 DEDICATION 1. He by Andrew Lang and Walter Harry's Pollock. 2. She to H. Ryder Haggard. 3. Not in the waste beyond the swamp and sand, the fever-haunted forest and lagoon, mysterious core thy feigns forsaken stand, with lonely towers beneath the lonely moon. 4. Not there doth Asha linger, ruined by ruin, spelling the scriptures of a people-band. The world is disenchanted. For soon shall Europe send her spies through all the land. 5. Nay, not in core, but in whatever spot, in fields or towns, or by that insatiate sea, hearts brood or buried loves and unforgot, or wrecked themselves on some divine decree, or would or leap the limits of our lot, there in the tombs and deathless dwelleth she. 4. Cor, January 30, 1887, Dear Alan Cordermayne, you, who with others have aided so manfully in the restoration of King Romance, know that his majesty is a merry monarch. You will not think, therefore, that the respectful liberty we have taken with your wondrous tale, as Pamela did with the 137th Psalm, indicates any lack of loyalty to our Lady Asha. Her beauties are beyond the reach of danger from Burlesque. Nor does her form flit across our humble pages. May you restore to us yet the prize of her perfections, for we, at least, can never believe that she wholly perished in the place of the pillar of fire. Yours ever. 2. 1. Editors Introduction As I sat one evening, idly musing on memories of roars and boars, and contemplating the horns of a windigo I had shot in Labrador, and the head of a moocow, a literary friend whom I have shown your manuscript, says a windigo is a job way for a cannibal. And why do you shoot poor moocows? Mere slip of the pen, meant to cowmoose, literary gents, no sportsmen. All right. From Canada I was roused by a ring at the doorbell. The hall porter presently entered, bearing a huge parcel, which had just arrived by post. I opened it with all the excitement that an unexpected parcel can cause, and murmured, like Thackeray's sailor-man, clarae, perhaps, mm, I hope. It was a mummy case by Jingo. This was no common, or museum mummy case. The lid, with the gilded mask, was absent, and the under half, or lower segment, painted all over with hieroglyphics of an unusual type. And green in colour had obviously been used as a cradle for unconscious infancy. A baby had slept in the last sleeping-place of the dead. What an opportunity for the moralist! But I am not a collector of cradles. Who had sent it, and why? The question was settled by an envelope in a feminine hand, which, with a cylindrical packet, fell out of the mummy case, and contained a letter running as follows. Lady Bates, Oxford, my dear sir, have you not forgotten me and my friend Leonora Odellet. The mummy case, which encloses this document, is a cradle of her ancient race. We are, for reasons you will discover in the accompanying manuscript, about to start for Treasure Island, where, if anywhere in this earth, ready money is to be found on easy terms of personal insecurity. All confounded, I cried. Here is another fiend of a woman sending me another manuscript. They are always at it. It's to get into a high-class magazine, as usual, and my guess was correct. The letter went on. You, who are so well-known, will have no difficulty in getting the editor of the ninth-in-century, or the quarterly review, or bow-bells, to accept my little contribution. I shall be glad to hear what remuniation I am to expect, and checks may be forwarded to, yours very truly, Mary Martin. B. S. The mummy case is very valuable. Please deposit it at the old bank in the high, where it will represent my balance. M. M. Now I get letters like this, not usually escorted by a mummy case, about thrice a day, and a pretty sum it cost me in stamps to send back the rubbish to the amateur authors. But how could I send back a manuscript to a lady already on her way to Treasure Island? Here perhaps I should explain how Mary Martin, as she signed herself, came to choose me for her literary agent. To be sure, total strangers are always sending me their manuscripts, but Mrs. Martin had actually been introduced to me years before. I was staying, as it happened, at one of our university towns, which I shall call Oxford, for short. Not that that was really its name. Walking one day with a niece, a scholar of Lady Betty's Hall, we chanced to meet in the high two rather remarkable persons. One of them was the very prettiest girl I ever saw in my life. Her noble frame marked her as the victor over Gertin at Lawn Tennis, while her pinsnay indicated the student. She reminded me, in the grace of her movements, of the Artemis of the Louvre, and the Psyche of Naples, while her thoughtful expression recalled the celebrated Reading Girl of Donatello. Only a Reading Girl, indeed, could have been, as she was, reader in English literature on the Churchton Collins Foundation. Who is she, I said to my friend, the scholar of Lady Betty's, what a lovely creature she is. Who that? She replied with some tartness. Well, what you can see in her, I don't know. That's Leonora Odolite, and the lady with her is the Lady Superior of Lady Betty's. They call them pretty and the proctor, my friend went on. As Mrs. Martin, Polly, they call her too, has been proctor twice. I say, you know, keep clear of improbabilities. No one was ever old enough to have been proctor twice. That's all you know about it. Why, I shall bring in a character old enough to have been proctor a thousand times. Now nobody could have called Polly bewitching. Her age must really have been quite thirty-five. I dislike dwelling on this topic, but she was short, dumpy, wore blue spectacles, a green umbrella, a red and black shawl, worse admittance, and uncompromising boots. She had also the ringlets and other attractions with which French art adorns its ideal English woman. At my request I was introduced, but presently some thirty professors, six or seven senior dons, and a sprinkling of heads of houses, in red and black sleeves, came bounding out of the university sermon and gathered around the lovely Leonora. The master of St. Catherine's was accompanied by a hitherto unattached student, who manifestly at once fell a victim to Leonora's charms. This youth was of particular aspect. He was a member of the nearly extinct Boschman tribe of Cocoa Tindaland. His long, silky hair, originally black, had been blanched to a permanent and snowy white by failures in the attempt to matriculate at Bell Oil. He was short, not above four feet nine, and was tattooed all over his dark but intelligent features. When he was introduced, I had my first opportunity of admiring Leonora's extraordinary knowledge of native customs and etiquette. Let me present to you, said the master of St. Catherine's, the Boschman chief, Ustani, Ustanishmi, answered Leonora with a smile that captivated the Boschman. It is a rule among the tribes of Cocoa Tindaland, and in Africa generally, to greet a new acquaintance with a verbal play on his name. Is it this bonafide? All right, see she, page 145. I shall elegant pun on holly. It's always done, pun, I mean. Owing to our insular ignorance and the difficulty of the task, this courtesy had been omitted at Oxford in Ustani's case, even by the professors of comparative philology and the learned keeper of the museum. From that hour to another, which struck later, when he struck two, Ustani was Leonora's slave. I had no further opportunity of conversing with Leonora or Polly, nor indeed did I ever think of them again, till Polly's letter and mummy case recalled them to my memory. Perhaps, for pretty Leonora's sake I did, after all, take up and open the vast cylindrical rule of MS. Don't you think it would stand being cut a little? We shall see. In the mummy's case, Dawn found me still reading the following record of unparalleled adventure. There is just one thing that puzzles me. Polly and Leonora have gone, no man knows where, and taking everything into consideration, it may be good two thousand years before they come back. What I not, then, to invest in my own name, the princely check of the intelligent publishers. CHAPTER NUMBER TWO OF HE This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording by David Gavin. Publishers, interjections, read by Shrely from Aliham. Editors' notes, read by Neelu Ayur. He by Andrew Lang and Walter Harry's Pollock. CHAPTER TWO Polly's Narrative I am the plainest woman in England, bar none. I may as well say at once that I will not be responsible for Polly's style. Sometimes it is flat, they tell me, and sometimes it is flamboyant, whatever they may mean. It is never the least like what one would expect an elderly lady Don, or Donna, to write. Even in youth I was not strictly speaking voluptuously lovely. Short, stumpy, with a fringe like the thatch of a newly evicted cottage. Such was my appearance at twenty, and such it remains. Like Cain I was branded. See, the mark of Cain, Aerosmith, an excellent shillingsword. Is it this not log-rolling? But enough of personalities. I had in youth but one friend, a lady of kingly descent. The kings to be sure were Irish, and of bewitching loveliness. And she rushed into my lonely rooms one wild winter night, with a cradle in her arms, and a baby in the cradle, when she besought me to teach that infant Hittite, Hebrew, and the differential calculus, and to bring it up in college, on commons, where the air is salubrious. What could I do but acquiesce? It is