It Came Out of Egypt/The Lair of the Spiders
SECOND MYSTERY—THE LAIR OF THE SPIDERS
DR. BRUCE CAIRN stepped into the boat which was to take him ashore. As it swung away from the side of the liner, he sought to divert his thoughts by a contemplation of the weird scene.
Amid the smoky flare of many lights, amid rising clouds of dust, a line of laden toilers was crawling, like ants, from the lighters into the bowels of the big ship, while a second line, unladen, was descending by another gangway. Above, the jeweled velvet of the sky swept in a glorious arc. Beyond, the lights of Port Said broke through the black curtain of the night, and the moving ray from the lighthouse intermittently swept the harbor waters, while amid the indescribable clamor, the grimly picturesque turmoil, so characteristic of the place, the liner took in coal for her run to Rangoon.
Dodging this way and that, rounding the sterns of big ships, and disputing the waterway with lesser craft, the boat made for shore.
The usual delay at the customhouse, the usual soothing of the excited officials in the usual way, and his arabiyeh was jolting Dr. Cairn through the noise and the smell of those rambling streets—a noise and a smell peculiar to this modern Egyptian town, the clearing house of the Near East.
He accepted the room which was offered to him at the hotel, without troubling to inspect it. Having left instructions that he was to be called in time for the early train to Cairo, he swallowed a whisky and soda at the buffet, and wearily ascended the stairs.
There were tourists in the hotel, English and American, marked by a gaping wonderment, and loud with plans of sight-seeing; but Port Said—nay, all Egypt—had nothing of novelty to offer Dr. Cairn. He was there at great inconvenience. A practitioner of his repute may not easily arrange to quit London at a moment's notice; but the business upon which he had come was imperative. For him the charm of the place had no existence, but somewhere in Egypt his son stood in deadly peril, and Dr. Cairn counted the hours that yet divided them.
His soul was up in arms against the man whose evil schemes had led to his presence in Port Said, at a time when many sufferers required his ministrations in Half Moon Street. He was haunted by a phantom, a ghoul in human shape—Antony Ferrara, the adopted son of his dear friend, the adopted son who had brought about the death of his adoptive father.
Dr. Cairn switched on the light and seated himself upon the side of the bed, knitting his brows and staring straight before him, with an expression in his clear gray eyes whose significance he would have denied hotly, had any man charged him with it. He was thinking of Antony Ferrara's record. The victims of this fiendish youth—for Antony was barely of age—seemed to stand before him with hands stretched out appealingly.
“You alone,” they seemed to cry, “know what he is! You alone know of our cruel wrongs! You alone can avenge them!”
And yet he had hesitated. It had remained for his own flesh and blood to be threatened ere he had begun to take decisive action.
The viper had lain within his reach, and he had neglected to set his heel upon it. Men and women had suffered and had died of its venom, and he had not crushed it. Then Robert, his son, had felt the poison fang, and Dr. Cairn, who had hesitated to act in behalf of all humanity, had leaped to arms. He charged himself with a parent's selfishness, and his conscience would hear no defense.
In spirit he stood again in a small room overlooking Piccadilly. The walls and the ceiling were entirely covered by a fretwork in sandalwood, oriental in workmanship. In niches, or doorless cupboards, stood curious-looking vases and pots. Heavy curtains of rich fabric draped the doors. The floor was of mosaic, and a small fountain played in the center.
A cushioned divan occupied one side of the room, from which natural light was entirely excluded and which was illuminated only by an ornate lantern swung from the ceiling. This lantern had panes of blue glass producing a singular effect. A silver incense burner stood near to one corner of the divan and emitted a subtle perfume.
He passed, in fancy, to Antony Ferrara's study. It was an elaborated copy of Ferrara's room at Oxford—infinitely more spacious, of course, and, by reason of the rugs, cushions, and carpets with which its floor was strewn, suggestive of great opulence; but the littered table was there, with its nameless instruments and its extraordinary silver lamp. The mummies were there; the antique volumes, the rolls of papyrus, the preserved snakes and cats and ibises, the statuettes of Isis, Osiris, and other Nile deities were there. There, too, were the many photographs of women; and, above all, there was Antony Ferrara.
The turmoil from the harbor reached Dr. Cairn faintly where he sat. He listened dully to the hooting of a siren—that of some vessel coming out of the Suez Canal. His thoughts were evil company. With a deep sigh, he rose, crossed the room, and threw open the double windows giving access to the balcony.
