^ 3 1924 098 819 562 DATE DUE lAM 2_ ) ^»m Mf ^^-^ ■*tww»^^^ mmm tm^.:l , \ ^*^ **^*»«C. '- eavi nnn PRINTED IN U.SA Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924098819562 In compliance with current copyright law, Cornell University Library produced this replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1992 to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. 2004 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FACSIMILE OF THE SHERD OFAMENARTAS. ONE '/z SIZE. GreaJtesL lenqth,of the..origuuiL fO'h inches. Grcaiesb breadth 7 inches We.igH ^!*3fi ox. FACSIMILE OF THE REVERSE OF THE SHERO 0FAMENARTA5 ONE ;/z SIZE SHE A HISTORY OF ADVENTURE BY H. RIDEE HAGGAED AUTHOn Off KIKCf SOLOMON'S MINES' 'DAWN' "J'EE WITCH'S HEAD' ETC. Doggerel couplet from the Slierd of Amenartas LONDON LONGMANS, GEEEN,, AND CO. 1887 All rights reserved o U; '■•■ PItlKTED BT SPOTnSWOODE ASB CO., SBW-STEEKT SQUAEB LOK'SON ^'b(xc "2 ^'>"tf.i' SHE BY THE SAME AVTIIOB CETYWAYO AND HIS WHITE NEIGHBOURS DAWN THE WITCH'S HEAD KING SOLOMON'S MINES I INSCBIBE THIS HISTOEY TO ANDEEW LANG IN TOKEN OF PERSONAL EBGtAED ■ AND OF JUY SINCBEE ADMIEATION FOB HIS LEAEJIING AND HIS WOEKS PLATES. (To precede Title-page.) Fac-simile of the Sheed of Amenaktas, one-half size. Pac-simile of the BavEESE of the Sheed of Amenaktas, ONE-HALF SIZE. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION I. MY VISITOB ... II. THE TEARS ROLL BY III. THE SHERD OF AMENAETAS . IV. THE SQUAII, .... V. THE HEAD OF THE ETHIOPIAN VI. AN EARLY CHRISTIAN CEREMONY VII. USTANE SINGS Vin. THE FEAST, AND AFTER 1 . IX. A LITTLE FOOT . X. SPECULATIONS . . , , XI. THE PLAIN OF KOR XII. ' SHE '..,,. XIII. AYESHA UNVEILS . XrV. A SOUL IN HELL XV. AYESHA GIVES JUDGMENT . XVI. THE TOMBS OF k6e. XVII. THE BALANCE TURNS , xviiL GO, woman! .... XIX. ' GIVE MB A BLACK GOAT ! ' . XX. TRIUMPH XXI. THE DEAD AND LIVING MEET XXn. JOB HAS A PRESENTIMENT XXIII. THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH XXrV. WALKING THE PLANK XXV. THE SPIRIT OF LIFE . XXVI. WHAT WE SAW XXVII. WE LEAP . . XXVni. OVER THE MOUNTAIN 1 7 IG 23 48 58 70 83 95 100 114 124 134 145 158 167 177 188 201 214 224 236 245 257 267 278 291 301 310 ALLAN QUATBEMAIN: BEINO AN AOOOUNI OF HIS FUETHEE ADVENTUEES AND . DISCOVEEIES IN COMPANY WITH Sir HENEY CUETIS, Bart., Commander JOHN GOOD, E.N. and one UMSLOPOGAAS. By H. RIDER HAGGARD, Av'lior of 'King Solomon's Mines,' 'Saan,' 'The Wllch's Bead,' itc. Is commenced in the January Number of Longman's Magazine. S H E . INTEODUOTION. In giving to the world the record of what, looked at aa an adventure only, is I suppose one of the most wonderful and mysterious experiences ever undergone by mortal men, I feel it incumbent on me to explain what my exact con- ' nection with it is. And so I may as weU say at once that 1 am not the narrator but only the editor of this extra- ordinary history, and then go on to tell how it found its way into my hands. Some years ago I, the editor, was stopping with a friend, 'vir docUssimus et amicus meus,' at a certain Uni- versity, which for the purposes of this history we will call Cambridge, and was one day much struck with the appear- ance of two people whom I saw going arm-in-arm down the street. One of these gentlemen was I think, without exception, the handsomest young fellow I have ever seen. He was very tall, very broad, and had a look of power and a grace of bearing that seemed as native to him as it is to a wild stag. In addition his face was almost without flaw — a good face as well as a beautiful one, and when he lifted his hat, which he did just then to a passing lady, I saw that his head was covered with little golden curls growing close to the scalp. ' Good gracious ! ' I said to my friend, with whom I was walking, ' why, that fellow looks like a statue of Apollo come to life. What a splendid man he is 1' 2 SHE I I ' Yes,' lie answered, ' he is the hanasomest man in thri University, and one of the nicest too. They call hini " the Greek god " ; but look at the other one, he's Vineey'ii (that's the god's name) guardian, and supposed to he full of every land of information. They call him " Charon." I looked, and found the older man quite as interesting in his way as the glorified specimen of humanity at his side, lie appeared to be about forty years of age, and waa I think as ugly as his companion was handsome. To begin with, he was shortish, rather bow-legged, very deep chested, and with unusually long arms. He had dark hair and small eyes, and the hair grew right down on his fore- head, and his whiskers grew right up to his hair, so that there was uncommonly little of his countenance to be seen. Altogether he reminded me forcibly of a goriUa, and yet there was something very pleasing and genial about the man's eye. I remember saying that I should like to know him. 'All right,' answered my friend, 'nothing easier. I know Vincey ; I'll introduce you,' and he did, and for some minutes we stood chatting — about the Zulu people, I think, for I had just returned from the Cape at the time. Presently, however, a stoutish lady, whose name I do not remember, came along the pavement, accompanied by a pretty fair-haired girl, and these two Mr. Vincey, who clearly knew them well, at once joined, walking off m their company. I remember being rather amused because of the change in the expression of the elder man, whose name I discovered was Holly, when he saw the ladies advanomg. He suddenly stopped short in his talk, cast a reproachful look at his companion, and, with an abrupt nod to myself, turned and marched ofE alo]:i6 across the street. I heard afterwards that he was popularly supposed to be as much afraid of a woman as most people are of a mad dog, which accounted for his precipitate retreat. I cannot say, how- ever, that young Vincey showed much aversion to feminine society on this occasion. Indeed I remember laughing, and remarking to my friend at the time that he was not the sort of man whom it would be desirable to introduce to the I INTf4 }.. 'TION 3 k (lady one -vvas going to marry, since it is e^c^dingly prob- able that the acquaiatance would end iai a'frat8S(|gr of her affections. He was altogether too good'^lcrldaSgiiaflij-what is more, he had none of that consciousftess' aiid .ooftijejt about him which usually afiliets handsome men, aia^" ;? makes them deservedly disliked by their fellows. ■ >-.. "^ * That same evening my visit came to an end, and '^^^'^ was the last I saw or heard of ' Charon ' and ' the Greek gorl'* ♦ for many a long day. Indeed, I have never seen either of them from that hour to this, and do not think it probable that I shall. But a month ago I received a letter and two ! packets, one of manuscript, and on ojouang the first found " that it was signed by ' Horace HoUy,' a name that at the moment was not familiar to me. It ran as follows ; — ' College, Cambridge, May 1, 18 — 'My deab Sir, — You wiU be surprised, considering the very slight nature of our acquaintance, to get a letter from me. Indeed, I think I had better begin by remind- ing you that we once met, now ^ome five years ago^when I and my ward Leo Vincey were introduced to you in the street at Cambridge. To be brief and come to my business. I have recently read with much interest a book of yours describing a Central African adventure. I take it that this book is partly true, and partly an eifort of the imagination. However this is, it has given me an idea. It happens, how you will see in the accompanying manu- script (which together with the Scarab, the J^Bgyjl._S-pil of the Sun," and the_original shef3^_am sending to you l)y EaS3), that my ward, or rather my adopted son Leo Vincey and myself have recently passed thr-augh a real African adventure, of a nature so much more marvellous than the one which you describe, that to teU. you the truth I am almost ashamed to submit it to you for fear - lest you should disbelieve my tale. You will see it stated in this manuscript that I, or rather we, had made up our minds not to make this history public during our joint lives. Nor should we alter our determination were it not for a cir- b2 4 SHE cumstance which has recently arisen. We are for reasons that, after perusing this manuscript, you may be able toi guess, going away again, this time to Central Asia where, .;%,if anywhere upon this earth, wisdom is to be found, and we ■' *Miicipate that our sojourn there wiU be a long one. Pos- ;:-^ sij^we shall not return. Under these altered conditions ,-<_^^ has become a question whether we are justified in witihplding from the world an account of a phenomenon which we beheve to be of unparalleled interest, merely because ouf^ private hfe is involved, or because we are afraid of ridicule aild<>doubt being oast upon our statements. I hold one view about this matter, and Leo holds another, and finally, after much discussion, we have come to a com- promise, namely, to send the history to you, giving you full leave to pubUsh it if you think fit, the only stipulation being that you shall disguise our real names, and as much concerning our personal identity as is consistent with the maintenance of the hona fides of the narrative. 