unusual, I know, for a student of my sex, however learned, to educate an infant in college and bring her up on commons. But for once the uncompromising nature of my charm strangled the breath of scandal in the bud, and little Leonora Odolite became the darling of the university. The old keeper of the Bodleian was a crusty bachelor, who liked nothing young but calf, and preferred Morocco to that. But even he loved Leonora. One night the little girl was lost, and only after looking for her in the head-to-model boardroom, in the Sheldonian, the Puseum, and all the barges, did we find that unprincipled old man amusing her by letting off crackers and Roman candles among the Mexican MSS in the Bodleian. Fees were the Halcyon hours, happier as Leonora grew up and received the education prescribed for her by her patent. Our Hebrew was fair, and her hittite up to a first class. But to my distress she mainly devoted herself to Celtic studies. I should tell you that Leonora's chief interest in life was the decipherment of the inscriptions on her cradle, the mummy case which had rocked her ancestors since Abraham's time, and which is now in your possession. Of itself it is a sufficient proof of the accuracy of this narrative. The mummy case is not the ordinary coffin of Egyptian commerce. The hero glyphs have baffled Dr. Isaac Taylor and have been variously constructed as Chinese, Etruscan, and Basque by the various professors of these learned Lingoes. Don't you think this bit is a little dull? The public don't care about that languages. Story can't possibly get on without it, as you'll see. You must have something of this sort in a romance. You get posed cipher in the gold beetle, and the chart in treasure island, and the Portuguese scroll in King Solomon's minds. Now about this mummy case. You must know that it had been in Leonora's family ever since her ancestors Theodolite, Pharaoh's daughter, left Egypt, not knowing when she was well off, and settled in Ireland, of all places, where she founded the national prosperity. It's not this, and it's a steep. No, it is in all the Irish histories. See Lady Wilde's ancient legends of Ireland, if you don't believe me. The mummy case and a queer ring, inscribed with a duck, a duck's egg, and an umbrella, were about all that Theodolites kept of their ancient property. The older Leonora grew, the more deeply she studied the inscriptions on the mummy case. She tried it as Zend, tried it as Sanskrit, and Japanese, and the American language, and finally she tried it as Irish. We had a very rainy season that winter, even for Oxford, and the more it rained, the more Leonora poured over that mummy case. I kept telling her there was nothing in it, but she would not listen to me. End of chapter two, recorded by David Gavin at www.thevoiceoverall.net. In Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on March 23, 2010. Chapter 3 of He. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by David Gavin. He by Andrew Lang and Walter Harry's Pollock. Chapter 3 Leonora's Discovery One wild winter night, when the sleet lashed the pain, my door suddenly opened. I started out of a slumber, and could I believe my eyes? Can history repeat itself? There stood the friend of my early youth, her eyes ablaze, a cradle in her arms. Was it all coming round again? A moment's reflection showed me that it was not my early friend, but her daughter, Leonora. Leonora! I screamed. Don't tell me that you. I have deciphered the inscription, said the girl proudly. Setting down the cradle, the baby had not come round. Oh, is that all? I replied. Let's have a squint at it. In my case, no mirror figure of speech. What do you call that? said Leonora, handing me the accompanying document. A note to the reader. What we are looking at here is a page or a tablet of very ancient, cryptic-looking writing. I call it pi, said I, using a technical term of typography. I can't make head or tail of it, I said, peevishly. Well, pi or no pi, I love it like pi, and I've broken the crust, said the girl, according to my interpretation, which I cannot mistrust. Why, I asked. Because, she answered, and the response seemed sufficient when mixed with her bright smile. It runs thus, she resumed with severity. In the only language you can partially understand, it runs thus, she reiterated. And I could not help saying, under such breath as I had left, been running a long time now. She frowned and read. I, Theodolite, daughter of a race that has never been run out, did to the magician Jambres, whose skill was even as the skill of the gods, those things which, as you have not yet heard, I shall now proceed to relate to you. Of him, I say, I was jealous, for that he loved a maiden inferior. Oh, how inferior! To me, in charms, wit, beauty, intellect, stature, girth, and ancestry. Therefore, being well assured of this, I made the man into a mummy ere ever his living spirit had left him. What arts I used to this last purpose had boots not, nor do I choose to tell. When I had done this thing, I put him secretly away in a fitting box. Even as set concealed Osiris. Then came my maiden and tidied him away, as is the want of these accursed ones. From that hour, even until now, has no man nor woman known where to find him. Even Jambres the magician. For though the mumfying, as thou shalt not fail to discover, was in some sort incomplete, yet the tidying away and the losing were so complete, that no putting forth of precious papyri into cupboards beneath the flights of stairs has ever equaled it. Now, therefore, shall I curse these maidens, even in Amenti, the place of their tormenting. Forget them. May they be eternally forgotten. Curse them up and down through the whole solar system. This is very violent language, my dear, said I. Our people swore terribly in Egypt, answered Leonora calmly. But it is vain no woman can curse worth a derrick. But for this, the losing of the one whom I mummified, must I suffer countless penalties. For I, even the Osiris, know not what the said maidens did with the said mummy, nor do you, nor any other. And not to know, for I want my mummy to have a good cry over, is great part of my punishment. But this, I, the Osiris, do know right well, for it was revealed to me in a dream. And this I do prophecy unto thee, my daughter, or daughter's daughter, I this do I say, that a curse will rest upon me until he who was mummified shall be found. Now this also do I, the Osiris, tell thee, he who was mummified shall be found in the dark country where there is no sun, and men breathe the vapor of smoke and light lamps at noonday, and wire themselves even with wires when the wind bloweth, and the place where the mummy dwelleth is beneath the three balls of gold, and one will lead thee thither who abides hard by the great tree cavern, like the head of an Ethiopian, and thou shalt come to the people who slate strangers, and to the place of the rolling logs, and the music thereof. Thereafter shalt thou find him, even jambres, and when thou hast healed him, the curse shall fall from me. Nor indeed shall the un-mummifying be accomplished even then, unless thou, O my daughter, or my daughter's daughter, as before, shalt go with he who was mummified to the hall of Egyptian darkness, and sit in the wizard's chair that is thereby even the seat which was erst the siege perilous. These things have I said, well knowing that they shall be accomplished, to thee, my daughter, thy grandmother. There, Polly, what do you say to that, said Nora, your grandmother, I replied. Polly, said Miss Nora, looking at me with quite needlessly flashing eyes, you and I will set out on the search for this unhappy mummied one. Don't you think the critics will call the motive rather thin, I demurred? Then, to rescue my ancestors from a curse, said Leonora, there's just one thing she mused, shall we take a low comedy character this time, or not? Let's take Ustani, I proposed. He can double the part with that of the faithful black. A great saving in hotel bills and railway fares. End of Chapter 3, recorded by David Gavin, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, at www.thevoiceoverall.net. Chapter 4 of He. