Preface (cont. 2)

“Too near to noisy Cairo.”

“There is another at Ptolemais, now called Thomis----”

“I saw there a galosh-factory, when last I descended Sihor’s sacred flood.”

“There are those vast secret halls of Thebes----”

“Ruined.”

“Thebes above ground indeed is ruined, O wise Summoner, but not the Thebes which lies below.”

“How know’st thou this?” I said.

“From the gods who revealed the fact to me in my former life: for when I was a priest in Khem, I learned many things which in time would be. And it was given to me to know how that the temples of Khem should be desolated and the peoples of Khem destroyed. And it was shewn to me for how many centuries the secret halls of the three priestly colleges at Thebes would remain forgotten. But I, also, am ware of an entrance, well-concealed, very hard to find, which I can shew to thee if thou desirest to make use of those dim halls as they were wont to be used.”

Thus he spoke. And the mind in my breast exulted. But I said: “Surely the adits will be blocked with shrubs and fallen masonry?”

“That may not be, O Summoner,” he answered, “for the adit of which I speak is in the open plain.”

“Then we will go to Thebes; and the thing which has to be done shall be well-done, there.”

But when, at length, we were come to the ruined capital of the Upper Land and the Lower, having left some of our baggage at the paltry village of Luxor, concealing the rest, anon we pursued our way across the sandy plain thereby, until we reached a certain pebbly strip of land which was unencumbered, excepting by a low pillar of granite. And the pillar, being no more than a span in height, would have been quite unnoticeable had any ruins approximated: as it was, I almost trod upon it before I perceived its weather-worn surface, deeply graven with the dead tongues of tombs, and undecypherable for all who have not (but I have) a knowledge of those tongues from the tongue of one who himself had used them. Time-worn was that little pillar, as well it might be: for Amenemhat said that, in his own day, it had been more venerable than the oldest fanes. Also, he narrated a tradition, which said that a remote ancestor of Menes found it there, marking the site where Divine Osiris first placed his foot on the hallowed soil of Khem: but Amenemhat said (as well) that this tradition rested on no sure warranty, for that Menes himself had taken the pillar from a temple builded many ages before Khem was a country, and had it set there to mark the entrance of the secret halls which he himself was building.

But I instantly put this saying to the proof. For we strove to move the pillar in its socket, where during nineteen centuries at least it had been undisturbed. And, when we turned it round, the slab supporting it sank slowly on a hinge: but sand with many pebbles slid downward on to the stair which was revealed.

Thus then was manifest the entrance to the Secret Halls of Thebes.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] _Cf._ a similar divine voice, _Iliad_, v. 380-410. A. H.

THE THIRD PAPYRUS

Having lighted lanthorns, I began to descend the stair with my familiar: but a very noxious vapour drove us back. And, while I chafed at this delay, Amenemhat reproved me, saying: “Why wait hours for nature to effect that which thou (with magic art) couldst do in a moment?”

And this having been the second time when I myself had forgotten the power which I possessed, till reminded of the same by my familiar, I, indeed, held a sort of council with myself; and I determined that, in the future, I no longer would live as men of my own race are wont to live, in helpless abject obedience to so-called natural laws, seeing that (for me) such laws did not exist, but that I would be limited solely by the mind in my lordly breast, willing what I pleased, and causing its performance by forces amenable to my magic art. And, having thus determined, I instantly invoked certain airy sprites, yellow as sunflowers, who, with millions of legs alternately coming and going, purified the staircase and the edifices to which it led.

The passage having thus been rendered favourable to earth-walking men, we again descended: but, when we came to certain gates beyond the forty-ninth antechamber, some mysterious energy barred our progress. That is to say, when we reached the said gates, my head would have gone through, but my feet refused to budge--though Amenemhat went forward without difficulty, whom I, seeing that he was my familiar and his place behind his lord, recalled. For, if I could not proceed (on account of some inexplicable impotence on the part of my blameless feet), neither might he, for a servant may not go before his master in a case of this kind.

Wherefore, I used my magic art again; and I uttered several spells one by one, excepting the _Spell of the Name Ineffable_ which I do not deem fit to say in any need but that which seems extreme. And none of my spells availed me anything.

