' said Leonora, her mind submerged in terror.

I sprang to the bell, 'Soda water at once!' I cried, and the slavî appeared with the fluid. We applied it to the parched lips of the mummy, and Jambres was himself again.

'Now will you tell me?' I asked, when he had been given a cigarette and made comfortable, 'why we found you – I mean the mummy – under the Three Balls?'

''Twas a pledge,' he replied. 'When my resources ran low, and my rent was unpaid, the landlady used to take advantage of my condition and raise a small sum on me.'

All seemed now explained; but Leonora was not yet satisfied.

'You have – ' she began.

'Yes, a strawberry mark,' he replied wearily, 'on the usual place!'

'The quest is accomplished,' I said.

'Nay,' replied Jambres, to give him his real name. 'There is still the adventure of the Siege Perilous.'

CHAPTER XII.

THE WIZARD'S SCHEME

'We must, as you are aware, visit the Siege Perilous in the Hall of Egypt, and risk ourselves in the chair of the Viewless Maiden, of Her that is not to be seen of Man.'

'We know it,' said Leonora.

'It is,' continued the mage, 'your wish to accomplish the end for which you set forth. This seems to you an easy matter enough; young hearts are full of such illusions, and, believe me, I would willingly change my years, which are lost in geological time, for one hand's breadth of your daring. Know, then,' continued this strange creature, 'that the time has now come when matters must be brought to an end between us. It will be my business, and, I will add, my pleasure,' he continued with a lofty air which sat drolly enough upon him in his yellow duds, 'to conduct you to the Siege Perilous. From you, in return, I must exact an unquestioning obedience; and I will add a measureless confidence. I beg you to bear in mind that the slightest resistance to my will must be followed by consequences of which you cannot estimate either the reach or the extension.'

There was such a parrot-like pomp about the creature's tautology, and such an old-world affectation of fine manners \in his constant obeisances, that I could hold it no longer, but fairly laughed out in his face.

I dreaded, it is true, lest some such fate as Ustâni's might punish me for my temerity, but for reasons which doubtless seemed sufficient to himself the wizard merely looked at me through his veil, shook himself a little in his swathings, and said in a matter-of-fact voice, 'Well, well, perhaps we have had enough of such talk as this. Let's get ahead with the business before us. That business is to reach the Siege Perilous, or Magic Chair. Thither will I guide ye, and there ye shall see what ye shall see. But first it is needful, as all sages have declared, that ye shall show your confidence in me! I value not wealth. Gold is mere dross – nay, I have the mines of King Solomon at my disposal. But when the weary King Ecclesiast confided to me, in his palace of ivory and cedar in Jerusalem, long ago, the secret of these diamond treasures, he bade me reveal it to none who did not show their confidence in me.

'Let them entrust you,' said Solomon, 'with their paltry wealth, ere you place in their hands opulence beyond the dreams of avarice. Give me, then, merely as a sign of confidence, gold, much gold, or,' he continued in a confidential and Semitic tone, 'its equivalent in any safe securities, American railways preferred. Don't bring bank-notes, my dear – risky things, risky things! Why, when I was pals with Claude Duval – but 'tis gone, 'tis gone! Now, my dears, what have you got? what have you got?'

'I have,' answered Leonora, in her clear sweet voice and girlish trustfulness, 'as is my invariable custom, my dot, namely, 300,000l. worth of American railway shares, chiefly Chicago N.W. and L. & N., in my pocket.'

'That's right, my dear, that's right,' said the Erie wizard; 'just hand those to me, and then we can start at once.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE PERILOUS PATH

Forth we rushed into the darkness, through the streaming deluge of that tropic clime. For the seraphic frenzy had now come upon the mage in good earnest, and all the Thought-reader burned in his dusky eyes.

We presented, indeed, a strange spectacle, for the mage, in his silvery swathings, held Leonora by the hands, and Leonora held me, as we raced through the gloom.

In any other city our aspect and demeanour had excited attention and claimed the interference of the authorities.

In Berlin Uhlans would have charged us, in Paris grape-shot would have ploughed through our ranks. Here they deemed we were but of the sacred race of Thought-readers, who, by a custom of the strange people, are permitted to run at random through the streets and even to enter private houses.

We were not even followed, in our headlong career, by a crowd, for the public had ceased to interest itself in frenzied research for hidden pins or concealed cigarettes.

After a frantic chase Jambres (late 'the Mage') paused, breathless, in front of a building of portentous proportions.

How it chanced I have never been able to understand, but, as I am a living and honourable woman, this hall had the characteristics of ancient Egyptian architecture, and that (miraculous as it may appear) in perfect preservation.

There are the hypostyle halls, the two Osirid pillars – colossal figures of strange gods, in coloured relief – there is the great blue scarab, the cartouche, the pschent, the pschutt, and all that we admire in the Rameseum of the Ancient Empire.