'And now what am I to say further? I reaUy do not know beyond once more repeating that everything is described in the accompanying manuscript exactly as it happened. As regards She herself I have nothing to add. Day by day we have greater occasion to regret that we did not better avail ourselves of our opportunities to obtain more information from that marvellous woman. Who was she ? How did she first come to the Caves of K6r, and what was her real religion ? We never ascertained, and now, alas 1 we never shall, at least not yet. These and many other questions arise in my mind, but what is the good of asking themi now ? , ' WiU you undertake the task ? We give you complete freedom, and as a reward you will, we beheve, have the credit of presenting to the world the most wonderful history, as distinguished from romance, that its records can show. Bead the manuscript (which I have copied out fairly for your benefit), and let me know. ' Believe me, very truly yours, ' L. HoEACE Holly. INTRODUCTION 5 ' P.S. — Of course, if any profit results from the sale of the writing should you care to undertake its publication, you can do what you like with it, but if there is a loss I will leave instructions with my lawyers, Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, to meet it. We entrust the sherd, the scarab, and the parchments to your keeping tUl such time as we demand them back again. — L. H. H.' This letter, as may be imagined, astonished me consid-.^ erably, but when I came to look at the MS., which the"" pressure of other work prevented me from doing for a fort- night, I was still more astonished, as I think the reader will be also, and at once made up my mind to press on with the matter. I wrote to this effect to Mr. Holly, but a week afterwards received a letter from that gentleman's lawyers, returning my own, with the information that their client and Mr. Leo Vinoey had already left this coimtry for Thibet, and they did not at present know their address. Well, that is all I have to say. Of the history itself the reader must judge. I give it him, with the exception of a very few alterations, made with the object of conceal- ing the identity of the actors from the general pubhc, exactly as it has come to me. Personally I have made up my mind to refrain from comments. At first I was inclined to believe that this history of a woman on whom, clothed in the majesty of her almost endless years, the shadow of Eternity itself lay like the dark wing of Night, was some gigantic allegory of which I could not catch the meaning. Then I thought that it might be a bold attempt to portray the possible results of practical immortahty, informing the substance of a mortal who yet drew her strength from -Earth, and in whose human bosom passions yet rose and fell and beat as in the undying world around her the winds and the tides rise and fall and beat unceasingly. But as I wont on I abandoned that idea also. To me the story seems to bear the stamp of truth upon its face. Its explanation I must leave to others, and with this slight preface, which 6 SHE \ circumstances make necessary, I introduce the world to Ayesha and the Caves of K6r. — The Editob. P.S. — There is on consideration one circumstance thati after a reperusal of this history, struck me with so much force that I cannot resist calling the attention of the reader to it. He will observe that so far as we are made acquainted with him there appears to be nothing in the character of Leo Vmoey which in the opuiion of most people would have been likely to attract an intellect so powerful as that of Ayesha. He is not even, at any rate to my view, particu- larly interesting. Indeed, one might imagine that Mr. Holly would under ordinary circumstances have easily out- stripped him in the favour of She. Can it be that ex- tremes meet, and that the very excess and splendour of her mind led her by means of some strange physical reaction to worship at the shrine of matter? Was that ancient Kalhkrates nothing but a splendid animal beloved for his hereditary Greek beauty ? Or is the true explanation what I believe it to be — namely, that Ayesha, seeing further than we can see, perceived the germ and smouldering spark cf greatness which lay hid within her lover's soul, and well knew that under the influence of her gift of Ufe, watered by her wisdom, and shone upon with the sunshme of her presence, it would bloom like a flower and flash out like a star, filling the world with light and fragrance ? Here also I am not able to answer, but must leave the reader to form his own judgment on the facts before him, as detailed by Mr. Holly in the following pages. I. MY VISITOB. '■: Thebb are some events of which each circumstance and surrounding detail seems to be graven on the memory in such fashion that we cannot forget it, and so it is with the scene that I am about to describe. It rises as clearly before my mind at this moment as though it had happened yesterday. It was in this very month something over twenty years ago that I, Ludwig Horace Holly, was sitting one night in my rooms at Cambridge, grinding away at some mathe- matical work, I forget what, I was to go up for my fellow^ ship within a week, and was expected by my tutor and my college generally to distinguish myself. At last, wearied out, I flung my book down, and, going to the mantelpiece, took down a pipe and filled it. There was a candle burn- ing on the mantelpiece, and a long, narrow glass at the back of it ; and as I was in the act of lighting the pipe I caught sight of my own countenance in the glass, and paused to reflect. The lighted match burnt away till it scorched my fingers, forcing me to drop it ; but stiU I stood and stared at myself in the glass, and reflected. ' Well,' I said aloud, at last, 'it is to be hoped that I shall be able to do something with the inside of my head, for I shall certainly never do anything by the help of the outside.' This remark will doubtless strike anybody who reads it as being slightly obscure, but I was in reaUty alluding to .my physical deficiencies. Most men of twenty-two are endowed at any rate with some share of the comeliness of youth, but to me even this was denied. Short, thick-set. 8 SHE and deep-chested almost to deformity, with long sineww arms, heavy features, deep-set grey eyes, a low brow half overgrown with a mop of thick black hair, Hke a deserte d clearing on which the forest had once more begun to ert- croach; such was my appearance nearly a quarter of ii. century ago, and such, with some modification, is it to thii i day. Like Cain, I was branded — ^branded by Nature with the stamp of abnormal ugliness, as I was gifted by Natura with iron and abnormal strength and considerable inteUec4 tual powers. So ugly was I that the spruce young men oil my College, though they were proud enough of my feats oi? endurance and physical prowess, did not even care to be seen walking with me. Was it wonderful that I was mis- anthropic and sullen? Was it wonderful that I brooded and worked alone, and had no friends — at least, only one ? I was set apart by Nature to Uve alone, and draw comforc from her breast, and hers only. Women hated the sight of me. Only a week before I had heard one call me b, ' monster ' when she thought I was out of hearing, and say that I had converted her to the monkey theory. Once, indeed, a woman pretended to care for me, and I lavished all the pent-up affection of my nature upon her. Then money that was to have come to me went elsewhere, and she discarded me. I pleaded with her as I have never pleaded with any Mving creature before or since, for I was caught by her sweet face, and loved her ; and in the end by way of answer she took me to the glass, and stood side by side with me, and looked into it. ' Now,' she said, ' if I am Beauty, who are you ? ' That was when I was only twenty. And so I stood and stared, and felt a sort of grim satis- faction in the sense of my own loneliness ; for I had neither father, nor mother, nor brother ; and as I did so there came a knock at my door, I listened before I went to open it, for it was nearly twelve o'clock at night, and I was in no mood to admit any stranger, I had but one friend in the College, or, indeed, in the world — perhaps it was he, MY VISITOR 9 i Just then the person outside the door coughed, and I hastened to open it, for I knew the cough. A tall man of about thirty, with the remains of great iiersonal beauty, came hurrying in7 staggering beneath the weight of a massive iron box which he carried by a handle with his right hand. He placed the box upon the table, and then fell into an awful fit of coughing. He coughed and coughed tni his face became quite purple, and at last he sank into a chair and began to spit up blood. I poured out some whisky into a tumbler, and gave it to him. He drank it, and seemed better ; though his better was very bad indeed. ' Why did you keep me standing there in the cold ? ' he asked pettishly. ' You know the draughts are death to me.' ' I did not know who it was,' I answered. ' You are a late visitor.' ' Yes ; and I verily believe it is my last visit,' he an- swered, with a ghastly attempt at a smile. ' I am done for, Holly. I am done for. I do not beheve that I shall see to-morrow ! ' ' Nonsense 1 ' I said. ' Let me go for a doctor.' He waved me back imperiously with his hand. ' It is sober sense ; but I want no doctors. I have studied medi- cine, and I know all about it. No doctors can help me. My last hour has come ! For a year past I have only lived by a miracle. Now hsten to me as you never listened to anybody before ; for you will not have the opportunity of getting me to repeat my words. We have been friends for two years ; now tell me how much do you know about me?' ' I know that you are rich, end have had a fancy to come to College long after the age that most men leave it. I know that you have been married, and that your wife died ; and that you have been the best, indeed almost the only friend I ever had.' ' Did you know that I have a son ? 