Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-01-16

Harut and Marut, apparently in search of
myself, seven thousand miles away from
any place whore they can have known
uuEht OF an insignificant individual with a
purely local repute. or It may have been
that the pictures which they showed Inc
when under the influence of the fumes of
their "tobacco'-or of their hypnotism-
took an undue possession Of my brain.
or lastly, the strange coincidence that
the beautiful betrothed OF my host should
have related to me n tale of her childhood
OF which she declared she had never spoken
before, and that within an hour the two
principal actors in that tale should have
appeared before my eyes and hers Cfor |
may state that from the beginning l had
no doubt that they We're the same men),
moved mo and filled me with quite natural
fOrebodng. or all these things together
may have tended to a concomitant effect.
At any rate the issue was that l could not
sleep.
For hour after hour l lay thinking and
In an rritated way listening for the
chimes Of the Ragnall stable clock which
once adorned the tower of the church and
struck the quarters with n damnable re-
iteration. ! concluded that ATessrs. Harut
and Marut were a couple of common Arab
rogues such as l had seen performing at
the African ports, Then q quarter struck
and / concluded that the elephants ceme-
terry which beheld In the smoke undoubted-
~ existed and that | meant to collar those
thousands Of pounds worth OF ivory before
l died, Then after another quarter 1 con-
cluded that there was no elephants ceme-
tery-although by the way my old friend
Dogeetah or Brother John, had mentioned
such a thing to me-but that probably
there was a tribe, as he had also mentioned,
called the kcndah who wprshped a baby
or rather It's ehlgy.
Well now. as had already occurred to me
the old Egyptians OF whom l was always
fond Of reading when / got n chance also
wOrshtped child, HoTus the Saviour And
that child had a mother called Isis. svn-
bolized In the crescent moon, the great
Nature goddess, the mistress of mysteries
TO whose cult ten thousand priests were
sworn-do not Herodotus ana others
especially Apuleius, tell us all about her?
And by queer coincidence Miss Holmes
had a mark Of n crescent moon upnn her
breast And when she was child those
Two men, or others very like them had
pointed out that mark to each other And
in her VapOr-iHyoked dream the 'IeayenIy
Child" alias Horus, or the double of Horus
the ka, think the Egyptians called H. had
awakened at the sight OF her and kissed
her and given her the necklace OF the god
dess, and all the rest, What did il mean ?
Went 10 sleep At last wondering what
on earth II could mean, till presently that
confounded clock woke me up again and /
must go through the whole business once
more.
IL L
came aware that an hope Of rest had van
ished from me utterly; that / was most
painfully awake, and what Is more. on
pressed by a curious fear TO the effect that
something was going 10 happen to Miss
Holmes. So vivid did this fear become
that at length ! arose Iii a candle and
dressed myself, As IL happened l knew
where Miss Holmes slept Her room. which
had seen her enter, was on the same cor
ridor as mine though at the other end OF
II near the head OF a stair that ran l knew
not whittier In my portmanteau that had
been sent over from Miss Mauuers's house
among other things, was a small double
barrelled pistol, which from long habit /
always carried with me loaded, except for
the caps that We're In a little leather case
with some spare ammunition attached to
the pistol belt i took 1t out capped it
and thrust IL into my pocket Then / Slip
ped from the room and stood behind tall
clock In the corridor, watching Miss
Holiness door and rejecting what a fool
should look IL any one CHANGED 10 find me.
Half an hour or so later, by the light OF
the setting moon which struggled through
a window / saw the door open and Miss
Holmes emerge wrapped in a kind OF dress
ing gown and stl wearing the necklace
which Harut and Marut had given her.
OF this 1 was sure. for the light cleaned
upon the red stones
Also. it shone upon her face and showed
me without doubt that she was walking
Ia her sleep.
Gliding silently as a ghost. she crossed
the corridor and vanished ] followed aud
saw that she had descended an ancient.
twisting stairway which / had noted ia ms
castle wall 1 went after her nay stock