"Then, of course we will go," said Oscarovitch, opening the door and going to the telegraph.

The yacht came to a standstill in a few minutes, and the gig was waiting at the foot of the gangway ladder. They spent a very pleasant hour ashore, and what they saw, you may read of in your Murray and Baedeker, wherefore there is no need to set it down here. When they came aboard again, lunch was almost ready, and the steward presented his master and the Professor with quite exceptional cocktails in the smoking-room. Then they went and had a wash, and the mellow gong sounded.

I am not very fond of those descriptions in stories which read like extracts from an upholsterer's price-list, nor yet those accounts of meals that, after all, are only menus writ large, so it may suffice to say that the saloon of the Grashna was an arrangement of sandal-wood panels, framed in thin silver filigree, and hung with exquisite little masterpieces in water-colour, and black and white, and crayon, mostly sea-scapes, with here and there a beautiful head with living eyes which followed you everywhere; that the rich yellow of the panels was enhanced by portieres and curtains of deep golden-bronze silk, and that the domed ceiling was of pale, sky-blue enamel spangled with the constellations of the northern heavens, which at night lit up the whole saloon with a soft electric radiance. As for the lunch, it was as nearly perfect as the best-paid chef afloat could make it, after his master had asked him as a personal favour to do so.

They ran back quietly to Copenhagen at twenty knots, and Oscarovitch and the Professor went ashore to send off a few telegrams, leaving Nitocris, for her own reasons, to make herself at home on the yacht. They returned in time to dress for dinner and enjoy a stroll on the broad upper deck, and watch the sunset over the town and the quickly-increasing sparkle of the myriad lights on shore and sea. When they came up after dinner, these lights were only represented by a luminous haze glimmering under the stars to the northward. The Grashna was heading nearly due south at an easy speed towards the Baltic Islands.

Something told both Nitocris and her father that the decisive hour would come soon, and they were both prepared for its advent.



CHAPTER XXIII

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE PROFESSOR

The Prince and the Professor sat up in the smoking-room for a considerable time after Nitocris had retired. Oscarovitch was doing his utmost to persuade his guest to revoke his decision as to the creation of the aerial warships. Franklin Marmion's simple announcement, which he never thought for a moment of disbelieving, had filled his mind with new ideas, which were rapidly taking the shape of gorgeous dreams of an empire such as mortal man had never ruled over before. All his present designs faded away into mere trivialities in comparison with this splendid conception. He pictured Nitocris, as his consort, Empress of the air, and himself Lord of earth and sea and sky. But all his subtle arguments, all his delicately-put suggestions, and his skilfully framed promises failed to produce the slightest effect upon the genially inflexible man, who quietly turned them all aside, as a grown man might deal with the arguments of a boy.

The thought that this man who was lying back in his deep-seated armchair, holding a cigar in a white, delicately-shaped hand which was strong enough to shake the world to its foundations, should possess such a tremendous power and yet refuse to use it, as quietly as he might have declined an invitation to dinner, exasperated him almost beyond the bounds of patience. If he would only join forces with him what glories might they not achieve, what splendours of power and possession might not be theirs! Here was universal empire, in one sense, only a couple of yards away from him! In another it was more distant than the suns which flame in Space beyond the Milky Way. It was maddening, but it was true, and he knew the man well enough now to feel absolutely assured that no extremity of mental or physical torment would wring the priceless secret from him.

Well, if it had to be, it must be. If he could not learn the secret, at least no one else should. Before morning it would be buried for ever under the waters of the Baltic, and he would revenge himself on the daughter for that which the father refused to do. If Franklin Marmion would not give him the sceptre of the World-Empire, then Nitocris should be his wife and Empress if she would, and if not, his slave and plaything, as he had sworn to Phadrig the Egyptian. The fortress-castle of Oscarburg, on the lonely wooded shore of Viborg Bay, had kept many a secret safely before now, and it would keep this one. Every retainer in the Castle, every man, woman, and child on the estates for leagues around, was his, body and soul, as their fathers before them had been the blind, unquestioning serfs of his fathers. There his word was law, and his will was fate. There was no "liberty" within his domains, since no man wanted it, or would have understood it had it been given to him.

When their argument was over they parted, apparently the best of friends. Franklin Marmion went to bed calmly curious as to what was going to happen, and Oscarovitch paid a visit to his captain.

A little after three that morning he opened the door of the Professor's state-room very gently and looked in. The room was dark, and he listened. A soft, just audible sound of breathing came from the bed. It was the breathing of a man fast asleep. He pressed the spring of his electric lamp, and turned the thin ray on to the water-bottle in the rack over the wash-stand. It was half-empty, and a glass stood on the table in the middle of the room. Then the ray fell on the face of the sleeping man. It was as Prince Zastrow's face had been the last night he went to sleep in the Castle of Trelitz—rather the face of a corpse than that of a living man. His captain stood behind him, and he turned and whispered:

"He is ready. Are the men below?"

"All, Highness, save Grovno at the wheel and Hartog on the look-out. They will see nothing, as they did before," came the whispered reply.

"Very well, then. You and I can manage this between us. You have the line?"

The captain nodded, and they went into the room, softly closing the door. In a few minutes they came out again, carrying between them a long bundle of blankets lashed from end to end with thin line. They took it aft along the alloway and out on to the lower deck by the stern. Two iron doors of a port used for coaling stood open on the starboard side. On the deck lay a couple of pigs of iron lashed together. These the captain made fast to one end of the bundle and lifted them towards the port. Oscarovitch took hold of the other end. They lifted it. The weights dropped outside the port, and the bundle followed them. The captain started up, clasped his hands to his forehead, and said in a gasping whisper:

"Holy God, Highness, what have we done?"

"What do you mean, Derevskin? You have obeyed my orders; that is all. Is it not enough for you?"

"Yes, Highness—but who or what was that man? Was he really a man?"

"Are you mad, Derevskin?"

"No, Highness, I hope not: but did you hear—or, rather, did you not hear?"

"What, you fool?"

"He—it—the body—it made no splash when it touched the water!"

The stammered words struck Oscarovitch like so many puffs of frozen air. No, the body of Franklin Marmion had made no splash. It had vanished through the port into silence. That was all. He beat back his own terror with the exertion of all his will-power, and said in a sneering whisper:

"Derevskin, you are either mad or drunk; but I will forgive you this time because you have obeyed. Go to bed, and don't forget to be either sober or sane when I come on deck."

