The Green Mummy

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The mansion was three-story, flat-roofed, extremely ugly and
unexpectedly comfortable. Built of mellow red brick with dingy
white stone facings, it stood a few yards back from the roadway
which ran from Gartley Fort through the village, and, at the
precise point where the Pyramids was situated, curved abruptly
through woodlands to terminate a mile away, at Jessum, the local
station of the Thames Railway Line. An iron railing, embedded in
moldering stone work, divided the narrow front garden from the
road, and on either side of the door--which could be reached by
five shallow steps--grew two small yew trees, smartly clipped
and trimmed into cones of dull green. These yews possessed some
magical significance, which Professor Braddock would occasionally
explain to chance visitors interested in occult matters; for,
amongst other things Egyptian, the archaeologist searched into
the magic of the Sons of Khem, and insisted that there was more
truth than superstition in their enchantments.

Braddock used all the vast rooms of the ground floor to house his
collection of antiquities, which he had acquired through many
laborious years. He dwelt entirely in this museum, as his
bedroom adjoined his study, and he frequently devoured his
hurried meals amongst the brilliantly tinted mummy cases. The
embalmed dead populated his world, and only now and then, when
Lucy insisted, did he ascend to the first floor, which was her
particular abode. Here was the drawing-room, the dining-room and
Lucy's boudoir; here also were sundry bedrooms, furnished and
unfurnished, in one of which Miss Kendal slept, while the others
remained vacant for chance visitors, principally from the
scientific world. The third story was devoted to the cook, her
husband--who acted as gardener--and to the house parlor maid, a
composite domestic, who worked from morning until night in
keeping the great house clean. During the day these servants
attended to their business in a comfortable basement, where the
cook ruled supreme. At the back of the mansion stretched a
fairly large kitchen garden, to which the cook's husband devoted
his attention. This was the entire domain belonging to the
tenant, as, of course, the Professor did not rent the arable
acres and comfortable farms which had belonged to the
dispossessed family.

Everything in the house went smoothly, as Lucy was a methodical
young person, who went by the clock and the almanac. Braddock
little knew how much of his undeniable comfort he owed to her
fostering care; for, prior to her return from school, he had been
robbed right and left by unscrupulous domestics. When his
step-daughter arrived he simply handed over the keys and the
housekeeping money--a fixed sum--and gave her strict
instructions not to bother him. Miss Kendal faithfully observed
this injunction, as she enjoyed being undisputed mistress, and
knew that, so long as her step-father had his meals, his bed, his
bath and his clothes, he required nothing save the constant
society of his beloved mummies, of which no one wished to deprive
him. These he dusted and cleansed and rearranged himself. Not
even Lucy dared to invade the museum, and the mere mention of
spring cleaning drove the Professor into displaying frantic rage,
in which he used bad language.

On returning from her walk with Archie, the girl had lured her
step-father into assuming a rusty dress suit, which had done
service for many years, and had coaxed him into a promise to be
present at dinner. Mrs. Jasher, the lively widow of the
district, was coming, and Braddock approved of a woman who looked
up to him as the one wise man in the world. Even science is
susceptible to judicious flattery, and Mrs. Jasher was never
backward in putting her admiration into words. Female gossip
declared that the widow wished to become the second Mrs.
Braddock, but if this was really the case, she had but small
chance of gaining her end. The Professor had once sacrificed his
liberty to secure a competence, and, having acquired five hundred
a year, was not inclined for a second matrimonial venture. Had
the widow been a dollar heiress with a million at her back he
would not have troubled to place a ring on her finger. And
certainly Mrs. Jasher had little to gain from such a dreary
marriage, beyond a collection of rubbish--as she said--and a
dull country house situated in a district inhabited solely by
peasants belonging to Saxon times.

Archie Hope left Lucy at the door of the Pyramids and repaired to
his village lodgings, for the purpose of assuming evening dress.
Lucy, being her own housekeeper, assisted the overworked parlor
maid to lay and decorate the table before receiving the guests.
Thus Mrs. Jasher found no one in the drawing-room to welcome her,
and, taking the privilege of old friendship, descended to beard
Braddock in his den. The Professor raised his eyes from a newly
bought scarabeus to behold a stout little lady smiling on him
from the doorway. He did not appear to be grateful for the
interruption, but Mrs. Jasher was not at all dismayed, being a
man-hunter by profession. Besides, she saw that Braddock was in
the clouds as usual, and would have received the King himself in
the same absent-minded manner.

