Chapter II: Prologue (1)

_A Letter from the Splendour of Arry, Grandmaster of the Order of
Sanctissima Sophia, Plas Hoel, Hoel, South Wales, to the Reverend
Adam Howley, Professor of Hivite Literature in Saint George’s
College, Oxford, and Honorary Consultor to Cardinal Bensington’s
Institute of Archives and Inscriptions._

“My dear M.W.S.

“Congratulations on achieving the Chair. You thoroughly deserve it.

“I am sending with this the key of a largish deed-box, which my man Anderledy (P.M. of the ‘Isaak Newton,’ by all the gods!) will bring you in the course of the day. The box contains the papyri about which I wired to you from Smyrna last New Year’s Day; and you are to consider yourself at liberty to deal with them in any way which you may deem suitable. If you should think them worthy of being submitted to His Eminency, I should not feel able to resist your judgment.

“The box also contains other matters, which (in my humble opinion) ought to be considered along with the papyri: but you will know best about that. Meanwhile, it will perhaps be as well if I set down here (for your guidance) more detailed particulars of the circumstances of the find.

“You know that Luke and Lombard and I went out to Armenia, in the spring of last year, on a little private expedition of our own, to hunt Assyrian and Persian antiquities; and I need not go into that now, as R.H.B. says. Nor need I trouble you with a description of our early successes and failures in digging. But it will be better for me to come straight to the point at issue, namely, our chance-discovery of a rock-tomb concealed behind a ruined chapel, which rewarded our exertions at precisely 15 o’clock on the third of last December.

“As soon as I had had cleared away some of the rubbish and broken stonework of the chapel, I became aware (from the apparition of brilliant mural paintings on what seemed to be a doorway in the natural rock) that a really important discovery was in my hand. Lombard was trying to take a siesta in his tent, and Luke was with him singing something about filling a cup with golden wine: but I at once summoned them; and together we proceeded to investigate.

“Of course we were soon surrounded by a mob of Scottish-looking _fanulloni_, who annoyed us with screams and gestures as we uncovered the painted doorway; and it was not long before one of them proclaimed himself to be the owner of the site and demanded compensation. Lombard promptly tried him for the ‘Apprentice,’ and got the ‘Fellow-Craft,’ but not the ‘Master’: whereupon I at once staggered him by offering to purchase the place outright; and, after half-an-hour’s fierce haggling, I obtained it for about a couple of sovereigns’ worth of the silver money current in the district. Then, I arranged for half-a-dozen of the less anointed-looking ruffians to work for me; and soon cleared the rest off my new property. It was getting too dark to do more that afternoon: so, for safety’s sake, we had our tents moved on to the scene of our find, and camped there for the night.

“The next morning, Luke took several photographs illustrating the rock-tomb from the outside and every single step of our subsequent investigations. You will find platinotypes of all these (duly numbered) in the deed-box with the papyri; and here you must let me say that it is entirely due to you that we were able to make so complete and so permanent and so irrefutable a record of our work. Both Luke and I agree that, had it not been for the peculiar cameras which you had made for us and the singular instructions which you gave us, such a record could not have existed. I know you say that you received these secrets of photography from a dying man, who himself had them from our late Lord Hadrian and only to be used for great and singular enterprizes: but, my dear Howley, do let me affectionately ask you whether you have ever considered the loss to humanity which is involved in the keeping of such amazing powers in the hands of the few. However, all this rambles away from my mark. I merely mention the point, and leave it to your discretion, which I do not doubt for one moment.

“I regret to say that, in cutting-out the outer door of the rock-tomb--it was a marble monolith, painted all over on the hither side with a design of palm-branches and the emblems of _Cancer_ and _Luna_--we slightly damaged an inner door of cedar-wood, magnificently carved and inlaid with silver arabesques containing the same zodiacal symbols in mother-of-pearl. I ought to add that after we had examined and photographed the whole tomb _in situ_, I had it all carefully removed in numbered lots, which (at the moment of writing) are being put together again on the south side of the narthex of my chapel here at Plas Hoel.

“To describe the interior of the tomb. It was twelve feet long by six feet wide by seven feet high inside measurement, and completely lined with silver and mother-of-pearl worked in designs similar to those of the above-named door: excepting the far end, which has a singular Tau-shaped cross-potent, four feet long by one-and-a-half feet wide, in a vesica-shaped oval of Egyptian ankhs. The centre of the floor-space was occupied by a huge chest of black basalt, eight inches in thickness, on which was no carving of any kind: excepting an uncial inscription on the lid (which had never been sealed up), as follows:

ΗΝ ΕΝ ΕΠΙΧΘΟΝΙΟΙϹ ΧΑΡΙΕϹΤΑΤΕ ΞΕΙΝΕ ΔΙΥΛΛΟϹ
ΟΝ ΠΟΤ ΑΡΜΕΝΙΗΙ ΠΟΛΥΜΗΤΙϹ ΕΦΥΕΝ ΟΔΥϹϹΕΥϹ
ΤΟΝ ΔΑΡΑ ωϹ ΗΚΟΥϹ ΕΚΑΛΟΥΝ ΝΙΚΟΛΑΟΝ ΕΤΑΙΡΟΙ
ΑΛΛΟΤΕ ΔΑΥΘ ωϹ ΜΑΝΤΙϹ ΕωΝ ΒΑΛΘΑΖΑΡ ΕΚΛΗΘΗ

I suppose we may as well translate: ‘_I was Diyllos among men on earth, O most kindly stranger, whom, once, ever-ready Odysseys begat in Armenia. Surely, as I hear, his comrades called him Nicholas: but, at other times again, he (as being a Mage) was styled Balthazar._’ I shall be curious to know what you make of that.