The captain bowed his head, and went forward with shambling steps and shaking limbs. Oscarovitch closed the port with hands which all his force could not keep steady, and betook himself to bed, to lie awake for the rest of the short summer night wondering vainly what really had happened.

He had had his bath and dressed soon after six, and went on deck. The captain was on the bridge, and he joined him.

"Good morning, Derevskin!"

"I have the honour to wish Your Highness good morning!"

"Nothing happened during the night worth reporting, I suppose?"

"No, Highness, nothing."

"Very good: but I have slept badly, and you look as if you had been on the bridge all night. Perhaps it is necessary among all these islands, and I am pleased that you are so watchful, especially as I have guests on board. Come down to your room now and send your steward for a bottle. It will do neither of us any harm."

There was a somewhat lengthy conversation over this early breakfast of champagne and biscuits after the door had been closed and locked, and when it was finished, Oscarovitch and his captain understood each other as completely as was necessary.

An hour later he saw Nitocris walking about the upper deck looking pale and anxious. He went to her and said in a tone which intentionally betrayed his own nervousness:

"Good morning, Miss Marmion! Have you seen anything of the Professor?"

"No, Prince, I have not. I went to his room just now and knocked. There was no reply and I opened the door. The room was empty, but he had evidently been to bed. Is he not on deck?"

"No, Miss Marmion, he is not. He said last night that he would like his bath about six, and the steward I sent to valet him went to his room and found it as you say. I have had the ship searched high and low, and from stem to stern, and there is no sign of him. I have had every one questioned, and no one has seen anything of him since last night."

"Oh, my poor, poor Dad, I have lost him! Yes, I suppose it must have been that. He has walked overboard."

"Walked overboard, Miss Marmion?"

"Yes, yes, it must be that. Prince Oscarovitch, my father, like most very clever men, had one dangerous failing. He walked in his sleep and did things unconsciously. That was why he told you about the ghost at 'The Wilderness' just as though he really had seen it. Yes, he must have got up in the night and come on deck, and walked overboard, and so I have lost the best friend I ever had, or shall have. You must excuse me, Prince. I must go to my room. The very sunlight seems horrible now. Jenny will look after me. Good morning!"

Her face was white and her eyes were staring at nothing. She spoke with a horrible, stony calm which, crime-hardened as he was, sent a thrilling shiver through his nerves. A spasm of remorse shook him; then his self-control came back, and he offered her his arm in silence. He led her down to the saloon, and gave her into Jenny's charge. Then he went on deck again, lit a cigar, and proceeded to congratulate himself on the great good fortune which had, from his point of view at least, so happily explained away the disappearance of Franklin Marmion.



CHAPTER XXIV

THE LUST THAT WAS—AND IS

Nitocris kept her room until nearly seven the following evening. Oscarovitch made frequent enquiries of Jenny as to her condition, and always received the same reply. Her mistress was in a semi-unconscious state, and she could only rouse her every now and then to take a little nourishment. Unfortunately there was no doctor on board. He had had news in Copenhagen that his mother was lying very ill at Hamburg, and, as the cruise was then intended to be only a very short one, he had been given leave to go to her.

The Prince wished to go back to Copenhagen, but this Nitocris absolutely refused. She had determined to fight her sorrow alone, and when she had conquered it, she would go back to England and her friends—which was exactly what Oscarovitch had determined she should not do. She was absolutely at his mercy now. He would be something worse than a fool to let such a golden opportunity go by—and so the Grashna's bowsprit was kept pointing eastward, and the leagues between her and Oscarburg were being flung behind her as fast as the whirling screws could devour them.

The only question that he had to ask himself was: How? and to that an easy answer at once suggested itself: The Horus Stone.

When he went down to what he expected would be a lonely dinner, he was more than agreeably surprised to find Nitocris dressed in a black evening costume, which was the nearest approach to mourning that her available wardrobe made possible, already in the saloon.

He bowed to her with a gesture of reverence, which meant far more than mere formal politeness, and said in a low tone:

"Miss Marmion, I need not say how pleased I am to find that you are able to leave your room. May I hope that you will be able to dine?"

"Yes, Prince," she replied, in the same cold, mechanical voice in which she had answered the tidings of her father's death. "The worst is over now, I hope. Some time and some way we must all leave the world and, at least, there is the consolation that my father has left it perhaps a little better and a little wiser than he found it. That, I think is as much as the ordinary mortal may be permitted to hope for. We who hold the Doctrine do not sorrow for the dead: we only sorrow for ourselves who are left to wait until we may, perhaps, meet again."

"The Doctrine, Miss Marmion?" he asked, as he placed a chair for her at his right hand. "May I ask what the Doctrine is?"

"Of re-incarnation," she replied, sitting down and looking at him across the corner of the table.

"Really? I most sincerely wish that I could believe in it. Mr Amena, whom I took the great liberty of bringing to your garden-party, a man of very remarkable powers, as you saw, holds the Doctrine, as you call it, and he has been trying for months to convert me to it; but, as I said going to Elsinore, I'm afraid I am too hopelessly materialistic for any conversion to be possible in my case, at least as far as my present experiences have gone."

"As the belief so must be the faith," she said with a grave smile. "It is no more possible to have true faith when you do not really believe than it is to be hungry when you have not got an appetite. That is quite a material simile; but I think it is true."

"Absolutely true!" he replied, looking at her again with a note of interrogation in each eye. "But, really, these things are too deep for me, a mere human animal. And now, talking about appetite, here comes the soup."

The dinner a deux was just what he had intended it to be, simple and yet perfect in every detail. The subject of Franklin Marmion's departure from the world was, as if by mutual consent, dropped. Oscarovitch comforted such conscience as he had by trying to believe that what Nitocris had said about her belief in the Doctrine was to her really true. He also honestly believed that she had faced her great sorrow in solitude, and overcome it in the strength of that belief. Their conversation turned easily away to other topics, and by the time that coffee was brought in and he had obtained her permission to light a cigarette, his beautiful guest appeared to have left the recent past behind her, for the time being at least, and was almost as she had been during the run up to Elsinore.

Her manner was that of complete composure, and it is hardly necessary to say that this mastery of her emotion forced him to a degree of admiration, almost of worship, which the physical charm that appealed only to his animal senses could never have inspired. Here, truly, was the ideal Empress of the Russias and the East sitting almost beside him. And now the psychological moment had come!

