CHAPTER XXIV
THE LUST THAT WAS--AND IS
Nitocris kept her room until nearly seven the following evening.Oscarovitch made frequent enquiries of Jenny as to her condition, andalways received the same reply. Her mistress was in a semi-unconsciousstate, and she could only rouse her every now and then to take a littlenourishment. Unfortunately there was no doctor on board. He had had newsin Copenhagen that his mother was lying very ill at Hamburg, and, as thecruise was then intended to be only a very short one, he had been givenleave to go to her.
The Prince wished to go back to Copenhagen, but this Nitocris absolutelyrefused. She had determined to fight her sorrow alone, and when she hadconquered it, she would go back to England and her friends--which wasexactly what Oscarovitch had determined she should not do. She wasabsolutely at his mercy now. He would be something worse than a fool tolet such a golden opportunity go by--and so the _Grashna's_ bowsprit waskept pointing eastward, and the leagues between her and Oscarburg werebeing flung behind her as fast as the whirling screws could devour them.
The only question that he had to ask himself was: How? and to that aneasy answer at once suggested itself: The Horus Stone.
When he went down to what he expected would be a lonely dinner, he wasmore than agreeably surprised to find Nitocris dressed in a blackevening costume, which was the nearest approach to mourning that heravailable wardrobe made possible, already in the saloon.
He bowed to her with a gesture of reverence, which meant far more thanmere formal politeness, and said in a low tone:
"Miss Marmion, I need not say how pleased I am to find that you are ableto leave your room. May I hope that you will be able to dine?"
"Yes, Prince," she replied, in the same cold, mechanical voice in whichshe had answered the tidings of her father's death. "The worst is overnow, I hope. Some time and some way we must all leave the world and, atleast, there is the consolation that my father has left it perhaps alittle better and a little wiser than he found it. That, I think is asmuch as the ordinary mortal may be permitted to hope for. We who holdthe Doctrine do not sorrow for the dead: we only sorrow for ourselveswho are left to wait until we may, perhaps, meet again."
"The Doctrine, Miss Marmion?" he asked, as he placed a chair for her athis right hand. "May I ask what the Doctrine is?"
"Of re-incarnation," she replied, sitting down and looking at him acrossthe corner of the table.
"Really? I most sincerely wish that I could believe in it. Mr Amena,whom I took the great liberty of bringing to your garden-party, a manof very remarkable powers, as you saw, holds the Doctrine, as you callit, and he has been trying for months to convert me to it; but, as Isaid going to Elsinore, I'm afraid I am too hopelessly materialistic forany conversion to be possible in my case, at least as far as my presentexperiences have gone."
"As the belief so must be the faith," she said with a grave smile. "Itis no more possible to have true faith when you do not really believethan it is to be hungry when you have not got an appetite. That is quitea material simile; but I think it is true."
"Absolutely true!" he replied, looking at her again with a note ofinterrogation in each eye. "But, really, these things are too deep forme, a mere human animal. And now, talking about appetite, here comes thesoup."
The dinner _a deux_ was just what he had intended it to be, simple andyet perfect in every detail. The subject of Franklin Marmion's departurefrom the world was, as if by mutual consent, dropped. Oscarovitchcomforted such conscience as he had by trying to believe that whatNitocris had said about her belief in the Doctrine was to her reallytrue. He also honestly believed that she had faced her great sorrow insolitude, and overcome it in the strength of that belief. Theirconversation turned easily away to other topics, and by the time thatcoffee was brought in and he had obtained her permission to light acigarette, his beautiful guest appeared to have left the recent pastbehind her, for the time being at least, and was almost as she had beenduring the run up to Elsinore.
Her manner was that of complete composure, and it is hardly necessary tosay that this mastery of her emotion forced him to a degree ofadmiration, almost of worship, which the physical charm that appealedonly to his animal senses could never have inspired. Here, truly, wasthe ideal Empress of the Russias and the East sitting almost beside him.And now the psychological moment had come!
"Will you excuse me for a couple of minutes, Miss Marmion?" he asked, ashe finished his coffee and rose from his chair. "Going back to what youwere saying about re-incarnation: I have something in my room which Ihope may interest you. I got it from my friend, the miracle-worker. Hetold me a long story about it that I don't want to trouble you with: butthe thing in itself is quite worth seeing. At least, I never sawanything like it before."
"Then please let me see it," she replied, assenting with an inclinationof her head. "If that is so it must be, as you say, well worth seeing."
He went to his room and came back with a large square morocco case inhis hand. He gave it to her, and said:
"Do me the favour to open it, and tell me what you think of it."
She touched the spring and the cover flew up. She half-expected what shesaw. There, lying in a nest of soft black velvet, encircled by a triplehalo of whitely gleaming diamonds, was the Horus Stone. In an instantshe travelled back through fifty centuries to the scene of thedeath-bridal of her other self, Nitocris the Queen, in thebanqueting-hall of the Palace of Pepi. Then it had lain gleaming on herbreast, and now she saw it again with the eyes of flesh, after nearlyfive thousand years. Now, too, she grasped in all the fullness of itsevil meaning the reason why Oscarovitch had brought it to her in such anhour as this. With utter contempt in her soul and a smile on her lips,she leaned back in her chair and said in a voice which had a note ofecstasy in it:
"Oh, Prince, how lovely! What a glorious gem! The diamonds are, ofcourse, splendid, but they are only a setting for the emerald. What amagnificent stone! Rich as you are, you are very fortunate to be thepossessor of such a treasure--for treasure it surely must be."
