Part 22 (2/2)
”And fires?” he asked, still dazed, ”there'll be no more fires?”
”It is dissipated--partly, at any rate,” replied Dr. Silence cautiously.
”And the man behind the gun,” he went on, only half realising what he was saying, I think; ”have you discovered _that?_”
”A form materialised,” said the doctor briefly. ”I know for certain now what the directing intelligence was behind it all.”
Colonel Wragge pulled himself together and got upon his feet. The words conveyed no clear meaning to him yet. But his memory was returning gradually, and he was trying to piece together the fragments into a connected whole. He s.h.i.+vered a little, for the place had grown suddenly chilly. The air was empty again, lifeless.
”You feel all right again now,” Dr. Silence said, in the tone of a man stating a fact rather than asking a question.
”Thanks to you--both, yes.” He drew a deep breath, and mopped his face, and even attempted a smile. He made me think of a man coming from the battlefield with the stains of fighting still upon him, but scornful of his wounds. Then he turned gravely towards the doctor with a question in his eyes. Memory had returned and he was himself again.
”Precisely what I expected,” the doctor said calmly; ”a fire-elemental sent upon its mission in the days of Thebes, centuries before Christ, and tonight, for the first time all these thousands of years, released from the spell that originally bound it.”
We stared at him in amazement, Colonel Wragge opening his lips for words that refused to shape themselves.
”And, if we dig,” he continued significantly, pointing to the floor where the blackness had poured up, ”we shall find some underground connection--a tunnel most likely--leading to the Twelve Acre Wood. It was made by--your predecessor.”
”A tunnel made by my brother!” gasped the soldier. ”Then my sister should know--she lived here with him--” He stopped suddenly.
John Silence inclined his head slowly. ”I think so,” he said quietly.
”Your brother, no doubt, was as much tormented as you have been,” he continued after a pause in which Colonel Wragge seemed deeply preoccupied with his thoughts, ”and tried to find peace by burying it in the wood, and surrounding the wood then, like a large magic circle, with the enchantments of the old formulae. So the stars the man saw blazing--”
”But burying what?” asked the soldier faintly, stepping backwards towards the support of the wall.
Dr. Silence regarded us both intently for a moment before he replied. I think he weighed in his mind whether to tell us now, or when the investigation was absolutely complete.
”The mummy,” he said softly, after a moment; ”the mummy that your brother took from its resting place of centuries, and brought home--here.”
Colonel Wragge dropped down upon the nearest chair, hanging breathlessly on every word. He was far too amazed for speech.
”The mummy of some important person--a priest most likely--protected from disturbance and desecration by the ceremonial magic of the time.
For they understood how to attach to the mummy, to lock up with it in the tomb, an elemental force that would direct itself even after ages upon any one who dared to molest it. In this case it was an elemental of fire.”
Dr. Silence crossed the floor and turned out the lamps one by one. He had nothing more to say for the moment. Following his example, I folded the table together and took up the chairs, and our host, still dazed and silent, mechanically obeyed him and moved to the door.
We removed all traces of the experiment, taking the empty bowl back to the house concealed beneath an ulster.
The air was cool and fragrant as we walked to the house, the stars beginning to fade overhead and a fresh wind of early morning blowing up out of the east where the sky was already hinting of the coming day. It was after five o'clock.
Stealthily we entered the front hall and locked the door, and as we went on tiptoe upstairs to our rooms, the Colonel, peering at us over his candle as he nodded good-night, whispered that if we were ready the digging should be begun that very day.
Then I saw him steal along to his sister's room and disappear.
IV
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