HE by Andrew Lang & Walter Herries Pollock — Free Audiobook

1 01 - Editor's Introduction 10:44

Dedication and Chapter One of He. Publishers interjections. Editors notes. Dedication. She to H. Ryder Haggard. Not in the waste beyond the swamp and sand, the fever-haunted forest and lagoon, mysterious core, thy fane's forsaken stand, with lonely towers beneath the lonely moon. Not there doth Asha linger, ruin by ruin, spelling the scriptures of a people band. The world is disenchanted, O'er soon shall Europe send her spies through all the land. Nay, not in Cor, but in whatever spot, in fields or towns, or by that insatiate sea, hearts brood o'er buried loves and unforgot, or wreck themselves on some divine decree, or would o'erleap the limits of our lot, there in the tombs and deathless dwelleth she.

Dedication. Cor. Jan. 30, 1887. Dear Allan Quartermain, You, who with others have aided so manfully in the restoration of King Romance, know that His Majesty is a merry monarch. You will not think, therefore, that the respectful liberty we have taken with your wondrous tale, as Pamela did with the One Thirty Seventh Psalm, indicates any lack of loyalty to Our Lady Asha. Her beauties are beyond the reach of danger from burlesque, nor does her form flit across our humble pages. May you restore to us yet the prize of her perfections, for we, at least, can never believe that she wholly perished in the place of the pillar of fire. Yours ever. Two of the Amma Logrola. Chapter One. Editor's Introduction.

As I sat one evening, idly musing on memories of roars and boars, and contemplating the horns of a weendigo I had shot in Labrador, and the head of a moo-cow, a literary friend to whom I have shown your manuscript says a weendigo is of Jebway for a cannibal. And why do you shoot poor moo-cows? Mere slip of the pen, menta cow-moose, literary gent, no sportsman. All right. From Canada, I was roused by a ring at the doorbell. The hall porter presently entered, bearing a huge parcel, which had just arrived by post. I opened it with all the excitement that an unexpected parcel can cause, and murmured, like Thackeray's sailorman, "'Clairet, perhaps, um, I hope. It was a mummy-case,' spied Jingo. This was no common or museum mummy-case.

The lid with the gilded mask was absent, and the under-half or lower segment painted all over with hieroglyphics of an unusual type. And green in color had obviously been used as a cradle for unconscious infancy. A baby had slept in the last sleeping-place of the dead. What an opportunity for the moralist! But I am not a collector of cradles. Who had sent it, and why? The question was settled by an envelope in a feminine hand, which, with a cylindrical packet, fell out of the mummy-case, and contained a letter running as follows. Lady Battis, Oxford. My dear sir, have you not forgotten me and my friend Leonora Odellet? The mummy-case which encloses this document is the cradle of her ancient race.

We are, for reasons you will discover in the accompanying manuscript, about to start for Treasure Island, where, if anywhere on this earth, ready money is to be found on easy terms of personal insecurity. "'Oh, confound it!' I cried. "'Here's another fiend of a woman sending me another manuscript. They are always at it. Wants to get into a high-class magazine as usual.' And my guess was correct. The letter went on. "'You, who are so well known, Will have no difficulty in getting the editor of the Ninth-Th-Century, or the Quarterly Review, or Bow Bells, to accept my little contribution. I shall be glad to hear what remuneration I am to expect, and cheques may be forwarded to yours very truly, Mary Martin.

P.S. The mummy case is very valuable. Please deposit it at the old bank, in the high, where it will represent my balance. M.M., Now, I get letters like this, not usually escorted by a mummy case, about thrice a day, and a pretty sum it cost me in stamps to send back the rubbish to the amateur authors. But how could I send back a manuscript to a lady already on her way to Treasure Island? Here, perhaps, I should explain how Mary Martin, as she signed herself, came to choose me for her literary agent. To be sure, total strangers are always sending me their manuscripts, but Mrs. Martin had actually been introduced to me years before. I was staying, as it happened, at one of our university towns, which I shall call Oxford, for short, not that that was really its name.

Walking one day with a niece, a scholar of Lady Betty's Hall, we chanced to meet in the high two rather remarkable persons, One of them was the very prettiest girl I ever saw in my life. Her noble frame marked her as the victor over-girton at lawn-tennis, while her pince-nez indicated the student. She reminded me, in the grace of her movements, of the Artemis of the Louvre, and the Psyche of Naples, while her thoughtful expression recalled the celebrated reading-girl of Donatello. Only a reading girl, indeed, could have been, as she was, reader in English literature on the Churchton Collins Foundation. "'Who is she?' I said to my friend, the scholar of Lady Betty's. "'What a lovely creature she is!' "'Who that?' she replied with some tartness.

"'Well, what you can see in her I don't know. That's Leonora Odalite, and the lady with her is the Lady Superior of Lady Betty's.' "'They call them pretty and the proctor,' my friend went on, "'as Mrs. Martin, polly, they call her too, has been proctor twice.'" "'I say, you know, keep clear of improbabilities. No one was ever old enough to have been proctored twice.'" "'That's all you know about it. Why, I shall bring in a character old enough to have been proctor a thousand times.'" Now, nobody could have called polly bewitching. Her age must really have been quite thirty-five. I disliked dwelling on this topic, but she was short, dumpy, wore blue spectacles, a green umbrella, a red and black shawl, worsted mittens, and uncompromising boots.

She had also the ringlets and other attractions with which French art adorns its ideal Englishwoman. At my request I was introduced. But presently some thirty professors, six or seven senior dons, and a sprinkling of heads of houses, in red and black sleeves, came bounding out of the university sermon, and gathered around the lovely Leonora. The master of St. Catharine's was accompanied by a hitherto unattached student, who manifestly at once fell a victim to Leonora's charms. This youth was of particular aspect. He was a member of the nearly extinct Boschman tribe of Kokoa-Tinderland. His long, silky hair, originally black, had been blanched to a permanent and snowy white by failures in the attempt to matriculate at Belleville.

He was short, not above four feet nine, and was tattooed all over his dark but intelligent features. When he was introduced, I had my first opportunity of admiring Leonora's extraordinary knowledge of native customs and etiquette. Let me present to you, said the master of St. Catharines, the Boschman chief, Ustani. Ustani, you astonish me, answered Leonora, with a smile that captivated the Boschman. It is a rule among the tribes of Kokoatinaland, and in Africa generally, to greet a new acquaintance with a verbal play on his name. Is it this bona fide? Aisha's elegant pun on Holly. It's always done. Pun, I mean. Owing to our insular ignorance and the difficulty of the task, this courtesy had been omitted at Oxford in Ustani's case, even by the professors of comparative philology and the learned keeper of the museum.