Port Said, a panorama of twinkling lights, lay beneath him. The beam from the lighthouse swept the town searchingly, like the eye of some pagan god lustful for sacrifice. He imagined that he could hear the shouting of the gangs coaling the liner in the harbor; but the night was full of the remote murmuring inseparable from that gateway of the East.
The streets below, white under the moon, looked empty and deserted, and the hotel beneath him gave no sound to tell of the many birds of passage who sheltered within it. A stunning sense of his loneliness came to Dr. Cairn. His physical loneliness was symbolic of that which characterized his place in the world. He alone had the knowledge and the power to crush Antony Ferrara. He alone could rid the world of the unnatural menace embodied in the man bearing that name.
The town lay beneath his eyes, but now he saw nothing of it. Before his mental vision loomed the figure of a slender and strangely handsome young man, having jet-black, lusterless hair, a face of uniform ivory hue, long, dark eyes wherein lurked lambent fires, and a womanish grace expressed in his whole bearing and emphasized by his long white hands. Upon a finger of the left hand gleamed a strange green stone.
Antony Ferrara! In the eyes of this solitary traveler, who stood looking down upon Port Said, that figure filled the entire landscape of Egypt.
With a weary sigh, Dr. Cairn turned and began to undress. Leaving the windows open, he switched off the light and got into bed. He was very weary, with a weariness rather of the spirit than of the flesh—a weariness of that sort which renders sleep all but impossible. Around and about one fixed point his thoughts circled. In vain he endeavored to forget, for a while, Antony Ferrara and the things connected with him.
Sleep was imperative, if he would be in fit condition to cope with the matters which demanded his attention in Cairo; yet sleep defied him. Every trifling sound from the harbor and the canal seemed to rise upon the still air to his room. Through a sort of mist created by the mosquito curtains, he could see the open windows, and look out upon the stars. He found himself studying the heavens with sleepless eyes, and idly working out the constellations visible.
Then one very bright star attracted the whole of his attention. With the dogged persistency of insomnia, he sought to place it, but he could not determine to which group it belonged; so he lay with his eyes upon the stars until the other veiled lamps of heaven became invisible, and the patch of sky no more than a setting for that one white orb.
In this contemplation he grew restful. His thoughts ceased feverishly to race along that one hateful groove. The bright star seemed to soothe him.
As a result of his fixed gazing, it now appeared to have increased in size. This was a common optical delusion, upon which he scarcely speculated at all. He recognized the welcome approach of sleep, and deliberately concentrated his mind upon the globe of light.
Yes, a globe of light indeed, for now it had assumed the dimensions of a lesser moon, and it seemed to rest in the space between the open windows. Then Dr. Cairn thought that it crept still nearer. The realities—the bed, the mosquito curtain, the room—were fading. Grateful slumber approached, and weighed upon his eyes in the form of that dazzling globe.
The feeling of contentment was the last impression that he had, ere, with the bright star seemingly suspended just beyond the netting, he slept.
II
A man mentally overtired either sleeps dreamlessly, or dreams with a vividness greater than that of the visions of normal slumber. Dr. Cairn dreamed a vivid dream.
He fancied that he was awakened by the sound of a gentle rapping. Opening his eyes, he peered through the cloudy netting. Then he started up and wrenched back the curtain.
The rapping was repeated; and, peering again across the room, he very distinctly perceived a figure upon the balcony by the open window. It was that of a woman who wore the black silk dress and the white yashmak of the Moslem, and who was bending forward, looking into the room.
“Who is there?” he called. “What do you want?”
“S-sh!”
The woman raised her hand to her veiled lips, and looked right and left, as if fearing to disturb the occupants of the adjacent rooms.
Dr. Cairn reached out for his dressing gown, which lay upon the chair beside the bed, threw it over his shoulders, and stepped out upon the floor. He stooped and put on his slippers, never taking his eyes from the figure at the window. The room was flooded with moonlight.
He began to walk toward the balcony, when the mysterious visitor spoke.
“You are Dr. Cairn?”
The words were uttered in the language of dreams—that is to say that although he understood them perfectly, he knew that they had not been spoken in the English language, nor in any language known to him; yet, as is the way with one who dreams, he had understood.
“I am he,” he said. “Who are you?”
“Make no noise, but follow me quickly. Some one is very ill.”
There was sincerity in the appeal, voiced in the softest, most silvery tone he had ever heard. He stood beside the veiled woman, and met the glance of her dark eyes with a consciousness of some magnetic force in the glance, which seemed to set his nerves quivering.
