Theos-Talk Archives (November 2006 Message tt00693)

THE PERFUME OF EGYPT

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 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


	2	THE PERFUME OF EGYPT


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 1 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 Conz~eyancing. 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

`The narrator of this remarkable series tf incklents (whom I have 
called Mr. Thomas Keston) is?or rather was?a barrister of 
considerable repute in London. I have thought it best to leu~ft him 
to tell his own story in his own words, reserving coww~nta until the 
end.?C.W.L
call far enough, surely, from suggesting anything like romantic or 
unusual adventure.
     I had just paused, I remember, to consider the exact wording of 
a peculiarly knotty sentence, when suddenly there came over me 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 medieval 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 lie 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 yoa 
so strangely?"
    "0 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 0 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 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 it?
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 lin-~ gered 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 in 
the bedroom; there was no one there.
I then searched both the robins thoroughly looking under bed, sofas, 
and tables, and opening ever 
cupboard or box large enough to hold even a cat; still there was 
nothing. I was completely puzzled. I sat 
down and tried to think the matter out, but the more I thought the 
less could I see my way to any rational 
solution of these occurrences.
   At length I decided to shake off their influence for the time, 
and postpone all consideration of them until the morning. I tried to 
resume my work, but I was out of tune for writing?my mind had been 
too much disturbed. The haunting consciousness of another presence 
would not leave me; that soft sad sigh seemed yet sounding in my 
ears, and its unutterable sorrow provoked a feeling of sympathetic 
depression. After a few unayailing efforts I gave up the attempt to 
write, threw myself into an armchair by the fire, and began to read 
instead.
.       Though simple enough, I believe, in most of my habits, I am 
rather a Sybarite about my reading; for that
purpose I always use the most comfortable armchair that money can 
procure, with that most blessed of 
inventions, the `Literary Machine', to hold my book at exactly the 
right angle, shade the light from my
 face and concentrate it on the page, and give me a desk always 
ready to my hand if I wish to make notes. 
   In this luxurious manner, then, I settled myself down on this 
occasion, choosing as my book Montaigne's Essays, in the hope that 
their cleverness and marvellous flexibility of style might supply 
just the mental tonic that I felt I needed. Ignore them as I might, 
however, I had still as I read two under-currents of consciousness?
one of that everhaunting presence, and the other of occasional faint 
waftings of the perfume of Egypt.

I suppose I had been reading for about half an hour when a stronger 
whiff than ever greeted my nostrils, and at the same time a slight 
rustle caused me to raise my eyes from my book. Judge of my 
astonishment when I saw, not five yards from me,
seated at the table from which I had so lately risen, and apparently 
engaged in writing, the figure of a man! Even as I looked at him the 
pen fell from his hand, he rose from the chair, threw upon me a 
glance which seemed to express bitter disappointment and heart-
rending appeal, and? vanished!
       Too much stupefied even to rise, I sat staring at the spot 
where he had stood, and rubbed my eyes mechanically, as though to 
clear away the last relics of some horrible dream. Great as the 
shock had been, I was surprised to find, as soon as I was able to 
analyze my sensations, that they were distinctly those of relief; 
and it was some minutes before I could comprehend this. At last it 
flashed across me that the haunting sense of an unseen presence was-
gone, and then for the first time I realized how terrible its 
oppression had been. Even that strange magical odour was rapidly 
fading away, and in spite of the startling sight I had just seen, I 
had a sense of freedom such as a man feels when he steps out of some 
dark dungeon into the full bright sunlight. 2
      Perhaps it was this feeling more than anything else that 
served to convince me that what I had seen was no 
delusion?that there had really been a presence in the room all the 
time which had at last succeeded in manifesting 
itself, and now was gone. I forced myself to sit still and recall 
carefully all that I had seen?even to note it down
 on the paper which lay before me on the desk of my literary machine.
           First, as to the personal appearance of my ghostly 
visitor; if such he were. His figure was tall and
commanding, his face expressing great power and determination, but 
showing also traces of a reckless passion and possible latent 
brutality that certainly gave on the whole the impression of a man 
rather to be feared and avoided than loved. I noticed more 
particularly the firm setting of his lips,. because running down 
from the under one there was a curious white scar, which this action 
caused. to stand out conspicuously; and then I recollected how this 
expression had broken and changed to one in which anger, despair, 
and appeal for help were strangely mingled with a certain dark pride 
that seemed to say:
          "I have done all I could; I have played my last card and 
it has failed; I have never stooped to ask help from
 mortal man before, but I ask it from you now."



