Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  The window was open, and at this moment he heard a sudden noise as of some scampering beast in the garden outside. His light streamed out in an oblong on to the sandy path, and, laying the two pieces of the image on the table, he looked out. But there was nothing irregular to be seen; the palm trees waved and clashed in the wind, and the rose bushes stirred and scattered their fragrance. Only right down the middle of the sandy path that ran between the beds, the ground was curiously disturbed, as by some animal, heavily frolicking, scooping and spurning the light soil as it ran.

  The midday train from Cairo next day brought Mr. Rankin, the eminent Egyptologist and student of occult lore, a huge red man with a complete mastery of colloquial Arabic. He had but a day to spend in Luxor, for he was en route for Merawi, where lately some important finds had been made; but Hugh took occasion to show him the figure of the ape as they sat over their coffee in the garden just outside his bedroom after lunch.

  “I found the lower half yesterday outside one of the tombs of the kings,” he said, “and the top half by the utmost luck among old Abdul’s things. He told me you said that if it was complete it would be of the greatest rarity. He lied, I suppose?”

  Rankin gave one gasp of amazed surprise as he looked at it and read the inscription on the back. Marsham thought that his great red face suddenly paled.

  “Good Lord!” he said. “Here, take it!” And he held out the two pieces to him.

  Hugh laughed.

  “Why in such a hurry?” he said.

  “Because there comes a breaking-point to every man’s honesty, and I might keep it, and swear that I had given it back to you. My dear fellow, do you know what you’ve got?”

  “Indeed I don’t. I want to be told,” said Hugh. “And to think that it was you who only a couple of months ago asked me what a scarab was! Well, you’ve got there what all Egyptologists, and even more keenly than Egyptologists all students of folklore and magic black and white — especially black — would give their eyes to have found. Good Lord! what’s that?”

  Hugh was sitting by his side in a deck-chair, idly fitting together the two halves of the broken image. He too heard what had startled Rankin; for it was the same noise as had startled him last night, namely, the scampering of some great frolicsome animal, somewhere close to them. As he jumped up, severing his hands, the noise ceased.

  “Funny,” he said, “I heard that last night. There’s nothing; it’s some stray dog in the bushes. Do tell me what it is that I’ve got.”

  Rankin, who had surged to his feet also, stood listening a moment. But there was nothing to be heard but the buzzing of bees in the bushes and the chiding of the remote kites overhead. He sat down again.

  “Well, give me two minutes,” he said, “and I can tell you all I know. Once upon a time, when this wonderful and secret land was alive and not dead — oh, we have killed it with our board-schools and our steamers and our religion — there was a whole hierarchy of gods, Isis, Osiris, and the rest, of whom we know a great deal. But below them there was a company of semi-divinities, demons if you will, of whom we know practically nothing. The cat was one, certain dwarfish creatures were others, but most potent of all were the cynocephali, the dog-faced apes. They were not divine, rather they were demons, of hideous power, but” — and he pointed a great hand at Hugh— “they could be controlled. Men could control them, men could turn them into terrific servants, much as the genii in the ‘Arabian Nights’ were controlled. But to do that you had to know the secret name of the demon, and had yourself to make an image of him, with the secret name inscribed thereon, and by that you could summon him and all the incarnate creatures of his species.

  “So much we know from certain very guarded allusions in the Book of the Dead and other sources, for this was one of the great mysteries never openly spoken of. Here and there a priest in Karnak, or Abydos, or in Hieropolis, had had handed down to him one of those secret names, but in nine cases out of ten the knowledge died with him, for there was something dangerous and terrible about it all. Old Abdul here, for instance, believes that Moses had the secret names of frogs and lice, and made images of them with the secret name inscribed on them, and by those produced the plagues of Egypt. Think what you could do, think what he did, if infinite power over frog-nature were given you, so that the king’s chamber swarmed with frogs at your word. Usually, as I said, the secret name was but sparingly passed on, but occasionally some very bold advanced spirit, such as Moses, made his image, and controlled—”

  He paused a moment, and Hugh wondered if he was in some delirious dream. Here they were, taking coffee and cigarettes underneath the shadow of a modern hotel in the year A.D. 1912, and this great savant was talking to him about the spell that controlled the whole frog-nature in the universe. The gist, the moral of his discourse, was already perfectly clear.