“Why do you come to the window? How do you know—”
The visitor again raised her hand to her lips. It was of a gleaming ivory color, and the long, tapering fingers were laden with singular jewelry—exquisite enamel work, which Cairn knew to be ancient Egyptian, but which did not seem out of place in this dream adventure.
“I was afraid to make any unnecessary disturbance,” she replied. “Please do not delay, but come at once.”
Dr. Cairn adjusted his dressing gown, and followed the veiled messenger along the balcony.
For a dream city, Port Said appeared remarkably substantial, as it spread out at his feet, its dingy buildings whitened by the moonlight; but his progress was dream-like, for he seemed to glide past many windows and around the corner of the building. Without having consciously exerted any physical effort, he found his hands grasped by warm, jeweled fingers, found himself guided into some darkened room, and then, possessed by that doubting which sometimes comes in dreams, found himself hesitating.
The moonlight did not penetrate to the apartment in which he stood, and the darkness about him was impenetrable; but the clinging fingers did not release their hold. Vaguely aware that he was acting in a manner which might readily be misconstrued, he nevertheless allowed his unseen guide to lead him forward.
Stairs were descended in phantom silence—many stairs. The coolness of the air suggested that they were outside the hotel; but the darkness remained complete. Along what seemed to be a stone-paved passage the woman and the man advanced mysteriously. By this time Dr. Cairn was wholly resigned to the strangeness of his dream.
Then, although the place lay in blackest shadow, he saw that they were in the open air, for the starry sky swept above them.
It was a narrow street—at points, the buildings almost met above—wherein he now found himself. Had he been in possession of his usual faculties, he would have asked himself how this veiled woman had gained admittance to the hotel, and why she had secretly led him out from it; but the dreamer's mental lethargy possessed him. With the blind faith of a child, he followed on.
He began vaguely to consider the personality of his guide. She seemed to be of no more than average height, but she carried herself with unusual grace, and her progress was marked by a certain hauteur. At the point where a narrow lane crossed that which they were following, the veiled figure was silhouetted for a moment against the light of the moon, and through the gauzy fabric Dr. Cairn perceived the outlines of a perfect shape.
His vague wonderment concerned itself now with the ivory, jewel-laden hands. His condition differed from the normal dream state, in that he was not entirely resigned to the anomalous. Misty doubts were forming in his darkened mind.
His dream guide paused before a heavy door of a typical native house—a house which once had been of some consequence, and which faced the entrance to a mosque. Indeed, it lay in the shadow of the minaret. The door was opened from within, although she gave no perceptible signal, and darkness, to Dr. Cairn's dulled perceptions, seemed to swallow them both up.
He had an impression of a trap raised, of stone steps descended, of a new darkness almost palpable. The gloom of the place affected him as a mental blank. When a bright light shone out, it seemed to mark the opening of a second dream phase.
Whence the light came, he knew not, cared not, but it illuminated a bare room, with a floor of native mud bricks, a plastered wall, and a wood-beamed ceiling. A tall sarcophagus stood upright against the wall before him. Its lid leaned close beside it—and his black robed guide, her luminous eyes looking straight over the yashmak, stood rigidly upright within it!
She raised her jeweled hands, and with a swift movement discarded robe and yashmak, and stood before him in the clinging draperies of an ancient queen, wearing the leopard skin and the crescent, and carrying the flail of royal Egypt!
Her pale face formed a perfect oval. Her long almond eyes had an evil beauty which seemed to chill, and her brilliantly red mouth was curved in a smile which must have made any man forget the evil in her eyes; but when we move in a dream world, our emotions, too, become dreamlike. She placed a sandaled foot upon the mud floor and stepped out of the sarcophagus, advancing toward Dr. Cairn, a vision of such sinful loveliness as he could never have conceived in his waking moments. In that strange dream language, in a tongue not of East nor West, she spoke; and her silvern voice had something of the tone of those Egyptian pipes whose dree fills the nights upon the Upper Nile—the seductive music of remote and splendid wickedness.
“You know me, now?” she whispered.
And in his dream she seemed to be a familiar figure, at once dreadful and worshipful.
A fitful light played through the darkness, and seemed to dance upon a curtain draped behind the sarcophagus, picking out diamond points. The dreamer groped in the mental chaos of his mind, and found a clew to the meaning of this. The diamond points were the eyes of thousands of tarantula spiders with which the curtain was broidered.
The sign of the spider! What did he know of it? Yes, of course—it was the secret mark of Egypt's witch queen—of the beautiful woman whose name, after her mysterious death, had been erased from all her monuments.