   A good deal, you will say, to make out of a single glance; but 
still that was exactly what it seemed to me to express; and, 
sinister though his appearance was, I mentally resolved that his 
appeal should not have been made in vain, if I could in any way 
discover who he was or what he wanted. I had never believed in 
ghosts before; I was not even quite sure that I did now; but clearly 
a fellow-creature in suffering was a brother to be helped, whether 
in the body or out of the body. With such thoughts as these all 
trace of fear vanished, and I honestly believe that if the spirit 
had reappeared I should have asked him to sit down and state his 
case as coolly as I should have met any other client.
  I carefully noted down all the events of the evening, appended the 
hour and date, and affixed my
signature; and then, happening to look up, my eye was caught by two 
or three papers lying on the floor.I 
had seen the wide sleeve of the long dark gown that the spectre wore 
sweep them down as he rose, and 
this for the first time reminded me that he had appeared to be 
writing at the table, and consequently might
 possibly have left there some clue to the mystery. At once I went 
and examined it; but everything was as
 I had left it, except that my pen lay where I had seen it fall from 
his hand. I picked up the papers from the 
floor, and then?.my heart gave a great bound, for I saw among

them, a curious torn fragment which had certainly not been on my 
table before.
    The eagerness with which seized upon it may be imagined. It was 
a little oblong slip about five inches 
       by three, apparently part either of a longer slip or a small 
book, for its edge at one end was extremely jagged, suggesting that 
considerable force had been required to tear it off; and indeed the 
paper was so thick and parchment-like that I could not `wonder at 
it. The curious thing was that while the paper was much discoloured?
water-stained and yellow with age?the jagged edge was white and 
fresh, looking as though it had been but just torn off. One side of 
the paper was entirely blank?or at least, if there ever had been any 
writing upon it, it had disappeared through the influence of time 
and damp; on the other were some blurred and indistinct characters, 
so faded as to be scarcely distinguishable, and, in a bold 
handwriting in fresh black ink the two letters `Ra'.
             Since the ink with which these letters were written 
corresponded exactly with that which I was in the habit of using, I 
could hardly doubt that they had been written at my table, and were 
the commencement of some explanation that the spectre had wished, 
but for some reason found himself unable, to make. `Why he should 
have taken the trouble to bring his own paper with him
             I could not understand, but I inferred that probably 
some mystery was hidden beneath those undecipherable yellow marks, 
so I turned all my attention to them. After patient and long-
continued effort, however, I was unable to make anything. like sense 
out of them, and resolved to wait for daylight.
  Contrary to my expectations, I did not dream of my ghostly visitor 
that night, though I lay awake forsome time thinking of him. In the 
morning I borrowed a magnifying glass from a. friend, and resumed my 
examination. I found that there were two lines of writing, 
apparently in some foreign language, and then a curious mark, not 
unlike a monogram of some kind, standing as if in the place of a 
signature. But with all my efforts I could neither distinguish the 
letters of the monogram nor discover the language of the two lines 
of writing. As far as I could make it out it read thus:


	Qymm uia daousa sita eo uia zdese quoam.