But all was silent, all was deserted; the vast adamantine portals were closed.

Jambres paused in dismay.

'Since I last gave an exhibition of mine art in those halls,' said he, '('twas in old forgotten days, in Bosco's palmy time), much is altered. Open sesame!' he cried; but, curious to say, nothing opened!

At that moment a dark figure crawled submissively to our feet. It was old Pellmelli.

His instinct for 'copy' had brought him on our track, and he began —

'As our representative, I am commissioned – '

Jambres (late 'Asher') turned from him, and he fell (still making notes) prone on his face, where we left him, as the pace was too good to inquire.

The mage now reconnoitred carefully the vast façade of the Hall of Egypt, and finally fixed his gaze on a perpendicular leaden column, adorned with strange symbols, through which (for it was a rainy night) raging torrents of water were distinctly heard flowing downwards to who knows what abysmal and unfathomable depths?

In this weird climate it was the familiar yet dreaded waterspout!

Jambres, with the feline agility of a catapult of the mountain, began to climb the perpendicular leaden channel to which he had called our attention, and of course we had to follow him. It was perfectly marvellous to see the ease and grace with which he skipped and hopped up the seemingly naked face of the wall. There were places indeed where our position was perilous enough, and it did not add to our cheerfulness to hear the horrid roaring and gurgling of the unseen and imprisoned waters that poured down the channel with a violence which seemed as if they might at any moment burst their bonds. Helped, however, by certain ledges which projected from the wall beneath square openings filled with some transparent substance, on which ledges from time to time we rested, we arrived at the steep crest, and paused for repose beneath the leafy shade of the roof-tree, Jambres lightly leading the way.

'Now,' said Jambres, 'comes the most delicate part of our journey.'

So indeed it proved, for the mage began rapidly to divest himself of his mysterious swathings. Wrapper by wrapper he undid, cerement on cerement, till both Leonora and I wondered when he would stop.

Stop he did, however, and, with a practised hand, shot his linen into one long rope, which he carefully attached to an erect and smoking pillar, perhaps of basaltic formation, perhaps an ancient altar of St. Simeon Skylitês. When all was taut, Jambres approached a slanting slope, smooth and transparent, perhaps of glacial origin. On this he stamped, and the fragments tinkled as they fell into unknown deeps. Then he seized the rope, let himself down, and from far below we heard his voice calling to us to follow him.

Leonora and I descended with agility to some monstrous basin in the abyss – the Pit, Jambres called it. Here Jambres met us, and bade us light the railway reading-lamps which, as I forgot to mention, we had brought with us. Then, jumping off with the lead, he advanced along the floor, picking his way with great care, as indeed it was most necessary to do, for the floor was strewn with strange forms, stumbling over the legs and backs of which it would have been easy to break one's own. When we halted, brought up by a barrier, of which I did not at first discern the nature, our lamps (as is sometimes the way of some such patent lamps28) suddenly went out. Jambres whispered hoarsely, 'Wot are yer waitin' for? Come on; αλλ αγε. Nunc est scandendum.' We saw before us a vast expanse, of which it was impossible to gauge the extent, so impenetrable, so overpowering was the gloom of its blackness. 'It is the abode,' said Jambres, mysteriously, 'of my rival De Kolta!' He himself, owing to his use of his swathings, was sufficiently décolleté

On the hither side was a row of lumières à pied which seemed afloat on the darkness, and in their centre a sudden chasm which looked as if it had been made by human agency. The fitful moonbeams29 showed us a most curious and accurately shaped spur, or run-down as it is called in the native dialect, which connected the floor on which we stood with the darkness beyond.

What mortal, however hardy, dared cross this quivering wavering bridge in the total darkness? Beneath our feet it swayed and leaped like rotten ice on the magic Serpentine.

'Hush,' cried Jambres, 'it comes, it comes! Be still!'

Even as he spoke, we saw a long shaft of yellow light streaming from an unknown centre, and searching out the recesses of the cavern.

'Be still, as you value your liberty,' whispered Jambres. 'The Bobî is on his beat.'

Then, as the long shaft smote the swaying bridge, he lightly crossed it, and beckoned us to follow. We obeyed, and in another instant all was again darkness.

'He has gone his round,' said Jambres. 'Won't be back for hours!'

CHAPTER XIV.

THE MAGIC CHAIR

There, on the plateau, or platform, we had seen, stood, in naked mystery, the Enchanted Chair.

''Tis the weird chair of the Viewless Maiden, the place of Her who is no more seen,' said Jambres. 'Who shall sit therein?'

'The writing said,' remarked the dauntless Leonora, 'that a descendant of Theodolitê must achieve this adventure. I am ready.'

'Nay, not so, maiden,' murmured Jambres, 'try it not till I have made experience thereof. Me it cannot harm; in me you see the original inventor; beware of spurious imitations. But it is a dread experience; let me work it first!'