“The basalt chest contained two small silver urns hermetically sealed, one on each side of the head of a mummy done in a positively amazing manner, which I will describe presently. At the feet was a largish oblong silver box: this held the papyri which I am sending to you.

“You will be able to follow our proceedings from the photographs. Luke and Lombard and I are all agreed that such splendid photographs as these, of a dark interior, would never have been done but for the six oxygen lamps for burning powdered aluminium which you provided. If you decide to lay our discoveries before His Eminency I must insist that you shew him this letter in order that he may know to whom any credit (which may be awarded) is actually due.

“The following were the contents of the two small urns. Both contained a limpid viscid substance, which (of course) at one time had been preserving oil. In the first urn, we found a Smith & Wesson’s Hammerless Safety revolver and a denarius of Augustus, wrapped first in linen and then in canvas. In the second, was a gold watch with a badly cracked dial and no glass, number 7634291, made by Dent of Trafalgar Square--and, also, a coin of Ptolemy the Piper (the value of which I do not know), both similarly wrapped in linen and canvas.

“From the masons’ marks on the ruined chapel which had concealed our rock-tomb, Lombard declares it to be a work of the ninth century after Christ. (Lombard, I may remind you, is P.G.D. of England and in the thirty-third degree.) And, from the fact that, between the hill-end of the chapel and the outer slab which closed the tomb, there were quite six feet of soil beside the wall which masked the said marble slab, it is evident that the builders of the chapel (whoever they may have been) were quite ignorant of the existence of the tomb behind it. The Vali of Van also, whom I questioned, asseverated that he had never even heard of any kind of tradition, connected either with the chapel or with the tomb, during all his twenty-four years in the valiwick.

“Now I come to something even queerer. Luke solemnly swears that the revolver which we found was not made before the year 1898; and Dent (to whom I submitted the watch) tells me that (according to his books) it was made in 1899 and sold to a Mr. Nicholas Crabbe of Crabs Herborough in Kent. And yet, please note that both these things have been discovered in an Armenian rock-tomb dating from something B.C. and only just now brought to light.

“But I must get on.

“We did not examine the mummy, or even unswathe it, until we got it safe home to Plas Hoel; and, in fact, we only finished with it yesterday. Here are the particulars.

“The body is that of a very handsome lad indeed, of about nineteen years of age, and most magnificently made: indeed I only know of one specimen of physique at all comparable with it in splendour of symmetry; and that is the statue of the Athlete with the Strigil, by Lysippos, in the Vatican collection. There is absolutely no trace of decay about it; and it looks as fresh and feels as soft (though of course it’s cold) as the body of a young sleeper. Another curious thing about it is that it does not appear to have been eviscerated, or treated internally in any way. Luke and Lombard and I have been over every inch of the skin with magnifiers; and have quite failed to find anything like a likely incision. Nor are there any indications of the actual cause of death. The lad evidently had been in the wars, for his body has twenty-one frightful scars: but, though four of them at least ought to have been mortal wounds, they are perfectly cicatrized and healthily healed. The four scars, to which I specially allude, are as follows: a thrust through the inside of the right thigh from front to back which might very well have tapped the femoral artery: another through the left armpit upward, with emergence inside the collar-bone: two clean round punctures through the neck from front to back, one on each side of the throat. There are also seventeen cuts, none less than four inches long and all deepish, on the face and the muscles of the arms and the front of the thighs. But they are not at all disfiguring: for, as I have said, the skin is supple, very fine and smooth and young in texture, and also exquisitely sunburnt throughout. Whoever he was, any man might be proud of being his father. As for the skull, it is small and of a very perfect facial angle of the best Greek type. The eyes are closed; and I frankly say that we’ve none of us had the heart to open them. As for that dear soft-hearted Luke, he declared that he’d never speak to me again if I attempted it. The mouth is a bold firm one--a little large perhaps: but splendidly shaped. I don’t as a rule care for a Cupid’s bow in one of my own sex: but this one is that, and as noble as one could wish, as well. The lips are as red as beef; and the teeth are perfect, quite white and rather large. The hair is short, and of a pale flaxen colour, almost white: though the man was obviously under twenty years of age. Now for measurements. The height is sixty-eight inches: leg inside fork, thirty-five inches (singularly long, according to modern proportions): chest, thirty-six-and-a-quarter inches: weight, hundred-and-thirty-seven pounds ten ounces. All the above are taken naked. On the third finger of the right hand is a silver signet, very massive indeed, the device being a crucified Love (the cross is the peculiar tau-shaped cross-potent noted above) with the legend ΨΥΧΗϹ ΑΚΟΝΗ which Luke poetically renders _The Whetstone of the Soul_. On the shoulders of this ring are two eye-chalcedonyxes set in the sign of the Crab; and on front and back there is the sign of the Moon in blue moonstone and rock-crystal respectively. Under the linen shroud, which (mark you) was a large sheet and nothing at all like the ordinary mummy-bandage, the body was clothed in a short linen tunic under a shirt of silver mail reaching to the middle.

“Among the usual spices which formed a bed at the bottom of the basalt chest, we found four English sovereigns, dated 1884, 1889, 1890, 1897. The two first are much worn: the 1890 piece is in fair condition: while the 1897 one has been pierced and has a small ring through it of very red gold.

