So he looked around for something more solid with which to experiment.  His eye caught sight of an object which at once attracted him.  This was a small copy of one of the ancient Egyptian gods—­that of Bes, who represented the destructive power of nature.  It was so bizarre and mysterious as to commend itself to his mad humour.  In lifting it from the cabinet, he was struck by its great weight in proportion to its size.  He made accurate examination of it by the aid of some instruments, and came to the conclusion that it was carved from a lump of lodestone.  He remembered that he had read somewhere of an ancient Egyptian god cut from a similar substance, and, thinking it over, he came to the conclusion that he must have read it in Sir Thomas Brown’s Popular Errors, a book of the seventeenth century.  He got the book from the library, and looked out the passage: 

“A great example we have from the observation of our learned friend Mr. Graves, in an AEgyptian idol cut out of Loadstone and found among the Mummies; which still retains its attraction, though probably taken out of the mine about two thousand years ago.”

The strangeness of the figure, and its being so close akin to his own nature, attracted him.  He made from thin wood a large circular runner, and in front of it placed the weighty god, sending it up to the flying kite along the throbbing cord.

CHAPTER XIII—­OOLANGA’S HALLUCINATIONS

During the last few days Lady Arabella had been getting exceedingly impatient.  Her debts, always pressing, were growing to an embarrassing amount.  The only hope she had of comfort in life was a good marriage; but the good marriage on which she had fixed her eye did not seem to move quickly enough—­indeed, it did not seem to move at all—­in the right direction.  Edgar Caswall was not an ardent wooer.  From the very first he seemed difficile, but he had been keeping to his own room ever since his struggle with Mimi Watford.  On that occasion Lady Arabella had shown him in an unmistakable way what her feelings were; indeed, she had made it known to him, in a more overt way than pride should allow, that she wished to help and support him.  The moment when she had gone across the room to stand beside him in his mesmeric struggle, had been the very limit of her voluntary action.  It was quite bitter enough, she felt, that he did not come to her, but now that she had made that advance, she felt that any withdrawal on his part would, to a woman of her class, be nothing less than a flaming insult.  Had she not classed herself with his nigger servant, an unreformed savage?  Had she not shown her preference for him at the festival of his home-coming?  Had she not . . .  Lady Arabella was cold-blooded, and she was prepared to go through all that might be necessary of indifference, and even insult, to become chatelaine of Castra Regis.  In the meantime,