PAGE 2
The Ring Of Thoth
by
“Yes,” said another voice, “he really is an extraordinary fellow.”
“Do you know,” said the first speaker, “one could almost believe that by the continual contemplation of mummies the chap has become half a mummy himself?”
“He has certainly an Egyptian cast of countenance,” said the other.
John Vansittart Smith spun round upon his heel with the intention of shaming his countrymen by a corrosive remark or two. To his surprise and relief, the two young fellows who had been conversing had their shoulders turned towards him, and were gazing at one of the Louvre attendants who was polishing some brass-work at the other side of the room.
“Carter will be waiting for us at the Palais Royal,” said one tourist to the other, glancing at his watch, and they clattered away, leaving the student to his labours.
“I wonder what these chatterers call an Egyptian cast of countenance,” thought John Vansittart Smith, and he moved his position slightly in order to catch a glimpse of the man’s face. He started as his eyes fell upon it. It was indeed the very face with which his studies had made him familiar. The regular statuesque features, broad brow, well-rounded chin, and dusky complexion were the exact counterpart of the innumerable statues, mummy-cases, and pictures which adorned the walls of the apartment.
The thing was beyond all coincidence. The man must be an Egyptian.
The national angularity of the shoulders and narrowness of the hips were alone sufficient to identify him.
John Vansittart Smith shuffled towards the attendant with some intention of addressing him. He was not light of touch in conversation, and found it difficult to strike the happy mean between the brusqueness of the superior and the geniality of the equal. As he came nearer, the man presented his side face to him, but kept his gaze still bent upon his work. Vansittart Smith, fixing his eyes upon the fellow’s skin, was conscious of a sudden impression that there was something inhuman and preternatural about its appearance. Over the temple and cheek-bone it was as glazed and as shiny as varnished parchment. There was no suggestion of pores. One could not fancy a drop of moisture upon that arid surface. From brow to chin, however, it was cross- hatched by a million delicate wrinkles, which shot and interlaced as though Nature in some Maori mood had tried how wild and intricate a pattern she could devise.
“Ou est la collection de Memphis?” asked the student, with the awkward air of a man who is devising a question merely for the purpose of opening a conversation.
“C’est la,” replied the man brusquely, nodding his head at the other side of the room.
“Vous etes un Egyptien, n’est-ce pas?” asked the Englishman.
The attendant looked up and turned his strange dark eyes upon his questioner. They were vitreous, with a misty dry shininess, such as Smith had never seen in a human head before. As he gazed into them he saw some strong emotion gather in their depths, which rose and deepened until it broke into a look of something akin both to horror and to hatred.
“Non, monsieur; je suis Fransais.” The man turned abruptly and bent low over his polishing. The student gazed at him for a moment in astonishment, and then turning to a chair in a retired corner behind one of the doors he proceeded to make notes of his researches among the papyri. His thoughts, however refused to return into their natural groove. They would run upon the enigmatical attendant with the sphinx-like face and the parchment skin.
“Where have I seen such eyes?” said Vansittart Smith to himself. “There is something saurian about them, something reptilian. There’s the membrana nictitans of the snakes,” he mused, bethinking himself of his zoological studies. “It gives a shiny effect. But there was something more here. There was a sense of power, of wisdom–so I read them–and of weariness, utter weariness, and ineffable despair. It may be all imagination, but I never had so strong an impression. By Jove, I must have another look at them!” He rose and paced round the Egyptian rooms, but the man who had excited his curiosity had disappeared.