The weird of the wanderer Being the papyrus records of some incidents in one of the previous lives of Mr. Nicholas Crabbe
responded to the call. In token whereof I was admitted to the first
grade of the flaminian estate, being marked apart from other men by
the five-pointed tonsure.[5] And immediately, by the blundering of
blind guides (the most righteous of men), confirmed by hierarchical
timidity or stupidity or malignity, I was denied my heart’s desire,
and bile was mingled with my blood. I, then, endured my torments
disdainfully, as my habit is, saying all those invectives which my mind
gave me to say as rudely and as loudly as possible. And there appeared
unto me processions of heresiarchs and schismatarchs (all blameless),
wearing altogether prestigious habiliments, and using gestures (almost
salacious) which ran along their bodies and suggested things not said,
who proffered to me priesthoods (and in one case) a pontificate. But
none of their pretty things pleased me, not being of valid or desirable
origin. And I remained where I was, ready to go forward, ruthlessly
refusing to go back.
But now the blessed gods inhabiting olympian palaces were permitting me
to find in Thebes the representative of a religion prior in time to,
and by no means a dissent from, my own--a religion, furthermore, which
was to mine what the flower is to the fruit. Wherefore, being denied
the fruit, I made no more ado: but I clutched the flower.
For this cause, I retraced my steps, returning to Luxor, where I
commanded my faithful Amenemhat, the priest of Tanis, to give me the
order of priesthood according to the rite of Khem. And this he did when
I had sworn the great oath of an Egyptian priest, which oath bound me,
till Mother Isis herself released me, as I shall narrate hereafter.
But Amenemhat gave me the unction of sacred nard, with the white linen
robe and the silver ankh, breathing on my head, and laying hands on
me, saying: “_May all the gods bless thee: may Heru-p-Khart love thee:
may Isis nurture thee: may Osiris guide and prosper thee, so that thou
never look back but alway forward on the illimitable field of wisdom
hereby opened to thee. And, by the power committed to me, I Amenemhat,
make thee, Nicholas, a priest of Khem, in the name of Apis Osiris the
great god who sitteth in Amentet, ever-living lord, everlasting ruler,
deliverer, sustainer, who is Osiris, who is Nu, who is Ra, who is Tum,
all whose feathers are upon him, and who giveth life for ever and for
ever._”
These matters, then, being accomplished, we returned to Thebes; and
nothing impeded my entrance to the subterranean palaces.
But we transported my magic apparatus, on a truck, into the
forty-ninth antechamber of those secret halls, to be convenient for our
operations at a fitting time. But, because the fidelity of the servants
whom we left with the rest of our baggage by the river-side (excepting
that which I myself had concealed) was not above suspicion, I, indeed,
took with me all my money, to wit, five-and-fifty gold quarter-ounces
of Victory queen of the stalwart stately Anglicans,[6] and some
Egyptian silver. Also I armed myself with my death-spitter,[7] and with
a belt containing four-and-sixty death-parcels,[8] for there was always
a chance of an encounter with barbarian tomb-riflers in Egypt of the
nineteenth century to come. Also, I took my gold time-teller:[9] for
that was the last thing which I bought before I left the land of my
future birth.
But we stood before the hitherto-resisting portal. A touch from my
magic staff caused the massive gates to creak and to yawn with much
groaning before us. Having crossed certain vast secret halls, walking
at a slow but even pace for an hour or more, we came to the verge of a
subterranean lake. I flashed my lanthorn over the watery expanse: but
we saw no distant shore. A narrow causeway, only a few spans higher
than the dark flood, was all that met our eyes; and that lost itself,
twenty cubits away, in impenetrable gloom. I stooped and dipped my
hand into the water: by which act I perceived that what I had taken
for a lake was actually a strong stream; and I opined that it was some
subterranean collateral of sacred Sihor.
But I boldly stepped out on to the causeway, bidding Amenemhat to
follow me and to push before him the small wheeled truck, light
to lift, easily propelled, which contained my cabinet of essences
and quintessences, with my divination-cup and my crystal orb of
divination banded with silver with adornments of rose-crystals and
blue moonstones, together with a skinful of Nile-water and certain
alimentaries. And, as my eyes became accustomed to the murky blackness,
I perceived the outlines of colossal columns on both sides of the
stream: these supported a carven roof strangely painted with cats and
weasels.
But, after a journey which seemed to be interminable owing to the
darkness and the silence, though it was not actually more than a
thousand paces, the causeway widened suddenly; and, on peering for the
edge, I was ware that I had crossed the dark river as by a bridge. That
dark river of running water divided my life as a liegeman of Victory
queen of the stalwart stately Anglicans from a life which lay before.
New wonders arrested the melancholy dejection of my mind. In front
of me, there appeared a wall painted with figures representing the
initiation of priests in the divine Isidian mysteries; and this wall
was pierced by three doors. Not for me was it to hesitate. Not for me
was it even to ask guidance of my familiar. But these opinions did
not prevent me from contriving a wile, observing with the corner of
my eye that Amenemhat’s glance instinctively went to the door on the
right hand. Which door I instantly laid open with a touch of my magic
staff; and, having passed along a corridor, richly adorned, very fair
to see, we emerged in a vast circular hall, columned, and surrounded by
a cloister having a series of apsidal chapels in its outer boundary.
