Part 18 (1/2)

”Oh, _shall_ I, though? They'll go to law and have me turned out, and I shall have to pay ruinous damages into the bargain. So, you see, what you intended as a kindness will only bring me bad luck.”

”Come--without more words--to the statement of thy request,” said Fakrash, ”for I am in haste.”

”All I want you to do,” replied Horace, in some anxiety as to what the effect of his request would be, ”is to put everything here back to what it was before. It won't take you a minute.”

”Of a truth,” exclaimed Fakrash, ”to bestow a favour upon thee is but a thankless undertaking, for not once, but twice, hast thou rejected my benefits--and now, behold, I am at a loss to devise means to gratify thee!”

”I know I've abused your good nature,” said Horace; ”but if you'll only do this, and then convince the Professor that my story is true, I shall be more than satisfied. I'll never ask another favour of you!”

”My benevolence towards thee hath no bounds--as thou shalt see; and I can deny thee nothing, for truly thou art a worthy and temperate young man. Farewell, then, and be it according to thy desire.”

He raised his arms above his head, and shot up like a rocket towards the lofty dome, which split asunder to let him pa.s.s. Horace, as he gazed after him, had a momentary glimpse of deep blue sky, with a star or two that seemed to be hurrying through the transparent opal scud, before the roof closed in once more.

Then came a low, rumbling sound, with a shock like a mild earthquake: the slender pillars swayed under their horseshoe arches; the big hanging-lanterns went out; the walls narrowed, and the floor heaved and rose--till Ventimore found himself up in his own familiar sitting-room once more, in the dark. Outside he could see the great square still shrouded in grey haze--the street lamps flickering in the wind; a belated reveller was beguiling his homeward way by rattling his stick against the railings as he pa.s.sed.

Inside the room everything was exactly as before, and Horace found it difficult to believe that a few minutes earlier he had been standing on that same site, but twenty feet or so below his present level, in a s.p.a.cious blue-tiled hall, with a domed ceiling and gaudy pillared arches.

But he was very far from regretting his short-lived splendour; he burnt with shame and resentment whenever he thought of that nightmare banquet, which was so unlike the quiet, unpretentious little dinner he had looked forward to.

However, it was over now, and it was useless to worry himself about what could not be helped. Besides, fortunately, there was no great harm done; the Jinnee had been brought to see his mistake, and, to do him justice, had shown himself willing enough to put it right. He had promised to go and see the Professor next day, and the result of the interview could not fail to be satisfactory. And after this, Ventimore thought, Fakrash would have the sense and good feeling not to interfere in his affairs again.

Meanwhile he could sleep now with a mind free from his worst anxieties, and he went to his room in a spirit of intense thankfulness that he had a Christian bed to sleep in. He took off his gorgeous robes--the only things that remained to prove to him that the events of that evening had been no delusion--and locked them in his wardrobe with a sense of relief that he would never be required to wear them again, and his last conscious thought before he fell asleep was the comforting reflection that, if there were any barrier between Sylvia and himself, it would be removed in the course of a very few more hours.

CHAPTER XI

A FOOL'S PARADISE

Ventimore found next morning that his bath and shaving-water had been brought up, from which he inferred, quite correctly, that his landlady must have returned.

Secretly he was by no means looking forward to his next interview with her, but she appeared with his bacon and coffee in a spirit so evidently chastened that he saw that he would have no difficulty so far as she was concerned.

”I'm sure, Mr. Ventimore, sir,” she began, apologetically, ”I don't know what you must have thought of me and Rapkin last night, leaving the house like we did!”

”It was extremely inconvenient,” said Horace, ”and not at all what I should have expected from you. But possibly you had some reason for it?”

”Why, sir,” said Mrs. Rapkin, running her hand nervously along the back of a chair, ”the fact is, something come over me, and come over Rapkin, as we couldn't stop here another minute not if it was ever so.”

”Ah!” said Horace, raising his eyebrows, ”restlessness--eh, Mrs. Rapkin?

Awkward that it should come on just then, though, wasn't it?”

”It was the look of the place, somehow,” said Mrs. Rapkin. ”If you'll believe me, sir, it was all changed like--nothing in it the same from top to bottom!”

”Really?” said Horace. ”I don't notice any difference myself.”

”No more don't I, sir, not by daylight; but last night it was all domes and harches and marble fountings let into the floor, with parties moving about downstairs all silent and as black as your hat--which Rapkin saw them as well as what I did.”

”From the state your husband was in last night,” said Horace, ”I should say he was capable of seeing anything--and double of most things.”