From that hour to another, which struck later, when he struck two, Ustani was Leonora's slave. I had no further opportunity of conversing with Leonora or Polly, nor, indeed, did I ever think of them again, till Polly's letter and mummy-case recalled them to my memory. Perhaps, for pretty Leonora's sake, I did, after all, take up and open the vast cylindrical roll of M.S., Don't you think it would stand being cut a little? We shall see. In the mummy's case, Don found me still reading the following record of Unparalleled Adventure. 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 check of the intelligent publishers.

And David Lawrence.

2 02 - Polly's Narrative 5:36

Chapter Number Two of He. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording by David Gavin. Publishers interjections. Read by Julie Vermilicham. Editor's notes. Read by Neeru Ayer. He by Andrew Lang and Walter Harris Pollack. Chapter Two. Polly's Narrative. I am the plainest woman in England, bar none. 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 Dawn, or Donna, to write. Even in youth I was not, strictly speaking, voluptuously lovely.

Short, stumpy, with a fringe like the thatch of a newly-evicted cottage. Such was my appearance at twenty, and such it remains. Like Cain, I was branded. Cain, Arrowsmith, an excellent shilling's worth. As if there's not log rolling. But enough of personalities. I had in youth but one friend. A lady of kingly descent, the kings, to be sure, were Irish, and of bewitching loveliness. When she rushed into my lonely rooms one wild winter night, with a cradle in her arms, and a baby in the cradle, when she besought me to teach that infant Hittite, Hebrew, and the differential calculus, and to bring it up in college, on Commons, where the air is salubrious, What could I do but acquiesce? It is unusual, I know, for a student of my sex, however learned, to educate an infant in college and bring her up on commons.

But for once the uncompromising nature of my charm strangled the breath of scandal in the bud, and little Leonora Odolite became the darling of the university. The old keeper of the Bodleian was a crusty bachelor, who liked nothing young but calf, and preferred Morocco to that. But even he loved Leonora. One night the little girl was lost, and only after looking for her in the Hebdo model boardroom, in the Sheldonian, the Puceum, and all the barges, did we find that unprincipled old man amusing her by letting off crackers and Roman candles among the Mexican M.S.S. in the Bodleian.

These were the halcyon hours, happier as Leonora grew up and received the education prescribed for her by her patent. Her Hebrew was fair, and her Hittite up to a first class, but, to my distress, she mainly devoted herself to Celtic studies. I should tell you that Leonora's chief interest in life was the decipherment of the inscriptions on her cradle. The mummy-case which had rocked her ancestors since Abraham's time, and which is now in your possession. Of itself, it is a sufficient proof of the accuracy of this narrative. The mummy-case is not the ordinary coffin of Egyptian commerce. The hieroglyphs have baffled Dr. Isaac Taylor, and have been variously constructed as Chinese, Etruscan, and Basque, by the various professors of these learned lingos.

Don't you think this bit is a little dull? The public don't care about dead languages. 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 cipher in the gold beetle, and the chart in Treasure Island, and the Portuguese scroll in King Solomon's Mines. Now, about this mummy case... You must know that it had been in Leonora's family ever since her ancestress Theodolite, Pharaoh's daughter, left Egypt, not knowing when she was well off, and settled in Ireland, of all places, where she founded the national prosperity. It's not this, and it's us deep. No, it is in all the Irish histories. See Lady Wilde's ancient legends of Ireland, if you don't believe me.

The mummy-case and a queer ring Inscribed with a duck, a duck's egg, and an umbrella were about all that the Odolites kept of their ancient property. The older Leonora grew, the more deeply she studied the inscriptions on the mummy case. She tried it as Zend, tried it as Sanskrit, and Japanese, and the American language, and finally she tried it as Irish. We had a very rainy season that winter, even for Oxford, And the more it rained, the more Leonora poured over that mummy case. I kept telling her there was nothing in it, but she would not listen to me.

3 03 - Leonora's Discovery 7:39

He by Andrew Lang and Walter Harry's Pollock. Chapter Three Leonora's Discovery One Wild Winter Night When the sleet lashed the pane, my door suddenly opened. I started out of a slumber, and—could I believe my eyes? Can history repeat itself? There stood the friend of my early youth, her eyes ablaze, a cradle in her arms. Was it all coming round again? A moment's reflection showed me that it was not my early friend, but her daughter, Leonora. Leonora! I screamed. "'Don't tell me that you—I have deciphered the inscription,' said the girl proudly, setting down the cradle. The baby had not come round. "'Oh, is that all?' I replied. "'Let's have a squint at it—in my case, no mere figure of speech.' "'What do you call that?' said Leonora, handing me the accompanying document.

A note to the reader. What we are looking at here is a page or a tablet of very ancient, cryptic-looking writing. "'I call it pie,' said I, using a technical term of typography. "'I can't make head or tail of it,' I said, peevishly. "'Well, pie or no pie, I love it like pie, and I've broken the crust,' answered the girl. According to my interpretation, which I cannot mistrust. Why? I asked. Because, she answered, and the response seemed sufficient when mixed with her bright smile. It runs thus, she resumed with severity. In the only language you can partially understand, it runs thus, she reiterated. And I could not help saying under such breath as I had left, Been running a long time now. She frowned and read.

I, Theodolite, daughter of a race that has never been run out, did to the magician Jambres, whose skill was even as the skill of the gods, those things which you have not yet heard I shall now proceed to relate to you. Of him, I say, I was jealous. For that he loved the maiden inferior. Oh, how inferior! To me, in charms, wit, beauty, intellect, stature, girth, and ancestry. Therefore, being well assured of this, I made the man into a mummy, ere ever his living spirit had left him. What arts I used to this last purpose it boots not, nor do I choose to tell. When I had done this thing, I put him secretly away in a fitting box, even as set concealed Osiris. Then came my maiden and tidied him away, as is the wont of these accursed ones.

From that hour, even until now, has no man nor woman known where to find him, even Jambres the magician. For though the mummifying As thou shalt not fail to discover, was in some sort incomplete, yet the tidying away and the losing were so complete, that no putting forth of precious papyri into cupboards beneath the flights of stairs has ever equalled it. Now, therefore, shall I curse these maidens, even in Amenti, the place of their tormenting. Forget them, may they be eternally forgotten. Curse them up and down through the whole solar system. This is very violent language, my dear, said I. Our people swore terribly in Egypt, answered Leonora calmly. But it is vain no woman can curse worth a darak.

