A few of the curious among the gossips went to see the house the Princess had lately occupied, where she had “received” society and managed to shock it as well. It was shut up, and looked as if it had not been inhabited for years. And the gossips said it was “strange, very strange!” and confessed themselves utterly mystified. But the fact remained that Gervase had disappeared and the Princess Ziska with him. “However,” said Society, “they can’t possibly hide themselves for long. Two such remarkable personalities are bound to appear again somewhere. I daresay we shall come across them in Paris or on the Riviera. The world is much too small for the holding of a secret.”
And presently, with the approach of spring, and the gradual break-up of the Cairo “season,” Denzil Murray and his sister sailed from Alexandria en route for Venice. Dr. Dean accompanied them; so did the Fulkewards and Ross Courtney. The Chetwynd-Lyles went by a different steamer, “old” Lady Fulkeward being quite too much for the patience of those sweet but still unengaged “girls” Muriel and Dolly. One night when the great ship was speeding swiftly over a calm sea, and Denzil, lost in sorrowful meditation, was gazing out over the trackless ocean with pained and passionate eyes which could see nothing but the witching and exquisite beauty of the Princess Ziska, now possessed and enjoyed by Gervase, Dr. Dean touched him on the arm and said:
“Denzil, have you ever read Shakespeare?”
Denzil started and forced a smile.
“Why, yes, of course!”
“Then you know the lines—
‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy?’
The Princess Ziska was one of those ‘things.’”
Denzil regarded him in wonderment.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, of course, you will think me insane,” said the Doctor, resignedly. “People always take refuge in thinking that those who tell them uncomfortable truths are lunatics. You’ve heard me talk of ghosts?—ghosts that walk and move about us like human beings?—and they are generally very brilliant and clever impersonations of humanity, too—and that nevertheless are not human?”
Denzil assented.
“The Princess Ziska was a ghost!” concluded the Doctor, folding his arms very tightly across his chest and nodding defiantly.
“Nonsense!” cried Denzil. “You are mad!”
“Precisely the remark I thought you would make!” and Dr. Dean unfolded his arms again and smiled triumphantly. “Therefore, my dear boy, let us for the future avoid this subject. I know what I know; I can distinguish phantoms from reality, and I am not deceived by appearances. But the world prefers ignorance to knowledge, and even so let it be. Next time I meet a ghost I’ll keep my own counsel!” He paused a moment,—then added: “You remember I told you I was hunting down that warrior of old time, Araxes?”
Denzil nodded, a trifle impatiently.
“Well,” resumed the Doctor slowly,—“Before we left Egypt I found him! But how I found him, and where, is my secret!”
* * * *
* * * *
* * * *
Society still speaks occasionally of Armand Gervase, and wonders in its feeble way when he will be “tired” of the Egyptian beauty he ran away with, or she of him. Society never thinks very far or cares very much for anything long, but it does certainly expect to see the once famous French artist “turn up” suddenly, either in his old quarters in Paris, or in one or the other of the fashionable resorts of the Riviera. That he should be dead has never occurred to anyone, except perhaps Dr. Maxwell Dean. But Dr. Dean has grown extremely reticent—almost surly; and never answers any questions concerning his Scientific Theory of Ghosts, a work which, when published, created a great deal of excitement, owing to its singularity and novelty of treatment. There was the usual “hee-hawing” from the donkeys in the literary pasture, who fondly imagined their brayings deserved to be considered in the light of serious opinion;—and then after a while the book fell into the hands of scientists only,—men who are beginning to understand the discretion of silence, and to hold their tongues as closely as the Egyptian priests of old did, aware that the great majority of men are never ripe for knowledge. Quite lately Dr. Dean attended two weddings,—one being that of “old” Lady Fulkeward, who has married a very pretty young fellow of five-and-twenty, whose dearest consideration in life is the shape of his shirt-collar; the other, that of Denzil Murray, who has wedded the perfectly well-born, well-bred and virtuous, if somewhat cold-blooded, daughter of his next-door neighbor in the Highlands. Concerning his Egyptian experience he never speaks,—he lives the ordinary life of the Scottish land-owner, looking after his