"It is, as you say, a magnificent stone," he replied, looking steadilyinto her questioning eyes. "But if what Amena told me was true, it issomething more than a unique gem. There is an inscription on it, somecharacters carved in the stone which are, as he said, the history of it,but to me they are as unintelligible as the Assyrian cuneiform would be.Possibly you may know something of them. If you do, here is a lens thatwill help your sight."
She took the glass from him and bent down over the gem. She read thesacred symbol of the Trinity as she had read it and known it agesbefore. But while she was gazing at it, she also read the intent of theman who had given it into her hands. She put the lens aside, and,laying her palms on her temples, she looked deep down into the luminousdepths of the great emerald in a silence which Oscarovitch interpretedinto such meaning as he was able to make for himself.
Minute after minute passed in silence, and still her eyes were fixedupon the Stone. Her face became like that of a beautiful masterpiece ofPhidias: pure, cold, and true. A feeling of something like awe creptover him as he watched her, and he found himself asking whether, afterall, Phadrig's story might have been true. But, true or not, there wasthe fascination which, as Phadrig had told him, had lured Isaac Josephusto his self-inflicted doom. Her eyes were chained to the gem: her facewas no longer that of a living woman dominated by her own will. Afterall his disbelief, there _was_ an enchantment in the Stone, for here,even she, Nitocris, had succumbed to it.
He sat and waited for a few minutes longer. If there is magic in theStone, let it work, he thought; and so he sat and watched her until hesaw that the fixed stare of her eyes and the rigidity of her nowperfectly statuesque face convinced him that the magic of the Stone had,as Phadrig had told him, made him the possessor of it, absolute masterof the man or woman who had gazed upon its fatal beauty.
Then he got up and, reaching over her shoulders, took up the diamondchain, glistening under the soft light of the starry dom
e of the saloon,shook it out into a flood of white radiance, lifted it above her head,and let it fall very gently round her neck. The Horus Stone, as thoughendowed with sentience, fell and rested where it had rested fivethousand years before. As it touched her flesh Nitocris felt a tremor ofindescribable emotion, not only of the body but of the soul, passthrough her. She leaned back in her chair again, and whispered:
"Is it really mine now, Prince? But no! How could I take it from you--Iwho can give nothing in exchange for such a treasure? No, no, you musttake it back. I am not worthy to wear it."
He laid his hands gently on her arms, and said in a soft, murmuring tonewhich sounded like the purring of a tiger-cat:
"Nitocris, if all the choicest gems in all the world could be put into acrucible and fused into one, all its splendour would still be unworthyto lie on that white breast of yours. Give me your love, Nitocris. I amhungering and thirsting for it. Come with me to Oscarburg, and you shallbe crowned Princess--and after that Empress--Empress of the Russias andthe East. I will give you a dominion such as the great Catherine neverdared to dream of. Say yes, and in a month you shall be seated on herthrone. It is only a little word, dearest, only a little word--will younot say it, and be my Princess, my Queen, my Empress?"
"I am tired now, Oscar," she said wearily, "so much has happened in soshort a time. Yes, I will, if it is possible: but let me go now. No, youmust not kiss me yet. Remember that Russian saying, 'Take thy thoughtsto bed with thee, for the morning is wiser than the evening.'Good-night, Oscar, I am very tired. You shall have your answer in themorning. May I take this with me?"
"Yes," he replied, giving her his hand as she rose from her chair, andbowing over hers until his lips touched it. "Take it, unworthy as it is,as an earnest of the realisation of the happy dreams that will come tome to-night. Au revoir, pas adieu!"
"Auf viedersehn, mein Oscar!" she replied as she passed him, leaving thesensation of a gentle flutter of her hand in his. "We shall understandeach other better still before long--I hope."
"It is my dearest wish. Good-night, Nitocris, and when the dawn comesmay it find nothing but sunshine in that sweet soul of yours!"
Nitocris went to her room and found her maid waiting, white-faced andanxious. She was frightened and nearly worn out with caring for hermistress. She would have been very glad to have been back that verynight at "The Wilderness," even if it had lost its master.
"Go to bed at once, Jenny; you look like a ghost, as you may well doafter all the trouble I've given you. No, I don't really want you, andyou want sleep rather badly. Go to bed, like a good girl. It will not bethe first time that I have undressed myself."
And when Jenny had gone and she had locked the door, Nitocris strippedherself, save for the collar of diamonds and the pendant Horus Stone.She took a long veil of Indian muslin out of her dress-box and wound itround her after the fashion of old Egypt, leaving her left breast bare.Only the Ureaus Crown was wanting to make her, in the flesh, Nitocristhe Queen: but here on her bosom flashed and flamed the HorusStone--hers once again, as it had been in the far-off past, symbol ofher sovereignty, and proof of her faith in the one true Doctrine.
She looked at the lovely reflection in the long mirror behind herdressing-table, and said to herself in a low, whispering laugh:
"This for you, Oscar Oscarovitch that is, Menkau-Ra who was! Yes, youmay dream your pleasant dreams to-night; you may take me to your lonelycastle in Viborg Bay; you may make me marry you, as you think Ishall--and here is my wedding gift--mine again after all theseages--blessed be for ever the Holy Trinity, Osiris, Isis, and Horus. Maythe Most High Gods help and protect me!"
She raised the Sacred Stone to her lips as she spoke, turned off thelight, and lay down in her bed to dream dreams of forgotten ages.
The Mummy and Miss Nitocris: A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension Page 25
