The Project Gutenberg eBook, There was a King in Egypt, by Norma Lorimer
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Title: There was a King in Egypt
Author: Norma Lorimer
Release Date: December 26, 2007 [eBook #23994]
Language: English
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THERE WAS A KING IN EGYPT***
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THERE WAS A KING IN EGYPT
by
NORMA LORIMER
Author of
"Catherine Sterling,"
"By the Waters of Germany,"
"By the Waters of Sicily,"
"The Second Woman,"
"The Gods' Carnival,"
"A Wife Out of Egypt"
"On Desert Altars,"
"On Etna," Etc. Etc.
London
Stanley Paul & Co
31 Essex Street, Strand, W.C.2
First published in 1918
PREFACE
The monarch indicated in _There was a King in Egypt_ is Akhnaton, the
heretic Pharaoh, first brought home to the English reader by the well
known Egyptian archaeologist, Mr. Arthur Weigall. Akhnaton, or
Amenhotep IV., has an interest for the whole world as the first
Messiah. Like Our Lord, he was of Syrian parentage--on the mother's
side. Interest in him is undying, because underlying his Sun-symbolism
we have the first foreshadowings of the altruism of Christianity.
The book is not directly devoted to Akhnaton. It is about a young
English Egyptologist, who is excavating the tomb of Akhnaton's mother,
in which the Pharaoh's exhumed body found its final repose; his sister;
and an Irish mystic, who copies the tomb-paintings excavated before
their freshness fades. Aton-worship and Mohammedanism have an almost
equal fascination for this Irishman, and the romance is permeated with
their mysticism. The prophecies of a Mohammedan saint who has attained
the light by a life of abstinence and self-discipline, influence the
current of the romance no less than the visions of the Pharaoh Messiah,
whose pure religion threatened his country with disasters like the
Russian revolution.
For the historical facts I am indebted to the brilliant _Akhnaton,
Pharaoh of Egypt_,[1] of Mr. Weigall, late Chief Inspector of Monuments
in Upper Egypt. The character of the Egyptian Messiah has fascinated
me ever since I began to read Egyptian history, and Mr. Weigall writes
with the grace and colour of a Pierre Loti. I have always used his
translations of Akhnaton's words, and very often his own words in
describing Akhnaton.
I take this opportunity of thanking Mr. Weigall for his ungrudging
permission to quote from him, and I should like him to know that his
book was the inspiration of _There was a King in Egypt_.
I must also acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Walter Tyndall's fine
volume, _Below the Cataracts_,[2]--he is equally successful as author
and artist--for my description of the tomb of Queen Thiy.
The teachings of the reformed Mohammedanism scattered through my book
are derived from the propaganda works of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, especially
his _Teachings of Islam_.[3]
I trust that my readers will find the mysticism of the book not a clog
upon the wheels of the romance of Excavation in Egypt, but Virgil's
"vital breeze."
NORMA LORIMER.
7, PITCULLEN TERRACE, PERTH, SCOTLAND.
[1] Published by Wm. Blackwood & Sons.
[2] Published by Heinemann.
[3] Published by Dulau.
THERE WAS A KING IN EGYPT
PART I
CHAPTER I
Dawn held the world in stillness. In the vast stretches of barren
hills and soft sands there was nothing living or stirring but the
figure of an Englishman, standing at the door of his tent.
At the hour of sunrise and sunset the East is its own. Every
suggestion of Western influence and foreign invasion is wiped out. The
going and the coming of the sun throws the land of the Pharaohs, the
kingdom of Ra, the great Sun God, whose cradle was at Heliopolis, back
to the days when Egypt was the world; to the days when the sun governed
the religion of her people; to the days when civilization had barely
touched the Mediterranean and the world knew not Rome; back again to
the days when the Nile, the Mother of Life, bordered by bands of
fertile, food-giving land, had not as yet sheltered the infant Moses in
her reeds. Dawn in Egypt is the dawn of civilization.
Each dawn saw Michael Amory, wrapped in his thickest coat, standing
outside his tent, watching and waiting for the glory of Egypt, for Ra,
the Sun God, to appear above the horizon of the desert.
To stand alone, nerve-tense and oppressed by the soundless sands, and
surrounded by the Theban Hills, in whose bosoms lie the eternal remains
of the world's first kings, drew him so strongly that, tired as he
might be with his previous day's work, he seldom slept later than the
hour which links us with the day that is past and the morrow which
holds the magic of the future.
For that half-hour only his higher self was conscious of existence, and
it was infinitely nearer to God than he was aware of. The silence of
the desert and its simplicity, which to the complex mind of Western man
is so mysterious, banished all material thoughts and even the
consciousness of his own body, and left him a naked soul, alone in the
world, encompassed with Divinity, a world whose hills and rolling sands
had known neither labour nor strife, nor the despotism of kings.
For the dead Pharaohs, lying in their tombs under the hills, in the
grandest monuments ever wrought by the vanity of man, were forgotten.
His long days of labour in their depths might never have been. Man and
his place in the universe were wiped out.
The cold was intense. Michael shivered and turned up the collar of his
coat. A faint light had appeared on the horizon, a pale streak like a
silver thread, which widened and widened until it spread into the
higher heavens; with its spreading the indefinite forms of moving
figures appeared--ghostly figures of dawn.
Michael knew that they would appear; he knew that, just as soon as the
streak of light grew in width from a faint thread to a wider band, he
would see them, dignified, stately figures, like white-robed priests,
walking desertwards from the horizon to his tent.
Although he had seen the same figures every morning for some months, he
was not tired of watching them. It always gave him pleasure to recall
how vividly they had at first reminded him of the pictures, familiar to
him as a boy, of the Wise Men following the star in the east. But
these were not wise men coming to pay homage or bring presents to the
Galilean Babe who came to be called the Prince of Peace; they were the
Mohammedan workmen who were employed by the Exploration School to which
Michael Amory had attached himself; their labour was confined to the
rougher preliminary digging and the clearing away of the accumulation
of sand and debris on sites which had been selected for excavation.
As the dawn slipped back and counted itself with the years that are
spent and the first yellow gleam appeared in the sky, Michael saw the
tall figures go down on their knees and press their foreheads to the
sand. It was their third prayer of the day: devout Mohammedans begin
their new day at sunset; their second prayer is at nightfall, when it
is quite dark; their third is at daybreak.
Michael knew that the moment _el isfirar_, or the first yellow glow,
appeared in the heavens, the white figures would turn to the east and
perform their _subh_, or daybreak devotion. He knew that it would be
finished before the golden globe appeared above the rim of the desert,
for did not the Prophet counsel his people not to pray exactly at
sunrise or sunset or at noon, because they might be confounded with the
infidels who worshipped the sun? Yet it gave him a fresh thrill each
morning to watch these desert worshippers prostrate themselves in
undoubting faith before their omnipotent God. In the untrodden desert,
with its mingling of sky and sand, their perfect trust and faith in
Allah seemed a convincing and evident belief. At such times he forgot
that these same men were the children of Superstition and that one and
all of them were held in the bondage of _genii_. He also forgot that
their performance of five prayers a day, which is the number prescribed
for the devout, did not necessarily make them men of honour. A perfect
trust in Allah gives a bad man a long rope.
As the figures drew nearer and the golden globe rested for one moment
on the sands of the desert, for that one brief moment before its rays
broke into the amazing splendour which is Egypt's, the world became
less mysterious, more familiar. Things relating to the day's work
forced themselves upon Michael's mind. His bath and breakfast and many
other practical things began to usurp his thoughts, while the barking
of dogs, the movement in the hut of the "boys," brought him back to the
common, everyday life of the excavating camp.
While he was dressing he remembered that Freddy Lampton's sister was to
arrive that day. For a moment or two his mind was completely usurped
with a vision of what the girl would be like. Subconsciously his
manhood quickened.
Yet the very idea of a woman intruding herself upon their strange and
exquisitely-intellectual life--a life made healthy by the long hours of
physical labour in the various portions of the excavation--slightly
annoyed him.
Fleeting pictures of Lampton as a girl rose and faded before his eyes
as he hurriedly shaved himself, slipped into his flannels and adjusted
his necktie as punctiliously as though he were going to a tennis-party
at Mena House Hotel. It is typical of Englishmen in the East that the
young men in the excavating camps, and especially in the one to which
Michael belonged, showed as much regard for their personal appearance
and nicety of dress, even when their day's work was to be done in the
bowels of the earth, down a shaft as deep as a mine, as they did in the
golden days of their life at Oxford or Cambridge. Michael Amory was
perhaps as a rule the least careful of the digging party, because he
was by temperament a dreamer; and his friend, Freddy Lampton, knew that
if he was not careful and on his guard he would become "a slacker."
Freddy, in spite of his acknowledged ability as a scholar and
Egyptologist, was practical and conventional in his methods and mode of
living. Michael Amory had fits of exactness and fits of what he
considered conventionality; he had also his fits of slackness, days in
which Freddy Lampton would let his blue eyes rest on his
carelessly-tied necktie, or on his shoelaces, which were an offence to
his eyes. Freddy's exquisite delicacy of touch and his eyes, which
were trained to a fine pitch of exactitude for minute detail, two
characteristics essential for his work as an excavator, made it painful
for him to be in the company of anyone who offended his sense of
personal nicety.
But visions of Lampton's sister were to be dismissed. She would be
good-looking, of course, because Freddy's sister could scarcely be
anything else; his blue eyes, clear colouring and sunlit hair would be
beautiful in a girl. But Michael Amory had no desire to encourage any
thoughts which gave woman a place in his mind. The very visualizing of
Lampton as a girl, comical as it had been, had forced before his eyes
another face and another form which he had been striving to forget.
Whenever he was idle, and too often when he was busy over some piece of
work which ought to have engrossed his entire thoughts, her haunting
charm and beauty would suddenly become more real and vivid than the
bright blues and greens and reds of the pigments on the white walls of
the tomb upon which he was at work. With well-practised mind-control
he had learned to pull down a blind on her vision, to blot it out from
his thoughts. On this morning, when he was hurrying through his
dressing so as to be in time for breakfast, always a matter of
difficulty with him, even though he had many hours in which to put on
his few clothes, he shrank from thinking about the arrival of the girl
who was coming to live with her brother in this strange valley, which
had been the underground cemetery for countless centuries of the
tomb-builders of Egypt.
When he was almost dressed and the sun was high in the heavens and its
power was beginning to warm the night-chilled valley, a stone was flung
into his tent. "Come out, you lazy beggar! The coffee's getting cold."
It was Lampton's voice and Lampton's nicety of aim. He had not been up
since dawn; his boy had only brought him his cup of early tea half an
hour ago, yet he was bathed and shaved and as neatly dressed as the
most fastidious woman could desire.
"Right-ho!" Michael shouted back. "Don't wait for me."
"I should jolly well think I won't! Who'd be such an ass?" There was
the best of human fellowship in Freddy's voice, but he knew his friend
too well to risk the chance of spoiling his coffee by waiting for him.
After stretching out his arms and opening his lungs to the fresh dry
air of the newborn day, Freddy turned into the dining-room. The
mess-room and common sitting-room of the camp was in a wooden hut.
Lampton's bedroom was at the back of it, as was also the one which had
been set apart for his sister; it by right belonged to the
Overseer-General and Controller of the Excavations and Monuments of
Upper Egypt. Margaret Lampton was to use it and her brother was to
evacuate his room when the overseer announced that he was coming to pay
one of his visits of inspection to the camp.
Michael Amory lived in a tent, as did one or two other Englishmen who
in busy and prosperous years helped in the work of excavating. At the
present moment they were slack, which meant that funds were low and
there was no fine work to be done which necessitated the individual
spade and pick work of European Egyptologists. A new site was being
cleared, so that the work had consisted for some time of the first
clearing away of sand and stones and the debris which had collected
during the thousands of years that had passed since the tomb which
Freddy hoped to discover had been carved in the bowels of the earth,
and the Pharaoh had been laid to rest in it. At such times there was
little work for experts to do, so the camp shrank and left Lampton, who
was the head of it, and one of England's finest Egyptologists, alone
with his native workmen.
He had allowed his old Oxford chum, Michael Amory, to join him on
condition that he put in so many hours' work every day in connection
with the excavations. Michael's stipulated work, the work which he had
undertaken to do, was the making of exact copies of the mural paintings
and decorations, such as Lampton required, and to help in the evenings
to clean and sort and arrange the small objects which the workmen found
each day. In the debris they often found amulets and small earthenware
vases and minute pieces of broken pottery, the very smallest of which
suggested theories as regards the period and history of the monument.
The texture of the glaze used, or the nature of the pottery itself, the
small remnant of decoration on them, or the trademark on the broken
base of a vase, all were valuable links in the chain of history which
is unfolding itself to the eager eyes of Egyptian exploration schools.
When Michael at last appeared, Freddy looked up from his bacon and
eggs. "I say, Margaret comes to-night."
"Yes, I know."
Freddy raised his blue eyes and gave Michael one of his quick glances.
"Remembered, did you?"
"Yes--the fact suddenly came into my head when I was shaving. I say,
what are you going to do with her? Won't she be awfully bored?"
"Margaret doesn't know what the word bored means. Give her enough
freedom and lots of sunshine--that's all she wants."
"Sounds the right sort."'
"One of the best--old Margaret's all right!"
"Is she like you in appearance?"
"Good Lord, no!"
Michael's enthusiasm was damped. He wanted her to be like Freddy, to
have his short, straight nose and his strong rounded chin and beautiful
mouth. For his looks were wasted on a man; Michael wanted to see them
repeated and softened in a girl. As his eyes rested contemplatingly on
his companion's bent head and youthfully-lean figure, he began to
visualize a very plain, dowdy sister. The "Good Lord, no!" probably
meant that although Freddy was not the least vain of his own
extraordinary good looks, he could not help exclaiming at the idea of
his dowdy sister being considered like him.
Michael had never seen her, because Freddy and Margaret had been left
orphans when they were little children. They had been adopted by
different relatives, so that Michael had never had the opportunity of
meeting his friend's sister while they were together at Oxford or when
he visited Freddy in his uncle's home.
"Pass the marmalade!" said Freddy. "And I say, old chap, I wish you'd
go and meet Margaret!"
Their eyes met as Michael handed him the marmalade, which was the one
thing in the world which Lampton said he could not live without.
"Meet your sister?" Michael said. "I will, if you can't, but
where?--and won't she expect you?"
"She ought to be on the ferry at five o'clock--I've made all the other
arrangements, but I do wish you would meet her there and bring her up
the valley. I simply can't, and Margaret knows that she is only
allowed to come here on condition that her visit makes no earthly
difference to my work. I daren't leave the men alone to-day--there's
too much lying about. We are getting pretty 'hot' and they know it."
Michael looked up eagerly. "By Jove, is that so?"
"Getting hot" was expressive of getting close to a find. It was the
old saying which they had used as children when they played
hide-and-seek.
"Yes, I think we are on the right track and I want to get ahead, so if
you will go down to the ferry and fetch her up here I'll be awfully
obliged to you."
"Right you are, old chap. I'll be there at five o'clock, and if she's
not punctual I'll do a bit of sketching. You're sure everything else
will be all right?"
"I don't think she'll be late, because she is to be in Luxor by eleven
o'clock. She is to rest there until it gets cooler and Abdul is to
bring her over the river from the hotel. The donkeys will be at the
ferry to meet her. Mohammed is very anxious for her to ride his camel"
(Mohammed was the sheikh of the district); "he thinks it more proper
and fitting for my sister to make her entry into his district on a
camel, but I don't feel certain that Margaret would appreciate the
honour. He is keen to 'do her proud.'"
"Good old Mohammed!" Michael said. "He has a great sense of dignity
and convention."
"And of hospitality," Lampton said. "He never forgets that as the
sheikh of the district he is its host as well."
That was all that was said about Margaret's arrival. The two men
lapsed into silence until breakfast was over. If they had been two
women discussing the coming of a man in their midst, there might have
been more to say on the subject. In silence Freddy lit his cigarette
and wandered into Margaret's room. It was as bare and plainly
furnished as a convent cell or a room in a small log-hut in a
frontier-camp in Canada--just the necessary bed and table, a washstand
and one chair. It was scrupulously clean, and the white
mosquito-curtain, which was suspended from the roof and dropped over
the little iron bed like a bride's veil, gave the room a pleasant
virginal atmosphere.
Freddy came back to the sitting-room, evidently satisfied. His quick
eye had noticed that the "boy" had carried out his orders.
"Meg's an awful girl for books," he said, as he carried off a bundle of
yellow-paper-bound French novels and one or two volumes of the Temple
Classics to her room.
"She'd better begin on this," he said, as he returned in search of
still more. "She can't do better"--he lifted up the weighty tome of
Maspero's _Dawn of Civilization_.
"A bit dry, isn't it, for a beginner?"
"Not for Meg," Freddy said. "She can tackle pretty stiff stuff. At
college she used to suck the guts out of a book like a weasel sucking
blood from a rabbit."
"Blue stocking!" Michael said to himself. He abhorred the type of
ardent, eager, studious woman with whom he had come in contact during
his university life. "Able and abominable" he called them.
In less than ten minutes the two companions had separated; the one,
with his paint-box and camp-stool in his hand, made his way to the tomb
where he was copying with delicate and extraordinary exactitude the
exquisite figures and heads painted on the walls and pillars of the
vast building; the other directed his steps to the site where the band
of native excavators was already at work.
What a strange sight it presented in the brilliant morning sunshine!
To the untutored eye nothing more or less than a vast rubbish-heap of
sand and stones and broken rocks, with here and there patches of
sparsely-clad natives working away with pickaxes and the tall figure of
a white-robed _gaphir_, standing on a hillock of sand, watching them
with unremitting care. On the sides of the vast ashpits long lines of
"boys," toiling like ants up steep inclines, were carrying rush-baskets
full of rubbish on their shoulders.
Yet these ignorant _fellahin_ were playing their part, and an
indispensable one, in laying bare to modern eyes the history of the
world's first civilization. This vast rubbish-heap, where men with
pickaxes and boys with baskets, full of the dust and sand of ages,
toiled from dawn until sunset, would in the course of time yield
perhaps to the Egyptologist one of the long-looked-for links in the
lost centuries of Egypt's story, or be transformed into a wonderful
picture-gallery of Egyptian art.
Nothing could look less inviting, less interesting, as Freddy
approached it, for as yet there was little or nothing for the untutored
eye to see but the debris of familiar desert rubbish. But Freddy
Lampton knew otherwise. Only yesterday the most experienced of the
workmen had struck something hard, something which told him that they
had finished with loose sand and broken rocks and had struck the
ancient handiwork of man.
The site chosen had been a mere conjecture on Freddy Lampton's part, a
conjecture guided by scientific knowledge and careful research. He
felt convinced that the tomb which they were looking for was close to
the spot where they were working. Indications such as the excavator
looks for had decided him to begin work on the site. The discovery
yesterday had been nothing more or less than the first indication of a
narrow flight of steps, cut in the virgin desert rock, a stairway
probably built by the tomb-builders for the use of the workmen, in
order to carry away baskets of sand and rubbish without slipping.
The moment that the expert workman had come across this staircase, they
had suspended work until "Effendi" had been sent for and found. Under
his eye and partly by his own pickaxe, the little flight of embryo
steps, with a very steep gradient, had been laid bare. In the vast
expanse which the work covered, it seemed a very small thing, but the
greatest underground temples--for the tombs are veritable temples--of
Egypt, and some of the most wonderful of her monuments, have been
discovered by far fainter clues. The little staircase, about twenty
feet below the surface of the sand, was enough to fill the young
Englishman's heart with hope. He had come upon man's handiwork--no
doubt they would soon come upon more important masonry.
When all the workmen had saluted the Effendi with respectful salaams
and returned to their common toil, Freddy Lampton addressed the native
overseer. He was enveloped in a white woollen hooded cloak, for the
heat of the day had not yet begun; he also wore a fine turban; while
the _fellahin_ who did the roughest work wore only white skull-caps and
cotton drawers to their knees and full shirts of blue or white cotton,
open from the neck to the waist. A few of the better-paid older men
wore turbans of cheap white muslin, wrapped round brown felt
skull-caps, or fezes. The carriers of rubbish, who received the
smallest pay of any, dispensed with the drawers as well as with the
turban. In the sunlight their one garment, a blue or white shirt,
stood out against the yellow sand as they wound their way in Indian
file from the low level of the excavation to the place in the desert
where they threw down their burdens.
The _gaphir_ led his master a few steps from where the staircase had
been excavated the day before and then bade him look own. Freddy's
quick eye detected a horizontal line of masonry, the beginning of a
strongly-built wall. The men had earthed it that morning, it was only
a narrow strip, but it would have been against the strictest rules to
have excavated more without informing the "Effendi."
The _gaphir_, a splendid man and very reliable, adored his enthusiastic
English master, whose good looks and well-bred, unfailing courtesy of
speech alone would have made his personality irresistible to the Arab.
Added to his good looks and to his manner of "one who is born to be
obeyed," Freddy had courage and great ability and--best of all in the
_gaphir's_ eyes--a silent respect for the teachings of the Prophet.
After an inspection of the various points of excavation and a word of
greeting here and there had been passed with upper workmen, those who
had showed an intelligent interest in their work, Freddy returned to
the exciting spot and with two or three men who had "fingers" and a
"sense" of things, began his morning's picking.
While he worked away with youthful energy and an almost inspired
intelligence, he could hear the toilers with the rubbish-baskets
singing their monotonous chants. The word "Allah, Allah" came
repeatedly to his ears. He had grown so accustomed to the words of
their chants that he followed them subconsciously; the words "Allah,
Lord of Kindness, Giver of Ease," rang out with monotonous persistence.
Allah was to ease their burdens; Allah was to moisten their dry lips;
the "Lord of the Worlds" was to hasten the time when the poor man might
sit in the shade and smell the sweet scents of paradise and listen to
the sound of running waters.
They chanted verses from the Koran as Jack Tars sing sea songs. In
Mohammedan lands the song of Allah never dies.
Only occasionally Freddy heard the quaint words of some popular
love-song, coming from the lips of one of the higher-class Arab
workmen, a song as old as their tales of _The Thousand and One Nights_.
One was drifting to his half-conscious ears at the moment; he was
familiar with every word of it.
"A lover says to his dove, 'Send me your wings for a day.' The dove
replied, 'The affair is vain.' I said, 'Some other day, that I may
soar through the sky and see the face of the beloved; I shall obtain
love enough for a year and will return, O dove, in a day.' The night!
The night! O those sweet hands! Gather of the dewy peach! Whence
were ye, and whence were we, when ye ensnared us?"
The Arab who was singing it was considered quite a musician amongst his
fellow-workmen. He had earned his living for some years by singing
love-songs on the small boats which drift up and down the Nile and in
the cafés in Luxor. To English ears his talents as a singer would not
have been recognized; the particular qualities which ensured the
approval of his native audience would have caused much laughter in an
English music-hall. Freddy Lampton, who knew something of Arab music,
was able to recognize the singer's talents, but he was not near enough
to hear the grunts of intense satisfaction and longing which the song
was calling forth from the blue-shirted _fellahin_.
And so the hours of the morning wore on, until the sun was too powerful
to allow even the natives to work, and Freddy Lampton wandered off to
the tomb in which his friend was painting. The _fellahin_ instantly
untied the bundles which held their simple food and began their midday
meal. Many of them prayed before eating; many of them did not.
When the meal was eaten, each man sought some vestige of shade, behind
a mound of rock or an ash-heap of debris, or in the excavated channels
of the site; there with full stomach and contented mind he would lay
himself down to sleep, amid the heap of ruins which thousands of years
ago had been the field of vast numbers of toilers, such as were he and
his fellow-toilers, slaving for the glorification of an absolute
monarch, whose kingdom was the civilized world. He cared not one jot
nor tittle for what he had uncovered or what secrets the valley or
hills had hidden from men for countless centuries. Filling baskets
full of rubbish was his work, his method of earning a living, and it
mattered nothing to him whether the rubbish was culled from the golden
sand of the most wonderful valley in the world, or thrown out of the
filthy ashbins in the native city of Cairo. Toil was all one thing to
him; it had no interest, it suggested no varieties. Allah had willed
it. The clear blue sky and the sunlit hills, with their tombs and
tombs and endless tombs stretching further and further into the western
valley, they, too, were Allah's will, as were the dark, evil-smelling
streets of the city, with their noise and the crowding of human and
animal beasts of burden.
As Freddy approached Michael Amory a look of satisfaction spread over
his face. "Mike," as he called him, was so busily engrossed in his
work that he did not look up. He was making a delicate and
extraordinarily exact reproduction on paper of a figure of an Egyptian
King making offerings to an enthroned Osiris. No other artist had ever
done the same work with his delicacy of touch and exactness of detail.
The picture on his easel looked as if he had cut a square block out of
the polished limestone which held the tinted relief of the King making
the offering to the god, and set it upon his easel.
Freddy was proud of Michael and not a little surprised at the rapidity
with which he had grasped the nature of his excavation work, which was
not only the opening up of fresh monuments for the pleasure of the
public, but the search after missing links and the verifying of
well-founded conjectures. He knew that Michael had read a fair amount
of Egyptian history, that he had specialized in one period, and that he
had studied, in his own fashion, something of the mythology of ancient
Egypt, but he was quite unprepared for the "sense" of the more serious
part of the work which he had shown.
Besides which, Freddy knew more than Michael thought he did of the new
distraction which had disturbed his mind.
About once in ten days Freddy found it almost necessary to go to Assuan
or Luxor and there throw himself heart and soul into the festivities of
the foreign hotel society. For one night and half a day he played
tennis and danced and was young again. These periodical outings and
his private hobbies kept his mind and nerves well balanced. At his age
it was scarcely healthy for a sport-loving, normal Englishman to spend
his days and nights all alone, in the silent valley in the hills, his
only companions the mummies of Pharaohs and the bones unearthed from
subterranean tombs. But Freddy slept as happily and as soundly with
mummies in his room and ancient skulls below his bed as he did in the
modern, conventional bedroom of the big hotel at Assuan.
Michael had accompanied him to these dances, and Freddy had noticed
that on each occasion he was very much engrossed by the company of an
Englishwoman of whom he had heard a good deal that was ugly and
unpleasant. He had long ago ceased to pay any attention to the
scandals which were related to him each season about the English and
American women who came to Egypt for the sake of the climate and for
its hotel-society--ugly stories, generally greatly exaggerated, but
often with a foundation of unsavoury truth in them. The sands of Egypt
breed scandals as quickly as the climate degenerates the morals of
shallow-minded tourists. But this woman Freddy knew to be as dangerous
as she was charming; and he also knew the enthusiastic nature of
Michael and how it was temperamental with him to place all women on
pedestals and worship them as pure, high beings, far above mere men.
Fallen idols never shattered his belief; they were simply forgotten.
Since Michael had met the beautiful Mrs. Mervill, Freddy had noticed
that he had fits of abstraction, and that instead of working overtime,
as was his habit, he was now as prompt as the _fellahin_ to "down
tools" at the precise moment.
Freddy "had no use" for the woman. His practical mind had summed her
up at a glance. But he was afraid that his friend might drift into a
very undesirable friendship with her. She would enjoy his simplicity,
for he seemed to have been born without guile, while his intellectual
fascination was not to be denied. Michael was generous, impetuous and
reckless.
"I'm not going to disturb you," Freddy said. "We'll meet at lunch."
"Right-ho!" Michael said. "I've almost finished."
"Looks as if you'd blown the thing on to the paper this time," Freddy
said. "Gad, it's topping!"
Michael said nothing, but he glowed inwardly. A word of enthusiastic
praise from Freddy was worth all his morning's toil in the breathless,
stuffy tomb-chamber of the Pharaoh whose embalmed remains it contained.
Freddy returned to his hut and flung himself down in a cane
lounge-chair in as cool a spot as he could find. He picked up a French
novel and lit a cigarette.
Lying there, in his white flannels, reading _Marie Claire_, who would
have thought that he was one of the most able Egyptologists of the day,
of the younger school, or that he controlled so important a section of
the English School of Archaeology in Egypt?
Meanwhile the simple meal was being laid with a neatness and convention
which was a striking contrast to the wooden hut and scarcity of
furniture in the room. The Arab who was setting the table was a
perfect parlourmaid, a product of Freddy's teaching. The only thing
Freddy was proud of was his ability to train and make good servants.
Mohammed Ali's table-waiting really pleased him. He thought Meg would
approve of him. He was an intelligent lad and proud of his English
master, who seemed to think that telling a lie for the sake of being
polite or kind was really a sin. In fact, the Effendi was very rarely
cross, except when Mohammed forgot and told a lie. Sometimes it was
very hard to tell the truth when a lie would, he knew, make his master
happy. While he set the table he felt his master's eyes were on him,
even though he was reading a love story which was so beautiful that he
had seen, or thought he had seen, tears in the eyes of Effendi Amory,
when he was reading it the night before.
Teddy was not finding the beautiful story of the Frenchwoman go
interesting as Mohammed Ali imagined. He had allowed the days to pass,
with all their engrossing interest, without giving much thought to
Margaret's coming or what she would do with herself, or how her
presence would affect their daily life.
Now in a few hours she would be with them. This was, in fact, his last
meal alone with Mike. He had never bothered about the matter because
Meg was such a good sort and so jolly well able to amuse and look after
herself. The days had just passed, and now she was coming, Meg, who
was his best friend in the whole world, Meg who in his eyes had the
mind of a boy and the sympathy of a woman.
CHAPTER II
At five o'clock Michael Amory, true to his word, was down at the ferry,
awaiting the arrival of Margaret Lampton. The ferry-boat was pulling
across the Nile; he would soon be able to distinguish her. In all
probability no other Englishwoman would be crossing to the western bank
of the river at so late an hour. Tourists who came to visit the
Colossi of Memnon, whose song to the dawn never dies, or to "do" the
ruins of the Hundred-Gated city of Thebes, came much earlier in the day.
While the boat was drifting slowly across, Michael's eyes rested
lovingly on his surroundings. If the girl was appreciative of Nile
scenery, how greatly it must be impressing her!
Boats, like white birds with big crossed wings, flew past him on the
pale blue river. Heavy, flat-bottomed barges, coming up from the
pottery factories, laden with jars which were to be used for the
building of native houses, drifted past, with their well-stacked,
squarely-built cargoes piled high like stacks of grain. One barge,
with a wide brown sail, was full of fresh green melons. Across the
river, on the opposite bank, bands of women, enveloped in black and
walking in Indian file on the yellow sands, carrying water-jars on
their heads, were wending their way to their mud villages. The gleam
of their metal anklets caught the sunlight.
But the ferry-boat was drawing close to the bank; the next minute he
would be able to distinguish Freddy's sister, with Abdul in attendance.
The other passengers, with native politeness, were already making way
for the English Sitt and her servant to go ashore.
Michael hurried forward to greet her. Margaret's blue veil hid her
features until he was quite close to her.
"I'm Michael Amory, I live with your brother," Michael said. "I have
come to bring you to his camp. He was too busy, or he would have been
here himself--he asked me to apologize to you."
Margaret's long firm fingers gave Michael's outstretched hand a
grateful grasp. Michael, whose sensibilities were very near the
surface, lost nothing of the girl's meaning. A feeling of relief
soothed his anxiety.
"How awfully kind of you to come!" she said. "I knew Freddy would be
busy, digging up something that was once somebody, four thousand years
ago."
"That's about it," Michael said. "As I could be spared and he
couldn't, he asked me to look to your arrival and bring you to the
camp."
Abdul had hurried on to see that the donkeys were properly harnessed
and all in good order for the long ride across the plain and through
the immortal valley.
"Are you excavating too?" Margaret asked.
"I'm allowed to do a little 'picking' under your brother's eyes, but my
real job is painting. I'm only dabbling in archaeology as yet."
"Painting in connection with his School of Excavation?"
"Yes. Sometimes it is necessary to make almost instant copies of the
excavated paintings, while the colours are fresh and the text legible."
"Isn't it all awfully interesting?" the girl asked. "I feel almost
afraid to come in amongst you, for I know literally nothing about
Egyptology. I've only once been in the Egyptian section of the British
Museum, and that's the sum total of my knowledge."
"You will have to learn. Your brother put a huge tome of Maspero's
_The Dawn of Civilization_ in your room this morning; he means you to
start right away."
"Good old Freddy!" Margaret said, and as she smiled, Michael for the
first time saw her likeness to her brother; it had escaped him before,
because Freddy was very fair and Margaret was duskily dark. He could
see that even through her blue veil. When she smiled and showed the
same sharp-looking, well-formed teeth, as white as porcelain, Michael
knew that if the girl had only been fair instead of dark, she would be
almost the exact duplicate of her brother. But the expression of her
grey-brown eyes was different; they were steadfast, calm eyes, which
moved more slowly; they were softer than her brother's.
This Michael could scarcely see, screened as she was by her veil. But
her firm handshake and the long unflinching gaze of her "How do you
do?" told him why Freddy always spoke of his sister in tones which
implied that she was as reliable as a man and a "topping pal."
They had reached the spot where the donkeys were waiting for them.
Margaret's was a fine, well-bred animal, called Sappho, with a skin as
smooth as a white suede glove; it stood almost as high as a mule. Her
saddle, too, was a new one, and well-fitting--Freddy had seen to that.
The old Sheikh, who was turbanned and robed after the manner of Moses
or Aaron, was presented to her. His pale grey camel was waiting for
him at a little distance from the donkeys. It looked very dignified,
with its white sheepskin flung over the saddle and its fine assortment
of charms. Little tufts of thick hair had been left on its thighs and
at its knees and neck; the artist who had clipped it had evidently
admired the fancy shaving of some resplendent French poodle.
Margaret felt oddly important and very shy. Such a cavalcade seemed to
have come to meet her. Her attempt at polite rejoinders to the old
Sheikh's graceful and flattering speeches of welcome had all to be
passed through Abdul, and probably delivered them in a more gracious
form than Margaret was capable of expressing them. Abdul was quite
accustomed to the abrupt and mannerless ways of the foreigners and to
their crude speech; he knew that it meant no offence nor indicated any
lack of gratitude or graciousness.
The Sheikh expressed his willingness to put his camel at Margaret's
disposal, but as her brother had told him that the honourable Sitt
would probably prefer to ride a donkey, all he could do was to again
assure her that it would bestow honour on him if she would ride it, or
in the future make use of it whenever she felt disposed. That is what
Margaret made out of the endless, elaborate speeches which were
translated to her.
At last they were all mounted and on their way. Margaret found it very
difficult to keep up any sort of conversation with her companions, for
her boy, anxious to do honour to his mistress's donkey, kept Sappho
well ahead of Michael Amory's mule. She had only been one week in
Egypt, so everything which she passed was still an object of interest
and curiosity, but fortunately almost everything explained itself to
her, like the illustrations of a book of the Old Testament.
They had turned their backs on the river, with its boats and birds and
beasts and drum-beating and yelling _fellahin_, and were now in the
silence of the green plain, where the blue-shirted _fellahin_ were
working knee-deep in the new crops. The inundation was just over, and
the banks of the Nile were as bright as two long velvet ribbons of
emerald green.
And now they were off the plain and had passed the Temple of Kurneh and
the little Coptic village, which was the last link with civilization
until their long ride up the valley terminated in the Excavation Camp.
In the valley they rode side by side, for the donkey-boy's enthusiasm
had distinctly abated. Margaret did not know anything about the
valley, beyond the fact that it was called the Valley of the Tombs of
the Kings. She had not yet "done" any tombs, as she had not come up
the Nile by boat--it was cheaper and quicker for her to do the journey
from Cairo to Luxor by train. So far she had not been in the hands of
Cook. Freddy had told her that the money she would have to spend on
the steamer she could spend better later on, and she would be more able
to appreciate the tombs and temples, which most tourists see when they
know too little about things Egyptian to appreciate them.
Knowing nothing of the story of the great valley, it was interesting to
Michael to watch the effect it had on the girl--an extraordinary
silence and its atmosphere of profound mystery. Their attempt to talk
to each other soon failed, for Margaret was no good at either banter or
small talk.
For the time being the valley, with its barren cliffs rising higher and
higher on each side of her, and its world of soft pink light, held her.
The wide cliff-bound road, which wound its way like a white thread
through a maze of light and sun-pink hills, seemed to be leading her
further and further into the heart of Egypt, to the very bosom of her
children's ancient kingdom.
Margaret was totally ignorant of the fact that the tombs which give the
valley its modern name lay in all their desolate splendour in the
bowels of the earth, under the cliffs on either side of her. Her sense
of the valley was not mental, it was not derived from books or a
knowledge of Egypt's history.
Why it so affected her she could not imagine. It did not depress her
so much as it awed her. The light on the hills was the light of
happiness, and the blueness of the clear sky banished all idea of
sadness which a valley called the Valley of Tombs might have suggested.
Yet it did affect her so profoundly that she accepted the idea that in
entering this valley of desolation she was entering on a new phase of
her existence. She felt suddenly older and wiser and strangely
apprehensive.
The Sheikh, on his swaying camel, riding on ahead, the donkey-boys,
with their fleet limbs and blue shirts clinging to them as they ran,
were becoming immortal in her memory. Years would never efface the
picture. Only Michael Amory and herself, in their European clothes,
had no place in it. They were intruders.
Not a bird crossed their path, not a falcon circled over the tops of
the cliffs. On the Nile thousands of birds had looked black against
the sunlight as they came to the great river to drink.
"Why does this valley, with its pink sunlight, make talking out of the
question?" Margaret at last said. "Please forgive me if I am a very
poor companion."
Michael, who had been glad that she had not spoken--he would not have
liked her so well if she had--said, "Please don't feel compelled to
talk. I came to help you if you needed help, not to bother you or
spoil your enjoyment."
"Thank you," she said. "I simply couldn't talk. Does one enjoy
Egypt?" she asked the question pertinently.
They rode on in silence again and Michael was pleased that
temperamentally she seemed to "feel" Egypt. There had been no
suggestion of psychic influence in her very evident acceptance of the
power of Egypt--just a simple awe, which was to Michael absolutely
natural.
Presently she said, "Does my brother live all alone in this valley?"
"Practically alone, for some months in each year. I am with him just
now, and in the daytime there are the workmen. At night he is alone
with his two Sudanese house-servants; but he is well protected--his
watch-dogs sit round his hut and nothing human would dare venture near
them after dark."
Margaret tried to laugh. "Dogs!" she said. "Dogs couldn't keep off
this"--she indicated the valley.
Michael knew what she meant. Not a green blade of grass, not the
smallest patch of herb was visible. To Margaret they seemed to be
floating rather than riding through the pink light of another world.
"No, not this," Michael said. "But your brother's a marvel. I
couldn't do it. Yet even he has to leave it now and then; sometimes he
spends a night in frivolling in Luxor or Assuan."
As the vision of Luxor hotels, with their company of
fashionably-clothed and overfed tourists, rose up before the girl, she
laughed more naturally. But in the valley her laughter sounded wrong;
she quickly hushed it.
"Fancy Luxor hotels after this! It certainly is going to
extremes--personally, their society would bore me, but I should think
that it was good for Freddy."
"Quite necessary," Michael said. "And he's awfully popular at the
dances. I often wonder what some of his partners would say if they
could see him as I do, pick in hand, down in the bowels of the earth or
under the blazing sun of the desert, for days and days on end! Your
brother's quite wonderful."
"I'm longing to see him at work," Margaret said. "I think his life
sounds most exciting and interesting."
"Don't expect too much--it is amazingly interesting, but we don't open
a tomb of Queen Thi every day."
"What tomb was that? Something very special?"
"Yes, very." Michael said the words very simply, but it struck him as
odd that Freddy's sister should never have even heard of the tomb of
Queen Thi. "At the present time he has just unearthed a small
staircase in the sand and a bit of a brick wall, which may lead to the
tomb he is looking for, or they may end in nothing, for sometimes the
ancient tomb-builders began to dig and work upon a tomb and eventually
abandoned the site as hopeless--the sand was too soft, which meant the
constant falling of sand before they struck a foundation of rock, or
for some other reason--so after days and days of excavating we find
that the whole thing is a fraud, just the mere beginning of a tomb
which was never finished. Then other times he finds a tomb and after
endless work at it--you can't imagine how much work it entails--he
discovers that it was robbed of every single thing of value, probably
by the sexton who was in charge of it when it was first built--all the
jewels and scarabs and things had been looted; probably they were
stolen only a few weeks after the mummy was laid in it."
Margaret remained silent. She was thinking and thinking, new and
bewildering thoughts were rushing through her mind Before she could in
the least appreciate this new life what a lot she had to learn!
"An excavator's life isn't a bed of roses--it doesn't consist picking
up jewels and mummy-beads and beautiful amulets and rare scarabs and
valuable parchments in every tomb which is opened. It's hard, hard
work, with any amount of boring, minute detail and scientific work
attached to it."
Margaret thought for a moment. To speak at all upon a subject of which
she knew absolutely nothing was not in her nature.
"Shall we pass any tombs? Where are they?" She had expected to see
some ruins of fallen buildings, or monuments which resembled the tombs
in "The Street of Tombs" at Athens--these were familiar to her from
photographs. Here there was absolutely nothing, nothing to suggest
that great tombs had ever been there.
"They are below us," Michael said, "and all around us, under these pink
rocks, buried like coal-mines. Where your brother is digging just now
the site is rather different--it is flatter and less beautiful; it is
in a small side valley. They were terribly anxious to hide themselves,
poor things, to get away from robbers."
"Oh, I'm so glad I came!" Margaret said, irrelevantly, and the deep
sigh she gave terminated their conversation.
Michael knew quite well the nature of her thoughts and the turbulent
fight for expression which they must be causing her. No creature as
sensitively attuned as he judged her to be could journey for the first
time unmoved through the valley which to him summed up the word Egypt.
He allowed her to ride a few paces ahead, just behind the Sheikh. The
camel's arrogant head, with its supercilious gaze, towered above them.
To Margaret, Michael Amory and herself were still an offence in the
valley. The camel, with the high-seated, turbaned Sheikh, seemed a
part of the whole. The animal, with its prehistoric loneliness of
expression, the Sheikh, with his splendid deportment and benign
loftiness of manner, suited the dignity of their surroundings. The
camel's gaze, as its head reached up higher and higher to view some
object which interested its supercilious mind, made Margaret feel very
small and vulgarly modern. She was glad that she was riding a humble
ass. The way the Sheikh rode his haughty animal provoked her
admiration; it was to her after the manner in which the British
aristocracy treat their powdered and silk-stockinged menservants.
Margaret felt more at ease on her white donkey, just as she felt more
at ease with pleasant English maidservants than with pompous powdered
footmen. It was a ridiculous simile, but it is the ridiculous which
invades the mind in sublime moments.
While Margaret was finding pleasure in watching the camel and the
Sheikh, or rather, while they were taking their place in her mind with
the air and the sky and the hills and the valley, Michael was certainly
enjoying himself in a more definite criticism of Freddy's sister. He
remembered his friend's remark, "Oh, Meg's all right," and he knew what
he meant.
Her long limbs and boyish figure delighted his artistic eye, while the
white topee hat, with the long blue veil, failed to hide the attractive
carriage of her head. He felt impatient to see her unhatted and
unveiled. Certainly she was not dowdy, nor had she any aggressive
cleverness about her. Indeed, there was something which suggested a
man's directness of mind and a simplicity which was quite unusual and
fascinating. He could almost have laughed aloud when he thought of the
picture which he had conjured up to himself of the Meg who could
"tackle pretty stiff stuff and suck the guts out of a book like a
weasel sucking the blood out of a rabbit."
The dowdy "blue stocking" had vanished, and in her place was a girl as
attractive in her darkness as Freddy was in his fairness.
And so they rode on and on through the Theban hills, bathed in pink
sunlight. The donkey-boys had fallen behind. Their first enthusiastic
effort to show off before the honourable Sitt had quite subsided. They
were discussing her now, in none too delicate a fashion. The elder of
the two boys, who was the son of a dragoman, and hoped one day to
develop into as resplendent a being as his father, was in his way a
great reader. He had just finished an Arabic translation of a French
novel and he was picturing to his friends Margaret as the heroine of
the obscene romance. Poor Margaret!
In Egypt the Arabic translations of low-class French romances, rendered
even more unclean by their translation, have a poisonous effect upon
the minds of the youths who devour them. Margaret, who had admired the
boy's brilliant smiles and beautiful features and teeth, which were
even whiter and more attractive than her brother's, little dreamed, as
they tell behind and talked together, of the nature of their
conversation.
Their blue shirts looked like turquoise in the sunlight, and their
little white crochet skull-caps showed to advantage the fine outline of
their dark heads. They were certainly handsome young rascals, with an
inherited grace of manner.
How her clean, healthy mind would have abhorred and hated them if she
had understood their ceaseless chatter! It was like the noise of
starlings on a spring morning. In Egypt, where ignorance is bliss, it
is certainly folly to be wise. In the East, the inquiring mind,
especially in domestic matters, is often its own enemy.
To Margaret, Egypt held for the time being nothing which was unclean or
unlovely, nothing which was bettered by ignorance. She was lost in its
light and mystery. In the Theban valley it seemed as if she would live
on light, that it would supply food for both soul and body. In Egypt
God is made manifest in the sun.
CHAPTER III
Margaret had been shown over the "estate"; her modest luggage had been
deposited in her bedroom, in which she was now standing, with her arm
linked in her brother's.
When she had approved of everything and had told him about her journey,
she gave his arm a little hug.
"Oh, Freddy, it's good to be with you again! You were a brick to let
me come."
Freddy slid his arm round her shoulders and pressed her closer to him.
"It's topping having you, old girl, but you mustn't mind if I leave you
an awful lot alone--I can't help it."
"I know you can't, and if I stew up a bit, you may find work which I
can do. I'd love to help."
"Oh, don't fear--I'll find lots for you to do."
She looked at him eagerly, with a touching humility. "What sort of
work?"
"Cleaning and sorting out the small finds which the workmen bring in
each night, and you could help Mike to do some copying--it's not
difficult, and sometimes the colours vanish when they are exposed to
the light. He can't get the things done all at one time."
"I see," Margaret said, but in her mind there was a horrible jumble.
"Sometimes I want Mike to help me--we're awfully short of hands just
now--I mean, for hands that you can absolutely trust, so if you get
into the thing you could do some of Mike's work and let him off."
"I'd love to, and you know my capability as well as anyone, so if you
think I could I'll do my best."
"You'll soon know as much as Mike did when he came here, and your
painting's all right."
"How nice Mike is!" she said simply.
"He's one of the best."
"Is he going to make Egyptology his profession?"
"I don't know--I don't think so. I'm afraid it's just another bit of
Mike's drifting."
"What a pity!" Margaret was practical.
"I tell him it's time lost--at his age he ought to be at the job he
means to succeed in."
"Isn't he taking this up in earnest? He seems to love the life."
"He does love the thing, but the detail of the work, with all its
exactitude and rules and regulations, bores him. You'll understand
better later on." Freddy opened a copy of the annual report of the
British School of Archaeology in Egypt and pointed to pages and pages
of written records, outline drawings, measurements and diagrams and
plans of tombs and excavations, even accurate copies of small pieces of
broken vases and plates and jars--almost everything which had been dug
up was carefully recorded; nothing seemed too small or incomplete to be
of value.
Margaret looked at it wonderingly. What was all the labour for? Some
day would she, too, understand the meaning of it and the use of such
scraps and atoms of ancient pottery? Freddy digging out beautiful
objects for the British Museum, statues and scarabs, wonderful jewels
and necklaces of mummy-beads, was what she had visualized, but of all
this she had never dreamed.
She put her finger on the outline drawing of a small fragment of
pottery with the tracing of a tiny sprig of some plant on it. Her eyes
said "What good can that be?"
Freddy read her meaning. "That small piece of pottery may have shown
that foreign vegetation was introduced into the district. It is a new
leaf, not met with before. It was probably sent for identification to
the Botanical Department of University College in London. Sometimes
little things like that give rise to heated discussions and theories.
Some excavators won't draw on their imagination--they will have nothing
but hard facts; others start a theory which sounds far-fetched--often
it comes out correct."
"Realistic and Imaginative Schools!"
"That's about it. The middle way is generally the soundest. The
excavator without imagination never gets very far, whereas the man who
is apt to let his imagination run wild gets on the wrong track and it's
hard to get him off; he overlooks things that won't fit in with his
theory."
"I had no idea archaeology involved all this--you're awfully clever,
old boy."
"It's unending work and extraordinarily far-reaching, as it's done
to-day. In the early days the horrors that were committed in the way
of excavating were too awful."
"You work like detectives now, it seems to me, following up the
smallest threads and links."
"That's it," Freddy said. "We are just a body of intellectual
detectives, running to earth the history of Egypt and the story of the
ancient world. We're really far more interested in finding connecting
links and establishing disputed facts, than in unearthing statues and
figures which please the public. Egyptologists have unearthed the
private lives of Egypt's kings and queens."
"I suppose your friend Mike only enters into the artistic side of it?"
"Not altogether--he's awfully keen about Egyptian history and
mythology, but he hates detail too much to give his mind and time to
all the hard grind of the thing--he likes to study the history we
unearth."
"I'm afraid I shall be like him. I want to enjoy the results without
the dull labour of digging."
"It's a sort of thing that's born in you, I think."
"You love it, Freddy?"
"Rather! I couldn't stick any other work now."
"You're looking awfully well."
"Never felt fitter."
"The skulls and mummies under your bed haven't done you any harm. Poor
aunt Anna, how she dreads them! She always imagines that everything
Egyptian has the most malign powers. She's sure some mummy will take
its revenge on you for disturbing it."
"Poor old Anna! I suppose she thinks we are the first people who ever
thought of disturbing these tombs! She little knows how rare a thing
it is to come across one which was not robbed thousands of years ago of
all that was worth having. If Egyptian amulets and mummies had such
terrible powers, you may be very sure that the modern Arabs, who are
the most superstitious people in the world, would not touch the work,
and the ancient sextons or guardians of the tombs, who were even more
superstitious, wouldn't have dared to disturb the last slumber of a
lately-buried Pharaoh. They plundered and sacked the tomb just as soon
as ever they could. The tombs were first built up in this valley with
the hopes of hiding them; they were built here to get away from the
wretches who plundered the cemeteries on the plains. I suppose the
Pharaohs who were having their tombs built hadn't discovered that the
other tombs had been robbed by the very guardians who were set to watch
them. It was left for us to discover that."
"Was that so? It certainly does not look like a valley of tombs."
"They were hidden with all the cunning which the Eastern mind could
devise, and yet most of them have been robbed."
They had left the house and were sitting on lounge chairs in the front
of the hut. There was a beautiful moon and a sky full of stars, such
as Margaret had never seen before.
"Come on, Mike!" Freddy called out. "Don't make yourself scarce. Meg
and I don't want to discuss family secrets. Her first night in the
valley is going to be the real thing--no intrusion of family
skeletons--they can wait."
"Our family skeletons would feel themselves very out of place here,"
Margaret said as Michael Amory appeared.
Michael sat down beside her and very soon all three were talking about
topics of general interest. Meg gave them the latest London gossip,
which at the time was very dominated by the unrest in Ireland and the
Ulster scandals.
Michael, who had on one side of his family Irish blood and strong Irish
sentiments, did not voice his opinions. He listened to all that
Margaret had to tell her brother, news principally gathered from
friends living in Ulster and from the violently anti-Nationalist press.
There certainly seemed exciting times in Ireland and Margaret's talk
was unprejudiced and interesting.
While they were talking Mike was able to enjoy the girl's beauty and
study her individuality. Pretty as she was--and more than pretty--it
was her personality which pleased him--the bigness of her nature, the
evidence of her wide-mindedness and her quick grasp of fresh subjects,
and above all, in her, as in Freddy, there was the ring of
unquestionable honour and clean-mindedness.
Margaret under the Eastern moonlight was charming. Her brown hair was
so soft and thick that Mike would have liked to put his hand through
it, as he saw her do every now and then. Most women, he knew, were shy
of disturbing their hair, however naturally arranged it might seem.
Margaret, when anything excited her, had a trick of putting her long
fingers through her hair, upwards from her forehead, and letting it
fall down again as it felt inclined. Her nicety of dress, too, pleased
her critical inspector. It was fastidiously simple and fastidiously
worn. In this again she was one with her brother.
When English news had been discussed, their talk turned again to Egypt.
Margaret greatly desired to study Arabic; but although her brother
could speak it extremely well, she knew that he had no time to teach
her. It amazed her how much he had had to learn and had learned during
his years in Egypt. It was after twelve o'clock when the trio parted
for the night.
When Meg was alone in her room, a certain reaction set in; she felt
tired and just a little depressed. She wanted to do so much and she
knew so little. Beyond the name Rameses she had not recognized the
name of one of the kings her brother had mentioned during their
conversation that evening--indeed, she had failed to grasp the meaning
of almost everything he had said, and yet she knew that he was talking
down to her level, or thought he was.
Bewildered with the sense of Egypt, she fell asleep and dreamed of the
valley and her wonderful ride.
CHAPTER IV
Margaret had lived in the valley for a little over three weeks,
immortal weeks of intense interest and new impressions. She had fitted
herself into the atmosphere with a charm and adaptability which left
Michael and Freddy wondering how they had ever got on without her. A
woman in the hut made all the difference; a feeling of "homeness" now
pervaded the camp. Margaret had found so much to do in the way of
adding obvious touches of comfort and convenience to the hut and to the
tents that she had found little or no time to start upon her studies of
Egyptology.
The moonlight nights she had spent either in the company of her brother
or Michael, wandering about the valley, or sitting alone outside their
primitive home, absorbing the spirit of the desert. She had not felt
ready for book-learning.
One evening, after dinner, Michael and she had ridden down the valley
and back again, repeating her first journey, so that she might enjoy it
by moonlight.
The three weeks had done a great deal to help her to distinguish some
of the periods and terms in connection with her brother's work. The
word Coptic, for instance, had now its proper significance in her mind,
and the terms dynasty and century were no longer jumbled hopelessly
together. She also realized that Egypt had been governed by kings and
queens with strong individualities of their own; they were not all
spoken of by Egyptologists as "Pharaohs," a word which hitherto had
suggested to Margaret the title given to the hosts of nameless and half
legendary monarchs who ruled over a semi-Biblical kingdom.
Thus far and no further had she gone in the story of the world's first
civilization; but she had gone further in her friendship with Michael
Amory and in her knowledge of things Mohammedan. He had helped her to
unravel the skein of difficulties which Egypt's three distinct and
widely-different civilizations had presented to her--the period of
ancient Egypt, the period which we now call Coptic or Early Christian
and the period of the Arab invasion, with its importation of a
Mohammedan civilization. Traces of all these distinct civilizations
and religions perpetually come to light in the work of excavation.
Nothing puzzled the girl more than the fact that while digging on an
ancient Egyptian site, her brother seemed to find Christian and
Mohammedan relics. But even when he was speaking of interesting events
in comparatively modern Egyptian history, which he took for granted she
would appreciate and understand, Margaret felt disgracefully ignorant.
So Michael took her in hand and he thoroughly enjoyed the work of
helping her to grasp some of the essential points which would clear her
mind before she started upon her serious reading. She had begun taking
lessons in Arabic with Michael who could speak it fluently but could
neither read nor write it, the written and spoken language being
entirely different.
Margaret's quickness astonished him. He was ignorant of her record at
college.
He was now having an example of her capacity for learning which she did
at a pace which rather unnerved him. Margaret learnt a language as she
learned the geography of a city. She would quietly and composedly
study a map until the "sense" of the city was in her brain. In
beginning her study of Arabic she explained to her brother that she
must first of all try to grasp the "sense" of the language.
"I want a map of it, Freddy--you know what I mean."
And Freddy did know. The Lampton type of brain was familiar to him,
and his own method of absorbing languages, or any of the subjects which
he had had to study for his examinations, was exactly similar to
Margaret's, so he set Michael and their Arabic master on the right
track.
As a rule, the Arabic alphabet takes a student about three weeks to
learn. Margaret, with apparently very little trouble, mastered it in
one; it took Michael almost a month. Yet Margaret knew that she was
not grasping things with any ease or quickness; she felt too unsettled
and impatient. She was "dying," as she expressed it, to push on with
Arabic so as to be able to talk to the natives and understand things
Mohammedan, but the very fact that Arabic was not going to help her to
read Egyptian hieroglyphics, or understand anything at all about
ancient Egypt, acted as an irritant to her brain, and retarded her
working powers.
"And when my brain is annoyed, or it feels impatient," she said, "bang
goes my poor intelligence--it simply won't be hurried; it will only
work in its own deliberate way."
Michael declared that the way it was working was good enough for
him--rather too good, in fact.
Under such circumstances, the intimacy between Margaret and her
brother's best friend naturally ripened very quickly. Margaret felt as
though she had known him for months instead of weeks, and more than
once she had wondered what life would be like without him. He was much
more imaginative than Freddy and more intellectually excitable and
curious. He theorized and perhaps romanced where Freddy was apt to
accept only proven facts. Michael's temperament was the exact
stimulant which Margaret's brain required.
That Michael did his share of hard work Margaret had realized when she
accompanied him one day to the scene of his labours. She had had to
bend almost double and crawl down a steep shaft, of slippery, sliding
debris, to what she thought must be halfway through the world, and pick
her way over the rubbish in a semi-excavated chamber in the vast tomb.
Some of the chambers were full of huge stones, which had fallen in with
the roof. It was in a smaller chamber, where the heat was so great
that she could scarcely breathe, that Michael spent his mornings and
the greater part of his afternoons.
The heat of Egypt, concentrated for centuries and centuries, seemed to
scorch Margaret's face when she entered it. The building was like a
temple with side chapels. In one side chapel Michael sat himself down
to copy a wide band of gaily-painted decorations, which formed a dado
round its three walls.
* * * * * *
On this particular night Margaret had returned from a long walk with
Michael. They had left the low level of the valley and its winding
white road and had climbed up on to the heights of the Sahara. It had
pleased Margaret to feel that her feet were pressing the sands of the
great African desert. She had never dreamed that their valley was
actually a rift in the rocks of the Sahara, that ocean of sand which
travels on and on to infinity.
They had stood side by side on its high ridge, with their eyes looking
towards the plain below, the historic plain which once held the capital
of the world. The plain of Thebes reached to the river, and across the
river lay gay Luxor, with its lights and the luxuries of modern
civilization.
Their walk was finished. It had drawn them still closer together. The
solitude of the Sahara, with its sense of Divinity, had established a
new link in their sympathies; it had created a feeling between them
similar to that which is the outcome of two people having been together
through strenuous and trying circumstances. They had, as usual, spoken
very little; yet they were conscious of having enjoyed each other's
society intensely and in the best possible manner, the enjoyment of
complete understanding.
Earlier in the evening, when Michael asked her to go for a walk,
because Freddy was absorbed in some business letters, he had made the
proposal in his habitual way.
"May I come and keep silence with you to-night in the great Sahara?"
And Meg had said, "Yes, do. You know, we really talk to each other all
the time--my mind has so much more the gift of speech than my tongue."
And so their silence had been as golden as the sand at their feet,
which under Egypt's moon never pales.
Freddy was only too glad that Michael had "cottoned on to Meg," as he
expressed it--in fact, he was extremely pleased, for Meg would drive
"the other woman" out of his thoughts, and if anything should come of
it--well, Mike was one of the very best; Meg could not have a better
husband.
But so far no such thought had entered Mike's head, nor yet Margaret's.
She was too interested and busy in her new life to think of love; she
was only conscious of living as she had never lived before, and as she
would have asked to live if she had possessed a wishing-ring. Every
hour and minute of her days were a delight. To be with her best "pal"
Freddy in Egypt seemed too good to be true, and added to that, there
was this unexpected pleasure, the friendship and companionship of the
nicest man she had ever met. His rather "drifting" temperament and
nature appealed to her as it appealed to Freddy, for the very reason,
perhaps, that keenly sensitive as she was and susceptible to her
surroundings, her nature and brains were of a practical order. She was
not imaginative or moody.
She loved to listen to Michael's vivid, unpractical, Utopian theories
and to follow him to where his flashes of brilliance carried him. His
dream cities and dream people delighted Margaret. He told her stories
as she had never been told stories before, invented as he went along,
stories which kept her one minute fighting against tears and the next
in delicious laughter.
Margaret never could tell stories, not even to little children; she was
not gifted with a creative brain or ingenuity.
On the heights of the Sahara they, had not broken the silence; it was
only on their return journey, under a canopy of southern stars, that
Margaret had said:
"A short story, please."
And Michael had told her a story about a certain king of Egypt who had
a beautiful slave, who had such power over him that she could make him
do anything she liked. The things she liked were more fantastic than
anything Margaret had ever read in _The Arabian Nights_.
CHAPTER V
Now, on her lounge-chair in front of the hut, Margaret was resting
after their walk. Freddy and Michael were both indoors.
Half an hour or perhaps more might have passed, when suddenly a
luminous figure stood in front of her. She had not seen its approach;
it was simply there before her, just as if it had taken form out of the
desert air.
She recognized that it was the figure of an Egyptian Pharaoh or a high
priest--she could not tell which. It wore the short kilt-like garment
and the high head-dress, with a serpent's head sticking out from the
front of it (the double crown of North and South Egypt, though Margaret
did not know it at the time) which had become familiar to her in the
pictures of ancient Egyptian kings. She had seen many such figures in
her brother's books and in the mural paintings of the tombs.
As Margaret looked with amazement--certainly not fear--at the face of
the strange apparition in front of her, she thought that it was the
saddest she had ever seen. In the eyes there was a world of suffering
and sorrow.
She felt conscious of being awake; the moon and the stars were above
her; they surrounded the luminous figure. Her brain struggled for
intelligence. Was this the spirit of some great king of Egypt, or of a
high priest, or what was it? Was it an optical delusion? If it was a
spirit, why had it come to her?
"Tell me who you are," she said. "Do you want anything?" She spoke
nervously, not expecting an answer.
"I once ruled over Egypt, and I return to see what my people are doing,
if the seed I sowed has borne fruit."
"In this, valley there are no people--it is a valley of the dead."
"My body was brought to my mother's tomb in this valley."
The voice was so sad that Margaret said:
"You are in trouble? You cannot rest? Is that why your spirit has
returned to earth?"
"My spirit is with Aton, the master of that which is ordained. I have
come to deliver a message; it is for you."
"For me?" Margaret said. "I know nothing at all about Egypt."
"That is not necessary. Aton's love is great and large. It filled the
two lands of Egypt; it fills the world to-day."
"But I am ignorant. You think I understand--I don't. . . . I can do
nothing."
The sad eyes in the emaciated face, the face of a saint and fanatic,
smiled at her fears so tenderly that Margaret's heart was less troubled.
"You can tell the one who is to do my work, the one who knows and loves
Aton, Aton--the compassionate, the all-Merciful. Tell him that I bid
him take up my work."
"Your work?" Margaret said. "You were a king of ancient Egypt. . . .
You speak as if you had worshipped our God . . . there is no one who
can do your work . . ." She paused, and then said nervously, "Egypt is
different now--it cannot go back."
"Egypt must go on, not back. Nothing is different in the heart of man;
your soul is as my soul. Aton liveth for ever in his children. He
filleth the two lands of Egypt with his love. I was his messenger."
"But who was Aton?" Margaret said. In her mind she was striving to
recall if she had ever heard any references to the worship of one god
in Egypt, except by the children of Israel.
"The one who is to do my work will tell you. He has studied my
teachings, he understands the love of Aton, whose rays encompass the
world."
"Thank you," Margaret said. "I will tell him." She knew instinctively
that it was Michael who "understood."
"He knows my work and my desire for the people of Egypt. He knows that
my people worship one God, but that they have no love of God in their
hearts."
As the figure moved, it became less distinct. Margaret said: "Is that
all I am to tell him? Are you going away?" She felt distressed; she
knew not why.
"I will return. Give him my message."
"That he is to continue your work in Egypt?"
"That he is to teach my people the love and the goodness of Aton, that
his mercy is everlasting."
"Tell me, before you go, who is Aton?"
"You ask, as people asked of a Messenger of God who followed after me
in my distant kingdom of Syria. Did He not answer them: 'Who are those
that draw us to the Kingdom of Heaven? The fowls of the air, and all
the beasts that are under the earth and upon the earth, and the fishes
in the sea, these are they which draw you, and the Kingdom of Heaven is
within you.'"
"And will he understand if I tell him your words? I am quite ignorant
of your teachings."
"He will understand because he has studied my teachings. He knows how
fair of form was the formless Aton, how radiant of colour. He knows
that the Kingdom which is Heaven is within us. In loving the world and
the beauty of the world which is Aton's he knows my commandments."
As Margaret was about to ask why he had not appeared to Michael
himself, for she had no doubt that it was upon him that the mission was
laid, the vision disappeared and she was left alone, under the clear
skies, gazing out over the valley which lay spread before her, in its
eternal stillness. She could hear the sound of her last words
vibrating in the air. There was not a sign of any living thing near
her; only in the distance she could hear the barking of the jackals, a
desert sound to which she had already grown so accustomed as to
scarcely notice it.
That she had been wide awake she was convinced; she did not feel as
though she had been asleep. As she tried to visualize the vanished
figure and to repeat to herself the words, which she must either have
imagined or heard, Michael came out and offered her a cigarette.
"Who were you talking to?" he said. "Freddy and I thought we heard
your voice."
"Michael," she said eagerly, "what time is it? Have I been asleep?
Have I been here long?"
She spoke anxiously, impatiently.
"How can I tell if you have been asleep?" he said, laughingly. "As to
the time, it's about eleven o'clock. Do you often talk in your sleep?"
"Sit down beside me," she said urgently, "and let me tell you what has
happened. If I have been asleep, I have dreamed it; if I was awake, I
have experienced a very extraordinary thing, the moat extraordinary
thing you can imagine!"
Michael threw himself down on the ground at her feet.
"While I was sitting here, and, as I thought, wide awake, thinking over
our walk in the Sahara and about your story and enjoying the moon and
the stars, quite suddenly a figure appeared. I was awfully startled,
and yet not frightened."
"What sort of a figure? One of the house-boys pretending to be a
spook?"
"No, no house-boy. If I tell you, don't laugh, for even if it was only
a dream--which, of course, it must have been--it was very beautiful and
solemn."
Now that Margaret was talking to someone about it, the incredibility of
the incident seemed much stronger. "It was probably a dream," she said
humbly. "All the same, don't make fun of it."
"I won't laugh," he said. "You know I never laugh at such things. I
believe in visions--if you like to call these visitations visions."
"But the odd thing is that the figure was exactly like the picture of
an Egyptian Pharaoh--that's why it now seems absurd--only his face was
not like the proud, arrogant faces of the Egyptian kings one sees in
pictures--fighting kings. It was more like the face of a suffering
Christ, the saddest face I ever saw, or ever will see again. Oh, those
eyes!" Margaret shivered, and paused.
"Please go on," Michael said. His voice encouraged her.
"I can't remember exactly what he said . . . it's all slipping away.
He spoke of some character of which I never heard; he said beautiful
things--I wish I could recollect the exact words he used."
"Then he spoke to you?" Michael's voice was low, intense.
"Yes, he spoke. He gave me a message for you."
"For me?" Michael said passionately. "For me? How do you know it was
for me?"
Margaret trembled as she spoke. "How do I know it was for you?" She
paused. "I do know--or, at least, I never doubted while the figure was
here. Now it seems foolish--it must all have been a dream."
"No, go on. I want to hear everything."
"He said I was to tell you that you were to carry on his work in the
world, he said that you would understand." She paused. "If it was
you, you will understand, because he said you had read his teachings
and believed in them. Does that convey anything?"
"Yes, yes. Go on--what else?" Michael's voice trembled with
impatience.
"There was one word he used which I have forgotten . . . and it meant
everything. I wish I could remember it! It's a name I never heard
before."
"Think," Michael said, "do try to think--it may come to you." Margaret
noticed that he was trying to hide his excitement; he was more nervous
than she was.
"He spoke of someone as God, and said beautiful things about Him . . .
this God, of everlasting mercy . . . those were his words. . . . Oh, I
remember the name!" she cried. "It was Aton--it seemed to be the name
of his God. He spoke of Aton as St. Francis spoke of Christ. Aton was
in the birds and fishes and flowers and in the cool streams."
Michael turned round and grasped Margaret's hand. He was trembling
with excitement; he could hide it no longer.
"It was Akhnaton! Oh, Meg, how wonderful! Tell me everything . . .
the spirit of Akhnaton!"
"But who was Akhnaton? I am in the dark. He said he was Aton's
messenger."
"First tell me all you can remember."
Margaret tried to recall everything that the Pharaoh had said to her.
His exact words she could not repeat, but their essence she contrived
to convey quite clearly to the listening Michael.
"Akhnaton," he kept murmuring. "It must be Akhnaton . . . a message to
me through you!"
One sentence she was able to repeat almost word for word. "Who are
those that draw us to the Kingdom of Heaven? The fowls of the air and
all the beasts that are under the earth and upon the earth, and fishes
in the sea, these are they which draw you, and the Kingdom of Heaven is
within you."
Michael had unconsciously drawn closer to her as she spoke. She heard
him say, with a sigh of intense satisfaction, "His very teachings,
Christ's own words!"
"Tell me as exactly as you can what he was like."
Margaret closed her eyes to bring back a picture of the vision, the
wonderful figure, luminous and bright.
"His sadness is what I remember most plainly. I had thought that all
the Pharaohs were proud, hard warrior kings, with no pity in their
hearts. This king's face spoke of the suffering of Christ, of a man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief. His sorrow seemed to be for
humanity, for our sins, not the sorrow of a man who had known only
personal unhappiness."
Michael said nothing; he was too deeply moved.
"As I told you," Margaret continued, "he had a very strangely-shaped
head, more curiously-shaped than I can describe--very long and sloping
upwards to the back. He wore a high head-dress which seemed too heavy
for his slender neck. Coming from behind it there were bright rays,
just like rays of the sun--I have never seen anything like them in any
picture . . . oh, it must have been a dream! It all sounds quite
absurd." Margaret's trembling voice belied her words.
"Akhnaton!" Michael cried excitedly. "Now there can be no doubt. Oh,
Meg!" He had unconsciously been using Freddy's pet-name for her, his
hand sought hers sympathetically.
Margaret prized the word "Meg" as it came affectionately from his lips.
"Meg, it is all too wonderful!"
Michael said no more; he had buried his face in his two hands. He
would have given his youth to have seen what Margaret had seen.
"Then you don't think it was a dream?"
"How could you have dreamed the very appearance of Akhnaton, or dreamed
his personality, when you have never heard of him?"
"I suppose I couldn't," she said. "But was Akhnaton unlike any other
Pharaoh of Egypt?"
"As unlike as St. Francis was to Nero."
A sudden idea came to Margaret. "But," she said, "he spoke to me in
English, in my own language. If it was really the spirit of Akhnaton,
how could he?"
"Dear Meg, there are more things in divine philosophy than are dreamed
of by you or me. In what language did Our Saviour speak to St.
Francis, who was an Italian, and to St. Catherine?"
"That is true," Margaret said, in a changed tone. "Will you tell me
all about this Pharaoh?"
Michael thought before answering her question, and then he said, "I'd
rather not, not yet."
"But why?"
"Because I don't want to put any ideas into your head. All this has
come perfectly naturally, and through a modern who was totally ignorant
of the message she was conveying. If you were to receive another
message, if you ever were to see Akhnaton again, and you knew all about
him, it would not be the same thing."
"Oh," Margaret said quickly, "I forgot--he said as he disappeared, 'I
will return.'" She gave a deep-drawn sigh and said nervously, "Do you
think he will?"
"Will you be afraid? Were you afraid?" Michael's arm had slipped
almost round her shoulders. It was a moment when close human contact
came very graciously to the girl.
"Afraid? No, he was too gentle, too sad--there was absolutely nothing
to be afraid of. I didn't stop to think of the supernaturalness of the
vision--I was much too interested. If it was a ghost, I shall never be
afraid of ghosts again."
Michael shivered.
Meg looked at him. She had hurt him; she felt a slight shrinking in
his sympathy.
"Don't speak of ghosts, Meg--I hate the term, with all its cheapness
and irreverence!"
"Then you believe in visions? You are convinced that I have not
dreamed all this?"
"If it had been Freddy who had told me, I should have said that he had
been asleep and dreamed it, because he knows all about Akhnaton. We
are constantly discussing his character, a character I admire much more
than he does. But as it was you who saw him and you who have described
him as accurately as if you had his portrait in front of you, I feel
certain it was not a dream."
Meg remained silent, while her thoughts worked with a new and amazing
rapidity. In Egypt she felt that anything was possible; the
supernatural might very soon become natural. And certainly the face
which she had seen was so unlike the types of the conventional figures
of the Egyptian kings she would have visualized if she had tried her
best to picture one from imagination, that she began to wonder if
Michael was right in his assumption that she had actually seen and been
in communication with the spirit of Akhnaton.
"But why should he have chosen me, this great Pharaoh?" she said.
"Modern me, with no knowledge whatsoever of his kingdom or his beliefs!"
"Ah, why?" Michael said. "Have we ever been told why Mary was chosen
to be the Mother of Jesus, the Divine Man Who taught the world what
Akhnaton tried to teach his people thirteen hundred years before His
coming--that the Kingdom of God is within us? Who can tell the manner
or the means by which God works? Not half, or a quarter, of the
Christian world knows, Meg, how often God speaks to them through
mysterious channels--through spirits, if you like. When people are
inspired to do good works, to lead what the material world calls holy
lives, God has spoken to them, the God Who is within them, the God Who
brought you and me together, Meg, to enjoy this valley. Its emptiness
and stillness is full of God. Don't you feel that its beauty and
solitude are due to His presence?"
Meg shivered. "I know what you mean."
"Don't be nervous. It is a great privilege, this sense of the divine,
this beautiful closeness to God, this cutting off of our material
selves, this knowledge of our Kingdom of Heaven within us."
"I am far more earth-tied than you, Mike. I do feel these things, but
more feebly, less convincingly. I have never thought much about them.
We Lamptons are very practical; all our men have led good, clean,
straightforward lives, and our women have not made bad wives and
mothers, but I don't think we have been idealists, or very religious.
Our sense of honour more than our beliefs has kept us straight."
"Poor, poor Akhnaton!" Michael said. His thoughts had strayed while
Margaret spoke.
"Why do you say 'Poor Akhnaton?' Why was he so sad?"
Michael evaded the question by saying, "We won't speak of this to
anyone, if you don't mind. Let it be just between you and me."
Margaret hesitated for a moment. There was something stirring and
pleasurable to her emotions in the idea of having a secret with
Michael; it was like possessing a part of him all to herself; yet she
shrank from keeping back anything from Freddy. Even this dream--if it
was only a dream--she would naturally have told to him, because it held
such a wonderful idea; it would have interested him. It was
interesting from the scientific point of view, the fact that she should
have been able to project her unconscious brain into the history which
she was going to study and accurately visualize and create for herself
the personality and teachings of a Pharaoh of whom she had never heard.
If it had been the great Rameses, or any Biblical character who in
later years entered into Egyptian history, it would have meant less,
for already the personality of the great builder-king of Egypt was
known to her, by the frequency with which she had heard the expression
"Rameses the Great." But of the heretic Pharaoh she had never heard.
"Do you mind not mentioning it even to your brother?" Mike said. "If
he was not in sympathy with my belief that it was not a dream, he might
unconsciously affect you--he would probably tell you much that I would
rather you didn't know until we find out more."
Margaret gave her promise willingly. Michael's reason seemed to her
such a justifiable one that their secret might be kept even from Freddy.
Presently Freddy shouted out, "I'm off to bed, Meg--kick Mike out and
go to yours--you've had a long day."
As Mike said good-night, Margaret noticed how strained and grave he
was. "Don't look so serious!" She tried to speak lightly. "To-morrow
we shall both say that it was all a dream. Fancy an Egyptian Pharaoh
rising out of his tomb below the hills to speak to me! I'm not going
to think of it any more--I'll send myself to sleep by trying to say the
Arabic alphabet backwards."
Michael did not look any the less grave. "He was brought to the
valley," he said, "to his mother's tomb, and I don't suppose that I am
the first person to receive a message from him--perhaps the first
European, but then, I love his teachings. They have not been known
very long."
"He said he had come to see what his people were doing. Do you really
think he has given this message to others?"
"Why not?--in another manner. These holy men in Egypt who feel
compelled to give up their lives to preaching and praying, and who
travel from desert-town to desert-town, calling on the people to
worship the one and only God--who knows what the manner of their call
was, or how God came to them?"
"Then you think that God came to-night, in this valley, in the form of
Akhnaton, to you through me?"
"I certainly do. Akhnaton, like Christ, became divine. We could all
be divine if we allowed ourselves to be."
"Good-night," Meg said, for Freddy was shouting again. "It's late, and
I'm afraid I am too matter-of-fact and far too materialistic to follow
your ideas and beliefs."
"I wish I followed what I believe," Mike said. "On a night like this
you can't help believing that God is in the yellow sand and in the blue
sky and in the beautiful stillness. He is in you and me and around us.
The hills look very holy, don't they? But to-morrow it will be so easy
to forget, to take everything for granted, or to behave as if chance
had produced God's world." He held her hand for one moment longer than
was necessary. "One is so closely in touch with the beauty of God
here, Meg. In busy Luxor or Cairo, or in any city, material things are
the things that matter. God is forgotten, set aside . . . man's
ingenuity is so much more obvious."
"I know," Meg said. "Do you wonder at hermits and saints?" She smiled
a beautiful "Good-night."
When she was alone in her room, she opened Maspero's _Dawn of
Civilization_, which Freddy had placed there for her. She turned over
its pages idly. "I wonder if I should find anything about Akhnaton
here," she said, "or if this is too early history?"
Suddenly she closed the book. "No, I won't--I will keep my promise. I
won't read anything about him."
She paused and thought for a few moments: her brain was too active for
sleep, her nerves too much on edge, so instead of reading about
Akhnaton, who is known in history as Amenhotep IV., the heretic
Pharaoh, she knelt down and prayed to his God, beginning with the old
familiar words, "Our Father, which art in heaven," for He is the same
God yesterday, to-day and for ever, the God of whom Akhnaton said, "He
makes the young sheep to dance upon their hind legs, and the birds to
flutter in the marshes," and as a modern writer said of Him, "The God
of the simple pleasures of life, Whose symbol was the sun's disc, just
as it was the symbol of Christianity. There dropped not a sigh from
the lips of a babe that the intangible Aton did not hear; no lamb
bleated for its mother but the remote Aton hastened to soothe it. He
was the living father and mother of all that He had made. He was the
Lord of Love. He was the tender nurse who creates the man-child in
woman, and soothes him that he may not weep." [1]
This was the God Margaret prayed to, not knowing that it was Aton, the
God whom Akhnaton first taught the world to praise, the God for whom
Akhnaton thought his kingdom well lost. He was Margaret's God, as He
is our God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob,
the God Who revealed Himself to His chosen people in the form of Jesus
Christ.
One thousand three hundred years elapsed between the mission of
Akhnaton and the mission of Jesus Christ. Still another one thousand
and nine hundred years were to elapse before the world was to know that
there was a king in Egypt, the land of the crocodile-god and the
cat-god, Egypt, a very Pantheon of animal-headed gods, to whom God
revealed Himself as he revealed Himself to Christ, a God of Love, a God
of Tenderness and of Mercy--"The master of that which is ordained."
[1] Weigall's _Akhnaton_, Pharaoh of Egypt.
CHAPTER VI
The next day Freddy announced at breakfast, which was a typically
English meal--except for the excellence of the coffee--that there was
to be a very extra-special ball the next night at the Cataract Hotel at
Assuan.
"Would you like to go to it, Meg?" he asked. "I think you'd enjoy
it--I can guarantee you plenty of partners."
"Would you go to it if I wasn't here?" Meg asked tentatively. The old
Meg in her thrilled at the idea of dancing on a good floor with good
partners. Freddy had told her of Michael's record as a dancer, so she
knew that she could count on two partners, at least, for Freddy and she
had learnt dancing together, and had enjoyed nothing better than
waltzing with each other.
"Yes, I thought of going," Freddy said. "I can leave everything all
right here, and it's about time we had a day off." He turned to
Michael. "Carruthers is coming to see me. He wants to stay the night,
so that's all right." Carruthers was a fellow-excavator attached to a
camp at Memphis.
"Then I'd love to go," Meg said. "I haven't danced for ages, but I
left my 'gay rags' at Luxor."
"I'll send Abdul for them," Freddy said, "and you can go to Assuan
early to-morrow and get your traps in order. I don't want a fright,
mind--the tourists dress like anything."
Meg laughed. "I'll do my best, but don't expect too much of travelled
garments."
While she was speaking quite naturally and with genuine interest about
the ball, a vision was forming itself before her eyes, her visitor of
the night before; the dark sad eyes and the emaciated face of the
heretic Pharaoh became extraordinarily clear. It usurped her mind so
completely that she found it difficult to pay attention to the subject
which she was discussing.
She tried to banish the influence, but failed. She had forgotten the
name which Michael gave to the God whom the Pharaoh had so greatly
loved. She could not even recollect the words of his message. Only
his luminous form and melancholy eyes were there in the sunlight before
her.
She began to wonder which vision was the more fantastic and unreal--the
picture which she had visualized of the grand ballroom in the
magnificent hotel at Assuan, filled with men and women in modern
evening dress, or the figure of the ancient Pharaoh, as he had come to
her in this barren valley in the western desert.
"Wake up, Meg!" Freddy said. "Dreaming seems infectious."
Meg knew what her brother meant. So did Mike.
"Don't forget that the practical Lampton mind is a jolly good thing.
That old drifter won't like living in a tent or a caravan, on twopence
a day, when he's sixty!" Freddy lit his cigarette; he had finished
breakfast. "You'll come, of course?" His eyes spoke to Mike. "Gad,
what a topping morning it is?"
"Rather!" Mike said abstractedly. "Unless you want me to stay here?"
"Carruthers will be all right here alone--he knows the place as well as
I do." Freddy's voice did not express much eagerness for Michael's
company at the ball, and Michael knew the reason. Freddy was unable to
decide in his own mind whether it was wiser to urge Mike to go and let
him see Meg as Freddy knew he would see her in all her pretty finery,
and let him enjoy the pleasure of her perfect dancing, or allow him to
stay behind and so avoid the risk of meeting the woman whom he knew
would be there. He had seen her name in the visitors' list in the
_Egyptian Gazette_. She was staying at the Cataract Hotel at Assuan.
He was so divided as to the wisdom of Michael's going or staying that
his response had lacked his usual note of sincerity.
"Then I'll go," Michael said, for into his mind had floated a vision of
Margaret dressed in her ball-finery and dancing as Freddy's sister
would dance--dancing with other men.
"Then that settles it," Freddy said. "We'll go a buster to-morrow
night and we'll make up for it after. You can begin real work next
week, Meg--sorting and painting, if you care to."
When Freddy was ready to start off to his work, Meg went with him. It
was too early for the sun to be dangerous and the air was deliciously
fresh and clean. Meg's hands were dug deep down into the pockets of
her white silk jersey, just as her brother's were dug deep down into
the pockets of his white flannel coat. Meg's long limbs looked almost
as clean-cut as her brother's in her closely-fitting white skirt. As
Michael watched them walk off together, he said to himself, "They are
absurdly alike; they are like twins--they see eye to eye and think mind
to mind."
As he said the words his sense of Meg contradicted his last remark, for
he knew that he could say things to Meg which Freddy would not
understand; he knew that if they had thought mind to mind he would not
have asked her to keep the secret which they now held between them.
Thoughts full of tender affection for Freddy made him feel happily
contented; to have such a friend and to be allowed to work with him was
a privilege deserving of sincere thanks. For a few moments he stood
lost in gratitude and praise. These dreaming moments, about which he
was so often good-naturedly chaffed, were not entirely wasted; they
gave him the spiritual food his nature demanded. The desert holds many
prayers.
"Why so abstracted to-day, Meg?" Freddy said, as they reached the site
of excavation. Margaret was no great talker at any time, but there was
something new in her silence this morning and Freddy felt it.
"Am I abstracted? I didn't know it."
"A bit off colour? Are you feeling the sun? You'd better go back
before it gets any hotter and rest more to-day, if we're to go to the
dance to-morrow."
"Oh, I adore the sun," Meg said. "I believe in my former incarnation I
worshipped it."
"A disciple of Akhnaton? I think we all are, if we only knew it. Poor
Akhnaton!"
"Oh, Freddy, who was this Akhnaton? No, I forgot--don't tell me." Her
voice, for Meg, was emotional, excited. "I want to spell things out
for myself."
"What do you know about him?" Freddy said. "I thought you hadn't begun
reading yet? Has Mike been preaching his religion? Mike's dotty on
Akhnaton--his religion's all right, but as a king he was an ass."
"No, no, Mike hasn't told me anything about him and I really would
rather come to him in his proper place in history. I mustn't dip,
though it's a great temptation, but it spoils serious work."
They had stopped and were looking down from the height of the desert to
the level of the excavation which was furthest advanced. Things had
developed greatly since Margaret's first visit. Now she was able to
see that they were at work upon a vast building of some description.
The enormous size and the beautiful cutting of the stones and the
exquisite strength of the mortarless masonry indicated noble
proportions.