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Publishers, interjections, read by Shalif Malikem. Editors notes, read by Nidu Ayur. He, by Andrew Lang, and Walter Harry's Pollock. Chapter 4, The Equipment. After it had been decided that we should start in search of he who had been mummified alive, the next step seemed to be to go. But Leonora demurred to this. We must have our things, she said. What do you think we should take? Scissors, I replied, and I regret to say that at first she misinterpreted the phrase. Leonora is a powerful as well as a pretty girl. And when the bare fight that ensued was over, my rooms were a little mixed. This suggested mixed biscuits, that invaluable refreshment of the traveller, and from one thing to another, we soon made up a complete list of our needs. The scissors, and skates, and the soup we procured at the church and state stores. Weren't the critics say you are advertising the stores, and the tradesmen won't like it? Where would the sterned reality of the story be? See, spectator, and the contrast with the later goings on, if you didn't give names. But not, of course, the revolvers. The revolvers, we got off the genuine government pattern. Because both Leonora and I are dreadfully afraid of firearms, and we know that these, anyhow, would not go off. The jam we got, of course, at the official cartridge emporium, same which we did not shoot the Arabs. The gladstone bag and the Bryant maze matches, we procured direct from the makers, resisting the piteous appeals of itinerant vendors. Some life belts we laid in, and, as will presently be seen, we could have made no more judicious purchase. As from information received on a mummy case, we were travelling in search of a mummy, of course we laid in a case of mum, which was often a source of gaiety in our darkest hours. The wine was procured, as I would advise every African traveller to do so, from Monsieur... Monsieur who? Princess and Harry. Suppress the name. Monsieur is given impolite response to our suggestions after mutual arrangements. Being acquainted with the deleterious effects of a malaria's tropical atmosphere, we secured a pair of overalls advertised as sovereign for all overrishness, the dreaded curse of an African climate. These we got at the celebrated emporium of Monsieur. Name suppressed. When eligible opportunity for advertisement as a substitute for a check was hinted at, Monsieur's brusquely replied in the low S. X. Patwa, what do you mean? Our preparations being now exhaustively completed, Leonora and I returned to Oxford, packed our things and consulted as to the route which we should adopt. End of chapter four, recording by Ezoa in Belgium in April 2010. Chapter five of He. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Publishes, interjections, read by Shalee from Alihem. Editors' notes, read by Nidu Ayur. He by Andrew Lang and Walter Harry's Pollock. Down the Dark River. Chapter five. Down the Dark River. The mystic Isis, so Leonora had decided, we sped. Eustani, plying the long pole of the dow, our native flat-bottomed bow, while we took it in turns to keep him up to his work by flicking him with a tandem whip. The moon went slowly down and it occurred to Leonora to remark that we were going down, too. An unusual thing, so early in term. Like some sweet bride into her chamber, the moon departed in the quivering footsteps of the dawn. Do you mean the dawn? Every Oxford man knows what I mean. Shripped the planets from their places to the consternation of the civilian professor of astronomy, who, as in duty bound, was contemplating these revolutionary performances from the observatory in the parks. A number of moral ideas occurred to Leonora and myself. But out of regard for Eustani's feelings, we denied them, expression. I began, indeed, to utter a few appropriate sentiments, but the poor pushmen exclaimed, you floggy, floggy, missy, or preachy, preachy, but no, both floggy and preachy. In a toll net would have disarmed a Banpton lecturer. Down we drifted ever downwards, obedient to the inscrutable laws of the equilibrium of fluids. Now we swept past the white willow, now through the cruel crawling waters of the gut, now through the calamitous gorge of ifly, and then shot the perilous cataract of Sandford. At this moment, just when the dow was yet quivering with the strain, I noticed an expression of abject fear on the face of Eustani. His dark countenance was positively blanched with horror, and his teeth chattered. Silence chatterbox, I cried quarrelously, perhaps, when he laid down his pole and seated himself in an attitude of despair. What's the matter, old boy? Said Leonora, and the reply came in faltering accents. Amma is the prefix of all the tribal names. Amazulu, Amahagger, I connected with the Greek preposition, Hama. Don't keep hammer hammering away at Greeks. This is a boy's book, not a holiday task, this is. We glanced in terror down the river's edge. They're on a path trodden by so many millions of feet that now are silent. Please don't begin moralizing again. One never knows when it will come upon you. Couldn't help just throwing it in. They were the burly forms of five or six splendid savages. The character of their language, which was born to us on a pure breeze of morning, their costume, their floating house, and which these scourges of the water highway commonly reside, everything combined to demonstrate that they belong to the Bargis, the most powerful and most dreaded of the native populations. Miam Sloppagee whispered Ustani in his native language, meaning that he would retreat. Eyes in the boat cried Leonora, in her clear commanding tones, paddle on all the bushmen cowered by her aspect and the mere slave of discipline, obeyed her command and presently we were abreast of the Bargis. Hi, Miss, cried the Bargi chief, a man of colossal stature. Can't you look where you're a-shoven to? Though his words were unintelligible, his tone was insulting. Leonora rose her feet into the occasion. By virtue of her rare acquaintance with savage customs, she was able to taunt the Bargis, with the horrors of their tribal mystery, to divulge which is death. She openly insulted the secret orgies of the tribe. She denounced the dog-feast. Who ate the puppy pie under Marlowe Bridge? shrilled Leonora in her proud sweet young voice. In a moment, a shower of stones struck the dow and spurred the water into storm. Frank Muller, the Bargi chief, distinguished himself by the fury of his implications and the accuracy of his aim. A smothered groan told me that Ustani had been hit in the mouth. Whidward crash went the stones while Leonora applied the pole with desperate energy and I erected the patent reversible umbrellas, with which we were provided to catch any breath of favorable wind. The fierce rapidity of the stream finally carried us out of the reach of the infuriated Bargis, who, moreover, were providentially slain by lightning, a common enough occurrence in that favored climate where nobody thinks anything of it. And we rested, wary and wounded, in a sheltered backwater. Are you not gliding insensibly into bears? No, all right. It is a tremendous country for storms. Can't use them too often. Add to the sense of reality. The dow is looking rather dowdy, said Leonora, glancing at the shattered craft. If dowdy deeds my lady, please, said I, catching her light tone, why she must take the consequences. But Leonora, I added, shuddering. I'm sure my feet are damp. If there's one thing I dread, it is damp feet. No wonder, said Leonora calmly, the dow has sprung a leak. I searched the dow everywhere, but we could find no trace of the vegetable. Meanwhile, the water had risen above the capstan, and Eustani, shivering audibly, had perched himself on the boughsprit. Now, or never, said Leonora, is the moment for our life belts. We hurried, put on our life belts, regretting the absence of an experienced maid. I'll be Mrs. Lex, and you'll be Mrs. Alashine, left Leonora as the dow, shuddering, and all her timbers collapsed. Ego at Lex, Mia, cried I, not to seem deficient in opportune galey of illusion, and we were in the water. We advanced briskly downstream, Eustani propelling himself with the pole of the dow. Ever anxious about Eustani's university education, interrupted by this expedition, Leonora kept coaching him in the usual way. Bow, you're feathering under water, she exclaimed, when the unfortunate Eustani disappeared in a lasher, where we, thanks to our life belts, floated galey enough. Here we paused to catch a few of the perch and gudgins, which Leonora had attracted by carefully wearing white stockings. Nothing like white stockings for perch, she said. As they were not perch enough to go around, Eustani was told to content himself with the pole, a synonym of not an equivalent. Laying our trencher-caps on the water, we used them, as of old, for trenches, and made an excellent meal. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of He This is a LibreBox recording. All LibreBox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibreBox.org. Publishes, interjections, read by Shalee from Malikim. Editors' notes, read by Nidu Ayur. Recording by Amy Graymore. He by Andrew Lang. And Walter Harry's Pollock. Chapter 6. Zoo Our course was now through a series of cross-streams. And finally we emerged into a long, perfectly straight, and perfectly tranquil expanse of water, bordered by a path which had every appearance of having been made by the hand of man. Night fell, a strange, murky night, smelling of lucifer matches, and lit on the eastern horizon by a mysterious light, flaring like a dreary dawn. Our passage was obstructed by a thousand obstacles, and at one point we plunged into the very bowels of the earth for a distance of at least a quarter of a mile. Next we found the canal, barred by a grinning row of black iron teeth, under which we dived as best we might. We were now, Eustani whispered to us, within the strange, dreaded region, known to the superstitious natives as the zoo. For the first time in our expedition, we heard the roaring of innumerable wild beasts, the rattling trumpet of the elephant, the drum of the gorilla, the scream of the lion, the chattering of countless apes, the yells of myriads of cockatoos, the growls of bears, the sobs of wal-ri. Is it this plural, correct? I can't find walterists in the Latin dictionary, nor anything else beginning with W, somehow. But it seems all right. The whistle of rhinocerotes, combined to make a strange pandemonium, strange, I call it, because the zoological learning I had picked up while with Nora at Oxford informed me at once that the variety of roars, screams, grunts, shrieks, whirrings, which