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Lord Dunsany - "If"

Rupert Brooke - "The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke"

Jean Baptiste Racine - "Phaedra"

William Smith - "A Smaller History of Greece"

The Captain of the Polestar

A >> Arthur Conan Doyle >> The Captain of the Polestar




"But how to find the ring? It was not upon him when he was
stripped for the embalmer. Of that I made sure. Neither was it
among his private effects. In vain I searched every room that he
had entered, every box, and vase, and chattel that he had owned.
I sifted the very sand of the desert in the places where he had
been wont to walk; but, do what I would, I could come upon no
traces of the ring of Thoth. Yet it may be that my labours would
have overcome all obstacles had it not been for a new and unlooked-
for misfortune.

"A great war had been waged against the Hyksos, and the Captains of
the Great King had been cut off in the desert, with all their
bowmen and horsemen. The shepherd tribes were upon us like the
locusts in a dry year. From the wilderness of Shur to the great
bitter lake there was blood by day and fire by night. Abaris was
the bulwark of Egypt, but we could not keep the savages back. The
city fell. The Governor and the soldiers were put to the
sword, and I, with many more, was led away into captivity.

"For years and years I tended cattle in the great plains by the
Euphrates. My master died, and his son grew old, but I was still
as far from death as ever. At last I escaped upon a swift camel,
and made my way back to Egypt. The Hyksos had settled in the land
which they had conquered, and their own King ruled over the country
Abaris had been torn down, the city had been burned, and of the
great Temple there was nothing left save an unsightly mound.
Everywhere the tombs had been rifled and the monuments destroyed.
Of my Atma's grave no sign was left. It was buried in the sands of
the desert, and the palm-trees which marked the spot had long
disappeared. The papers of Parmes and the remains of the Temple of
Thoth were either destroyed or scattered far and wide over the
deserts of Syria. All search after them was vain.

"From that time I gave up all hope of ever finding the ring or
discovering the subtle drug. I set myself to live as patiently as
might be until the effect of the elixir should wear away. How can
you understand how terrible a thing time is, you who have
experience only of the narrow course which lies between the cradle
and the grave! I know it to my cost, I who have floated down the
whole stream of history. I was old when Ilium fell. I was very
old when Herodotus came to Memphis. I was bowed down with years
when the new gospel came upon earth. Yet you see me much as
other men are, with the cursed elixir still sweetening my blood,
and guarding me against that which I would court. Now at last, at
last I have come to the end of it!

"I have travelled in all lands and I have dwelt with all nations.
Every tongue is the same to me. I learned them all to help pass
the weary time. I need not tell you how slowly they drifted by,
the long dawn of modern civilisation, the dreary middle years, the
dark times of barbarism. They are all behind me now, I have never
looked with the eyes of love upon another woman. Atma knows that
I have been constant to her.

"It was my custom to read all that the scholars had to say upon
Ancient Egypt. I have been in many positions, sometimes affluent,
sometimes poor, but I have always found enough to enable me to buy
the journals which deal with such matters. Some nine months ago I
was in San Francisco, when I read an account of some discoveries
made in the neighbourhood of Abaris. My heart leapt into my mouth
as I read it. It said that the excavator had busied himself in
exploring some tombs recently unearthed. In one there had been
found an unopened mummy with an inscription upon the outer case
setting forth that it contained the body of the daughter of the
Governor of the city in the days of Tuthmosis. It added that on
removing the outer case there had been exposed a large platinum
ring set with a crystal, which had been laid upon the breast of the
embalmed woman. This, then was where Parmes had hid the ring
of Thoth. He might well say that it was safe, for no Egyptian
would ever stain his soul by moving even the outer case of a buried
friend.

"That very night I set off from San Francisco, and in a few weeks
I found myself once more at Abaris, if a few sand-heaps and
crumbling walls may retain the name of the great city. I hurried
to the Frenchmen who were digging there and asked them for the
ring. They replied that both the ring and the mummy had been sent
to the Boulak Museum at Cairo. To Boulak I went, but only to be
told that Mariette Bey had claimed them and had shipped them to the
Louvre. I followed them, and there at last, in the Egyptian
chamber, I came, after close upon four thousand years, upon the
remains of my Atma, and upon the ring for which I had sought so
long.

"But how was I to lay hands upon them? How was I to have them for
my very own? It chanced that the office of attendant was vacant.
I went to the Director. I convinced him that I knew much about
Egypt. In my eagerness I said too much. He remarked that a
Professor's chair would suit me better than a seat in the
Conciergerie. I knew more, he said, than he did. It was only by
blundering, and letting him think that he had over-estimated my
knowledge, that I prevailed upon him to let me move the few effects
which I have retained into this chamber. It is my first and my
last night here.

"Such is my story, Mr. Vansittart Smith. I need not say more
to a man of your perception. By a strange chance you have this
night looked upon the face of the woman whom I loved in those far-
off days. There were many rings with crystals in the case, and I
had to test for the platinum to be sure of the one which I wanted.
A glance at the crystal has shown me that the liquid is indeed
within it, and that I shall at last be able to shake off that
accursed health which has been worse to me than the foulest
disease. I have nothing more to say to you. I have unburdened
myself. You may tell my story or you may withhold it at your
pleasure. The choice rests with you. I owe you some amends, for
you have had a narrow escape of your life this night. I was a
desperate man, and not to be baulked in my purpose. Had I seen you
before the thing was done, I might have put it beyond your power to
oppose me or to raise an alarm. This is the door. It leads into
the Rue de Rivoli. Good night!"

The Englishman glanced back. For a moment the lean figure of Sosra
the Egyptian stood framed in the narrow doorway. The next the door
had slammed, and the heavy rasping of a bolt broke on the silent
night.

It was on the second day after his return to London that Mr. John
Vansittart Smith saw the following concise narrative in the Paris
correspondence of the Times:--

"Curious Occurrence in the Louvre.--Yesterday morning a strange
discovery was made in the principal Egyptian Chamber. The
ouvriers who are employed to clean out the rooms in the morning
found one of the attendants lying dead upon the floor with his arms
round one of the mummies. So close was his embrace that it was
only with the utmost difficulty that they were separated. One of
the cases containing valuable rings had been opened and rifled.
The authorities are of opinion that the man was bearing away the
mummy with some idea of selling it to a private collector, but that
he was struck down in the very act by long-standing disease of the
heart. It is said that he was a man of uncertain age and eccentric
habits, without any living relations to mourn over his dramatic and
untimely end."

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