A sweet whisper stole to his ears:
“You will befriend him—befriend my son—for my sake?”
And in his dream state he found himself prepared to forswear all that he held holy, for her sake. She grasped both his hands, her burning eyes looked closely into his.
“Your reward shall be a great one!” she whispered, still more softly.
III
There came a sudden blank, and Dr. Cairn found himself walking again through the narrow street, led by the veiled woman. His impressions were growing dim, and she seemed less real than hitherto. The streets were phantom streets, built of shadow stuff, and the stairs that he presently found himself ascending were unsubstantial. He seemed rather to float upward, until, with the jeweled fingers held fast in his own, he stood in a darkened apartment and saw before him an open window.
He knew that he was once more back in the hotel. A dim light dawned in the blackness of the room, and the musical voice breathed in his ear:
“Your reward shall be easily earned. I did but test you. Strike, and strike truly!”
The whisper grew sibilant—serpentine. Dr. Cairn felt the hilt of a dagger thrust into his right hand, and in the dim, mysterious light he looked down at one who lay in a bed close beside him.
At sight of the sleeper's face—the perfectly chiseled face, with the long black lashes resting on the ivory cheeks—he forgot all else, forgot the place wherein he stood, forgot his beautiful guide, and only remembered that he held a dagger in his hand, and that Antony Ferrara lay there, sleeping!
“Strike!” came the whisper again.
Dr. Cairn felt a mad exultation boiling up within him. He raised his hand, glanced once more at the face of the sleeper, and nerved himself to plunge the dagger into the heart of this evil being.
A second more, and the blade would have been buried to the hilt in the sleeper's breast, when there ensued a deafening, appalling explosion. A wild red light illuminated the room, and the building seemed to rock. Close upon that frightful sound followed a cry so piercing that it seemed to ice the blood in Dr. Cairn's veins:
“Stop sir, stop! My God, what are you doing?”
A swift blow struck the dagger from his hand, and the figure on the bed sprang upright. Swaying dizzily, Dr. Cairn stood there in the darkness. As the voice of awakened sleepers reached his ears from adjoining rooms, the electric light was switched on, and across the bed—the bed upon which he had thought that Antony Ferrara lay—he saw his son, Robert Cairn.
No one else was in the room; but on the carpet at his feet lay an ancient dagger, the hilt covered with beautiful and intricate gold and enamel work.
Rigid with a mutual horror, these two so strangely met stood staring at each other across the room. Every one in the hotel, it would appear, had been awakened by the explosion, which, as if by the intervention of God, had stayed the hand of Dr. Cairn—had spared him from a deed awful to contemplate.
There were sounds of running footsteps everywhere; but the origin of the disturbance, at that moment, had no interest for these two. Robert was the first to break the silence.
“Merciful God, sir!” he whispered huskily. “How did you come to be here? What is the matter? Are you ill?”
Dr. Cairn extended his hands like one groping in darkness.
“Rob, give me a moment to think, to collect myself. Why am I here? By all that is wonderful, why are you here?”
“I am here to meet you.”
“To meet me! I had no idea that you were well enough for the journey. If you came to meet me, why—”
“That's it, sir! Why did you send me that wireless?”
“I sent no wireless, boy!”
Robert Cairn, with a little color returning to his pale cheeks, advanced and grasped his father's hand.
“After I arrived here to meet the steamer, sir, I received a wireless from the P. and O. boat due in the morning, to say that you had changed your mind, and were coming via Brindisi.”
Dr. Cairn glanced at the dagger upon the carpet, repressed a shudder, and replied in a voice which he struggled to make firm:
“I did not send any wireless!”
“Then you actually came by the boat which arrived last night? To think that I was asleep in the same hotel! What an amazing—”
“Amazing indeed, Rob, and the result of a cunning scheme.” He raised his eyes, looking fixedly at his son. “You understand the scheme—a scheme that could only have germinated in one mind—a scheme to cause me, your father, to—”
His voice failed, and again his glance sought the weapon which lay so close to his feet. Partly in order to hide his emotion, he stooped, picked up the dagger, and threw it on the bed.
“For God's sake, sir,” groaned Robert, “what were you doing here in my room with—that?”
Dr. Cairn stood straight upright and replied in an even voice:
“I was here to do murder!”
“Murder?”
“I was under a spell—no need to name its weaver. I thought that a poisonous thing at last lay at my mercy, and by cunning means the primitive evil within me was called up. Braving the laws of God and man, I was about to slay that thing. Thank God!”