And the place was indeed marvellous. For, in the middle of the hall,
four-and-twenty circular stairs soared to a circular platform, whereon
sat a lonely altar; and the whole place was made of some clear white
stone like polished marble, dazzling snow-white marble without veins or
mottling, and without any of the joints which are formed when slabs of
stone are laid in order one upon another: so that I could not determine
whether the wall had been builded with hands, or cut with incalculable
toil from the virgin quarry, or merely called into being by art magic.
But, though the hall was of most candid whiteness, the altar on the
summit of the circular foot-pace was of blood-red porphyry. And, being
(as it was) deep in the bosom of the grain-giving earth, the place
was lighted by a radiance, perennial, most agreeable to the eyes, the
source of which I am not at liberty to tell. Such was the secret hall
beneath Thebes.[10]
But I placed my magic apparatus on the altar, and on the foot-pace
pertinent thereto, all in proper order; and I sat down, with Amenemhat,
on the lowest step, to refresh our bodies with a meal in preparation
for the work before us. And, when we had dismissed the desire of eating
and drinking, so sitting we conversed as follows.
“I do not remember this white hall as it now is,” said Amenemhat.
“Hast thou then seen it before?” I inquired.
“When I was priest of Tanis, I oft-times celebrated the mysteries here.”
“And to what was it like then?”
“It was draped with white carpets of silk embroidered in silver with
images of the assessors of Amentet. And a carpet was hanged between
every pair of pillars, veiling the cloister from the hall.”
“Yet the hall will serve our purpose as well without its hangings?”
“Doubtless. But still it seems that some malignant sprite might lurk
in the shadow of those columns, watching, with intent to interrupt our
sacred rites.”
And hardly had the Tanitic priest uttered the last word, when a
blameless shape (very loathesome and ferocious, shewing nothing but
the accentuation of a tattered pendulous head and the thick rictus
of parts of a face), emerged from those very shadows, and rushed upon
us with mouth-foamings and hiccoughs and eye-rollings, hideously
screeching.
Amenemhat withered away with terror; and his mind wilted as he fell
swooning on the steps. But I, strongly bounding, leaped to the altar;
and, having seized my magic staff, and having made the terrible _Sign
of the Godlike Rulers_, then indeed I proclaimed the _Spell Which
Binds_.
The Shape stood, held by the mighty inchantment, a ridiculous and cruel
personage, gross and ceruminous, with an incomplete head dandling on
a tendinous neck. But I descended to recover my familiar. And, having
further bound the Shape with the _Word of Fear_, I drew back the mind
of Amenemhat to his body, fattening it with comfortable words. And anon
I required the Shape to decline to me his generalities, telling who and
what he was.
But he responded very obediently, saying: “I am Sanes, priest of
Osiris, warden of yonder purple altar, and long it is since I have
formed mortal speech with these remnants of my tongue.”
I then demanded, “Why, O hideous and excessive prelate, didst thou rush
out so menacingly upon us?”
“Because,” he said, “having seen no man since I know not when, I was
fearful that ye had evil designs. But, seeing that thou hast the _Sign_
and the _Spell_ and the _Word_, I must believe thee to be present with
the sanction of the gods. Yet, seeing that I (in my lifetime) was the
warden of this place, seeing that no man hath deposed me, seeing also
that (after my accidental but lamentable death) I was not properly
embalmed but did myself fulfil the cavities of the holy crocodiles who
ate me, I still must deem myself its warden.”
Thus having spoken, he wept fragmentarily. And I will say that I
rarely have seen anything more frightful than the tears of a shape
which (some centuries before) had been an eaten clergyman. Wherefore,
having required him to make his Mark with his finger (as it were) on
the stainless floor, and having counted the angles of the same, I said:
“Poor faithful Senior, thou shalt be relieved of thy wardenship and
speeded whither thou shouldst have gone ages ago.”
And I removed _Spell_ and _Word_. But, intoning the _Speeding Hymn_, I
bade the Shape to begone in peace to the dull region of Amentet, giving
him the _Word of Entrance_, and praying the Assessors to deal leniently
with him. For surely so dreary and so patient a watch and ward as his
should suffice to smooth many wrinkles from his sphere of gold.
And, with a joyful cry, the Shape collected his parts; and, leaping,
he evanesced. But we turned to the matter which engrossed us, having
dismissed the long-delayed ghost to his rest.
In this manner, I began to use my magic art in the secret hall of
Thebes.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] The tonsure is, of course, not pentagonal but circular. The bishop
who confers it does, however, ceremonially dip the clerk’s hair in five
places, _e.g._ front, back, right, left, and crown, while teaching the
tonsured to twitter: “_Dominus pars--haereditatis meae--et calicis
meis--Tu es Qui restitues--haereditatem meam mihi._” Hence, perhaps,
the epithet “five-pointed.” A.H.
[6] I surmise that these “gold quarter-ounces” were sovereigns. A. H.
[7] These words are written in late-Victorian English by what I take to
be Mr. Crabbe’s own hand. A. H.
[8] These words are written in late-Victorian English by what I take to
be Mr. Crabbe’s own hand. A. H.
[9] These words are written in late-Victorian English by what I take to
be Mr. Crabbe’s own hand. A. H.
[10] Mr. C.’s statement would almost seem to indicate that Messrs.
Currelly, Dennis, Dalison, and Naville, the learned and assiduous
excavators of the subterranean sanctuary at Thebes (cf. _The Times_,