"Will you excuse me for a couple of minutes, Miss Marmion?" he asked, as he finished his coffee and rose from his chair. "Going back to what you were saying about re-incarnation: I have something in my room which I hope may interest you. I got it from my friend, the miracle-worker. He told me a long story about it that I don't want to trouble you with: but the thing in itself is quite worth seeing. At least, I never saw anything like it before."

"Then please let me see it," she replied, assenting with an inclination of her head. "If that is so it must be, as you say, well worth seeing."

He went to his room and came back with a large square morocco case in his hand. He gave it to her, and said:

"Do me the favour to open it, and tell me what you think of it."

She touched the spring and the cover flew up. She half-expected what she saw. There, lying in a nest of soft black velvet, encircled by a triple halo of whitely gleaming diamonds, was the Horus Stone. In an instant she travelled back through fifty centuries to the scene of the death-bridal of her other self, Nitocris the Queen, in the banqueting-hall of the Palace of Pepi. Then it had lain gleaming on her breast, and now she saw it again with the eyes of flesh, after nearly five thousand years. Now, too, she grasped in all the fullness of its evil meaning the reason why Oscarovitch had brought it to her in such an hour as this. With utter contempt in her soul and a smile on her lips, she leaned back in her chair and said in a voice which had a note of ecstasy in it:

"Oh, Prince, how lovely! What a glorious gem! The diamonds are, of course, splendid, but they are only a setting for the emerald. What a magnificent stone! Rich as you are, you are very fortunate to be the possessor of such a treasure—for treasure it surely must be."

"It is, as you say, a magnificent stone," he replied, looking steadily into her questioning eyes. "But if what Amena told me was true, it is something more than a unique gem. There is an inscription on it, some characters carved in the stone which are, as he said, the history of it, but to me they are as unintelligible as the Assyrian cuneiform would be. Possibly you may know something of them. If you do, here is a lens that will help your sight."

She took the glass from him and bent down over the gem. She read the sacred symbol of the Trinity as she had read it and known it ages before. But while she was gazing at it, she also read the intent of the man who had given it into her hands. She put the lens aside, and, laying her palms on her temples, she looked deep down into the luminous depths of the great emerald in a silence which Oscarovitch interpreted into such meaning as he was able to make for himself.

Minute after minute passed in silence, and still her eyes were fixed upon the Stone. Her face became like that of a beautiful masterpiece of Phidias: pure, cold, and true. A feeling of something like awe crept over him as he watched her, and he found himself asking whether, after all, Phadrig's story might have been true. But, true or not, there was the fascination which, as Phadrig had told him, had lured Isaac Josephus to his self-inflicted doom. Her eyes were chained to the gem: her face was no longer that of a living woman dominated by her own will. After all his disbelief, there was an enchantment in the Stone, for here, even she, Nitocris, had succumbed to it.

He sat and waited for a few minutes longer. If there is magic in the Stone, let it work, he thought; and so he sat and watched her until he saw that the fixed stare of her eyes and the rigidity of her now perfectly statuesque face convinced him that the magic of the Stone had, as Phadrig had told him, made him the possessor of it, absolute master of the man or woman who had gazed upon its fatal beauty.

Then he got up and, reaching over her shoulders, took up the diamond chain, glistening under the soft light of the starry dome of the saloon, shook it out into a flood of white radiance, lifted it above her head, and let it fall very gently round her neck. The Horus Stone, as though endowed with sentience, fell and rested where it had rested five thousand years before. As it touched her flesh Nitocris felt a tremor of indescribable emotion, not only of the body but of the soul, pass through her. She leaned back in her chair again, and whispered:

"Is it really mine now, Prince? But no! How could I take it from you—I who can give nothing in exchange for such a treasure? No, no, you must take it back. I am not worthy to wear it."

He laid his hands gently on her arms, and said in a soft, murmuring tone which sounded like the purring of a tiger-cat:

"Nitocris, if all the choicest gems in all the world could be put into a crucible and fused into one, all its splendour would still be unworthy to lie on that white breast of yours. Give me your love, Nitocris. I am hungering and thirsting for it. Come with me to Oscarburg, and you shall be crowned Princess—and after that Empress—Empress of the Russias and the East. I will give you a dominion such as the great Catherine never dared to dream of. Say yes, and in a month you shall be seated on her throne. It is only a little word, dearest, only a little word—will you not say it, and be my Princess, my Queen, my Empress?"

"I am tired now, Oscar," she said wearily, "so much has happened in so short a time. Yes, I will, if it is possible: but let me go now. No, you must not kiss me yet. Remember that Russian saying, 'Take thy thoughts to bed with thee, for the morning is wiser than the evening.' Good-night, Oscar, I am very tired. You shall have your answer in the morning. May I take this with me?"

"Yes," he replied, giving her his hand as she rose from her chair, and bowing over hers until his lips touched it. "Take it, unworthy as it is, as an earnest of the realisation of the happy dreams that will come to me to-night. Au revoir, pas adieu!"

"Auf viedersehn, mein Oscar!" she replied as she passed him, leaving the sensation of a gentle flutter of her hand in his. "We shall understand each other better still before long—I hope."

"It is my dearest wish. Good-night, Nitocris, and when the dawn comes may it find nothing but sunshine in that sweet soul of yours!"

Nitocris went to her room and found her maid waiting, white-faced and anxious. She was frightened and nearly worn out with caring for her mistress. She would have been very glad to have been back that very night at "The Wilderness," even if it had lost its master.

"Go to bed at once, Jenny; you look like a ghost, as you may well do after all the trouble I've given you. No, I don't really want you, and you want sleep rather badly. Go to bed, like a good girl. It will not be the first time that I have undressed myself."

And when Jenny had gone and she had locked the door, Nitocris stripped herself, save for the collar of diamonds and the pendant Horus Stone. She took a long veil of Indian muslin out of her dress-box and wound it round her after the fashion of old Egypt, leaving her left breast bare. Only the Ureaus Crown was wanting to make her, in the flesh, Nitocris the Queen: but here on her bosom flashed and flamed the Horus Stone—hers once again, as it had been in the far-off past, symbol of her sovereignty, and proof of her faith in the one true Doctrine.