"Pouf! what an abominal smell!" exclaimed the widow, holding a
flimsy lace handkerchief to her nose. "Kind of
camphor-sandal-wood-charnel-house smell. I wonder you are not
asphyxiated. Pouf! Ugh! Bur-r-r!"

The Professor stared at her with cold, fishy eyes. "Did you
speak?"

"Oh, dear me, yes, and you don't even ask me to take a chair. If
I were a nasty stuffy mummy, now, you would be embracing me by,
this time. Don't you know that I have come to dinner, you silly
man?" and she tapped him playfully with her closed fan.

"I have had dinner," said Braddock, egotistic as usual.

"No, you have not." Mrs. Jasher spoke positively, and pointed to
a small tray of untouched food on the side table. "You have not
even had luncheon. You must live on air, like a chameleon--or
on love, perhaps," she ended in a significantly tender tone.

But she might as well have spoken to the granite image of Horus
in the corner. Braddock merely rubbed his chin and stared harder
than ever at the glittering visitor.

"Dear me!" he said innocently. "I must have forgotten to eat.
Lamplight!" he looked round vaguely. "Of course, I remember
lighting the lamps. Time has gone by very rapidly. I am really
hungry." He paused to make sure, then repeated his remark in a
more positive manner. "Yes, I am very hungry, Mrs. Jasher." He
looked at her as though she had just entered. "Of course, Mrs.
Jasher. Do you wish to see me about anything particular?"

The widow frowned at his inattention, and then laughed. It was
impossible to be angry with this dreamer.

"I have come to dinner, Professor. Do try and wake up; you are
half asleep and half starved, too, I expect."

"I certainly feel unaccountably hungry," admitted Braddock
cautiously.

"Unaccountably, when you have eaten nothing since breakfast. You
weird man, I believe you are a mummy yourself."

But the Professor had again returned to examine the scarabeus,
this time with a powerful magnifying glass.

"It certainly belongs to the twentieth dynasty," he murmured,
wrinkling his brows.

Mrs. Jasher stamped and flirted her fan pettishly. The
creature's soul, she decided, was certainly not in his body, and
until it came back he would continue to ignore her. With the
annoyance of a woman who is not getting her own way, she leaned
back in Braddock's one comfortable chair--which she had
unerringly selected--and examined him intently. Perhaps the
gossips were correct, and she was trying to imagine what kind of
a husband he would make. But whatever might be her thoughts, she
eyed Braddock as earnestly as Braddock eyed the scarabeus.

Outwardly the Professor did not appear like the savant he was
reported to be. He was small of stature, plump of body, rosy as
a little Cupid, and extraordinarily youthful, considering his
fifty-odd years of scientific wear and tear. With a smooth,
clean-shaven face, plentiful white hair like spun silk, and neat
feet and hands, he did not look his age. The dreamy look in his
small blue eyes was rather belied by the hardness of his thin-
lipped mouth, and by the pugnacious push of his jaw. The eyes
and the dome-like forehead hinted that brain without much
originality; but the lower part of this contradictory countenance
might have belonged to a prize-fighter. Nevertheless, Braddock's
plumpness did away to a considerable extent with his aggressive
look. It was certainly latent, but only came to the surface when
he fought with a brother savant over some tomb-dweller from
Thebes. In the soft lamplight he looked like a fighting cherub,
and it was a pity--in the interests of art--that the hairless
pink and white face did not surmount a pair of wings rather than
a rusty and ill-fitting dress suit.

"He's nane sa dafty as he looks," thought Mrs. Jasher, who was
Scotch, although she claimed to be cosmopolitan. "With his
mummies he is all right, but outside those he might be difficult
to manage. And these things," she glanced round the shadowy
room, crowded with the dead and their earthly belongings. "I
don't think I would care to marry the British Museum. Too much
like hard work, and I am not so young as I was."

The near mirror--a polished silver one, which had belonged, ages
ago, to some coquette of Memphis--denied this uncomplimentary
thought, for Mrs. Jasher did not look a day over thirty, although
her birth certificate set her down as forty-five. In the
lamplight she might have passed for even younger, so carefully
had she preserved what remained to her of youth. She assuredly
was somewhat stout, and never had been so tall as she desired to
be. But the lines of her plump figure were still discernible in
the cunningly cut gown, and she carried her little self with
such mighty dignity that people overlooked the mortifying height
of a trifle over five feet. Her features were small and neat,
but her large blue eyes were so noticeable and melting that those
on whom she turned them ignored the lack of boldness in chin and
nose. Her hair was brown and arranged in the latest fashion,
while her complexion was so fresh and pink that, if she did paint
--as jealous women averred--she must have been quite an artist
with the hare's foot and the rouge pot and the necessary powder
puff.