"How interesting it's getting!" she said. "I love these blocks of
evenly-hewn stone in the sand--they look so mysterious, and eternal."
"I want to take the men off this, if we're going to Assuan
to-morrow--it's getting too hot."
"Why?"
"Because there were indications yesterday that we had struck a sort of
rubbish-heap of things which had been turned out of the tomb."
"What kind of things?"
"I don't know yet . . . all sorts of things. Probably the relatives of
the dead threw them out when they visited the tomb from time to time;
just as we throw away faded wreaths and flowers, they threw away
accumulations of broken vases and offerings."
"And you don't want the workmen to know?"
"I want to be on hand when they are cleaning it up, and it can't all be
done in one day. They are quite capable of sneaking back here before
the _gaphir's_ about in the morning, to see what they can pick up, to
sell to the visitors in Luxor. It's a great temptation."
"I suppose they consider the tiny things they find far more theirs than
ours?"
"I suppose they do, but, mind you, the Museum in Cairo gets its pick
and the choice of all that's found in Egypt in the various sites of
excavation."
"Oh!" Margaret said. "I didn't know that."
"Certainly it does," he said, "and rightly, too, although nothing would
be saved or be in any museum if it wasn't for the various European
schools. The natives would eventually plunder and steal everything,
and if the excavation had all been in the hands of the Egyptian
Government, heaven knows where the treasures would be to-day! As it
is, Cairo has the finest Egyptian museum of antiquities in the world."
"Akhnaton was buried in this valley?"
"Yes, in later days in his mother's tomb. His first burial-place was
at Tel-el-Amarna."
"How odd! That's what he told me last night," Meg said dreamily,
almost unconsciously. She could hear again the sad voice of the
Pharaoh, saying, "I was laid in my mother's tomb in this valley."
Freddy looked quickly up at her; he had left her to descend to the
workmen's level. "So Mike has told you about him, then? I thought he
would!"
Margaret blushed to the roots of her hair. "Just one or two
things--nothing really very interesting."
"I knew he would, sooner or later. He's got Akhnaton on the brain."
"He really has scarcely mentioned him to me--never until last night."
"Go back, Meg," Freddy said, as he disappeared down a deep channel in
the excavations. "It's getting too hot for no hat. You must be
careful--you can't afford to play tricks with the sun in Egypt. It's
better to worship it like Akhnaton than to trifle with it."
"All right, I'll go," Meg said, and as she went she wondered how it
came to pass that Akhnaton was both a sun-worshipper and a devout
believer in the Kingdom of God which is within us.
CHAPTER VII
The ballroom at Assuan was a wonderful sight. Margaret had never been
to a more brilliant dance. The dresses of the women amazed her; they
were so costly and beautiful. The air of Egypt is so dry that their
delicacy of texture had been uninjured by travel. The gay uniforms of
the English officers, the Orders of the officials, looked their best in
the vast room, whose architecture and decorations were a fine
reproduction of ancient Egyptian art.
Margaret was radiantly happy; she loved beauty and the dignity of vast
surroundings. In Egypt it seemed to her that everything was done on an
imposing and noble scale, everything except the little mud villages of
the desert, her "dear little brown homes in the East." Happiness made
her appear very lovely--indeed, she was beautiful that night and many
people asked who the charming girl was, who danced so well and who
looked so happy.
She danced very often with Freddy, so naturally people began to say
that at last Lampton had been "caught." She had danced very often,
too, with Michael, and even Freddy's step had not suited hers so well.
With Michael there was something more than mere perfection of dancing;
there was the added sympathy of mind as well as body. When his arms
encircled her for the first time and Margaret felt him steering her
gently but firmly through the well-filled room, such a perfect sense of
rest pervaded her senses that a sudden desire to cry, just softly and
happily, came to her. Happy Margaret!
Neither of them cared to speak while they were dancing; they remained
as silent as they had done when they stood together in the vast stretch
of the great Sahara, but they were conscious--and happily so--of each
other's enjoyment. Could two young people be so close to each other,
two people so greatly in sympathy with one another, and not know
something of the thought in each other's minds?
"Will you let me take you in to supper?" was all that Michael said, at
the end of the last dance which they were to have together. He handed
her reluctantly over to her waiting partner as he spoke.
Meg nodded her assent and smiled radiantly over her partner's shoulder
as she whirled off.
Her beautiful white shoulders showed up the duskiness of her hair; her
head was distinguished and arrestive. As Michael was watching her and
waiting for her to come round the room again to where he was standing,
so that their eyes might meet, a gentle, caressing hand was laid on his
own and a voice said:
"Ah! now I know why you have not looked for me. Who is she?"
Michael started. The low, tender voice instantly thrilled every nerve
in his body, while at the same moment an overwhelming desire to slip
away and lose himself amongst the dancers came over him.
"She is a fine-looking creature," the voice went on, "but that type
gets coarse at forty, don't you think?"
Michael swung round quickly and faced the lovely woman who had spoken
to him. Her figure, in spite of its childish slimness, suggested not
youthful purity but a sensuous grace. In her soft, flesh-tinted gown
of chiffon, which left her arms and neck quite bare, a dress which
merely suggested a veiled covering for her tiny body, she was
temptingly feminine. To most men she would have been irresistible, for
she was as supple and straight as a child of thirteen.
Her eyes gazed familiarly into Michael's; they were inviting and
exquisitely lovely. Even Mrs. Mervill's bitterest enemies had to admit
the charm of her eyes. Hard and cruel they could be, just like the
uncut amethysts which in colour they resembled--eyes of a deep, bluish
purple. They had looked their cruellest a moment ago, for envy had
crossed her path. Every inch of her tiny person was envious of the
girl who had smiled over her partner's shoulder to Michael Amory. She
was envious because she could see at a glance that Margaret was all
that was fine and clean and noble in womanhood. The girl whom Michael
Amory had been looking at would always get what was best in men, while
she could only get what was worst.
"My partner has had to leave me," she said to Michael, for he had paid
no attention to her remarks about Margaret. "He had a touch of fever;
it came on quite suddenly. Will you take me out of the ball-room?"
They had moved off together, Michael unable to help himself; he could
not allow her to go alone.
"If you aren't dancing, let us go and sit out on the balcony--it's too
lovely to be indoors. Now, isn't it?" she said, as they reached the
wide covered loggia, dotted with palms and basket-chairs and small
tables, which looked over the black rocks of the first cataract on the
Nile, a scene which in all Egypt has no equal, for it is unique and
extraordinary.
Beyond the river, with its black rocks, which showed in the water like
the indefinite forms of seals or shoals of swirling porpoises, there
was the bright yellow sand of the desert, which led into a world of
primitive silence, while above them and all around them there were the
stars and the night of Egypt.
Mrs. Mervill had left the ball-room early, because she knew that the
balcony would be almost empty during the first part of the evening.
"Isn't having this all to ourselves better than dancing in that crowd?
This is Egypt."
"It's beautiful," Michael said, as he arranged the cushions in her
chair to suit her taste, which was scarcely in keeping with the views
of a dignified woman. When he had finished, Mrs. Mervill let her hand
slip down his coat-sleeve--she had laid it there as she spoke to
him--until it rested on his wrist; her fingers were caressing.
"Tell me," she said, looking up into his face with a winning and soft
expression, "what have you been doing with yourself since we parted?
You have been much in my thoughts--never out of them, indeed."
"My usual work in the camp," Michael said. "Its interest always
increases, and although it seems pretty much the same every day to
ordinary people, to us it is full of variety."
"Lucky man! We poor women have no such distractions. I want to live
in the desert," she said eagerly. "I want to sleep in the open under
these stars."
Anyone might have made the same remark with no _arrière pensée_ in
their words. Mrs. Mervill could not. Her remark contained an
invitation; Michael knew it.
"Can you never get away?" she asked. "It would be my expedition, if
you would run it for me."
Michael moved from her side, with the pretence of drawing a chair to
within speaking distance of her. She had reluctantly to let his wrist
slip from her fingers.
"Say you will arrange it," she pleaded. "For weeks I have felt the
call of the desert and you know you'd love to come."
"I can't do it," Michael said, almost sternly. "Please don't tempt me
. . . I have work to do."
"Oh, but I will tempt you!" She laughed the soft, low laugh of
passion. "By every means in my power. With you it is so difficult to
know what will tempt you most. Am I to appeal to the mystic side of
you, or to the human? I think the human Michael will suit me best, the
Michael who longs to let himself go and enjoy the fullness of Egypt and
the wonders of the desert!"
"Don't appeal to any part of me," he said quickly. "Leave me to do my
work in the best possible way--try not to act as a disturbing
influence."
"Then I have been a disturbing influence?" Michael's voice had
betrayed the fact that his work had not been accomplished without
difficulty.
"Yes," he said, for the spirit of truth was always uppermost in
Michael. "For some days after I left you the last time I found great
difficulty in concentrating my mind on my work. . . . I was
dissatisfied."
"Then I succeeded!" The amethyst eyes, devoid of all hardness now,
caressed Michael and disturbed his nerves. The woman was very
beautiful, and he was conscious that her mind was set on her desire to
win him. He knew that it was not love; he knew that their intimacy was
not one of wholesome friendship. He was becoming more and more awake
to the fact that this wealthy woman, who looked like a child but for
the expression of her eyes, had taken an unreasoning desire to have him
for her lover. In a measure he could not but feel flattered, for with
her beauty and wealth she could have had the attention of better men
than himself. He was too generous in his judgment of women to
attribute her desire to the lowest motives, the prospect of enjoying
through another the innocence which she had lost herself so long ago.
"I tried to reach you, Mike. I used every effort of my will-power, or
mind-power, or whatever power you like to call it. I insisted on your
feeling me. I sent myself out of myself to you."
"Why did you do it?" he said. He had leaned forward and had laid his
hand on the cushions of her chair, at the back of her head. His
distressed voice was less harsh.
"Why did I do it? Because, dear, I want you." Her voice was low and
wooing; it was one of her charms.
Michael did not answer. His senses were beginning to throb. The sound
of a native earthen drum, with its sensual thud, thud, thudding, and
the watery note of a key striking a glass bottle, as an accompaniment
to the slow measures of bare feet on the deck of a Nile boat, added an
undefinable touch, of Oriental passion to the scene.
Michael tried to draw away his hand, but she caught it and pulled his
arm round her neck and held his long fingers imprisoned under her chin.
He protested. The thud, thud, thud of the _darabukkeh_ below kept time
with the throbbing of his pulses, while the subconscious visualizing of
the body-movements of the Sudanese dancers aided and abetted the woman
in her designs.
"You know, dear, you are behaving very foolishly. I must never see you
again if you do this sort of thing. It can only lead to terrible
unhappiness for us both."
She gently kissed his fingers, pressing her teeth against his
knuckles--with all her education and fashionable clothes, a creature as
primitive as any tent-dweller in the desert.
"Don't say you won't see me again. I won't be foolish, I promise. But
I am very lonely, you don't know how lonely, Michael."
"Poor little woman!" he said breathlessly; he was genuinely sorry for
her. If her nature craved for love and affection, it was hard for her
to live as she did, without it.
"It's Egypt," she said, "Egypt and the desert. I want you all alone,
Michael, in the loneliest part of the loneliest desert in the world,
and I want as many kisses as there are stars in the heavens--kisses
that only my love and Egypt can teach you how to give!"
"I must leave you," Michael said again, "if you will speak like that."
He got up to go. Mrs. Mervill also rose from her reclining position on
her long deck-chair, and sat upright.
"I do, I do!" she said, while she held up her beautiful lips to his
face. "There is no one to see, there is no one to care! I want a kiss
for every star there is in the heavens."
The man could bear it no longer; all Egypt was tempting him. He bent
his head and kissed her lips.
From the river below came the long cries to Allah of the Moslem boatmen
and the clear music of an _'ood_ or lute; the deep note of the native
drums had been silenced. It had given way to the song of an Arab
tenor. The music of the _'ood_, whose seven double strings, made of
lamb's gut, are played with a slip of a vulture's feather, drifted
through the clear air. The tenor song was an outpouring of a lover's
full heart. The passion of the night had triumphed.
At their feet lay the black rocks and the swirling waters of Egypt's
Aegean and the buried city of Syene, and in the distance, yet surely
affecting their senses with its tragedy and grace, was Philae, the
fairy sanctuary of the Nile. In the submerged temple of Philae lies
the bridal chamber of the beloved Osiris and his wife Isis.
None of all this was lost upon Michael, whose nature was ever tuned to
the concert pitch of his surroundings. Assuan affected him as a
gorgeous orchestra affects a lover of Wagner.
But the sound of the hotel band, bringing a waltz to a close, made Mrs.
Mervill leave her lounge-chair and seat herself circumspectly on a more
upright one. Michael did not sit down; he wandered about, speaking to
her abruptly and unhappily at brief intervals.
She was answering one of his questions when Margaret Lampton, flushed
and radiant with the excitement of dancing, came upon the scene; her
partner was a little behind her. Mrs. Mervill neither saw her nor
heard her footsteps; Michael had both seen and heard her. Margaret,
thinking that he was alone, walked quickly towards him. Suddenly she
heard a hidden voice say caressingly,
"I will promise you anything you like, Michael mine, and keep it, too,
if you will try to see me as often as ever you can. Remember how
lonely I am, and that I shall live for your visits."
Margaret stopped. Egypt had become as cold as the Arctic. She felt
lost. Her intention had been to remind Michael that it was almost
supper-time. Her partner was now by her side. He knew Michael Amory
and spoke to him.
Mrs. Mervill had risen from her chair and as she came forward, Margaret
hated her, even while she thought that she was the fairest and most
beautiful thing she had ever seen. Michael introduced the two women to
each other, excellent foils as they were in their beauty and type.
As Margaret gave one of her steadfast honest looks right into the eyes
of the delicately-tinted woman in front of her, she was conscious of an
appalling dislike and fear of her. She was equally conscious of the
woman's antagonism to herself, although her words had been charming and
friendly.
"If she wasn't beautiful and tiny, I'd like to wring her neck and throw
her to the crocodiles below!"
This was what might be interpreted as Margaret's true feelings as she
answered Mrs. Mervill's question and succeeded in making some banal
remarks about the view and the magnificence of the hotel. When she had
said all that politeness demanded of her, she turned away, a trifle
disconsolately.
"Please wait one moment, Miss Lampton," Michael said. "I think this is
the supper-interval. Mrs. Mervill," he said, "can I take you back to
your partner? I am engaged to Miss Lampton for supper."
"No, thanks," she said, "I didn't engage myself to anyone for supper."
Her eyes plainly expressed the fact that they had hitherto at these
dances always enjoyed the supper-interval together. "Will you be very
kind and send a waiter out here with a glass of champagne and some
sandwiches? That is all I want."
Michael looked disturbed. "But I don't like leaving you alone."
"I prefer the company of the stars," she said, "to just anybody--really
I do. I never feel that one comes to Egypt for these hotel dances."
This was meant for Margaret, to make her feel frivolous and vulgar.
Margaret refused to accept it. "My brother and I have been dancing
every dance and every extra and forgetting all about Egypt. Have you?"
She turned to Mike.
"No, I have been sitting this last one out with Mrs. Mervill. She
feels tired. And certainly Egypt is very much here." He pointed to
the scene before them.
"Yes, quite another Egypt," Margaret said. "Egypt has so many souls."
"And I have to be a little careful," Mrs. Mervill said, "of
over-fatigue."
"I am sorry," Margaret said, while she inwardly noted the woman's
perfect health. The slender feminine appearance of her rival had
nothing in common with ill-health; a blush-rose bud was not more softly
and evenly tinted. She suggested to Margaret something good to
eat--pink and white ice-creams mingled together in a crystal bowl.
Healthily devoid as Margaret was of sex-consciousness, it was curious
that this first close inspection of Mrs. Mervill should have told her
what she never dreamed of before, or even thought about--that she loved
Michael Amory. This woman was going to come between herself and
Michael; that there was great intimacy between them she felt certain,
also that Michael, even though he might care for the woman, was not
himself under her influence. She had never seen him look as he looked
now.
The partner who had brought Margaret out on to the balcony constituted
himself Mrs. Mervill's cavalier. He was immensely struck by her beauty
and was inwardly overjoyed when Michael Amory introduced him to her.
He had not engaged himself for supper because there had been no one
with whom he cared to spend the time, except Margaret, and she was
engaged to Michael. Now that he had obtained an introduction to Mrs.
Mervill, he was delighted to attend to her wants.
If Michael Amory had seen Millicent Mervill's attitude towards her
companion, he might have felt--and very naturally--a certain amount of
vanity. Born with little or no sense of honour or morals, she was
extremely fastidious. No one could have been more selective.
Ninety-nine per cent. of the men she met bored her not to tears, but to
rudeness; for the hundredth she might feel an unbridled passion.
Margaret and her companion were seated at a little supper-table in the
immense dining-room of the hotel, a room which been built after the
proportions and decorated in the manner of an Egyptian temple. Their
table was close to a column, which was decorated from pedestal to
capital with the most familiar mythological figures of ancient Egypt.
Tall lotus flowers with their green leaves decorated the lower portion
of it. The whole thing certainly was an amazingly clever reproduction
of one of the ancient columns of the famous hypostyle hall at Karnak.
A gayer scene could hardly be imagined, for the bright colours of the
ancient decorations had been faithfully copied.
Margaret had been talking rather more than was her wont to Michael,
about things which neither really interested her nor were in sympathy
with their mood. Their former intimate silence had given place to a
banal conversation, which hurt them, one as much as the other, while
they kept it up.
The nicest part of the evening, for so Meg had thought that it would
be, was proving a failure, a dire and pitiful failure. The only thing
to do was to accept Michael under the new conditions and get what
pleasure she could out of the magnificent scene. The Egyptian
servants, in their long white garments and high red tarbushes, the
Nubians, in their full white drawers and bright green sashes and
turbans, were moving silently about, administering as only native
servants can administer to the wants of the fashionably-gowned women
and brightly-uniformed men who filled the magnificent hall.
"How absurd that woman looks," Margaret said, "sitting with her back to
that figure of Isis." She knew now at a glance the goddess Isis as she
was most familiarly represented. "I do hope I don't look quite so
grotesque!"
Michael looked at the woman, whose hair was decorated with an enormous
egrette's crest, in the manner of a Red Indian's head-dress. Margaret
knew quite well that she herself did not in any way look grotesque;
since she had been in Egypt she had conceived a horror of the
eccentricities of Western fashions, therefore her speech was insincere.
"Of course you don't," Michael said absently. "You look just awfully
nice." He felt shy and blushed as he spoke, for he knew that he had
severed himself from Margaret by an unspeakable gulf, that he had now
no right to say anything intimate to her. Earlier in the evening he
could have said with frank enthusiasm how beautiful he thought her, if
an occasion like the present had offered itself.
They were now at the ice-creams, wonderful concoctions with glowing
lights inside them, and their futile conversation had dribbled out, but
the silence which had fallen upon them was constrained; it had nothing
in common with the old happy silence of mental sympathy, the silence of
united minds.
Margaret had still two dances to give Michael, and she wondered how
they were to get through them. The supper had proved heavy and
dragging. It seemed scarcely possible that they were the two people
who had stood, delighting in each other's companionship, on the high
ridge of the Sahara desert two evenings ago, that it was this man to
whom she had told her wonderful dream. She wondered if he had
forgotten it.
As she thought of her dream, their eyes met. Michael's dropped
quickly. With Mrs. Mervill's kisses still burning into his soul, he
banished the thought of the divine King. The seed of evil which she
had planted in the garden of his soul many weeks ago had been watered
and nourished to-night. It had sprung forth like the green blades on
the banks of the Nile after the inundation.
As Michael's eyes dropped, Margaret took her courage in both hands and
said as brightly as she could, "We're not enjoying ourselves
particularly, are we? We seem to have lost each other. Shall we cut
our two dances and try to find ourselves again in the valley? I hate
this sort of thing."
"If you wish it." Michael's voice was reproachful.
"Do be honest--you know I'm boring you. You have lots of friends here,
and I can get partners."
"Things do seem to have taken a wrong turn," he said, "but it was not
of my willing." Inwardly he cursed the hour he had ever come. She
would never believe that it had been to see her in her evening-dress
and to enjoy the rapture of dancing with her.
"We are neither of us much good at pretending," Margaret said. "But
never mind--better luck next time! And we had some lovely dances in
the early part of the evening."
Her words, without meaning it, implied that before she had been
introduced to Mrs. Mervill, they had been happy. They had risen at
Margaret's instigation from their table and were wending their way out
of the supper-room. Michael was drifting towards the wide balcony,
towards the fresh cool air of the river.
"No," Meg said determinedly, "not there." A vision of Mrs. Mervill,
pink and fair and seductive, had risen before her, the rose-leaf
creature with the hard eyes, who had so abruptly broken her sympathy
with Michael.
Michael, without speaking, quickly turned the other way. He let her
through the big entrance to the front door of the hotel. The view was
ugly and uninteresting, like the surroundings of any huge Western
public offices or government buildings. The glory of the hotel was the
view from the balcony, overlooking the Nile, and its superb interior
decorations.
"The old trade-route to Nubia lies back there," Michael said,
indicating the desert, which lay out of sight at the back of the hotel.
"The old route to 'golden-treasured Nubia'?" Margaret said. "Fancy, so
close to this fashionable hotel--who would ever dream it!"
"The caravan-route to Nubia--the Kush of the Bible--an immortal road.
To me the word Nubia is full of suggestion."
There was something so distant in the tone of Michael's voice as he
spoke, that Margaret found little pleasure in hearing what he had to
tell her. How delightful he could have been upon such a subject as the
old trade-route to Nubia she knew only too well, so well that she was
not going to let herself be hurt by his aloof way of mentioning it.
"Egypt to-night," she said, "for me means a big ball and gay dresses.
I have lost the other sense of Egypt." She turned up her eyes to the
heavens. "Except for the heavens," she said, "I really might have been
at the Carlton Hotel in London, at an Egyptian fête held there, or
something of the kind."
"As you said, Egypt has so many souls, but its heavens have only one.
The best starlight night at home is a poor, poor affair compared to
this."
Before he had finished speaking Freddy appeared and claimed Margaret
for a dance. She left Michael almost gladly, yet hating the feeling
that they were still as far apart as they had been when they sat down
to supper.
What a strange night it had been! The one half pure joy and the other
certainly not happiness.
Alone in the open space in front of the hotel, Michael stood and cursed
his own weakness. Why had he stooped to those lips? Why had he
allowed himself to be unworthy of his intimacy with Margaret? He was
sorry for Mrs. Mervill, for he believed her stories about her husband's
drunkenness and degrading habits, as he almost believed that she had
for some strange reason fallen in love with himself. He wished with
all his might that women were nicer to one another, so that one of
them, a woman like Margaret, for instance, might have given this
lonely, lovely creature the affection and intimate friendship she
craved for. Women shunned her and so she had to resort to men for the
companionship and also for the affection she needed.
Michael understood very well the pleasures of sympathetic friendships;
he was conscious that to himself human sympathy meant a very great
deal, and so he felt sincerely sorry for the woman who was denied it.
He liked the quiet places of the untrodden world; cities had no charm
for him. But he needed human sympathy in his solitude to make his
enjoyment complete. He felt sorely annoyed with the fates which made
it impossible for him to give Mrs. Mervill all that she asked of him
and at the same time continue on the footing on which he had been with
Margaret.
And how was it that he could not? How was it that Margaret had
instantly divined that there was more than an ordinary or desirable
intimacy between Mrs. Mervill and himself? How was it that he had felt
dishonoured and ashamed?
He had to return to the ball-room to find his partner for the next
dance. As he did so, he passed Mrs. Mervill, who was coming out of it.
She looked at him with laughing eyes, a soft, beautiful creature, of
supple movements, whose perfect lips had told him the promises which
she was capable of fulfilling. If he had not known Margaret, what
would he have done?
But Margaret held him. He knew that she was worth a thousand Mrs.
Mervills, in spite of the latter's more vivid beauty and her quick wit.
For Mrs. Mervill was clever and could be extremely witty and amusing
when she liked. Her daring tongue stopped at very little, but it had
the gift of suggestion, which always saved her stories or repartees
from indelicacy or vulgarity.
Margaret, who had offered him nothing but friendship, stood out in his
mind as one of the women with whom it was a privilege for any man to be
on intimate terms. In his thoughts of her, Margaret was high and
strong and pure. When his mind dwelt on her, it soared; when it dwelt
on Mrs. Mervill, it grovelled. He did not wish to grovel; it was not
in his nature to do so; it took a woman such as Mrs. Mervill to bring
his lower self to the surface. He hated himself for even unconsciously
condemning her and he tried always to remember her charming moods, the
hours they had spent together when they first met on the gay
pleasure-boats on the Nile. Those were the days when the clever woman
hid from the man whom she had selected her baser nature. During those
guarded days she had been gay and amusing and apparently as innocent as
a schoolgirl. It was only after a considerable number of meetings and
many exchanges of thought had passed between them, that she began to
show her hand, or dared to convey to him in a hundred insinuating ways
and expressions the real nature of her feelings for him. Very
grudgingly and very reluctantly Michael had to admit to himself that
she had fallen in his estimation, that he would not be sorry if they
were never to meet again. Yet he was not strong enough to cut himself
off from her; her appeal to his pity stood in his way.
He had never met any woman before in the least like her. Her fearless
audacity had at first, just at first, somewhat amused, as it amazed
him. He had scarcely credited its being genuine. As she owed nothing
to her husband, or so she said, she saw no reason why she should not
live the life of a wealthy bachelor, who enjoyed it to the full. What
was sauce for the gander was sauce for the goose.
To gain any hold on Michael's affections, she had recognized that she
must go carefully. It was her role to let him think that her passion
for him was a totally new thing in her life, that she had at last found
the man who could help her to be the woman she longed to be. With her
knowledge of man-kind, she knew how to awaken and keep alive in Michael
the only element in his character upon which she could work, the very
element he strove to banish and subdue.
Later on in the evening she sought him out, because she had discovered
that Margaret Lampton was living in her brother's camp and that she was
in daily companionship with Michael. Freddy had told her this to anger
her. He was proud of his sister's beauty and pleased that Mrs. Mervill
had seen her admired.
"Michael," Mrs. Mervill said, "that dark girl is in love with you. She
hates me."
"Don't talk nonsense!" Michael said. "Why will you spoil our
interesting conversation by reverting to a forbidden topic?"
They had been talking intellectually and seriously for quite half an
hour. Mrs. Mervill was a great reader, and she had determined to place
herself in a position to talk intelligently, if not learnedly, to
Michael about things Egyptian. She had been reading what Ebers had to
say about the tragedy of Isis and Osiris being the foundation of many
latter-day Egyptian romances. It had even found its way into _The
Thousand and One Nights_.
Mrs. Mervill was much more word-fluent than Margaret. Often her
imagery was charming.
"Because it fills my heart, Michael. It is the background of
everything. I saw the birth of hatred in her eyes--she has never hated
before."
"I don't think she knows what hate means," he said, "and I wish you
would leave her alone."
"I have not spoken about her before."
"You said she would be fat and coarse at forty."
Millicent Mervill caught his hands in hers. "You dear silly boy, so
she will, both fat and complacent, but then I shall be thin and
shrewish and shrivelled."
Michael laughed. "You are a tease!" he said good-naturedly.
"'The Rogue in Porcelain' used to be my name at school. But tell
me--how long is that dark-haired girl going to stay with her brother?"
"I don't know," Michael said. "If she doesn't feel the heat, perhaps
until he returns to England and the camp breaks up."
Mrs. Mervill clenched her pretty teeth. "And you expect me to be good
and quiet and submissive and stay here?"
"I want you to be reasonable."
"That's out of the question--I very seldom am, and I am not going to be
to please Miss Lampton, I can tell you!"
"Then what are you going to do?" He could not be hard on the woman for
loving him; he wished he could help her and induce her to be
reasonable. If she had been free, he would have felt himself bound to
marry her.
"I will arrange something," she said. "I don't know what."
"What sort of thing?" he said. "Nothing foolish! Do look at things
dispassionately."
"I won't!" she said. Her face was upraised to the stars. "I won't
give you up to that dark-haired girl."
He swung round and spoke roughly. "Don't you know I can't be yours,
and you can't be mine?"
"And you want me not to be a dog in the manger, while you enjoy the
next best thing that comes along!"
"I never said so. Your mind jumps at conclusions. I hate such ideas
and conversation. I wish you would stop it."
"I will be worse than a dog in the manger," she said, "if you make love
to that girl in the desert."
"Hush!" Michael cried. His grasp of her wrist hurt her. "Hush! You
will make me hate you."
"No, you won't, Michael," she said, "because you have kissed me. Words
were made to hide our feelings, kisses to reveal them." She suddenly
paused and looked as sad and innocent as a corrected child. "I would
be a saint, if you would let yourself love me, Michael."
"What would be the good?" he said. "You belong to some one else."
"A nice sort of belonging!" she said, disconsolately. "He doesn't care
a scrap what becomes of me."
"Can't you possibly divorce him?" Michael did not mean that he would
marry her if she did; his mind was groping for some solution of the
problem.
Millicent Mervill remained silent. "I could let him divorce me," she
said at last.
"Don't!" Michael said intuitively. His voice amused the woman.
"I don't mean to," she said. "Why should any woman be divorced because
she lives the same life as her husband does when he is apart from her?"
"You don't, and aren't going to," Michael said earnestly.
"I would, Michael, with you--only with you."
"I wish you could have been friends with Miss Lampton instead of hating
her," he said sadly.
"Pouf!" Millicent Mervill cried. "Thanks for your Miss Lampton--I can
do without her friendship! I prefer hating her."
"You are so perverse and foolish and . . ." Michael paused ". . . and
difficult."
"No, loving, you mean, loving, Michael--that's all I'm difficult about."
CHAPTER VIII
They were back in the valley again and splendid work was going on at
the camp. Another two weeks' hard digging had done wonders, and
Margaret and Michael had found each other again.
In the dawn, two mornings after the dance, when the mysterious figures,
heralding the light, were abandoning themselves to their God on the
desert sands, Mike had seen Margaret standing at her hut-door,
watching, as he himself so often watched, for the glory which was of
Aton to flood the desert with light. Meg's eyes the day before had
told Michael that she was unhappy; he knew now that she had not slept.
While the white figures were still bent earthwards and the little
streak of light was scarcely more than visible, Michael went to her and
asked her forgiveness.
"Forgive me," he said. "I need forgiveness."
Meg took his hand. "I hate not being friends. Thank you."
"It made me miserable," he said.
"Then let's forget. I was stupid. This is all too big and great for
such smallness." She indicated the coming of the unearthly light.
"Thy dawning, O Aton," Michael said.
Margaret smiled. "He was very far from us at Assuan."
"He was there. I stifled my consciousness of him, Meg."
"Don't," she said. "Let's go forward."
"I know what you mean," he said. "Regrets are weak, foolish."
"I don't want to bring the hotel at Assuan into this valley. Let's
just watch the sun transform its infinite mystery into our waking,
working, everyday world--if Egypt can be an everyday world."
"May I say Akhnaton's beautiful hymn to you? It is about the sunrise.
He must often have seen it just as we are seeing it now."
"Akhnaton's? Yes, do. How wonderful to think that he wrote hymns!"
Michael began the famous hymn. "'The world is in darkness, like the
dead. Every lion cometh forth from his den; all serpents sting.
Darkness reigns.'"
"We might substitute jackals," Margaret said gently.
"'When thou risest in the horizon . . . the darkness is banished. Then
in all the world they do their work.
"'All trees and plants flourish, the birds flutter in their marshes,
all sheep dance upon their feet.'"
"Oh," Margaret said delightedly, "how like it is to the hundred and
fourth Psalm! Do you remember how David said: 'The trees of the Lord
are full of sap. . . . Where the birds make their nests. . . . The
high hills are a refuge for the wild goats'? I think that's how it
goes. I love that Psalm."
"Yes," Michael said, "verse for verse, the idea is absolutely similar
and the similes are strikingly alike. The next verse is just as much
alike. Listen. . . . I am so glad you like it."
"First look," Margaret said, "at that light. Yes, now go on--I love
hearing it."
"'The ships sail up stream and down stream alike. The fish in the
river leap up before Thee and Thy rays are in the midst of the great
sea. How manifold are Thy works. Thou didst create the earth
according to Thy desire, men, all cattle, all that are upon the earth.'"
"How extraordinarily like!" Margaret said. "How do you account for it?
I suppose it is still allowed that David wrote the Psalms? Did he live
before Akhnaton or after him?" She laughed softly. "Don't scorn my
ignorance. You see, I have kept my promise--I have read nothing at all
on the subject."
"Akhnaton, you mean? Oh, before David, by about three hundred years.
There are all sorts of theories on the subject. The commonest is that
Akhnaton, having come of Syrian stock, on his mother's side, may have
got his inspiration from some Syrian hymn, as David also may have done.
I reject that theory. The whole of Akhnaton's beliefs and teachings
prove the extraordinary originality of his ideas. He borrowed nothing;
God was his inspiration."
"You are going to tell me about him, about his work?"
"Yes, soon, some day. Have you thought about him since?" Michael
referred to the God of Whom Akhnaton was the manifestation, the
interpreter. He always spoke of Akhnaton as a divine messenger.
His voice betrayed a sense of regret, of unworthiness. Yet in his
heart he knew that, weak as he had been, he had not sinned against the
spirit of Akhnaton, that he realized even more fully his watchword,
"Living in Truth." Akhnaton's love for every created being because of
their creator filled Michael's heart even more fully than it had done
before. He had learned his own moral weakness, his own forgetfulness.
Blame and criticism of even the natives' shortcomings seemed to him
reserved for someone more worthy than himself. They had simply not yet
seen the Light; their evolution was more tardy; they were less
fortunate. Some day all men would be "Living in Truth." Akhnaton's
dream would be realized. How impossible it is for our material selves
to do without the help which is outside ourselves, that help which is
our divine consciousness, Michael had learned over and over again. His
lapses had not affected his beliefs. They were only parts of the
struggle, the oldest struggle known to mankind, the struggle between
Light and Darkness. Just as the Egyptians from the earliest days
believed in the triumph of Osiris over Set, he knew that no thinking
man could doubt the eventual triumph of all those who fight for the
spiritual man.
"Yes, I have thought about him," Margaret said. "And last night I
dreamed about him--my . . ." she paused ". . . wonderful visitor."
"What did you dream?" Michael said. "Do tell me."
The light was breaking over the valley--not the sun's light, the cold
light of dawn. The "heat of Aton" was still withheld.
A blush which was invisible to Michael tinged Meg's clear skin. Her
dream had been beautiful, vivid. It had illuminated her world again.
"It was nothing very coherent. I saw no vision, as I did before." Her
words were spoken guardedly. "It was the lesson the dream revealed."
"I should like to know, Meg."
"A voice seemed to wake me. It spoke to me of you. I was to help
you . . . you were struggling."
"You can help me," Mike said. "You have."
"It spoke of the oldest of all stories, the battle of light against
darkness. It said that Egypt in the early days worshipped light; in
the days which followed light was swallowed up in the worship of false
gods."
"Osiris and Set--you know the legend--the fundamental ethics of all
religions."
"I know a little about it," Margaret said. She paused. "Please go
on . . . tell me everything."
"In dreams we are so vain, so wonderful . . . you know how it always
is! The ego in us has unlimited sway. In my dream I dreamed that my
friendship was to be 'light'; if I withdrew it, you would have
darkness. What glorious vanity!"
"Oh, Meg, it's quite true! Will you give me back your sympathy?
I . . ." he hesitated, ". . . I am trying to be more worthy of it."
"We are friends," she said. "I was foolish and conceited, my dream
made me see how foolish. I had no right to . . ."
He interrupted her. "Yes, you had . . . you weren't foolish. Your
sensibilities told you what was absolutely true. . . . I would explain
more if I could."
"No, don't explain--things are explained. I thought I should find you
here; I wanted to begin the new day happily. My dream made me see so
very clearly that the world is made up of those who sit in darkness and
those who sit in light, that thoughts are things. My thoughts were
unjust, unkind, so my world was unkind, unjust. I made it."
"The light which is Aton," Michael said.
"If we wish to enjoy happiness, we must sit in the light. We must make
our own happiness."
"In the fullness and glory of Aton."
"God, I suppose you mean," Margaret said.
"The one and only God Whom every human being has striven to worship in
his or her odd way ever since the world began. There is God in every
man's heart. It doesn't a bit matter what His symbol may be. Some
races of mankind have evolved higher forms of worship, some lower;
their symbols are appropriate. But they are all striving for the one
and same thing--to render worship to the Divine Creator, to sit in the
Light of Aton."
"But the sun," Margaret said--she pointed to the fiery ball on the
horizon--"I thought your divine Akhnaton was a sun-worshipper?"
"He worshipped our God, the Creator of all things of heaven or earth,
even of our precious human sympathy, Meg, for nothing that is could be
without Him, and to Akhnaton His symbol was the sun. The earlier
Egyptians worshipped Ra, the great sun-god; Akhnaton brought divinity
into his worship. He worshipped Aton as the Lord and Giver of Life,
the Bestower of Mercy, the Father of the Fatherless. All His
attributes were symbolized in the sun. Its rising and setting
signified Darkness and Light; its power as the creative force in
nature, Resurrection. It evolved mankind from the lower life and
implanted the spirit of divinity in him through the Creator of all
things created. The sun was God created, His symbol, His
manifestation."
"Look," Margaret said, "look at it now--it is God, walking in the
desert."
* * * * * *
For a little time they stood together, their material forms side by
side.
* * * * * *
Michael's house-boy, with a deferential salaam, suddenly informed him
that his bath had been waiting for him and was now cold.
Before Michael hurried off Margaret said, "Thank you for my first
lesson in Akhnaton's worship." She held out her hands.
"We all worship as he did, all day long," he said, "when we admire the
sun and the stars and the flowers, when we admire all that is
beautiful, we are seeing God."
"I adore beauty," Margaret said, "but I forget that beauty is God.
You, like Akhnaton, are conscious of God first, the beauty He has made
afterwards. If there had been the text 'God is Beauty' as there is
'God is Love,' it might have helped us to understand."
"I forget him," Michael said, "you know how easily."
"It is far better to know and love, even if you are human and
forget. . . ." she paused ". . . than always to sit in darkness, to sit
outside the door."
"I don't see how any one can," Michael said. "It is all so exquisitely
evident. The desolation must be so terrifying, like living in this
lonely spot with no watch-dogs to keep off evil-doers. It takes great
courage to live on one's own strength, one's own material self."
They had parted, Margaret going to her room, Michael to his tent.
Freddy, who was almost dressed, saw two figures approaching, wrapped up
in big coats.
"That's a good job!" he said. "The sunrise has made them friends
again." He was out in the desert the next moment, hearing the
roll-call of the workmen, who had all ranged themselves up in a line
near the hut.
CHAPTER IX
One evening, some weeks later, when the trio, Margaret, Freddy and
Michael, were busily engaged in sorting and cleaning the day's finds,
which had been more than usually interesting, Margaret held up for
inspection a tiny alabaster kohl-pot, which she had freed from the
incrustations of thousands of years. It was exactly similar to a
little green glass bottle which she had bought in the bazaar at Assuan,
in which the modern Egyptian, but more especially the Coptic, women
carry the kohl which they use for blacking their eyes and eyebrows.
Margaret showed Freddy the bottle, which led to a discussion about the
similarity of the customs of the modern Egyptians and those in the
pictures in the tombs, whose decorations always reveal the more human
and intimate side of the life of ancient Egypt than the decoration of
the temples.
"They were as vain and fond of making up as any woman of to-day,"
Freddy said. "We find no end of recipes for cosmetics and hair-dyes
and restorers. One popular pomade was made of the hoofs of a donkey, a
dog's pad and some date-kernels, all boiled together in oil. It was
supposed to stop the hair from falling out and restore its brilliancy.
There is another, even more savoury, for hair-dying."
"Do you suppose they still use that receipt?" Michael said.
"I shouldn't wonder. Customs never die in Egypt--they have had the
same superstitions and the same customs for thousands of years. The
Copts have clung more jealously to them, of course. The Moslem
invasion did a little to change some of them, but not many."
Margaret listened while Freddy explained how the Moslems, after the
Arab invasion, behaved with regard to the festivals and superstitions
of the pagans very much in the same way as the Early Christian church
in Rome behaved with regard to the pagan festivities and
superstitions--adapting them, as far as was possible, to the new
religion, grafting on such things as the people would not or could not
renounce. The wisdom of the custom was obvious. The new converts, who
believed in one God Whose Prophet had come to knock down all graven
images in the temples, were still allowed the protection and comfort of
their personal amulets, which were powerful enough to protect them from
every evil imaginable, or to bring them all the blessings their simple
souls desired. Arab workmen, who believe that Allah wills all things,
that whatsoever happens, it is his purpose, will flock round any
soothsayer who professes to see into the future and do the most absurd
things conceivable to keep off the evil eye. The eye of Horus is still
their favourite amulet.
"Abdul professes to tell fortunes and see into the future. They do
sometimes manage to hit off some wonderfully clever guesses," Freddy
said. "Abdul has been curiously correct in a number of things he has
foretold relating to this bit of work."
"What did he tell you about this excavation?"
"He didn't tell me--I overheard the workmen's chatter. He has worked
them up to a pitch of absurd excitement."
"What sort of things has he foretold? Good or bad? What things have
come true?"
"I forget the small points now. I really can't tell you. He predicts
all sorts of extravagant things about the inside of the tomb, says he
has seen visions of a wonderful figure of a queen, dressed as if for
her bridal, and the place all glittering with gold and precious
stones--the most superb tomb that has ever been opened."
"Oh!" Meg said excitedly. "I wonder if it will be?--if there will be
any truth in it?"
"Tommy-rot!" Freddy said. "But the excitement's spread--the men are
working like mad--never did so much good work before."
"May I talk to Abdul? I'd love to have my future told!"
"I'd rather you didn't--at least, I would rather the other workmen
didn't know he had spoken to you. I don't like them to imagine that we
believe in such things."
"Very well," Meg said. "I see what you mean."
"You are never wise to let the natives lose their respect for your
disdain of spooks and superstitions. I never scoff at their fears and
beliefs in every sort of imaginable supernatural power, but I like them
to think that my religion places me above such terrors. We pray to our
Christian God to protect us according to His will; they say five
prayers to Allah daily, the one and only God, and at the same time at
every hour of the day they perform countless acts and ceremonies to
propitiate malign spirits and powers. They are a curious people--the
best of them are very devout, but some of the most devout are not the
best by any means."
"Do you mind if Michael sees the fortune-teller? It would be so
interesting."
"He knows Abdul." Freddy looked at Mike. "It's different to letting
one of our womenkind meddle in such things."
"Did the ancients believe in dreams?" Margaret said. Michael's eyes
had spoken; he had seen the man.
"Don't you remember Joseph's dream?"
"Oh, of course!" Margaret said. "But Joseph seems a modern in this
valley."
"The ancients looked upon dreams as 'revelations' from a world quite as
real as that which we see about us when we are awake. They were sent
by the gods and, according to the texts in the tombs, much desired."
Margaret's and Michael's eyes met. Her dream which had brought them
together again had undoubtedly been sent by God.
There was an industrious silence for a little time, then Margaret
asked, "Have you ever come across any traces of Akhnaton's religion in
the tombs in this valley?"
An amused smile hovered round Freddy's mouth. It was obvious that
Margaret had caught something of Mike's enthusiasm for the heretic
Pharaoh.
"No, nothing of his religion," he said. "It is too far from his scene
of action; his influence was almost local--it was a personal influence
and died at his death. He was a man born before his time; the world
was not ready for his doctrines--they were far above the people's
heads."
"How do we know?" Mike said eagerly. "Surely God knows best when to
send His messengers, when to reveal Himself?"
"Anyhow," Freddy said, "you know that when he died his teachings died
too. The people who had professed his beliefs returned to their old
gods. The one and only trace of Akhnaton's influence here is in his
mother's tomb, where every sign of Aton worship has been chopped off
the wall, every trace of his symbols obliterated. Akhnaton had no
doubt introduced them into his mother's tomb; she had shared his
beliefs, which had not, of course, become extreme at the time of her
death."
"Truth never dies," Mike said. "His beautiful city was abandoned, his
temples neglected and overthrown, his people again became the victims
of the money-making, political priesthood of Amon-Ra. But who can say
that the spirit of Akhnaton is dead to-day? Who can tell that the seed
of his mission bore no fruit? Thought never dies."
"As you like. Anyhow, even before he was buried--embalming was a
lengthy process--his religion as a state religion, as anything at all
of any influence, or as a power in the land, was doomed."
"You don't admire him as Mike does," Margaret said. "He seems to have
been almost as perfect as a human being could be--the first living
being to realize the divinity of God."
"As a religious _dévoué_, he was, as you say, almost a saint. He spent
his life throwing pearls before swine--you might as well try to make a
charity-school class see the beauty of Virgil in the original--and
letting his kingdom go to rack and ruin."
"Oh," Margaret said, "you didn't tell me that." Her eyes searched
Mike's. "Did he let Egypt go to pieces?"
"He was anti-war, as I am," Mike said, "as all lovers of God and of
mankind ought to be. He was perhaps foolish in his belief that if the
world could be converted to the great religion of Aton, which meant
perfect love for everything that God had created and absolute reverence
for everything because He created it, then there would be no wars. If
God is love and we believe in God, how can we kill each other?
Akhnaton's idea of the duty of a king was the improvement of mankind.
He tried to give men a new understanding of life and of God. The moral
welfare of the human race was more to him than the aggrandizement of
its emperors."
"I've no patience with all that," Freddy said. "He inherited a
magnificent kingdom; he let it dwindle almost to ruin. If you could
read some of the letters of Horemheb, the commander-in-chief of his
army, begging him to send reinforcements to Syria, imploring him to
realize the danger that menaced Asia, you would feel as impatient as I
do with his mission work at Tel-el-Amarna, his cult of flowers and his
new-fangled art."
"A man can't go against his own conscience. He didn't approve of war.
It's an interesting fact that the only one of the old gods he
recognized was Maît--he built a fine new temple to the goddess of truth
at Tel-el-Amarna. He carried his enthusiasm too far," Mike said, "I
grant that, but from his point of view these things were of little
account. If he could have turned the heart of Egypt from the worship
of false gods, if he could have imparted unto the minds of men the
wonder and the love of God, all else, he thought, would follow after."
"A fanatic!" Freddy said.
"So were all saints."
"'For what shall it profit a man,'" Meg said, "'if he gain the whole
world, and lose his own soul?'" Her voice was significant. "In his
day, Christ was as great a fanatic, if you like to look at things from
that point of view. Fancy fasting forty days and forty nights in the
wilderness, calling upon men to leave their work and follow him,
preaching against the rich! How you would have scoffed at him!"
"If Akhnaton hadn't been a king, if he had merely been a prophet and a
teacher, he'd have been all right. But just you listen, Meg," Freddy
said, "while I read you what a modern writer says about him, and he is
an intense admirer of the character of Akhnaton. This is how he
describes what the messengers must have felt when they hurried back to
Egypt to the new capital of the fanatical king at Tel-el-Amarna,
bearing entreaties from the commander-in-chief of the army in Syria to
send reinforcements to help to deliver his distant kingdom from the
oppression of her enemies." Freddy found the book and opened it.
"Here it is--listen to this: 'The messengers have arrived at the City
of the Horizon,' as Akhnaton called his new capital, 'Their hearts are
full of the agony of Syria. From the beleaguered cities which they had
so lately left, there came to them the bitter cry for succour, and it
was not possible to drown that cry in words of peace, nor in the jangle
of the septrum or the warbling of pipes. Who, thought the waiting
messengers, could resist that piteous call? The city weeps and her
tears are flowing. Who could sit idle in the City of the Horizon, when
the proud empire, won with the blood of the noblest soldiers of the
great Thothmes, was breaking up before their eyes? What mattered all
the philosophies in the world, and all the gods in heaven, when Egypt's
great dominions were being wrested from her? The splendid Lebanon, the
white kingdoms of the sea, Askalon and Ashdod, Tyre and Sidon, Simgra
and Byblos, the hills of Jerusalem, Kadesh and the great Orontes, the
fair Jordan, Turip, Aleppo and distant Euphrates . . . what counted a
creed against these? God, the Truth? The only god was He of the
Battles, who had led Egypt into Syria; the only truth the doctrine of
the sword, which had held her there for so many years.'"
Freddy turned over the leaves of the book which he had been reading
from, and began again quoting from Weigall's _Life of Akhnaton_.
"'Love! One stands amazed at the reckless idealism, the beautiful
folly of this Pharaoh who, in an age of turbulence, preached a religion
of peace to seething Syria. Three thousand years later mankind is
still blindly striving after these same ideals in vain.'"
"How pathetic!" Margaret said. "And yet . . ." she hesitated, ". . .
the God of Battles . . . Akhnaton's was the God of Love, the God of
everlasting Mercy."
"What right had Egypt ever to go into Syria?" Mike said. "It sounds
fine and one can grow enthusiastic over these beautiful old names and
visualize a million greatnesses that Akhnaton was resigning, but what
right had Egypt in Syria? The right of might, the right of the
stronger against the weaker--Prussia's might against Poland, Spain's
might against Flanders, any large country's might against a weaker, the
right of armies, the right of the greed of monarchs! Akhnaton believed
in God, and to his thinking war could not go hand-in-hand with a love
for all that God had created."
"Get out, Mike!" Freddy said. "You'll get on to Ireland next--I know
him, Meg!"
"I agree with him in a way," Meg said. "To give people the love of God
and the proper sense of beauty, the enjoyment of all that God has made
for their good, in the best way, which was surely the way of Akhnaton,
seems better than spending the kingdom's wealth and brains in
maintaining armies to kill human beings and invade new territories."
"The great question," Freddy said, "is nationality. If you don't care
who wipes you out, or to what country or king you belong, well and
good, live the idealized life. Someone will think quite differently
and gobble you up. If Akhnaton hadn't died, there would soon have been
no Egypt, no Egyptian peoples."
"They'd have been quite as happy," Mike said, "for in those days the
kings actually owned their empires, they were their own property to do
what they liked with. The people fought for their King, not for their
country. An absolute monarch was an absolute monarch, the kingdom was
his to do as he liked with."
"How was it saved? Was it ever as great again?" Meg asked.
"It was saved by his son dying almost directly after he did and
Horemheb, the great commander-in-chief, at last got his way. He
persuaded the reigning Pharaoh, who had married Akhnaton's daughter, to
himself lead an expedition and go into Asia. After that Pharaoh's
death, and the death of the next one, Ay, Akhnaton's father-in-law, who
reigned for a short time--and who, to do him justice, tried to remain
faithful to Akhnaton's ideal Aton worship--the great warrior and
commander-in-chief, Horemheb, was raised to the throne. He brought
Egypt back to its old conditions. Do you care to hear what Weigall
says about him?--how completely he wiped out the 'idealism of the
dreamer'?" Freddy found the passage he wanted. "'The neglected
shrines of the old gods once more echoed with the chants of the priests
through the whole land of Egypt . . . he fashioned a hundred
images. . . . He established for them daily offerings every day. All
the vessels of their temples were wrought of silver and gold. He
equipped them with priests and with ritual priests, and with the
choicest of the army. He transferred to them lands and cattle,
supplied with all necessary equipment. By these gifts to the neglected
gods, Horemheb was striving to bring Egypt back to its natural
condition and with a strong hand he was guiding the country from chaos
to order, from fantastic Utopia to the solid Egypt of the past. He
was, in fact, the preacher of sanity, the chief apostle of the Normal.'"
"It was in his reign," Michael said, "that Akhnaton's fair city at
Tel-el-Amarna was utterly abandoned; his beautiful decorations, which
were intended to illustrate to the people the beauty of God in Nature,
were ruthlessly destroyed. His body, which had been laid in the
far-away cliffs behind his city, was removed and placed in his mother
Queen Thi's tomb in this valley."
"What a tragic life!" Margaret said. She was thinking of the sad face
as she had seen it in her vision. Did any one understand him? Freddy
evidently understood Horemheb, the apostle of the Normal, who scorned
the fantastic Utopia of Akhnaton, much better.
"He was very much beloved and probably as much understood by a few as
most pioneers have been. It was in his father-in-law's tomb that his
beautiful hymn was discovered, for he was one of his devoted followers
in Akhnaton's lifetime."
Margaret smiled. "The beautiful hymn you said to me that morning at
dawn, Mike?"
"The same," Michael said. "I have often thought of it in connection
with St. Francis' Canticle to the Sun."
"It is difficult," Margaret said, "to know how far wars and
empire-building, and everything that makes for worldly-ambition and
encourages the vanity of monarchs, are compatible with the true meaning
of the words 'God is Love,' with the true conception of Christ's
doctrines."
"Which were Akhnaton's," Michael said. "He did all in his power to
raise the morals of his people. He was the first king to recognize the
higher rights of women, to insist on the reverence of womanhood. He
brought his queen forward on every public occasion, and that had never
been heard of before. He tried to introduce a new ideal of home-life.
He was a model father and husband. He thought of nothing but the moral
welfare of his people and of their happiness. He was willing to lose
his kingdom for the saving of their souls."
"And yet he was a bad king?" Margaret said.
"He had none of the qualities of a ruler or an empire-builder," Freddy
said.
"Damn empire-building!" Mike said. "If people would only stick to
their own natural territory and not go straying into other peoples!"
"I wonder what you'd do if Germany strayed into ours? Sit down and let
them walk over you?"
"I'd do what you'd do," Mike said, with a flash of Irish anger in his
eyes--"kill every damned one of them!"
"There you are!" Freddy said hotly.
"No, I am not," Michael said, "for, as I said, what we've got, let us
keep--England's possessions no more belong to Germany than my soul
does. But some of our wars--well!" he laughed. "Empires are built up
in rum ways, ways I don't agree with, but we won't do any good by
handing them over now to feed the vanity of the Kaiser. But the
Egyptians had enough land in Africa to expand in, there was no need for
their warrioring in strange lands."
"Let's chuck the subject," Freddy said good-naturedly, "and stick to
work. I want to get these boxes cleared out to-night and we never do
good work while we argue."
"I can't help smiling," Margaret said. "It's really too funny to think
that we've got quite cross and snappy over the character of a man who
lived more than three thousand years ago."
"Oh, we often do that," Michael said. "You should have heard about a
dozen of us quarrelling some time ago over hair-splitting theories on a
much less human subject, one belonging to pre-dynastic times!"
"I wish Aunt Anna could see us, Freddy, sitting in this funny hut in
this lonely desert valley, cleaning little objects and broken fragments
of things that were buried three thousand years ago and fighting over a
mummy, as she would say!"
Margaret had been working busily, so her tin cigarette-box, which had
been quite full early in the evening with all sorts of small blue beads
and tiny bits of pottery, was almost empty. She had been able to enjoy
and follow all her brother's remarks about Akhnaton, as Michael had
told her a great deal about him. In the three weeks which had passed
since their visit to Assuan there had been no return of the vision, so
she had insisted upon Michael telling her all that he could about
Akhnaton. She felt anxious to understand something about the king
whose personality interested and influenced him so greatly.
Michael had by no means banished the vision from his thoughts. He was
convinced that Margaret had been privileged to see a vision of
Akhnaton--indeed, the more he dwelt on his message, the more he felt
sure that it was the beginning of a new phase in his life.
Over and over again he had repeated to himself the message: "Tell him
to carry on my work."
Was he doing any work at the present time to help forward mankind? He
was enjoying himself in a delightful way and to a certain extent he was
assisting Freddy; but such assistance as he gave could easily be given
by another; he was not essential.
There was only one man whom he had a longing to consult and that was
Michael Ireton. Since his marriage with Hadassah Lekejian, a Syrian
girl of great beauty and strength of character, Michael Ireton had
given his time and brains and money to the founding of settlements in
various parts of Egypt for the raising of the moral status of women in
Egypt. He was a practical man of the world, with a charming
personality. His wife was one of the most cultivated and fascinating
women Michael had ever met.
If he confided to Freddy his growing desire to do the work which he
felt was the work he was called upon to do, Freddy would only look upon
it as a fresh example of his drifting character.
The subject of Akhnaton had been dropped and perfect good humour was
restored again. Michael's thoughts had soared into what Freddy called
his "Kingdom of Idle Dreams." Freddy's thoughts were very practical,
although they related to the history of a lost civilization and to the
unearthing of objects which the sands of the desert had concealed for
thousands of years. He and the workers knew that the next few days
would be days of intense excitement.
So far Freddy's surmises had been correct. The chaff and scoffing
which he had so good-naturedly put up with from the fellow-excavators
who had been to visit the camp were likely to be turned the other way.
He had little or no doubt left that he had struck an important tomb,
probably the tomb of the Pharaoh for whom he was looking.
In a few days the big shaft which led to the mouth of the tomb would be
cleared. Tons upon tons of debris had been thrown out of it; the work
had been stupendous. The two hundred native workers and the other more
experienced diggers had worked unremittingly. Freddy was living in a
high state of nervous tension. The news had spread far and wide that
"Mistrr Lampton" had discovered a new tomb and one which presumably had
never been entered. Freddy knew that this news would spread, would be
carried on the wings of the morning in a manner which no European can
ever discover. Means of transmitting news is one of the secrets which
no native in Africa, North or South, has ever divulged to an European.
There are hundreds of theories on the subject. Do pigeons act as
carriers? Some people suggest this theory. Or is it by some wireless
method which has been known to all primitive races and only lately
discovered by scientific scholars of the West?
So far no one has fathomed the mystery. But Freddy knew that the news
would be sent far and wide, and that every seeker after "antikas" would
be prowling round the opened site. Directly the tomb was opened, it
would be the Mecca of every tomb-plunderer. He had sent word for a
guard of police to be ready to come when he summoned them.
When the tomb was opened he would have to prevent anyone from going
into it until a photographer had arrived from Cairo to photograph it
and until after the Supervisor-General of the Monuments of Upper Egypt
had arrived on the spot and inspected it.
He could feel the excitement of the natives, who have absolutely no
sense of honour where "antikas" are concerned. It has proved almost an
impossible work to convince them that the excavators and the scholars
who are engaged in the work of archaeology in Egypt, or the wealthy man
who has paid for the expenses of a camp, are not one and all "out on
the make." They are convinced that these eager, enthusiastic scholars
are just the same as they are, interested in it from a pecuniary point
of view. The curios and wonders which they dig out of the bowels of
the earth put gold into their pockets.
Freddy's _Ras_, or native overseer, was a highly intelligent man, who
had a genuine appreciation for antiques--he was a clever hand at faking
them and did a good business with tourists--but at heart even he
doubted the sincerity and single-minded purpose of the British School
of Archaeology in Egypt, and "Mistrr Lampton's" absolute
clean-handedness in the business.
Freddy had never left the camp for more than half an hour since the
excavation had become "hot." It was a strenuous time.
Naturally Margaret's thoughts were centred and engrossed in her
brother's work. She could scarcely hold her soul in patience while the
deep shaft was being cleared, a long and tiresome job. But at last
they could count the time by days before the entrance to the tomb would
be reached.
The little store-room in the hut was packed full of boxes which held
the small finds. Margaret's work for some days past had been to piece
together (Freddy had taught her how) the tiny fragments of a smashed
vase which her brother had found. The pieces were all there, for it
had been discovered in a little hollow in the sand. The conventional
decoration was of an unique type; and on it was traced a branch of a
plant which seemed to Freddy to resemble with extraordinary exactness a
branch of the Indian fig, the prickly pear, so familiar to all
travellers in Southern Italy. As the Indian fig was not introduced
into Egypt until the Middle Ages, or so it had generally been supposed,
for it was not indigenous, Freddy was anxious to find out if the
decoration on the vase was going to prove that after all it was known
to the Egyptians long before it was brought over from America. He also
held that there was something in the theory which has of late become
current that camels may have been known and used in Egypt from very
early times, that their absence in all pictorial art in temples and
tombs may be owing to the fact that the Egyptians divided animals into
two classes, the clean and the unclean; that neither into temples nor
into tombs could the unclean be introduced in any form of art
whatsoever.
These were the sort of discussions with which Margaret had already
grown familiar. She felt that in piecing together and sketching as
accurately as possible the cactus-like branch of the little plant
engraved on the broken vase, she was actually helping to forge a link
in one of the minute chains of Egyptian archaeology.
Her brother's memory amazed her and his intelligence stimulated her.
He had been such a boy at home. Egypt had converted him into a strong
serious scholar. His fair head, bent over his work, with the lamplight
shining on it, was so dear to her that impulsively she put her long
strong fingers on the glittering hair; she longed to kiss it.
"Dear old boy!" she said. "Isn't it all just too exciting? Isn't life
thrilling? Isn't it lovely to be alive?"
Freddy did not look up. "Some girls," he said, "mightn't think this
being very much alive--the sorting out of bits of broken rubbish,
thrown out of a tomb which has been forgotten for two or three thousand
years. Did you ever think you'd care to know whether a prickly pear
was indigenous to Egypt or was not? Or whether canopic jars had their
origin in family grocers' jars being lent by the head of the house to
hold the intestines of some dear-departed?"
Meg laughed. "It is all too odd, but being in it, and actually knowing
that we are going to see into that tomb in a few days and discover who
the king was who was buried there, and all about his personal and
family affairs, and be able to touch the jewels he was buried with,
it's too interesting for words, I think!"
"I hope you won't be disappointed. It may have been robbed."
"But you don't think so?"
"No, I don't--not at present. There was a tomb opened at one of the
camps, not long ago, which told a tragic story of the end of robbery
and plunder. The roof had fallen in while the burglar was busy
unwrapping the cloths from the dead mummy. He was evidently trying to
get at the heart-scarab, I suppose, and at the jewels which the
windings held in their place. He had been smothered, taken in the act.
Probably he had left his fellow-plunderers at the entrance; the roof
may have looked unsafe, but he had hoped to collect all the jewels and
scarabs before it gave way. Fate played him a nasty trick. The roof
caved in, and we have secured all the jewels he had collected together
and have learned a lesson of what must have often happened. The
mummy's body was, of course, still perfect. Of the intruder only bones
were visible and some fragments of his clothes. Things keep for ever
in these hermetically-sealed Egyptian tombs, where neither rust nor
moth ever entered in, but where thieves did break through and steal."
"How thrilling!" Margaret said. "How did you guess that the skeleton
was the skeleton of a robber? I suppose as he never returned, his
friends just went off and left him?"
"By the scattered jewels and the way the mummy was lying. Why should a
skeleton be inside a royal tomb? Why should the mummy be out of its
coffin and partly unrobed? We have actually found before now plans
which the sextons and the guardians of the tombs had made for
themselves, of all the tombs in the cemetery which was in their care.
They knew how they could be entered one from another. Of course, this
valley is different. The tombs are isolated and carefully hidden. It
was never a public cemetery."
"Was Akhnaton's tomb intact? Had it been robbed?"
Freddy laughed. "Back again to the tabooed subject?"
Meg laughed too. "We shan't fight this time, I promise."
"His city and palace and tomb were utterly desolated, but his mummy had
been taken away from his own tomb, before it was desolated, and brought
to his mother's."
"Oh, you told me--I forgot." Into Meg's mind came again the words
spoken by the sad voice, "My earthly body was brought to my mother's
tomb in this valley."
When the night's work was completed, Meg voted that they should sit for
a few minutes in front of the hut and try to get the "mummy-shell" and
the microbes of Pharaonic diseases out of their nostrils. Freddy had
never allowed them to sleep right out in the open, much as they had
wished it. It was not safe, even with the dogs and his trustworthy
house-boys. He would not hear of it; and he was wise.
Gladly he agreed to refreshing their lungs with the beautiful night
air. Indeed, they were all three so happy together and there was so
much to talk about and discuss, that bed seemed a bore. Physically
tired as they were, owing to the nervous excitement in the atmosphere
of their day's surroundings, sleep seemed very far off.
"Just half an hour, Freddy," Margaret said, as she threw herself down
on a long lounge chair, and clasping her hands behind her head, gazed
up to the heavens. "How glorious it is!" she said. "I'm so happy."
They all three lighted cigarettes and smoked in silence. Freddy was as
happy as Meg; Mike was restless.
At the end of the half-hour Meg got up and said, "Who'd exchange this
for a city? Freddy, you ought to get to bed--you're dead tired,
really."
He rose reluctantly. "I suppose I must." His thoughts were on the
morrow's work. If the tomb was going to be a really big thing, it
meant a lot more to him than Meg understood. He was very young; he had
not as yet struck any remarkable find; he had his reputation to make.
His theories had caused much comment.
"I could never live in a city again," he said. "This life has made it
impossible. And the odd thing is that it has made cities seem to me
the loneliest, most desolate places in the world. I never feel in
touch with anyone. Even the other night at the ball, jolly as it was,
I never once talked to anyone about anything that really interested me.
I never felt that anyone would understand a single thing about all that
is my real life. I suppose everyone feels the same--that their real
selves are lost in crowds."
Michael and Margaret looked at each other. They had experienced the
feeling; they had lost each other. In the valley they had come back to
the things of Truth.
"You know I always abhorred town-life," Mike said, "and all its
artificiality and rottenness and needless accumulation of unnecessary
things."
"Brains congregate in cities, all the same," Freddy said, "if you can
only strike them. We'd get too one-sided here, too lost in the past.
It's never wise to let your hobbies and work exclude all other
interests."
"I begin to think there is no past," Meg said. "Time lost itself in
Egypt. Three thousand years mean nothing. The people who lived and
ruled before Moses was born are more alive and real to-day for us than
the events of yesterday's evening paper. I think I have learned just a
tiny bit of what infinity means."
"Or rather, you have learned that you haven't," Mike said. "By the
time you have discovered that three thousand years are just yesterday,
you have grasped the truth of the fact that no mortal mind can conceive
the meaning of the word infinity."
"Have you ever seen a ghost in Egypt, Freddy?" Margaret said,
irrelevantly.
"No, never," he said.
"Did the ancients believe in them?"
Freddy was locking up the hut. "We never come across any writing or
pictures to show us that they did, so I don't think it's likely. They
have told us most things about themselves and about what they saw and
feared."
"I wonder?" Margaret said meditatively. "I wonder if they did or
didn't?"
"Of course they believed," Michael said, "that the soul of a man, the
_anima_, at the death of the body, flew to the gods. It came back at
intervals to comfort the mummy."
"That's nothing to do with what we call ghosts," Freddy said, "and no
one but the mummy is supposed to have been visited by it. It took the
form of a bird with human hands and head; it was called the _ba_."
"Oh, my friendly _ba_!" Meg said. "I have just been reading all about
it--in Maspero's book you see pictures of it sitting on the chest of
the mummy."
"That's it," Freddy said. "You're getting on. But as for real ghosts,
there's no record of them--not that I know of. Good-night," he said,
"I'm off."
"Good-night," Meg said, "and the best of luck to tomorrow's dig."
For a moment Michael and Meg stood together. "I know what is in your
heart," she said. "I begin to think that Egypt is making practical me
quite psychic."
"I feel I ought to be up and doing. I believe there is work I can
do--I believe it is the work I can do best."
"You only can judge," Meg said.
"I have always maintained that a man should devote himself to the work
he can do best, no matter how unpractical or how unremunerative it may
seem to others. He must be himself, he must work from the inside."
"You are doing good work here."
"Not my work--another's."
"I can't advise. I know you must judge."
"It means leaving this valley if I do it."
"Oh," Meg said, "not yet? Not until the tomb is opened, anyhow?"
"No," he said, "I'll wait for that. I want to see Ireton--I'm going to
see him to-morrow when I go to Luxor for Freddy."
"Are you going?" she said. "I didn't know."
"Yes," he said. "He wants a lot done and he can't leave the dig."
"No, he can't." Meg paused; in her heart a fear had suddenly leapt up.
The soft, delicately-tinted woman on the balcony at Assuan stood out
before her as plainly as the luminous figure of Akhnaton had done. She
was at Luxor! Two letters had arrived from Luxor for Mike in a woman's
handwriting.
"I will see Michael Ireton," he repeated. "His work is magnificent; so
is his wife's. His work is amongst the men."
"In their settlements, you mean?"
"Yes, amongst the Copts, most particularly."
"It will be sad to break up our trio," she said. "We are so happy."
She held out her hand. "Good-night. I was to help, not to retard--I
must remember my dream."
"Good-night." Mike grasped her hand. "You are part of the light.
Keep close to me when I am in Luxor tomorrow."
CHAPTER X
Michael not only had to go to Luxor on business for Freddy, but to
Cairo also. He had gone willingly, because he knew that someone had to
go, and it gave him immense gratification to be able to help his friend
in this time of intense anxiety.
It was absolutely essential that as little time as possible should
elapse between the opening of the tomb and the arrival of the
photographer and the Chief Inspector. Things which have remained
intact for thousands of years in the even, dry temperature of an
Egyptian tomb, crumble and fade away like the fabric of our dreams when
they are exposed to the open air.
It might be that there would be nothing inside it worth all the trouble
and the arrangements which had to be made; on the other hand, the Arab
seer's vision might be verified. So far, no trace of burglars, either
ancient or modern, had been discovered. Not infrequently the finding
of an Arab copper coin, or some disk made of modern metal, an amulet
similar to those worn by the ancients, but made of a composition
unknown to them, will indicate to an excavator that the tomb has been
visited, and probably violated, by modern thieves.
Everything when speaking of time in Egypt is comparative. These
intruders may have dropped the metal talisman or coin centuries and
centuries ago, soon after the Arab invasion.
Michael had done all his business and was well-content to spend the
remainder of his day in mediaeval Cairo. He shunned the European
quarter, with its expensive hotels and hybrid Western civilization. He
preferred the narrow dark streets of the poor natives. In the East
poverty has at least its picturesque side; in the East, as in Italy,
Our Lady of Poverty has her shrines, not her hovels. In London, he
asked himself, could Browning have sung "God's in His heaven--All's
right with the world!"?
In London so much is wrong with the world that the true meaning of
Christ's words, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
needle than for the rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven,"
seems obvious. To Michael Amory the world was beautiful; its systems
of laws and customs were all wrong. The misunderstanding of countless
human beings, one with another, through their lack of Love, through
their obliviousness of God, made a whirlpool of his reasoning powers.
Mike had talked matters over with Michael Ireton, who had allowed him
to unburden his full heart. His ideas and plans were quite unformed.
All that he was now certain of was the fact that he would never settle
down to any profession or career which would mean only the furthering
of his own worldly interests.
"The clear voice prevents me," he said. "And the fact is, I don't care
a rap about my future position--it can look after itself. I want to
work as you are working, even if I prove a failure. I want to get
something of this off my chest." He laughed. "It's all so difficult
to express, and so easy to see, isn't it? Of course, I know that one
man can't set the wrong in the world right, but each man can do what
his right self advises. Our right self is never wrong."
"Hadassah helped me," Michael Ireton said, "and life has been worth
twice what it was before. I agree with you--we must lead our own lives
according to our own ideals, not according to the world's."
"Most people think me a fool," Michael said, "simply a rotter and a
drifter, just because I can't settle down to work at a career of my
own, while the world's burden is booming in my ear."
"Think things well over," Hadassah said. "Don't rush into plans which
may prove a disappointment. Let your ideas materialize. You are never
really idle--you will be sending thought-waves out into the world; they
will bear fruit. Thought never dies; for good or for evil, it is
everlasting."
"But I have been thinking--or drifting, as Lampton says, just idly
drifting, for what seems to me like ages."
"Drifting closer to the Light," Hadassah said. "It has all been in
order, it has all been a part of the Guiding Power."
"Do you think so? I wish I knew. Lampton thinks I've no ambition. I
have, of a sort, but it's not of a money-making kind, it's not going to
make my name or what you could call a career. I want to teach people
how to live, and I don't know how to do it myself."
"I understand," Ireton said. "There's something out here, in the
simplicity of desert life and the East generally, that lessens our
wants. The fruits of hard labour are not so necessary as in England;
the flesh-pots of Egypt are in the sunshine. If you have just enough
to get along with, here in the East, and have cultivated tastes, life
can be wonderfully beautiful. Poverty need never mean degradation--in
fact, it has its advantages."
"That's it!" Michael Amory said. "I want to let people know how
wonderfully beautiful life can be, even without wealth and worldly
power, and why it is beautiful. I want them to realize the essence of
things, to let those poor, crowded, degraded wretches in London know
the sweetness of work in God's open spaces. I feel that I must do my
little bit in helping things forward. I want to let in a few chinks of
light. . . ."
Hadassah, oddly enough, finished his quotation from "Pippa Passes":
"You want to give them eyes to see that
"'The year's at the Spring,
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's dew-pearled:
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in His heaven--
All's right with the world!'"
Michael Ireton suggested that he should go off for a time into the
desert and find himself. "There's nothing else so helpful," he said.
"I've tried it." Hadassah's eyes met her husband's. She understood;
she remembered.
And so Michael Amory left them strengthened and helped, not so much by
their advice as by their understanding. Hadassah had charmed him, as
she charmed everyone who met her. Her happiness as the wife of the
Englishman who had scorned the gossiping tongues of Cairo by marrying
her, and her pride in the young Nicholas, their son, who was just
learning to walk, made Michael Amory a little envious. Michael
Ireton's home and life seemed almost ideal. This wealthy, happy couple
lived in the world and yet not for the world; they had discovered the
true meaning of life.
Michael's thoughts were brimful of Hadassah and her husband, her beauty
and the romance of their marriage, the details of which were familiar
to him, as he pushed his way through the labyrinth of native streets in
mediaeval Cairo.
After the silence of the desert, the noise was terrific--the shouts of
the water-carriers, the yells of the native drivers of the swaying
cabs, as they dashed at a reckless pace through the struggling and
idling crowds. It was the most crowded hour of the day; the native
town was wide awake. Camels laden with immense burdens of sugar-canes
brushed the foot passengers almost off the narrow sideway; small boys,
with large black eyes and small white _takiyehs_, darted in and out
with brass trays piled high with little enamelled glass bowls.
Michael longed to close his ears with his fingers, but had he attempted
to do so, a donkey, carrying terracotta water-jars of an ancient and
unpractical shape, or a portly, high-stomached Turk would assuredly
have robbed him of his balance.
He drifted on in a semi-conscious state of all that was going on around
him, hating the noise, but enjoying every now and then the feast of
colour which some group of strangely-mixed races presented. More than
once, in the midst of all this noise and clamour, he saw a devout
Moslem alone with his God. Before all the world, he was praying in
absolute solitude. His mind had created perfect silence.
And so Michael drifted on. Only his subconscious self was leading him
to his destination. He was going to a court of peace, to a strange
friend who had taught him much simple philosophy and beauty, an African
whose acquaintance he had made two years before, when he was in
Gondokoro. Michael had saved the African's life by giving him some
pecuniary assistance and carrying him on his own camel to the nearest
village. He had come across him while he was on his journey which he
performed on foot--from the heart of Africa to the university of
el-Azhar in Cairo.
Since his youth, this old man had saved up money for the journey. It
had been the ambition and the desire of his life to study in the great
university of el-Azhar, the most important Moslem university in the
world. His money had all been stolen from him, when Michael's servant
found him. When he told his master of the condition the poor creature
was in, a state of semi-starvation, Michael had taken him to the
nearest village and there paid for a doctor to attend to him, and had
supplied him with sufficient money to greatly mitigate the fatigue and
suffering of his long pilgrimage to Cairo.
The journey had, of course, not been of such a hopeless character as
might be supposed, for in every Moslem village there is a rest-house
with free food for poor travellers; but even so, Michael knew that the
distances between the desert villages are often enormous, and that they
only supplied the food for the period of rest which the pilgrim needed.
Eight months later, when Michael was in England, he heard through the
_'Ulama_ of the _riwak_ in el-Azhar to which he belonged by
nationality, that the old man had arrived and that he was now living
the life of a mystic and a recluse. In a beautiful imagery of words,
he had begged the _'Ulama_ to send his gratitude and thanks to the
Englishman by whom, God, in His everlasting mercy, had sent him relief.
On Michael's return to Egypt the next year, almost the first thing
which he had done on reaching Cairo was to go to el-Azhar and inquire
at the ancient abode of peace if he could see his old friend. He had
been admitted and exceptional courtesy had been extended to him. He
was an unbeliever and a despised Christian, yet it had been through his
act of charity that one of Allah's children had been nursed back to
life and enabled to give his last years to the study of the Koran. He
had been allowed to visit the old man from time to time.
To-day, as he walked through the noisy streets and smelt the obnoxious
smells coming from an infinite variety of Oriental foods and customs,
he longed to be back in the quiet valley, to feel the golden sand once
more under his feet, to see Margaret's eyes smile their welcome. If he
had caught the midday train, he would have been far away from Cairo by
now. Yet something had led him to the heart of Islam, to that strange
and unworldly seat of ancient learning. The very meaning of the word
Islam suggests the atmosphere of the place--resignation, self-surrender.
When at last he arrived at the gates and was admitted into the
splendour of the spacious court, his heart was lifted up. Its ancient
dignity, its divine sense of calm and, above all, the sonorous sounds
of the Moslems chanting their _suras_ of the Koran, intoxicated his
senses. As St. Augustine was intoxicated with God, so Michael was
intoxicated with the spirit of Islam.
He knew that at certain times--during Moslem festivals, for
instance--fanaticism often ran so high in this, the greatest of all
Moslem centres, that it would be dangerous for a Christian to set foot
inside the courtyard gate. It made him glow with pleasure that he, by
his little act of love--or charity, as it is less pleasantly
termed--was permitted to enter the courtyard at almost any time. This,
of course, he would not do; the _'Ulama_ had given him permission, but
he would not take advantage of his gracious offer.
To this richly-endowed university students come from all parts of the
world, merely to study the interpretations of problematical passages in
the Koran--poor students from India and China, wealthy citizens from
Tunis, delicate-featured Malays from the Straits Settlements and
negroes from Central Africa.
In the courts of el-Azhar these children of Allah become brothers;
their united flag is the green banner of Islam; their nationality is
Islam. This, Michael felt, was what religion ought to do for mankind.
He tiptoed softly along, winding his way through the devout groups of
students, until he reached a deep colonnade, supported by antique
columns of great beauty, columns which had probably come from ancient
Coptic churches, from Christian churches built in Old Cairo long before
Islam was preached in Egypt. The colonnade was dark and almost cool
after the open court, where the sun was blazing down upon the groups of
picturesque worshippers and students, who seemed to be totally
oblivious of its heat. Some elderly men were merely meditating. It
was a wonderful sight, gracious and solemn and mysterious. The
concentration of many of the worshippers on God was so strong that they
seemed to see Him with their eyes; it was written on their faces; they
looked as if they actually belonged to God.
Filled with the religious spell of the place, Michael wound his way
through the different class-rooms into which the colonnade was divided,
class-rooms which so little resembled the class-rooms of his own school
or Oxford, that unless he had known what was going on, it would not
have dawned on him that the various professors and teachers were
delivering their lectures and instructing their scholars. The
divisions of the class-rooms were merely an unwritten law; there was no
boundary-line. Here and there groups of students, seated on the floor
of the immense colonnade, which was supported on the inner side by
columns of superb proportions, were waiting for their masters. Here
and there a professor had already arrived; he was standing close to a
column with his pupils grouped round him, just as the village-children
surrounded their native teacher in a desert school.
Out of the eleven thousand pupils who attend the university every year
not one of them would receive any instruction which would enable him to
earn his living, or take his place in the struggle for wealth and power
in the ordinary world of mankind. Devotion to Islam, and a desire to
enter into a fuller understanding of God through the teachings of the
Koran, alone brought them together from far and near.
Michael knew his way and presently he found himself in the residential
quarter of the university and outside a partition which divided the
small bare room of the man he had come to see from that of his
fellow-students. The room or cell was empty, except for one
praying-mat and a shelf, which was close to the floor. On it was a
copy of the Koran and some religious books bound in paper. In the wall
of this narrow living-room there was an opening which led into another
cell; a tall man would have had to bend almost double to pass under it.
The small recess served as a bedroom.
Michael gently pulled a bell, whose chain hung against the iron grating
which fronted the humble abode. As it sounded, an emaciated figure
appeared under the arched aperture and a sonorous voice cried out in
Arabic, "Peace be with you."
Michael, who knew that this Moslem greeting is reserved for all true
believers, for members of the Islamic brotherhood, that it is rarely,
if ever, offered to Christians, thought that the old man had not seen
him, that his gracious salutation was for one of his own faith. He did
not venture to return it in the prescribed Moslem fashion, "On you be
peace and the mercy of God and His Blessing." He merely waited for a
few moments, until the bent figure stood upright, and the dark eyes in
the thin face met his own.
"It is you, O my son. I have long looked for you."
Michael's heart warmed with happiness. Then the Moslem greeting had
been for him. He felt that peace was with him.
"I seek your counsel, O my father."
"May Allah counsel me and bring you prosperity." A lean arm, a mere
bone covered with a sun-tanned skin, reached for a key which was
hanging from a nail in the wall. Without speaking, he unlocked the
gate. Michael noticed the fleshlessness of the fingers and wrist.
"Enter, my son, if it so please you to honour my humble abode."
Michael entered and waited in silence, until the old African had slowly
and carefully locked the door again.
"To you, O my son, my dwelling-place seems empty and bare; to me it is
filled with the treasures of paradise, the sweet fragrance of white
jasmine."
"I understand," Michael said.
"My son," the old man said, "it is because you understand that I am
here, in this little room, glorified by the presence of Allah, made
beautiful by His exceeding great beauty. I see many flowers; I can
hear the singing of birds and the running of cool waters."
"Your home is an abode of peace. Its beauty is the perfection of
understanding. Your jasmine is the fragrance of love."
"Our thoughts, my son, are our real riches. In no place are we far
from Allah. What of your work--has it prospered?"
This was, Michael knew, the usual Moslem greeting to a friend; it did
not refer to any particular form of work or to his worldly affairs.
"All is well, O my father."
"I have no bodily refreshment to offer you, my son." He smiled a
queer, grim smile; it stretched the hard skin of his face, which
mid-African suns had tanned.
"I need no material food, O my father," Michael said, "I have eaten
well and I know your frugal life. I seek better food."
"That is well, my son. Prayer is better than food. I have prayed for
you."
Michael knew that at el-Azhar all studies are absolutely free; the
teaching is entirely gratuitous. The poor students even receive their
food from the rich endowments of the various _riwaks_ to which they
belong. This Michael had learned when he saved the old man's life at
Gondokoro. He had discovered the fact that when once he was inside the
gate of this gracious institution, he would be sheltered and fed and
taught by the love of Islam. Wealthy students pay for privileges and
for more luxurious quarters. This visionary and pilgrim asked for
nothing more than food enough to keep him alive. What he desired of
life was the time and means for studying the teachings of the Koran and
the receiving of instruction from learned professors in the refinements
of theology and in the sacred traditions. His life had been spent in a
treadmill of hard labour. In mid-Africa his duty had been, for as long
as he could remember, the guiding of a camel in its unceasing round of
a primitive native well, the drawing up and emptying of buckets.
His smile was so mystical and ecstatic while he offered his apologies
to Michael for the lack of hospitality, that Michael knew that he was
visualizing and enjoying far greater luxury and affluence than had ever
been the lot of the richest Mameluke of old days.
They were seated on the floor of the outer cell.
"You have been much in my thoughts, O my son. Allah has desired it. I
have seen strange happenings for you. I know that the Light has come
nearer."
Michael bowed his head and murmured a few words inaudibly.
"The Lord of the Worlds has revealed himself to you, O my son. My
unworthy prayer has been answered." He paused. "Why have you not
come? Since the Great Weeping (the inundation of the Nile) you have
not left the valley?--you have not come?"
"Yes," Michael said. "I have left the valley. But only work could
bring me to Cairo. I was busy."
"I have much to tell you, my son, much that Allah has shown me."
"Please instruct me, O father. I came to you for counsel; in my heart
there is unrest."
"I have seen you," he went on, regardless of Michael's almost inaudible
remarks, "I have seen you travelling on a long journey. I have seen
many trials and many temptations for you. I have also seen you in the
great Light. For you there is a treasure laid up, not only in heaven,
but on earth, which will help you in the work which the clear voice
counsels."
"This is strange," Michael said. "O my father, I am already greatly
disturbed; I come to you for help."
"Do not fear, my son. God responds to and supplies the demands of
human nature. He has willed that you should devote your life to His
teachings."
"You forget, my father. I am not of your faith. I have not embraced
Islam."
"I have my message to deliver. I have seen what I have seen. Every
religion which gives a true knowledge of God and directs in the most
excellent way of His worship, is Islam."
"You have seen me giving my life to all that I feel to be most urgent
in the life of all who know the truth?"
"I have seen you, by Allah's aid and by His bountiful mercy,
accomplishing work which will bestow great blessing and peace upon your
soul."
"I have thought much of all this," Michael said, "since we last met.
The idea has never left me, yet I am puzzled. Why should I feel like
this, when better men do not?"
"God, in His almighty word, has declared a higher aim of man's
existence, O my son."
"Then why do I not better understand? I feel nothing but
dissatisfaction, unfruitfulness."
"A man may not always understand. A hundred different motives may hold
him back. But the truth remains, my son, that the grand aim of man's
life consists in knowing and worshipping God and living for His sake."