“Professor Monteagle of Cambridge, who has been staying here, gives it as his opinion that the mummy is not more than two thousand and certainly not less than nineteen hundred years old. He was, however, frightfully disturbed about the sovereigns: while the revolver and the watch, which we discovered without his help, appear to have disconcerted him most seriously. I am, indeed, convinced that he will go back to Cambridge and tell everybody that we have been trying to pull his leg: which in fact is not the case.

“However, the whole affair bristles with incomprehensibilities, to my mind; and I only hope that you, my dear Howley, may be able to find some solution of them when you decypher the papyri. Of course I will gladly furnish any further information which you may require and I may be able to offer. And I hope you won’t mind my saying that it will perhaps be better for both of us if you will kindly have your translation of the papyri type-written at my charges. There is a most satisfactory little person at 7 Broad.

“Believe me,
“Very sincerely yours,

“ARRICUS: _Magnus Magister_.”

_A Letter from the Reverend Adam Howley, Professor of Hivite
Literature in Saint George’s College, Oxford, and Honorary
Consultor to Cardinal Bensington’s Institute of Archives and
Inscriptions, to The Splendour of Arry, Grandmaster of the
Order of Sanctissima Sophia, Plas Hoel, Hoel, South Wales._

Dear Arry:

“These papyri are written on in Greek of the first century Ante Christum, by several different hands (three at least). A few words in late-Victorian English are by another hand. I am sending type-written translations herewith. Don’t you remember what a fuss there was about Nicholas Crabbe’s mysterious disappearance from Cyprus just after the Dilimile’s hysterical howls for ten thousand flying machines? The Eminency of Cardinal Bensington desires me to thank you for your offer; and proposes, if agreeable, to pay you a visit at Plas Hoel, after Pentecost, for the purpose of restoring the papyri to their proper place, and of closing up the rock-tomb with all its contents in your chapel with Christian Rites. Now then! His Eminency, however, intends to name you to our Most Holy Lord the Pontiff for the gold research-medal called the “Lesser Wisdom” for this year. I hope that this will suit your plans.

“Personally I must beg you not to take me as expressing any opinion on this, or on any other, matter.

“They say that dear old Parke wants to give up his living and come back here as archivist.

“Billy Buffell’s got a baby.

“The weather is fine, but cold.

“Yours truly,

“A. H.

“_P.S._--The following chronology is the best I can compile:

“1. Mr. Crabbe seems to have disappeared from civilization _circa_
A.D. 1899.

“2. He then, apparently, engaged in experiments in Egypt. The result
was that he took an unintentional toss backward through Time to the
reign of Ptolemaios Ayletes, _i.e._ _circa_ B.C. 80-51. (_Cf._
Papyri IIII.-XII.)

“3. We now learn for a fact (what must have struck a good many
earnest thinkers who had the privilege of knowing him here and
elsewhere), that he actually is Odysseys reincarnate; and of course
Odysseys originally flourished _circa_ B.C. 1180.
(_Cf._ Papyrus XII.)

“4. However, Mr. Crabbe (as Odysseys reincarnate) enjoys infernal and
olympian experiences (_cf._ Papyri XIII.-XXIII.), obviously _circa_
B.C. 51-44. This date can be fixed, with comparative conclusiveness,
from the allusion to Caesar’s murder (_cf._ Papyrus XXXI.), which,
we know, took place in the latter year.

“5. I fancy that a fair case might be made out for the theory that
the Papyri themselves could very well have been written between
_circa_ B.C. 44 and the Christian Era. There can be little mistake
about the “Star” (_cf._ its prediction, Papyrus VII.; and its
occurrence, Papyrus XXXIIII.).

“6. I am almost inclined to permit myself the use of the epithet
“annoying” in reference to the twenty-one additional papyri (giving
an account of the very imperfectly known state of Moxoene _circa_
B.C. 44 and A.D. projected in Papyrus XXXIII.), which are, I might
almost say, as it were inaccessible, at least for the present.

“A. H.

“_P.P.S._--I fear that my translation is perhaps a little loose: but then the style of the original by no means errs in the direction of concise regularity--as one, considering all the circumstances, might reasonably expect.

“A. H.

“_P.P.P.S._--His Eminency says that you may publish these naïve and almost Dantesque and sometimes quite Homeresque fragments, if you care to and have nothing more serious to occupy yourself with. If you do, it will be positively fascinating to observe which, of the apparent inconsistencies, will be selected for execration by smart sciolists of our own hysterical age.

“A. H.

_P.P.P.P.S._--Before you do publish, if you determine on that course, I think you ought to peruse Mr. Rider Haggard’s brilliant treatise on Helen of Troy. I believe it is called _The World’s Desire_: and of course you can get it from the T.B.C.

“A. H.

“_P.P.P.P.P.S._--On the whole, I really think I would, you know, if I were you. Upon more mature consideration, I am inclined to fancy that it might turn out to be (what we used to call) rather a ‘Lark.’

“A. H.

“_P.P.P.P.P.P.S._--Publish, I mean.

“A. H.”

THE FIRST PAPYRUS

I, who have been, or will be, Nicholas Crabbe of Crabs Herborough in the duchy of Kent--and who am Odysseys son of Laertes, an immortal and sometime inhabitant of olympian palaces--but now known as King Balthazar of Moxoene which will be called (or which was once called) in the time whence I came (or in the time to which I yet shall come) Van in Armenia--I swear, by my honour and by my faith as a king who never has built altars to Roma and Julius (like the Ephesians and Nikaians) or to Rome and Augustus (like Bithynia and Asia), that the things which I here cause to be written, and write, are true.

