Chapter XII. The Magic Coffer

by Bram Stoker

　　'When we recovered our amazement, which seemed to last unduly long,we did not lose any time carrying the mummy through the passage, andhoisting it up the Pit shaft. I went first, to receive it at thetop. As I looked down, I saw Mr. Trelawny lift the severed hand and putit in his breast, manifestly to save it from being injured or lost. Weleft the dead Arabs where they lay. With our ropes we lowered ourprecious burden to the ground; and then took it to the entrance of thevalley where our escort was to wait To our astonishment we found themon the move. When we remonstrated with the Sheik, he answered that hehad fulfilled his contract to the letter, he had waited the three daysas arranged. I thought that he was lying to cover up his base intentionof deserting us; and I found when we compared notes that Trelawny hadthe same suspicion. It was not till we arrived at Cairo that we foundhe was correct. It was the 3rd of November 1884 when we entered theMummy Pit for the second time; we had reason to remember the date.'We had lost three whole days of our reckoning--out of ourlives--whilst we had stood wondering in that chamber of the dead. Wasit strange, then, that we had a superstitious feeling with regard tothe dead Queen Tera and all belonging to her? Is it any wonder that itrests with us now, with a bewildering sense of some power outsideourselves or our comprehension? Will it be any wonder if it go down tothe grave with us at the appointed time? If, indeed, there be anygraves for us who have robbed the grave!' He was silent for quite aminute before he went on:'We got to Cairo all right, and from there to Alexandria where wewere to take ship by the Messagerie service to Marseilles, and gothence by express to London. But"The best laid schemes o' mice and menGang aft agley."At Alexandria, Trelawny found waiting a cable stating that Mrs.Trelawny had died in giving birth to a daughter.'Her stricken husband hurried off at once by the Orient Express; andI had to bring the treasures alone to the desolate house. I got toLondon all safe; there seemed to be some special good fortune to ourjourney. When I got to this house, the funeral had long been over. Thechild had been put out to nurse, and Mr. Trelawny had so far recoveredfrom the shock of his loss that he had set himself to take up again thebroken threads of his life and his work. That he had had a shock, and abad one, was apparent. The sudden grey in his black hair was proofenough in itself; but in addition, the strong cast of his features hadbecome set and stern. Since he received that cable in the shippingoffice at Alexandria I have never seen a happy smile on his face.'Work is the best thing in such a case; and to his work he devotedhimself heart and soul. The strange tragedy of his loss and gain--forthe child was born after the mother's death---took place during thetime that we stood in that trance in the Mummy Pit of Queen Tera. Itseemed to have become in some way associated with his Egyptianstudies, and more especially with the mysteries connected with theQueen. He told me very little about his daughter; but that two forcesstruggled in his mind regarding her was apparent. I could see that heloved, almost idolized her. Yet he could never forget that her birthhad cost her mother's life. Also, there was something whose existenceseemed to wring his father's heart, though he would never tell me whatit was. Again, he once said in a moment of relaxation of his purpose ofsilence:' "She is unlike her mother; but in both feature and colour she is amarvellous resemblance to the pictures of Queen Tera."'He said that he had sent her away to people who would care for heras he could not; and that till she became a woman she should have allthe simple pleasures that a young girl might have, and that were bestfor her. I would often have talked with him about her; but he wouldnever say much. Once he said to me: "There are reasons why I should notspeak more than is necessary. Some day you will know--and understand!"I respected his reticence; and beyond asking after her on my returnafter a journey, I have never spoken of her again. I had never seen hertill I did so in your presence.'Well, when the treasures which we had--ah!---taken from the tombhad been brought here, Mr. Trelawny arranged their disposition himself.The mummy, all except the severed hand, he placed in the greatironstone sarcophagus in the hall. This -was wrought for the ThebanHigh Priest Uni, and is, as you may have remarked, all inscribed withwonderful invocations to the old Gods of Egypt. The rest of the thingsfrom* the tomb he disposed about his own room, as you have seen.Amongst them he placed, for special reasons of his own, the mummy hand.I think he regards this as the most sacred of his possessions, withperhaps one exception. That is the carven ruby which he calls the"Jewel of Seven Stars", which he keeps in that great safe which islocked and guarded by various devices, as you know.I dare say you find this tedious; but I have had to explain it, sothat you should understand all up to the present. It was a long timeafter my return with the mummy of Queen Tera when Mr. Trelawny reopenedthe subject with me. He had been several times to Egypt, sometimes withme and sometimes alone; and I had been several trips, on my own accountor for him. But in all that time, nearly sixteen years, he nevermentioned the subject, unless when some pressing occasion suggested, ifit did not necessitate, a reference. 