HASCHEESH;

It promised to be a gloomy day to us; all our friends were out of town, and we had nothing to interest us in the wide city round. So Dora came to me, the evening before, and begged me to spend the Forth with her.

“But I shall weary you, Dora, before the day is over,” I said. “How can we amuse ourselves all alone?”

“I don’t know,” returned she, half sadly, and her large, dark eyes drooped; but she raised them again quickly, as though a happy thought had struck her. “We can both go to sleep till evening, when we will go to my friend Nettie’s, in Fourteenth street, to see the fireworks from the roof; she invited me yesterday.”

“But you forget the crackers and guns, Dora. Can one sleep in Pandemonium?”

“Truly, I forgot that; but,” said she, lauging, “we’ll take a dose of opium.”

“Hascheesh!” I suggested.

“Good!” exclaimed Dora. “Where can we get it? I’ve heard of that; it gives one exquisite dreams and fantastic visions — the real becomes the unreal, and the dream is the actual — every moment seems an age of ecstacy.”

And so she continued, for some minutes, exaggerating the mystic power of this Oriental drug, and finally we resolved to spend our day in dreamland, if we could but find this key to its golden gates.

Fortune favored us, or perhaps our evil genii; for before 10 A. M. a gentleman called, and though Dora had firmly determined to deny herself to every one who might come, the reflection, as she glanced at the caller, that the visitor was a man who had travelled in the East, and might possibly aid us in our hascheesh scheme, induced her to see him.

Dora questioned him upon the matter at once. He discoursed eloquently upon the hascheesh fantasia, and at length told us that had some of the drug in his possession, and if we really wished to make the experiment he would send us some. Of course we really did, and about an hour after, the mysterious hascheesh came — a strange-looking, green powder, made apparently from leaves or flowers.

We examined it with great interest, and took a dose very carefully, according to direction. This was at 11 o’clock, but as the hour of 12 came, and we felt in every respect the same, Dora doubled, and I tripled the dose. One o’clock came. We had [waited] during the hour for the slightest influence of the hascheesh [effect and concluded] that her good friend had sent us pulverized catnip or something equally innocent, and was probably at that moment, laughing at our expense.

Presently we went down to dinner, where Dora facetiously asked an old M. D. who sat opposite, what was the precise effect of catnip on the human system, and if it increased the appetite as a general rule. He remarked gravely and with the learned and peculiarly definite air of his profession, that what was commonly denominated catnip, was a plant of the genus Nepeta, and in some conditions of the membranous receptacle of aliment, it might, or might not, in conjunction with the fluids there, form a highly odoriferous and pungent essential oil which would variously affect different people.

During the delivery of this very satisfactory opinion, Dora looked slyly at me, and when we retired from the dining room we amused ourselves over the perilous situation which we might or might not be in, according to the learned Doctor.

Dora, who is always witty, was especially happy on this occasion, and we remained convulsed until laughter seemed the most boundless and exquisite pleasure in the world.

Just then some one tapped at the door for Dora, and I went to excuse her. I remember I did not open the door, but stood with my face close to it, and answered the questioner. A painful sense at length came over me. This person seemed to question me forever. I answered mechanically — in fact I was fast becoming a sphynx — my head expanded to the size of the room, and I thought I was an oracle doomed to respond through all Eternity.

The wicked laugh of Dora, and her soft arms about me, recalled me partially to the fact that I was answering imaginary questions; but the phantasy would not leave me, and I implored my friend to spare me from laughing — “Do you not see,” I cried, “that I am stone.” A terrible fear seized me, lest she should not heed my prayer. I continued in the most impressive manner I could command, “Dora, you know that the expansive powers of stone are very inconsiderable, and if you make me laugh, I shall be scattered to the four winds.” My words had no effect: she laughed, and instantly I felt a convulsion in my frame — a deafening explosion followed and I flew asunder in all directions. Then I heard the explosion of the fragments — a myriad of sounds succeeded each other, until I was reduced to a most impalpable powder, and caught by the breeze I was wafted away into space.

Still was my consciousness preserved, and a circumfolding sense of joy and perfect peace possessed me. Amid this delicious dream, the voice of Dora, which seemed all too mortal, bade me return. “Why do you leave me?” she asked. “You do not love me — I am weary, sick.” The fear that Dora was suffering roused me, and I made a great effort to dispel my hallucinations. We discussed at great length the problems of birth, life, and death. How unfortunate, I thought, that we had alluded to the last; for now I perceived that Dora’s face grew black, and a sense that she was dying made me shudder. I sought to turn the course of our conversation. At that moment my eye rested on some Egyptian vases in the room, and I led Dora to the place where they stood. Over them hung a picture of Cleopatra dying, and we remained transfixed before it. The diadem of Egypt sat proudly upon the brow of the Queen, and there seemed a living agony in her face. She moved, breathed, and spoke. As we looked upon her in her gorgeous robes of State, the whole scene changed, and we were in Egypt. We passed through all the suffering of the unfortunate Queen — the poison of the asp curdled our blood also, and our difficult and painful breathing died on the air with hers. After a while, we returned to life, and Dora, shutting her eyes, turned the picture to the wall — no longer a picture to us, but the place, the time, the living reality.

“Let us shut out this terrible Egyptian world,” said Dora, trembling; but we could not — the vases still remained, and the fearful scene we had passed was fresh upon our minds.