But my mind mentioned that Amenemhat’s ability to go forward, and my inability, might perchance indicate some difference of character between us two; and I used my wiles for pondering possible differences. In this manner I perceived that whereas he was a priest according to the highly respectable rite of Khem, I was no more than a Tonsured Clerk of the Latin Obedience. For it may as well be known by all men living that, in my early (or later) life in the kingdom of Victory queen of the stalwart stately Anglicans, one of the many incredibly cruel and unspeakably hideous happenings which marred me and soured me was as follows. The Divine Ones of the Latin Obedience called me to serve them as flamen sacrificing for the Blessed Dead; and I willingly responded to the call. In token whereof I was admitted to the first grade of the flaminian estate, being marked apart from other men by the five-pointed tonsure.[5] And immediately, by the blundering of blind guides (the most righteous of men), confirmed by hierarchical timidity or stupidity or malignity, I was denied my heart’s desire, and bile was mingled with my blood. I, then, endured my torments disdainfully, as my habit is, saying all those invectives which my mind gave me to say as rudely and as loudly as possible. And there appeared unto me processions of heresiarchs and schismatarchs (all blameless), wearing altogether prestigious habiliments, and using gestures (almost salacious) which ran along their bodies and suggested things not said, who proffered to me priesthoods (and in one case) a pontificate. But none of their pretty things pleased me, not being of valid or desirable origin. And I remained where I was, ready to go forward, ruthlessly refusing to go back.

But now the blessed gods inhabiting olympian palaces were permitting me to find in Thebes the representative of a religion prior in time to, and by no means a dissent from, my own--a religion, furthermore, which was to mine what the flower is to the fruit. Wherefore, being denied the fruit, I made no more ado: but I clutched the flower.

For this cause, I retraced my steps, returning to Luxor, where I commanded my faithful Amenemhat, the priest of Tanis, to give me the order of priesthood according to the rite of Khem. And this he did when I had sworn the great oath of an Egyptian priest, which oath bound me, till Mother Isis herself released me, as I shall narrate hereafter. But Amenemhat gave me the unction of sacred nard, with the white linen robe and the silver ankh, breathing on my head, and laying hands on me, saying: “_May all the gods bless thee: may Heru-p-Khart love thee: may Isis nurture thee: may Osiris guide and prosper thee, so that thou never look back but alway forward on the illimitable field of wisdom hereby opened to thee. And, by the power committed to me, I Amenemhat, make thee, Nicholas, a priest of Khem, in the name of Apis Osiris the great god who sitteth in Amentet, ever-living lord, everlasting ruler, deliverer, sustainer, who is Osiris, who is Nu, who is Ra, who is Tum, all whose feathers are upon him, and who giveth life for ever and for ever._”

These matters, then, being accomplished, we returned to Thebes; and nothing impeded my entrance to the subterranean palaces.

But we transported my magic apparatus, on a truck, into the forty-ninth antechamber of those secret halls, to be convenient for our operations at a fitting time. But, because the fidelity of the servants whom we left with the rest of our baggage by the river-side (excepting that which I myself had concealed) was not above suspicion, I, indeed, took with me all my money, to wit, five-and-fifty gold quarter-ounces of Victory queen of the stalwart stately Anglicans,[6] and some Egyptian silver. Also I armed myself with my death-spitter,[7] and with a belt containing four-and-sixty death-parcels,[8] for there was always a chance of an encounter with barbarian tomb-riflers in Egypt of the nineteenth century to come. Also, I took my gold time-teller:[9] for that was the last thing which I bought before I left the land of my future birth.

But we stood before the hitherto-resisting portal. A touch from my magic staff caused the massive gates to creak and to yawn with much groaning before us. Having crossed certain vast secret halls, walking at a slow but even pace for an hour or more, we came to the verge of a subterranean lake. I flashed my lanthorn over the watery expanse: but we saw no distant shore. A narrow causeway, only a few spans higher than the dark flood, was all that met our eyes; and that lost itself, twenty cubits away, in impenetrable gloom. I stooped and dipped my hand into the water: by which act I perceived that what I had taken for a lake was actually a strong stream; and I opined that it was some subterranean collateral of sacred Sihor.

But I boldly stepped out on to the causeway, bidding Amenemhat to follow me and to push before him the small wheeled truck, light to lift, easily propelled, which contained my cabinet of essences and quintessences, with my divination-cup and my crystal orb of divination banded with silver with adornments of rose-crystals and blue moonstones, together with a skinful of Nile-water and certain alimentaries. And, as my eyes became accustomed to the murky blackness, I perceived the outlines of colossal columns on both sides of the stream: these supported a carven roof strangely painted with cats and weasels.

