From minute to minute his perturbation increased. He did his best to maintain a calm front before his calm adversary. As he peered into those terrible eyes, he knew that he must expect no mercy if he failed in producing the magic card. Forgiveness and revenge were alike unknown to the inexorable being before him, who was the embodiment of Law, serene and passionless, neither to be hurried nor hindered, keeping ever to the simple white line traced out for its footsteps from the beginning of the world, and as utterly regardless of human joy or human sorrow, as of the grumbling of the earthquake or the fiery passion of the volcano.
Slowly but surely the game went on. Ducie's adversary marked off every deal with a hieroglyph on a huge slate by his side. Fifteen--ten--five--the number of deals diminished one by one, and still the magic card was not forthcoming. Ducie went on playing with the quiet courage of despair. Five--four--three--two--one. The last deal had come but the five of clubs was still hidden in the pack. As he thought of the terrible fate before him his soul was utterly dismayed. Suddenly he heard a faint whisper in his ear: "Give me the Great Mogul Diamond and I will save you." "It is yours," he replied in the same tone. In a fainter whisper than before came the words: "Feel up your sleeve for the five of clubs."
Ducie put his hand up his sleeve and drew forth the magic card. As he dashed it on the table, cards and image melted silently away, all but the great calm eyes, which seemed to recede slowly from him while gazing at him with an inexorable gentleness that awed him, and crushed out of him all expressions of joy at his escape.
He had been conscious all this time of being in his own room at the Royal George, and without being thoroughly awake, this consciousness was still upon him when he found himself left alone. Was he really quite alone? he asked himself. Some voice had whispered in his ear only a minute ago, and a voice implied a bodily presence. But whose presence?
He would doubtless know before long, when this unknown being would come forth to claim the great Diamond.
Well, better part from the Diamond than be made a living mummy of, and be buried for five hundred years among dead kings and priests in the great pyramid.
Was it Shakspeare who talked about "dusty death?" It did not matter. He had been saved from a dreadful fate, and a long peaceful sleep for one hundred and five hours, fifteen minutes, and ten seconds--neither more nor less--was needed to compensate him for the mental and bodily torture from which he had just escaped.
Even while this fancy was simmering in his brain, he was aware of a strange, subtle odour which seemed to rise from the floor in faint, cloud-like waves, rising and spreading till every nook and cranny of the room was pervaded by it. It was a mist of perfume--a perfume far from unpleasant to inhale--heavy, yet pungent, odorous of the East, inclining to sleep and to visions of a passionless existence, undisturbed by all outward influences--such visions as must come to the strange beings whose most central thought is that of future absorption in the mystic godhead of the mighty Brahma.
Empires might change and die, the world might split asunder and chaos rule again, it mattered not to him. Only to rest, to lie there for ever, self-absorbed, indifferent to all mundane matters--that was the utmost that he craved.
The mist of perfume thickened, becoming from minute to minute denser and more penetrating. By this time it seemed to have permeated his whole being. It filled his lungs, it mingled with his blood, it saturated his brain; it glowed in him, a slumberous heat, from head to foot. The shadowy past of his life, the real present of his surroundings, grouped themselves in his brain like blurred photographs, which it was impossible for him to regard with anything more than a vague and impersonal interest. Nothing seemed real to him save the noiseless involved working of his own mind, working in and out like a shuttle with a fantastic thread of many colours, and with self for ever as the central figure.