"I wish I could decide! Some people see the road so plainly before
them. Mine is broken, and often it is totally lost in the desert
sands."
"A man has no choice, my son, in fixing the aim of his life."
"That is your faith, my father."
"Man does not enter the world or leave it as he desires. He is a
creature, and the Creator Who has brought him into existence has
assigned an object for his existence."
There was silence for a little time, while the old man meditated and
recited a _sura_ from the Koran.
"Already, my son, even though you do not know it, you are in the faith.
You have seen the perfect Light. Remember that no one can fight with
God, or frustrate His designs. Not once, but many times, I have seen
you, my son, travelling on this journey. God has sent many prophets to
lead mankind into the knowledge of truth. Moses and Christ, they had
their divine tasks, but the last and the best of the messengers of God
was Mohammed, praised be His holy name. Some day, O my son, He will
perfect your religion, and complete His favours by making Islam your
faith. Before these messengers there were others, for God has never
left the world in desolation. I have seen you surrounded by Light, a
light which comes from one of God's messengers, who is never far from
you. As I see him, always in the midst of a great light, like the
light of the sun, he resembles no mortal I have ever seen on this
earth, or any king I have been shown in my dreams. He has greatly
suffered for mankind, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, as
was the Prophet Christ."
Michael was greatly disturbed. The old man's eyes were far from him.
His words had their meaning for Michael more than for himself. The
great sunlight was the rays of Aton. The treasure of which he had
spoken--was it the treasure of which the vision in the valley had
spoken to Margaret?
"Some day I may have more counsel to offer you, my son. To-day I have
but strange visions, strange messages. This treasure you are to seek
lies in the desert; it is a treasure of great value. I see much gold,
but also, my son, much tribulation. This gold . . . it has been lost
to the world . . . for many centuries. . . ."
"It is all very strange, my father. Your words are full of meaning.
In Egypt there was a King, before the days of Moses, who sacrificed his
kingdom to give his people God. His was the religion of the true God
and His everlasting mercy."
The old man recited another _sura_ from the Koran. "Go and pray, my
son, open your heart to prayer, for prayer is better than strife;
prayer is greater than miracles. Perseverance in prayer is Islam."
"Can you tell me nothing more?" Michael said. "Is it not folly to
start out on a journey which has no definite ending, no practical
purpose?"
"I cannot tell you more, my son, nor can I tell you why these visions
have been revealed to me. All I know is that I cannot doubt their
source."
"Do you, my father, then absolutely believe in visions?" Michael said.
"I am only a seeker after truth. I am convinced of so little."
"My son, believe in visions. Is their meaning not written on the leaf
of a water-melon?" (A thing well-known.)
"We read of them in the Bible."
"Did I not tell you that I knew of your coming? It was revealed to me
in a vision. I saw you groping and losing your way. I saw you in
thick darkness. I saw you struggling for the Light. Is all that not
true? Have you never lost the Light? Has your path been straight and
easy? Has the flesh not tempted you?"
Michael bent his head.
"For many weeks a friend has been very close to you. She is in the way
of truth. Hold fast to her. There are others who I see in darkness."
"Yes," Michael said. "That is all true. You have seen clearly."
"You will leave those you care for most, my son, and go on a journey
into a new country across the river. It is all His purpose; it is all
a part of the Guiding Hand, the Ruling Power."
Michael remained lost in thought. That the old African loved him as a
son he had no doubt. He knew that his ardent desire was that he should
be the means of converting him to the true faith. He knew that the
little help which he had once been able to give him had won his undying
gratitude. This strange creature, who had only entered upon his
university career after his hair had become white and his body worn to
a shadow, had earned Michael's respect and veneration. He was
conscious of the fact that, devout Moslem as the recluse was, he did
not look upon all Christians as heretics and unclean. Long ago Michael
and he had exchanged thoughts on their conceptions of God. The pious
Moslem had come to the conclusion that but for his lack of a proper
understanding of the Koran and of the Prophet's relation to God,
Michael was at heart a Mohammedan. He worshipped the one and only God
Whom the Prophet had come to reveal. Michael believed in Christ just
as he himself believed in Him, as one of God's Messengers, as one of
God's Methods of manifesting Himself to mankind.
He had no hesitation in speaking to Michael or in reciting passages
from the Holy Book in his presence. Daily he prayed that he might
embrace the faith of Islam. It was his love for him and his gratitude
which made him eager for this happiness to be bestowed upon his
benefactor.
For a long time Michael remained with his old friend, who was glad to
learn from him many things which could never have reached his ears from
any other source. He lived as a hermit and a recluse inside his little
cell, which was lost in the vast dimensions of the Mosque of el-Azhar.
As he was lost to the world, so was he surrounded by things of the
spirit.
It was late in the afternoon when at last Michael said good-bye and the
aged student locked himself into his cell. His adieu was lengthy and
beautiful and expressed in the true Moslem fashion. This ardent
Englishman was as dear to him as a son. He had no sons of his own, or
indeed any friends who loved him. There was scarcely a soul in his old
home who remembered his existence. The man who had guided the camel at
the well had ceased to cause even his late master a passing thought.
The native teacher who had instructed him in the Koran in his boyhood,
along with the other village children, and who had first inspired him
with the desire to study the Sacred Book at el-Azhar, had long since
gone to that world where "black faces shall turn white and white faces
shall turn black."
As Michael retraced his steps circumspectly through the class-rooms of
the university and across the open court, where the afternoon sun
almost blinded him--the darkness of the old man's cell made it seem
even fiercer than it had been in the morning--his mind was filled with
a thousand thoughts. He was much more restless than he had been on his
arrival. Had he done wisely in paying this visit to the visionary?
Was he only adding unrest and bewilderment to his soul?
The old man's last words had been to counsel him to follow the dictates
of his own conscience, which was God.
"On this journey, which will lead you into the Light, a child of God
will guide you, a child of God will point out the way." These had been
his last words.
Michael knew that with Moslems the expression "a child of God" is
generally applied to religious fanatics, and to simples, people who
have not practical sense to enable them to enter into the struggle for
existence, people who have, as the Western world terms it, "a screw
loose."
"A child of God will lead you. To him has been revealed this ancient
treasure, which the desert sands have guarded for unnumbered years."
Michael wondered if he was mad or dreaming. To believe a single word
of the mystic's advice seemed rank folly; but here again he was brought
face to face with a fact stranger than fiction. This African had
spoken of a King who had been God's messenger before the days of Moses
and Christ. He was totally without learning, except in the Koran; he
was ignorant of the existence or personality of the great heretic
Pharaoh: of Egyptian history he knew nothing. Yet what he had said and
visualized fitted in with Michael's theory and belief that Akhnaton had
buried a great hoard of gold and jewels near his capital of
Tel-el-Amarna. Nor was Michael alone in his belief in this theory.
As the gate of the university court was closed behind him, Michael took
a last look at the wonderful scene.
Groups of woolly-haired Africans, as black as the basalt tablets in the
museum, were seated on the floor of the white marble court. Some were
eating their frugal meal; some were lying on their backs resting; while
others were lost in prayer. Here and there a tall _sheikh_ or a
professor was standing talking to a group of students, seated on the
ground at his feet, his flowing robes and majestic turban proclaiming
the distinction of his calling. Not one of the professors or teachers
received a penny for their services; the most learned men in Egypt
offered their services free. The idea and theory of the institution is
beautiful and elevating.
Yet Michael knew that to Freddy the whole thing was a waste of time and
an antediluvian affair. In the matter of education, the modern
Egyptian would have been left hopelessly behind in the progress of the
world, but for the Government schools instituted under the British
occupation. These men at el-Azhar were learning nothing which could
ever serve to put one penny into their pockets.
He could hear Freddy repeating his favourite words of a great modern
writer, "I should always distrust the progress of people who walk on
their heads. I should always beware of people who sacrifice the
interests of their country to those of mankind."
Freddy had thrown the words at Michael's head hundreds of times when he
had given expression to his Utopian ideas of oiling the world's
creaking hinges, of preventing his predicted world-wide disaster.
Michael always considered that the whole of what was termed the
civilized world was "walking on its head," that only vanity could blind
those who ruled and governed, only arrogance could hide the fact that
the seats of the mighty were tottering.
Freddy did honestly distrust people "who walked on their heads," yet
Michael thought that he would surely still more distrust the people who
did not walk according to their consciences, people who lived the lives
marked out for them by others, by the conventions of the world.
This old man, in his dark cell, nursed in the very bowels of Islam, had
achieved his heart's desire. He had fulfilled the purpose of his life,
a purpose which to Freddy seemed useless and wasteful. That was
another question. He had left a life of endless toil under the
tropical sun of primitive Africa for what to Freddy would have seemed a
mad purpose--to walk to Cairo and spend the last few years of his
existence in the silent contemplation of God.
As he thought of the man's former life, Michael could hear his sonorous
voice chanting the name of Allah in a hundred beautiful forms, as his
bare brown limbs followed in the slow footsteps of a lean white camel
round and round a native well.
Truly, perseverance can work miracles. Faith had moved mountains, for
God had sent this pauper at the well means whereby he was to achieve
his life-long prayer. Michael had been allowed to cross his path.
This penniless African had never doubted, he had trusted in Allah.
Conflicting doubts and arguments had delayed Michael. He had drifted,
one day urged by the unconquerable voice, the next cut off from his
purpose by the advice and companionship of prosperous friends. He felt
that his faith would move no mountains, his perseverance perform no
miracles.
Were Mohammedans more zealous than Christians? Was there in theory, in
ideals, any other institution in the world like el-Azhar? These
students were not paupers; this was no charitable institution. In this
court there were men of all social grades and professions, eager
students gathered together for one purpose from every part of the
Mohammedan world.
And yet Michael thought that, beautiful as it all was in theory,
wonderful as was the indescribable power of Islam, it gave few, if any,
of its children the true conception of God. They learned nothing of
the tender Father, of the beauty of Aton. In Islam there is no
consciousness of God in the song of the thrush to its mate, no
sacredness in the bud of a lily. In spite of all the exquisite names
by which a Moslem addresses his God, His seat is ever in the high
heavens, He still remains to him the Omnipotent God of Israel, the
all-powerful Jehovah.
Even his old friend, who could visualize the joys of paradise and smell
the perfume of sweet jasmine in his dark cell, did not hear God's voice
in the laughing brook, or see His raiment in the blue of the lotus.
Of Akhnaton's closer and more human religion they were ignorant. These
students offered obedience and reverence and complete surrender. How
few of them knew even the meaning of love! This court was full of
ardent students, many of whom had given up well-paid posts to study the
word of Allah as revealed by the Prophet, yet scarcely one of them
loved the creatures of this world because they were the things of God,
because they were God. God sang to Akhnaton when spring was in the
year; the birds were His visible form. God smiled to him when the blue
lotus covered the waters of his lake in the garden-city of his ideal
capital.
To the Moslems God is in the heavens; His immovable seat is there. To
the ecstatic visionaries who live, as his old friend lived, so cut off
from their natural selves as to be unconscious of their physical body,
these are the delights of paradise, seen through the eyes of mystics.
Michael, who passionately loved the world and all of God that is in it,
wished that they could see that the joys of paradise are everywhere
around us. No visionary's eyes are needed to enjoy their beauty.
The university was now far behind him; he was retracing his steps to
modern Cairo, where the calm of Islam would seem like a peaceful dream.
The domes of the mosques looked like stationary balloons, made of
delicate lace, floating in the blue sky, the tall minarets like lotus
buds coming up from a vast lake. A soft mist was etherealizing the
bald realities of the native city. Only here and there a vivid patch
of colour--the jade-green dome of a saint's tomb, the clear blue or
orange of an Arab boy's shirt, the brightly-appliqued _portière_ of a
public bath, or the purple robes of a student of the Khedivial
School--these, in their Eastern setting, studded the scene with
precious gems.
Thrust back again into the vortex of noise and striving, Michael felt
as "lonely as a wandering cloud." His interview with his old friend
had not soothed him; it had neither helped him to determine him in his
views, or to deter him from them. His thoughts seemed a part of the
surging street. Michael Ireton's counsel was still the only thing
which he could grasp. He would go and find himself in the desert.
But mingled with this idea came the two other influences--the old man's
vision, in which he had seen him journeying into the desert in search
of some hidden treasure--and now many visionaries in Egypt had not
found treasure, but had lost their lives and their minds on journeys
after imaginary gold?--and Margaret's influence, Margaret, who had been
given a message for him--of that he felt convinced. She, at least,
could be trusted, with her sane, practical Lampton brain. She had made
up no fable. Her vision had not been the result of her imagination.
And then again came Freddy's voice:
"I should always distrust the progress of people who walk on their
heads." The words kept recurring over and over again.
Did he, Michael, spend his life "walking on his head"? He wished that
he knew.
He was passing the wide terrace of Shepheard's Hotel, where tourists
enjoy afternoon-tea. The scene was cosmopolitan and gay. Michael was
walking on the side-path, under the level of the terrace.
Suddenly he felt something drop lightly on his hat. He looked up, and
as he did so a stephanotis flower fell into the street and his eyes
were met by two of clear azure blue.
"What a brown study!" a taunting voice said. "Come and have a cup of
tea."
"No, thanks," Michael said. "I'm not dressed for this sort of thing."
He indicated the gaily-dressed crowd.
"I insist," Millicent Mervill said, and as she spoke, she stretched out
her hand and nipped out the book Michael had in his coat-pocket. "Now
you'll have to come and get it, and I'll order tea. Fresh tea, for
two, please, Mohammed," she said to the waiter who was standing near
her table.
Michael turned reluctantly and walked up the flight of steps which took
him on to the hotel-terrace.
"How nice!" Mrs. Mervill said happily. "Now tell me where you have
been. I heard you were in Cairo. Were you going back without seeing
me?"
"How did you know I was in Cairo?"
"Ah, that's telling! First of all you tell me what you have been
doing. You look tired." Her voice was tender. "You are not happy?
And I have been very good!"
"I am tired," Michael said. "Cairo tires me after the desert. I have
been to el-Azhar."
"To the university! I want to go there. If we had only gone together!
Why didn't you take me?"
A strange smile changed Michael's expression. If Millicent Mervill had
been there! He thought of her in that courtyard, in her luxurious
modern clothes. How absurd her becoming hat would have seemed, how
grotesque her daintily slippered feet! How little she divined his
thoughts.
"What took you there to-day? Tell me."
"I have an old friend there, a student."
"A native, do you mean?"
"Yes, a native from the country south of Gondokoro."
"Gondokoro? How did you come to know him?"
Millicent Mervill's curiosity was unlimited. Her persistence resembled
the perseverance which is Islam.
"It's a long story," Michael said. "I always go to see him when I come
to Cairo. He's a mystic and a religious recluse. I like him. We are
great friends."
Mohammed had returned with the tea, and Michael, who was more than
ready for it, lapsed into silence while he ate his Huntley and Palmer
biscuits and drank his tea. His thoughts went back to el-Azhar.
His silence lasted for some time. He was very far from Shepheard's
Hotel. Margaret had not forgotten her promise. She was closer than
Millicent.
"You are not very polite--I have had to pump you with questions, or you
would not have spoken at all. I have been patient while you drank your
tea; now talk to me."
"Please forgive me, but you know I did not want to come. I was hungry
and I was going back to tea. I am not good company."
"You didn't want to come?" She laughed. "Really, your rudeness is
refreshing! The desert has made you worse than ever."
Michael looked into her beautiful eyes. "I am in no temper for banter.
You know what I mean, you know why I didn't want to have tea with you
or see you. Rudeness between us is out of the question."
"All this because you're a dear old puritan. Or is it because"--she
hardened her eyes--"because you're afraid of the dark-haired girl? Has
she forgiven you?" In the same breath she said, "When are we going on
our journey? It's my turn soon."
"What do you mean?" he said. "I wish you wouldn't talk like that. We
are going on no journey."
"You'll let me give you another cup of tea?--I'm allowed to do that
much. Well, I had my fortune told two days ago by a man at the
Pyramids. He's supposed to be very clever. He said I was going on a
journey into the desert with a man I loved; he spoke of some great
thing that was going to happen on the journey. He described you
accurately. He was really very funny--I wish you could have heard him.
He saw great wealth for you and some misfortunes."
Michael looked into her mischievous eyes. "They talk a lot of rot."
"Then you don't believe in that sort of thing? He saw sickness and
gold and love. We were in the desert. He saw gold."
"Hush," Michael said. "You must forget all that."
"It was odd, wasn't it? You know how I have urged you to go with me.
I never saw the man before, he has never seen you."
Again Michael said "Hush." Again Millicent paid no attention to him,
beyond saying that it was funny that he would never allow her to talk
of her love for him, when he had often told her all about his religion
of love.
Again Michael said, "I refuse absolutely to be drawn into a discussion
upon the subject. You are frivolous. You and I know quite well that
yours is not love."
"Perhaps not your kind of love, with a big L. But call a rose by
whatsoever name you will, it smells as sweet. I can't quote, but you
know what I mean, and that true love without passion and passion
without love are both worthless. Every fanatic has passion in his or
her love. That is why they enjoy it--the scourging of the flesh, the
self-denial--the body enjoys this form of self-torture for the object
of its adoration. There," she said, "I will behave like the dear
little innocent you first thought I was if you will come and see the
Pyramids at sunset." The swift transition of her thoughts was typical
of her personality.
Michael's train did not leave the station for Luxor until nine-thirty.
He had nothing to do.
"If you'll come," she said, "I'll not do or say one thing to hurt you.
I'll be my very nicest--and I can be nice and good now, can't I?"
"Then come," he said. "I've not been there since the 'Great Weeping.'"
He used the old man's picturesque term for the inundation of the Nile.
Millicent Mervill was no fool. She meant to keep to her word, and did.
The evening's excursion proved a great success and restored Michael to
a more normal state of mind.
CHAPTER XI
When Michael got back to the camp there was so much genuine pleasure in
being one of the trio again that he felt that it had been well worth
the trouble of the journey, to be received back again so warmly and to
see unclouded happiness in Margaret's smile. Her character was
transparently sincere.
How radiant she looked, as Freddy and she hurried to meet him! A glad
picture for tired eyes.
"Things are 'piping'!" she said eagerly, when he inquired about the
"dig." "Freddy has only been waiting for you to come back before he
clears out the last few days' debris from the shaft. He has been
tidying up the site--it looks much more important."
Tired as Michael was after his hot journey, instinctively they turned
their steps to the excavation. Things had certainly advanced greatly
during Michael's absence. The deep shaft was almost cleared of
rubbish; the site was tidied up and in spick-and-span order.
Michael was very soon drawn into the feeling of excitement and
anticipation. Freddy, he thought, looked tired and anxious, which was,
of course, only natural, for Michael knew that on his shoulders rested
the entire responsibility of the "dig" and that anything might happen
during the time they were waiting for the photographer and the Chief
Inspector.
Michael's imagination was ever too vivid. He could see a hundred
plundering hands stretched out in the darkness to seize the buried
treasure. He could visualize the poisoning of the watch-dogs and the
silent killing of the guards, and Freddy waking up to find that his
"pet tomb" had been burgled and robbed of its ancient treasures.
A good deal of discussion ensued between Michael and Freddy which was
above Margaret's head. The approximate date of the tomb and a hundred
different suggestions and problems which were still beyond her
knowledge were gone into by the two Egyptologists. The soothsayer's
predictions were not improbable; there were evidences which suggested
that the tomb was one of great importance.
"Let's get back to dinner," Freddy said. "I scarcely had any lunch--I
couldn't leave the men. I'm ready for some food."
Instantly they retraced their steps. Margaret was humming softly the
air of some popular song. Both she and Michael were always anxious to
administer to Freddy's wishes.
"It's topping to be back," Michael said. "The smells in Cairo were
pretty bad. This is glorious!"
They had almost reached the hut.
"We have only mummy smells here," Margaret said. "But they get pretty
thick, as the store-room fills up with finds." She looked round.
"Freddy, if I'd a little water, I could make the desert blossom like
the rose." She sighed happily. "As it is, it's 'paradise enow'--I
don't think I want it other than it is."
While they were at dinner, which, compared to their usual simple fare,
was of the fatted-calf order and one of Margaret's devising, Michael
told them of all that he had done in Luxor and Cairo, not keeping back
even his excursion to the Pyramids or his visit to el-Azhar. Freddy
was greatly entertained by both episodes, the one as a strong antidote
to the other.
Michael had, of course, given but few details of either experience.
The mystic's counsel was not, he felt, suited for discussion and
certainly he had no wish to annoy Margaret by unnecessary remarks about
Millicent Mervill.
There was something in Mike's manner which assured Freddy that the
influence of the mystic had triumphed, that the beautiful Millicent had
not exercised her usual powers over his friend.
During the recital of his doings, Margaret met Mike's eyes frankly.
Hers were without questions or doubts. She felt as Freddy did--that
the woman whom she so much disliked had not again come between them.
After all, the promise which she had given Michael, and which she had
kept, might have availed.
As Michael had never spoken one word of love to Margaret, she had, of
course, no right to expect him to behave towards her as if they were
engaged; and yet there was that between them which meant far more than
a mere formal proposal and acceptance of marriage. Some influence had
brought them together in a manner which seemed outside themselves.
They had been the closest friends from the very first. Her vision had
united their interests.
Of marriage as the definite result of their close, yet indefinite
intimacy, Margaret still never thought. Mike and marriage seemed
qualities which separated like oil and water. All she asked of fate at
present was the continuance of their unique friendship and the life
which she found so absorbingly interesting. A year ago she had longed
to come to Egypt, but a year ago she had never dreamed that she would
become so thrilled with the excavating of a tomb which had been made
for a man who probably lived before Moses. The human side of
Egyptology was being revealed to her. She did not feel now as if her
brother was only going to discover a fresh mummy to put away in a
museum somewhere; he was going to break into the secret dwelling-house
of a man who had taken his treasures with him to live for ever in the
bowels of the smiling hills. There are few tombs in Egypt as the
Western world thinks of tombs; there are eternal mansions, gorgeously
decorated and superbly built and equipped. The abiding cities of the
Egyptians were the cities of the dead.
Margaret was living on the horizon of life. Every breath of desert air
was like delicious food; every dawn and sunset stored her heart with
dreams; each fresh intimacy with Michael placed a new jewel in the
casket of her soul; every hour with Freddy was a privilege and a
reward. In her veins the dance of youth tripped a lightsome measure.
Happiness made every moment vital.
During Michael's absence she had been down the valley and up the valley
and through its hidden ways; she was familiar now with the native life
in the camp and with the sights and sounds of Egypt. The flight of a
falcon over the Theban hills seemed as familiar to her as the bounding
of a wild rabbit on the Suffolk wolds. The desolation of the valley
had now become the Spirit of Peace, the Voice of Sympathy. Her
jealousy was aroused at the very thought of another woman being
admitted into the privacy of the camp. Being a true woman, it gave her
intense satisfaction to be the only one, to be the chosen companion of
her brother and of Mike.
They were always eager for her companionship. If Freddy did not want
her, Mike did; if Mike had work to do which demanded perfect solitude,
she felt that Freddy was not sorry. Yet they were all three such good
friends that more often than not they played together delightfully
childish games. It was nevertheless rather a red-letter day for either
of the two men when circumstances so arranged it that Meg had to go off
with one of them alone on some excursion which combined business with
pleasure.
Margaret, womanlike, loved the nicest of all feelings--"being wanted."
She would have liked her life to go on for ever just as it was, her
society always desired by two of the dearest men in the world and her
days filled with this novel and extraordinary work.
But even in the desert, things do not stand still. If they did,
temples could not have been buried and cities lost. So after dinner,
when Freddy, like the dear human brother that he was, allowed Michael
and Margaret to spend some considerable time alone, the high gods took
in hand the affairs of these two human lives, lives which had been well
content to rest on their oars and drift with the tide.
Michael had had no prearranged desire to change the conditions of their
intimacy. It was beautiful. He had given no thought to himself as
Margaret's lover. He had been content to be her partner in that
tip-toe dance of expectation and in that state of undeclared devotion
which is the life and breath of a woman's existence.
On the evening of his return to the camp he felt a new joy in
Margaret's presence. Catching the sound of her voice in her coming and
going about their small hut was a delicious assurance of the happiness
that was to be his for some days to come. She illuminated the place
and vitalized his energies. Yet this deepened pleasure told him
nothing--nothing, at any rate, of what the gods had up their sleeves.
They were standing, as they had often stood before, on some high ridge
of the desert cliff which overlooked its desolation and immensity.
Margaret's face was star-lit; her beauty softened. As Michael gazed at
her, he lost himself.
As unexpectedly to Margaret as to himself, his arms enfolded her. He
told her that he loved her.
This confession of his feelings for her was so sudden, a thing so far
beyond his self-control and so inevitable, that Margaret made no
attempt to withstand it. The beauty of it humbled her to silence; the
generosity of life and its gift to her bewildered her. Two tears
rolled quickly down her cheeks. Michael saw them and loved her all the
more tenderly. Absurd tears, when her heart could not contain all her
happiness! Meg dived for her handkerchief. Michael captured her
hands; he took his own handkerchief and dried her cheeks, while
laughter, mingled with weeping, prevented her from speaking.
"I didn't mean to tell you, Meg," he said. "It just came out, as if it
wasn't my own self who was speaking."
The humour of his words drove the tears from her eyes. Still she did
not speak, but he saw the inference of her smile.
"I mean," he said, "that this other me has loved you all the time, the
me that couldn't help speaking, the me that recognized the fact ever
since I saw you at the ferry. How I loved the first glimpse of you,
Meg!"
He drew her more closely to him. "May I love you, dearest?" He bent
his head; their lips were almost touching; he held her closely. "First
tell me that our friendship is love."
His breath warmed her cheeks; she could feel the tension of his body.
Lost in his strength, Meg was speechless. The greatness of her love
seemed a part of the wide Sahara. The stillness and his arms were
lovelier than all the dreams she had ever dreamed.
His voice was a low whisper. "Meg, do you love me?" His lips had not
taken their due.
Meg's fingers encircled her throat. "Love is choking me. . . . I
can't speak."
Instantly Michael's head bent lower. He kissed her lips, and then, for
the first time, Margaret knew what it was to be dominated by her
senses. Thought fled from her; her lover's lips and his strength, for
he seemed to be holding her up in a great world of impressions in which
she could feel no foundation, were the two things left to her.
Michael realized that now and for ever there could be no going back.
Their old state of friendship was shattered. His kiss had carried them
at a rate which has no definition.
Margaret returned his love with a devout and beautiful passion. Eve
had not been more certain that Adam was intended for her by God.
"Meg," he said, "how do you feel? I feel just a little afraid, I had
no idea that love was like this. Had you? You have suddenly become as
personal and necessary to me as my own arms or legs. You were _you_
before--now you are a bit of me."
They were standing apart, facing each other, arms outstretched, hands
in hands. Now and then the bewilderment of things made it very
compelling, this desire to look and look into each other's eyes, to try
to discover new characteristics born of their amazing confession.
"It's a tremendous thing," Meg said thoughtfully, "a tremendous and
wonderful thing."
"If we have only lived for this one hour, it's worth it," Mike said.
"To you and me it's certainly a tremendous thing."
Some lover's questions followed, questions which Margaret had to
answer, the sort of questions every woman knows whom love has not
passed over, questions which Margaret, with all her fine Lampton brains
and common sense, did not think foolish, questions which she answered
more easily and accurately than any ever set to her in college or
university examinations. She answered them, too, with a fine
understanding of human nature. Lampton brains were not to be despised,
even in the matter of "How, when and where did you first love me?"
She knew quite well what Michael meant when he said that he was a
little afraid. She, too, felt a little afraid, just because things
could never be the same again. Love in Egypt seemed to become Egyptian
in its immensity and power. It was a part of the desert and in the
brightness of each glittering star. She doubted if she could have felt
this tremendousness of love in England. Had something in the power of
Egypt, in the passing of its civilization and religions, affected her
senses? She could not imagine feeling, as she now felt, in Suffolk.
Here, in this valley of sleeping Pharaohs, in this eternal city of a
lost civilization, she had been transformed into another creature.
These thoughts jumbled themselves together in her mind, as they dawdled
back to the camp, the happy dawdling of lovers.
Suddenly Michael caught her in his arms and said, "Meg, how on earth am
I going to make you understand how much I love you?"
Meg read an unhappy meaning in the words. "I shall understand," she
said. "I think something outside myself will help me to understand."
He turned her face up to the stars. It was bathed in light.
"You beautiful Meg, the stars adore you!"
Meg struggled and laughed. "I'm so glad my face is all right, that you
like it, Mike."
Mike laughed. "I shouldn't mind if you weren't beautiful, you know I
shouldn't, for you'd still be you."
Meg's practical common sense was not to be drugged by love's ether.
"Dear," she said happily, "don't talk rubbish! As if you, with your
artistic sense and love of beauty, would have fallen in love with me if
I had turned-in-feet and a face half forehead, just because I was me!"
They both laughed happily. Then Michael said, sadly and abruptly--his
voice had lost its confidence--"Why have I let myself say all this,
Meg? What thrust my feelings into expression, feelings I scarcely was
conscious of possessing until I saw you lit up by the shining stars? I
never, never planned such a thing."
"I know," Meg said. "We neither of us dreamed of it when we left the
hut, did we?"
"I had a thousand other things to consult you about, to tell you," he
said. "I have a thousand other things to do. I have a mission to
fulfil before I speak of love. It just came, it suddenly bubbled up
and poured over like water in a too-full bottle."
"Do you regret it?" Margaret said simply and sympathetically. She was
not hurt; she knew what he meant; she knew that he had more than once
spoken of the single-heartedness of a man's work, the work which Mike
hoped to do, when he had no family ties, no woman's love to bind him,
to nourish and satisfy.
"Dearest--I don't regret it," he said. "It was inevitable. Something
else would have called it forth if the stars hadn't. All the same, it
is of you I am thinking . . . I had no right to . . ."
"To what, Mike?"
"I'm a drifter, Meg, and I'm not ready to be anything else--I can't be."
"I don't want you to be anything else." Meg's voice and laugh were
Love. Her sincere eyes were happily confident.
"People who 'walk on their heads' don't make fortunes, beloved."
"People who think the desert is 'paradise enow' don't need fortunes."
Michael pressed the palms of her hands to his lips. "Dear strong
hands," he said, "are they willing to work with mine?"
"Oh, Mike," she said. "I'm so glad, so happy! It doesn't seem
fair--our world's all heaven to-night--I want others to have just a
little of it."
They listened to the silence.
Michael's thoughts were of his world-state, his religion of Love, the
closeness of God.
"Every star in the sky seems to know about our love," Meg said. "And I
think the waiting silence has been expecting this."
"I know," Michael said. "To me love seems to be crowding the valley
and flying down from the hills and searching the stillness. Life's
become a new kind of thing altogether, Meg, we'll have to help each
other."
"That's just what I feel. It's alarming to find yourself quite a
different human being in less than an hour, to have suddenly developed
unsuspected elements in your nature." She laughed. "I never thought I
could be such a complete fool, dearest."
Michael kissed her rapturously. "Let's be big, big fools, beloved,
let's enjoy this thing that's come to us." He paused. Again he looked
troubled and serious.
"Why trouble?" Meg said. "I know just what's in your heart. You love
me and I love you, and I trust you. You weren't ready for any
engagement--you never thought of marriage. Well, let all that come in
good time if it is meant to be. Let us be content with love for the
present. It's surely big enough." She sighed. "It's tired me, Mike,
it's so enormous."
"But, dearest, I meant to talk to you about very different things.
Love just caught me. . . . I was taken unawares . . . some look of
yours did it, or some trick of the stars. . . I can't tell which.
Anyhow, it's done."
"Tell me," she said. "All that you had meant to talk about. It's not
too late. We must be friends as well as lovers now."
"It was about my visit to el-Azhar in Cairo."
"Yes?" Meg said. Her breath came more quickly.
"My old friend told me the most extraordinary things. He had seen
visions."
Their eyes met. Meg's held a question; they asked: "Had they any
connection with my vision?"
"Yes," Michael said to her unspoken question. "He saw me on a long
desert journey. I was often surrounded by a wonderful light--a light
which, he said, had come from one of God's messengers, who was never
far from me. He said he saw the messenger of God always in the midst
of a great light, like the light of the sun, that he resembled no
mortal he had ever seen, or any king he had ever been shown in his
dreams."
Meg drew in her breath nervously. "Had he ever heard of Akhnaton,
Mike?"
"No, never. He is quite unread, totally unlearned and ignorant of all
except the teachings of the Koran."
Margaret's quick breathing showed her excitement. Michael, too, became
nervous.
"He saw me always in the light of this great messenger, a light, he
said, which surrounded his figure with rays like the rays of the sun."
"Just as I saw him," Meg said. "How strange! How wonderful!"
"He spoke of trials and temptations and, strangest of all, of much
gold. He saw the treasure very clearly and repeatedly--much fine gold,
he was certain of that."
"How are you to discover it?" Meg spoke dubiously. Her practical mind
was fighting against the absurdity of the thing.
"He could not tell me. In the desert I was to be led by a little
child--you know what that means?"
"Yes, a simple, a child of God."
They paused.
"Now the odd thing is," Michael said thoughtfully, "that when I went to
see Michael Ireton, he strongly advised me to go and find myself, as he
expressed it, in the desert. He said, 'Cut yourself off from your
friends, from opposing influences, and think things out. Go where you
are called.'"
"He meant Freddy's opposing influence?"
"I suppose so. Freddy's character is stronger than mine, and we have
opposite views."
"Are you going?" Meg's voice betrayed a new anxiety and sadness.
"I meant to." His eyes spoke of his new reluctance. "That was why I
had no right to speak--I really wanted to go."
"This must make no difference--it must help you."
"But I shall want to be with you--it's hard to go."
"If you stayed, you would be restless, dissatisfied."
"I know." He laughed. "I want both to 'walk on my head,' Meg, and
stand firmly on my two legs--my legs are for a home for you."
"And your head?"
"Oh," he said, "for anything that is upside down to what it is now, for
the total destruction of obsolete and effete monuments, for exchanging
new principles for those that are worn out with age, for showing that
fundamental truths are not made by empire-builders, that the world is
God's Kingdom, not man's, that God is the only monarch whose throne is
not tottering."
"Yes," Meg said. "I suppose destruction must come before the building
up, your task of pulling down, of clearing out the corner-stones, of
cleansing the temple."
"I know," Michael said. "It's the way with 'cranks.' We all of us jaw
about destroying and offer no new plans for reconstruction." He
paused. "But it's rather like the problem of cleaning out a too-full
house--you can't really get rid of the dust unless you first of all
clear the whole thing out, empty it."
"You want to abolish so much, Mike."
"All the rubbish," he said. "All the hindrances. I want to let in
light."
"Beginning with kings," Meg said, tantalizingly. The voice was
Freddy's.
"I've no rooted objection to kings, as human mortals," he said. "I
suppose half the monarchs in Europe, and certainly our own included,
are very good men, very anxious for their kingdom's prosperity, if not
for their people's development. It's the condition of affairs which
tolerates such an obsolete form of government. If the king is merely a
picturesque figure-head, like the carved heads of Venus on a vessel's
prow, I'd have no objection, but a despotic and vain peacock like the
Kaiser, who turns his subjects into military instruments, in my opinion
wants destroying along with the other rubbish."
"But to go back," Meg said, "to your old friend in el-Azhar--do tell me
more about him."
"He's a splendid old warrior," Michael said tenderly. "When you think
of what he's achieved, isn't he wonderful? I wish you could see him."
"The force of will-power, of concentration," Meg said. "I suppose he
has never thought of anything else all his life, but this one dream of
el-Azhar."
"That's it," Mike said. "But what gives these Moslems that wonderful
power of mind-control?" Mike paused. "Now, here am I," he said. "I
came out with you to-night meaning to tell you that I was going away."
"Oh," Meg said. "Not yet--not until the tomb is opened? Surely not?"
"No, not until the tomb is opened--I had no intention of that."
She sighed. "That would be too awful."
Michael kissed her. "How nice of you!" he said. "You really wanted
me?"
"Of course! I have visualized the opening of the tomb--you and I
crawling down the 'dig,' with Freddy waiting at the foot to show us his
treasures. You couldn't have gone!"
"No," he said, "I couldn't. But I wanted to tell you that I was going
soon after. I was going for reasons that only my own heart understood.
And then what did I do? I told you that I loved you! I forgot
everything but you, dearest. Before I knew it, I had spoken of what it
might have been wiser to keep hidden away in my heart, with all my
other mad dreams."
"But why, Mike? I should have been so very unhappy, so wretched. As
it is, I am just bursting with happiness. I wouldn't change anything
for worlds--not one tiny thing!"
"If you are contented," he said, "and understand, then it may not have
been unwise, untrue to Freddy's trust in me."
"Oh," Meg said, "you dear, why, Freddy adores the very ground you walk
on! He chaffs you, but he simply thinks no end of you."
"He doesn't want a drifter for a brother-in-law, if he's any common
sense in his head. I'm the last husband he'd choose for his sister."
"But, Mike, how can you?"
"Yes, Meg, there are times when I don't 'walk on my head,' when I see
with Freddy's sane eyes. It's what he'd call damned cheek of me to
speak of love to you."
"I'd have called it horrid if you hadn't."
"You delicious Meg, would you really?"
"Yes, I would, horrid and cruel. I'd have imagined you really cared
for . . ." she paused and then went on tenderly, ". . . no, I won't say
it, Mike."
"Really cared!" he said. "Why, you have taught me what that word
means. You'll never doubt that?"
"No," Meg said. "Not now. I know this is new to us both. I won't
doubt anything ever again."
"She was friendless," he said. "And for some strange reason she
thought herself fond of me."
"What a very strange thing to feel! I really can't understand it.
Fancy a woman feeling fond of a thing that walks on its head!"
"Don't laugh, Meg. She does, or thinks she does."
Meg looked into his eyes. "I'll never doubt you, Mike," she said, "if
you'll tell me, under these dear stars, which have made you confess
your love for me, that there has been no deep feeling on your side,
that there is nothing that matters between you."
Mike took her two hands. "On my side, there has been nothing but
friendship, I swear it," he said. "I never, never desired anything
else. There has been nothing that matters."
"I'm so glad," Meg said. "You're so high, Mike, so awfully high in my
love. Your drifting is all a part of it. I love you for all your mad
dreams and dear unworldliness, for your struggling and striving for the
highest. I should hate to have to believe that you were less high than
I imagined."
"But I kissed her, Meg," he said, abruptly. The truth was drawn from
him, as his confession of love had been, torn from him by some power
outside himself. He hated giving her pain, and it had been scarcely
necessary if Margaret had been other than she was.
It had not mattered--yet if truth was beauty and beauty was God, and
his religion was that the kingdom of God is within us, how could he
hold it back, this deed which, little as it might seem in the eyes of
most people, had been for him a thing which did matter?
"You kissed her!" Meg said. Something that was not love was now
bursting her throat. Her voice was uncertain. It hurt Michael like a
thrust from a sharp knife.
"Yes," he said. "I kissed her, more than once."
"Her lips?" Meg asked.
"Yes, Meg, her lips."
"You kissed her as you have kissed me to-night?"
"Good heavens, no!" he cried. "Meg, how could you think it?"
"Life is strange," Meg said, a little wearily. "When everything seems
most beautiful, some ugliness shows its head . . . the light gets so
dim."
"Dearest," Mike said, "do you remember what you said on that morning
when we found each other again? You said, 'Let's go forward; things
are explained.'"
"Yes, I remember," she said, and as she spoke happiness shone in her
eyes like a flame relit; "yes, I said regrets were foolish, I said I
understood. But . . ." she hesitated; the thought of Mike's lips
pressed to any other woman's than her own stifled her. She was his so
completely, that any other man's lips pressed to hers, except Freddy's,
would nauseate her. Yet Mike had kissed Millicent. Was it that night
on the terrace, or the evening at the Pyramids? she wondered.
"We have gone forward, Meg. Millicent"--Meg shivered as he said the
woman's Christian name--"was splendid at the Pyramids, she really was."
Again Meg shivered. Splendid! How, she wondered, had she been
splendid? Meg hated being an inquisitor, yet she had to know; it was
her right.
"Then it was not at the Pyramids that you kissed her?" she asked.
"No, no!" Mike said. "Of course not!" He looked at her in wonder.
"If it had been, I should not have dared to kiss you to-night."
"It's nice of you to say that, dear. Oh, Mike," she said tenderly,
"you mean the world to me! I shall grow older by years for each moment
that we don't trust one another! I should have known, I should never
have doubted! You've chosen a very jealous woman, Mike."
"If you'd gone off to the Pyramids with some one whom I disliked as
much as you dislike Millicent, I'd have been furious!" He felt Meg
shiver. He divined the reason; he would not let that hurt her again.
"You hate her, Meg," he said. "Just in the way I'd hate a man
who . . ." he paused.
"Who what?" Meg said.
"Don't ask me," he said. "I never forgot you for one moment when I was
with her at the Pyramids. You kept close to me, dearest. And the
other episode is past and forgotten--it was just a little bit of
vulgarity, Meg, nothing more."
"Since we made friends, there's been nothing between you that would
make your kisses to me a mere vulgarity, Mike?"
"Nothing," he said. "And so far as I can help it, I will never see
Mrs. Mervill again."
Meg's eyes spoke her thanks. His avoidance of the woman's Christian
name showed his sensitiveness to her feelings. Speaking of her as
"Mrs. Mervill" put her pleasantly far away.
"I was weak and insincere--my kisses were really a dishonour to any
woman, and I hated myself."
While Meg admired her lover for refraining from the excuse which Adam
was not ashamed to offer His Maker, what was human in her longed to
make him denounce the woman she hated. She had tried to provoke a
justification of his own conduct from his lips by telling her what she
felt to be the truth--that the woman had tempted him.
It was getting late; they turned towards the hut.
"We must go in," Meg said. "Freddy will be wondering what has become
of us." She turned swiftly and took Michael's hands in hers. "Until
after the tomb is opened, let us remain as we were--I mean, don't let's
give Freddy any more to think about. Isn't he the dearest brother in
the world?" she said. "I love every glittering hair of his head!"
"Very well, you dearest woman," Mike said. "Besides, we've only
confessed that we love each other--I've asked for no promise, Meg--I've
no right to. Remember, you are free, absolutely free--this old drifter
isn't to count."
"Absolutely free!" Meg laughed. "Just as if words made us free! Four
walls do not a prison make! You know perfectly well that I am tied
hand and foot and bound all round about with the cords of your love. I
can never be free again, never belong only to myself, as I used to do."
"And will you remember that whatever happens to me, Meg, it will be
just the same?"
She knew that he was referring to his mystical journey, his unsettled
future.
"It would be so heavenly," she said dreamily, "if we could be content
to sit down and be happy and just live for the enjoyment of each
other's love!"
"You'd despise me if I did." He looked round at the eternal valley,
resting in the stillness of death.
"I suppose I should," Meg said. "I suppose I want you to take up arms
for what Freddy calls your 'Utopian Rule of Righteousness,' your
world-state."
"I think we should both feel slackers, just enjoying ourselves
intellectually, dear, when we could, if we chose, let a few others into
the great kingdom of God. You and I don't understand why they don't
all see it as we do, why they don't realize the things Akhnaton knew
three thousand years ago. We wonder why they remain contented with a
religion of limited dogmas and theological forms. They don't see the
obvious in their striving after doctrines. They fail to see that God
is too big for their churches."
"You see these things," Meg said. "I'm only creeping behind you."
"You see that if we understand God and give Him His proper place, He'd
rule us, His throne would govern a world-state. His love would be the
law of mankind."
"I know," Margaret said. "It's beautiful, it's what ought to be, if
poor mortals were not human beings."
"Mortals are the best things in God's kingdom--it's all been worked up
for their enjoyment and benefit."
"I know, dear, I know, but you and I are just you and I, and we have
just found love, and it is so wonderful, I want to enjoy it."
"Doesn't love make it all the more forcible, Meg? The closeness of God
all the more certain? The weaving of the threads of His beautiful
fabric all the more golden?--Akhnaton's great 'Lord of Fortune,' the
'Master of Things Ordained,' the 'Chance which gives Life,' the 'Origin
of Fate,' call it what you will--the power which brought us here, you
and I."
"And if we didn't follow that clear voice, Mike, whose rule is
righteousness, why should He allow it?"
"Do we ever deliberately do what we know to be wrong and not pay for
it, dearest?"
"But why does He allow it? It's a mill, dearest--one can go round and
round, and round and round."
"And in the end," Mike said. "It's just God, His prescribed rule, His
unfightable force."
* * * * * *
When the two lovers entered the sitting-room, Freddy was instantly as
conscious of the new aura which surrounded them as he was conscious of
the sweet desert air which clung to their clothes and bodies. It came
like a whiff from a far pure world.
"How fuggy you are in here," Meg said. "Dear boy, stop working."
"All right," he said. "I was only waiting for you to come in." Freddy
was not the sort to see anything which he was not meant to see. If the
two lovers had anything to tell him, they would tell him. Until then,
he would mind his own business.
"You go and have a smoke outside," Meg said. "I'll put away all this."
"All this" meant the boxes of "finds" and the papers of plans and
figures which they had all been working at earlier in the evening.
CHAPTER XII
It was the dawn of the morning on which the tomb was to be opened. Meg
could not sleep; the overseer's shrill whistle for the roll-call of the
workmen had banished her last hopes that a little sleep would come to
her before the exciting day began.
The clear whistle called the straggling figures together. They were
still indefinite objects, moving white columns in the darkness which
heralds the dawn. They were to begin work earlier than usual; Meg
could see no signs of the coming day in the sky.
She sprang out of bed, glad to begin some practical work to banish the
confusion of thoughts which had made her brain too active for sleep.
Before she had her bath or dressed, she felt that she must breathe the
cool, pure air outside the hut for a moment or two.
During the night her thoughts had been mastered by a consciousness of
the fact that after the great day, after the tomb was satisfactorily
opened and Michael had accomplished the necessary work in connection
with it which Freddy might demand of him, he would start out on his
desert journey. She could not and would not hold him back. Things too
delicate and indefinite to be described had gathered and accumulated,
strengthening his determination to leave the valley and start out on
his apparently objectless journey. As the accumulation of atoms has
formed continents, so the accumulation of thoughts becomes a thing
which controls our destinies.
The treasure-trove of gold which had been hidden by Akhnaton the
Dreamer was now as real to Michael as the gold-mines in California were
real to the miners of the '49 rush. He had visualized it over and over
again. He was undaunted by the fact that many visionaries had seen
their King Solomon's mines equally clearly; but how many have reached
them? He was satisfied that, though his journey might prove a complete
failure from Freddy's point of view, until he made it any work he tried
to do would be a more complete one. There are treasures laid up in
heaven far beyond the value of rubies and precious jewels, and the
Kingdom of Heaven which is within us Mike was determined to find.
Meg had given her abundant sympathy, but advice she had none to offer.
The thing was beyond her, taken out of her hands; it belonged to the
part of Michael which she loved and admired but did not fully
comprehend--the superman. Her practical common sense was her
stumbling-block; it held her with the chains of caution and the doubts
of a scientific trend of mind, which demands practical proofs before it
accepts any theory or idea. Although she was influenced more deeply by
Egypt than she had ever imagined it possible to be influenced by the
unseen, or by atmosphere and surroundings, she still walked firmly on
her two feet. Her momentary standings on her head were passing and
spasmodic. She neither felt convinced nor unconvinced upon the subject
of Akhnaton's vision or upon the truth and reliability of the old man's
words at el-Azhar. Suggestion is so often at the root of what appears
to be the supernatural. Michael might have talked to the old man, as
he had often talked to herself, about the possibility of such a
treasure having been hidden by the King when he, Akhnaton, knew that he
was dying and when he realized that his new capital of Tel-el-Amarna
would not long survive his decease, that the priests of the old
religion would do all in their power to obliterate his memory and
teachings. She knew that Michael was not the only person who held this
view. He was not the originator of the theory.
Meg had never had anything to do with people who believed in visions
and the power of seeing into the future. The occult had had no
fascination for her. Until she arrived in the valley all such things
had come under the heading of charlatanism. Her thoughts were
different now. She had learned more; she had discovered that her
powers of vision might be limited to the very fine mental qualities of
which her family were so proud; she had found out that the sharpest
brains for practical purposes may be extremely blunt for higher ones.
Freddy and she could play with figures; problems which could be worked
out by practical methods were to them difficulties to be mastered by
hard work, and hard work was pleasure to the Lamptons; it was their
form of enjoyment. They were not imaginative; they were combative;
they enjoyed a fight which usurped their mental energies.
In Egypt Meg had been given new eyes, new understanding. There were
finer things than mathematical problems, things of the super-intellect,
infinitely more delicate and wonderful, to which neither she nor Freddy
held the key. She felt like a child. She was a child again, an
inquisitive child, crying out for answers which would satisfy her
awakening intelligence. Her fine college education had been confined
to the insides of books. She knew nothing whatever of the finer truths
which were every day being thrust upon her senses. It was just as if
Freddy and she were watching a play from a great distance without
opera-glasses, while Michael had very powerful ones. He could see
things beyond their horizon; he was in touch with people who inhabited
a world to which they could not travel.
Too often Michael's thoughts were divided from hers by continents of
space. She was often alone. She longed passionately to say to him
that she really believed in all that he believed in. Her beautiful
honesty did not permit it. Her limitations tormented her. It was like
having a cork leg in a race. If she could only get rid of her Lampton,
materialistic, common-sense nature, she would be more able to advise
and counsel her lover. Poor Meg! Thoughts like these had fought for
coherence all night.
She little knew that her nature was the perfect adjustment which
Michael's needed. He came to her, not only as a lover, but as a tired
traveller in search of rest. Her reasoning mind and cautious nature
gave him balance. When he had been standing on his head for too many
hours together, Meg put him on his feet again.
This morning Meg needed putting on her own feet. She was hopelessly
tormented with questions which she could not answer. One minute
Michael's whole scheme ought to be discouraged; his belief in the
occult was a thing to be suppressed; it was dangerous and unhealthy.
The next, she found herself with energies vitalized and glowing over
the certainty that there must be truth in the idea, that there must be
some meaning in the repeated messages conveyed either by dreams or by
whatsoever one chose to call them. Thoughts certainly had been
conveyed to him.
Then the glowing vision of Michael actually discovering the lost
treasure of Akhnaton would vanish and she would see him, just as
clearly, alone and ill in the desert, in lack of funds and abandoned by
his men. She knew his casual methods of making practical arrangements
and his total disregard for his personal health and safety.
She was watching the coming dawn while her thoughts were creating
misfortunes and calling up unhappy visions of Michael alone in the
desert. The old man at el-Azhar had spoken of temptations and
sickness. If the treasure was a fact, then the sickness and temptation
were facts also. But what were the temptations? Did he allude to the
spiritual or the material man?
Suddenly her thoughts were obliterated, her self-inflicted suffering
wiped out. She had no thoughts, no consciousness; for her nothing
existed but the luminous and wonderful figure of Akhnaton which had
formed itself in front of her. At first her astonished eyes had seen
it dimly, then clearly and still more clearly.
Meg remained perfectly still. She was too awestruck, too amazed, to
move or speak. The vision became surrounded by light, by the rays of
Aton. It was months since she had first seen it; now in the dawn, it
seemed as if it had only been the night before. A sense of rest came
to her as she gazed at it.
"Thy dawning is beautiful in the horizon of heaven,
O living Aton, Beginning of Life!
When thou risest in the eastern horizon of heaven,
Thou fillest every land with thy beauty;
For thou art beautiful, great, glittering, high over the earth,
Thy rays, they encompass the land, even all thou hast made."
Meg listened intently to the words. They were part of Akhnaton's Hymn
to the Rising Sun, the hymn which Mike had repeated to her.
She waited until the words were lost in the silent hour. Every thought
of hers was known to the sad eyes, every longing in her heart to be
given power to speak was understood. It seemed to come naturally to
her, the understanding of the needlessness for her to do aught but
listen. The vision was her over-soul, her higher self, which
understood.
"You have delivered my message. I have seen, I have approved. The
Lord of Peace, the Living Aton, besides whom there is none other, has
brought Life to his heart. The beauty of Aton is there."
It was of Michael the vision spoke. Meg never doubted. "His pleasure
is to do thy bidding," she said. The words were the unstudied, simple
truth.
"I have seen, always I have guided, always I have prayed. I have
revealed to him the Light which is Truth. His work, which is the Love
of Aton, is in his heart. The Lord of Fate has perfected it."
"I would have him go, and yet, because I am not fully in the Light, I
would have him stay. All that is in my heart is plain to you--my
fears, my joys, my imperfect faith. I ask for help; I am troubled."
"There is no poverty, no fear, for those who have set Aton in their
hearts; for my servant there is no danger. Hearts have health where
Aton shines."
"But for me--how can I help him?"
"By the perfection of Love."
"But my love is imperfect. It is not divine. I fear for his bodily
welfare. I cannot willingly offer him to the Aton of whom you speak.
I can only understand my own selfish love . . . it is human."
"You are the mistress of his happiness. In my Kingdom, while it was on
earth, my heart was happy in my Queen and in my children. The great
Lord and Giver of Light is none other than the Loving Father, the
tender husband, the devoted son. There is none other than the living
Aton, whose kingdom is within us. We are Love, we are Aton."
"Then my love is no hindrance?"
"God is Love, God is Happiness, God is Beauty."
There was infinite understanding and tenderness in the words, but Meg's
honesty was persistent.
"My love is not that sort of love, but it is very dear to me. It is
selfish and human. It is wrapped round with natural desires, my own
personal wants."
"Is there any love which is not of Aton? Does He expect things other
than He has made?"
"I am in darkness; I have so many fears."
"Your soul is not shut off from that which it desires. Your fears can
be turned to understanding; no forces of darkness can hold against the
powers of Light. If you open your heart to the Living Truth, the
powers of darkness are disarmed, Aton is enthroned. He is the sole
creator of all things created."
The sky was changing from a cold grey to the opalescence of dawn. A
line of light was slowly appearing and widening on the horizon. As it
spread and grew more distinct, the luminous figure became less clear;
the rays of Aton shone less vividly. Akhnaton's spirit had come forth
from the Underworld to see the sun rise on the world he so passionately
loved. This had been one of his most insistent and ardent prayers
while he reigned on earth, that after death his "two eyes might be
opened to see the sun," that "the vision of the sun's fair face might
never be lost to him," that he might "obtain a sight of the beauty of
each recurring sunrise."
Meg stood in an awed silence, her subliminal self alone conscious of
the grave, sad eyes, which were watching the splendour of the sun as it
came over the edge of the desert. The rapidity of its uprising was
amazing. It had burst the bonds of darkness with a strength and force
which resembled the triumph of a victorious army. At its coming the
darkness was scattered. Its quickly-spreading rays were driving back
the forces of the enemy. With fine generalship it was following up the
victory with renewed attacks.
The form of the Pharaoh was only dimly visible. Its luminousness had
disappeared. It was a shadow in the light. The prayer of all
Egyptians from time immemorial had been that they might each day "leave
the dim Underworld in order to see the light of the sun upon earth."
Akhnaton had prayed this prayer, which was ancient before his day.
Meg knew that his prayer had been answered. Akhnaton, the King, the
passionate heretic, the visionary and the prophet, was seeing his
adored Sun rising over his kingdom. His persistent prayers had been
granted, his desire realized. His spirit had come forth to see the
sun's rays. As he gazed at the sun, the years had rolled back. Three
thousand years are but a span in the march of eternity. He was alone
with his God, as alone as the Moslem figures who were prostrating
themselves to the ground. He was enjoying the beauty of Aton in the
silent valley, which his footsteps had so often trod, the valley
overlooking the city which to him, in his manhood, became the city of
abomination and desolation, the city of false gods.
As the light of day flooded the desert, the figure became invisible to
Meg. It seemed to melt into the golden air. She felt that it might
still be standing there, quite close to her, only she could not see it.
Her powers were limited; the light concealed the figure. Being
luminous, she had been able to see it clearly in the darkness, just as
she was able to see the luminous match-box which she always kept on a
table by her bedside. She knew it was there, always shining, only her
eyes were unable to see its brightness in the daylight. The figure of
Akhnaton might be near her still. How clearly it had stood out in the
darkness, how brightly the rays of the sun had declared the symbol of
Aton!
Had it all been an optical delusion, born of her nervous condition? Or
was it a dream? Was she still in bed sleeping? How could she prove to
herself that she was awake, that she had come out to see the dawn, that
she was standing in front of her hut and not asleep in bed? In her
dreams, she had often dreamed that she was dreaming; she had often told
herself that her dreams were all dreams; she had often done things in
her dreams to prove to herself that they were not dreams. If she
stooped to pick up some sand to prove that her feet were pressing the
desert, might not that, too, be a part of her dream? What on earth was
there to prove the real from the unreal?
Now that she knew about Akhnaton and his beautiful religion, which is
the religion of all reasoning mortals to-day, and had read something of
his life and mission, was it not quite probable that she was creating
all that she had seen, that she was deceiving herself? It was still
possible that she was dreaming.
With nerves unstrung and a beating heart, she saw Michael appear. He
was in his early-morning top-coat. He, too, had been greeting the sun.
He had made a hasty sketch of the first colours in the sky.
"Mike," Meg cried, in a tone of relief and anxiety. "Mike, I want you,
do come here!"
The next moment Mike's arms were round her; her head was on his
shoulder.
"What is the matter, dearest?"
"The vision, Mike! I have seen it again--it has been even more
wonderful. Oh, Mike!" A stifled sob came from Margaret's full heart;
the tension of her nerves was relaxed by the comfort of human arms, of
human magnetism.
"And you were afraid, dearest?" He held her closer; his strength
nerved her. Oh, welcome humanity!
"Afraid? No--oh, no, it wasn't fear."
"What then, dear one?"
"I can't explain it. If only you had been with me!" She clung to him.
"I should not have seen him, Meg, it is not meant that I should. Look,
darling, I have been near you--I was making a sketch of the sunrise."
Meg looked in wonder at the sketch. There was no figure there; that
was the only point of interest it contained for her at the moment.
"It is not there," she said disappointedly; her voice expressed
astonishment. "Then you saw nothing?"
"Nothing of what you saw."
"Then why does it come to me? I am the very last person to understand,
to desire it."
"Dearest, the wisdom of God's ways is past our present very limited
understanding. Why did He make the world as He did? Why did He form
the mountains by the drifting of particles into the ocean? Why did He
evolve the spirit of man from a source which has baffled science? Why
does He let us know so much and understand so little?"
"I loved seeing him, Mike. He talked to me. I wasn't afraid while he
was there. It's the wonder of it now that it's past, the strangeness;
something greater than myself gets into me when the vision is there."
"Consider the privilege, Meg, the amazing privilege!"
Mike's brain was working and wondering. Why, oh why, had he not been
privileged? Why had Meg again seen the Living Truth?
Meg divined his thoughts; her fervent wish was that he also had seen
it. "Nothing further from fear ever possessed me, Mike, and yet now I
feel horribly unnerved. If you hadn't come to me, I don't know what I
should have done. The first time it was different. I wonder why. I
wasn't a bit like this, was I, dearest?"
"No, I don't know why you feel so differently this time. What
happened? Can you tell me, or would you rather wait?" Mike recognized
her nervous state.
"I came out to see the sunrise. I hadn't slept--I was thinking about
the opening of the tomb and of all that is to happen afterwards." Mike
kissed her tenderly and understandingly. "I was really feeling very
selfish and worldly; and anything but spiritual. I was wondering if
your plans weren't too utterly silly, dearest, if, after all, we hadn't
got into a rather unreal and unhealthy way of looking at things. I was
almost convinced that you ought to stop standing on your head. Quite
suddenly the luminous figure, with the sunrays behind its head, stood
in front of me. Its eyes were fixed on me with a full and wonderful
understanding of all that was in my heart. I instantly knew that my
fears were understood, and the odd thing, now that I look back upon it,
is that I wasn't afraid. The understanding seemed natural, the
understanding of my higher self. It was only when the vision grew
dimmer and dimmer that I began to feel this silly nerve-exhaustion; it
was only then that I began to wonder and doubt."
"I'm not surprised, Meg--you're splendid. Any other woman would have
fainted, I suppose."
"No, Mike, they wouldn't; once you've seen and understood, it is like
being born again, with fresh understanding, with fresh eyes. There's
nothing more to be afraid of than there is in seeing death. I was
terrified of death until I saw Uncle Harry die. This is just the same
thing. Your fear is forgotten, a new understanding possesses you. My
only wonder is why I have never seen anything of the same sort before,
and now why, oh why, is it this strange figure of Akhnaton? Why this
King who lived thirteen hundred years before we begin to count our
centuries? I should so love to see Uncle Harry, and it is such a
little time since he went. Why have I never seen him?"
"My darling, three thousand years are like the minutes spent in boiling
an egg when you dabble with eternity. There is nothing to choose
between Noah and Napoleon; Moses and Mohammed are twins in point of
years."
"I know," Meg said. "There is nothing so hard for a human mind to
grasp as the impossibility of grasping the meaning of infinity. It
can't shake off its own limitations. But all the same, if I was to
tell anyone except you, dearest, that I had seen and held a
conversation with the spirit of a Pharaoh who lived before Moses, what
would they think? what would they say?"
"The very few who stand in the Light would not be astonished. Those
who are still completely earth-tied and glory in their ignorance would
scoff and call you crazy; but would they matter?"
"There was one thing he told me, Mike, which gives me great happiness.
He called me 'the mistress of your happiness,' he understood about our
love."
"That was his favourite name for his wife. He was a devoted husband
and lover."
"Then he really understood?"
"What does Aton not understand, beloved?"
"But this was Akhnaton, Mike. He said, 'my heart was happy in my
Queen.' He said 'the great Giver of Light is none other than the
loving father, the tender husband, the devoted son, because there is
none other than the living Aton, whose kingdom is within you. You are
Aton and Aton is you. He is everything which He has made.'"
"That is exactly it," Mike said. "You saw the figure of Akhnaton just
as people who lived in Syria saw the figure of Christ--God's
manifestation of Himself. Of course He understood our love and our
happiness. His bowels of compassion yearn for His children. He is the
spirit of Aton--of God--as manifested by Akhnaton."
"You are to go, beloved, there is to be no holding you back. I have
received my commission; it is to buckle on your armour. Oh, dearest,
even if all this should be the fabrication of my own dreams, my brain,
it is not self-created--it has some purpose, some meaning. God has put
it there."
"Everything has its meaning, Meg, nothing is too small to be
intentional."
"I am to help you by 'the perfection of my love,' and oh, Mike, it is
so imperfect, so pitifully imperfect, so pitifully human!".
"Pitifully, darling? Why not beautifully human?"
"Because it thinks first of my own wants; my love makes me wish to keep
you all to myself, to prevent you going on this journey."
"The beautiful thing about Akhnaton's teachings, beloved, is the value
of happiness, the beauty of humanity. In this capital he gave his
people wonderful gardens and decorated his public places and temples
with the simple joys of nature; he encouraged music and art and
everything that could give his people happiness. He desired his people
to enjoy the world, he wanted them to see it as he saw it, a wonderful
kingdom, radiating with love. He first taught the world that there
need be no sickness or misery if there was no sin. Light disperses
darkness. His was the purest and highest religion the world was ever
given until the mission of Jesus Christ. The rays of Aton first
symbolized the divinity of God."
The voice of Mohammed Ali brought the lovers back to the practical
things of the hour--a hot bath and the necessity of dressing and eating
a good breakfast. For the time being, the opening of the tomb had been
forgotten. Indeed, Meg found it very hard to bring herself into touch
with all which had been until this morning the absorbing topic for days
past.
She had a number of household duties to attend to as soon as breakfast
was over--putting in order the room for the Overseer-General and
devising the menu for the day's food. There were to be extra mouths to
feed--the photographer, the Chief Inspector and a few invited
fellow-Egyptologists who had been asked for the occasion. It was
Freddy's day.
Before they parted to get ready for breakfast Meg said, "I suppose
Freddy will be quite lost to us until the hour arrives! I wonder when
we shall be permitted to see inside it?" She referred to the tomb.
"Not to-day," Mike said. "At least, I don't expect so. Perhaps
to-morrow. Anyhow, we shall hear all that Freddy has to tell us
to-night or at lunch-time."
"Poor old Freddy! I shall be relieved when the thing is over, when he
can settle down to regular work again. There will be lots to do, won't
there?"
"You look tired," Mike said. Meg's eyes were deeply shadowed.
"Do you wonder? I've lived three thousand years in half an hour. I've
been born again, so to speak. I really feel only half here. Oh,
Mike," she said, impulsively, "I wish I knew more! I should so like to
quite believe, to understand. I can never be the same again, not my
careless, young, old self." She sighed.
"Do you regret it?"
"No, only I feel different, not quite so close to earth, lonely. I
can't explain. I wonder how Lazarus felt? I know I'm alive, dearest,
and here with you, but--don't laugh or think me hysterical--in some
other way, a way I can't speak about, I feel as if I had been dead and
come back. I've seen what no one else has, I've been where neither you
nor Freddy have been."
"With those whose existence is in 'the hills of the West.'"
"A cold tub will do me good, dearest." Meg hurried off.
The sun was pouring its full wonder over the land. The mystery of the
dawn was as if it had never been. Egypt was bathed in light, the
fullest light that ever was on land or sea.
CHAPTER XIII
The great hour had arrived. Margaret and Michael were on their way to
see the inside of the tomb, which had proved to be greater by far in
importance and splendour than even the Arab soothsayer had predicted.
It was, in fact, a tomb of unique interest, a tomb whose history was to
baffle the most expert Egyptologists. Freddy had kept the wonder of it
a secret from Mike and Margaret. He had told them practically nothing.
He wished to give them a surprise.
It had been inspected and photographed and all the necessary
formalities had been gone through, and now, after an admirably borne
period of waiting, Michael and Margaret were to be allowed to visit it.
Freddy was to await their arrival on the actual site, either the tomb
itself or outside it.
As Michael and Margaret hurried through the valley and climbed the
hill, leading down into the side valley which held the tomb, they spoke
very little to each other. Their hearts were full of an intense
excitement. Freddy's silence had prepared them for something unusual.
The sun was blazing like a furnace in the valley; a hot wind was
blowing from the Sahara. Meg and Michael were too excited to be
conscious of their surroundings. Their feet took them mechanically to
the scene of operations.
The tomb had been photographed before any modern had set foot in it.
Very hot and very excited, they at last arrived at its entrance, which
was guarded by two important-looking Egyptian policemen in modern
uniforms. Until Michael and Margaret had satisfactorily proved to them
that they had come to assist Effendi Lampton and that they were members
of his camp, they were not permitted to go near the aperture.
Their identity being established, they at last began their descent down
the deep shaft into the tomb. The hot air which ascended in puffs from
the depths below scorched their faces. Meg felt stifled. Still hotter
air met them as they continued their descent.
One of the Arab workmen helped Meg by going on in front and making
himself into a pillar for her to rest against when she lost her
footing. Her feet slipped and stumbled in the soft debris, yet
pluckily she always managed to reach the stately Arab. Each time she
reached him, she would halt and take a little breath, and with renewed
forces she would stumble on a few paces further. It was a very
undignified proceeding and an exhausting one.
At last they reached the level of the tomb; they could safely raise
their eyes. As they did so, Meg gave a sharp cry of surprise. Never
in all the world had she imagined such a wonderful, wonderful sight. A
glitter of gold and white and the gleam of precious stones and the
brilliant hues of vivid enamels, caught her eyes. Freddy was holding
an electric torch in one hand, while with the other he picked up as
fast as he could from the ground the bits of carnelian and turquoise
and blue _lapis-lazuli_ which lay scattered at his feet. Margaret
could see nothing clearly; after the darkness, things were all blurred.
But she recognized the friendly cigarette-boxes; they were there, and
Freddy was filling them as fast as his one hand would allow him.
Thousands of mummy-beads powdered the floor with bright blue. The
white walls showed a wealth of colour in their paintings.
Freddy was in his white flannels; his modern athletic figure seemed
oddly incongruous. He looked up as they appeared.
"Hallo, Meg! Take care--stay where you are--don't move one step
further."
He instantly stopped his work and came to their assistance.
"You can't walk too softly or be too careful. All these things are as
brittle as burnt egg-shells--the slightest jar may shatter them to
atoms." His voice was full of eager happiness.
"Oh, Freddy," Meg said. "It's too wonderful! I never imagined such a
scene. You darling!" She hugged his arm.
"Wait a bit," Freddy said. "There's better things to come. I say,
Mike, keep your coat close to you--that's right. Now, step like cats."
All three became silent as they picked their way gingerly; their
advance required a nicety and precision of step which permitted of no
talking or examination of the scene which enthralled them.
At last they reached an inner chamber, the actual tomb itself. An
exclamation of amazement burst from both Michael and Margaret
simultaneously. It certainly was an extraordinary scene which met
their gaze.
"Good heavens!" Mike said, while Meg caught hold of Freddy's arm. She
was afraid lest their loud cry might shatter the vision before their
eyes. Would it vanish with the coming of the light as the figure of
Akhnaton had vanished two mornings before?
A queen, dressed as a bride, in all the magnificence of old Theban
splendour, lay stretched at full length on the floor; her arms were
folded across her breast, her face dignified by the repose of death,
the repose of a Buddha, whose eyes have seen beyond.
This royal effigy was so magnificent, its colours were so untarnished,
that light seemed to radiate from the still figure. Here the might of
royalty had defied time.
Meg and Mike saw nothing but the bridal figure; they had eyes for it
alone, its pathos, its dignity.
Freddy pointed to a coffin which lay near the queen. It was empty; one
side of it had been smashed open. A brown and shrivelled mummy, a
ghastly object, had fallen out. It lay quite close to the brilliant
effigy. Surely this was the skeleton at the feast?
Meg shrank back. In the hot tomb a chill struck her heart. This poor
brown object was the real queen. Here time had triumphed.
She looked again, while Freddy held the torch nearer. A vulture with
outstretched wings, the ancient emblem of divine protection, cut out of
flat gold, sat upon the forehead of the mummy. Its left claw had
slipped into the empty eye-socket. A row of long white teeth gaped
threateningly up to the roof. The lips had dried and withered until
they had become as hard as brown leather. Alas for human vanity!
Those lips had once been a lover's, those lips had once responded to
human caresses and desires!
Meg's flesh shrank. It was horrible. It was wrong to pry upon this
pitiful object which centuries had hidden from man's sight, this
humiliation of royal power. Nothing could have illustrated more
vividly the mockery and the futility of human greatness. The ghastly
cheeks, covered with something which had once been human flesh, the
menacing teeth, the embalmed skull, sickened Meg.
For relief she turned her eyes once more to the sublime effigy, to the
waiting bride. Her chamber had been furnished with the lavish
indulgence of an ardent bridegroom.
Michael was standing by Margaret's side. Her hand caught his; human
contact was essential.
The coffin which had once held the mummy had rested on a beautiful
wooden trestle, which had been covered with a golden canopy. The legs
of the trestle had given way, probably with the weight of the coffin,
for the wood had become as brittle and dry as fine egg-shell. With the
fall the mummied body had rolled out and landed on the ground.
This, Freddy conjectured, was the explanation of the apparent
desecration of the tomb.
After they had looked at all that Freddy could show them until more
work had been accomplished, at the two figures which occupied the tomb,
the one so abject and distressing the other so magnificent and
romantic, and at the furniture which appeared to Meg to have been made
only the day before, in spite of Freddy's warning that a breath of cold
air would disperse it before their eyes, he told them that "time was
up."
Meg's astonishment had increased with the examination of every
object--the carved wooden armchair, which appeared to belong to the
best Empire period; the exquisite wedding-chest, of lacquer, the blues
and greens of its floral decorations still daringly brilliant and
vivid--they were far brighter and more perfect than any decorations
which a faker of antiquities would dare to perpetrate.
"But, surely," she said at last, when they had come to the end, "this
furniture's just pure Empire? Look at it, Mike." She pointed to the
exquisite armchair, an object too beautiful and rare for mere human
forms to rest in; then she made him examine the couch. A portion of
its fine cane seating had given way. Had a ghostly form sat on it? "I
thought the French copied their Empire furniture from ancient Greek
models?" she said.
"Well, if they did, here we have it in all its perfection," Freddy
said. "In Egypt you'll find the originals of more than Empire
furniture. The thing is, where did the Egyptians get their models
from? None of the Louis's ever gave their Pompadours, nor Napoleon his
Josephine, anything as beautiful as that." He pointed to the casket.
"And the very air which keeps us alive will destroy these," said Meg.
"It's odd, the way which things that have existed intact for three
thousand years without air will be killed by it!"
"Have you any definite ideas about that figure?" Mike referred to the
mummy. "Whose is it?"
"The whole thing is very bewildering. The tomb obviously hasn't been
plundered, for nothing of any value is missing, and yet, as you can
see, some of the gold wrappings have been torn from the mummy, certain
things have been defaced on the walls--the tomb is not as it was when
the body was first laid here."
"No," Mike said. "Obviously not. The entrance has been tampered with
and those outer walls built; and look at all that debris in the shaft.
Yet, as you say, the obvious things of intrinsic value have not been
removed."
Meg pointed to a recess in the wall; it still held the canopic jars.
Their lids were splendidly formed out of head-portraits of the queen.
Meg knew their meaning, their use; they held the intestines of the
dead. The Biblical expression, "bowels of compassion," always came to
her mind when she looked at canopic jars. These jars had their
significance.
A very good significance, too, she thought, for certainly our bowels
are highly sensitive organs, responding and acting in complete sympathy
with our mental condition. And who can say for certain where our
compassions are seated, our sensibilities and sympathies? Why not, as
the Egyptians thought, in our bowels rather than in our brains?
"Joseph's bowels did yearn upon his brother Benjamin."
"Then you have no idea who the queen was?" Meg said.
"Not yet," Freddy said. "But we shall know. No Egyptian could enter
into his future abode without his name. It was always plainly and
repeatedly written on the embalmed mummy. His identification was
absolutely essential."
"What a help to Egyptologists!" Meg said.
"Probably her name will be written on these golden wrappings and on the
scarabs, if we find any. Nothing has been done yet. This precaution
of the ancients, in the matter of names, has, as you say, saved us
endless work. If plunderers haven't obliterated the name and stolen
the scarabs and other marks of identification, we generally discover
who it is."
Meg sighed. "Is it just ordinary desert and daylight still up above,
Freddy? I can't believe it. We seem to be back in the Egypt of the
Pharaohs down here."
They all looked silently again at the wonderful sight, far more
wonderful than words can suggest--the power of Egypt, the mystery of
death.
"The soothsayer was quite true," Meg said. "His words were more than
true."
"Yes," Freddy said, "more than true. And the odd thing is that he said
what I thought was a lot of rot about a 'bridal figure,' its splendour,
its brilliance. He visualized it almost correctly. He said, too, that
there would be great trouble for us in the work; he saw difficulties
and errors and wrong judgments. Nothing was clear, beyond the
brilliance of the figure and the objects. I wonder if he will be right
in that as well?"
Michael and Margaret looked at each other. Obviously Freddy had been
influenced by the accuracy of the visionary's predictions. His voice
was free from scoffing. He owned that it was extraordinary--the manner
in which the man's words had come true. Neither Meg nor Michael made
any remark; they held their tongues in patience.
"There is certainly plenty of gold," Freddy said, "and jewels and much
fine apparel. I hope we shan't encounter the great difficulty he
expects, as regards the historical problems and arguments it may open
up. He predicts that the opinions of the learned Egyptologists will be
cast out; their judgments will be at fault. What at first will appear
obvious and clear will not be the lasting truth."
"How odd!" Mike said. "Was he very pleased to hear of the correctness
of his predictions so far?"
"I haven't told him."
"Not told him?"
"No, it's wiser not. I've done my best to keep the astonishing
richness of the tomb from the ears of the natives. No one has been
inside it but the Chief Inspector and the photographer and you two. No
words have been spoken--you must not talk."
Meg's heart bounded. It was delightful to be one of the privileged
few, to be trusted and accepted as one of the school. She felt like a
great explorer who had set foot in untravelled country.
"If we stand here, without moving," she said; "quite, quite still,
mayn't we stay for a little bit longer? I'm so full of wonder and
amazement, Freddy. I can't begin to think intelligently or see things
separately--everything is a blurred mass of white and gold and blue and
priceless objects."
"No, Meg, I'm sorry--I can't let you stay. You see, I must take this
light with me and get on with picking up those small objects. You'll
see all of them to-night. And with out the light you would be in total
darkness--real Egyptian darkness."
"That's the thing that beats me. Freddy, how do you solve the
problem?--had they electric torches, or were these tombs only built for
supernatural eyes to enjoy?"
"They certainly didn't use flares or torches in tombs, as the early
Christians did in the Roman catacombs, for there's no trace on the
walls of dirt or smoke as there is on the low walls of the catacombs.
There is absolutely nothing to tell us how they lighted these vast
buildings up, how they even introduced sufficient light to paint them
by or to build them. Look at the minuteness of these figures."
"Surely they never built all these wonderful tombs and took the trouble
to paint them with the brightest colours if they were never again to be
seen with mortal eyes? I can't believe it."
"So far we don't know. Perhaps the _Ka_, the part of a man who lived
for ever in his eternal home, had supernatural powers of sight. The
joys were for him. But how did they paint them in the darkness?"
"Is that fact ever alluded to?"
"No, the _Ka_ is treated in a perfectly human and natural manner. All
his pleasures were material ones. It's very odd--but we'll discover
the secret yet."
"If they had some secret form of wireless telegraphy, they may just as
well have had some secret means of producing light, don't you think?
You've not discovered their wireless code, yet, have you?"
"No, that's still a secret. And they certainly used no apparatus for
electric light, if they knew of it. There are no wires in the tombs."
He laughed. "You know, there is a lift in the Forum at Rome; it was
used for bringing the beasts up to the arena from underground cages.
It is in use to-day, I believe."
"We've not discovered one hundredth part of what they had or hadn't,"
Meg said. "They probably used radium to cure diseases."
"The Etruscans had dentists who knew the use of gold for stopping
teeth--we know that."
"Yes, I've seen a skull with gold-stopped teeth in the Etruscan Museum
at Rome."
They had reached the beginning of the steep climb which was to take
them up to the open desert. Freddy left them with the assurance that
he would come back to lunch. The two policemen were to be responsible
for the guarding of the tomb. If anything was disturbed, they would be
held to account.
When Margaret and Michael at last reached the open desert, Meg flung
herself down and gazed up into the sky. It had never seemed so blue
and beautiful before. The clear air rushed into her lungs. Oh, the
sweetness and the dearness of the daylight and the real world! The joy
it was to press her body close, close to the desert! She put her face
down to it. Nothing in all her life had ever been so reassuring and
comforting.
Michael was seated beside her. The world was so wide and open and
bewildering; he felt giddy, stupefied. Surrounding them was the
ever-wonderful light of the desert, the yellow sands and, in the
distance, the masses of moving figures, working like busy insects at
the clearing away of the tomb-rubbish. Native chants and the noise of
picks and spades shovelling up the debris broke the stillness. Life
was just as it had been for the last two months. The desert was as it
had been before the tribes of Israel followed Moses. Down below them,
under the golden sand, in the dark bowels of the earth, Freddy was
still picking up precious jewels and packing them into the
cigarette-boxes, the effigy of the royal bride still lay in all her
Pharaonic splendour. She was there, underneath them, waiting and
waiting as she had waited for three thousand years for her heavenly
bridegroom. And still by her side lay that shrivelled, withered
corpse, the real queen, for whose pride and honour the vast underground
temple had been built. The brown mummy was the thing which mattered,
the real owner of the costly home.
Freddy, in his white flannels, with his modern mind, was alone with
these two forms, alone and shut off from the embracing, loving light of
the desert. It was not a quarter of an hour since Meg and he had been
there; now they were as far away from the withered mummy and the
resplendent bride as though they had travelled across the breadth of
the world.
His mind went back to the time before the excavating of the tomb was
begun, when it had seemed absurd to suppose that all this splendour lay
under their feet. It seemed to him now as though the whole of Egypt
might be honeycombed in this subterranean manner.
Meg still lay embracing the sun-warmed sand, rejoicing in the dazzling
sunshine.
"It makes one feel very humble," she said at last. "So utterly,
utterly unimportant. It doesn't seem as if it much matters what
happens, not even to our love, Mike."
Mike raised his face from his hands. "I know," he said. "It is
absolute devastation, nothing more or less. I'm shattered, Meg."
"It seems hardly worth while trying to do anything. Tomorrow we'll be
like that. It's so difficult to explain, except that it's just wiped
out my eagerness, it's made our own precious happiness seem absurd and
hollow, human beings ridiculous."
"Dearest, I understand, I feel the same," Mike said. "All that down
there"--he stuck his stick into the sand--"illustrates a bit too
plainly the things we want to forget."
"It shows us the absurdity of what we think are the things that matter.
It's really destructive to anything like worldly fame and ambition.
Those poor shrunken cheeks, those poor leathery lips, those poor, poor
diadems and jewels!"
Mike let her ramble on. It was good for her to give utterance to her
incoherent thoughts.
"They are so different when you see them in a museum," she said.
"They're impersonal there. They don't hurt one's self-importance."
"In Cairo they belong to a number and a glass case," Mike said. "They
lose their individuality."
"Here they are a part of Egypt, that ancient, undying Egypt! You and
I, like those dogs, Mike, won't have even bones to record us after
three thousand years. Our bowels of tenderness will not lie intact in
alabaster jars! Oh, Mike, take me in your arms! I want humanity, I
want the things of to-day, I want all which that mummy has ridiculed!
I hated it, Mike! I love life and your love! I want to forget that we
are here to-day and gone to-morrow, mere human gnats."
Mike held her close to his heart. Meg could hear it beating. Oh,
beloved humanity! Oh, dear human flesh and blood!
"That's lovely, Mike--that's you and me! That's our certain human
love, our happiness! It is worth while, and it's not going to be like
the running out of an hour-glass while an egg is boiling! It's going
to last for ages and ages, isn't it? Say it is, Mike!"
"Yes, beloved." Mike kissed her hands.
She drew them away. "Don't kiss them, Mike. I feel as if they will be
dried skeletons by to-morrow, and as if your lips, dearest, will have
shrunk and shrunk right back until your teeth gape out of your hideous
brown skull up to the blue above. Do you wonder that Akhnaton prayed
so ardently that his spirit might come out and see the sun?"
Meg's head was buried in her hands. She was visualizing again the
wonderful scene, which had taught her the mockery of all things which
had formerly appeared so precious and important. It seemed to her at
the moment that to sit down in the desert under the blue sky, and there
wait for death, was the only thing to do. Nothing really mattered.
Eternity enthralled her. Her happiness with Mike was but the swift
hurrying of a white cloud across a summer sky, the work of the
Exploration School a mere illustration of worldly vanity. In the great
chaos which possessed her soul there was no light to comfort her. In
looking into the past she had unexpectedly seen into the future. She
had beheld the scorn and callousness of eternity.
Oddly enough, it was Michael who helped her to pull herself together
and turn her thoughts to practical things, to the needs of the day.
His more mystical nature, his familiarity with the mythology of Egypt
and other occult subjects, had in a measure prepared his mind for the
things which had burst suddenly upon Meg's practical nature. He had
been subconsciously prepared for the tomb to be one of unusual
importance. The soothsayer's prediction had not been mere charlatanry
to him. His secret thoughts were so constantly focussed on what is
termed the superhuman, that Meg's wonder and horror formed only a minor
part of his emotions.
A thousand thoughts had flashed through his mind when he first saw the
amazing display of jewels and faience and gold, the resplendent queen,
whose royal magnificence had mocked at time. The inexhaustible wealth
of buried Egypt forced before his eyes the treasure of gold of which
Akhnaton had spoken, that imperial wealth which he had buried behind
the hills of his fair capital. He felt convinced that it was there; he
felt convinced that his friend in el-Azhar had seen it, just as the
Arab soothsayer had seen the royal effigy dressed as a bride.
Mike had little conversation even for Meg. His mind was harassed and
absorbed. The fresh impetus which he had received was pounding like a
sledge-hammer at his natural and supernatural forces. His natural self
was the devil's advocate, and a very able one. It argued against the
super-instincts which led him to the treasure. It made him practical.
It made him, as Freddy would have declared, "sanely critical of the
insane." It admitted the apparent folly of the thing into which he was
drifting.
He pulled Meg up from her seat on the sand. He realized that her
domestic duties were what her nerves needed; they had lately been
greatly taxed, first by her vision of Akhnaton and now by the
excitement of their entry into the tomb.[1]
A lover's kisses and strong human arms had done much for Meg. She had
a horror of hysterical females. She pulled herself together and
determined to be practical. Only a few moments before she had felt an
almost uncontrollable desire to burst into tears. How thankful she was
that Mike had saved her from the humiliation!
But how in the world was she going to bring herself back to the paltry
things of every day? How was she ever again going to feel that life
was real and actual?
She entered the hut with unwilling feet and troubled mind; for some
unaccountable reason its atmosphere depressed her; she wished to avoid
it--she felt a curious apprehension of bad news or of coming evil. At
the same time, practical work would be beneficial.
