Chapter III: Leonora's Discovery

One wild winter night, when the sleet lashed the pane, 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 mere figure of speech).

'What do you call _that_?' said Leonora, handing me the accompanying document.

'I call it pie,' said I, using a technical term of typography. 'I can't make head or tail of it,' I said peevishly.

'Well, pie or no pie, I love it like pie, and I've broken the crust,' answered 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, was I 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 it 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 maidens and tidied him away, as is the wont 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
mummifying, 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
flights of stairs has ever equalled 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 daric._[10]

[10] From the use of the word _daric_ I conjecture that
Leonora's ancestress lived under the Persian Empire. There
or thereabout.--M. M.

'_But for this, the losing of the one whom I mummied, must I
suffer countless penalties. For I, even the seeress, know not what
the said maidens did with the said mummy, nor do you know, 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 seeress, do
know right well, for it was revealed to me in a dream. And this I
do prophesy unto thee, my daughter, or daughter's daughter, ay,
this do I say, that a curse will rest upon me until He who was
mummied shall be found.

'Now this also do I, the seeress, tell thee. He who was mummified
shall be found in the dark country, where there is no sun, and men
breathe the vapour 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 carven
like the head of an Ethiopian. And thou shalt come to the people
who slate strangers, and to the place of the Rolling of 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 unmummying be accomplished, even then,
unless thou, O my daughter, or my daughter's daughter as before,
shalt go with He-who-was-mummied 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.

'Thin, to rescue my ancestress from a curse!' said Leonora.

'There's just one other 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.'