May Osiris, and Zeys, and Mithra, and all great gods of the past and the present and the future, masters of wisdom, blast me--and may The One Signified scorn me, if these written words do not agree with the facts which befell me, who am fallen backward through the rolling wheels of time. Thus, I, an immortal and a king, swear. And may he who belies me rot and wither and evanesce in the uttermost depths of Tartaros whither I have been thrice, or of Amentet, whither I have been once, or of that Hell to which I will not go. I have sworn.[1]

Now I, King Balthazar of Moxoene in Naïri or Armenia, the Viceroy of Victory queen of the stalwart stately Anglicans, say thus to Empedokles my scribe, in my royal palace on the shore of my Thospitian Sea, within my kingdom, which I do not hold from Rome, having taken it myself by favour of Great Zeys.

Let it be known that I, King Balthazar, was called, in an age which is to come, Nicholas Crabbe the Impossible. I lived peacefully as might be. I have nothing to say of my origin in that life, or of my early years: for, in good sooth, most of the things which then happened to me were so incredibly cruel and so unspeakably hideous that I wish to forget most of them, and the rest have been smudged (mercifully) on the tablets of my memory. It shall be enough to tell that, as a scope for my energy, I forced myself (in default of all other interests) to become a seeker after wisdom, a client of the Muses and of far-darting Phoibos Apollon, an ardent student of all branches of music and gymnastic,[2] and chiefly of those branches which taught my subtile adept mind to do what all other men never even dreamed of doing, and my strong nimble body to do what all other men dare not do. For I penetrated into the occult arcana.

Under pretext of studying the surgery of ancient Egypt, I learned to read hieroglyphics; and, in time, my exertions and my energies culminated in a single desire to get to the root of white magic as contained on papyri in tombs of archpriests of temples of Isis. For a whole year I pondered the difficulties and the dangers, delaying to gratify my desire, expecting a sign or a companion from the blessed gods. None came.

Arrived at the end of my patience, I acted very suddenly. For, having provided myself with gold money and circular notes,[3] I went my own way to Alexandria, departing from my native land which now is the barbarian Britannia. And, at Alexandria, I hired a boat with boatmen and servants: for it was in my noble mind to sail up River Nile, staying when and where I listed, exploring ruins above Assiut, specially small ruins, in the hope of finding mummy-chests ripe for rifling or hieroglyphics crying to be read on pillars or walls of unknown temples. During eight months, thus I did: but I found no more than three unopened mummy-chests, and (beside them) little of worth. Nevertheless, one of the said chests contained certain superior matters: to wit, a magic staff of silver and ebony, and a silver divination-cup chased with sacred creatures, which things I did not examine closely till I came to Philai. But, there, my labours were rewarded: for a small temple at Philai yielded no less than three-and-forty mummy-chests, carven and painted, containing the remains of persons who (in their time) had been most mighty. And, of these, I will name one, having many matters to narrate concerning him. But he was the priest Amenemhat, sometime hierarch of the temple of Isis at Tanis by the mouth of Nile. Moreover, I found a manual intitled _For the Use of Priests_; and it contained the rules by which mortal men may communicate with the immortals, whom the Egyptians call Osirians. And this was by far the most noble thing which I discovered. But I must not omit to mention also a divination-ball, of rock-crystal of the bigness of a baby’s head, which I found in a mummy-chest: it was banded with silver set with large blue moonstones, and a silver chain was attached to it. Now I took this for a favourable omen, very apt indeed to me: for, having been born under the moon and the sign of the crab, and being therefore crab by nature as well as Crabbe by name, the heart in my dear breast rejoiced greatly to possess so beautiful a jewel, formed (indeed) of the very stones and of the very metal which (as is well known) are proper to a native of that sign and of that planet. But I hanged it by its chain to the magic staff already named.

When, at length, I had leisure to study the papyrus manual, I became aware of the vast power which it put into my hands. It contained a very long and useless introduction, including oft-reiterated laments because Okhos (the Persian successor of the deposed Nebk-Neft) had degraded the hierarchy of Khem, striking a blow at the prestige of all hierarchs. But, this being ended, the gist of the work was clearly set down: nor could anything more be added necessary to enable one (possessed of the magic implements, as I was), to commune with long-dead sages, mages who had relinquished the use of their bodies and dwelt no more in the sweet sunlight, obtaining from them the wisdom of the past, and the power which such wisdom gives, both unpossessed by men alive.

But it appeared that I still lacked certain spices and sacred combustibles, both essential in magic operations. Wherefore, being always young and headstrong and (therefore) of a spasmodic habit, I turned about instantly to those places where I could purchase myrrh and cassia and gum-olibanon and gum-tragacanth and spikenard and red-sanders and saffron and cinnamon and sulphur and powdered ivory and pepper and pepperwort and mastic and certain other substances the names of which may not be written on account of a religious reason. And four months passed before I had finished this quest in Cairo and Alexandria and Arabia and Byzantion and Massilia, filling a cabinet with potent essences and very virtuose quintessences.

In this manner I reascended the sacred river, until I came to Korte.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] So far the papyrus is written in late-Victorian English, in what I take to be Mr. Crabbe’s own hand. I may say that I am not inclined to discredit any of the statements, abnormal or otherwise, made by the King of Moxoene (that is to say, by Mr. Nicholas Crabbe). The _Oath Compelling Truth_, which he here uses, is a recognized and quite respectable formula; and I am not aware of any instance on record of its ever having been belied in any particular, however minute. Indeed, in so far as Truth is the Agreement of Words with Facts, all history seems to shew that the solemn swearing of this _Oath Compelling Truth_ is perhaps the most irrefragable warranty of Truth, as such, which our present state of information can supply. A. H.

