The Perfume of Egypt | Page 5

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 for some 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:
Qomm uia daousa sita eo uia uiese 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; so
I 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 -- absurdly 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 hand some sun burnt young fellow, whom at
first I could not recognise; 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 him 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