The Perfume of Egypt, C. W. Leadbeater [scary books to read .TXT] 📗

The Perfume of Egypt

And Other Weird Stories

by C. W. Leadbeater

The stories told in this book happen to be true. Of course I do not for a moment expect the ordinary reader to believe that, and I shall be perfectly satisfied if I succeed in whiling away for him the tedium of a railway journey, or if I can add for him a touch of pleasure to a comfortable evening before the fire or a lazy afternoon on the river.

For the few whose interest in these subjects is not merely superficial, I may add that some of the events related are personal experiences of my own, and that the others are reproduced exactly as they were told to me by persons in whose veracity I have every confidence. In every case, except those of “Jagannath” and “The Baron’s Room”, I myself have heard the story directly from the person principally concerned in it. So that there is no place here for the subtle alterations which are inevitably introduced into tales that have passed through many hands. These things happened; and although it may be difficult for one who has made no study of the subject to believe them, those who are familiar with the literature of the occult will readily be able to parallel most of these occurrences.

I have written other and more serious books in which such things as these are scientifically explained; in this volume my only desire is to help my readers to pass pleasantly a few hours of leisure time.

C. W. LEADBEATER

The Perfume of Egypt

The Forsaken Temple

The Major’s Promise

A Test of Courage

An Astral Murder

A Triple Warning

The Concealed Confession

Jagannath: A Tale of Hidden India

The Baron’s Room

Saved by a Ghost

It is a curious life, that of a man in chambers, though very pleasant in many ways. Its great charm is its absolute liberty — the entire freedom to go out and come in, or not to go out and come in, exactly as one pleases. But it is terribly lonely. Probably most people remember Dickens’s ghastly tale (founded, I believe, on fact) of a man who was struck by apoplexy when on the point of opening his door, and lay propped up against it for a whole year, until at the expiration of that time it was broken open, and his skeleton fell into the arms of the locksmith. I do not think I am a nervous man, but I confess that during my residence in chambers that story haunted me at times; and indeed, quite apart from such unusual horrors, there is a wide field of uncomfortable possibility in being left so entirely to oneself.

All the most unpleasant things that happen to people, both in fiction and real life, seem to occur when they are alone; and though no doubt the talented American author is right when he “thanks a merciful heaven that the unendurable extreme of agony happens always to man the unit, and never to man the mass,” one feels that it is probably easier to re-echo his sentiment heartily when one is not the unit in question. On the other hand, when a man in chambers locks his door on a winter night and settles down cosily by the fire for an evening’s reading, he has a sense of seclusion and immunity from interruption only to be equalled by that of a man who has sported his oak in a top set in college.

Just so had I *settled down — not to reading, however, but to writing — on the evening on which occurred the first of the chain of events that I am about to relate. In fact, I was writing a book — my first book — On the Present State of the Law on Conveyancing. I had published several essays on various aspects of the subject, and these had been so well received by high legal authorities, that I was emboldened to present my views in a more ambitious form. It was to this work, then, that I was applying myself with all a young author’s zeal on the evening in question; and my reason for mentioning this fact is to show the subject on which my thoughts were fixed with a special intentness — one far enough, surely, from suggesting anything like romantic or unusual adventure.

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* The narrator of this remarkable series of incidents (whom I have called Mr. Thomas Keston) is — or rather was — a barrister of considerable repute in London. I have thought it best to leave him to tell his own story in his own words, reserving comments until the end. — C. W. L.

I had just paused, I remember, to consider the exact wording of a peculiarly knotty sentence, when suddenly there came over rue that feeling which I suppose all of us have experienced at one time or another — the feeling that I was not alone — that there was some one else in the room. I knew that my door was locked, and that the idea was therefore absurd; yet the impression was so strong that I instinctively half-rose from my chair and glanced hurriedly round. There was nothing visible, however, and with a half-laugh at my foolishness I was turning to my sentence again, when I became conscious of a faint but very peculiar odour in the room. It seemed familiar to me, yet for some few moments I was unable to identify it; then it flashed across my mind where I had met with it before, and my surprise was profound, as will be readily understood when I explain.

