The Green Mummy
set her down as forty-five. In the lamplight she might have passed for
even younger, so carefully had she preserved what remained to her of
youth. She assuredly was somewhat stout, and never had been so tall
as she desired to be. But the lines of her plump figure were still
discernible in the cunningly cut gown, and she carried her little self
with such mighty dignity that people overlooked the mortifying height of
a trifle over five feet. Her features were small and neat, but her large
blue eyes were so noticeable and melting that those on whom she turned
them ignored the lack of boldness in chin and nose. Her hair was brown
and arranged in the latest fashion, while her complexion was so fresh
and pink that, if she did paint--as jealous women averred--she must
have been quite an artist with the hare's foot and the rouge pot and the
necessary powder puff.
Mrs. Jasher's clothes repaid the thought she expended upon them, and
she was artistic in this as in other things. Dressed in a crocus-yellow
gown, with short sleeves to reveal her beautiful arms, and cut low to
display her splendid bust, she looked perfectly dressed. A woman would
have declared the wide-netted black lace with which the dress was draped
to be cheap, and would have hinted that the widow wore too many jewels
in her hair, on her corsage, round her arms, and ridiculously gaudy
rings on her fingers. This might have been true, for Mrs. Jasher
sparkled like the Milky Way at every movement; but the gleam of gold
and the flash of gems seemed to suit her opulent beauty. Her slightest
movement wafted around her a strange Chinese perfume, which she
obtained--so she said--from a friend of her late husband's who was in
the British Embassy at Pekin. No one possessed this especial perfume but
Mrs. Jasher, and anyone who had previously met her, meeting her in the
darkness, could have guessed at her identity. With a smile to show
her white teeth, with her golden-hued dress and glittering jewels, the
pretty widow glowed in that glimmering room like a tropical bird.
The Professor raised his dreamy eyes and laid the beetle on one side,
when his brain fully grasped that this charming vision was waiting to
be entertained. She was better to look upon even than the beloved
scarabeus, and he advanced to shake hands as though she had just entered
the room. Mrs. Jasher--knowing his ways--rose to extend her hand, and
the two small, stout figures looked absurdly like a pair of chubby
Dresden ornaments which had stepped from the mantelshelf.
“Dear lady, I am glad to see you. You have--you have”--the Professor
reflected, and then came back with a rush to the present century--“you
have come to dinner, if I mistake not.”
“Lucy asked me a week ago,” she replied tartly, for no woman likes to be
neglected for a mere beetle, however ancient.
“Then you will certainly get a good dinner,” said Braddock, waving his
plump white hands. “Lucy is an excellent housekeeper. I have no fault
to find with her--no fault at all. But she is obstinate--oh, very
obstinate, as her mother was. Do you know, dear lady, that in a papyrus
scroll which I lately acquired I found the recipe for a genuine Egyptian
dish, which Amenemha--the last Pharaoh of the eleventh dynasty, you
know--might have eaten, and probably did eat. I desired Lucy to serve it
to-night, but she refused, much to my annoyance. The ingredients, which
had to do with roasted gazelle, were oil and coriander seed and--if my
memory serves me--asafoetida.”
“Ugh!” Mrs. Jasher's handkerchief went again to her mouth. “Say no
more, Professor; your dish sounds horrid. I don't wish to eat it, and be
turned into a mummy before my time.”
“You would make a really beautiful mummy,” said Braddock, paying what
he conceived was a compliment; “and, should you die, I shall certainly
attend to your embalming, if you prefer that to cremation.”
“You dreadful man!” cried the widow, turning pale and shrinking. “Why, I
really believe that you would like to see me packed away in one of those
disgusting coffins.”
“Disgusting!” cried the outraged Professor, striking one of the
brilliantly tinted cases. “Can you call so beautiful a specimen of
sepulchral art disgusting? Look at the colors, at the regularity of
the hieroglyphics--why, the history of the dead is set out in this
magnificent series of pictures.” He adjusted his pince-nez and began
to read, “The Osirian, Scemiophis that is a female name, Mrs.
Jasher--who--”
“I don't want to have my history written on my coffin,” interrupted the
widow hysterically, for this funereal talk frightened her. “It would
take much more space than a mummy case upon which to write it. My life
has been volcanic, I can tell you. By the way,” she added hurriedly,
seeing that Braddock was on the eve of resuming the reading, “tell me
about your Inca mummy. Has it arrived?”
The Professor immediately followed the false trail. “Not yet,” he said
briskly, rubbing his smooth hands, “but in three days I expect The Diver
will be at Pierside, and Sidney will bring the mummy on here. I shall
unpack it at once and learn exactly how the ancient Peruvians embalmed
their dead. Doubtless they learned the art from--”
“The Egyptians,” ventured Mrs. Jasher rashly.
Braddock glared. “Nothing of the sort, dear lady,” he snorted angrily.
“Absurd, ridiculous! I am inclined to believe that Egypt was merely a
colony of that vast island of Atlantis mentioned by Plato. There--if
my theory is correct--civilization begun, and the kings of
Atlantis--doubtless the gods of historical tribes--governed the whole
world, including that portion which we now term South America.”
“Do you mean to say that there were Yankees in those days?” inquired
Mrs. Jasher frivolously.
The Professor tucked his hands under his shabby coattails and strode
up and down the room warming his rage, which was provoked by such
ignorance.