'One morning early he sent for me in a hurry; I was then studying inthe British Museum, and had rooms in Hart Street. When I came, he wasall on fire with excitement. I had not seen him in such a glow sincebefore the news of his wife's death. He took me at once into his room.The window blinds were down and the shutters closed; not a ray ofdaylight came in. The ordinary lights in the room were not lit, butthere were a lot of powerful electric lamps, fifty candle-power atleast, arranged on one side of the room. The little bloodstone table onwhich the septagonal coffer stands was drawn to the centre of the room.The coffer looked exquisite in the glare of light which shone on it. Itactually seemed to glow as if lit in some way from within. ' "What do you think of it?" he asked.' "It is like a jewel," I answered. "You may well call it the'Sorcerer's Magic Coffer', if it often looks like that. It almost seemsto be alive."' "Do you know why it seems so?"' "From the glare of the light, I suppose?"' "Light of course," he answered, "but it is rather the dispositionof light." As he spoke he turned up the ordinary lights of the room andswitched off the special ones. The effect on the stone box wassurprising, in a second it lost all its glowing effect. It was still avery beautiful stone, as always; but it was stone and no more.' "Do you notice anything in the arrangement of the lamps?" he asked.'"No!"' "They were in the shape of the stars in the Plough, as the starsare in the ruby!" The statement came to me with a certain sense ofconviction. I do not know why, except that there had been so manymysterious associations with the mummy and all belonging to it that anynew one seemed enlightening. I listened as Trelawny went on to explain:' "For sixteen years I have never ceased to think of that adventure,or to try to find a clue to the mysteries which came before us; butnever until last night did I seem to find a solution. I think I musthave dreamed of it, for I woke all on fire about it. I jumped out ofbed with a determination of doing something, before I quite knew whatit was that I wished to do. Then, all at once, the purpose was clearbefore me. There were allusions in the writing on the walls of the tombto the seven stars of the Great Bear that go to make up the Plough; andthe North was again and again emphasized. The same symbols wererepeated with regard to the 'Magic Box' as we called it. We had alreadynoticed those peculiar translucent spaces in the stone of the box. Youremember the hieroglyphic writing had told that the jewel came from theheart of an aerolite, and that the coffer was cut from it also. Itmight be, I thought, that the light of the seven stars, shining in theright direction, might have some effect on the box, or something withinit. I raised the blind and looked put. The Plough was high in theheavens, and both its stars and the Pole Star were straight oppositethe window. I pulled the table with the coffer out into the light, andshifted it until the translucent patches were in the direction of thestars. 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, andthe light died away. So I got wires and lamps--you know how often I usethem in experiments--and tried the effect of electric light. It took mesome time to get the lamps properly placed, so that they wouldcorrespond to the parts of the stone, but the moment I got them rightthe whole thing began to glow as you have seen it.' "I could get no further, however. There was evidently somethingwanting. All at once it came to me that if light could have some effectthere should be in the tomb some means of producing light; for therecould not be starlight in the Mummy Pit in the cavern. Then the wholething seemed to become clear. On the bloodstone table which has ahollow carved in its -top, into which the bottom of the coffer fits, Ilaid the Magic Coffer; and I at once saw that the odd protuberances socarefully wrought in the substance of the stone corresponded in a wayto the stars in the constellation. These, then, were to hold lights.' "Eureka! I cried. All we want now is the lamps. I triedplacing the electric lights on, or close to, the protuberances. But theglow never came to the stone. So the conviction grew on me that therewere special lamps made for the purpose. If we could find them, a stepon the road to solving the mystery should be gained." ' "But what about the lamps?" I asked. "Where are they? When are weto 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 questioncontains all the rest. Where are these lamps? I shall tell you: In thetomb!"' "In the tomb!" I repeated in surprise. "Why you and I searched theplace 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; oron the second, except the bodies of the Arabs."'Whilst I was speaking, he had