On the Lightship Part 13

"Within the year, P. lost his life by the explosion of a fowling piece without visible cause; G. disappeared while bathing in the Nile in the vicinity of a crocodile pool, and Q., after a period of captivity among hostile Arabs, died of a snake bite. Mr. X. alone survived, and arrived in Cairo broken in health, only to learn that the greater part of his fortune had been lost through the knavery of an agent. Truly, the priestess of Amen Ra had signified her displeasure in a most convincing manner."

"Who the deuce was she?" demanded Dunbarton.

"Why, the mummy, as I should have told you."

"But you didn't," remarked the painter. "And why do you suppose she was displeased?"

"Because," the other replied, with conviction, "she had been accustomed in life to veneration, wors.h.i.+p, love, and naturally she did not like to have her coffin knocked about from place to place."

"I see," Dunbarton admitted gravely, but with the suspicion of a yawn suppressed. "What became of the coffin?"

"It had been s.h.i.+pped meanwhile to Germantown as a gift to the aunt of the last owner, a lady of so far unblemished reputation, who almost immediately acquired the cocaine habit."

"What? Cocaine in the sixties?" cried the painter captiously.

"Perhaps it may have been opium," Morewood admitted. "At all events she took to something pernicious, lost everything she had, and finally sold the precious relic to a Mrs. Meiswinkle, of Tuckahoe, who gave it a conspicuous place in her baronial hall."

"Which promptly burnt down without insurance," Dunbarton supplemented at a venture.

"As it happens, it didn't," Morewood answered with spirit. "But from that day misfortune following misfortune fell upon the family--troubles, disappointments, losses. I have all the details, if you care to hear them."

Dunbarton made a sweeping gesture of negation, and his friend resumed: "It so happened that this Mrs. Meiswinkle, who was something of an amateur in occultism, received one day a visit from a noted adept in theosophy. This gentleman, who had newly come from Thibet and was in consequence highly sensitive, had scarcely set foot in the house when he announced the presence of a sinister influence. 'There is something here,' he cried, 'that simply radiates misfortune.'"

"Extraordinary ac.u.men!" Dunbarton murmured, having got the better of the yawn.

"Of course," Morewood proceeded, "it did not take an expert long to identify the mummy-case, and of course a weight of evidence to support the adept's a.s.sertion was not long in acc.u.mulating. All the misfortunes which had befallen its recent owners were quickly traced in some direct way to the possession of the mysterious coffin, and in the end Mrs.

Meiswinkle needed no great persuasion to rid herself of the thing forever."

"How?" Dunbarton asked.

"She made a present of it to the city of New York."

"n.o.ble woman!" cried the painter. "That simple act of patriotism may account for much!"

It was a frivolous remark, but more than once Morewood had noticed that his companion glanced over his shoulder when a breeze from the open windows stirred some bit of drapery, although the studio was still well lighted by a golden sunset. The storyteller's manner would have made a stoic nervous. His muscles twitched, his eyes had brightened, and his bearing was that of one determined to throw off the burden of a mighty secret.

"Dunbarton," he said solemnly, "that mummy-case stands at this moment in the uptown corner of the first Egyptian room, numbered 22,542 in the catalogue, which reads, 'Lid of Egyptian coffin, unearthed at Thebes,'

and the name of the donor; nothing more. No word to tell that this poor sh.e.l.l of papier-mache once contained the mortal body of a priestess of Amen Ra; no hint of her surpa.s.sing loveliness except the lineaments you painters sneer at, and the ill-drawn hands crossed on her breast. She is gone; she is forgotten--she that was the most beautiful of Nature's works!"

"Frank," said Dunbarton, "has this story of yours anything to do with your Kodak film?"

"Yes, everything!" Morewood declared, speaking rapidly. "Listen. To-day I smuggled my camera into the Museum, and stood before the mummy-case undetected. But scarcely had I pressed the b.u.t.ton when I was arrested by an official, who confiscated the machine and took it to the parcel room.

I lost no time in finding the Director, gave my name and yours for surety for my respectability, and, after some delay and red tape, got back my property."

"You were lucky," the other commented coolly. "The rules are very strict. Well? Is that the end?"

"No!" exclaimed Morewood, "only the beginning, as I firmly believe. I am now about to tell you of an extraordinary fact, which I have so far purposely kept back." Dunbarton sighed.

"I am going to startle you," went on Morewood. "While the casket was still in the possession of Mrs. Meiswinkle, she, acting under the theosophist's direction, sent for an expert and had a photograph taken of the lid, with every possible safeguard against deception or mistake."

