Adventure Magazine Cover, June 18, 1921 — page 74: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

64 now sought obscurity and avoided ‘‘fame.”’ In the privacy of his Hall of Darkness he might appear in all the ceremonial regalia befitting a Master of Mysteries, a High Priest of Isis, a Seneschal of the Secret City, or whatever other titles he and the devil had ‘agreed upon. I have doubts about his even being an Egyptian. All the Egyptians I ever saw— and I stopped off to look at the pyramids and sand-piles during a long round-the- world trip that I took one time when certain nervous people in police uniforms were scratching around to uncover me—as | was saying, the only Egyptians I saw were thin fellows with peaked faces; some long fel- lows, some short, but most of them scrawny; and the whole lot of them were unimpress- ive, whining thieves and beggars. There is a tribe of travelers who will hasten to assure me-that I saw only the fel- lahs, the riffraff; that is the usual traveler’s way of claiming to have been intimate with ' the aristocracy. By his appearance 0 one might have judged that Hurgronje belonged to a race of kings. He was rapacious, thievish, unscrupulous enough to have been a king, a real king; not merely a monarchia] figurehead that spoke of his “‘dear” subjects—and meant it. I have never lied about a man because I did not like him, so I must say that Hur- . gronje was a man of great size, built like a statue, erect, with a strong personality and the most remarkable voice that I ever heard —the voice of a great, great actor. Had he not been such a man, and in possession of such a voice, not all the arts of his mechan- ics and mysteries would have given him his influence. played, and he played it with the skill of a Cagliostro, the Prince of Scoundrels. It probably had infuriated him that a little obscure California gambler, who con- sorted with petty crooks, remained unim- pressed when one who could raise the mighty dead thundered curses upon his head. And, of course, as curses never do harm unless the victim knows of them, Hurgronje took elaborate precautions to make me terrified—after he had seductively _ offered to share the jewels if I would return them. I remained unseduced and unterri- fied. I have been cursed by men who could have taught Hurgronje. They did not use long, obscure phrases about things of which He looked the part that he Adventure I had to go to a dictionary to learn; but cut loose with hard, direct words, usually to the accompaniment of gun-fire or a gleam- ing knife-thrust. He was infuriated, not only because I had taken away his jewels, but because I had killed some of his ‘“‘mighty dead.” If they had been good servants he ought to have raised them again. But to tell a little more of his methods. After he remodeled the house that had been selected as most suitable for his mysteries, and filled it lavishly with a great assortment of valuable and queer stuff, he would ap- pear in person. I suppose he appeared from the first and kept even farther in the background than after he “officially”? took up his residence in it. When one must fix a wall, for instance, so that it will noise- lessly slide out of the way and reveal some ghostly tableau, a man so careful in detail as Hurgronje would be likely to stand over the work with a-watchful eye. The sliding wall was only one of numer- ous tricks. Figures would materialize right in the center of the room and disappear by “magic.”? Trap-dcors and mirrors will work wonders of which the ancients—whose secrets he claimed to possess—did not dream. When Hurgronje had taken possession of the house he gave no entertainments and ac- cepted no invitations. He had no state- ments to make to the press, and he kept very much out of sight. But his time was not spent in idleness. He ferreted out secrets and scandals about people. He learned local biographies and studied dates and data. When all was ready he would politely, formally, communicate with some silly rich woman who he had learned was already pre- disposed toward esotericism or something of that kind, and convey to her a message from the “‘dead.”” The message was certain to ke astonishing and accurate; and the wo- man, eager and strangely moved, would al- most without fail hasten to visit the mar- velous man. If she did not prove so silly as he expected, nothing was lost; nothing was injured. She simply went her way, perhaps always to wonder if she had not made a mistake in not really believing that Hurgronje had supernatural powers. Sooner or later he would find the ideal victim, who would confide in her friends, and the friends would confide in others, and scores would soon be begging to be admitted COmiclboo ZN ) CO