He dropped upon his knees, silently bowed his head for a moment, and then stood up, self-possessed again, as his son had always known him.
It had been a strange and awful awakening for Robert Cairn—to find his room illuminated by a lurid light, and to find his own father standing over him with a knife. But what had moved him still more deeply was the sight of the emotion which had shaken that stern and unemotional man. Now, as he gathered together his scattered wits, he began to perceive that a malignant hand was moving above them—that his father and himself were pawns, which had been moved mysteriously to a dreadful end.
IV
A great disturbance had arisen in the streets below. Streams of people, it seemed, were pouring toward the harbor; but Dr. Cairn pointed to an armchair.
“Sit down, Rob,” he said. “I will tell my story, and you shall tell yours. By comparing notes, we can arrive at some conclusion. Then we must act. This is a fight to a finish, and I begin to doubt if we are strong enough to win.”
He took up the dagger and ran a critical glance over it, from the keen point to the enameled hilt.
“This is unique!” he muttered, whilst his son, spellbound, watched him. “The blade is as keen as if tempered but yesterday; yet it was made full five thousand years ago, as the workmanship of the hilt testifies. Rob, we deal with powers more than human! We have to cope with a force which might have awed the greatest masters whom the world has ever known. It would have called for all the knowledge and all the power of Apollonius of Tyana to have dealt with—him!”
“Antony Ferrara?”
“Undoubtedly, Rob! It was by the agency of Antony Ferrara that the wireless message was sent to you from the P. and O. boat. It was by the agency of Antony Ferrara that I dreamed a strange dream to-night. In fact, it was no true dream, for I was under the influence of—what shall I term it?—hypnotic suggestion. To what extent that malign will was responsible for you and me being placed in rooms communicating by means of a balcony, we probably shall never know; but if this proximity was merely accidental, the enemy did not fail to take advantage of the coincidence. I lay watching the stars before I slept, and one of them seemed to grow larger as I watched.”
Dr. Cairn began to pace about the room in growing excitement.
“Rob, I cannot doubt that a mirror, or perhaps a crystal, was actually suspended before my eyes by some one who had been watching for the opportunity. I yielded myself to the soothing influence, and thus deliberately—deliberately—placed myself in the power of Antony Ferrara.”
“You think that he is here, in this hotel?”
“I cannot doubt that he is in the neighborhood. The influence was too strong to have emanated from a mind at a great distance. I will tell you exactly what I dreamed.”
He dropped into a cane armchair. Comparative quiet reigned again in the streets below, but a distant clamor told of some untoward happening at the harbor.
Dawn would break ere long, and there was a curious rawness in the atmosphere. Robert Cairn seated himself upon the side of the bed, and watched his father intently, while the latter related his strange nocturnal experience.
“You think, sir,” said Robert, at the conclusion of his father's story, “that no part of your dream was real?”
Dr. Cairn held up the antique dagger, glancing at the speaker significantly.
“On the contrary,” he replied, “I do know that part of it was dreadfully real. My difficulty is to separate the real from the phantasmal.”
Silence fell for a moment.
“It is almost certain,” said the younger man, frowning thoughtfully, “that you did not actually leave the hotel, but merely passed from your room to mine by way of the balcony.”
Dr. Cairn stood up, walked to the open window, and looked out. Then he turned and faced his son again.
“I believe I can put that matter to the test,” he declared. “In my dream, as I turned into the lane where the house was—the house of the mummy—there was a patch covered with deep mud, where at some time during the evening a quantity of water had been spilled. I stepped upon that patch, or dreamed that I did. We can settle the point.”
He sat down on the bed beside his son, and, stooping, pulled off one of his slippers. The light had been full enough of dreadful surprises; but here was yet another, which came to them as Dr. Cairn, with the inverted slipper in his hand, sat looking into his son's eyes.
The sole of the slipper was caked with reddish brown mud.
V
“We must find that house,” said Dr. Cairn. “We must find the sarcophagus—for I no longer doubt that it exists—drag it out, and destroy it.”
“Would you know it again, sir?”
“Beyond any possibility of doubt. It is the sarcophagus of a queen.”
“What queen?”
“A queen whose tomb the late Sir Michael Ferrara and I sought for many months, but failed to find.”
“Is she well known in Egyptian history?” asked Robert.
Dr. Cairn stared at his son with an odd expression in his eyes.
“Some histories ignore her existence entirely,” he said. “I shall return to my room to dress now,” he added, with an evident desire to change the subject. “Do you dress also. We cannot afford to sleep while the situation of that house remains unknown to us.”