our footsteps seem to awake in every kind of animal, bird, and insect, could be paralleled only in the pages of the Swiss family Robinson. Add to this that it was night, yet dark as a day on the London flags, when the fog creeped silently about your feet, and rising from utter blackness grows white and whiter in its ascent till it coils round your neck a white choker. Yes, the fog was playing a dark game, but Nora could see it and go one lighter. There were several on the stream we had quitted. She produced a patent electric light. Patent in the first sense of the word, she has not yet received offers advantages enough to close with in the other sense. Aided by this we looked about us and saw the strange denizens of the zoo. It was now that the presence of mind of Leonora saved us. Foreseeing the probability of an encounter with wild beasts, she had filled her practicable pocket, she belonged to the Rational Dress Association, with buns and ginger breadnuts. The elephant now walked round. The wolves also circulated. The bear climbed his pole. The great gorilla beat his breast and roared. Leonora was their match. For the elephant she had a rusk, a bun for the bear, and the gorilla was pacified by an offering of nuts from his native Brazil. This way to the crocodile house, we now read, on an inscription in black letters, and following the path indicated, we reached the dank tank with a monster's dwell. We had arrived at a place which I find it difficult to describe. The floor was smooth and hard. What do you make of this? asked Leonora, tapping her dainty foot on the floor. Flags, I replied, phlegmatically, and she was silent. In the center of the space was a dark pool circled by crystalline palaces, inhabited by sacred snakes, from huge pythons to the terrapin proud of his terrine. Again there was a whip-snake and a toad, bloated as the aristocracy of time, and puffed up as the flutocracy of today. For such is the lot of toads. Now a strange thing happened. Harck, said Yestani. Harck, harck, harck, a den is opening. He was right. It was the den of a catawampus, an animal whose habits are so well known that I need not delay to describe them. In the center of the dark pool, in the middle of a vague space, lay one crocodile. The rest were sleeping on the banks. The catawampus secretly emerged from its den. Horror, I'm not ashamed to say, prevented me from interfering. Stealthily crept across the cold floor, and true to the instincts of all the feline tribe. Is the catawampus one of the Felidae? Of course he is. Look at his name. Made straight for the water. Ah, cried Yestani. He's going for him. The expression was ambiguous, but we understood it. The catawampus, cunning as the dredger boa, crept to the edge of the pool, took a header into it, and then, still true to the feline instincts, swimming on its back made its way to the crocodile. In this manner, it caught the crocodile by the tail and waked it. When the tail of the crocodile awakes, the head awakes also. The crocodile's head, then, waking as the catawampus seized its tail, caught the tail of the catawampus. The interview was hurried into mulchus. The crocodile had one of his ears charred off, first blood for the catawampus, but this was a mere temporary advantage. When next we saw clearly, through the tempest of flying fur and scales, the head of the catawampus had entirely disappeared, and the animal was clearly much distressed. Then all of a sudden the end came. They had swallowed each other. Not a vestige of either was left. This duel was a wonderful and shocking sight, and was therefore withdrawn, by request, as the patrons of the gardens are directly interested in the morality of the establishment. CHAPTER VII AMONG THE LOW GRALLAS How to escape from our perilous position on the banks of a pestilential stream, haunted by catawampus, and other fellbirds of prey, now became a subject for consideration. Our object, of course, was to reach the people of the low growlas, through which region, according to the prophecy, we must pass before finding the magician that should guide us to the mummy. Our perplexity was only increased by the discovery that we were surrounded on every side by the walls and houses of a gigantic city. Stealing out by the canal as we had entered, we found to our comfort that this must be the very city mentioned by Thea Dolight, as the seers had declared. A deep and noisome night always prevailed, only broken here and there as a warnver scratched one of Bryant and May's matches, and painfully endeavored to decipher the number on the door of his house. The streets moreover were strewn and interwoven with long strings of iron falling from the sky. The people who eye themselves with wire, whispered Leonora, what do you think of my interpretation now? I shall inquire, I answered, and I did inquire for the land of the globe rollers, but in vain. Happily we chanced to meet an old man, clothed in a whitish robe of some unknown substance, not unlike paper. This fluttering vesture was marked with strange characters, in black and red, which Leonora was able to interpret. She read them thus. They were but fragmentary. And on the fragments the words, tragedy, awful revelations, purity, and other apparently inconsistent hieroglyphics might be deciphered. He had a large and ragged staff. On his back he carried a vast budget. And he was always asking everybody, won't you put something in the budget? Father said, Leonora, in a respectful tone, canst thou tell us the way to the land of the people called Lo Grola, and the place of the rolling of logs? He stroked his beautiful white beard and smiled faintly. Indeed, child, we not only know it, but ourselves discovered it, and wrote it up. We mean sent our representative, he answered. It was a peculiarity of this man that he always spoke like royalty in the first person plural. And if a daughter may ask, said Leonora, what is the name of my father? Instead, vastly regarding her, he answered, our name is Pelmeli, and with a go we, my father. That you shall see as soon as that is as the fog lifts, or as our representative has made interest with a gas company. With these words he furnished an unequaled supply of litter, which came, he said, from the office. Where there was plenty, and we were born rapidly in a westward direction. As we journeyed, old Pelmeli gave us a good deal of information about the Lo Grola's whom he did not seem to like. They were, he said, a savage and treacherous tribe, inhabiting for the most part the ruined abodes of some kingly race of old. The names of their chief dwellings, he told us, were still called in some ancient and long lost speech, the academy, and the Athenium. Leonora, whose knowledge of languages was extensive and peculiar, told Pelmeli that these names were derived from the old Greek. Ah, said he, you have clearly drunk of the wisdom of the past, and thy hands have held the water of the world's knowledge. Know you Latin also? Yes, oh, Pelmeli, replied Leonora, and Pelmeli said he preferred modern tongues, though it would often be useful to him if he did in his dealings with the Lo Grola's. However, if our Greek is a little to seek, our Russian is okay, he said proudly. He was very bitter against the Lo Grola's, the Lo Grola's favorite weapon, he told us, was the club, and he even proposed to show us this instrument. Our litter presently stopped outside a stately palace. The street was dark, as always in the strange city, but old Pelmeli paused, sniffed, and bending his ear to the ground listened intently. I smell the incense, he said, and hear the melodious rolling of the logs, but they shall know their master. Thus speaking, he led us into a vast hall where the Lo Grola's were sitting or standing, offering each other incense, as Pelmeli remarked from thin tubes of paper which smoked at one end. Now listened, said Pelmeli, and he cried aloud the name of a poet known to the Lo Grola's. Instantly we heard from I know not what recess, a rolling fire of applause and admiration, which swept past us with stately and solemn music like a hymn of praise. There, said Pelmeli, I told you so, this is the place of the rolling logs, and yourselves have heard it. Leonora said she did not mind how often she heard it, as she quite agreed with the sentiments. Not so, said Pelmeli, and he cried aloud another name, the name of a poetess there, which was almost strange to us. Then followed through that vastly hall a sharp and rattling crash as of the descent of innumerable slates. Great heavens whispered, Leonora, remember the writing, the place where they slate strangers? As we were strangers, and wholly unknown to the Lo Grola's, we thought they might slate us, and beating a hasty retreat soon found ourselves with Pelmeli in the dark, outer air. They are a desperate lot, said he, they won't ever put anything in the budget. He was quivering with indignation, and Leonora, to soothe him, told him the story of our quest for the mummy, and asked him if he could help us. We are your man, said he, we propose tomorrow to send our representative to interview a magician who has just arrived in this country. He is a mysterious character, his name is Asher, pronounced Asher, and it is said that he is the wandering Jew, or at all events has lived for many centuries. He, if anyone, can direct you in your search. He then appointed a place where his representative should meet us next