But, after a journey which seemed to be interminable owing to the darkness and the silence, though it was not actually more than a thousand paces, the causeway widened suddenly; and, on peering for the edge, I was ware that I had crossed the dark river as by a bridge. That dark river of running water divided my life as a liegeman of Victory queen of the stalwart stately Anglicans from a life which lay before.

New wonders arrested the melancholy dejection of my mind. In front of me, there appeared a wall painted with figures representing the initiation of priests in the divine Isidian mysteries; and this wall was pierced by three doors. Not for me was it to hesitate. Not for me was it even to ask guidance of my familiar. But these opinions did not prevent me from contriving a wile, observing with the corner of my eye that Amenemhat’s glance instinctively went to the door on the right hand. Which door I instantly laid open with a touch of my magic staff; and, having passed along a corridor, richly adorned, very fair to see, we emerged in a vast circular hall, columned, and surrounded by a cloister having a series of apsidal chapels in its outer boundary. And the place was indeed marvellous. For, in the middle of the hall, four-and-twenty circular stairs soared to a circular platform, whereon sat a lonely altar; and the whole place was made of some clear white stone like polished marble, dazzling snow-white marble without veins or mottling, and without any of the joints which are formed when slabs of stone are laid in order one upon another: so that I could not determine whether the wall had been builded with hands, or cut with incalculable toil from the virgin quarry, or merely called into being by art magic. But, though the hall was of most candid whiteness, the altar on the summit of the circular foot-pace was of blood-red porphyry. And, being (as it was) deep in the bosom of the grain-giving earth, the place was lighted by a radiance, perennial, most agreeable to the eyes, the source of which I am not at liberty to tell. Such was the secret hall beneath Thebes.[10]

But I placed my magic apparatus on the altar, and on the foot-pace pertinent thereto, all in proper order; and I sat down, with Amenemhat, on the lowest step, to refresh our bodies with a meal in preparation for the work before us. And, when we had dismissed the desire of eating and drinking, so sitting we conversed as follows.

“I do not remember this white hall as it now is,” said Amenemhat.

“Hast thou then seen it before?” I inquired.

“When I was priest of Tanis, I oft-times celebrated the mysteries here.”

“And to what was it like then?”

“It was draped with white carpets of silk embroidered in silver with images of the assessors of Amentet. And a carpet was hanged between every pair of pillars, veiling the cloister from the hall.”

“Yet the hall will serve our purpose as well without its hangings?”

“Doubtless. But still it seems that some malignant sprite might lurk in the shadow of those columns, watching, with intent to interrupt our sacred rites.”

And hardly had the Tanitic priest uttered the last word, when a blameless shape (very loathesome and ferocious, shewing nothing but the accentuation of a tattered pendulous head and the thick rictus of parts of a face), emerged from those very shadows, and rushed upon us with mouth-foamings and hiccoughs and eye-rollings, hideously screeching.

Amenemhat withered away with terror; and his mind wilted as he fell swooning on the steps. But I, strongly bounding, leaped to the altar; and, having seized my magic staff, and having made the terrible _Sign of the Godlike Rulers_, then indeed I proclaimed the _Spell Which Binds_.

The Shape stood, held by the mighty inchantment, a ridiculous and cruel personage, gross and ceruminous, with an incomplete head dandling on a tendinous neck. But I descended to recover my familiar. And, having further bound the Shape with the _Word of Fear_, I drew back the mind of Amenemhat to his body, fattening it with comfortable words. And anon I required the Shape to decline to me his generalities, telling who and what he was.

But he responded very obediently, saying: “I am Sanes, priest of Osiris, warden of yonder purple altar, and long it is since I have formed mortal speech with these remnants of my tongue.”

I then demanded, “Why, O hideous and excessive prelate, didst thou rush out so menacingly upon us?”

“Because,” he said, “having seen no man since I know not when, I was fearful that ye had evil designs. But, seeing that thou hast the _Sign_ and the _Spell_ and the _Word_, I must believe thee to be present with the sanction of the gods. Yet, seeing that I (in my lifetime) was the warden of this place, seeing that no man hath deposed me, seeing also that (after my accidental but lamentable death) I was not properly embalmed but did myself fulfil the cavities of the holy crocodiles who ate me, I still must deem myself its warden.”

