Pharos the Egyptian | Page 7

saved him? His death is upon
your conscience, brute and monster that you are!"
So extreme was my emotion that I trembled under it like a man with the
palsy.
Then the other turned his head and looked at me; and, as he did so, a
great shudder, accompanied by an indescribable feeling of nausea,
passed over me. What occasioned it I could not tell, nor could I
remember having felt anything of the kind before. When it departed,
my eyes fixed themselves on the individual before me. Connecting him
in some way with the unenviable sensation I had just experienced, I
endeavoured to withdraw them again, but in vain. The other's gaze was
rivetted upon me--so firmly, indeed, that it required but small
imagination to believe it eating into my brain. Good heavens! how well
I recollect that night and every incident connected with it! I believe I
shall remember it through all eternity. If only I had known enough to
have taken him by the throat then and there, and had dashed his brains
out on the stones, or to have seized him in my arms and hurled him
down the steps into the river below, how much happier I should have
been! I might have earned eternal punishment, it is true, but I should at
least have saved myself and the world in general from such misery as
the human brain can scarcely realize. But I did not know, the
opportunity was lost, and, in that brief instant of time, millions of my
fellow-creatures were consigned unwittingly to their doom.
After long association with an individual, it is difficult, if not
impossible, to set down with any degree of exactness a description of
the effect his personality in the first, instance had upon one. In this case
I find it more than usually difficult, for the reason that, as I came more
under his influence, the original effect wore off and quite another was
substituted for it.

His height was considerably below the average, his skull was as small
as his shoulders were broad. But it was not his stature, his shoulders, or
the size of the head which caused the curious effect I have elsewhere
described. It was his eyes, the shape of his face, the multitudinous
wrinkles that lined it, and, above all, the extraordinary colour of his
skin, that rendered his appearance so repulsive. To understand what I
mean you must think first of old ivory, and then endeavour to realize
what the complexion of a corpse would be like after lying in an
hermetically sealed tomb for many years. Blend the two, and you will
have some dim notion of the idea I am trying to convey. His eyes were
small, deeply sunken, and in repose apparently devoid of light and even
of life. He wore a heavy fur coat, and, for the reason that he disdained
the customary headgear of polite society, and had substituted for it a
curious description of cap, I argued that he was a man who boasted a
will of his own, and who did not permit himself to be bound by
arbitrary rules. But, however plain these things may have been, his age
was a good deal more difficult to determine. It was certainly not less
than seventy, and one might have been excused had one even set it
down at a hundred. He walked feebly, supporting himself with a stick,
upon which his thin yellow fist was clutched till the knuckles stood out
and shone like billiard balls in the moonlight.
Under the influence of his mysterious personality, I stood speechless
for some moments, forgetful of everything--the hour, the place, and
even his inhumanity to the drowning wretch in the river below. By the
time I recovered myself he was gone, and I could see him crossing the
road and moving swiftly away in the direction of Charing Cross.
Drawing my hand across my forehead, which was clammy with the
sweat of real fear, I looked again at the river. A police boat was pulling
towards the steps, and by the light of the lantern on board I could make
out the body of a man. My nerves, already strained to breaking pitch,
were not capable of standing any further shock. I accordingly turned
upon my heel and hurried from the place with all the speed at my
command.
Such was my first meeting with the man whom I afterwards came to
know as Pharos the Egyptian.

CHAPTER II.
AS you are aware, my picture that year was hung in an excellent
position, was favourably received by those for whose criticism I had
any sort of respect, attracted its fair share of attention from the general
public, and, as a result, brought me as near contentment as a