i awoke so much refreshed and free from pain that i must have slept for many hours. belleville was pinching my shoulder. his black-visaged face was curiously bilious-looking, and puffy purple hollows underhung his eyes.
"you didn't sleep thus on the banks of the nile," he muttered, with a sick man's frown. "you were wakeful enough then. one would think you had been drugged."
"indeed," said i. "but i had need to be wakeful then."
"who set on the light," he demanded. "i swear i left you in dark. who has been here?"
"your arab," i replied. "he swept out the room and gave me a drink. then he climbed into the sarcophagus yonder, and unless he went away while i slept, there you'll find him."
the rascal looked perfectly astounded. "my arab!" he repeated, staring sharply into my eyes. then of a sudden he turned and simply rushed over to the big lead coffin. stooping over the edge, he peeped into the interior and seemed to be shifting[pg 247] something with his hands. his back was all i saw, but it moved to and fro, and he strained on tiptoe. when he stood up his face was scarlet and his eyes were troubled. "swept the room, you said, and gave you a drink?" he muttered half to himself. with that he took to examining the floor, crawling on hands and knees. his peregrinations took him behind me, and what he did there or found there i do not know; but he rapped out an oath and i heard him pacing up and down, swearing in an angry undertone. so five minutes passed, then he stalked into my view and showed me a very troubled and a very angry countenance.
"you asked my arab for a drink?" he cried.
"i did," said i.
"in english?"
"what else?"
"did he answer you?"
"in the kindliest fashion possible. he assuaged my thirst."
"blast him!" cried belleville, all of a tremble with rage. "the villain has been tricking me. like enough i've loosed a force i'll yet have to reckon with."
"i don't comprehend," said i.
"nor need you," he rapped back. "shut your mouth till i address you or i'll cut your prying tongue out." the rascal was beside himself, that was evident. and since i was quite at his mercy i thought it best to do his bidding. he clapped a[pg 248] hand to his head and rushed once more to the sarcophagus. he glared over the edge for a minute, then turned and flung out his arms. "for two pins i'd do it now," he gasped. "cut him to pieces and burn the parts. it's doubtful if i'll ever get more good out of him. but if i do that i'll kill the chance. and yet he's played me false already. been laughing in his sleeve at me! but no—he can't have meant hurt or he'd have freed the prisoner. as easy that as fetch him a drink. no doubt he was asked. yet he's not to be trusted now, that is evident. i'll have to gaol him, too. let's see!"
he crossed the room and caught hold of the lid of the sarcophagus; but do what he could he was unable to shift it. i regarded his efforts with a deal of secret amusement. he emerged from the struggle panting and with disordered dress, and his temper in a molten glow. but he was not beaten. leaving the lid alone, he wheeled a big lounge over to the sarcophagus and, tipping it on edge, heaved it up athwart the mouth. then he piled everything of weight he could find atop of the lounge and soon he had built up a pyramid which would have taken a hercules to shift, if shut up in the sarcophagus beneath. it was then that i began to feel i had been a notable fool in telling belleville anything about the "arab." but it was little use crying over spilt milk.
his labours over, the rascal sank into a chair[pg 249] before me, and began fanning his hot face with a piece of cardboard.
"now for our business," he presently observed. "you've probably come to some decision, pinsent. i wait to hear it."
"well," i said, "the thing is in a nutshell. you've promised me nothing but a choice of deaths. i may be a fool, but i like life so well that i prefer a lingering sort to any other, however painless."
"you're a fool," he answered shortly, and pouted out his loose thick lips beyond his beard, so that he seemed to have the snout of a hairy pig. "you don't know what a pleasure it will be to me to torture you," he continued. "i'll make you suffer like the damned before you die."
"i don't doubt your will; it's your ability which is in question," i said, as coolly as i was able. "you may think you have me laid here very nicely by the heels, dr. belleville, and so you have in seeming. but you're not the only man who has a knowledge of the old magic arts of ancient egypt. i tell you to your face that i possess a charm no whit less potent than the one you found the secret of in yonder tomb. and if you force me to use it, why, i shall use it. now put that in your pipe and smoke it."
he stood up at once, greatly surprised, much incredulous, but also a little troubled and dubious, as i could see.
