The Mummy MEGAPACK®. Lafcadio HearnЧитать онлайн книгу.
In the gray light he could not see far. He was looking away when he got an impression of some life upon the great expanse, of something moving between the shore and the horizon. He stopped and stared, his heart palpitating with fear lest there had been a chance of rescue that they had missed. He became certain that it was a small craft of some sort. He shouted crazily; the call carried as far as the sound of a falling leaf in a breeze.
Then he remembered their signal-fire and clambered hurriedly the little summit. He piled on the scanty provision of fuel recklessly, and blew it into a blaze. He could no longer distinguish any movement in the soft darkness, but between the fire and the sea he stood and waved his arms. The glow spread about him, his shadow, gigantic, monstrous, filling half the world.
Twice he replenished the fire, always returning to his position with his back to it. His hope had vanished, he was satisfied he had been mistaken, when cries came from the water edge. While he was climbing down he heard a boat being beached on the sand.
It proved to be a dugout load of Huyda Indians on a cruise. It was for them a simple, smiling matter to draw up the man still swinging on the rope. They became loquacious between each other in their guttural way, marveling at the white men’s capacity for dried meat and meal. Rill was weak, still suffering from the shock and his wound and his long lack of water. The Indians, however, refused to remain overnight on the island, fearful perhaps of the green devil, and put to sea with the two white men lying at length on the canoe bottom.
The full moon came up in the clear night, illuming the far islands. The atmosphere was unusually clear, and miles away they made out a tall peak ringed by a mushroom-shaped cloud. It had never previously been visible.
“Him Grewink,” the nearest Indian explained in answer to their questioning gaze. “Him smoke all time.” He laughed heartily at his own little joke, and asked, “Mebbe you like smoke, too?”
Rill contemplated the distant peak and presently turned to the sailor beside him:
“Remember the triangle in the inscription that I couldn’t make out? I’ve got it now. That stands for old Grewink or a fellow just like him. See what happened? The volcano began to stir up, and the wise ones left in a hurry. Then they had a big time here, and what with the volcano spouting and earthquakes, they thought the world was ending. Of course it was their god that did it for vengeance, they’d say, and put to sea. A tidal wave or a big storm finished that batch, and the survivors wrote it up on their altar stone. That’s some story, Pug.”
“But the green thing—that was what drove them out. I don’t see how we got away ourselves. I wouldn’t go down that shaft again if it was lined with gold—”
Rill, sucking his under lip, gazed up at the spangled cloth of the heavens. The Indians paddled steadily, talking among themselves, guiding the canoe over the lazy, dark swells. Rill appeared to have reached a decision.
“You’re a good scout, Pug,” he said “You’ve always been there in the pinch. I was counting on your scare of the green fellow to keep you out of it; I was going to claim the mine and get capital to work it, with you out of the way. But you’ve been square with me, and I’ll play the game square for once. The green devil you saw was just a mummy. He’s one of the miners that got caught in the earthquake—mighty bad to look at but perfectly harmless, Pug.”
“A mummy? You’re kidding!”
“No. You see, he was buried in the copper ore, and instead of decaying, he absorbed certain minerals that petrified him, preserved him. Next time you’re in New York go to the museum and look at one of them that they found in a copper mine in Chile. In the case of this fellow, somebody must have begun digging, probably the Indian that started the legend, and uncovered him. We’ll work up the mine proposition together.”
THE BOOK OF THOTH, by Lafcadio Hearn
An Egyptian tale of weirdness, as told in a demotic papyrus found in the necropolis of Deir-el-Medineh among the ruins of hundred-gated Thebes.… Written, in the thirty-fifth year of the reins of some forgotten Ptolomœus, and in the month of Tybi completed by a scribe famous among magicians.… Dedicated, doubtless, to Thoth, Lord of all Scribes, Grand Master of all Sorcerers; whose grace had been reverently invoiced upon whomsoever might speak well concerning the same papyrus.
* * * *
…Thoth, the divine, lord of scribes, most excellent of workers, prince of wizards, once, it is said, wrote with his own hand a book surpassing all other books, and containing two magical formulas only. Whosoever could recite the first of these formulas would become forthwith second only to the gods—for by its simple utterance the mountains and the valleys, the ocean and the clouds, the heights of heaven and the deeps of hell, would be made subject unto his will; while the birds of air, the reptiles of darkness, and the fishes of the waters, would be thereby compelled to appear, and to make manifest the thoughts secreted within their hearts. But whosoever could recite the second formula might never know death—for even though buried within the entrails of the earth, he would still behold heaven through the darkness and hear the voices of earth athwart the silence; even in the necropolis he would still see the rising and setting of the sun, and the Cycle of the Gods, and the waxing and waning of the moon, and the eternal lights of the firmament.
And the god Thoth deposited his book within a casket of gold, and the casket of gold within a casket of silver, and the casket of silver within a casket of ivory and ebony, and the casket of ivory and ebony within a casket of palm-wood, and the casket of palm-wood within a casket of bronze, and the casket of bronze within a casket of iron. And he buried the same in the bed of the great river of Egypt where it flows through the Nome of Coptos; and immortal river monsters coiled about the casket to guard it from all magicians.
* * * *
Now, of all magicians, Noferkephtah, the son of King Minibphtah (to whom be life, health, and strength forevermore!), first by cunning discovered the place where the wondrous book was hidden, and found courage to possess himself thereof. For after he had well paid the wisest of the ancient priests to direct his way, Noferkephtah obtained from his father Pharaoh a royal cangia, well supplied and stoutly manned, wherein he journeyed to Coptos in search of the hidden treasure. Coming to Coptos after many days, he created him a magical boat and a magical crew by reciting mystic words; and he and the shadowy crew with him toiled to find the casket; and by the building of dams they were enabled to find it. Then Noferkephtah prevailed also against the immortal serpent by dint of sorcery; and he obtained the book, and read the mystic formulas, and made himself second only to the gods.
But the divinities, being wroth with him, caused his sister and wife Ahouri to fall into the Nile, and his son also. Noferkephtah indeed compelled the river to restore them; but although the power of the book maintained their life after a strange fashion, they lived not as before, so that he had to bury them in the necropolis at Coptos. Seeing these things and fearing to return to the king alone, he tied the book above his heart, and also allowed himself to drown. The power of the book, indeed, maintained his life after a strange fashion; but he lived not as before, so that they took him back to Thebes as one who had passed over to Amenthi, and there laid him with his fathers, and the book also.
Yet, by the power of the book, he lived within the darkness of the tomb, and beheld the sun rising, and the Cycle of the Gods, and the phases of the moon, and the stars of the night. By the power of the, book, also, he summoned to him the shadow of his sister Ahouri, buried at Coptos—whom he had made his wife according to the custom of the Egyptians; and there was light within their dwelling-place. Thus Noferkephtah knew ghostly happiness in the company of the Ka, or shadow, of his wife Ahouri, and the Ka of his son Mikhonsou.
* * * *
Now, four generations had passed since the time of King Minibphtah; and the Pharaoh of Egypt was Ousirmari. Ousirmari had two sons who were learned among the Egyptians—Satni was the name of the elder; Anhathorerôou that of the younger. There was not in all Egypt so wise a scribe as Satni. He knew how to read the sacred writings, and the inscriptions upon the amulets, and the sentences within the tombs, and the words graven upon the stehæ, and the books of that sacerdotal library called the “Double House of