CHAPTER XXXIII. THE MUMMY
Dinner was out of the question that night for all of us. Karamaneh whohad spoken no word, but, grasping my hands, had looked into my eyes--herown glassy with unshed tears--and then stolen away to her cabin, had notsince reappeared. Seated upon my berth, I stared unseeingly before me,upon a changed ship, a changed sea and sky upon another world. The poorold bishop, my neighbor, had glanced in several times, as he hobbled by,and his spectacles were unmistakably humid; but even he had vouchsafedno word, realizing that my sorrow was too deep for such consolation.
When at last I became capable of connected thought, I found myself facedby a big problem. Should I place the facts of the matter, as I knewthem to be, before the captain? or could I hope to apprehend Fu-Manchu'sservant by the methods suggested by my poor friend? That Smith's deathwas an accident, I did not believe for a moment; it was impossible notto link it with the attempt upon Karamaneh. In my misery and doubt, Idetermined to take counsel with Dr. Stacey. I stood up, and passed outon to the deck.
Those passengers whom I met on my way to his room regarded me inrespectful silence. By contrast, Stacey's attitude surprised and evenannoyed me.
"I'd be prepared to stake all I possess--although it's not much," hesaid, "that this was not the work of your hidden enemy."
He blankly refused to give me his reasons for the statement and stronglyadvised me to watch and wait but to make no communication to thecaptain.
At this hour I can look back and savor again something of the profounddejection of that time. I could not face the passengers; I even avoidedKaramaneh and Aziz. I shut myself in my cabin and sat staring aimlesslyinto the growing darkness. The steward knocked, once, inquiring if Ineeded anything, but I dismissed him abruptly. So I passed the eveningand the greater part of the night.
Those groups of promenaders who passed my door, invariably werediscussing my poor friend's tragic end; but as the night wore on, thedeck grew empty, and I sat amid a silence that in my miserable state Iwelcomed more than the presence of any friend, saving only the one whomI should never welcome again.
Since I had not counted the bells, to this day I have only the vaguestidea respecting the time whereat the next incident occurred which itis my duty to chronicle. Perhaps I was on the verge of falling asleep,seated there as I was; at any rate, I could scarcely believe myselfawake, when, unheralded by any footsteps to indicate his coming, someone who seemed to be crouching outside my stateroom, slightly raisedhimself and peered in through the porthole--which I had not troubled toclose.
He must have been a fairly tall man to have looked in at all, andalthough his features were indistinguishable in the darkness, hisoutline, which was clearly perceptible against the white boat beyond,was unfamiliar to me. He seemed to have a small, and oddly swathed head,and what I could make out of the gaunt neck and square shoulders in someway suggested an unnatural thinness; in short, the smudgy silhouette inthe porthole was weirdly like that of a mummy!
For some moments I stared at the apparition; then, rousing myself fromthe apathy into which I had sunk, I stood up very quickly and steppedacross the room. As I did so the figure vanished, and when I threw openthe door and looked out upon the deck... the deck was wholly untenanted!
I realized at once that it would be useless, even had I chosen thecourse, to seek confirmation of what I had seen from the officer onthe bridge: my own berth, together with the one adjoining--that of thebishop--was not visible from the bridge.
For some time I stood in my doorway, wondering in a disinterestedfashion which now I cannot explain, if the hidden enemy had revealedhimself to me, or if disordered imagination had played me a trick.Later, I was destined to know the truth of the matter, but when at lastI fell into a troubled sleep, that night, I was still in some doubt uponthe point.
My state of mind when I awakened on the following day was indescribable;I found it difficult to doubt that Nayland Smith would meet me on theway to the bathroom as usual, with the cracked briar fuming between histeeth. I felt myself almost compelled to pass around to his stateroom inorder to convince myself that he was not really there. The catastrophewas still unreal to me, and the world a dream-world. Indeed I retainscarcely any recollections of the traffic of that day, or of the daysthat followed it until we reached Port Said.
Two things only made any striking appeal to my dulled intelligence atthat time. These were: the aloof attitude of Dr. Stacey, who seemedcarefully to avoid me; and a curious circumstance which the secondofficer mentioned in conversation one evening as we strolled up and downthe main deck together.
"Either I was fast asleep at my post, Dr. Petrie," he said, "or lastnight, in the middle watch, some one or something came over the side ofthe ship just aft the bridge, slipped across the deck, and disappeared."
I stared at him wonderingly.
"Do you mean something that came up out of the sea?" I said.
"Nothing could very well have come up out of the sea," he replied,smiling slightly, "so that it must have come up from the deck below."
"Was it a man?"
"It looked like a man, and a fairly tall one, but he came and was gonelike a flash, and I saw no more of him up to the time I was relieved.To tell you the truth, I did not report it because I thought I must havebeen dozing; it's a dead slow watch, and the navigation on this part ofthe run is child's play."
I was on the point of telling him what I had seen myself, two eveningsbefore, but for some reason I refrained from doing so, although I thinkhad I confided in him he would have abandoned the idea that what he hadseen was phantasmal; for the pair of us could not very well have beendreaming. Some malignant presence haunted the ship; I could not doubtthis; yet I remained passive, sunk in a lethargy of sorrow.
We were scheduled to reach Port Said at about eight o'clock in theevening, but by reason of the delay occasioned so tragically, I learnedthat in all probability we should not arrive earlier than midnight,whilst passengers would not go ashore until the following morning.Karamaneh who had been staring ahead all day, seeking a first glimpseof her native land, was determined to remain up until the hour of ourarrival, but after dinner a notice was posted up that we should not bein before two A.M. Even those passengers who were the most enthusiasticthereupon determined to postpone, for a few hours, their first glimpseof the land of the Pharaohs and even to forego the sight--one of thestrangest and most interesting in the world--of Port Said by night.
For my own part, I confess that all the interest and hope with whichI had looked forward to our arrival, had left me, and often I detectedtears in the eyes of Karamaneh whereby I knew that the coldness in myheart had manifested itself even to her. I had sustained the greatestblow of my life, and not even the presence of so lovely a companioncould entirely recompense me for the loss of my dearest friend.
The lights on the Egyptian shore were faintly visible when the lastgroup of stragglers on deck broke up. I had long since prevailed uponKaramaneh to retire, and now, utterly sick at heart, I sought my ownstateroom, mechanically undressed, and turned in.
It may, or may not be singular that I had neglected all precautionssince the night of the tragedy; I was not even conscious of a desire tovisit retribution upon our hidden enemy; in some strange fashion I tookit for granted that there would be no further attempts upon Karamaneh,Aziz, or myself. I had not troubled to confirm Smith's surmiserespecting the closing of the portholes; but I know now for a fact that,whereas they had been closed from the time of our leaving the Straitsof Messina, to-night, in sight of the Egyptian coast, the regulation wasrelaxed again. I cannot say if this is usual, but that it occurred onthis ship is a fact to which I can testify--a fact to which my attentionwas to be drawn dramatically.
The night was steamingly hot, and because I welcomed the circumstancethat my own port was widely opened, I reflected that those on the lowerdecks might be open also. A faint sense of danger stirred within me;indeed, I sat upright and was about to spring out of my berth when thatoccurred which induced me to
change my mind.
All passengers had long since retired, and a midnight silence descendedupon the ship, for we were not yet close enough to port for any unusualactivities to have commenced.
Clearly outlined in the open porthole there suddenly arose that samegrotesque silhouette which I had seen once before.
Prompted by I know not what, I lay still and simulated heavy breathing;for it was evident to me that I must be partly visible to the watcher,so bright was the night. For ten--twenty--thirty seconds he studied mein absolute silence, that gaunt thing so like a mummy; and, with myeyes partly closed, I watched him, breathing heavily all the time. Then,making no more noise than a cat, he moved away across the deck, andI could judge of his height by the fact that his small, swathed headremained visible almost to the time that he passed to the end of thewhite boat which swung opposite my stateroom.
In a moment I slipped quietly to the floor, crossed, and peered outof the porthole; so that at last I had a clear view of the sinistermummy-man. He was crouching under the bow of the boat, and attachingto the white rails, below, a contrivance of a kind with which I wasnot entirely unfamiliar. This was a thin ladder of silken rope, havingbamboo rungs, with two metal hooks for attaching it to any suitableobject.
The one thus engaged was, as Karamaneh had declared, almost superhumanlythin. His loins were swathed in a sort of linen garment, and his headso bound about, turban fashion, that only his gleaming eyes remainedvisible. The bare limbs and body were of a dusky yellow color, and, atsight of him, I experienced a sudden nausea.
My pistol was in my cabin-trunk, and to have found it in the dark,without making a good deal of noise, would have been impossible.Doubting how I should act, I stood watching the man with the swathedhead whilst he threw the end of the ladder over the side, crept past thebow of the boat, and swung his gaunt body over the rail, exhibiting theagility of an ape. One quick glance fore and aft he gave, then began toswarm down the ladder: in which instant I knew his mission.
With a choking cry, which forced itself unwilled from my lips, I tore atthe door, threw it open, and sprang across the deck. Plans, I had none,and since I carried no instrument wherewith to sever the ladder, themurderer might indeed have carried out his design for all that I couldhave done to prevent him, were it not that another took a hand in thegame....