Robert Cairn nodded. His father stood up, and went out of the room.
Dawn saw the two of them peering from the balcony upon the streets of Port Said, already dotted with moving figures, for the Egyptian is an early riser.
“Have you any clew,” asked the younger man, “to the direction in which this place lies?”
“Absolutely none, for the reason that I do not know where my dreaming left off, and reality commenced. Did some one really come to my window, and lead me out through another room downstairs, and into the street, or did I wander out of my own accord, and merely imagine the existence of the guide? In either event, I must have been guided in some way to a back entrance. Had I attempted to leave by the front door of the hotel in that trance-like condition, I should certainly have been detained by the porter. Suppose we commence, then, by inquiring if there is such another entrance?”
The hotel staff was already afoot, and their inquiries led to the discovery of an entrance communicating with the native servants' quarters. This could not be reached from the main hall, but to the left of the lift shaft there was a narrow staircase by which it might be gained. The two stood looking out across the stone-paved courtyard upon which the door opened.
“Beyond doubt,” said Dr. Cairn, “I might have come down that staircase and out by this door without arousing a soul, either by passing through my own room, or through any other on that floor.”
They crossed the yard, where members of the kitchen staff were busily polishing various cooking utensils, and opened the gate. Dr. Cairn turned to one of the men near by.
“Is this gate bolted at night?” he asked, in Arabic.
The man shook his head, and seemed to be much amused by the question, revealing his white teeth as he assured his questioner that it was not.
A narrow lane ran along behind the hotel, communicating with a maze of streets almost exclusively peopled by natives.
“Rob,” said Dr. Cairn slowly, “it begins to dawn upon me that this is the way I came.”
He stood looking to right and left, and seemed to be undecided.
“We will try turning to the right,” he finally determined.
They set off along the narrow way. Once clear of the hotel wall, high buildings rose upon either side, so that at no time during the day could the sun have penetrated to the winding lane. Suddenly Robert Cairn stopped.
“Look!” he said, and pointed. “The mosque! You spoke of a mosque near to the house.”
Dr. Cairn nodded. His eyes were gleaming, now that he felt himself to be upon the track of the evil power which had shattered his peace.
They advanced until they stood before the door of the mosque. There, in the shadow of a low archway, was just such an ancient, iron-studded door as Dr. Cairn remembered. Latticed windows overhung the street above, but no living creature was in sight.
He very gently pressed upon the door, but, as he had anticipated, it was fastened from within. In the vague light that penetrated the narrow street, his face seemed strangely haggard as he turned to his son, raising his eyebrows interrogatively.
“It is just possible that I may be mistaken,” he said.
The doctor stood looking about him in some perplexity.
Adjoining the mosque was a ruinous house, which clearly had had no occupants for many years. As Robert Cairn's gaze lighted upon its gaping window frames and doorless porch, he seized his father by the arm.
“We might hide up there,” he suggested, “and watch for any one entering or leaving the place opposite.”
“I have little doubt that this was the scene of my experience,” replied Dr. Cairn. “I think we will adopt your plan. Perhaps there is some means of egress at the back. It will be useful, if we have to remain on the watch for a long time.”
They entered the ruined building, and, by means of a rickety staircase, gained the floor above. It moved beneath them unsafely, but from the divan which occupied one end of the apartment an uninterrupted view of the door below was obtainable.
“Stay here,” said Dr. Cairn, “and watch, while I reconnoiter.”
He descended the stairs again, to return in a minute or so and announce that another street could be reached through the back of the house. There and then they settled the plan of campaign. One at a time they would go to the hotel for their meals, so that the door would never be unwatched throughout the day. Dr. Cairn determined to make no inquiries respecting the house, as this might put the enemy upon his guard.
“We are in his own country, Rob,” he said. “Here we can trust no one!”
VI
Thereupon they commenced their singular and self-imposed task. In turn they went back to the hotel for breakfast, and watched fruitlessly throughout the morning. They lunched in the same way, and throughout the midday heat they sat hidden in the ruined building, mounting guard over that iron-studded door. It was a dreary and monotonous day, long to be remembered by both of them.
When the hour of sunset drew nigh, and their vigil remained unrewarded, they began to doubt the wisdom of their tactics. The street was but little frequented; there was not the slightest chance of their presence being discovered. It was very quiet, too, so that no one could have approached unheard.