He spoke with tremulous deliberation; now he rose to his feet, and his eyes, fixed upon the wall above his listener's head, seemed to gaze beyond its limits.

"George, I should not tell you this, had I not the proof of its truth which even a scoffer like yourself can hardly question. When the plate was developed it was not the painted features of the mummy-case that looked from the negative, but--the face of a living woman! The face of the priestess of Amen Ra, unchanged through three thousand years, and _alive_!"

"That must have jarred them!" Dunbarton commented irreverently. "It was going it pretty strong, even for Thibet." But his cigarette dropped to the floor unheeded.

"And mark me, George," Morewood said, very gravely, "it was the same face, I have not the slightest doubt, that you and I beheld to-day appear before us, the same strange, wonderfully beautiful face that I hold now in my hand."

"By Jove!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Dunbarton, alive at once to the arcane significance of the statement. "But you can't really believe----"

"I believe nothing that I have not seen," a.s.severated Morewood. "Nothing that you have not seen yourself. I, too, was incredulous at first; I laughed at the story of the photograph as the figment of a disordered brain; but it took possession of me, haunted me night and day, until I determined to prove its wild impossibility to myself. I bought a camera, took it to the Museum, as I have told you, and came directly here with the result. You yourself developed the film; you saw the face appear; if you can suggest any other explanation of the mystery, in Heaven's name let us discuss it reasonably."

"Let me look at the gla.s.s film again," Dunbarton suggested, below his breath. He picked up the smoldering cigarette and, coming to his friend's side, looked long and gravely at the gla.s.s film. Both men were silent for a time, so silent that they could hear their own hearts beating.

"She is indeed beautiful," said the painter, finally. "To our eyes she seems about twenty years old, though Eastern women reach perfection early. That diadem upon her brow is, I think, the two-horned crown of Isis. The drapery falling down on either side is certainly Egyptian and probably of a period antedating the Pharaohs, but the type of feature is scarcely Oriental."

"Yet Cleopatra was a blonde," Morewood suggested.

"True," a.s.sented the other, "and possibly the race three thousand years ago differed materially from the degenerate Sphinx-like personalities of the hieroglyphics. We must get Biggins of the Smithsonian to give us his opinion."

"Never!" cried Morewood, thrusting the negative in his breast.

"But in the interest of science----" protested Dunbarton.

"Science?" Morewood returned scornfully; "what has science to do with this? What right have I to betray a lady's confidence?"

Dunbarton made a sign of impatience. "Your lady has been dead a matter of three thousand years or more," he remarked.

"That's not true!" the other contradicted, warmly. "I tell you, man, that woman is alive to-day. Don't ask me to explain the unexplainable. I simply know that she lives, as young and innocent as every feature of her face proclaims her. For years, for centuries, perhaps, she has been trying to make herself known to the stupid brutes who have been incapable of comprehending. But now, thank heaven, she has selected me to do her will--whatever it may be--and I shall consecrate my life to her!"

He grew very pale as he spoke, but there was a rapt joy in his face.

"See here, old man," Dunbarton remonstrated kindly, with a hand on his shoulder, "you're rather overwrought just now, and I don't blame you.

But take a friend's advice, and don't get spoony on a girl so very much older than yourself. It never turns out well."

"That's my affair!" Morewood said, doggedly.

"Of course, of course!" Dunbarton a.s.sented. "She's awfully pretty, I admit, and no doubt well connected; but, even if we overlook her playful little way of killing people, think of the difficulties about meeting, and that sort of thing."

"I'm willing to leave it all to her," Morewood said. "A priestess of Amen Ra must have learned by this time every mystery of life and death, and I am confident that in the proper time and place I shall meet her face to face."

"Old chap," Dunbarton p.r.o.nounced with conviction, "what you need is a good night's rest."

But Morewood did not reply to this, for the gentle swaying of an Eastern curtain just then caught his eye. It hung before the open door of the studio, and the movement might have come from some breath of air.

But immediately it occurred again, and this time accompanied by the vision of a human hand, clearly in search of something on which to rap.

"There's someone there," said the painter, whose eyes had followed the other's, and he spoke lower: "Possibly a model in search of work." Then he raised his voice in an encouraging "Come in!"--the tone that painters use to models who are often pretty and sometimes timid.

Morewood paid no attention; he stood transfixed, watching the swaying curtain. His finger tips tingled with a strange electric current and his pulses beat with an unreasoning hope. Then Dunbarton said, a little louder: