The False G.o.ds.
by George Horace Lorimer.
I
It was shortly after ten o"clock one morning when Ezra Simpkins, a reporter from the _Boston Banner_, entered the Oriental Building, that dingy pile of brick and brownstone which covers a block on Sixth Avenue, and began to hunt for the office of the Royal Society of Egyptian Exploration and Research. After wandering through a labyrinth of halls, he finally found it on the second floor. A few steps farther on, a stairway led down to one of the side entrances; for the building could be entered from any of the four bounding streets.
Simpkins regarded knocking on doors and sending in cards as formalities which served merely to tempt people of a retiring disposition to lie, so when he walked into the waiting-room and found it deserted, he pa.s.sed through it quickly and opened the door beyond. But if he had expected this manoeuver to bring him within easy distance of the person whom he was seeking, he was disappointed. He had simply walked into a small outer office. A self-sufficient youth of twelve, who was stuffed into a be-b.u.t.toned suit, was its sole occupant.
"h.e.l.lo, bub!" said Simpkins to this Cerberus of the threshold. "Mrs.
Athelstone in?" and he drew out his letter of introduction; for he had instantly decided to use it in place of a card, as being more likely to gain him admittance.
"Aw, fergit it," the youth answered with fine American independence.
"I"ll let youse know when your turn comes, an" youse can keep your ref"rences till you"re asked for "em," and he surveyed Simpkins with marked disfavor.
The reporter made no answer and asked no questions. Until that moment he had not known that he had a turn, but if he had, he did not propose to lose it by any foolish slip. So he settled down in his chair and began to turn over his a.s.signment in his mind.
That Simpkins had come over to New York was due to the conviction of his managing editor, Mr. Naylor, that a certain feature which had been shaping up in his head would possess a peculiar interest if it could be "led" with a few remarks by Mrs. Athelstone. Though her husband, the Rev. Alfred W.R. Athelstone, was a Church of England clergyman, whose interest in Egyptology had led him to accept the presidency of the American branch of the Royal Society, she was a leader among the Theosophists. And now that the old head of the cult was dead, it was rumored that Mrs. Athelstone had announced the reincarnation of Madame Blavatsky in her own person. This in itself was a good "story," but it was not until a second rumor reached Naylor"s ears that his newspaper soul was stirred to its yellowest depths. For there was in Boston an a.s.sociation known as the American Society for the Investigation of Ancient Beliefs, which was a rival of the Royal Society in its good work of laying bare with pick and spade the buried mysteries along the Nile.
And this rivalry, which was strong between the societies and bitter between their presidents, became acute in the persons of their secretaries, both of whom were women. Madame Gianclis, who served the Boston Society, boasted Egyptian blood in her veins, a claim which Mrs.
Athelstone, who acted as secretary for her husband"s society, politely conceded, with the qualification that some ancestor of her rival had contributed a dash of the Senegambian as well.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ""Aw, fergit it.""]
This remark, duly reported to Madame Gianclis, had not put her in a humor to concede Madame Blavatsky"s soul, or any part of it, to Mrs.
Athelstone. Promptly on hearing of her pretensions, so rumor had it, the Boston woman had announced the reincarnation of Theosophy"s high priestess in herself. And Boston believers were inclined to accept her view, as it was difficult for them to understand how any soul with liberty of action could deliberately choose a New York residence.
Now, all these things had filtered through to Naylor from those just without the temple gates, for whatever the quarrels of the two societies and their enemies, they tried to keep them to themselves. They had had experience with publicity and had found that ridicule goes hand in hand with it in this iconoclastic age. But out of these rumors, unconfirmed though they were, grew a vision in Naylor"s brain--a vision of a glorified spread in the _Sunday Banner"s_ magazine section. Under a two-page "head," builded cunningly of six sizes of type, he saw ravishingly beautiful pictures of Madame Gianclis and Mrs. Athelstone, and hovering between them the materialized, but homeless, soul of Madame Blavatsky, trying to make choice of an abiding-place, the whole enlivened and illuminated with much "snappy" reading matter.
Now, Simpkins was the man to make a managing editor"s dreams come true, so Naylor rubbed the lamp for him and told him what he craved. But the reporter"s success in life had been won by an ability to combine much extravagance of statement in the written with great conservatism in the spoken word. Early in his experience he had learned that Naylor"s optimism, though purely professional, entailed unpleasant consequences on the reporter who shared it and then betrayed some too generous trust; so he absolutely refused to admit that there was any basis for it now.
"You know she won"t talk to reporters," he protested. "Those New York boys have joshed that whole bunch so they"re afraid to say their prayers out loud. Then she"s English and dead swell, and that combination"s hard to open, unless you have a number in the Four Hundred, and then it ain"t refined to try. I can make a pa.s.s at her, but it"ll be a frost for me."
"Nonsense! You must make her talk, or manage to be around while some one else does," Naylor answered, waving aside obstacles with the n.o.ble scorn of one whose business it is to set others to conquer them. "I want a good snappy interview, understand, and descriptions for some red-hot pictures, if you can"t get photos. I"m going to save the spread in the Sunday magazine for that story, and you don"t want to slip up on the Athelstone end of it. That hall is just what the story needs for a setting. Get in and size it up."
"You remember what happened to that _Courier_ man who got in?"
ventured Simpkins.
"I believe I did hear something about a _Courier_ man"s being snaked out of a closet and kicked downstairs. Served him right.
_Very_ coa.r.s.e work. Very coa.r.s.e work _indeed_. There"s a better way and you"ll find it." There was something unpleasantly significant in his voice, as he terminated the interview by swinging around to his desk and picking up a handful of papers, which warned the reporter that he had gone the limit.
Simpkins had heard of the hall, for it had been written up just after Doctor Athelstone, who was a man of some wealth, had a.s.sembled in it his private collection of Egyptian treasures. But he knew, too, that it had become increasingly difficult to penetrate since Mrs. Athelstone had been made the subject of some entertaining, but too imaginative, Sunday specials. Still, now that he had properly magnified the difficulties of the undertaking to Naylor, that the disgrace of defeat might be discounted or the glory of achievement enhanced, he believed that he knew a way to gain access to the hall and perhaps to manage a talk with Mrs. Athelstone herself. His line of thought started him for Cambridge, where he had a younger brother whom he was helping through Harvard.
As a result of this fraternal visit, Simpkins minor cut the cla.s.ses of Professor Alexander Blackburn, the eminent archaeologist, for the next week, and went to his other lectures by back streets. For the kindly professor had given him a letter, introducing him to Mrs. Athelstone as a worthy young student with a laudable thirst for that greater knowledge of Egyptian archaeology, ethnology and epigraphy which was to be gained by an inspection of her collection. And it was the possession of this letter which influenced Simpkins major to take the smoking car and to sit up all night, conning an instructive volume on Ancient Egypt, thereby acquiring much curious information, and diverting two dollars of his expense money to the pocket in which he kept his individual cash balance.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
II
For five minutes the decorous silence of the anteroom was unbroken.
Then the door of the inner office swung open and closed behind a dejected-looking young man, and the boy, without so much as asking for a card, preceded the secretly-elated Simpkins into the hall.
They had stepped from the present into the past. Simpkins found himself looking between a double row of pillars, covered with hieroglyphics in red and black, to an altar of polished black basalt, guarded on either side by stone sphinxes. Behind it, straight from the lofty ceiling, fell a veil of black velvet, embroidered with golden scarabaei, and fringed with violet. The approach, a hundred paces or more, was guarded by twoscore mummies in black cases, standing upright along the pillars.
"Watcher gawkin" at?" demanded the youth, grinning up at the staring Simpkins. "Lose dat farmer-boy face or it"s back to de ole homestead for youse. Her royal nibs ain"t lookin" for no good milker."
"Oh, I"m just rubbering to see where the goat"s kept," the reporter answered, trying to a.s.sume a properly metropolitan expression. "Suppose I"ll have to take the third degree before I can get out of here."
The youth started noiselessly across the floor, and Simpkins saw that he wore sandals. His own heavy walking boots rang loudly on the flagged floors and woke the echoes in the vaulted ceiling. He began to tread on tiptoe, as one moves in a death-chamber.
And that was what this great room was: a charnel-house filled with the spoil of tombs and temples. The dim light fluttered down from quaint, triangular windows, set with a checker-work of brick-red and saffron-colored panes about a central design, a scarlet heart upon a white star, and within that a black scarabaeus. The white background of the walls threw into relief the angular figures on the frieze, scenes from old Egyptian life: games, marriages, feasts and battles, painted in the crude colors of early art. Between were paneled pictures of the G.o.ds, monstrous and deformed deities, half men, half beasts; and the dado, done in black, pictured the funeral rites of the Egyptians, with explanatory pa.s.sages from the ritual of the dead. Rudely-sculptured bas-reliefs and intaglios, torn from ancient mastabas, were set over windows and doors, and stone colossi of kings and G.o.ds leered and threatened from dusky corners. Sarcophagi of black basalt, red porphyry and pink-veined alabaster, cunningly carved, were disposed as they had been found in the pits of the dead, with the sepulchral vases and the hideous wooden idols beside them.
