"So you have discovered everything, have you, my friend?" he said. "And pray what is this knowledge that you have accumulated?"
"How can I tell you?" I cried, scarcely knowing how to enter upon my terrible indictment. "How can I make you understand your wickedness? I have discovered that it is you who are responsible for the misery from which Europe is now suffering. I know that it was I, through you, who introduced the plague and carried it from Constantinople to London. Inhuman monster!" I continued, having by this time worked myself to a white heat. "I was in your power and you made me your tool. But you shall not escape. It is not too late even now to punish you. Within an hour the world shall know everything, and you will be dead, if devils can die. I have been your tool, but, since I know your wickedness, I will not be your accomplice. Oh, my God! is it possible that a man breathing the pure air of heaven can be so vile?"
All the time I had been thus denouncing him I had been standing just as I was when he entered the room, with Valerie still crouching at my feet. The dangerous light I remembered so well of old had returned to his eyes, making him look indescribably fiendish.
"Are you mad that you dare to talk to me in this fashion?" he said at last, but with a calmness the meaning of which there was no mistaking. "Since it is plain that you do not remember the hold I have upon you, nor what your fate will be if you anger me, I must enlighten you. You bring these accusations against me and you threaten to betray me to the world—me, Pharos the Egyptian, and to your pitiful world which I spurn beneath my feet. Once more I ask you, are you mad? But since there is no further need for concealment, and you desire the truth, you shall hear it." He paused, and when he spoke again it was noticeable that he had dropped his former conversational tone and had adopted a manner more in keeping with the solemnity of what he had to say. "Know, then, that what thou sawest in the vision before the Sphinx and in the Temple of Ammon was the truth, and not a dream, as I desired thee to believe. I, whom thou hast known as Pharos, am none other than Ptahmes, son of Netruhôtep, prophet of the north and south, the same whom Pharaoh sought to kill, and who died in hiding and was buried by his faithful priests under cover of night more than three thousand years ago. Cursed by the Gods, and denied the right of burial by order of the King, I have inhabited this shape since then. Darest thou, knowing this, pit thyself against the servant of the Mighty Ones? For I tell thee assuredly that the plague which is now destroying Europe was decreed by the Gods of Egypt against such nations as have committed the sin of sacrilege."
He paused, and for a moment I thought he would have sprung upon me as he had done that night in my studio. But he controlled himself with an effort, and a moment later his voice was as soft and conciliatory and yet as full of malice as before. I also noticed that he had returned to his ordinary and more colloquial tone.
"Are you anxious to hear more? If you are determined to proclaim my doings to the world, it is only fit you should know everything. I will willingly confess. Why should I not do so? You are mine to do with as I please. Without my leave you are powerless to hurt me, and who would believe you if you were to tell? No one! They would call you mad, as you undoubtedly are, and say that fear of the plague had turned your brain. In Naples you accused me of the murder of Clausand, the curiosity dealer. I denied it because the time was not then ripe for me to acquaint you with the truth. Now I confess it. I stabbed him because he would not give me a certain scarabeus, and to divert suspicion willed that the half-crazy German, Schmidt, whom the other had cast out of his service, should declare that he did the deed. In obedience to my desire you followed me to Italy and accompanied me thence to Egypt. I it was who drew you to the Pyramid and decreed that you should lose your way inside, in order that when fear had deprived you of your senses I might inoculate you with the plague. Seven days later you were stricken with it in the desert. As soon as you recovered I carried you off to Europe to begin the work required of you. In Constantinople, Vienna, Prague, Berlin, Hamburg, wherever you went you left the fatal germs of the disease as a legacy behind you. You infected this woman here, and but for me she would have died. To-day the last portion of that vengeance which has been decreed commences, and when all is finished I go to that rest in ancient Thebes which has been denied me these long three thousand years. Hark! Even now the sound of wailing is to be heard in London. Hour by hour the virulence of the pestilence increases, and the strong men and weak women, youths and maidens, children and babes, go down before it like corn before the reaper. On every hand the voices of mourners rise into the summer air, and it is I, Ptahmes, the servant of the Gods, the prophet of the King, the man whom thou hast said thou wilt proclaim to the world, who has brought it about."
Then, lifting his right hand, he pointed it at me.
"Fool—fool!" he cried, with withering scorn. "Frail atom in the path of life, who art thou that thou shouldst deem thyself strong enough to cope with me? Learn then that the time is not yet ripe. I have further need of thee. Sleep again, and in that sleep do all I shall require of thee."
As he said this his diminutive form seemed to grow larger and more terrible, until it appeared to have attained twice its ordinary size. His eyes shone in his head like living coals and seemed to burn into my brain. I saw Valerie rise from the place where she had hitherto been crouching, and snatch an Oriental dagger from a table. Then, swift as a panther, she sprang upon him, only to be hurled back against the wall as if struck by an invisible hand. Then, obedient as a little child, I closed my eyes and slept.