uncoiled some large sheets of paperwhich he had brought in his hand from his own room. These he spread outon the great table, keeping their edges down with books and weights. Iknew them at a glance; they were the careful copies which he had madeof our first transcripts from the writing in the tomb. When he had allready, he turned to me and said slowly:' "Do you remember wondering, when we examined the tomb, at the lackof 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 asort of niche built or hewn in the wall of a tomb. Those which have asyet been examined bear no inscriptions, and contain only effigies ofthe dead for whom the tomb was made.' Then he went on with hisnarrative: 'Trelawny, when he saw that I had caught his meaning, wenton speaking with something of his-old enthusiasm:' "I have come to the conclusion that there must be a serdab--asecret one. We were dull not to have thought of it before. We mighthave known that the maker of such a tomb--a woman, who had shown inother ways such a sense of beauty and completeness, and who hadfinished every detail with a feminine richness of elaboration--wouldnot have neglected such an architectural feature. Even if it had notits own special significance in ritual, she would have had it as anadornment. Others had had it, and she liked her own work to becomplete. Depend upon it, there was-- there is--a serdab; and that init, when it is discovered, we shall find the' lamps. Of course, had weknown then what we now know or at all events surmise, that there werelamps, we might have suspected some hidden spot, some cachet. I amgoing to ask you to go out to Egypt again; to seek the tomb; to findthe serdab; and to bring back the lamps!"' "And if I find there is no serdab, or if discovering it I find nolamps in it, what then?" He smiled grimly with that saturnine smile ofhis, so rarely seen for years past, as he spoke slowly:' "Then you will have to hustle till you find them!" ' "Good!" Isaid. He pointed to one of the Sheets: ' "Here are the transcripts fromthe Chapel at the south and the east. I have been looking over thewritings again; and I find that in seven places round this corner arethe symbols of the constellation which we call the Plough, which QueenTera held to rule her birth and her destiny. I have examined themcarefully, and I notice that they are all representations of thegrouping of the stars, as the constellation appears in different partsof the heavens. They are all astronomically correct; and as in the realsky the Pointers indicate the Pole Star, so these all point to one spotin the wall where usually the serdab is to be found!" ' "Bravo!" I shouted, for such a piece of reasoning demandedapplause. He seemed pleased as he went on:' "When you are in the tomb, examine this spot. There is probablysome spring or mechanical contrivance for opening the receptacle. Whatit 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 stoodagain in the tomb. I had found some of our old following; and wasfairly well provided with help. The country was now in a condition verydifferent to that in which it had been sixteen years before; there wasno need for troops or armed men.'I climbed the rock face alone. There was no difficulty, for in thatfine climate the woodwork of the ladder was still dependable. It waseasy to see that in the years that had elapsed there had been othervisitors to the tomb; and my heart sank within me when I thought thatsome of them might by chance have come across the secret place. Itwould be a bitter discovery indeed to find that they had forestalledme: and that my journey had been in vain."The bitterness was realized when I lit my torches, and passedbetween the seven-sided columns to the Chapel of the tomb.'There, in the very spot where I had expected to find it, was theopening of a serdab. And the serdab was empty.'But the Chapel was not empty; for the dried-up body of a man inArab dress lay close under the opening, as though he had been strickendown. I examined all round the walls to see if Trelawny's surmise wascorrect; 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 southside, 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 thefront of the serdab, and which lay back against the wall within, movedslightly. On further examining the other side of the opening, I found asimilar spot, indicated by other representations of the constellation;but this was itself a figure of the seven stars, and each was wroughtin 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 onme right might have been intended for the simultaneous pressure of allthe stars by one hand of seven fingers. By using both my hands, Imanaged to effect this.'With a loud click, a metal figure seemed to dart from close to theopening of the serdab; the stone slowly swung back to its place, andshut with a click. The glimpse which I had of the descending figureappalled me for the moment. It was like that grim guardian whichaccording to the Arabian historian Ibn Abd Alhokin, the builder of thePyramids, King Saurid Ibn Salhouk placed in the Western Pyramid todefend its treasure: "A marble figure, upright, with lance in hand;with on his head a