“Lift him!” he hissed. “We must get him out—before she returns—you understand?—before she returns!”
Bending together, we raised the doctor’s inanimate body and half dragged, half carried him from the room. On the landing we laid him down and stood panting. A voice, clear and sweet, was speaking. I recognized neither the language nor the voice. But each liquid syllable thrilled me like an icy shock. I met Moris Klaw’s gaze, set upon me through the pince-nez.
“Do not listen, my friend!” he said.
Raising Fairbank, we dragged him into the first room we came to—and Klaw locked the door.
“Here we remain,” he rumbled, “until something has gone back where it came from!”
Fairbank lay motionless at our feet.
Presently came the rattling.
“It is the sistrum,” whispered Moris Klaw, “the sacred instrument of the Isis temples.”
The sound passed—and faded.
“Searles! Fairbank!”—it was Brearley’s voice, sobbingly intense—“do not touch her! Do not look at her!”
The study door crashed open and I heard his sandals pattering on the landing.
“Fairbank! Mr. Klaw! Good God! Answer me! Tell me you are safe!”
Moris Klaw unlocked the door.
Brearley, his face white as death and bathed in perspiration, stood outside. As Klaw appeared, he leapt forward, wild-eyed.
“Quick! Did any one——”
“Fairbank!” I said, huskily.
Brearley pushed into the room and turned on the light. Fairbank, very pale, lay propped against an armchair. Moris Klaw immediately dropped on his knee beside him and felt his heart.
“Ah, the good God! He is alive!” he whispered. “Get some water—no brandy, my friend—water. Then look to your sister!”
Brearley plunged his trembling hands into his hair and tugged at it distractedly.
“How was I to know!” he moaned, “how was I to know! There is water in the bottle, Mr. Klaw. Searles will come with me. I must look for Ailsa!”
A bizarre figure, in his linen robe, he ran off. Moris Klaw waved me to follow him.
The door of his sister’s room was closed.
He knocked, but there was no reply. He turned the knob and went in, whilst I waited in the corridor.
“Ailsa!” I heard him call, and again, “Ailsa!” then, following an interval, “Are you all right, dear?” he whispered.
“Oh, thank Heaven it is finished!” came a murmur in Ailsa Brearley’s soft voice. “It is finished, is it not?”
“Quite finished,” he answered.
“Just look at my hair!” she went on, with returning animation. “My head was so bad—I think that was why I took it down. Then I must have dropped off to sleep.”
“All right, dear,” said Brearley. “I want you to come downstairs; be as quick as you can.”
He rejoined me in the corridor.
“She was lying with her hair strewn all over the pillow!” he whispered, “and she had been burning something—ashes in the hearth——”
Ailsa came out. She seemed suddenly to observe her brother’s haggard face.
“Is there anything the matter?” she said, quickly. “Oh! has something dreadful happened?”
“No, dear,” he answered, reassuringly. “Only Doctor Fairbank was overcome——”
She turned very pale.
“He is not ill?”
“No. He became faint. You can come and see for yourself.”
Very quickly we all hurried downstairs. Moris Klaw, on his knees beside the doctor, was trying to force something between his clenched teeth. Ailsa, with a little cry, ran forward and knelt upon the other side of him.
“Ralph!” she whispered; “Ralph!”—and smoothed the hair back from his forehead.
He sighed deeply, and with an effort swallowed the draught which Klaw held to his lips. A moment later he opened his eyes, glaring wildly into Ailsa’s face.
“Ralph!” she said, brokenly.
Then, realizing how tenderly she had spoken—using his Christian name—she hung her graceful head in hot confusion. But he had heard her. And the wild light died from his eyes. He took both her hands in his own and held them fast; then, rather unsteadily, he stood up.
As his features came more fully into the light, we all saw that a small bruise discoloured his forehead, squarely between the brows.
Then Brearley, who had been back into the study, came running, crying:
“The papyrus! And my translation! Gone!”
I thought of the ashes in Ailsa Brearley’s room.
IV
“My friends,” rumbled Moris Klaw, impressively, “we are fortunate. We have passed through scorching fires unscathed!”
He applied himself with vigour to the operating of the scent spray.
“God forgive me!” said Brearley. “What did I do?”
“I will tell you, my friend,” replied Klaw; “you clothed a thought in the beautiful form which you knew as your sister! Ah! You stare! Ritual, my friends, is the soul of what the ignorant call magic. With the sacred incense, kyphi (yes, I detected it!), you invoked secret powers. Those powers, Mr. Brearley, were but thoughts. All such forces are thoughts.
“Thoughts are things—and you gathered together in this house, by that ancient formula, a thought thing created by generations of worshippers who have worshipped the moon!
“The light that we saw was only the moonlight, the sounds that we heard were thought-sounds. But so powerful was this mighty thought-force, this centuries-old power which you loosed upon us, that it drove out Miss Ailsa’s own thoughts from her mind, bringing what she mistook for sleep; and it implanted itself there!
“She was transformed by that mighty power which for a time dwelled within her. She was as powerful, as awful, as a goddess! None might look upon her and be sane. Hypnotism has similarities with the ancient science of thought—yes! Suggestion is the secret of all so-called occult phenomena!”
With his eyes gleaming oddly, he stepped forward, resting his long white hands upon Fairbank’s shoulders.
“Doctor,” he rumbled, “you have a bruise on your forehead.”
“Have I?” said Fairbank, in surprise. “I hadn’t noticed it.”
“Because it is not a physical bruise; it is a mental bruise, physically reflected! Nearly were you slain, my friend—oh, so nearly! But another force—as great as the force of ancient thought—weakened the blow. Doctor Fairbank, it is fortunate that Miss Ailsa loves you!”
His frank words startled us all.
“Look well at the shape of this little bruise, my friends,” continued Moris Klaw. “Mr. Brearley—it is a shape that will be familiar to you. See! it is thus.” He drew an imaginary outline with his long forefinger—
“And that is the sign of Isis!”
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Alterations to the text:
Abandon the use of drop-caps.
Punctuation: fix a few quotation mark pairings/nestings and missing periods.
[First Episode]
Change “I waited for no further explanatians, but, hastily” to explanations.
“her voice, her entire person, as certainly charming—to” to was.
[Third Episode]
“tell him all we know about the ax of ‘Black Goeffrey.’ ” to Geoffrey.
“In the blidness of his anger, Heidelberger failed” to blindness.
[Fourth Episode]
“We were all star ng at Moris Klaw, spellbound with” to staring.
[Fifth Episode]
“He was accompanied by Sir John Carron, Mr. Gautami Chini” to Chinje.
“he removed his coat and waitscoat and threw them upon the table” to waistcoat.
[Sixth Episode]
“Having re-fastened the door, we laid him on a sofa” to refastened.
“the pistol he carred as he rose slowly to his feet” to carried.
(“Curari!” he said, horasely, “the ancient arrow poison) to hoarsely.
[Tenth Episode]
“that one in physics would receive f om you, Fairbank?” to from.
“Whatver happens make no noise.” to Whatever.
“As Klaw appeared, he leapt forward, wild eyed” to wild-eyed.
[End of text]