But for this, the losing of the one whom I mummified, must I suffer countless penalties. For I, even the seeress, Know not what the said maidens did with the said mummy, nor do you, nor any other. And not to know, for I want my mummy to have a good cry over, is great part of my punishment. But this I, the seeress, do know right well, for it was revealed to me in a dream, and this I do prophesy unto thee, my daughter, or daughter's daughter, ay, this do I say, that a curse will rest upon me until he who was mummified shall be found. Now this also do I, the seeress, tell thee. He who is mummified shall be found in the dark country, where there is no sun, and men breathe the vapour of smoke, and light lamps at noonday, and wire themselves even with wires when the wind bloweth.

And the place where the mummy dwelleth Is beneath the three balls of gold, and one will lead thee thither who abides hard by the great tree-cavern like the head of an Ethiopian, and thou shalt come to the people who slate strangers, and to the place of the rolling logs, and the music thereof. Thereafter shalt thou find him, even Jambres, And when thou hast healed him, the curse shall fall from me. Nor, indeed, shall the unmummifying be accomplished even then, unless thou, O my daughter, or my daughter's daughter, as before shalt go with he who is mummified, to the hall of Egyptian darkness, and sit in the wizard's chair that is thereby Even the seat which was erst the siege perilous. These things have I said, well knowing that they shall be accomplished, to thee, my daughter, thy grandmother.

There, Polly, what do you say to that? said Nora. Your grandmother, I replied. Polly, said Miss Nora, looking at me with quite needlessly flashing eyes. You and I will set out on the search for this unhappy mummied one. Don't you think the critics will call the motive rather thin? I demurred. Thin? To rescue my ancestress from a curse? said Leonora. There's just one thing, she mused. Shall we take a low-comedy character this time, or not? Let's take Ustany, I proposed. He can double the part with that of the faithful black, a great saving in hotel bills and railway fares.

4 04 - The Equipment 3:49

He, by Andrew Lang and Walter Harris Pollock. Chapter Four. The Equipment. After it had been decided that we should start in search of he who had been mummified alive, the next step seemed to be to go. But Leonora demurred to this. "'We must have our things,' she said. "'What do you think we should take?' Scissors, I replied, and I regret to say that at first she misinterpreted the phrase. "'Leonora is a powerful as well as a pretty girl.' And when the bear fight that ensued was over, my rooms were a little mixed. This suggested mixed biscuits, that invaluable refreshment of the traveler, and from one thing to another, we soon made up a complete list of our needs. The scissors and skates and the soap we procured at the church and state stores.

Won't the critics say you are advertising the stores? And the tradesmen won't like it. 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? But not, of course, the revolvers. The revolvers we got off the genuine government pattern, because both Leonora and I are dreadfully afraid of firearms, and we know that these, anyhow, would not go off. The jam we got, of course, at the official cartridge emporium, same which we did not shoot the Arabs. The Gladstone bag and the Bryant Maize matches we procured direct from the makers, resisting the piteous appeals of itinerant vendors. Some life-belts we laid in, and, as will presently be seen, we could have made no more judicious purchase.

As from information received on a mummy case, we were travelling in search of a mummy, of course we laid in a case of mum, which was often a source of gaiety in our darkest hours. The wine was procured, as I would advise every African traveller to do so, from Monsieur... Mrs. Hu, Prentiss in a hurry. Suppress the name. Messieurs gave an impolite response to our suggestions as to mutual arrangements. Being acquainted with the deleterious effects of a malarious tropical atmosphere, we secured a pair of overalls advertised as sovereign for all overishness, the dreaded curse of an African climate. These we got at the celebrated emporium of Monsieur. Names oppressed. When eligible opportunity for advertisement as a substitute for a check was hinted at, Messieurs brusquely replied, in the low essay expatua, What do you mean?

Our preparations being now exhaustively completed, Leonora and I returned to Oxford, packed our things, and consulted as to the route which we should adopt.

5 05 - Down the Dark River 6:51

V.

Down the Dark River. The Mystic Isis, so Leonora had decided. We sped, Eustani plying the long pole of the dhow, or native flat-bottomed boat, while we took it in turns to keep him up to his work by flicking him with a tandem whip. The moon went slowly down, and it occurred to Leonora to remark that we were going down, too—an unusual thing, so early in term. Like some sweet bride into her chamber, the moon departed. In the quivering footsteps of the dawn, do you mean the dawn? Every Oxford man knows what I mean. Shook the planets from their places to the consternation of the civilian professor of astronomy, who, as in duty bound, was contemplating these revolutionary performances from the observatory and the parks.

A number of moral ideas occurred to Leonora and myself, but out of regard for Ustani's feelings we denied them expression. I began indeed to utter a few appropriate sentiments, but the poor bushman exclaimed, "'You floggy, floggy, missy, or preachy, preachy, But no, both floggy and preachy, in a tone that would have disarmed a Bampton lecturer. Down we drifted, ever downwards, obedient to the inscrutable laws of the equilibrium of fluids. Now we swept past the white willow, now through the cruel crawling waters of the gut, now threaded the calamitous gorge of Iffley, and then shot the perilous cataract of Sandford. At this moment, just when the dhow was yet quivering with the strain, I noticed an expression of abject fear on the face of Ustani, His dark countenance was positively blanched with horror, and his teeth chattered.

Silence, Chatterbox! I cried querulously, perhaps, when he laid down his pole and seated himself in an attitude of despair. "'What's the matter, old boy?' said Leonora, and the reply came in faltering accents. Ama Bargis. Ama is the prefix of all the tribal names. Ama Zulu, Ama Hagar. I connected with the Greek preposition hama. Don't keep hammer hammering away at creeks. This is a boy's book, not a holiday task, this is.

We glanced in terror down the river's edge, there on the path trodden by so many millions of feet, that now are silent. Please, don't begin moral hiding again. One never knows when it will come upon you. Couldn't help just drawing it in. They were the burly foams of five or six splendid savages. The character of their language, which was born to us on the pure breeze of morning, their costume, their floating house, in which these scourges of the water highway commonly reside, everything combined to demonstrate that they belonged to the Barghis, the most powerful and most dreaded of the native populations. "'Me am Slopiji,' whispered Ustani in his native language, meaning that he would retreat.