As they came in together, Mohammed Ali greeted Michael with the news
that "One lady and one gentleman has come, very long time they wait.
Lady she stays inside, gentleman he go up the valley."
Instantly life was real again, and Meg a living, angry woman. "She"
who stayed inside could only mean Mrs. Mervill. The tomb was
forgotten, as was the royal bride. They belonged to the past; the
present was all-engrossing.
The present hour was the living reality and Michael, her lover, and her
own love were the things that mattered, the woman in the hut the one
brilliant vision. Life was vital, urgent. A gnat's life would be long
enough if it was to be passed with the woman whom she knew, in the
coming struggle, would fight with tools which she, Meg, would not dare
or deign to touch. As vivid as her vision of the tomb was her memory
of Millicent Mervill's beauty. She could see it illuminating their
desert hut; she could feel it eclipsing her own less vivid colouring as
the sun had eclipsed the rays of Akhnaton.
Mike looked at her. Meg's cheeks were pale, her eyes deeply shadowed.
He hated the woman inside the tent. What had she come for?
A silent kiss separated them. With the kiss Meg's heart took courage.
It left no room for fear.
[1] The description of the interior of this tomb is taken from various
reliable accounts of the interior of the tomb of Thiy. As Queen Thiy
was the mother of Akhnaton, her tomb must have been discovered before
the events described in this story, otherwise they could not have known
that Akhnaton's mummy had been found in his mother's tomb.
When the tomb was first examined, the mummy which had fallen out of the
coffin was supposed to be that of Queen Thiy. The light of
after-events and of scientific research have proved that the mummy was
that of a young man of about twenty-five years of age. The conclusion
is that Akhnaton's body was brought from his original burying-place
near his "City of the Horizon," and placed in his mother's tomb in the
Western Hills.
The name of Akhnaton had been erased from the coffin, but it was still
readable on the gold ribbons which encircled the body.
CHAPTER XIV
When Michael entered the sitting-room of the hut, Millicent Mervill was
reading one of Freddy's French novels. There had been plenty of time
for her to powder herself and cool down and settle to her liking her
dainty person. She looked as fresh and cool and pink as a bough of
apple-blossom.
She greeted Michael with a charming mixture of friendliness and
discretion. She had brought a friend up the valley, to see all that
tourists had to see. He had been put into her hands by a letter of
introduction from friends in America. They had seen all that her
health would allow her to see, on such a hot day. She had noticed
their camp in passing up the valley and could not resist visiting it on
her way back. Might she ask for an hour's rest from the sun? Her
friend was going to call back for her on the return journey.
"I knew you wouldn't mind," she said. "And I'm not going to stop your
work, or bother you."
"I'm not busy," Michael said--"at least, not for the moment." His eyes
avoided Millicent's, which seemed to him bluer than usual; but his
voice was less cold. His first greeting had been curt and almost
impatient. Millicent was evidently wiser and less difficult; she was
the same Millicent who had behaved so delightfully at the Pyramids.
When she was like that he was glad to be nice to her; he was almost
pleased to see her.
As their conversation continued--it was mostly about the tomb and its
great importance--a subconscious thought that she had come to the hut
for some reason which she was not divulging forced itself more and more
strongly on Michael. He became convinced of it; she seemed so
unusually contented and satisfied with the plan of confining her visit
to a short rest in the hut and their conversation to "the things of
Egyptology," that even Michael was suspicious. She was "_douce comme
un lupin blanc_," as she expressed it to herself later on. Her usual
insistence had vanished. She treated Michael as a friend, with the
proper touch of intimacy. This was when they were alone.
When Margaret came into the room, she hardened. Naturally Margaret
invited her to stay for lunch. She was Michael's friend.
"It is always a very light meal with us," she said. "But such as it
is, you are welcome to share it."
"Freddy likes his proper meal at night," Michael said.
"Thanks ever so much," Millicent said; she had noticed the coldness of
Margaret's voice. "I'd love to stay--that's to say, if it won't really
be giving you any trouble--you're looking fagged." She turned to
Michael. "What have you been doing with her?" Millicent spoke as if
she really cared. "You're too young for such tired eyes, for these
lines," she touched Meg's eyes and pulled open the corners. Meg's
shrinking gave her satisfaction. "Don't let Egypt ruin your looks, my
dear--a woman is only half a woman when her beauty fades; she's only a
woman in the eyes of one half of mankind while it lasts."
"Do you think so?" Meg said. "I dare say you're right, but when one is
quite young one never stops to consider these things. As you get
older, I suppose you do."
The hit went home; the girl had claws.
"We are only as young as we look, are we not? These few weeks have
ragged you to pieces."
"I don't mind," said Meg. "It's been well worth it. You may as well
get ten years into ten weeks as ten weeks into ten years. I've been
gobbling up life, years and years of new experiences and sensations in
these last few weeks." Meg meant no more than her words would have
conveyed to any sweet-minded woman, but Millicent Mervill put her own
interpretation on them. Margaret was no mean fencer; she could hit
back as well as parry strokes.
"You've certainly said good-bye to conventions, my dear. I admire you
for taking your life into your own hands." The blue eyes searched
Margaret's; they spoke of a hundred things which made Margaret long to
throw the tumbler which she was placing on the table at her golden
head. Margaret was neither ignorant nor a fool; Millicent's eyes
explained her meaning.
"One has to say good-bye to conventions in the desert--nothing can be
too simple here. That's why Western fashions look so grotesque, our
ideas of becoming garments so ludicrous."
Meg had ignored the innuendoes. Her eyes rested on Millicent's absurd
shoes and fashionably-cut white serge coat and skirt--a charming suit,
but out of place in the hut.
"Is your brother still here?" Millicent asked the question with a
beautiful insouciance. She was perfectly well aware that he was
personally superintending the excavation of the tomb. Her words were
meant to annoy.
"Here?" Meg said. "In the hut at this moment, do you mean? No--he is
busy." Meg's eyes flashed with anger.
Michael was silently enjoying the battle of words and eyes which was
taking place between the two women. The very atmosphere was charged
with antagonism. He was delighted to find that Margaret held her own.
"No--I meant, is he still in the valley, or are you two alone here?
How deliciously romantic!" Millicent sighed. The sigh was more
suggestive than her words.
"My brother is in the tomb at this moment," Meg said. "You seem to
have very extraordinary ideas of the ways of excavators"--she had
flushed to the roots of her hair--"of the behaviour of ordinary English
people."
"What was the desert made for, but freedom, my dear? If one can't live
in this valley as one wants to, where can one, I should like to know?"
"We are living as we like," Meg said. "Your ideas of freedom may not
be mine. Our interests lie apart--our ideas of enjoyment are, as far
as I can understand, poles apart."
"A foolish waste of time, my dear, that's all I can say. May I smoke?"
Michael handed her a box of cigarettes; he noticed the exquisite
refinement of her hands as she picked out a cigarette, her
brightly-polished nails. "Thanks, dear," she said, as she lit the
cigarette from the match which he held out to her--the "dear" was for
Meg's benefit; for as their eyes met hers were full of genuine fun and
mischief.
"I must tease her," she said, in a low whisper; Meg had gone to the end
of the room. "I love shocking those dark eyes--I enjoy making her hate
me. It's only fun."
Meg's heart was beating. How dared she call Michael "dear"? How dared
she intrude herself uninvited upon their simple life? Her beauty, her
foolish feminine clothes, angered her. She hated Millicent's fine
skin, which was, even in the desert heat, as poreless as a baby's. It
was a wonderful skin for a grown person, let alone for a woman of
Millicent Mervill's age. Meg thought of the dried mummy's lips. One
day that pure soft flesh, which held the tints of a field daisy, would
be more revolting to look at if it were unearthed than the skin of the
three-thousand-year-old queen. If Meg had possessed a wishing-ring, it
would not have taken long to effect the inevitable change.
The impudence of the woman maddened her. She knew that she could not,
even if she had wished to, behave as she did. Millicent did exactly as
she liked, as the impulse of the minute suggested.
Meg wondered how she had passed the time while they were at the tomb.
Had she examined any private object in the hut? Had she interviewed
the servants? She was quite capable of doing it.
She heard her whisper to Mike. Her own sensitiveness now drove her out
of the hut; if they wished to speak in whispers, let them speak. She
stood sullenly outside the door.
Why did not some strong man strangle women like Millicent Mervill? Why
had not she herself the courage to tell her what she thought of her?
Probably Millicent would only smile and show her perfect teeth--they
always made Meg furious, because they were even better than her own,
and hers were, so she thought, her strongest asset--and say, "Poor
girl! You are a little overtired"; or she would say, "You have so much
to make you happy, dear, and I have so little. Don't be unkind--I only
long for sympathy."
Millicent's moments of self-pity were mean and contemptible and yet
they were effective.
The only thing to do was to leave the two alone, to trust Michael and
go about her business.
Presently she heard Michael say: "Well, I'll leave you to rest until
lunch-time--I can't idle while Freddy is working like a nigger. You'll
be all right, I know, with your book and a cigarette."
Margaret slipped round to the back of the hut; she did not want to
speak to Michael; she was thankful that he had left Mrs. Mervill, but
his voice had been too kind, too nice. Meg did not know what she would
have liked him to do, what he could have done otherwise. She only knew
that the niceness of his voice annoyed her.
When the overseer's whistle for the workmen to "down picks and spades"
sounded and the time was ripe for Freddy to appear, Margaret sauntered
off to meet him. When she saw him coming she hurried towards him. How
she loved him!
When they met she said, "That cat Mrs. Mervill is here. Oh, Freddy, I
hate her!"
Freddy laughed. Millicent Mervill, with her extreme modernity and
virile passions, was so far removed from the thought of the tomb, from
the brown mummy, whose golden ribbons he had been examining; his
sister's annoyance was so utterly unlike her mood of the earlier
morning! He had never seen Meg so moved as she had been in the tomb.
He felt a little relieved that a very human and irritating influence
had suddenly thrust itself across her path. Meg was getting too
enthralled in Egypt. These thoughts flashed through his mind.
"Good old Meg," he said tenderly. "The fighting Lampton's roused, is
it?"
"Yes," Meg said. "I am roused. She's so insolent, Freddy."
"What?" he said, stopping her before she got further. "Insolent? to
whom?"
"To . . ." Meg hesitated. "To life," she said abruptly. "She says
things that I could hit her for saying. Freddy, do squash her!--she
suggests something nasty with every word she utters."
"I'll try and flirt with her--won't that do?"
"No, don't, Freddy!" Fear clutched at Meg's heart; the woman in her
trembled for her brother. Millicent was so fair, so tempting; Freddy
was young and, Meg thought, ignorant of the wiles of women.
"You'd rather I did than Mike?" Freddy's eyes laughed as he watched
the blush rise to his sister's cheeks. It made her extraordinarily
attractive--indeed, fighting seemed to suit Meg. He pinched her arm;
they were close pals, tried chums. "I know your secret, Meg--I've had
eyes for other things than the tomb!"
"Do you mind, Freddy?" Meg slipped her arm through her brother's; her
eyes shone with happiness.
Freddy pressed her arm close to his side. Meg loved him for it. "If
I'd minded I shouldn't have let things go so far, should I? I could
have packed you off home."
"You've been a darling, Freddy, and I'm so happy! I never knew
anything could be so perfect. I sound silly, don't I?"
"No. Mike's one of the very best, Meg. But you'll have to look after
him a bit." Freddy's voice was graver.
"How do you mean, Freddy?" Meg at once thought of Mrs. Mervill.
Freddy read her thoughts in her voice.
"I don't mean in that way--rather not! He's as straight as a die. I
mean, you'll have to help him to walk on his two legs, Meg--stop him
standing on his head, make him practical."
"I love him for it, Freddy."
"But it doesn't pay. We're of this world and we've got to live in this
world. Mike's always trying to get beyond it, to get into touch with
the other side. It's no good meddling with that sort of thing, it
always has a disastrous effect on the human mind and human happiness,
which proves to me that we're not intended to know or to get in touch
with those who have left us. It's unwise to give up one's thoughts to
the supernatural."
"Perhaps it is," Meg said, "but why should we be contented to stand
still about all that sort of thing, while we leap ahead in science and
material progress and everything else? Mike thinks the true
understanding is coming, the darkness we have lived in is passing away."
"He may be right," Freddy said. "But for your happiness, Meg, I wish
he'd chuck it. The 'sublime truth of spiritualism' he talks about, and
the 'God-ruled world-state'--the one's dangerous to his bodily welfare,
the other's the Utopian dream of failures. I don't want you to marry a
failure, old girl. I want you to have the sort of life you're fitted
for."
"People must be what they are, Freddy, and failure isn't a failure if
it's done its bit. Rome wasn't built in a day, or the union of Italy
achieved without broken hearts--modern Italy had its failures, its
Utopian dreamers, long before Garibaldi's triumphant thousand marched
into Rome."
"That's true, only one never wants a failure to be a member of one's
own family. I don't want a dreamer for a brother-in-law, Meg--not for
your husband."
"The Lamptons always want to come in with the victorious legions," Meg
said. They were nearing the hut. "It seems as if the real victors in
life were what we call the failures, the pioneers of truth."
"I'm awfully glad, anyway, Meg. Mike's a lucky chap and you're a lucky
girl. You know, I think the world of Mike!"
"We aren't engaged, Freddy."
"Oh, aren't you?" He looked at her with laughing eyes. "What do you
call it, then? An understanding? Or are you just 'walking out' like
'Arry and 'Arriet?"
Meg laughed happily. "We love each other--we've not got beyond that
yet. I suppose we're just 'walking out.'"
"You've told each other about the loving?" Freddy's kindness was
bringing something like tears to Margaret's eyes.
"Yes. Michael didn't mean to--it . . ." she paused.
"Oh, I know! The usual thing. Things seem to be going on all right."
He laughed. "It mustn't run too smoothly."
"Don't laugh, Freddy. Michael thought you would think it cheek--he
won't allow me to consider myself bound to him." She laughed
deliriously. "The dear boy wants me to feel free to change my mind,
because he's 'a drifter,' because he thinks he isn't a good enough
match for your sister. Your sister, Freddy, comes right above mere
Meg."
"I see," Freddy said. "Then I'm not to speak about it yet, am I? Just
tell me what you want and I'll do it."
"Not yet, Freddy--not while that odious woman is here, at any rate."
"All right, I'll wait. Only I'd rather like to see her face when I
congratulated Mike."
"Ought you to congratulate Mike? I'm your sister--isn't it the other
way on? Shouldn't you congratulate me?"
They were close to the door of the hut; Meg lingered.
"He's the luckiest man I know. I wish he had a sister just like you.
Of course he's to be congratulated! And now I must go and make myself
beautiful." His eyes smiled their brightest. "I bet you I could cut
Mike out with the fair Millicent if I set my mind to it."
In the sunlight Freddy looked irresistible, with his violet eyes,
shaded by his thick lashes, his crisp hair, as sunny and fair as a
boy's. Meg knew that he was a much better-looking man than
Mike--indeed, he would have been too good-looking if his figure had not
been all that it was, if there had been the slightest touch of the
feminine about him. There was not. Yet in spite of his good looks and
astonishing colouring, Meg was right in her consciousness that for
women there was more magnetic attraction in Mike's mobile plainness, in
his sensitive, irregular features. When the two men were talking
together, the senses and eyes of women would be drawn to the plain man.
During lunch Millicent Mervill was very good. She was interested in
hearing about the tomb and, Freddy thought, wonderfully intelligent
upon the subject. She was, as he expressed it, as clever as a monkey.
What little knowledge she had she used to the utmost advantage, to its
extreme limit. All her intellectual goods she displayed in her shop
window. She had a telling way of saying, "I am completely ignorant
upon this or that subject," suggestive of the fact that she really did
know a great deal about many other things. She seldom "gave herself
away."
Freddy came to the conclusion that she was so quick that it was quite
impossible to discover what she really did or did not know or grasp,
and, as he said to Mike afterwards, "What she did not know, she will
set about knowing when she gets home. That brain won't rest still
under ignorance, or let Meg know what it doesn't know."
The description of the fine effigy of the queen thrilled her; her
appetite for details was insatiable. There was plenty to talk about,
so conversation did not flag and personal topics were avoided.
Freddy thought that she was nicer than she had ever been before and
even prettier. He enjoyed his lunch; it certainly was a change to have
a beautiful woman, who was not his sister, and who did her best to make
herself attractive, lunching with them in their desert home. After his
tremendous efforts of the last three or four days her presence was
pleasing. Even the modern clothes and aggressively-manicured
finger-nails gave him healthy sensations. His manhood enjoyed her
super-femininity.
The little room palpitated with life, the antagonism of the two women
was a thing he could feel. He felt it as surely as he had felt the hot
air of the tomb. Freddy enjoyed looking at his sister; her combative
mood vitalized her.
Her dark hair, so soft and abundant, looked tempting to touch, after
the dragged and matted "something" which clung to the skull of the
mummy.
Nothing in the room was intrinsically worth a couple of shillings. The
seat on which Michael was sitting had been made out of empty boxes;
they had been converted into a very presentable armchair by the
ingenuity of Mohammed Ali. Yet the atmosphere of the hut was human and
domesticated, the two women sweet and fragrant.
And so it was not difficult for Freddy to respond to his fair guest's
pleasant chatter. She made him laugh heartily more than once, and he
was ready for a good laugh. He was braced by her quick wit and
humorous way of looking at things.
Meg was doing her best to appear happy; she was really getting angrier
and angrier every minute with the woman who was so thoroughly enjoying
herself; angry because Freddy, like all other men, was being deceived
by her, because he was obviously thinking her very excellent
company--which she was. He was no doubt already wondering why she,
Meg, hated her so whole-heartedly. Freddy had seldom mentioned
Millicent to his sister; he had kept his own counsel. The Lamptons
were silent men, whose appreciation of women like Millicent never led
them astray in the choosing of their wives.
Michael had given Millicent his first vivid impressions of the tomb in
a very "Mik-ish" manner. He described Freddy, strikingly
distinguishable in his white flannels, greedily picking up jewels and
gold and bits of blue faience and stowing them away into boxes by the
light of an electric torch.
"A tomb burglar if ever you saw one! I shall never forget the sight."
"There's lots of work for you, Meg, to-night," Freddy said. "There's
an awful lot of things to sort and clean--beautiful things."
"How exciting!" Millicent said. "Can you keep any of the small things?
They'd stick to my fingers, I feel sure."
"No," Freddy said. "Not unless you are a thief. They aren't ours--I'm
only entrusted with the finding of them."
Millicent made a face of dissatisfaction, as she felt for something
which she wore fastened to the long gold chain which was hanging from
her neck.
"I wonder if you will pronounce this genuine or a fake? Do you
remember, Mike, our buying it?" She ran her fingers along the chain.
The genuine antique or fake was not on it; it was missing. She felt
again. No; there was nothing on the chain.
"Oh, I've lost it!" she said. "My precious eye of Horus, Mike. I
wouldn't have lost it for the world!" Her tone conveyed his
understanding of the personal value which she attached to the amulet.
"What was it?" Freddy said. "Can't we get another? If you bought it,
it was probably a fake."
"A new one would never be the same--Mike gave me the one I've
lost"--she purposely used Michael's intimate name--"while we were
staying at Luxor. It has been my 'heaven-sent gift'"--(the ancients'
name for the amulet, which represented the right eye of Horus).
They all looked to see if the amulet had been dropped in the room, if
it was under the table. But it was nowhere to be found; the eye of
Horus was concealing itself.
"It was probably only a fake," Freddy said, "if you bought it in Luxor.
I'll try and get a genuine one for you--for ages and ages they were the
commonest of all amulets, judging by the number we find. Almost every
ancient Egyptian must have worn one. It was the all-seeing eye, the
protecting light."
"The moon was the left eye of Horus and the sun was the right--isn't
that so?" Millicent asked.
"Roughly speaking, but the eye of Horus is a complicated subject. It's
not just the evil or good eye of Italy, by any means. The eye of Horus
is the eye of Heaven, Shakespeare's 'Heaven's eye,' but it's when it
gets identified with Ra that the complication comes in. The _sacred_
eye is the eye of Heaven, or Ra. Poets, ancient and modern, have sung
of it, from the time of Job to the days of Shakespeare. But there was
also the evil eye, the one we hear so much about in Southern Italy."
"Tell me about that. I always like the naughty stories. I've never
grown up in that respect. The evil eye is more interesting to me than
the eye of Heaven. I knew a woman in Italy who was selling lace; she
let a friend of mine buy all she wanted from her at the most absurdly
cheap prices you can imagine. When the lady of the house we were
staying in, who had allowed the woman to call and bring her lace, asked
her why she had sold the lace to a stranger at a price for which she
had refused to part with it to her, she simply threw up her eyes and
said, '_Ma_, Signora, what could I do? She had the evil eye--if I had
not given it to her, what terrible misfortunes she could have brought
to me!'"
"I remember seeing a crowded tramcar in Rome empty itself in a moment
when a well-known Prince, who was supposed to have the evil eye, got
into it," Michael said.
"A common expression for a woman in ancient Egypt was _stav-ar-ban_,
which meant 'she who turns away the evil eye,'" Freddy said.
"Then the Egyptians believed in the evil eye, as apart from the sacred
eye of Ra?" Millicent said. "What a universal belief it seems to have
been! One meets with it all over the world."
"Wasn't there a book found in the ancient library of the temple of
Dendereh which told all about the turning away of the evil eye?" Mike
asked.
"I believe so," Freddy said. "But I've never seen it."
Millicent was still fingering her empty chain. "I feel lost without my
eye," she said to Mike, who had answered her persistent gaze. "You
bought it for me after that long, long day we spent together in the
desert behind Karnak. Do you remember that Coptic convent"--she made a
face of disgust--"and the amusement of the nuns at my blue eyes, and
all the dreadful dogs? You bought the eye from the old man who looked
as if he had lived inside a pyramid all his life." She turned to
Margaret. "It was a wonderful day, and we behaved like children in the
desert, didn't we, Mike?"
Meg managed to hide her annoyance, but something hurt inside
her--probably her bowels of wrath.
"It was a lovely day, I remember. The Coptic convent looked like a
collection of beehives huddled together in the desert. You wouldn't go
inside it because you were afraid of the fleas, and I wasn't allowed to
go in because I was a man."
"I'd had enough of Coptic churches. Have you ever been in the early
Christian churches in Cairo?" she asked Margaret.
"No, but I've heard about them."
"Well, I have, and all I can say is that if the early Christians in
Rome were as dirty as the survivors of the Church of St. Mark are in
Cairo, I don't wonder at the pagans. I wasn't going to risk the
monastery after the appalling filth of their churches, dirty pigs!"
At that precise moment Mohammed Ali brought in the coffee. It was
served in the native fashion, in small enamelled brass bowls, on a
brass tray. When he handed the tray to Mrs. Mervill he pointed to a
small object lying beside her cup.
"Lady, I find _antika_ all safe."
Millicent's heart beat more quickly; a little deeper rose warmed her
cheeks. She picked up the eye of blue faience from the brass tray with
well-assumed delight. Margaret's dark eyes were resting on her. She
felt them.
"Thank you," she said to Mohammed Ali. "I'm so glad." Her hand shook
a little as she lifted her cup. "Heaven's eye is not withdrawn," she
said gaily to Michael.
"Where did you find it, Mohammed?" Michael asked the question
innocently.
Mohammed Ali's eyes met Mrs. Mervill's. In them he saw the promise of
a handsome _baksheesh_.
"When lady get off donkey, chain it catch on the saddle."
A slight sigh escaped from Millicent's lips; Mohammed was worthy of his
race.
"Oh, yes! How stupid of me not to remember! I quite forgot that my
chain caught as I dismounted. I never thought of looking to see if I
had lost anything."
Meg knew that Millicent Mervill was lying and she knew that Mohammed
knew that she was lying. She also knew Mohammed well enough to know
that if she chose, she could buy him back again from Millicent.
Mohammed handled the truth very carelessly; it was still his unshakable
policy to secure as much money as he could and give as much pleasure as
he could to the person who gave him the most. His Eastern knowledge of
human nature told him that Margaret would not be likely to seek to buy
his secret. He might, perhaps, tell her the truth when Mrs. Mervill
had gone away, because he sincerely liked her, but as far as bribery or
corruption was concerned, he must rest content with what Mrs. Mervill
thought a sufficient reward for his intelligence and silence.
Margaret had felt pretty certain that Millicent's curiosity had not
remained contented with the inspection of the public sitting-room. As
she watched her trembling hand and noted the blush on her cheeks, she
felt that her suspicions were not unjust. Instinctively her mind flew
to her diary; it was lying on a table in her room. She had kept it
very faithfully over since her arrival in the valley. It was an
intensely intimate, human document. It was a record of all her
impressions and of her life in the valley, and of every incident which
had happened in relation to her friendship with Michael. If Millicent
had read any of it, she must have seen into her very soul. Margaret's
whole being writhed at the thought of the thing. She had taken the
precaution to write it in French so that she could leave the book
unlocked in her bedroom. None of the house "boys" could read French;
Millicent, of course, both spoke and read it fluently.
As Meg thought of this, the cruel laying bare of her inner woman to the
woman she hated, a hot blush dyed her cheeks; she felt giddy.
Millicent noticed the blush. Her eyes rested upon Meg's until Meg was
compelled to raise hers. Then the two women looked into each other's
souls. Their unspoken thoughts were plainly read by each other.
It was Millicent who triumphed. No shame made her eyes drop; no fear
weakened their challenge. They boldly said, "You see, I know, I have
learnt. You are not all that you look. I have discovered the other
woman."
With extraordinary clearness Margaret visualized Millicent's delicate
fingers turning over the pages of her diary. She could see her eyes
gloating over its secret passages. She could feel Millicent's
beautiful presence filling her plain little bedroom, which would never
be the same again. Her delicate fragrance, which was no stronger than
the subtle perfume of English wild flowers, was probably lingering in
it still. Meg felt herself clumsily big and masculine beside her, for
Millicent never allowed you to forget that, above all things, she was a
woman, that in her companionship with men she was not of the same sex.
When the eye of Horus was once more, with Freddy's assistance, securely
fastened on to the gold chain, and the coffee had been drunk and
cigarettes were being indulged in, Mrs. Mervill's American friend
appeared at the hut.
He was a very agreeable and cultured man. His chief interest in things
Egyptian was centred in the subject of ancient festivals. When he was
smoking with the party, a really interesting discussion took place
between the three men. Mr. Harben, the newcomer, had been particularly
interested in the "intoxication festivals" held in honour of the
goddess Hathor at Dendereh.
Michael naturally had read more upon the subject of the festival of
Isis. At her festival the "Songs of Isis" were sung in the temples of
Osiris by two virgins. These festivals were held for five days at the
sowing season every year. These "songs of Isis," of course, related to
the destruction of Osiris by Set and the eventual reconstruction of his
body by his wife Isis and her sister goddess Nephthys. In other words,
it was the festival of the triumph of light over darkness, the power of
righteousness over evil, the oldest of all battles.
During the discussion Millicent Mervill was at her best. She was
intellectually curious and excitable. The festival of Isis bored her;
she did not care for or believe in the inevitable triumph of light over
darkness. With her evil flourished like a green bay-tree, while
righteousness was its own reward--and a very dull one. She was
religious, after the conventional fashion of the people with whom she
consorted; she enjoyed going to a church where there was good music or
an audacious preacher to be heard. But she never wanted to be better
than she was; her wants were for the further satisfaction of her
material enjoyments on this earth.
But the Bacchanalian festivals of Hathor had interested her and aroused
her curiosity, from the very first time that she had seen the figures
of the dancing-girls, so realistically carved on the walls of the
temple of Dendereh. She had read all that she could lay her hands on
relating to the subject, which consisted only of such portions of the
papyrus as the translators have seen fit to give to the general public.
Her American friend had gone further. He was not only interested in
the Bacchanalian dances, but in Egyptian festivals generally.
Both Margaret and Millicent became silent as the discussion proceeded
and for the time being their animosity was forgotten; they found
themselves for once sympathetic listeners and good companions. Michael
was pleased.
As the discussion gradually soared above their understanding, they
talked of things between themselves.
Time flew pleasantly, so much so that Margaret felt a little regret
when at last Millicent and her friend said good-bye. She had almost
forgotten her ugly suspicions about Millicent, who had been very
charming and simple. She wished that she had not spoken so hastily to
Freddy about her. Her conscience pricked her.
Later on, as the trio, Michael, Freddy, and Margaret, watched their two
guests depart, very different thoughts filled their minds. Michael was
hoping that a new phase in the acquaintance between the two women had
begun, that Meg would now hold out a helping hand of sympathy to
Millicent. Meg was wondering if Freddy thought that she had been
unjust and horrid, just because Millicent was beautiful and a cleverer
woman than herself. Freddy had obviously enjoyed her unexpected visit.
"Your fair friend paid us this honour, Mike, for some reason best known
to herself," he said. "Some reason she has not divulged, I wonder what
it was? There is always a hidden reason in what she does."
"Curiosity," said Michael, carelessly. "She wanted to see how
excavators live and to find out for herself what we were doing."
"I guess so!" Freddy said, significantly. "Find out for herself--that
was just it." He laughed. "I wonder how much she did find out?"
Freddy clapped his hand on Mike's shoulder as he spoke. "I didn't give
you away, old chap!"
Michael faced him squarely. So Freddy knew!
"Has Meg told you?" His voice was anxious.
"Told me? Do you suppose I'm blind?" Freddy spoke with such frank
sympathy and pleasure that from his voice more than his words Michael
took heart.
"It's awful cheek on my part."
"Yes, 'awful cheek,'" Freddy said. "Considering Meg's just the one and
only Meg in the world." He took Meg's brown hand in his--such a
different hand from Millicent's!--and placed it on the top of Michael's
and held it there. "Bless you, my children!" he said. "I feel like a
heavy father. And I've nothing more to say, except that I'm jolly
glad, and I congratulate you both."
Meg's eyes were shining. Freddy was so boyish and yet so much her
elder brother. How she loved him!
"Thanks, old chap," Michael said. "I suppose Meg's told you all about
it?--I mean, how I'm not going to let her bind herself to me? We love
each other, and I forgot and told her I did."
Freddy laughed. "If something better than you, you old drifter, turns
up, she's to be free to take him. Of course, something will!"
"Yes," Michael said. "Or if . . ." he paused.
"If you prove too unpractical for a husband, you old humbug, I'm to
cancel the engagement!"
Meg linked her arm in her brother's. "I'm quite practical, enough for
us both," she said. "The Lampton common sense wants leavening. We
never rise to heights, Freddy--we're solid dough."
"We manage to get down into the bowels of the earth, which helps a bit,
if we can't soar very high."
All three laughed. Freddy meant the tomb, of course.
Freddy was smoking a cigarette. His eyes were following the two
donkeys which were taking Millicent and her friend down the valley.
They looked like white insects in the distance; they had travelled
rapidly, as donkeys will travel on their homeward journey.
"The fair Millicent!--and, by Jove, she is fair!"--Freddy said,
meditatively, "didn't come here to find out your engagement--don't
imagine so. She managed to carry away some information more difficult
to obtain than that." He laughed and quoted the old saying, "Love,
like light, cannot be hid. What a pity she isn't all as nice as the
nice parts of her, or as nice as she is pretty!"
"I always think she looks so nice to eat," Margaret said.
"I think she looks so nice to kiss," Freddy said laughingly. "If that
American hadn't been there, I'd have taken her off for a walk, and then
I could have told you, Mike, what it was like."
Meg blushed to the roots of her hair. Her brother's words recalled the
ball at Assuan. She knew that Michael knew what it was like.
Freddy saw Meg's blush and wondered what it meant. He turned and left
the lovers to enjoy a few moments' uninterrupted bliss and to discuss
the day's events.
Their bliss consisted in standing together, silently watching the two
figures on the white donkeys disappear into the valley below. When the
last trace of them had vanished and the desert and the sky composed
their world, Meg gave a sigh of relief. Perfect content was expressed
in her attitude and silence, a long silence, too sacred to be broken
rashly. The sun was brilliant, the distance before them immense,
compelling.
As Meg gazed and gazed, her heart became more and more full of
happiness. The world was a wonderful mother; she had only to trust, to
believe, to love, to have happiness showered upon her.
"In a book I was reading the other day, Mike," she said, "the heroine
remarked that looking into a great distance always made her long to be
better than she was. How true it is--at least, with me. I knew what
she meant, instantly. I feel it now, don't you?"
"That's why town-life is so bad for us," he said. "Our vision never
gets beyond the traffic, beyond the progress of commerce. I've often
thought the same thing. Distances are sublime."
"The distances in the desert make me feel far more like that than any
other distances. The desert has taught me so much--it is a wonderful
mother."
Michael's eyes answered her.
"Looking at that distance makes me wish I hadn't been so wicked in my
heart about Mrs. Mervill. I was bursting with hate of her, Mike--I
longed to hurt her as she always hurts me!"
"You behaved splendidly! I knew it was an awful trial to you. You
knew I understood, Meg?"
"It was a trial," Meg said, "but why am I so little when I am put to
the test, and why do I feel so big, so far above such contemptible
things, when I look at a distance like that?"
"Because you're a darling, human woman, Meg." Michael's arms went
round her. "Because there would be no merit in our victories if the
battles were quite easy."
"I suppose not, but for your belief in me, Mike, I want to be as big as
the biggest thoughts I've got, and I'm only as small as my meanest."
"You are the mistress of my happiness, Meg."
Meg's eyes shone with understanding, while his words called up the
figure and the bright rays of Akhnaton.
"Freddy said that I am to act as a curb on your unpractical tendencies,
Mike. I felt very deceitful. He doesn't know how much I've aided and
abetted them."
"He never imagined that he'd a practical mystic for a sister, did he?"
"Never," Meg said.
"But that's what you are, dearest--a practical mystic. You are a woman
with two sides to your nature--the intensely practical and the
subconsciously mystic. Egypt has developed the mystic half--your
Lampton forbears are responsible for the other."
"The Lampton half of me keeps my two feet firmly planted on the earth,
Mike."
"The mystic half loves this silly drifter." He pressed her to him.
"The practical half says, come back to the hut and help Freddy."
And so they went.
PART II
CHAPTER I
Michael's travels in the Eastern desert had barely extended over a three
days' journey by camel and some hours spent on the Egyptian State
Railway, which runs by the banks of the Nile.
The town of Luxor lies on the right or east bank of the Nile, four
hundred and fifty miles to the south of Cairo. Tel-el-Amarna, or "The
City of the Horizon," Akhnaton's capital, lies about a hundred and sixty
miles south of Cairo. Michael could very easily have gone almost all the
way to the modern station of Tel-el-Amarna, or Haggi Kandil, by boat or
by train from Luxor, which faces the Theban Hills, in whose bowels lies
the great Theban necropolis, the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, which
had been his home for some months. But that was not his idea; he wished
to spend all his days in the solitude of the desert, so he started his
journey at a point half-way between Luxor and Tel-el-Amarna.
This was not his first pilgrimage to the eastern desert.
Luxor and Assuan both lie on the east bank of the Nile; the great Arabian
Desert in Egypt stretches from the Suez Canal to Assuan; after Assuan it
is called the Nubian Desert. The Libyan Desert stretches from Cairo to
Assuan, but on the western bank of the Nile. Michael's desire was for
the uninterrupted ocean of sand which stretches from the shores of the
Atlantic to the cliffs which give the Nile its sunsets. Its infinity of
space drew him to it.
In the desert, where a traveller begins his day at dawn and ends it at
sundown, where the slow tread of his camel is only interrupted by a short
halt for the midday meal, and the days roll on and into each other as the
sand-dunes roll on and into succeeding sand-dunes, the sense of hours and
days becomes lost. With nothing in front of the eye but an infinity of
sky and distance and nothing active in that distance but dazzling heat,
moving over the desert, the mind becomes a part of the intense solitude.
The traveller's ego is comatized; he takes his place with the elements.
When the traveller's long day's march is done, the wonder of the starlit
nights makes his past life seem still more unreal. It has been truly
said that the solitary contemplation of the desert stars either for ever
convinces a doubter of the certainty of a God, or confirms his opinions
as an Atheist. When Michael was alone with the stars, the Sweet Singer
of Israel's words ever rang in his ears:
"When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the
stars, which Thou hast ordained;
"What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou
visitest him?"
During the three days spent on camel-back in the desert nothing had
happened which the world calls happening. Michael's small equipment was
proving itself entirely satisfactory and sufficient for his needs. His
guide and his servants were both agreeable and obedient. His head-man or
guide was none other than the soothsayer who had predicted the
astonishing wealth of the tomb which Freddy had discovered. He had
travelled far and wide in the great Arabian Desert and he had also helped
at the excavations at Tel-el-Amarna.
Although apparently nothing had happened, no events which would bear
recording in the diary of a practical explorer, yet much had happened
which evaded the limitations of words. The things which had happened
were the great things which mattered to Michael's mind. They had
produced an extraordinary sense of repose; they had settled his nerves
and allowed his convictions to steadily develop, to emerge from shadowy
dreams. If he thought less constantly of Margaret as the days wore on,
it was with more satisfaction and confidence. He ceased to blame himself
for confessing his love; he accepted that also as an act of the guiding
Hand.
On the desert march Michael generally went at the head of his cavalcade.
He liked the wide sweep for the eye, the great expanse, undisturbed, even
by such picturesque figures as the natives on their camels. Over and
over again he rode for hours in a beautiful dream; he gave himself up to
the intoxication of immensity. At such times the thought would come to
him that if he turned the universe upside-down, nothing would happen.
The high heavens would be made of golden sand and the limitless earth of
bright blue--that would be all the difference; nothing would tumble
about, for there was nothing to tumble; nothing would be standing on its
head, for there was nothing which had a head to stand on. God's world
was as it had been before the creation of man.
Since his _Hijrah_, as Freddy called his flight from the valley, he had
ceased to think about his own standing on his head. He had accepted the
fact that a man must work out his own life as truly as he must work out
his own salvation. To be a weak copy of Freddy would be contemptible; it
would be better to be an out-and-out failure and drifter for the rest of
his days. As a failure he would at least be living the life he best
understood, the life which to him seemed fuller than the lives lived by
successful materialists.
For the whole three days in the desert he had scarcely passed a living
creature; it was the most desolate journey he had ever taken. Some
portions of the great desert are much more barren than others, more
extraordinarily desolate. The whole thing, of course, depends upon the
all-important water. One writer's words explain the matter
concisely--"there are two kinds of desert in Egypt, the desert of sand,
which is only desert because it is left without water, and the desert
which is desert because nothing profitable will grow there."
Probably the country over which Michael had travelled belonged to the
last type of desert. There had been wonderful effects of light and shade
and strange changes in the colour of the sand and rocks, owing to
geological reasons. Sometimes such strange effects that he found it hard
to believe, from a distance, that there were not bright carpets or gay
flowers spread on the sands.
To the uninitiated it sounds as if such a journey could become
dangerously monotonous and boring, and so it would to the eye or mind
which has not the true desert instinct. Michael's had it. He loved its
passionate intensity of sky and space as a true sailor loves the ocean.
He loved his "ship of the desert," which bore him silently over the
rolling waves of sand, as a Jack Tar loves his ship. He loved the
stories of the desert which his guide told him at night under the
southern stars, as an English Jack Tar loves his fo'c's'e yarns.
Although nothing ever happened, there was for Michael something happening
every minute, some fresh beauty which revealed a new phase of Nature,
some geological surprise which changed the colour and atmospheric effect
of his surroundings. At one time mirage after mirage appeared and
disappeared like delicate, subtle dreams; fair cities sprang up on the
horizon with white-winged sailing-boats drifting on their waters; tall
palm-trees, black against the light, stood up and refreshed the eye, only
to become fainter and fainter until they were no more.
These fair Jerusalems, God's help to tired travellers, with eyes grown
weary of emptiness and space, made beautiful interludes in the day's
march. Since their first day's march they had seen no real desert
villages, with their much-treasured palm-trees and picturesque
inhabitants, for they had made for the open desert. Where palm-trees
grow, there are also human habitations and Government taxes. Anything
green in the desert which is of lasting duration is the result of
artificial irrigation. But if the sand brings forth no food for man or
beast, its emptiness holds a world of prayers and desires.
* * * * * *
It was about noon of the fourth day of Michael's journey when he saw in
the distance a cavalcade of camels riding towards him. It had emerged
out of nothing; suddenly it became clearer and clearer. Was it mirage?
It was still so distant that it might yet prove an optical delusion.
He stopped his camel. Abdul, seeing that his master evidently wanted
something, rode forward quickly.
"Look, Abdul," Michael said, "can you see some camels coming towards us?"
Abdul had no need to look. His eyes could see much further than
Michael's. He had already noticed the cavalcade.
"_Aiwah, Effendi_, they are camels carrying real human beings." His
master's words had implied that he wondered if he was looking at a
mirage. Michael had never seen a mirage of anything but scenery,
villages with minarets and rivers with boats--reflections, in fact, of
distant towns.
Abdul assured his master that the camels were real camels and that he was
almost certain that it was an European outfit; it did not belong to
desert natives.
Michael again rode on ahead for a few moments. He wondered where the
travellers were coming from, and whither they were bound. This fourth
morning's journey had certainly brought them slightly nearer again to the
border of civilization. He knew that they were skirting an ancient
oasis. Perhaps the travellers had come from it. He was still some
distance from Tel-el-Amarna--not the modern Tel-el-Amarna or Haggi
Kandil, which lies about five miles back from the banks of the river,
where passengers travelling by railway alight when they come from Cairo
to visit the ruins of the ancient city--but the ruins of Akhnaton's
capital. At the point on the Nile where Akhnaton chose to build his
city, the limestone cliffs go back from the river about three miles,
returning to it some six miles further on.
Michael's objective was not the ruins of Akhnaton's city, but the desert
and the hills which lie beyond it. The boundaries of the "City of the
Horizon," Akhnaton's new capital, the seat of the heretic King, were so
carefully laid down and defined by him that there has been no mistaking
its exact size and circumference.
Michael was going to the original tomb of Akhnaton, cut out of the hills
which formed a half-crescent round the city, like a bay, reaching back
from the river. In these encircling hills the King's body was buried;
the hills were his chosen resting-place.
"Here Akhnaton elected to be buried, where hyenas prowled and jackals
wandered, and where the desolate cry of the night-owls echoed over the
rocks. In winter the wind sweeps up the valley and howls round the
rocks; in summer the sun makes it a veritable furnace, unendurable to
man. There is nothing here to remind one of the God Who watches over
him, and the tender Aton of the Pharaoh's conception would seem to have
abandoned this place to the spirits of evil. There are no flowers where
Akhnaton cut his sepulchre, and no birds sing; for the King believed that
his soul, caught up into the noon of Paradise, would need no more
delights on earth.
"The tomb consisted of a passage descending into the hill and leading to
a rock-cut hall, the roof of which was supported by four columns. Here
stood the sarcophagus of pink granite in which the Pharaoh's mummy would
lie. The walls of this hall were covered with scenes carved in plaster,
representing various phases in the Aton worship. From the passage there
led another small chamber, beyond which a further passage was cut,
perhaps to lead to the second hall in which the Queen should be buried,
but the work was never finished." [1]
Later on, for political and religious reasons, his mummy was disentombed,
taken up the river to the western desert and placed in his mother's
splendid tomb in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. It was in these
same hills that Michael believed the King to have concealed his treasure.
The treasure was Michael's practical objective. To others the idea might
seem absurd and unpractical; to him it was quite possible and practical.
He could not have been more businesslike in his marching and halts if he
had been a general taking his troops across the desert to relieve a
beleaguered city. It was a part of his nature to be practical about the
unpractical. The words of his old friend in el-Azhar often came back to
him as his camel bore him through a spell of light, or as he listened to
the thundering silence of the Arabian desert. He recalled his counsel,
to journey undoubtingly, to follow in the steps of a "child of God," who
would lead him to the treasure which no eyes had seen for countless
centuries.
So far no child of God had crossed his path. From dawn until dusk he had
seen nothing living or moving but one pale lizard, almost colourless as
the rocks from which it had come; it had scurried across his path, the
sole inhabitant of the untrodden sands, alarmed at the invasion of its
kingdom.
These thoughts were passing through his mind as his camel bore him nearer
and nearer to the cavalcade which was coming towards him. The unexpected
sight of travellers had raised a whirlwind of new doubts in his brain and
called up undesired visions before his eyes. For the last three days
nothing had disturbed the divine calm of his desert surroundings. He had
contentedly become a part of his camel; its somnolent tread had lulled
his senses like the gentle movement of an ocean steamer on the high seas.
As the two cavalcades drew nearer to each other, Abdul pressed forward to
his master's side. His long sight, well used to desert distances, had
clearly discerned what to Michael was still indistinct, blurred by the
sun.
"One lady in party, Effendi."
Michael showed surprise. It was an extremely unlikely place to meet a
lady on camel-back; there were no tourists in that part of the desert, so
far back from the Nile; it was not a likely place to meet an European
pleasure-party. Michael knew that Abdul had meant an European lady when
he spoke of "one lady" being in the party; he would not have mentioned
the fact if it had been only a Bedouin Arab woman moving her home to some
more desirable spot. Perhaps it was some excavation-party. A number of
European women, he knew, were now engaged on archaeological work in Egypt.
As the distance shortened, he began to count the number of the camels.
It was not a large equipment.
Quite suddenly the two leading camels of the approaching party strode
forward, almost at a gallop, the curious gallop of fast-travelling desert
camels. The next minute a clear voice called out:
"Hallo, good morning! Have you used Pears' Soap?"
Michael's heart stopped beating. It was Millicent's voice. For the sake
of appearances he returned her greeting gaily, although his heart was
filled with anger.
"No," he cried back. "But I've used desert sand, which the Prophet said
does as well."
Millicent had tricked him, cheated him. She had discovered his plans;
she had laid hers very cleverly so as to meet him on the most desolate
part of his journey. A vision of Margaret's anger, had she seen her
riding towards him, rose before his eyes. The tone of Michael's voice
expressed something of his feelings; it made Millicent all the more
daring.
"I arranged a surprise for you--wasn't I clever?"
"It is certainly a surprise," Michael said. "Where are you going?"
"Whither thou goest, I will go," she said laughingly. "Where do you
suppose I am going?"
"This is absurd, Millicent!" Michael lowered his voice.
"Why absurd? The desert's big enough for us both, isn't it?"
"I should have thought it sufficiently big to have made our meeting
unnecessary."
"Now, Mike, don't be an ungracious pig! Here I am and here I mean to
stay. I won't bother you, so just be nice."
The mules and camels of both parties had met. The men had joined forces
and much talking was going on amongst the natives.
"Have you come alone?" Michael asked.
"My dragoman is with me."
"Of course," Mike said. "I know that. But are you by yourself, without
any other European?"
"Quite," Millicent said. "I didn't want anyone. Hassan's a reliable
dragoman. I came to meet you."
"Do you think it was nice of you?"
"Well, no," she said. "Perhaps not, but it is nice for me, Mike, and it
will be nice for you, too, if you will only be sensible and accept the
situation."
"What do you mean by being sensible?" he asked.
"Just allowing me to come, and being pleasant and happy and enjoying
yourself. I've everything I need--I won't ask you for a single thing but
happiness."
"I shan't be happy--I wished to be alone. You knew it."
"What harm shall I do you? I'll halt when you halt, I'll go on when you
go on. I'll be _douce comme un lapin blanc_--I really can be, Mike."
Her eyes asked him if in that respect she was not speaking the truth.
"Yes," he said. "You can be anything you want to be." He sighed. "I
wish you oftener wanted to be good, Millicent; I wish you oftener wanted
to please me and not always only yourself."
"I'd get nothing if I did, Mike. I stole this march on you, half for fun
and half because it's no use trusting to you. I never see you--you are
afraid of yourself."
"I told you it was useless." He moved his camel further from hers. "I
must see what is to be done. You must turn back. Your very presence
disturbs all my ideas."
"The natives think this is a prearranged plan, of course. They give you
the benefit of being more human than you are."
Michael looked at her in annoyance. He knew that she was right; he knew
that even Abdul, the visionary, would not believe him if he told him
otherwise; he knew that already he had formed his own opinion of
Michael's surprise.
Millicent's veil almost completely hid her face. She flung it up over
her sun-hat. As Abdul came to his master's side, Michael saw his eyes
linger on the Englishwoman's beauty. He knew that to the Eastern,
mixture of mystic and fanatic as he was, her freshness and fairness were
like the scent of white jasmine to his nostrils.
This woman, who loved his master--for already Millicent's dragoman had
confided her secret to him--was very rarely beautiful, and in his eyes
very desirable; but she was false. His eyes had instantly seen beyond.
Because she was false she interested him. She was not like other
Englishwomen; she was not like the girl who was the sister of Effendi
Lampton. This wealthy Englishwoman, whose body was as sweet as a branch
of scented almond-blossom, had thoughts in her heart like the thoughts of
his own countrywomen. In his Eastern mind, Englishwomen retained their
virgin minds and ideas even when they were married women with families;
to their end they retained the hearts and minds of innocent children.
This slender creature, a sweet bundle for a man's arms, thought as his
countrywomen thought. He saw into her mind as he had seen into the
unopened tomb.
He was amazed at the Effendi, not because of this meeting with his
mistress--it was not an unheard-of thing in the desert; he was not
unaccustomed to the ways of men and women of all nations when their
passions control their actions--he was amazed at his own false impression
of Effendi Amory's character and mind. He had never for one moment
contemplated such a contretemps; he would never have imagined that he
could be false to Effendi Lampton's sister. The meeting, however, lent a
double interest to their journey.
"The Effendi has been fortunate in meeting his friend," he said
respectfully. Michael had turned to address him.
"Yes," Michael said. "We have been fortunate." He saw no other way of
settling the question. For the present he must quietly accept the
inevitable. Millicent had insisted that she had a perfect right to
follow him, even if he refused to allow her to join his party.
"We will go on, Effendi? The _Sitt_ will accompany us?" Abdul's voice
was expressionless, deferential.
"For to-day, at least," Michael said, "the _Sitt_ will travel with us."
He knew that equivocation was useless.
Abdul searched his master's eyes. There was no love in them, no passion
for the woman he had taken all this trouble and secrecy to meet.
Englishmen were strange beings. Time would prove which way the wind of
desire blew. Was it from the woman to the man or from the man to the
woman? Had Michael the qualities of Orientals for dissembling his
feelings? It was rare amongst Europeans.
The cavalcade moved on. A fresh element had been introduced into it.
The at-all-times low talk of the natives soon became more obscene than it
is possible for Western minds to imagine. Its influence affected the
sublime silence of the desert. God no longer shadowed the distance.
Michael knew the native mind. He had heard the workmen at the excavation
camp, and even the girls and women in the desert villages, discussing
subjects freely and openly which to the Western mind are impossible. He
had heard children and boys using language and ejaculations which would
disgrace the lips of the most degraded Western.
Before Millicent's appearance his men had no doubt talked together in a
way which would have shocked a stranger to the East if he could have
understood what they were saying, but there had been an absence of any
special topic; their talk had been impersonal. Now their interests were
awakened, their lowest instincts were on the alert, their passion for
intrigue whetted. Suggestion, like perseverance, can work miracles.
With Millicent riding by his side and with the whole company of servants
discussing their affairs, the desert had lost its purity, its healing
powers. In its sands the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil seemed to
need no water.
Michael clung to the thought of Margaret. For some few moments they rode
in silence. Michael was inarticulate; his thoughts were like a flaming
bush. In half an hour's time they would halt for lunch; until that time
Millicent held her soul in patience.
Nothing was to be gained by a broken conversation on camel-back. A
delicious excitement exalted her; her plans had succeeded; the very devil
of insolence danced in her veins. She had trapped Michael and
successfully outwitted Margaret Lampton. She was going to thoroughly
enjoy herself. Michael, of course, would become quite docile in her
hands later on; one of her gentle spells would reconcile him.
"How long have you been in the desert?" Michael asked.
"We've camped for two nights," she said. "It's been perfectly beautiful!
We have had no difficulties, no adventures and we've scarcely met a
living soul. This eastern desert is awfully desolate, Mike--you're alone
with your thoughts if you can't speak to your dragoman."
"It's very desolate," Mike said. "And it's quite different from the
Valley in colour and in feeling--at least it is to me."
"I think so, too. This morning we met a strange creature--the only human
we've struck--one of those desert fanatics, 'a child of God,' as my
dragoman called him."
Michael's heart beat faster; he forgot his annoyance. "Where did you
meet him?" he asked.
Millicent noticed the change in his voice. "Not long before we sighted
you. He was travelling this way--we shall probably pass him. Our camels
were travelling at a good pace."
"Did you speak to him?"
"No, I couldn't, but Hassan did. I asked him about him. He told me that
what we call an idiot or a village simple is really a man whose reasoning
powers are in heaven. We see the material part of him, the part that
mixes with ordinary mortals. To the Mohammedans such people are
considered sacred, special favourites of God."
"Yes, I know," Michael said, "and the worst of it is that advantage is
taken of that charming idea and dreadful things are done by rogues who
pretend to be religious fanatics or holy men. Some of them are awful
creatures, absolute impostors, but as a rule they frequent towns and
cities. The genuine holy man, a 'child of God,' lives apart from his
fellows in the desert."
"This poor creature wore a long cloak made out of all sorts of bits, a
weird Joseph's coat of many colours. His tall staff was hanging with
tattered rags and his poor turban was in the last stages of decay."
Millicent's voice betokened genuine pity. "He looked terribly thin and
tired. I ought to have given him some food--he wouldn't accept money. I
don't think he grasped its meaning."
Michael's thoughts were busy. "A little child will lead you, do not
despise the favoured of God--their wealth is laid up for them in heaven."
And so they journeyed on, Millicent pleased at the result of her
conversation, it had set Michael dreaming.
"They have lots of beautiful ideas," she said. She meant Moslems
generally, not only the simples or religious fanatics.
"Yes," Michael said. "No religion has more lofty or beautiful ideas and
ideals."
"You don't think their ideas are often put into practice?"
"I don't know," Michael said. "It isn't fair to judge--the Western mind
can't. Their ideas are beautiful and in obeying the laws laid down by
the Koran they do beautiful and kindly acts; at the same time, their
minds to us seem terribly polluted. Their religion doesn't appear to
elevate their general aims or thoughts of life."
"But isn't it the same with the greater portion of Christians, with many
of what we call religious people?" Millicent laughed. "I know it is
with myself, Mike. I go to church and say my prayers and I think I
believe in all the tenets of the Church and in the Bible--at least, I'd
be frightened to not believe--and yet it doesn't make me feel a bit
better. I don't really want to be good. I want to eat my cake on this
earth and have it in heaven as well. All the nicest plums with you,
Mike!"
Michael laughed. Millicent was always so frank upon the subject of her
own worthlessness.
"We don't know what these people would be like if they had no Koran to
curb them," Millicent said. "It may do more than you think. It's a
strong bearing-rein."
"That's true. The Egyptians are, I suppose, about the most sensual of
all Easterns--the women are considered so, at any rate, by Lane, and he
knew them intimately."
Millicent laughed. "I'm sure they are, speaking generally--that's to
say, I suppose you meet exceptions here and there, as in all other
countries."
"The Prophet had his work cut out," Michael said. "And the world doesn't
give him half the credit he deserves. The rules he laid down in the
Koran are the only laws a Moslem really observes or reverences. His own
soul teaches him nothing; it has been buried far too long by the laws
imposed upon it; his superman is non-existent. The natural man blindly
obeys the Prophet's teachings in the hope of the material rewards which
will be his when he dies. The future life has always meant a great deal
to the Egyptian peoples; their existence on earth has since time
immemorial only been looked upon as an apprenticeship for the fuller
existence. The very fact that their earthly homes, even the Pharaoh's
palaces, were only built of sun-baked bricks made of mud, shows that they
carried out in practice the saying in the Bible about having no abiding
cities here. Their tombs were their lasting cities and _they_ were built
to endure throughout all eternity."
"Anyhow, they are delightfully picturesque people in their devotions,"
Millicent said. "I feel almost as pious when I watch a Moslem praying
before sunset as I do when a boy's voice is reaching up to heaven in one
of our Gothic cathedrals at home. I think I'm at my best then, Mike,
only no one is ever present to test me."
Michael knew exactly what Millicent meant. The emotional side of
religion excited her senses. She imagined, when she was listening to a
boy's treble soaring up into the lofty heights of an English minster,
that her soul was soaring with it, that she was deriving spiritual
benefit from the service. He could picture her kneeling with folded
hands, the polished nails conspicuously bright, and eyes upraised,
listening to the boy's clear, pure voice, her whole being in a satisfied
sensuous ecstasy.
He knew that this state of ecstasy was about as far as Millicent's
religion ever carried her. She was afraid to give up the flesh-pots of
this world in case she found life without them too dull to be
supportable. She enjoyed her state of being so thoroughly that she had
no wish to change it. Her religion and church-going were, she
considered, sufficient to ensure her a place in heaven. It was her way
of paying her future-life insurance policy, as were her many liberal
gifts to charities.
When the halt for lunch came, Michael and Millicent were to all outward
appearance good friends. Michael had been considering within himself
what attitude he ought to adopt towards her amazing adventure, what face
he should try to put upon their meeting. His knowledge of the East told
him that it was probably best to leave things alone, for whatever he said
Hassan and Abdul would put their own construction on the affair. During
their conversation, which had been carried on without the slightest
regard for Michael's annoyance at her appearance, his thoughts had been
very busy. Their serious talk must come later on, when they halted for
lunch.
Among the many things which troubled him, Michael tried to solve the
riddle of how Millicent had gained her knowledge of his movements.
Freddy's words had come back to him--that the fair Millicent had not come
to their camp to learn of his engagement to Margaret! She had come to
find out something which was more difficult to discover. Had she seen
the servants in the hut and questioned them when she was alone there?
Had she bribed Mohammed Ali? How otherwise had she found out all that
she wanted to know?
When lunch-time came, Millicent's splendid basket, exquisitely furnished
and equipped with everything that could be desired for an appetizing and
original lunch, was opened, instead of Michael's, which contained the
simple necessities of a desert outfit. They chose their halting place
under the shadow of a mighty rock--they were reaching hilly ground.
Millicent's outfit included a sun-shelter, which was quickly raised and
in incredible shortness of time they were comfortably seated under it, on
camp chairs at a camp table. Michael could not help showing his pleasure
and admiring the dainty equipment. His child's heart was very easily
touched and pleased. Nothing was left undone which could be done to give
freshness and daintiness to the scene. A luscious fruit salad looked
cool and tempting in a glass bowl, while iced drinks, which had been
carried in ingenious Eastern water-coolers, appealed to his parched lips.
The galantine of chicken and the selection of _hors d'oeuvre_ would not
have disgraced the table of the Cataract Hotel at Assuan. Here, indeed,
were the flesh-pots of Egypt--_la tentation de Saint Antoine_.
Millicent noticed Michael's pleasure. It was expressive of his simple,
open nature. In such moments he was very lovable.
"Now, isn't this nicer," she said, "than pigging it alone?"
"It's beautiful," he said. "What a wonderful outfit! How clever of
you--I feel as if you had a magic wand."
"Hassan's a good man--I left everything to him."
"He's done it A1," Michael said, more coldly. Suddenly he felt annoyed,
vexed with himself, for yielding so easily to the pleasures which
Millicent had provided, anticipating the enjoyment he would derive from
eating all the good things.
After three days' hard travelling in the desert and some days spent in
economical living in Luxor, while his arrangements were being made, he
was readier than he imagined for a good and delicately-appointed meal.
Even at the hut he had never sat down to a lunch such as this. The
renaissance of the old Adam astonished him.
The servants had betaken themselves to a sheltered spot; discretion being
nine-tenths of a good dragoman's training, Hassan and Abdul saw to it
that their master and mistress should not be disturbed, while they
themselves remained out of sight, but within call.
"Let's sit down," Millicent said. "I'm starving--the desert turns me
into an absolute primitive."
They sat down and while Millicent rid herself of her gloves; and sun-hat
and veil, Michael remained lost in thought. How nice it was! As nice as
anything could be, if . . . the "if" was subconscious . . . if he had
only come on this journey into the desert to enjoy himself, if there was
no Margaret. But there was a Margaret, and he adored Margaret, whose
dear dark head and trustful eyes were ever present with him they were as
present in the shelter as the golden head and the inviting, provoking
eyes opposite to him. There never again would be for him a world which
held no Margaret, nor could he endure it if there was. And yet her very
existence robbed this desert feast of its flavour. He knew that to be
loyal and true to Margaret he ought not to be accepting and appreciating
the dainty lunch laid before him. He ought not to be eating it with the
woman Meg detested.
What if Margaret knew? What if his practical mystic had already had a
vision of their meeting? Had some native carried Millicent's plans to
meet him to the Valley? Had the birds of the air brought the news to
Freddy's ears? Was Margaret now tortured by a vision of this sumptuous
desert picnic? Could she see him sitting alone with Millicent in her
tent? He knew how mysteriously news travels in the desert, how quickly
it journeys. A wave of anger flushed his face as he pictured to himself
what Freddy would think of the situation.
His hands trembled as he took Millicent's dust-cloak and hat. She looked
extremely pretty in her white muslin dress, which the cloak had hidden.
Millicent mistook the meaning of his trembling hands. She had seen men's
hands tremble many times.
"Our little home," she said, as she sat down at the table. "My desert
dream realized. I'm so happy!"
"Why did you do it?" Michael cried passionately.
Millicent still mistook the nature of his emotion. She leaned across the
table. "Don't ask, dearest--just rest and be content. Hand me the
sardines, like a dear man."
Michael handed her the sardines. How could he just rest and be content?
If he did, he would allow himself to drift into the woman's mood, he
would be enjoying himself at the cost of his loyalty to Margaret. He
would be drowning "the clear voice" with Moselle cup and smothering it
with galantine of chicken and pigeon-pie.
"I want you to promise me," Millicent said, "just to eat this one meal
happily with me, eat and forget. For half an hour or more don't ask me
any questions and don't scold!" She handed Michael an olive in her
fingers. "Open," she said. "They're so good."
Michael opened his mouth, but he took the olive from her fingers into his
own.
"Will you do what I ask?" she said. "If you will, I'll promise to listen
to you afterwards. Your conscience is an awful bore, Michael."
"I'm an awful bore apart from my conscience. It's simply your impish
persistence that makes you desire my society. It can't be anything else."
"Perhaps it is," Millicent said. "All the same, will you promise?"
"Very well," Michael said. "That's a bargain. I promise."
"For this one meal you'll be like you used to be?"
"What was that?" he asked. Her words annoyed him.
"Mine," she said. "Mine and not Margaret Lampton's."
Michael put down his knife and fork and looked straight into the eyes of
the woman opposite him.
"I am Margaret Lampton's," he said, "and you'd better know it. I'm
Margaret Lampton's, body and soul." He flung her hand away.
Millicent gave a suggestive whistle. "Wh-o-o!" she said, with a low
laugh. "So that's it?"
"What do you mean?" he said.
"Nothing--I didn't say anything, did I? Oh, don't let's quarrel--let's
enjoy our lunch."
"Very well," he said. "Let's, for time's flying. But it's best for you
to know that I'm Margaret's."
"Never mind--lend yourself to me for a few days. Surely she won't mind
if we amuse ourselves in the desert?"
"I'm not going to lend myself to you," he said. "What nonsense you talk!
You're going back the way you came. You can play with someone else."
"You dear silly, you can't make me!" Millicent laughed at the idea.
"Besides, you know you want me all the time, and you've just promised to
enjoy this jolly little meal and to lecture me afterwards. I'm not going
to be unhappy because you belong to Margaret Lampton."
"So long as you know I do," he said, "I feel I can eat your excellent
lunch."
"And if Margaret doesn't know, what can it matter?"
"Oh, Millicent!"
"You know, Mike, it's what's found out that matters. If you enjoy
yourself and make me happy for two or three days in the desert and
Margaret never knows, what harm could it do?"
"If you can't see the harm for yourself," he said, "I can't show it to
you."
"Well, I can't," she said. "But let's talk of something else. Margaret
is taboo--she's spoilt half our lunch."
"First tell me how you got here, how you knew of my movements. I spoke
of them to no one."
"No, no, that also is taboo--until after lunch."
"What can we talk about?"
Millicent looked at him. Her eyes suggested another topic--themselves.
"Is that taboo as well!" she said, as Michael's eyes dropped under hers.
"Absolutely," he said.
"Happy idea!" she cried. "The tomb! If we mayn't talk of Margaret or of
our two selves or of how I got here, or of whence I came or whither you
are going, surely a tomb is a safe topic?"
"Yes," Michael said, "if any topic is safe with you."
"Ah," Millicent said. "That's the nicest thing you've said."
"I didn't mean to be nice. What's nice in that?"
"But you were nice, awfully nice. If there are so many danger-zones to
be avoided between us, you don't feel very safe, very sure of yourself.
That's triumph number one for Millicent; Margaret's lost one point
already."
"I thought Margaret was taboo?"
"Oh, so she was--I beg her pardon!" She sighed. "'One word is too often
profaned for me to profane it,' etc." She put her elbows on the table.
"Oh, Mike, aren't you an odd darling? I do love teasing you. If you
weren't so easily ragged, I wouldn't."
"Do go on with your lunch," he said. "And don't chatter so much. We
only have a certain amount of time for lunch and digestion. This pie's
delicious."
"Where are we going? When do we go on?" Millicent was not oblivious of
the fact that he spoke of their going on as an accepted fact.
"So you don't know? You haven't found out everything?"
"No, I knew enough to bring me to you. That was all I wanted. You can
tell me the rest."
Michael was silent.
"My dear man, you needn't tell me if you don't want to, but remember that
no secrets are hid from the hand that hath _baksheesh_. I found out what
I wanted to know; I can find out more."
"I'd rather you found out," he said, "than I told you."
"Right ho! Funny man!"
"Do you want to hear about the tomb, or don't you?"
"Oh, yes, rather!" Millicent's teeth were busy picking the leg of a
pigeon. "Tell me everything."
Michael told her everything he could remember, the things which he knew
would interest her, the most personal facts relating to the minute
examination of the tomb. It was proving a great puzzle to Egyptologists.
There were many conflicting theories about it--whether the mummy which
was found on the floor beside the effigy of the dead queen was the
mummified body of the queen or not. It had been sent away to be
carefully examined by experts; the report of the examination had not yet
been made known. If it was the body of the queen, why had they
endeavoured to cut off the golden wrappings which had been rolled round
her body? Why had her name been roughly cut out of the inside of the
coffin? Why had this queen, who had been buried with such royal
magnificence, been "debarred from all benefits of the earthly prayers of
her descendants? Why had she become a nameless outcast, a wanderer
unrecognized and unpitied in the vast underworld?" [2]
These questions had not yet been solved. Millicent was excited and
interested and Michael enjoyed telling her about it. She was inquisitive
and insistent. She wanted to know all about the doings in the camp since
her visit to the Valley, and Michael thoroughly enjoyed talking to a
sympathetic, intelligent listener. Like all Celts, he had the gift of
words.
He was so engrossed that Hassan appeared with their coffee long before he
was ready for it or expected it. Noticing his surprise, the man
instantly took his cue. He salaamed respectfully in front of Millicent.
"_Ta, Sitt_," he said, "will it please you to wait for another hour? The
camels are not yet rested, the day is still young."
Millicent looked at Michael. Time really did not matter to him one
scrap, yet she dared not hint so. He could just as well look for this
phantom treasure a year from now. It was all a mystic's mirage to her, a
delightful excuse for a sojourn in the outer desert.
"I'm ready if you are," she said, addressing Mike. Her woman's tact told
her the wisdom of putting no hindrance in his way.
"If the Effendi will graciously consent, it would be wiser to remain here
for one hour more," Hassan said. "The men are tired, also."
Michael assented. If the beasts and the men were tired, they would wait.
The excuse was not unwelcome. The good meal had relaxed his energies.
Hassan thanked him and silently disappeared.
Michael sipped his coffee; it was perfect. He lit a cigarette, after
they had turned their chairs to the open front of the shelter. Presently
Millicent slipped down from her chair and sat on the sand in front of the
tent; there was more air. Soon Michael did the same.
They had lunched well and were friends. A certain delicious apathy stole
over Michael, which kept him from referring to any unpleasant topics. He
left alone the subject as to why Millicent had trapped him and forced her
company upon him. For the time being she was good and gentle, the reason
being that she also was relaxed and inert--the result of a good meal
after a strenuous morning on camel-back.
Michael had been riding since dawn. The temptation to let things alone
was an unconscious one; he submitted to it.
A great expanse of the desert was before them. Millicent lay curled up,
like a golden tortoise-shell cat, in the sun; Michael, with his legs
doubled up to his chin, rested his head on his knees. He would have been
asleep in a few minutes if Millicent had not spoken; suddenly she said:
"Look! Surely that's my holy man, whose reasoning powers are in heaven?
There, look--far away, over there!"
Michael raised himself and looked to where she pointed. There was
nothing to indicate any particular spot in the stretch of sand before
them.
"I can just see the tattered rags of his staff. I'm sure it's the same
man. Can't you see him?"
Michael looked again. "I can only distinguish something moving in the
distance. I can't say what it is, or if it is coming this way."
"Can't you see a thing like a flag fluttering in the air? I can--there,
can't you see him now?"
"Yes, now I can," Michael said. He got up from his low seat, his
energies fully alert, his drowsiness gone. He held himself in check. It
was absurd to appear so interested in a desert-fanatic--or an
idiot--coming across their path. They were both common enough
occurrences in the East.
Millicent watched his face. Why was he so thrilled, why so interested?
Michael's first impulse was to go and meet the man. He was afraid that
he would not notice their encampment. He was afraid that he would not
come their way. At the same time, he was conscious that if there was any
truth in the old man's words, their meeting would come about naturally
and not by his seeking. The "child of God" would find him out.
They waited for some time and nothing happened. Michael's hopes abated.
The figure with the fluttering rags disappeared. It seemed as if it had
vanished into the sands. Michael felt disappointed.
The shelter was taken down and packed up, the lunch-basket refilled and
the camels harnessed. Hassan appeared.
"_Ya, Sitt_, all is ready."
Nothing had been said about Millicent's plans; nothing had been said
about how she had contrived to meet Michael; no lecture had been
delivered. The subject had been forgotten, forgotten by Michael at
least, whose interest had been absorbed in the talk about the tomb and in
the glimpse he had of the distant figure. Millicent had not forgotten
the promised lecture, but it had been her object to make Michael forget
it. She had gladly let the matter rest. Why wake sleeping dogs? She
let them lie so undisturbed that not one bark had been heard. They slept
so soundly that her heart was full of triumph and amusement when, seated
on her camel, she took her place in Michael's cavalcade.
She had managed to get through the starting without his feeling any
annoyance at her presence. He had simply forgotten his objection to her
accompanying him.
[1] Weigall's _Akhnaton, Pharaoh of Egypt_.
[2] Weigall's _Akhnaton, Pharaoh of Egypt_.
CHAPTER II
It was not until their rest at sundown that anything of unusual
interest happened to the travellers. Their short halt while they drank
their tea had passed without incident--in fact, Millicent had drunk
hers alone on camel-back, for it had been carried in thermos flasks,
their Amon-Ra, as Hassan called the magic bottles whose contents
retained the heat with no obvious aid.
Michael had spent the time, while he drank his refreshing cup, in
consulting Abdul about their route. The camels were not unsaddled.
About this Millicent made no demur. She saw no earthly reason why they
should not have rested for as long as they felt inclined, but she did
not say so. If this treasure which Michael sought had lain in its safe
hiding-place, out of sight of man, for more than two thousand years,
why should it not wait there in safety for another couple or so of
hours? This she kept to herself; it was her wise policy to remain
_douce comme un lapin blanc_, which she did. The night might still see
her an accepted part of Michael's cavalcade. The adventure thrilled
her with excitement.
They had finished their evening meal, which Millicent had supplied--a
very satisfying and delicate dinner. They had eaten it in the open
desert during the cool hours which precede sundown. Michael had
thoroughly enjoyed it. The evening light transformed the desert; a
heavenly Jerusalem seemed very near. Even Millicent was obedient to
the unseen.
As the sun sank lower and lower in the heavens, their conversation
drifted towards the subject of Akhnaton's Aton worship. The kneeling
figures of the Arabs, praying in the desert before sundown, had
introduced the topic.
They sat on until the globe of gold dropped behind the horizon--a
wonderful sight in the desert. For a minute or two its sudden and
complete disappearance leaves the world chill and desolate; a cold hand
clutches at the human heart; a loneliness enters the soul. God has
abandoned the world; the warmth of His love becomes a memory.
* * * * * *
The afterglow was at its most flamboyant; its orange and yellow,
streaked with black, suddenly became vermilion. Lights from the
underworld struck across the desert like swords of fire; arms of flame
broke the vermilion, soaring to heaven like the fires from hell's
furnace let loose. The anger and beauty and recklessness was
appalling. Then with magic swiftness, during the flickering of an eye,
the horizon became one vast lake of sacrificial blood.
The transition was so unexpected, so devastating to the human mind,
that fear filled Millicent's heart. Instinctively she had drawn a
little closer to Michael. She craved for arms to guard her, to protect
her from the terror of the heavens.
* * * * * *
Like a black silhouette against the lake of blood, a human figure rose
up out of the desert, a John the Baptist, "a burning and shining
light," a voice calling in the wilderness.
As the sonorous words of the Koran were borne to them, Millicent said,
"Oh, Mike, it's my holy man! How mysterious he looks against that
wonderful sky!"
Subconsciously Michael had been so grateful to Millicent for her
silence during the stupendous glory of the sunset that his heart was
full of gentleness towards her.
"Yes," he said. "I see him." Something had told him that the figure
which she had described to him during luncheon would appear again; he
was not surprised when he distinguished the staff, with its tattered
rags waving against the crimson light.
"Isn't it all wonderful, Mike!" Her voice was reverent; the awfulness
of the heavens had humbled her. "I was almost afraid--it seemed like
the end of the world, the sky seemed all on fire. The destruction of
the world had begun."
"'Thy setting is beautiful, O living Aton, who guidest all countries
that they may make laudation at thy dawning and at thy setting.'"
"Are those Akhnaton's words?"
"Yes, and his constant song was, 'O Lord, how manifold are Thy works.'
Most surely he would have said so to-night." Michael's thoughts flew
to the morning at whose dawn he had first recited to Margaret
Akhnaton's hymn to the rising sun.
Millicent did not guess that Margaret was present while they stood
together in silence, watching the blood tones grow fainter and fainter.
As they stood looking towards the horizon until all violence had left
the heavens, the desert figure drew nearer. Millicent knew him by his
long, unkempt hair. Even at a distance his fine white teeth gleamed
against his tanned skin.
"He's a mere skeleton," Millicent said. "Look at him! He's all eyes
and hair and teeth!"
"Poor creature!" Michael said. "_He_ has certainly no flesh left to
subdue."
As they spoke, the fanatic suddenly tottered, strode forward and fell,
face downwards, on the sand of the desert. Instinctively Michael
hurried forward to his assistance. There was little doubt but that he
was famished and exhausted for want of food; the distances between
desert villages are immense.
"Don't go!" Millicent cried. "Don't, Mike! He's probably filthy and
crawling with vermin; he looked awful this morning. I'll send two of
my men to him and I'll tell Hassan to prepare some food for him.
Hassan! Hassan!" Her voice was clear and far-reaching.
Abdul instantly appeared. Hassan was busy giving orders to the men for
pitching the tents. So quickly did Abdul come that he might have
sprung up out of the desert at her very feet. This immediate response
to her call always made Millicent suspicious of eavesdropping.
"Abdul," she said, "the holy man we met this morning is ill. Tell the
bearers to go to him--don't let the Effendi touch him, Hassan."
"_Aiwah, Sitt_, I will attend." With the same breath Abdul screamed
for two of the men to come and help the saint. They came with flying
leaps towards him.
"Mike, oh Mike!" Millicent cried. "Please, please come back! You are
so rash. Abdul, don't let the Effendi touch that man. He's filthy. I
saw him this morning--he's a dreadful creature."
Abdul looked at the Effendi Amory's mistress, the Christian harlot.
Such a woman dared to speak in this manner of one who was favoured of
God, a blessed saint, of one to whom the devout women of his country
would willingly give themselves as an act of grace! This child of God,
beloved of Islam, was filthy in her vile eyes!
It was in this manner that Millicent unconsciously earned the vengeance
of Abdul. Nothing of his hatred or scorn was noticeable. Millicent
was under the impression that all Easterns are sensualists and slaves
to beauty; she was ignorant of their profound contempt for all women;
that their vilest thoughts are for Christians. With an outward
approval of her anxiety that Michael should run no risks by touching
the sick man, Abdul left her and hurried after the Effendi.
But Michael had already reached him; the fleshless figure lay bathed in
the dying light of the afterglow. Hanging round his neck, a neck which
looked like the neck of the dried mummy in Freddy's wonderful tomb,
there were many strings of cheap beads, and suspended from a bright
green cord--the Prophet's green--was one white cowrie shell. Half
covered by his garment of many colours, and jealously enclosed in a
small black cloth bag, was the most precious article of his scanty
possessions. Michael knew that this pouch contained nothing less
valuable than a few grains of sand from the Prophet's tomb at Mecca.
At Michael's approach the fanatic raised himself and recited in
half-delirious tones the _Fat'hah_, or the opening chapter of the Koran:
"In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Gracious. Praise be unto God,
the Lord of the worlds, the Merciful, the Gracious, the Ruler of the
day of judgment. Thee do we worship, and of Thee do we beg assistance.
Direct us in the right way, in the way of those to whom Thou hast been
gracious, upon whom there is no wrath, and who have not erred."
When the _sura_ was finished the man fell back; his strength failed
him. Michael knelt down beside him in the desert. He raised his head;
his wild eyes and emaciated face touched his heart. He knew something
of the zeal of these religious Moslems, these desert sons of Allah.
This man had obviously wasted himself to a skeleton. Truly, his
reasoning powers were in heaven; his religious ecstasies had well-nigh
bereft him of his senses.
Michael asked him if he was ill or if he was only faint from want of
food. The saint did not know; physical exhaustion overpowered him. At
intervals he called loudly upon the name of Allah, in almost the same
phraseology as the ancient Egyptians called upon Amon-Ra, the Lord of
all worlds, whose seat was in the heavens. In the unchanging East,
expressions never die. Akhnaton taught his disciples to pray to "Our
Father, which art in Heaven."
As Michael listened to his appeals to Allah, he felt totally at a loss
to know what to do for the material benefit of the zealot. He was
afraid that he would die from exhaustion. He was relieved when Abdul
and the bearers came to his assistance. Abdul soon persuaded the man
to drink some of the water which he had brought in a cup. As he did
so, he noticed with satisfaction that the saint's head was resting on
Michael's arm, that his master was totally self-forgetful in his act of
charity. Christian though he was, he was sincerely obeying the
teaching of the Prophet Jesus, the one sinless Prophet of Islam, the
Prophet Who, next to Mohammed, is best beloved of the faithful.
Mohammed considered Jesus sinless; to his own unrighteousness he often
alluded. In this act of grace, at least, the Effendi had not failed
Him.
When Michael offered the man another cooling drink, he swallowed it
eagerly. It was like the waters of paradise to his parched throat.
His flaming eyes tried to express his gratitude to his deliverer. Who
was this heretic whose fingers had the gift of healing, from whose
heart flowed the divine waters of charity?
Michael understood. Inspired by the love in his heart for all
suffering humanity, with something akin to the graceful imagery of
words which comes naturally to the humblest native's lips, he spoke to
the man in a suitable manner. Rendered into English it would sound
absurd.
The servants appeared with some food which was sustaining and
appetizing, but the effort necessary for swallowing anything solid
proved too much for the exhausted pilgrim.
"Bring him to the camp, Abdul," Michael said. "I will give him some
brandy. As a medicine it is not forbidden?"
"No, Effendi, it is not forbidden."
The total absence of the sun had made the desert seem inhospitable and
dreary. The saint was too weak to protest and so he was carried to the
camp. Millicent watched the slow procession with anger and amazement.
She knew that Michael was rash and impetuous, but she had not given him
credit for being such a fool.
While he was being put to bed in a tent, and carefully attended to,
Michael tried to discover if the saint was really ill, if he was
suffering from some specific malady, or if he was merely worn out with
fatigue. He administered a drug to him which he hoped would soothe his
nerves and allow him to sleep.
In a dog-like manner the man's tragic eyes eloquently expressed both
his astonishment and gratitude. It was long since he had slept in a
comfortable bed, under sheets and blankets. He rarely spoke, except to
mutter or loudly chant in a half-delirious manner _suras_ from the
Koran.
When Michael had attended to his simple wants and seen to it that his
servants were not only willing but eager to nurse him, he left him to
their care and immediately hurried off to his own tent to change his
clothes and disinfect himself as thoroughly as possible--a necessary
precaution, although the man had not been as dirty as Millicent had
depicted. His _dilk_, or Joseph's coat, was indeed tattered and his
turban in the last stages of decay, but they were clean. His person
was not offensive. A pathetic figure, fleshless and worn and neurotic;
yet in the sands of the desert he had performed his ablutions before
prayer, as prescribed by the Prophet in the Holy Book. The untrodden
sands of the desert are as cleansing and purifying as the waters of
Jordan.
When Michael at last returned to Millicent, she said quite gently,
although her inward woman burned with anger, "Mike, are you mad or a
saint? How could you touch him?"
"I'm far from being a saint!" he said.
"You are as much one as that wretched creature, who has pretended he is
one for so long that he now believes he is."
"Or his Moslem brethren do, perhaps you mean!"
"Well, he acts up to their superstitious ideas."
"I can't tell. He is too ill to speak. He is probably as sincere a
Moslem as St. Jerome was a Christian--why not?"
"What's the matter with him?" A little fear clutched at Millicent's
heart.
"I don't know--Abdul couldn't discover. The man is too exhausted to
talk. I'll speak to him in the morning and find out."
"I hope it's nothing infectious--you were very rash, Mike!"
"It's probably only physical exhaustion. He couldn't eat anything, but
he drank the water I gave him. I poured a little brandy in it--he
wouldn't have touched it if he had known."
"Oh, wouldn't he?" Millicent's voice expressed her disbelief.
"The Koran forbids the drinking of spirits."
Millicent laughed. "You wouldn't think so when you pass the native
cafés in Cairo! I thought you said they lived up to the letter of
their religion, and missed the spiritual essence of it?"
"There are Moslems and Moslems. Do we all live up to the spirit of
Christ's teachings? Have you always seen Christ-like Christians?"
Millicent shrugged her shoulders. "Well, I don't pretend to live up to
the spirit of my religion. There's the comforting reflection of a
death-bed repentance for all Christians--it's never to late to mend,
Mike!"
"What about battle and murder and sudden death?"
"I take that risk. But, honestly, dear, are you going to adopt that
fanatic, take him on with you?"
"I'm going to look after him until he's better," Michael said, "if
that's what you mean."
"You've got one _protégé_ in el-Azhar. I wonder where this one will
find his home?"
"He will be all right in the morning. Some food and sleep will set him
on his way again." Michael's eyes expressed the fact that his thoughts
had travelled to Millicent's own position in his camp. She had wished
to avoid this; she had tried to obliterate her own personality. Her
desire was to let Mike get pleasantly accustomed to her companionship,
to her place in his camp, to her harmless presence. She felt certain
that if she could manage it for a day or two, he would let things
slide. It was his nature to drift.
The evening was almost at its close; night was drawing near. The
evening star, with its one clear call, had appeared in the pale sky,
guarded by the soft pure crescent of a new moon. The single star in
the vast heavens made a tender appeal to the hearts of both Millicent
and Michael. It intensified their solitude. It touched their senses
with longing. If Margaret had been with Michael, his arms would have
encircled her.
Millicent owed her self-restraint to her calculating common sense. To
have had a lover on such a night as this would have been a splendid
reward for all her trouble. In her heart she called the man at her
side a fool, a pitiful fool, and herself an idiot for loving him.
"It was a beautiful idea for Mohammed's banner," Michael said at
length. He had driven the thought even of Margaret from his mind.
Suggestion is too potent a drug.
"Was that what he took it from?" Millicent said. "I never thought of
it before--of course, it must have been."
"He must often have watched the evening star as we are watching it now,
when he was a boy living in the desert. Later on, when he became the
warrior prophet, he must have visualized the heavens as the background
of his banner, and taken the evening star and the crescent moon as his
symbols--the star and the crescent of Islam." Michael paused. "In the
same way, the full rays of the sun became the symbol of Aton,
Akhnaton's god and loving father."
"Your friend?" Millicent said eagerly; it pleased her that Michael
should speak of the things nearest his heart. He was allowing her to
approach him.
Michael laughed. "And yours, too, I hope?"
"Why?" Millicent's heart quickened.
"Because Akhnaton was the first man to preach simplicity, honesty,
frankness and sincerity, and he preached it from a throne. He was the
first Pharaoh to be a humanitarian, the first man in whose heart there
was no trace of barbarism." [1]
"Really?" Millicent said. Michael's earnestness forbade levity. "How
interesting! Do tell me more about him."
"He was the first human being to understand rightly the meaning of
divinity."
"But what he taught didn't last. We owe nothing to his doctrines, do
we? Did it ever spread beyond his own kingdom?"
