The Jewel of Seven Stars, Bram Stoker [books to read for self improvement txt] 📗

“Magic Box”, as we called it. We had already noticed

those peculiar translucent spaces in the stone of the box. You remember

the hieroglyphic writing had told that the jewel came from the heart of

an aerolite, and that the coffer was cut from it also. It might be, I

thought, that the light of the seven stars, shining in the right

direction, might have some effect on the box, or something within it. I

raised the blind and looked out. The Plough was high in the heavens, and

both its stars and the Pole Star were straight opposite the window. I

pulled the table with the coffer out into the light, and shifted it

until the translucent patches were in the direction of the stars.

Instantly the box began to glow, as you saw it under the lamps, though

but slightly. I waited and waited; but the sky clouded over, and the

light died away. So I got wires and lamps—you know how often I use them

in experiments—and tried the effect of electric light. It took me some

time to get the lamps properly placed, so that they would correspond to

the parts of the stone, but the moment I got them right the whole thing

began to glow as you have seen it.

 

“‘I could get no further, however. There was evidently something

wanting. All at once it came to me that if light could have some effect

there should be in the tomb some means of producing light, for there

could not be starlight in the Mummy Pit in the cavern. Then the whole

thing seemed to become clear. On the bloodstone table, which has a

hollow carved in its top, into which the bottom of the coffer fits, I

laid the Magic Coffer; and I at once saw that the odd protuberances so

carefully wrought in the substance of the stone corresponded in a way to

the stars in the constellation. These, then, were to hold lights.

 

“‘Eureka!’ I cried. ‘All we want now is the lamps.’” I tried placing

the electric lights on, or close to, the protuberances. But the glow

never came to the stone. So the conviction grew on me that there were

special lamps made for the purpose. If we could find them, a step on the

road to solving the mystery should be gained.

 

“‘But what about the lamps?’ I asked. ‘Where are they? When are we to

discover them? How are we to know them if we do find them? What—”

 

“He stopped me at once:

 

“‘One thing at a time!’ he said quietly. ‘Your first question contains

all the rest. Where are these lamps? I shall tell you: In the tomb!’

 

“‘In the tomb!’ I repeated in surprise. ‘Why you and I searched the

place ourselves from end to end; and there was not a sign of a lamp.

Not a sign of anything remaining when we came away the first time; or on

the second, except the bodies of the Arabs.’

 

“Whilst I was speaking, he had uncoiled some large sheets of paper which

he had brought in his hand from his own room. These he spread out on

the great table, keeping their edges down with books and weights. I

knew them at a glance; they were the careful copies which he had made of

our first transcripts from the writing in the tomb. When he had all

ready, he turned to me and said slowly:

 

“‘Do you remember wondering, when we examined the tomb, at the lack of

one thing which is usually found in such a tomb?’

 

“‘Yes! There was no serdab.’

 

“The Serdab, I may perhaps explain,” said Mr. Corbeck to me, “is a sort

of niche built or hewn in the wall of a tomb. Those which have as yet

been examined bear no inscriptions, and contain only effigies of the

dead for whom the tomb was made.” Then he went on with his narrative:

 

“Trelawny, when he saw that I had caught his meaning, went on speaking

with something of his old enthusiasm:

 

“‘I have come to the conclusion that there must be a serdab—a secret

one. We were dull not to have thought of it before. We might have

known that the maker of such a tomb—a woman, who had shown in other ways

such a sense of beauty and completeness, and who had finished every

detail with a feminine richness of elaboration—would not have neglected

such an architectural feature. Even if it had not its own special

significance in ritual, she would have had it as an adornment. Others

had had it, and she liked her own work to be complete. Depend upon it,

there was—there is—a serdab; and that in it, when it is discovered, we

shall find the lamps. Of course, had we known then what we now know or

at all events surmise, that there were lamps, we might have suspected

some hidden spot, some cachet. I am going to ask you to go out to Egypt

again; to seek the tomb; to find the serdab; and to bring back the

lamps!’”

 

“‘And if I find there is no serdab; or if discovering it I find no lamps

in it, what then?’ He smiled grimly with that saturnine smile of his, so

rarely seen for years past, as he spoke slowly:

 

“‘Then you will have to hustle till you find them!’

 

“‘Good!’ I said. He pointed to one of the sheets.