"'Eyes in the boat,' cried Leonora. in her clear, commanding tones, Paddle on, all. The Bushman, cowered by her aspect, and the mere slave of discipline, obeyed her command, and presently we were abreast of the Bargis. "'Hi, miss,' cried the Bargis chief, a man of colossal stature. "'Can't you look where you're a-shovin' to?' Though his words were unintelligible, his tone was insulting. Leonor rose to her feet, and to the occasion. By virtue of her rare acquaintance with savage customs, she was able to taunt the barges with the horrors of their tribal mystery, to divulge which is death. She openly insulted the secret orgies of the tribe. She denounced the dog-feast. "'Who ate the puppy-pie under Marlow Bridge?' shrilled Leonora in her proud, sweet young voice.

In a moment a shower of stone struck the dhow and spurred the water into storm. Frank Muller, the bargy chief, distinguished himself by the fury of his imprecations and the accuracy of his aim. A smothered groan told me that Ustani had been hit in the mouth. Wid wad crash, went the stones, while Leonora plied the pole with desperate energy, and I erected the patent reversible umbrellas, with which we were provided to catch any breath of favorable wind. The fierce rapidity of the stream finally carried us out of the reach of the infuriated Varghese, who, moreover, were providentially slain by lightning, a common enough occurrence in that favored climate where nobody thinks anything of it, and we rested, weary and wounded, in a sheltered backwater.

Are you not gliding insensibly into bears? No, all right. It is a tremendous country for storms. Can't use them too often. Add to the sense of reality." The dhow's looking rather doughty, said Leonora, glancing at the shattered craft. "'If doughty deeds, my lady, please,' said I, catching her light tone, "'why, she must take the consequences.' "'But, Leonora,' I added, shuddering, "'I'm sure my feet are damp. If there's one thing I dread, it is damp feet.' "'No wonder,' said Leonora calmly, "'the dhow has sprung a leak. I searched the dhow everywhere, but we could find no trace of the vegetable.' Meanwhile the water had risen above the capstan, and Ustani, shivering audibly, had perched himself on the bowsprit.

"'Now or never,' said Leonora, "'is the moment for our life-belts.' We hurried, put on our life-belts, regretting the absence of an experienced maid. "'I'll be Mrs. Lex, and you'll be Mrs. Alishine,' laughed Leonora, as the dhow, shuddering, and all her timbers collapsed. "'Ego et Lex mea,' cried I. Not to seem deficient in opportune gaiety of illusion, and we were in the water. We advanced briskly downstream, Ustani propelling himself with the pole of the dhow. Ever anxious about Ustani's university education, interrupted by this expedition, Leonora kept coaching him in the usual way. "'Bow, you're feathering under water,' she exclaimed when the unfortunate Ustani disappeared in a lasher. where we, thanks to our life-belts, floated gaily enough.

Here we paused to catch a few of the perch and gudgeons which Leonora had attracted by carefully wearing white stockings. "'Nothing like white stockings for perch,' she said. As they were not perch enough to go around, Ustani was told to content himself with the pole, a synonym if not an equivalent. Laying our trencher caps on the water, we used them, as of old, for trenchers, and made an excellent meal."

6 06 - The Zu 6:13

VI.

ZOO Our course was now through a series of cross-streams, and finally we emerged into a long, perfectly straight and perfectly tranquil expanse of water, bordered by a path which had every appearance of having been made by the hand of man. Night fell, a strange, murky night, smelling of lucifer matches, and lit on the eastern horizon by a mysterious light, flaring like a dreary dawn. Our passage was obstructed by a thousand obstacles. And at one point we plunged into the very bowels of the earth for a distance of at least a quarter of a mile. Next we found the canal barred by a grinning row of black iron teeth, under which we dived as best we might. We were now, Ustani whispered to us, within the strange, dreaded region known to the superstitious natives as the zoo.

For the first time in our expedition, we heard the roaring of innumerable wild beasts, the rattling trumpet of the elephant, the drum of the gorilla, the scream of the lion, the chattering of countless apes, the yells of myriads of cockatoos, the growls of bears, the sobs of wal-ri. Is this plural correct? I can't find walrus in the Latin dictionary, nor anything else beginning with W somehow, but it seems all right. The whistle of rhinocerotes, combined to make a strange pandemonium. Strange, I call it, because the zoological learning I had picked up while with Nora at Oxford informed me at once that the variety of roars, screams, grunts, shrieks, whirrings, which our footsteps seemed to awaken every kind of animal, bird and insect, could be paralleled only in the pages of the Swiss family Robinson.

Add to this that it was night. Yet dark as a day on the London flags, when the fog creeps silently about your feet, and rising from utter blackness grows white and whiter in its ascent, till it coils round your neck a white choker. Yes, the fog was playing a dark game, but Nora could see it and go one lighter. There were several on the stream we had quitted. She produced a patent electric light. Patent in the first sense of the word. She has not yet received offers advantages enough to close with in the other sense. Aided by this, we looked about us and saw the strange denizens of the zoo. It was now that the presence of mind of Leonora saved us. Foreseeing the probability of an encounter with wild beasts, she had filled her practicable pocket—she belonged to the Rational Dress Association—with buns and gingerbread-nuts.

The elephant now walked round, The wolves also circulated. The bear climbed his pole. The great gorilla beat his breast and roared. Leonora was their match. For the elephant she had a rusk, a bun for the bear, and the gorilla was pacified by an offering of nuts from his native Brazil. This way to the crocodile house. We now read, on an inscription in black letters, and following the path indicated, we reached the dank tank where the monsters dwell. We had arrived at a place which I find it difficult to describe. The floor was smooth and hard. "'What do you make of this?' asked Leonora, tapping her dainty foot on the floor. "'Flags,' I replied phlegmatically, and she was silent. In the center of the space was a dark pool circled by crystalline palaces, inhabited by sacred snakes, from huge pythons to the terrapin-proud of his tureen.

Again there was a whip-snake and a toad, bloated as the aristocracy of time, and puffed up as the plutocracy of today, for such is the lot of toads. Now a strange thing happened. Hark, said Yustani, hark, hark, hark, a den is opening. He was right. It was the den of a catawampus, an animal whose habits are so well known that I need not delay to describe them. In the center of the dark pool, in the middle of the vague space, lay one crocodile. The rest were sleeping on the banks. The catawampus secretly emerged from its den. Horror, I'm not ashamed to say, prevented me from interfering. Stealthily crept across the cold floor, and true to the instincts of all the feline tribe, is the catawampus one of the Felidae?

Of course he is. Look at his name. Made straight for the water. Ah! cried Ustani. He's going for him. The expression was ambiguous, but we understood it. The Catawampus, cunning as the dredger boa, crept to the edge of the pool, took a header into it, and then, still true to the feline instincts, swimming on its back, made its way to the crocodile. In this manner it caught the crocodile by the tail and waked it. When the tail of a crocodile awakes, the head awakes also. The crocodile's head then, waking as the catawampus seized its tail, caught the tail of the catawampus. The interview was hurried and tumultuous. The crocodile had one of his ears chawed off. First blood for the catawampus, but this was a mere temporary advantage.