Mrs. Jasher's clothes repaid the thought she expended upon them,
and she was artistic in this as in other things. Dressed in a
crocus-yellow gown, with short sleeves to reveal her beautiful
arms, and cut low to display her splendid bust, she looked
perfectly dressed. A woman would have declared the wide-netted
black lace with which the dress was draped to be cheap, and would
have hinted that the widow wore too many jewels in her hair, on
her corsage, round her arms, and ridiculously gaudy rings on her
fingers. This might have been true, for Mrs. Jasher sparkled
like the Milky Way at every movement; but the gleam of gold and
the flash of gems seemed to suit her opulent beauty. Her
slightest movement wafted around her a strange Chinese perfume,
which she obtained--so she said--from a friend of her late
husband's who was in the British Embassy at Pekin. No one
possessed this especial perfume but Mrs. Jasher, and anyone who
had previously met her, meeting her in the darkness, could have
guessed at her identity. With a smile to show her white teeth,
with her golden-hued dress and glittering jewels, the pretty
widow glowed in that glimmering room like a tropical bird.

The Professor raised his dreamy eyes and laid the beetle on one
side, when his brain fully grasped that this charming vision was
waiting to be entertained. She was better to look upon even than
the beloved scarabeus, and he advanced to shake hands as though
she had just entered the room. Mrs. Jasher--knowing his ways--
rose to extend her hand, and the two small, stout figures looked
absurdly like a pair of chubby Dresden ornaments which had
stepped from the mantelshelf.

"Dear lady, I am glad to see you. You have--you have"--the
Professor reflected, and then came back with a rush to the
present century--"you have come to dinner, if I mistake not."

"Lucy asked me a week ago," she replied tartly, for no woman
likes to be neglected for a mere beetle, however ancient.

"Then you will certainly get a good dinner," said Braddock,
waving his plump white hands. "Lucy is an excellent housekeeper.
I have no fault to find with her--no fault at all. But she is
obstinate--oh, very obstinate, as her mother was. Do you know,
dear lady, that in a papyrus scroll which I lately acquired I
found the recipe for a genuine Egyptian dish, which Amenemha--
the last Pharaoh of the eleventh dynasty, you know--might have
eaten, and probably did eat. I desired Lucy to serve it
to-night, but she refused, much to my annoyance. The
ingredients, which had to do with roasted gazelle, were oil and
coriander seed and--if my memory serves me--asafoetida."

"Ugh!" Mrs. Jasher's handkerchief went again to her mouth. "Say
no more, Professor; your dish sounds horrid. I don't wish to eat
it, and be turned into a mummy before my time."

"You would make a really beautiful mummy," said Braddock, paying
what he conceived was a compliment; "and, should you die, I shall
certainly attend to your embalming, if you prefer that to
cremation."

"You dreadful man!" cried the widow, turning pale and shrinking.
"Why, I really believe that you would like to see me packed away
in one of those disgusting coffins."

"Disgusting!" cried the outraged Professor, striking one of the
brilliantly tinted cases. "Can you call so beautiful a specimen
of sepulchral art disgusting? Look at the colors, at the
regularity of the hieroglyphics--why, the history of the dead is
set out in this magnificent series of pictures." He adjusted his
pince-nez and began to read, "The Osirian, Scemiophis that is a
female name, Mrs. Jasher--who--"

"I don't want to have my history written on my coffin,"
interrupted the widow hysterically, for this funereal talk
frightened her. "It would take much more space than a mummy case
upon which to write it. My life has been volcanic, I can tell
you. By the way," she added hurriedly, seeing that Braddock was
on the eve of resuming the reading, "tell me about your Inca
mummy. Has it arrived?"

The Professor immediately followed the false trail. "Not yet,"
he said briskly, rubbing his smooth hands, "but in three days I
expect The Diver will be at Pierside, and Sidney will bring the
mummy on here. I shall unpack it at once and learn exactly how
the ancient Peruvians embalmed their dead. Doubtless they
learned the art from--"

"The Egyptians," ventured Mrs. Jasher rashly.

Braddock glared. "Nothing of the sort, dear lady," he snorted
angrily. "Absurd, ridiculous! I am inclined to believe that
Egypt was merely a colony of that vast island of Atlantis
mentioned by Plato. There--if my theory is correct--
civilization begun, and the kings of Atlantis--doubtless the
gods of historical tribes--governed the whole world, including
that portion which we now term South America."