day, and we separated, Pelmeli taking his staff, and going off to lead an excursion against the Amatory, a brutal and licentious tribe. Next day Leonora was suffering from a slight feverish cold, and I don't wonder at it, considering what we suffered in the zoo. I, therefore, went alone to the rendezvous, where I was to meet our representative. To my surprise, nobody was there, but old Pelmeli himself. Why, you said you would send your representative, I exclaimed. We are our usual representative, he answered rather suckily. Come on, for we have to call on Mr. Apples, the famous advertisers. Why, said I? Can you ask, he replied, can ought be more interesting than an advertiser? I call it log-rolling, I answered, but he was silent. He went at a great pace, and presently in a somewhat sordid street, pointed his finger silently to an object over a door. It was the carbon head of an Ethiopian. This new confirmation of the prophecy gave me quite a turn, especially when I read the characters inscribed beneath. Try our fine Negro's head. Here dwells the sorcerer, even Asher, said Pelmeli, and began to crawl upstairs on his hands and knees. Why do you do that, I asked, determined, if I must follow Pelmeli, at all events, not to follow his example? It is the manner of the tribe of interviewers, my daughter, ours is a blessed task, yet must we feign humility, or the savage people kick us and drive us forth with our garments rent. He now humbly tapped at a door, and a strange voice cried. Andrei Pelmeli, whose Russian is his strong point, paused in doubt, but I explained that the word was French for come in. He crawled in on his stomach while I followed him erect, and we found ourselves before a strange kind of tent. It had four posts, and a broidered veil was drawn all around it. Within the veil the sorcerer was concealed, and he asked in a gruff tone, What do you want? Pelmeli explained that he had come to receive a brief personal statement for the budget. The voice replied without hesitation. The centuries and the eons pass, and I too make the pass. J'ai sauté la coupée, he added, in a foreign tongue. While thy race wore not but a little blue paint, I dwelt among the forgotten peoples. The red sea knows me, and the Nile has turned scarlet at my words. I am Kahut Humi. I am also the chela of the mountain. Now it is my turn to ask you a few easy questions. Who sitteth on the throne of Hoki Poki Winky Wum, the monarch of the Anthropophagi? Have the Jews yet come to their land, or have the owners of the land gone to the Jews? Doth Darius the Mede yet rule, or hath his kingdom passed to the Bessarids? As Pelmeli was utterly floored by these inquiries, which indicated that the sorter had been, for a considerable time, out of the range of the daily papers, I answered them as well as I could. When his very natural curiosity had been satisfied by a course of mangnall's questions, I ventured to broach my own business. He said he did not deal in mummies himself, though he had a stuffed crocodile very much at my service. But would I call tomorrow and bring Leonora? He added that he had known of our coming my virtue of his secret art of divination. And thyself he added, shalt gaze without extra charge in the fountain of knowledge. Brusting a withered yellow hand out of the mystic tent, he pointed to a table where stood a small circular dish or cup of white earthenware containing some brown milky liquid. Gazed therein, said the sorcerer. I gazed. There was a stranger in the tea. Deeply impressed with the belief, laugh at it, if you will, that I was in the presence of a being of more than mortal endowments, I was withdrawing when my glance fell on his weird familiars, two tailless cats. This prodigy made me shudder, and I said, in tones of the deepest awe and sympathy, poor puss. Yes, came the strange voice from within the tent. They are born without tails. I bred them so. It hath taken many centuries and much trouble, but at last I have triumphed. Once, too, I reared a breed of dogs with two tails, but after a while they became a proverb for pride. Nature loathed them, and they perished. I have consulted the authorities at the British Museum, who tell me these are the Greek and Latin words for, don't you think you had better go? Get out! This, though not understood, of course, by Palmele, was as good as an invitation to withdraw. So I induced the old man to come away, promising the magician I would return on the moral. Who was this awful man, to whom centuries were as moments, whose very correspondence, as I had noticed, came through the dead letter office, and who spoke in the tongues of the dead past. End of Chapter 8. Recording by Bill Mosley-Frelsberg, Texas, U.S.A. Chapter 9 of Key This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Bill Mosley Publishers' Interjections Read by Juli Formolechem Editor's Notes Read by Nidu Ayur He By Andrew Lang and Walter Harry's Pollock Chapter 9 The Power of He Next day, Lenora, the Boschman and I return to the home of the mage. He stood before us, a tall, thin figure enwrapped in yellowish strange garments of a singular and perfumed character, spicy in fact, which produced upon me a feeling which I cannot attempt to describe, and which I can only vaguely hint at by saying that the whole form conveyed to me the notion of something wrapped up. The public will say, so is your meaning. Don't give it away, but that's what I mean. With a curious swaying motion which I have never seen anything like, for he seemed less to be walking than to be impelled from behind like a perambulator, or dragged from in front like a canal-boat. He advanced to the table, where lay some pieces of a white substance like papyrus, all the same size and oblong shape, which showed on their surfaces some of them antique-looking figures and faces curiously stained, and others red and black dots, arranged as it seemed to me in some sort of design, although at first sight they looked jumbled enough. Near to these lay a book bound in brown, but with heavy black and gold lettering, amid which I thought I could make out the words Modern Magic, and the name Hoffman. The swath figure poised itself a moment, resting one thin hand on the table, and then spoke. There is not that is wonderful about this matter, it said. Could you but understand it? Prestidigitation itself is wonderful, but that its phases and phrases should be changed is not wonderful. Not now, I wean, is the gibbage-air of the ancient wizard scene, not now the presto-pass of the less ancient conjurer heard. Nay, all things change, yet I change not. That which is not yet cannot yet have taken place, at least not in its proper place. That which shall not be may yet come to a bad pass, and the blind race of man watches helpless. The trammels it could shake off did it but greatly dare. My business, ladies and gentlemen, now is, as I have just explained to you, to attempt to puzzle your eyes by the quickness of my fingers. Yours, on the other hand, will be to detect the way, or modus operandi, as old Simon Majus used to say, in which I perform my little wonders, if you can. Will any gentleman pass me a helmet? I mean a hat. As the only male person present was the Boschman, this appeared to be a futile question, and even the stately magician seemed to be struck by some dim idea of the kind. For I could discern a pair of mysterious eyes peering anxiously through his swathings, and I heard him mutter to himself in several languages, ought to have thought of that. No hat present. Don't know any trick to produce one. Nothing about it in the book. But he recovered himself quickly, and went on in clear, cheerful tones. Ladies and gentlemen, as no person present has a hat, I will proceed to another of the tricks on my little program. Will any lady oblige me by drawing a card? Will you, madam? he said, bowing with infinite grace to Lenoran. Her hand touched Asher's as she drew a card, and I saw a shiver pass over the veiled figure. Will the lady on your left now oblige me? he continued, turning to me, who was, indeed, standing on Lenor's left hand, though how he knew it is a thing I have never been able fully to understand. Now please, he continued, look well at your cards, but do not show them to me or to each other. Basta. Asses. Cogs un pox. Now please, still hiding the cards from me and from each other, exchange them. Now he continued his form dilating with conscious power. See how true it is that change is perennial, even so far as magic and nature itself can be perennial. For she who held the king of hearts now holds the queen of spades, and she who held the queen of spades now holds the king of hearts. Thus much among the shifting shadows of life can I, the wizard, see as a sure and accomplished fact. Is it not so, my children? We bowed in silence, overawed by the wonder of his presence, although Lenor whispered to me, he has got the cards wrong, but we had better say nothing about it. And now he continued, look upon this glass, it was an ordinary wine glass, and on this silver coin, producing a stator of the Eritrean Republic. See, I placed the coin in the glass, and now can I tell you by its means what you will of the future. There is no magic in it, only a little knowledge of the secrets mutable yet immutable of nature. And this is an old secret. I did not find it, it was known of your in Atlantis, and in Chichamak, in Ur, and in Lycosora. Even now the rude Bosch