Thus having spoken, he wept fragmentarily. And I will say that I rarely have seen anything more frightful than the tears of a shape which (some centuries before) had been an eaten clergyman. Wherefore, having required him to make his Mark with his finger (as it were) on the stainless floor, and having counted the angles of the same, I said: “Poor faithful Senior, thou shalt be relieved of thy wardenship and speeded whither thou shouldst have gone ages ago.”

And I removed _Spell_ and _Word_. But, intoning the _Speeding Hymn_, I bade the Shape to begone in peace to the dull region of Amentet, giving him the _Word of Entrance_, and praying the Assessors to deal leniently with him. For surely so dreary and so patient a watch and ward as his should suffice to smooth many wrinkles from his sphere of gold.

And, with a joyful cry, the Shape collected his parts; and, leaping, he evanesced. But we turned to the matter which engrossed us, having dismissed the long-delayed ghost to his rest.

In this manner, I began to use my magic art in the secret hall of Thebes.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] The tonsure is, of course, not pentagonal but circular. The bishop who confers it does, however, ceremonially dip the clerk’s hair in five places, _e.g._ front, back, right, left, and crown, while teaching the tonsured to twitter: “_Dominus pars--haereditatis meae--et calicis meis--Tu es Qui restitues--haereditatem meam mihi._” Hence, perhaps, the epithet “five-pointed.” A.H.

[6] I surmise that these “gold quarter-ounces” were sovereigns. A. H.

[7] These words are written in late-Victorian English by what I take to be Mr. Crabbe’s own hand. A. H.

[8] These words are written in late-Victorian English by what I take to be Mr. Crabbe’s own hand. A. H.

[9] These words are written in late-Victorian English by what I take to be Mr. Crabbe’s own hand. A. H.

[10] Mr. C.’s statement would almost seem to indicate that Messrs. Currelly, Dennis, Dalison, and Naville, the learned and assiduous excavators of the subterranean sanctuary at Thebes (cf. _The Times_, Tuesday, viiij Apr.) are only at the beginning of their labours. A. H.

THE FOURTH PAPYRUS

Touching the ordeal of the scorching staff, I consulted Amenemhat. He had grave doubts as to whether it was lawful to protect the hand with a magic unguent, or to hold the staff with tongs; and he stood by the injunctions of the well-written papyrus which ordained that the staff must be held in the hand. But, as for me, my dear mind foamed with blood, and my stomach shifted inch by inch, and the gorge of me swang to and fro, at the anticipation of the grievous anguish which I was to undergo: although I knew that, by enduring the ordeal the first time, I had summoned from the dead a master of magic, from whom I was learning ineffable wisdom, and, that, by enduring the same a second time, I should call from the dead a master of masters of magic, from whom I might learn wisdom absolutely illimitable. But, notwithstanding this, the heart in my bosom would take no cheer, but remained dull and spiritless and weighted with premonitions of disaster.

Furthermore, while my mind was thus obliquing brusquely in the manner of a crab, I needs must add to my perturbations by certain thoughts about the gods of my own motherland. And I pondered the question again, asking myself whether what I was meditating actually amounted to apostacy. And I went over much old ground: for the point was a very nice and subtile one. I told myself how that bad hierarchs and far-from-immaculate anointed ones, all the most righteous of men, of my race and age and tongue, had refused to let me serve my gods and theirs in the manner which those divine ones inhabiting heavenly palaces had themselves designed. And I enumerated, one by one, all the occasions when the same blameless persons, out of spite or out of pique or out of merely natural and ungracious cruelty, had chased me from temple after temple with secret anathemas, denied me my rites, and withdrawn from me the very hem of the skirt of fellowship. And I postulated that a well-minded man must have a religion. Therefore, without disloyalty to the gods of my own land, from whose worship my fellow-worshippers cut me off, I pronounced that it was permissible for me, in default of fulness, to use a moiety. Thus, then, I argued with myself, until I was satisfied, that is to say satisfied as nearly as might be.

And anon I addressed myself to my task, placing the crystal orb in the silver cup, and filling the last with Nile-water, while my familiar poured into the thirsty trench below the steps that magic emerald-coloured liquid, whose exact ingredients may not be told at large. Which having been well-done, we prepared to summon a Great One of the Greater Ones out of the Outer Immensity. And, for this cause, that the one whom I was about to summon was coming from so vast a distance of time, I knew that the heat of my magic staff would be immeasurably greater at this second summons than at the first. For movement is heat and heat is movement; and, the faster and longer the movement, the fiercer the heat of the burning.