When next we saw clearly, through the tempest of flying fur and scales, the head of the catawampus had entirely disappeared, and the animal was clearly much distressed. Then, all of a sudden, the end came. They had swallowed each other. Not a vestige of either was left. This duel was a wonderful and shocking sight, and was therefore withdrawn, by request, as the patrons of the gardens are directly interested in the morality of the establishment.

7 07 - Among the Lo-Grollas 6:03

haunted by Catawampoides and other fell birds of prey, now became a subject for consideration. Our object, of course, was to reach the people of the low Gralas, through which region, according to the prophecy, we must pass before finding the magician that should guide us to the mummy. Our perplexity was only increased by the discovery that we were surrounded on every side by the walls and houses of a gigantic city. Stealing out by the canal as we had entered, we found to our comfort that this must be the very city mentioned by Theodolite, As the seeress had declared, a deep and noisome night always prevailed, only broken here and there as a wandver scratched one of Bryant and May's matches, and painfully endeavoured to decipher the number on the door of his house.

The streets, moreover, were strewn and interwoven with long strings of iron falling from the sky. "'The people who wire themselves with wire,' whispered Leonora, "'what do you think of my interpretation now?' "'I shall inquire,' I answered, and I did inquire for the land of the Glogroles, but in vain.' Happily, we chanced to meet an old man, clothed in a whitish robe of some unknown substance, not unlike paper. This fluttering vesture was marked with strange characters, in black and red, which Lenora was able to interpret. She read them thus. They were but fragmentary. And on the fragments the words tragedy, awful revelations, purity, and other apparently inconsistent hieroglyphics might be deciphered.

He had a large and ragged staff. On his back he carried a vast budget. And he was always asking everybody, Won't you put something in the budget? Father, said Lenora, in a respectful tone, Canst thou tell us the way to the land of the people called Logrola, and the place of the rolling of logs? He stroked his beautiful white beard, and smiled faintly. Indeed, child, we not only know it, but ourselves discovered it, and wrote it up. We mean sent our representative, he answered. It was a peculiarity of this man that he always spoke like royalty, and the first person plural. And if a daughter may ask, said Leonora, what is the name of my father? Steadfastly regarding her, he answered, Our name is Pellmelli.

And withergoe, my father. That you shall see, as soon, that is, as the fog lifts, or as our representative has made interest with a gas company. With these words he furnished an unequalled supply of litter, which came, he said, from the office, where there was plenty, and we were born rapidly in a westward direction. As we journeyed, old Pellmelli gave us a good deal of information about the low Grawlers, whom he did not seem to like. They were, he said, a savage and treacherous tribe, inhabiting for the most part the ruined abodes of some kingly race of old. The names of their chief dwellings, he told us, were still called in some ancient and long-lost speech, the Academy and the Athenaeum. Leonora, whose knowledge of languages was extensive and peculiar, told Pellmelli that these names were derived from the old Greek.

"'Ah,' said he, "'you have clearly drunk of the wisdom of the past, and thy hands have held the water of the world's knowledge. Know you Latin also?' "'Yes, oh, Pelmeli,' replied Leonora, and Pelmeli said he preferred modern tongues, though it would often be useful to him if he did in his dealings with the Logralas. However, if our Greek is a little to seek, our Russian is OK,' he said proudly. He was very bitter against the Logralas. The Logralas' favourite weapon, he told us, was the club. And he even proposed to show us this instrument. Our litter presently stopped outside a stately palace. The street was dark, as always in this strange city, but old Palmeli, paused, sniffed, and, bending his ear to the ground, listened intently.

"'I smell the incense,' he said, and hear the melodious rolling of the logs. But they shall know their master.' Thus speaking, he led us into a vast hall, where the low growlers were sitting or standing, offering each other incense, as Palmeli remarked from thin tubes of paper which smoked at one end. Now listen, said Pellmelli, and he cried aloud the name of a poet known to the low grawlers. Instantly we heard from I know not what recess a rolling fire of applause and admiration, which swept past us with stately and solemn music like a hymn of praise. There, said Pellmelli, I told you so. This is the place of the rolling logs, and yourselves have heard it. Leonora said she did not mind how often she heard it, as she quite agreed with the sentiments.

Not so, said Pellmelli, and he cried aloud another name. The name of a poetaster, which was almost strange to us. Then followed through that Vasily hall a sharp and rattling crash as of the descent of innumerable slates. Great heavens, whispered Leonora. Remember the writing, the place where they slate strangers? As we were strangers, and wholly unknown to the low Grawlis, we thought they might slate us, and beating a hastery retreat, soon found ourselves with Pell Melly in the dark outer air. They are a desperate lot, said he. They won't ever put anything in the budget. He was quivering with indignation, and Leonora, to soothe him, told him the story of our quest for the mummy, and asked him if he could help us.

We are your man, said he. We propose tomorrow to send our representative to interview a magician who has just arrived in this country. He has a mysterious character. His name is Asher. Pronounced Asher. And it is said that he is the wandering Jew, or at all events has lived for many centuries. He, if anyone, can direct you in your search. He then appointed a place where his representative should meet us next day, and we separated, Pellmelly taking his staff and going off to lead an excursion against the Amatori, a brutal and licentious tribe.

8 08 - He 7:22

He. Next day, Leonora was suffering from a slight feverish cold, and I don't wonder at it, considering what we suffered in the zoo. I, therefore, went alone to the rendezvous, where I was to meet our representative. To my surprise, nobody was there but old Palmele himself. Why, you said you would send your representative, I exclaimed. "'We are our usual representative,' he answered rather sulkily. "'Come on, for we have to call on Messieurs Apples, the famous advertisers.' "'Why?' said I. "'Can you ask?' he replied. "'Can aught be more interesting than an advertiser?' "'I call it log-rolling,' I answered. But he was silent.' He went at a great pace, and presently, in a somewhat sordid street, pointed his finger silently to an object over a door.

It was the carven head of an Ethiopian. This new confirmation of the prophecy gave me quite a turn, especially when I read the characters inscribed beneath. Try our fine Negro's head. Here dwells the sorcerer, even Asher, said Palmele, and began to crawl upstairs on his hands and knees.