[2] I take it that Mr. C. uses these words in a Platonic sense, as signifying mental and physical activities respectively. A. H.

[3] These two words are written in English in what I take to be Mr. C.’s own hand. A. H.

THE SECOND PAPYRUS

But I had determined to do my magic in an inner court of the temple at Korte, unknown to persons liable to disturb my peace. And, with incredible toil, I cleared the said court of sand, having left my servants in charge of my boat a mile away. Furthermore, in the hard red-granite pavement of the court, I cut a circular channel of sufficient depth to contain a certain very holy liquid; and this I did with nineteen days’ incessant labour, using a hammer and a well-tempered chisel. But the trench was three paces and nine in circumference, and half-a-span in width, and a quarter of a span in depth.

In the midst of the circle and on the base of a fallen column, I set my silver divination-cup; and, by it, I placed my cabinet of essences and quintessences: but I hanged my divination-orb to my left arm by its silver chain, holding the magic staff in my hand. The fulness of the moon agreed with what was described in my papyrus manual; and, when all was ready, I filled the circular furrow with a bright-green essence, pungent, mysteriously potent, continuing to pour till the trench was lip-deep with the emerald fluid. Next, I filled the divination-cup with water from the sacred river, lowering the orb of divination therein with my left hand, and sprinkling the circle with gum-tragacanth while I intoned the incantation called _Of the Buckle of Red Jasper Dipped in Water of Ankham Flowers and Inlaid in Sycamore Wood and Placed on the Neck of the Shining One_, which is the Power of Isis.

The moon grew brighter and more fierce, till she wellnigh rivalled the sun in brightness; and her hot rays made me sweat profusely. Wherefore, at the proper time, I was glad to strip me naked; but I began to stir the water in the cup with the magic staff, saying: “_The Blood of Isis, the Charms of Isis, the Power of Isis, be a protection unto Me, the Master, crushing that which I abhor, making all Ways passable or flyable or swimable unto Me: and I stretch out one Hand to Heaven and the Other to Earth._”

In the glare of almost unbearable moonlight, I saw that my crystal orb was becoming red-hot notwithstanding that it was immersed in Nile-water. But I poured the proper unguent of aloes into my cup, with nine tears of gum-olibanon; and the green liquid in the trench blushed with ruddily gleaming access of fury. But I, looking again on my papyrus manual, read these words: “_See that thou grasp thy staff firmly, not letting it fall from thee through any pang, be thy pangs never so keen; likewise, when the clear sphere gleameth redly, hold thy staff as though it were thy life, for so it is, and if thou lose it thou shalt die._” And, hardly had I read this rule (which I had never seen before: although I had collated the whole manual with some care during my four-months’ quest for spices), hardly, I say, had I read these awful words, when I felt the magic staff growing hot in my hands.

I gripped it more closely: but its heat increased. I felt it searing my flesh. I saw the smoke rise. I heard the flesh frizzle like the hissing collops of an acceptable sacrifice farced with select fats. And, all the while, lurid lightnings leaped from the liquid in the trench.

At last, so poignant was my anguish, that I determined rather to risk death than to see and hear and smell my living hand burned off while I stood. But, at the very moment, piercing through the sputtering of the white-hot lambent rod in my defenceless hand, there came a divine voice from I know not where, saying in the Argive tongue: “_Be of good heart, my child, and endure for all my pain: for many of us who inhabit olympian palaces have suffered._”[4]

Whereon I nerved myself, dismissing base thoughts of surrender. And all grew black before my eyes; and my soul was shrouded in obscurity. So I stood, enduring unmentioned and unthought-of anguish with all my might; and I indeed was on the very verge of swooning: when suddenly the admirable voice came again, ringing triumphantly, saying: “_Hail, Conquistator of Self! Hail, Nicholas, the Victor over many Peoples!_”

And immediately the staff became cool; and my reeking wounds vanished, and only the memory of my ordeal remained.

I turned to inspect the divination-cup. Pale flames leaped silently therein from the crystal orb, of such intense heat as comes from an open furnace to the well-reddened watcher at its door: but the Nile-water lay limpid and cold above and about the raging globe of the seven-times heated fire. But I, mindful of the rules in the papyrus manual, cast in myrrh and powdered ivory; and I intoned the incantation called _Demands on the gods_, which old Menes had composed many centuries before.

The verdant flame in the trench gave forth volumes of suffocating green vapour, filling the whole court, and beating me brow to pavement. But I ceased not from my chanting; and, when I came to the famous verse, “_Nor shall ye slay us by choking: thus we adjure you_,” the green steam suddenly arose, till it seemed that I was enclosed in a dome-shaped cell of malachite, so solid did the vapour appear. Whereupon, with the mightiest voice of me I uttered the summons, “_O souls, be seen!_”

Instantly there was a crash of thunder and the inmarcesible glow of uranian fires. The earth beneath me quivered like a woman; and the temple rocked as ships are rocked (in his spasms) by the azure-haired earth-shaker, lord of the stormy sea. But, above me, the green dome expanded, stretching to unfathomable abysses of space; and I perceived that its place was becoming filled with fiery faces of base grotesque and adipose dignitaries, archbishops of malevolent allure having pleats about their eyes disdainful of obscure persons. Nor were any of them alike for any moment of time: but they waved and flickered like the myriad leaves of a forest blazing with autumnal glory. But out of this maze of bodiless faces came a tired moaning, demanding why they had been summoned.