But, while the priest Amenemhat sprinkled beautiful-smelling gum-tragacanth, I intoned the hymn _I am the One among the Forms which the Eye the Only One hath created_, and the incantation called _Of the Buckle of Red Jasper_; and then we both prayed to Ptah the Pain-lessener to make my ordeal as endurable as might be. It is true that I was not to have an additional burning from the fierce clear of the moon, since I was (this time) far beneath the earth: but I ceased not from my pure-minded prayers to Ptah, even when the crystal orb began to glow. For I was convinced that some catastrophe was at hand.

Wherefore, fearing lest the sudden death of his summoner (and I expected no less) should leave Amenemhat to drag out a weary existence for ever on man-breeding earth--for a spirit reincarnated by means of Nile-water must remain incarnate until his own incarnator shall permit him to depart his body--then, indeed, I hastily gave to my familiar the _Word of Freedom_, saying: “O Amenemhat, it seems that the time of our separation is at hand. But I am loth to part, for thou hast taught and served me well: but I will not help myself at another man’s serious cost. Therefore I free thee from my bond of rule, that thou mayst return to thy place when it shall seem good to thee. And, for thine own sake setting thee free, O Amenemhat, I bid thee farewell.”

But his response came to me very thinly, very reed-like: for his body instantly began to fade away from him; and he was fast becoming an Osirian and a spider’s-web-coloured mist in my sight. And he said: “O Nicholas, Conquistator of Peoples, I indeed thank thee for the respite from the gnawing weariness of Amentet which thou hast granted to me, by summoning me to tread the kindly earth for a space; and, in return, I will unfold to thee some pages of the book of thy destiny. For, having been and being now about to be an Osirian, I can read plainly in that book: yet I may not tell thee all, for the gods have forbidden it. And, ere thou hast lived another moon’s age, thou shalt see me as I used to be: for I and thou are linked together in an unbreakable cycle of nigh two thousand years. And I and thou will meet again in this land of Khem, I the priest of Tanis, and thou: for that awful round of years is----”

Thus he departed, leaving the unfinished phrase lapping against my mind. But I was very grievously perturbed: for, unless I read his prediction awry, I was doomed to die within the month. And I was not ready, having an infinity (an inconceivable infinity) of things to do, of souls to save, of sufferers to soothe, of oppression to remove, of wrongs to put right, of liars and thieves and slanderers to confute and to despoil and to shame, of cruelties to avenge with head-diggings and eye-gougings and revenges and slaughters and maimings and stonings and spine-impalings with much moaning, and many other mind-grieving evils. For which causes I was not ready to die then.

Wherefore, arising with shoutings from my lethargy, I adjured the mind in my dear breast to be very strong, very valiant indeed, very alert to withstand Death’s insidious onsets. For, though I had seen many things, I never yet had met personally beautiful Death the soother of men. And first, I set myself to endure the ordeal in which I was engaged. For lurid gleams were leaping from the emerald liquid in the trench, wafting hot breaths in my direction.

Instantly, stripping off my linen robe and casting it outside the circle, I again ascended to the porphyry altar; and grasped the magic staff with my bare hand. Now that my mind was blazing with firm courage, the staff at first seemed cold. Anon, a gentle wave of warmth flushed through it; and a dart of anguish shot into my flesh. Pang followed pang: stab pierced stab. More swiftly came fiercer thrusts of pain as the heat increased. But I kept my mind fixed and my lips addressed to Ptah the Pain-lessener. Great scorching flames flowed from the staff over my hand and arm. I seemed to be holding a nineteen-times-heated fire; and, yet, amid all the intolerable agony, I was ware that this was but the beginning of my torment.

The heat of the flame was so intense, that I looked for my arm to vanish away in impalpable ashes. Irresistible desire of dropping the staff assailed me; and my fingers loosened a little against my will. Like as the helmsman of a ship, whose rudder is shattered by wintry storms, and who (knowing the right course) is unable to steer his vessel, even so was I then. The staff fell out of my grasp: but the silver chain, which looped it round my wrist, prevented it from rolling away.

Instantly, the flames expired; and the lambent streamers in the divination-cup died down. But I stood, alone, in darkness.