tenantry, considering the crops, preserving the game, and clearing fallen timber;—and if the glowing face of the beautiful Ziska ever floats before his memory, it is only in a vague dream from which he quickly rouses himself with a troubled sigh. His sister Helen has never married. Lord Fulkeward proposed to her but was gently rejected, whereupon the disconsolate young nobleman took a journey to the States and married the daughter of a millionaire oil-merchant instead. Sir Chetwynd Lyle and his pig-faced spouse still thrive and grow fat on the proceeds of the Daily Dial, and there is faint hope that one of their “girls” will wed an aspiring journalist,—a bold adventurer who wants “a share in the paper” somehow, even if he has to marry Muriel or Dolly in order to get it. Ross Courtney is the only man of the party once assembled at the Gezireh Palace Hotel who still goes to Cairo every winter, fascinated thither by an annually recurring dim notion that he may “discover traces” of the lost Armand Gervase and the Princess Ziska. And he frequently accompanies the numerous sight-seers who season after season drive from Cairo to the Pyramids, and take pleasure in staring at the Sphinx with all the impertinence common to pigmies when contemplating greatness. But more riddles than that of the Sphinx are lost in the depths of the sandy desert; and more unsolved problems lie in the recesses of the past than even the restless and inquiring spirit of modern times will ever discover;—and if it should ever chance that in days to come, the secret of the movable floor of the Great Pyramid should be found, and the lost treasures of Egypt brought to light, there will probably be much discussion and marvel concerning the Golden Tomb of Araxes. For the hieroglyphs on the jewelled sarcophagus speak of him thus and say:—
“Araxes was a Man of Might, far exceeding in Strength and Beauty the common sons of men. Great in War, Invincible in Love, he did Excel in Deeds of Courage and of Conquest,—and for whatsoever Sins he did in the secret Weakness of humanity commit, the Gods must judge him. But in all that may befit a Warrior, Amenhotep The King doth give him honor,—and to the Spirits of Darkness and of Light his Soul is here commended to its Rest.”
Thus much of the fierce dead hero of old time,—but of the mouldering corpse that lies on the golden floor of the same tomb, its skeleton hand touching, almost grasping, the sword of Araxes, what shall be said? Nothing—since the Old and the New, the Past and the Present, are but as one moment in the countings of eternity, and even with a late repentance Love pardons all.
FINIS.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
The edition published by Arrowsmith (Bristol, 1897) was referenced for most of the fixes listed below.
Alterations to the text:
[CHAPTER I]
Change “fine,—occcasionally classic,—but intelligent” to occasionally.
“And that reminds me, there is at fellow arrived” to a.
“I hate, pale-blue eyes. I prefer soft...” delete comma.
“But this large, soft and silvery, was like” to laugh.
[CHAPTER II]
“a trifle, I assure you?” change question mark to exclamation mark.
“met in one flash of mutual comprehension! then, as the...” change exclamation mark to a semicolon.
[CHAPTER III]
“come and find me in the upper-room” to supper-room.
[CHAPTER V]
“My dear Ross you know how dull they are!” add comma after Ross.
“Courtney look at him puzzled and baffled.” to looked.
[CHAPTER VI]
“and has resided there every since” to ever.
“It is an enigma as profound as that of the sphinx” to Sphinx.
“poignard clasped in in her right hand” delete one in.
“addressing his unfascinating object with apparent indifference” to this.
[CHAPTER VII]
“You are an uprincipled man, Armand” to unprincipled.
(“You believe in Death?” ask the Princess) to asked.
[CHAPTER VIII]
“Beside, there’s something rather strange” to Besides.
[CHAPTER X]
“A la campagne—le desert—les pyramides!” to À.
“has gone to secures rooms at the Mena House Hotel” to secure.
“as though it were an after thought” to afterthought.
[CHAPTER XI]
“she semed to float lazily like a creature” to seemed.
“to pretend to be shocked at the proceeding” to proceedings.
[CHAPTER XII]
“reviewed the emotions of the past night and tired to analyze them” to tried.
[CHAPTER XIII]
“Gervase move aside with him” to moved.
[CHAPTER XIV]
“Your ‘passion,’ you see, my friend awakens” add comma after friend.
(“Ah, there is the difficulty!” she said.) Merge with the paragraph that follows.
“like a Cleopatra, on any other old-world enchantress” to or.
[CHAPTER XV]
“his arms was suddenly seized and pinioned” to were.
[CHAPTER XVI]
“Vainly Denzil Marray waited next morning” to Murray.