"Like other great teachers, he sacrificed all to his principles. Yet
there can be no question that his ideals will hold good 'till the swan
turns black and the crow turns white, till the hills rise up and travel
and the deeps rush into the rivers.' That's how Weigall ends up the
life he has written of the great reformer. How can you say that we owe
nothing to him? You might as well say that we owe nothing to any of
the great men of whom we have never heard, and yet you know that
thought affects the whole world. Akhnaton made himself immortal by his
prophecies--they were the eternal truths revealed to him by God."
"By a prophet, do you mean that he was a prophet like Moses, Jeremiah,
Isaiah and so on?"
"I mean that prophets were the seers to whom God communicated
knowledge. Prophets were the people to whom He made revelations; he
enlightened their minds; He certainly revealed Himself to Akhnaton, or
how else could he, in that age of darkness, have evolved for himself an
almost perfect conception of divinity? Weigall says 'he evolved a
monotheist's religion second only to Christianity itself in its purity
of tone.' If God had not revealed Himself to Akhnaton as He did later
on to Moses and Abraham, and as I believe He still does to our true
reformers, how could he, as Weigall says, have evolved his beautiful
religion 'in an age of superstition, and in a land where the grossest
polytheism reigned absolutely supreme'?"
"And are you now on your way to visit his tomb, Mike? How thrilling!"
"Yes," Michael said. He answered her simply, forgetful of the fact
that she could only have obtained her information on this point in an
underhand manner.
"You know where it is?"
"He was buried in the hills which lie beyond his city."
"Tel-el-Amarna?"
"Yes, the City of the Horizon, the capital he built when he found it
necessary for the progress of his new religion to get away from Thebes,
from the priests of Amon-Ra."
Michael's thoughts became absorbed. They travelled to the mid-African
in el-Azhar and then became mixed up with this meeting with the
desert-saint. Could this poor, emaciated figure, so shrunken and worn
with tropical fevers and famished for want of food, have any knowledge
of the hidden treasure which the seer had visualized?
Millicent allowed his thoughts to wander. She knew the force of silent
companionship. She knew that, although he was apparently far from her,
he was conscious of her presence. She would have liked to ask him a
thousand questions, to have talked rather than held her peace; but her
instinct as a woman forbade it. Something told her that during their
talk Michael was one half saint, one half man, and the man-power was
stronger than he knew.
Many stars had appeared in the sky, which had deepened. It was now the
violet-blue of a desert night. The passion of the heavens was
beginning. Could man and woman remain outside it?
In the distance an occasional roar from one of the camels interrupted
the silence. Surely it was a night for love, the love that needs no
telling?
Millicent and Michael were seated on the sand, gazing into the
deepening heavens. Michael was sorely disturbed.
"Could anything be more Eastern?" Millicent said dreamily. In speech
she had to walk very carefully. Her mystic baffled her.
"Nothing," Michael said. "Isn't it sad to think what city-dwellers
miss?"
"I love even the roar of the camels, don't you?" Her eyes were looking
at the animals, as they knelt at rest in the distance, their long day's
journey done. What stored-up revenge their roars suggest! They always
seem to say, "My day will come, if it is yours to-day."
"Let's think of the most English thing we can, Mike," she said
suddenly, "just by way of contrast."
They thought for a moment or two in silence. The arid desert was
softened by the absence of the sun, its desolation was made more
manifest. At night even more than by day, you could feel the immensity
of its distance, its silent rolling from ocean to ocean. Nothing
speaks to man's heart more eloquently than the voice of perfect silence.
For the sake of prudence Michael was consenting to Millicent's
suggestion to think of the most English scene he could. Was it a
village public-house, full of hearty English yokels, drinking their
evening tankards of beer? This was about the time they would assemble.
He had not yet formed his picture into words, Millicent had not spoken,
when suddenly Abdul appeared and begged permission to speak to his
master.
The sick man was better; he had eaten some food and was conscious.
Abdul had evidently some information which was for his master's ear
alone. He politely inferred that he could not say it before the
honourable lady.
Michael rose from his seat beside Millicent, who, being wise in her
generation, said: "Then I will say good-night and go to bed. I am very
tired."
"Good-night," Michael said brightly, while a sudden sense of relief
came to his heart. "I think you are very wise. You must be quite
tired out."
"So far, so good," Millicent said when she was alone. "What a weird
mystic I've attached myself to!" She alluded to Michael, not to the
Moslem saint.
Her camp-outfit was so complete that in her desert bedroom there was
scarcely an item missing which could ensure her comfort. She
contemplated going to bed with enjoyment. Where money is, there also
are the fleshpots of Egypt, even if it is in the waterless tracts of
the Arabian desert.
Material comforts meant very much to Millicent. She enjoyed using all
the little accessories belonging to a fastidious woman's toilet; she
enjoyed, too, the occupation of expending care on her person. Her
rising up and lying down were ceremonies which she performed with
unremitting attention. In her tent in the desert her perfumes and
cosmetics and bath-salts afforded her a curious satisfaction. They
told her that her management had been perfect; they appealed to her
barbaric love of contrasts. It fed her pride very pleasantly to know
that she could command these luxuries; to know that by her own wealth
she could bring the trivialities of civilization into the elemental
life of the desert excited her senses.
Her natural beauty could have triumphed over the ravages made by the
sun and the dry desert air. She was one of those fortunate women who
needed few, if any, of the absurdities which she carried about with her
wheresoever she went. To have done without them would have been to
deprive herself of a very genuine pleasure, to have starved one of her
eager appetites. Margaret's rapid tub, the swift brushing and combing
and plaiting of her dark hair, generally while she read some passage
from a book which interested her, and her total disregard for
cosmetics, would have horrified Millicent if she had known of her
habits. The height of civilization to Millicent was expressed in a
luxuriously-appointed dressing-table and in an excessive care of her
body. Progress touched its high-water mark in the perfection of her
creature comforts. Taken from this standpoint, progress could scarcely
go any further, or so Michael would have thought if he had watched her
ritual of going to bed.
She dawdled pleasantly through it, enjoying every moment of the time,
appreciating the handling of artistically-designed silver objects,
performing with care the washing of her face with oatmeal and the
dusting of her fair skin with the latest luxury in powder. She liked
to take the same care of her person as a young mother takes of her
first baby, and--as she expressed it--to smell like one when the
ceremony was finished.
Her love of contrasts appealed to her, when she stood, all ready for
bed in her foolish nightgown--a mere veil of chiffon--becomingly
guarded by a Japanese kimono of the softest silk. She visualized the
timeless desert outside her tent, the trackless ocean of silence, the
uninhabited primitive world. She felt like a queen, travelling in
state through a waterless, foodless world.
She held up her empty arms. Some other night! Some other night! Her
heart assured her. With a sigh of content she lay down to sleep, well
satisfied with her own diplomacy and cunning. Her last conscious
thoughts were of Margaret Lampton. What was she doing to-night? What
were her thoughts?
* * * * * *
Late that night, as Abdul passed the Englishwoman's tent, he spat at
her door.
[1] Weigall's _Akhnaton, Pharaoh of Egypt_.
CHAPTER III
What was Margaret doing that night?
Many days had passed since she had heard from Michael, but there was
nothing in that to cause her anxiety. She did not expect to hear from
him after his desert journey had begun, except by happy chance. If he
passed a desert mail-carrier, he would give him a letter to be posted
when he arrived at the nearest town.
A desert mail-carrier is a weird object to Western eyes or to the eyes
of a city-dweller. Almost naked, he travels across the desert on swift
camels, carrying a long sword for the protection of the royal mails.
So far Margaret had received no desert letter. Her days had passed
smoothly and swiftly, for Freddy had kept her hard at work. Each day
her interest in his work intensified; the more she learned of
Egyptology and of archaeology generally, the more wholly absorbing it
became. She had developed into a very essential member of the camp.
With splendid common sense and determination, she had succeeded in
throwing herself body and soul into the work which filled her days.
She had made up her mind when she parted with Michael that not even by
thought would she retard his work and mission. When she allowed her
mind to travel to him, it was to convey currents of stimulating love
and encouragement. If thoughts are things, as he always told her, then
the things her thoughts were to give him must be happiness and
confidence. Keeping this steadily before her, she had spent healthy,
happy days with her brother. In their sympathies and interests they
had drawn even closer together. Strangers might well have taken them
for lovers, so eagerly did they look forward each morning to their long
evening to be spent together. There was very little time for play;
their days were made up of hard, exacting work.
Experts were busy forming their opinions and writing their official
reports upon the contested subjects connected with the tomb. The
mythological and archaeological finds in it were of exceptional
interest.
On this night, when Millicent in the eastern desert had held up her
arms to the heavens and questioned the unseen, Margaret had gone early
to bed. For some reason--perhaps owing to the great heat of the day
and to the airlessness of the chamber of the tomb where she had been
painting, she had felt a bit "nervy," as she had expressed her state of
being to Freddy. She had tried to read, but had failed. Her thoughts
had wandered; her memory had retained nothing of what she had read; at
the end of a paragraph she knew as little of what it had been about as
though she had never read it. Concentration was beyond her power.
"I'm only wasting time, Freddy," she said after a last desperate effort
to concentrate her thoughts on her book. "I'm going to bed. If I
talked, I'd probably grouse--that's how I feel."
"Right you are, old girl. I'll soon be off, too. How'd you like to go
to Luxor for a few days?"
"Oh, no, Freddy!" Meg's whole being rejected the idea.
"All right--only don't get the jumps."
"A good sleep will put me right," she bent her head as she passed her
brother and lightly kissed his glittering hair. He was busy with a
plan, of extraordinarily minute details. "You're such a dear, Freddy."
"Rot!"
"You are, a thumping old dear."
"Don't you worry, old girl. Mike's all right. Bad news travels on
bat's wings, so they say. You'd have heard long before this if
anything was wrong."
It was just like Freddy to understand. Meg felt cheered. She sat
herself down beside him, quite close to his elbow, and watched him for
some moments. They were perfectly silent. Freddy's practical,
healthy, buoyant personality soothed her. Her big love for him brought
a sudden lump to her throat. Happy tears dimmed her sight. Hungrily
she pressed his arm close to hers and rubbed her cheek against his
coat. The next moment she had left the room.
Freddy's eyes followed her. "Not the life for a girl, somehow," he
said, a line of worry puckering his forehead, and for a few moments his
thoughts deserted his work. It became faulty; he had to use his
india-rubber over and over again. It was Meg's vision of Akhnaton that
had intruded itself upon his work; he must drag his thoughts back again.
Meg had told him about her vision. Before the tomb had been opened,
Freddy would have completely pooh-poohed the whole thing. He gave no
real credence to it now; still, there was a subtle difference in his
attitude towards the whole subject of the supernatural. His mind did
not so completely reject it as he thought. The extraordinary exactness
of the seer's vision of the inside of the tomb had not been without its
effect. He also knew how constantly and ardently Akhnaton had prayed
that his spirit might "go forth to see the sun's rays," that his "two
eyes might be opened to see the sun," that he might "obtain a sight of
the beauty of each recurring sunrise."
* * * * * *
When Meg went to bed, she slept soundly, very soundly. She must have
been asleep for some hours when suddenly she awoke with unusual
alertness. The intensity of her dream had wakened her. She had heard
Michael's voice crying, as though it were vainly trying to reach her.
It was as clear as the overseer's whistle each morning; it had wakened
her just as suddenly. The anguish of his soul came to her out of the
silence. Three times he had called her distinctly.
She started up, with the words "Yes, Mike, I'm coming." They were said
before she realized that she was separated from him by the Valley and
the river and the eastern desert.
Sitting up in bed she listened. Everything was still. She jumped out
of bed and looked out of the window. The stars in the sky shone down
on the hills which covered the sleeping Pharaohs as they had shone when
Michael had told her that he loved her, as they had shone before the
Valley became a city of the dead.
Margaret slipped on her dressing-gown and opened the door. She went
quietly out and stood in front of the hut, with eyes raised to the
heavens. She felt as if her heart was bursting with the prayers that
filled it. What could she do? Nothing--nothing but give herself up to
God, open her heart and reveal its burden to the Lord of all worlds,
trust her inarticulate prayers to His everlasting mercy. Very softly
she whispered, almost ashamed of her own impotence, "I want to go to
Michael. Allow my spirit to console him."
Her hands were clenched. An imploring agony held her unconscious of
all else but her desire to get outside herself and appear to her lover.
She had no more words; speech was needless. Her wants were as
infinitely beyond the limits of speech, as infinity is beyond our
conception of space or time.
For a few minutes she stood lost in the one thought. And who shall say
in what name her prayer was answered by the divine mercy?
Gradually a subtle untightening of her muscles relaxed her hands even
while they remained folded. Something had gone out of her. Was it
virtue? Unconscious of her material self, for her thoughts had not yet
returned from their mission of healing, she remained standing in the
same attitude of appeal.
Suddenly her imagination folded her in her lover's arms. She heard him
say, "My beautiful Meg, the stars adore you!"
And she answered, "I am with you, Mike, just as I was on that night
when your love made a new world for me. You called to me and so I
came. Your arms are round me. . . . I can hear your voice."
Margaret sighed. Consciousness of her material surroundings was
returning. She heard a step behind her; someone was present. It was
Freddy.
"What are you doing, Meg?" he said anxiously.
She turned swiftly to him. "Oh, Freddy, Michael wanted me. My dream
was too real not to have some meaning. I couldn't bear it--I had to
try to help him!"
"You were dreaming? You were in bed?"
"Yes, and sound asleep. Suddenly he called me. It was extraordinarily
real." Meg put her hands up to her head as though it was tired.
"But you can't help him by standing out here. It's too chilly."
Meg shivered. "It is cold," she said wearily. "And I'm awfully tired."
Freddy linked his arm through his sister's. "Let's sit and talk
together indoors, for a bit. Have a cigarette?"
Meg thanked him with tired eyes. Freddy put his hands on her shoulders
as she sank into a deck-chair, and looked into her eyes. "No more
visions, old girl?"
"No, Freddy, oh no, no vision." Meg spoke dreamily, absently, and with
an exhaustion which worried her brother.
"Then why so tired?"
"I don't know. I suppose it was my dream. I feel as if I'd travelled
for days and days!"
"Look here, you're going to have some of this." Freddy poured out a
small portion of brandy into a glass and made her swallow it. "The
desert plays the dickens with the strongest nerves. Don't be so rash
again, Meg."
"I promise." Meg swallowed the brandy and Freddy lit her cigarette.
With a tact she little dreamed of he contrived to divert her thoughts
into a channel far removed from the eastern desert and personal matters.
The news from home for the last few weeks had been far from
satisfactory. English politics seemed to revolve round the atrocious
acts of the suffragettes who believed in the militant policy and the
disturbances in Ireland. Freddy's sympathies, of course, were with
Ulster; the Nationalists and Sinn Feiners belonged to the unemployable
unemployed class of agitators who "walk on their heads."
When at last the brother and sister parted, Meg was restored both in
mind and body to her normal healthy condition.
CHAPTER IV
When Michael entered the sick man's tent, he was surprised to find how
much better he seemed. He had regained a little strength and partial
consciousness. But he was still weak and suffering from the effects of
malarial fever, or so Michael imagined, though he was articulate and
his mind seemed to be clearing.
The more Michael saw of him the more sure he was that he was neither an
idiot nor a lunatic, nor one of the class in the East whose flagrant
acts of immorality do not affect their fame for sanctity. Certainly
his thoughts and reasoning powers appeared still to be in heaven, but
that was because he was a religious zealot. Of the genuineness of his
piety there could be no doubt. The impostors and charlatans who bring
discredit upon the term "holy man," who trade upon the credulity of the
natives, do not seek the wastes of the arid eastern desert. The
neighbourhood of hospitable villages and cities suits their profession
and tastes better.
The saint had requested of Abdul that he might thank the Effendi for
his charity. Before sunrise he wished to leave the tent.
As Michael approached him, he called out in a weak but sonorous voice a
_sura_ from the Koran:
"'Verily those who do deeds of real kindness shall drink of a cup
tempered with camphor.'"
The word camphor (_kafier_), which is derived from the word _kafr_,
means to "suppress or cover." Michael understood. The quaffing of
camphor, as spoken of in the Koran, is supposed to subdue unlawful
passions; it cleanses the heart; it rids man's mind of all material
desires.
"I thank you, O my father." Michael used the ordinary form of a Moslem
in addressing one of a higher spiritual station than himself. In Egypt
even the native Christians reverence Moslem saints or holy men. They
pay frequent visits to them to ask for counsel and to hear their
prophecies, to beg a hair of them in memory, "and dying, mention it
within their wills, bequeathing it as a rich legacy unto their issue."
Any relic of a venerated saint is worn as a protection from evil.
Quite apart from Michael's feeling on the subject as to whether this
desert fanatic would prove of any real assistance to him on his
journey, he had no inclination to scoff at his religious zeal. Were
there not St. Jeromes, who lived in the desert and trusted to the
ravens of the air to feed them? Were passions in the desert not known
before the days of Mohammed? Why should saints no longer exist?
It seemed to him very wonderful that this semi-conscious Arab should
have chosen a text from the Koran so singularly appropriate to his
condition. There were hundreds of _suras_ familiar to Michael,
relating to the benefits to be received by the faithful who performed
disinterested acts of charity. "Do good to the creatures of God, for
God loves those who do good." These words came to his mind as more
suitable, as referring only to his hospitality to the fainting
wayfarer. Or again, "The truly righteous are those who, in order to
please God, assist their kindred out of their wealth, and support the
orphans and take care of the needy, and give alms to the wayfarer."
In the moral conditions of the Koran, there are many _suras_ relating
to charity, the love which covers a multitude of sins. Yet he had told
Michael that because of his love for one of God's creatures he would
"drink of a cup tempered with camphor." Had the sick man a seer's
vision? Had he read the secrets of his, Michael's, heart?
Or might it have been that already Abdul had confided to him the gossip
of the camp? Had his seer's eyes told him who lay in the white tent,
the white tent whose open door so persistently invited him to turn in?
He rejected the idea that the saint's apt choice of a text could have
been mere accident. To Michael there was no such thing as chance.
Nothing is unessential, nothing unforeseen by the All-seeing.
He spoke to the saint seriously and sympathetically of his condition
and tried to persuade him that he was too weak to travel. He must rest
for one whole day, and after that he must allow Michael to see him on
his journey. To Michael's offer of hospitality and help on his
pilgrimage, he again answered by quoting the Koran:
"'Verily to the "favoured of God" no fear shall come, nor shall they
grieve.'"
His eyes, lit with spiritual fire, expressed his complete confidence in
divine protection.
Michael expressed his belief that God did look after those who were
specially favoured of Him, but he asked if it might not be that it was
by God's guidance that he, Michael, had been permitted to offer one
specially beloved of Allah the rest he so greatly needed? If it was
not also decreed by Allah that the saint should remain in his tent
until he was stronger?
"Whither are you going, O my son? If Allah wills it we shall not part."
Michael described his geographical destination; he did not mention the
real mission of his journey.
"What seek you there, O my son?"
"The tomb of a holy man."
"An infidel or a child of Allah?"
"Of a prophet, O my father, a prophet to whom God revealed himself even
before the days of Moses, a prophet born in Egypt, who lost his distant
kingdoms to gain his own soul."
"Your heart is full of charity, O my son. In the name of the Lord, the
Compassionate, the Merciful, may the divine light surround you."
"If I acknowledge but one God, O my father, and truly love Him, I must
love all things that He has created, for without Him was not anything
made that is in heaven or on earth."
"Truly said, O my son. And praise be to Allah! you are no infidel.
You worship but the one God Who is the Lord of the worlds. The
ignorant infidels--Allah have mercy on their souls!--give the Prophet
Jesus equal glory with the God Almighty, they divide the honours which
belong to God alone."
"There are many seekers after the truth, O my father. Are there not
many roads to heaven?"
"To all who do truly seek the light, God will be revealed to them. He
will cover them with His mercy, He will join them to the companionship
on high. God's mercy extends to every sinner, He provides for even
those who deny Him."
The fanatic fell back on his pillow exhausted. Michael waited for a
moment, until his religious excitement had abated. Feebly words came
from his parched lips.
"Great is Thy Name, great is Thy Greatness. There is no God but Thee."
Michael poured a little moisture down his throat. He swallowed it
eagerly; his thirst was pathetic. After waiting for a few minutes
beside the silent figure, Michael rose to go. One of the servants must
come and look after him and watch by him during the night; he was too
ill to be left alone.
Suddenly the saint called to him. "_Henâ_ (here)." He wished Michael
to bend his head nearer to his lips; his voice was weak. His splendid
eyes glowed with the fire of spiritual triumph. Michael watched him
raise his hand up to his head. It was for some reason, for it was not
without effort that he guided his first finger to his fine,
delicately-shaped ear, the concha of which was very large. There
seemed to be something hidden in it which he was endeavouring to take
out.
Michael tried to help him. Had he stowed away some relic of
exceptional value in the opening of his ear, or was it giving him pain?
The saint did not answer. Michael stood in silence until the thing was
extracted. It was a little pellet of tissue-paper.
The saint put his finger to his lips, to caution Michael to be silent.
With trembling fingers he unwrapped the tiny packet. It was so small
that probably it contained an atom of hair reputed to have been cut
from the Prophet's beard.
When the object was unrolled, the saint said, "_Henâ_," and tried to
reach Michael's hand. Michael placed his right hand in the two
emaciated ones of the fanatic. Something hard was pressed into his
palm, and his fingers were jealously folded over a tiny object. When
it was safely in his keeping, the saint fell back on his pillow,
muttering a _sura_ from the Koran.
"'Give your kindred what they require in time of need and also to the
poor and the traveller, but waste not your substance wastefully.'"
Michael opened his hand and looked at what the zealot had placed in it.
He was thrilled with curiosity to see what the precious relic could be.
He recognized the greatness of the honour which had been bestowed upon
him.
When he saw what it was, he was too astonished to speak. Wonder robbed
him of words. A crimson amethyst, uncut and of ancient smoothness, lay
like a large drop of blood in his hand. With half-believing eyes he
gazed at it. Still in silence and with doubting senses, he turned it
over with the fingers of his left hand. Had the holy man performed a
miracle? How could he have become possessed of an ancient gem of such
rare beauty and size? Michael had often seen conjurers raise up
palm-trees and flowers on the deck of a steamer, out of a pot full of
sand; a wave of their magic wand had transformed the deck of the
steamer into a flowery garden. But this poor sick wanderer was no
trickster.
Michael held up the amethyst to a lamp. It seemed to him a stone of
great value. As it was uncut, he could only judge by its colour.
There might be some flaw which he could not see. He tried to put it
back into the sick man's hands.
"Keep it, my son, it is safer with you. I could not use it for the
benefit of mankind, for the wayfarer and the needy, and for myself I
have no wants which Allah in His mercy does not supply. His children
suffer no greater privations than they can bear."
Michael still pressed the jewel back into his hand. He could not and
would not accept it. At his refusal the fanatic became excited and
distressed.
"It is easy for me, my son, to find many more such jewels, and also
much fine gold, the pure gold of Ethiopia. Allah has had hidden
treasures laid up in the desert for such of His favoured children as
require them."
The words came curiously to Michael's ears, for he had in his
subconscious mind anticipated them. Yet his material mind regarded
them as fantastic imagination due to the man's abnormal condition. The
unpolished jewel had probably been given to him by a devout Moslem, who
imagined that he had derived some benefit from a visit which he had
paid to the saint. His subconscious mind pressed the question:
Had this poor creature, dressed in rags, whose famished body had fallen
in the sands, exhausted by his perpetual mortification of the flesh,
found Akhnaton's buried treasure? Had he resisted the gold and
precious jewels which he had found there? Had he only carried away
this one crimson amethyst to prove to Michael that his theory was
correct? Was it a beautiful link in the long chain of ordained events,
an act of the divine law?
The idea seemed incredible. Yet the saint had spoken simply and
sincerely, as if he never doubted but that Allah, in His all-seeing
mercy, had provided this mine of wealth for the use of His favoured.
Was this gem which the saint had carried in his ear an actual and
tangible proof of the treasure he was seeking? Had the saint actually
seen and touched the wealth of gold and the jewels which Akhnaton's
hands had hidden in the hills near his tomb? Others besides Michael,
students of Egyptology, had treasured the idea that the heretic King,
knowing that his days were numbered, and that when he was dead
everything in his fair city would be stolen and desecrated, taken to
Thebes and there turned into wealth for the gods of Amon, had hid from
his enemies his private hoard of jewels and gold.
A glorious excitement overwhelmed Michael. His thoughts travelled on
the wings of light. But he must be practical; he must determine how it
was best to question the saint, to gather from him the most helpful
information on the subject. It would be no easy matter, for it would
be unwise to express any marked curiosity about the hidden treasure or
to show his personal desire to find it.
With great self-control he concealed his intense interest and
excitement. For the present it was best to let the saint's words about
the treasure pass unquestioned. Very tactfully and with gentleness he
persuaded him to keep the amethyst until they parted. In the morning,
if he was really strong enough to go on his way and if he still wished
him to accept the gem, he would do so.
With this the fanatic was contented. He wrapped up the gem which had
once belonged to the heretic Pharaoh, whose one and only God was Aton,
and replaced it in its strange jewel-case.
* * * * * *
When Michael left the tent where the saint lay, he turned his back on
the encampment. He wished to be alone. His thoughts were bewildering.
He turned his back upon the encampment because the crouching man in him
knew that in the camp was the white tent of the woman. If he passed
it, would the primitive man in him spring up and force him to turn in?
"Turn in, turn in, my lord, and he did turn in." How the words had
kept ringing in his ears.
Alone in the desert he must drink of the cup tempered with camphor.
Henceforth his one thought and object must be the finding of the
treasure he had journeyed thus far to discover. The saint's news had
so excited him that he wished that he could waken all the sleeping
servants and order Abdul to begin their journey. Action would drive
the white tent and its persistent call out of his mind. The sky was so
light that they could easily see to travel.
His nerves chafed at the unnecessary delay. And yet he must not hurry,
for his mind foresaw great difficulty, even in the matter of persuading
the holy man to travel with them.
The seer at el-Azhar had promised him that a "child of God" would lead
him. If he waited and trusted and just let things take their course,
all things would come right. Haste comes of the devil--a true Eastern
proverb, a warning far too little regarded by the Western children of
speed. But his conscience rebuked him. Had he verily been one of
those who do deeds of real kindness? Was he worthy to drink of the cup
tempered with camphor? Had his deed been sincerely inspired by
disinterested love towards his fellow-beings? Had it not been so
mingled and mixed up with his anxiety to find the hidden treasure that
he had gladly seized the opportunity of offering help to the wayfarer,
hoping that he might prove to be the very child of God who was to guide
him to the secret spot?
Yet surely, in doing this deed of kindness, even though it was affected
by self-interest, he had already drunk of the cup tempered with
camphor? The desires of his frail human flesh, desires which had had
their renaissance since Millicent's appearance, were they quite
banished? Had the woman in her white tent meant nothing to him? As if
in contradiction to his words, he flung himself on the sand. A voice
cried within him.
What was he to do with the woman? Oh, God, what was he to do with her?
Spiritually he emptied his arms of her and flung her far from him on
the sands. All day her presence had been too near him--oh, God, far
too near! She was there in her tent, a beautiful vision. Her eyes, as
violet as the night sky, invited him. Her voice, soft with love, wooed
him. It cried again and again: "Turn in, my lord, turn in!"
His knowledge of the East told him that the whole camp expected him to
visit the white tent that night. He was no St. Anthony in their eyes,
resisting his temptation.
For one moment his mind enjoyed the satisfaction of her beauty. The
cup tempered with camphor was rudely dashed from his lips. Some unseen
hand had offered him instead the deep red wine of passion. With the
sudden violence of a southern wind gathering swiftly over the desert,
his emotions were tossed and driven. As the sands lift and rise from
the flatness of the desert into one obliterating column before the
traveller's eyes, so had his vision of the woman obliterated every
other thought from his mind. In the limitless desert there was nothing
but the one white tent of the woman.
In his vision he saw the crimson amethyst hanging from a chain round
her neck. On her white breast it lay like a full drop of pigeon's
blood. Where had this idea come from? Unsought, undesired, what had
forced it with merciless vividness before his eyes? What part of him
responded to her caresses of thanks? What had Akhnaton's jewel to do
with his profane vision?
St. Anthony had never deserved his temptation less. With the distant
glimpse of the white tent which he had caught on his way from the sick
man, desire had stormed the citadel of his soul. Its hidden forces had
surprised and overwhelmed the unsuspecting Michael. It held him in its
grip.
In his agony of spirit he cried aloud. "Margaret! Margaret!
Margaret, if you love me, come to me!"
He pressed his body more closely to the desert sand. Let the great
Mother Earth enfold him.
With all the stars in the heavens shining down upon him, and the clear
sky purifying a world of desolation, Michael lay purging his mind,
cleansing his heart. The white tent became very distant, a mere speck
on his mental horizon.
Suddenly his senses became alert; he felt a presence very close to him.
No footfall on the sand had warned him that he was no longer alone; he
was simply conscious that some one was standing by his side. He jumped
up, anxious to see who it was; he had been lying face downwards on the
sand. No one was there. He listened. Surely he had not been
mistaken? Someone had touched him gently with their hands, some
presence had come quite close to him. He was conscious that a feeling
of peace had come to him, as if virtue had passed into him from those
unseen hands. Then suddenly he knew that Margaret was beside him; they
were standing together as they had stood together on the night when
they plighted their troth. He could hear her saying, "I have come to
you, Mike. You called me and so I came." He could feel the divine
beauty of her passion, the exquisite wonder of her love. Her presence
was as real and helpful to him as though his arms encircled her
material body.
In the midst of his happiness a sense of shame overwhelmed him.
Margaret had come to him because she understood; his sense of shame
evoked her sympathy. He heard her say, "But Mike, I shall understand.
I think something outside myself will help me to understand."
He could see her starlit face. He remembered how he had turned it up
to the heavens and said, "You beautiful Meg, the stars adore you!" His
own words rang in his ears.
She had come to help him to make his love for her still more complete.
She was with him still. He enfolded her in his arms and wept out his
passion on her breast.
CHAPTER V
"Let's begin where we left off yesterday, Mike," Millicent said.
They had finished their lunch and were sitting in the desert watching
the "common or garden" day's idleness of the inhabitants of a Bedouin
camp. The tents were huddled together under the shade of some
feathery-leaved palm-trees, a typical desert homestead.
They had made a short excursion from the site of their own camp, for
the sick man's condition had necessitated their halting for at least
one whole day.
Subtly conscious of the fact that Satan finds some mischief even in the
desert for idle hands to do, Michael had suggested a picnic to a small
oasis which lay to the west of their route. Millicent and her dragoman
and her servants still formed a part of his camp; her splendid supply
of food and medicines was so valuable for the saint that Michael's
silent consent to her presence had been given. Again he was drifting.
"Let us return to where we left off yesterday," referred to her
suggestion of the evening before that they should tell each other of
the most English thing they could imagine, things seen in England as in
comparison to things seen in Egypt.
It was a typically Eastern scene which lay before them--the yellow
sands of the Arabian desert, the dark palm-trees and the picturesque
Bedouins idling under the shelter of the palms. Not one of the group
was occupied. Some goats and a great number of naked children were
lying about on the sand. The purple shadows of the palm-trees
intensified the bareness of the sunny desert.
One little figure, with a very protruding stomach, and a very large
white metal disc on her dark chest for her only article of attire,
suddenly appeared in front of them. Silently she had risen up out of
the hot sand at their feet. Her big eyes stared at the two strange
beings whom she had been brave enough to approach. When Millicent
spoke to her she screamed and flew back to her mother's side. The
woman looked like a man, clean-limbed and as tanned as leather. Her
tent was supported by two sticks; to enter it she had to bend almost
double.
The naked child had appeared so suddenly and it had run away so
swiftly, that Millicent laughed like a child. It really was a
delicious bit of nature. The metal disc shone like a small sun.
"What a 'tummy'!" she said. Her laughter was contagious. "Just like a
baby blackbird's before it has got its feathers. And that big silver
disc!--like the family plate on the family chest."
"It's protection from all evil, poor wee mite."
"What a filthy-looking hovel," Millicent said. "Worse than a
gipsy-tent in England."
"And yet it's a home," Michael said. "And there are no more passionate
lovers of home than these tent-women, or more hospitable people."
"Do these date-trees bear fruit?" Millicent asked the practical
question irrelevantly. Her mind was charged with new interests, while
her eyes looked at the soaring trees. The tent-dwellers interested
her. She would like to have questioned them about all sorts of
intimate subjects.
"Rather! These people pay taxes, too."
"Really? Isn't there any spot on the globe where people can just live
as they like, where they can get away from income-tax and authorities?"
"I don't know if the Bedouins pay any tent-taxes, but I suppose that if
they didn't aspire to owning date-palms, they could live in the arid
desert without paying anybody anything. It's the old, old, unchanging
subject--water."
Millicent lapsed into silence. Her chin was resting on her hands; she
was lying face downwards on the sand. Michael was resting beside her.
Hassan and the few servants they had taken with them to attend to their
picnic-lunch were fast asleep. The camels and mules made a picturesque
note in the distance. On Millicent's camel a pale blue sheepskin rug
covered the fine saddle; it looked like a patch of the heavens dropped
down to earth.
"I know what is the most English thing I can think of," she said, "the
most English thing compared to all this Easternness--how I adore it,
Mike!"
"The English thing you've thought of, or the Easternness?"
"Oh, the Easternness. England's placid and fat and bountiful, but all
this throbbing emptiness----!"
"Tell me your English scene," he said. Something in Millicent's eyes
drove him into speech. He, too, knew the throbbing silence, the
solitude that thunders, the emptiness that is full of passion.
"Well, first look at that tent and at those lazy, straight,
brown-limbed women--they are just a bit of nature. Summer and winter,
autumn and spring, will never change the scene. Look at that ocean of
sand, and the moving heat, passing like a wave over the desert. Take
off your blue glasses, Mike, and dare to look at the sun. Face your
great God Aton--look Him in the face."
Michael was silent, but he took off his blue glasses. He was no eagle;
his eyes shrank from the world of blinding, unlimited light.
"Now visualize a wee robin 'flirting,' as Wells says, across a green
English lawn."
The suggestion called up a thousand memories. A cloud of home-sickness
dimmed the brightness of the sun. Michael could see a green, green
lawn and the figure of his mother busy at her flower-beds; the robin's
flirting was growing bolder; it was peeping up into her very face! The
smell of moisture came to his nostrils.
"Nothing is more English than an English robin, Mike! In the autumn,
when it comes near the house, what a darling it is--so well-turned-out,
so fearless of humans!"
"Nothing," Mike said, "unless it's my mother herself, in her gardening
gloves, cutting off the dead heads from the rose-beds."
"But she's Irish!"
"Well, I meant British. When you said things seen in England I
visualized _my_ robin in Ireland, juicy, green, luscious Ireland!"
"Tell me about Ireland," Millicent said lightly. As she spoke, she
made a hole in the sand; she pushed her hand and wrist into it--her
gloves were off. She drove it in still further, until her elbow only
was above the sand; her arm was buried in the desert.
"Take care of sand-flies," Michael said. Millicent's sleeve was rolled
up.
"Are there any here? I've not been troubled with them."
"No, probably not--they are the plague of Upper Egypt."
"They were awful at Assuan. It's awfully hot, Michael!" Millicent
referred to the sand. She withdrew her arm. "Give me your hand--just
feel it." She pulled up his sleeve and took his hand. She held it in
her own and thrust it into the hot, soft sand. With her free hand she
pulled up her own sleeve and Michael's so as to allow their arms to
sink still further into the sand; they were bare to the elbow. Her
wrist and the palm of her hand were pressed close to Michael's.
Suddenly her hand ceased boring; she remained still, her soft fingers
embracing Michael's. Her eyes sought his. He read their invitation.
"It's only our hands, Michael--let them rest." Her fingers tightened
round his as she spoke; her eyes challenged him. At the challenge his
pulses leapt, his hand ceased to resist. For two days he had been
playing with fire. In the wilderness that surrounded them what waters
would quench its leaping flames?
Millicent's soft arm lay with his; it was human and caressing. Then a
fear came to him, born of a sudden intense hatred. She was such a
little thing. He could strangle her, crush her to atoms. That was the
way to put an end to it all.
The next moment Millicent was alarmed, terribly frightened. She was in
Michael's arms. He was crushing her, crushing her to atoms. It was
not a lover's embrace; it was the mad fury of a roused mystic. Would
he crush her until he killed her?
"Don't, Mike, you'll choke me! You are choking me now. Do you want to
kill me?"
"I could," he said. "And I'd like to!" He flung her from him on the
soft sand. "Go away," he said. "Leave me and my camp for good and
all!" His words were broken, mere breathless ejaculations. His eyes
made a coward of the reckless woman, but she collected her quick wits.
She lay where he had flung her. She was not hurt or even stunned, but
she knew that if she lay there in the position in which he had flung
her, presently he would come to her and ask her if he had been too
brutal. She traded on his tenderness to women, his horror of
inflicting pain.
She lay motionless, the blue sky above her, the yellow sands stretching
to the far-off horizon. She had tempted him willingly, deliberately.
Something had compelled her to test her power. Her annoyance at his
apparent indifference to her presence had become too poignant to hide
any longer. Anger was exhausting her nerves. She was conscious that
she had burnt her boats, that her tactics were at fault.
Michael did not look at her. He was conscious of nothing in the world
but an unbearable contempt for his own manhood. Why had he not driven
her away long before this? Why had he silently acquiesced to her
companionship?
Despising her as he did, why was she able to lower him in his own eyes?
Why did he tolerate her? Why had she any qualities which appealed to
him? Why, oh why was she just what she was? He hated her at the
moment, but he hated himself still more. When they got back to the
camp he would tell Hassan that their ways must lie apart. And now, at
this very instant, he would go and tell her that she must leave; he
must have it out with her.
He went to her and stooped over her. "Millicent," he said, "I want to
speak to you."
"Yes, Mike."
"Get up and look at me. I want you to listen."
Still Millicent lay perfectly motionless. "I am listening."
He knelt down beside her. "Have I hurt you?"
A little groan was all her answer. Michael turned her face to his.
His hands were on her shoulders. She winced.
"Have I hurt you? I am sorry. I was too rough."
Millicent raised herself to her knees. Her face was tense, agonized.
She put her hands up to her head and held it.
Michael thought he heard a sob. Shame or pain convulsed her body; she
rocked herself backwards and forwards.
"I am sorry I was so brutal," he said. "But you deserved it. I had to
do it. I always have to be unkind--you are so foolish."
Still Millicent wept. She removed her hands and gazed at him with wet,
mournful eyes. Michael put his arm round her and tried to raise her.
"You were very naughty--why were you so naughty?"
One of his arms was supporting her as she struggled to her feet. The
next instant Millicent swung herself nimbly round and flung herself on
his breast. He was helpless. Her hands were clasped behind his head.
"You wanted to kill me, Mike." Her fingers slipped round his throat.
"And now I should like to kill you, yes, kill you! Strangle you and
leave your austere, ascetic body for the vultures to enjoy!"
Mike tried to shake her off, to unclasp her hands. She was as strong
as a young leopard.
"I would," she said. "For I hate you and despise you!
"Then leave me," he said. "I wish to God you would!"
"Ah, but I won't!" The cry came from Millicent savagely. "I won't
leave you, not until my will has subjected yours! Before I leave your
camp you will have been my lover--mystic, aesthetic, dreamer, drifter!"
"Never!" Michael said. "Never, never that!"
Still Millicent clung to him. Her angry words blew her hot breath over
his cheeks.
"You are not altogether the ascetic or the saint you appear to be. You
have scorned my love. I will break your will. I will humble you in
your own fine estimation of yourself. When I take it into my head to
do a thing, I generally accomplish it."
Michael disengaged her hands with a tremendous wrench. If he hurt her
thumbs he could not help it. He held her from him at arm's length and
shook her, shook her as though she was a naughty child in a paroxysm of
passion which had to be subdued by extreme severity.
"You little devil!" he said. "You'll leave my camp at once, this very
day! I've had more than enough of you!"
Millicent's eyes, as unflinching as Michael's, laughed triumphantly.
"What about my food and medicine for your sick man, your valuable guide
to the hidden treasure? You can't afford to let him slip through your
hands!"
Michael's eyes dropped. He had allowed Millicent to remain
unquestioned, even willingly, as a member of his expedition, since the
sick man was in need of the delicate food and medicine her equipment
contained.
As his eyes dropped, he asked her what she knew about the hidden
treasure. He had only told her about the tomb of Akhnaton; he had
particularly refrained from mentioning the Pharaoh's hidden store.
"How did I get to know all I wanted to know?" She glanced at him
tauntingly. "It wasn't quite all my love for you, dear man! Perhaps
I, too, wished to pick up some of the jewels in King Solomon's Mines!"
"I never mentioned them to you--what do you know about them?"
"What about the precious jewel in the saint's ear--the oriental
amethyst, the ninth jewel in the high priest's breast-plate, as
mentioned in Exodus, 'and the third row a ligure, an agate, and an
amethyst'?" Millicent trilled off the text laughingly.
"You have stooped to spying," he said. "You have an eavesdropper in
your camp?"
"'Verily those who do deeds of real goodness shall drink of a cup
tempered with camphor'! Well, is it tempered enough, Michael?" She
laughed mockingly, derisively. "Was the deed pure goodness? Was this
fanatic not the 'favoured of God' who was to lead you to Akhnaton's
treasure?"
"Go!" he cried. "I have heard enough!"
"And take all my provisions and medicines with me!"
"We must do the best we can for him without your luxuries, if you have
no mercy, no heart for the suffering."
"And how are you going to get rid of me?"
"You are going. I don't know how, but you're going."
"What if I refuse to go?"
"You won't."
Millicent laughed.
"You won't," he repeated. "You must go. You can't stay."
"And why?"
"Because. . . ." Michael hesitated. "Because . . . you know . . . you
know why . . . you know, what you have just said."
"Because you are afraid you will end by being my lover?"
"No. Because I wish to be free of spies and hindrances."
"Then I do hinder? You know my spying has not hurt you!" Her eyes
glowed.
Michael gazed sternly into them. He never lied. With him the truth
was instinctive, masterful; it was the keynote of his religion. "Yes,"
he said. "You are a spiritual hindrance. I am a human man--you are a
sensual woman. You have determined to do everything in your power to
keep me ever mindful of the fact. Because I love Margaret Lampton and
I do not love you, you have determined to make me unworthy of her, you
have trapped me and tricked me and followed me into the wilderness."
"You must admit I managed that part of the job very neatly."
Millicent's words were brave, but a little fear had crept into her
heart. Michael was in no mood for trifling. Her game was lost.
"How did you do it?" he said. His hands tightened; they held her
shoulders. The gentle aesthete was a furious Celt. He wished that it
was a man with whom he was dealing.
Still Millicent was brave, her voice scornful. "_Baksheesh_--the
moving finger in the East."
"You contemptible creature!" he said. "Who did you pay?"
"That would be telling."
"I know it would," he said. "And you are going to tell me." He held
her with painful firmness.
Millicent's courage gave way. Michael's eyes alarmed her. Something
in them warned her that, once roused, he was a dangerous man to trifle
with. There is not an immeasurable distance between the mystic and the
madman. The pressure of his fingers on her shoulders warned her of his
strength; his thumb was like a turnscrew.
"Who did you pay?" he asked. "Tell me, or you will regret it." His
grasp became an agony.
"Mohammed Ali," Millicent murmured. "He showed me Margaret's diary."
Michael groaned. "You little beast!" he cried. "You mean little
beast!"
Millicent burst into a flood of weeping. She knew that it was her only
chance, a woman's deadliest weapon with such a man. "I loved you so!
Oh, Mike, I loved you so! Can't you understand? Is there no humanity
in you? Is your nature so devoid of passion, of human love, that you
can't understand the mad heights and the depths it can lead you to? I
have never been given the chance of rising to the heights."
Mike heard her sobs. He saw her beautiful body convulsed with anguish.
The real woman was there at his feet, a weak creature, whose love for
himself had driven her to do these deeds he despised. He felt that he
was in a manner to blame; for him she had sunk to this degradation.
"I am so ashamed, Mike, but for days my shame has been drowned in
anger. I followed you and trapped you and spied upon you." She looked
up pleadingly. "And I'd do it all over again, even worse, Mike, I know
I would, even though I am despicable in my own eyes."
"Don't!" he said. "It has become a madness with you, an obsession."
"Love is a madness," she said. "It is an obsession. It is devouring
me. No one can judge of its power until they have felt it."
He sat down beside her. "Millicent," he said gently, "have you ever
thought of praying, of asking for help?" He paused. "You poor, poor
soul, have you ever in your life tried to reach your higher self, to
get away from all this?"
"No, never." The words came frankly. "First let me enjoy this human
love, Michael." Her eyes pleaded. "Then I may try to be as you are,
but not till then."
"It would be no enjoyment," he said. "Only a hideous mockery, a wilful
lowering of your better self."
"Not of my better self, Mike--not really. I might rise to higher
things afterwards, with that one beautiful memory to help me, an Eden
in the desert." Her voice was humble; her eyes swam with tears--a
beautiful Magdalen.
"Poor little soul!" he said. "Poor little Millicent!"
"Yes, Mike, poor little soul, poor lonely soul!"
"I wish I could do something to help you, show you that there is a
higher, stronger support than any poor love of mine."
"But I don't want it--at least, not now. It doesn't appeal to me. I
don't want it, for if I tried to be better, I'd have to try to kill my
desire for you, and even if it gives me no happiness, I'd rather have
it than kill it. I couldn't relinquish it. It would be giving up the
only thing I have of you--my poor, unwanted wanting of you."
"What can I say? What can I do?" Michael was in despair. "How can I
help you?"
This humble, tearful Millicent made him wretched. He felt guilty and
unkind. He was the innocent cause of her unhappiness. It was not
possible to be human and remain untouched by her passion for himself.
Yet he knew that he must not allow her to know that, or how his heart
ached for her. Her spiritual loneliness horrified him. She had
absolutely nothing to turn to, nothing to rely upon. Her religious
observances were mere conventional occupations. And yet mixed up in
the woman there was a mental quality very rare and sympathetic, a
strange fitful brilliance, extremely pleasing. Once or twice on their
journey she had expressed the peculiar quality of the scenery in words
which were not far off prose poems. It had puzzled him to know how her
intellectual refinement could dwell in the same temple as her low
characteristics.
"I don't know, Mike." Her voice was very gentle. "I don't see how you
can help me."
"I can pray," he said. "I will pray. Perhaps that is where I have
been to blame. I have left you out of my prayers."
Millicent looked at him. Her eyes questioned.
"I have thought only of myself, my own safety, the keeping of my
thoughts pure and true to Meg, my fight for self-control."
"Oh, Mike!" Millicent's voice was crushed, envious.
"I should have tried to help you as well. We can all help each other
by prayers and thoughts and beliefs, belief in the kingdom of God which
is in us. I behaved as if you were not divine, Millicent."
"I'm not. How can I be divine? I am absolutely worldly--I've no wish
for your divine love!"
"Divinity is in you," he said. "It is yours, you cannot get away from
it." He paused. "You were ashamed just now--that was the light which
cannot be put out. Now, every day, I will try to be less selfish, I
will pray for you. Prayer will help to bring you into the light. Soon
you will begin to peep into the kingdom of God which is in you. You
will see how wonderful it is. Love will hold out its arms to you from
every passing cloud, from every comer of the wilderness. I am to
blame, for I only tried to banish you, instead of helping you. I must
begin to-day. We must all help each other by our thoughts as well as
by our actions. Do you understand? I, who ought to have known better,
have failed."
Millicent took his hand and raised it to her lips. "Why should God
have so blessed Margaret Lampton?" she said. "She is your 'guarded
lady,' as Hassan would say."
"When you know her better, you will see that it is not Meg, but I, who
have been blessed, I who have reason to be thankful. Margaret's
thoughts constantly reach me; they have helped me over and over again."
"Will you forgive me, Mike?"
"Of course I will," he said. "Else how could I help you?"
"It's your very goodness I love, Michael. I realize that. And yet how
horribly I have tried to spoil it!"
"We are going to start afresh, we understand each other." He looked at
her with sincere eyes. "Isn't that so? Do you want me for your
friend, Millicent?"
"More than anything in the world . . . except . . ." she paused.
". . . except . . ."
His eyes held hers; they became stern. "We have settled all that. You
know now that it can never be, and if I am to be your friend, you must
forget all that you have ever said."
"Yes, yes--the crumbs, Mike, they are sweeter than nothing."
"My help," he said, "and sympathy--that is what I can give you."
"And may I remain in your camp for a little time?"
"No." His voice was firm. "We must part. But that will make no
difference. I will help you, I promise. I can help you as Margaret
helps me."
Millicent made no demur. It was useless. "Will the saint be well
enough to travel to-morrow, do you think?"
"I don't know. His headache was better this morning. If he can retain
some food, he may soon pick up."
"And you will go on to Akhnaton's tomb?" Millicent did not refer to
the buried treasure.
"Whenever he is better." Michael looked at his watch. "We had better
be going back," he said. "I want to make preparations."
"And I am to return to civilization!"
Michael did not answer. He called Hassan. "We are ready, Hassan," he
said.
In a short time they were off.
Before mounting her camel Millicent said: "Thank you, Michael. I don't
deserve your kindness."
On their homeward journey Michael's heart held many a prayer. He was
no longer merely to turn this woman out of his thoughts, to thrust her
behind him, a thing of Satan. He was to help her. He was to help her
until such a time as she could help herself. He was to bring her mind
to the consciousness of the truth. He was to reveal to her, by his
prayers, what Akhnaton taught his people--that God is happiness, God is
beauty, God is Love.
CHAPTER VI
It was close upon sundown when Michael and Millicent got back to the
camp. Abdul had come a little way to meet them. To an observant eye,
the calm of his Eastern countenance showed some anxiety. Millicent did
not see it. Michael was riding on ahead when Abdul met him. Abdul
turned his mule and rode by his master's side.
"You have something to tell me, Abdul?"
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, I have something to tell you."
They increased the space between themselves and the camels which were
following them in Indian file. Abdul spoke in Arabic, as he always did
to his master. When he had confided his secret to Michael he lapsed
into silence. The Effendi looked very grave. The news was far from
pleasant.
"You need not tell Madam," Michael said. "Not until you are quite
sure, Abdul. It will only alarm her."
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, I gave it to your ears alone."
"How is he?" Michael referred to the saint.
"His temperature has fallen--head no longer aches. That is always the
case."
"You have done all that is necessary?"
"All I could do, Effendi. Madam has good medicines, praise be to
Allah! We can be hopeful."
They rode on to the camp in silence. Michael's thoughts were busy.
What would Millicent say? Would she be afraid? The idea was not
pleasant.
When they had dismounted Michael went at once to see the saint and
Millicent hurried off to her tent to change her dusty garments for
daintier ones. She was still penitent and half-ashamed. Who knows but
that Michael's efforts to help her were already beginning to bear
fruit? If thoughts can purify, Millicent's heart should have been as
fair as a white lotus flower whose roots are in the mud. Michael's
thoughts had baptized it.
When she had tidied up and was beautifully fresh in her snow-white
muslin frock, she went outside and waited for the dinner-gong to sound.
Even that item of civilization had not been forgotten--it is true it
was only a drum, an earthen _darabukkeh_, but it filled its purpose
well. Its dull thud, thud, had scarcely ceased vibrating the air when
Michael appeared. As he came towards her, Millicent went to meet him.
He had not yet changed his day clothes.
"Don't come near me!" he called out. "Not any further."
"Why not?" Millicent said. "What's the matter? Are you stricken with
the plague?" She spoke laughingly.
Michael stopped within a few feet of her. "Perhaps I am stricken with
the smallpox," he said. "The saint has got it--it may be of a very
malignant order. We don't know."
Every vestige of colour left Millicent's face. She felt sick. "And
you have been to him? You touched him!"
"Of course. I wished to judge for myself. There is no doubt about it."
"M-i-c-h-a-e-l!" The word was a long-drawn-out expression of horror.
A wave of inexpressible terror and disgust overwhelmed Millicent; she
could scarcely speak or move. "You knew, and yet you went to him. How
could you, oh, how could you?"
He scarcely heard her. "These natives who have never been vaccinated
take it very badly. Smallpox is a scourge with all Africans, from the
north to the south."
Millicent's mind was now working furiously. She did not wish to let
Michael see how terrified she was, or how angry.
"Go and change," she said. "Go at once. Get Abdul to disinfect you--I
brought any amount of stuffs."
"Oh, I'm all right--I'm not afraid. I was with him for a long time
last night. If I'm going to take it, the mischief's done."
Millicent's quick mind travelled. Michael had been with this sick
saint the night before. He, Michael, might be a carrier of the
disease, even if he were immune from it himself. And she had been fool
enough to throw herself into his arms! Oh, what a fool! She might
even now be incubating the horrible, loathsome disease. She was
soul-sick. Her fear and rage were inseparable. But she must, of
course, make a good show.
"Never mind, Mike, about last night. Probably the disease was not at
such an infectious stage as it is now--you may not have contracted it.
Take what precautions you can--go quickly and disinfect yourself. Are
you really sure it's smallpox?" She said the last words with a
shudder. "Ugh! it's horrible!"
"Yes," Michael said. "The spots have appeared on his wrists and at the
back of his neck. Abdul knows the beastly disease only too well--the
vomiting and the headaches and the fall in the temperature. It appears
that he told Abdul that he had been very, very sick for some days
before we met him. But malaria might have accounted for the
sickness--and the headaches. No one could have diagnosed it until the
spots appeared. Abdul's not to blame."
"What are you going to do?" Millicent said. "Stick to him? I suppose
you will!" she shivered.
"I will isolate his tent. I can't go on and leave him here, if you
mean that."
"Oh, you're crazy! Think of Margaret, if you won't think of yourself!"
"She wouldn't have me do it."
"Leave one or two of the men behind with him. It's absurd, running
such a risk. He will probably die, in any case."
"When I needed his help I meant to stick to him. When he now needs
mine, am I to desert him? You said my goodness was not disinterested.
It was not, but I can't stoop to that."
"If these Moslems really think he's a saint, they'll nurse him
faithfully. I'll pay them what they ask--anything."
"Money isn't everything, Millicent--surely you know that?"
"It can do a great deal. If you hadn't met him, he'd have died."
"But I have met him. Doesn't that show that I am entrusted with his
welfare?"
"A chance meeting."
"That absurd word! By chance you mean such a big thing that your mind
can't imagine it! You choose to call a link in the Divine Chain
chance! the Chance which gives life, the Master of that which is
ordained, you mean!"
"You can't nurse him, you can't do anything more for him than see that
he has all that he wants. 'The faithful' will carry out your
instructions. Do be practical, reasonable."
"It's no use, Millicent, I can't leave him. I won't." Michael
shivered. "It's chilly. Let's go and eat our dinner."
"You must change first--I insist. It's only right to others."
"Then don't wait for me."
"Oh yes, I will. Only be quick." Millicent knew that she was too sick
with fear to eat and enjoy the excellent dinner which had been prepared
for them. As she waited for Michael, she cursed her own folly, her own
abominable bad luck. If Michael was a carrier, she had no chance,
unless she was one of those rare people who are immune from the
disease. She did not think she was, because when she was last
vaccinated, when she was fifteen, she had been very, very ill and sick.
She felt physically tired, for her brain was quick. It was imagining
horrible things. She was visualizing her own beauty spoilt, her fair
skin deeply pitted with pock-marks, her colour all gone. The disease
would take the glitter from her hair, the glow from her personality.
She knew the result of smallpox. She saw herself, a little,
washed-out, yellow-skinned woman, with weak eyes and drab-coloured hair.
Oh, why had she ever called Michael's attention to the saint? If he
had not gone to his rescue, he would have died where he fell, bathed in
the blood-red light of the afterglow. Why had Michael been such a fool
as to touch him and nurse him? Had she not warned him that the fanatic
was filthy and probably infectious? And, to make matters still worse,
to leave no room for chance, she had of her own will flung herself into
Michael's arms! Her determination to subject his will to hers, to
triumph over Margaret, had brought her to this! Michael was further
from her than ever. She had disgusted him; his only thought for her
now was his desire to make her as religious as himself. She had to
admit her defeat.
And this was how it had ended! Michael, the mystic, the quixotic
idiot, had taken into his camp a creature sick with smallpox, and she,
Millicent, had probably contracted it by her act of rashness! The
desert seemed scarcely large enough to hold her anger. It stifled and
exhausted her.
During dinner very little was spoken between the two, for Millicent was
devastated by her own terrors and Michael was making plans for the sick
man's isolation. His tent must remain where it was, while Michael's
own, and all the servants', except those inhabited by the men who
wished to nurse the saint, must be moved to a safe distance.
Millicent's going was driven from his mind.
Millicent was thankful that Michael did not notice how little she ate
at dinner. The servant did; nothing passes a native's eye. He knew
the woman's terror.
Soon after their coffee was served they separated, Millicent going to
her own tent and Michael to consult with Abdul. When Millicent reached
her tent and had managed to compose her mind, she sent for Hassan.
Half an hour later he left her. He had much to do. The _Sitt's_
orders were comprehensive.
* * * * * *
Michael went early to bed. He was very tired. At about two o'clock in
the morning he stirred in his sleep. Was he hearing the distant sound
of camels roaring, or was he dreaming? He was too lazy to find out.
If there were jackals prowling about, the night-guards would see to
them. Undoubtedly something had disturbed him, for as a rule he slept
without moving the long night through.
Conscious of feeling deliciously sleepy and totally indifferent to
anything but his own comfort, he soon fell asleep again. In his dreams
he heard again the liquid sound of bells--mule bells and camel
bells--growing fainter and fainter as the animals travelled into the
distance.
* * * * * *
In the morning, when he awoke, it was with a new lightness of spirit
and refreshed vitality. A sense of freedom exalted him, a subconscious
freedom, which had been absent for some days. The glory of the desert
called to him. He felt spiritually and physically vitalized.
Even the recollection of the nature of the saint's illness did not damp
his spirits. He would recover with careful nursing, and when he was
better they would go on their way rejoicing. The Promised Land seemed
nearer.
It was scarcely time for his early cup of tea, yet he saw Abdul
bringing it. Perhaps the joy of life had waked him, too, perhaps he
also was eager to get up and greet the morn. What a wonderful morning
it was! All pure, cool, clear sunlight. Michael's heart, a throbbing
organ of praise, sent forth a paean to the pagan skies.
"Is the Effendi awake? May his servant enter?"
"Yes, Abdul, come in."
Abdul entered with the noiseless movements of his race. As he stood by
his master's bed, Michael saw that the unemotional native was
attempting to hide his anger. Something had greatly upset him.
"What is it, Abdul? Has anyone been unkind to the saint?"
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, it is not that." Abdul spoke lengthily and in the
correct Arabic fashion. He must not approach the subject too quickly.
"Tell me," Michael said. "What troubles you, Abdul?"
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, the honourable _Sitt_ has left you. She has
gone--there is no trace of her camp."
"What?" Michael jumped out of bed. "The _Sitt_ has gone? No sign of
her camp?"
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, that is so. Your servant offers his apologies for
bringing you bad news."
To Abdul's eternal amazement, Michael burst into a roar of laughter,
hearty, unsuppressed enjoyment of a good joke.
"Gone?" he repeated. "The _Sitt_ has gone, made a moonlight flitting?
The little devil!"
Abdul's mystification was so complete that he could only salaam.
"The little coward!" Michael said. "The miserable little coward!"
He spoke so rapidly, and in English, that Abdul could not fully
understand. Indeed, he was totally at a loss to comprehend anything of
the situation. It baffled him. His master actually seemed pleased and
highly amused at the cowardly conduct of his mistress!
"When did the _Sitt_ leave the camp, Abdul?"
"At about two o'clock this morning, Effendi. She has taken everything
with her," he threw up his hands. "Her medicines, her delicate food,
everything we need for the saint."
"Curse her!" Michael said. "What a dirty trick!"
"The _Sitt_ was very much afraid, Effendi."
"Well, perhaps that was quite natural, Abdul. But to take everything
away! What shall we do without her tins of milk, her medicine-chest?"
"_Insha Allah_, we will save the 'favoured of God,' Effendi. There in
the Bedouin camp they will give us milk--they have goats."
"How is he this morning?"
"The Answerer of Prayer has heard the cry of His children. He has
again bestowed upon us His everlasting mercy, His compassion is
infinite."
"The saint is better?"
"The malady is running its course. _Insha Allah_, it will do so
without any complications. The pox now appears on his back and body.
The condition of the saint's general health is not such as to cause any
undue anxiety to the Effendi."
"Is he conscious?"
"His thoughts are in heaven, but his mind is clearer, praise be to
Allah."
"And the _Sitt_?" Michael said. "How did she get away?"
"She gave minute instructions to Hassan early in the evening." Abdul
salaamed. "_Aiwah_, honourable Effendi, you will be relieved of a
double anxiety--the _Sitt_ was greatly afraid."
"Yes, Abdul, I'm thankful, very thankful." Michael stretched out his
arms and breathed a deep breath of freedom. Thank God she had gone,
gone of her own free will! This, then, was the meaning of his sense of
liberation. The white tent was there no longer. It had vanished.
Then he remembered having stirred in his sleep. The bells he had heard
were the bells on the animals which were carrying the frightened
Millicent. Her _hijrah_ had not been achieved without affecting his
subconscious mind.
Meanwhile, Abdul was studying his master's mind. He was reading his
thoughts as one reads a story from the illustrations of a book. He saw
relief and freedom--and, above all, thankfulness. His master's
besetting sin was his dislike of scenes, his hypersensitiveness in the
matter of causing pain to others, the desire to surround himself with
happiness.
"_Gehenna_ to the harlot!" he said to himself. "_Insha Allah_, she
will regret last night's work, even though it may benefit the Effendi!"
"You will be lonely, Effendi," he said. "But without the honourable
_Sitt_ your work will progress. Women are a hindrance to men's minds,
an anxiety."
"I am well pleased, Abdul. We were not lonely before Madam came."
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, there was the prospect of the meeting with the
honourable _Sitt_. Now there is desolation."
"I did not seek the meeting, Abdul. All is well."
"_Insha Allah_, things will progress more favourably."
Abdul left his master. He had learned all that he wanted to know. The
Effendi did not love the harlot. He knew now that the woman had
followed Michael, and that she had got wind of the hidden treasure.
When he was alone, he gazed at the shrunken encampment. The white tent
was there no longer; the place was rid of the woman and her luxuries.
Had she decamped with two ends in view--to get away from the infected
spot and to anticipate the Effendi in his search?
"_Gehenna!_" he said again. "I did not tell the honourable Effendi
that the linen sheets in which the saint slept last night belonged to
the _Sitt_--that they are packed with her clothes which she will wear
again! She has made her own bed--let her sleep in it. Hassan will see
to that."
The distance of the flat desert had obliterated Millicent's cavalcade.
Was it journeying towards civilization, hurrying from the plague-spot
in the desert, or was it going to the hills behind Akhnaton's city?
When Michael had hurried to the saint the night before and had shown
himself totally fearless and unmindful of his own welfare, the saint
had implored him to leave him. He knew the danger and the awfulness of
smallpox; he knew the risk the Englishman was running.
When Michael made him understand that he had no intention of leaving
him, that he was going to wait for him until he was better, the sick
man was overwhelmed with gratitude. He told Michael that he would show
him, if Allah permitted, the place in the hills where the hidden
treasure lay. But in case it should please the Giver of Death to allow
His servant to look upon the beauty of His face (which was the sick
man's way of saying in case he should die), he would beg of the Effendi
to listen to what he had to tell him.
"While my memory is clear, while the All-Merciful permits me to speak
to the Effendi, I will instruct him, the treasure shall be his."
Had the saint's instructions been passed on to Millicent's ears? Were
her fast-moving camels bearing her to the crocks of fine gold and the
wealth of jewels which the hermit of el-Azhar had visualized?
The fate of every man hangs round his neck. If Allah had willed it?
CHAPTER VII
The saint was dead. At dawn his soul had passed into _Barzakh_, or the
second world, the intermediate state between the present life and the
resurrection.
While administering to him, Abdul's anxious ears heard the ominous
rattle in the dying man's throat, he turned his face Mecca-wards and
reverently closed his eyes. At the same moment the faithful who had
gathered round him--among whom were some of the inhabitants of the
Bedouin village, for the presence of the hermit-saint in the
foreigner's camp was known--in one voice acclaimed ecstatically:
"Allah! Allah! There is no strength nor power but in God. To God we
belong, to Him we must return! God have mercy on him. _La ilaha
illallah_."
His death had taken place one hour before sunrise; it was now one hour
before sunset and Michael was sitting on a little knoll in the desert,
watching the mourners return from the funeral of the holy man. It was
a very simple affair, far different from the splendid ceremony which
would have been accorded him if he had died near a city or of a less
contagious malady. There were no hired mourners, no fine trappings on
the bier, no wild women whose quavering "joy-cries" (_zaghareet_) rent
the air with their shrill voices.
The little procession which followed the emaciated corpse to its last
resting-place in God's wide acre of sand and sky was composed of
sincere mourners. The corpse had been wrapped in white muslin and
enclosed in a white linen bag. When devout pilgrims or pious Moslems
go on a lengthy journey, they usually carry their grave-cloths with
them. The saint had not provided himself with even his shroud. As a
favoured of God, the clothes in which he would be buried would be
forthcoming; he took no thought for the morrow. All his life, by
Allah's guidance, men had provided for his simple wants. A
hermit-saint is never without his devotees. As a _welee_ he was worthy
of a costly funeral, but the nature of his death demanded immediate
burial. His fame would follow after. Michael knew that probably some
day a white tomb, like a miniature mosque, would mark the spot where
his bones had been laid to rest. And to that tomb, a conspicuous
object in the flat desert, with its white dome silhouetted against the
deep blue sky, devout pilgrims would travel, for many generations.
Michael had not attended the funeral. He had consulted Abdul and they
had come to the conclusion that it would be wiser for him, as a
professing Christian, not to be present at the actual religious
ceremony. From a raised spot in the desert he had seen all that had
taken place. In accordance with Moslem superstition, the funeral had
been before sunset. All Moslems dislike a dead body remaining in the
house overnight; it is always, when circumstances permit, buried in the
evening of the day on which death has taken place.
Abdul had told Michael that the dead man would, in all probability,
guide the bearers to the exact spot where they were to bury him; if
they were going in the wrong direction he would impel them to stop.
Michael had watched with interest to see if this would take place, if
the bearers halted or altered their course. Evidently the saint was
pleased with the spot they had selected, for they journeyed on
unhaltingly until they were lost to sight.
And now the little procession was returning, in the fading sunlight.
The holy man's emaciated frame, enclosed in its white bag, lay under
the golden sand of the eastern desert.
This desert burial seemed to Michael a very simple and beautiful method
of disposing of the dead. The dull chanting of the mourners had lent
an emotional note to the scene. It was a sad little incident, but one
totally free from the ordinary melancholy which attends a Western
burial. For a Moslem, death has little horror. A pilgrim in the
desert, when he knows that his death is approaching, either from
fatigue or exhaustion or some disease, will dig his own grave and lay
himself down in it, covering his body up to his neck with sand. There
he will quietly, with Eastern philosophy, await his end. He knows that
the four winds will bring drifting sand to the spot where his body
lies; it will gather and gather, as it does against any excrescence,
until his body is well covered. In the desert many are the ships that
pass in the night.
The saint had been in Michael's camp for a fortnight and during that
time no other member of the party had developed smallpox. Michael was
in blissful ignorance of the fact that the servant whom he had sent
back to Freddy Lampton's hut in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings,
bearing a letter to Margaret, in which he had told her everything that
had happened--not omitting Millicent's visit and her sudden
departure--had never even reached Luxor. He had fallen sick by the way
and had died of smallpox in a desert village. He alone of the whole
party had contracted the disease. The letter which he carried was
burned by the _sheikh_ of the village, a wise and cautious man, who had
been called in to give his advice as to the treatment of the infectious
traveller. A _sheikh's_ duties are many and varied; he is indeed the
father of his village. The traveller had, of course, gone to the
hostel or rest-house for travellers in the village, where he was
entitled to one night's rest and food.
It was during the long, anxious days when the saint hovered between
life and death that the true hospitality of the Bedouin camp was put to
the test. And it was not wanting; whatever was theirs to give they
gave with a beautiful hospitality. It was to them a pleasure and
satisfaction; Allah be praised that they were able to render any
service to the holy man and to help the stranger who had shown him so
great an act of charity. Eggs and milk and the flesh of young kids
they had in abundance, and these offerings they sent to the camp in
such quantities that Michael felt embarrassed and overwhelmed. Michael
knew that they are not a devout people, but in this instance their
instinctive hospitality, stimulated by their superstitions, served in
place of blind obedience to the teachings of the Koran, in which the
rules set forth on the subject of charity are splendid and far-reaching.
The little figure with the silver disc and the protruding "tummy" had
become quite a familiar sight in his camp; it came and went with the
nervous agility of an antelope.
On this evening, as Michael watched the party of mourners drawing
nearer and nearer to the camp, he tried to understand their thoughts.
He knew that each one of them believed exactly the same thing; their
spiritual ideas never strayed one letter from the Koran; their minds
had never thought for themselves--it would have been rank heresy so to
do. They were as certain now as though they had seen it there that the
saint's soul was in Barzakh. It had left this, the first world, the
world of earning and of the "first creation," the world where man earns
his reward for the good or bad deeds which he has done. In Barzakh the
saint would have a bright and luminous body, for such is the reward of
the pious.
Was not this in keeping with the luminous appearance of Meg's vision?
Abdul had often told Michael that he himself had seen in this, the
"first world," the spirits of both evil and right doers, and that the
spirits of the evildoers were black and smoky, whereas the spirits of
the pious were luminous as a full moon.
Michael envied the completeness of their belief, even while he pitied
them. They had evolved nothing for themselves; their salvation was
merely a matter of obeying the teachings of the Koran unquestioningly.
Obedience and surrender were their watchwords. How much better were
Akhnaton's "Love and the Companionship of God"! To walk and talk with
God, how much more enjoyable, how much more edifying to man's higher
self, than the mere obeying of His laws! Even though they prayed,
these simple Moslems, five times a day, they never recognized God's
voice in the song of the birds: they did not know that it was He Who
was singing--the birds were His mediums. In the winds of the desert,
heaven's wireless messengers, they caught no messages. What the Koran
did not specify did not enter into their religion or spiritual
understanding.
Abdul approached his master. The saint was buried and the procession
of the faithful had gone to perform their various tasks; it was now
time to return to practical matters. Michael was amazed at his
cheerful expression. Abdul asked his master if it would suit him to
continue their journey the next day. Would he give instructions?
Michael assented. A little of his ardour had vanished. "Yes, Abdul,"
he said. "I suppose we must be going on our way. It is sad to leave
this camp, where we have witnessed such a wonderful example of humility
and singleness of purpose. Don't you shrink from leaving him to such
utter desolation?"
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, but you know there is joy for us all, not sadness.
The beloved ones of God do not die with their physical death, for they
have their means of sustenance with them."
"In the second world, Abdul, is your saint already tasting the joys of
paradise?"
"_Aiwah_, Effendi. Punishments and rewards are bestowed immediately
after death, and those whose proper place is hell are brought to hell,
while those who deserve paradise are brought to paradise."
"Then in the third world, what greater rewards are there than the
pleasures of paradise? Surely that is infinite happiness?"
"The manifestation of the highest glory of God--that is the supreme
reward, Effendi, the meeting of God face to face."
"Then in paradise, in the second world, the saint will not yet see God?"
"_La_, Effendi. The day of resurrection is the day of the complete
manifestation of God's glory, when everyone shall become perfectly
aware of the existence of God. On that day every person shall have a
complete and open reward for his actions. He shall actually see God."
Michael's thoughts flew to the vision of Akhnaton. If the luminous
state was significant of Barzakh, or the second world, perhaps it was
only during that period that the spirits were able to return to earth.
He was never forgetful of the fact that in Eternity time cannot be
measured, yet three thousand years spent in the second world seemed to
his human mind a long time of waiting!
They were walking together towards the camp.
"_Aiwah_, Effendi," Abdul said, "to-morrow we depart at dawn?--the
weather grows hotter."
"Yes, Abdul, at dawn. I will be ready--never fear."
"Has the Effendi ever allowed himself to think that the honourable
_Sitt_ who left him two weeks ago may have journeyed to the hidden
treasure?"
Michael stared. "No, Abdul, no, I have never thought of such a thing."
"The Effendi has a beautiful mind. The beloved saint, whom Allah has
seen fit to remove from our sight, had a heart no more free from evil."
"But, Abdul. . . ." Michael stopped. His mind was suddenly filled
with new thoughts. Abdul's suggestion had opened up a deep chasm of
ugly suspicions; his whole being seemed to have fallen into it. Abdul
waited.
"Madam was terrified--she was flying from the danger of smallpox. She
would think of nothing but of getting safely back to civilization, I
feel certain."
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, but the honourable _Sitt_ has a woman's soul, and a
woman's soul has often been sold for gold and jewels and much fine
raiment."
"That is true, Abdul."
Had not Millicent stooped to the lowest means of trapping him and of
obtaining the information she desired? If she could do the one deed,
why not the other?
But the idea was absurd. She was so totally ignorant of the geography
of the desert. She had had no more idea of where she was going than a
blind kitten. He reminded Abdul of the fact.
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, but the honourable _Sitt_ had a spy in her camp. I
have seen him at his work."
"What could he have discovered? You, I know, never discuss my
affairs--we have never even talked of them together."
Abdul salaamed. "My master's secrets are his servant's."
"Then how could he find out?"
"Tents have ears, Effendi. The saint's voice was weak, but not too
weak for the super-ears of a spy. When the saint told the Effendi,
very secretly and minutely, how to find the hidden treasure, on that
night when he knew that Allah had decreed his death, Abdul was also
playing the part of a spy. He saw the servant of the honourable
_Sitt_, he saw his ear, and how it was placed at a little aperture in
the sick man's tent."
Michael was silent for a few seconds.
"_Ma lesh_! The Effendi need not trouble too much. I did not tell
him--there was nothing to be gained by causing my master unhappiness."
"I am not troubling, Abdul. If it has been so willed that I am to
discover Akhnaton's treasure, even the spy of the cleverest woman on
earth will not prevent it. I am fatalist enough for that, Abdul!"
"The Effendi is wise. Avarice destroys what the avaricious gathers.
Allah will reward the spy according to his merits."
Michael smiled. "I'm afraid it is more my nature than my piety which
makes it easy for me to resign myself to the inevitable."
"_Ma lesh_! The Effendi understates his obedience to God's will--there
is much good in patiently tolerating what you dislike."
"There's another way of expressing the same thing, Abdul--Effendi
Lampton calls it 'drifting.' I am too like the desert sands, he
thinks. I am without ambition, I too easily accept what seems to me
the deciding finger of fate."
"Content is prosperity, Effendi."
"And we say that God helps those who help themselves."
"_Aiwah_." Abdul smiled. "Our rendering of the proverb is more
beautiful--'God helps us so long as we help each other.' The Effendi
showed much charity--he helps others rather than himself."
"My help was unworthy of mention, the merest human sympathy for the
helpless and suffering. Who could have done less?"
"We consider sympathy the next best thing to a proper belief in God,
sympathy for others." Abdul bowed. "The Effendi has much sympathy--he
himself is not aware of how much."
"Thank you, Abdul, but I do believe in God. I believe in Him so fully
and unreservedly that I often wonder why I am not a good man.
Sometimes I am not so bad, or I think I am not, for I am very conscious
of Him, He is very near to me. At other times the world is a
wilderness and God is very far."
"We are never far from God, Effendi. We cannot be. He is closer to us
than the hairs of our head, there is nothing nearer than God."
"I know that, Abdul, I know it, but yet these lapses come. I feel
alone, abandoned, useless, my life purposeless, wasted."
"A man has no choice, Effendi, in settling the aims of his life. He
does not enter the world or leave it as he desires. The true aim of
his life consists in the knowing and worshipping of God and living for
His sake. Our Holy Book says, 'Verily the religion which gives a true
knowledge of God and directs in the most excellent way of His worship
is Islam. Islam responds to and supplies the demands of human nature,
and God has created man after the model of Islam and for Islam. He has
willed it that man should devote his faculties to the love, obedience
and worship of God, for it is for this reason that Almighty God has
granted him faculties which are suited to Islam.'"
Michael listened with reverent attention. He knew that Abdul was
conferring a special favour on him in that he was actually quoting the
very words of the Holy Koran to a Christian. As a matter of fact,
Abdul had ceased to think of Michael as a Christian--from his Moslem
point of view, as an enemy of Islam. He rather considered his
condition as that of one who was searching for the Light and would
eventually enjoy the perfection of Islam. He knew that Michael did not
divide the honours of the one and only God; he believed, as Moslems
believe, that the Effendi Jesus was not the Son of God, but a prophet
to whom God had revealed Himself.
When they parted for the night, Abdul was again the practical servant,
the excellent dragoman. By dawn the camp would be on its way to its
objective, the hills beyond the outline of the lost "City of the
Horizon." Abdul, the visionary and the pious Moslem, was as keen about
reaching Akhnaton's treasure as Pizarro was obsessed with the reports
of the wealth of Peru.
For half of that short night Michael tried unsuccessfully to sleep. He
needed rest, for it had been a trying and eventful day, beginning with
the saint's death and ending with his solemn and picturesque burial.
Sleep was indeed very far from him. His brain was too excited; his
nerves were beginning to feel the strain of the dry desert air. The
moment he closed his eyes he could see the emaciated frame of the dying
saint as he had last seen him, a few hours before his death. He could
hear with extraordinary persistence the cries of "Allah! Allah! There
is no strength nor power but in God. To God we belong, to Him we must
return." The words had never left the desert stillness; the air held
them and repeated them time after time.
He could see Abdul reverently pull the eyelids over the death-glazed
eyes; he could see the weeping mourners perform the last ceremonies for
the dead saint.
Then the scene would change to the one he had watched in the
evening--the white figures, with blue scarves of mourning wound round
their heads, bearing the saint reverently across the golden sands.
How tender it had all been, how vivid the clear, open light of
uninterrupted space and cloudless sky!
And now it was all over. He had met the holy man who was to lead him
to the secret spot where the treasure lay; he had heard from his lips
the account of how he had accidentally come across the crocks of gold,
when he had made for himself a dwelling-place in a cave in the heart of
the hills. The crocks were full of blocks of Nubian gold; the jewels
were in caskets which had fallen to pieces, even before his eyes, when
the winds of the desert had reached them.
Was it all a wonderful dream? Had he really in his possession the
crimson amethyst, of Oriental beauty, which the saint had carried in
his ear? Was it locked in the belt-purse which he wore under his
clothes by day and laid under his pillow by night? He put his hand
below his pillow and opened the purse; no doubt his fingers would feel
the jewel. But what was there to tell him that it was really there,
that he was not the victim of some strange hallucination? Thoughts
were things. Had he thought about this treasure until it had become to
him an actual reality?
Then vision after vision was forced upon his sight--Millicent in her
varying moods, the saint's ecstasies, the now familiar figures of the
Bedouin, bearing their offerings to the sick man, their polite and
beautiful expressions as they laid the eggs and milk at his feet. He
got so tired of the visualizing and recitation of all that he had seen
and heard during the days which he had spent in anxious uncertainty
that he could endure it no longer.
He got up and lit his candle; things would seem more real in the light.
He stretched out his hand for the book which always lay near his bed.
The Open Road, his Bible and this little volume of selected verse
constituted his desert library. He wanted a poem which would
completely transfer his thoughts from the throbbing present, which
would change the arid desert and limitless space into green England,
with its enclosing hedges and leafy woods. His nerves were jaded; they
needed the relaxation of moderation. Knowing almost every poem in the
volume, he quickly found Bliss Carman's "Ode to the Daisies." His mind
recited it even before his eyes saw the words:
"Over the shoulders and slopes to the dune
I saw the white daisies go down to the sea,
A host in the sunshine, an army in June,
The people God sends us to set our hearts free."
He read the next verse and then turned to Wordsworth's immortal lines:
"I wandered lonely as a cloud . . ."
He read the poem through, although he knew each dear, familiar word of
it. Reading it helped his powers of concentration. It was amazing how
quickly the suggestion of the words soothed him. As clearly as he had
seen all the events of the day repeating themselves, he now saw the
host of golden daffodils,
"Beside the lake, beneath the trees."
They obliterated the desert, with its immortal voices, its passionate
appeals. He was no longer wandering lonely as a cloud. He was happy,
he was one with the dancing daffodils, as he watched them
"Tossing their heads in sprightly dance."
To how many weary minds has the poem brought the same solace, the same
spiritual refreshment?
"Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze."
His fingers relaxed their hold on the book. It dropped from his hand.
Margaret stood among the daffodils, Margaret, with her steadfast eyes
and dark-brown head, Margaret calling to him in the breeze.
* * * * * *
At dawn, when Abdul came to wake his master, he found the candle still
burning. It was a little bit of wick floating in melted grease, like a
light in a saint's tomb. The book which the Effendi had been reading
had fallen to the floor.
Abdul looked at his master anxiously. He must have been reading very
late. Why had he not been asleep? He ought to have refreshed himself
for his long journey. For many days past he had looked tired and
anxious.
Abdul folded his hands while he looked at the sleeping Michael.
"_Al hamdu lillah_ (thank God)," he said. "The Effendi has been in
pleasant company."
CHAPTER VIII
The camp had moved on. Two days had passed since the saint had been
laid to rest. They were now making for a rock-village, which would
take them slightly out of their direct route, but from Abdul's account
of the place Michael thought that the delay would be well worth while.
A short extension of their journey could make but little difference to
the finding of the treasure.
The village was a subterranean one; its streets and dwelling-houses
were cut out of the desert-rock. It had been inhabited by desert
people since immemorial times. Obviously its origin had been for
secrecy and security. Fugitives had probably made it and lived in it
just as the early Christians, during their period of persecution, lived
in the catacombs in Rome.
Michael had been far from well for some days past. Abdul was anxious
about his health. There had been no fresh cases of smallpox in the
camp and Michael's present condition indicated a touch of fever rather
than any contagious malady. He often felt sick; he was easily tired
and his excellent powers of sleeping had deserted him.
He was troubled about Margaret. He had neither heard from her nor was
he certain that she had received any of his letters. During the
saint's illness he had written her two letters, which his friends at
the Bedouin camp had promised to deliver to the next desert
mail-carrier who passed their hamlet. He had sent a runner to the
village to which he had told Margaret that she was to write. The
runner returned, bearing no letter.
It was consistent with native etiquette that he should pay a visit to
the _omdeh_ of the subterranean village, which he wished to pass
through. Abdul had a slight acquaintance with him and, being more than
a little anxious about his master's health, he thought that Michael's
visit to him might prove of value should any serious illness overtake
him.
It was about three o'clock in the afternoon when they arrived at the
entrance of the village, an uninviting underground labyrinth, where the
sun never penetrated and where men, women and children lived in homes
cut out of the virgin rock. It was, of course, necessary to leave
their camels and go through the village on foot. Abdul told the
servants that he alone would go with his master; they were to meet them
in the desert at the other entrance to the village.
As Michael followed the tall figure of Abdul through the narrow
streets, which were as dark as railway tunnels, he felt horribly sick.
He was well accustomed to the torment of Egyptian flies, but these
particular flies belonged to the order of things whose deeds, being
evil, loved darkness. They covered his face and hands the very moment
after he had shaken them off. Do what he would, he could not keep them
away from the corners of his mouth or from going up his nostrils.
"Abdul," he said, "this gives one a new vision of hell. Look at those
disgusting children!" He pointed to the groups of pale mites, with
yellow skins and frail bodies, who were paying like puppies in the
garbage of the narrow pathway; their faces were covered with large
black house-flies--they hung in clusters from their eyes and ears and
from the corners of their mouths.
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, but these people will live in no other surroundings.
They prefer this darkness, this unwholesome atmosphere."
"And these awful flies?"
"_Aiwah_, Effendi. They seldom go up to see the sky; perhaps they have
never sung to the moon."
"To every bird his nest is home, Abdul."
"_Aiwah_, Effendi. But I will take you to the _Omdeh's_ house--we
shall soon be out of this."
"Is his house amongst these hovels?" Michael pointed to one
particularly dark cavern. Unlike the ordinary desert peoples, the
women were veiled; only their dark eyes were visible to the stranger
whom they flocked to see. They showed great surprise when Michael
spoke to one of the men in fluent Arabic.
At Michael's suggestion that the _Omdeh's_ house would be like one of
the cave-houses, Abdul had flung back his head. His smile was
scornful; a little annoyance was perceptible in his voice.
"_La_, Effendi. The _Omdeh's_ house is like a bower in paradise. The
Effendi will enjoy a cup of caravan-tea and a long rest in the cool
orchard, where water flows and caged birds sing."
"He has an orchard in a cavern like this!" Michael steadied himself by
catching hold of Abdul's staff; he had almost fallen over a baby.