'No.'' ' I have, He is five years old. He post mp his mother's 10 SHE ', life, and I have never been able to bear to look upon lii^ face in consequence. Holly, if you ■will accept the trust, I am going to leave you that boy's sole guardian.' i I sprang almost out of my chair. ' Me 1 ' I said. ' Yes, you. I have not studied you for two years for nothing. I have known for some time that I could noi last, and since I realised the fact I have been searching for some one to whom I could confide the boy and this,' and he tapped the iron box. ' You are the man, HoUy ;. for, Uke a rugged tree, you are hard and sound at core/. Listen ; the boy wiU be the only representative of one of the most ancient families in the world, that is, so far as families can be traced. You will laugh at me when I say it, but one day it will be proved to you beyond a doubt, that my sixty-fifth or sixty- sixth Uneal ancestor was an Egyptian priest of Isis, though he was himself of Grecian extraction, and was called KaUikrates.^ His father was one of the Greek mercenaries raised by Hak-Hor, a Mendesian Pharaoh of the twenty-ninth dynasty, and his grandfather, I be- Heve, was that very Kallikrates mentioned by Herodotus.^ In or about the year 339 before Christ, just at the time of the final fall of the Pharaohs, this KaUikrates (the priest) broke his vows of celibacy and fled from Egypt with a Princess of Eoyal blood who had fallen in love ' The Strong and Beautiful, or, more accurately, the Beautiful in strength. " The Kallikrates here referred to by my friend ■was a Spartan, spoken of by Herodotus (Herod, ix. 72) as being remarkable for his beauty. He fell at the glorious battle of Platsa (September 22, B.C. 479), ■when the Laced£Emonians and Athenians under Pausanias routed the Persians, putting nearly 300,000 of them to the sword. The following is a translation of the passage, ' For Kallikrates died out of the battle, he came to the army the most beautiful man ot the Greeks of that day — not only of the LaoedsBmonians themselves, but of the other Greeks also. He when Pausanias was sacrificing was wounded in the side by an arrow ; and then they fought, but on being carried off he regretted his death, and said to Arimnestus, a Platffian, that he did not grieve at dying for Greece, but at not having struck a blow, or, although he desired so to do, performed any deed worthy of himself.' This Kallikrates, who appears to have been as brave as he was beautiful, is subsequently mentioned by Herodotus as having been buried among the Ipiv^s (young commanders), apart from the other Spartans and the Helots.— L. H. H. I MV VISITOR II with liim, and was finally wrecked upon the coast of Africa, somewhere, as I believe, in the neighbourhood (jf where Delagoa Bay now is, or rather to the north of it, he and his wife being saved, and all the remainder of their company destroyed in one way or another. Here they endured great hardships, but were at last entertained by the mighty Queen of a savage people, a white woman of peciiliar loveliness, who, under circumstances which I cannot enter into, but which you will one day learn, if you live, from the contents of the box, finally murdered my ancestor, Kallikrates. His wife, however, escaped, how I know not, to Athens, bea,ring a child with her, whom she named Tisisthenes, or the Mighty Avenger. Five hundred years or more afterwards the family migrated to Rome under circumstances of which no trace remains, and here, probably with the idea of preserving the idea of vengeance which we find set out in the name of Tisisthenes, they appear to have pretty regularly assumed the cognomen of Vindex, or Avenger. Here, too, they remained for another five cen- turies or more, till about 770 a.d., when Charlemagne m- vaded Lombardy, where they were then settled, whereon the head of the family seems to have attached himself to the great Emperor, and to have returned with him across the Alps, and finally to have settled in Brittany. Eight generations later his lineal representative crossed to Eng- land in the reign of Edward the Confessor, and in the time of William the Conqueror was advanced to great honour and power. Prom that time tiU. the present day I can trace my descent without a break. Not that the Vinceys — ^for that was the final corruption of the name after its bearers took root in English soil — have been particularly distin- guished — they never came much to the fore. Sometimes they were soldiers, sometimes merchants, but on the whole they have preserved a dead level of respectability, and a still deader level of mediocrity. From the time of Charles II. till the beginning of the present century they were merchants. About 1790 my grandfather made a consider- able fortune out of brewing, and retired. In 1821 he died. 12 SHE \ \ and my father succeeded him, and dissipated most of th( money. Ten years ago he died also, leaving me a nej j income of about two thousand a year. Then it was that \ undertook an expedition in connection with that,' and hi? pointed to the iron chest, ' which ended disastrously enough'. On my way back I travelled in the South of Europe, anc . finally reached Athens. There I met my beloved wife, whc might weU also have been called the " Beautiful," Hke mj, old Greek ancestor. There I married her, and there, a year afterwards, when my boy was bom, she died.' He paused a while, his head sunk upon his hand, and then continued — ' My marriage had diverted me from a project which I cannot enter into now. I have no time. Holly — I have no time ! One day, if you accept my trust, you wUl learn all about it. After my wife's death I turned my mind to it again. But first it was necessary, or, at least, I conceived that it was necessary, that I should attain to a perfect knowledge of Eastern dialects, especially Arabic. It was to facilitate my studies that I came here. Very soon, how- ever, my disease developed itself, and now there is an end of me.' And as though to emphasise his words he burst intO' another terrible fit of coughing. I gave him some more whisky, and after resting he went on — ' I have never seen my boy, Leo, since he was a tiny baby. I never could bear to see him, but they tell me that he is a quick and handsome child. In this envelope,' and he produced a letter from his pocket addressed to myself, ' I have jotted down the course I wish followed in the boy's education. It is a somewhat pecuHar one. At any rate, I could not entrust it to a stranger. Once more, wiU you undertake it ? ' ' I must first know what I am to undertake,' I answered. ' You are to undertake to have the boy, Leo, to live with you till lie is twenty-five years of age — not to send him to school, remember. On his twenty-fifth birthday your guardianship will end, and you will then, with the I MY VISITOR 13 keys tliat I give you now ' (and he placed them on the table), ' open the iron box, and let him see and read the cbntents, and say whether or no he is willing to undertake the quest. There is no obHgation on him to do so. Now, as regards terms. My present income is two thousand two hundred a year. Half of that income I have secured to you by will for life contingently on your imdertaking the guardianship — that is, one thousand a year remuneration to yourself, for you wiU have to give up your life to it, and one hundred a year to pay for the board of the boy. The rest is to accumulate till Leo is twenty-five, so that there may be a sum in hand should he wish to undertake the quest of which I spoke.' ' And suppose I were to die ? ' I asked. ' Then the boy must become a ward of Chancery and take his chance. Only be careful that the iron chest is passed on to him by your will. Listen, Holly, don't re- fuse me. Believe me, this is to your advantage. You are not fit to mix with the world — it would only embitter you. In a few weeks you wiU become a Fellow of your College, and the income