第 17 页

"Going down to-morrow. I've just come in here because Gargrave wanted to show me some tricks with his mummy."

"Damnation," said Thompson-Pratt to the owner of the rooms, "you haven't been talking about er secrets, have you?"

"No secrets will be given away unless you do it yourself," said Gargrave, oracularly. " I've just asked him in to be an independent witness."

"Oh, I see," said Thompson-Pratt, getting into a chair. But look here, you know. I don't half like this experiment of yours."

"It's in the cause of science."

"Science be sugared." He stared thoughtfully into the fire and then turned round and faced Gargrave squarely. " Look here, sir, if you are going to make use of me, I'm going to share some of the profits. You say that wrinkled, smelly person in the coffin yonder is my ancestor, and you are going to make me to talk his thoughts. Well, you may do it, or you mayn't. But if it does come off, it's just on the cards the old boy may let slip something in the natural science line which is strange to us to-day. I've a notion those old Egyptians were a lot ahead of us in some branches of chemistry, and if I could get hold of the way of making some new dye, for instance, to use with alizerene "

"You shall have a copy of every word that's said," Gargrave promised.

"From the phonograph? Yes, I see. But it'll be in what-d'you-call-em language hiero glyphics, isn't it? Ancient Egyptian, I mean."

"You shall overlook my translation as I make it. Man, I mean to do fairly by you."

Oh, all right," said Thompson-Pratt. Don't get shirty. Only, a man must look after his own interests, y' know, that's all; and besides, it's a hundred to one the whole thing's a fizzle."

Gargrave set his teeth. " Have you any more to say?" he inquired.

"No," said Thompson-Pratt, with a bored yawn. Wire in."

Now from where I sat on the table, I was watching the proceedings pretty carefully; and it struck me that Gargrave merely got a hypnotic influence over Thompson-Pratt in the usual way. He has told me since that he did something more, and perhaps this may be so; but anyway the patient seemed to go to sleep and to wake up again, and be entirely under the control of Gargrave's will. He made him lie down on the hearthrug in front of the fire, and then he took the mummy out of its case and laid that down on the hearthrug also, side by side with its living descendant. Then he told me to go out of the room.

"Whatever for?" I asked. " I thought you invited me here to see an experiment?"

"So I did. And you shall see it when the time comes. But I have one or two more prep arations to make first, which I don't choose to be overlooked. You must go into my inner room."

"I have a rare big mind to go out of the place altogether."

"You can do it if you like, of course, but you are a fool if you do."

Well, perhaps it was undignified, but I shrugged my shoulders, and swallowed my pride, and marched off into the inner room. I will own I was getting curious as to what was coming next.

Gargrave came after me, and had the imperti nence to lock the door on my heels. So there I was anyway, and as he seemed to have a dislike for smoking, I lit a pipe and filled the room with heavy reek.

I will give him credit for one thing, though. He did not keep me waiting long. He opened the door in a minute or so and said: " Sorry, old man, but I must keep my processes secret at any cost. Come in."

I went in. Thompson-Pratt and the man who had predeceased him some 3000 years were lying side by side on the hearthrug, to all appearance exactly as I had left them.

Evening was come on, the lamps had not been lit, and only the dancing, uncanny firelight illumi nated the faces; and as I gazed a little closer, a curious thrill went through me. It was Thorn pson-Pratt's which seemed to be the dead face now. Behind the shrivelled mask of the mummy there was surely some flicker of life. Gargrave was bending down, arranging the mouthpiece of the phonograph over the mummy's lips, and as he moved aside I could have sworn I saw the longdead limbs twitch. I took out a handkerchief and wiped my forehead. Gargrave saw me do it.

"Now don't be an idiot," he said. " There's nothing to be scared of. Just keep cool, and take accurate mental notes of all you see and hear." He tried to talk calmly, but I saw he was quivering with excitement for all that. He turned to the mummy and said something in a tongue I could not understand, enunciating each syllable most distinctly. I distinguished the word Menen-Ra," but could make out nothing else.

Neither the mummy nor Thompson-Pratt gave any sign of having heard.

He repeated the sentence again, varying the pronunciation of the words, and this time got a reply.