"_Aiwah_, Effendi. The _Omdeh_ does not live in the rocks, like the
bats. His house is just outside the village. He is very rich--he owns
many camels and much cotton and he has a date-farm. He is entitled to
three wives."
"Very well, Abdul. I put myself in your hands." Michael sighed.
"This village makes me feel rather sick--the whole thing is too
horrible, too sad--God's blue sky just up above, and His sweet, clean
desert sand, and down here this living death, these idle, dirty women,
these sickly, fly-covered babies."
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, it is custom." Abdul shrugged his shoulders. "Did
the Effendi not say that to every bird his nest is home? These women
were born here, their children will grow up here, they will have their
children here. It is their home."
"We must get out of it, Abdul. I can't stand it any longer!" Michael
tried to walk faster. "If I had only a fly-switch! I can't keep the
beasts out of my mouth--it's disgusting!"
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, I told you it was not a wholesome village. I
assured the Effendi it would be wiser for him only to pay his respects
to the _Omdeh_ and not to pass through his village." Abdul darted into
one of the houses, whose open front was flush with the rock-wall of the
street, which was simply a tunnel in a vast rock; he returned with a
palm-leaf fan; a half-piastre had purchased it. He fanned his master
with it until he saw the colour return to his cheeks. "The Effendi is
better?"
"Thank you, Abdul, I am all right. It was only this stifling
atmosphere, and I've been feeling a bit off colour for the last few
days--my usual powers of sleep have deserted me."
"The Effendi has some trouble on his mind?"
"That is true, Abdul, but the trouble would not be there if I was
feeling quite my usual self--I could banish it."
"The Effendi's heart must not be distracted."
"I have received no letters from the Valley, Abdul. What do you think
has happened?"
"The Effendi must not ask for things impossible."
"I suppose not, Abdul. When I left the Valley I agreed that I should
not expect to receive letters--they were not to write unless there were
things taking place which I ought to know, yet my heart is troubled--I
have written so often."
"May the Effendi's servant know the cause of his master's unrest? Will
he permit two hearts to bear the burden?"
"I should feel at rest if I was certain that the Effendi Lampton had
received my letter, if I knew that scandal had not been carried to the
hut." Michael paused. "I wished to be the first to tell him that
Madam was a member of our camp, that I met her unexpectedly, that fear
sent her away. My happiness depended upon his answer, upon his
absolute belief in my explanation."
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, Abdul understands. The situation has
complications--ill news travels apace."
"I should not like the _Sitt_ to hear from other sources that Madam was
with us."
"But your letter should have reached the hut by this time, Effendi."
"Has there been time to get an answer? Do you believe my letter
reached Effendi Lampton, Abdul?" Michael asked the question
interestedly. Had this seer any second knowledge on the subject? Had
he the conviction that in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings there
was no misgiving, no fear, that Margaret's heart was undisturbed?
Abdul knew what his master meant, but with his native dislike of giving
an unpleasant answer when a pleasant one would serve, he parried the
question.
"The honourable _Sitt_ has a noble nature, a clean heart. She is not
like Madam. The Effendi's thoughts make his own unhappiness, they are
not the thoughts of the gracious lady. The thoughts that come from her
travel on angel's wings; they gave the Effendi dreams last night."
"You are right, Abdul. Ah, thank goodness!" Michael gave an
exclamation of pleasure; he had caught a glint of sunshine, had felt a
breath of desert air. The Living Aton was penetrating the rat-pit.
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, that is the exit of the village. The _Omdeh's_
house is not far off--in less than five minutes the Effendi will be
reposing in his cool _selamlik_, his throat refreshed with caravan tea."
In a native house the _selamlik_ is a spacious room or summerhouse, set
apart for the receiving of guests. To Michael the _Omdeh's selamlik_
seemed like a foretaste of paradise. The _Omdeh_ was a courteous old
gentleman, who played the part of host and government official with a
simple dignity and friendly hospitality.
The open front of the _selamlik_ faced a beautiful orange orchard; low
seats, comfortably cushioned, ran round its three walls. The _Omdeh_
sat on his feet on his _mastaba_. His splendid turban and flowing
white robes gave him the appearance of a _Kadi_ dispensing justice from
his throne. Abdul and Michael reclined on the seat which faced him.
They had both been presented with an elaborate fly-switch, whose
handles were decorated with bright beads.
The old man was astonished and delighted to find that Michael could
speak Arabic. He was an intelligent, well-read man and something of a
politician, an ardent supporter of the British rule in Egypt. He was
greatly interested in all that Michael could tell him relating to the
news from the outer world.
In his turn, he expressed his regret that more trouble was not taken to
suppress the secret, seditious, and anti-English propaganda which was
being taught and preached in the desert schools and mosques.
"Where they started, no man knows," he said. "Nevertheless, Effendi,
their headquarters is 'somewhere.'" He smiled the peculiar smile of
the Eastern, so baffling to the Western mind. "The English are without
suspicion, Effendi; they trust everyone."
Michael expressed his ignorance as to what he alluded to. Was he
referring to the Nationalist Party in Egypt?
"They do not know their worst enemies, Effendi. They tolerate the
presence of mischief-makers, who seduce the ignorant. And these
strangers are clever, Effendi, they spare no trouble. In the mosques
and the schools they are teaching, or causing to be taught, strange and
new ideas. No village is too far off for this propaganda to reach. It
is well to believe in others as we would be believed in ourselves,
Effendi, but England is like the ostrich which buries its head in the
sand. I grieve to tell the Effendi these truths."
To Michael the man's words rang with the truth of conviction. They
suggested a new danger to British rule in Egypt. And yet he had heard
nothing of the unrest to which he alluded while he was in Luxor or in
Cairo; it seemed to flourish in the desert. When he questioned the old
man, he became as secret as an oyster; what he definitely knew he did
not mean to present to every passing stranger.
While they had been talking, Michael had enjoyed countless small cups
of tea. It was so good and fragrant that he realized that for the
first time he had drunk tea as it was meant to be drunk. He understood
how greatly it deteriorates by crossing the ocean; this tea had
journeyed all the way to the _Omdeh's_ house by caravan; it had been
brought overland by the old trade-route.
When Michael had rested he began the lengthy preliminaries of saying
good-bye. The _Omdeh_ would not hear of his going; he invited him to
visit his orchard, a beautiful Eden of fruits and exotic flowers,
abundantly irrigated by rivulets of clear water. The contrast between
this emerald patch, where golden globes of fruit were still hanging
from some of the orange-trees, struck Michael as flagrantly cruel. The
_Omdeh_, because of his wealth and social position, was living in a
cool, well-built house, surrounded by all that was fresh and fair, an
ideal home; yet, not a stone's throw from his secluded orchard and cool
_selamlik_, were the narrow streets, littered over with filthy
children, encrusted with scabs and black with flies! An overwhelming
pity for the ignorant, subterranean people, who were content to live
like rats in their holes, filled his soul. How could the _Omdeh_
permit it? He seemed kind and he knew that he was intelligent.
Probably when the poor were in trouble they instinctively came to him;
he administered the affairs of the village, no doubt, with scrupulous
impartiality. In this ancient and conservative land it was simply a
part of his inherited belief and tradition that such extremes would
always exist, that the condition of these people was the condition of
which they were worthy, that it was no man's business but their own.
They were in Allah's hands. If He willed it, He would help them to
rise above it. Our wants make us poor--these men and women had no
wants; they were not poor.
It was with much difficulty that Michael at last bade his host adieu,
an adieu of abounding phraseology and grace of speech. The _Omdeh_,
with native hospitality, had tried to persuade his guest to remain with
him for some days, or if he could not do that, to at least do honour to
his humble house by spending one night in it. If the honourable
Effendi would only remain, he would tell his servant to kill a sheep
and have it roasted; he would send for a noted dancer, to beguile the
later hours of the evening; he would have his four gazelles brought to
the _selamlik_ and Michael should see how beautifully they ran and
jumped--they were of a very rare species, much admired by all who could
appreciate their points.
To all these inducements Michael turned a deaf ear, even to the last, a
blind musician, whose _'ood_ playing was greatly celebrated. It was
not easy to refuse these pressing inducements, which were all put
before Michael with the elaborate charm of Arabic speech. It was he
who was to confer the pleasure by remaining; it was he who was to be
unselfish and bestow so unexpected and great a pleasure on his humble
host.
Determined to get on his way that same afternoon, Michael hardened his
heart. He told the _Omdeh_ that Abdul had arranged that they were to
travel to within one day's journey of their destination that same day;
their camp would be in readiness. On the following day Abdul and he
were to leave the servants in charge of the camp and start out on the
last portion of their journey. They were now but one day and a half
from the Promised Land.
Michael had agreed with Abdul that their secret must not be divulged,
that the servants must remain in ignorance of the real purpose of their
tour. They imagined that it was to visit the ancient Pharaoh's tomb.
Just as they were leaving the orchard the _Omdeh_ said: "There have
been strange rumours afloat, Effendi. Men say that a wealth of buried
treasure has been discovered in the hills to which you are travelling.
Is it known to you?"
"Indeed?" Michael said evasively. "What sort of treasure? Do the
authorities know of it? Who has discovered it?" He managed to speak
calmly and without emotion.
The _Omdeh_ threw back his head. "It is not worth a wise man's breath
inquiring. It is but one of the many foolish fables which travel with
the winds." He shrugged his shoulders.
"What started the rumour? Where did it originate? There is generally
some fire where there's smoke."
"Where do such things have their birth? It is no easier to discover
than the birthchamber of the anti-British propaganda in Egypt, Effendi."
"You do not attach any belief to the rumour?"
"_La_, Effendi. Who would believe that men are standing knee-deep in
jewels and precious stones, and that there is enough gold to build
three mosques in these hills, so near the village?"
Michael laughed. He remembered the reports which had been spread
abroad about the wealth of Freddy's find. One Englishman had heard
that Freddy had been wading ankle-deep in priceless scarabs and jewels
and gold collars and necklaces.
"You may well laugh, Effendi. The poor and ignorant will believe
anything. I must see the jewels first."
Michael wondered what he would say if he showed him the crimson
amethyst which had had its second hiding-place in the saint's ear.
"But who is reported to have found this King Solomon's mine?"
"Some poor man, whom no one has seen or spoken to--every man who tells
you the fairy-tale has heard it from his trusted friend, from a
reliable source. I never believe in these trusted friends, or any
reliable source but my own eyes. And even then, with the wise, seeing
isn't always believing."
Michael stole an unseen glance at Abdul. His face was as
expressionless as a death-mask. The report appeared to him to be
beneath contempt. He politely warned his master that the sun was not
so high in the heavens; they had many hours to travel.
When they were out of hearing and all the polite good-byes had been
spoken--a proceeding which is always a trying one to the impatient
traveller--Michael and Abdul talked together in low accents and in
English. What had the _Omdeh's_ news really meant?
In Abdul's heart there was little doubt as to who had found it, if
there was any truth in the rumour. Even if they divided the wealth of
the treasure by a hundred, and made all due allowances for native
exaggeration, it still seemed as though the treasure was one of unusual
importance.
"Then you believe there is truth in the report that the treasure has
been found, Abdul?"
"Who but the spy of Madam could have known of it, Effendi? and
certainly this rumour is disturbing."
"Some natives might have hit upon it by accident. Such things have
happened before."
"_Aiwah_, Effendi." Abdul smiled his unbelieving, unpleasant smile.
"Just at this particular time, after all these thousands of years, the
coincidence would indeed be strange."
"Then you believe, Abdul, that Madam has anticipated us? that she has
secured the treasure?"
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, I do, if there is any truth in the story. And if
there is not, it is very strange that such a rumour should have been
started at this moment."
"I agree," Michael said. "And yet something in my heart tells me that
Madam has not done the deed."
"The little voice, Effendi, it is always true, it knows. If the little
voice counsels, always obey it."
"It tells me, Abdul, that in this one instance Madam is innocent. I
agree with you that if the treasure has been found, it is passing
strange and points only to one thing. And yet, if I was to lay my hand
on the Holy Book and swear my belief, it would not be that she was
guilty of this piece of treachery."
"If Madam has not anticipated the Effendi, then the treasure is intact!
The rumour is false. It is strange what wonderful treasures have
melted into thin air before this, Effendi. I have known of dealers in
_antikas_ travelling for days without end, only to find . . .!" Abdul
threw back his head.
"A mare's nest," Michael said. "That is what we call it, Abdul."
"A good expression, Effendi." In Abdul's heart there was anger and
chagrin. Had the harlot outwitted them? Was she even now in
possession of the jewels and gold which the saint had discovered, which
he himself had clearly visualized?
A beatific smile lit up his face. If the woman had lain in the sheets
which had made the sick man's bed, not all the jewels of the Orient or
the gold of Ophir would now make her hideous face pleasing in the sight
of men! What would her emeralds and topazes and cornelians be worth?
They would only mock her pox-pitted face!
In Abdul's Moslem heart there was no pity. His eyes visualized and
rejoiced in the sight of the treacherous woman's spoilt beauty. She
had earned his hatred, and she had had it ever since the moment when
she had spoken scornfully of the saint, a hatred which had grown and
flourished like the Biblical bay-tree. To despise a Christian--and
more especially a Christian woman--was in keeping with his Oriental
mind and Moslem training; he despised Millicent not only as a woman and
a Christian, but as a harlot. No evil which he could do to her would
inflict the least shame upon his own soul. The contemplation of what
her misery would be when she discovered that she was sickening for the
smallpox afforded him a gratifying pleasure. He had drunk deeply of
the cup of hate; it was not tempered with camphor.
* * * * * *
When they pitched their camp that night, Michael felt weary and
depressed. A physical lassitude, which he had found it increasingly
difficult to fight against for the last two days, overwhelmed him. He
was glad to go to bed and try to sleep. His efforts met with little
success; he felt horribly wide awake and acutely conscious of the
smallest sound.
When at last sleep came to him, it did little to give him the rest he
required, or to restore peace to his nerves, for his dreams were a
vivid repetition, horribly exaggerated, of his journey through the
subterranean village. He had lost his way; he was wandering through
the airless arteries of the village. His body was covered with
house-flies; his nose and ears tickled with them; they crawled into the
corners of his mouth; scabs had broken out on his face and body. No
little child in the street was a more hideous and loathsome object than
he felt himself to be.
* * * * * *
No child was ever more pleased to see its mother than Michael was to
see Abdul, when he came to wake him and remind him that that same
evening they ought to reach the hills, and prove that the _Omdeh's_
rumour about the treasure was either false or true. Never for one
instant had Abdul doubted the vision; he had never considered the fact
that there might never have been any treasure at all. His second
sight--his truer sight--had seen it. That was sufficient.
Michael felt strangely disinclined to exert himself to get up and ride
from sunrise until sundown. It seemed to him a task which he could
never fulfil. But Abdul was obviously full of suppressed excitement.
He was eager for his master to bestir himself and show something of his
usual enthusiasm and vitality. The _Omdeh's_ story had sorely
disturbed him.
"I will be ready, Abdul," Michael said. "Make me some strong coffee."
"_Aiwah_, Effendi."
"Very strong, Abdul!"
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, very strong."
CHAPTER IX
In the Valley where the Pharaohs sleep, below the smiling hills, the
heat and the power of the sun were becoming an actual danger. The best
working hours were those which began at dawn and terminated at eleven
o'clock.
In the early summer, for Egypt knows no spring, as it knows no
twilight, the heat compels even the natives to abandon work during the
hottest hours of the day. The sun is at its most dangerous point in
the sky at three o'clock in the afternoon; at that hour, as the season
advances, little exposed work can be done.
One particularly hot afternoon Margaret was waiting for her brother to
come to tea. She had always contrived to keep their sitting-room fresh
and cool by closing its windows and drawing down wet blinds before the
sun got a chance of entering it. The windows were kept open all night.
She had tried almost every possible device--and had been very
successful--for excluding "the brightness of Aton" from their home.
If the windows were left open after sunrise, an army of flies too great
to combat would invade the room, and ten minutes of sunshine would warm
the room for the whole day. If the sun never penetrated it and the
windows were kept open during the chilly hours of the night, it was
always an agreeable and refreshing place to enter after a long spell in
the blinding sunlight. It was so essential for Freddy's health that he
should have a cool, dark room to rest in, that Margaret gave the
subject her best care and unremitting attention.
The dryness of the air in Upper Egypt can hardly be imagined by those
who have not experienced it.
Margaret had heard the overseer's whistle; she knew that work was
suspended for some hours. A beautiful sense of order and neatness had
been developed out of the mess of debris and broken rocks which had
disfigured the site of the tomb, and some new chambers had been cleared
and examined.
When Freddy appeared, Margaret asked him a few questions about his
work. Had he heard from the experts who were examining the skull and
bones of the mummy? Freddy answered her absently and half-heartedly.
"No, not yet--no report has come. Let's have some tea, first, before
we talk--my throat's bone dry."
Meg was conscious of some constraint, some anxiety in his manner.
Freddy's silence could be very eloquent. She gave him his tea and
administered to his wants. For some days he had had a little touch of
diarrhoea, the result of a slight cold caught during one of the quick
falls of temperature which take place in Upper Egypt. Margaret knew
that in Egypt diarrhoea must never be neglected, for it too often leads
to dysentery. She had made her brother take the proper remedies, a
gentle aperient followed by concentrated tincture of camphor, and she
had been very careful not to allow him to eat any fatty food or fruit
or meat.
Freddy did not take kindly to a diet of arrowroot or rice boiled in
milk, adulterated with water. This afternoon he looked tired and out
of spirits. Meg wondered if the tiresome complaint had been troubling
him again.
As she handed him the bread and butter she said, "Should you eat
butter, Freddy! Tell me the truth--are you not feeling so well to-day?
Has there been any return of the trouble?"
Freddy looked at her in astonishment. His thoughts were so far removed
from his own health. If abstaining from the flesh of animals and the
eating of fruit would ease his anxiety, he felt that for the rest of
his life, he would never ask for any other food than watery arrowroot.
"I'm perfectly all right. That trouble's quite gone--your care has
done the trick. Thanks awfully."
"Then what is it, Freddy?" Meg laid her hand on his arm, her eyes held
his. If he attempted to deny the fact that there was something on his
mind, she knew that he knew that his eyes could not hide it from her.
"I am bothered about something, Meg. There's an ugly report going
about--I've made up my mind to tell you."
"Report about whom? You?" Meg's eyes showed battle. The Lampton
fighting instinct was roused.
"No, I wish it was about me--I'd soon settle it!" Freddy's eyes were
still searched by his sister's.
"It's about Michael," she said. She rose from her seat. "I have
expected it. I knew it was coming."
"What?" Freddy looked at her in amazement. "You expected it?"
"I felt there was some trouble. I don't know what--I can't even
guess--but I felt it was coming." She stood in front of her brother.
"Out with it, old boy! Tell me the worst at once. Is he dying? Has
he been murdered? I can bear anything except suspense."
"It's something uglier than death, Meg."
"Treachery?"
"Yes, treachery." Freddy thought that Meg meant treachery on her
lover's part. She had thought of treachery from enemies. Had some one
forestalled Michael with the treasure?
He paused. What could he tell her next?
"Oh, go on!" Meg cried. "For heaven's sake, don't spare me! A woman
can stand almost anything, Freddy, anything but uncertainty."
"Can she stand unfaithfulness, Meg, dishonour?" Freddy's eyes dropped.
He could not inflict upon himself the pain which Meg's trusting eyes
would cause him.
A cry rang through the room. "No, not that, not that! Go on, go
on--what more?" As she spoke, she threw up her head. "It's a lie,
Freddy, a hideous lie!"
"I'm afraid there must be some truth in the story, Meg." Freddy's voice
was terrible. It conveyed his reluctant, yet absolute, belief that her
lover was guilty. Before he had finished speaking, another cry rang
through the room. It startled Freddy with its intensity, its rage and
independence.
"I tell you it's a lie! It's not true! And what's more, until I hear
it from his own lips, I will never believe a word of the scandal."
"Poor old chum!" Freddy tried to comfort her with the assurance of his
sympathy.
Meg flashed round upon him. "Don't pity me! Don't dare to pity me!
It's all the basest treachery. I'll have no pity. I don't need it!"
Freddy was silent. It was like Meg not to cry or collapse, as most
girls would have done. She was fighting splendidly for her man, whose
honour was dearer to her than his life. He wished that Michael could
have been there to see her, unworthy though he apparently was of such
unwavering loyalty.
"What is this report?" she asked. Her cheeks were as white as a
blanched almond; her eyes splendidly alight. The excitement of battle
vitalized her. Margaret was beautiful in her wrath.
"I have heard it from several sources that Millicent Mervill joined
Michael in the desert, that she now forms part of his camp, that she
is, in fact, your lover's mistress. I can't have it, chum."
"It's a lie! How can you believe it? A hideous, abominable lie! It's
contemptible of you to listen to it, to give it a moment's
consideration." She shivered. "Oh, these filthy native tongues!"
"I wish I could think so, Meg."
Meg swung round on him and for a moment he thought she was going to
strike him.
"Damn you!" She flashed out the words just as he himself would have
said them. "How dare you say so? He is your friend, he has been
closer to you than a brother! He has no one to defend his name! You
know that he would kill any man who attempted to slander you behind
your back!"
Freddy did not resent her attack. She had done just what he would have
done to any man who had reported any slander against her fair name.
"I know it's awfully hard for you to believe it."
"I don't believe it, Freddy, nor do you!"
"I told you I wished I didn't. The evidence is too clear."
"You haven't told me that you believe it is true. You can't get beyond
the fact that there's ugly gossip going round and that I'm in love with
him. If you thought this was your dying oath, that heaven depended
upon the truth of your statement, can you say that in your soul you
believe that Michael has taken this woman with him, that he is utterly
treacherous and faithless? Does your unconquerable voice condemn him?"
Freddy thought for a moment. "It looks very black, Meg. The evidence
is very convincing."
"Confound the evidence!" she said. "That is not an answer. I asked
you, does your inner self, your super-man, believe absolutely in his
guilt?" Meg was staring at him with hard, questioning eyes; all trace
of her love for him had been driven out.
"Well no, if you put it like that, perhaps not. But I can't have your
name connected with these stories."
"My name?" she cried. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that our women have married straight, clean, honourable men."
"The Lamptons again!" she said. "Am I never to be free from tradition?
Just because I'm a Lampton, I am to behave in a mean, disloyal manner
to the man I swore to trust? Do you suppose I'm going to? If you do,
you're much mistaken. In my own heart I've been Michael's wife for
weeks and weeks, so you needn't imagine I'm going to divorce him."
"But I do, Meg." Freddy rose from the table. "Now, look here," he
said, "try to speak dispassionately. How can I, as your sole male
guardian, countenance an engagement between you and Michael while there
is only too much ground for belief that this story is true? I've not
only heard it from the natives."
"You're wholly without reason. You just said you didn't believe it!"
The words flashed from Meg's lips like the fire from a gun.
"I find it hard to believe. One always wants to hear two sides of a
story. If Michael can swear that it is not true----"
"There is only one side to this story--that it is a lie."
"Then why has this report been spread about? There is always some fire
where there is smoke, even in Egypt."
"I don't know, Freddy." Meg's voice broke; something suddenly choked
her.
"The story goes that they met as if by accident in the open desert.
Millicent had taken a splendid travelling equipment with her. She has
made no secret of her love for Michael in the camp."
Meg was silent. A furious rage was gnawing at her bowels; it was going
to her brain.
"Michael made a fine show of surprise," Freddy continued. "But it did
not deceive the natives. She doesn't seem to be very popular with
them."
Meg was thinking and thinking. Was this the explanation why over and
over again she had had presentiments that Michael was in trouble, that
he needed her? She had so often tried to reach him. Suddenly a light
broke on her darkness, her whirlwind of anger abated.
"Freddy," she said, more gently. "If Millicent was in the camp, their
meeting in the desert _was_ unexpected by Michael. She trapped him,
she planned it all. Don't you remember, that night when you found me
on the balcony? I told you I had heard Michael calling to me. I can
hear his voice now." She paused. "He woke me as surely as Mohammed
Ali wakes me every morning. He wouldn't have wanted my help if he had
been happy with Millicent, if he had arranged the meeting." Meg
laughed, but there were tears in her voice. "That's the explanation,
as clear as daylight. It's been sent to me, this light, to lighten my
darkness."
"What is as clear as daylight, Meg? You put far too much faith in
dreams and visions. I want to get you out of this. I wish you were
more like your old practical self. What has this wonderful light made
clear?"
"That Millicent tricked and trapped Michael, that she followed him."
"Do you mean that you think that she met Michael against his wish?"
Freddy's soul wondered at the faith of women.
"I do. I don't think she ever mentioned her plans to him. I can see
it all as clear as a pikestaff." A sudden sob broke Meg's voice. Her
thankfulness at the unexpected revelation of the mystery caused it.
"Of course, that's it. Millicent tempted Michael, after she had once
met him. He thought he was proof against her woman's wiles, but while
we're on earth we're only human, Freddy, and he was afraid of his own
weakness. He called to me. We arranged to help each other--we were
always to try our best to reach each other when we felt troubled. Love
is not such a simple thing as it seems. I used to think that when once
one was engaged to the man one loved, one would just be at anchor in a
divine calm."
"You believe in dreams and all that sort of thing too much. Michael's
led you off--he's to blame."
"There are some things one must believe in, Freddy. Our development is
in other hands."
"What are they? Mere old wives' tales and charlatans' prophecies."
"Oh, Freddy!"
"Well, Michael's religion's got so mixed, he doesn't know what he is or
what he believes in and doesn't believe in. He has a fine scorn for
the old order of things. The beliefs of our forefathers have kept the
Lampton men pretty straight and made splendid wives and mothers of
their women, and I think that's good enough for this everyday,
practical world!"
"Has it been their belief that has done it, Freddy, or their family
traditions? I think we Lamptons are as true ancestor-worshippers as
any Shintoists in Japan. I was never taught anything about my higher
self as a child, or made to see that religion was a vital part of our
existence. It was the shades of our ancestors, nothing more or
less--what would Uncle John have thought, or what would Aunt Anna
think? It was never what would your own soul think--was it now? It
was pure Shinto. Our god-shelf bore the family-portraits."
"A jolly good worship, too. You can't do anything very far wrong if
you never disgrace the honour of your ancestors. I think it's as good
a principle, and far more practical and restraining than Michael's
mixture of Akhnaton's Aton worship and I don't know what else. I get
lost when he expounds his idea of God."
"It annoys you that his God is too big for any church. The Lamptons
have always been ardent upholders of the Established Church of England."
"Let him enlarge his church, build his God a bigger one."
"That's just what he has done, that's just what he says the Protestant
church has failed to do. Their church has never expanded. People's
minds have grown, while the Church of England--and, in fact, all
churches--have stood still."
"Michael can't do things in moderation--he's just an enthusiast about
his religion, as he has been about all his phases."
"The best of all things! What were your Luthers, your Cromwells, and
St. Francis?" Meg paused. Her voice fell. "And Our Lord? Weren't
they enthusiasts? Did they take things moderately? Does moderation
ever achieve anything? Napoleon said no country was ever conquered by
half methods."
"Mike's enthusiasm is only theoretical. If he has done this thing, his
new religion allows him too much latitude. He'd much better have stuck
to our plain ancestor-worship."
"But he hasn't done it! You know he hasn't. Don't go over it again.
That detestable woman met him and trapped him."
"And tempted him? The old, old story--the world's first romance--'the
woman tempted me and I fell.'"
Meg's tears had dried very quickly. She was strong again. "I don't
see how you can speak like that. You told me that Michael was straight
as a die--you know you did."
"But I said he was weak--I told you that, too, didn't I?"
"If being human is weak, then I suppose he is. I never met a man who
was a saint. And if believing that we are all more good than bad is
weak, then I admit his lack of strength. It is his humility that makes
it impossible for him to think evil of anyone. I have often proved it.
Almost any man is a better man than himself in his own eyes."
"Bosh!" Freddy said. "I do wish he was more ordinary, less of a crank
about these things! How can he think he isn't as good a man as that
fair-tongued, lying Mohammed Ali, for instance, or any of these lying
sensualists? It's the ugliest of all prides, the one that apes
humility, Meg. Lots of religious enthusiasts have it."
"No, not with Michael. He thinks he is less good than they are because
he is perfectly conscious of God, as he expresses it. He enjoys all
the privileges of a close connection with God; he doesn't only pray to
Him, as we do. He lives with him; Mike is never alone. And yet, with
all that sense of God, he is full of faults and failings. These men
and women, who to us appear so bad, are simply further back in their
evolution. They can't be bad, if it is not their fault. They have not
had the same privileges, they are only gradually evolving. Spiritually
they are like the dwellers in the slums as compared with the inmates of
the beautifully-appointed hygienic house in the country. Michael is in
the light; these poor souls are in darkness. It is all a part of the
Great Law."
Freddy had finished his tea. It had afforded him little pleasure. He
must come to some definite understanding with Meg. His thoughts had
been all centred on the plan of sending her home, getting her away from
the atmosphere which had so strong a hold over her imagination.
Perhaps if she was back in England, she might be able to put Michael
and his ideas out of her thoughts. He had no wish to be disloyal to
his friend, or to give him no chance to defend himself; but he had to
admit that he was very thankful that it was Michael himself who had
insisted that there was to be no recognized engagement between them.
Had he at the time had any motive for insisting on the fact? That was
an idea; it had not occurred to him before.
He turned to Meg and said abruptly. "What about going home, Meg? It's
getting too hot for this sort of thing--the Valley is stifling."
"What do you mean?"
"It's too hot--the year's advancing."
Meg tried to speak calmly.
"Don't treat me like a naughty child, Freddy. If it gets hotter than
the Inferno I won't leave the place until I hear from Michael." She
was not going to be a Lampton in one respect and not in another. A
horse with the staggers was not in it with a mulish Lampton.
"If you hear from him, or find undeniable proofs that the story is
true, will you go then?"
"Yes, when Michael tells me with his own lips, or I see it in his own
handwriting, or I myself am convinced that Millicent was with him, I
will meekly obey you. You can rely upon the Lampton pride. It won't
fail me."
"Right you are, old girl! That's all I'll ask." Freddy bent down and
pressed her head to his breast. "I hope to God that will never be, old
lady, you know that."
Freddy's little touch of tenderness was the last straw. It was too
much for Meg. She turned round and hid her face against his shoulder.
A very fountain of weeping welled up.
"You dear, blessed old thing! I've been a brute, a perfect brute, but
I love him awfully! Oh, Freddy, you don't know how much I can love,
and you hurt me dreadfully!" She had sobbed out the words. The fiery
Lampton was now a sorrowing, heartsick girl, hungering for her lover's
caresses. Freddy's gentleness had called up a thousand wants.
Freddy knew that affection was what she needed, but he was a bad hand
at any show of brotherly emotion. The Lampton men were fine lovers; no
woman had ever found them wanting in the art. But it was part of their
tradition to suppress all outward signs of family affection. Instinct
told him that some caresses and a petting were what his sister longed
for. For weeks she had been robbed of a lover's devotion, a very fine
lover, who had filled her days with romance and her heart with song.
"You weren't a bit a brute, Meg. You were just as usual, a bit more
like a man than a girl. I'd have done and said just as you did if
anyone had said things about the woman I loved--or, I hope I should."
Meg only hugged her brother. Words were beyond her. She knew by the
way he was speaking that he was quite glad to help her, now that he had
got over the disagreeable business of telling her and warning her, that
his efforts would be turned now towards the finding of Michael's
whereabouts and dotting to the bottom of the gossip. She looked up
with cheerful eyes.
"Do you remember that day, Freddy, when Millicent Mervill lunched here?"
"Rather!"
"And you said she came for some object which she took care not to
reveal?"
"Yes, I remember."
"Well, I never told you, because I thought you had good reason for
thinking that I was too hard on her, that I was jealous of her, to the
exclusion of all reason. . . ."
"You are pretty good at hating, Meg."
"Well, Mohammed Ali has since told me where he found her eye of Horus.
Guess where it was."
Freddy laughed. "I'm sure I couldn't."
"She read my diary all the time she was here alone. He says she asked
if she might rest and tidy up in my room. He found the eye of Horus
just beside the table where she had been reading it. He thinks that it
must have caught in the key of the drawer in the table. Probably she
thought we were coming and moved quickly away--the ring was easily
wrenched open."
"The little cad!" Freddy said slowly. "The venomous little toad!"
"In my diary, Freddy, I referred to Michael's strange journey, his
journey to King Solomon's Mines, as we always called it."
Freddy freed himself from his sister's arms and lit a cigarette.
"What a mean little brute! Mohammed Ali was probably in her pay; he
told her he had found the eye at the spot where she dismounted."
"He said he told that lie because Madam made a face at him. He
confesses to that."
Freddy thought for a moment while he smoked, then he said slowly and
deliberately: "If she got that information from your diary, she could
easily get more. _Baksheesh_ will make the dead give up their secrets.
That is why Bismarck said to his generals, never tell your own shirt
what you want kept a secret. Diaries are dangerous things, Meg."
"I wrote it in French," Meg said. "I thought only the servants would
stoop to reading it and they can't read French."
"Next time, try invisible ink. In Egypt, once a thing is written or
told, it is public property."
"I scarcely write anything now," she said. "I feel as if some spy will
see it, and the dry bones of a diary never interest me."
As Freddy was leaving the sitting-room--he was going to bed for a
couple of hours before he began work again--Margaret said to him:
"Just tell me before you go, where you first heard the report about
Michael, and from whom you heard it."
"One or two days ago," he said. "I heard a smouldering gossip about it
going on amongst the workmen. They'd got wind of it somehow. No one
ever knows how these things begin. Then I met young King from
Professor L----'s camp, and he told me the whole story. He knew
Millicent very well. He said she's not what you could call an immoral
woman so much as a woman without morals. He confesses he never met
anyone in the least like her before, and he rather prides himself on
his knowledge of the world--he would have us believe that he has seen a
devil of a lot. He wondered at a man of Michael's refined temperament
taking her into the desert in the way he has done."
"He never took her," Meg said. "Isn't it hateful, Freddy, hearing
people make these assertions about our Mike?"
"That's what I meant," Freddy said, "when I told you that I hated your
name being mixed up with his."
"Oh, that's not what troubles me. No one knows me out here, or my
affairs. I meant that it's such a wicked libel on Michael, who's not
here to defend himself."
"But if she's there with him, what can you expect the world to say, to
believe?"
"If she followed him and joined him, it wouldn't be very easy to shake
her off, would it?"
Freddy smiled. "You're right there--the fair Millicent wouldn't go
because she wasn't wanted!"
"I often ask myself why and how we tolerated her."
"Did we?" Freddy laughed.
"Well, yes, we did. Even I found myself liking her that day after
lunch. I began to wonder if I had always been too hard on her, if I
had had my judgment perverted by my jealousy."
"Surely you're not really jealous of Millicent?" Freddy paused. "That
is, if you are confident that Michael is not with her at the present
moment?"
"I am confident, Freddy. All the same, I have lots to be jealous of.
Her beauty amazes me every time I look at her and, after all, beauty is
a rare and wonderful thing. Lots of women are good to look at and
attractive, but Millicent is beautiful. You have often said how rare
real beauty is and how carelessly we use the expression. Millicent
deserves it."
"You needn't be jealous of mere beauty, Meg. Even when she's on her
best behaviour, she never could impress a stranger as being anything
but what she is, a soulless little minx."
"Yet you thoroughly enjoyed her company, Freddy."
"I know I did. She's amusing, her personality is stimulating. But I
shouldn't like to have too much of it."
"Yet you'd have kissed her if you'd been alone with her--you said you'd
try!"
Freddy did not deny the accusation.
"Men are queer things," Meg said; "but you must get off to bed, you
look awfully tired."
She hated to have to send him away, for it was only on very rare
occasions, and quite unexpectedly, that Freddy expressed his opinions.
He belonged to the silent order of mankind; to strangers he never
revealed himself; he rarely said anything in their presence which
suggested that he had opinions at all, or that he was really an
exceedingly thoughtful person. Meg knew that he had ideas and
thoughts--very sound, clear ideas, too. She knew that Freddy thought
while other men talked. All the same, his opinions and thoughts, apart
from his profession, were apt to be strangled and suffocated by
tradition. Tradition was a mighty force in the Lampton family. It
almost, as Meg said, amounted to ancestor-worship. Freddy's choice of
a profession had been his one act of emancipation. He had, according
to family tradition, been destined for either the navy or the army, and
it had taken no little strength of character to cut the first link in
the chain.
When Freddy had gone to lie down and the little hut was left to its
midday silence--the tropical breathless silence of Upper Egypt, when
the sun is so hot that even a lizard would not venture from its
shelter--Meg sat down on a chair close to the table, and laid her head
on her arms.
She was tired, tired, tired. She must forget things for a little time,
before she even tried to review the situation, or think out what was
best to be done. If only she could will herself into absolute
unconsciousness for a little time, how sweet it would be! If she let
herself sleep--even though sleep seemed very far from her--she might
dream of Millicent, and that would be worse than wakefulness and
remembrance. To trust herself to the lordship of dreams was to seek
refuge in the unknown, and that was dangerous. It was total
unconsciousness which she desired, the restful unconsciousness of a
blank mind. She remained perfectly still for a little time, asking for
rest, asking for the power not to think. She concentrated her thoughts
on this one desire; she opened her being for the reception of peace.
Suddenly the voice which heals spoke. It suggested a respite for her
troubles. "No mind can remain a blank," it said. "Try instead to
think of your vision, fill your whole being with its beauty, repeat to
yourself all that happened during that wonderful revelation."
Unconsciously and swiftly Meg's painful thoughts drifted away. The
picture of Millicent amusing and tempting her lover, which had danced
before her eyes, was no longer there--or, at all events, it was not
dominating her mind, and Freddy's words no longer rang in her ears.
Her misery, made by her own thoughts, left her, as a headache leaves a
sufferer when a sedative has been administered. The gentle voice, the
divine attendant, achieved its work. Meg had asked for rest and for
forgetfulness. Her prayer was being answered. It repeated to her the
tender words of Akhnaton; it told her in Michael's own dear way the
true explanation of her vision. With tightly-closed eyes and her head
bowed, she saw again the whole scene. It was unnaturally vivid--the
luminous figure, with the pitying, sorrowful eyes. As she gazed at it,
to her spirit came the same quiet comfort as had come to her on that
night when the vision had visited her. So clearly could she see the
rays of Aton behind the high crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, that she
lifted up her head. Perhaps He was there, in the sitting-room,
standing just in front of her? Had the luminous body penetrated the
darkness of her tightly-closed eyes?
Meg blinked her eyes to rid them of their confusion; her fingers had
been tightly pressed against them. She looked fixedly into the space
in front of her. Nothing was there; the room was just as it had been
when she closed her eyes. The disordered table, the cigarette-ash in
the two saucers, the crumbs from a Huntley and Palmer's cake on the
table-cloth--these homely things struck her as incongruous. She had
expected a vision of Akhnaton; she had hoped for it.
She put her head down on her arms again; her thoughts had been very
sweet; with closed eyes they might come back again. How absurd it was
to think of such material things as the silver paper round the imported
cake, and to remember that Freddy had said he was sick of tinned
apricot jam!
These domestic thoughts had taken but a second. She was going back to
her vision and to the happiness it had given her.
And so it came to pass that just as Michael had found solace for heart
and mind in the dancing of the daffodils which he had visualized in the
eastern desert, so Meg's bruised heart lost its sense of fear in her
visualizing of the world's first reformer.
* * * * * *
When Freddy returned to the sitting-room, refreshed and invigorated, he
woke his sister by his noisy entrance. He was extremely angry with
himself, and showed his sorrow very tenderly.
Meg looked at him with half-awakened senses. Where was she? What was
she doing? What hour of the day was it?
"Never mind, Freddy, I've slept long enough." She smiled, and looked
as though the thoughts from which she drew her happiness were far away.
Freddy put his two hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes.
"Were your dreams very nice, old girl? You look as if you'd been
playing on the Elysian plain, or had been re-born!"
Meg pulled-her brother's face down to the level of her own and
whispered, "Heavenly, Freddy, heavenly!"
CHAPTER X
"Does my master feel refreshed?"
It was Abdul who spoke, as he wakened Michael after his midday siesta
on the day which had brought them within sight of the Promised Land.
It had been a morning of intense heat; the desert held not one breath
of air. The spell of Egypt, which is its light, had vanished; the vast
emptiness was as colourless as Scotland in an east wind. Piled up on
his camel, Michael had ridden under a raised shelter, such as is used
by caravan travellers on long journeys. It was made of bamboos, bent
into half-hoops and covered with a light canvas. Abdul had been afraid
of exposing his master, in his uncertain state of health, to the full
force of the desert sun. Michael had been very grateful, for during
the last two days it had made him feel sick and his head had ached
perpetually.
"A touch of the sun," was Abdul's expressive description of his
condition. He knew the symptoms only too well, and fortunately he also
knew how to treat them.
In answer to Abdul's question, Michael yawned and stretched out his
arms. "Yes, greatly refreshed, Abdul. How long have I slept? What
time is it? I feel very much better."
"The Effendi's words give happiness to his servant," Abdul said. "With
care my master will enjoy good health in a day or two."
"I'm all right now, Abdul. That last compress has done me a world of
good. My headache has lifted." It was characteristic of Michael's
temperament that when he was down, he was very, very down, and when he
was up, he bounded and became scornful of all care and precautions.
"Everything is in readiness when my master is ready," Abdul said.
"There are still three hours before sunset."
Michael rose from the impromptu couch which Abdul had made for him
under the shadow of a mighty rock. The desert was no longer a
shoreless sea of golden sand; they were reaching the reef of hills
which was their objective.
When Michael found himself on his feet and ready to mount his
camel--that undignified proceeding, which always made him realize his
own helplessness and evoked from the camel ugly roars of justifiable
resentment--he found himself scarcely as fit as he had thought; he was
giddy and still distressingly tired. It was very annoying, not feeling
up to his best form, now that they were drawing so close to the
exciting spot. He had imagined that he would feel like a gold-miner
hurrying to peg out his claim, instead of which he was conscious of but
one feeling, physical and nervous exhaustion.
He braced himself up. The air was cooler; a little breeze was lifting
the sand and carrying its invisible atoms across the surface of the
desert. How many times on his journey he had seen this noiseless
drifting of the sand! Now, as he watched it from his high seat, it
made him think of the saint's grave. Even in this short time much sand
would have collected on the mound which covered his bones.
This ceaseless drifting of the sand was an object-lesson which
illustrated very practically the complete obliteration of Egypt's
ancient cities and lost civilizations. Michael knew that on such a day
as this he had only to lay some small object down in the desert, and
very soon an accumulation of sand would gather round it. After a
little time the object would be completely lost to sight, and in its
place there would be a little mound, which would grow and grow as the
years rolled on, until it became a feature in the landscape. In such a
way were the neglected temples of the gods saved from the ravages of
fanatics.
To Michael this provision of Nature, this preserving of the world's
earliest treasures and story, was very beautiful. It meant a great
deal more than the mere accumulation of wind-blown sands; it meant that
the Creating Hand is never still, that the making of the world is
eternal. In Michael's opinion there was no doubt but that Egypt's
priceless treasures had been designedly hidden, that the Author of
Nature had preserved them until such a time as mankind was capable of
appreciating them and guarding them. The drifting sands--ever at the
caprice of the four winds to those who have eyes to see and see
not--have saved Egypt's history, which is written in stone.
Reflecting, as was his wont, on these side-issues of the world's
evolution, he journeyed on. The breeze was stiffening, a cool,
invigorating breeze, which had cleared the sky and brought some white
clouds into it. In the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings the heavens
rarely held a cloud; in the eastern desert his travels had carried him
northwards, where the dews are heavier and the sudden changes in the
temperature less noticeable.
With the cooler atmosphere his spirits rose, his vitality quickened.
Wonderful pictures danced before his eyes, pictures which he had seen
over and over again, his first visualizing of the treasure. The vision
had never been far from his mind. He could see himself inspecting the
bars of gold which Akhnaton had hidden in the hills, and fingering the
ancient jewels while he thought once more of the story he had been told
by a member of an excavating camp in Egypt. The story reassured him:
Some native workmen, belonging to the camp, had come across a number of
terra-cotta crocks hidden under a flight of steps. They were full to
the brim of bars of pure gold. The gold had obviously been thrust into
the jars very hurriedly. The theory they suggested to experts was that
the citizens, suddenly becoming alarmed by the approach of a besieging
army, had thrust the wealth of the public treasury into the jars and
hidden them in the hollow behind the steps of a staircase in some
public building. If the Romans ever besieged the city, they had
overlooked the jars and so the gold had remained in its simple
hiding-place until the enthusiasm of modern Egyptologists discovered
it. In the jars there was sufficient gold to pay for a year's
excavation on the historical site.
Michael knew that such things were possible in Egypt, where tales as
wonderful as any in _A Thousand and One Nights_ are still being
enacted. Egypt's buried treasures are infinite. In that land of
amazing discoveries there has been nothing more amazing than the means
of their discovery.
High up in the blue, on his swaying seat on the camel's back, he felt
like a man in a cinematograph-theatre, gazing upon film after film as
it came into view and dissolved away.
The desert was the stage, his thoughts were the films. At one moment
the picture presented was his old friend in el-Azhar, rejoicing in the
knowledge that Michael's journey was accomplished, the treasure
realized. He could see the African's eyes glowing like living fire; he
could hear his sonorous chanting. His next vision was of Margaret and
her triumphant happiness; the next his own troubles and embarrassments,
the troubles of too great wealth. What was he to do with the treasure
now that he had discovered it? There were new laws and stringent
regulations and restrictions which must be adhered to; the Government
had become more grasping.
But these troubles he put aside. "Sufficient for the day was the
finding thereof," the proving to scoffers that visionaries had legs to
stand upon as well as heads. He could hear Freddy's boyish laugh, a
laugh of sheer incredulity and amazement, and while Freddy laughed he
could see and feel Margaret's eyes shining with victory. It made him
very nervous and excited to think that soon he would be able to
actually touch and examine the treasure and sacred writings of the
world's first divinely-inspired prophet. The doubts of his material
mind would be forever silenced when his fingers had held the jewels and
his eyes had seen the gold.
Again he felt convinced that the spirit of Akhnaton had selected him to
do this work. Freddy had been chosen to bestow upon mankind the
contents of the royal tomb, which held such a mass of confounding
matter. We are all the chosen workers in the Perfect Law, units in the
Divine State.
As he rode on and on, he wondered what Abdul was thinking about, what
his feelings were. Was he anticipating disappointment or success?
What had his eyes seen?
They were approaching the spot indicated by the saint. It would, of
course, take them some time to discover the chamber which held the
hidden treasure, but it was sufficiently thrilling to be drawing nearer
and nearer to the hills. The canvas had been removed from his
sun-shelter; only the framework remained. It looked like the
skeleton-ribs of an animal against the blue of the sky.
Suddenly Abdul came riding forward. He had something to say; he never
disturbed Michael's meditations unnecessarily.
"Does the Effendi see anything in the distance?"
"No, Abdul, nothing. What do you see?"
Abdul's calm voice had betrayed a little emotion.
"Look once more, Effendi--over there, to the left, close to the hills."
Michael looked, and while he looked he was conscious of an ominous
atmosphere in the silence.
"Can the Effendi see nothing?"
"No, Abdul, absolutely nothing. Yet I thought my eyes had improved, my
seeing-powers developed. I was vain enough to think they were pretty
good."
"For Western eyes they do see far, Effendi. You must allow some few
privileges for those who are deprived of the benefits of civilization."
They rode on in silence.
"You can see something now, Effendi?" Abdul's voice trembled as it
broke the stillness. "It is very clear now, O my master."
"Is it a mirage, or what, Abdul? What am I to see?"
"No mirage, Effendi--I wish it were one."
"Then out with it!" Michael said impatiently. He had not the vaguest
idea what Abdul was hinting at; his mind had no room for side issues.
"What desert monster lies in waiting for us? Don't make such a mystery
out of nothing!"
"It is the Khedivial flag, O Effendi. I see it fluttering in the
breeze."
"The Khedivial flag?" The words conveyed no meaning to Michael; the
reason for its being there did not penetrate his brain. "What is there
to trouble us about the Khedivial flag, Abdul?'"
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, do not feel anger in your heart for your servant
when he tells you what it means."
"We ate the salt of our covenant together, Abdul, on the night when you
brought the saint in your arms to my camp. I can never forget that you
are more than my servant. You are my friend and companion."
"Our faith is a gift of God, Effendi, and all the good works we perform
are the effects of a principle implanted and kept alive within us by
the Spirit of God."
"Granting that is so, Abdul, which I do, nevertheless, the covenant of
our friendship is sacred. Tell me, why does the flag trouble you?"
"Can my master see it now? Can he not distinguish any other objects?"
Michael looked again. They had travelled quickly. As he looked his
heart stopped beating; his brain became confused; he felt like a
drunken man. Clearly his eye had seen!
"My God!" he said inaudibly. "It can't be that, it can't be that!"
To his naked eye the crescent and the star on the waving flag were
still invisible, but he could see its vivid red, and he could see other
objects--white patches, like a collection of saints' tombs.
"Abdul," he said--his voice was miserably broken and spent--"what are
those white things?"
"Tents, Effendi."
"Government tents?"
"_Aiwah_, Effendi."
"What are they doing near the hills?"
"Must Abdul speak the words which will cause his master pain? Will the
Effendi not wait until we draw nearer? It is not wise to anticipate
evil."
A horrible suspicion devastated Michael's brain. He could brook no
uncertainty. Abdul's lengthy manner of getting to the point irritated
him as it had never done before.
"Out with it, Abdul! Having said so much, you must say more." Michael
was compelling his servant to give utterance to the suspicion which had
become almost a certainty in his mind.
"_Aiwah_, Effendi. The treasure has already been discovered."
"Good God! Do you think it is that, Abdul?"
"_Aiwah_, Effendi." Abdul's voice was contrite.
Michael felt as if all movement in the world had suddenly been
arrested. Then his mind began scrambling amid the ruins of his dreams
for some lucid thought, for some reason which would explain why he was
seated high up on a camel's back in the eastern desert.
He had never dreamed of such an ending to his dreams. In his most
despondent moods he had contemplated no greater misfortune than the
stealing of the jewels and the gold, the looting of its portable
treasures by native _antika_ hunters. His super-man had never
seriously contemplated even that misfortune; his faith was unshaken,
his optimism complete.
The shock he had received affected his physical as well as his mental
condition. An overwhelming desire came to him to get off his high seat
and throw himself down on the sand and go to sleep for ever and ever.
That hateful flag, those smiling tents! whose whiteness had brought a
vision of Millicent's tent floating before his eyes.
"There are three tents, Effendi. Shall we journey towards them?"
Abdul's voice sounded far away. What was he talking about? Michael
tried to concentrate his thoughts.
"Oh yes, of course!" His voice was listless. "We must go on. You may
be wrong." He struggled for mind-control.
He urged his camel to a quicker pace. They rode on in silence. Abdul
was now convinced that the harlot--or, in other words, Mohammed Ali's
"golden lady"--had wreaked her vengeance on his master. He had taken
into his camp the fever-stricken saint; she had slipped away in the
night and discovered the treasure. With a comprehensiveness which
would have astounded the impurest of Western ears, he cursed Millicent
and her vile offspring into the third and fourth generations.
CHAPTER XI
As Michael got off his kneeling camel, a young Englishman left a tent,
the outer one of the three which formed the excavation-camp, the white
tents which Michael had seen from his high seat, and came quickly
forward. It was obvious that strangers might come thus far and no
further. In a voice of official authority, yet by no means
ungraciously, he said to Michael:
"Can I do anything for you? What do you want? I'm afraid you can't
come any nearer."
Michael looked blankly into the thin, intelligent face, a sunburnt
face, which any woman would have described as attractively ugly. For a
moment or two neither man spoke. There was an unpleasant silence. It
was significant of the atmosphere of the meeting. It expressed to the
excavator strain, rather than shyness, on the traveller's part. He had
told Michael that he might come no further; he had asked him if he
wanted anything.
At both remarks Michael almost laughed hysterically. He was not
allowed to come any closer to his own treasure, to the gift of
Akhnaton, to the legacy of the Pharaoh, which had been divinely
revealed to him! This interloper had asked him if he wanted anything!
Quicker than light these thoughts flashed through his bewildered brain,
while between himself and this representative of the Government the
figure of the world's first divinely-inspired man, with the rays of
Aton shining brilliantly from behind his head, became clearer and
clearer. It obliterated the figure of the excavator.
"What are these tents doing here?" He managed to ask the question by
sheer force of will power; he felt relieved that the words had come.
"And that flag?"--he pointed to the Khedivial banner.
His companion hesitated for a moment. Who was this dazed questioner,
who had suddenly appeared out of the sands of the desert? He looked
almost as worn and physically exhausted as a desert fanatic.
"This is an excavation camp which has just been sanctioned by the
Minister of Public Works. We are engaged in making temporary
researches. The time-limit is one month."
Without being in the least discourteous, his words conveyed the
impression that in so short a time there was more to be done than talk
to curious travellers.
"How long has the camp been here?" Michael asked. "I hope you won't
think my questions impertinent. I have a very particular reason for
wishing to know."
The blue eyes in the thin face became more alert. They searched
Michael's face with the same scrutiny as they searched the debris of
the ruins.
"About four days," he said coldly.
"Has the Government claimed the site?" Michael's voice trembled as he
asked the question; it was so hard to keep cool.
"The Government is entitled to expropriate any land containing
antiquities on paying a valuation and ten per cent. over, but this, of
course, was not private property. It belongs to the Government."
"Yes, of course. I know something about these new rules--I have been
working with Lampton in the Valley."
"Oh!" The stranger's voice at once became cordial and intimate. "I
didn't know that I was speaking to a fellow-digger. How's Lampton?"
"I wasn't actually digging--I was doing some painting for him, and
inking the pottery drawings. His latest discovery has developed
amazing theories."
"So I've heard. But you look a bit done up. Come inside and have a
drink." Before entering the tent, the stranger looked round. "Who's
your man? Is he all right?"
"He's one of Lampton's men--absolutely trustworthy. He's been more
than a servant to me for some weeks now." Michael paused, and then
said abruptly, "Who told the Government of this site? What do you
expect to find?"
"Will you first tell me where you got your information? Did you know
we were here?"
"The _Omdeh_ in the subterranean village spoke of it. He told me that
the natives had discovered a hidden treasure, a sort of King Solomon's
Mine, and that they were wading knee-deep in jewels and falling over
crocks stuffed with Nubian gold--a desert fairytale, I suppose?"
"Absolutely! If there ever was any gold, it was not here when we
arrived, and as for the jewels. . . !" He laughed. "Hallo! Are you
feeling queer?"
Michael had managed to get inside the tent, but it was the limit of
what his legs and head were fit for. He collapsed on to a lounge, made
of wooden boxes covered with some rugs.
The stranger unfastened the padlock of a similar box to one of those
upon which he was sitting with a key which hung from a chain at his
side. He raised the lid; it had been converted into a wine-cellar.
"Hold hard," he said, in a kindly voice. "I'll give you a drink."
Michael was not fainting; he was merely in a state of physical
collapse. He gladly accepted the proffered hospitality.
When he had swallowed the whisky, he said: "I'm sorry, but I've been
feeling a bit queer lately. For some days past I've had a touch of the
sun." He could not tell this stranger of his bitter disappointment.
"Have you ridden far to-day?"
"Yes. I've been in the desert for some time now. We started this
morning at dawn." He put the glass down on the rough trestle-table.
"Thanks most awfully. I feel a lot better. You said there was no
truth in the report about the gold and the jewels--what are you
expecting?"
"We have seen no trace of gold so far, but you must remember that it
was a native who brought the information. Any discoverer is bound to
inform the Government, and any portable object accidentally found must
be given up within six days."
"But the finder receives half its value?"
"Yes, but if there was this treasure-trove of gold and jewels, it's
doubtful if natives would hand that over. It would have been a
different thing if it had been monumental objects, or even antiques, as
they always run the risk of being caught trafficking in them. They
would be inclined to think that half their value is better than none,
with the added risk of the heavy penalty. The new rules are very
stringent."
"But the jewels? Is there no trace of any precious stones? Don't you
think there's a little fire for all that smoke?"
"We heard all these wonderful reports, but we have found no trace of
any treasure. What the native reported was that he, along with some
other _fellahin_, had accidentally come across some traces of ancient
masonry, not far from Akhnaton's tomb. After digging for a few days,
they discovered an underground passage, which led into a chamber; in it
we came upon some papyri."
"You have found papyri?" Michael said. His tired eyes suddenly glowed;
his excitement was obvious.
"Yes, we have found papyri. They promise to be of exceptional
interest."
"Of what dynasty?" Michael could scarcely speak, or hide his anxiety
while he waited for an answer to his question. To be able to assume an
outward appearance of calmness, he was putting a great strain on his
self-control. He held himself so well in hand that the stranger little
guessed how much his answer meant to the exhausted traveller.
"Amenhotep IV."
A cry rang through the room. "Akhnaton! did you say? Then it is
true!" Margaret, the old man in el-Azhar, and the saint, they had all
seen and spoken the truth. For a moment the stranger was forgotten.
It was Margaret who was looking at him with glad triumphant eyes.
Happy Meg!
"Yes, the heretic Pharaoh," the stranger said, as he gazed fixedly at
Michael. Was this man more than a little touched with the sun? He
felt nervous of how to proceed. Why was he so excited and pleased?
"These hills, you know, were the boundary of his capital. You appear
interested in him? He certainly was a wonderful character."
The more conventional and colder tones of his voice made Michael
guarded. Kind as he was, he was just the type of man who would laugh
to scorn anything he might have told him. Freddy's friendly laughter
never troubled Michael; the scorn of a stranger was a different thing.
"Have they deciphered any of the papyri?"
"No, we haven't had the time. We've only gone into them sufficiently
to discover their date. This is, of course, a temporary search. We
can only do in a month what is absolutely necessary. If regular
excavations are to be made, which I presume there will be, we shall, of
course, have to wait for a bit, while the final regulations are gone
through, and until the necessary money is forthcoming. These last new
rules and restrictions are putting a stop to any private enterprise.
There is nothing left to pay the cost of the dig."
"On the whole, I suppose, they do good?"
"They don't do what they were meant to do--and that is, stop the
stealing and the selling of valuable antiques which the Government,
rightly enough, does not wish to leave the country, and desires to have
the disposal of."
"I had hoped the new restrictions would stop that."
"You see, the penalties only apply to the natives and the Turks, with
the result that the native dealer simply puts an Italian or a Greek
name over his door. To the foreigner, the native is only the agent,
officially--the dealer is the Greek or Italian whose name is over the
door."
"They'd be sure to get out of the difficulty somehow," Michael said.
"About antiques they have no conscience, and they are awfully clever."
"An inspector may now raid their premises at any time of the day or
night, and nothing is allowed to be sold outside authorized and
licensed shops. Every dealer has to keep a day-book, with an entry of
each object in his shop over five pounds in value, the purchaser's name
must be filled in, and every page of the register sealed by the
Inspector of Antiquities."
Michael laughed. "Trust the native mind to find a way to circumvent
all these fine restrictions!"
His thoughts had flown to Millicent. If she had, as Abdul believed,
discovered the jewels and the gold, where were they now? It was very
odd that, even with this damning evidence that she had anticipated his
find before his eyes--for she and she alone could have known of it--his
finer senses refused to believe that she had cheated and tricked him.
He had no argument to put forward to justify his belief; it was one of
those beliefs which are rooted in something finer and truer than
circumstantial evidence. His only argument in her favour was that he
had never found her mercenary, but, as Abdul had answered him, a woman
will sell her soul for jewels.
He felt woefully sick and dejected, far too physically exhausted to run
the risk of exposing himself to the scorn and laughter of the
excavator, who was speaking to him in a manner which unconsciously
betrayed to the hypersensitive Michael that he considered the traveller
rather too odd to waste much valuable time over. Michael wondered, in
a slow, broken sort of way, what the cold eyes would look like if he
suddenly produced the uncut crimson amethyst from the purse in his
waistbelt. He would probably have said that it was a clever part of
the native fable; he would probably say that the ancient stone might
have come from any royal tomb in Egypt, that it proved nothing.
As a lengthy silence had elapsed, Michael felt that it was incumbent on
him to be getting on his way. He must pretend to the excavator that he
was now well enough to resume his journey. As he rose, rather inertly,
from his low seat, he said:
"You say the native who brought the information of the find said
nothing at all about the jewels and the gold?"
"Not a word! We have heard all that since. As you know, news travels
in the desert in the most amazing fashion, once the natives get ear of
it."
"Won't you try and follow up the track of the story--find out how it
originated? Are you content to take it for granted that it is all
moonshine?"
"We are doing something about it--but it's very difficult." The
stranger spoke guardedly. "The only way is to set a thief to catch a
thief. Gold can be melted, ancient stones can be cut, a hundred
dealers will be eager to run any risk to get them."
A flood of anger coloured Michael's face; it brought out beads of
perspiration on his forehead. He could scarcely contain himself; his
rage tore at his bowels. His long journey, all that he had gone
through--was this the end of it? Could anything be more fiat, more
stale, more unprofitable? What a sudden tumble from the blue to brown
earth! Above all, how maddening to have to hold his tongue, because no
man would believe the story he could tell them, to have meekly to
submit to the conventional etiquette of the moment! He felt anything
but conventional. His anger had driven all finer feelings from his
mind. If he could only find the native who had desecrated the
treasure-trove, he would hang and quarter him without mercy!
"I'm afraid I must be getting back to my work," the excavator said.
"But you needn't hurry. Rest here for as long as you like, only don't
think me inhospitable if I leave you. Time's too precious to waste one
moment."
"Thanks very much," Michael said. "But I'm quite fit. You've been
awfully kind. It's time I was on my way."
"Where are you going to?"
"Back to my camp."
"Back to your camp? where did you leave it?"
Michael told him.
"Then did you come on here on purpose to visit this dig? Had you heard
of it before you saw the _Omdeh_ in the underground village?"
"I'd rather not answer your question at present, if you don't mind.
All that I know about it, Lampton also knows. . . . Some day, I hope,
if we meet again, I will tell you the whole thing. It's an odd story,
even for Egypt."
The man looked annoyed. "You can't tell me anything more? Have you
any information that could help us? We have our suspicions that things
aren't straight. If the natives weren't wading knee-deep in jewels,
there was probably, as you say, some truth in the report that there
were valuable antiques."
"I've nothing reliable to go upon," Michael said. "Nothing that a man
in his normal senses would pay any attention to--that was Lampton's
verdict."
Again the stranger looked at Michael with calm, searching eyes.
"Yet you believe in what you heard? You believed enough to bring you
across the desert to find it?"
"If you ask Lampton, he'll tell you that I'm not quite in my normal
senses--that I frequently walk on my head."
"Lampton's a sound man."
"Well, that's his opinion."
"You're a rum chap," the stranger said, as he noticed that a glint of
humour had for the moment driven the expression of exhaustion from
Michael's eyes. "Anyhow, I hope you'll not feel too knocked up when
you arrive in camp, and that we'll meet again."
"I feel as if I could sleep for a year."
"Have another whisky before you go?"
"No thanks. I think one has been more than enough--it's made me
confoundedly tired."
They were standing at the open front of the tent.
"Good-bye," Michael said. "And thanks most awfully for your
hospitality. I suppose you won't settle on the work here until next
season?"
"No, it will be hot enough at the end of three weeks, though it's
cooler here than with Lampton in the Valley. If the money is
forthcoming, we shall take up work again next October."
They parted abruptly, as Englishmen do. Two _fellahin_, mere hewers of
wood and drawers of water, would have gone through a set formula of
graceful words before they separated. They are ever mindful of the
teachings of the Koran, which says:
"If you are greeted with a greeting, then greet ye with a better
greeting. God taketh account of all things."
Michael had turned his back on the stranger and the waving flag.
Mechanically he put his hand to his belt-pouch. Yes, the crimson
amethyst was still there. He felt for it as though he were in a dream.
The bright light made him giddy. The stone was his link with and his
tangible assurance that the life which he had led for the past weeks
was a reality; it was his sacred token that the vision of Akhnaton was
no mere phantom of an over-imaginative brain. Yet, even as he felt its
hard substance between his thumb and forefinger, he wondered if it was
really there. He knew that imagination can create strange things;
phantom tumours have been produced by imagination, tumours which are
visible to a physician's eye while the patient is conscious and his
mind obsessed with the conviction that it is there; he knew that such
swellings disappear when the patient is asleep. He felt dazed, and as
if he himself were unreal; his feet refused to tread firmly on the
earth; they never managed to reach it. When he looked for Abdul and
the camels, they were floating in the heavens above the horizon, miles
and miles away; there was a belt of sky between them and the desert
sand. If his legs had been paralysed, they could not have felt heavier
or more useless.
He struggled on, but very soon the desert and the sky became one; the
world in front of him rose suddenly up and stood on end. It was quite
impossible to reach Abdul--he was receding as the horizon recedes when
a clear atmosphere foreshortens the distance. In his brain there was a
confused jumble; it was full of things which had no meaning or
cohesion. Millicent was the centre of the absurd medley, Millicent,
naked and unashamed, her slender figure as thickly covered with uncut
jewels of huge dimensions as the statues of Diana of Ephesus are
covered with breasts. The jewelled vision of Millicent dominated every
other picture in his brain. It was clearer than the village of flies,
or the African's cell in far-off el-Azhar, or the procession of white
figures returning from the burial of the desert saint. It moved along
in the clear air in front of him. He had no reasoning powers left, or
he would have asked himself why his subconscious brain had fashioned
this vision of Millicent wearing the sacred jewels when he still
believed in her innocence. The clear voice, man's divine messenger,
had kept him assured of the truth of his conviction.
Everything was dreadfully confused. He wished that the horizon would
not come right forward and almost throw him off his balance. He seemed
to be constantly hitting up against it. And Abdul, why was he floating
further and further away? The harder he tried to get to him, the
further he went. And yet he could actually hear him reciting his
prayers. He was telling his rosary. Why did he tantalize him by
coming so near and then floating off again? Sometimes he came so near
that he could see his fine fingers automatically pulling the beads
along the string; a tassel of red silk hung from the end of it. There
were ninety-nine small red beads and one large one. He had reached the
fifty-ninth. Michael could tell that, because the words "O Giver of
Life" came to him sonorously across the desert stillness. The next one
would be "O Giver of Death," but Abdul had floated away again. Now he
had come back; he had said "O Living One," "O Enduring," "O Source of
Discovery."
That was the sixty-third bead. Why had Abdul stopped at that one? Why
did he keep on repeating the words "O Source of Discovery," "O Source
of Discovery"? He ought to pass on to the next--"O Worthy of All
Honour," and after that the sixty-fifth, "O Thou Only One." No one
ever stopped at the sixty-third bead; all the attributes of Allah had
to be recited. But Abdul was still saying it over and over again. "O
Source of Discovery," "O Source of Discovery." The words danced before
Michael's eyes in letters of gold, like the advertisement of Bovril
which he had watched so often from the Thames Embankment, as it
appeared and disappeared in the sky across the river.
And then again the letters were obliterated by the nude figure of
Millicent, with her hanging breasts of jewels. How delicate her limbs
were, how white her skin! The sun would blister it; if he could only
reach her, he would give her his coat. Like himself, she was walking
in the clear air and not on the firm earth. She was walking as St.
Peter had walked on the waves of the sea.
Then something happened. He stumbled and would have fallen, but for a
great strength which gathered him up and sheltered him under the shadow
of Everlasting Arms.
* * * * * *
Abdul, with Eastern philosophy, had sat himself down to wait while his
master interviewed the director of the "dig." His soul was vexed and
his mind was ill at ease. His master's health was the principal cause
of his anxiety. His anger at the harlot, and his disappointment,
mingled with this anxiety, made him unusually despondent.
He seated himself on a knoll where his master could easily see him when
he left the excavator's tent. It was not yet time for the performance
of his maghrib, or sunset prayer, which had to be said a few minutes
after the sun had set. He began to recite his rosary, telling an
attribute of God to each bead. When he had got about half-way through
the long list of names which form the Mohammedan rosary and by which
the Moslem addresses his Creator, he saw Michael leave the tent and
walk out into the sunlight.
For a moment or two he seemed to be walking quite steadily and to be
coming towards him. Then suddenly he began to stagger and lurch like a
drunken man.
Abdul rose from his seat and hurried towards him. What had seemed such
a long way to Michael had only been a few yards. His visions and fears
and the constant repetition of the sixty-third attribute of Allah had
been concentrated into the last few seconds before he stumbled and
fell, just as our dreams are enacted in the last moments before we
wake. Abdul had scarcely said the words "O Source of Discovery" for
the first time when he rose from his seat and hurried to his master,
who had stumbled and fallen. In his Moslem arms was God's Everlasting
Mercy.
CHAPTER XII
The heat in the Valley had become intense. The work in the
excavation-camp was at a standstill; nothing more could be done on the
actual site until the late autumn.
Margaret and Freddy were soon to say good-bye to the little hut which
had been their home for many months.
No direct news had come to them of Michael. Freddy had heard many
accounts and varying reports from unreliable sources of his travels in
the eastern desert. He was almost convinced that Michael's silence was
due to the fact that there was some foundation for the scandal, which
was persistent, that Millicent was one of his party. The report had
drifted to him from so many sources that he could scarcely doubt it.
It had sprung up and flourished like seed blown over light soil. He
was loath to believe that his friend, even if it had not been by his
own willing or desire, should have permitted the woman to stay with him
when he was Margaret's acknowledged lover. He despised him for being
such a weak fool. If Freddy could have left his work, he would have
started off without delay to look for Michael, or at least he would
have contrived to discover the reason for his silence and what degree
of truth there was in the story of Millicent's being with him.
Situated as he was, it was impossible for him to desert his post. He
had purposely avoided opening up the subject again with Margaret; it
was better to wait until a sufficient length of time had elapsed and
then, if no word came from Michael, he would speak to her again and
hold her to her promise to return home and try to drive the whole
affair from her mind.
Even as he said the words to himself, he knew that they were absurd,
that such a thing was hopeless. Meg was not the sort of woman to trust
and love a man and then forget him. There could be no driving him from
her mind. Freddy knew that she had enough strength of character to do
whatever she thought was right. If circumstances compelled her to give
Michael up, she would do it, but in so doing her youth would be killed,
her heart broken. Her life would have to be re-made. A love like
Margaret's was a serious thing; Freddy realized that. He must go to
work carefully and judiciously.
It hurt him more than Meg ever knew, to watch her suffering and
ever-growing anxiety. She made no complaint and very seldom alluded to
her lover's silence or to his absence. When she spoke of him, it was
generally to recall some happy incident which had happened in their
secluded life, little things culled from the store-closet of her
precious memories.
It was to the stars and to the wide heavens that her heart relieved
itself. They heard the full story of her trust and loyalty and the
confessions of her jealous woman's heart; they bore her cry to the
understanding ear.
It was impossible for Margaret to believe any wrong of her lover. If
she had short waves of doubt and agonizing moments of uncertainty and
indecision, they were always dispelled by the sudden inflow of
beautiful thoughts, which came like divine visions to her, as direct
assurances of Mike's loyalty and steadfastness.
It was Freddy who caused her the cruellest suffering. It was so
dreadful to think that he, of all people, doubted, distrusted Mike! If
she had not cared for him so greatly it would not have mattered, but
apart from Michael he was the being she loved and respected most on
earth. His eyes haunted her; the doubt in them never left her mind; it
argued against her finer judgment. That her dear chum should be
working against her higher voice, her super-self, troubled her. It
seemed to set up a barrier between them, which was the cruellest part
of the whole affair. If he would only let her alone, she would go to
some cooler spot and there wait and wait until Michael came to her, for
she knew that he would come back to her, bringing her the same
beautiful love as he had carried away. She knew perfectly well that in
spite of her foolish fits of depression and distrust, he was wholly and
absolutely hers while he was alive on this earth.
Freddy bore the expression of one who was waiting to deliver judgment.
Meg could see his annoyance kindling day by day. She could feel him
looking at her when he thought that she was not noticing. The deeper
circles under her eyes told Freddy their tale; the sagging of her
clothes, as they hung from her boyish limbs, the pitiful flattening of
her young breasts. This new and delicate-looking Margaret was very
beautiful. Our Lady of Sorrows had laid her hand upon her with a
softening grace; the new Meg had acquired what boyish Meg had never
possessed. Under her eyes, on her clear skin there were dark shadows,
which looked as if they had been made by the impress of carboned thumbs
which had pressed tired eyes to sleep. Meg's steadfast, honest eyes
now expressed things of a deeper meaning than mere comradeship and
brains; their beauty was quickened by the soul of suffering. Even in
Freddy's eyes she was much more attractive than she had been six months
ago. She was now a great deal more than merely pretty. As he watched
her bearing her anxiety and what appeared to him her humiliation with
so much calm dignity and braveness, he said to himself over and over
again, "She's a thousand times too good for a man who could behave like
a weak fool, if indeed Mike isn't worse!"
He was looking at her now, as she lay in a deck-chair, her eyes closed
and her hands folded across her book. They had both been reading,
after a hard day's work. Meg had not turned many pages of her book;
her thoughts had wandered. As she felt her brother's eyes upon hers,
she raised her eyelids and looked at him steadily as she said:
"Freddy, I'm going to see Hadassah Ireton."
Freddy sat bolt upright. He, too, had been lying stretched out on a
lounge-chair.
"Going to see Mrs. Ireton? But you don't know her!"
He did not ask Meg why she was going; he knew.
"That doesn't matter--I know all about her. My heart and mind know
her, and, after all, that's the important thing--it's the only thing
that matters."
"But, Meg----"
"Chum, no 'buts'--'buts' belong to small things. This is my life. We
must do something. You can't leave your work; I am no longer needed."
"But what can Hadassah Ireton do?"
"I don't know--she'll know, I feel she'll know. That's why I'm going."
She paused. "I've been told to go."
"Oh, nonsense! How's this going to clear things up?" Freddy paused.
"I don't know. If I did, I shouldn't go to the Iretons'. It's because
I don't know, and nothing's being done, that I mean to go to her and
consult her."
"But why on earth trouble a stranger? I dislike the idea."
"There are some human beings who are never strangers. Suffering unites
people. Hadassah Ireton has suffered."
Freddy knocked the ash from his cigarette. A lump had risen up in his
throat.
"What are you going to ask her to do?" Meg did not know the pain her
words had given him; he spoke huskily.
"She's going to advise me what to do." Meg raised herself from her
reclining position. "She will help me, if Michael's ill, Freddy."
"I don't suppose he is--I think we'd have heard."
"I think that's why we haven't heard," Margaret said quickly.
Freddy remained silent. He thought otherwise. He had a man's
knowledge of men. If Millicent Mervill was with him, he did not for
one moment believe that even Mike would be proof against such
temptation.
"If he is ill," Meg said, "the Iretons will find out. They are in such
close touch with native life. Anyhow, they understood Mike and I want
to see them."
Meg's last words were a little cry. Freddy could only feel pity for
her, although her words stung him. She must actually go from him to
strangers for the sympathy she needed.
"Well, I won't stop you, but I think it's a pity. Whatever made you
think of such a thing?"
"The thing that you call inspiration, chum--I know another name for it
now."
Freddy looked amazed; Meg had absorbed so many of Mike's strange ideas.
"I don't know Ireton," he said. His voice had grown colder.
"He married a Syrian--you wouldn't. The Lamptons don't do that sort of
thing."
Freddy kept his temper, and the moment after Meg had said the words she
felt ashamed, disgraced.
"I'm sorry, chum." She spoke gently. "It's my tongue that says these
hateful things, not my heart. Forgive me, like a dear."
"All right, old girl." Freddy had never told his sister that he had
refused the hospitality and cut himself off from the friendship of more
than two English families, residents in Cairo, because they had taken a
prominent part in the outcasting of Michael Ireton from English society
when he had married Hadassah Lekejian. He knew that Margaret had
spoken the words hastily and unthinkingly. When Meg's nerves were on
edge was the only time she was ever cross and out of temper. "The
Iretons are delightful people. If I'd known Ireton when he was a
bachelor, I should have visited them after his marriage, but I didn't,
and I haven't much time for paying society calls. Besides, it might
have looked like patronizing them. The way they were treated by some
of the English out here was so abominable that one had to be jolly
careful. Ireton never minded a scrap--he's too big to care for the
social rot that goes on out here, but all the same, I didn't like to
make a point of calling. I'm a digger, Meg, not a resident with a
house to invite people to."
"From what Mike told me, they must be the most delightful people. I
can't imagine Hadassah snubbing me if I went to see her, can you?"
"I don't suppose she would. What will you say to her? It's a rum
idea." Freddy became meditative.
"I don't know, but whatever one arranges to say on such occasions is
just the thing one doesn't say. The atmosphere will suggest the
words--it always does with me. I've never yet said the things I
planned to say. Have you?"
"Scarcely ever, but it might be well to think things out." Freddy
disliked the idea of confiding family secrets to strangers. "When do
you think of going?"
"When you leave here, I can go straight to Cairo. It will be cooler
there. I don't know Cairo--don't forget, I've never seen even the
Pyramids."
"And when do you mean to go home? The season's getting on."
"I don't know. It all depends on what news I can gather, or if a
letter comes. I can easily stay in Cairo until I hear. You won't
object to that?"
"No. It's beastly hot here, by Jove!" Freddy poured himself out a
lemon-squash and drank it off. "I'm not sorry it's time to go home."
"I don't feel the heat very much--the nights keep pretty cool."
"You're looking fagged, all the same."
"Oh, I'm all right--it's anxiety that kills. If only I was certain
that he wasn't ill, Freddy!"
"I don't see why you should think Mike's ill. He's leading an awfully
healthy life. He's well accustomed to the desert. It's cooler with
him than it is here."
"I know, but it's a very strained life. I have a conviction that he's
ill. Whenever I think intently of him, I see him ill and suffering.
These things must have their meaning."
"I think we should have heard if he was ill. We got the other news
quick enough, didn't we!"
Meg frowned.
"It will be cooler in Cairo, but give me your word that you personally
won't do anything foolish in the way of looking for Michael, or going
off alone into the desert."
"No, I won't do anything foolish. That's not in my line, is it now? I
have some Lampton common sense."
"Not about some things."
Meg laughed. "Wait till you know what it is like, chum."
"Well, you'll not forget your other promise?"
Meg thought for a moment before answering and then she said
emphatically, "No, I won't forget my promise. I'm not in the least
afraid that I shall be tempted to break it."
"You have promised to go back to England if you find undeniable proof
that Michael and Millicent were together in the desert."
"Yes, I promise. I will go back to the old life, which seems like a
dream." Meg gave a little shiver as she visualized her old-world
Suffolk home and the narrowness of her life there. "Any old place
would do, chum, to bury myself in if my heart was broken."
CHAPTER XIII
Through a labyrinth of narrow streets, echoing with native cries and
Oriental traffic, a wonderful sight and sensation to strangers
unfamiliar with Cairene commercial life, Margaret Lampton found her way
to "the home of enchantment," as she afterwards called the Iretons'
ancient mansion. It was a native house, typical and expressive of the
most resplendent years of the Mameluke rule in Egypt.
A licensed guide, with a brass-lettered number on his arm, in a blue
cotton jebba and a scarlet fez, had volunteered to show her the way; it
would have been impossible for a stranger to find it alone. The
Cairene licensed guides, although they are pests, have their uses.
As Margaret passed under the lintel of the outer door, which led into a
quiet courtyard, of Hadassah Ireton's house, a Nubian servant rose from
the stone _mastaba_--the guards' seat--upon which he had been lying
half asleep; he conducted her with the silence of a shadow to the gate
of the inner or women's courtyard. This courtyard was overlooked by
the women's quarters of the house only.
Margaret rather timidly entered the second courtyard. She scarcely
knew what to expect. She was certainly not prepared for the vision of
beauty which she saw directly the door was opened. She had heard
nothing at all of the fantastic beauty of the superb old Mameluke
palaces in Cairo; she did not know that the Iretons lived in one.
A fat servant, also a Nubian, but more amply clad the guard at the
outer door, rose from a wooden seat, grown grey with age. With the
same silence and mystery he conducted Margaret across the courtyard.
Margaret could, of course, only glance at the bewildering beauty of her
mediaeval surroundings as she followed the servant, but brief as her
vision of it was, it left a never-to-be-forgotten picture in her mind.
A vision of coolness and peace, of oriel windows--chamber-windows for
unreal people, jealously screened with weather-bleached _meshrahiyeh_
work--and one high balcony, the special feature of the courtyard, a
dream of romantic beauty, shaded by the dark leaves of an ancient
lebbek tree. It was a vision as dignified as it was touching. It was
like a lost piece of a world which had passed away, a lonely cloud
which had detached itself from a world of romance and had hidden itself
in the heart of a seething city of ugliness and sin.
Surprise temporarily drove from Margaret's mind the object of her
visit; it was not until she was seated in the spacious room which
overlooked the courtyard, and whose front wall consisted of the
_meshrahiyeh_ balcony--it was now Hadassah Ireton's drawing-room--that
she was brought face to face with the unusualness of her visit.
The room was beautifully cool, screened as it was by the delicate
lace-work. _Meshrabiyeh_ was invented to fill two wants--to screen the
windows through which women could look out, without being seen
themselves, and to admit fresh air while it excluded the sun. It is a
substitute for glass in a warm climate.
Margaret would have liked to have sat for a little time longer to
collect her thoughts and to take in the beauty of the room; but that
was not to be; the door opened and her hostess entered.
Of all the beautiful pictures which she had seen since she entered the
inner courtyard of this mediaeval home, Hadassah Ireton was the most
beautiful. She had brought her baby-boy with her; he was just learning
to toddle. A sob rose in Margaret's throat, as she saw the fair-haired
child beside the tall young mother.
Hadassah had greeted her with the conventional "How do you do?"
Margaret answered it as conventionally.
Hadassah lifted her boy up and held him out to Margaret. "This is my
son," she said. "I know he wants to welcome you."
The boy held up his face to be kissed. As he did so, Margaret took him
in her arms and held him close to her breast. Hadassah, who had
brought him to administer to that very want--a woman's empty arms--went
to the balcony and made a pretence of letting in some fresh air and
excluding the shaft of sunlight which was coming from one of the small
oriels that had been left unclosed.
When she turned to her guest, she saw something very like tears in
Margaret's eyes. The child, who did not know the meaning of the word
fear or shyness, was speaking to Margaret as if he had known her all
his short life.
"He has taken you into his elastic heart," Hadassah said. "Because, if
you don't mind me saying so, I think we are rather like one another."
"Oh, no!" Margaret said impulsively, while she blushed. "I'm not like
you!"
Her words were expressive of admiration. Hadassah did not pretend to
misunderstand them; she was well accustomed to admiration.
"The boy sees the resemblance, I'm sure."
"We have both dark heads and we are both tall," Margaret said
laughingly. "But there the likeness ends." She looked at Hadassah's
eyes as she spoke and wished that she could believe that she was in the
least like her. She had never seen such a beautiful expression in any
woman's eyes before. Was she really the Syrian girl whom Michael
Ireton had dared to marry?
"Let us sit down," Hadassah said. "But before we begin our talk, I
must send Michael to the nursery. I am really so foolish about him--I
wanted you to see him." She rang the bell and a pretty Coptic girl in
native dress came into the room; the boy went on with her without
demur. The girl had looked at Margaret with big brown eyes; they
carried her mind back to the portraits of Egyptian women painted in
Roman times on the walls of tombs.
"What a good little chap!" Margaret said. "I'm sure he wanted to stay
with you. How marked the Coptic type is!--they are the true
descendants of the ancient Egyptians, aren't they? He looked so fair
beside her."
"Dear little son! He will be perfectly happy with her. He loves
everybody and everything. I sometimes wonder if it means a lack of
character. He rarely cries, and he sings baby-songs to himself all day
long."
"What a darling!" Margaret said. "And how fair!"
"Yes," Hadassah said, "quite English." The words were spoken without
malice, but they brought the colour to Margaret's cheeks. Hadassah saw
it, and said laughingly, "I was granted my wish--I wanted to have a boy
as like my husband as possible. He wanted a girl, I think."
Margaret laid her hand on Hadassah's arm. "Did you mind me writing?"
she said. "I hope you didn't think it very odd?" Her voice broke. "I
wanted your advice. I knew you and your husband could help me."
"Dear Miss Lampton," Hadassah said, "I'm so glad you wrote, and of
course I understood. It's worth while to have suffered oneself, so as
to be able to understand and help others in their suffering."
Margaret knew all that the words implied, but with her habitual
reserve, she answered as though Hadassah had referred to her cousin's
death. The Nationalist plot in which he was implicated had added to
the horror which British society in Cairo had openly expressed at
Michael Ireton's marriage with a Syrian, who was a cousin of the
ill-advised youth.
"Michael told me something of the tragedy," Margaret said. "You must
have felt his death terribly."
Margaret's words were conventional, but Hadassah did not miss the
sympathy and feeling which lay underneath them.