that you will derive from that combined with what I have left you will enable you to live a life of learned leisure, alternated with the sport of which you are so fond, such as will exactly suit you.' He paused and looked at me anxiously, but I still hesitated. The charge seemed so very strange. . ' For my sake, Holly. We have been good friends, and I have no time to make other arrangements.' ' Very well,' I said, ' I will do it, provided there is nothing in this paper to make me change my mind,' and I touched the envelope he had put upon the table by the keys. ' Thank you. Holly, thank you. There is nothing at all. Swear to me by God that you will be a father to the boy, and follow my directions to the letter.' ' I swear it,' I answered solemnly. ' Very well, remember that perhaps one day I shall ask for the account of your oath, for though I am dead and 14 SHE ! forgotten, yet shall I live. There is no such thing as death, 1 Holly, only a change, and, as you may perhaps learn inj time to come, I beUeve that even here that change couldl under certain circumstances be indefinitely postponed,' and, again he broke into one of his dreadful fits of coughing. ! ' There,' he said, ' I must go, you have the chest, anc^ my -will will be found among my papers, under the authority of which the child will be handed over to you. You will be well paid, Holly, and I know that you are honest, but if you betray my trust, by Heaven I will haunt you.' I said nothing, being, indeed, too bewildered to speak. He held up the candle, and looked at his own face in the glass. It had been a beautiful face, but disease had wrecked it. ' Pood for the worms,' he said. ' Curious to think that in a few hours I shall be stiff and cold — the journey done, the little game played out. Ah me, Holly ! life is not worth the trouble of life, except when one is in love — at least, mine has not been ; but the boy Leo's may be if he has the courage and the faith. Good-bye, my friend ! ' and with a sudden access of tenderness he flung his arm about me and kissed me on the forehead, and then turned to go. ' Look here, Vinoey,' I said, ' if you are as ill as you think, you had better let me fetch a doctor.' ' No, no,' he said earnestly. ' Promise me that you won't. I am going to die, and, like a poisoned rat, I wish to die alone.' ' I don't believe that you are going to do anything of the sort,' I answered. He smiled, and, with the word ' Eemember ' on his lips, was gone. As for myself, I sat down and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I had been asleep. As this supposition would not bear investigation I gave it up, and began to think that Vincey must have been drmk- ing. I knew that he was, and had been, very ill, but still it seemed impossible that he could be in such a condition as to be able to know for certain that he would not outlive the night. Had he been so near dissolution surely he would scarcely have been able to walk, and carry a heavy MY VISITOR IS iron box with him. The whole story, on reflection, seemed me utterly incredible, for I was not then old enough to le aware how many things happen in this world that the common sense of the average man would set down as so improbable as to be absolutely impossible. This is a fact that I have only recently mastered. Was it likely that a man would have a son five years of age whom he had never seen since he was a tiny infant ? No. Was it likely that he could foretell his own death so accurately ? No. Was it likely that he could trace his pedigree for more than three centuries before Christ, or that he would suddenly confide the absolute guardianship of his child, and leave half his fortune, to a college friend ? Most certainly not. Clearly Vincey was either drunk or mad. That being so, what did it mean ? and what was in the sealed iron chest ? The whole thing baffled and puzzled me to such an extent that at last I could stand it no longer, and deter- mined to sleep over it. So I jumped up, and having put the keys and the letter that Vincey had left away into my despatch-box, and stowed the iron chest in a large port- manteau, I turned in, and was soon fast asleep. As it seemed to me, I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I was awakened by somebody emailing me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes ; it was broad daylight — eight o'clock, in fact. ' Why, what is the matter with you, John ? ' I asked of the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself. ' You look as though you had seen a ghost ! ' ' Yes, sir, and so I have,' he answered, ' leastways I've seen a corpse, which is worse. I've been in to call Mr. Vincey, as usual, and there he lies stark and dead 1 ' i6 SHE IL THE TEAES EOLL BY. Of course, poor Vincey's sudden death created a great stir in tlie College ; but, as he was known to be very ill, and a satisfactory doctor's certificate was forthcoming, there was no inquest. They were not bo particular about inquests in those days as they are now ; indeed, they were generally disliked, as causing a scandal. Under all these circumstances, as I was asked no questions, I did not feel called upon to volunteer any information about our inter- view of the night of Vincey's decease, beyond saying that he had come into my rooms to see me, as he often did. On the day of the funeral a lawyer came down from London and followed my poor friend's remains to the grave, and then went back with his papers and effects, except, of course, the iron chest which had been left in my keeping. For a week after this I heard no more of the matter, and, indeed, my attention was amply occupied in other ways, for I was up for my Fellowship, a fact that had prevented me from attending the funeral or seeing the lawyer. At last, however, the examination was over, and I came back to my rooms and sank into an easy chair with a happy con- sciousness that I had got through it very fairly. Soon, however, my thoughts, relieved of the pressure that had crushed them into a single groove during the last few days, turned to the events of the night of poor Vincey's death, and again I asked myself what it all meant, and wondered if I should hear anything more of the matter, and if I did not, what it would be my duty to do with the curioub iron chest. I sat there and thought and thought till I began THE YEARS ROLL BY 17 to grow quite disturbed over the whole occurrence : the mysterious midnight visit, the prophecy of death so shortly to be fulfilled, the solemn oath that I had taken, and which Vincey had called on me to answer to in another world than this. Had the man committed suicide ? It looked Kke it. And what was the quest of which he spoke ? The circum- stances were almost uncanny, so much so that, though I am by no means nervous, or apt to be alarmed at anything that may seem to cross the bounds of the natural, I grew afraid, and began to wish I had had nothing to do with it. How much more do I wish it now, over twenty years afterwards ! As I sat and thought, there was a knock at the door, and a letter, in a big blue envelope, was brought in to me. I saw at a glance that it was a lawyer's letter, and an in- stinct told me that it was connected with my trust. The letter, which I still have, runs thus : — ' Sib, — Our client, the late M. L. Vincey, Esq., who died on the 9th instant in College, Cambridge, has left behind him a WiU, of which you will please find copy enclosed, and of which we are the executors. By this WiU you will perceive that you take a life-interest in about half of the late Mr. Vincey's property, now invested in Consols, subject to your acceptance of the guardianship of his only son, Leo Vincey. at present an infant, aged five. Had we not ourselves drawn up the document in question in obe- dience to Mr. Vincey's clear and precise instructions, both personal and written, and had he not then assured us that he had very good reasons for what he was doing, we are bound to tell you that its provisions seem to us of so unusual a nature, that we should have felt bound to call the attention of the Court of Chancery to them, in order that such steps might be taken as seemed desirable to it, either by contesting the capacity of the testator or other- wise, to safeguard the interests of the infant. As it is, knowing that the testator was a gentleman of the highest intelligence and acumen, and that he has absolutely no 1^ i8 SHE relations living to whom Jie could have confided the guar- dianship of the child, we do not feel justified in taking this course. ' Awaiting such instructions as you please to send us as^ regards the deUvery of the infant and the payment of the proportion of the dividends due to you, ' We remain, Sir, faithfully yours, ' Geoiteb^ and Joedan.' I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared, fi:om its utter uniftteUigibihty, to have been drawn on the strictest legal principles. So far as I could discover, however, it exactly bore out what my friend had told me on the night of his death. So it was true after all. I must