[pg 250]
"you think you can bluff me?" he snarled. but i had bluffed him. i could read it in his eyes.
i answered him with nothing but a smile.
he assumed a sneer. his eyes glinted. he put his hand in his pocket and produced a revolver. he cocked the weapon and put it to my temple.
"well, you've challenged me," he jeered. "in just one minute i'll blow your brains out. your charm is now in question!"
for a few seconds a dark haze of blind terror shut off my power of vision. i felt the villain meant to do what he had threatened. his nerves had been shaken by what i had said to him about the arab—though why, i could not fathom—and my challenge, although the merest bluff, had completed their disorder. he was in a spell of panic and it had swept his reason and his resolution to the winds. he intended to kill me in order to restore his own sense of security, and at once. and i was impotent to prevent him. he was counting aloud, "one, two, three, four." he had got up to fifteen before i even partially awoke out of my trance of craven fear. but in the next five seconds i had lived a whole series of lifetimes and i had received an inspiration born of wrath and hate and desperate necessity.
"look in my eyes," i shrieked at him. "and listen if you want to live."
he looked at me. i put the strength of my existence into my gaze, and i felt a strange, wild[pg 251] thrill of exultation as i saw his eyes dilate encountering the glance i threw at him.
"my death means yours," i hissed. "my monitor stands over you. you'll be shrivelled as by lightning. we'll go together to the throne of god! now shoot if you will and damn your soul for all eternity! shoot—shoot!"
but dr. belleville did not shoot. his hand fell to his side. he staggered back, staring at me open-mouthed until the chair arrested him. i saw my advantage and pressed it home.
"stop!" i shouted. "as you value your dirty life. stop! stand still and do not turn your head. one movement and we both die. i don't want to die for a dog like you."
he stood like a frozen image. holding his glance with mine, i began to mutter in a sing-song way a string of meaningless egyptian phrases. then the more powerfully to impress the superstitious fool-scoundrel, all of a sudden i uttered a loud heart-rending groan and allowed my head to fall over on the strap that encircled and sustained my neck. but though i only affected to swoon, the frightful amount of will force and nervous energy i had expended in the crisis had induced a consequential lassitude so enthralling that i came very near to fainting in reality. and, indeed, it is quite likely that i lost my senses for a time. soon, however, i felt water sprinkled on my face and slowly i raised my head. "a drink!" i gasped.
[pg 252]
a glass was pressed to my lips. i drank thirstily and opened my eyes. belleville, white-faced but composed now and gloomily frowning, was my minister.
"i make you my compliments," he said in cold, slow, even tones. "you have a quick wit and a nerve of iron. i am glad, because they saved me from a folly. you would cease to be of use to me dead, curse you, though i wish you carrion, and will make you worm food before i am much older."
"you'll not live to repent it," i replied. "i've bound your fate with mine by ties no mortal can unsolve."
"enough of that rubbish," he retorted harshly. "you cannot haze me twice. you could not have at all if i had stopped to think or been quite well. but i'm liverish and out of sorts to-day—the result of staying up all night nursing ottley."
"you'll see when the time comes—if you have the courage," i responded in an acrid tone. "you cannot scare me, belleville, because you cannot harm me without hurting yourself—and in your deeps of heart, you rogue, you know it."
he burst out laughing, but there was a note of nervousness in his mocking mirth that pleased me passing well.
"pah!" he said at last. "would you sit there trussed up like a chooky skewered for the table if you had the power you pretend?"
[pg 253]
"idiot!" i snapped. "can electricity unbuckle straps without machinery? yet it can splinter rocks without an effort and without assistance."
"ah!" said he, "ah! so you pretend——"
"try me!" i interrupted.
"not i," cried he. "i've encountered so many wonders lately that i'm now beginning to regard what i of old considered the impossible as the most likely thing of all to happen. i don't believe you, pinsent, but neither do i disbelieve you. therefore, acting on the kindly hint you dropped, i'll take all sane precautions. au revoir."
he marched to the door, passed out and disappeared. i chewed the bitter cud of thought for some hours. meanwhile i grew desperately hungry, ay, and thirsty, too. there came a time when i would have given the last of my possessions for a beef-steak and a jug of water. and, oh! how tired i was of my position. the blood gradually ceased to circulate properly through all my parts. my hands became purple. my legs went to sleep. my limbs were on a rack of pins and needles and even breathing hurt me. i did my best by straining at the bonds at intervals to promote the arterial flow and stop the agony of muscular irritation. but it was a poor best, and i sank welcomely at length into a benumbed lethargic state near akin to stupor, from which i knew i could wake to anguish by the merest movement.
as near as i can guess twelve hours had [pg 254]uncoiled their lethal folds before my infernal captor returned to the laboratory. one instant i was sharply sensible and suffering most damnably. the rogue looked positively sick and he smelt like a gin palace. he had evidently drunk a deal of spirit, but he was not the least intoxicated. "it is over!" he cried and threw himself into a chair.
