The Lost Million

In the days that followed I was intensely anxious to visit Lydford Hall again, but I had received a warning note from Shaw, urging me not to do so without taking every precaution. I might be followed, for the danger of detection was not yet at an end.

Therefore I remained in eager expectancy of Guy’s visit. He had vaguely promised to come over “in a day or two.” But as a week passed and I heard nothing from him, I wrote, and by return of post received a reply that he would motor over and lunch with me on Sunday.

“I have something of greatest importance to tell you,” his letter concluded; “so I hope you can make it convenient to be in on that day.”

I received the letter on Thursday morning, and at once replied that I would be at home. I would await his visit with keenest impatience.

The warm breathless days at Upton End passed but slowly. Truth to tell, I found life there extremely dull. I had many friends in the neighbourhood, but they were mostly elderly persons, or angular girls of superior education. I had little in common with them, and already found myself longing to travel again.

More than once when smoking my lonely cigar before going to bed, I had taken out the mysterious cylinder from the big safe built in the wall of the library and held it in my hand pondering. What could be the Thing it contained – the thing which would amaze the world!

The weird story told to me by Shaw concerning it haunted me; yet what evil could its possession bring upon me? I had heard, of course, of authenticated stories of certain Egyptian mummies which have brought disaster and death to those who disturbed their long sleep; yet in my case I had become the unwilling agent of another.

On the night of receiving Nicholson’s letter, after every one had retired, I was sitting as usual smoking, with the long window open to the verandah, for the air was close and oppressive. Outside the night was glorious, the moon shone brightly, and not a breath of wind stirred.

I opened the steel door in the wall by the fireplace, and from the safe took out the dead man’s letter to me with the heavy cylinder. It was a curious fancy of mine to handle and examine it.

I read and re-read that letter traced by the hand of the man whom I had known as Arnold, but whose real name seemed most probably to have been Edgcumbe. Then I read that strange letter threatening vengeance, and held in my hand the old copy of the newspaper which told the curious story of Lady Lettice Lancaster.

It was all mysterious, but surely most mysterious of all was that bronze cylinder. Why should the dead man have feared to expose its contents to the world?

Civilisation would be staggered by the revelation, it was declared. What terrible secret of ages past could be therein contained? Why had the dead man called it a Thing? Was it really some living thing imprisoned in that strong unbreakable casing?

I carried it across to the green-shaded lamp upon my writing-table, and taking up a strong magnifying glass examined it closely, and at last determined that the welding by which it had been closed had been done ages ago. As far as I could detect it had never been opened. How, therefore, could Arnold have known what it contained? – unless the papyri that had been discovered with it had given an explanation.

Suddenly it occurred to me that the existence of any papyri of great interest would probably be known in the Egyptian Department of the British Museum. Therefore by inquiry there I might perhaps learn something. So I resolved, after Guy’s visit, to run up to London and see one of the officials. As Arnold was an Egyptologist, he would, no doubt, be known and his discoveries noted.

I was holding the cylinder in my hand, carrying it across the room to replace it in the safe, when my eye caught a dark shadow thrown across the lawn. So quickly, however, did it disappear that I stood half inclined to believe it to exist only in my imagination. It seemed to be a long shadow, as though some person had crossed in the moonlight the high bank on the opposite side. Yet my collie, who would bark at the slightest sound in the night, lay near and uttered neither bark nor growl. I went out to the verandah and looked about me; but all was perfectly still. The world lay asleep beneath the great full moon.

For a few moments I stood puzzled. No intruder should be there at that hour. Yet the fact that Prince had not been disturbed reassured me, so I closed the window, locked the cylinder and the correspondence carefully in the safe, and then went upstairs to bed.

My room was directly over the library, and something prompted me to watch. So I extinguished my light and sat peering through the chink between the blind and the window-sash. For nearly half an hour I waited, my eyes fixed upon the great wide, moonlit lawn.

Suddenly I saw the shadow again, plainly and distinctly – the dark silhouette passed bade again.

It was probably a poacher from the wood beyond. I knew that my rabbits were being trapped with wires; therefore resolving to tell Johnson, the keeper, in the morning, I retired to bed.

Next day, among my letters, I found one from my solicitors, which made it necessary for me to go at once to London; and after doing my business in Bedford Row, I strolled along to the British Museum.

I had but little difficulty in discovering Professor Stewart, whose knowledge of Egyptology is probably the widest of any living man.

Without telling him too many details, I related the story I had heard of the finding of a bronze cylinder in the tomb of King Merenptah, and that certain papyri were discovered with it. Could he give me any information upon the subject.

“Well – a little,” replied the tall, grey-bearded, bald-headed man, looking at me through his spectacles with great deliberation. “It is true, I believe, that an interesting cylinder of metal was found in the tomb of Merenptah, coeval with Moses, and with it were some fragments of papyri fairly well-preserved, but on examination they were found not to be of the nineteenth dynasty, as would have been expected.”