"Do you mean to say that there were Yankees in those days?"
inquired Mrs. Jasher frivolously.

The Professor tucked his hands under his shabby coattails and
strode up and down the room warming his rage, which was provoked
by such ignorance.

"Good heavens, madam, where have you lived?" he exclaimed
explosively--"are you a fool, or merely an ignorant woman? I am
talking of prehistoric times, thousands of years ago, when you
were probably a stray atom embedded in the slime."

"Oh, you horrid creature!" cried Mrs. Jasher indignantly, and was
about to give Braddock her opinion, if only to show him that she
could hold her own, when the door opened.

"How are you, Mrs. Jasher?" said Lucy, advancing.

"Here am I and here is Archie. Dinner is ready. And you--"

"I am very hungry," said Mrs. Jasher. "I have been called an
atom of the slime," then she laughed and took possession of young
Hope.

Lucy wrinkled her brow; she did not approve of the widow's
man-annexing instinct.

CHAPTER III

A MYSTERIOUS TOMB

One member of the Braddock household was not included in the
general staff, being a mere appendage of the Professor himself.
This was a dwarfish, misshapen Kanaka, a pigmy in height, but a
giant in breadth, with short, thick legs, and long, powerful
arms. He had a large head, and a somewhat handsome face, with
melancholy black eyes and a fine set of white teeth. Like most
Polynesians, his skin was of a pale bronze and elaborately
tattooed, even the cheeks and chin being scored with curves and
straight lines of mystical import. But the most noticeable thing
about him was his huge mop of frizzled hair, which, by some
process, known only to himself, he usually dyed a vivid yellow.
The flaring locks streaming from his head made him resemble a
Peruvian image of the sun, and it was this peculiar coiffure
which had procured for him the odd name of Cockatoo. The fact
that this grotesque creature invariably wore a white drill suit,
emphasized still more the suggestion of his likeness to an
Australian parrot.

Cockatoo had come from the Solomon Islands in his teens to the
colony of Queensland, to work on the plantations, and there the
Professor had picked him up as his body servant. When Braddock
returned to marry Mrs. Kendal, the boy had refused to leave him,
although it was represented to the young savage that he was
somewhat too barbaric for sober England. Finally, the Professor
had consented to bring him over seas, and had never regretted
doing so, for Cockatoo, finding his scientific master a true
friend, worshipped him as a visible god. Having been captured
when young by Pacific black-birders, he talked excellent English,
and from contact with the necessary restraints of civilization
was, on the whole, extremely well behaved. Occasionally, when
teased by the villagers and his fellow-servants, he would break
into childish rages, which bordered on the dangerous. But a word
from Braddock always quieted him, and when penitent he would
crawl like a whipped dog to the feet of his divinity. For the
most part he lived entirely in the museum, looking after the
collection and guarding it from harm. Lucy--who had a horror of
the creature's uncanny looks--objected to Cockatoo waiting at
the table, and it was only on rare occasions that he was
permitted to assist the harassed parlormaid. On this night the
Kanaka acted excellently as a butler, and crept softly round the
table, attending to the needs of the diners. He was an admirable
servant, deft and handy, but his blue-lined face and squat figure
together with the obtrusively golden halo, rather worried Mrs.
Jasher. And, indeed, in spite of custom, Lucy also felt
uncomfortable when this gnome hovered at her elbow. It looked as
though one of the fantastical idols from the museum below had
come to haunt the living.

"I do not like that Golliwog," breathed Mrs. Jasher to her host,
when Cockatoo was at the sideboard. "He gives me the creeps."

"Imagination, my dear lady, pure imagination. Why should we not
have a picturesque animal to wait upon us?"

"He would wait picturesquely enough at a cannibal feast,"
suggested Archie, with a laugh.

"Don't!" murmured Lucy, with a shiver. "I shall not be able to
eat my dinner if you talk so."

"Odd that Hope should say what he has said," observed Braddock
confidently to the widow. "Cockatoo comes from a cannibal
island, and doubtless has seen the consumption of human flesh.
No, no, my dear lady, do not look so alarmed. I don't think he
has eaten any, as he was taken to Queensland long before he could
participate in such banquets. He is a very decent animal."

"A very dangerous one, I fancy," retorted Mrs. Jasher, who looked
pale.

"Only when he loses his temper, and I'm always able to suppress
that when it is at its worst. You are not eating your meat, my
dear lady."

"Can you wonder at it, and you talk of cannibals?"

"Let us change the conversation to cereals," suggested Hope,
whose appetite was of the best--"wheat, for instance. In this
queer little village I notice the houses are divided by a field
of wheat. It seems wrong somehow for corn to be bunched up with
houses."