I had spent the long vacation of the preceding year in wandering about Egypt, peering into odd nooks and corners, and trying to make myself acquainted with the true life of the country — keeping as far as possible out of the beaten track and away from bands of tourists. While in Cairo I had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of a certain Sheikh (so he was called, though I am unable to say whether he had any right to the title) who proved to be a perfect mine of information as to ancient manners and customs, and the antiquities of the place generally — as regards relics of the glory of the mediaeval Caliphs, I mean, not the real antiquities of the old Egyptian dynasties. My servant warned me to beware of this man, and said he had the reputation of being a magician and dealing extensively with the evil one; however, I always found him very friendly and obliging, and he certainly pointed out to me many objects of interest that I should inevitably have missed but for him.

One day, going to call on him at an unusual hour, I was struck on entering his room by a most peculiar odour. It was altogether unlike anything I had ever smelt before — indescribably rich and sweet — almost oppressively so — and yet its effects seemed stimulating and exhilarating. I was so much pleased with it that I pressed the Sheikh strongly either to give me a little of it or tell me where I could obtain it; but to my surprise he refused courteously but firmly to do either. All he would say was that it was a sacred perfume, used only in certain incantations; that its manufacture was a secret handed down from the remotest ages and known only to a chosen few; and that not all the gold in the world would ever buy a single grain of it.

Naturally this excited my curiosity immensely, but he would give me no further information either as to the scent itself or the purpose for which he had been using it. Sitting talking with him for an hour or so, my garments became permeated with its alluring fragrance, and when I returned to my hotel my servant, in brushing my coat, perceived it and started back with horror. Startled out of his usual impassivity and imperturbable courtesy, he asked hurriedly:

“Effendi, where have you been? How comes this devil-scent upon your clothes?”

“What do you mean?” said I. “What is the smell that excites you so strangely?”

“O sir, be careful!” replied my man, almost weeping. “You do not know, you do not believe; you English do not understand the awful power of the old magic of Egypt. I do not know where you have been, but O sir! never go there again, for you have been in terrible danger. Only magicians use this scent, and no magician can make it for himself; it is prepared by devils, and for every phial there must be a human sacrifice, so we call it virgin’s blood.”

“Nonsense, Mustapha,” I said; “you cannot expect me to believe such a tale as that. Cannot you get me some of this mysterious substance?”

“Not for the world,” answered Mustapha, with every appearance of mortal dread upon his countenance. “No one can get i — no one, I assure you! and I dare not touch it for my life, even if they could. Effendi, keep away from these things, for your soul’s sake.”

I laughed at his fear for me, but there could be no doubt that he was in deadly earnest; and it is certainly true that I could find no perfume in the least like that which I remembered so well, though I tried every scent-merchant in Cairo.

When I say that it was this mysterious aroma — faint, but quite unmistakable — that greeted my nostrils in my own chambers in London on that memorable night, it will be seen that I had good reason to be surprised. What could it mean? Was it anyhow possible that the smell could have lingered in some article of clothing? Obviously not, for had it done so I must certainly have discovered the fact in much less time than the fourteen or fifteen months that had elapsed. Then whence could it come? For I was well convinced that nothing in the least like it could be obtained in England. The problem appeared so difficult that when I could no longer perceive the odour I was half inclined to doubt whether after all it, might not have been a hallucination; and I turned to my work again, resolved to throw it entirely off my mind.

I worked out the knotty sentence to my satisfaction, and had written perhaps a page more, when quite suddenly and without warning I felt again, more strongly than ever, that unpleasant consciousness of some other presence in the room; but this time, before I could turn to look, I felt — distinctly felt — a soft breath or puff of wind on the back of my neck, and heard a faint sigh. I sprang from my chair with an inarticulate cry, and looked wildly round the room, but there was nothing unusual to be seen — no trace remained of my mysterious visitant. No trace, did I say? Even in the moment that passed while I was regaining my self-possession there stole again upon my astonished sense that strange subtle perfume of ancient eastern magic!

It would be folly to deny that I was seriously startled. I rushed to the door and tried it — shook it vigorously; but it was locked, exactly as I had left it. I turned to the bedroom;