i spent the rest of the day covering up the stele i had unearthed with sand. there was no use thinking of attempting to transport it to cairo under existing circumstances. but i had no mind to be deprived of the credit attached to its discovery. so i hid it well. afterwards i gathered up my portable possessions, including my tent, and packed them in a load for my ass's back ready for the morrow. for i had resolved to set out on the morrow for the hill of rakh. surely, i thought, ottley will be quite recovered by this. i wondered why he had not sent for me before—in accordance with his pledge. had he forgotten it? the desert was exceptionally still that evening. there was a new moon, and although it gave but little light, it seemed to have chained the denizens of the wilderness to cover. i lay upon the sand gazing up at the stars and listening in vain for sounds, for hours, then, at length, i fell into a quiet doze. the howling of a jackal awakened me. it was very far off, therefore i must have slept lightly. a long sleep, for the moon had disappeared. the darkness that lay upon the land was like the impenetrable gloom of a rayless cave.[pg 63] but the heavens were spangled with twinkling eyes, that beamed upon me very friendly wise. i had lost all desire to repose, but i had found a craving for a pipe. i took out my old briar-wood, therefore, charged it to the brim and struck a match. "my god!" i gasped and scrambled afoot. the tall arab who had terrified miss ottley in the cave temple at rakh stood about three paces off intently regarding me. i struck a second match before the first had burned out, then felt for my revolver.
"tell me what it is you want," i cried in arabic, "and quickly, or i fire."
he did not speak, but very slowly he moved towards me. i raised the pistol. "stop," i said. he did not stop. "then have it!" i cried, and pulled the trigger.
he did not flinch from the blistering flash of the discharge. it seemed to me that it should have seared his face and that the bullet should have split his skull. i had a momentary glimpse of a ghastly, brownish-yellow visage and of two dull widely separated eyes peering into mine. then all was dark again and i was struggling as never i had struggled in my life before. long, stiff fingers clutched my throat. a rigid wood-like form was pressed against my own and my nostrils were filled with a sickly penetrating odour which i all too sharply recognised. it was the perfume that had issued from the sarcophagus of ptahmes when i drove my chisel through the lead. at first i grasped nothing but air.[pg 64] but clutching wildly at the things that gripped my throat, i caught hands at last composed of bone. there was no flesh on them, or so it seemed to me. yet it was good to grip something. it gave me heart. i had a horrible feeling for some awful seconds of contending with the supernatural. but those hands were hard and firm. they compressed my windpipe. back and fro we writhed. i heard nothing but my own hard breathing. i was being slowly strangled. it was very hard to drag those hands apart. but i am strong, stronger than many men who earn their living by exhibiting to the vulgar feats of strength. impelled by fear of death, i exerted my reserve of force, and driving will and muscle into one supreme united effort i tore the death grip from my neck and flung the arab off. uttering a sobbing howl of relief and rage, i followed him and caught him by the middle. then stooping low, i heaved him high and dashed him to the ground. there came a sound of snapping wood or bones, but neither sigh nor cry of any sort. "we'll see," i growled, and struck a match. the sand before me was dinted, but deserted. the arab had vanished. my senses rocked in horrified astonishment. my flesh crept. a cold chill of vague unreasoning terror caught me. i listened, all my nerves taut strained, peering wildly round into the dark. but the silence was unbroken. nothing was to be heard, nothing was to be seen. were it not for the dinted sand and the marks of feet other than my[pg 65] own where we had stepped and struggled, i could have come to the conclusion i had dreamed. after a while spent in soothing panic fears, i sneaked off to my baggage and extracted from the pile a candle lamp. this i lighted and, returning, searched the sands on hands and knees. the stranger's footprints were longer than my own and they were toe-marked. plainly, then, he had stolen on me naked-footed. looking wide around the dint made by his falling body i came presently upon some more of them. they were each a yard apart, and led towards the hill of rakh. yet only for a little while. soon they grew fainter and fainter. finally they disappeared. tortured by the mystery of it all, i halted where the footprints vanished and, putting out the lamp, squatted on the ground to wait for dawn. it came an hour later, but it told me nothing fresh. indeed, it only rendered the riddle more intolerably maddening. where had my arab gone? and how had he come? for there was not a single footprint leading to the camp. of course he might have thrown a cloak before him on which to walk; and thus he might have progressed and left no trace. but wherefore such extraordinary caution? and why should he be so anxious to conceal himself? it was hard to give up the riddle, but easier to abandon than to solve it. calling philosophy to my aid and imagination, i determined that my arab was some mad hermit upon whose solitude ottley had intruded in the first[pg 66] instance, and i in the second. and that he had conceived a particular animosity for some unknown reason against my humble self and wished to kill me. without a doubt, he had some secret hiding-place and feared lest i should seek to discover it. perhaps he had found some treasure of which he had constituted himself the jealous guardian. i felt sure, at any rate, that he was mad. his actions had always been so peculiar and his speechlessness so baffling and astonishing and crassly unreasonable. but he or someone had killed my donkey. i found the poor beast lying in a hollow, dead as c?sar. a knife had been employed, a long, sharp-pointed knife—perhaps a sword. it had searched out the creature's heart and pierced it. i made a hasty autopsy in order to be sure. the circumstance was most exasperating. it condemned me to the task of being my own beast of burthen. and the load was not a light one. i made, however, the best of a bad job, and having fortified myself with a good breakfast, i started off laden like a pack-horse for the hill of rakh. having covered four miles, i stopped. miss ottley and captain frankfort weldon had suddenly come into view. they were mounted. i sat down on my baggage, lighted a cigarette and waited. common elementary christian charity would compel them to offer me a lift. it was a good thought. it is not right that a man should work like a beast. and, besides, it was cheering to see miss ottley[pg 67] again. she came up looking rather care-worn and a good deal surprised. i arose and doffed my hat like a courtier. captain weldon touched his helmet with his whip by way of salute. he might have just stepped out of a bandbox. i felt he did not like me. the girl looked at me with level brows.
