Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1885-08-06
THE PRIESTS HAND.
"A Preside Vision of Ancient Egypt and
Her solemn Myster

n VISION OF Ancient fSEypt ana
Her solemn Mysteries.
The house stood at some distance
from the city, and its chief pride was
its library. Besides the usual number
OF historical.and biographical works of
such collections, and the ordinary
amount OF the best grade of fiction, it
contained many old and exceedingly
rare works. Black-lettcr volumes, and
manuscripts closely written in quaint,
outiandish symbols of for
gotten tongues-or covered with hero
glyphics wholly uninteligible to any
but the eruditc antiquarian, were there.
But the most curious thing, and the
one apparently least suited for library.
was the hand and part of the forearm
OF a mummy, which had occupied q
small table in one corner of the room
ever since Col. Midway returned from
Egypt He had the good fortune to
come upon it one day by accident while
exploring the great pyramid of Cheops,
and, thinking doubtless that of this
great world-legacy of by-gone King
or line of Kings and dynasties he
ought to possess some share, he had
taken the hand, brought it home with
him, and made it place in his fayorite
room-his library
To his niece, Miss Maude Miway.
however, it had not the same interest.
In fact she regarded it with a mingled
feeling of doubt and actual fear, and as
she sat, on coo afternoon ia the au-
tumu, before tao low-burnng CRATE.
dividing her time between an open
book lying on her lap and the fancies
to which 1t gave rise, the dry, tawny
thing would occasionally intrudc Itself
upon her sight, witiic the faint aroma
which it always emitted gave it an at
traction as mystical and unpleasant as
it was subtle.
She had been reading long time.
The volume selected Glanced to be
translation Of an old German work, full
OF those wild theories and sombre
specuiatlons TO which the German mind
Is so prone, and with which their meta
physical and religious works of a cent
ury ago were filled. Her thoughts were
so engrosscd and her mind so complete
ly filled with the new and vaguely
startling suggestions she had been read
ing that she was not conscious that the
day was nearly gone. Long, slanting
bars OF yellow sunlight fell through the
western window, flooding the open
page and giving the old, crooked let
tiers and iaboriously- words a
new and mystic meaning. A single
riy. cut or from its fellows by sway
H.. tree just outside the window, crept
s,uWly from the floor UP The dark wall,
toward ihc Dlown, dry hand. The au-
iuGn Wiud sWc.lrd and rushed among
Toe rapidly leaves; the boughs
:" }rd 10 and irO, and ut each undula-
ton the rift of yellow gold shifted.
Suddenly it rested upon The thin fingers
o, the hand.
II could not be that They moved.
She shivcrcl slightly, then looked
again in u kind of fascination. Miss
Midway was neither nervous nor timid;
still She could not Shake oil the strange
sensation which, ike an icy chill, had
gradually stolen over Ter us She sat in
his scm!-waking mood. She rose.
drew Il warm cushioned Chair nearer to
the CRATE, and resumed her book; but
the flint. subtle odor haunted her, an
ever and anon her eyes wandered from
the pages before her and sought the
Hand. Outside, the breeze died away
AMI the slowly-rising sunbeam rested
full upon the dreadful relic. Again she
started. Did the weird fingers move?
Rising once more she walked to the
stand, and taking the mysterious thing
within her hand went back to her seat,
hoping by this bold measure to over
come the fascination she felt creeping
into brain and heart. BAIL After all
it was but a bit of old mummy, dry
and hard, the fingers stiff and shr.vcl-
cd.
The hand of a dead man?
Well, yes; but death had come forty
centuries ago! 1t was absurd to as
sociate anything human with that
parchment bundle. And yet, and yet
The was a man-who knows? Per-
chance those twisted fingers once urged
the punging Steeds of some great war
chariot against the foes of Egypt or
held the sword that smotc the hostile
ranks and brought new nations to bow
in alteration before the shrines of
Egypts gods! Was he young and fair?
Did he lay his palms of victory at the
feet of some dark-eyed girl? Did that
now withered hand, fresh from the
battlefield, take the poetic reed to in
dite sweet verses to the woman whom
he loved? Did she love him perchance?
Or was this the hand of some stern
warrior priest or that of the superb son
of some mighty Pharaoh. band that
humber men were proud to kiss in awe
and reverence?
Some woman's loving lips perhaps
:. o, horrori Kiss those wrinkled
claws! Maud shrank back, and the
Hand, rolling from her lap across the
open book, fell amid the smoldering
coals
In stupor she heard cracking
sound and dimly saw little jets of dense,
blue smoke shoot out from under and
around the horrible object, but the
room was filled with the bewildering,
overpowering odor of burning bitumen
and intoxicating spices that every dim
thought was colored and tinged by the
mystery, fascination, and passion of the
Orient. The rustling of the breeze
sounded like soft music which she had
heard in some past life, in some more
elevated sphere, not to be remembered
nor wholly forgotten. Its whispered
secrets were audible and almost intel
ligible. Upon the wall the amber
streams of sunshine suddenly grew
darker; the air became sitting for a
moment; then with a long, sweeping
sense of dim regret she lapscd into
shadow-land.
A sense of rapid, easy transition in
her mind was finally broken by return
ing consciousness Like one awaken
ing from long dream, she could not
tell where the unreal ended and the
real began.
She found herself sitting by river,
the very sight of which thrilled her
with awe for she could not but know
from its majestic flow and from the
scene that stretched away that she was
looking upon that wondrous stream
whose unknown fountains, whose rise
and fall, and whose mysteries are still
as vague, rs fascinating. and as awe
inspiring as the secrets of the birth of
Time ITSELF
Between low, Hat banks whose grad
ual slope bent away till it touched the
sky in monotonous horizon, flowed
the mighty current. Its course across
the desert sands was as far as the eve
could follow it. marked by rows of
palms, rising above the low growth of
rank, tropical vegetation. In the dis
tance cleaned the many towers and