take the boy. " Suddenly I remembered the letter which he had left with the chest. I fetched it and opened it. It only contained such directions as he had already given to me as to opening the chest on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, and laid down the outHnes of the boy's educatifin, which was to include Greek, the higher Mathematics, and Arabic. At the bottom there was a postscript to the effect that if the boy died under the age of twenty-five, which, however, he did not believe would be the case, I was to open the chest, and act on the information I obtained if I saw fit. If I did not see fit, I was to destroy all the contents. On no account was I to pass them on to a stranger. As this letter added nothing material to my knowledge, and certainly raised no further objection in my mmd to un- dertaking the task I had promised my dead friend to under- take, there was only one course open to me — namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my readi- ness to enter on the trust, stating that I should be ■wiUing to commence my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I proceeded to the authorities of my college, and, . having told them as much of the story as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point. THE YEARS ROLL BY 19 and, in the event of my having obtained a fellowsliip, which I was pretty certain I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent, however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child, and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a huntmg-stable, but who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and weU-accustomed to the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought some books upon the health and management of children, and read them, first to myself, and then aloud to Job — that was the young man's name — and waited. At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do not think that I ever saw such a perfect ehUd before or since. His eyes were grey, his forehead broad, and his face, even at that early age, clean cut as a cameo, without being pinched or thin. But perhaps his most attractive point was his hair, which was pure gold in colour and tightly curled over his shapely head. He cried a little when his nurse finally tore herself away and left him with us. Never shall I forget the scene. There he stood, with the sunlight from the window playing upon his golden curls, his fist screwed in one eye, whilst he took us in with the other. I was seated in a chair, and stretched out my hand to him to induce him to come to me, while Job, in the comer, was making a sort of clucking noise, which, arguing from his previous experience, or from c2 20 SHE the analogy of the hen, he judged would have a soothing effect, and inspire confidence in the youthful mind, and running a wooden horse of peculiar hideousness backwards and forwards in a way that was little short of inane. This went on for some minutes, and then all of a sudden the lad stretched out hoth his little arms and ran to me. ' I Hke you,' he said : ' you is ugly, but you is good.' Ten minutes afterwards he was eating large shoes of bread and butter, with every sign of satisfaction; Job wanted to put jam on to them, but I sternly reminded him of the excellent works we had read, and forbade it. In a very little while (for, as I expected, I got my fellow- ship) the boy became the favourite of the whole College — where, aU orders and regulations to the contrary notwith- standing, he was continually in and out — a sort of chartered libertine, in whose favour all rules were relaxed. The offer- ings made at his shrine were simply without number, and I had a serious difference of opinion with one old resident Fellow, now long dead, who was usually supposed to be the crustiest man in the University, and to abhor the sight of a child. And yet I discovered, when a frequently recurring fit sickness had forced Job to keep a strict look-out, that this unprincipled old man was in the habit of enticing the boy to his rooms and there feeding him upon unUmited quantities of brandy-balls, and making him promise to say nothing about it. Job told him that he ought to be ashamed of himself, ' at his age, too, when he might have been a grandfather if he had done what was right,' by which Job understood had got married, and thence arose the row. But I have no space to dwell upon those dehghtful years, around which memory stiU fondly hovers. One by one they went by, and as they passed we two grew dearer and j-et more dear to each other. Few sons have been loved as I love Leo, and few fathers know the deep and continuous affection that Leo bears to me. The child grew into the boy, and the boy into the young man, as one by one the remorseless years flew by, and as the THE YEARS ROLL BY 21 grew and. increased so did his beauty and the beauty of his mind grow with him. When he was about fifteen they used to call him Beauty about the College, and me they nicknamed the Beast. Beauty and the Beast was what they called us when we went out walking together, as we used to do every day. Once Leo attacked a great strapping butcher's man, twice his size, because he sang it out after us, and thrashed him, too — thrashed him fairly. I walked on and pretended not to see, till the combat got too exciting, when I turned round and cheered him on to victory. It was the chaff of the College at the time, but I could not help it. Then when he was a Uttle older the undergraduates got fresh names for us. They called me Charon and Leo the Greek god ! I will pass over my own appellation with the humble remark that I was never handsome, and did not grow more so as I grew older. As for his, there was no doubt about its fitness. Leo at twenty-one might have stood for a statue of the youthful Apollo. I never saw anybody to touch him iu looks, or anybody so absolutely unconscious of them. As for his mind, he was briUiant and keen-witted, but not a scholar. He had not the dulness necessary for that result. We followed out his father's instructions as regards his education strictly enough, and on the whole the residts, especially so far as the Greek and Arabic went, were satisfactory. I learnt the latter language in order to help to teach it to him, but after five years of it he knew it as well as I did — almost as well as the professor who in- structed us both. I always was a great sportsman — it is my one passion — and every autumn we went away some- where shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, some- times to Norway, once even to Eussia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. When Leo was eighteen I moved back into my rooms, and entered him at my own College, and at twenty-one he took his degree— a respectable degree, but not a very high one. Then it was that I, for the first time, told him some- thing of his own story, and of the mystery that loomed ahead. Of course he was very curious about it, and of 22 SH£ course I explained to him that his curiosity could not be gratified at present. After that, to pass the time away, I suggested that he should get himself called to the Bar ; and this he did, reading at Cambridge, and only going up to London to eat his dinners. I had only one trouble about him, and that was that every young woman who came across him, or, if not every one, nearly so, would insist on falling in love with him. Hence arose difficulties which I need not enter into here, though they were troublesome enough at the time. On the whole, he behaved fairly well ; I cannot say more than that. And so the time went by till at last he reached his twenty-fifth birthday, at which date this strange aad, in some ways, awful history really begins. 