Now I indeed was serene; and my heart and lordly mind exulted greatly: for I knew that I had the Power. And, holding out the magic staff with my right hand, and placing my left on the cool crystal orb, I cried: “I summon none but Amenemhat, the priest of Tanis.”

Eight flame-like shapes flickered downward, individuals glabrous and mouthing, the torsions of whose pulpy lips avowed their invirility; and they stood before me, but on the further edge of the redly-glaring moat; and each one wailed: “I am Amenemhat, the priest of Tanis.”

Then for the moment I was nonplussed: but I remembered that eight men, all named Amenemhat, had been (in their turns) priests of Tanis. Wherefore I cried again: “I summon none but him who was Amenemhat, the priest of Tanis, at the time when Ptolemais Ayletes reigned as Pharoah in Khem.”

And now but one flame-like shape flickered outside the circle; and it simply sighed, saying: “I am that Amenemhat; and I am here.”

So I commanded him to lie quietly down and lap the emerald liquid in the trench as a test of his good faith. But I conjured the others to return to their own places in Amentet, using the _Name Ineffable_ to compel them, the _Spell_ which may not be spoken save in direst need, nor written save on virgin papyrus by a priest who knows himself to be without blemish. And they bowed thrice when I named the _Name_, wailing wearily. And there was thunder and lightning and a heaving of all things at their going; and they seemed to melt together into one vast fiery arrow, which sped (like a bolt shot by the lord of the silver bow) upward and away into the arcana of the outer immensity.

But Amenemhat, the priest of Tanis, lay prostrate before me, meekly lapping. And he no longer had the shape of a flame: for, now, the chariot of Helios Hyperion had emerged from the crocus-hued gate of dawn. Ashen-grey was Amenemhat, and hard indeed to see: for, being but an Osirian, he cast no shadow, nor did he obstruct my view of the columns of the court behind him. And I was in the mind to laugh at the thought that, after all, so high a priest as he was should have no more solid shape than a jellyfish, tinted like a rainbow where the rising sun’s radiance touched him. But I remembered that Death comes to all, and that rain-born Iris (a divine one of goddesses) is also thus primarily tinctured; and I hastened to intone the _Spell of Embodiment_, touching what there was of Amenemhat with the magic staff, and saying: “_Advance, thou Dweller in the Outer Space, and be a thing of earth again till I release thee._”

Thus I spoke: but he rose like a brilliant mist, ever thickening into opacity and taking the form which my lordly mind hurriedly made for him. Mother-naked, even as I was, he crossed into the mystic circle which my staff opened to him. I touched his brow with the crystal orb, and placed his hands in the sacred water of Sihor in the divination-cup. And vital fluids came back into his veins, so that he became a thing of earth and fit for reasonable conversation. But I also gave him the _Heart-touch_, saying: “Receive thy mortal life in lease from me for a season.”

But he stood at his full height, looking into my eyes; and he said: “O thou, unknown, who has called me from Amentet, and hast given me again a mortal body with blood and life-like juices, be ware lest I shall overcome thee. Thus I warn thee, in accordance with the immutable law of Osiris where it is written, _He who is summoned shall warn his summoner_.”

But I was not afraid. And I laid the _Spell of Obedience_ on Amenemhat. But, when I had thus secured my own safety and also a trusty friend and familiar who was to instruct me in unmentioned and unthought-of magic, then, indeed, I took liberty to give way to a human weakness, having already tolerated enough to slay nineteen ordinary men--to wit, the agony of the scorching staff, and the long labours under the fiery moon, and the stifling green vapour, and the horrid vision of the flickering faces; and I took liberty, I say without shame, to swoon away into oblivion.

When, at length, the mind in my dear breast awakened, I found my new familiar faithfully ministering to me, gently holding the thread of life which bid fair to fray out in my enfeebled grasp. But we two, having clothed ourselves, returned to my boat, there to live in tranquillity while I recollected myself.

But there remained much to be done yet by me. I felt that I would have been quite content to spend the rest of that life as Amenemhat’s pupil, learning from him the occult and affascinating arts of the hierarchs of ancient Khem. For we read together in the many rolls of papyrus which I had collected; and it was easy to know that, whereas I was like a clever child who early has learned to read, he was a perfect adept who (by long experience) was able to understand what was read. But, by chance, the precise method of working a certain inchantment, which opens the Hall of Double Truth and Right, baffled us both. And it was of the very gravest import that I should know how to practise this inchantment: for thereby I could learn the whole secret of a man using himself Bai and Ka and Khou as might seem good to him: which, for a miserable mortal is much to be desired, as being uncommon.

But the rede of Amenemhat was that I should repeat the _Spell of Summons_, summoning a Great One of the Greater Ones, from whom I should require an instruction. But, for some time, I withstood the priest: I know not why, unless it be that habit and temper make me prompt to resist direction that I may steer my course in accordance only with the mind in my lordly breast.

But there came a night, when we by chance were sitting together on the deck of my Nile-boat in the clear of a full moon; and great peace came upon me, so that my soul swelled sweetly within me, letting me know that I was full of wiles and furnished with inexhaustible reserves of power. And I said: “At dawn we will go southward; and, at the temple of Korte, at a moon-birth, I will use my power for summoning a Great One of The Greater Ones.”

Thus I spoke. But Amenemhat answered me, saying: “Nay, O Summoner, why toil so far, seeing that there are places nearer where this inchantment may be worked with equal ease?”

“I know,” quoth I, “of no place as free from the risk of disturbance as the temple of Korte.”

“Thou hast but to command,” he responded, “and I, O Summoner, must reveal to thee the secret fanes of Khem.”

