"Who art thou, stranger?" he answered, turning sharply on me. "And whence comest thou that thou knowest not Ptahmes, Chief of the King's Magicians? Learn, then, that he hath fallen from his high estate, inasmuch as he made oath before Pharaoh that the first-born of the King should take no hurt from the spell this Israelitish sorcerer, Moses, hath cast upon the land. Now the child and all the first-born of Egypt are dead, and the heart of Pharaoh being hardened against his servant, he hath shamed him and driven him from before his face."
As he finished speaking, the disgraced man withdrew his robe from his face, and I realised the astounding fact that Ptahmes the Magician and Pharos the Egyptian were not ancestor and descendant, but one and the same person.
CHAPTER XI.
Of the circumstances under which my senses returned to me after the remarkable vision, for that is the only name I can assign to it, which I have described in the preceding chapter, only the vaguest recollection remains to me.
When Pharos had ordered me to drink the stuff he had poured out, we were standing before the Sphinx at Gizeh; now, when I opened my eyes, I was back once more in my bedroom at the hotel in Cairo. Brilliant sunshine was streaming in through the jalousies, and I could hear footsteps in the corridor outside. At first I felt inclined to treat the whole as a dream; but the marks upon my hands, made when I had beaten them on the rough walls of that terrible chamber in the Pyramid, soon showed me the futility of so doing. I remembered how I had run round and round that dreadful place in search of a way out, and the horror of the recollection was sufficient to bring a cold sweat out once more upon my forehead. Strange to say, I mean strange in the light of all that has transpired since, the memory of the threat Pharos had used to me caused me no uneasiness, and yet, permeating my whole being, was a loathing for him and a haunting fear that was beyond description in words. This dislike was the outcome not so much of a physical animosity, if I may so designate it, as of a peculiar description of supernatural fear. Reason with myself as I would I could not get rid of the belief that the man was more than he pretended to be, that there was some link between him and the Unseen which it was impossible for me to understand. Arguing with myself in this way I was the more disposed to believe in the vision of the preceding night.
On consulting my watch I was amazed to find that it wanted only a few minutes of ten o'clock. I sprang from my bed, and a moment later came within an ace of measuring my length upon the floor. What occasioned this weakness I could not tell, but the fact remains that I was as feeble as a little child. The room spun round and round until I became so giddy that I was compelled to clutch at a table for support. What was even stranger, I was conscious of a sharp pricking on my left arm a little above the elbow, which eventually became so sharp that it could be felt not only on the tips of my fingers but for some distance down my side. To examine the place was the work of a moment. On the fleshy part of the arm, three inches or so above the elbow, was a small spot, such as might have been made by some sharp pointed instrument, a hypodermic syringe for instance, and which was fast changing from a pale pink to a purple hue. My wonderment was increased when I discovered that the spot itself, and the flesh surrounding it for more than an inch, was incapable of sensation. I puzzled my brains in vain to account for its presence there. I could not remember scratching myself with anything in my room, nor could I discover that the coat I bad worn on the preceding evening showed any signs of a puncture.
After a few moments the feeling of weakness which had seized me when I first left my bed wore off. I accordingly dressed myself with as much despatch as I could put into the operation, and my toilet being completed, left my room and went in search of the Fräulein Valerie. To my disappointment she was not visible. I, however, discovered Pharos seated in the veranda, in the full glare of the morning sun, with the monkey, Pehtes, on his knee. For once he was in the very best of tempers. Indeed, since I had first made his acquaintance I never remembered to have known him so merry. At a sign I seated myself beside him.
"My friend," he began, "I am rejoiced to see you. Permit me to inform you that you had a narrow escape last night. However, since you are up and about this morning I presume you are feeling none the worse for it."
I described the fit of vertigo which had overtaken me when I rose from my bed, and went on to question him as to what had happened after I had become unconscious on the preceding night.