"You must speak English if you wish me to understand," came the answer in a stifled, dusty voice directly from the mummy's lips.

Gargrave started, and I think he swore. "Why?" he asked savagely.

"Because I have forgotten the other the old tongue."

"If I am being played with," said Gargrave, "there is one man here who will carry out of this room my marks on him for life."

There was no answer. He went on: Do you know your name?"

"Menen-Ra."

Where buried?"

"Thebes."

"You were not."

"I was buried at Thebes; but I should be taken afterwards to our family vault on the estate by Koorkoor, according to our custom."

"It was in the desert by the oasis of Koorkoor I found you. In what manner of grave?"

"Rock-hewn, with my titles carved above me."

Alone?"

"No, my four uncles, killed in war, would be with me."

"Were they all sound men?"

"No, my uncle Nepo, the last buried and so the next to me, had his right arm lopped off at the elbow: an old wound."

Gargrave broke off his questioning and hit the table excitedly. " That settles it," he cried. No living soul knows what the grave was like except myself, and no one could have guessed it. And it's all absolutely exact. It's a miracle, but I've done it. The soul of Thompson-Pratt has gone back to its old abiding-place, and now I shall be told the history of 3000 years ago exactly as it happened, and I can give that history to the modern world. When he spoke English I thought there was fraud; but there isn't; it's just part of the natural lapse." He rubbed his hands. " Lord! how simple it is, and I'm the only man that's got the key." He turned again to the mummy. " Menen-Ra, I command you that you lift up your voice now in history, and tell us of the Government of Egypt, and of Pharaoh, and of Pharaoh's inner life, and the daily life you lived yourself, and the daily life of the people."

And the mummy in its dusty tones began to speak. There was no doubt about the genuineness of it all, that I can vouch for. The phra seology was certainly that of Thompson-Pratt, reader of the Pink 'Uh, and Demonstrator in Chemistry at the Cavendish Labs. But the sen timents were those of ancient Egypt, spoken as no other men now living (except Gargrave and myself) ever heard them, but startlingly fresh and real. Not even the most imaginative stu dent, redolent in the lore of that long-dead land, could have invented them. They were marvel lous in their vivid truth. They were nothing short of a revelation.

But Gargrave cursed as he listened. He had looked for a dissertation on history, and he was getting chroniques scandaleuses; he had expected talk about Kings' policies, and he was hearing the tales of flirtations with their housemaids. He wanted descriptions of Council Chambers, and he got the dimensions of wine-shops. He had fallen into the error of thinking that all the men of bygone Egypt were as thoughtful and ponderous as the hoary few whose scribings have remained; and when he found that the ancient land contained devil-may-care pleasure-eaters like those that live in this land of ours to-day, he could have beaten himself in the fury of his disappointment.

For myself, as I listened whilst Menen-Ra prattled on, I laughed till the tears came, and my only regret a professional one was that I could not use up that unmatchable subjectmatter hereafter. I was listening to the talk of a man-about-town, who lived in Thebes 3000 years ago, and learning in detail exactly how he wasted his days and how he enjoyed his nights. He told us of his bets, his bouts, his light loves, and his serious entanglements. Every third sen tence referred to a long-dead Chloe, evidently the Thais of her day in that far-forgotten Thebes. Even allowing for Menen-Ra's obvious partiality, Chloe must have been a lady of wonderful powers, albeit she was a mere dancer by recognised profession. It was a gorgeous piece of description. But as it was given to us it would not publish; no, not even inside a yellow cover. And though I did note down a few items to make into future copy, I think I shall give them as my own. They are quite new, and no one will accuse me of lifting them; and, besides, it is merely foolishness to offer unasked-for explanations which no one will believe.

But I cannot say I heard as much as I wished. It was evident that Menen-Ra, after his silence of 3000 years, was equal to going on till midnight. But his was a mouth which could only speak on its own topic. Again and again Gargrave tried to lead this wanderer from a long-forgotten past on to the more weighty matters of state, and time after time he got back to talk about cock fights, and dicing bouts, and ape-racing on the dry Nile banks; or else he would speak to us of Chloe and his other loves with a freedom which is quite obsolete to-day. He brimmed with these reminiscences. But he had no others of a graver sort. This Menen-Ra had lived for nothing but his own personal pleasure, and beyond the limits of that he knew no more than we moderns did about the larger affairs of his country.