“Reveal them, thou,” I promptly said.

“There is one at Heliopolis----”

“Too near to noisy Cairo.”

“There is another at Ptolemais, now called Thomis----”

“I saw there a galosh-factory, when last I descended Sihor’s sacred flood.”

“There are those vast secret halls of Thebes----”

“Ruined.”

“Thebes above ground indeed is ruined, O wise Summoner, but not the Thebes which lies below.”

“How know’st thou this?” I said.

“From the gods who revealed the fact to me in my former life: for when I was a priest in Khem, I learned many things which in time would be. And it was given to me to know how that the temples of Khem should be desolated and the peoples of Khem destroyed. And it was shewn to me for how many centuries the secret halls of the three priestly colleges at Thebes would remain forgotten. But I, also, am ware of an entrance, well-concealed, very hard to find, which I can shew to thee if thou desirest to make use of those dim halls as they were wont to be used.”

Thus he spoke. And the mind in my breast exulted. But I said: “Surely the adits will be blocked with shrubs and fallen masonry?”

“That may not be, O Summoner,” he answered, “for the adit of which I speak is in the open plain.”

“Then we will go to Thebes; and the thing which has to be done shall be well-done, there.”

But when, at length, we were come to the ruined capital of the Upper Land and the Lower, having left some of our baggage at the paltry village of Luxor, concealing the rest, anon we pursued our way across the sandy plain thereby, until we reached a certain pebbly strip of land which was unencumbered, excepting by a low pillar of granite. And the pillar, being no more than a span in height, would have been quite unnoticeable had any ruins approximated: as it was, I almost trod upon it before I perceived its weather-worn surface, deeply graven with the dead tongues of tombs, and undecypherable for all who have not (but I have) a knowledge of those tongues from the tongue of one who himself had used them. Time-worn was that little pillar, as well it might be: for Amenemhat said that, in his own day, it had been more venerable than the oldest fanes. Also, he narrated a tradition, which said that a remote ancestor of Menes found it there, marking the site where Divine Osiris first placed his foot on the hallowed soil of Khem: but Amenemhat said (as well) that this tradition rested on no sure warranty, for that Menes himself had taken the pillar from a temple builded many ages before Khem was a country, and had it set there to mark the entrance of the secret halls which he himself was building.

But I instantly put this saying to the proof. For we strove to move the pillar in its socket, where during nineteen centuries at least it had been undisturbed. And, when we turned it round, the slab supporting it sank slowly on a hinge: but sand with many pebbles slid downward on to the stair which was revealed.

Thus then was manifest the entrance to the Secret Halls of Thebes.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] _Cf._ a similar divine voice, _Iliad_, v. 380-410. A. H.

THE THIRD PAPYRUS

Having lighted lanthorns, I began to descend the stair with my familiar: but a very noxious vapour drove us back. And, while I chafed at this delay, Amenemhat reproved me, saying: “Why wait hours for nature to effect that which thou (with magic art) couldst do in a moment?”

And this having been the second time when I myself had forgotten the power which I possessed, till reminded of the same by my familiar, I, indeed, held a sort of council with myself; and I determined that, in the future, I no longer would live as men of my own race are wont to live, in helpless abject obedience to so-called natural laws, seeing that (for me) such laws did not exist, but that I would be limited solely by the mind in my lordly breast, willing what I pleased, and causing its performance by forces amenable to my magic art. And, having thus determined, I instantly invoked certain airy sprites, yellow as sunflowers, who, with millions of legs alternately coming and going, purified the staircase and the edifices to which it led.

The passage having thus been rendered favourable to earth-walking men, we again descended: but, when we came to certain gates beyond the forty-ninth antechamber, some mysterious energy barred our progress. That is to say, when we reached the said gates, my head would have gone through, but my feet refused to budge--though Amenemhat went forward without difficulty, whom I, seeing that he was my familiar and his place behind his lord, recalled. For, if I could not proceed (on account of some inexplicable impotence on the part of my blameless feet), neither might he, for a servant may not go before his master in a case of this kind.

Wherefore, I used my magic art again; and I uttered several spells one by one, excepting the _Spell of the Name Ineffable_ which I do not deem fit to say in any need but that which seems extreme. And none of my spells availed me anything.

But my mind mentioned that Amenemhat’s ability to go forward, and my inability, might perchance indicate some difference of character between us two; and I used my wiles for pondering possible differences. In this manner I perceived that whereas he was a priest according to the highly respectable rite of Khem, I was no more than a Tonsured Clerk of the Latin Obedience. For it may as well be known by all men living that, in my early (or later) life in the kingdom of Victory queen of the stalwart stately Anglicans, one of the many incredibly cruel and unspeakably hideous happenings which marred me and soured me was as follows. The Divine Ones of the Latin Obedience called me to serve them as flamen sacrificing for the Blessed Dead; and I willingly responded to the call. In token whereof I was admitted to the first grade of the flaminian estate, being marked apart from other men by the five-pointed tonsure.[5] And immediately, by the blundering of blind guides (the most righteous of men), confirmed by hierarchical timidity or stupidity or malignity, I was denied my heart’s desire, and bile was mingled with my blood. I, then, endured my torments disdainfully, as my habit is, saying all those invectives which my mind gave me to say as rudely and as loudly as possible. And there appeared unto me processions of heresiarchs and schismatarchs (all blameless), wearing altogether prestigious habiliments, and using gestures (almost salacious) which ran along their bodies and suggested things not said, who proffered to me priesthoods (and in one case) a pontificate. But none of their pretty things pleased me, not being of valid or desirable origin. And I remained where I was, ready to go forward, ruthlessly refusing to go back.

