The Three Impostors; or, The Transmutations — John Shaqi
The Three Impostors; or, The TransmutationsMachen, Arthur
Science
The Three Impostors; or, The Transmutations
Machen, Arthur
Fiction; Horror tales, English
was standing, and I felt uncommonly pleased that I was in hiding. I
couldn't make out much feature, but I saw his eyes gleaming and his
teeth showing, and he had an ugly-looking knife in one hand, and I
thought things would be very unpleasant for gentleman number one if the
second robber, or robbed, or what you like, caught him up. I can tell
you, Phillipps, a fox hunt is exciting enough, when the horn blows clear
on a winter morning, and the hounds give tongue, and the red-coats
charge away, but it's nothing to a man hunt, and that's what I had a
slight glimpse of to-night. There was murder in the fellow's eyes as he
went by, and I don't think there was much more than fifty seconds
between the two. I only hope it was enough."
Dyson leant back in his armchair and relit his pipe, and puffed
thoughtfully. Phillipps began to walk up and down the room, musing over
the story of violent death fleeting in chase along the pavement, the
knife shining in the lamplight, the fury of the pursuer, and the terror
of the pursued.
"Well," he said at last, "and what was it, after all, that you rescued
from the gutter?"
Dyson jumped up, evidently quite startled. "I really haven't a notion. I
didn't think of looking. But we shall see."
He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket and drew out a small and shining
object, and laid it on the table. It glowed there beneath the lamp with
the radiant glory of rare old gold; and the image and the letters stood
out in high relief, clear and sharp, as if it had but left the mint a
month before. The two men bent over it, and Phillipps took it up and
examined it closely.
"Imp. Tiberius Cæsar Augustus," he read the legend, and then, looking at
the reverse of the coin, he stared in amazement, and at last turned to
Dyson with a look of exultation.
"Do you know what you have found?" he said.
"Apparently a gold coin of some antiquity," said Dyson, coolly.
"Quite so, a gold Tiberius. No, that is wrong. You have found _the_ gold
Tiberius. Look at the reverse."
Dyson looked and saw the coin was stamped with the figure of a faun
standing amidst reeds and flowing water. The features, minute as they
were, stood out in delicate outline; it was a face lovely and yet
terrible, and Dyson thought of the well-known passage of the lad's
playmate, gradually growing with his growth and increasing with his
stature, till the air was filled with the rank fume of the goat.
"Yes," he said, "it is a curious coin. Do you know it?"
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