Part 26 (1/2)

”Well, then,” said the mule, savagely, ”you'll find it in the top right-hand drawer of my writing-table: the key is in that diorite bowl on the mantelpiece.”

The Jinnee unlocked the drawer, and took out the metal cap, which he placed in the breast pocket of his incongruous frock-coat. ”So far, well,” he said; ”next thou must deliver up to me the transcription thou hast made, and swear to preserve an inviolable secrecy regarding the meaning thereof.”

”Do you know what you're asking, sir?” said the mule, laying back his ears viciously. ”Do you think that to oblige you I'm going to suppress one of the most remarkable discoveries of my whole scientific career?

Never, sir--never!”

”Since if thou refusest I shall a.s.suredly deprive thee of speech once more and leave thee a mule, as thou art now, of hideous appearance,”

said the Jinnee, ”thou art like to gain little by a discovery which thou wilt be unable to impart. However, the choice rests with thee.”

The mule rolled his one eye, and showed all his teeth in a vicious snarl. ”You've got the whip-hand of me,” he said, ”and I may as well give in. There's a transcript inside my blotting-case--it's the only copy I've made.”

Fakrash found the paper, which he rubbed into invisibility between his palms, as any ordinary conjurer might do.

”Now raise thy right forefoot,” he said, ”and swear by all thou holdest sacred never to divulge what thou hast learnt”--which oath the Professor, in the vilest of tempers, took, clumsily enough.

”Good,” said the Jinnee, with a grim smile. ”Now let one of thy women bring me a cup of fair water.”

Sylvia went out, and came back with a cup of water. ”It's filtered,” she said anxiously; ”I don't know if that will do?”

”It will suffice,” said Fakrash. ”Let both the women withdraw.”

”Surely,” remonstrated Mrs. Futvoye, ”you don't mean to turn his wife and daughter out of the room at such a moment as this? We shall be perfectly quiet, and we may even be of some help.”

”Do as you're told, my dear!” snapped the ungrateful mule; ”do as you're told. You'll only be in the way here. Do you suppose he doesn't know his own beastly business?”

They left accordingly; whereupon Fakrash took the cup--an ordinary breakfast cup with a Greek key-border pattern in pale blue round the top--and, drenching the mule with the contents, exclaimed, ”Quit this form and return to the form in which thou wast!”

For a dreadful moment or two it seemed as if no effect was to be produced; the animal simply stood and s.h.i.+vered, and Ventimore began to feel an agonising suspicion that the Jinnee really had, as he had first a.s.serted, forgotten how to perform this particular incantation.

All at once the mule reared, and began to beat the air frantically with his fore-hoofs; after which he fell heavily backward into the nearest armchair (which was, fortunately, a solid and capacious piece of furniture) with his fore-legs hanging limply at his side, in a semi-human fas.h.i.+on. There was a brief convulsion, and then, by some gradual process unspeakably impressive to witness, the man seemed to break through the mule, the mule became merged in the man--and Professor Futvoye, restored to his own natural form and habit, sat gasping and trembling in the chair before them.

CHAPTER XIV

”SINCE THERE'S NO HELP, COME, LET US KISS AND PART!”

As soon as the Professor seemed to have regained his faculties, Horace opened the door and called in Sylvia and her mother, who were, as was only to be expected, overcome with joy on seeing the head of the family released from his ign.o.ble condition of a singularly ill-favoured quadruped.

”There, there,” said the Professor, as he submitted to their embraces and incoherent congratulations, ”it's nothing to make a fuss about. I'm quite myself again, as you can see. And,” he added, with an unreasonable outburst of ill-temper, ”if one of you had only had the common sense to think of such a simple remedy as sprinkling a little cold water over me when I was first taken like that, I should have been spared a great deal of unnecessary inconvenience. But that's always the way with women--lose their heads the moment anything goes wrong! If I had not kept perfectly cool myself--”

”It was very, very stupid of us not to think of it, papa,” said Sylvia, tactfully ignoring the fact that there was scarcely an undamaged article in the room; ”still, you know, if _we_ had thrown the water it mightn't have had the same effect.”

”I'm not in a condition to argue now,” said her father; ”you didn't trouble to try it, and there's no more to be said.”

”No more to be said!” exclaimed Fakrash. ”O thou monster of ingrat.i.tude, hast thou no thanks for him who hath delivered thee from thy predicament?”

”As I am already indebted to you, sir,” said the Professor, ”for about twenty-four hours of the most poignant and humiliating mental and bodily anguish a human being can endure, inflicted for no valid reason that I can discover, except the wanton indulgence of your unholy powers, I can only say that any grat.i.tude of which I am conscious is of a very qualified description. As for you, Ventimore,” he added, turning to Horace, ”I don't know--I can only guess at--the part you have played in this wretched business; but in any case you will understand, once for all, that all relations between us must cease.”

”Papa,” said Sylvia, tremulously, ”Horace and I have already agreed that--that we must separate.”