John Silence Stories by Algernon Blackwood

Author:Algernon Blackwood [Blackwood, Algernon]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Horror tales, English, Supernatural -- Fiction, Ghost stories, Silence, John (Fictitious character) -- Fiction, Paranormal fiction, Psychics -- Fiction
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2025-10-19T17:07:41+00:00

IV

But not even the mysterious references to the mummy, or the prospect of a revelation by digging, were able to hinder the reaction that followed the intense excitement of the past twelve hours, and I slept the sleep of the dead, dreamless and undisturbed. A touch on the shoulder woke me, and I saw Dr. Silence standing beside the bed, dressed to go out.

“Come,” he said, “it’s teatime. You’ve slept the best part of a dozen hours.”

I sprang up and made a hurried toilet, while my companion sat and talked. He looked fresh and rested, and his manner was even quieter than usual.

“Colonel Wragge has provided spades and pickaxes. We’re going out to unearth this mummy at once,” he said; “and there’s no reason we should not get away by the morning train.”

“I’m ready to go tonight, if you are,” I said honestly.

But Dr. Silence shook his head.

“I must see this through to the end,” he said gravely, and in a tone that made me think he still anticipated serious things, perhaps. He went on talking while I dressed.

“This case is really typical of all stories of mummy-haunting, and none of them are cases to trifle with,” he explained, “for the mummies of important people—kings, priests, magicians—were laid away with profoundly significant ceremonial, and were very effectively protected, as you have seen, against desecration, and especially against destruction.

“The general belief,” he went on, anticipating my questions, “held, of course, that the perpetuity of the mummy guaranteed that of its Ka—the owner’s spirit—but it is not improbable that the magical embalming was also used to retard reincarnation, the preservation of the body preventing the return of the spirit to the toil and discipline of earth-life; and, in any case, they knew how to attach powerful guardian-forces to keep off trespassers. And anyone who dared to remove the mummy, or especially to unwind it—well,” he added, with meaning, “you have seen—and you will see.”

I caught his face in the mirror while I struggled with my collar. It was deeply serious. There could be no question that he spoke of what he believed and knew.

“The traveller-brother who brought it here must have been haunted too,” he continued, “for he tried to banish it by burial in the wood, making a magic circle to enclose it. Something of genuine ceremonial he must have known, for the stars the man saw were of course the remains of the still flaming pentagrams he traced at intervals in the circle. Only he did not know enough, or possibly was ignorant that the mummy’s guardian was a fire-force. Fire cannot be enclosed by fire, though, as you saw, it can be released by it.”

“Then that awful figure in the laundry?” I asked, thrilled to find him so communicative.

“Undoubtedly the actual Ka of the mummy operating always behind its agent, the elemental, and most likely thousands of years old.”

“And Miss Wragge—?” I ventured once more.

“Ah, Miss Wragge,” he repeated with increased gravity, “Miss Wragge—”

A knock at the door brought a servant with word that tea was ready, and the Colonel had sent to ask if we were coming down.

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