Smith and the Pharaohs, and other TalesHaggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
General
Smith and the Pharaohs, and other Tales
Haggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
Adventure stories, English; Fantasy fiction, English; Short stories, English
All his excitement went; he grew quite calm, almost cataleptic. Holding
his thin hands over the fire, slowly he let them fall, and as he did so
the fierce flames died down.
“It’s going out,” said Tabitha.
Menzi smiled at her and lifted his hands again. Lo! the fire that seemed
to be dead leapt up after them in a fierce blaze. Again he dropped his
hands and the fire died away. Then he moved his arms to and fro and it
came back, following the motions of his arms as though he drew it by a
string.
“Have you thought, White Teacher? Have you thought?” he asked.
“Good! Arise, smoke!”
Behold, instead of the clear flame appeared a fan-shaped column of dense
white smoke, behind which Menzi vanished, all except his outstretched
hands.
“Look on to the smoke, White people, and do you, Little Flower, tell
me what you see there,” he called from behind this vaporous veil.
Tabitha stared, they all stared. Then she cried out:
“I see a room, I see an old man in a clergyman’s coat reading a
letter. Why, it is the Dean whom we used to know in Natal. There’s the
wart on his nose and the tuft of hair that hangs down over his eye, and
he’s reading a letter written by Father. I know the writing. It
begins, ‘My dear Dean, Providence has appointed me to a strange
place’——”
“Is that what you see also, Teacher?” asked Menzi. “And if
so, is it what you pictured in your thought?”
Thomas turned away and uttered something like a groan, for indeed he had
thought of the Dean and of the letter he had written to him a month
before.
“The Teacher is not satisfied,” said Menzi. “If he had seen
all he thought of, being so good and honest, he would tell us. There is
some mistake. My Spirit must have deceived me. Think of something else,
Teacher, and tell the lady, and the child Imba, and Kosa, and another,
what it is you are thinking of. Go aside and tell them where I cannot
hear.”
Thomas did so—in some way he felt compelled to do so.
“I am going to think of the church as I propose it shall be when
finished according to the plans I have made,” he said hoarsely. “I
am going to think of it with a belfry spire roofed with red tiles and a
clock in the tower, and I am going to think of the clock as pointing to
the exact hour of noon. Do you all understand? It is impossible that
this man should know of how I mean to build that spire and about the
clock, because until this moment no one knew except myself. If he can
show me that, I shall begin to believe that he is inspired by his
master, the devil. Do you all understand?”
They said they did, and Menzi called out:
“Be quick, White Teacher. Be quick, I grow tired. My Spirit grows
tired. The smoke grows tired. Come, come, come!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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