Brood of the Witch-Queen, Sax Rohmer [books to read for beginners txt] 📗

missed falling upon his outstretched hand, and with a soft, dull thud dropped upon the mud brick floor. Impelled by some intuition, he suddenly directed the light to the roof above.

Then with a shrill cry which he was wholly unable to repress, Robert Cairn seized his father’s arm and began to pull him back towards the stair.

“Quick, sir!” he screamed shrilly, almost hysterically. “My God! my God! be quick!”

The appearance of the roof above had puzzled him for an instant as the light touched it, then in the next had filled his very soul with loathing and horror. For directly above them was moving a black patch, a foot or so in extent⁠ ⁠… and it was composed of a dense moving mass of tarantula spiders! A line of the disgusting creatures was mounting the wall and crossing the ceiling, ever swelling the unclean group!

Dr. Cairn did not hesitate to leap for the stair, and as he did so the spiders began to drop. Indeed, they seemed to leap towards the intruders, until the floor all about them and the bottom steps of the stair presented a mass of black, moving insects.

A perfect panic fear seized upon them. At every step spiders crunched beneath their feet. They seem to come from nowhere, to be conjured up out of the darkness, until the whole cellar, the stairs, the very fetid air about them, became black and nauseous with spiders.

Halfway to the top Dr. Cairn turned, snatched out a revolver and began firing down into the cellar in the direction of the sarcophagus.

A hairy, clutching thing ran up his arm, and his son, uttering a groan of horror, struck at it and stained the tweed with its poisonous blood.

They staggered to the head of the steps, and there Dr. Cairn turned and hurled the candle at a monstrous spider that suddenly sprang into view. The candle, still attached to its wooden socket, went bounding down steps that now were literally carpeted with insects.

Tarantulas began to run out from the trap, as if pursuing the intruders, and a faint light showed from below. Then came a crackling sound, and a wisp of smoke floated up.

Dr. Cairn threw open the outer door, and the two panic-stricken men leapt out into the street and away from the spider army. White to the lips they stood leaning against the wall.

“Was it really⁠—Ferrara?” whispered Robert.

“I hope so!” was the answer.

Dr. Cairn pointed to the closed door. A fan of smoke was creeping from beneath it.

The fire which ensued destroyed, not only the house in which it had broken out, but the two adjoining; and the neighbouring mosque was saved only with the utmost difficulty.

When, in the dawn of the new day, Dr. Cairn looked down into the smoking pit which once had been the home of the spiders, he shook his head and turned to his son.

“If our eyes did not deceive us, Rob,” he said, “a just retribution at last has claimed him!”

Pressing a way through the surrounding crowd of natives, they returned to the hotel. The hall porter stopped them as they entered.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but which is Mr. Robert Cairn?”

Robert Cairn stepped forward.

“A young gentleman left this for you, sir, half an hour ago,” said the man⁠—“a very pale gentleman, with black eyes. He said you’d dropped it.”

Robert Cairn unwrapped the little parcel. It contained a penknife, the ivory handle charred as if it had been in a furnace. It was his own⁠—which he had handed to his father in that awful cellar at the moment when the first spider had dropped; and a card was enclosed, bearing the pencilled words, “With Antony Ferrara’s Compliments.”

XVII The Story of Ali Mohammed

Saluting each of the three in turn, the tall Egyptian passed from Dr. Cairn’s room. Upon his exit followed a brief but electric silence. Dr. Cairn’s face was very stern and Sime, with his hands locked behind him, stood staring out of the window into the palmy garden of the hotel. Robert Cairn looked from one to the other excitedly.

“What did he say, sir?” he cried, addressing his father. “It had something to do with⁠—”

Dr. Cairn turned. Sime did not move.

“It had something to do with the matter which has brought me to Cairo,” replied the former⁠—“yes.”

“You see,” said Robert, “my knowledge of Arabic is nil⁠—”

Sime turned in his heavy fashion, and directed a dull gaze upon the last speaker.

“Ali Mohammed,” he explained slowly, “who has just left, had come down from the Fayûm to report a singular matter. He was unaware of its real importance, but it was sufficiently unusual to disturb him, and Ali Mohammed es-Suefi is not easily disturbed.”

Dr. Cairn dropped into an armchair, nodding towards Sime.

“Tell him all that we have heard,” he said. “We stand together in this affair.”

“Well,” continued Sime, in his deliberate fashion, “when we struck our camp beside the Pyramid of Méydûm, Ali Mohammed remained behind with a gang of workmen to finish off some comparatively unimportant work. He is an unemotional person. Fear is alien to his composition; it has no meaning for him. But last night something occurred at the camp⁠—or what remained of the camp⁠—which seems to have shaken even Ali Mohammed’s iron nerve.”

Robert Cairn nodded, watching the speaker intently.

“The entrance to the Méydûm Pyramid⁠—,” continued Sime.

“One of the entrances,” interrupted Dr. Cairn, smiling slightly.

“There is only one entrance,” said Sime dogmatically.

Dr. Cairn waved his hand.

“Go ahead,” he said. “We can discuss these archaeological details later.”

Sime stared dully, but, without further comment, resumed:

“The camp was situated on the slope immediately below the only known entrance to the Méydûm Pyramid; one might say that it lay in the shadow of the building. There are tumuli in the neighbourhood⁠—part of a prehistoric cemetery⁠—and it was work in connection with this which had detained Ali Mohammed in that part of the Fayûm. Last night about ten o’clock he was awakened by an unusual sound, or series of sounds, he reports. He came out of the tent into the moonlight, and looked up at