"sir robert well and strong again?" i asked.
"quite," said miss ottley.
"we were on our way to pay you a visit," observed the captain.
"sir robert wants me," i hazarded.
miss ottley shrugged her shoulders. "does he?" she asked, then added with a tinge of irony, "you seem content to be one of those who are always neglected until a need arises for their services. does it appear impossible that we might have contemplated a friendly call?"
"i have no parlour tricks," i explained.
her lip curled. "you need not tell me. you left without troubling to bid me as much as a good-day. how long ago? three weeks. why?" her tone was really imperious.
"but i left a benediction on the doorstep," i responded. "you looked cross and i was in a hurry."
her eyes blazed; they were beautiful to see. "where are you going?" she demanded.
"to call on your father."
"you have a load," observed the captain.
"a mere nothing."
[pg 68]
"is not that a tent?"
"i am shifting camp."
"that nigger chap—yazouk—came along last evening. but he vanished during the night. we fancied something might have happened."
"oh, yazouk. he broke a cup and feared i would turn him into a hyena, so he ran away."
"what!" shouted the captain.
"a superstitious creature," i shrugged.
the captain shook with laughter. "we wondered how you had tamed him," he chuckled presently—"after the bout. 'pon honour, you served him very prettily. straight from the shoulder and savate, too. the dragoman declares you have the evil eye."
"have you lost your donkey, dr. pinsent?" demanded miss ottley.
"he expired suddenly last evening."
captain weldon frowned and sat up very straight in his saddle.
"eh?" he said and looked a question.
"i had an arab visitor. my visitor or another killed my donkey with a knife. i should like to have caught him in the act."
"my dream," said miss ottley, and caught her breath.
"by jove," said the captain, "it is really wonderful—but wait—you had a visitor, doctor?"
"i believe it."
"did he offer to attack you?"
[pg 69]
"the spirit of the cavern!" cried the girl.
"a lunatic of an arab," i retorted, "and so little of a spirit that i had hard work to prevent him throttling me."
"but the face. did you see the face?"
"our friend of the cavern," i admitted.
miss ottley glanced at the captain, then back at me. she was as white as a lily.
"i knew it," she said. "i saw him kill the donkey and steal upon you—in a dream. his hands were bloody—and, look, there is blood still on your throat."
"my cask was empty, so perforce i could not wash," i murmured. the captain looked thunderstruck. "it's the most wonderful thing," he kept repeating, "the most wonderful thing in the world."
"and i never thought of looking in the mirror. it was packed up," i went on. i took out a rather grimy kerchief and began to rub at my neck.
"has that wretched arab—worried you at all—since i left, miss ottley?"
"i have seen him twice—and once more" (she shuddered) "in my dream."
"and where did you see him out of dreams?"
"once in the cavern and once in my father's tent. each time at night. each time he vanished like a shadow."
"did anyone else see him?"
"my father and captain weldon."
"the most hideous brute i ever saw," commented[pg 70] the captain; "you could put a good-sized head between his eyes. and such eyes. dull as mud, but horribly intelligent."
"well, well," said i. "we'll know more about him some day soon, perhaps, that is, if we stay long enough at the hill of rakh. he has a hiding thereabouts—without a doubt. your father is pining to open the tomb of ptahmes, i suppose, miss ottley?"
"he has opened it," she answered.
"oh!" i exclaimed—and stopped dead in the act of naming sir robert a thankless perjurer.
the girl was looking at me hard. "you are surprised?"
