The Jewel of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker (books to read in your 20s TXT) 📕

alone, and

free to do what I like with my own—including my life!” Mr. Trelawny

bowed gravely, and turning to Mr. Corbeck said:

 

“I have known your ideas for many years past, old friend; so I need ask

you nothing. As to Margaret and Malcolm Ross, they have already told me

their wishes in no uncertain way.” He paused a few seconds, as though

to put his thoughts or his words in order; then he began to explain his

views and intentions. He spoke very carefully, seeming always to bear

in mind that some of us who listened were ignorant of the very root and

nature of some things touched upon, and explaining them to us as he went

on:

 

“The experiment which is before us is to try whether or no there is any

force, any reality, in the old Magic. There could not possibly be more

favourable conditions for the test; and it is my own desire to do all

that is possible to make the original design effective. That there is

some such existing power I firmly believe. It might not be possible to

create, or arrange, or organise such a power in our own time; but I take

it that if in Old Time such a power existed, it may have some

exceptional survival. After all, the Bible is not a myth; and we read

there that the sun stood still at a man’s command, and that an ass—not

a human one—spoke. And if the Witch at Endor could call up to Saul the

spirit of Samuel, why may not there have been others with equal powers;

and why may not one among them survive? Indeed, we are told in the Book

of Samuel that the Witch of Endor was only one of many, and her being

consulted by Saul was a matter of chance. He only sought one among the

many whom he had driven out of Israel; ‘all those that had Familiar

Spirits, and the Wizards.’ This Egyptian Queen, Tera, who reigned

nearly two thousand years before Saul, had a Familiar, and was a Wizard

too. See how the priests of her time, and those after it tried to wipe

out her name from the face of the earth, and put a curse over the very

door of her tomb so that none might ever discover the lost name. Ay,

and they succeeded so well that even Manetho, the historian of the

Egyptian Kings, writing in the tenth century before Christ, with all the

lore of the priesthood for forty centuries behind him, and with

possibility of access to every existing record, could not even find her

name. Did it strike any of you, in thinking of the late events, who or

what her Familiar was?” There was an interruption, for Doctor

Winchester struck one hand loudly on the other as he ejaculated:

 

“The cat! The mummy cat! I knew it!” Mr. Trelawny smiled over at him.

 

“You are right! There is every indication that the Familiar of the

Wizard Queen was that cat which was mummied when she was, and was not

only placed in her tomb, but was laid in the sarcophagus with her. That

was what bit into my wrist, what cut me with sharp claws.” He paused.

Margaret’s comment was a purely girlish one:

 

“Then my poor Silvio is acquitted! I am glad!” Her father stroked her

hair and went on:

 

“This woman seems to have had an extraordinary foresight. Foresight

far, far beyond her age and the philosophy of her time. She seems to

have seen through the weakness of her own religion, and even prepared

for emergence into a different world. All her aspirations were for the

North, the point of the compass whence blew the cool invigorating

breezes that make life a joy. From the first, her eyes seem to have

been attracted to the seven stars of the Plough from the fact, as

recorded in the hieroglyphics in her tomb, that at her birth a great

aerolite fell, from whose heart was finally extracted that Jewel of

Seven Stars which she regarded as the talisman of her life. It seems to

have so far ruled her destiny that all her thought and care circled

round it. The Magic Coffer, so wondrously wrought with seven sides, we

learn from the same source, came from the aerolite. Seven was to her a

magic number; and no wonder. With seven fingers on one hand, and seven

toes on one foot. With a talisman of a rare ruby with seven stars in

the same position as in that constellation which ruled her birth, each

star of the seven having seven points—in itself a geological wonder—it

would have been odd if she had not been attracted by it. Again, she was

born, we learn in the Stele of her tomb, in the seventh month of the

year—the month beginning with the Inundation of the Nile. Of which

month the presiding Goddess was Hathor, the Goddess of her own house, of

the Antefs of the Theban line—the Goddess who in various forms

symbolises beauty, and pleasure, and resurrection. Again, in this

seventh month—which, by later Egyptian astronomy began on Octorber 28th,

and ran to the 27th of our November—on the seventh day the Pointer of

the Plough just rises above the horizon of the sky at Thebes.

 

“In a marvellously strange way, therefore, are grouped into this woman’s

life these various things. The number seven; the Pole Star, with the

constellation of seven stars; the God of the month, Hathor, who was her

own particular God, the God of her family, the Antefs of the Theban

Dynasty, whose Kings” symbol it was, and whose seven forms ruled love

and the delights of life and resurrection. If ever there was ground for

magic; for the power of symbolism carried into mystic use; for a belief

in finites spirits in an age which knew not the Living God, it is here.