After a space of gloom and silence, I saw tiny golden sparks floating in the vast circumferent void. But I watched them: for there seemed naught else for me to do, nor was my will any longer inclined to force leadlike unwilling limbs to act. And the sparks became spots. And the spots became swiftly-rolling globes of light. I tried to utter a _Spell_: but voice and hearing had deserted me.

I lay, crouched against the blood-red altar of porphyry. The globes of light changed, taking wonderful forms. All my members were enfeebled; and, indeed, only the mind in my breast was me. For my body had renounced its allegiance to my sway, and had gone apart from me in shocking rebellion, leaving me to die having nothing but my mind and my mind’s eye, which saw and thought the very queerest things, the most terrible, the most unheard-of.

All round me, I saw the spirits of my senses standing. On the left, was my hearing: on his right, was my smell: on his right again, was my sight: on the right of that one was my taste: on his right was my touch. Above these, hovered my life, in the form of a small white bird like a beautifully-crowned hoopoe. Behind them, were my powers of speech and movement, very large, and sudden, and frightful. And the mind in my breast told me that these things were so.

But all these shapes mopped and mowed and sighed at me; and my voice made as though he would have derided me, his fallen master: but the bird of life forbade him. And the shapes wagged and wavered horribly, gesticulating among themselves; and some seemed friendly: but others were undoubtedly hostile. And, suddenly, with a pitiful gesture, my hearing put up his hands and dived cleanly into me; and I heard faint voices, as one hears the whimpering of miners coming up a pit-shaft. For my powers and my senses were arguing against me: but the bird of life argued for me.

“Ye shall not leave him thus:” cried the bird.

“And who can prevent us?” shrieked the rebels.

“I,” said my life, “for I will not leave him; and how can ye wander lifeless through the wide-bosomed earth when I am here refusing to die?”

Then, indeed, the mind in my noble breast spoke unwinged words, saying the _Spell of Not Letting the Powers and Senses of a Man be Taken from Him in the Netherworld_; and, afterward, I intoned aloud: “How now, rebellious creatures, why dally in idleness when work remains to be done? Know ye your master; and obey.”

And, with shambling gait and visages rueful and ashamed, my senses and my powers obliqued each to his separate task.

But I staggered to my feet; and, seizing the divination-cup, I drained its cool contents, looping my arm through the chain of the crystal orb. And, at the moment, flames began to rise from the summit of the purple altar. Whitish-green they were, ever-increasing in volume, as though some mountain (a forge of the Kyklops) were vomiting from a new vent. And the flames rose higher and higher, till they licked the very apex of the hall ninety men’s heights above me; and there was neither smoke nor vapour: but only fervent flames, humming and buzzing and bounding upward with irresistible leapings. But, changing to violet, they vanished, leaving the place in a violet glare wherein was the whirring of wheels.

But I dismissed inertia; and, having my faculties under order, I began to look upon these happenings with a wholesome curiosity.

In the midst of the wheels were faces and figures and events, faint indeed at first, but growing clearer and firmer and more violent in movement till they displaced the wheels. But I watched very intently; and I saw the histories of mortal men of many different races being enacted before my eyes. For, things (which then were past, and since have been) were done in my sight in that secret subterranean hall of Thebes. Kings and queens and emperors and princes and republicans and patricians and plebeians swept in reverse order across my view, all doing their deeds. Time rushed enormously backward in tremendous panoramas. Great men died before they won their fame. Kings were deposed before they had been crowned. Nero and the Borgias and Cromwell and Asquith and the Jesuits[11] enjoyed eternal infamy and then began to earn it. My motherland, the kingdom of Victory queen of the stalwart stately Anglicans, melted into barbaric Britain: Byzantion melted into Rome; Venice into Henetian Altino; Hellas into innumerable migrations. Blows fell; and then were struck. Bearded men became smooth-skinned boys. Death came first; and birth came last. All things changed save one: silver Sihor’s living waters rolled down through the green streak of Egypt and the sacred Delta to the innumerably smiling sea.

Thus, was I whirled back through the rolling wheels of Time.

At length events were still. The medley of scenes vanished. And I was ware that I was alone with Another, Unknown, in a void of blackness, impenetrable, save where the blood-red altar glimmered obscurely; and, on it, was inthroned a Presence, shapeless, indistinguishable from the murky gloom.