"That's old Farmer Jenkins," said Lucy vivaciously; "he owns
three or four acres near the public-house and will not allow them
to be built over, although he has been offered a lot of money. I
noticed myself, Archie, the oddity of finding a cornfield
surrounded by cottages. It's like Alice in Wonderland."

"But fancy any one offering money for land here," observed Hope,
toying with his claret glass, which had just been refilled, by
the attentive Cockatoo, "at the Back-of-Beyond, as it were. I
shouldn't care to live here--the neighborhood is so desolate."

"All the same you do live here!" interposed Mrs. Jasher smartly,
and with a roguish glance at Lucy.

Archie caught the glance and saw the blush on Miss Kendal's face.

"You have answered your question yourself, Mrs. Jasher," he--
said, smiling. "I have the inducement you hint at to remain
here, and certainly, as a landscape painter, I admire the marshes
and sunsets. As an artist and an engaged man I stop in Gartley,
otherwise I should clear out. But I fail to see why a lady of
your attractions should--"

"I may have a sentimental reason also," interrupted the widow,
with a sly glance at the absent-minded Professor, who was drawing
hieroglyphics on the table-cloth with a fork; "also, my cottage
is cheap and very comfortable. The late Mr. Jasher did not leave
me sufficient money to live in London. He was a consul in China,
you know, and consuls are never very well paid. I will come in
for a large income, however."

"Indeed," said Lucy politely, and wondering why Mrs. Jasher was
so communicative. "Soon I hope."

"It may be very soon. My brother, you know--a merchant in
Pekin. He has come home to die, and is unmarried. When he does
die, I shall go to London. But," added the widow, meditatively
and glancing again at the Professor, "I shall be sorry to leave
dear Gartley. Still, the memory of happy hours spent in this
house will always remain with me. Ah me! ah me!" and she put her
handkerchief to her eyes.

Lucy telegraphed to Archie that the widow was a humbug, and
Archie telegraphed back that he quite agreed with her. But the
Professor, whom the momentary silence had brought back to the
present century, looked up and asked Lucy if the dinner was
finished.

"I have to do some work this evening," said the Professor.

"Oh, father, when you said that you would take a holiday," said
Lucy reproachfully.

"I am doing so now. Look at the precious minutes I am wasting in
eating, my dear. Life is short and much remains to be done in
the way of Egyptian exploration. There is the sepulchre of Queen
Tahoser. If I could only enter that," and he sighed, while
helping himself to cream.

"Why don't you?" asked Mrs. Jasher, who was beginning to give up
her pursuit of Braddock, for it was no use wooing a man whose
interests centered entirely in Egyptian tombs.

"I have yet to discover it," said the Professor simply; then,
warming to the congenial theme, he glanced around and delivered a
short historical lecture. "Tahoser was the chief wife and queen
of a famous Pharaoh--the Pharaoh of the Exodus, in fact."

"The one who was drowned in the Red Sea?" asked Archie idly.

"Why, yes--but that happened later. Before pursuing the
Hebrews,--if the Mosaic account is to be believed,--this
Pharaoh marched far into the interior of Africa,--the Libya of
the ancients,--and conquered the natives of Upper Ethiopia.
Being deeply in love with his queen, he took her with him on this
expedition, and she died before the Pharaoh returned to Memphis.
From records which I discovered in the museum of Cairo, I have
reason to believe that the Pharaoh buried her with much pomp in
Ethiopia, sacrificing, I believe, many prisoners at her gorgeous
funeral rites. From the wealth of that Pharaoh--for wealthy he
must have been on account of his numerous victories--and from
the love he bore this princess, I am confident--confident,"
added Braddock, striking the table vehemently, "that when
discovered, her tomb will be filled with riches, and may also
contain documents of incalculable value."

"And you wish to get the money?" asked Mrs. Jasher, who was
rather bored.

The Professor rose fiercely. "Money! I care nothing for money.
I desire to obtain the funeral jewelry and golden masks, the
precious images of the gods, so as to place them in the British
Museum. And the scrolls of papyrus buried with the mummy of
Tahoser may contain an account of Ethiopian civilization, about
which we know nothing. Oh, that tomb,--that tomb!" Braddock
began to walk the room, quite forgetting that he had not finished
his dinner. "I know the mountains whose entrails were pierced to
form the sepulchre. Were I able to go to Africa, I am certain
that I should discover the tomb. Ah, with what glory would my
name be covered, were I so fortunate!"

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