"what?" i questioned.
"ottley is dead," said he, "and i am glad of it, all said and done, though i worked like a galley slave to keep him by me. he was a fine cloak for my doings, but he grew wearisome—the fractious old fool—at times. and i'm not sure i'd bring him back now—were i able."
"and miss ottley?"
"a pretty scene!" he shrugged his shoulders, then grimaced and whistled. "i'm her father's murderer, it seems!" he stretched out his arms and yawned. "but she's not responsible, poor thing—grief demented. the two consulting physicians heartily sympathised with me. they knew how i had worked, you see, and sir philip lang himself suggested morphia. they've signed a paper giving me control of her—under their directions i'm trustee of the estate under the will besides. lang thinks she may recover—ultimately, but it is evident that she must be confined. she raved of mummies, and spirits, and dead men come to life from the sleep of ages, and so forth. it impressed lang, vastly. he tapped his sage old head and [pg 255]muttered 'too much learning.' he has a fad that woman's brains are nurtured best on pap, and i had the tact to humour him. oh! i'm a devilish clever fellow, pinsent. what do you think?"
"there is little doubt of it," i said politely, very politely, indeed, for i wished to get as much information from him as i could and also something to eat and drink. "with your brains you might do anything. i suspect i have hitherto misjudged you. still, i wonder that you are not an archbishop. it seems to me the church would give you the proper cloak you need to exercise your talents in."
"gad!" he cried. "there's point in that remark. but between ourselves, pinsent, i aim at higher game than spiritual power."
"temporal," i suggested.
"the highest," he answered, sitting up. "and what's to prevent me?" he asked defiantly. "no man's life is safe from me."
i was puzzled. "you'd not make yourself eligible for kingship by killing kings," i said.
"kingship be damned," he sneered. "my father was an earl's bastard, but as for me, i'm a pure democrat. no, no, i'm going to abolish royalty. it has served its turn."
"but where do you come in?"
"the pleasure of the game is mine, the knowledge and the ecstasy of power unlimited to make and break."
[pg 256]
"oh! oh! my tiger, having tasted blood already, once at least, the thirst grows on you."
"once at least—bah!" he jeered, grinning like a fiend.
"pardon my ignorance," i entreated. "who was your latest victim."
"navarro," he answered, grinning still. "the scamp is a true clairvoyant and had to be shut up. he leaped from london bridge the night you came here and stepped like a poor rabbit into the trap i laid for you."
"well," said i, in tones husky with throat dryness and apparent admiration, "that makes two—weldon and navarro?"
"there is a third still," he answered, fairly snapping at the bait. "my old grandfather, the earl of havelock."
"and why did you murder him?"
"for his snobbish refusal to receive me as his kin ten years ago."
"might one ask how?"
"it's a story to entertain," he answered, licking his lips. "he was over eighty, but he'd kept all his faculties, else ther'd been no joy in killing him. a week since, i went to him invisible, entering the house with my blood cousin, now the earl, soon after midnight returning from a carousal. he did not see me, of course, and i took care not to let him hear. but little care was needed, the degenerate was filthy drunk. it was easy to find the old[pg 257] earl's room, the young man got so sober passing it. the door was unlocked, too, so i had no trouble first and last. i went over to the old chap's bed and looked at him and laughed to see. he slept with his mouth wide and his toothless gums were hideously funny. his teeth were in a glass of h2o beside the bed. i pulled his nose to waken him, having first turned on the lights full. then i played the ghost of my dead father. 'your hour is come,' says i. 'i'm the spirit of your bastard son come to warn you.' he shook all over, palsied with fear. 'no—no—no,' he gasped, 'i'm not fit to die.' 'you're not fit to live,' i whispered, stern as fate. 'how have you treated the son of your bastard son? have you been kind to him and helped him in the world.' 'mercy, mercy!' he whined. 'i know i have been remiss, but give one more chance—another year—a week—a day—and i'll do my duty. i'll bar the entail, i'll give him all.'