men keep up the tradition among their medicine men. Veleni Lady asked the coin a confession. He continued in a hoarse, sometic whisper, for all currencies and all languages were alike to him. Sure is the coin will be after telling you what you like. Voulez-vous demander mademoiselle? Valenci? Do not exisignora? Then said Lenor in trembling accents. I demand to know if I shall find that which I seek. The figure, drawing itself up to its full height, passed its hand with a proud, impatient, and mystic gesture across the glass, and then stood in the attitude of one who awaited a response. Should the coin, my daughter, jump three times? He said. The answer is yay. Should it jump but once? Nay. We awaited anxiously. The coin did not jump at all. The wizard took up the glass, shook it impatiently, and put it down again. Still the coin showed no sign of animation. Then the wizard uttered some private ejaculations in Hittite. But still the coin did not move. Then he affected an air of jauntiness and said, I remember a circumstance of a similar kind when I was playing Odd Man Out, Trios-Antropos, dear old Socrates used to call it, with Darius the night before Marathon. Darius was the mead, I was the medium. Then he seemed about to work another wonder when he was interrupted by the harsh cackling laughter of the Boschman, who advanced with careless defiance and observed in his own tongue, which we all knew perfectly, that he could see all the tricks the wizard could do and go several better. I waited, harsh, to see what would follow this insolence. Asher made a movement so swift that I could scarcely follow it, but it seemed to me that he lightly laid his hand upon the poor Boschman's head. I looked at Ustani, and then staggered back in wonder, for there upon his snowy hair, right across the wool-white tresses, were five finger marks, black as coal. Now go and stand in the corners, said the magician, in a cold inhuman voice. The unhappy Boschman tremblingly did his bidding, putting his hands to his head in a dazed way as he went, and incredible as it may seem, thus transferring, as if the curse carried double force, some of the black mark to his own fingers. I will now continue the wizard who had regained his ordinary, polished-if-somewhat swaying and overbalanced manner. I will now, with your kind permission, show you a little trick which was a great favorite with the late tubal cane when we were boys together. Observe. I take this paper knife. It is an ordinary paper knife. Look at it for yourselves. I'll place it on my downturned hand. It is an ordinary hand. Look at it for yourselves, but don't touch it. The consequences might be disastrous. I, for my part, having seen the consequences in the case of Ustani's hair, had no desire to do so. You see, continued the sorcerer. I placed the paper knife there. It falls. Why? Because of gravity. What is gravity? Newton, as you know well, invented the art. But what of that? Did you find that which did not exist? No, for the nonexistent is as though it had never been. But now, availing myself of the resources of science, which is ever old and ever young, I clasp my wrist, the wrist of the hand on which the paper knife rests, with the other hand. And you see. As the sorcerer spoke, he definitely turned his hand palm downwards, and the paper knife fell with a crash and a clatter to the floor. It was terrible to see the dumb wrath of the swath figure at this new defeat. Even in this moment, the Bosch men glided like a serpent among us, picked up the paper knife, and triumphantly performed the very miracle in which the wizard had failed. A harsh cackle of laughter announced his success. But the mage was even with him, or rather he was odds and evens. Rapidly he drew his forefinger across the Bosch men's face, perpendicularly and horizontally, drawing a tic-tac-toe board. On the skin of Ustani, azure with terror appeared the above diagram in lines of white. The mage then made the sign of a plus, thus in the upper right-hand corner, and challenged Lenora to a contest of skill in odds and crosses. But the Bosch men, catching a view of his own altered aspect in a mirror, exclaimed, You, Standi Ustani, him though Standi he, him show his self foretend, Adults, one shilling, kid's tizzy, Me, unslopogui, and he sloped, nor did we ever again see this victim of an overwhelming power limited. We presently took our leave of the mage, promising to call next day, and bring a policeman. End of Chapter 9. Recording by Bill Mosley. Frelsberg, Texas, USA. Chapter 10 of He. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Bill Mosley. Publishers, interjections. Read by Juli van Malachem. Editor's notes. Read by Neelu Ayur. He by Andrew Lang and Walter Harry's Pollock. Chapter 10. A Body in Pawn. Gin a body, meet the body. Burns. Though Lenora's faith in the Magician had been a good deal shaken by his failures in his Black Heart, she admitted that, as a clairvoyant, he might be more inspired. We therefore went, as he had directed us, to the neighborhood of Clair Market, where he had prophesied that we should find a temple adorned with the three balls of gold, which the Lombards bore with them from their far-Aryan home in Frangipani. Nor did this part of the prophecy fail to coincide with the document in the mummy case. Through the thick and choking darkness, which has made the lights of London a proverb, we beheld the glittering of three aureate orbs. And now, how to win our way without password or indeed passbook into this home of mystery. Here in these immemorial recesses, the natives had long been want to bury, as we learned, their oldest objects of interest and value. There, when we pushed our way within the swinging portal, lay around us in vast and solemn pyramids of portable property, the silent and touching monuments of human existence. The busy life of a nation lay sleeping here. Here, for example, stood that ancestral instrument for the reckoning of winged time, which in the native language is styled a grandfather's clock. Hard by lay the pipe, fashioned of the foam of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn, the pipe on which, perchance, some swain had discoursed sweet music near the shady heights of high Holborn. The cradle of infancy, the damp of decrepitude, the tricycle of fleeting youth, the paraffin lamp which had lighted bridal gaiety, the flask which had held the foaming malt. All were gathered here, and the dust laid deep on all of them. I was about to make some appropriate moral remarks when I heard Lenora, whose command of tongues is simply marvelous, address an attendant priestess in the local dialect. Here, Miss, said she, how much can your lettuce have on this ear-ticker, producing her watch? The priestess, whose clear-cut features and two lovely black eyes betrayed a mixture of somatic blood, was examining the turnip, as she called the watch, when Lenora, saying, mum's the word, rather violently called my attention with her elbow to a strange parcel lying apart from the rest. It was a long bundle, as long as a man, and was swad in seriments of white Egyptian tissue. Tiz you, tiz you, I sneezed raptorously, recognizing the object of our search, the very mummy which, 2,000 years ago, Theodolite had prepared with her own fair but cruel hands. There, beyond the shadow of doubt, lay all that was mortal of the unlucky jambres. On the tissue which wrapped the bundle, I distinctly recognized the stenciled mark corresponding to Lenora's scarab, a duck, the egg of a duck, and an umbrella. See cover, most important to have this cover bound in sur-brûchure. How much, said I, to the priestess of the temple, could you afford to let me have that old bundle of rags for? That old bundle of rags, said the woman, take it, dear lady, take it and keep it, if you can, and the blessing of Abraham be on your head. So, anxious was she to part with the mummy, that we could hardly get her to accept a merely nominal price. To give plausibility to the purchase, we said we wanted the rags for a paper mill. Joyously did Lenora and I call a passing chariot, and with the mummy between us, we drove to our abode. I was surprised on the way by receiving a pet-ish push from Lenora's foot. Don't tread on my toes, she said, though I had not even stirred. I told her as much, and we were getting a little animated when my bonnet was twitched off and thrown out into the darkness. Lenora, I said severely, these manners are unworthy of a lady. I declare, my dear Polly, she replied. I never even moved. And as she was obviously an earnest, I had to accept her word. When we reached home after a series of petty but provoking accidents, I say, are you not gliding insensibly into the fallen idol? Not a bit. You wait and you'll see. We first locked up the mummy very carefully in the spare bedroom. Tomorrow would be time enough, we said, to consult the wizard as to our next movement. We ordered a repast of the native vians, which included, I remember, a small but savory fish, the blow-tah, and sought our couches in better spirits than usual. Next morning, long before Lenora was awake, the young but intelligent Slavi, so the common people call housemaids, crept into my chamber with a death-white face. O mum, she said, it was a term of courtesy. What a night we've been having. Well, what is the matter, Gemma Merrin? I ask, for that was her melodious native name. There's something in this spare room, mum, a