She looked at the lovely reflection in the long mirror behind her dressing-table, and said to herself in a low, whispering laugh:

"This for you, Oscar Oscarovitch that is, Menkau-Ra who was! Yes, you may dream your pleasant dreams to-night; you may take me to your lonely castle in Viborg Bay; you may make me marry you, as you think I shall—and here is my wedding gift—mine again after all these ages—blessed be for ever the Holy Trinity, Osiris, Isis, and Horus. May the Most High Gods help and protect me!"

She raised the Sacred Stone to her lips as she spoke, turned off the light, and lay down in her bed to dream dreams of forgotten ages.



CHAPTER XXV

THE PASSING OF PHADRIG

In all London, or, indeed, in any capital of Europe, there were no more angrily puzzled men than Nicol Hendry and his colleague and subordinates. He was perfectly certain now that Phadrig Amena held the key to the conspiracy which had resulted in the disappearance of Prince Zastrow. Oscarovitch had vanished. He had been traced to Copenhagen, and then absolutely lost sight of. Three agents, all picked experts, had been put on to watch Phadrig and the Pentanas, as they were known to him, and within a fortnight they had all died. One had fallen down crossing the north side of Trafalgar Square: the verdict had been heart failure. Another threw himself into the river from the Tower Bridge; and the third, a woman who was one of the most skilful spies in the service of the International, had made his acquaintance and had dinner with him at the "Monico," and was found dead the next morning with an empty morphia syringe in her hand and a swollen puncture in her left arm.

Thus four more or less valuable lives had been lost, and not a shred of tangible evidence obtained against the Egyptian. Convinced as he was that this man was as responsible for their deaths as he had been for that of Josephus, neither he nor his colleagues could find the slightest grounds for applying for a warrant for his arrest, and meanwhile things were going from bad to worse in Russia. The Romanoff dynasty was tottering to its fall. The responsible leaders of the Revolution, angry and bewildered by the loss of the man whom they had practically chosen to rule over them, were distributing thousands of copies of an unsigned manifesto which could not have come from any one but "the new Skobeleff." What was left of the army and the navy was rallying to the nameless standard of the still unknown saviour of Russia. Von Kessner and Captain Vollmar had apparently ceased to exist, and the Princess Hermia was living with her lady-in-waiting in the strictest retirement in Dresden.

"It seems to me that things are at an utter deadlock," said Nicol Hendry to the Chief of the German section, who had come over to London to confer with him. "Four of our best agents have died in a fortnight, and the others are getting shy. Really, we can't blame them. This is not like fighting the ordinary sort of anarchist or regicide, who, after all, does content himself with physical means. This infernal scoundrel, as I must confess I was warned to begin with, is quite independent of the rules of the game. He kills people by their own hands, not his, and, literally, there seems no way of catching him."

"There must be a way, my dear Hendry," replied the German, who was the very incarnation of mechanical officialism. "You look at these things as consequences, I regard them only as rather extraordinary coincidences. If this is anything like what you seem to think it, it is supernatural, and I don't believe in that."

"There is a very easy way to convince yourself, my dear Von Hamner," replied Hendry, with a slight shrug of his shoulders. "Suppose you go and interview this modern Mephistopheles yourself?"

"Will you come with me if I do?" asked the German, with a straight stare through his spectacles.

"Certainly. In our profession it is necessary to take risks. The thing has gone far enough. Here we are in my room at New Scotland Yard, the centre and stronghold of the British police system, and there is this man or super-man, if you like, making no sign, doing nothing that will give us a hold upon him, and yet killing our agents as fast as we send them to find out what he is working at, and we know just as much to-day as we did three weeks ago. Now, what is your idea?"

"Just this: if the English law won't touch him, do as we do in Germany, take the law into your own hands. We know where the fellow is to be found down in that slum near the Borough Road. Send a few of your plain-clothes men there this afternoon, and we will follow in a cab. Bring your bracelets with you, and I shall take my revolver. We don't want any nonsense this time. If it goes on much longer we shall be the laughing-stock of the whole force from end to end of Europe, and that will not do us any good. Shall it be for this afternoon?"

"It will be better done now. He has worked mischief enough, and if we are going to do it we may as well bring the thing to a head at once, as they say in the States. Now I will give the instructions, and we will go to lunch. It may be the last that either of us will eat, you know."

"Poof!" exclaimed Von Hamner, who was feeling not a little nettled at this quiet challenge to test his personal courage. "You are the last man on earth that I should have suspected of superstition, my dear Hendry. But, there, give your orders, and we will go to lunch, and then about four o'clock we may make our call in Candler's Court."

While the two Chiefs of the International were talking, Phadrig was reading a cypher telegram, of which the meaning was this:

"REVAL.—Professor fell overboard three days ago. Body not recovered. Horus Stone did its work. N. consents. I marry her at Oscarburg. Russia ready. Fool International for a few days and come to Viborg when you have done with them. O."

"That is good news," said Phadrig, in a confidential whisper to himself; "for a man on the lower plane of existence the Prince is wonderfully clever. This is a master-stroke. If he really has the Queen in his power all the rest will be easy."

"There's two gentlemen to see you, Mr Amena." The door opened, and his landlady's dirty little daughter put her towsled head through the little space behind the doorpost. "They're down below; shall I send 'em up?"

"Certainly, Jane. Tell the gentlemen that I shall be pleased to see them."

The dirty face vanished as the door closed. Phadrig shut down the top of the big escritoire and locked it. Heavy treads sounded on the rickety stairs. There was a shuffle of feet on the little landing, a sharp knock at the door, and he said in a low tone:

"Come in, gentlemen. I have been expecting you."

The door opened and Nicol Hendry entered, followed by his German colleague. Practised as they were in all the arts of their profession, they looked about the mean, miserably appointed room with curious eyes. Phadrig, dressed in the same shabby semi-Oriental costume in which he had received Isaac Josephus, salaamed, and said:

"Gentlemen, although this is but a poor room to receive you in, I am pleased that you have come. You are officers of the International, if I am not mistaken."

Then his speech changed to German, and he went on:

"You, sir, are M. Nicol Hendry, and your friend is the Herr von Hamner, Chief of the Berlin Section. What can I do to serve you?"