Gargrave tried him on every topic. He asked about the army. Menen-Ra started off loud in the praises of his favourite gladiator, and gave us the latest betting on his approaching fight. Gargrave asked for some song of the priests of Osiris, and this faded roysterer promptly trolled forth a drinking chant that nearly split his dusky throat.

And at last, seeing the futility of getting what he wanted, Gargrave savagely put an end to the inquisition. He clapped a large sponge over the still white face of Thompson-Pratt, and took a green powder from the mantelpiece and threw it on the sponge. There was a paff of streaky flame, and Thompson-Pratt sprang up choking and spluttering.

"I say, good Lord, Gargrave, what devil's game have you been up to now? What have you been putting me to bed on the hearthrug with that old image for? Here! I say, have you got a whisky-and-soda? Get me some whisky, for heaven's sake. I'm nearly parched to death."

I mixed a drink, and handed it to him. He gulped half of it thirstily. Then he bethought him of a toast. He nodded towards the mummy on the floor. " Here's to you, old cock," said he, and emptied his tumbler to the dregs. "I wonder what the equivalent of whisky was in your benighted day? I bet you had your share of it, if you are ancestor of mine."

You're a Goth," I said.

"I know," said Thompson-Pratt, " and I had a far better time of it than say a Construc tive Egyptologist has. Come along to the Hoop and have some dinner. We'll leave Gargrave to go on thumbing at my unpleasant forefather."

XII

THE LYNCHERS

(Those who do not know the Black Belt of the United States will probably set down this tale as a more or less gratuitous libel; those who happen to have been in New Orleans during the September of 1893 will recognise most if not all of the incidents. C. J. C. H.)

IT all began round the fountain in the Cotton Exchange, where men gamble at the yell over futures, whilst the cigarette ends unroll them selves in the water below. I stood round there for a while doing a little business; strolled to the middle of the room, and settled with a ship ping agent about a Liverpool consignment; went to a table at the other end, and conned the Picayune and the Times Democrat. All the while I was hungering to be gone. The close heat of the place oppressed me.

I ought to have stayed in the Cotton Ex change all day, to meet a man, as it were casu ally, on a point of the most delicate business diplomacy and finesse. It was this matter which solely had brought me all the way from Man chester, England, to New Orleans, Louisiana; and on that day the man was almost certain to be about and in the mood favourable; but the distaste for the place and its hot, clamorous atmosphere grew upon me.

At last I threw down my palm fan and stood up. I could endure it no longer. If the whole of my fortune instead of only a part had depended upon my remaining, I could not have stayed. You need not ask me more definitely why: I can give you no adequate reason; I suppose my nether angel must have clinched his fingers for a good grip just then.

There was no settled design in my mind as to what to do next. I wandered into the Pick wick Club and out again, and then took a bit of a stroll down Canal Street towards the levee. The midday heat was brazen, and the stink from the open grey sewer at the pavement side came up to one in fat, sickly breaths. I turned again, went to the Chess and Checkers Club for a julep, and then out again, still restless, still oppressed. To get a whiff of breeze I took one of the trolley cars which run down St. Charles's Avenue. You never have to wait for those: they follow on the heels of one another all day long, and through many hours of the night.

Inside was a gingerbread-coloured woman fanning herself. She nodded me good-day. In the reflection of an advertisement-mirror I saw the pink of my own braces showing wetly through the back of my white alpaca coat. It was terribly hot. The car took us out from the business zone to streets of dwelling-houses, stopping at the block corners for occasional passengers. And then we went on through the prettier boulevard which is flanked by innumerable frame houses of every tint with their gardens of foliage plants, and past an occasional house of stone, which denotes the residence of Israel; and we branched to the right by the levee and ran up to the terminus.

There were others in the car, breeze-seekers like myself; and with these I had intended to return; but again whim thrust me afoot. I got out and walked; walked on till the trim frame houses thinned, and nigger cabins appeared, and empty lots peopled with meat cans and broken glass; and still I wandered further, to the very fringes of the city.