carrying-on horrible, the bell ringing all night, and the thing screaming and walking up and down as restless. I'm going to give warning, mum, she said, confidentially. Why, you've given it, I said, to reassure her, for warned is for armed. For legged it do run, sometimes, like a beast, mum, wailing terrible, up and down, up and down it goes, and always ringing the bell and crying highly for a brandy and soda, mum, like a creature tormented. Do take care, this is copyright. Don't you remember, Mr. Hyde? Neither hide nor hid all. You're so nervous. Do wait till the end. Wish it was come. Well, I asked, though every hair upon my heads that erect with horror, adding greatly to the peculiarity of my appearance, well, did you take it, what it asked for? Yes, mum, for very fear I dared not refuse, and when I had handed it in by a chink in the open door, first there was a sound like drinking, then an awful cry, potash again, and then a heavy soft thud as if you had knocked over a bolster stuffed with lead, mum. Through the brown glimmer of dawn, it was about ten a.m. I hurried to Lenora's chamber. She was dressed and came out. What do you advise, I asked. Sinfor Mr. Ermson, the eminent lawyer at once, said she. He is used to this kind of thing, nothing like taking counsel's opinion. But first let me knock the door open. She applied her magnificent white shoulder to the door, which flew into splinters. There was not a trace of the mummy, but there, in a deprecatory attitude, stood the philosopher Asher. Please pronounce Asha. End of Chapter 10. Recording by Bill Mosley. Frelsberg, Texas, U.S.A. Chapter 11 of He This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Bill Mosley. He by Andrew Lang and Walter Harry's Pollock. Chapter 11. The Wizard Unbosoms Sir, said Lenora, may I request you to inform me why we find you rampaging an unbidden guest in the chamber which is sacred to hospitality. Tendu Apama Benomas Prosafe Coruthialos Asher answered the magician, dreamily. Do my senses deceive me or that voice that, when some bearing, am I once more with Helen on the walls of Ileon? No, sir, you are in thirty Acacia Gardens, replied Lenora severely. Why, permit me to repeat myself, do I find you here, an unbidden guest? To say that I never guessed you'd find me here, answered the magician. Might seem a mere trifling with language and with your feelings. My feelings exclaimed the proud girl indignantly, just as if. But answer me. When a man is seen as much of life as I have, answered the magician. When the eons are to him merely as drops in a bucket which you will never kick. And when he suffers, he added mournfully, from attacks of multiplex personality, he recognizes the futility of personal explanations. At least I can compel you to tell us where is the mummy, said Lenora. I am, or lately was, that mummy, said the wizard, haughtily. Then, drawing himself up to his full height, he added, I am the real jamberees, old gooseberry jamberees, he added solemnly. No other is genuine. You are playing, sir, on our credulity, replied the girl. No living man can be a mummy outside of the house of lords or the royal academy. You speak, he said tenderly, with the haste of youth and inexperience. When you have lived as long as I have, you will know better. Harken to my story. Three or four thousand years ago. For what is time? I was the authorized magician at the court of Ptolemy Patriarchus. I had a rival, the noted witch Theodolite. In an evil hour she won me by a show of false affection, and, taking advantage of my passion, mummified me alive. To this I owe my remarkable state of preservation at an advanced age. Trebien conserve, he added, fatuously. But she only half accomplished her purpose. By some accident, which has never been explained, and in spite of the stress of competition, she had purchased pure salts of potash for the execution of her fell purpose in place of adulterated salts of soda. To this I owe it that I am now a living man, and, in a moment, a certain stiffness of demeanor which we had noticed, but ascribed pride, worked an unspeakable change in the mage. As we looked at him, he hardened into our cheap mummy. Here's a jolly go, said Lenore, her mind submerged in terror. I sprang to the bell. Soda water at once, I cried, and the slavie appeared with the fluid. We applied it to the parched lips of the mummy, and Jean Brés was himself again. Now will you tell me, I asked, when he had been given a cigarette and made comfortable? Why we found you, I mean the mummy, under the three balls. Twas a pledge, she replied. When my resources ran low and my rent was unpaid, the landlady used to take advantage of my condition and raise a small sum on me. I'll seem now explained, but Lenore was not yet satisfied. You have, she began. Yes, a strawberry mark, he replied, whirly, on the usual place. The quest is accomplished, I said. Nay, replied Jean Brés, to give him his real name. There is still the adventure of the siege perilous. End of Chapter 11, Recording by Bill Mosley, Frelsburg, Texas, USA Chapter 12 of He This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Bill Mosley He by Andrew Lange And Walter Harry's Pollock Chapter 12 The Wizards Scheme We must, as you are aware, visit the siege perilous in the Hall of Egypt and risk ourselves in the chair of the viewless maiden of her that is not to be seen of man. We know it, said Lenore. It is, continued the mage, your wish to accomplish the end for which you set forth. This seems to you an easy matter enough. Young hearts are full of such illusions, and believe me, I would willingly change my years, which are lost in geological time, for one hand's breath of your daring. Know then, continued this strange creature, that the time has now come when matters must be brought to an end between us. It will be my business, and I will add my pleasure. He continued with a lofty air, which sat droely enough upon him in his yellow duds, to conduct you to the siege perilous. From you in return, I must exact an unquestioning obedience, and I will add a measureless confidence. I beg you to bear in mind that the slightest resistance to my will must be followed by consequences of which you cannot estimate either the reach or the extension. There was such a parrot-like pop about the creature's tautology, and such an old world affectation of fine manners in his constant obeisances, that I could hold it no longer, but fairly laughed out in his face. I dreaded it is true lest some such fate as Ustani's might punish me for my temerity, but for reasons which doubtless seems sufficient to himself the wizard merely looked at me through his veil, shook himself a little in his swathings, and said in a matter-of-fact voice, well, well, perhaps we have had enough of such talk as this. Let's get ahead with the business before us. That business is to reach the siege perilous, or magic chair. The thither will I guide ye, and there ye shall see what ye shall see. But first, it is needful as all sages have declared, that ye shall show your confidence in me. I value not wealth. Gold is mere drose. Nay, I have the minds of King Solomon at my disposal, but when the weary King Ecclesiast confided to me, in his palace of ivory and cedar in Jerusalem, long ago, the secret of these diamond treasures, he bade me reveal it to none who will not show their confidence in me. Let them entrust you, said Solomon, with their paltry wealth, ere ye place in their hands opulence beyond the dreams of avarice. Give me, then, merely as a sign of confidence. Gold, much gold. Or ye continued in a confidential and semitic tone. It's equivalent in any safe securities. American railways preferred. Don't bring banknotes, my dear. Risky things, risky things. Why, when I was pals with Claude Duvall, but tis gone, tis gone. Now, my dears, what have you got? What have you got? I have, answered Lenora, in her clear sweet voice and girlish trustfulness, as is my invariable custom, my dot, namely three hundred thousand pounds worth of American railway shares, chiefly Chicago Northwest and LNN, in my pocket. That's right, my dear, that's right, said the eerie wizard. Just hand those to me, and then we can start at once. And when he went on in italics, oh, my Leonora, when that mystic change has been worked, which has been predestined, for countless ages and which shall come as sure as fate, then on another continent kindred to thine yet strange, even in the land of the railways that thy shares are in, thou and I, the magician and the novice, the celebrated wizard of the west, and his accomplished pupil Mademoiselle Leonore, will make a tour that shall drag in the dollars by the hatful. Now come. End of Chapter 12. Recording by Bill Mosley, Frelsburg, Texas, USA. Chapter 13 of He. