I tried, but it was of no avail. The accursed influence was too strong upon me. One night as I lay upon my couch, weak and weary, Parmes, the priest of Thoth, came to my chamber. He stood in the circle of the lamplight, and he looked down upon me with eyes which were bright with a mad joy.
"`Why did you let the maiden die?' he asked; `why did you not strengthen her as you strengthened me?'
"`I was too late,' I answered. `But I had forgot. You also loved her. You are my fellow in misfortune. Is it not terrible to think of the centuries which must pass ere we look upon her again? Fools, fools, that we were to take death to be our enemy!'
"`You may say that,' he cried with a wild laugh; `the words come well from your lips. For me they have no meaning.'
"`What mean you?' I cried, raising myself upon my elbow. `Surely, friend, this grief has turned your brain.' His face was aflame with joy, and he writhed and shook like one who hath a devil.
"`Do you know whither I go?' he asked.
"`Nay,' I answered, `I cannot tell.'
"`I go to her,' said he. `She lies embalmed in the further tomb by the double palm-tree beyond the city wall.'
"`Why do you go there?' I asked.
"`To die!' he shrieked, `to die! I am not bound by earthen fetters.'
"`But the elixir is in your blood,' I cried.
"`I can defy it,' said he; `I have found a stronger principle which will destroy it. It is working in my veins at this moment, and in an hour I shall be a dead man. I shall join her, and you shall remain behind.'
"As I looked upon him I could see that he spoke words of truth. The light in his eye told me that he was indeed beyond the power of the elixir.
"`You will teach me!' I cried.
"`Never!' he answered.
"`I implore you, by the wisdom of Thoth, by the majesty of Anubis!'
"`It is useless,' he said coldly.
"`Then I will find it out,' I cried.
"`You cannot,' he answered; `it came to me by chance. There is one ingredient which you can never get. Save that which is in the ring of Thoth, none will ever more be made.
"`In the ring of Thoth!' I repeated; `where then is the ring of Thoth?'
"`That also you shall never know,' he answered. `You won her love.
Who has won in the end? I leave you to your sordid earth life. My chains are broken. I must go!' He turned upon his heel and fled from the chamber. In the morning came the news that the Priest of Thoth was dead.
"My days after that were spent in study. I must find this subtle poison which was strong enough to undo the elixir. From early dawn to midnight I bent over the test-tube and the furnace. Above all, I collected the papyri and the chemical flasks of the Priest of Thoth. Alas! they taught me little. Here and there some hint or stray expression would raise hope in my bosom, but no good ever came of it. Still, month after month, I struggled on. When my heart grew faint I would make my way to the tomb by the palm-trees.
There, standing by the dead casket from which the jewel had been rifled, I would feel her sweet presence, and would whisper to her that I would rejoin her if mortal wit could solve the riddle.
"Parmes had said that his discovery was connected with the ring of Thoth. I had some remembrance of the trinket. It was a large and weighty circlet, made, not of gold, but of a rarer and heavier metal brought from the mines of Mount Harbal. Platinum, you call it. The ring had, I remembered, a hollow crystal set in it, in which some few drops of liquid might be stored. Now, the secret of Parmes could not have to do with the metal alone, for there were many rings of that metal in the Temple. Was it not more likely that he had stored his precious poison within the cavity of the crystal? I had scarce come to this conclusion before, in hunting through his papers, I came upon one which told me that it was indeed so, and that there was still some of the liquid unused.
"But how to find the ring? It was not upon him when he was stripped for the embalmer. Of that I made sure.