He made no concealment of this. On the contrary, he boasted of his luck.
“If I hadn’t met you boys,” he said, “likely as not I would have starved. It was a crazy undertaking, but I had grown tired of Bangkok and was determined to see these ruins. I shall go back with you to Panompin, and if nothing turns up there I’ll jog on to Singapore, where I have been promised a charge at a mission station. If I fail there I think I shall go home to England.”
Never have I been thrown in with a man so well informed and yet so light and trivial in all his methods of thought.
Maurice seemed to like him; I endured him—he amused me with his sarcasm and his dry sayings. So long as he kept me from thinking it was enough.
One of the few things of which his luggage boasted beyond a change of clothing was a small camera, and with this he entertained himself and us by taking negatives, which he had no means of developing, of those beautiful bas-reliefs which adorn the walls of the Nagkon Wat.
One morning—I believe it was the tenth, for I remember we had about exhausted the subject of Mr. Mirrikh and his mysterious disappearances—just as I was emerging from the chamber opening off the broad veranda which extends the full length of the old temple in front, I encountered Philpot and Maurice hurrying up the steps.
“Glorious news, old fellow!” exclaimed my friend. “The boat is up from the lake at last and with it all our traps. Now we can pay our long projected visit to Ballambong. Wong is following with the things he brought up; and see, the fellow, bound to make a clean sweep, brought this along with the rest.”
It was Mr. Mirrikh’s little hand bag which Maurice extended toward me, with an odd twinkle in his eye.
“Heavens! That bag!” I exclaimed. “What a pity we did not have it, when—”
“When he last materialized,” broke in Philpot. “I say no. Spirits have no use for hand bags. I believe you are still an advocate for the ghostly theory, Mr. Wylde?”
It was one of his jokes, for it was Maurice, not I, who in our repeated discussions had shown an inclination to connect those strange appearances and vanishings with the materialization phenomena of modern Spiritualism; while I, on the contrary, had stoutly maintained that I never could by any possibility be brought to admit that my Panompin acquaintance was other than a creature of flesh and blood like ourselves.
“Hold on there, Doctor!” I cried—it was Maurice who had given him the title—“remember there is a fine for the first person mentioning the name of that individual argumentatively. I believe we shall see him again, and I am glad Wong made the blunder and brought the bag.”
I extended my hand to take it from Maurice, but Philpot with that impetuosity which characterized all his movements, snatched it away.
“Look out!” he exclaimed. “Dynamite! Infernal machine! Hold on, boys! It don’t matter about me. The world will never miss Miles Philpot. I’m going to open this bag.”
“No, no! Don’t do it!” I said. “Suppose he returns and claims it?”
“Let him! What do I care? Throw all the blame on me—here goes.”
Before I could prevent, he thrust the big knife he always carried, between the metal edges of the bag, and pried the two halves apart.
“Confound you! What did you do that for?” I exclaimed, now seriously vexed at the persistency he displayed.
But Maurice sided against me.
“Bother, George! Why do you make so much fuss about nothing?” he said. “The Doctor is right. By all means let us see what is inside the bag.”
I maintained a sulky silence. It was quite impossible for me to quarrel with Maurice. I loved him too well for that.
“Thunder!” remarked the Doctor, tumbling over the contents of the bag, “nothing very theosophic here. On the contrary, everything seems quite material. Two shirts, a pair of muslin drawers, six collars, four pair of cuffs, a tooth brush, comb, hair brush and a bottle of Brigg’s patent liver pills.”
“Try the other side,” suggested Maurice.
“Well, here we have one or two Calcutta papers, not more than six months old,” continued the Doctor, “a packet of court plaster, a pair of shoes, six pair stockings, pocket ink stand and this book—perhaps that will throw some ray of light upon the dark mystery surrounding our levitating friend.”
“Stop!” I exclaimed. “Stop! I won’t have it. Let Mr. Mirrikh be what he may, I gave him my word that this bag should be forwarded to Radma Gungeet, of Benares. Doctor, I appeal to you as a gentleman——”
“What! Radma Gungeet—did you say, Radma Gungeet?” cried the Doctor. He paused with the book unopened in his hand.
“Certainly. That was the address he gave me.”
“That fixes Mirrikh as a Hindoo, at all events. Do you happen to know who and what this Radma Gungeet is?”
“I neither know nor care. He shall have that bag unless Mirrikh comes after it, and I feel thoroughly ashamed of myself to think that it is now impossible for him to receive it with its contents undisturbed.”
“Radma Gungeet is one of the most noted adepts in India,” said the Doctor, slowly. “Wylde, this goes far to show that Mirrikh is one of those singular beings himself.”
“No matter. I want that bag, Doctor, and I insist upon that book remaining unopened.”
“Too late!” replied Philpot, and before I could interfere he had opened the volume and was running over its pages.
I sprang forward and would have snatched it from him, but Maurice caught my arm and restrained me.
“Come, come, George! No quarrelling!” he said. “What’s done can’t be undone. Everything shall be carefully returned to the bag. Doctor, what do you make of the book?”
For the Doctor had stopped turning over the leaves and was staring at a page with a deeply puzzled expression.
“Upon my word I can’t make anything of it,” he replied, slowly. “It is a mystery, a veritable mystery. Look here.” He held up the book, open as it was, looking more serious than I had ever seen him look before.
Now there was nothing peculiar about the book so far as outward appearance was concerned. It was simply an ordinary blank book, leather bound, with limp covers, closely written perhaps half through. It was the peculiarity of the writing which had puzzled the Doctor, and possibly had I been better informed on such matters it might have puzzled me.
“Well, what is odd about it?” I demanded, sulkily.
“Look and see,” repeated Philpot. “De Veber, you surely are able to comprehend.”
“I confess I don’t see what you are driving at!” answered Maurice. “Of course the language is as incomprehensible to me as it is to Wylde. Hindoo, I take it, Sanscrit or possibly Bengalee.”
“Neither one nor the other,” replied the Doctor. “No such characters as those were ever used in India.”
“What then?” I asked.
“There lies the mystery,” he answered slowly. “Those characters belong to no nation on earth.”
“Bosh! As though you were competent to decide that.”
I saw his eyes flash, and I knew that I had come near to rousing a temper which I fancy seldom showed itself.
“You are angry Wylde,” he said cooly. “It happens that I am competent to decide in this matter. I can read Sanscrit, Hindoostanee, Bengalee, Talenga, Siamese and Persian. Beside that I was for ten years linguist of the British Bible Society and have