"I did," Hadassah said. "But the boy would never have been happy--he
was one of the pitiful instances you meet in Egypt; of misguided
idealists. Girgis had a fine character, but he was fastened upon
because of his wealth by the wrong set of the Nationalist party, who
misled him and then turned on him and killed him because he wouldn't go
as far as they wanted him to go in their horrible outrages. It was a
pitiful story, greatly distorted and misinterpreted by the press."
"His death was splendid," Margaret said. "It wiped out all the
rest--it proved his real worth."
"Yes," Hadassah said. "Poor Girgis died a hero's death. He was as
brave as a lion. But come," she said, "let me hear your news. These
things we are talking about are ancient history to everybody but
myself, and I never think of them if I can help it. It is better not."
She sighed reflectively. "Dear Girgis knows that I can never forget
him. He gave me all his fierce young love at a time when it was very
precious."
"Ignorance was at the bottom of it all," Margaret said. She was
alluding to the behaviour of the British residents in Cairo in respect
to Hadassah's marriage. Hadassah understood.
"I have learned to know and realize that," she said. "And, after all,
one must pity ignorance. I have got so far that I can actually feel
sorry for such narrow minds. As for Michael, he never gave it a
thought. If our characters are widened through suffering, I have
gained--they have lost. Something fine always leaves our natures when
we do or think unkind things--nothing is truer or surer than that."
"Michael always says the same thing," Margaret said eagerly. "He
thinks unkind thoughts and uncharitable acts--want of love, in
fact--the unpardonable sins."
"Both our men have the same name." Hadassah's eyes smiled. "I like
your man so much, if I may say so. He is worth a great deal. We can't
expect big things to come to us in a small, mediocre way, can we?"
"I am so glad you like him," Margaret said. "And you believe in him?
Your husband believes in him, in his . . ." she hesitated ". . .
unpractical mind?" Hadassah's understanding and gentleness made her
feel childishly weak. It would have been a relief to give way to
weeping. Her nerves were at the point when any rebuke would have
braced her sympathy was undoing.
"Why, of course!"
"May I tell you why I came?"
"Will you have some tea first? You are tired!"
"No thanks, really. I had numerous cups of coffee on my way here."
"Then let me hear all you want to tell me. Even if I can't help you, I
know how nice it is to talk over one's troubles with another woman.
You have lived very much cut off from women's society all these months.
Where is Mr. Amory? Did he go into the desert? We haven't heard of
him or from him since he spoke to my husband about going off on a long
journey. He had a great scheme in his head. He's an odd creature."
She laughed. "You and I both like individualities, I think."
"He went into the eastern desert soon after you saw him. I haven't
heard from him since he went. His letters may have gone astray. But
in the meantime a report has been spread abroad that he has taken a
woman with him, a Mrs. Mervill. Have you heard of her?"
"Millicent Mervill? I know her!"
"Well, she is in love with him. You know how beautiful she is. . . ."
Margaret's voice lost its steadiness.
"Yes, and also I know how thoroughly lacking in morals. She is very
well-known by this time. Last season she was the fashion; she
entertained lavishly. This year she has thrown caution to the winds."
"She certainly has, for she has positively hunted Michael to earth."
"Michael Amory, of all men!" Hadassah's laugh encouraged Margaret; it
was so expressive of what she herself felt.
"Yes, I think she is annoyed because. . . ." Margaret paused ". . .
well, I can't express what I mean, but Michael isn't that sort. He
would be her friend if she would let him, but friendship isn't enough."
"I know what you mean. He certainly isn't that sort, there can be no
mistaking that."
Margaret smiled happily. "Then you believe he isn't?"
"Of course! Who doesn't?"
"My brother objects to my name being mixed up in the scandal." Margaret
had evaded answering Hadassah's question.
"But what scandal?"
"The reports that are going about that Mrs. Mervill is with him in the
desert, that that is why I haven't heard from Mike. Everyone is saying
it." Meg's words conveyed an apology for her brother.
"Your brother really believes this, and yet he knows Mr. Amory?"
"Yes. But you mustn't blame him. He has tried not to believe it; he
is really awfully good about it all. And I must admit that it looks as
if the story was true, but I just know it isn't."
"Of course it isn't!" Hadassah said, almost sharply. "Who spread the
report?"
"First it came from the native diggers in the valley, and then my
brother heard it from Mr. King. Now lots of people are talking about
it, and my brother wants me to go home. . . . I've promised to go
if . . ." Margaret paused. "That's why I came to you. I want your
advice. If we could only hear from Michael, I know the whole thing
would be explained. My brother would do anything he could to help me,
but his business ties him and . . ." again she paused and then said
hurriedly, "You know what men are--he hates my name being bandied
about."
"I'll get my husband to comb out the truth from all these lies."
Hadassah put her hand on Margaret's. "You'll laugh at your fears one
day."
"If you only knew how thoughtless Michael is about the opinion of the
world! If he isn't doing wrong, he never stops to think what
construction the world may be putting on his action, nor does he care."
"Personally I think it's the malicious talk of some enemy, or of Mrs.
Mervill herself. Can she have intercepted his letters, and spread the
report so as to separate you?"
"She may have followed him. If she is with him, she is self-invited."
Hadassah Ireton interrupted her. "Even Mrs. Mervill could scarcely do
that!"
"My brother says that I may wait in Cairo until we can find definite
proofs one way or another. A letter may come from Michael at any
moment. I know it will come if he is all right, but I'm so afraid he
is ill--that is really what I came to ask you about."
"You want us to try to find out if he is ill?"
"Yes, if you will, if it is not asking too much. Something keeps on
telling me that he is ill, that he is in need of help." Margaret was
speaking more earnestly and with less restraint. "I have had queer
visions and many presentiments since I lived in the Valley. I seem to
be able to see beyond . . . if you know what I mean. They have come
true in many instances--it is not mere imagination. But perhaps you
have as little belief as I once had in these things?"
"Where ought Mr. Amory to be just now--have you any idea?" Hadassah's
voice conveyed the idea to Margaret that the subject was too serious to
be spoken of hastily or decisively.
"He ought to have reached his destination, the hills beyond the ruins
of Tel-el-Amarna. Did you know the object of his journey?" Margaret
spoke nervously, shyly; she shrank from speaking of her lover's belief
in the treasure of Akhnaton.
"Yes. He told my husband the twofold reason of his wish to make the
journey. He believes in the theory that there is a buried treasure in
the hills beyond Tel-el-Amarna, where Akhnaton was buried, and I think
he also wanted . . . what shall I say? . . . to find himself--I suppose
I must use that hackneyed phrase for want of a better--to find himself
in the desert. Wasn't that it?"
"Yes. He is a born wanderer." Margaret said the words dreamily; her
thoughts had flown, to the luminous figure of Akhnaton. In this superb
mansion, fashioned by Oriental genius and Eastern wealth and
imagination, her vision took its place, not unnaturally, in the strange
list of things which her eyes had seen or her mind had received during
her life in Egypt.
"Will you enjoy a wandering life? Don't you think women like a home?"
"With an intellectual companion any place is home; with a stupid one a
palace becomes a wilderness. I have learnt that in the desert, if I
have learnt nothing else, I think. Michael could make a real home out
of a bathing-machine and a box of books." She laughed. "He is never
dull, he doesn't know the meaning of the word bored. His only trouble
is that no day is long enough. He'd forget the dimensions of the
bathing-machine--it would become to him a beautiful house like this."
"What a wonderful thing love is!" Hadassah said to herself, as she
watched Margaret's eyes glow and shine. Her thoughts had transformed
her. "A wonderful and beautiful thing! Whatever would the world be
without it? And yet there are some people who go through life without
the faintest idea of what it really means!"
"What we three have got to do," she said aloud, "is to discover where
the wanderer is. The sooner he is found the sooner he can start life
in a bathing-box. I agree with you so far that I think it's more than
likely that he is ill--not necessarily seriously ill, but ill enough to
have been delayed on his journey. Still, that is not the only solution
of the problem. His letters may be lying in some native post-office.
I've known letters remain for weeks on end in out-of-the-way village
post-offices. The official can't read the address; he puts the letter
aside until someone comes along who can. It may be sooner, it may be
later; they eventually reach their destination."
Margaret smiled. "Michael's writing is not too clear--that may be the
cause of the delay."
"My husband has received letters which have been months on a journey
which should have taken days. Time means nothing to desert peoples, as
you know."
"You have made me feel much happier," Margaret said brightly. She
could have kissed the beautiful woman by her side out of sheer
gratitude.
For some time longer they discussed the subject more fully and laid
their plans.
Suddenly Hadassah said, "Where are you staying in Cairo?"
When Margaret told her the name of her hotel, she said, "You must come
to us. We have lots of spare room in this big house, and if you are
here we can work together so much better. The hotel is too public. It
would really give us great pleasure if you will. I feel sure it would
be wiser."
"How kind of you to ask me!" Margaret said. "I am quite a stranger to
you! I'd love to come. Michael has told me something about your work
among the Copts--indeed, everyone speaks of it, of your new educational
scheme and the progress you have made in so short a time. I should
like to understand more about it, if I may."
"Perhaps our minds have met many times before, for I think we are
scarcely strangers," Hadassah said. "I hope you don't feel towards me
as one?"
Margaret looked pleased. "I have heard so much about you, about your
work."
"It is very uphill work. You can only hope for very slow results
amongst a people who have been scorned and persecuted and rejected for
generations and generations. I, as a Syrian, know what social
persecution means, so it is my highest ambition to do what little I
can, with my husband's help and my father's wealth, to elevate the
ideals and the moral standard of the young Coptic girls. You can do
nothing, or next to nothing, with the older women. Their characters
are formed, their prejudices too deeply-rooted."
"I suppose so. It is the same in India--the women there are the
bitterest opponents to the reforms for women. They cling to the
suffering and oppression they endure."
"These Copts have absorbed so many of the worst features of the
Mohammedan civilization--their superstitions, their domestic customs
as regards the women, and a great many of their least desirable
religious ceremonies. It is hard, for instance, for a stranger to
distinguish between a Christian native's marriage or funeral and a
Moslem's--indeed, it is often not easy even if you have a lifelong
knowledge of the country. The finest qualities of Islam--and they
are many--they have rejected, and for so doing they have suffered
unthinkable hardships and persecutions. Bad as things are to-day, they
were far, far worse in the days before the British Occupation, when the
Christians were at the mercy of the fanatical Moslems."
"It is such a pity that the native Christian population is the one
which no one trusts in this country. The Mohammedans are respected,
the Copts are despised. I find that, even in connection with my
brother's work. The brains and industry of the country seem to belong
to the Copts; the honour and reliability to the Moslems."
"I know," Hadassah said. "And that's what my husband and I are
fighting against. He wants to prove that the people of any country and
of any religion, even the English," Hadassah's eyes twinkled, "will
become degraded and untrustworthy in time, if they are persecuted and
oppressed. With the Christian element in Egypt, it has been a case of
every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. If we were to
take some Coptic children and Mohammedan children, of the same social
grade out here, and had them educated in England as Christians, you
would soon see that it is not the Copts who ought to be despised, but
their intolerant oppressors and persecutors." Hadassah smiled. "You
know, Miss Lampton, how easy it is to be good and strong when one is
trusted and loved. Love makes finer, better women of us."
Margaret rose from her seat. "You have done me so much good," she
said. "I feel as if my world had been re-made."
"That's splendid!" Hadassah said. "I always try to remember that it is
a privilege to suffer. It is one of the divine fires which tests us;
suffering links us to the great brotherhood. You wouldn't choose to be
outside it. The older we grow the more we realize that it is
suffering, not happiness, which makes the whole world kin."
Margaret's silence, which often was more eloquent than other women's
speech, told Hadassah that she agreed. Suffering was teaching her its
lessons.
"When may we expect you?" Hadassah said. "The sooner the better, don't
you think?"
"May I come in a day or two? I have some business to do for my
brother--I have promised to see one or two people for him; he is going
home very soon." She looked round the hall through which they were
passing. "I can't imagine myself ever really living here. It looks as
if it had all been created by the wand of some magician for a princess
in a fairytale. What a contrast to our hut in the Valley!"
"You like it better than a new house in the European settlement? You
think I chose wisely?"
"Of course I do. Who wouldn't?"
"This house costs us no more than a good flat would in the European
part of the city, but you have to come through the native quarters to
get to it, remember. Many people would object to that."
"I hate the European quarter of Cairo," Margaret said. "It seems to me
so vulgar and degenerate. The native quarter is just what it sets out
to be, no better and no worse."
"Well, you must come and stay with us--my husband will enjoy showing
you the hidden beauties of Cairo. He is devoted to it."
Margaret's ears caught the sound of water. It was coming from a tall
fountain which was playing in the centre of the outer hall. Above it
was a pendentive roof, richly carved and coloured. A suggestion of
turquoise-blue and the gleam of iridescent tiles showed through the
clear water in the octagonal basin set in the floor. The jets of water
came from a large ball of blue faience resting on the top of a slender
spiral column. The fountain was only one of the beautiful features of
that Eastern mansion which Margaret noticed as her hostess conducted
her to the inner courtyard.
"How enchanting it all is!" Margaret said. "I feel much too prosaic to
imagine spending my everyday working hours in it." Her life in the hut
seemed better suited to her practical nature.
"I love it," Hadassah said. "And I like its emptiness. That is the
native idea. We have tried not to make it look like a mediaeval
museum, not to stuff it up with things. It's a great temptation."
"Its sense of space is its greatest charm. There is everything you can
possibly want in it, and yet it has none of the absurd knick-knacks and
useless lumber of Western houses. My brother and I have learned to do
without so much that I don't think we shall ever fall into the sin of
overcrowding our rooms again."
Hadassah laughed. "Will you have the courage to burn family
relics?--Aunt Maria's uncomfortable ottoman, Aunt Elizabeth's
escritoire, which is too small to write at, and Aunt Anne's firescreen
with strawberries worked in bead-work?"
"Oh, I know them all," Margaret said. "Just compare them to these
beautiful things!"
"Don't forget," Hadassah said, "that you are comparing the things of
England's worst period to the things of the finest period in Cairo. If
you saw some of the native houses, furnished from the European store in
the Ezbekiyeh, you would think Queen Victoria's private apartments at
Osborne beautiful," Hadassah's voice expressed her meaning.
"Good-bye," Margaret said laughingly. "It is hard to believe that, but
I take your word for it."
As Margaret walked through the outer courtyard, she kept saying to
herself, "So that is the Syrian's daughter, the girl whom the English
people rejected and would have none of!"
Freddy had often corrected his sister for her careless use of the word
"beautiful." He maintained that few people had ever seen a really
beautiful human being. The Greeks idealized their models in their
types of Venus and Apollo. Margaret felt that at last she could
truthfully tell him that she had seen a beautiful woman, and that that
woman was a Syrian, Michael Ireton's "wife out of Egypt."
CHAPTER XIV
When Margaret reached her hotel she was more than astonished to hear
that in her absence her brother had called to see her. He had left a
message to say that he would return in half an hour.
"How long ago was that?" Margaret asked.
The very grand servant, in his elaborately-embroidered and gold laced
native dress, said, "About twenty minutes ago, my lady. The gentleman
said that it was important that he should see you."
"I will wait for him on the terrace," Margaret said. "Bring him to me
directly he arrives."
She was so taken back by this inexplicable piece of news that she heard
nothing more of what the man said. Why on earth had Freddy come to
Cairo? Margaret knew that he had business which was to have kept him
four more days at least in Luxor. Her first thought was that he had
heard something about Michael, but she doubted if even that would have
made him neglectful of his duty. With Freddy his work and the
responsibility it entailed came before every other consideration.
Margaret had ever been mindful of the fact that her presence in the
camp was not to interfere with his work. She knew him so well, or she
fancied that she did. His coming must be in some way connected with
his work. Perhaps he wished to stop her carrying out the instructions
which he had given her; he might have learned something in Luxor which
had upset his plans.
A few minutes before the half-hour was up, Margaret saw her brother
walking quickly towards the hotel. The moment she caught sight of him,
she left the terrace and hurried down the street to meet him. There
was no one else within sight. He was walking with his head bent and as
though he was deeply immersed in thought.
When she got within speaking distance, she called out, "Oh, Freddy,
what is it? Why have you come?"
His expression had convinced her that something was wrong, that
something very serious had brought him to Cairo.
Freddy linked his arm in his sister's and took a deep breath before he
spoke. "Chum dear," he said, "I've brought bad news for you."
"Michael's dead!" Meg stood still and dropped her brother's arm. It
was a pitiful face, that paled to the lips as her eyes gazed into
Freddy's.
"No, Meg, Mike's not dead."
"Then he's dying, and you're afraid to tell me!" Margaret strode
forward, as if she was then and there starting off to find her dying
lover. Freddy laid his hand on her arm. "Freddy, let me go!" she said
impatiently. "Take me to him quickly. Wild horses won't detain me!"
She shook off his hand.
"Steady, old girl. Let me tell you all about it. Mike's quite well,
so far as I know. I've heard nothing about any illness."
"Then what's the matter? More lies? Hadassah Ireton doesn't believe a
word of them! She is an angel--she is going to help me." Meg's head
dropped; her chest rose and fell with suppressed emotion.
"Don't walk so quickly, Meg. I can't tell you while you dash on like
that. Have some pity on me--I hate my job."
Meg fell back. "Well, tell me--out with it!"
"The Government has got wind of the 'site.' Michael's discovery has
been anticipated. Experimentary digging has begun."
"And where is Mike?" Meg's eyes blazed.
"That is just it! He ought to have reached the hills two weeks ago, at
least. While he has been idling, someone has played him
false--betrayed him--informed the Government for the sake of the
reward."
Meg gave a little cry. It lashed Freddy to fury against Michael; it
was the cry of a crucified soul.
"It's just his casual drifting again!"
"But you didn't believe in the treasure!" Meg's loyalty was up in arms
against Freddy's voice of accusation.
"I know I didn't, and it's yet got to be proved that it is there. But
the fact remains that I heard from the Director of Public Works that a
temporary camp has been pitched on the very site Mike was going for.
The whole story is a complication of truth and fiction."
Meg spoke with difficulty. The agony at her heart was choking her.
"Why have they suddenly sent excavators to that particular spot, if
there is nothing there?"
"On the strength of the information given by a native."
"And what had the native found? Isn't it just too diabolical and
wicked?"
"It's jolly hard lines, but if Mike had gone there straight and as
quickly as he could, if he hadn't played the idiot, he'd have been
there before the native who has betrayed him."
While Freddy was speaking, thoughts came to Meg of her vision of
Akhnaton, of the strange and occult incidents connected with the story
of the hidden treasure.
"What do you mean by playing the fool?" she said. "Have you heard from
Michael? Have you any reliable ground for supposing that he played the
fool?" Meg's voice was beautifully scornful.
"I've heard again, that Millicent was with him. The facts are
undeniable. The whole thing makes me furious. Why couldn't he have
written to me and told me, if she followed him, as you suggested? His
silence condemns him."
"It makes me more than furious." Meg's voice was horrible in Freddy's
ears; it was older, shriller, cruelly defiant. "It makes me furious to
think how easily evil is believed of the absent, who can't defend
themselves."
They strode along. Both were walking blindly forward.
"It makes me sick, sick, sick!" She flung the words out and then broke
into a little cry. "Oh, Freddy, have you no faith? no trust? Is that
your friendship?"
"What can I do?" he said. "I'm not blinded with love as you are. I
see things dispassionately. I want to do what is best for you. Why
hasn't he written? I'm quite willing to believe what Michael tells
me--I don't doubt his word--but he has said nothing. This is another
example of his weakness."
"Do you believe that Millicent is still with him?"
"Her dragoman who took her into the desert has returned to Luxor. I
haven't seen him--he could tell us everything we want to know."
"The news came from him?" Meg's voice was a stinging reproach.
"Yes. He only remained in Luxor a few hours; he was going to his home
in Assiut, but he spread the story."
There was a pause.
"He took Millicent to Michael?"
"He took her into the desert; they met."
"And because we have had no word from Michael, no explanation, you are
ready to condemn him?" Meg's words were loyal, while her heart was
torn with jealousy.
"Meg," said Freddy gently, "will you go home to England?"
"No." The word came sharply, abruptly.
"You promised, old girl."
"I never promised to accept the words of a dragoman against my own
knowledge of Michael, against my conscience. I have another promise to
keep, my promise of absolute trust."
"The dragoman can have no object in lying, and added to his report,
there is the fact that if Michael had not dallied for some reason or
another, he would have reached the hills long before this. He has
allowed the Government to anticipate him."
"Freddy, I believe in God, and He has told me that Michael is as true
to me as I am to him."
"Poor old girl!" Freddy said tenderly. "You're such a loyal old thing."
But Meg rounded on him; she was a truer Lampton than she ever
suspected. "Oh, don't 'poor' me, Freddy! I can't bear it. It sounds
as if I were half an imbecile, or as if Michael was a villain! I've
got my wits all right--and Egypt has given me super-wits. It has shown
me things beyond. If there is such a thing as conscience, then I
should be sinning against mine if I doubted my lover for one instant."
"But didn't you say that the Lampton pride would not be wanting when
you really discovered that Mike had taken Millicent with him?"
"And it won't be wanting, if either Mike or Millicent tell me with
their own lips that they have been together on this journey. I'll
start off home by the next boat."
"Oh, do be reasonable, Meg! You won't see either of them. If this
thing has happened, they'll keep out of the way. That's why they are
keeping silence."
"You are asking me to accept circumstantial evidence of what I call the
lowest order--dragomans' gossip. Well, I simply say I won't do it."
"What about the time he has taken to reach the hills?"
"I don't pretend to understand. Mike will explain when he gets a
chance. I only know that he wouldn't believe a word of the story if he
heard that I had been away with six good-looking men who admired me."
Freddy gave a mirthless laugh. "There is safety in numbers, Meg. If
he had the evidence you have, I wonder what he'd feel?"
"Just what I feel. I have seen Hadassah Ireton. Her husband will help
me. He knew Mike; they planned this journey together."
"I wish you'd leave things alone. I asked you to."
"I can't. Michael may be ill."
"It doesn't sound like it. Bad news travels quickly."
"Look here, Freddy," Margaret said, "you haven't the slightest idea of
what it feels like to be in love. When you do, you will understand.
What a lot you have still to learn! You won't believe any old lie that
comes along about the girl you have vowed to trust and whom you believe
in as you believe in your God. As lovers we Lamptons don't deal in
half measures."
"Then are you going to remain in Cairo indefinitely, waiting and
waiting for Michael to come back to you, when he is away fooling with
another woman?"
"Don't kill me, Freddy! I can't stand much more." A sob burst from
Meg's lips. "All that's best in me trusts in Michael and all that is
bad doubts and distrusts. It's the bad that is killing me. Do you
understand? For pity's sake, if you care for me, don't add to the
evil, don't give it the upper hand. Freddy, I need you, I need some
trust to add to mine!"
"I'd kill myself if it would help you, you know I would!"
"Yes, I know it, of course I know it. I just go mad when you doubt
him, Freddy, I see red. I could kill you. It's because your doubts
feed my evil thoughts. I can't explain, but I know what I mean myself."
"I want to save you further pain, Meg."
"Hadassah Ireton said, which is quite true, that it is sometimes a
privilege to suffer. If only you, Freddy, won't doubt Mike, I can
endure almost anything. You're just a bit of myself. I can't bear you
to doubt. It's like myself doubting and forgetting, forgetting the
most beautiful thing in my life."
They had wandered on until they had come to the Nile Bridge. The sight
of the tall masts of the native boats, silhouetted against the crimson
of the evening sky, reminded Freddy that already they had gone too far.
He stopped abruptly.
"We must drive back, Meg, as quickly as we can. I've my train to
catch. We shall only just do it."
"Did you come to Cairo on purpose to see me?"
Freddy had signalled to a cab--an open landau, of ancient and decayed
splendour, driven by two white horses. They came dashing up at a wild
gallop. The native driver, in his red fez and white cotton jacket,
barely gave Freddy time to jump into the carriage after Meg was seated
when, with a noisy cracking of his whip, he urged the horses to a still
more reckless speed.
"I had to come. I was afraid you might get the news in some horrible
way. You've been a brick, but you can't think how I dreaded telling
you."
"I've not been a brick. I've been horrid. I am always horrid
nowadays." Meg's voice was contrite and humble.
"I like you for it. We understand each other."
"You're the dearest and best brother on earth, Freddy, and you know I
think so, and yet I speak as if I hated you!"
"We're chums," he said, as he put his hand on the top of Margaret's.
After that conversation became impossible. The horses were going at a
mad pace, through crowded, noisy streets. Margaret was a little
nervous, but she realized that there was only just time for Freddy to
catch his train, if he allowed the coachman to take his own way, to
drive in the arrogant native style. Every other minute she felt sure
that they would run over a child or dog, or knock down a foot
passenger. It seemed to be the privilege of anyone who could afford to
pay for a cab to drive over pedestrians if they got in the way; the
humble poor were of less account than the dust beneath the horses'
feet. The coachman's absurd cries to "clear the way" pierced
Margaret's ears without amusing her, while the cracking of the whip
almost drove her to despair. The noise and crowd of idle human beings
was bewildering to her nerves after the silence of the desert.
At last they reached the station, where they had to say good-bye
hurriedly and regretfully.
"I'll let you know," Margaret said, "what Michael Ireton advises.
Remember, I'm all right. Don't worry. You've been a dear. It was
awfully good of you to come."
"Good-bye, old girl," he said. "Take care of yourself."
As Meg walked back to her hotel, she comforted herself with the
assurance that Michael Ireton would find some way to help her. She
visualized to herself repeatedly the personality of Hadassah and her
expression of absolute confidence in Michael's Amory's loyalty and
honour. Her finer senses told her that it was natures like Hadassah's,
natures keenly sensitive to purity and uprightness, which could judge
people like Mike justly. The magnet of righteousness draws kindred
souls together. If Hadassah had doubted, then indeed she might have
listened to Freddy's counsel. Freddy was just and splendid in his way,
but Margaret did not blind herself to the fact that his knowledge of
human nature, even though it was singularly correct in most instances,
was derived from a more material source of evidence. His judgment was
governed by his practical common sense rather than by his super-senses.
Hadassah's nature was tuned to the inner consciousness of human beings,
as a musician's ear is tuned to the harmonies and discords of music,
even to the hundredth part of a tone.
If a woman like Hadassah had doubted Michael, or given a moment's
thought to the gossip of the dragoman, Margaret's faith might have been
troubled. But as matters stood at present, she knew that she herself
had a finer understanding of Michael than Freddy possessed, in spite of
his years, as compared to her own months of friendship. She tried to
strengthen herself against the invasion of unhappy thoughts by thinking
over in her mind all the various objects of beauty she had seen in the
Iretons' house. The picture of the cool courtyard, with the
dark-leaved lebbek-tree reaching up to the romantic balcony, brought a
smile to her lips. It was such an ideal setting for an Eastern Romeo
and Juliet. Busy as she knew the Iretons' life to be, their mediaeval
home suggested the repose and the charm and the romance of Love in
Idleness!
CHAPTER XV
To assure herself of her complete confidence in the arguments which she
had used to Freddy and of her own heart's happiness, as a thing widely
apart from her anxiety, Margaret dressed herself in her most becoming
frock that same evening for her first appearance at the hotel _table
d'hôte_. She sat at a little table by herself, in the enormous
dining-room. The season was far advanced; the tourists in Egypt had
all returned to Cairo, there to disperse to their various countries.
There were many fair and attractive women in the room, of widely varied
types--Americans, Austrians and English: that was how they took their
place in the scale of beauty in Margaret's opinion. Amongst them all
there was perhaps no one who was more commented upon and admired than
herself. Sitting by herself, for one thing, provoked curiosity, while
for another her claim to good looks had the high quality of
distinguished individuality; in an assembly of well-dressed women of
the world, Margaret, like Hadassah, could never be overlooked.
She had been out of the world of fashion and frivolity for so long that
the gay scene interested her and made it easy for her to temporarily
put aside her troubles. She had lived in the Valley, studying the
lives and customs of lost civilizations until they had become a part of
her own life. Now she found it amusing to be back again amongst the
men and women of to-day, people who were, as she reminded herself, in
their own little way creating history. They were as typical of the
world's evolution in the twentieth century as the Pharaohs in their
tombs and the painted figures of men and women and dancing girls on the
temple and tomb-walls were typical of the world's evolution three
thousand years ago.
After dinner she drank her coffee in the fine lounge of the hotel,
under tall palm-trees, while a Hungarian band played music which
stirred her blood and pulses. It made her feel very much alone and a
little desolate. She had been happier before the music began; it made
calls upon her heart, it gave re-birth to a thousand wants. Her sense
of loneliness increased as she watched more than one pair of lovers
gradually drift off and settle themselves down somewhere out of sight.
She heard one radiant couple making arrangements for going to see the
Pyramids by moonlight.
She had never seen the Pyramids or the Sphinx. Perhaps when she was
staying with the Iretons, they would take her to see them. She had
certainly no desire to make the excursion alone.
As she thought of the Pyramids, and Mike's association with them, a
wave of hate and rage spread over Margaret like a blush. She wondered
if any of the curious eyes of the tourists had noticed it; she had been
conscious of being freely criticized all the evening. She looked about
her quickly. The place had become almost devoid of young people; only
some elderly men and women were left, reclining in big chairs. With
the absence of youth, Margaret's spirits sank very low; it was not
bracing to her strained nerves and lonely condition to sit with the
elderly invalids and watch them passing the time away in a semi-dozing
condition until it was the recognized hour for going to bed.
To be true to Michael she must not allow herself to grow despondent.
Hadassah Ireton had gone through far greater trials and suffering than
she was facing, and what had been her reward? Margaret visualized her
married life, her expression of happiness as she greeted her, her pride
in the small son who was toddling at her side. It was a condition of
life well worth suffering and waiting for.
When the clock struck ten, Margaret rose from her retired seat. She
felt justified in going early to bed after such a long and trying day.
There was nothing better to do. As she entered the lift which was to
take her up to her floor, she suddenly found herself face to face with
Millicent Mervill.
She was so wholly unprepared for the meeting that she never afterwards
was able to understand why she did not lose her presence of mind. It
is on such occasions that the metal we are made of is put to the test.
The two women faced each other in silence. The next moment the lift
went swiftly up, and as it went, Margaret had but one clear
thought--that she would stop at the first floor and get out; she could
walk up the remaining flight of stairs. The next second she realized
that that would be a foolish and weak thing to do. It was her duty to
speak to Millicent and learn the cause of the scandal from her own
lips. She owed it to Michael. She must do the one thing which she
could to clear his name of the dishonour of which Freddy accused him.
Millicent was getting out at the first landing. The lift shot up so
quickly that the silence between them had been of the briefest.
Margaret left the lift at the same moment and again the two women stood
facing one another, as the gate closed behind them and the lift began
its downward journey.
"Good evening," Millicent said gaily. "I never expected to have the
pleasure of seeing you in Cairo." A smile which might have hidden any
meaning lit up her eyes and showed the perfection of her mouth and
teeth. But even at that critical moment, Margaret was conscious that
her beauty had lost something of its radiance. Had her youth, which
had seemed eternal, vanished at last? Had it left her as rats leave a
sinking ship? Had the gods recalled what had already tarried too long?
"Good-evening," was all that Margaret managed to say. Her heart was
floundering in a sea of anger; her mind was struggling for wise words,
words which would drag the truth from the pretty lips, playing over
still prettier teeth. She was determined not to let the opportunity
slip.
But Millicent was too quick. She left Margaret no chance to take the
lead in the conversation; she seized and kept it to the end. Margaret
should know just as much as she, Millicent, wished her to know, and no
more. She meant to enjoy herself; the devout Margaret was going to
receive some nasty knocks.
"How is our mystic?" she asked lightly.
The word "our" instantly deprived Meg of her resolution to speak
tactfully and even hypocritically, if it was necessary. Millicent did
not wait for her tardy answer. Meg's expression had flamed the devil's
fire of mischief in her callous heart.
"Have you heard from him since I left him?"
Here Margaret's pride helped her. She threw up her chin; a trick with
her when her fighting spirit was roused.
"I really don't know. I forget how long ago it is since you saw him."
"I left him almost within sight of his promised land, of his King
Solomon's mine. Has he found it? Were the jewels very wonderful?"
The woman's audacity amazed Margaret, while it infuriated her, but
thanks to the blood of her ancestors, a fight always braced her nerves
and quickened her wits; it was tenderness which brought tears. She was
not going to allow the brazen little beast to know or see what her
words meant to her; she was not going to tell her of Michael's
disappointment. If she had betrayed him and robbed him of Akhnaton's
treasure, she was not going to let her batten on the suffering she had
caused, so she said:
"My brother has just heard that information of the discovery has come
to the Minister of Public Works. The Government has sent out some men
to make the preliminary excavations, so I suppose it is all right."
Millicent's eyes gleamed. Something like sympathy pleasure beautified
them; for a moment her desire to wound the girl who had robbed her of
the lover she desired was forgotten; it was lost in surprise.
"Then Mike was right? He has really discovered his precious treasure,
his legacy of Akhnaton? I'm so glad!" She paused. "I never really
believed he would, did you? It seemed to me mere moonshine, a
delightful excuse for a desert romance."
Margaret was still more amazed. What an actress the woman was! If she
had not known her true character, she would have believed that she was
innocent of the base treachery of which she was guilty.
"Yes, it would appear so," she said coldly. "But we know very
little--we have only had the official news of the discovery. His
letters will tell us more. Does the news surprise you?"
Millicent looked at Margaret keenly. Their eyes met as bitter
antagonists. Millicent supposed that Margaret thought that Michael
would have written to her and told her the news; she answered
accordingly.
"His breathless letters--you know how he writes--are probably resting
in some desert village. They'll come along all right. But I'm awfully
glad the dear man hasn't found a mare's nest, aren't you?" She spoke
again quickly, before Margaret had time to answer. "What does your
brother say about it? Isn't he surprised? He thought it was all
tommy-rot, didn't he? How different they are!"
"It is always difficult to tell what Freddy thinks," Margaret said.
"He is a very reserved person. If the whole thing turns out as Michael
expected, he will be delighted and interested."
"If there is anything there at all," Millicent said, "that ought to be
sufficient proof of the seer's powers--I mean, things of Akhnaton's
period. The portable treasure might have been stolen--it probably was.
If the saint had discovered it, why not others?"
"I have had no particulars," Meg said coldly. She felt certain that
Millicent was pumping her for her own pleasure.
"Your brother never mentioned the King Solomon's mine of gold and the
jewels," Millicent said laughingly; "yet even my men were talking about
it quite openly on my homeward journey. Mike and I were so careful--we
never mentioned a word about it. To all outward appearances we were
merely journeying in the desert for pleasure; our objective was to be
the tomb where Akhnaton's body was buried. They must have learned all
about it from the holy man--tents have ears. You have heard all about
our meeting with the 'child of God,' of course?" She searched
Margaret's eyes as she spoke and then added lightly: "I should like to
have seen Mike in his strange counting-house, counting out his money,
shouldn't you?"
Margaret very nearly said, "You little liar, get out of my sight!" The
sudden temptation to shake her was almost past enduring; it was all she
could do to keep her hands off her and remain silent. She had heard
from the woman's own lips what she had told Freddy she never would
hear; her promise to him flashed through her mind. Her doom was
sealed. The psychological and archaeological interest of what
Millicent had told her did not penetrate her brain; even her reference
to their meeting with a "child of God" fell on deaf ears. Millicent
had asked her if she had shared Michael's beliefs in the occult and
mystic interpretation of the discovery, in tones which implied that she
did not expect Margaret to understand or sympathize with that side of
Michael Amory's character.
Margaret managed to keep her wits about her. The agony which she was
enduring must at all costs be hidden from her enemy.
With a calm that surprised her own ears, she said. "Did you enjoy your
time in the desert? Why did you return before the eventful discovery?
If you had waited, you would have seen Mr. Amory wading in the historic
jewels."
Millicent was very quick. She had arranged in her own mind how much
and how little she was going to tell Margaret. It was to be enough to
ruin her happiness and trust in her lover, enough to rob Michael of the
woman who had robbed her of him; but not enough to let her know why
she, Millicent, had flown from the camp.
"Oh, we both loved it!" she said. "We had some unique and strange
experiences, things we shall never forget. But I had to come back, my
time was up. I am leaving for England on the twenty-eighth--I have so
much to pack and collect."
"It is getting very warm," Margaret said. "The tourists are all going
back."
"Oh, I never mind the heat--I like it--but unfortunately I have to go
home--money matters. I've been rather lucky, in a manner--a rich
relation in Australia died a few months ago and I have just heard that
he has left me a nice little bit."
Millicent's words instantly confirmed Margaret's suspicions. The
unscrupulous woman had secured at least a part of the buried gold.
Margaret wondered if it would be wise to attack her on the subject.
She refrained; instinct cautioned her. With Margaret it was always a
case of--When in doubt, hold your tongue.
"What a fortunate coincidence!" she said coldly. "How very odd!"
Millicent looked at her sharply. What did her words mean? What was
she driving at? Margaret never spoke unthinkingly.
"I don't understand what coincidence you refer to, but certainly I've
been lucky as regards legacies and money. I've always been fortunate
about money, but there is a saying that money goes where money is, and
that if you get one legacy you will get three. I really could have
done without the last windfall. I have enough of this world's goods
for a lone woman--if I had some babies it would be different."
There was a note of sadness in Millicent's words which would have
appealed to Margaret if she had not known what a perfect actress the
woman was. How was she to believe anything she said after what she had
done?
"You needn't let it be a burden to you." Margaret pretended to laugh.
"There are other people's babies who have none. There are plenty of
ways of disposing of super-wealth. Why not pay for the costs of some
of the Egyptian exploration work next autumn? It would interest you
and . . ." Margaret paused. ". . . it would be a suitable way of
spending the gold. It would repay Mr. Amory."
In saying these words, Margaret felt that she was going as near to the
point as she dared. As she said them, Millicent's eyes hardened. She
had spoken with sincerity when she said that she could have done
without her uncle's fortune, for there were moments when she deceived
herself into believing that if her grand passion for Michael had been
returned, that if she had ever been loved as greatly as she felt that
she herself could love, or if she had had any children, she would have
been a good and noble woman. No chance of goodness had ever come her
way, and she had never stepped aside to look for it.
"I don't know about repaying Mike," she said coldly. "There are some
things which can never be repaid or bought."
Meg certainly got as good as she had given. "I never meant to suggest
that I had so much wealth that it would be a burden to me. I think I
shall find some way of spending it enjoyably." She turned to the left
wing of the corridor; her bedroom lay there. "Now I must say
good-night," she said, still more coolly. "I have a great deal to do."
She looked down at her dress. "My luggage has never come on from
Luxor--it's such a nuisance. I had to wear a 'dug-out' to-night, a
blouse and skirt I wore in the desert. They have lain packed all that
time--I never thought I should have to wear them again." As she spoke,
she visualized her last evening in the camp, when she had given Hassan
her instructions for their flitting. She had worn the blouse that same
evening.
"It looks very nice," Margaret said carelessly.
"Oh, it's terrible! I didn't venture to come down to _table d'hôte_ in
it--I dined in my room. Good-night."
"You still wear your eye of Horus?" Margaret said; she had noticed the
amulet the moment she saw Millicent in the lift.
"Of course! It is my most treasured possession."
Margaret longed to tell her that she knew where the bit of blue faience
had been found on the day when it was lost in the hut. She burned to
say, "You little prying cat, you read my diary!" instead of which she
said, quite calmly:
"The Divine Eye ought to have known better than to be the cause of
Mohammed Ali's telling one of his finest lies."
"What do you mean?" Millicent asked. But even as she spoke, her face
paled a little. "Your language has become quite cryptic--the result, I
suppose, of your work in the tombs!"
"Probably," Margaret said. "Life in the Valley has taught me many
things--but first and foremost, above all others, it has shown me the
power and the danger of _baksheesh_. Good-night," she added quickly.
"I've been keeping you."
Millicent looked at her with steely eyes. Meg's words were not too
cryptic for her comprehension. "Good-night," she said. "When I hear
from Mike, I'll let you know."
When Margaret reached her room, she flung off her self-restraint.
Catching up a sofa-cushion, she flung it at an imaginary Millicent; two
more went flying in the same direction.
"Oh, you beast, you hateful little beast!" she cried. "I believe you
have won, after all! I wanted to find out if Michael was to blame, I
wanted to make you confess that you trapped and followed him into the
desert! And all I succeeded in doing was to hear from your own lips
what all the hateful tongues in Egypt have been screaming and shouting
in my ears for weeks past!" She sank down on the low sofa. "My pride
spoilt everything. I wouldn't let you know that I cared, that I didn't
know a word about anything, that I have never heard a line from
Michael." Her mind stood at attention; a new thought held it. The
holy man! Millicent had spoken of the holy man. Was he the "child of
God" who was to lead Mike to the hidden treasure? She groaned. Oh,
why had she not questioned her, why had she not controlled her own
anger and her pride, and learnt from Millicent a thousand things she
longed to know? She had not even asked her at what definite place in
the desert she had left Michael! She had asked her absolutely nothing
which would help her to find him. She had only gleaned from her the
one fact, the fact which made it absolutely imperative for her to
return at once to England. Her pride was so cruelly injured that she
accepted that fact as absolute. Even if Michael was entirely innocent
of any dishonour to herself, it was impossible not to feel wounded and
hurt to the quick by his silence. She had sworn to trust him, but was
he not asking too much of human nature? Might he not have given a
thought to the fact that Freddy and all the world would condemn him?
Of Michael's health Millicent had told her nothing. She had spoken in
a manner which suggested that she had left him in the enjoyment of
perfect health. Her excuses for him to Freddy had melted into thin
air. How was she to tell Hadassah Ireton? Hadassah, whose complete
trust had made her ashamed of Freddy.
* * * * * *
She had gone to her room early, but it was far into the night before
she began to undress and get ready for bed. She was tired and unhappy
and for once she allowed herself to accuse Michael. She began by
saying that he had been thoughtless and neglectful, that he ought to
have managed somehow to get a letter through to her as soon as
Millicent appeared on the scene. She felt convinced that she would
have contrived to let him hear under similar circumstances it . . .
well, if she had wanted him to hear, if she had had a satisfactory
explanation to offer. It was the horrible "if" which kept Margaret
awake. That mustard-seed of suspicion grew and grew until its flowers
of evil covered her whole world. Thought can make our heaven or our
hell. Margaret's thoughts that night created no divine vision, no fair
City of the Horizon.
If Millicent had come back to Cairo, because of business, surely
Michael could have sent a letter by her servants, even if he had not
cared to entrust it into her own hands. That was the thought which
triumphed--it shed its darkness over the things of light.
CHAPTER XVI
The next morning Margaret rose early. During her long and sleepless
night she had reviewed her position over and over again; there seemed
to be no way out of it. She must and would keep her promise to Freddy.
It is impossible to give a lucid interpretation of her tortured
feelings. In her practical, reasoning mind her thoughts were black and
suspicious; her heart was full of doubts, anger, wounded pride; while
in the background, still shining like the dim light on the horizon at
the approach of dawn, was her unconquerable belief in her lover's
honour.
She felt compelled to act up to her practical judgment, to her promise
that she would go home to England if she heard from either Michael's or
Millicent's own lips that they had been together in the desert. But it
was the horizon-light which helped her and made her able to bear the
shock of Millicent's brutal announcement.
For one whole night she had faced the certain fact that Millicent had
camped in the desert with Michael. Anyone who has considered the
ceaseless workings of the human brain will understand what no pen could
describe--the countless arguments for and against her lover's honour
which came and went in an endless rotation in Margaret's mind.
She was glad when daylight flooded the room and she could get up and
take the definite steps which would settle her doom. There is nothing
so unendurable as lying in bed, a victim to miserable thoughts.
As soon as she was dressed she wrote a brief letter to Freddy. She
felt like a criminal writing a warrant for her own arrest, but as the
thing had to be done, it was best to get it over soon as possible.
"DEAR CHUM,
"Last night I saw Millicent Mervill and what she told me leaves me no
choice. I will keep my promise and go back to England. A boat goes
next Tuesday; if I can book a passage I shall go by it. Until then I
will stay with Hadassah Ireton. I like her most awfully.
"Please don't think that by keeping my promise to you I am condemning
Mike or that I have given up hope that one day he will be able to
explain everything satisfactorily. Don't worry about me, dear old
thing. I'm all right and I will take every care of myself, so keep
your mind easy on that point. I'm not nearly so wretched as I should
be if I believed everything that this letter implies.
"Yours ever,
"MEG.
"P.S.--Millicent pretended not to know anything about the information
which the Government has received. She told me, with an air of
beautiful innocence, that an uncle in Australia had left her a nice
legacy. Funny isn't it? I think I managed to behave pretty well--the
shades of our ancestors guarded me, I suppose."
When the letter was posted, and could not be retrieved, Meg went into
the coffee-room and tried to soothe her soul with material comforts.
An excellent cup of coffee made a good beginning. The letter settling
her fate was in the post-office; she was going home to England in a few
days. She was trying to swallow the hard facts with each mouthful
which she drank.
What a contrast her leaving Egypt would be to her arrival in the
country! How flattened out and disillusioned she would feel! What an
ordinary, everyday ending to her vivid romance in the Valley! When she
thought of the little hut, almost hidden in one of the many wrinkles of
the hills, she smiled. Her senses glowed; she visualized the arid
scene, suddenly transformed into an Eden with Love's passion-flowers.
No garden in paradise could suggest to a Moslem mind diviner voices or
greater radiance. Cairo, with its confusion of sounds and its medley
of human races, was empty and meaningless; it was wiped out. She was
once more in the Valley, where life was vital and human.
After a little time of happy dreaming, the bitter fact came back to
her, like a cold wind disturbing a summer's heat, that she had actually
written to her brother promising him that she would go home. What
would Hadassah think? What did her own conscience say?
Yet only one hour ago she had felt convinced that she was doing her
duty, that her honour and womanly pride demanded that she should keep
her promise. She had nerved herself against a thousand inner voices to
obey her brother. She blushed for shame. In writing the letter she
had practically admitted Michael's unfaithfulness as a lover. How
could she have allowed herself to be so devastated by jealousy, have
allowed her mind to be so concentrated on the unlovely side of the
story? Even Hadassah Ireton had scorned it, while she, "the mistress
of Mike's happiness," had doubted and despaired!
Poor Margaret! If she had been less human, her Valley of Eden had held
no flowers. The desert had been a wilderness indeed.
* * * * * *
The psychic and devotional side of her lover's nature engrossed her
thoughts. She recalled to her mind all that he had taught and
explained to her about the views and religion of the tragic Pharaoh,
the world's first conscientious objector.
Since she had heard of the scandal, she had scarcely thought of the
occult and psychic side of the journey. Her attitude had been
self-engrossed and materialistic.
She sighed. How difficult it was to drive self out of one's thoughts,
for was there anything as interesting in the whole of the wonderful
world as one's self, one's miserably unworthy, puny self?
Hadassah had truly said, "We have two selves . . . what armed enemies
they are!" Surely she, Margaret, had more than two selves? It seemed
to her that she had a hundred, for every hour of the day and year.
Long ago, in her untroubled college days, she had been one woman, with
one mind and one purpose--her intellectual work. Egypt had changed
her. The great mother of the world-civilization had revealed to her
some of the amazing secrets hidden in the human heart; from her
immortal treasury of things good and evil she had bestowed upon her
child the jewel of suffering, the pearl of passion. As a devout pupil
Margaret had knelt at her knee.
In her very modern surroundings she felt quite another being from the
Margaret who had seen the vision of Akhnaton in the Valley. She had
allowed herself to forget that she had been instrumental in developing
the psychic side of Michael's nature. The thought of it now seemed
absurd; it was probable that her surroundings and her work had been
accountable for the visions. Her imagination had unconsciously
pictured them.
And yet there was a sound argument against this common-sense, practical
view of the thing, for she had visualized almost exactly the type and
individuality of a character in history of whom she was totally
ignorant. Even in the modern hotel, in her everyday surroundings, she
could see with extraordinary clearness the rays of light which had
surrounded that head. Nothing could ever obliterate the picture of the
suffering Pharaoh from her memory.
She had left the breakfast-room, and as she waited for the lift to
descend, she was almost afraid that it would bring Millicent down with
it from the floor above. But it did not. There was a grain of
disappointment in the elements which made up Margaret's feelings as she
saw that it was empty. The Lampton combative instinct demanded a fight
to the finish, and an open, broad-daylight attack.
CHAPTER XVII
Margaret kept her promise to Freddy. During the three days which she
spent with the Iretons nothing transpired to make it possible for her
to break it. No word, either by letter or by native word of mouth, had
arrived from Michael.
Even to Hadassah's generous mind, Michael Amory's conduct seemed
strange and inexplicable. His silence, in a manner, condemned him as
casual, even if he was not guilty. She began to wonder if he had been
carried off his feet by Millicent, if he had been weak and forgetful of
Margaret for a little time. Millicent would certainly have done her
best to deprive him of his higher instincts and ideals. If he had been
faithless to Margaret, he was the type of man who would exaggerate the
sin.
When she reviewed the situation calmly, she found that there was much
to be said from Freddy Lampton's standpoint, and Margaret herself was
growing more and more wounded by her lover's conduct--not so much by
the fact that Millicent had been in the desert with him, for she knew
the woman's persistence, but by the lack of effort which he had made to
explain the situation to her. Even if he had allowed himself to be
carried away by Millicent's wiles, she would have forgiven him, for
Margaret was very human, and she was no fool. Never had she imagined
that her lover was a saint. What she felt it harder and harder every
day to forgive was his silence, his want of courage, his lack of trust.
During those three days Margaret's beautiful world and life seemed to
have crumbled into dust, just as she had seen the unearthed objects in
Egyptian tombs crumble into atoms when the first breath of air from the
desert reached them. Her contact with the world of to-day had melted
her romance of the desert into thin air. It was a beautiful vision
which her strange life had created; it had flourished during her short
stay in the Valley. It was not suited for the practical everyday world.
While she was with the Iretons, she tried to interest herself in
Hadassah's work as much as possible. She contrived very bravely to put
aside her wretchedness and at least appear interested and eager.
Her dignity and self-control added greatly to Michael Ireton's
admiration for her. He, too, had been struck by her resemblance to
Hadassah, so her beauty appealed to him very strongly.
Hadassah and her husband allowed her to go home to England without
protest. Cairo was becoming very hot for an English girl, and they
both agreed that it might do Michael Amory good to learn, when he did
turn up, that his conduct had hurt Margaret's pride, that she was
seriously wounded. As Millicent had spoken to Margaret of Michael as
being in robust health, they had banished the idea that his silence was
due to illness.
Outwardly Margaret behaved as though the whole episode of her
love-affair with Michael Amory was at an end. A woman's life is
dog-eared by her love-affairs; this was the first in Margaret's book of
life. To the Iretons she was always very insistent that there had been
no formal engagement between them, that Michael had not allowed her to
think of herself as bound to him in any way--for only one reason he had
not considered himself justified in asking her to become his wife or to
wait for him. This to the Iretons meant nothing. He had made Margaret
love him--that was the essential point--and his sensibilities must have
told him that with such a girl love was no light thing. He must have
realized that Margaret had given him the one perfect gift in her
possession, an unselfish love.
Margaret was very loyal to her lover. It was easy to be that, for in
her super-senses she was convinced of his great love for her, as a
thing apart from anything else. She found it wise to discuss the
mystery of his silence less and less; for she knew that no one but God
knows what is in our hearts, or what He has put there for our
consolation, and that to all outward appearances things looked very
black for Michael.
And so it came to pass that she sailed for England in the same boat as
Freddy. He had hurried through his business and had managed to secure
a passage, so as to look after her and be a companion to her on her
disconsolate voyage.
On the journey to Marseilles, Margaret discovered qualities in Freddy's
character which, even with all her love for him, she had never
imagined. For her sake he contrived to hide his anger at Michael for
his treatment of her, and thus express a sympathetic understanding of
the temptations which had beset him. If Margaret had not suffered, he
would have ignored the affair altogether, as a matter which did not
concern him. Freddy was very far-seeing. Margaret had kept her
promise; she had shown that in spite of her romantic love for Michael
her womanly pride had not been wanting. Any opposition or harsh
denouncement of her lover would have brought out the obstinacy in her
Lampton character. Persecution inflames the ardour of both love and
religion. Margaret had confided to Freddy the true state of her
feelings--her love was perhaps even greater than ever for the tardy
Michael; jealousy had invigorated and reinforced it: but her pride and
her love were wounded, and until Michael wrote to her or came to her,
with a full and absolute apology and a good reason for his silence, she
was determined not to play the part of a woman whose love would submit
to any sort of casual treatment.
Freddy was well content. Time would settle things; Margaret was very
young; she was scarcely aware yet of the possibilities that were in her
own nature, of the things which can make life worth living, as apart
from love and its passions. Love had buried her under an avalanche of
its mystery and revelations.
Their journey home was as uneventful as it was surprising, for summer
on the Mediterranean, where there is no spring, opened Margaret's eyes
to a new phase of Nature's beauty. There was so much to see, and
Freddy was such an excellent companion, that the time passed far more
quickly and happily than Margaret could have believed possible. Did
she know that it was the guarded light, which dispersed her brooding
thoughts, thoughts which tried to spoil the beauty of the fairest
scenes she had ever seen?
It was a voyage of solace and healing. As they sat together, the
brother and sister, idly watching the spell of light resting on an
archipelago of dreaming islands, or sailed out of the Bay of Naples on
a morning of tender unreality, they little dreamed that in her womb the
world was breeding a hellish massacre of God's highest creatures, a
wholesale slaughter of His children; that that same summer's sun was to
fall on fields of crimson, dyed with the blood of civilized nations,
precious blood drawn from the veins of patriots and heroes by the lies
and lust of a war-mad king.
Ischia, lost in its ancient sleep, cradled in the beauty of the world's
fairest waters, was to be waked with the bugles of war. From her
mountain heights and her seagirt fields she was to send forth her sons,
to fight until they became drunk with the smell of blood.
How little did either Margaret or Freddy dream that they were gazing
for the last time together upon a land of dreams, upon a world of
peace! As they sat and marvelled at a world which under a summer sun
seemed as fair as heaven and as pure as an angel's dream, they little
realized that Europe nursed and flattered a people more steeped in
iniquity and eager for licentious cruelty than any nation recorded in
the world's darkest story. The primitive barbarities of uncivilized
races, and the war-atrocities of ancient Egypt and Assyria, which were
familiar to Margaret, and against which Akhnaton had come to preach his
mission of peace, were as nothing compared to the acts which were to be
committed by a nation which had preached the mission of Jesus for a
thousand years, and had carried His doctrines into the farthest corners
of the earth.
In the years to come that journey from Alexandria to Marseilles was to
be one of the greatest consolations of Margaret's life.
In the days to come, when Margaret, knowing all things and enduring all
things, looked back upon the journey, it comforted her to think of how
much Freddy had enjoyed his well-earned rest and how eagerly he had
looked forward to his holiday in Scotland.
* * * * * *
The war, which has set a date in England from which every event of
importance counts and will be counted by her people for generations to
come, had not been whispered or dreamed of by ordinary people. Like
Ischia, England was still dreaming and trusting. Her ideals of honour
forbade that she should doubt the honour of a sister-nation, bound to
her by the closest ties of blood and sympathy.
When Freddy and Margaret landed in England they went their separate
ways.
Margaret, at the outbreak of the war, at once offered her services as a
V.A.D. Three months later she was working as a pantry-maid in a
private hospital. Her work was very hard and deadly dull, but she had
been promised that after working for a time as pantry-maid, she should
be allowed to help in the wards. When Freddy left for the Front she
was able to say good-bye during her "two hours off."
Fresh air and sunshine, after the dark basement-pantry in which she
worked, seemed to her sufficient enjoyment and all the pleasure she
wanted. She seldom did anything in these hours but sit on a bench in
the garden-square near her hospital and rest her tired feet. For the
first month they were so swollen that she could not get on her walking
shoes. By four o'clock she was back in her pantry again, setting out
cups and saucers on little trays and laying the tea for the staff. Her
work was lonely and unrecognized.
After she had washed up and put away the cups which had been used for
afternoon tea and also the cups which had been used for the last meal
of the day, which was served at seven o'clock in the wards, she went
home to her quiet room, in a house on the other side of the square. It
was an old house, which had known better days. The locality always
carried Margaret's mind back to the gay world into whose society Becky
Sharp so persistently pushed her way.
If Margaret was not happy, she was far too busy to be unhappy. She
had, except for those two afternoon hours of rest, no time to think;
and as thoughts make our heaven or our hell, Margaret lived in an
intermediate state, for she had none. Her physical tiredness dominated
all other sensations.
The war dominated her life; it drilled her, and drove her, and exacted
the last fraction of her endurance and courage. It chased personal
things away into the dim background of her life. When she thought of
the Valley and her experiences there, it was as if she was visualizing,
not her own past life, but some story which she had read and remembered
with the sharp, clear memory, which never leaves us, of our childhood's
days.
With Margaret, as with most people, the war opened up a completely new
phase of mental as well as physical experiences. Nor could her
thoughts ever be the same again. Margaret's phase resembled the state
of a patient gradually recovering from a serious illness, an illness in
which she has faced the true proportions of the things belonging to
this life, and the triviality of human tragedies as they had existed
before the war. Her life had begun all over again. The war was
remaking it. After a serious illness or a shattered love-affair no
woman can take up life at exactly the same standpoint as before.
Margaret found it impossible to imagine personal ambitions and personal
amusements ever forming a part of her life again. Happiness brought
scorn with the very mention of it. The excitement and the
daily-accumulating list of horrors which shocked the unsuspecting
people of England during the first few months of the war, must be
vividly in the reader's thoughts while he pictures Margaret in her life
as a pantry-maid, a physically-weary pantry-maid, in a vast house in
London which had been converted into a hospital. She was only one of
the many girls in London in the various homes and hospitals who were
drudging with aching limbs and loyal hearts from morning until night.
She preferred being pantry-maid to lift-maid, which was the only other
post in the house which she had been offered. Taking visitors up and
down in a lift all day long seemed to her more monotonous than washing
up cups and saucers which the wounded drank out of, and scrubbing
boards and washing out cupboards. Margaret was only doing her humble
bit, a bit which required few brains and little education; a bit which
necessitated a good deal of sturdy grit and devotion. Not a soul in
the house knew nor cared anything about the life which she had led
before the war, and her college record was of less account than the
fact that she looked practical and strong. She had been given the post
on the strength of her physical perfection rather than her proficiency
as a V.A.D.
During the first three months she heard fairly often from Freddy, who
was cheerfully enduring what thousands of young Englishmen endured
during the early days of training.
If this is a war of second-lieutenants, Freddy was an excellent
specimen of the men who have won renown. His physique laughed at
hardship; his practical mind adored the order and method which is
essentially a part of military efficiency. His work in Egypt, far as
it seems removed from modern warfare, served a good purpose when
trench-digging and planning became a part of his training.
October had come and still no news had reached him of Michael, nor had
Margaret had any word of her lover through the Iretons. Freddy was
comforting himself with the assurance that the war had satisfactorily
driven him out of Margaret's mind. She seldom mentioned his name in
her letters, which were as brief and matter-of-fact as his own.
Sometimes in the busy London streets, and in crowded omnibuses, a
vision of the Valley and the smiling Theban hills would rise before her
eyes, but it would fade away and become as unreal as the Bible story of
the world's creation.
Physical exhaustion made it possible for her to see these visions of
the Valley, and the stars in the Southern heavens, with no throbbing in
her veins or sense of Michael's lips pressed on her own. Physical
labour leaves little expression for fine sentiment and imagination.
* * * * * *
On the morning of the day when Margaret was to see Freddy off to the
Front, she experienced a curious re-birth of personal existence; she
was a partner in the world's agony. Since her work had begun she had
lived like a machine; she was outside the great multitude of the elect;
she had no one belonging to her in immediate danger. She had almost
envied the personal anxiety of those who had their dearest at the Front.
Having no right to indulge in personal troubles which were entirely
outside the subject of the war and the world's welfare, she had ceased
to have any existence at all outside her dull duties as pantry-maid.
But on the day of Freddy's departure she had a curious fluttering in
her pulses, and a breathless excitement was in the background of all
that she did. She found her hands trembling when she placed the cups
in their saucers, or poured milk into the jugs.
Freddy's going was to link her to the great brotherhood. The
consciousness of his danger would be like the weight of an unborn child
under her heart. He was husband and father and lover to her now; he
seemed to be taking with him to France the last remnant of her girlhood.
At Charing Cross she found the khaki-clad figure. He was waiting for
her below the clock. His men, and hundreds of others, were sitting
about at rest, on the few seats which had been provided for soldiers
going to the Front, or on the floor. Most of the men were accompanied
by proud and tearful relatives or lovers. It was an affecting and
typical scene--a peaceful country suddenly torn and driven by the
throes and novelty of war.
Margaret had already witnessed such scenes several times. It always
left her wondering how any order or method came out of such a
bewildering mass of hastily-organized effort.
Freddy looked so handsome in his uniform that Margaret's heart felt
bursting with tragic pride. Nothing was too good to die for England,
but surely, surely Freddy was too beautiful to be blinded or disfigured
by all the hellish contrivances which the brutalized enemy had proved
themselves past masters in devising? Even in Egypt he had not been
more sunburned, and never had his hair looked so adorably bright and
youthful. Margaret could think of nothing but his beauty; it seemed to
burst upon her suddenly and unexpectedly.
Freddy was conscious of her pride and admiration, but being true
Lamptons, their greeting of one another was characteristically brief.
It was the first time that Freddy had seen his sister in her V.A.D.
uniform; his eyes took in all her points with one quick glance. She
looked clean and slight and attractive, and conspicuously well-bred.
Her abundant hair showed to advantage under her blue hat, while her
teeth and her eyes seemed to Freddy remarkably beautiful. A V.A.D.
uniform is not becoming, but if a girl is striking-looking, it
accentuates her good points; frumps and mediocrities it extinguishes
altogether.
"Come and have some tea," Freddy said. "I'm frightfully thirsty."
Margaret walked off with him proudly. He was her own brother, the
Freddy she had worked with so long and so intimately in the little hut
in Egypt, this alert, dignified soldier. The war was in its infancy;
women were still thrilled by khaki, and extraordinarily proud of their
men who wore it. Margaret felt so proud of Freddy that she was a
little awed by him. In her heart she was kneeling at his feet, while
in her subconscious mind there was a prayer, that his beauty and youth
might not be spoilt, that his splendid manhood might be given back to
England--it had other work to do.
Her tea, which Freddy had ordered in the large tea-room at Charing
Cross Station, proved very difficult to swallow. Something filled her
throat; it almost choked her, something which was a strange mixture of
pride and tears and happiness. She had no desire to eat or drink; she
was quite content to sit still. All she wanted to do was just to be
near Freddy and look at him.
In this last half-hour, perhaps the last she would ever spend with him,
there seemed to be nothing important enough to say. She certainly
could not speak of the things which were in her heart. When people
realize that they are together for perhaps the last time on earth, is
there anything which is more eloquent than silence?
It was Freddy who came to the rescue; he talked to save Margaret's
dignity. With his keen eye and appreciation of her character, he knew
the fight she was making for self-control. His talk was of his men and
of his life as an officer in the Army, and of the politics of the day.
When he spoke of Ireland and of the satisfactory way in which she was
behaving, their eyes met.
The question in Margaret's eyes was answered by a shake of his head and
an immediate change of topic.
"Are you liking your work?" he said quickly.
"It's not thrilling, but it's doing my bit."
"Splendid!" he said, and Margaret knew that he understood.
A little silence followed, and then Freddy said, in rather a shamed
voice, "Look here, Meg, we'd better be practical. I've left all my
things in order--if I don't come back, you won't have any difficulty.
Of course, all I've got will be yours. There are a few things I know
you'll always look after, things I specially value."
Meg's throat was bursting and her lips began to quiver, but she choked
back her emotions and regained her self-control. It came to her quite
suddenly, just after speech had seemed hopeless.
"I understand--the Egyptian things. You can trust them to me."
"I know I can," he said. "And do take care of yourself. . . . We'd
better be making a move, I suppose."
They both got up and shook their uniforms free of crumbs.
"I'm jolly thankful I managed to get the work in the Valley pretty well
settled before this happened."
"It was a bit of luck," Margaret said. "Doesn't it seem a shame that
all that wonderful work and all intellectual life must come to a
standstill, everything must be put aside for the one job that
counts--the killing of human beings? That is now the one and only
thing that matters; the most effectual way of killing masses of men is
the problem which scientific minds have set before them!"
Freddy looked keenly at her for a moment. Was Meg still imbued with
Michael's anti-war views? England was at that moment tuned to such a
pitch of war-enthusiasm that there was but one popular feeling and
belief--that this war was sent to cleanse and purify the world, that it
was a blessing in disguise, that but for this war England would have
gone to the dogs. Anyone who dared to express an opinion contrary to
this myth was condemned as pro-German or unpatriotic.
Meg felt her brother's eyes questioning her. "Never fear," she said.
"If I don't think that the war was necessary as the chosen means of
arresting England in her downward course, I know that it has got to be
fought to the finish, I know that the Allies have to prove that they
will not submit to Prussian militarism dominating Europe. I never
believed in the rottenness of England, and surely the spirits of our
young men who are fighting ought to prove that it isn't? England
decadent, indeed!"
"You're right," Freddy said. "England wasn't a bit rotten--or, at
least, no rottener than she ever was, only the rottenness was all
dragged into the limelight. Things are discussed in papers and from
pulpits to-day which were never even spoken of between fathers and sons
or husbands and wives in days gone by. If the war will stop all the
absurd talk about England going to the dickens, it won't be fought for
nothing. We've decried our country long enough."
They had only four minutes before they had to part. Margaret was
beginning to feel numb and speechless. Were these four minutes to be
the last she would ever spend with Freddy, and were they to go on
talking as if he was only going back to Oxford after the long vacation?
Two more minutes passed and they had said nothing that mattered. Truly
words were given to hide our thoughts!
As Margaret looked up at the clock, Freddy put his arms round her and
held her closely to him. This was Meg's first tender embrace since her
farewell with Michael. It was very nearly her undoing.
"Good-bye, old girl," was all that Freddy said; it was all he could say.
Meg clung to him and kissed him silently. Freddy felt her agony. It
was greater than his own, for he had many responsibilities on his mind,
and the excitement of actually going to take part in the "real thing."
He kissed her with a tenderness which was almost a lover's.
Meg was still silent. She dared not attempt to speak; she knew that
Freddy would hate tears. The next moment, after a closer hug, he put
her decisively from him.
"Time's up, old girl! I must look after my men. We are very much
alone, we two. I wish I could have left you in someone's care."
"I'm so glad," Meg said, a little brokenly, "so glad it's just we two.
I've never had to share you with anyone--you've always been my very
own."
Margaret knew that Freddy had made a covert allusion to the fact that
if Michael had not failed her, she would, in the event of his death,
have had a lover to comfort her. She chose to ignore his meaning, to
speak as if Michael had no place in her thoughts. Freddy was not to be
worried by things which were past and over. The war had made her
independent.
Freddy understood perfectly. They had reached the barrier; his men
were filing through the open gateway to the platform.
"Good-bye," he said again, hurriedly. "Don't wait in this awful
crowd--I shan't be able to speak to you any more." His eyes looked
into hers tenderly. "God bless you, Meg! I hate leaving you all
alone."
"Good-bye, Freddy."
Margaret's lips said the words bravely. In her heart they expressed
their old and grander meaning.
She had turned her back on the khaki-clad men who were filing on to the
departure-platform. Her silent prayer mingled with hundreds of others,
travelling from proud, torn hearts, to the listening ear of the Master
of that which is ordained.
CHAPTER XVIII
The news of Freddy's death reached Margaret only a fortnight later; it
came to her from the War Office in the ordinary official way. He had
not died, as he would have wished to have died, in action, in a great
offensive against the enemy; he had been sniped, shot through the head
when he raised its brightness for half a minute above the parapet of
his trench. His courage and ability had never been put to the test; he
had fallen like a first year's bird hit by a deadly shot.
His youth and brains and beauty were the offerings which he had laid on
the altar of Liberty. Fame had been denied him.
As England's blackest days passed, and Margaret read in the papers the
horrible accounts of the poisonous gas which was blinding and
suffocating our men at the front, and when hospital nurses told her of
the pitiful "gas" cases which they had seen, Freddy's painless death
became almost a thing to be thankful for.
Pessimism was running its course. Germany's triumphs were magnified,
the Allies' work belittled. She had come to think that it could only
have been a case of time before he would either have been permanently
injured or killed; the death-rate of officers was terrible. Freddy had
died as he had lived, an almost perfect example of England's manhood--a
striking proof that her decadence was an ugly scandal, whose birthplace
was Berlin. It was one of Germany's many clever forms of propaganda,
intended to undermine England's prestige in the eyes of neutrals when
the "great day" came.
CHAPTER XIX
A few weeks after Freddy's death a curious thing happened to Margaret,
a thing which shook her nerves and disturbed the automatic calm into
which she had drilled her thoughts.
She was still a hard-working pantry-maid, doing the same daily round of
apparently unwarlike work. She was thankful that she had got it to do,
and considered herself lucky, for the waiting lists of able and eager
V.A.D.'s, whose names were down at hospitals and convalescent homes,
ran into many figures, girls who were longing to be given any sort of
occupation, however humble, which would place them amongst the women of
England who were really in touch with the agony of the world. Margaret
had still the promise before her of promotion, the hope that eventually
she would reach the wards. Time would make its demands on the long
lists of V.A.D.'s who were unemployed and eager for work. It would not
be long before they would all be required. Someone else would step
into her humble post when she was promoted. It was merely a case of
patience and pluck; the voluntary hospitals were dependent on voluntary
aid. She gave hers gladly.
It was a very lonely, self-contained Margaret who wandered about London
during her "off-hours." Two hours gave her very little time for making
expeditions or seeing the sights of London, which were all unknown to
her, so she spent the greater part of her time in the secluded
garden-square close to her lodgings. It always reminded her of a small
public garden in Paris, in the old-fashioned quarter of the city, in
which she had lived for a year with a French family while she was
perfecting her French. The odd mixture of people who frequented it,
and monopolized the seats in it for hours at a time, interested her.
The work which they brought with them was as diverse as it was
peculiar. Not a few of the regular habitués made a home of it, even on
wet days, only returning to their shelter to sleep. Youth and elegance
seldom entered it, except, it might be, when a pair of lovers, of
non-British birth, drifted into it, seeking refuge from the madding
crowd.
A London church, as black and white with smoke and the wearing winds of
time as the marble churches of Lombardy, raised its belfry, of
unnamable architecture, picturesquely above the square on one side,
while a portion of its graveyard, which had been incorporated in the
garden-square, and which seemed to Margaret in its shabby condition
much older and more pathetically forlorn than the temple-tombs under
the Theban hills, attracted the aged and the melancholy.
Margaret was the only lady who ever patronized the bench-seats in this
secluded city oasis. Her V.A.D. uniform, and perhaps her air of
unconscious dignity, defended her from any unpleasantness. She had
never met with disrespect or lack of courtesy.
One of her chosen companions, an elderly, haggard woman, with a keen
sense of humour and traces of lost beauty, who always brought a bundle
of old rags and clothes to pick down, had made friends with her almost
immediately. She proved a source of great amusement to Margaret. The
woman's occupation had caused her much speculation.
She soon discovered, for the woman was not at all reticent, that she
had been a low comedian and a dancer at Drury Lane Theatre, and like
most comedians, high tragedy was her passion, and had been her ambition.
Margaret's off-hours flew on wings while she listened to the woman's
accounts of her dramatic experiences. She had seen her days of
prosperity and undoubtedly enjoyed much admiration. She was no
grumbler and still retained an appetite for life. The sparrows and the
fat pigeons which waited for the crumbs which fell from the pockets of
the clothes she unpicked were her friends; her dreams of the past were
her recreations.
When Margaret discovered that her desire for theatre-going was still
unabated and unsatisfied, and that she considered that there was no
pleasure on earth which wealth could bring her to be compared to the
excitement of a "first night," as viewed from the gallery, she
determined to give her a treat. She had not been to the theatre for
many years; the necessary shilling for the gallery was never
forthcoming; picking down old uniforms was not a lucrative occupation.
Margaret contrived to put the necessary shilling in her way by leaving
it lying on the seat when she got up.
When she appeared in the garden-square the next day, the aged comedian
told her about her "find," and asked her anxiously if she had lost a
shilling. Margaret lied nobly; yet her lie was only half a lie, for
she certainly had not lost it. She had vividly realized the finding of
it.
Margaret never laid out a shilling to better account. It was returned
to her fourfold as she listened to the glowing descriptions and the
good criticisms of the first performance of one of the most popular
war-plays which had been played in London.
And so the days passed and ran into each other, impersonal and
unselfish days. The story of Margaret's individual life was marking
time; but if her romance was arrested, her sympathies were expanding.
It was impossible for her to be dull, and she did not allow herself to
be sad. Freddy's example forbade self-pity or repining.
Of society in London she knew nothing and cared less. The war had put
"society" out of fashion. If she could count amongst her friends many
strange and questionable characters, they helped and cheered her as
nothing else could have done. More than one poor home in which there
was little food and much courage looked forward to the visits of the
tall, dark girl, whom they called by no other name than "Our V.A.D."
It was her intimate acquaintance with the inner life of some of
London's poor, and the example they unconsciously set her by their
cheerful acceptance of their pitiful circumstances and hideous
surroundings, which made Margaret see how contemptible it would be to
indulge in self-pity or repining. They expected so little, while she
wanted so much--perfect happiness as well as worldly prosperity. They
contrived to get enjoyment out of life even when it seemed to her that
they would be better dead. She had a thousand things in life which had
been denied to them. How could she expect to be given everything?
There she was face to face with crowds of human beings who exaggerated
their joys and rose above their afflictions. The unconquerable courage
of the poor--that was what life in London was teaching Margaret.
* * * * * *
It was one wet afternoon when she was seated in a Lyons' tea-shop, in a
crowded part of a West End shopping district, waiting for a cup of
coffee to be brought to her, that the strange incident happened. To
make use of her time, she had taken out a small writing-tablet which
she carried in a bag with her knitting, and was beginning to write a
letter to her Aunt Anna. She had written the first words, "Dear Aunt
Anna," and had paused before writing further. Her pencil was close to
her tablet; her mind was thinking of what she was going to say.
Suddenly her hand began writing very fast, automatically, something
after the manner in which an actor writes on the stage. Margaret let
it write swiftly and uninterruptedly, without either considering it
strange that it should be doing so, or wondering, at the time, what she
was writing. Her thoughts had, in a curious way, become subservient to
her actions. Afterwards, when she tried to remember what she had felt,
she could recollect no impression.
When the quick movement of her hand stopped and the automatic writing
ceased, her powers of thought seemed suddenly to reassert themselves.
Probably what she had been writing was mere unintelligible scribble.
Margaret had never heard of the writing of the "unseen hand." She was
more nervous than she was aware of; there was a heavy beating at her
heart, a wonder in her mind. She looked with apprehension at the sheet
of paper on the tablet. Her hand had certainly written something, but
the writing was not her own. It was untidy and broken. She tried to
read it, but the first words made her so nervous that she could not go
any further. They brought the colour flying to her face, but it
quickly left it; she became wide-eyed; her hands trembled. It was
horrible to think that some outside influence had taken possession of
her actions. She fought for self-control, and managed to read the
message.
"The rays of Aton, which encompass all lands, will protect him, the
enemy will fear him because of them. The living Aton, beside Whom
there is no other, this hath He ordained. The Light of Aton will
scatter the enemy and turn his hand from victory. When the chicken
crieth in the egg-shell, He giveth it life, delighting that it should
chirp with all its might. The same Aton, Who liveth for ever, Who
slumbers not, neither does He sleep, knows the wishes of your heart.
The Lord of Peace will not tolerate the victory of those who delight in
strife. His rays, bright, great, gleaming, high above all earth. . . ."
There the writing became almost indecipherable; many words were quite
meaningless; only the end of the last line was distinct:
"To the mistress of his happiness, Aton, the Loving Father, giveth
counsel."
When Margaret had finished reading the amazing thing that her hand had
written, she was faint and frightened. What had come over her? How
could she account for the mysterious thing which had happened?
The state of her nerves prevented her thinking connectedly or sensibly.
The meaning of the message scarcely formed any part of her
bewilderment; it was the automatic writing itself which disturbed her.
It made her very unhappy. She had never heard of anything like it
happening to anyone else. She wished that she had only dreamed it; but
there the words were, lying on the tablet before her. If she was real,
they were real.
It was so long since she had read anything about Akhnaton's
Aton-worship that she could not have composed the sentences in exactly
the manner of the Pharaoh's writing if she had set herself down in a
retired place and tried very hard to remember his style and his
language. Here, in this modern and vulgar tea-room, filled with men
and youths in khaki and shop-girls in cheap and showy finery, she had
suddenly and unconsciously written a thing which had absolutely nothing
to do with her thoughts or surroundings.
The girl who brought her coffee and was standing waiting to make out
her bill, looked at her sympathically and asked her if she felt ill.
At the sound of her voice, Margaret dragged her thoughts back to the
fact that she had been waiting for a cup of coffee.
"No," she said, jerkily. "I am not ill, only a little tired, thank
you."
"You're working hard, I suppose? One coffee, threepence," she jotted
down. "Are you in a hospital? I wish I was nursing, instead of doing
this."
Margaret looked at her blankly for a moment. She wished that she would
not talk to her; she felt afraid of her own answers.
"No, I'm not nursing--I'm a pantry-maid in a private convalescent
hospital."
"Well, I never!" the girl said; she was not ignorant of Margaret's good
breeding. "Do you like the work?"
"It's very like your work, I suppose. I never stop to think about
whether I like it or not. Someone has to do it, and I've been given
it--every little helps."
"Isn't that splendid?" the girl said. "And I don't suppose you ever
worked before?"
"Not in that way," Margaret said. She smiled a queer sort of smile, as
her thoughts flew back to her work in the hut, the cleaning and sorting
of delicate fragments and amulets which had been made and treasured by
a people of whom the girl had probably never even heard, the mascots
and art-treasures of a forgotten civilization, which had lasted for
thousands of years.
Margaret paid for her coffee, and looked at the clock. She had only a
few minutes in which to drink it. She poured in all the cream which
she had ordered to cool it, but still it was too hot to drink. While
she waited she wondered whether her hand would write anything else if
she left it lying on her writing pad. Nervously she took up her pencil
and while she tried to sip her coffee, she left her right hand lying on
the pad just as it had been before.
Nothing happened. Her hand never moved; she was extremely conscious of
her own feelings and expectations.
She looked at the writing on the tablet once more. Yes, it was totally
and absolutely unlike her own. She tore off the sheet on which it was
written and folded it up and put it safely in her note-case. If she
was to drink her coffee, there was no more time for thought.
Hurriedly she left the crowded tea-rooms and started off in the
direction of her hospital.
It was well for her that she had to hurry, and that her thoughts for
the next few hours had to be given to the carrying-out of everyday
things. With practised mind-control she put the incident of the
"unseen hand" away from her as far as she could. When it came creeping
back again, like leaking water, into the foreground of her thoughts,
she fought it splendidly.
Freddy had so extremely disliked her dabbling, as he called it, in
occult matters, that for his sake, for his memory, she must not allow
herself to be mastered by it. She had scarcely ever allowed herself to
think even about her vision in the Valley for this very reason, and had
refused to be drawn into the wave of fortune-telling by palmistry and
by crystal-gazing and psychic sciences which the war had given birth to
in London. The nurses and the staff generally at the hospital spent a
great deal of time and money on palmists.
Margaret could honestly say to herself that no one had sought those
strange experiences less than she had, no one had been less interested
in Spiritualism and black magic, as it used to be called, than she had
been--and, indeed, still was. Michael had called her his practical
mystic, yet she had never felt herself to be one.
For Freddy's sake she would not encourage this new phase of the
super-mind which had suddenly come to her. He had considered
spiritualism a dangerous and undesirable study. With only his memory
to cling to, she would do nothing which would cause him any trouble.
Here again was the Lampton ancestor-worship developing to its fullest.
CHAPTER XX
When Margaret got back to her hospital, she found no time for psychic
reflections, for news had come that a fresh consignment of patients was
to arrive at the hospital the next morning, and as the number was
considerably more than they had expected, or the wards had beds for, it
meant that the staff, from the humblest to the highest in command, had
plenty of extra work to do.
She did a hundred and one odd jobs which kept her busy until nine
o'clock. A V.A.D. whose duty it was to run the lift was ill; she had had
to go home, so Margaret took her place until a girl-scout appeared, who
was a sister of one of the staff-nurses. The proud girl-scout became
lift-boy in her after-school-hours and kept the post until the V.A.D. was
well enough to resume her work. During the day the V.A.D.s filled the
post between them, taking it in turn.
It was not until all her work was done, and Margaret was alone in her
bedroom, with its air of ghostly fashion, that she found it increasingly
difficult to drive the incident of the automatic writing from her mind.
She did not wish to think of it because of her promise to Freddy. While
she had been busy it had never entered her head. Certainly Satan finds
some mischief for idle thoughts as well as for idle hands to do. But was
it Satan who had sent these thoughts? Was she dabbling in black or in
white magic?
She wondered whether, if she looked at the writing once more, and thought
over every incident of the strange occurrence which had happened to her,
very clearly and thoroughly, it would help her to drive it from her mind,
in the same way as saying some haunting lines of a poem over and over
again will often drown their insistence in our ears. Certainly she must
make an effort to free herself from the obsession of the incident. It
was unnerving her.
She took the sheet of paper out of her note-case and read the writing on
it aloud, very distinctly and slowly. She said the words thoughtfully,
so as to get their precise value. As she read them, she tried her utmost
to subdue the increasing nervousness which they produced, a nervousness
which she certainly had not in any way experienced when her hand had
hurriedly written down the words.
As she read them aloud, she realized with a sudden and astounding
clearness their true meaning, which had either escaped her intelligence,
or she had been too astonished and interested in her own action to
appreciate before. Her first feeling had been one of amazement and
interest; now she felt quite convinced that the message had been sent to
her to tell her that Michael was at the Front, that she was not to
trouble or be afraid, for his safety was in divine hands.
How much or how little her super-senses had understood this fact she
could not be certain. Her over-self was an independent factor. Her
natural consciousness had certainly not appreciated the news. She had
never said the fact to herself, or derived any comfort from it, or
questioned it. She had been too overwhelmed by the practical evidence
that she was once more in touch with her vision to grasp the real purpose
of the message. Its value had been lost upon her, even though it had
told her that Michael was fighting, that he was in the war. But was he?
That was the question which her natural mind forced upon her. She must
take it on faith or reject the whole thing as a fabrication of her own
brain.
The writing had told her that the Light of Aton would guard him, that the
rays of Aton, which were God's symbol on earth, would encompass him and
confound his enemies. To the reasoning, practical Margaret it seemed
incredible nonsense, and yet Egypt had taught her that nothing is
incredible. She had thought of many solutions of the problem of
Michael's disappearance, many answers to her riddle of the sands, but she
had, to her conscious knowledge, never once imagined that he would be
taking part in this most horrible of all wars. Knowing his views upon
the subject of war, the possibility had never entered her mind that he
might have volunteered to fight in it. He had said over and over again
that Germany's desire for war was a myth, a mere mania which obsessed a
certain class of mind; that if such a thing happened it would be the
death-blow to the spread of Christianity, and rightly so, for a religion
which had done no more for the most scientifically-advanced race in the
world was not likely to be adopted by non-Christian races.
And yet the hand had written words which could have no other meaning.
She had no friends or relations at the Front. Her first cousins were all
too young, and their fathers too old, to fight. Freddy had represented
her personal and intimate interest in the army at the Front.
She read the words over and over again, until she knew them by heart,
until the strange handwriting which her own pencil had formed had become
familiar to her. She knew that she could never have written the words
except by some outside power. But what was that power? Had anyone else
ever experienced it? Was it known to Spiritualists?
As she asked herself the question, a picture formed itself in her mind of
Daniel interpreting "the writing on the wall" to the guests at the feast
of Belshazzar. She saw the hand write the three words: _Numbered,
weighed, divided_. She saw the wonder of the King and the curiosity of
his friends. God only, who sent the omen, explained it, and all which
Daniel under His direction uttered, explaining it, was fulfilled.
Egypt had reconstructed in Margaret's mind the proper proportion of time
as applied to the history and evolution of the world's civilization. The
deeds and the victories of Cyrus, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, were
not mythical deeds because they belonged to a mythical and lost age. In
Egypt they had seemed to her legends of a comparatively late date.
Darius, the Mede, to whom Biblical authority awards the succession of the
kingdom of the vanquished and slain Belshazzar, was removed by almost a
thousand years from the world which had known the gentle King, the
youthful Pharaoh, who loved not war, and whose God was the Prince of
Peace.
As compared to Michael's beloved Akhnaton Belshazzar was a mere modern.
Almost one thousand years before the impious King had reigned over
Babylon Akhnaton had told the Egyptian people of the unspeakable goodness
and loving-kindness of God, he had preached a religion which was to
abolish all wars, which was to unite all nations under the banner of
universal brotherhood.
