Guy Boothby

Pharos Guy Boothby

The plague is spreading across Europe - a plague as vile and vicious as the plagues of the middle ages. It is a plague more virulent than any childhood disease: everyone will catch it; everyone who catches it will die. But this is no ordinary plague: it is the work of a sorcerer - a man of exactly the stripe as Boothby's infamous villain, Nikola. One man knows how it's spread. One man can stop it - if he can face Pharos, The Egyptian. If he dares, for the life of the world. If ever a man in this world had a terrible-I might almost go so far as to add a shameful-story to relate, surely I, Cyril Forrester, am the one. How strange-indeed, how most unbelievable-it is I do not think I even realised myself until I sat down to write it. The question the world will in all probability ask when it has read it is, why it should have been told at all. It is possible it may be of opinion that I should have served my generation just as well had I allowed it to remain locked up in my own bosom for all time. This, however, my conscience would not permit. There are numberless reasons, all of them important and some imperative beyond all telling, why I should make my confession, though God knows I am coward enough to shrink from the task. And if you consider for a moment, I think you will understand why.