Part 42 (1/2)

Gloom ... blackness, unrelieved by any speck of light; murmuring, subdued, all around; the murmuring of a concourse of people. The darkness was odorous with a heavy perfume.

A voice came--followed by complete silence.

Again the voice sounded, chanting sweetly.

A response followed in deep male voices.

The response was taken up all around--what time a tiny speck grew, in the gloom--and grew, until it took form; and out of the darkness, the shape of a white-robed woman appeared--high up--far away.

Wherever the ray that illumined her figure emanated from, it did not perceptibly dispel the Stygian gloom all about her. She was bathed in dazzling light, but framed in impenetrable darkness.

Her dull gold hair was encircled by a band of white metal--like silver, bearing in front a round, burnished disk, that shone like a minor sun. Above the disk projected an ornament having the shape of a spider.

The intense light picked out every detail vividly. Neck and shoulders were bare--and the gleaming ivory arms were uplifted--the long slender fingers held aloft a golden casket covered with dim figures, almost undiscernible at that distance.

A glittering zone of the same white metal confined the snowy draperies. Her bare feet peeped out from beneath the flowing robe.

Above, below, and around her was--Memphian darkness!

Silence--the perfume was stifling.... A voice, seeming to come from a great distance, cried:--”On your knees to the Book of Thoth! on your knees to the Wisdom Queen, who is deathless, being unborn, who is dead though living, whose beauty is for all men--that all men may die....”

The whole invisible concourse took up the chant, and the light faded, until only the speck on the disk below the spider was visible.

Then that, too, vanished.

A bell was ringing furiously. Its din grew louder and louder; it became insupportable. Cairn threw out his arms and staggered up like a man intoxicated. He grasped at the table-lamp only just in time to prevent it overturning.

The ringing was that of his telephone bell. He had been unconscious, then--under some spell!

He unhooked the receiver--and heard his father's voice.

”That you, Rob?” asked the doctor anxiously.

”Yes, sir,” replied Cairn, eagerly, and he opened the drawer and slid his hand in for the silken cord.

”There is something you have to tell me?”

Cairn, without preamble, plunged excitedly into an account of his meeting with Ferrara. ”The silk cord,” he concluded, ”I have in my hand at the present moment, and--”

”Hold on a moment!” came Dr. Cairn's voice, rather grimly.

Followed a short interval; then--

”Hullo, Rob! Listen to this, from to-night's paper: 'A curious discovery was made by an attendant in one of the rooms, of the Indian Section of the British Museum late this evening. A case had been opened in some way, and, although it contained more valuable objects, the only item which the thief had abstracted was a Thug's strangling-cord from Kundelee (district of Nursingpore).'”

”But, I don't understand--”

”Ferrara _meant_ you to find that cord, boy! Remember, he is unacquainted with your chambers and he requires a _focus_ for his d.a.m.nable forces! He knows well that you will have the thing somewhere near to you, and probably he knows something of its awful history! You are in danger! Keep a fast hold upon yourself. I shall be with you in less than half-an-hour!”