“Good heavens, madam, where have you lived?” he exclaimed
explosively--“are you a fool, or merely an ignorant woman? I am talking
of prehistoric times, thousands of years ago, when you were probably a
stray atom embedded in the slime.”
“Oh, you horrid creature!” cried Mrs. Jasher indignantly, and was about
to give Braddock her opinion, if only to show him that she could hold
her own, when the door opened.
“How are you, Mrs. Jasher?” said Lucy, advancing.
“Here am I and here is Archie. Dinner is ready. And you--”
“I am very hungry,” said Mrs. Jasher. “I have been called an atom of the
slime,” then she laughed and took possession of young Hope.
Lucy wrinkled her brow; she did not approve of the widow's man-annexing
instinct.
CHAPTER III. A MYSTERIOUS TOMB
One member of the Braddock household was not included in the general
staff, being a mere appendage of the Professor himself. This was a
dwarfish, misshapen Kanaka, a pigmy in height, but a giant in breadth,
with short, thick legs, and long, powerful arms. He had a large head,
and a somewhat handsome face, with melancholy black eyes and a fine set
of white teeth. Like most Polynesians, his skin was of a pale bronze and
elaborately tattooed, even the cheeks and chin being scored with curves
and straight lines of mystical import. But the most noticeable thing
about him was his huge mop of frizzled hair, which, by some process,
known only to himself, he usually dyed a vivid yellow. The flaring locks
streaming from his head made him resemble a Peruvian image of the sun,
and it was this peculiar coiffure which had procured for him the odd
name of Cockatoo. The fact that this grotesque creature invariably wore
a white drill suit, emphasized still more the suggestion of his likeness
to an Australian parrot.
Cockatoo had come from the Solomon Islands in his teens to the colony
of Queensland, to work on the plantations, and there the Professor had
picked him up as his body servant. When Braddock returned to marry Mrs.
Kendal, the boy had refused to leave him, although it was represented
to the young savage that he was somewhat too barbaric for sober England.
Finally, the Professor had consented to bring him over seas, and had
never regretted doing so, for Cockatoo, finding his scientific master a
true friend, worshipped him as a visible god. Having been captured when
young by Pacific black-birders, he talked excellent English, and from
contact with the necessary restraints of civilization was, on the whole,
extremely well behaved. Occasionally, when teased by the villagers and
his fellow-servants, he would break into childish rages, which bordered
on the dangerous. But a word from Braddock always quieted him, and when
penitent he would crawl like a whipped dog to the feet of his divinity.
For the most part he lived entirely in the museum, looking after the
collection and guarding it from harm. Lucy--who had a horror of the
creature's uncanny looks--objected to Cockatoo waiting at the table,
and it was only on rare occasions that he was permitted to assist the
harassed parlormaid. On this night the Kanaka acted excellently as a
butler, and crept softly round the table, attending to the needs of the
diners. He was an admirable servant, deft and handy, but his blue-lined
face and squat figure together with the obtrusively golden halo, rather
worried Mrs. Jasher. And, indeed, in spite of custom, Lucy also felt
uncomfortable when this gnome hovered at her elbow. It looked as though
one of the fantastical idols from the museum below had come to haunt the
living.
“I do not like that Golliwog,” breathed Mrs. Jasher to her host, when
Cockatoo was at the sideboard. “He gives me the creeps.”
“Imagination, my dear lady, pure imagination. Why should we not have a
picturesque animal to wait upon us?”
“He would wait picturesquely enough at a cannibal feast,” suggested
Archie, with a laugh.
“Don't!” murmured Lucy, with a shiver. “I shall not be able to eat my
dinner if you talk so.”
“Odd that Hope should say what he has said,” observed Braddock
confidently to the widow. “Cockatoo comes from a cannibal island, and
doubtless has seen the consumption of human flesh. No, no, my dear lady,
do not look so alarmed. I don't think he has eaten any, as he was taken
to Queensland long before he could participate in such banquets. He is a
very decent animal.”
“A very dangerous one, I fancy,” retorted Mrs. Jasher, who looked pale.
“Only when he loses his temper, and I'm always able to suppress that
when it is at its worst. You are not eating your meat, my dear lady.”
“Can you wonder at it, and you talk of cannibals?”
“Let us change the conversation to cereals,” suggested Hope, whose
appetite was of the best--“wheat, for instance. In this queer little
village I notice the houses are divided by a field of wheat. It seems
wrong somehow for corn to be bunched up with houses.”
“That's old Farmer Jenkins,” said Lucy vivaciously; “he owns three or
four acres near the public-house and will not allow them to be built
over, although he has been offered a lot of money. I noticed myself,
Archie, the oddity of finding a cornfield surrounded by cottages. It's
like Alice in Wonderland.”
“But fancy any one offering money for land here,” observed Hope, toying
with his claret glass, which had just been refilled, by the attentive
Cockatoo, “at the Back-of-Beyond, as it were. I shouldn't care to live
here--the neighborhood is so desolate.”
“All the same you do live here!” interposed Mrs. Jasher smartly, and
with a roguish glance at Lucy.
Archie caught the glance and saw the blush on Miss Kendal's face.
“You have answered your question yourself, Mrs. Jasher,” he--said,
smiling. “I have the inducement you hint at to remain here, and
certainly, as a landscape painter, I admire the marshes and sunsets. As