It was anything but the greeting that they expected. They thought that they had tracked the real criminal to his last hiding-place. They had established the identity between Phadrig, the poor seller of curios, and Phadrig Amena, the worker of miracles, whom all the smart set in London was talking about; and here he was in this miserable, shabby room, dressed in clothes that no pawnbroker would advance a couple of shillings on, smiling and bowing before them as though they were lords of the earth, and he—the man who had sent three men and a woman to their deaths by, as it were, a mere word of command—a worm beneath their feet. Nicol Hendry managed to keep his self-possession, but Von Hamner was already sorry that he had come, and his face showed it.

"We have come to ask you, Mr Amena," said Hendry, thinking it best to come to the point at once, "why you found it necessary to kill those people. I needn't mention names. You know them as well as we do."

"I did not kill them, gentlemen. They killed themselves, according to the newspaper reports. And now, may I ask you why you found it necessary to set these spies of yours to watch my every movement night and day? What have I done to bring myself within the four corners of your English law?"

"Nothing, unfortunately, that we can get a warrant for," replied Hendry, trying not to look into his eyes, "and so we have taken the law into our own hands. Come, Mr Amena, the game is up. We know all about your share in the conspiracy to remove Prince Zastrow in order to make room for your patron Prince Oscarovitch. We have copies of his manifesto at Scotland Yard, and we know that you received a telegram in cypher from him to-day."

"Ah!" said Phadrig, in a tone whose smoothness was intensely aggravating, "that is very interesting. May I ask if you have translated the cypher?"

"No, damn you and your Prince!" burst in Von Hamner. "If we had done that we should know even more about you than we do now—and that ought to be enough to hang you."

He had spluttered the words out before Hendry had time to stop him. He expected a tragedy there and then, but it did not happen. Phadrig took the telegram out of his coat pocket, handed it to Von Hamner with a graceful bow, and said:

"Your information is quite correct, gentlemen. That is the telegram, and this is the meaning of it."

Then as they read the unintelligible jumble of words, he repeated the meaning of them as though they formed the most ordinary message, instead of a dispatch that might, as they well knew, shake Europe to its social and political foundations within the next week or so.

"Then this is another of your devilries, I suppose," snarled Von Hamner. "So you have killed the great Professor Marmion, the most gifted genius in the whole world, as you killed the others, to promote your infernal schemes; and you have helped that scoundrel Oscarovitch to abduct his daughter. Well, law or no law, this shall be the end of your doings. You will come with us as our prisoner, or you will not leave this room alive."

"Those are hard words, mein Herr," said Phadrig, still speaking in German. "I your prisoner! Why? What have I done to make this outrage on English law possible?"

"You will do better to come, Mr Amena," said Hendry, in his quiet official tone; "it will save a good deal of trouble both to you and us. It must be the same in the end, you know. We have got you, and we don't mean to let you do any more mischief. You have done quite enough already. Now, will you come quietly, or shall we take you? We shall charge you at Lambeth as a receiver of stolen goods: you will be remanded for a week in custody, and by that time we shall have your Prince in safe keeping in St Petersburg."

"Will you, really?" asked Phadrig, lifting his eyelids for the first time during the interview. "I should have thought that a man of your European experience would have called the Russian capital by its proper name. Surely you know that only newspaper people make that mistake. It is the city of Peter the Great, not Saint Peter the apostle. The fortress of Petro-paulovsky is not named after saints—only after Tsars."

There was a sneer in his voice as he made this trivial correction which roused both Hendry and Von Hamner to anger. The German pulled his revolver out of his hip pocket, and Hendry produced a beautiful pair of polished handcuffs from his left trouser pocket.

"Ah, I see that you have come prepared, gentlemen!" said Phadrig, with a laughing sneer in his low-voiced whisper. "Those are what you call the bracelets in England, are they not? Well, since you are determined to take the law into your hands—here are mine. Put them on M. Hendry, and then your friend may not think it necessary to try and shoot me."

He held his hands out. The way in which he said "try and shoot me" did not sound well in their ears, but Nicol Hendry thought that the work had to be put through now or not at all. He took a couple of steps towards Phadrig, and a couple of sharp snaps told Von Hamner that their prisoner was safe. But the prisoner did not seem to think so. He raised his hands and looked at the handcuffs. He seemed to examine them as though they were curiosities.

"Are these really what you take criminals to prison with? They don't seem very strong. I could break them as though they were thread."

"That will do, Mr Amena. You've got them on now, and we don't want any more of your conjuring tricks. Come along, and take it quietly like a sensible man."

Hendry was fast losing patience, and Von Hamner was doing all he could to keep his finger off the trigger of the revolver.

"Ah yes, conjuring tricks you call them, you ignorants! Now look. You have put the handcuffs on to my wrists. Is this a conjuring trick? See!"

He held his arms out towards them, his two hands chained together.

"Mr Hendry, be good enough to take my right hand, and you, Herr von Hamner, my left. So; now shake my hands. You see, there are the handcuffs on the floor."

It was only a shake of the hands, but the clink of the steel followed as the bracelets dropped from his wrists. He stooped down, and inside ten seconds they were clipped round Von Hamner's. In the same instant he had twitched the revolver out of his hand and pointed it at Hendry's face.

"Now, gentlemen, you were talking about taking the law into your own hands. I, you see, have taken it into mine. What do you propose to do? I am quite at your service. Your idea of arresting me on a charge of receiving stolen goods is, if you will allow me to say so, absurd. You could no more make me guilty of that than you could hang me for the deaths of those foolish spies of yours. Now, what is it to be? Pardon me, Herr von Hamner: the bracelets inconvenience you. Allow me." He took the handcuffs between his finger and thumb, shook the chain, and they dropped into his hand. "You will feel more comfortable now."

"Yes, and I'll make you less comfortable in Hell, where you should have been long ago," shouted Von Hamner, jumping at him the moment his hands were free, and snatching the revolver out of his hand. The pistol went up before Hendry could get hold of his arm, and he fired. Phadrig put his hand up, and when the smoke had drifted away, he held it out to Von Hamner, and said:

"I think that is your bullet, mein Herr."

The bullet was lying in the palm of his hand, a little out of shape through passing the rifling, but still the same bullet.

The German's face turned a reddish-grey, and Nicol Hendry, with all his courage, was not feeling particularly well. As a matter of fact, he was, for the first time in his life, absolutely frightened. A man who could deal with handcuffs as though they were made of cotton, and catch a bullet in his hands, was not the sort of criminal he had been trained to hunt. As for Von Hamner, he was in a state of utter collapse. He dropped upon a chair, a pitiable spectacle of craven fear, looking about half his real size so physically shrunken did he seem.