 

“Remember, too, that this woman was skilled in all the science of her

time. Her wise and cautious father took care of that, knowing that by

her own wisdom she must ultimately combat the intrigues of the

Hierarchy. Bear in mind that in old Egypt the science of Astronomy

began and was developed to an extraordinary height; and that Astrology

followed Astronomy in its progress. And it is possible that in the

later developments of science with regard to light rays, we may yet find

that Astrology is on a scientific basis. Our next wave of scientific

thought may deal with this. I shall have something special to call your

minds to on this point presently. Bear in mind also that the Egyptians

knew sciences, of which today, despite all our advantages, we are

profoundly ignorant. Acoustics, for instance, an exact science with the

builders of the temples of Karnak, of Luxor, of the Pyramids, is today

a mystery to Bell, and Kelvin, and Edison, and Marconi. Again, these

old miracle-workers probably understood some practical way of using

other forces, and amongst them the forces of light that at present we do

not dream of. But of this matter I shall speak later. That Magic

Coffer of Queen Tera is probably a magic box in more ways than one. It

may—possibly it does—contain forces that we wot not of. We cannot open

it; it must be closed from within. How then was it closed? It is a

coffer of solid stone, of amazing hardness, more like a jewel than an

ordinary marble, with a lid equally solid; and yet all is so finely

wrought that the finest tool made today cannot be inserted under the

flange. How was it wrought to such perfection? How was the stone so

chosen that those translucent patches match the relations of the seven

stars of the constellation? How is it, or from what cause, that when

the starlight shines on it, it glows from within—that when I fix the

lamps in similar form the glow grows greater still; and yet the box is

irresponsive to ordinary light however great? I tell you that that box

hides some great mystery of science. We shall find that the light will

open it in some way: either by striking on some substance, sensitive in

a peculiar way to its effect, or in releasing some greater power. I

only trust that in our ignorance we may not so bungle things as to do

harm to its mechanism; and so deprive the knowledge of our time of a

lesson handed down, as by a miracle, through nearly five thousand years.

 

“In another way, too, there may be hidden in that box secrets which, for

good or ill, may enlighten the world. We know from their records, and

inferentially also, that the Egyptians studied the properties of herbs

and minerals for magic purposes—white magic as well as black. We know

that some of the wizards of old could induce from sleep dreams of any

given kind. That this purpose was mainly effected by hypnotism, which

was another art or science of Old Nile, I have little doubt. But still,

they must have had a mastery of drugs that is far beyond anything we

know. With our own pharmacopoeia we can, to a certain extent, induce

dreams. We may even differentiate between good and bad-dreams of

pleasure, or disturbing and harrowing dreams. But these old

practitioners seemed to have been able to command at will any form or

colour of dreaming; could work round any given subject or thought in

almost any was required. In that coffer, which you have seen, may rest

a very armoury of dreams. Indeed, some of the forces that lie within it

may have been already used in my household.” Again there was an

interruption from Doctor Winchester.

 

“But if in your case some of these imprisoned forces were used, what set

them free at the opportune time, or how? Besides, you and Mr. Corbeck

were once before put into a trance for three whole days, when you were

in the Queen’s tomb for the second time. And then, as I gathered from

Mr. Corbeck’s story, the coffer was not back in the tomb, though the

mummy was. Surely in both these cases there must have been some active

intelligence awake, and with some other power to wield.” Mr. Trelawny’s

answer was equally to the point:

 

“There was some active intelligence awake. I am convinced of it. And

it wielded a power which it never lacks. I believe that on both those

occasions hypnotism was the power wielded.”

 

“And wherein is that power contained? What view do you hold on the

subject?” Doctor Winchester’s voice vibrated with the intensity of his

excitement as he leaned forward, breathing hard, and with eyes staring.

Mr. Trelawny said solemnly:

 

“In the mummy of the Queen Tera! I was coming to that presently.

Perhaps we had better wait till I clear the ground a little. What I

hold is, that the preparation of that box was made for a special

occasion; as indeed were all the preparations of the tomb and all

belonging to it. Queen Tera did not trouble herself to guard against

snakes and scorpions, in that rocky tomb cut in the sheer cliff face a

hundred feet above the level of the valley, and fifty down from the

summit. Her precautions were against the disturbances of human hands;

against the jealousy and hatred of the priests, who, had they known of

her real aims, would have tried to baffle them. From her point of view,

she made all ready for the time of resurrection, whenever that might be.

I gather from the symbolic pictures in the tomb that she so far differed

from the belief of her time that she looked for a resurrection in the

flesh. It was doubtless this that intensified the hatred of the