  “That’s a good joke,” Hugh said. “You told your story with extraordinary gravity. And what you mean is that those two blue bits I hold in my hand control the whole ape-nature of the world? Bravo, Rankin! For a moment, you and your impressiveness almost made me take it all seriously. Lord! You do tell a story well! And what’s the secret name of the ape?”

  Rankin turned to him with the shake of an impressive forefinger.

  “My dear boy,” he said, “you should never be disrespectful towards the things you know nothing of. Never say a thing is moonshine till you know what you are talking about. I know, at this moment, exactly as much as you do about your ape-image, except that I can translate its inscription, which I will do for you. On the top half is written, ‘He, of whom this is, let him call on me thrice—’”

  Hugh interrupted.

  “That’s what Abdul read to me,” he said.

  “Of course. Abdul knows hieroglyphics. But on the lower half is what nobody but you and I know. ‘Let him call on me thrice,’ says the top half, and then there speaks what you picked up in the valley of the tombs, ‘and I, Tahu-met, obey the order of the Master.’”

  “Tahu-met?” asked Hugh.

  “Yes. Now in ten minutes I must be off to catch my train. What I have told you is all that is known about this particular affair by those who have studied folk-lore and magic, and Egyptology. If anything — if anything happens, do be kind enough to let me know. If you were not so abominably rich I would offer you what you liked for that little broken statue. But there’s the way of the world!”

  “Oh, it’s not for sale,” said Hugh gaily. “It’s too interesting to sell. But what am I to do next with it? Tahu-met? Shall I say Tahu-met three times?”

  Rankin leaned forward very hurriedly, and laid his fat hand on the young man’s knee.

  “No, for Heaven’s sake! Just keep it by you,” he said. “Be patient with it. See what happens. You might mend it, perhaps. Put a drop of gum-arabic on the break and make it whole. By the way, if it interests you at all, my niece Julia Draycott arrives here this evening, and will wait for me here till my return from Merawi. You met her in Cairo, I think.”

  Certainly this piece of news interested Hugh more than all the possibilities of apes and super-apes. He thrust the two pieces of Tahu-met carelessly into his pocket.

  “By Jove, is she really?” he said. “That’s splendid. She told me she might be coming up, but didn’t feel at all sure. Must you really be off? I shall come down to the station with you.”

  While Rankin went to gather up such small luggage as he had brought with him, Hugh wandered into the hotel bureau to ask for letters, and seeing there a gum-bottle, dabbed with gum the fractured edges of Tahu-met. The two pieces joined with absolute exactitude, and wrapping a piece of paper round them to keep the edges together, he went out through the garden with Rankin. At the hotel gate was the usual crowd of donkey-boys and beggars, and presently they were ambling down the village street on bored white donkeys. It was almost deserted at this hottest hour of the afternoon, but along it there moved an Arab leading a large grey ape, that tramped surlily in the dust. But just before they overto
ok it, the beast looked round, saw Hugh, and with chatterings of delight strained at his leash. Its owner cursed and pulled it away, for Hugh nearly rode over it, but it paid no attention to him, and fairly towed him along the road after the donkeys.

  Rankin looked at his companion.

  “That’s odd,” he said. “That’s one of your servants. I’ve still a couple of minutes to spare. Do you mind stopping a moment?”

  He shouted something in the vernacular to the Arab, who ran after them, with the beast still towing him on. When they came close the ape stopped and bent his head to the ground in front of Hugh.

  “And that’s odd,” said Rankin.

  Hugh suddenly felt rather uncomfortable.

  “Nonsense!” he said. “That’s just one of his tricks. He’s been taught it to get baksheesh for his master. Look, there’s your train coming in. We must get on.”

  He threw a couple of piastres to the man, and they rode on. But when they got to the station, glancing down the road, he saw that the ape was still looking after them.