       Some of these words had rather a Latin look; and I reflected 
that if the memorandum were as old as it appeared to be, Latin was a 
very likely language for it; but then I could make out nothing like 
a coherent 
sentence, so I was as far off from. a solution as ever. I hardly 
knew what steps to take next. I shrank so much from 
speaking of the events of that evening that I could not bring myself 
to show the slip to any one else, lest it should 
lead to enquiries as to how it came into my possession; I so put it 
away carefully in my pocket-book, and for the
 time being my investigations seemed at a standstill.
I had not gained any fresh light on the subject, nor come to any 
definite conclusion about it, by the time the second incident of my 
story occurred, about a fortnight later. Again I was sitting at my 
writing-table early in the evening?engaged this time not upon my 
book but in the less congenial pursuit of answering letters. I 
dislike letter-writing, and am always apt to let my correspondence 
accumulate until the arrears assume formidable proportions, and 
insist on attention; and then I devote a day or two of purgatory to 
it, and clear them up. This was one of these occasions, further 
accentuated by the fact that I had to decide which of three 
Christmas invitations I would accept.
 It had been my custom for years always to spend Christmas when in 
England with my brother and his family, but this year his wife's 
health compelled them to winter abroad. I am conservative?absurd.. 
ly so, I fear?about small things like this, and I felt that I should 
not really enjoy my Christmas
at any house but his, so I cared little to choose in the matter. 
Here, however, were the three invitations; it was already the 
fourteenth of December, and I had not yet made up my mind. I was 
still debating the subject when I was disturbed by a loud knock at 
my door. On opening it I was confronted by a handsome sunburnt young 
fellow, whom at first I could not recognize; but when he called out 
in cheery tones:
   "Why, Keston, old fellow, I believe you've forgotten me!"
     I knew him at once as my old school-fellow Jack Fernleigh. He 
had been my fag at Eton, and I
 had found him such a jolly, good-hearted little fellow that 
our `official' relation had glided into a
 firm friendship?a very rare occurrence; and though he was so far 
junior to me at Oxford that we were together there only a few 
months, still our acquaintance was kept up, and I had corresponded 
with him in a desultory sort of way ever since. I knew, 
consequently, that some years ago. he had had some difference with 
his uncle (his only living relation) and had gone off to the West 
Indies to seek his fortune; and though our letters had been few and 
far between, I knew in a general way that he was doing very well 
there, so it was with no small surprise that I saw him standing at 
the door of my chambers in London.
I gave hun a hearty welcome, set him down by the fire, and then 
asked him to explain his presence in England. He told me that his 
uncle had died suddenly, leaving no will, and that the lawyers had 
telegraphed the news to him. He had at once thrown up his position 
and started for England by the next steamer. Arriving in London too 
late to-see his lawyers that day, and having after his long absence 
no other friends there, he had come, as he expressed it, to see 
whether I had forgotten my old fag.
And right glad I am that you did, my boy," said I; "where is your 
luggage? We must send to the hotel for it, for I shall make you up a 
bed here for to-night.
He made a feeble protest, which I at once over-ruled; a messenger-
was found and despatched to the hotel, and we settled down for a 
talk about old times which lasted far into the night. The next 
morning he went betimes to call upon his lawyers, and in the 
afternoon started for Fernleigh Hall (now his property), but not 
before we had decided that I should run down and spend Christmas 
therewith him instead of accepting any of my three previous 
invitations.
   "I expect to find everything in a terrible state," he said; "but 
in a week's time I shall be able to get things a little to rights, 
and if you will turn up

on the twenty-third I will promise you at least a. bed to sleep in, 
and you will be doing a most charitable action in preventing my 
first Christmas in England for many a year from being a lonely one."
So we settled it, and consequently at four o'clock on the afternoon 
of the twenty-third I was shaking hands again with Jack on the 
platform of the little country station a few miles from Fernleigh. 
The short day had already drawn to a close by the time we reached 
the house, so I could get only a general idea of its outside 
appearance. It was a large' Elizabethan mansion, but evidently not 
in very good repair; however, the rooms into which we were ushered 
were bright and cheerful enough. We had a snug little dinner, and 
after it Jack proposed. to show me over the house. Accordingly, 
preceded by a solemn old butler with a lamp, we wandered through 
interminable mazes of rambling passages, across great desolate 
halls, and in and out of dozens of tapestried and panelled bedrooms?
some of them with walls of enormous thickness, suggestive of all 
sorts of trap-doors and secret outlets?till my brain became 
absolutely confused, and I felt as though, it my companions had 
abandoned me, I might have spent days in trying to find my way out 
of the labyrinth.
"You could accommodate an army here, Jack!' said I.