“Who examined them?” I asked eagerly.

“I did myself, about two years ago, if I recollect aright,” replied the Professor. “They were brought to me one day for my opinion by a man whose name I now forget. He was elderly, grey-bearded, and apparently possessed considerable knowledge of Egyptian subjects. He left them with me, so that I might decipher them, as he wished to compare his own decipher with mine. But, curiously enough, I have never seen him since. The papyri I have still locked away, awaiting his return.”

“Then they are here?” I cried eagerly.

“Certainly. Would you like to see them?”

I replied eagerly in the affirmative, and he left me for some minutes, returning with a big cardboard portfolio, which he opened, showing half a dozen pieces of brown crumbling paper-like substance covered with puzzling hieroglyphics. With them were several sheets of blue foolscap, upon which he had written his translation.

“Here is what the record contains,” he said.

“Perhaps, if you are interested in such matters, you would like to read it. It is a curious piece of literature of apparently the Pharaonic dynasty of the Ptolemies – or 323-30 B.C., which ended with Cleopatra.”

I took the folios of modern paper in my hand and from them read as follows, written in the Professor’s own crabbed writing: —

”…For of a Verity death, sickness, and sorrow, who knoweth which, may fall upon thee. Therefore, beware of the wrath of Ra, beware lest this cylinder of bronze be opened and its secret be revealed to men, for therein lieth the Thing that shall not speak until the Day of Awakening.

“For:

“He that seeketh knowledge of that which is hidden is accursed of Amon with the ten plagues and doeth so at his own risk, and must meet his fate being cursed of the wolf-god Osiris, ruler of the underworld. Truly, cutting off the head of, or the forsaking life is better than the satisfaction of curiosity of what is therein contained.

“Touch not the cylinder with thine hand, for if…

“Let it remain here in the tomb of the Great Merenptah, King of Kings, Lord… wherein it has been placed to slumber until released by Osiris, to whom all kings and princes bow the knee and to whom…

“Observe, He is all-glorious, on whose pleasure fortune waiteth, in whose valour victory, and in whose anger death.

“Since:

”…a gem be tied at the feet and a piece of glass be worn upon the head, yet still glass is glass, and gems are gems.

“It is said:

“Wisdom is of more consequence than strength. The want of it is a state of misery. And as in the night darkness is kept at a distance by the lord of shades (the moon) thus love by seeing and being seen delights the young. The woman…

“Again:

“Women are never to be rendered faithful and obedient; no, not by gifts, nor by honours, nor by sincerity, nor by services, nor by severity, nor by precept!.. What women eat is twofold; their cunning fourfold; their perseverance sixfold; their passions eightfold; and their patience tenfold. Wherefore the understanding which upon unexpected occurrences remaineth unaffected, may pass through the greatest difficulties. He who hath sense and worshippeth the Sun-God hath strength. Where hath he strength who wanteth judgment? Where hath…

“To the unkind the ruin of the worthy bringeth delight, and…

“It is not proper to be alarmed at a mere sound when the cause of that sound is unknown.

“For:

“Upon the great river the city of Thebes there was in the days of Sekhomab a city where… called Aa-tenen, the inhabitants of which used to believe that a certain giant crocodile, whom they called Nefer-biu, infested the waters. The fact was this: a thief, as he was swimming away with a bell he had stolen, was overcome and devoured by a crocodile, and the bell, falling from his hand, was washed upon the river-bank there and picked up by some apes, who every now and then used to ring it in the trees by the river… The people of the town, finding a man had been killed there, and hearing continually the noise of the bell, used to declare that the giant Nefer-biu, being enraged, was devouring a man and ringing a bell, so that the city was abandoned by all the principal inhabitants.

“And so…

“At length, guided by the god Horus… of Stars of Sopdu, a certain poor woman, having considered the subject, discovered that the bell was rung by the apes. She accordingly went unto King Sekhomab, loved of Ra, favourite of Mentu, and before the priests of Amon, and said: ‘If, O King. Lord of both Lands, I may expect a very great reward, I will engage to silence this Nefer-biu.’ The King was exceedingly well pleased, and gave her some silver. So having described some circles and exhibited the worship of strange gods in a conspicuous manner, she secretly provided such fruits as she conceived the apes were fond of and went unto the river; where, strewing them about, they presently quitted the bell and attached themselves to the fruit. The poor woman, in the meantime, took away the bell and carried it into Sekhomab, who honoured her and gave her great reward. And in the city of Aa-tenen she became an object of adoration to its inhabitants, and her cartouche was inscribed upon the Temple of Amon-Ra… and of the Sun-God…

“Wherefore I say that it is not proper to be alarmed at a mere sound when the cause of that sound is unknown.