"'wretch!' i hissed—and sat me on his chest. it was heaven sweet to hear his stifled moans. he did not struggle at all. and my only regret was it was so soon over. he broke a vessel and smothered in his own blood. the papers announced next day that he had died of the syncope of senility peacefully while sleeping. ha, ha, ha!"
i echoed the heartless villain's laugh, croaking out guffaws. the sound irritated him. "stop that raucous row!" he ordered.
[pg 258]
"then stop telling me funny stories, or else give me something to drink!" i snapped.
he sprang afoot at once. "lord!" he cried, "i'm not proposing to starve you to death. why the deuce did you not remind me? you've been—let's see—sixty hours without food."
"sixty!" i gasped. "impossible."
"it's a fact," he said, and stalked out of the room. but he returned within a few minutes carrying a tray set with cold meats and wine which he set on a little table and wheeled before me. then he freed my right hand and stood over me with a revolver while i ate. but i could not eat at once, for the good reason that my arm was paralyzed, and minutes passed before i could make use of it. even then it pained like a raw scald. but i suppressed a reference to its condition and at the earliest instant cleared the board in the fashion of a famished wolf. afterwards he bound me up again, standing behind me to do it, out of respect for my strength, no doubt. then he put up his pistol and resumed his chair.
"upon my soul, i enjoy a chat with you," he assured me. "you see, i have no one else to confide in"—here he grinned—"and there's a peculiar pleasure in unbosoming to a helpless enemy."
"the pleasure is mutual," i protested courteously. "no other man has given me such mental pabulum."
he closed one eye in a very vulgar manner,[pg 259] "confess you expire with curiosity to hear more of my beautiful fiancée—the woman you love!"
"the more readily," i responded, "because i know you'll be delighted to taunt me with the satisfaction of that same curiosity."
"ah!" said he. "you are a foeman worthy of my steel. my heart warms with hate for you; respectful hate." he took out a silver pocket flask of spirit and filled the cup.
at this he began to sip, eyeing me the while with secret delight at my carefully repressed impatience. but he was too anxious to torture me directly to keep me waiting long.
"she's in a drugged sleep this moment," he announced. "i'll keep her like that till after the funeral."
"that's unlike you," i remarked. "it's almost kind."
"pish!" said he, "i can't afford to let her out of my control even for a moment."
"so?"
"so."
"but you will have to let her see her relatives, eh?"
"fortunately she hasn't one blood relation in england. her mother was an australian, a victorian farmer's daughter, and ottley took good care not to marry the family. she has never even seen one of her mother's people."
"but her father's?"
[pg 260]
"she is just as fortunately placed, from my point of view, in this regard. ottley was the only son. and although i believe there is an old maiden aunt twice removed knocking round somewhere in wales, i'm not afraid of her. she's bed-ridden and a pensioner. as i'm trustee of the estate she'll do what i tell her and stay where she is or i'll know the reason why."
"i'm sure you will," i agreed with pious fervour.
"the fates seem to have deliberately conspired to assist me in every possible way," continued belleville. "the only real woman friend miss ottley had, lady helen hubbard, has gone to south america with her husband, and the only man friend who might have helped her sits in that chair. there is not another soul in england who has either the shadow of a right or interest to question my treatment. i'm her sole trustee and as well as that her legal guardian, for although she is over age she does not come into control of her fortune until she is twenty-seven unless she marries in the meanwhile."
"you propose, of course, that she shall marry you. when?"
"oh, in a few days' time. it will naturally be a secret marriage in order to save scandal. but i'm determined it shall take place immediately."
"and afterwards—how will you treat her?" i had hard work to grind this question out.
belleville gave a nasty laugh. "that depends on herself," he answered. "if she is a dutiful, docile wife she will have little cause to grumble."
"and—if not?"
"you know me and ask that?" he cried. then he laughed again, stood up and shook himself. "i'm going to indulge in a nice comfortable sleep," he said. "you may not know it, pinsent, but it's almost midnight. take my advice and go to by-by, too! pleasant dreams to you and au revoir." he went out gaping with yawns, but he turned out the lights as he went, and once more darkness enfolded me.