At the hotel they had learned the cause of the explosion during the night—an accident in the engine room of a tramp steamer, which had done a great deal of damage, but caused no bodily injury.
“We may hope to win yet,” said Dr. Cairn, in speaking of the incident. “It was the hand of God!”
Silence had prevailed between them for a long time, and he was about to propose that his son should go back to dinner, when the sound of a footstep below checked the words upon his lips. Both craned their necks to obtain a view of the pedestrian.
An old man, stooping beneath the burden of years, and resting much of his weight upon a staff, came tottering into sight. The watchers crouched back, breathless with excitement, as the newcomer paused before the iron-studded door, and from beneath his cloak took out a big key. Inserting it into the lock, he opened the door, which creaked upon ancient hinges as it swung inward, revealing a glimpse of a stone floor.
As the old man entered, Dr. Cairn grasped his son by the wrist. “Down!” he whispered. “Now is our chance!”
They ran down the rickety stairs and crossed the narrow street, and Robert Cairn cautiously looked in around the door which had been left ajar.
The old man's stooping figure showed black against the dim light of another door at the farther end of the large and barn-like apartment. Tap, tap, tap, went the stick, and the aged Egyptian disappeared around a corner.
“Where can we hide?” whispered Dr. Cairn. “He is evidently making a tour of inspection.”
The sound of footsteps mounting to the upper apartments came to their ears. They looked about them right and left, and presently the younger man detected a large wooden cupboard set in one wall. Opening it, he saw that it contained but one shelf only, near the top.
“When he returns,” he said, “we can hide in here until he has gone out.”
Dr. Cairn nodded. He was peering about the room intently.
“This is the place I came to, Rob,” he said softly; “but there was a stone stair leading down to some room underneath. We must find that.”
The old man could be heard passing from room to room above. Then his uneven footsteps sounded on the stair again. Glancing at each other, the two stepped into the cupboard and pulled the door gently inward. A few moments later the old caretaker—such appeared to be his office—passed out, slamming the door behind him.
At that they emerged from their hiding-place and began to examine the apartment carefully. It was growing very dark. Indeed, with the door shut, it was difficult to detect the outlines of the room.
Suddenly a loud cry broke the perfect stillness, seeming to come from somewhere above. Robert Cairn started violently, grasping his father's arm, but the older man smiled.
“You forget that there is a mosque almost opposite,” he said. “That is the muezzin.”
His son laughed.
“My nerves are not yet all that they might be,” he explained.
Bending low, he began to examine the pavement.
“There must be a trapdoor in the floor,” he continued. “Don't you think so?”
His father nodded silently, and upon hands and knees also began to inspect the cracks and crannies between the various stones. In the right-hand corner farthest from the entrance, their quest was rewarded. A stone some three feet square moved slightly when pressure was applied to it, and gave a sound of hollowness beneath the tread.
Dust and litter covered the entire floor, but when the top of this particular stone was cleared, a ring was discovered, lying flat in a circular groove cut to receive it. The blade of a penknife served to raise it from its resting place, and Dr. Cairn, standing astride across the trap, tugged at the ring, and, without great difficulty, raised the stone block from its place.
A square hole was revealed. There were irregular stone steps leading down into the blackness. A piece of candle, stuck in a crude wooden holder, lay upon the topmost. Dr. Cairn, taking a box of matches from his pocket, quickly lighted the candle, and, holding it in his left hand, began to descend. His head was not yet below the level of the upper apartment when he paused.
“You have your revolver?” he said.
Robert nodded grimly, and took the weapon from his pocket.
A singular and most disagreeable smell was arising from the trap which they had opened. Ignoring this, they descended, and presently stood side by side in a low cellar. Here the odor was almost insupportable. It had in it something menacing, something definitely repellent. At the foot of the steps they stood hesitating.
Dr. Cairn slowly moved the candle, throwing the light along the floor, where it picked out strips of wood and broken cases, straw packing and kindred litter—until it impinged upon a brightly painted slab. Farther he moved it, and higher, and the end of a sarcophagus came into view. He drew a quick, hissing breath, and, bending forward, directed the light into the interior of the ancient coffin. Then he had need of all his iron nerve to choke down the cry that rose to his lips.
“Look! Look!” whispered his son.
Swathed in white wrappings, Antony Ferrara lay motionless before them.
The seconds passed one by one, until a whole minute was told, and still the two remained inert and the cold light shone full upon that ivory face.
“Is he dead?”
Robert Cairn spoke huskily, grasping his father's shoulders.