serpent wreathed. When any approached, the serpentwould bite him on one side, and twining about his throat and killinghim, would return again to his place."I knew well that such a figure was not wrought to pleasantry; andthat to brave it was no child's play. The dead Arab at my feet wasproof of what could be done! So I examined again along the wall; andfound here and mere chippings as if someone had been tapping with aheavy hammer. This then had been what happened: The grave-robber moreexpert at his work than we had been, and suspecting the presence of ahidden serdab, had made easy to find it. He had struck the spring bychance; had released the avenging "Treasurer", as the Arabian writerdesignated 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 dartedforward and thrust out its lance. Then it rose up and disappeared. Ithought I might now safely press on the seven stars; and did so. Againthe stone rolled back; and the "Treasurer" flashed by to his hiddenlair.'I repeated both experiments several times; with always the sameresult. I should have liked to examine the mechanism of that figure ofsuch malignant mobility; but it was not possible without such tools ascould not easily be had. It might be necessary to cut into a wholesection of the rock. Some day I hope to go back, properly equipped, andattempt it.'Perhaps you do not know that the entrance to a serdab is almostalways very narrow; sometimes a hand can hardly be inserted. Two thingsI learned from this serdab. The first was that the lamps, if lamps atall there had been, could not have been of large size; and secondlythat they would be in some way associated with Hathor, whose symbol,the hawk in a square with the right top corner forming a smallersquare, was cut in relief on the wall within, and coloured the brightvermilion which we had found on the Stele. Hathor is the goddess who inEgyptian mythology answers to Venus of the Greeks, in as far as she isthe presiding deity of beauty and pleasure. In the Egyptian mythology,however, each God has many forms; and in some aspects Hathor has to dowith the idea of resurrection. There are seven forms or variants of theGoddess; why should not these correspond in some way to the sevenlamps! That there had been such lamps, I was convinced. The firstgrave-robber had met his death; the second had found the contents ofthe serdab. The first attempt had been made years since; the stare ofthe body beside me proved this. I had no clue to the second attempt. Itmight have been long ago; or it might have been recently. If, however,others had been to the tomb, it was probable that the lamps had beentaken long ago. Well! all the more difficult would be my search; forundertaken it must be!'That was nearly three years ago; and for all that time I have beenlike the man in the Arabian Nights, seeking old lamps, not for new, butfor cash. I dared not say what I was looking for, or attempt to giveany description; for such would have defeated my purpose. But I had inmy own mind at the start a vague idea of what I must find. In processof time this grew more and more clear; till at the last I almostovershot my mark by searching for something which might have been wrong.'The disappointments I suffered, and the wild-goose chases I made,would fill a volume; but I persevered. At last, not two months ago, Iwas shown by an old dealer in Mossul one lamp such as I had looked for.I had been tracing it for nearly a year, always sufferingdisappointment, but always buoyed up to further endeavour by a growinghope that I was on the track.'I do not know how I restrained myself when I realized that, atlast, I was at least close to success. I was skilled, however, in thefinesse of Eastern trade; and the Jew-Arab-Portugee trader met hismatch. I wanted to see all his stock before buying; and one by one heproduced, amongst masses of rubbish, seven different lamps. Each ofthem had a distinguishing mark; and each and all was some form of thesymbol of Hathor. I think I shook the imperturbability of my swarthyfriend by the magnitude of my purchases; for in order to prevent himguessing what form of goods I sought, I nearly cleared out his shop. Atthe end he nearly wept, and-said I had ruined him; for now he hadnothing to sell. He would have torn his hair had he known what price Ishould ultimately have given for' some of his stock, that perhaps hevalued least.'I parted with most of my merchandise at normal price as I hurriedhome. I did hot dare to give it away, or even lose it, least I shouldincur suspicion. My burden was far too precious to be risked by anyfoolishness now. I got on as fast as it is possible to travel in suchcountries; and arrived in London with only the lamps and certainportable curios and papyri which I had" picked up on my travels. 'Now,Mr. Ross, you know all I know; and I leave it to your discretion howmuch, if any of it, you will tell Miss Trelawny.'As he finished a clear young voice said behind us: "What about MissTrelawny? She is here!' We turned, startled; and looked at each otherenquiringly. Miss Trelawny stood in the doorway. We did not know howlong she had been present, or how much she had heard.