23 III. THE SHJ3ED OP AMENAETAS. On the day preceding Leo's twenty-fiftli birthday we Isoth proceeded to London, and extracted the mysterious chest from the bank where I had deposited it twenty years before. It was, I remember, brought up by the same clerk who had taken it down. He perfectly remembered having hidden it away. Had he not done so, he said, he should have had difficulty in finding it, it was so covered up with cobwebs. In the evening we returned with our precious burden to Cambridge, and I think, that we might both of us have given away aU the sleep we got that night and not have been much the poorer. At daybreak Leo arrived in my room in a dressing-gown, and suggested that we should at once proceed to business. I scouted the idea as showing an unworthy curiosity. The chest had waited twenty years, I said, so it could very well continue to wait until after breakfast. Accordingly at nine — an unusu7,lly sharp nine — ^we brealdasted ; and so occupied was I with my own thoughts that I regret to state that I put a piece of bacon into Leo's tea in mistake for a lump of sugar. Job, too, to whom the contagion of excitement had, of course, spread, managed to break the handle off my Sevres china tea-cup, the identical one I believe that Marat had been drinking from just before he was stabbed in his bath. At last, however, breakfast was cleared away, and Job, at my request, fetched the chest, and placed it upon the table in a somewhat gingerly fashion, as though he mis- trusted it. Then he prepared to leave the room. 24 SHE ' Stop a moment, Job,' I said. ' If Mr. Leo has no objection, I sbotild prefer to have an independent witness to this business, who can be reUed upon to hold his tongue unless he is asked to speak.' ' Certainly, Uncle Horace,' answered Leo ; for I had brought him up to caU me uncle — though he varied the appellation somewhat disrespectfully by calling me ' old feUow,' or even 'my avuncular relative.' Job touched his head, not having a hat on. ' Lock the door. Job,' I said, ' and bring me my de- spatch-box.' He obeyed, and from the box I took the keys that poor Vincey, Leo's father, had given me on the night of his death. There were three of them; the largest a com- paratively modem key, the second an exceedingly ancient one, and the third entirely unlike anything of the sort that we had ever seen before, being fashioned apparently from a strip of soUd silver, with a bar placed across to serve as a handle, and some nicks cut in the edge of the bar. It was more like a model of some antediluvian railway key than anything else. ' Now are you both ready ? ' I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, leaned it back. Its re- moval revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush. It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close- grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was actually in parts commencing to crumble away from age. ' Now for it,' I said, inserting the second key. THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS 25 Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the hd, and uttered an ex- clamation, as did the others ; and no wonder, for iaside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, for the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition. I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange- looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood open before us. It was fiUed to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I care- fully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed ia the handwriting of my dead friend Viacey. ' To my son Leo, should he live to o;pen this casket.' I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion tO me to go on emptying the casket. The next thing that I found was a parchment care- fully rolled up. I unrolled it, and seeing that it was also in Vincey's handwriting, and headed ' Translation of the Uncial Greek Writing on the Potsherd,' put it down by the letter. Then followed another ancient roll of parchment, that had become yeUow and crinkled with the passage of years. This I also unrolled. It was hkewise a transla- tion of the same Greek original, but into black-letter Latin this time, which at the first glance appeared to me from the style and character to date feom somewhere about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Immediately beneath this roll was something hard and heavy, wrapped up in yellow linen, and reposing upon another layer of the fibroua 26 SHE material. Slowly and carefully we tinrolled the linen, exposing to view a very large but undoubtedly ancient potsherd of a dirty yellow colour 1 ^ Tliis potsherd had ia my judgment once been a part of an ordinary amphora of medium size. For the rest, it measured ten and a half inches in length by seven ui width, was about a quarter of an inch thick, and densely covered on the convex side that lay towards the bottom of the box with writing in the later uncial Greek character, faded here and there, but for the most part perfectly legible, the inscription having evidently been executed with the greatest care, and by means of a reed pen, such as the ancients often used. I must not forget to mention that ia some remote age this wonderful fragment had been broken in two, and rejoined by means of cement and eight long rivets. Also there were numerous inscriptions on the inner side, but these were of the most erratic character, and had clearly been made by different hands and in many different ages, and ol them, together with the writings on the parchments, I shall have to speak presently. ' la there anything more ? ' asked Leo, in a kind of excited whisper. I groped about, and produced something hard, done up in a little linen bag. Out of the bag we took first a very beautiful miniature done upon ivory, and, secondly, a small chocolate-coloured composition scarahaus, marked thus :-— symbols which, we have since ascertained, mean ' Suten se Ea,' which is being translated the ' Eoyal Son of Ea or the Sun.' The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother — a lovely, dark-eyed creature. On the back of it was written, in poor Vincey's handwriting, ' My beloved wife.' ' That is all,' I said. ' Soc Frontispiece. — Editob. THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS 27 ' Very well,' answered Leo, putting down the miniature, at which he had been gazing affectionately ; ' and now let us read the letter,' and without further ado he broke the seal, and read aloud as follows : — ' My Son Leo, — When you open this, if you ever live to do so, you will have attained to manhood, and I shall have been long enough dead to be absolutely, forgotten by nearly all who Imew me. Yet in reading it remember that I have been, and for anything you know may still be, and that in it, through this link of pen and, paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death, and my voice speaks to you from, the unutterable silence of the grave. Though I am dead, and no memory of me remains in your mind, yet am I with you in this hour that you read. Since your birth to this day I have scarcely seen your face. Forgive me this. Your life supplanted the life of one whom I loved better than women are often loved, and the bitterness of it endureth yet. Had I lived I should in time have conquered this foolish feeling, but I am not destined to live. My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for your future well-being are completed it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. At the best I could not live more than another year.' ' So he killed himself,' I exclaimed. ' I thought so.' ' And now,' Leo went on, without replying, ' enough of myself. What has to be said belongs to you who live, not to me, who am dead, and almost as much forgotten as though I had never been. HoUy, my friend (to whom, if he will accept the trust, it is my intention to confide you), will have told you something of the extraordinary anti- quity of your race. In the contents of this casket you wiU find sufficient to prove it. The strange legend that you will find inscribed by your remote ancestress upon the potsherd was commumcated to me by my father on his deathbed, and took a strong hold upon my imagination. 28 SHE When I was only nineteen years of age I determined, as, to his misfortune, did one of our ancestors about the time of Ehzabeth, to investigate its truth. Into all that befell me I cannot enter now. But this I saw with my own eyes. On the coast of Africa, in a hitherto unexplored region, some distance to the north of where the Zambesi falls into the sea, there is a headland, at the extremityof which a peak towers up, shaped like the head of a negro, similar to that of which the writing speaks. I landed there, and learnt from a wandering native, who had been cast out by his people because of some crime which he had committed, that far inland are great mountains, shaped like cups, and caves surrounded by measureless swamps. I learnt also that the people there speak a dialect of Arabic, and are ruled over by a hea/atiful white woman who is seldom seen by them, but who is reported to have power over all things living and dead. Two days after I had ascertained this the man died of fever contracted in crossing the swamps, and I was forced by want of provisions and by symptoms of an iUness which afterwards prostrated me to take to my dhow again. ' Of the adventures that befell me after this I need not now speak. I was wrecked upon the coast of Madagascar, and rescued some months afterwards by an English ship that brought me to Aden, whence I started for England, intending to prosecute my search as soon as I had made sufficient preparations. On my way I stopped in Greece, and there, for " Omnia vincit amor," I met your beloved mother, and married her, and there you were born and she died. Then it was that my last illness seized me, and I returned hither to die. But still I hoped against hope, and set myself to work to learn Arabic, with the intention, should I ever get better, of returning to the coast of Africa, and solving the mystery of which the tradition has lived so many centuries in our family. But I have not got better, and, so far as I am concerned, the story is at an end. ' For you, however, my son, it is not at an end, and to THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS 29 you I hand on these the results of my labour, together with the hereditary proofs of its origin. It is my intention to provide that they shall not be put into your hands until you have reached an age when you will be able to judge for yourself whether or no you will choose to investigate what, if it is true, must be the greatest mystery in the world, or to put it by as an idle fable, originating in the first place in a woman's disordered brain. ' I do not beheve that it is a fable ; I beheve that if it can only be re-discovered there is a spot where the vital forces of the world visibly exist. Life exists ; why there- fore should not the means of preserving it indefinitely exist also ? But I have no wish to prejudice your mind about the matter. Eead and judge for yourself. If you are inclined to undertake the search, I have so provided that you will not lack for means. If, on the other hand, you are satisfied that the whole thing is a chimera, then, I adjure you, destroy the potsherd and the writings, and let a cause of troubling be removed from our race for ever. Perhaps that wiLL be wisest. The unknown is generally taken to be terrible, not as the proverb would infer, from the inherent superstition of man, but because it so often is terrible. He who would tamper with the vast and secret forces that animate the world may well fall a victim to them. And if the end were attained, if at last you emerged from the trial ever beautiful and ever young, defying time and evil, and Ufted above the natural decay of flesh and intellect, who shall say that the awesome change would prove a happy one ? Choose, my son, and may the Power who rules all things, and who says " thus far shalt thou go, and thus much shalt thou learn," direct the choice to your own happiness and the happiness of the world, which, in the event of your success, you would one day certainly rule by the pure force of accumulated ex- perience. — Farewell ! ' Thus the letter, which was imsigned and undated, abruptly ended. 30 SHE ' What do you make of that, Uncle Holly ? ' said Leo, with a sort of gasp, as he replaced it on the table. ' We have been looking for a mystery, and we certainly seem to have found one.' ' What do I make of it ? Why, that your poor dear father was off hi^ head, of course,' I answered, testily. ' I guessed as much that night, twenty years ago, when ■he came into my room. You see he evidently hurried his own end, poor man. It is absolute balderdash.' ' That's it, sir ! ' said Job, solemnly. Job was a most matter-of-fact specimen of a matter-of-fact class. ' Well, let's see what the potsherd has to say, at any rate,' said Leo, taking up the translation ia his father's writing, and commencing to read : — 'I, Amenartas, of the Boy al House of the Pharaohs of Egypt, wife of Kallikrates (the Beautiful ia Strength), a Priest of Isis whom the gods cherish and the demons obey, being about to die, to my little son Tisisthenes (the Mighty Avenger). I fled with thy father from Egypt in the days of Nectanebes,^ causing him through love to break the vows that he had vowed. We fled southward, across tJie waters, and we wandered for twice twelve moons on the coast oj Libya (Africa) that looks towards the rising sun, where by a river is a great rock carven like the head of an Ethiopian. Four days on the water from the mouth of a mighty river ware toe cast away, and some ivere drowned and some died of sickness. But us wild men took through wastes and marshes, where the sea fowl hid the sky, bearing us ten days' joxirney till we came to a liollow mountain, where a great city had been and fallen, and where there are caves of luhich no man hath seen the end ; and they broiight us to the Queen of the people who place pots upon the heads of strangers, who is a magician having a knowledge of all things, arid life and loveliness that does not die. And she cast eyes of love upon thy father, Kallikrates, and would ' Nekht-nebf, or Neotanebo II., tlie last native Pharaoli of Egypt fled from Ochus to Ethiopia, ns.o. 330. — Editoe. THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS 31 have slain me, and taken him to husband, but he loved me and feared her, and would not. Then did she taJce us, and lead us by terrible tvays, by means ■qf darh magic, to where the great fit is, in the mouth of which the old philosopher lay dead, and showed to us the rolling Pillar of Life that dies not, whereof the voice is as the voice of thunder ; and she did stand in the flames, and conie forth unharmed, and yet more beautiful. Then did she swear to make thy father undying even as she is, if he would but slay me, and give himself to her, for me she could not slay because of the magic of my own people that I have, and that prevailed thus far against her. And he held his hand before his eyes to hide her beauty, and would not. Then in her rage did she smite him by her magic, and he died; btit she- wept over him, and bore him thence with lamentations : and being afraid, me she sent to the mouth of the great river luhere the ships come, and I was carried far away on the ships where I gave thee birth, and hither to Athens I came at last after many wanderings. Now I say to thee, my son, Tisisthenes, seek out the woman, and learn the secret of Life, and if thou may est find a way slay her, because of thy father Kallikrates ; and if thou dost fear or fail, this I say to all of thy seed who come after thee, till at last a brave man be found ajnong them who shall bathe in the fire and sit in the place of the Pharaohs. I speak of tliose things, that though they be past belief, yet I have known, and I lie not.' ' May the Lord forgive lier for that,' groaned Job, who had been listening to this marvellous composition with his mouth open. As for myself, I said nothing : my first idea being that my poor friend, being demented, had composed the whole thing, though it scarcely seemed likely that such a story could have been invented by anybody. It was too original. To solve my doubts I took up the potsherd and began to read the close uncial Greek writing on it ; and very good Greek of the period it is, considering that it came from 32 SHE the pen of an Egyptian bom. Here is an exact transcript ofit:— AMENAPTAZTOYBAZIAIKOYrENOYZTOYA irYrXIOYHTOYKAAAIKPATOYZIZIAOZlEP EnZHNOIMENeEOITPEOYZITAAEAAIMO NIAYPOTAZZETAIHAHTEAEYTnZATIZIZ GENEITnPAIAIEriZTEAAEITAAEZYNE<|)YrO NrAPrOTEEKTHZAirYrXIAZEPJNEKTANEB OYM ETATOYZOYP ATPOZAI ATON EPflTATO N EMON EriOPKHZANTOZYrONTEZAErPO ZNOTONAIAPONTIOIKAIKAMHNAZKATATA rAPAeAAAZZfATHZAIBYHZTAPPOZHAlOY ANATOAAZPAANHGENTEZENeAPEPPETPA TIZMErAAHrAYPTONOMOiriMAAieiOPOZ KEA AHZ EITA H M EPAZAAPOZTOM ATOZPO TAMOYMEPAAOYEKPEZONTEZOIMENKATE PONTIZeHMENOIAENOZfllAPEeANOMENT EAOZAEYPArPinNAN0PnPnNE«l>EPOMEeA AlAEAEHNTEKAITENArEnNENeAPEPPTHN r^NPAHeOZAPOKPYPTEITONOYPANONHM EPAZIEnZHAeOMENEIZKOIAONTIOPOZEN GAPOTEM EPA AH M EN PO AIZHN ANTPAAEAP EIPONAHfArONAEnZBAZIAEIANTHNTnNE ENOYZXYTPAIZZTEANOYNTnNHTIZMArE IAMENEXPHTOEPIZTHMHAEPANTI2NKAIA H KAI KAAAOZKAIPnMHN APHPHZHNHAEKA AAIKPATOYZTOYZOYPATPOZEPAZGEIZAT OMENPPnXONZYNOIKEINEBOYAETOEMEA EANEAEINEPEITAnZOYKANEPEIGENEMEPA PYPEPE«l>IAEIKAITHNZENHNEIAOZOOZTEQNE nZAIKOMENOIZAEAEIHE«l>r2ZTOYBIOYEY GYOIONKIONAEAIZZOMENON4)nNHNIENT AKAGAPEPBPONTHZEITAAIAPYPOZBEBHK YIAABAABHZKAIETIKAAAinNAYTHEAYTHZ EiEANHEKAETOYTnNnMOZEKAITONZO NPATEPAAGANATONAPOAEIHEINEIZYNOIK EINOIBOYAOITOEMEAEANEAEINOYPAPOY NAYTHANEAEINIZXYENYPOTHN HMEAAPfl NHN KAI AYTH EXfi M APEI AZOAOYAENTI MA THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS 33 AAONHeEAETHXEIPETONOMMATXlNrPOl SXnNINAAHTOTHZrYNAlKOZKAAAOZMH OPIlHEPEITAOPriZeEIZAKATErOHTEYZEM ENAYTONArOAOMENONMENTOIKAAOYZA KAIOAYPOMENHEKEIGENAPHNErKENEMEA EOBniAHKENEIZZTOMATOYMErAAOYr OTAMOYTOYNAYZirOPOYPOPPflAENAYZI NEr2NrEPPAEOYZAETEKONZEArorAEYZ AZAMOAIZPOTEAEYPOAeHNAZEKATHrAr OMHNZYAEnTIZIZGENEZnNEPIZTEAAnM HOAirnPEIAEIPAPTHNrYNAIKAANAZHTEl NHNPnZTOTOYBtOYMYZTHPIONANEYPH SKAIANAIPEINHNPOYPAPAZXHAIATONZO NPATEPAKAAAIKPATHNEIAEi\,6ero(f>os TeQvews,, dcf>iKo/j,svois B' sSsi^s tfySis tov ^lov svdv, otov KLOva £\i' Sivirsp irKsovaa STSKOV (TS, diroTrKsvcracra pLoXis ttotI Bsvpo 'A0T]vd^s KaTriyayopnp). (7v Bi, w TicrtcrOsvss, &v STTia-TsSXco prj oXtycopsi, • BsL yap Trjv yvvaiKa dva^rjTSiv fjv iras to tov /3lov piv(7Trjpiop dvsvprjs, Kai avaipsiv, rjv ttov Trapacryn, Bid TOV trov iraTspa K.aXXiKpaTrjPi si Bs ^o^ovpsvos r) Bid aXXo Ti avTos Xshrei tov spyov, irdcn toIs vaTspov avTo tovto eTrio-TgWo), ecus ttote dyados tls ysvopsvos T§3 irvpl Xovaaadai ToXp^asi Kalrd dpiarTsia s-)(aiv ^aaiXsvcrai t5>v dvdptoTrcov ' airia-Ta p,sv Br) to. TOiavTa Xiyco, op-ms Si d avTrj 'iyvwKa ovk i^jrsva-dprjv. THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS 35 The English translation was, as I discovered on further investigation, and as the reader may easily see by oompari- Bon, both accurate and elegant. Besides the uncial writing on the convex side of the sherd at the top, painted in dull red, on what had once been the lip of the amphora, was the cartouche already mentioned