But now the blessed gods inhabiting olympian palaces were permitting me to find in Thebes the representative of a religion prior in time to, and by no means a dissent from, my own--a religion, furthermore, which was to mine what the flower is to the fruit. Wherefore, being denied the fruit, I made no more ado: but I clutched the flower.

For this cause, I retraced my steps, returning to Luxor, where I commanded my faithful Amenemhat, the priest of Tanis, to give me the order of priesthood according to the rite of Khem. And this he did when I had sworn the great oath of an Egyptian priest, which oath bound me, till Mother Isis herself released me, as I shall narrate hereafter. But Amenemhat gave me the unction of sacred nard, with the white linen robe and the silver ankh, breathing on my head, and laying hands on me, saying: “_May all the gods bless thee: may Heru-p-Khart love thee: may Isis nurture thee: may Osiris guide and prosper thee, so that thou never look back but alway forward on the illimitable field of wisdom hereby opened to thee. And, by the power committed to me, I Amenemhat, make thee, Nicholas, a priest of Khem, in the name of Apis Osiris the great god who sitteth in Amentet, ever-living lord, everlasting ruler, deliverer, sustainer, who is Osiris, who is Nu, who is Ra, who is Tum, all whose feathers are upon him, and who giveth life for ever and for ever._”

These matters, then, being accomplished, we returned to Thebes; and nothing impeded my entrance to the subterranean palaces.

But we transported my magic apparatus, on a truck, into the forty-ninth antechamber of those secret halls, to be convenient for our operations at a fitting time. But, because the fidelity of the servants whom we left with the rest of our baggage by the river-side (excepting that which I myself had concealed) was not above suspicion, I, indeed, took with me all my money, to wit, five-and-fifty gold quarter-ounces of Victory queen of the stalwart stately Anglicans,[6] and some Egyptian silver. Also I armed myself with my death-spitter,[7] and with a belt containing four-and-sixty death-parcels,[8] for there was always a chance of an encounter with barbarian tomb-riflers in Egypt of the nineteenth century to come. Also, I took my gold time-teller:[9] for that was the last thing which I bought before I left the land of my future birth.

But we stood before the hitherto-resisting portal. A touch from my magic staff caused the massive gates to creak and to yawn with much groaning before us. Having crossed certain vast secret halls, walking at a slow but even pace for an hour or more, we came to the verge of a subterranean lake. I flashed my lanthorn over the watery expanse: but we saw no distant shore. A narrow causeway, only a few spans higher than the dark flood, was all that met our eyes; and that lost itself, twenty cubits away, in impenetrable gloom. I stooped and dipped my hand into the water: by which act I perceived that what I had taken for a lake was actually a strong stream; and I opined that it was some subterranean collateral of sacred Sihor.

But I boldly stepped out on to the causeway, bidding Amenemhat to follow me and to push before him the small wheeled truck, light to lift, easily propelled, which contained my cabinet of essences and quintessences, with my divination-cup and my crystal orb of divination banded with silver with adornments of rose-crystals and blue moonstones, together with a skinful of Nile-water and certain alimentaries. And, as my eyes became accustomed to the murky blackness, I perceived the outlines of colossal columns on both sides of the stream: these supported a carven roof strangely painted with cats and weasels.

But, after a journey which seemed to be interminable owing to the darkness and the silence, though it was not actually more than a thousand paces, the causeway widened suddenly; and, on peering for the edge, I was ware that I had crossed the dark river as by a bridge. That dark river of running water divided my life as a liegeman of Victory queen of the stalwart stately Anglicans from a life which lay before.

New wonders arrested the melancholy dejection of my mind. In front of me, there appeared a wall painted with figures representing the initiation of priests in the divine Isidian mysteries; and this wall was pierced by three doors. Not for me was it to hesitate. Not for me was it even to ask guidance of my familiar. But these opinions did not prevent me from contriving a wile, observing with the corner of my eye that Amenemhat’s glance instinctively went to the door on the right hand. Which door I instantly laid open with a touch of my magic staff; and, having passed along a corridor, richly adorned, very fair to see, we emerged in a vast circular hall, columned, and surrounded by a cloister having a series of apsidal chapels in its outer boundary. And the place was indeed marvellous. For, in the middle of the hall, four-and-twenty circular stairs soared to a circular platform, whereon sat a lonely altar; and the whole place was made of some clear white stone like polished marble, dazzling snow-white marble without veins or mottling, and without any of the joints which are formed when slabs of stone are laid in order one upon another: so that I could not determine whether the wall had been builded with hands, or cut with incalculable toil from the virgin quarry, or merely called into being by art magic. But, though the hall was of most candid whiteness, the altar on the summit of the circular foot-pace was of blood-red porphyry. And, being (as it was) deep in the bosom of the grain-giving earth, the place was lighted by a radiance, perennial, most agreeable to the eyes, the source of which I am not at liberty to tell. Such was the secret hall beneath Thebes.[10]

But I placed my magic apparatus on the altar, and on the foot-pace pertinent thereto, all in proper order; and I sat down, with Amenemhat, on the lowest step, to refresh our bodies with a meal in preparation for the work before us. And, when we had dismissed the desire of eating and drinking, so sitting we conversed as follows.

“I do not remember this white hall as it now is,” said Amenemhat.

“Hast thou then seen it before?” I inquired.

“When I was priest of Tanis, I oft-times celebrated the mysteries here.”

“And to what was it like then?”