Why do you do that? I asked, determined, if I must follow Palmele, at all events not to follow his example. It is the manner of the tribe of interviewers, my daughter. Ours is a blessed task, yet must we feign humility, Or the savage people kick us and drive us forth with our garments rent. He now humbly tapped at a door, and a strange voice cried, Andrei. Palmele, whose Russian is his strong point, paused in doubt, but I explained that the word was French for come in. He crawled in on his stomach while I followed him erect, And we found ourselves before a strange kind of tent. It had four posts, and a broidered veil was drawn all round it. Within the veil the sorcerer was concealed, and he asked in a gruff tone, "'What do you want?' Palmele explained that he had come to receive a brief personal statement for the budget.

The voice replied without hesitation, The centuries and the eons pass, and I, too, make the pass. J'ai sauté la coupe, he added, in a foreign tongue. While thy race wore naught but a little blue paint, I dwelt among the forgotten peoples. The Red Sea knows me, and the Nile has turned scarlet at my words. I am Kahoot Humi. I am also The chela of the mountain. Now it is my turn to ask you a few easy questions. Who sitteth on the throne of Hokey Pokey Winky Wum, the monarch of the Anthropophagy? Have the Jews yet come to their land, or have the owners of the land gone to the Jews?

Doth Darius the Mede yet rule, or hath his kingdom Passed to the Becerids.

As Palmelli was utterly floored by these inquiries, which indicated that the Sorcerer had been for a considerable time out of the range of the daily papers, I answered them as well as I could. When his very natural curiosity had been satisfied by a course of Mangnall's questions, I ventured to broach my own business. He said he did not deal in mummies himself, though he had a stuffed crocodile very much at my service, but would I call tomorrow and bring Leonora. He added that he had known of our coming by virtue of his secret art of divination. And thyself, he added, shalt gaze without extra charge in the fountain of knowledge. Thusting a withered yellow hand out of the mystic tent, He pointed to a table where stood a small circular dish or cup of white earthenware containing some brown milky liquid.

Gaze therein, said the sorcerer. I gazed. There was a stranger in the tea.

Deeply impressed with the belief—laugh at it, if you will—the That I was in the presence of a being of more than mortal endowments. I was withdrawing when my glance fell on his weird familiars, two tailless cats. This prodigy made me shudder, and I said in tones of the deepest awe and sympathy, "'Poor Puss!' "'Yes,' came the strange voice from within the tent. They are born without tails. I bred them so. It hath taken many centuries and much trouble, but at last I have triumphed. Once, too, I reared a breed of dogs with two tails, but after a while they became a proverb for pride. Nature loathed them, and they perished. Zire, Valle. I have consulted the authorities at the British Museum, who tell me these are the Greek and Latin words for, Don't you think you had better go?

Get out! This, though not understood, of course, by Palmeli, was as good as an invitation to withdraw. So I induced the old man to come away, promising the magician I would return on the morrow. Who was this awful man? To whom centuries were as moments, whose very correspondence, as I had noticed, came through the dead-letter office, and who spoke in the tongues of the dead past.

9 09 - The Power of He 14:36

Publishers interjections. Read by Julie Fumalichem. Editor's Notes. Read by Neeru Ayur. He, by Andrew Lang, and Walter Harry's Pollock. Chapter Nine. The Power of He Next day, Lenora, the Boschman, and I returned to the home of the mage. He stood before us, a tall, thin figure enwrapped in yellowish strange garments, of a singular and perfumed character, spicy, in fact, which produced upon me a feeling which I cannot attempt to describe, and which I can only vaguely hint at by saying that the whole form conveyed to me the notion of something wrapped up. L'anon, the public will say, so is your meaning. Don't give it away, but that's what I mean. With a curious swaying motion, which I have never seen anything like, for he seemed less to be walking than to be impelled from behind like a perambulator, or dragged from in front like a canal-boat.

He advanced to the table, where lay some pieces of a white substance like papyrus, all the same size and oblong shape, which showed on their surfaces, some of them antique Look-looking figures and faces curiously stained, and others red and black dots, arranged as it seemed to me in some sort of design, although at first sight they looked jumbled enough. Near to these lay a book bound in brown, but with heavy black and gold lettering, amid which I thought I could make out the words, Modern Magic, and the name Hoffman. The swath figure poised itself a moment, resting one thin hand on the table, and then spoke. There is naught that is wonderful about this matter, it said. Could you but understand it?

Prestidigitation itself is wonderful, but that its phases and phrases should be changed is not wonderful. Not now, I ween, is the— Gibbichir of the ancient Wized scene, not now the presto pass of the less ancient conjurer heard. Nay, all things change, yet I change not. That which is not yet cannot yet have taken place, at least not in its proper place. That which shall not be may yet come to a bad pass, And the blind race of man watches helpless. The trammels it could shake off did it but greatly dare. My business, ladies and gentlemen, now is, as I have just explained to you, to attempt to puzzle your eyes by the quickness of my fingers. Yours, on the other hand, will be to detect the way, or modus operandi, as old Simon Magus used to say, in which I perform my little wonders, if you can.

Will any gentleman pass me a helmet, I mean a hat? As the only male person present was the Boschman, this appeared to be a futile question, and even the stately magician seemed to be struck by some dim idea of the kind. For I could discern a pair of mysterious eyes peering anxiously through his swathings. And I heard him mutter to himself in several languages. Ought to have thought of that. No hat present. Don't know any trick to produce one. Nothing about it in the book.

But he recovered himself quickly, and went on in clear, cheerful tones. Ladies and gentlemen, as no person present has a hat, I will proceed to another of the tricks on my little programme. Will any lady oblige me by drawing a card? Will you, madam? He said, bowing with infinite grace to Lenora. Her hand touched Asher's as she drew a card, and I saw a shiver pass over the veiled figure.

Will the lady on your left now oblige me? He continued, turning to me, who... was, indeed, standing on Lenora's left hand, though how he knew it is a thing I have never been able fully to understand.

Now, please, he continued, look well at your cards, but do not show them to me or to each other. Basta. Assez. Cogs on pox. Now, please, still hiding the cards from me and from each other, exchange them. Now he continued, his form dilating with conscious power. See how true it is that change is perennial, even so far as magic and nature itself can be perennial. For she who held the king of hearts now holds the queen of spades, and she who held the queen of spades now holds the king of hearts.