	18	
         "Yes," he replied, "and in the good old days Fernleigh was 
known all over the country for its open hospitality; but now, as you 
see, the rooms are bare and almost unfurnished."
"You'll soon change all that when you bring home a nice little 
wife", I said; "the place only Wants a lady to take care of it."
CC No hope of it, my dear fellow, I'm sorry to say", replied 
Jack; "there is not enough money for that."
	I knew how in our school-days he had worshipped with all a 
boy's devotion lovely Lilian Featherstone, the daughter of the 
rector of the parish, and I had heard from him at college that on 
his part at least their childish intimacy had ripened into something 
deeper; so I asked after her now, and soon discovered that his 
sojourn in the tropics had worked no change in his feelings in this 
respect, that he had already contrived to meet her and her father 
out riding since his return, and that he had good reason to hope 
from her blush of pleasure on seeing him that he had not been 
forgotten in his absence. But alas! her father had only his living 
to depend on,. and Jack's uncle (a selfish profligate) had not only 
let everything go to ruin, but had also so encumbered the. estate 
that, by the time all was paid off and it was entirely free, there 
was but little money left? barely sufficient to support Jack 
himself, and certainly not enough to marry upon.
"So there is no hope of Lilian yet, you see," he concluded; "but I 
am young and strong; I can
-work, and I think she will wait for me. You shall see her on 
Thursday, for I have promised that we will dine with them then; they 
would have insisted on having me on Christmas day, but that I told 
them I had an old school-fellow coming down."
       - Just then we reached the door of the picture-gallery, and 
the old butler, having thrown it open,
was proceeding to usher us in, but I said:
"No Jack, let us leave this until tomorrow; we cannot see pictures 
well by this light. Let us go back to the fire, and you shall tell 
me that old legend of -your family that was so much talked about at 
college; I never heard more than the merest fragments of it."
  "There is nothing worth calling a legend", said Jack, as we 
settled down in the cosy little room he called his study; " nor is 
it very old, for it refers only to the latter part of the eighteenth 
century. The interest of the story, such as it is, centres round Sir 
Ralph Fernleigh, the last baronet, who seems by all accounts to have 
been a somewhat questionable character. He is said to have been a 
strange, reserved man?a man of strong passions, iron will, and 
indomitable pride; he spent much of his time abroad, and was 
reported to have acquired

enormous wealth by means that would not bear too close examination. 
He was commonly known as `wicked Sir Ralph', and the more 
superstitious of his neighbours firmly believed that he had studied 
the black art during his long absences in the East. Others hinted 
that he was owner of a privateer, and that in those troubled times 
it was easy for a reckless man to commit acts of piracy with 
impunity.
"He was credited with a great knowledge of jewels, and was reported 
to possess one of the most splendid private collections of them in 
the world; but as none were found by his successor1l conclude that 
unless they were stolen the story was a myth, like that which 
represented him as having bars of gold and silver stacked up in his 
cellars. It seems certain that he was really tolerably rich, and 
that during his later years, which he spent here, he lived a 
remarkably retired life. He discharged all servants but a 
confidential man of his own, an Italian who had accompanied him in 
his wanderings; and these two lived a sort of hermit-life here all 
by themselves, holding no intercourse with the outer world. The 
universal report was that, though he had stored up great hoards of 
ill-gotten wealth, Sir Ralph lived like a miser. The few people who 
had seen him whispered darkly of a haunted look always to be seen on 
his proud face, and talked
beneath their breath of some terrible secret crime; but I do not 
know that anything was ever really proved against him.
"One morning, however, he mysteriously disappeared; at least such 
was the story of the Italian servant, who came one day to the 
village asking in .a frightened way in his broken English whether 
any one had seen his master. He said that, two days before, Sir 
Ralph had in the evening ordered his horse to be saddled early on 
the following morning, as he was going on a short journey alone; but 
when the morning came, though the horse was ready, he was not. He 
did not answer to his servant's calls, and though the latter 
searched through every room in the great old house, not a trace of 
his master could he find. His bed, he said, had not been slept in 
that night, and the only theory be could offer was that he had been 
carried away by the demons he used to raise. The villagers suspected 
foul play, and there was a talk of arresting the servant?which, 
coming to the latter's ears, seems to have alarmed him so much (in 
his ignorance of the customs of the country) that he also 
mysteriously disappeared that night, and was never seen again.
Two days afterwards an exploring party was formed by the more 
adventurous of the villagers. They went all over the house and 
grounds,
examined every nook and corner, and shouted themselves hoarse; `but 
there was no voice, neither any that answered', and from that day to 
this no sign either of master or man has ever revisited the light of 
the sun. Since the explorers could find none of the rumoured hoards 
of money either, it was an accepted article of faith among them 
that `that there furriner' had murdered his master, hidden his body, 
and carried off the treasure, and of course a story presently arose 
that Sir Ralph's ghost had. been seen about the place.
"They whispered that his room might be known from all the rest in 
this dark old house by a peculiar atmosphere of its own, caused by 
the constant haunting of the unquiet spirit of the owner; but this 
soon. became a mere tradition, and now no one knows even in what 
part of the house his room was, nor have I ever heard of the ghost's 
appearance in my uncle's time, though I know he half-believed in it 
and never liked to speak of it. After Sir Ralph's disappearance the 
place was unoccupied and neglected for some years, till at last a 
distant cousin put in a claim to it, got it allowed by the lawyers, 
and. took possession. He found, it is said, but a small balance 
after all to Sir Ralph's credit at his bankers'. but he had money 
of, his own, apparently, for he proceeded to refit and rearrange the 
old place, and. soon had it in respectable order. From him it
descended to my uncle, who has let everything run to seed again, as 
you see."
"That is a very interesting family legend after all, Jack ", said 
I, "though perhaps rather lacking in romantic completeness. But have 
you no relics of this mysterious Sir Ralph?"
"There is his portrait in the picture-gallery along
 with the rest; there are some queer old books of his in the 
library, and one or two articles of furniture that are reported to 
have been his; but there is nothing to add to the romance of the 
story, I am afraid."
	Little he thought, as he uttered those words just as we were 
separating for the night, what the real romance of that story was, 
or how soon we were to discover it!
My bedroom was a huge panelled chamber with walls of prodigious 
thickness, and with some very beautiful old carving about it. A 
border of roses. and lilies that ran round the panels especially 
attracted my attention as one of the finest examples of that style 
of work that I had ever seen. There is always, I think, something 
uncanny about great Elizabethan bedrooms and huge four-post 
bedsteads, and I suppose my late ghostly experience had rendered me 
specially alive to such influences; so,, though the roaring fire 
which Jack's hospitable care had provided for me threw a cheery 
light into every