“I think not,” was the equally hoarse reply. “He is in the state of trance mentioned in—certain ancient writings. He is absorbing evil force from the sarcophagus of the witch queen.”[1]
There was a faint rustling sound in the cellar, which seemed to grow louder and more insistent; but Dr. Cairn, apparently, did not notice it, for he turned to his son, and, though the latter could see him but vaguely, he knew that his face was grimly set.
“It seems like butchery,” he said evenly, “but, in the interests of the world, we must not hesitate. A shot might attract attention. Give me your knife!”
For a moment, the other scarcely comprehended the full purport of the words. Mechanically he took out his knife, and opened the big blade.
“Good Heavens, sir,” he gasped breathlessly, “it is too awful!”
“Awful, I grant you,” replied Dr. Cairn, “but a duty—a duty, boy, and one that we must not shirk. I, alone among living men, know who and what lies there, and my conscience directs me in what I do. His end shall be that which he had planned for you. Give me the knife!”
He took the knife from his son's hand. With the light directed upon the still, ivory face, he stepped toward the sarcophagus.
As he did so, something dropped from the roof, narrowly missed striking his outstretched hand, and with a soft, dull thud fell upon the mud brick floor. Impelled by some intuition, he suddenly directed the light to the roof above.
Then, with a shrill cry which he was wholly unable to repress, Robert Cairn seized his father's arm and began to pull him back toward the stair.
“Quick, sir!” the young man screamed shrilly, almost hysterically. “My God! Be quick!”
The appearance of the roof above had puzzled him for an instant, as the light touched it, and then had filled his very soul with loathing and horror. Directly above them was moving a black patch, a foot or so in extent, and it was composed of a dense, writhing mass of tarantula spiders. A line of the disgusting creatures was mounting the wall and crossing the ceiling, ever swelling the unclean group.
Dr. Cairn did not hesitate to turn and run for the stair, and as he did so the spiders began to drop. Indeed, they seemed to leap toward the intruders, until the floor all about them, and the bottom steps of the stair, presented a mass of black, moving insects.
A perfect panic fear seized upon them. At every step spiders crunched beneath their feet. The poisonous insects seemed to come from nowhere, to be conjured up out of the darkness, until the whole cellar, the stairs, the very fetid air about them, became black and nauseous.
Halfway to the top Dr. Cairn turned, snatched out a revolver, and began firing down into the cellar in the direction of the sarcophagus.
A hairy, clutching thing ran up his arm, and his son, uttering a groan of horror, struck at it and stained the tweed with its poisonous blood.
They staggered to the head of the steps, and there Dr. Cairn turned and hurled the candle at a monstrous spider that suddenly sprang into view. The candle, still attached to its wooden socket, went bounding down steps that now were literally carpeted with insects.
Tarantulas began to run out from the trap, as if pursuing the intruders, and a faint light showed from below. Then came a crackling sound, and a wisp of smoke floated up.
Dr. Cairn threw open the outer door, and the two panic-stricken men leaped out into the street and away from the spider army. White to the lips, they stood leaning against the wall.
“Was it really—Ferrara?” whispered Robert.
“I hope so!” was the answer.
Dr. Cairn pointed to the closed door. A rapidly spreading fan of smoke was creeping from beneath it.
VII
The fire which ensued destroyed not only the house in which it had broken out, but the two adjoining; and the neighboring mosque was saved only with the utmost difficulty.
When, in the dawn of the new day, Dr. Cairn looked down into the smoking pit which once had been the home of the spiders, he shook his head and turned to his son.
“If our eyes did not deceive us, Rob,” he said, “a just retribution has claimed him at last!”
Pressing a way through the surrounding crowd of natives, they returned to the hotel. The hall porter stopped them as they entered.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but which is Mr. Robert Cairn?”
Robert Cairn stepped forward.
“A young gentleman left this package here for you, sir, about half an hour ago,” said the man. “He was a very pale gentleman, sir, with black eyes. He said you had dropped it.”
Robert Cairn unwrapped the little parcel. It contained a penknife, the ivory handle charred as if it had been in a furnace. It was his own—which he had handed to his father in that awful cellar at the moment when the first spider had dropped. With it was inclosed a card bearing the penciled words:
With Antony Ferrara's compliments.
{{c|(This series will be continued in the October number of Munsey's Magazine)})
- ↑ It seems exceedingly probable that the mummy case (sarcophagus), with its painted presentment of the living person, was the material basis for the preservation of the Khu (magical powers) of a fully equipped adept.—Collectanea Hermetica, Vol. VIII.