Thus, How much among the shifting shadows of life can I, the wizard, see as a sure and accomplished fact? Is it not so, my children? We bowed in silence, overawed by the wonder of his presence, although Lenora whispered to me, "'He has got the cards wrong, but we had better say nothing about it.'" And now he continued, Look upon this glass. It was an ordinary wine-glass. And on this silver coin, producing a stator of the Eritrean Republic. See, I placed the coin in the glass, and now can I tell you by its means what you will of the future. There is no magic in it, only a little knowledge of the secrets, mutable yet immutable, of nature. And this is an old secret. I did not find it. It was known of yore in Atlantis, and in Chichamec, in Ur, and in Lycosura.

Even now the rude Boschmen keep up the tradition among their medicine-men. Villany, lady! "'Has the coin a covestion?' he continued in a hoarse, semitic whisper, for all currencies and all languages were alike to him. "'Sher as the coin'll be after telling ye what ye like.' "'Voulez vous demander, mademoiselle, valancee, gnaticse signora?' Then said Lenora in trembling accents, I demand to know if I shall find that which I seek.

The figure, drawing itself up to its full height, passed its hand with a proud, impatient, and mystic gesture across the glass, and then stood in the attitude of one who awaited a response. Should the coin, my daughter, jump three times, he said. The answer is yea. Should it jump but once, nay.

We waited anxiously. The coin did not jump at all. The wizard took up the glass, shook it impatiently, and put it down again. Still the coin showed no sign of animation. Then the wizard uttered some private ejaculations in Hittite. But still the coin did not move. Then he affected an air of jauntiness, and said, I remember a circumstance of a similar kind when I was playing odd man out, Trios Anthropos, dear old Socrates used to call it, with Darius the night before Marathon. Darius was the Mede, I was the medium. Ha! Then he seemed about to work another wonder. when he was interrupted by the harsh, cackling laughter of the Boschman, who advanced with careless defiance and observed in his own tongue, which we all knew perfectly, that he could see all the tricks the wizard could do and go several better.

I waited, horror-struck, to see what would follow this insolence.

Asher made a movement So swift that I could scarcely follow it, but it seemed to me that he lightly laid his hand upon the poor Boschman's head.

I looked at Ustani, and then staggered back in wonder, for there upon his snowy hair, right across the wool-white tresses, were five finger-marks, black as coal. "'Now go and stand in the corner,' said the magician. In a cold, inhuman voice. The unhappy Boschman tremblingly did his bidding, putting his hands to his head in a dazed way as he went, and, incredible as it may seem, thus transferring, as if the curse carried double force, some of the black mark to his own fingers.

I will now, continued the wizard, who had regained his ordinary polished, if somewhat swaying and overbalanced manner, I will now, with your kind permission, show you a little trick which was a great favourite with the late Tubal-Kane, when we were boys together. Observe. I take this paper-knife. It is an ordinary paper-knife. Look at it for yourselves. I'll place it on my down-turned hand. It is an ordinary hand. Look at it for yourselves, but don't touch it. The consequences might be disastrous.

I, for my part, having seen the consequences in the case of Ustani's hair, had no desire to do so.

You see, continued the sorcerer, I placed the paper knife there. It falls. Why? Because of gravity. What is gravity? Newton, as you know well, invented the art. But what of that? Did he find that which did not exist? No, for the non-existent is as though it had never been. But now, availing myself of the resources of science, which is ever old and ever young, I clasp my wrist, the wrist of the hand on which the paper-knife rests, with the other hand, and—you see. As the sorcerer spoke, he deftly turned his palm palm downwards, and the paper-knife fell with a crash and a clatter to the floor. It was terrible to see the dumb wrath of the swathed figure at this new defeat.

Even In this moment the Boschman glided like a serpent among us, picked up the paper-knife, and triumphantly performed the very miracle in which the wizard had failed. A harsh cackle of laughter announced his success. But the mage was even with him, or rather he was odds and evens. Rapidly he drew his forefinger across the Boschman's face, Perpendicularly and horizontally, drawing a tic-tac-toe board.

On the skin of Ustani, Azure with Terra appeared the above diagram in lines of white. The Mage then made the sign of a plus. Thus, in the upper right-hand corner, and challenged Lenora to a contest of skill in aughts and crosses. But the Boschman, catching a view of his own altered aspect in a mirror, exclaimed, "'You standee ustani? Him no standee he? Him show hisself for tin? Adults one shilling, kids tizzy? Me umslopogui. And he sloped, nor did we ever again see this victim of an overwhelming power limited.

We presently took our leave of the mage, promising to call next day, and bring a policeman.

End of chapter 9, recording by Bill Moseley. Frelsburg, Texas, U.S.A.

10 10 - A Body in Pawn 10:06

Publishers interjections. Read by Julie Femulichem. Editor's Notes. Read by Neeru Ayer. He by Andrew Lang and Walter Harry's Pollock. Chapter 10. A Body in Pawn. Gin a body meet a body. Burns.

Though Lenora's faith in the magician had been a good deal shaken by his failures in his black art, she admitted that, As a clairvoyant, he might be more inspired. We therefore went, as he had directed us, to the neighborhood of Clare Market, where he had prophesied that we should find a temple adorned with the three balls of gold, which the Lombards bore with them from their far-arian home in Frangipani. Nor did this part of the prophecy fail to coincide with the document in the mummy-case. Through the thick and choking darkness, which has made the lights of London a proverb, we beheld the glittering of three aureate orbs. And now, how to win our way, without password, or indeed pass-book, into This home of mystery.

Here, in these immemorial recesses, the natives had long been wont to bury, as we learned, their oldest objects of interest and value. There, when we pushed our way within the swinging portal, lay around us, in vast and solemn pyramids of portable property, the silent and touching monuments of human existence.

The busy life of a nation lay sleeping here. Here, for example, stood that ancestral instrument for the reckoning of winged time, which in the native language is styled a grandfather's clock. Hard by lay the pipe, fashioned of the foam of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn. The pipe, On which, perchance, some swain had discoursed sweet music near the shady heights of high Holborn. The cradle of infancy, the gamp of decrepitude, the tricycle of fleeting youth, the paraffin lamp which had lighted bridal gaiety, the flask which had held the foaming malt, all were gathered here and the dust lay deep on all of them.

I was about to make some appropriate moral remarks when I heard Lenora, whose command of tongues is simply marvelous, address an attendant priestess in the local dialect. "'Here, miss,' said she, "'ow much can yer lettuce ave on this ere ticker?' producing her watch.

The priestess, whose clear-cut features and two lovely black eyes betrayed a mixture of Semitic blood, was examining the turnip, as she called the watch, when Lenora, saying, Mums the word, rather violently called my attention with her elbow to a strange parcel lying apart from the rest. It was a long bundle, as long as a man, and was swathed in cerements of white Egyptian tissue. "'Tis you, "'Tis you," I sneezed rapturously, recognizing the object of our search, the very mummy which, two thousand years ago, Theodolite had prepared with her own fair but cruel hands.

