Brood of the Witch-Queen by Sax Rohmer (the top 100 crime novels of all time .TXT) 📕

unfamiliar to Sime. At certain points in his chant he would raise his arms in such a way that, clad in the black robe, he assumed the appearance of a gigantic bat. Each time that he acted thus the fire in the tripod, as if fanned into new life, would leap up, casting a hellish glare about the place. Then, as the chanter dropped his arms again, the flame would drop also.

A cloud of reddish vapour floated low in the apartment. There were a number of curiously-shaped vessels upon the floor, and against the farther wall, only rendered visible when the flames leapt high, was some motionless white object, apparently hung from the roof.

Dr. Cairn drew a hissing breath and grasped Sime’s wrist.

“We are too late!” he said strangely.

He spoke at a moment when his companion, peering through the ruddy gloom of the place, had been endeavouring more clearly to perceive that ominous shape which hung, horrible, in the shadow. He spoke, too, at a moment when the man in the black robe, raised his arms⁠—when, as if obedient to his will, the flames leapt up fitfully.

Although Sime could not be sure of what he saw, the recollection came to him of words recently spoken by Dr. Cairn. He remembered the story of Julian the Apostate, Julian the Emperor⁠—the Necromancer. He remembered what had been found in the Temple of the Moon after Julian’s death. He remembered that Lady Lashmore⁠—

And thereupon he experienced such a nausea that but for the fact that Dr. Cairn gripped him he must have fallen.

Tutored in a materialistic school, he could not even now admit that such monstrous things could be. With a necromantic operation taking place before his eyes; with the unholy perfume of the secret incense all but suffocating him; with the dreadful Oracle dully gleaming in the shadows of that temple of evil⁠—his reason would not accept the evidences. Any man of the ancient world⁠—of the middle ages⁠—would have known that he looked upon a professed wizard, upon a magician, who, according to one of the most ancient formulae known to mankind, was seeking to question the dead respecting the living.

But how many modern men are there capable of realising such a circumstance? How many who would accept the statement that such operations are still performed, not only in the East, but in Europe? How many who, witnessing this mass of Satan, would accept it for verity, would not deny the evidence of their very senses?

He could not believe such an orgy of wickedness possible. A Pagan emperor might have been capable of these things, but today⁠—wondrous is our faith in the virtue of “today!”

“Am I mad?” he whispered hoarsely, “or⁠—”

A thinly-veiled shape seemed to float out from that still form in the shadows; it assumed definite outlines; it became a woman, beautiful with a beauty that could only be described as awful.

She wore upon her brow the uraeus of Ancient Egyptian royalty; her sole garment was a robe of finest gauze. Like a cloud, like a vision, she floated into the light cast by the tripod.

A voice⁠—a voice which seemed to come from a vast distance, from somewhere outside the mighty granite walls of that unholy place⁠—spoke. The language was unknown to Sime, but the fierce handgrip upon his wrist grew fiercer. That dead tongue, that language unspoken since the dawn of Christianity, was known to the man who had been the companion of Sir Michael Ferrara.

In upon Sime swept a swift conviction⁠—that one could not witness such a scene as this and live and move again amongst one’s fellow-men! In a sort of frenzy, then, he wrenched himself free from the detaining hand, and launched a retort of modern science against the challenge of ancient sorcery.

Raising his Browning pistol, he fired⁠—shot after shot⁠—at that bat-like shape which stood between himself and the tripod!

A thousand frightful echoes filled the chamber with a demon mockery, boomed along those subterranean passages beneath, and bore the conflict of sound into the hidden places of the pyramid which had known not sound for untold generations.

“My God⁠—!”

Vaguely he became aware that Dr. Cairn was seeking to drag him away. Through a cloud of smoke he saw the black-robed figure turn; dream fashion, he saw the pallid, glistening face of Antony Ferrara; the long, evil eyes, alight like the eyes of a serpent, were fixed upon him. He seemed to stand amid a chaos, in a mad world beyond the borders of reason, beyond the dominions of God. But to his stupefied mind one astounding fact found access.

He had fired at least seven shots at the black-robed figure, and it was not humanly possible that all could have gone wide of their mark.

Yet Antony Ferrara lived!

Utter darkness blotted out the evil vision. Then there was a white light ahead; and feeling that he was struggling for sanity, Sime managed to realise that Dr. Cairn, retreating along the passage, was crying to him, in a voice rising almost to a shriek, to run⁠—run for his life⁠—for his salvation!

“You should not have fired!” he seemed to hear.

Unconscious of any contact with the stones⁠—although afterwards he found his knees and shins to be bleeding⁠—he was scrambling down that long, sloping shaft.

He had a vague impression that Dr. Cairn, descending beneath him, sometimes grasped his ankles and placed his feet into the footholes. A continuous roaring sound filled his ears, as if a great ocean were casting its storm waves against the structure around him. The place seemed to rock.

“Down flat!”

Some sense of reality was returning to him. Now he perceived that Dr. Cairn was urging him to crawl back along the short passage by which they had entered from the King’s Chamber.

Heedless of hurt, he threw himself down and pressed on.

A blank, like the sleep of exhaustion which follows delirium, came. Then Sime found himself standing in the King’s Chamber, Dr. Cairn, who held an electric lamp in his hand, beside him, and half supporting him.

The realities suddenly reasserting themselves,

“I have dropped my pistol!” muttered Sime.

He threw off