  Julia Draycott’s arrival that evening speedily put such antique imaginings as the lordship of apes out of Hugh’s head. He chucked Tahu-met into the box where he kept his scarabs and ushapti figures, and devoted himself to this heartless and exquisite girl, whose mission in life appeared to be to make as miserable as possible the largest possible number of young men. Hugh had already been selected by her in Cairo as a decent victim, and now she proceeded to torture him. She had no intention whatever of marrying him, for poor Hugh was certainly ugly, with his broad, heavy face, and though rich, he was not nearly rich enough. But he had a couple of delightful Arab horses, and so, since there was no one else on hand to experiment with, she let him buy her a sidesaddle, and be, with his horses, always at her disposal. She did not propose to use him for very long, for she expected young Lord Paterson (whom she did intend to marry) to follow her from Cairo within a week. She had beat a Parthian retreat from him, being convinced that he would soon find Cairo intolerable without her; and in the meantime Hugh was excellent practice. Besides, she adored riding.

  They sat together one afternoon on the edge of the river opposite Karnak. She had treated him like a brute beast all morning, and had watched his capability for wretchedness with the purring egoism that distinguished her; and now, as a change, she was seeing how happy she could make him.

  “You are such a dear,” she said. “I don’t know how I could have endured Luxor without you; and, thanks to you, it has been the loveliest week.”

  She looked at him from below her long lashes, through which there gleamed the divinest violet, smiling like a child at her friend. “And to-night? You made some delicious plan for to-night,”

  “Yes; it’s full moon to-night,” said he. “We are going to ride out to Karnak after dinner.”

  “That will be heavenly. And, Mr. Marsham, do let us go alone. There’s sure to be a mob from the hotel, so let’s start late, when they’ve all cleared out. Karnak in the moonlight, just with you.”

  That completely made Hugh’s mind up. For the last three days he had been on the look out for a moment that should furnish the great occasion; and now (all unconsciously, of course) she indicated it to him. This evening, then. And his heart leaped.

  “Yes, yes,” he said. “But why have I become Mr. Marsham again?”

  Again she looked at him, now with a penitent mouth.

  “Oh, I was such a beast to you this morning,” she said. “That was why. I didn’t deserve that you should be Hugh. But will you be Hugh again? Do you forgive me?”

  In spite of Hugh’s fixing the great occasion for this evening, it might have come then, so bewitching was her penitence, had not the rest of their party on donkeys, whom they had outpaced, come streaming along the river bank at this moment.

  “Ah, those tiresome people,” she said. “Hughie, what a bore everybody else is except you and me.” They got back to the hotel about sunset, and as they passed into the hall the porter handed Julia a telegram which had been waiting some couple of hours. She gave a little exclamation of pleasure and surprise, and turned to Hugh.

  “Come and have a turn in the garden, Hughie,” she said, “and then I must go down for the arrival of the boat. When does it come in?”

  “I should think it would be here immediately,” he said. “Let’s go down to the river.”

  Even as he spoke the whistle of the approaching steamer was heard. The girl hesitated a moment.

  “It’s a shame to take up all your time in the way I’m doing,” she said. “You told me you had letters to write. Write them now; then — then you’ll be free after dinner.”

  “To-morrow will do,” he said. “I’ll come down with you to the boat.”

  “No, you dear, I forbid it,” she said. “Oh, do be good, and write your letters. I ask you to.” Rather puzzled and vaguely uncomfortable, Hugh went into the hotel. It was true that he had told her he had letters that should have been written a week ago, but something at the back of his mind insisted that this was not the girl’s real reason for wanting him to do his task now. She wanted to go and meet the boat alone, and on the moment all unfounded jealousy stirred like a coiled snake in him. He told himself that it might be some inconvenient aunt whom she was going to meet, but such a suggestion did not in the least satisfy him when he remembered the obvious pleasure with which she had read the telegram that no doubt announced this arrival. But he nailed himself to his writing-table till a couple of very tepid letters were finished, and then, with growing restlessness, went out through the hall into the warm, still night. Most of the hotel had gone indoors to dress for dinner, but sitting on the veranda with her back to him was Julia. A chair was drawn in front of her, and facing her was a young man, on whose face the light shone. He was looking eagerly at her, and his hand rested on her knee. Hugh turned abruptly and went back into the hotel.