“We shall die!” cried Dora. “The poison of the asp is still here,” and she clasped her hands over her heart. A bewildering fear came upon us, and just at this moment a clear, strange voice rang out from the air —

“Mortals, you have tampered with forbidden things! How have you dared to return to the land of the Pharoahs? Verily ‘ye have sown the wind, and ye shall reap the whirlwind.’”

The voice ceased amid a sound like the roar and crash of arms, and I turned anxiously to my friend.

“Did you hear our sentence?” she asked. Her face was horrible to behold, and I crossed the room to examine my own in a glass. Like her, I was livid, and my limbs were stiff and cold.

“We are poisoned! We are poisoned!” cried Dora, throwing her arms out wildly, and tearing her long black hair. “That was the voice of our evil genius. O God! we are lost forever! The poison of the asp is withering and blackening my heart!”

A terrible sense of the damp, narrow grave came upon us, and struggling in vain for a breath of air, we cried aloud: “God! God help us!”

Dora fell at my feet, and stooping to raise her, I heard strange sounds about us, and stranger beings glided silently by. Were we in the land of spirits?

Never shall I forget that dreadful hour. Hour, did I say? It seemed a century, and at that moment, as I looked back to our unfortunate meeting with the Queen, it seemed a vista of eternity.

After a while I breathed more freely, and I gazed at these beings, who ran hither and thither, and filled our room. The scene was still Egyptian, and as these mysterious nurses lifted me to the bed and chafed my limbs, I plainly perceived that they were mummies! Yes, veritable, brown, dry mummies, wrapped in the mouldy linen of four thousand years! They did not terrify me in the least; but presently I perceived that they had left Dora on the sofa, and were attending only to me. I felt indignant, but concealing my wrath, I cried out:

“Dear good mummies, don’t let my Dora suffer? Go to her — chafe her limbs; she is worse than I am.”

I thought they went to her only to please me; but as she turned, after a few minutes and spoke to me, I concluded that I had been unust to the mummies, and I earnestly begged their pardon. I overwhelmed them with gratitude for their kindness, and as I grew better, I began to study them more attentively. One, a woman, moved about as methodically and cautiously as though she were walking on eggs, and she never turned her head or her eyes, but she turned her whole body. She was dressed in sombre grey, with a straight white cap on her head, and a shite kerchief on her neck. She moved always in right lines, and I soon perceived that her course around the room marked regular polygons. “Surely,” I said to myself, “she must have been once some great mathematical genius.” I longed to ask her, but dared not be so bold. Just then she wheeled about from my bed, faced the mantlepiece, and started towards it in a line which was, I felt convinced, the shortest distance between the two points. She seized a cup thence, turned her head and body and started towards the door; but when she reached the point exactly opposite the foot of the bed, she turned again the same manner and came directly to the point whence she had started. “What a perfect isosceles triangle!” I exclaimed, looking at the lines which her course to and from the mantlepiece had marked.

She stirred the black mixture in the cup, and now for the first time spoke, in a musty, creaky voice:

“How much did thee take?”

Shocked at this murdering of my mother-tongue, and without stopping to answer her question, I ejaculated in the most respectful language I could command:

“O thou most venerable mummy! do not mind addressing me in English; I shall comprehend your Egyptian just as well.”

A [] smile passed over her ancient features as I saw her moving in the [same] manner toward the door. I waited for this kind mummy to return, — I enquired for her but she came no more. “Most sensitive mummy,” I murmured, “I have wounded you in that matter of the English, but I shall never be able to repay your kindness.”

Two other mummies now entered — tall and stern-looking, wearing moustaches. They conversed in low tones in one corner of the room, sent for the hascheesh cup, examined its contents, muttered something about “Cannabis Indica,” and then came again to me. They poured most dreadful mixtures down my throat, rubbed and shook me, fearing I should go to sleep. They placed Dora beside me and gradually all the mummies disappeared. Then I think I slept. The next thing I remember, was Dora’s merry laugh, as she turned her large eyes towards me, demanding what all this meant.

“I don’t know,” I returned, “I am perfectly well! Are not you?”

“Perfectly. Have we been dreaming?”

“No,” I said. “Look at our room! These medicines, bath-tubs, hot flat-irons, and wet blankets mean something,” and we laughed at the comicality of our position.

Suddenly the thought occurred that we had broken our engagement to see the fireworks, and we began to lament it.

“Why, Dora,” I suggested, “this is certainly the Fourth of July, — don’t you hear the guns?”

“Surely,” and the sun has not yet set; I thought whole years had passed.”

I looked at my watch — ’twas just half past five, and all this terrible scene had occupied only two hours!

We were dressed, and at the place to see the fireworks in due season. The effect of the hascheesh was still upon us a little, and the rockets seemed the most astonishing and gorgeous things in the universe. We watched them with intense delight, and, but for our friends, I suppose we should have staid on the roof till the last rocket went up.

Our friends never suspected that we were not perfectly sane, though during the evening, some one remarked that Dora was a little more grave than usual.

I went to see her the next day, fearing to find her sick. She was perfectly well, and anxious to talk over our hascheesh experiment.

“But were we not really nursed by mummies?” I queried.

“Mummies! you simpleton! My good old Quaker friend will never forgive you; you drove her from the room by your ridiculous appellation of ‘Most venerable mummy!’”

“And those two tall, stern-looking fellows. Were they real flesh and blood?”

“We shall see,” said Dora, laughing, “when they send us their bills.”