Leonora could not resist his winning manner and concern for her safety.

'I move,' she said, 'that Mr. Jambres do take the chair at this meeting.'

'I second that proposal,' said I, and there was not a dissentient voice.

'Mr. Jambres will now take the chair,' said Leonora, and the wizard, his swathing robes bulging with Leonora's securities, glided forward.

Then an awful thing occurred. No sooner had Jambres sat down than Leonora and I found ourselves – how can we expect it to be believed? – gazing on a blank, bare space!

The chair was still there, but the wizard was gone. Leonora turned to me, horror in her eyes, her golden curls changed to a pale German silver.

'It is the chair of the Vanishing Lady,' she said.

'It is the Confidence Trick,' I cried; and we both lost consciousness as the true state of the case flashed on our minds. The wizard was off with 300,000l. in high-class American securities.

CHAPTER XV.

THE END

What remains to be told is of little public interest. When we came to ourselves, all was darkness. Escape seemed impossible.

We could not swarm up the rope, by the way we had come.

We knew not when the shaft of yellow light might return on its beat.

We lit a Bryant & May's match, and thereby groped our way downwards, ever downwards.

Finally, as we had given up all for lost, Leonora said, 'Don't you think the air is a little stuffy?'

We sniffed about the rocky floor, and found an iron grating.

It yielded to a strong tug, and we descended into subterranean passages, framed by the art of men, through which rolled and surged torrents of turbid water.

Through these we waded, attacked by armies of rats, till, thank goodness! we saw a moving light, flashing hither and thither on the torrent.

Half swimming, half wading, we reached the bearer of the light.

It was old Pellmelli, 'doing a Sanitary special,' as he told us.

We, somewhat deceitfully, led him to believe that we had lost ourselves on a similar errand, for a rival Budget, with which he was concerned in a Paper Mill.30

On our faithfully promising to give him exclusive information about our adventures, 'for an Extra,' as he said, old Pellmelli conducted us to an orifice in the rock, whence we escaped, at last, into the light of such day as dwells in the Dark City.

Our hopes now entirely rest on finding Jambres again, but it may be, of course, a good three or four thousand years before that.

Here this strange narrative closes; and as I end my editorial task, I have only one question to ask myself – Will this thing go on? will Jambres and Leonora meet? will the Americans give up Jambres under the Extradition Act? or —

Is the great drama Played Out? – Ed.

1

A literary friend to whom I have shown your MS. says a weendigo is Ojibbeway for a cannibal. And why do you shoot poor Moo Cows? – Publisher.

Mere slip of the pen. Meant a Cow Moose. Literary gent no sportsman. – Ed.

All right. – Publisher.

2

I say, you know, keep clear of improbabilities! No one was ever old enough to have been Proctor twice. – Publisher.

That's all you know about it. Why, I shall bring in a character old enough to have been Proctor a thousand times. – Ed.

3

Is this bonâ fide? – Publisher.

All right, see She (p. 145), Ayesha's elegant pun on Holly. It's always done – pun, I mean. – Ed.

4

Don't you think it would stand being cut a little? – Publisher.

We shall see. – Ed.

5

There is just one thing that puzzles me. Polly and Leonora have gone, no man knows where, and, taking everything into consideration, it may be a good two thousand years before they come back.

Ought I not, then, to invest, in my own name, the princely cheque of the Intelligent Publishers? – Ed.

6

I may as well say at once that I will not be responsible for Polly's style. Sometimes it is flat, they tell me, and sometimes it is flamboyant, whatever they may mean. It is never the least like what one would expect an elderly lady don (or Donna), to write. – Ed.

7

See The Mark of Cain [Arrowsmith], an excellent shillingsworth. – Ed.

Is this not 'log rolling'? – Publisher.

8

Don't you think this bit is a little dull? The public don't care about dead languages. – Publisher.

Story can't possibly get on without it, as you'll see. You must have something of this sort in a romance. Look at Poe's cypher in the Gold Beetle, and the chart in Treasure Island, and the Portuguee's scroll in King Solomon's Mines. – Ed.

9

Is not this a little steep? – Publisher.

No; it is in all the Irish histories. See Lady Wilde's Ancient Legends of Ireland, if you don't believe me. – Ed.

10

From the use of the word daric I conjecture that Leonora's ancestress lived under the Persian Empire. There or thereabout. – M. M.

11

Won't the critics say you are advertising the stores? And the tradesmen won't like it. – Publisher.

Where would the stern reality of the story be (see Spectator), and the contrast with the later goings on, if you didn't give names? – Ed.

12

Messrs. Who? Printers in a hurry. – Publisher.

Suppressed the name. Messrs. – gave an impolite response to our suggestions as to mutual arrangements. – Ed.

13

Name suppressed. When eligible opportunity for advertisement as a substitute for a cheque was hinted at, Messrs. – brusquely replied, in the low Essex patois, 'Wadyermean?'