"Let the devil go, Hendry," he mumbled. "He is more than man. What is the use? If you cannot shoot him, you cannot hang him, and if handcuffs won't hold him, prison doors won't. Let us go and leave the devil to himself. I've had enough of it."

"But perhaps the devil has not," said Phadrig, with a politeness which was infuriating in its mildness. "You gentlemen will understand that I do not wish to have this espionage going on any longer. If you cannot promise that it shall stop at once I shall, for my own protection, have to suggest to you that you shall remove yourselves, as the others have done."

"No, no, not that, man, not that!" shouted Von Hamner, springing from his seat and making for the door. "I have done with the whole business, curse it! Let me go, let me go! Hendry, do as you like, but do it alone. I have finished."

Before Hendry could reply, or before Von Hamner could reach it, the door was flung open, and Franklin Marmion strode into the room. Von Hamner crawled back to his chair. He did not like the look of a dead man who had come to life again. Nicol Hendry held out his hand, and said:

"And is it really you, Professor? Mr Amena here has just had news that you were dead—'fallen overboard in the Baltic from Prince Oscarovitch's yacht. Body not recovered,' is what the telegram says."

"The body is here right enough, M. Hendry. I did not fall overboard. I was bound hand and foot, had a mass of iron tied to my feet, and was thrown out of a port-hole by the Prince and his captain. Of course, I got rid of the rope and the iron even more easily than this man got rid of your handcuffs a short time ago, and after keeping myself afloat for half an hour or so, I was picked up by a fishing-boat which took me to Stralsund. I got a change of clothes there, and came home via Hamburg and Ostend. My daughter has gone on in the yacht to Oscarburg, where the Prince expects to make her his wife, and where she will make a very considerable fool of him. That is all, and now I suppose I had better deal with this man."

"Mercy, mercy, Thou Who Knowest! Pity, pity!"

Phadrig raised his hands above his head, turned round thrice slowly, and sank in a heap on the floor.

"Thou who wast once High Priest in the House of Ptah: thou who hast held the Doctrine: thou darest to ask for mercy, knowing well that there is no forgiveness of sins: thou hast taken innocent lives, believing thyself above human law. A wasted life is behind thee: see that thou doest better for thy soul's sake in the next. Die now! The High Gods have spoken, and the penalty of sin is death—and the life beyond. Die!"

And Phadrig died. His eyes glazed and his flesh withered; his lips and his gums dried up and shrivelled away from his jaws. His clothes fell away from his body in rotting shreds, and before Nicol Hendry and Von Hamner had quite grasped the full meaning of the horror that was happening before their eyes, all that was left of him was a little heap of yellow bones with a few fragments of cloth clinging to them.

"Gentlemen," said Franklin Marmion, "there are some things which cannot be told. I think you will agree with me that this is one of them. Mr Amena has left the world for the present. Those bones will be dust in a few minutes. It will only be another mysterious disappearance, and I don't think that any one except the Pentanas and Prince Oscarovitch will trouble much about him. The Pentanas are now deprived of all power for harm, and the Prince will probably be a harmless lunatic when he comes back into the world. I should sweep that dust up and put it into the fireplace, if I were you. In that desk you will find documents giving the whole history of the Affaire Zastrow. They will be useful to you. You will have to excuse me now. Europe is on the brink of war, and I must go and remove the cause. I rely upon your discretion as to the events of this afternoon. Au revoir. I shall have the pleasure of seeing you again shortly."

The door closed, and they were left to their somewhat gruesome task.



CHAPTER XXVI

CAPTAIN MERRILL'S COMMISSION

Franklin Marmion found a hansom in the Borough Road and drove to Waterloo. He had just time to wire to Merrill to meet him at the "Keppel's Head" for dinner and catch the new 4.55 express for Portsmouth. Merrill was waiting for him in the smoking-room. As they shook hands, he said in the quiet tone which is characteristic of his profession:

"Your wire was rather sudden news, Professor. I thought you were somewhere in the Baltic. Your coming back like this seemed to mean something, and so I took the liberty of having a private room for our dinner."

"Perfectly right, my dear Merrill," he replied. "Let us go upstairs at once. I have a good deal to say to you, and what I am going to say will have to be done quickly."

"We have our sailing orders for the Baltic, and the Special Squadron leaves Spithead at midnight. Come upstairs, Professor, and we can talk."

Dinner was served a few minutes after they got into the room that Merrill had reserved on the first floor. The waiter was dismissed and the door locked, and then Franklin Marmion told Mark Merrill the most wonderful story he had ever heard. If it had come from any one else he would have put it down as a lie, but he remembered what had happened in the lecture theatre of the Royal Society, and so he held his peace. It was quite impossible for him to disbelieve anything the father of his Best Beloved told him. When the Professor had finished the story of Nitocris and the Prince, he leaned his elbows on the table, and said:

"Now, my dear Merrill, I am going to put it into your power to save Europe from the horrors of a universal war: but to that you must be prepared to take risks which may result in your being dismissed the Service. On the other hand, if you succeed, as you are almost certain to do if you act strictly on the instructions that I am going to give you, you will be a Captain in a month, and a Vice-Admiral in a year."

"But I'm a Captain now, Professor. I was keeping that little bit of news for you. I hoisted my pennant this morning on His Majesty's ship Nitocris: new second-class cruiser, eight thousand tons, and twenty-four knots: as pretty a ship as Elswick ever turned out. And the name: it came to me like a revelation."

"Possibly it was, in a sense that you may not quite understand now, but you will understand it when you and Niti are married. She will be better able to explain it then than I could now."

"And what are the orders—I mean, of course, the private ones? Ours are: sail at midnight, make Kronstadt in forty-eight hours: command the approaches to Riga and St Petersburg, and wait for the developments of this manifesto which seems to be setting what is left of Russia on fire. Germany is in with us for the time being: France and Italy and our Mediterranean squadron will see to things in the Near East, and altogether there seem to be the prospects of a very handsome sort of row."