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Bill Mosley. Chapter 13. The Perilous Path. Fourth we rushed into the darkness through the streaming deluge of that tropic climb, for the Seraphic frenzy had now come upon the mage in good earnest, and all the thought-reader burned in his dusky eyes. We presented indeed a strange spectacle for the mage in his silvery swathings held Leonora by the hands, and Leonora held me as we raced through the gloom. In any other city our aspect in demeanor had excited attention and claimed the interference of the authorities. In Berlin, Ulans would have charged us. In Paris, Grape-shot would have plowed through our ranks. Here they deemed we were but of the sacred race of thought-readers, who, by a custom of the strange people, are permitted to run at random through the streets, and even to inter-private houses. We were not even followed in our headlong career by a crowd, for the public had ceased to interest itself in frenzied research for hidden pins or concealed cigarettes. After a frantic chase, Jean Bray, late the mage, paused, breathless, in front of a building of portentous proportions. How it chanced I have never been able to understand, but as I am a living and honorable woman, this hall had the characteristics of ancient Egyptian architecture, and that, miraculous as it may appear, in perfect preservation. There are the hypostyle halls, the two Osirid pillars, colossal figures of strange gods in colored relief. There is the great blue scarab, the cartouche, the pechette, the pechette, and all that we admire in the ramiseum of the ancient empire. But all was silent, all was deserted. The vast adamantine portals were closed. Jean Bray paused in dismay. Since I last gave an exhibition of my art in these halls, said he, to us in old forgotten days in Bosco's palmy time, much is altered. Open sesame, he cried, but curious to say, nothing opened. At that moment a dark figure crawled submissively to our feet. It was old palmy. His instinct for copy had brought him on our track, and he began. As our representative, I am commissioned, Jean Bray, late Asher, turned from him, and he fell, still making notes prone on his face, where we left him, as the pace was too good to inquire. The mage now reconordered carefully the vast façade of the Hall of Egypt, and finally fixed his gaze on a perpendicular leaden column, adorned with strange symbols, through which, for it was a rainy night, raging torrents of water were distinctly heard flowing downwards, to who knows what abysmal and unfathomable depths. In this weird climate it was the familiar yet dreaded waterspouts. Jean Bray, with the feline agility of a catapult of the mountain, began to climb the perpendicular leaden channel to which he had called our attention, and of course we had to follow him. It was perfectly marvelous to see the ease and grace with which he skipped and hopped up the seemingly naked face of the wall. There were places indeed where our position was perilous enough, and it did not add to our cheerfulness to hear the horrid roaring and gurgling of the unseen and imprisoned waters that poured down the channel with a violence which seemed as if they might at any moment burst their bonds. Helped, however, by certain ledges which projected from the wall beneath square openings filled with some transparent substance. On which ledges, from time to time we rested, we arrived at the steep crest, and paused for repose beneath the leafy shade of the roof tree, Jean Bray lightly leading the way. Now, said Jean Bray, comes the most delicate part of our journey. So indeed approved for the mage began rapidly to divest himself of his mysterious swathings, wrapper by wrapper he undid, cermet by cermet, till both Leonora and I wondered when he would stop. Stop he did, however, and with a practiced hand, shot his linen into one long rope, which he carefully attached to an erect and smoking pillar, perhaps of basaltic formation, perhaps an ancient altar of St. Simeon's Skylites. When all was taught, Jean Bray approached a slanting slope, smooth and transparent, perhaps of glacial origin. On this he stamped, and the fragments tinkled as they fell into unknown deeps. Then he seized the rope, let himself down, and from far below he heard his voice calling to us to follow him. Leonora and I descended with agility to some monstrous basin in the abyss. The pit, Jean Bray called it. Here Jean Bray met us and bait us light the railway reading lamps, which, as I forgot to mention, we had brought with us. Then jumping off with the lead he advanced along the floor, picking his way with great care, as indeed it was most necessary to do, for the floor was strewn with strange forms, stumbling over the legs and backs of which it would have been easy to break one's own. When we halted, brought up by a barrier of which I did not at first discern the nature, our lamps as is sometimes the way of some such patent lamps. I think I've managed not to be libelous. We shall see. Suddenly went out. Jean Bray whispered hoarsely. What are you waiting for? Come on, al agai, nunk est skendenam. We saw before us a vast expanse of which it was impossible to gauge the extent, so impenetrable, so overpowering was the gloom of its blackness. It is the abode, says Jean Bray mysteriously, of my rival Dekolta. He himself, owing to his use of his swallings, was sufficiently Dekoltae. On the hither side was a row of lumineres de which seemed afloat in the darkness, and in their center a sudden chasm which looked as if it had been made by human agency. The fitful moon-beams, you've not mentioned them before. That's why I do now, showed us a most curious and accurately shaped spur, or run-down, as it is called in the native dialect, which connected the floor on which we stood with the darkness beyond. What mortal, however hardy, dared cross this quivering, wavering bridge in the total darkness. Beneath our feet it swayed and leaped like rotten ice on the magic serpentine. Hush, cried Jean Bray. It comes, it comes, be still. Even as he spoke we saw a long shaft of yellow light streaming from an unknown center, and searching out the recesses of the cavern. Be still as you value your liberty, whispered Jean Bray. The bobby is on his beat. Then as the long shaft smote the swaying bridge, he lightly crossed it and beckoned us to follow. We obeyed, and in another instant all was again darkness. He has gone his rounds, said Jean Bray, won't be back for hours. End of Chapter 13. Recording by Bill Mosley, Frelsburg, Texas, U.S.A. Chapter 14. The Magic Chair There on the plateau-platform we had seen stood in naked mystery the enchanted chair, tis the weird chair of the fewless maiden, the place of her, who is no more seen, said Jean Bray. Who shall sit therein? The writing said, remarked the outless Leonora, that the descendant of the adult light must achieve this adventure. I'm ready. Nay, not so maiden, Mama Jean Bray, tried not till I've made experience thereof. Me, I cannot harm. In me you see the original inventor, beware of spurious imitations, but it is a dread experience. Let me work it first. Leonora could not resist this winning manner in concern for her safety. I move, she said, that Mr. Jean Bray do take the chair at this meeting. I second the proposal, said I, and there was not the descendant voice. Mr. Jean Bray will now take the chair, said Leonora, and the wizard, his facing ropes bulging with Leonora's security, glided forward. Then an awful thing occurred. No sooner had Jean Bray sat down, than Leonora and I found ourselves. How can we expect it to be believed, gazing on a blank bear-space? The chair was still there, but the wizard was gone. Leonora turned to me, horror in her eyes. Her golden curls changed to a pale German silver. It is the chair of the vanishing lady, she said. It is a confidence trick, I cried, and we both lost consciousness, as the true state of the case fleshed on our minds. The wizard was off with three hundred thousand, in high-class American securities. End of chapter 14, recording by Ellie, March 2010. Chapter 15 of he, this, silly provokes recording. Only provokes recording in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit lipovox.org, recording by Ellie, publishes interjections, read by Shirley from all of him. Editor's notes, read by Nero Ayur. What remains to be told is of little public interest. When we came to ourselves all was darkness. Escapes seemed impossible. We could not swarm up the rope by the way we had come. We knew not when the shaft of yellow light might return to its beat. We lit the prying and mace match, and thereby cropped our way downwards, ever downwards. Finally, as we given up all for lust, Leonora said, Don't you think the air is a little stuffy? We sniffed about the rocky floor and found an iron grating. It yielded to a strong tug, and descended into subterranean passages, framed by the art of man, through which rolled and searched torrents of turbid water. Through these we waited, attacked by armies of rats, till, sin goodness, we saw a moving light, flashing head and tether on the torrent. Half swimming half waded, we reached the bearer of the light. It was all palmerly doing a sanitary special, as it holders. We somewhat deceitfully led him to believe that we had lost ourselves in a similar errand, for a rival budget, with which he was concerned in a paper mill. What do you mean by paper mill? A journalistic war, then. On our faithful promising to give him exclusive informations about our adventures, for an extra, as he said, all palmerly conducted us to an orifice in the rock, whence we escaped at last, into the light of such day as twers in the dark city. Our hopes now entirely rest on finding Shombra again, but it may be, of course, a good three or four thousand years before that. Here is a strange narrative closes, and as I end my editorial task, I have only one question to ask myself. Will this thing go on? Will Jean-Bret and Leonora meet? Will the Americans give up Jean-Bret under the extradition act, or is the great drama played out?