The False Gods | Page 5

the King of Ethiopia. They called her 'the good
and glorious woman.'"
"And this--this black boy?" questioned Simpkins respectfully. "Looks
as if he might have lived during the eighteenth dynasty." He had not

been poring over volumes on Ancient Egypt for two nights without
knowing a thing or two about black mummies.
"Quite right, Simpkins," Mrs. Athelstone replied, evidently pleased by
his interest and knowledge. "He was Amosis, a king of the eighteenth
dynasty, and Nefruari's husband. A big, powerful man!"
"What a bully cigarette brand he'd make!" thought Simpkins, and aloud
he added:
"They must have been a fine-looking pair."
"Indeed, yes," was the earnest answer, and so they moved about the hall,
she explaining, he listening and questioning, until at last they stood
before the black altar in the west and the veil of velvet. Simpkins saw
that there was an inscription carved in the basalt, and, drawing nearer,
slowly spelled out:
TIBI VNA QVE ES OMNIA DEA ISIS
"And what's behind the curtain?" he began, turning toward Mrs.
Athelstone.
"The truth, of course. But remember," and her tone was half serious,
"none but an adept may look behind the veil and live."
"The truth is my long suit," returned Simpkins mendaciously. "So I'll
take a chance." As he spoke, the heavy velvet fell aside and disclosed a
statue of a woman carved in black marble. It stood on a pedestal of
bronze, overlaid with silver, and above and behind were hangings of
blue-gray silk. A brilliant ray of light beat down on it. Glancing up,
Simpkins saw that it shone from a crescent moon in the arched ceiling
above the altar. Then his eyes came back to the statue. There was
something so lifelike in the pose of the figure, something so winning in
the smile of the face, something so alluring in the outstretched arms,
that he involuntarily stepped nearer.
"And now that you've seen Isis, what do you think of her?" asked Mrs.

Athelstone, breaking the momentary silence.
"She's the real thing--the naked truth, sure enough," returned Simpkins
with a grin.
"It is a wonderful statue!" was the literal answer. "There's no other like
it in the world. Doctor Athelstone found it near Thebes, and took a
good deal of pride in arranging this shrine. The device is clever; the
parting of the veil you see, makes the light shine down on the statue,
and it dies out when I close it--so"; and, as she pulled a cord, the veil
fell before the statue and the light melted away.
[Illustration: "'She's the Real Thing.'"]
"Aren't you initiating the neophyte rather early?" a man's voice asked at
Simpkins' elbow, and, as he turned to see who it was, Mrs. Athelstone
explained: "This is our new clerk, Mr. Simpkins; Doctor Brander is our
treasurer, and our acting president while my husband's away. He left a
few days ago for a little rest." And Mrs. Athelstone turned back to her
desk.
Simpkins instantly decided to dislike the young clergyman beside him.
He was tall and athletic-looking, but with a slight stoop, that impressed
the reporter as a physical assumption of humility which the handsome
face, with its faintly sneering lines and bold eyes, contradicted. But he
acknowledged Brander's offhand "How d'ye do?" in a properly
deferential manner, and listened respectfully to a few careless sentences
of instructions.
For the rest of the morning, Simpkins mechanically addressed circulars
appealing for funds to carry on the good work of the Society, while his
mind was busy trying to formulate a plan by which he could get Mrs.
Athelstone to tell what she knew about the whereabouts of Madame
Blavatsky's soul. He felt, with the accurate instinct of one used to
classing the frailties of flesh and blood according to their worth in
columns, that those devices which had so often led women to confide
to him the details of the particular sensation that he was working up
would avail him nothing here. "You simply haven't got her Bertillon

measurements, Simp.," he was forced to admit, after an hour of fruitless
thinking. "You'll have to trust in your rabbit's foot."
But if Mrs. Athelstone was a new species to him, the office boy was not.
He knew that youth down to the last button on his jacket. He knew, too,
that an office boy often whiles away the monotonous hours by piecing
together the president's secrets from the scraps in his waste-basket. So
at the noon hour he slipped out after Buttons, caught him as he was
disappearing up a near-by alley in a cloud of cigarette smoke, like the
disreputable little devil that he was, and succeeded in establishing
friendly and even familiar relations with him.
It was not, however, until late in the afternoon, when he was called into
the ante-chamber to