 

“‘Here are the transcripts from the Chapel at the south and the east. I

have been looking over the writings again; and I find that in seven

places round this corner are the symbols of the constellation which we

call the Plough, which Queen Tera held to rule her birth and her

destiny. I have examined them carefully, and I notice that they are all

representations of the grouping of the stars, as the constellation

appears in different parts of the heavens. They are all astronomically

correct; and as in the real sky the Pointers indicate the Pole Star, so

these all point to one spot in the wall where usually the serdab is to

be found!’

 

“‘Bravo!’ I shouted, for such a piece of reasoning demanded applause.

He seemed pleased as he went on:

 

“‘When you are in the tomb, examine this spot. There is probably some

spring or mechanical contrivance for opening the receptacle. What it

may be, there is no use guessing. You will know what best to do, when

you are on the spot.’

 

“I started the next week for Egypt; and never rested till I stood again

in the tomb. I had found some of our old following; and was fairly well

provided with help. The country was now in a condition very different

to that in which it had been sixteen years before; there was no need for

troops or armed men.

 

“I climbed the rock face alone. There was no difficulty, for in that

fine climate the woodwork of the ladder was still dependable. It was

easy to see that in the years that had elapsed there had been other

visitors to the tomb; and my heart sank within me when I thought that

some of them might by chance have come across the secret place. It

would be a bitter discovery indeed to find that they had forestalled me;

and that my journey had been in vain.

 

“The bitterness was realised when I lit my torches, and passed between

the seven-sided columns to the Chapel of the tomb.

 

“There, in the very spot where I had expected to find it, was the

opening of a serdab. And the serdab was empty.

 

“But the Chapel was not empty; for the dried-up body of a man in Arab

dress lay close under the opening, as though he had been stricken down.

I examined all round the walls to see if Trelawny’s surmise was correct;

and I found that in all the positions of the stars as given, the

Pointers of the Plough indicated a spot to the left hand, or south side,

of the opening of the serdab, where was a single star in gold.

 

“I pressed this, and it gave way. The stone which had marked the front

of the serdab, and which lay back against the wall within, moved

slightly. On further examining the other side of the opening, I found a

similar spot, indicated by other representations of the constellation;

but this was itself a figure of the seven stars, and each was wrought in

burnished gold. I pressed each star in turn; but without result. Then

it struck me that if the opening spring was on the left, this on the

right might have been intended for the simultaneous pressure of all the

stars by one hand of seven fingers. By using both my hands, I managed

to effect this.

 

“With a loud click, a metal figure seemed to dart from close to the

opening of the serdab; the stone slowly swung back to its place, and

shut with a click. The glimpse which I had of the descending figure

appalled me for the moment. It was like that grim guardian which,

according to the Arabian historian Ibn Abd Alhokin, the builder of the

Pyramids, King Saurid Ibn Salhouk placed in the Western Pyramid to

defend its treasure: ‘A marble figure, upright, with lance in hand;

with on his head a serpent wreathed. When any approached, the serpent

would bite him on one side, and twining about his throat and killing

him, would return again to his place.’

 

“I knew well that such a figure was not wrought to pleasantry; and that

to brave it was no child’s play. The dead Arab at my feet was proof of

what could be done! So I examined again along the wall; and found here

and there chippings as if someone had been tapping with a heavy hammer.

This then had been what happened: The grave-robber, more expert at his

work than we had been, and suspecting the presence of a hidden serdab,

had made essay to find it. He had struck the spring by chance; had

released the avenging ‘Treasurer’, as the Arabian writer designated him.

The issue spoke for itself. I got a piece of wood, and, standing at a

safe distance, pressed with the end of it upon the star.

 

“Instantly the stone flew back. The hidden figure within darted forward

and thrust out its lance. Then it rose up and disappeared. I thought I

might now safely press on the seven stars; and did so. Again the stone

rolled back; and the ‘Treasurer’ flashed by to his hidden lair.

 

“I repeated both experiments several times; with always the same result.

I should have liked to examine the mechanism of that figure of such

malignant mobility; but it was not possible without such tools as could

not easily be had. It might be necessary to cut into a whole section of

the rock. Some day I hope to go back, properly equipped, and attempt

it.

 

“Perhaps you do not know that the entrance to a serdab is almost always

very narrow; sometimes a hand can hardly be inserted. Two things I

learned from this serdab. The first was that the lamps, if lamps at all

there had been, could not have been of large size; and secondly, that

they would be in some way associated with Hathor, whose symbol, the hawk

in a square with the right top corner forming a smaller square, was cut

in relief on the wall within, and coloured the bright vermilion which we

had found on the Stele. Hathor is the goddess who in Egyptian mythology

answers to Venus of the Greeks, in as far as she is the presiding deity