as being on the sca/rabaus, which we had also found in the casket. The hieroglyphics or symbols, how- ever, were reversed, just as though they had been pressed on wax. Whether this was the cartouche of the original KaUikrates,' or of some Prince or Pharaoh fi:om whom his wife Amenartas was descended, I am not sure, nor can I tell if it was drawn upon the sherd at the same time that the uncial Greek was inscribed, or copied on more recently from the Scarab by some other member of the family. Nor was this aU. At the foot of the writing, pamted in the same dull red, was the faint outline of a somewhat rude drawing of the head and shoulders of a Sphinx wearing two feathers, symbols of majesty, which, though common enough upon the effigies of sacred bulls and gods, I have never before met with on a Sphinx. Also on the right-hand side of this surface of the sherd, painted obUquely in red on the space not covered by the uncial, and signed in blue paint, was the following quaint inscription : — IN EAETH AND SKIE AND SEA BTEANGB THYNGES THEB BE. HOC TBOIT DOBOTHEA VINOET. Perfectly bewildered, I turned the relic over. It was covered from top to bottom with notes and signatures in Greek, Latin, and English. The first in uncial Greek was by Tisisthenes, the son to whom the writing was addressed. ' The cartouche, if it be a true cartouche, cannot have been that of Kallila-ates, as Mr. Holly suggests. Kallikrates was a priest and not entitled, to a cartouche, which was the prerogative of Egyptian royalty, though he might have inscribed his name or title upon an oval. — Ediiok. D 2 36 SHE It was, ' I could not go. Tisisthenes to Ms son, Eallikrates.' Here it is in fac-simile with its cursive equivalent : — OYKANAYNAI M HNPOPEYECQAITICICeENH CKA A Al KPATEITm H Ar Al ovK hv Bvvalfi7]v iropevsaOai. TiaiaOevris 'KaWiKparsi tS iraiBi. This KaUikrates (probably, in the Greek fashion, so named after his grandfather) evidently made some attempt to start on the quest, for his entry written in very faint and almost illegible uncial is, 'I ceased from my going, the gods being against me, KaUikrates to his son.' Here it is also : — TXlNQEnNANTIZTANTriNErAYZAMHNTHZ rOPEIAZKAAAIKPATHZTIllPAIAI Tcov 6s5iv avTiaravTcov STravadfirjv t^s iropsias. KxiX\,iKpdT7)s Tw iraiBi. Between these two ancient writings, the second of which was inscribed upside down and was so faint and worn that, had it not been for the transcript of it executed by Vincey, I should scarcely have been able to read it, since, owing to its having been written on that portion of the tile which had, in the course of ages, undergone the most hand- ling, it was nearly rubbed out — was the bold, modem-look- ing signature of one Lionel Vincey, ' ^tate sua 17,' which was written thereon, I think, by Leo's grandfather. To the right of this were the initials ' J. B. V.,' and below came a variety of Greek signatures, in uncial and cursive character, and what appeared to be some carelessly executed repeti- tions of the sentence ' rj» iraiii ' (to my son), showing that the relic was religiously passed on from gcnerStion to generation. The next legible thing after the Greek signatures was the word ' Eomab, a.u.o.,' showing that the family had now migrated to Eome. Unfortunately, however, with the THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS 37 exception of its termination (cvi) the date of their settle- ment there is for ever lost, for just where it had been placed a piece of the potsherd is broken away. Then folio-wed twelve Latia signatures, jotted about here and there, wherever there was a space upon the tile suitable to their inscription. These signatures, with three exceptions only, ended with the name ' Viadex ' or ' the Avenger,' which seems to have been adopted by the family after its migration to Eome as a kind of equivalent to the Grecian' Tisisthenes,' which also means an avenger. Ultimately, as might be expected, this Latin cognomen of Viadex was transformed first into De Vincey, and then into the plain, modern Vincey. It is very curious to observe how the idea of revenge, inspired by an Egjrptian before the time of Christ, is thus, as it were, embalmed in an English family name. A few of the Eoman names inscribed upon the sherd I have actually since found mentioned in history and other records. They were, if I remember right, MVSSIVS. VINDEX SEX. TABIVS. MAETLLVS 0. rVEIDIVS. 0. F. VINDEX and LABEEU POMPEIANA. OONITX. MAOKINI. VINDIOIS the last being, of course, the name of a Eoman lady. The following Hst, however, comprises all the Latin names upon the sherd : — C. OAECILIVB VINDEX M. AIMUiIVS TINDEX SEX. VAKIVS. MABVLLVS Q. SOSIVS PKISCVS SENECIO VINDEX I,. VAIEEITS COMINIVS VINDEX u EEX. OTAOILITS. M. 1. ^ 1. ATTITS. VINDEX MVSSIVS VINDEX C. rVFIDITS. 0. F. VINDEX MCINIVS TAVSIVS LABEEIA POMPEIANA CONIVX MAOEINl VINDI0I8 MANIXilA LVCILLA CONIVX MAEVLLl VINDIOIS 38 SHE After the Eoman names there is evidently a gap of very many centuries. Nobody will ever know now what was the history of the relic during those dark ages, or how it came to have been preserved in the family. My poor friend Vincey had, it will be remembered, told me that his Eoman ances- tors finally settled in Lombardy, and when Charlemagne invaded it, returned with him across the Alps, and made their home in Brittany, whence they crossed to England in the reign of Edward the Confessor. How he knew this I am not aware, for there is no reference to Lombardy or Charlemagne upon the tUe, though, as wiU presently be seen, there is a reference to Brittany. To continue : the next entries on the sherd, if I may except a long splash either of blood or red colouring matter of some sort, con- sist of two crosses drawn in red pigment, and probably representing Crusaders' swords, and a rather neat mono- gram (' D. V.') in scarlet and blue, perhaps executed by that same Dorothea Vincey who wrote, or rather painted, the doggrel couplet. To the left of this, inscribed in faint blue, were the initials A. V., and after them a date, 1800. Then came what was perhaps as curious an entry as anything upon this extraordinary relic of the past. It is executed in black letter, written over the crosses or Crusaders' swords, and dated fourteen hundred and forty- five. As the best plan will be to allow it to speak for itself, I here give the black-letter fac- simile, together with the original Latin without the contractions, from which it wiU be seen that the writer was a fair mediceval Latinist. Also we discovered what is still more curious, an EngUsh ver- sion of the black-letter Latin. This, also written in black- letter, we found inscribed on a second parchment that was in the coffer, apparently somewhat older in date than that on which was inscribed the mediaBval Latin translation of the uncial Greek of which I shall speak presently. This I also give in full. THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS 39 Facsimile of BlacJc-Letter Inscription on the Sherd of Amenartas. ejemto. :3pligiete^ ante b'fu^ ^otu trajijSf marc et jcjciiij mefc^ ji't iitora Eibyc b'fujef (©riete erranf isBi eft pctca qiic&a mgna ftblpta inftai: oStljiop capif, Jjcinbe bie^ iii; ali off ffum nigni decti p'tini fubmcrfi fumit.sf p'tim morlio mortiii fum : in fine ante n fcE lymb^ porta&amin: pr paiiiS et tiaba, ij&i nliiii m'titttJO cclii oBSSrat bie^ jr. bonce abicnim ab taiJU qutba montc, uBi olini mgita tJi'lj^ crat, caucrnc quoq imcfe : blix'crut aittc no^ ab rcgina ^bucnaf iarnni.^coronatiu que magic tteltair tt pcritia cmniu rcc ct faitc pijkrii et bigocc ifccfciOil' tmt, i^ec mgno pate tui amore pcblfiEfa p'mu q'bl ci conuBiu miclji mortc paral&at. poftca b'ro rccbfatc Caiiicrate amore mci et timorc rcgine affccto no^ pr mngiea afibujrit p'r Ijia^ liorriSii' bfii eft putcusf iiic pfubu^, cuius? iujcta abitu iaceljat fcnio£ p!jilo- fopl^i cabaucr, et abijcictiti moftraijit ffafiia JUite crccta, iftar cclumne ijoiutati^, ijocc^ emittcte ^fi tonitrljjS : tuc pr ignc fpctu ncciiia cjrpcriS trafiit ct ia ipa fcfc formofior Viifa eft. €}uiS fad iurabtt fc patre tuu quoq imcr^ THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS 43 tatc oftcfura t^t^ ft me priu^ occifa rcgine cotijBmiiu maWct; acq cni ipfa me occibere i^aiiiit, P3?tcr noftratii mgica tuiuif cgomet ptcm IjaBco. Sl'f'f^ ^ctro nici^il fjuiu^ gcft inaiuit, manift ante ocitt palTijef ite muiicc formofttate a&fpjcecet : poftca eu mgica pcultit arte, at mortuu cffereBat fbe cuffetiii tt loagitiB, me pr timore ejtpuiit ab oftiu mgiii ffmnift ijeliuoli jjorro in nate in qua te ''^ti^txx^ uij: poft tric^ pc SUtljcna^ intecta fu. %t tu, <© 'Cififtlicn, ne q'b quoru matso nauci fat : nccelTc cm eft muiicrc ej^giJirere ft qija JUite myftetiu Tpette^ et ijl&icate, quatu in te eft, patce tiiu Cailictaf in regine mortc* J»in timote feu aiig caijfa re rciiquiiSf ifecta, ijoc ij>(u oifi poftcr maDo bu IJoniJiSf q^ intjeniatm: qlji igiti^s iauacru no prljorrcfcet tt ptcntia bijjn boiabii piu. ^ 'Caiia bico incrcbiljilia qbe at mite ficta be refi micl)i cognitiisf. ^tt