There, beyond the shadow of a doubt, lay all that was mortal of the unlucky jambres. On the tissue which wrapped the bundle, I distinctly recognized the stenciled mark corresponding to Leonora's scarab, a duck, the egg of a duck, and an umbrella. See cover. Most important to have this cover bound in sur brochure. "'How much?' said I to the priestess of the temple. "'Could you afford to let me have that old bundle of rags for?' "'That old bundle of rags,' said the woman. "'Take it, dear lady, take it and keep it, if you can, "'and the blessing of Abraham be on your head.' "'So anxious was she to part with the mummy "'that we could hardly get her to accept a merely nominal price, "'to give plausibility to the purchase.' We said we wanted the rags for a paper mill.

Joyously did Lenora and I call a passing chariot, and with the mummy between us we drove to our abode. I was surprised on the way by receiving a pettish push from Lenora's foot. Don't tread on my toes, she said, though I had not even stirred. I told her as much. and we were getting a little animated when my bonnet was twitched off and thrown out into the darkness. Lenora, I said severely, these manners are unworthy of a lady.

I declare, my dear Polly, she replied, I never even moved. And as she was obviously in earnest, I had to accept her word. When we reached home after a series of petty but provoking accidents... I say, are you not gliding insensibly into the fallen idol? Not a bit. You wait, and you'll see. We first locked up the mummy very carefully in the spare bedroom. Tomorrow would be time enough, we said, to consult the wizard as to our next movement. We ordered a repast of the native viands, which included, I remember, a small but savory fish, the Blota, and sought our couches in better spirits than usual. Next morning, long before Lenora was awake, the young but intelligent Slavy, so the common people call housemaids, crept into my chamber with a death-white face.

Oh, Mum, she said. It was a term of courtesy. What a night we've been having. Why, what is the matter, Gemma Marron? I asked, for that was her melodious native name. There's something in the spare room, Mum. A-carrying on to Horful. The bell ringing all night, and the thing screaming and walking up and down as restless. I'm a-going to give warning, Mum. She said confidentially. Why, you've given it, I said, to reassure her. Forewarned is forearmed. Forelegged it do run sometimes like a beast, Mum, wailing terrible. Up and down, up and down it goes, and always ringing the bell, and crying highly for a brandy-and-soda, Mum, like a creature tormented. Do take care. This is copyright. Don't you remember Mr.

Hyde? Neither Hyde nor Hiddall. You're so nervous. Do wait till the end. Wish it was come. Well, I asked, though every hair upon my head stood erect with horror, adding greatly to the peculiarity of my appearance. Well, did you take it, what it asks for? Yes, Mum. For very fear, I dared not refuse, and when I had handed it in by a chink in the open door, first there was a sound like drinking, then an awful cry, Potash again, and then a heavy soft thud, as if you had knocked over a bolster stuffed with lead, Mum.

Through the brown glimmer of dawn, it was about ten a m, I hurried to Lenora's chamber. She was dressed, and came out. "'What do you advise?' I asked. "'Send for Mr. Ermsen, the eminent lawyer at once,' said she. "'He is used to this kind of thing, nothing like taking counsel's opinion. But first let me knock the door open.' She applied her magnificent white shoulder to the door, which flew into splinters. There was not a trace of the mummy, but there, in a deprecatory attitude, stood the philosopher Asher. Please pronounce Asher.

11 11 - The Wizard Unbosoms 5:53

He by Andrew Lang and Walter Harry's Pollock. 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. Tain du apemabinumos prosophe coruthiolos 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 thirty acacia gardens, replied Lenora 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 eons 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 recognizes 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 jambres,' 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. Harken to my story. Three or four thousand years ago, for what is time? I was the authorized magician At the court of Ptolemy Patriarchus. I had a rival, the noted witch Theodolite.

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. Tre bien conserve, 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 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 Lenora, her mind submerged in terror. I sprang to the bell. Soda water at once, I cried, and the slavi 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,' she 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 Lenora 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.

12 12 - The Wizard's Scheme 6:16

He by Andrew Lang and Walter Harry's Pollock. Chapter 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 Lenora. 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 Ustanes 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, But ye shall show your confidence in me. I value not wealth. Gold is mere dross. Nay, I have the minds of King Solomon at my disposal. But when the weary King Ecclesiastes 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 will 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 banknotes, 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 Lenora, in her clear, sweet voice and girlish trustfulness, as is my invariable custom. My Dot, namely, three hundred thousand pounds worth of American Railway shares, chiefly Chicago NW and LNM, in my pocket.

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

And when he went on in italics, O my Leonora, when that mystic change has been worked which has been predestined for countless ages, and which shall come as sure as fate, then on another continent kindred to thine yet strange, even in the land of the railways that thy shares are in, Thou and I, the magician and the novice, the celebrated wizard of the West, and his accomplished pupil, Mademoiselle Leonor, will make a tour that shall drag in the dollars by the hatful.

Now come. Fralsburg, Texas, USA.

13 13 - The Perilous Path 9:43

A. B. B. B. Moseley. Publishers Interjections. Editors Notes. 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 demeanor had excited attention and claimed the interference of the authorities. In Berlin, Ulans would have charged us. In Paris, Grapeshot 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 honorable 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 colored relief. There is the great blue scarab, the cartouche, the pshent, the pshut, and all that we admire in the ramesseum 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 these 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 facade 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 waterspouts. Jambres, with the feline agility of a catapult of the mountain, began to climb the perpendicular, laden channel to which he had called our attention, and, of course, we had to follow him. It was perfectly marvelous 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, Gimbray lightly leading the way. Now, said Gimbray, 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 by 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's Skylites. When all was taught, Jambray 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 lamps, I think I've managed not to be libellous.

We shall see. Suddenly went out. Jambres whispered hoarsely. What are you waiting for? Come on. I'll— Agge nunc est scandenum. 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 Gimbray mysteriously, of my rival de Colta. He himself, owing to the use of his swathings, was sufficiently On the hither side was a row of luminaires de pied, which seemed afloat in the darkness, and in their centre a sudden chasm which looked as if it had been made by human agency. The fitful moonbeams, you've not mentioned them before. That's why I do now. 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 center and searching out the recesses of the cavern. Be still as you value your liberty, whispered Jambray. The bobe 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.

14 14 - The Magic Chair 2:00

15 15 - The End 2:26

queue_music Chapters 15