"Which you, my dear Merrill, will be the means of preventing," said Franklin Marmion, taking a piece of folded tracing paper out of the inside pocket of his coat. "I yield to circumstance. The name of your new ship convinces me that I was wrong in certain other circumstances. You will give me a passage to Viborg on the Nitocris. You will take French leave of the fleet as soon as you sight Kronstadt, get into Viborg Bay at your best speed, land your men, take the Castle, which is quite undefended, bring away Prince Zastrow and Oscarovitch, and, of course, Niti; put your two princes on board the flagship, bring them back to England, and dictate terms from London. It seems a good deal to do, but I will make it possible, if you are prepared to do as I advise you. There is the chart showing the approaches to Oscarburg."

"I'll do it, sir," said Merrill, taking the tracing from his hand. "I'll break every regulation of the Service into little pieces to get that done. Now, I ought to be getting on board. Are you ready?"

"Quite," said Franklin Marmion, rising from his chair. "I see now where the man of action comes in. I did not see that before, I must confess."



CHAPTER XXVII

THE BRIDAL OF OSCAROVITCH

The Special Service Squadron steamed out of Spithead as the clock of Portsmouth Town Hall chimed twelve that night. Thirty-six hours later a marriage ceremony took place in the chapel of the Castle of Oscarburg. It was performed according to the rites of the Orthodox Church, and the witnesses were Prince Zastrow and his medical attendant, Doctor Hugo. The retainers of the Castle, headed by the major-domo and the housekeeper, formed the congregation. Jenny was up in her mistress' room packing as though for an immediate departure. She was very frightened at the happenings of the past three or four days, but she contented herself with the thought that her mistress was going to be a princess, and that, therefore, her own lot in life would be brightened with reflected glory.

When the ceremony was over, the wedding feast was held in the great dining-hall of the Castle after the ancient Finnish style. When the loving-cup had been drunk, Nitocris took leave of her lord and went to her room. The bridal chamber was blazing with light, and the great silken-hung bed was a couch fit for a queen. She turned the draperies down, laid herself dressed on the thick, downy bed, and then got up and went back to her own.

"I shall sleep here to-night, Jenny, and I shall not undress. You mustn't do, either. Lock the door, and put the sofa across it. You will find that something is going to happen to-night. Is everything ready for us to go away?"

"Yes, Your Highness," replied Jenny, wondering what was going to happen next.

"You must not call me Highness, Jenny," said her mistress, with a laugh. "I did not marry the Prince to-day. It was some one else he knew a long time ago. I have put her to bed in that splendid bridal chamber of his. She is waiting for him now."

"But I don't understand, Miss—I——"

"There is no need for you to understand, Jenny. Just be a good girl, and do as you're told. When we get back to England I will explain matters as far as I can."

Miss Jenny wisely decided to keep her thoughts to herself, and went on with her packing. Nitocris changed her bridal dress for her yachting costume, and lay down on the couch to await the progress of events.

Oscarovitch left the company in the dining-hall to their revel in about an hour's time, and went up to his fate in the bridal chamber. He knocked and opened the door softly: locked it, and went toward the bed. He leaned over it for a moment, and then a hoarse shriek of mingled rage and terror rang through the room. He flung the clothes off the bed. Where was the lovely bride he had wedded only a few hours before? What was this horrible thing lying where she should have been? Not Nitocris—and yet, it was Nitocris. Like a flash of lightning rending the darkness of the midnight heavens, the gap of oblivion between his lives was rent, and the light flamed into his soul. Phadrig had lied to him. The daughter of Rameses had not died that night in the banqueting chamber of the Palace of Pepi. She had lived and reigned virgin queen of the Sacred Land. Her body had been submitted to the hands of the paraschites and buried in the City of the Dead over against Memphis, on the eastward side of the river. And here was her mummy lying in his bridal bed, mocking him with its hideous, stony rigidity.

For a few terrible moments he stood staring at it, his clenched fists raised above his head. Then with another scream he cast himself upon it.

When they broke the door open, they found the man who in a few days would have been Emperor of the Russias and the East lying across the bed mowing and gibbering like a mad monkey, and scraping up handfuls of brown dust from the stained sheets.

* * * * *

Twenty-four hours later the Admiral in command of the British Special Squadron off Kronstadt saw the private signal flashed from the north-east. He was a very angry Admiral, for he had lost a brand-new cruiser and one of the smartest captains in the Service. But the signal spelt "Nitocris. All well. Coming alongside."

"All well, and be damned to you, Captain Merrill!" muttered the Admiral under his breath, when the signal was read to him. "This is a nice way to begin a new command. I've half a mind to put him under arrest: but he's a good man. I'd better hear what he has to say for himself first. I wonder what the deuce he's been doing with that cruiser since he took her away without leave? Well, here she is, I suppose."

But it was not H.M.S. Nitocris that came out of the night glittering with electric lights and flying through the water at a speed that the fastest destroyer in the squadron could not have equalled. A whistle tooted softly, a white shape swung up out of the darkness and slowed down alongside the flagship. A boat dropped into the water, and three minutes later Captain Mark Merrill ran up the gangway ladder, saluted the quarter-deck, and handed his sword to the Admiral.

"I have done wrong, sir, but I hope that I have also, in another sense, done right. I have brought both princes with me."

"Both princes—Good Lord, sir, what do you mean?"

"May I come below with you, sir, and explain? It has been rather delicate work, but we've got it through all right, I think."

"Then keep your sword for the present, and come and tell me what you have to say."

Captain Merrill followed the Admiral to his room, and told the story of the taking of the Oscarburg—a very easy matter with a hundred bluejackets at his back—the capture of Oscarovitch, who was now in a straight waistcoat on board his own yacht, the rescue of Prince Zastrow and Nitocris, and——

"The other Nitocris is following, sir," he concluded. "I thought I had better take the yacht. She can make a good thirty-five knots, and that's useful when you're in a hurry. And now, sir, I am at your disposal."

"Rubbish!" said the Admiral, holding out his hand. "Captain Merrill, I don't quite know how you've done it, but you've saved Europe, and perhaps the world, from war. If you hadn't brought those two princes of yours to-night, we should have been fighting Germany for the possession of Kronstadt before mid-day to-morrow. Those were the orders. Now, of course, they can do nothing, as you have brought Prince Zastrow back from the dead. He's their choice, and you had better get him and the other away to London as soon as I have seen them, and you can take my report with you on that thirty-five knotter after breakfast to-morrow morning. Now, it's getting late. I'll say good-night."