corner, I found myself thinking as I lay down in bed:
"What if this should turn out to be Sir Ralph's forgotten chamber, 
and he should come and disturb my rest, as that other visitor came 
to me in town!"
This idea returned to me again and again, until I really began to 
fancy that I could distinguish the peculiar atmosphere of which Jack 
had spoken?a sort of subtle influence that was gradually taking 
possession of me. This I felt would never do, if I was to have a 
comfortable night, so I roused myself from this unhealthy train of 
thought and resolutely put it away from me; but do what I would, I 
could not entirely shake off ghostly associations, for (recalled I 
suppose by my surroundings) every detail of the strange occurrence 
at my chambers passed before my mind over and over again with 
startling distinctness and fidelity.
Eventually I fell into a troubled sleep, in which my late mysterious 
visitor and the idea I had formed of Sir Ralph Fernleigh seemed to 
chase each other through my brain, till at last all these confused 
visions culminated in one peculiarly vivid dream. I seemed to myself 
to be lying in bed (just as I really was), with the fire burnt down 
to a deep red glow, when suddenly there appeared before me the same 
figure that I had seen in my chambers, habited in the same loose 
black robe; but now it held in its left hand a small book?evidently 
that to which the slip in my possession had belonged, for I could 
see the very place from which the missing leaf had been torn?and 
with the forefinger of the right hand the spectre was pointing to 
the last page of the book, while it looked eagerly in my face.
I sprang up and approached the figure; it retreated before me until 
it reached one of the pannelled walls, through which it seemed to 
vanish, still pointing to the page of its book, and with that 
imploring gaze still on its face. I woke .with a start, and found 
myself standing close to the wall at the spot where the figure had 
seemed to disappear, with the dull red glow of the fire reflected 
from the carving, just as I had seen it in my dream, and my nostrils 
filled once more with that strange sweet Oriental perfume! Then in a 
moment a revelation dawned upon my mind. There was a peculiarity in 
the atmosphere of the room?I had been quite right in fancying so; 
and that peculiarity, which I could not recognize before, consisted 
in the faintest possible permanent suggestion of that magical odour?
so faint that I had not been able to identify it until this stronger 
rush of the scent made it clear.
Was it a dream, I asked myself; or had I really seen my mysterious 
visitor once more? I could not tell) but. at any rate the smell, in 
the room was an
3	-