At the moment that the mummy-man--his head now on a level with thedeck--perceived me, he stopped dead. Coincident with his stopping, thecrack of a pistol shot sounded--from immediately beyond the boat.
Uttering a sort of sobbing sound, the creature fell--then clutched,with straining yellow fingers, at the rails, and, seemingly by dint ofa great effort, swarmed along aft some twenty feet, with incredibleswiftness and agility, and clambered onto the deck.
A second shot cracked sharply; and a voice (God! was I mad!) cried:"Hold him, Petrie!"
Rigid with fearful astonishment I stood, as out from the boat aboveme leaped a figure attired solely in shirt and trousers. The newcomerleaped away in the wake of the mummy-man--who had vanished around thecorner by the smoke-room. Over his shoulder he cried back at me:
"The bishop's stateroom! See that no one enters!"
I clutched at my head--which seemed to be fiery hot; I realized in myown person the sensation of one who knows himself mad.
For the man who pursued the mummy was Nayland Smith!
* * * * *
I stood in the bishop's state-room, Nayland Smith, his gaunt face wetwith perspiration, beside me, handling certain odd looking objects whichlittered the place, and lay about amid the discarded garments of theabsent cleric.
"Pneumatic pads!" he snapped. "The man was a walking air-cushion!" Hegingerly fingered two strange rubber appliances. "For distending thecheeks," he muttered, dropping them disgustedly on the floor. "His handsand wrists betrayed him, Petrie. He wore his cuff unusually long buthe could not entirely hide his bony wrists. To have watched him, whilstremaining myself unseen, was next to impossible; hence my deviceof tossing a dummy overboard, calculated to float for less than tenminutes! It actually floated nearly fifteen, as a matter of fact, and Ihad some horrible moments!"
"Smith!" I said--"how could you submit me..."
He clapped his hands on my shoulders.
"My dear old chap--there was no other way, believe me. From that boatI could see right into his stateroom, but, once in, I dare not leaveit--except late at night, stealthily! The second spotted me one nightand I thought the game was up, but evidently he didn't report it."
"But you might have confided..."
"Impossible! I'll admit I nearly fell to the temptation that firstnight; for I could see into your room as well as into his!" He slappedme boisterously on the back, but his gray eyes were suspiciously moist."Dear old Petrie! Thank God for our friends! But you'd be the first toadmit, old man, that you're a dead rotten actor! Your portrayal of grieffor the loss of a valued chum would not have convinced a soul on board!
"Therefore I made use of Stacey, whose callous attitude was lessremarkable. Gad, Petrie! I nearly bagged our man the first night!The elaborate plan--Marconi message to get you out of the way, and soforth--had miscarried, and he knew the porthole trick would be uselessonce we got into the open sea. He took a big chance. He discarded hisclerical guise and peeped into your room--you remember?--but you wereawake, and I made no move when he slipped back to his own cabin; Iwanted to take him red-handed."
"Have you any idea..."
"Who he is? No more than where he is! Probably some creature of Dr.Fu-Manchu specially chosen for the purpose; obviously a man of culture,and probably of thug ancestry. I hit him--in the shoulder; but even thenhe ran like a hare. We've searched the ship, without result. He may havegone overboard and chanced the swim to shore..."
We stepped out onto the deck. Around us was that unforgettablescene--Port Said by night. The ship was barely moving through the glassywater, now. Smith took my arm and we walked forward. Above us was themighty peace of Egypt's sky ablaze with splendor; around and about usmoved the unique turmoil of the clearing-house of the Near East.
"I would give much to know the real identity of the bishop of Damascus,"muttered Smith.
He stopped abruptly, snapping his teeth together and grasping my arm asin a vise. Hard upon his words had followed the rattling clangor as thegreat anchor was let go; but horribly intermingled with the metallicroar there came to us such a fearful, inarticulate shrieking as to chillone's heart.
The anchor plunged into the water of the harbor; the shrieking ceased.Smith turned to me, and his face was tragic in the light of the arc lampswung hard by.
"We shall never know," he whispered. "God forgive him--he must bein bloody tatters now. Petrie, the poor fool was hiding in thechainlocker!"
A little hand stole into mine. I turned quickly. Karamaneh stood besideme. I placed my arm about her shoulders, drawing her close; and I blushto relate that all else was forgotten.
For a moment, heedless of the fearful turmoil forward, Nayland Smithstood looking at us. Then he turned, with his rare smile, and walkedaft.
"Perhaps you're right, Petrie!" he said.
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