The descriptions of the place had prepared Simpkins for something out of the ordinary, but nothing like this; and he looked about him with wonder in his eyes and a vague awe at his heart, until he found himself standing in the corner of the hall to the right of the black altar in the west. Two sarcophagi, one of basalt, the other of alabaster, were placed at right angles to the walls, partially inclosing a small s.p.a.ce.
Within this inclosure, bowed over a stone table, sat a woman, writing.
At either end of the table a mummy case, one black, the other gilt, stood upright. The boy halted just outside this singular private office, and the woman rose and came toward them.
Simpkins had never read Virgil, but he knew the G.o.ddess by her walk. She was young--not over thirty--and tall and stately. Her gown was black, some soft stuff which clung about her, and a bunch of violets at her waist made the whole corner faintly sweet. Her features were regular, but of a type strange to Simpkins, the nose slightly aquiline, the lips full and red--vividly so by contrast to the clear white of the skin--and the forehead low and straight. Black hair waved back from it, and was caught up by the coils of a golden asp, from whose lifted head two rubies gleamed. Doubtless a woman would have p.r.o.nounced her gown absurd and her way of wearing her hair an intolerable affectation. But it was effective with the less discriminating animal--instantly so with Simpkins.
And then she raised her eyes and looked at him. To the first glance they were dusky eyes, deep and fathomless, changing swiftly to the blue-black of the northern skies on a clear winter night, and flashing out sharp points of light, like star-rays. He knew that in that glance he had been weighed, gauged and cla.s.sed, and, though he was used to questioning Governors and Senators quite unabashed and unafraid, he found himself standing awkward and ill-at-ease in the presence of this woman.
Had she addressed him in Greek or Egyptian, he would have accepted it as a matter of course. But when she did speak it was in the soft, clear tones of a well-bred Englishwoman, and what she said was commonplace enough.
"I suppose you"ve called to see about the place?" she asked.
"Ye-es," stammered Simpkins, but with wit enough to know that he had come at an opportune moment. If there were a place, decidedly he had called to see about it.
"Who sent you?" she continued, and he understood that he was not there in answer to a want advertis.e.m.e.nt.
"Professor Blackburn." And he presented his letter and went on, with a return of his glibness: "You see, I"ve been working my way through Harvard--preparing for the ministry--Congregationalist. Found I"d have to stop and go to work regularly for a while before I could finish. So I"ve come over here, where I can attend the night cla.s.ses at Columbia at the same time. And as I"m interested in Egyptology, and had heard a good deal about your collection, I got that letter to you. Thought you might know some one in the building who wanted a man, as work in a place like this would be right in my line. Of course, if you"re looking for any one, I"d like to apply for the place." And he paused expectantly.
"I see. You want to be a Dissenting minister, and you"re working for your education. Very creditable of you, I"m sure. And you"re a stranger in New York, you say?"
"Utter," returned Simpkins.
Mrs. Athelstone proceeded to question him at some length about his qualifications. When he had satisfied her that he was competent to attend to the easy, clerical work of the office and to care for the more valuable articles in the hall, things which she did not care to leave to the regular cleaners, she concluded:
"I"m disposed to give you a trial, Mr. Simpkins, but I want you to understand that under no circ.u.mstances are you to talk about me or your work outside the office. I"ve been so hunted and harried by reporters----" And her voice broke. "What I want above all else is a clerk that I can trust."
The a.s.surance which Simpkins gave in reply came harder than all the lies he had told that morning, and, some way, none of them had slipped out so smoothly as usual. He was a fairly truthful and tender-hearted man outside his work, but in it he had accustomed himself to regard men and women in a purely impersonal way, and their troubles and scandals simply as material. To his mind, nothing was worth while unless it had a news value; and nothing was sacred that had. But he was uneasily conscious now that he was doing a deliberately brutal thing, and for the first time he felt that regard for a subject"s feelings which is so fatal to success in certain branches of the new journalism. But he repressed the troublesome instinct, and when Mrs. Athelstone dismissed him a few minutes later, it was with the understanding that he should report the next morning, ready for work.