EPILOGUE

The double wedding which took place at St George's, Hanover Square, the following June was one of the most brilliant functions of the year. Their Majesties of Russia and Great Britain graced the ceremony with their presence, and, as a special act of grace to the man who, with Franklin Marmion's help, had saved the world from what might have been one of the bloodiest wars in history, H.M.S. Nitocris was put into commission for a cruise, the object of which was anything rather than warlike. Two of the happiest couples on land or sea made the round of the world in her. Before they returned Princess Hermia had taken the last of Phadrig's drug and lain down to sleep never to wake again, and in the fullness of her happiness Nitocris pardoned Oscar Oscarovitch, and allowed him to die.

THE END



Supernatural & Occult Fiction

An Arno Press Collection

Ainsworth, W[illiam] Harrison. Auriol: Or, The Elixir of Life. [c. 1892]

Arlen, Michael. Ghost Stories. [1932]

Balzac, Honore de. Horace de Saint-Aubin, pseud. The Centenarian; Or, The Two Beringhelds. Translated from the original 1822 French edition by George Edgar Slusser. 1976

Beck, L[ily Moresby] Adams. The Ninth Vibration, and Other Stories. 1922

Benson, E[dward] F[rederick]. Spook Stories. [1928]

Blackwood, Algernon. The Centaur. 1911

Blackwood, Algernon. Strange Stories. 1929

Boothby, Guy. Pharos, The Egyptian. 1899

The Boyhood Days of Guy Fawkes; Or, The Conspirators of Old London, [c. 1876]

[Burrage, Alfred McLelland]. Ex-Private X, pseud. Someone in the Room. [1931]

[Carnegie, James], [Ninth] Earl of Southesk. Suomiria: A Fantasy. 1899

Coppard, A [lfred] E[dgar]. The Collected Tales of A. E. Coppard. 1948

Crawford, F[rancis] Marion. With the Immortals. 1888

[Dalton]. The Gentleman in Black. 1831

De La Mare, Walter. The Return. 1910

Doughty, Francis Worcester. Mirrikh; Or, A Woman from Mars: A Tale of Occult Adventure. 1892

Erckmann, [Emile and Alexandre] Chatrian. The Man-Wolf, and Other Tales. [c. 1876]

Ewers, Hanns Heinz. Alraune. Translated by S. Guy Endore. 1929

Fielding, Henry. A Journey From this World to the Next. 1930

Gautier, Theophile. Spirite. Translated by Arthur D. Hall. 1890

Griffith, George. The Mummy and Miss Nitocris: A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension. [1906]

[Hadley, George]. Argal; Or, The Silver Devil, Being the Adventures of an Evil Spirit, Related by Himself. Two vols. in one. [1793]

Haggard, H[enry] Rider. Allan and the Ice-Gods: A Tale of Beginnings. 1927

Harvey, William Fryer. Midnight House and Other Tales. 1910

Hearn, Lafcadio. Fantastics and Other Fancies. Edited by Charles Woodward Hutson. 1914

Hecht, Ben. Fantazius Mallare: A Mysterious Oath. 1922

Hecht, Ben. The Kingdom of Evil: A Continuation of the Journal of Fantazius Mallare. 1924

[Heron-Allen, Edward]. Christopher Blayre, pseud. The Strange Papers of Dr. Blayre. 1932

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, [Sr.]. Elsie Venner: A Romance of Destiny. 1892

Housman, Clemence. The Were-Wolf. 1896

Ingram, Eleanor M. The Thing From the Lake. 1921

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[Johnstone, Charles]. An Adept, pseud. Chrysal: Or, The Adventures of a Guinea. Two vols. in one. 1764

Keller, David H. The Devil and the Doctor. 1940

Knowles, Vernon. The Street of Queer Houses and Other Tales. 1925

Le Fanu, J[oseph] Sheridan, Charles Young and others. A Stable For Nightmares or Weird Tales. [An Anonymous Anthology]. 1896

[Le Sage, Alain Rene]. The Devil on Two Sticks. [A Translation of Le Diable Boiteux]. 1840

Machen, Arthur. The Children of the Pool and Other Stories. 1936

[MacKay, Mary]. Marie Corelli, pseud. The Strange Visitation of Josiah McNason: A Christmas Ghost Story. 1904

Marryat, Florence. The Dead Man's Message: An Occult Romance. 1894

Marsh, Richard. The Beetle. 1917

Menville, Douglas and R. Reginald, editors. Ancient Hauntings. 1976

Menville, Douglas and R. Reginald, editors. Phantasmagoria. 1976

Merritt, A [braham] and Hannes Bok. The Fox Woman and The Blue Pagoda and The Black Wheel. Two vols. in one. 1946/1947

Molesworth, Mrs. [Mary Louisa Stewart]. Uncanny Tales. 1896

O'Donnell, Elliott. The Sorcery Club. 1912

[Oliver, George]. Oliver Onions, pseud. Widdershins. 1911

[Paget, Violet]. Vernon Lee, pseud. For Maurice: Five Unlikely Stories. 1927

Pain, Barry [Eric Odell]. Robinson Crusoe's Return. [1907]

Paine, Albert Bigelow. The Mystery of Evelin Delorme: A Hypnotic Story. 1894

Phillpotts, Eden. A Deal With the Devil. 1895

Powys, John Cowper. Morwyn: Or, The Vengeance of God. 1937

Praed, Mrs. [Rosa Caroline Murray-Prior] Campbell. The Brother of the Shadow: A Mystery of To-Day. 1886

Reginald, R. and Douglas Menville, editors. R. I. P.: Five Stories of the Supernatural. 1976

Reginald, R. and Douglas Menville, editors. The Spectre Bridegroom, and Other Horrors. 1976

Reynolds, George W. M. The Necromancer: A Romance. 1857

Russell, W[illiam] Clark. The Death Ship: A Strange Story. Three vols. in one. 1888

Sicard, Clara. The Ghost: A Legend. [1866]

Viereck, George Sylvester. The House of the Vampire. 1907

[Vivian, Evelyn Charles]. Jack Mann, pseud. Maker of Shadows. [1938]

Wakefield, H[erbert] Russell. Ghost Stories. 1932

[Wall, John W.]. "Sarban", pseud. Ringstones and Other Curious Tales. 1951

[Ward, Arthur Sarsfield]. Sax Rohmer, pseud. Grey Face. 1924

Whiting, Sydney. Helionde; Or, Adventures in the Sun. 1855

PRINTED AT THE EDINBURGH PRESS, 9 AND 11 YOUNG STREET

THE END