"curious," i growled. it was hard to say, for i was furious.
"i cannot enlighten your curiosity," she said.
"no?"
"he permitted no one to be present to assist him. it took place the day before yesterday in the cave temple. and the tomb is now closed again."
"you are then unaware what is discovered?"
"perfectly."
"and sir robert?"
"you will find my father greatly changed, dr. pinsent."
"indeed."
"he seems to be quite strong, but he has aged notably, and he will hardly condescend to converse with anyone, even me. moreover, the subject of[pg 71] ptahmes is tabooed. the very name enrages him. dr. belleville has forbidden it to be mentioned in his hearing."
"humph!" said i. "if my donkey were alive i should go to kwansu straight. but as it is i shall have to trespass for a stretch on your preserves at rakh. i hate it, too, for your father has broken faith with me."
"ah!" cried the girl. "he promised that you should help him open the tomb."
"exactly."
"you must not be hard on him. i believe that he is not quite himself."
"oh! i am accustomed to that sort of treatment from the ottleys," i replied.
it was brutal beyond question, but i was past reckoning on niceties with rage. captain weldon turned scarlet and raised his whip. "dr. pinsent," he cried, "you forget yourself. for two pins——" then he stopped—having met my eyes. i laughed in his face. "why not?" i queried jibingly. "it would be not only chivalrous—a lady looking on—but safe. have you ever seen a st. bernard hurt a spaniel?"
he went deathly and slashed me with his whip. poor boy. i never blamed him. i'd have done the same myself. as for me, the blow descended and cooled my beastly temper, which was an unmitigated blessing. i took his whip away and gave it back to him. then i laughed out, tickled at the[pg 72] humour of the situation, though it only told against myself. "i had intended accepting your offer of your mule for my belongings," i chuckled. "you haven't offered him, but that's a detail. and now i can't." i shook with laughter.
weldon leaped on instant to the ground. "do, do!" he almost groaned.
he was a generous youngster. "and forgive me!" he said. "if you can—it was a coward blow."
"gladly i'll forgive you," i replied, and we clasped hands.
"i'll help you load the beast," said he.
but i put my foot on my baggage. "that mule," i said, "belongs to sir robert ottley. i'll not risk the breaking of his back."
we looked at one another and i saw the captain understood me. he turned rather sheepishly away, but did not mount immediately.
miss ottley was gazing over the desert. "you must know you are behaving like a child," she cuttingly remarked.
i shook my head at the captain. "that means you are keeping a lady waiting," i observed.
he smiled wrily in spite of himself. "scottish, are you not?" he asked.
"from aberdeen."
he climbed on the mule's back. "i'm thinking dr. pinsent would like to be alone," he said.
miss ottley nodded and they rode off together.[pg 73] i picked up my swag and trudged after them. it was dry work. about twenty minutes later miss ottley rode back alone. she did not beat about the bush at all.
"i want you to put your things on my donkey," she said; and slipping afoot, she stood in my path.
"not to-day," said i.
"but i'm in trouble, i need your help," she muttered.
"with such a cavalier as frankfort weldon?" i inquired.
she coloured.
"and dr. belleville. old friends both, i am led to fancy."
she bit her lips.
"and both of them in love with you," i went on bluntly.
"dr. pinsent," said miss ottley, "it is my opinion that my father is not quite right in his mind."
"dr. belleville is a f. r. c. s.," said i.
"i am afraid of him—my own father," she said, in a tragic tone. "i have a feeling that he hates me, that he wants to—to destroy me."
"captain weldon would lay down his life for you, i think," said i.
she put a hand on my breast and looked me straight in the eye. "i could not tell this to dr. belleville, nor to the other," she half whispered.
i thrilled all over. "all right," i said, cheerily.[pg 74] "just stand aside till i load your little beastie, will you?"
her whole face lighted up. "ah! i knew you would not desert me," she said.
but we did not speak again all the way to the hill of rakh. we were too busy thinking; the two of us. when we arrived she flitted off, still silent. captain weldon came to me. "i want you to share my tent," said he. "i have a tub for you in waiting, and some fresh linen laid out, if you'll honour me by wearing it."
"you are a brick," i replied, and took his arm. but at the door of the biggest tent in the whole camp to which he brought me i paused in wonder. it was a sort of lady's bower within. the floor was laid with rugs, and the sloped canvas walls were hung with silken frills; and women's photographs littered the fold-up dressing-table. they were all of the same face, though, those latter; the face of miss ottley.
"sybarite!" i cried.
he winced, then squared his shoulders. "well—perhaps so," he said with a smile.
"but your gallery has only one goddess," i commented, pointing to a picture.
he gave a shame-faced little laugh. "you see, doctor, i have the happiness to be engaged to marry miss ottley," he explained. then he left me to my tub.