But I was not afraid. And anon a voice spake to me, saying: “O man of many wiles and inquisitive mind, it is permitted to thee to have thy will, seeing that thy will is good and not evil. And, forasmuch as wicked and fatuous anointed ones are minded to neglect thee, wasting thee, throwing thee away as worthless, forasmuch also as the Maker of thy stars will not have His good work spoiled and His keen tool rusted or blunted by disuse or misuse, therefore, employment is granted to thee such as thine energy deserveth and as thy mind desireth. For which cause, thou art put back in time; and several lives are given thee to live, and several deeds to do, and several fountains of wisdom are laid bare to thee, so that (being perfected by much striving) at a favourable occasion thou mayst fulfil thy free and perdurable destiny.”

Thus having spoken, the Voice ceased. But I was alone, in the dark, very alert, inexpressibly elated, hugging huge joys in my superior mind; and my heart was throbbing like the tail of a lambkin in springtime drinking life from the ewe.

But the hall rocked slowly and more rapidly, with lamps and tones and the roaring of hurricanes and waterspouts and the vibrance of unmentioned and unthought-of music. And long tongues of white fire went before; and all the gods of Khem followed after in intolerable procession, Osiris and Isis and Heru the Child, and hawk-headed Ra in his splendour, and well-plumed watery Nu and Nut, and intelligent Ptah excessive in magnitude, and ram-headed Khnemu, and birdlike Khepera, and self-originated Tum, and feathered Shu, and lion-headed Tefnut, and Zeb the cackler, and Heru of the two horizons, and dark Set, and jackal-headed Anpu the way-opener, and ibis-headed Thoth the measurer, and Maat the straight, and Net the lady of heaven, and Sekhet the eye, and cat-headed Bast, and plumed Ansu with his flail, and mistress Ta Urt, and Hapi of the South with the papyrus, and Hapi of the North with the lotus, and Amen the Only One who has no second, and Mother Nut the sky his wife. And, all the while, I heard the shattering shaking of the sacred sistrum, denoting the presence of Divine Mother Isis, the Greatest of the Three.

But the Voice spake yet again to me, saying: “O man of many wiles and inquisitive mind, these are the forms of The Supreme, at this time to which thou art come.”

But I gazed on the assemblage of the gods, until my eyes were blinded; and, for a time, I saw no more.

Such, then, was the manifestation which I gained by magic art at Thebes.

_I, Empedokles son of Polypemon, a Rhodian, have written this. My lord the king ceased from dictating these histories, in order that he might lead a squadron of his flying chariots, waging against King Artavasdes, who_ (_audacious_) _has demanded tribute. And the Divine Herakles has gone with my lord the king. May unconquered Mithra, M.Z.L., P.S.U., D.O.M., S.H.C., M.E.L.F.,[12] prosper this undertaking. And I seal up the scrolls, impressing the wax with my lord the king’s own sigil of the crab and the moon. And these scrolls are written fairly by me, and sealed by me, Empedokles, the scribe, by command of my lord the king._[13]

FOOTNOTES:

[11] This synthesis strikes me as being really most remarkable. A. H.

[12] I can only elucidate these majuscules by reference to the Henetian inscription containing the Mithraic Morning Litanies (_Corona Matutina Mithraica_) lately discovered by Mr. Rolfe at Tauricellium (_Torcello_): “_Manceps Zodiacorum Luminum--Pater, Sospitator, Unificator--Deus Optimus Maximus--Sol, Heros, Creator,--Mundi Expiator, Lustrator, Fautor._” A. H.

[13] Several words in these documents are not to be found in my lexicons. On pronouncing them aloud, however, at a time when they worried me dreadfully, I discovered that they were mere phonetic traliterations, _e.g._ ΡΕΒΟΛΒΕΡ is evidently “revolver,” and I take ΟΥΑΔΤϹ for “watch.” Though, why Mr. Crabbe could not have continued to call these conveniences a “death-spitter” or a “fire-ball-spitter” and a “time-teller,” respectively, is something of a mystery to me. Perhaps we shall be safe in assuming that his attention, to the form of matter which he dictated, varied in intensity from time to time. It does so with the best of us. Nec semper tendet arcum Apollo. I surmise that Mr. C.’s “death-parcels” were cartridges, and (from another indication in the papyri) it may be asserted that they were tipped with an article or convenience called a “dumdum.” A. H.

