Part 9 (1/2)

He shrugged his shoulders and I handed her the parcel, which was neatly sewn up Somebody produced scissors and the stitches were cut Within the linen was a necklace of beautiful red stones, oval-shaped like ahly polished and threaded on what I recognized at once to be hair froed these stones, which ht have been spinels or carbuncles, or even rubies, to be very ancient Possibly they had once hung round the neck of soypt Indeed a beautiful little statuette, also of red stone, which was suspended froested that this was so, for it reat Gods of the Egyptians, the infant Horus, the son of Isis

”That is the necklace I sahich the Ivory Child gave me in my dream,”

said Miss Holmes quietly

Then with much deliberation she clasped it round her throat

CHAPTER V

THE PLOT

The sequel to the events of this evening may be told very briefly and of it the reader can forht I did not sleep at all well It reat shoot in which I found myself in competition with another man whom I disliked and who had defraudedof its physical strain in cold and heavy weather Or it ination was stirred by the arrival of that strange pair, Hart and Mart, apparently in search of myself, seven thousand ht of an insignificant individual with a purely local repute Or it may have been that the pictures which they showed me when under the influence of the fumes of their ”tobacco”--or of their hypnotism--took an undue possession of e coincidence that the beautiful betrothed of my host should have related to me a tale of her childhood of which she declared she had never spoken before, and that within an hour the two principal actors in that tale should have appeared beforeI had no doubt that they were the sa Or all these things together may have tended to a concomitant effect At any rate the issue was that I could not sleep

For hour after hour I lay thinking and in an irritated way listening for the chinall stable-clock which once had adorned the tower of the church and struck the quarters with a damnable reiteration I concluded that Messrs Hart and Mart were a couple of co at the African ports Then a quarter struck and I concluded that the elephants' cemetery which I beheld in the smoke undoubtedly existed and that I meant to collar those thousands of pounds' worth of ivory before I died Then after another quarter I concluded that there was no elephants' ceeetah or Brother John, hadto me--but that probably there was a tribe, as he had also mentioned, called the Kendah, orshi+pped a baby, or rather its effigy

Well now, as had already occurred towhen I got a chance, also worshi+pped a child, Horus the Saviour And that child had a reat Nature Goddess, the mistress of mysteries to whose cult ten thousand priests were sworn--do not Herodotus and others, especially Apuleius, tell us all about her? And by a queer coincidence Miss Holmes had the mark of a crescent moon upon her breast

And when she was a child those two men, or others very like them, had pointed out thathard at it that night And in her vapour-invoked dream the ”Heavenly Child,”

_alias_ Horus, or the double of Horus, the _Ka_, I think the Egyptians called it, had awakened at the sight of her and kissed her and given her the necklace of the Goddess, and--all the rest What did itwhat on earth it _could_ ain and I rees, this was towards dawn, I became aware that all hope of rest had vanished from me utterly; that I was most painfully awake, and what iswas going to happen to Miss Holth I arose, lit a candle and dressed myself As it happened I knehere Miss Holmes slept Her room, which I had seen her enter, was on the sah at the other end of it near the head of a stair that ran I knew not whither In my portmanteau that had been sent over fros was a s habit I always carried with me loaded, except for the caps that were in a little leather case with some spare ammunition attached to the pistol belt I took it out, capped it and thrust it into my pocket Then I slipped from the roo Miss Hol what a fool I should look if anyone chanced to findh a , I saw the door open and Miss Hol the necklace which Hart and Mart had given her Of this I was sure for the light gleamed upon the red stones

Also it shone upon her face and showedin her sleep

Gliding as silently as a ghost she crossed the corridor and vanished

I followed and saw that she had descended an ancient, twisting stairhich I had noted in the castle wall I went after her,my way carefully in the darkness of the stair, for I did not dare to strike awith bolts Then a door creaked on its hinges and there was soure of Miss Holarden that was laid out in the bottoarden, as I had observed alked through it on the previous day on our way to the first covert that we shot, was bordered by a shrubbery through which ran paths that led to the back drive of the castle

Across the garden glided the figure of Miss Hol cover behind every bush as though I were stalking big ga ather speed, like a stone which is rolled down a hill It was as though whateverdrawn by so will as she drew nearer to it

For a while I lost sight of her in the shadow of the tall trees Then suddenly I saw her again, standing quite still in an opening caused by the blowing down in the gale of one of the avenue of eler alone, for advancing towards her were two cloaked figures in whonized Hart and Mart

There she stood with outstretched ar a buck, cahs of the fallen elht of what looked like the outline of a closed carriage standing upon the drive Also I heard a horse stalade I ran, keeping in the dark shadow, as I went cocking the pistol that was in my pocket Then suddenly I darted out and stood between Hart and Mart and Miss Holmes

Not a word passed between us I think that all three of us subconsciously were anxious not to awake the sleeping wo that if we did so there would be a terrible scene Only afterto me to stand aside, of course in vain, Hart and Mart drew fro knives and bowed, for even now their politeness did not forsake thehtenedthe heart of Hart with my pistol Then with that perception which is part of the ame was up since I could have shot them both before a knife touched ht,” whispered Hart softly, ”but another tis to us and the People of the White Kendah, for she ismoon The call of the Child of Heaven is heard in her heart, and will bring her hoht Now lead her hence still sleeping, O brave and clever one, so well naone and presently I heard the sound of horses being driven rapidly along the drive

For a moment I hesitated as to whether I would or would not run in and shoot those horses Two considerations stayed me The first was that if I did so my pistol would be empty, or even if I shot one horse and retained a barrel loaded, with it I could only kill a single ainst the knife of the other The second consideration was that now as before I did not wish to wake up Miss Hol what else to do, took hold of one of her outstretched hands She turned and ca all the while fast asleep Thus ent back to the house, through the still open door, up the stairway straight to her own room, on the threshold of which I loosed her hand The roo, but I listened until I heard a sound as of a person throwing herself upon the bed and drawing up the blankets Then knowing that she was safe for a while, I shut the door, which opened outwards as doors of ancient ainst it a little table that stood in the passage

Next, after reflecting for aaard in many ways, I went to my room and lit a candle Obviously it was nall of what had happened and that as soon as possible But I had no idea in what part of that huge building his sleeping place ht be, nor, for patent reasons, was it desirable that I should disturb the house and so create talk In this dilenall's confidential servant, Mr Savage, when he conducted ht, which heperhaps because he wished to talk over the matter of the snakes that had found their way into his pockets, had shownoutside his door He called it an ”eency bell” I remarked idly that it was improbable that I should have any occasion for its use