Pharos, The Egyptian Part 30

Taking her hand, he bade her close her eyes and describe to him what she saw. She did as she was ordered, and for upward of a minute perfect silence reigned in the room. The picture they made--the worn-out, shrivelled body of the man and the lovely woman--I cannot hope to make you understand.

"I see a great hall, supported by pillars," she said at last, speaking in that hard, measured voice I remembered to have heard on board the yacht. "The walls are covered with paintings, and two sphinxes guard the door. In the centre is an old man with a long white beard, who holds his arms above his head."

"It is Paduamen, the mouthpiece of the G.o.ds," moaned Pharos, with a look of terror in his face that there was no disguising. "I am lost for ever--for ever; not for to-day, not for to-morrow, but for all time!

Tell me, woman, what judgment the Mighty Ones p.r.o.nounce against me?"

"Hush--he speaks!" Valerie continued slowly; and then a wonderful thing happened.

Whether it was the first warning of the illness that was presently to fall upon me, or whether I was so much in sympathy with Valerie that I saw what she and Pharos saw, I cannot say; at any rate, I suddenly found myself transported from Park Lane away to that mysterious hall below the Temple of Ammon, of which I retained so vivid a recollection. The place was in semi-darkness, and in the centre, as Valerie had described, stood the old man who had acted as my guide on the other occasion that I had been there. His arms were raised above his head, and his voice when he spoke was stern yet full of sadness.

"Ptahmes, son of Netruhotep," he was saying, "across the seas I speak to thee. For the second time thou hast been found wanting in the trust reposed in thee. Thou hast used the power vouchsafed thee by the G.o.ds for thine own purposes and to enrich thyself in the goods of the earth.

Therefore thy doom is decreed, and in the Valley of Amenti thy punishment awaits thee. Prepare, for that time is even now upon thee."

Then the hall grew dark, there was a rus.h.i.+ng sound as of a great wind, and once more I was back in Park Lane. Pharos was crouching in his chair, moaning feebly, and evidently beside himself with terror.

"What more dost thou see?" he said at length, and his voice was growing perceptibly weaker. "Tell me all."

There was another pause, and then Valerie spoke again.

"I see a rocky hillside and a newly-opened tomb. I see three white men and five Arabs who surround it. They are lifting a mummy from the vault below with cords."

On hearing this Pharos sprang to his feet with a loud cry, and for a moment fought wildly with the air. Meanwhile the monkey clung tenaciously to him, uttering strange cries, which grew feebler every moment. Valerie, released from her trance, if by such a name I may describe it, and unable to bear more, fled the room, while I stood rooted to the spot, powerless to move hand or foot, watching Pharos with fascinated eyes.

As if he were choking, he tore at his throat with his skeleton fingers till the blood spurted out on either side. Little by little, however, his struggles grew weaker, until they ceased altogether, and he fell back into his chair, to all intents and purposes a dead man, with the dying monkey still clinging to his coat.

After all I had lately gone through, the strain this terrible scene put upon my mind was too great for me to bear, and I fell back against the wall in a dead faint.

When I recovered from the attack of brain fever which followed the ghastly event I have just described, I found myself lying in my bunk in my old cabin on board the yacht. Valerie was sitting beside me holding my hand in hers and gazing lovingly into my face. Surprised at finding myself where I was, I endeavoured to obtain an explanation from her.

"Hush," she said, "you must not talk! Let it suffice that I have saved you, and now we are away from England and at sea together. Pharos is dead, and the past is only a bitter memory."

As she spoke, as if to bear out what she had said, a ray of suns.h.i.+ne streamed in through the porthole and fell upon us both.

THE END.

GUY BOOTHBY'S NOVELS.

PHAROS, THE EGYPTIAN.

Mr. Boothby has proved himself a master of the art of story-telling from the point of view of the reader who asks for a succession of stirring events, a suspicion of mystery, and an interest not only maintained but culminating. It would be unfair to explain the extraordinary character of "Pharos," or to do more than allude to the series of strange adventures wherein he plays a leading part. It is enough to a.s.sure Mr.

Boothby's readers of delightful thrills and an interest which this vivid romancer never permits to flag.

THE l.u.s.t OF HATE.

Mr. Boothby is at his best in this romance, which is characterized by unflagging interest and by most stirring adventures in which Dr. Nikola plays a leading part. "Dr. Nikola" was considered "one of the most thrilling stories ever published."

THE BEAUTIFUL WHITE DEVIL.

"Here we have, in modern form, the same old hairbreadth escapes, the same extraordinary adventures following one another at breathless speed, and the same splendid disregard for mere probability that marked the efforts of these wizards of an earlier day."--_New York Sun._

DR. NIKOLA.

"Crowded to the covers with the mysterious, the startling, and the supernatural."--NEW YORK MAIL AND EXPRESS.

"A novel containing a more ingenious, exciting, and absorbing romance has not appeared upon our book table this season."--_Boston Courier._

A BID FOR FORTUNE.

"Mr. Boothby never allows the interest of their doings to drop from first page to last; and he tells his tale in a pleasant, brisk fas.h.i.+on that carries the reader along, and is as convincing a vehicle as could be chosen for the relation of strange adventures such as befell the hero and his friends."--_London Times._

THE MARRIAGE OF ESTHER.

"Abounds in dramatic situations, and is bright in dialogue, graphic in description, and subtle in character a.n.a.lysis."--_Boston Advertiser._