THE FIFTH PAPYRUS

_I, King Balthazar of Moxoene, having been victorious once again over a barbarian people, and being wounded in battle, but not excessively, dictate these words to Empedokles, my scribe, to pass the time._

Having seen, therefore, the vast white hall in the secret subterranean temple at Thebes teeming full of the whole hierarchy of the gods of Khem with all their relative appanages; and, having watched these holy ones departing with the indicible pomp and splendour of their coming; and, having heard the mystic voice which told me the meaning of these manifestations, warning me of my connection with the same: anon, I was left to ponder all these admirable happenings.

Now the hall was flooded with soft white light, as it had been when I first entered it with Amenemhat. And, as I meditated, standing strongly at my ease by the altar of blood-red porphyry, I was ware that white carpets of silk (covered with silver embroideries) were looped from column to column all round the immense circle, between each pair of pillars a carpet hanging from capitals to bases. But the embroideries represented the Assessors of Amentet: throned in state they were; and they judged the dead, allotting some to the blissful abodes, and others to the flaming house of Set who gnawed them with his teeth ever champing in expectation of fresh meals. And, while I gazed on these things, I remembered how that Amenemhat had spoken of similar carpets. But, when I thought of that priest of Tanis, I was moved to hold a council with the mind in my dear breast concerning many things. For it seemed good to me to recall events in order, so that (knowing the past precisely) I might understand the present and proceed securely to the future. Wherefore, I reminded myself of my godlike dismissal of Amenemhat at a time when I awfully needed a friend, of the ordeal of the scorching staff, of the overwhelming and wily inquisitiveness which impelled me to persist in spite of failure, of the mind-delighting reward promised to my perseverance, of the flying whirling wheels which swept me back through panoramas of Time, of the apparition of the godlike company of Khem. And I considered all these things, fully and turn by turn, before I laid them away in the cells of my memory, as sedulous squirrels store nuts in hollow trees, making provision for winter. But, when, at length, I was satisfied, I came down the steps from the purple altar; and, gathering my priestly robe from the floor where I had cast it at the beginning of the ordeal, I clothed myself, and proceeded to the cloistral antechambers in search of the truck of baggage which Amenemhat had trundled, from the outer future world, into that arena of untimed immortality. For I was convinced that I no longer stood in time where I had been, but rather more than nineteen hundred years prior to the life which I had left. But, of this, I had no particular or human certainty, but only a general or divine one, for my watch told me that barely eleven hours had elapsed since my entrance into the place; and I firmly prepared myself to find that those eleven hours included nineteen centuries, and that the land of Egypt (which I had left flourishing under the rule of Victory queen of the stalwart stately Anglicans) was now cowering beneath the talons of Roman Eagles. But, having wound-up my watch, and feeling very hungry, I refreshed my body with the provisions in my baggage, leaving nothing for mice. Thus I did, in the cloister behind the embroidered carpets.

Afterward, it seemed good to me to take such matters as would be useful to me in my new life, and to dispose of the rest, before emerging into activity in the sweet sunlight. Accordingly, under my linen robe, I buckled on my belt of beautiful death-parcels with my death-spitter in its proper sling. And, above that belt, I buckled on my broad belt with the well-placed pockets, so that the two belts (one above another) became like a thorax protecting my vitals. But, in the well-sewn pockets of the broad belt, I bestowed my watch, and a box of wax-matches,[14] and my gold and silver money, and my pocket-book with its beautiful pencil,[15] and my Waterman’s Ideal Fountain Pen,[16] and my Foreign Office Passport,[17] with the circular notes from my bankers, and eight notes[18] each worth twenty-five ounces of gold. Thus having prepared myself, I laced the strong sandals on my feet, arranging the pleats of my robe conveniently to conceal what was underneath, yet leaving all things ready to be snatched-at in case of necessity. But there was nothing left, excepting my magic apparatus, and the truck and lanthorn which had come with me to the place.

But, on pondering the thing again, I was ware (from the carpets between the columns, and from a certain aspect of the porphyry altar), that the temple in which I stood was no longer a deserted temple, forgotten because buried by the lapse of ages, but actually a temple in daily use. From which portent, I also was ware that it behoved me to be ready to inflict my presence upon anyone (or at least to explain it plausibly to anyone) who by chance might totter in my direction, and, indeed, not to wait for such discovery, but to go at once in search of the society of articulately-speaking men, and to take my share in life as I should find it on the grain-giving earth.