  He and Julia for these last three days had, with two other friends, made a very pleasant party of four at lunch and dinner. To-night, when he entered the dining-room, he found that places were laid here for three only, and that at a far-distant table in the window were sitting Julia and the young man whom he had seen with her on the veranda. His identity was casually disclosed as dinner went on; one of his companions had seen Lord Paterson in Cairo. Hugh had only a wandering ear for table-talk, but a quick glancing eye, ever growing more sombre, for those in the window, and his heavy face, as he noted the tokens and signs of their intimacy, grew sullen and savage. Then, before dinner was over, they rose and passed out into the garden.

  Jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of those to whom it owes its miseries than love can bear to be parted from the object of its adoration, and presently Hugh and his two friends went and sat, as was usual with them, on the veranda outside. Here and there about the garden were wandering couples, and in the light of the full moon, which was to be their lamp at Karnak to-night when the “tiresome people” had gone, he soon identified Julia and Lord Paterson. They passed and repassed down a rose-embowered alley, hidden sometimes behind bushes and then appearing again for a few paces, and each sight of them, each vanishing of them again served but to confirm that which already needed no confirmation. And as his jealousy grew every moment more bitter, so every moment Hugh grew more and more dangerously enraged. Apparently Lord Paterson was not one of the “tiresome people” whom Julia longed to get away from.

  Presently his two companions left him, for they were starting now to ride out to Karnak, and Hugh sat on, smoking and throwing away half consumed an endless series of cigarettes. He had ordered that his two horses, one with a side-saddle, should be ready at ten, and at ten he meant to go to the girl and remind her of her engagement. Till then he would wait here, wait and watch. If the veranda had been on fire, he felt he could not have left it to seek safety in some place where he was unable to see the bushy path where the two strolled. Then they emerged from that on to the broader walk that led straight to where he was sitting, and after a
few whispered words, Lord Paterson left her there, and came quickly towards the hotel. He passed close by Hugh, gave him (so Hugh thought) a glance of amused derision, and went into the hotel.

  Julia came quickly towards him when Lord Paterson had gone, “Oh, Hughie,” she said. “Will you be a tremendous angel? Lord Paterson — yes, he’s just gone in, such a dear, you would delight in him — Lord Paterson’s only here for one night, and he’s dying to see Karnak by moonlight. So will you lend us your horses? He absolutely insists I should go out there with him.”

  The amazing effrontery of this took Hugh’s breath away, and in that moment’s pause his rage flamed within him.

  “I thought you were going out with me?” he said. “I was. But, well, you see—”

  She made the penitent mouth again, which had seemed so enchanting to him this afternoon.

  “Oh, Hughie, don’t you understand?” she said, Hugh got up, feeling himself to be one shaking black jelly of wounded anger.

  “I’m not sure if I do,” he said. “But no doubt I soon shall. Anyhow, I want to ask you something.

  I want you to promise to marry me.”

  She opened her great childlike eyes to their widest. Then they closed into mere slits again as she broke out into a laugh.

  “Marry you?” she said. “You silly, darling fellow! That is a good joke.”

  Suddenly from the garden there sounded the jubilant scamper of running feet, and next moment a great grey ape sprang on to the veranda beside them, and looked eagerly, with keen dog’s eyes, at Hugh, as if intent on obeying some yet unspoken command. Julia gave a little shriek of fright and clung to him.

  “Oh, that horrible animal!” she cried. “Hughie, take care of me!”

  Some sudden ray of illumination came to Hugh. All the extraordinary fantastic things that Rankin had said to him became sober and real. And simultaneously the girl’s clinging fingers on his arm became like the touch of some poisonous, preying thing, snake-coil, or suckers of an octopus, or hooked wings of a vampire bat. Something within him still shook and trembled like a quicksand, but his conscious mind was quite clear and collected.