undoubted fact. I went and tried the door, but, as I expected, found 
it as I left it?fast locked. I stirred up my fire into a bright 
blaze, threw fresh coals on it, and went to bed again?this time to 
sleep soundly and refreshingly till I was awakened in the morning by 
the servant bringing hot water.
Reviewing my last night's adventure in the sober light of day, I was 
disposed to think that something of it at least might be due to 
overheated imagination, though I still fancied I could detect that 
faint peculiarity of atmosphere. I decided to say nothing to 
Fernleigh, since to speak of it would involve describing the 
apparition in my chambers, which I shrank from discussing with any 
one; so when Jack asked me how I had slept, I replied:
"Very well indeed towards morning, though a little restless in the 
earlier part of the night."
After breakfast we walked about the park, which was very extensive 
and studied the stately old house from different points of view. I 
was much struck with the great beauty of its situation and 
surroundings; and, though there were sad traces of neglect 
everywhere, I. saw that the expenditure of what was comparatively 
but a small amount of money for so large a place would make it fully 
worthy to rank with any mansion and estate of its size in the 
kingdom. I enthusiastically pointed out the various possibilities to 
Jack, but he, poor fellow,


sorrowfully remarked that the sum required to make the improvements, 
though no doubt comparatively small, was absolutely pretty large, 
and far beyond his present means.
After some hours' ramble we returned to the house, and Jack proposed 
that we should look over the picture-gallery and some other rooms 
that we had not seen on the previous night. We took the gallery 
first, and Jack told me that it had once contained many almost 
priceless gems of the old Flemish and Italian masters; but his 
dissolute uncle had sold most of them, often at merely nominal 
prices, to raise money for his riotous 4~I~e in town, so that what 
were left were, generally speaking, comparatively valueless. There 
was the usual collection of ancestral portraits?some life-like and 
carefully executed, others mere daubs we were passing them over with 
scant interest, when my eye was caught by one which instantly 
riveted my attention and sent a cold thrill down my spine, bright 
midday though it was; for there, out of the canvas, looked the very 
face I had seen so vividly in my dream last night?the face of the 
mysterious visitant at my chambers in London!
The commanding look of iron will and dauntless courage was there, 
and the same indefinable air of latent passion and cruelty; there 
too, though tenderly treated by the artist and made less prominent 
than it was in reality, was the curious white scar running down from 
the lower lip. Except that he was here dressed in rich court costume 
instead of the plain black robe, nothing but the pleading look of 
appeal was wanting to make the resemblance exact. I suppose 
something of the emotion I felt showed itself in my face, for Jack 
seized me by the arm, crying:
"Bless me, Tom, what is the matter? Are you ill? Why are you glaring 
at the portrait of Sir Ralph in that awful manner?"
"Sir Ralph? Yes, the wicked Sir Ralph. I know him. He came into my 
room last night. I've seen him twice."
	Muttering these disjointed sentences, I staggered to an 
ottoman and tried to collect my scattered senses. For the whole 
truth had flashed upon me, and it was almost too much for me. Of 
course it has occurred to the intelligent reader long ago, but until 
this moment absolutely no suspicion had ever crossed. my mind that 
Sir Ralph and my spectral visitor in London were identical; now I 
saw it all. The word commencing with `Ra' that he had tried so hard 
to write was his own name; he had somehow (heaven alone knows how) 
foreseen that I should visit Fernleigh, and so had tried to make an 
impression on my mind?introduce himself to me, as it were?
beforehand. I was now obliged to tell
Jack the whole story, and was relieved to find that instead of 
laughing at me, as I more than half expected, he was deeply 
interested.
"I never believed in a ghost before," he said, "but here there seems 
no room for doubt. A perfect stranger shows himself to you in 
London, you recognize his portrait at once on sight down here at 
Fernleigh, and he turns out to be the very man whom tradition points 
out as haunting this. place! The chain of evidence is perfect."
"But why should he have come to me?" I said.. "I know nothing about 
ghosts and their ways; I am not even what these spiritualists call 
mediumistic. Would it not have been much more straight. forward to 
appeal to you direct? Why should I be singled out for such ~ 
visitation?"
"Impossible to say", replied Jack; "I suppose he liked your looks; 
but what could he have wanted? We are no nearer discovering that 
than we were before. Where is that scrap of paper? For it strikes me 
that the solution of its mystery will yield the answer to our 
riddle."
I pulled out my pocket-book and handed the slip to Jack.
"Ha!" he exclaimed, the moment he glanced at it, "this is certainly 
Sir Ralph's monogram; I know it well, for I have seen it in several 
of the books in the library."