The Biblical handwriting on the wall had come into her thoughts for a
good purpose. The vision of it had been sent to prove to her that such
things had happened in the world before, and that there was no reason to
believe that they had not often happened since. God works in a
mysterious way, His wonders to perform.
Her fight against her desire to believe had been solely on Freddy's
account. He had so intensely disliked her interest in occultism that for
his sake she had struggled faithfully to subdue it. Now she knew that
she could no longer ignore the influence which had entered into her life
in this strange manner, not understood by her material self. She
possessed powers and qualities which with all her heart she wished that
she did not possess. She dreaded this last evidence of the mysterious
power which had made her very actions subservient to its will.
Yet even as she said the words she was ashamed. If the message had any
connection with the figure in her vision, how could she hate it?
Instantly the tragic eyes, glowing with the light of divine love, were
before her; their reproach and pity made her blush, for in denying her
belief in things spiritual, she was surely denying the power of the Holy
Spirit in just the same way as Peter had denied and mocked at Jesus for
His assumption of divinity.
Believing, with the intuition of her higher self, with her divine mind,
whose reasoning powers were in heaven, like the desert child of God--for
so the everyday world would say of her if they had known--in the
spiritual source of the amazing message, she ceased to question the why
or the wherefore of it. She could not treat it as the mere creation of
her own overwrought imagination, and yet she would be true to Freddy in
the sense that she would do absolutely nothing to get into closer touch
with the world behind the veil. She would make no effort to develop her
powers.
On that point her conscience was absolutely clear. She had been loyal
and true to Freddy; she had left all occultism and mysticism severely
alone. And surely never in the world had her mind been farther separated
from things Egyptian or occult than on this afternoon, when she had
suddenly felt her hand begin to write of its own free will? Of all
people in the world, her Aunt Anna was the last who would call up any
suggestion of her vision in the Valley, and Freddy would agree that a
Lyons' tea-room was amazingly unsuited for such an experience.
She puzzled her brain to find out any reason why this message should have
been sent to her at this particular time, why Michael had been thrust so
vividly into her life again. Her pride had driven him from her mind
until he had at last actually lost his place in her daily thoughts. It
would be impossible now not to think of him; she was thinking of him with
a beautiful rebirth of her first romantic love.
* * * * * *
Was he, with all his horror of bloodshed and war, in the trenches while
she was snug and sleeping in her bed at night? were some mangled and
unrecognizable fragments of his body lying on the battle-fields of
Flanders? Or, sadder than all, had he, like Freddy, never been in
action? Had his life also been a useless sacrifice?
As she asked herself the question, the bright rays of Aton shone round a
figure in khaki; she saw Michael clearly and beautifully. He was
illuminated by a bright and shining light. Margaret remained motionless
and spell-bound. Her visualizing was more than a mere mental
reproduction of an imaginary scene. The bright light which surrounded
Michael revealed to her how instantly his enemies would quail before him,
how terrified and amazed they would be!
In an ecstasy of wonder and surprise Margaret called to him. Her voice
broke the spell; her eyes saw nothing, nothing but the shadows and the
half-lights shed by her inadequate gas-jet in the large room.
She fell on her knees beside her bed. She must get closer to God, she
must feel Him, for there was no human being in whom she could confide.
She was terribly alone; her body hungered for arms of sympathy, her mind
for understanding ears. The lonely and love-starved will know how she
craved to be gathered up and comforted; how she longed to throw off her
self-reliance, to let it be lost in a strength which would make her feel
like a little child in a giant's arms. As only God knows what is in our
hearts, only God understood her unspoken prayer. He was not shocked by
its pitiful humanity. That night He permitted the tired V.A.D. to sleep
in the strength of His everlasting arms.
CHAPTER XXI
Some few days later a letter arrived for Margaret from Hadassah Ireton.
It contained interesting and surprising news. Michael Ireton had been
thrown in close contact with one of the excavators who had formed the
camp in the hills behind Tel-el-Amarna--they were now both employed in
the same Government office in Assiut.
From the excavator Michael Ireton had learned that the secret police
had traced the movements of the native who had given the Government the
information about the chambers in the hills, and had discovered him.
But, as bad luck would have it, he was ill with smallpox and incapable
of giving any information. The man had died without recovering
consciousness. The excavators had become more and more convinced that
he had stolen the treasure, and that it was now resting in its second
hiding-place, awaiting, it was to be hoped, its final discovery.
If the man had recovered, his information could no doubt have been
bought. To an Eastern a guinea in the hand is worth twenty in the bank.
The reason, Hadassah explained, for the excavators' belief that there
had been a hidden treasure, of jewels if not of gold, was the fact that
half a mile or more beyond the site of the excavation three uncut
jewels of considerable value had been found in the open desert. They
had been covered and hidden from sight by the drifting sand, and there
they would have lain perhaps for ever but for the stumbling of a tired
donkey, which was carrying a native and a huge load of forage to a
subterranean village, not very far from the site of the excavation.
The disturbing of the sand had exposed the jewels, which caught the
sunlight and the sharp eyes of the desert traveller.
He was an old man, exceedingly honest, uncontaminated with the ways of
city dwellers, so he took the jewels to the _Omdeh's_ house and asked
him if he thought that they were valuable, and if they were, what he
should do with them.
The _Omdeh_ (it was the same _Omdeh_ who had so little credited the
story of the hidden treasure when he had spoken of it to Michael) was
as surprised as he was suspicious. His interest was aroused. Could
these fine jewels have been dropped by the thief who had burgled the
tomb? These were his thoughts, although Hadassah did not know it.
He at once carried them off to the Government camp in the hills. The
excavators pronounced them to be ancient stones of great value.
The other reason for their belief that the treasure had been stolen was
the fact that the inner chamber, in which they had found absolutely
nothing, had obviously been built with a view to holding objects of
great value. It had all the qualities of a royal treasury. The
inscription on the wall spoke of it as "the treasure-house of Aton."
That no ancient plunderer had entered this chamber, which the heretic
King had cut out of the rook under the hills behind his city, was
obvious. There had been practically no excavating to be done, in the
sense in which Margaret thought of excavating, because the chambers
were all in a state of perfect preservation; none of them were blocked
up with rubbish. Once the entrance had been opened up--and this had
been done by the native who had discovered the site--they met with
little difficulty.
The entrance had been so skilfully hidden, that the excavators wondered
how it had happened that the ignorant native who gave the information
had discovered it (this Hadassah considered extremely interesting and
convincing from Michael's point of view) and what had put him on the
track of the hidden treasure.
These questions, Hadassah said, her husband had refrained from
answering. He considered that the treasure, in its second
hiding-place, belonged to Michael, that it must remain there until he
found it. Michael Ireton had listened to all that the excavator had to
tell and had held his tongue on the subject of Mr. Amory's expedition;
the psychical part of it would probably have called forth much derision
and scoffing.
Hadassah ended her letter by congratulating Margaret on the fact that
the treasure, whether it was great or small, did exist, that it was an
actual fact. The finding of the jewels proved that Michael's theories
and occult beliefs were justified. "And after the war you will be able
to go with him on his second pilgrimage, for certainly the spirit of
Akhnaton has saved the treasure for him. What the world calls chance
has preserved the King's legacy from profane hands."
* * * * * *
The letter was written from the Fayyum, where Hadassah was staying with
her boy. Her constant visits to this beautiful oasis had wrought great
changes in the house in which her cousin Girgis had spent the greater
part of his life. Her aunt and cousin had, with native quickness,
learned to speak English quite fluently, and Hadassah had, by her tact
and sympathy, helped to develop their lives and intellects. The
household was scarcely recognizable as the one in which, only a few
years ago, she and Nancy had endured a terrible half-hour at
afternoon-tea.
Hadassah often wished that Girgis could have seen the development and
change which the widening influence of Western ideas had brought about
in his old semi-native, semi-European home.
In all things relating to the war it was an ardently pro-English
household, which, ever since its outbreak, had become a veritable
institution for Coptic war-workers. Veiled figures hurried to it,
carrying their knitting, proud and pleased to be imitating the efforts
of the European ladies in Egypt, and knit they did from morning until
night, with the patience and endurance of the uncomplaining East.
Hadassah's letter greatly disturbed Margaret. If it had only come
before Freddy was killed, how she would have gloried in it, how
delightful it would have been to tell him that even a scientific body
of excavators had come to the conclusion that a treasure had been laid
up by the religious fanatic--for that was Freddy's summing-up of
Akhnaton--that the seer's vision had again proved true!
But now she had no one to rejoice with. Freddy had been taken from
her, and Michael was lost, and there was not a creature in all her
world who would care one brass farthing about the strange materializing
of Michael's spiritualistic theories. All that she cared most about
she had to subdue and crush back. Probably Freddy, in his new life,
was understanding and sympathizing, for she knew now with a nervous
certainty that the veil is very thin.
Hadassah had said in her letter, when referring to the death of the
native, "This sounds as if Millicent's servants had played her false.
The police report that she never reached the hills, so whether her
dragoman deliberately took her off the track, and allowed one of her
servants to go to the hills and secure the treasure, remains a mystery
which may never be solved. But one thing is pretty clear--that her
cavalcade was never seen in that part of the desert, for, as you know,
the drifting sand in Egypt carries information; it conceals and reveals
many things undreamed of in our Western philosophy."
As Margaret read these lines she cursed her own stupidity with a bitter
curse. If she had used a little more tact and shown less jealous rage,
she could have learnt from Millicent all which now so baffled them.
She could easily have discovered if she had ever reached the hills.
Margaret was rereading the letter in her off-hours. Her first reading
of it had been very hurried, for it had arrived by the first post, and
she had only found time to devour it with eager eyes, eyes which
searched its pages for one precious item of news. She was scarcely
conscious of her desire for news of Michael's whereabouts. There was
always the hope, unexpressed even to herself, that he had written to
the Iretons. If he really was at the Front, surely he would have told
them? But the letter contained no such information.
Her disappointment was, however, drowned in surprise and pride. With
one fell swoop the letter had obliterated the passion and obsession of
war which had held her in its clutches. It made her forget, for a
little time, at least, that such a country as Germany existed. Her
mind was again vivified with visions of the desert and the various
scenes which Hadassah's letter suggested. Flashing before her eyes was
the open desert, the unbroken light, and the stumbling donkey,
heavily-laden and meekly submissive, with the gleaming gems, betrayed
by the rays of Aton. She could visualize the astonished native
fingering them and holding them up to the light; the sunlight,
Akhnaton's symbol of divinity, was to bear testimony to the fact that
the bright objects which had caught the Arab's eyes were beautiful and
rich-hued gems, that they were indeed a portion of the treasure which
he had hidden from the avarice of the priests of Amon, who set up
graven images and worshipped false gods.
For the first time since she had been doing the work of a pantry-maid,
Margaret set out the tea-trays and washed up the cups in an automatic,
aloof manner. Her material body was busy in the hospital-pantry, while
spiritually she was far away. Visions rose and faded before her eyes
in rapid succession, but the one which she saw oftenest was the look of
surprise and smiling incredulity on Freddy's face. The cry in her
heart was for his sympathy, for his knowing, for his congratulations on
the wonderful piece of news. Why could he not have been allowed to
know it while he was still alive on this earth and able to talk to her?
She wanted to be personally and materially close to him while he read
the letter.
She longed for that more ardently and whole-heartedly than anything
else; she hungered for it even more fiercely than the coming back of
Michael, whose return into her life she was convinced would eventually
happen. Whether it would be for her happiness or otherwise she was
ignorant.
When she thought of his coming and of her first meeting with him, her
pride rose up in arms, her mind was devastated with embarrassment. The
meeting would open up old wounds, which she had imagined were healed.
There she had been mistaken; they were like the wounds of a patient
which appear to be healed while he lies at rest in the hospital, but
which break out again when he resumes his normal life. The war had
drugged Margaret's senses.
She had curiously little fear for Michael as a soldier, for whenever
she thought of him as one, as fighting at the Front, she saw the bright
light surrounding him, and disarming his amazed opponents.
During the short time which Freddy was at the Front, how different her
thoughts had been! His beauty and ability seemed to say to her, as she
watched him on that memorable afternoon at the station, "Whom the gods
love die young." He seemed to typify to her England's brave and
beautiful young whom the war chose for its victims. The wages of the
war were England's youth and devotion. She knew that much as Freddy
loved his work and enjoyed his life, he would be the last to grudge his
death. It was she herself who so ardently wished that he had died in
action; that his brains and ability had been given a chance; that he
could have done as he would have wished to do, taken a life for a life;
that he could avenge in honest warfare the hideous death of his
comrades.
This letter from Hadassah made Margaret realize the awful fact that
Freddy was dead as nothing else had done, that his death meant that she
could never, never again consult him, or speak to him, or hope to hear
from him. It was not only a case of patience and the distance of half
the world between them; it was a case of never, never again on this
earth. She had scarcely known the meaning of death until this
starvation for his sympathy revealed itself to her. The awful
difference between mere distance and death had escaped her. Hundreds
of men were dying, but death was talked of unconvincingly,
superficially.
Now, by some strange means, she suddenly saw the years of doing without
Freddy stretching out before her. The Valley where his work lay would
never see him again. His brains and extraordinary energy were lost to
the world; his archaeological work would be taken over by others.
The pent-up tears which Margaret had not shed when she received the
news of his death, or during all the busy days which followed it,
mingled themselves with the unrestrained weeping which Nature sent to
save her overwrought system. She cried uninterruptedly, until the
urgency of tears subsided. She dried her eyes and braced herself up.
Her weeping had stopped suddenly; it had exhausted itself.
It seemed to her that she could almost hear a voice repeating to her a
sentence out of Hadassah's letter. It was strikingly like Hadassah's
own voice. "Try to remember that your wonderful brother is still doing
his bit. He is working hard, wherever he is--be sure of this, for it
is what he would wish."
* * * * * *
Margaret carried this thought in her mind as she returned to her
pantry. Hadassah was right. Freddy was working; wherever he was, he
was busy, for he could not be happy if he was not working and helping
on the cause of the Allies. Freddy had been one of the few enthusiasts
in the early days of the war who had never pretended, even to himself,
that England's primary object in declaring war against Germany was to
avenge the devastation of Belgium. He knew that England had to enter
it to save herself and France from a similar devastation.
When she was busy at work again, Margaret said to herself, "Of all the
strange things which have happened during the last six months, perhaps
the strangest of all is the fact that in all the wide world, the only
human being to whom I should dream of applying for help or for sympathy
in the things that matter is Hadassah Ireton, Hadassah the Syrian,
whose marriage with an Englishman of good family would have so shocked
and horrified me not so very long ago!"
A smile of amusement changed the expression of her face. She was
thinking of Hadassah as she really was, and of the outcast Hadassah as
she would have pictured her. The smile lost itself in the shame with
which the memory of her ignorance and prejudice filled her. How well
Hadassah and her husband could afford to forget the narrow-mindedness
and the conceit of it all!
CHAPTER XXII
And now to return to Michael. During the weary weeks of anxiety and
suffering which Margaret spent in Egypt before she sailed for England,
Michael lay hovering between life and death in the _Omdeh's_ house near
the subterranean village in the Libyan Desert.
Abdul had taken him there when he gathered him up in his strong arms on
the eventful evening when he left the excavation-tent in the hills. A
violent attack of fever, made more serious and difficult to throw off
by the overwrought condition of his nerves, kept Michael a helpless
exile in the hands of the hospitable but somewhat ignorant _Omdeh_ and
the devoted Abdul.
When the fever was at its height, Michael was very often delirious; in
his ramblings he let the discreet Abdul see deep down into the secret
hiding-places of his heart. Sometimes he spoke in English, and
sometimes in Arabic. Abdul could understand a great deal more English
than he could speak, and as Michael often repeated the same things in
Arabic--when he thought he was addressing Abdul--he soon found the key
to much which, without the Arabic translation and constant reiteration,
might have escaped his understanding. Arabs learn a language with
extraordinary rapidity; it is no unusual thing to meet a dragoman who
can understand three or four languages, and speak a fair smattering of
each; the same man is probably unable to read or write in any one of
the four. From the deep waters of affliction came strange and terrible
revelations, of desires and temptations which the conscious man had not
allowed himself to recognize. In his helplessness they leapt forth and
proclaimed themselves unmistakably. He innocently betrayed the nature
of the woman who had earned Abdul's hatred.
At other times he called upon Margaret and implored her forgiveness,
denouncing the woman who had followed him. He cursed her in horrible
words. Even Abdul was surprised at their impiety. Once, when Abdul
laid his fine fingers on his burning forehead, Michael took his hand
eagerly and tried to kiss it. The next instant he rejected it and with
the strength of delirium threw it from him and tried to get out of bed.
"That's not Margaret's hand?" he said angrily. "And I want no other
woman than Margaret. I have told you that before--I belong to
Margaret, I am Margaret's body and soul. I told you that the first
time we ate our meal together, even before your white tent went up."
When Abdul managed to subdue his master's fears, he laughed wildly and
idiotically. "Of course it is only you, Abdul. I had forgotten. I
seem to forget everything . . . I thought that . . ." here his words
became incoherent. "I was so tired, Abdul, and you were sitting up in
the sky above the horizon . . . so very tired."
Abdul fanned his babbling master and offered him a cooling drink.
Michael swallowed it eagerly; his bright eyes gazed pitifully into
Abdul's after the last drain was swallowed.
"Don't let the other woman come near me," he pleaded. "She is wearing
all Akhnaton's precious stones--they are hung round her neck, her
breasts are covered with them. But her skin is so white and tender,
the sun is burning it--I must lend her my coat." He laughed horribly.
"Mean little beast, Abdul, how frightened she was! The saint gave me
the amethyst--it's for Margaret."
Abdul listened to these strange outpourings with the philosophy and
trust of a devout Moslem. If Allah willed it, He would let his master
recover. He had put the Effendi in his care, and no trouble was
anything but a pleasure to him if it brought some sense of ease and
comfort to the delirious Michael.
The _Omdeh_ was the very soul of hospitality. He observed the
teachings of the Koran in the spirit as well as in the letter. He
spoke no English, so he was ignorant of all that Michael's delirious
words conveyed to Abdul. On his master's concerns, Abdul was a well of
secrecy.
By night and by day he heard him go over the same ground again and
again. His life in Egypt for the last few months was expressed in
broken sentences and vivid declarations, uttered sometimes with
astonishing gravity and lucidity. At times Abdul was deceived into
thinking that he was conscious, that his reasoning powers had returned,
that he was quite sensible. But he was soon undeceived by a sudden
breaking-off in the continuity of the words, or a return to confused,
half-meaningless sentences. It was only by the constant repetition
that Abdul learned the whole truth. A bit out of one raving fitted
into another, and things hard to explain were made clear.
Once he said very gravely, "Hadassah Ireton will help Margaret, the
beautiful Hadassah. She is more beautiful than Margaret, Abdul, much
more beautiful, but Margaret is the mistress of my happiness."
Abdul answered by saying, "_Aiwah_, Effendi, she is your guarded lady,
she will be the mother of your sons."
"She who sends me to rest with a sweet voice, and with her beautiful
hands bearing two sistrums."
Abdul was ignorant of the fact that his master was quoting the words of
Akhnaton, as written in the tomb of Ay in reference to his queen. He
thought they were his master's own words, and so thinking, his heart
was cheered, for Michael's voice was gentle and reasonable. But the
hope was suddenly wiped out.
"Are the camels ready, Abdul? We must get away, get away from the
woman. It's the only way. And you thought I cared, you came in sorrow
to tell me that the little beast had slipped away, just while Margaret
was standing among the daffodils. I heard her calling, calling in the
breeze. I was in England with Margaret."
Abdul saw that he had been mistaken. His master had never been
sensible; he was declaiming again, in his high-pitched, unnatural voice.
"I was a Christian--they wouldn't allow me to see the holy man buried.
But he gave me the jewel, the gem precious beyond all rubies. Abdul
covered his poor body with quick-lime; he said it would prevent
infection. Freddy won't believe it, Margaret, so we won't tell him--he
would only laugh. 'A child of God shall lead you'--that is what the
old African said. But I never told Freddy; he thinks I stand on my
head . . . Abdul! Abdul!" Michael's cry was ringing forlorn. "Do
you see the Government flag? It's all up, Abdul, it's all moonshine!
We're too late, too late. Freddy will say that Millicent detained me!
Is it the fluttering flag of the saint? It was Millicent who saw it in
the sunlight."
In despair Abdul recited a _sura_ from the Koran. "The God Who gives a
good reward for the good deeds of His creatures, and does not waste
anyone's labour."
Michael took up the last words of Abdul's prayer, in the way in which a
delirious mind will often carry on a sentence which drifts to the brain.
"Nothing is ever wasted, Freddy--I've told you that over and over
again. You say I waste my time. You won't say so, when you see the
jewels. The saint kept it in his ear, Abdul--wasn't that clever for a
child of God? Look, look, Abdul!" Michael stared into the distance;
his eyes became transfixed; he was excited, strong physically.
"Millicent's small breasts are so white, so white and fair. Her two
breasts are like two fawns that are twins of a roe, that feed among the
lilies. They are covered with jewels, they catch the sunlight. How
beautiful she is! Do you see her, Abdul? She is walking in the air in
front of me, all the way, Mohammed Ali's 'golden lady.'"
Abdul applied a wet towel to his master's burning temples. He sank
back on his pillow exhausted; his voice became low and feeble.
"The little white tent, it is always calling, calling, its open door is
always inviting me. Why does it say, all day long, 'Turn in, my lord,
turn in'? But Margaret came to me, she saved me. Listen--can you hear
the bells, Abdul? I heard them in the night, they sounded like the
bubbling of water. Then peace came, peace, when the woman had sneaked
away. Freddy always said I walked on my head, Abdul; he always
declared that the whole affair was moonshine, no one in their senses
would believe it. I always believe in people who have no sense, for
God gives finer _senses_ to people who have no sense. Sense never sees
beyond, Abdul."
Often he became very wild; broken sentences would pour from his lips,
the foolish, unmeaning ravings of a fevered brain.
After these wild outbursts intervals of exhaustion would set in, in
which he would lie in a semi-conscious state of stillness. On one such
occasion the stillness was suddenly broken by the solemn recitation, in
exactly Abdul's devout tones, of the Mohammedan rosary. When he
reached the sixty-third attribute of God, he repeated it with great
unction. Then his pious tones suddenly changed to a querulous cry.
"Abdul, why do you go on saying 'O Source of Discovery'? You know that
we've discovered nothing, nothing at all. It's all mere moonshine. I
wish Abdul would stop--he's sitting in the sky above the horizon,
repeating those same silly words over and over again! If I could only
get at him . . . but the horizon never gets any nearer." He laughed
vulgarly and hoarsely, and then lost the trend of his thoughts. "It
was a crimson amethyst--he always kept it in his ear. They buried me,
Meg, beside the saint. The sand drifts very quickly, it runs and runs
along the surface of the desert, so quickly and silently, like oozing
water over a dry river-bed." He gazed wildly at Abdul. "Will you tell
my old friend at el-Azhar that I have been dead for a long time? Tell
him that the sands drift very quickly. Margaret mustn't cry. The wind
is the desert grave-digger. Take your wicked hands away!" Abdul had
touched his wrist. "You'll never, never tempt me any more, because I'm
dead, I tell you. I was go tired, I got off my camel, and lay down,
and you ran away, you little coward. And the sands covered me, and I'm
dead, thank God!"
Abdul waited and watched and trusted in Allah. His devotion was
complete; he surrendered himself to his master in his material life as
completely as he surrendered himself spiritually to his God. And he
had his reward, for gradually Michael's youth and splendid constitution
asserted themselves; the fever abated--natives have their own wise
methods of treating it. There were days when he seemed almost well,
far on the way to recovery, but they were often followed by hours of
reaction and high delirium. These reactions were familiar to Abdul;
they did not depress him. Nevertheless they required time and
patience. It was Michael's first attack of fever, and therefore he was
able to throw it off more completely than if his system had been
undermined by it.
To Abdul his convalescent stage was a time of perfect content. As is
often the case with Orientals, he loved his European master with a
sentiment and romance which finds no equivalent in Western natures.
This sentiment and romance had increased intensely during Michael's
illness. Abdul now looked upon him as a personal possession; he had
nursed him back to life and health; he was a gift which Allah had
placed in his hands. He had no sons of his own, so his master filled
the unforgettable void. His conversion to Islam was Abdul's most
earnest prayer.
The only cloud in his blue sky was the knowledge that Michael was
disappointed and distressed by the fact that he had not, in some manner
or other, let the Effendi Lampton know that he was seriously ill.
Abdul could not have written himself, for he could neither read nor
write English; he always spoke to Michael in Arabic. It was therefore
impossible for him to write to the Effendi Lampton, and to the native
mind time was of so little account that one day was as good as another.
Besides, deep down in his heart there was a pool of jealousy; he wished
to nurse his beloved master back to life and health with his own hands.
If the Effendi Lampton knew that he was ill, he would come to him or
send someone to wait upon him who would rob him of his sweet work. And
to do Abdul justice, he did not know if his master would like any
stranger, or even the Effendi Lampton himself, to know all the secrets
of his heart which his ravings revealed. Michael had so often
expressed the wish to Abdul that it should be from his own lips, or
from his own letters, that the Effendi Lampton should hear that the
harlot had been with them in the desert, and the whole story of their
desert journey.
Abdul was quite convinced that his master's letters had not yet been
delivered at the hut in the Valley. It did not seem to him a very long
time for a letter to take to travel across the desert and the Nile.
The carrying of news was a different matter; he had a native's
knowledge of how that can be transmitted with great rapidity. A letter
belonged to a widely-different means of communication. And so he let
the matter rest.
To the hospitable _Omdeh_ he confided nothing. The old man was pleased
and delighted to have Michael as his guest. During the patient's rapid
recovery, after his first weeks of intermittent convalescence, he was
as pleased as a child to be allowed to entertain Michael with all the
delights which he had held out before his eyes when he had invited him
to spend two or three days with him, before he journeyed to the camp in
the hills.
During that time Michael became learned in the points of well-bred
gazelles. He saw some native dancers, both male and female, who
charmed him with their beauty and their art. And he listened so many
times to celebrated _A'laleeyeh_ (professional musicians) that, with
the help of the _Omdeh_, be became familiar with the remarkable
peculiarity in the Arab system of music--its division of tones into
thirds. Egyptian musicians consider that the European system of music
is deficient in sounds. This small and delicate gradation of sound
gives a peculiar softness to the performance of good Arab musicians.
At first Michael was unable to appreciate the excellence of the music
he listened to, for the finer and more delicate gradations of tone are
difficult to discriminate with exactness; they are seldom heard in the
vocal and instrumental music of people who have not made a regular
study of the art. But as his ear became more habituated to the style,
the more it delighted him. He had seen the rapture on Abdul's face and
had heard the exclamations of "God approve thee!" "God preserve thee!"
from the _Omdeh_, many times before the knowledge came to him. He knew
that it was his own ignorance, and not the musicians' lack of skill,
which was to blame. Until now he had only been familiar with the music
of the Nile boatmen and the popular music of the people.
It was delicious, or so Abdul thought, to sit with his master and the
_Omdeh_ in the cool garden, under the shade of a fantastic arbour,
darkened by the leaves of oleanders and other semi-tropical trees, and
there listen to the songs of famous Arab singers, or to the music of
the _'ood_, or the _nay_, a picturesque native flute, made out of a
reed about half a yard in length, pierced with holes.
Sometimes story-tellers would arrive. One would begin his romance
early in the evening and it would not be nearly finished by bed-time,
which came late in the hot summer nights. The reciting of it was
broken by pleasant intervals for discussions, or for the sipping of
sweet syrups and cool native drinks. The romance always left off at a
thrilling point; sometimes it took three evenings to finish it.
Abdul lived in a condition of satisfaction only to be expressed by a
Moslem mind. As for Michael, he had never imagined that he could feel
himself so much at home and so closely in sympathy with purely native
life. He began it at the point in his convalescence when nothing
mattered; the path of least resistance was the only one which he could
take. He continued in it when he no longer desired to resist.
He had received no word from the Valley or from the outer world. He
felt that he was cut off and abandoned. Millicent had no doubt taken
pains to let Margaret know that she had been with him in the desert,
and what could he expect but that Freddy would be justly indignant?
But he was getting better every day. He had had no return of the fever
for some time. Whenever he felt fit to travel, he would go to the
Valley and see if he could discover anything of Freddy's whereabouts.
Of course, he could not stay there during the hot weather, but the
guards in charge of the excavation-site might be able to tell him where
he was to be found.
It was no difficult matter for Michael to let things drift, and easier
for him under the circumstances than it might otherwise have been.
It was only after his complete recovery, and at the end of his long
journey with the faithful Abdul back to the Valley, that he realized
the utter desolation which faced him.
He had said good-bye with regret and gratitude to the Omdeh, who was
every day becoming more concerned about the secret propaganda which was
being preached in the desert mosques, and had travelled as quickly as
he could, more by train than by camel, back to Luxor. On an afternoon
of blistering heat he had crossed the Nile and ridden over the plain of
Thebes. He had to rest for a little time under the cliffs which
shelter the great temple of Hatshepsu at Der-el-Bahari, before he
continued his journey up the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, to the
hut in the wrinkles of the hills.
As he rode through the Valley, his thoughts were full of his first
meeting with Margaret. He remembered how at a certain point of the
desolate track, which winds like a dry river-bed through the Theban
hills, she had said, "Does Freddy live here all alone?" and how, when
he had assured her that Freddy was well guarded by watch-dogs at night,
she had said. "But dogs couldn't keep off this!" For Margaret they
had not kept off "this," the spirit of Egypt; nothing can keep off
Egypt; its power and mystery defy both time and science.
He remembered her almost childish eagerness, when she first listened to
his explanation of Akhnaton's beliefs and teachings. Then her vision
of the suffering Pharaoh came back to him, and all her arguments
against her super-sense, which told her that she had seen the spirit of
the first divinely-inspired man. He visualized her honest eyes and
their expression of interest when he had argued with her that God had
revealed Himself to mankind in many individuals and in many countries.
Surely she could not believe that God had left a single nation without
some revelation of Himself, that he had not sent upon all nations the
gift of His Spirit by some redeemer?
Margaret had said. "You mean, don't you, that Christ revealed Himself
to all nations?"
Michael had rejected her correction, for Christ was but one of God's
manifestations of Himself upon earth. There have been others--Buddha
was one, so was Mohammed; all great reformers, and those who are
inspired with the spirit of truth, and seek to reveal its beauty to
mankind, were to Michael God's revelations of Himself upon earth. He
gave to China, Confucius, to India, Krishna, and so on. To Palestine
he gave Jesus, Whose teachings have lightened the darkness of the
Western world.
"You may call them all Christ or Jesus, if you like," he had said.
"For they are all imbued with the same Spirit, which is of God. Jesus
has become our ideal and example, He it is Whom God chose to teach a
doctrine suited to Western minds."
In the heat and stillness of the Valley Michael pondered in his heart
over all the arguments and discussions which he had had with Margaret
under the star-lit heavens, or in an expanse of blinding sunlight,
which left not a shadow as big as a man's hand on the golden sands of
the Sahara.
He was living again in the days which preceded his adventures in the
Libyan Desert. Abdul was conscious of his master's total absorption in
the thoughts which his return to the Valley had called up. For many
weeks the heat of the summer sun had made the Valley like a furnace;
even now, though the hottest hours of the day were past, it was
stifling and almost unendurable. The air scorched Michael's face like
the hot air which comes from an oven when its door is opened.
As they drew near to the hut which had once been his home, the
loneliness and desolation became more intense. It hurt Michael
indescribably; the contrast between the present and the past was
horrible. What he had looked upon as his home, and what had meant for
him so much activity of mind and body, was now a mere wilderness. It
was an inferno of heat and sandhills; even lizards and scorpions sought
the shade. Nothing but the dead Pharaohs under the hills remained to
tell him that this had been his Eden, where passion-flowers bloomed.
The wooden hut was bolted and barred and closely shuttered.
"Certainly the family are not at home," he said to Abdul, with grim
humour. "There's no good looking for Mohammed Ali--he won't greet us
with his white teeth and smiling eyes."
They halted. Not a movement or sound disturbed the Pharaonic
stillness; not a sign of even insect life caught their searching eyes.
Abdul drew a native whistle from his pocket and put it to his lips; its
sound travelled and echoed round the hills.
Instantly a white turban appeared and the tall figure of a _gaphir_
came forward, with his signal of office, a long staff carried in the
Biblical manner, in his hand. Tall and bearded, in his flowing white
robes, he might have been Moses praying apart in the wilderness,
pleading for the children of Israel until the anger of the Lord was
turned away.
With inimitable dignity he came towards the two riders, who had so
suddenly appeared in the Valley. He was the trusted servant of the
Excavation Society; his duty it was to patrol the district which
surrounded the freshly-opened tomb, the one which Freddy had
discovered; his duty it was also to see that no harm came to the hut,
to which the Effendi Lampton would return in the autumn.
When Michael asked him for information about the Effendi Lampton, he
threw back his head. He had heard nothing from him, or about him,
since he had left the Valley and that was in the second week in May.
He had gone away in a great hurry, and had left some of the settling of
his papers and the packing of his _antikas_ which were in the hut, in
charge of the Effendi King. When Michael questioned him if the _Sitt_,
his sister, had remained with him until he left the Valley, the
_gaphir_ appeared uncertain; he, personally, had not seen the _Sitt_,
but then he had only come to take up his job the day before Mistrr
Lampton had gone away; the _Sitt_ might have been there--he did not
know.
As the dignified personage seemed to be disinclined to volunteer any
information, and he was unable to give Michael a satisfactory answer to
the questions he asked him, there was nothing else to do but to let him
return to his meditations. Michael supposed that there were native
mounted police in the Valley, whom the man could call to his assistance
if any trouble arose; they would appear from some sheltered fold in the
hills in answer to his signal.
Down the Valley of Death, in which the flames of the inferno seemed to
have licked and scorched the dry air ever since the world was created,
Michael rode with Abdul at his side. He had turned his back on the
hut, for the place thereof knew him no more. Freddy and Margaret had
left it; it was as though their presence there had never been. He knew
that he had been foolish to hope to find either Freddy or Margaret in
the Valley; it was far too late in the season and too hot for any
excavating work in Egypt. This he had been conscious of, but in his
heart he felt the urging necessity of going to the Valley and proving
the fact with his own eyes. Perhaps there was hidden in the back of
his mind a hope that some message had been left there for him, that
Freddy would have known that even if it was midsummer before his
journey was accomplished, he would return there as soon as he could;
something would draw him to the scene of their united labour and
happiness.
But Freddy's practical mind had not thought of any such folly; he had
left the Valley to the sun by day and the stars by night, and had gone
like the swallows to a cooler and greener land.
* * * * * *
Michael was compelled to spend that night at Luxor. His urgent desire
was to reach Cairo as quickly as possible and discover if the Iretons
knew anything of Freddy and Margaret. They were now his one hope. In
Luxor the fine European hotels were closed, so he found accommodation
in the house of one of Abdul's friends, a clean, well-managed native
inn. Luxor in May was without one blot or blemish of foreign life.
The next day he travelled by train to Cairo. The new moon was just
appearing in the evening sky when he found himself nearing the Iretons'
ancient Mameluke mansion. With the absence of all tourists and
European life, the mediaeval city seemed to Michael so Biblical that he
would not have been astonished if he had come across the city
magistrates, sitting apart in conclave to hear the witnesses of the new
moon's appearance and settle the time. He could picture the scientific
men in their midst, making their astronomical calculations, and judging
whether the testimonies agreed with their calculations. If they did,
the president of the assembly proclaimed the new moon by the sound of a
trumpet, and set open the gate of Nicanor, the great eastern brazen
gate of the temple.
But instead of the trumpet proclaiming the new moon, Michael heard the
sonorous cries of the _mueddin_, calling out the hour of Moslem prayer
from the galleries round the tall minarets, which rose from the city
like the lotus-headed columns of ancient Egypt. All the large mosques
in Cairo are open from daybreak until two hours after sunset. The
great university-mosque of el-Azhar would, Michael knew, remain open
all night, all but one small portion, the principal place of prayer.
When he reached the Iretons' house, he rang the bell at the door of the
outer courtyard. The Nubian who was stretched out on the mastaba
behind it did not trouble to rouse himself. Let the fool ring--surely
everyone knew that his master and mistress were not living in the city
in this weather, when they had a beautiful mansion in the cool oasis to
go to?
Michael rang again, but even as he rang his heart was beginning to
sink; he knew that no servant would have kept a guest waiting behind
the big door if his master was at home; it was his one and only duty to
guard it and admit visitors. The second time he rang, he did it so
emphatically that the noise vibrated through the courtyard.
A moment later Michael heard a movement. The bar was lifted from its
iron hooks, the door was grudgingly opened, and a black face, with
thick lips and goggle eyes, was thrust out. In a great many more words
than were necessary the Nubian told the anxious Michael that his master
and mistress were away from home; they were in the country; the house
was closed and would not be opened until October.
When Michael urged him for more particulars, as to the precise address
of his master, the effusive Nubian became as close as a sphinx. His
duty to his master forbade him giving any information to strangers at
the gate; he only retained the post because he could be trusted.
As Michael looked into the deserted courtyard, its sense of romantic
isolation was as affecting as the desolation of the Valley had been.
It seemed to him as if all his friends were dead, as if he was the sole
survivor of his generation and civilization. The native city, bathed
in the mystery of the falling night and the secrets of its great age,
lay behind him. It, too, was a world which had outlived its
civilization, a relic of the Middle Ages, as lonely as his own soul.
Mechanically he bade the Nubian good-night; the half-piastre which he
dropped into the pink palm of his black hand brought down blessings on
his unbelieving head.
He wandered aimlessly on. He was very tired and absolutely friendless;
he had no place or part in the city, whose arteries were throbbing with
the prayers and praise of an infinite variety of Oriental peoples,
peoples whose countries were separated by oceans and continents, joined
in one vast brotherhood in Islam. He felt miserably alone, a homeless
and friendless alien.
At the hour which follows sundown Egypt has always new secrets to
reveal. On this night of the new moon, the late afterglow of the
summer sun spread an opal haze, flame-tinted and milky, over the
sin-soiled city of the Caliphs. It descended from the heavens like a
veil of righteousness.
Michael had no desire to return to his hotel. He did not know what to
do; the absence of the Iretons from Cairo had shattered his last hope.
Surely it was ordained? He was to realize that he was reaping the
punishment he deserved for his weakness and folly. It was obvious to
his tired nerves and hypercritical senses that Margaret had purposely
returned to England without leaving any indication of her destination.
He would go to Cook's post-office the next morning; that was his last
forlorn hope. If there was no letter awaiting him there, he would take
his dismissal as final. It had been he himself who had insisted that
Margaret should consider herself free.
He knew Freddy's English address, but dared he write to him? He had
ignored all his letters and had gone back to England without making any
effort to communicate with him. This was certainly his dismissal. And
if Margaret had gone also without leaving one word of comfort for him,
he must draw the same conclusion from her silence.
Tired out with walking through the narrow streets, he stood on the
steps of a small mosque, whose doors were closed. He must think over
what he ought to do. As his eyes rested on the Eastern scene before
him, a sudden vision of his old friend at el-Azhar came to him. The
university-mosque would not be closed, its gate would open and receive
him into the Perfection of Peace.
For a few moments the desire to throw himself into the arms of Islam
overwhelmed him; it was the way of peace, the way of forgetfulness, the
way of self-surrender.
He remembered Abdul's teachings, and how he had often said, "A sort of
death comes over the first life, and this state is signified by the
word Islam, for Islam brings about death of the passions of the flesh
and gives new life to us. This is the true regeneration, and the word
of God must be revealed to the person who reaches this stage. This
stage is termed 'the meeting of God.'"
Michael imagined that he would find that stage if he went to his old
friend at el-Azhar, if he went humbly and asked him to lead him into
the way of peace, if he went that very night and confessed to him his
own failure to reach the stage which is enjoyed by all devout Moslems.
The burning fire which is Islam, the fire which consumes all low
desires and gives to men that love for God which knows no bounds, would
that be his state, if he surrendered himself intellectually and
spiritually to the laws and the teachings of the Koran?
There was nothing in the ethics or the moral code of the Prophet with
which he disagreed; the excellence of his teachings as laid down in the
Koran was extraordinarily far-reaching and comprehensive. Michael's
whole being for the moment was filled with the devotion and abandonment
of Islam. Mohammed's mission was to turn the hearts of his people to
the worship of the one and only God; his desire, like Akhnaton's, was
to throw down the false gods from the altars, and reinstate the simple
and undivided worship of the Creator in men's hearts and minds. To
Michael, his teachings had always been the teachings of a great and
inspired reformer. At that moment, when the spell of Islam was
baptizing him, he forgot that Mohammed's God was not the Sweet Singer
in the spring-time, or the bright eye of the daisy in June, or the
laughter of the babbling brooks. The beauty of God, to the Moslem,
consists in His unity, His majesty, His grandeur and His lofty
attributes. Michael overlooked the difference. He loved to walk with
God in the cornfields, to speak to Him when he visited the
lotus-gardens on the Nile. The Moslem succeeds in abandoning himself
to God's will, but he fails to enjoy Him in the scent of the hawthorn,
or hear His voice in the whisper of the pines.
The Moslem city was pouring into his veins the beauty of its spiritual
calm; the hour was kind to its imperfections, its hidden sores were
forgotten.
His feet mechanically descended the flights of stone steps which had
raised him above the level of the street and had placed him under the
shadow of the ancient doorway of the mosque. Without asking himself
where he was going, or what he intended to do, he walked in the
direction of el-Azhar.
As he threaded his way through the narrow streets, darkness was quickly
obliterating the dirt and unsightliness which was visible in the
noonday. His mind was vexed with a thousand questions. Why did a
Western civilization and the Protestant religion make human beings
restless and questioning? Why were they for ever desiring the things
which are withheld? Why had his life and his interests suddenly
tottered to the ground? Surely it was because he had not learned to
put the things of the spirit above things material? If he resigned his
will to Islam, would he in return be granted the calm philosophy of a
Moslem, who accepts his condition and his disappointments as the
unquestionable and far-seeing decree of the Cause of all causes?
Drifting and dreaming, Michael wandered on, the summer heavens above
him, the mediaeval city surrounding him. The hot day's work was over;
men and women were enjoying in their Oriental fashion the cooler and
sweeter air of the late evening. Portly figures of elderly men were
descending the high steps which raise the mosque-doors from the level
of the street; narrow, two-wheeled carts, of immense length, packed
full of black bundles--Egyptian women closely veiled--were taking tired
workers back to their homes in the suburbs. Darkness, which falls so
quickly and early in the East, even in mid-summer, was bringing relief
to sun-tired eyes.
Reaction was affecting Michael very strongly. It had only set in when
the absence of the Iretons from Cairo had suddenly opened up a chasm of
distrust and doubt before his feet. In his desolate wandering through
the city, Margaret seemed very far away. Indeed, he had never felt any
assurance of her sympathy and presence since he had recovered from his
illness. He had nerved and braced himself to make the supreme effort
which he knew would be demanded of him if he was to reach the Valley;
he had made it wholly unaided by any subconscious sense of her
spiritual presence. His assurance of her unchanged confidence in his
devotion had left him. It was to his material, not spiritual,
will-power and determination that he owed his victory over the physical
exhaustion which he had experienced.
He scarcely thought of Margaret as he wandered on; in his mood of
self-pity he felt abandoned. Every minute he was drawing nearer and
nearer to the gates of el-Azhar. Unconsciously he desired that when he
reached the gate which led into the Court of the Perfection of Peace,
it would open, and strong arms would gather him up as they had gathered
him up in the Libyan Desert, and drown his restlessness and doubts in
their strength; that he might spend his future at rest under the shadow
of the Everlasting Arms--The God of Akhnaton, the God of Jesus, the God
of Mohammed, His Arms encompass and enfold the world.
At the gates of el-Azhar Michael paused and listened. The praises of
Allah, and man's love for Him, went up from a hundred devout voices.
The pillared courtyard looked vast and solemn; the soft air of the
summer night vibrated with the sonorous chanting of students and
professors. The peace of God which passeth all understanding
beautified the mediaeval building, which has been for long centuries
the centre of culture and learning for the scattered Moslem world. It
baptized Michael's fevered soul as the waters of Jordan baptized those
who were converts of the forerunner of Jesus. Centuries of meditation
and player have left their divine influence on the place.
All sacred enclosures hold the gift of healing. Michael had felt it in
the temples of Egypt, in the temples of the Greeks, in the mosques.
The things of the spirit remain in them, the thoughts which have been
born by communion with the soul.
Impulsively Michael lifted the iron handle of the bell; it hung from a
long chain which lay against a square column, one of the two posts at
the outer gate. Here was the rest he was seeking, the beauty of divine
meditation.
As he lifted the handle and his palm pressed it with the tightening
grasp necessary for pulling it, he let it drop. Something made him
drop it. He had ardently desired to ring it; it was not the lateness
of the hour, or the nervousness which he might well have felt at taking
a step which would lead him into fresh perplexity and doubt, which had
made him pause. He had dropped it because he was compelled to, and as
he dropped it, he knew that he would never again ring it for the same
purpose. His super-self had triumphed; it had dominated his actions.
Suddenly the overwhelming significance of the step which he had been
about to take so rashly made him tremble and feel apprehensive. He
turned round quickly, as if he expected to see the hand which had
stayed him. No one was there.
He stood tense, perfectly still, listening. Only the prayers from the
courts of Islam came to his ears. Mingled with their solemnity, came
with vivid clearness the picture of himself, seated on the marble floor
of the courtyard, pretending that he was one in heart and soul with the
others. He could see their devotion, their bridled intellects, their
impersonal minds, strange peoples of every Oriental nation--black
Nubians, pale Arabs, flat-featured Mongolians--all sincere and honest
in this one thing at least, their absolute belief in, and surrender to
Islam. He saw himself, a Western, with a Western mind; ha saw himself
a hypocrite and charlatan. He saw the deadly monotony of the life
which only a moment before had seemed the Way of Perfect Peace. His
old friend, who had given him such wonderful counsel, would have read
into his heart: he would have seen there the vast difference which lay
between Michael's sincere beliefs and the beliefs which he was
professing.
Resolutely he turned his back on the university-mosque. He would visit
his friend at a more suitable hour, and ask him to explain to him some
of the things that had happened. He would ask him if he was aware that
his desert journey had, in a material sense at least, ended in failure,
if his seer's vision had enabled him to discover what had happened to
the treasure.
On his way back to the European quarter of Cairo he rested for a short
time by the roadside, in a strange little cemetery of poor Moslem
tombs. It lay exposed to the turmoil and dust of a rough road, a
sun-baked spot in the daytime; at night it was grimly mysterious. The
memorial stones--the humbler for the women, of course, the grander
ones, with turbans cut in the grey stone, for the men--had sunk into
the ground until they stood at strange angles. The rough white stones
had become grey with age, and many of them were sadly broken.
A donkey-boy, who had perchance taken some portly Turkish merchant back
to his home in the country after his day's work in the city, came
hurrying down the hill. It was steep, and loose stones covered the
path. When he reached the dilapidated cemetery he pulled up his
suffering animal. Michael, from his hidden corner, watched the boy
fling himself from the donkey's back; the animal remained motionless,
while its rider, in his one garment--a short white shirt, which only
reached to the knees of his tanned legs--stepped in amongst the
gravestones. Finding the one he sought, he said a short prayer beside
it in devout tones, then hastened back to his donkey. When he started
down the hill and the tired beast stumbled, he belaboured it with a
heavy stick and cursed it. His foul language rang out into the
stillness; it echoed among the stones under which lay the bones of his
ancestor--or was it, perhaps, the bones of some humble saint, whose
favour he was inciting?
The little incident was as illustrative of the effects of Islam as the
peace within the courts of el-Azhar.
Michael sat in the cemetery, which had seemed to him to be of no more
consequence than a heap of stones by the wayside, awaiting the
roadmender's hammer. Yet, with the strange inconsequence of Orientals,
it was evidently a sacred spot. It had its pilgrims and its uses.
This city cemetery brought to his mind the drifting sand of the open
desert, and the ever-increasing mound which Nature was piling up over
the bones of the holy man, which lay in an ocean of sweet silence and
expanse.
CHAPTER XXIII
Early the next morning Michael again stood at the gate of the
university-mosque, but it was a different Michael to the Michael of the
night before. The unseen hand which had stopped him when he was about
to ring the bell did not have to interfere a second time. He rang it
resolutely, thinking calm thoughts, and despising himself for his
foolish mood of the night before.
When the gate was opened to him, he passed in and hurried across the
blinding brightness of the open courtyard. He made haste to reach the
shelter of the colonnade; he was in no drifting humour; he was again
asserting his capacity for being practical about the unpractical. He
did not even allow himself to dwell on the memories which the scene
recalled of the day when he had visited his friend, before he
determined to leave the Valley and go into the Libyan Desert.
When he reached the portion of the building where the old African
student lived, his steps slackened. What if he was dead? He was an
old man for a mid-African, and his physique had been greatly exhausted
by continued chastening of the flesh.
When he was well within sight of his cell he saw the lean, gaunt figure
of the hermit-student standing inside the iron-barred gate; he was
straining his eyes into the distance; he was looking for someone.
When Michael was near enough to address him, which he did in tones of
pleasure and respect, the African opened the gate slowly and not
without difficulty, his trembling hands thinner and more bloodless even
than they had been when Michael had visited him before.
After the proper greetings were exchanged, the African invited Michael
to enter, and asked him if he would lend a patient ear to what he had
to tell him.
"I am an old man," he said. "I can see the end of this existence--it
is not far off. It is well that you have come."
When Michael expressed his sorrow, the tired eyes flashed.
"Do not grieve, my son. When the righteous servant of God sees death
face to face, he does not contend with his God--that is to oppose His
will, that is not in accordance with total resignation."
Michael said that his grief was for himself, not for his friend; his
words were an apology. The old man had seated himself in a humble
attitude on the floor in front of Michael; with the never-failing
courtesy of an Oriental, he was not forgetful of the etiquette which
prescribes for the seating of oneself in the presence of a superior.
There is always a position of honour in a native room, and this, even
in his cell, the zealot of Islam reserved for his professors and for
his honoured guests, if they were his social superiors.
When they were seated and the tired old man had rested for a few
moments, he said, in the lengthy and flowery style of Orientals:
"I looked for you, my son; your coming was foretold. I have long and
eagerly awaited it."
"Were you watching for me?" Michael asked. "I saw you at the door of
your cell. I am glad I came."
"Even as you came, I looked for you. The Lord of Kindness knows the
desires of our hearts; He grants all those which in His mercy He deems
fit."
"You desired to see me, O my father?"
"_Aiwah_, for long I have desired it."
A rosary was in his hands; he pulled the beads slowly along the string.
Michael had learned to banish impatience in the presence of natives.
"I have been in great tribulation," he said. "Did you know that? I am
even yet sorely troubled."
The African answered with his eyes.
"O Lord, give us in our affliction the contentment of mind which may
give us patience."
"My peace of mind has gone, O my father. I feel that my feet have
strayed far from the way of peace. I came to hear your counsel."
The old man's eyes flamed with the fire of righteousness. "My son," he
said, "the Lord has revealed to His dying servant the things which as
yet you know not. You speak of peace where there is no peace, for I
have seen the Armageddon of God's enemies; I have seen the world washed
in the blood of those who know not Islam; I have seen the heathen
nations of the earth blind with rage. Why do these nations of the
earth so furiously rage together? I tell you, O my son it is because
they have not the love of God in their hearts."
Michael was silent. The old man's words conveyed very little to him,
for as yet there was no rumour of the war which was breeding in Europe.
The internal troubles in Ireland, distressing as they were, were not of
a nature to be spoken of with such appalling gravity. The old man's
anxiety and sincerity were unmistakable, but what did he mean? While
he sat in silence, wondering what the seer had in his mind, Michael saw
that his dark eyes were far away. His attitude was that of one who had
detached himself from his surroundings; his spirit was immeasurably
removed from his material body. Suddenly he spoke.
"Take heed, my son, for everywhere, even unto the ends of the earth I
can see bloodshed and suffering, and an agony of evil such as the world
has never seen. I can see nations rising against nations, and the
blood of kindred spilt by each other's swords, for they know not God."
Michael, not without a feeling of mental irritation, listened to the
African's foretelling. It seemed to him the imaginings of a zealot's
weakening brain. This war which he foretold was to Michael an
impossible thing amongst civilized nations, but he listened patiently
to all that he had to say. Blood which was to pour like a river over
the Western world, was to be spilt for the cause of Truth; it was to be
the punishment and final agony of the unbelievers; war was to spread
over the world like a deadly plague. God in His wisdom had willed it,
for it was to be a proof that the infidels, who had flourished like the
green bay-tree, were at last to suffer the vengeance of God. This war,
which he saw as clearly as astrologers see the stars and the moon in
the heavens through their scientific instruments, was ordained by
Allah, it was the work of His hand, it was His terrible revelation to
mankind of the falseness of the doctrines preached by those who called
themselves the followers of Christ. For nearly two thousand years they
had fed the nations on lies and set up images which were abhorrent to
the one and only God. They had, to suit their own doctrines and
dogmas, perverted the meaning of the words of Jesus; they had made the
name of Christ a byword to all true believers. The sin of hate and the
lust for blood, which was to fill the hearts of all Christian
countries, was to be a token to all true believers that the teachings
of Christians had been vain and fruitless. They had lived without God
in their hearts; now even the example of the Prophet Jesus they laughed
to scorn.
"God is alone in His personal attributes, He has no partner, He is
neither a Son nor a Father, for there is none of His kind."
Knowing the religious fervour of devout Moslems, Michael listened to
his warning, but without the interest which he would have felt if he
had had the slightest inkling of the agony which was so soon to
convulse Europe. He thought that as the African's end was not far off,
he was becoming more troubled and desirous for the conversion of the
world to Islam. He said to himself, "If he knows nothing about my
experience in the desert and my failure to find the treasure, I will
give no second thought to this imaginary war of nations." While he
listened to his strange and fervent warnings, he determined to find out
if he knew what had happened. When the African paused, he said:
"Pray tell me, O my father, if it was known to you the things that
befell me in the desert. If not, I have much to tell you."
The African was far away; only his emaciated body was in the cell when
Michael spoke; when he drew back his mind to his material presence, he
met Michael's questioning eyes; his own were tragic and stricken.
"These things are past, my son, in this new world of despair and
suffering there is no place for them. Very often I saw you, very often
you were in great trouble, trouble as the world understood trouble in
the days of peace. But because of the avarice of ungodly rulers there
is sorrow and mourning coming to the world, which will teach men that
they knew not the meaning of anguish. In the Armageddon they will
understand the suffering of the Prophet Jesus, the Man of Sorrows Who
was acquainted with grief."
Michael, convinced that the seer's mind was obsessed with this one
idea, accepted the fact philosophically; he shrank from asking him the
more personal questions he wished answered. Nevertheless, he was
extremely curious to learn if he was ignorant of the result of his
expedition.
"Tell me, my father, did you see me securing the great treasure of gold
and jewels which I went into the desert to find? Did you know how
greatly I have reaped my reward?"
"My son, speak to me of the truth which is in thy heart, not of lies."
His angry eyes rebuked Michael. "Stand fast to truth and justice. The
men of truth shall find a rich reward--they do not sit in the company
of liars."
"I ask your forgiveness, O my father. Truly I spoke not after the
fashion of those who have understanding."
"My son, I have seen what I have seen. Your deeds of charity are known
to God, His power extends over all things; not a chicken cheeps in the
egg-shell but He has created. Your trials and losses are known to Him,
they are His ordaining. Because of your weakness and the carnal
thoughts and desires which were in your heart, God saw fit to remove
the treasure from your sight. Again in the days of peace you must seek
it, in the bowels of the earth it is laid up for you."
Michael's heart stood still. Verily the old man had seen, for in his
words there were truth and meaning.
"My son, listen to the teachings of the Prophet, God bless his holy
name. 'Believing men should restrain their eyes from looking upon
strange women, whose sight may excite their carnal passions. Draw not
near unto fornication. The word of God restrains the carnal desires of
man even from smouldering in secret.'"
"You know, O my father, that I sought not the presence of the strange
woman in my camp?"
"My son, through the grace of Allah I have seen. Your temptation was
great, your charity was acceptable in God's sight. He knows that many
unbelievers look towards Him, but do not see Him."
"And what now is thy counsel, O my father?"
The African shook his head. "Prayer, my son, that is my counsel. The
world has much need of prayer. Pray that through Allah's guidance all
nations of the earth may learn how to live peacefully one with another.
I can see nothing further; that is my counsel: Work and pray. I can
give you no assurance, but Allah granting, I will pray without ceasing.
You must humbly submit to the will of Allah. This I give you as my
counsel. You took the great journey; your heart is still filled with
the eagerness of youth, with the vanity of earthly ambition. But all
these things will be purged from your heart, your bowels of compassion
will yearn for the mothers of sons, who weep for their sons because
they are not. Your journey was not in vain. If your fingers have not
yet touched the treasure which you sought, if your desires have strayed
from the path of righteousness, if you have not always stood in the
Light, there is a new treasure laid up in your heart, my son, the
treasure of meekness. Meekness is one of the moral conditions of the
Koran, and the servants of the All-Merciful are those who walk meekly
upon earth. This treasure has been revealed to you, you have learned
many strange and wonderful things, a spiritual treasure has been
bestowed upon you which is of greater richness than the gold and the
jewels which you sought. You dreamed not of man's weakness, O my son,
you relied upon your own strength. Allah has chosen His own method of
revealing to you the manner of man's carnal nature."
Michael remained lost in thought while the old man finished his counsel
by reciting a beautiful _sura_ from the Koran. In his mind there had
been gathering the conviction that there was more truth than he had at
first imagined in his daring prophecy, in his foretelling of the
calamity which was to befall all Christian countries. He had been
perfectly accurate on the subject of his own journey, that it had not
been successful in regard to the treasure of Akhnaton. He had seen
with extraordinary clearness all which had happened, even to the
reading of his heart. It was unnecessary for Michael to tell him in
words all that he had gone through, for the African was tired, and his
eyes had seen. There was just one thing he had been craving to ask him
about; it had been glowing at the back of his mind like a light from a
sacred lamp. That precious thing was Margaret. Had this mid-African,
whose feet were bending to the open grave, any seer's knowledge which
would assist him?
"I would ask you yet one more question, O my father. Of my dear
friends, whom I left in Upper Egypt when I journeyed into the
desert--have you counsel regarding them which will ease the anxiety I
feel?"
The old man's eyes flashed brightly. He had forgotten; his voice was
expressive of human sympathy. "Your guarded lady, _insha Allah_, the
future mother of your sons, she was never far from you, she it was who
many times comforted you. Often have I seen her spiritual presence
very close to you."
"Your words are the truth, O my father. When the weakness of man's
nature overwhelmed me, she came to me in the desert."
"Spiritually you embraced her, my son; Allah, in His perfect
understanding, granted you this great comfort."
"I have not heard from her, my father, nor has her spiritual presence
been close to me for many weeks. My heart is desolate."
"Pray for fortitude, my son, that moral condition which enables us to
meet danger and endure pain with calmness." As he said the last words,
his eyes looked into the future; his expression became agonized.
"Fortitude," he repeated the word slowly and deliberately,
"fortitude--you must pray for it without ceasing, for without it you
cannot face the future."
"You do not explain, O my father, why I do not see or hear anything
from those who love me."
Michael had seen by the visionary's expression that his thoughts were
again obsessed with the Armageddon he had visualized.
The African shook his head. "Some things I may not see, O my son,
Allah withholds them from my imperfect human understanding. It is only
by His ordaining that I can see what I see. If your heart is clean and
worthy, my son, doubt not the faithfulness and steadfastness of the
woman to whom you are spiritually united. She raises not her eyes to
strange men; if by your own weakness you have lost your spiritual
connection with her, then hasten to act worthily of her. The world
will have need of all those who have the love of God in their hearts,
of all those who have the moral quality of forgiveness and sympathy.
It is an easy matter to forgive those whom we love. Go you forth into
battle and learn to forgive those whom you hate. Never have your
opportunities been greater."
As his last words were uttered, with extreme earnestness, through the
colonnade and courtyard of the ancient building came the midday call to
prayer; it was sonorous and prolonged.
Michael rose hastily from his low seat. The aged student did not
detain him. Their farewell was comparatively brief, owing to the
_mueddin's_ harmonious and sonorous chanting of the _adan_.
"I will return," Michael said. "I will not leave Egypt without saying
farewell to you, O my father, and asking for thy blessing."
"_Insha Allah_ (if God wills), my son. Very soon God will permit His
servant to enjoy the blessings of paradise."
"It will not be many days before I go to England."
"_Aiwah_, the time draws near when each man will return to the land
which gave him birth. The Lord of Battles has decreed it, the Lord of
Battles will send forth His summons. From the uttermost ends of the
earth all those who have denied Him, all those who have denied that He
is God beside Whom there is none other to be worshipped, they will
answer to the call: with pride in their hearts they will slaughter
those who should be their brethren. The voice of the slain will travel
even as the wind travels to the world's end. Woe unto those nations
who have taught false doctrines, who have stretched out their hands to
oppress the widows and the helpless, for the anger of the God of
Battles is turned against them. He knows everything, and nothing lies
hidden from His sight."
Michael made no answer. His mind was groping after the true
understanding of all that the African said.
"If Allah had so willed it, my son, great would have been my happiness,
my rejoicing, to see the final triumph of Islam, to see the nations
upon the earth loving each other, all borders and barriers broken down,
to see the love of God ruling all men and all countries. When men live
with the image of the true God in their hearts, there will be no
dividing barriers. True patriots will be the obedient children of God,
the banner of Islam the universal banner of mankind. Farewell, my son,
God be with you."
His gate was shut behind Michael; the lean figure hastened to obey the
call to prayer.
As Michael hurried to the outer gate and crossed the thronged courts of
el-Azhar, he meditated on the old man's words. What did they mean?
What had his eyes seen? Locked away in his obscure cell in the centre
of the Moslem university-mosque, how could he know what was going to
happen in the great countries of Europe? He would find it difficult,
no doubt, to assign to England her correct position on the map. And
yet his warnings were strangely intense. Had they any connection with
the tales of political sedition of which the _Omdeh_ had so often
spoken? Nothing belonging to the present seemed to matter to him now;
his thoughts and visualizing were riveted on the agony of the world
which he foretold. His prayers were for this new agony and world-wide
disaster which had been revealed to him.
It was strangely perplexing. Michael felt great pity for him, that his
last few weeks on earth should be so saddened; even though he was
convinced that this agony was to be for the final triumph of Islam, it
was tearing at his bowels of compassion. His gentle nature was
suffering for the children whom Allah now saw fit to punish.
PART III
CHAPTER I
The war was six months old and Margaret was still a pantry-maid in the
private hospital in St. Alphege's Square. She was to be promoted to
the wards in a few weeks' time, to fill the place of a V.A.D. who was
going out to France. Before taking up her more interesting work, she
had been granted a fortnight's leave; the exacting matron realized that
the willing horse which works its hardest is one which will eventually
collapse under its burden.
Margaret was now visiting an aunt in a northern town, drinking in the
keen air of the winter hills and the resin of the pine-woods. She was
conscientiously building up her tired system, fitting herself for fresh
endeavours; she considered that her brief holiday had been given her
for this purpose. Her health and capacity for work were the two assets
which she could give to the war; it was as much a matter of duty to
nurse that capital and increase it as it was the duty of the engineers
on a ship to keep the driving power of the vessel in perfect order.
During her holiday the only form of war-work which she allowed herself
to do, except the mechanical one of knitting, was to help at a
railway-station canteen, which supplied free meals to all the soldiers
and sailors who passed through. The aunt whom she was visiting had the
entire responsibility for the free-refreshment-room for one of the
shifts for two nights in the week; her shift began at six and ended at
nine o'clock. Punctually at nine o'clock another member of the
canteen, or "barrow-fund," as it was called, took the responsibility
off her hands and kept it until two-thirty a.m. Margaret's aunt asked
her to take the place of a helper who had suddenly been telegraphed for
to see a wounded brother; who had just arrived at a hospital in
Edinburgh.
At the large station, a very important junction, the third-class
ladies' waiting-room had been given over to this energetic body of
women war-workers, who had converted it into an attractive
refreshment-room. Margaret was established behind the buffet in her
V.A.D.'s uniform. The wide counter in front of her was covered with
cups and plates, piled high with tempting sandwiches and bread and
butter, cakes and scones; immense urns, full to the brim with steaming
coffee and tea, gleamed brightly on a wide shelf behind her.
Everything was in readiness, and there were a few minutes to spare
before the first train was due, which would bring a bevy of hungry men
into the hospitable room. Margaret used those few minutes to make a
tour of inspection; she had to see that plenty of post-cards and
writing materials were in evidence on the centre table, that the
illustrated papers were conspicuously displayed. The barrow, or the
moving refreshment buffet, was already out on the platform; it served
the men who had no time to leave their carriages. It was winter, so
flowers were scarce, but hardly a night passed but there was a fresh
bouquet on the counter and table. The owners of large country-houses
saw to that. The dominoes and draught-boards had been forgotten;
Margaret put them on the table in the centre of the room. And then,
satisfied that all was right, she took up her position again behind the
counter. She was to be responsible for the serving of the tea and
coffee; the men helped themselves to the contents of the plates. Her
aunt attended to the tea and coffee urns, keeping them replenished and
their contents in good condition. Margaret's was distinctly the
pleasanter work of the two.
The sharp air of the north had brought back the glow to Margaret's eyes
and a freshness to her rather London-bleached cheeks. She looked a
deliciously fresh and pleasing waitress in her crisp indoor V.A.D.
uniform. The red cross on the front of her apron was as becoming to
her as a bunch of scarlet geraniums. It was too hot, standing so near
the steaming urns, for hats and coats, so she had the advantage of
showing her rippling hair. The cosy atmosphere of the room made her
forgetful of the severity of the wintry atmosphere outside. Margaret's
pretty figure and dark head appearing above the buffet-counter were
certainly great assets to the free-refreshment-room. Her aunt, who was
a conscientiously undemonstrative woman, felt proud of her niece. She
more than once that evening thought to herself what pleasure the girl's
beauty would give to the men. It was unfortunately against her
principles to allow Margaret to even guess how much she both approved
of her and admired her.
Her aunt's thoughts were correct. Margaret's pretty head and her dark
eyes were remembered by many an aching heart that night; from her hands
the tea and coffee they drank had more flavour than that which was so
casually dispensed to them in the army canteens.
"Here they come, Margaret!" her aunt called out, as the door opened and
a crowd of khaki-clad figures poured into the room. Most of their
faces brightened as they saw the inviting buffet.
They had only twenty minutes in which to enjoy their refreshment and
change trains; most of them were going to London. This was only one of
the many train-loads of men which would visit the room that night.
There were about forty men, pushing and elbowing their way to the
counter.
With a sharp-spouted, blue-enamelled tin jug in her hand, Margaret
began her work, quickly filling the empty cups on the counter. As fast
as her active movements would allow her she filled and refilled the
saucerless cups. What seemed a never-ending stream of men pushed
forward and tried to get closer to the counter.
"Help yourselves, please, to sandwiches and cakes," came from
Margaret's lips every few minutes, for some of the men were shy--she
had to keep on repeating the invitation. She had scarcely time to
glance at them, or raise her eyes from the cups which she was filling.
As there were no saucers, it required a steady hand to prevent the tea
from splashing on the counter. Such a large majority of the men took
tea that she had to tell them that there was coffee. "Tea or coffee?"
she would ask, with quickly raised eyes. "We have both."
There was on these occasions no opportunity for any conversation with
the men. Their time was too limited for speech, and she was too busy
to distinguish one khaki-clad figure from another. It was only a pair
of eyes which she met now and then, when it was possible to raise hers
from the extended cup she was refilling. More than once her
blue-enamelled jug ran dry, and impatient men had to wait while she
replenished it from one of the big urns which were steaming on the
shelf behind her. When the jug was quite full, it was so heavy to hold
extended, that she had to exercise care not to spill some of its
contents on the sandwiches and cake. It was exceptionally difficult
not to spill any of it when cups were held high up to be refilled.
One tall man, a late-comer, had with difficulty pushed his way forward;
he was waiting to be served. He held up his cup, thinking that it
would make it easier for Margaret to reach it. Before filling it, she
recollected to say, "Would you rather have some coffee?"
She raised her eyes as she spoke. Some curious sense of the man's more
refined personality had made her think that coffee might appeal to him.
As she did so, Michael's Irish-blue eyes gazed back into hers.
For a moment the world stood still for Margaret. Her poor heart beat
so quickly that her hand gave a spasmodic shake, with the result that a
considerable quantity of the tea from the enamelled jug splashed over
the brim and drenched a plate of scones.
Michael had not spoken, nor could Margaret. What she had waited so
long to ask him could not be called out over a dozen eager heads.
A kilted Scot, broad-faced and broad-kneed, had pushed himself in front
of Michael, who recognized that it was his duty to step back from the
counter now that his cup was full, and allow the man just behind him to
get his chance.
Margaret had to go on filling white cups with tea. She dared not even
raise her eyes to see if she could catch sight of Michael above the
crowd of khaki figures. It was hopeless now, for another train had
brought in a fresh batch of weary, cold, homesick men, all eager for a
hot cup of tea. Most of the first-comers had already disappeared; one
or two of them were hastily addressing with pen and ink the pencilled
postcards which they had written in the train. The writing of many
post-cards seemed to afford them great comfort. While Margaret was
filling cups as fast as she could, she was often interrupted by men who
would hold out a penny and ask if she kept postage-stamps. Stamps were
the only things which were not given away in the free refreshment-room;
a copper always went into the little red box when a stamp was taken
out. The men were eager to get them.
Another voice would ask for a time-table, and another would inquire if
she sold pipes; he had lost his in the train and he dreaded the twelve
hours' journey which lay before him without the comfort of even his
pipe.
All these demands had to be attended to quickly and sympathetically.
The twenty minutes which the first batch of men had to spend in the
station was almost up. On record nights the canteen had served three
hundred men in half an hour. Margaret felt rather than knew that
Michael was still in the room, that he was standing behind the first
line of men, looking at her. Her heart was throbbing and her mind
distracted. How could she reach him? How could she learn where he was
going to?
His eyes had told her nothing; they had simply gazed into hers as
though he had seen a vision. Of the surprise and relief which hers had
afforded him she knew nothing. In the midst of the hurly-burly of
hungry, tired soldiers she had met his eyes--that was all. She had
scarcely seen his figure.
The place was emptying. Michael, having stayed to the very last
second, turned and quickly left the room. Soon there would be a lull,
but Margaret could not wait for it. She put down her can as Michael
disappeared and moved down the counter to its exit, a little door which
opened inwards and allowed her to pass into the room. To reach it she
had to brush past her aunt. As she did so, she said as calmly as she
could:
"I must fly out to the platform for a few minutes, aunt, even if these
men go without their tea--I really must go and speak to a soldier I
know."
Her aunt looked at her in astonishment. This new emotional Margaret
was so very unlike the reliable V.A.D., whose dignity was one of her
individual charms.
"Very well, my dear, I can manage. Go along."
There was no time for more words--indeed, Margaret did not wait to be
allowed. She darted out of the refreshment-room like an arrow freed
from the bow. She had but one idea, to follow Michael. When the door
closed behind her, she gazed up the wide expanse of platform. She
caught sight of him, but he was well ahead, and he was walking very
quickly. Even if she ran, she doubted if she could catch him. After
the heat of the room, the air was bitingly cold. Margaret did not feel
it; her eyes were trying to keep Michael's khaki-clad figure in sight.
She tried, but failed, for soon he was lost in the crowd of men who
were boarding the train. Bevies of women and girls and children had
gathered on the platform to see their relatives leave for the Front.
Before Margaret's flying feet could overtake Michael he had jumped into
a carriage and was as completely lost to sight as a needle in a stack
of hay. He was a common Tommy, as heavily-laden, Margaret thought, as
an Arab-porter, with his accoutrements of war. All the window seats in
the train had been taken up long before he entered it, so it was quite
impossible for her to distinguish him amongst the late-comers who were
struggling to find even standing-room.
Margaret stood for a moment or two in breathless despair. What could
she do? He was there somewhere, in that very train. She was standing
beside it, and yet she could not even see him. She was only wasting
time; her sense of duty urged her to return to the hungry men in the
refreshment-room. Had she forgotten how eager and longing everyone of
them was for something to drink?
Her conscience might urge her, but for this once she was a human,
love-hungry girl, as eager to speak to her man as the men were to
swallow big mouthfuls of tea. With tear-blinded eyes she saw the train
leave the platform; she had allowed herself that extension of time.
After all, if the soldiers' throats were starved for moisture, had not
the whole of her being suffered a far more acute starvation for many,
many months? Her womanhood was crying out for its rights.
As the end of the train was lost to sight, she turned away. She was
just the girl he had left behind him, forlorn and desolate. A
soldier's wife, who was crying healthily, almost tripped Margaret up as
she swung quickly round. Her baby, a tired little fractious creature,
was in her arms.
As Margaret apologized to her, the idea came to her to ask the woman
where the men in the train were going to.
"Most of them to the Front," the woman said. "I lost my only brother
two months ago, and now my man's gone. Oh, this is a cruel war!" Her
sobs became heavier. "When my brother went to France, I thought it was
a grand thing--I was awfully proud. It's a different thing now." She
looked at Margaret keenly. "Has someone you care for gone to the
Front? Is he in yon train?" She indicated the vanishing train.
Margaret's eyes answered. The woman saw that she was making an effort
to keep calm.
"But he's not leaving his little ones behind him--ye'll no be married?
I've got two at home to keep."
"You have his children--I have nothing," Margaret said enviously.
The woman burst into fresh weeping. Margaret envied her abandonment.
"They are a comfort," she said, "in a way. But they're a deal of
trouble and anxiety--ye're well off without them."
The woman looked poor and clean. Half a crown left Margaret's purse
and took its place beside the coppers which lay in the woman's. It
seemed to her horribly vulgar and insulting to offer the woman money as
a form of comfort, but her knowledge of the very poor told her that on
a cold northern night, the feeling that an extra half-crown had been
added to her income would help. It would "keep the home-fire burning"
for a week or so, at least.
With quick feet Margaret retraced her steps to the free
refreshment-room. Her selfish absence from her post pricked her
conscience. When she entered it she saw that it was almost empty. One
man was lying stretched out at full length on a seat; a pillow was
under his head and he was fast asleep. He had lost his "connection"
and would not be able to get a train until after midnight. He was safe
from temptation in the hospitable room. Another man was writing
letters at the big table; he had already addressed half a dozen
postcards.
Margaret knew that in this quiet interval her aunt would be busy
washing up and drying the dirty cups at the wash-basin in the inner
ladies' room. She hurried to join her.
"Have I been very long?" she said. "I do feel so selfish."
"No, no, my dear," her aunt said quickly. "I managed quite well--the
rush had ceased." She looked at her niece questioningly. "I suppose
you recognized a friend?"
"I saw a man, aunt, amongst the soldiers, whom I knew very well in
Egypt. He was Freddy's best friend. I haven't seen him since. I
wonder if he knows that Freddy is dead? I wanted to speak to him if I
could."
"And did you?"
"No." Margaret's voice trembled. "He had got into the train. The men
were packed like sardines, and I couldn't find him. It left punctually
to the minute--I hadn't much time to look."
Her aunt noticed the emotion in Margaret's voice. The woman in her
longed to put a motherly arm round the girl as she stood beside her,
but her training and national reserve prevented it. So instead of
letting her niece see how generous her sympathy was, she said, in
rather a strident voice, the result of her suppressed feeling:
"There is a good cup of coffee waiting for you in the small brown pot,
and you'll find some egg-sandwiches on a plate on the high shelf above
the tumbler-cupboard. Go and eat them at once, before a fresh lot of
men come in."
"Oh, I don't want anything," Margaret said pleadingly. "Let me help
you wash all these cups, please do, aunt. I really don't want anything
to eat."
"Whether you want it or not, I insist upon your eating it. Go now, at
once, don't waste time."
Her niece obeyed meekly. When her aunt talked like that, and brought
those tones into her voice, Margaret instantly lapsed back into her
childhood. She was once more the little black sheep of Kingdom-come,
the little black sheep who, at the death of her parents, had very
quickly learned to fear rather than to love the various paternal
relatives who had considered it their duty to bring her up in the way a
Lampton should go.
If Margaret's aunt could only have brought herself to speak to her
niece as she many times spoke to strangers of her, how different things
might have been between them! But this God-fearing woman never did.
She was too God-fearing and too little God-loving. She still clung
tenaciously to the old order of things, to the method of rearing girls
and responding to human nature which had been considered wise in her
young days.
While she dried the tea-cups, with a genuine feeling of sympathy for
Margaret in her heart, for she was convinced that this man's going to
the Front had upset her pretty niece, and while Margaret ate her
sandwiches and drank her coffee because she had been bidden to do so,
Michael's train was carrying him through the dark night. He was
sitting in the corridor, on the top of his kit, lost in thought. He
had missed his chance of getting a seat in any of the overcrowded
carriages by his delay in the free-refreshment-room. But what did it
matter? He was accustomed to discomfort, to unutterable hardships.
As he sat there, he heard and saw nothing of his surroundings, for
Margaret's eyes and beauty had given him a delicious new world of his
own. They had told him that she had always trusted him. They had
obliterated the war, and the fact that he was journeying towards it.
They had made his pulses throb again with the wine of passion and gay
romance. He was an individual once more, enjoying the sweetness of the
woman whose love had been so devoutly his.
It seemed so odd that the fresh, clean, proud-looking girl, with the
dark hair and the crimson cross on her breast, behind the food counter,
was actually the woman who had trembled in his arms under the desert
stars, for her very fear of her love for him. She had once been very,
very near to him; she had seemed an indispensable part of his life.
To-night, standing behind the buffet, although she was materially quite
close, she was hopelessly far away. His only privilege had been to
take a cup of tea from her hands. A world of fresh experience and
emotion had separated them.
For a long time he sat motionless on his kit, dreaming only of
Margaret. Now it was of the wonderful things which her eyes had told
him; now it was of the distance and circumstances which separated them.
Later on he roused himself out of his reverie, for the men in the
carriage at whose open door he was sitting were singing, "It's a long,
long way to Tipperary"--the song had not yet been depopularized by
"Keep the home-fires burning"; it was still sung by soldiers and
civilians and gramophones. The lusty, cheery voices brought Michael's
mind back to the stern reality of war. He peeped out into the night,
lifting up the blind from the window-pane and putting his head under it.
The cold, bleak day had given place to a starlit night, with a
high-sailing moon. The snowcapped mountains and distant forests of
solemn pine-trees looked serenely indifferent to the material affairs
of mankind. Their purity and indifference wounded Michael. How could
Nature remain so callously superior, so selfishly peaceful, while he
was hurrying to France, to witness cruelties which it had taken the
world all its great age to invent and put into action? These cold
mountains, rushing streams and hidden glens would just go on smiling in
the sunshine by day and sleeping peacefully under the moonlight, while
golden youth was sacrificing itself on the altar of Liberty.
As the train rushed on through the darkness, emitting sparks which
showed her pace, Michael's thoughts drifted to the old African in
el-Azhar and all that he had visualized. As his eyes peered out from
the jealously-covered windows and rested on the long line of mountains,
high in their snowy whiteness, he repeated the old man's words:
"Why do the heathen so furiously rage together and the people imagine
vain things in their hearts? I tell you, my son, it is because they
have not the love of God in their hearts."
Yes, why, oh why, did they do it? The world he looked out upon was
surely meant for grander and better things? It had nothing to do with
bloodshed. And yet, even as he said it, words and voice answered back:
"Pray for fortitude, my son, that moral condition which enables us to
meet danger and endure pain with calmness. I tell you to pray for
fortitude, for without it you cannot face the future."
As his thoughts were lost in this prayer, he got back his assurance
that this war of wars had to be fought in the cause of freedom. He
knew that it had to be won by the Allies, to ensure the triumph of
right over might. This was the war which was to terminate all wars;
the victory of the Allies was to bring about the disarmament of all
powerful nations. It was the forerunner of a higher civilization.
He put his head between his hands and rested it on his knees. He knew
that his words were true. And yet, had not his old friend in el-Azhar
been as sincerely convinced that this war which he had visualized was
to be fought for the triumph of Islam? Was he not certain that Allah
had ordained it to prove to all countries upon the earth that the
Christian nations had shown that their religion was hideous in Allah's
sight, that it was a failure, that it had not redeemed mankind?
And Germany! What of Germany? Michael saw, with his vivid imagination
and unprejudiced mind, German mothers and fathers praying for their
sons who were fighting for the cause of the beloved Fatherland, the
cause which they believed was the cause of righteousness. Did they
also not pray earnestly and sincerely? Did they, too, not believe that
God would be on the side of righteousness?
Why were these agonized parents and brave soldiers to be made to suffer
if it was all to be in vain, if their cause was not the just cause?
Had they not obeyed the cult of their land and the teachings of their
spiritual pastors and masters? He remembered the African's words: "The
time draws near when each man will return to the land that gave him
birth."
In this war which was raging, all the soldiers who suffered, and the
parents who gave up their only-begotten sons to save their countries
from extermination--all of them were the victims of circumstance. They
were all heroes answering to the call which demanded of them life's
highest sacrifice. They were victims of militarism, which must be
wiped out of civilization.
Michael became agonized with the hopelessness of answering the
questions which stormed his brain. Over and over again he said to
himself the words, "Why do the heathen so furiously rage together and
the people imagine vain things in their hearts?" And over and over
again the answer came, "I tell you, my son, it is because they have not
the love of God in their hearts."
He repeated the words almost mechanically until they indefinitely
became a sort of refrain which kept time to the thud, thud of the
engine, and the rushing noise of the train.
At last, tired out both mentally and physically, he fell asleep. In
his dreams Margaret was very near to him. It was the old Margaret,
radiant with the new wonder of love, fragrant with the night-air of the
Sahara which surrounded them.
The war and its demands were wiped out; the world was back again to the
fair free days which knew neither hate nor fear.
CHAPTER II
Nearly four months had passed and Margaret was still a pantry-maid in
the same private hospital. The V.A.D. who was to have gone to France
had suffered as great a disappointment as Margaret, for at the very
last moment word had been sent to her--it had been unavoidably
delayed--that her services in France would not yet be required.
Margaret, with her bigness of nature, had insisted upon the girl
retaining the post in the wards and letting things go on as they were.
Her "bit" was very, very dull, but it was her "bit," and nothing she
did, she knew, could in any way compare in dullness to the lives of the
boys in the trenches. So she worked and endured, and found the
necessary change of scene in the mixed company of her garden-square
society.
The days fled past. It was a dull life for a young girl, but since the
war began all girls worthy of their country had said good-bye to the
pleasures of youth. Youth had no time to be young; old age had
forgotten that it was old. The renaissance of patriotism had
transformed England. The war recognized neither old age nor youth; it
opened its hungry jaws and took everyone in.
Margaret had neither seen nor heard anything of Michael since the
eventful winter night when she had handed him a cup of coffee in the
free-refreshment-room at the large northern station. She did not even
know what regiment he was in. That, of course, was owing to her own
stupidity; it was a matter of constant regret to her that she had not
at the time had the forethought to ask the weeping woman on the
platform what regiment her husband was in. Knowing nothing more than
that Michael was at the Front, all she could do was to keep an eye on
each day's casualty list in _The Times_ newspaper. But even as her
eyes hastily scanned the long columns of small print, she said to
herself, "I need not look--his name will not be there. I have had my
assurance of his safety."
She was certain now that the mystic message, which lay locked away in
the dispatch-box which held her most important papers, had been sent to
her to help her. It had been given to her to lessen her loneliness and
to ease her anxiety.
Of course, this state of certainty had its feebler moments, and many,
many times as she did her day's work she became affected by the waves
of pessimism which spread at intervals over the British Isles. At
these times she went about the pantry chalk-faced and tragic-eyed; but
generally, when her suffering was becoming more than she could endure,
from visualizing Michael blind, or limbless, or, still worse, an
imbecile through shell-shock, a clear voice would speak to her, her
super-self would repeat the contents of her treasured message.
The fact that her hand had written the message before and not after
Michael's going to the Front established her confidence in it. If it
had been after, her sound judgment told her that suggestion might have
had something to do with the automatic writing.
It was early spring, and Margaret's country-loving nature cried out for
the smell of damp fields, for the scents and the sounds of untrodden
paths. The long twilight evenings seemed the loneliest hours to her in
London. Their beauty was wasted. But the real country was denied her,
for what distance could her two-hours-off take her from London?
Scarcely beyond soot-blackened trees and the prim avenues of suburban
respectability. But she had one great pleasure to look forward to--the
Iretons were to be in London for the season, or, rather, what used to
be termed the season in London.
They were to arrive in Clarges Street that very night. They were
coming to England to help in the arrangements for the better equipping
of native military hospitals in Egypt. Hadassah's knowledge of the
native's likes and dislikes was considerable.
Margaret was now on her way to a tube railway-station. The afternoon
was so glorious that she was going to make an excursion to Kew. She
would just have time to look at the maythorns and hurry back. The one
brave laburnum which gave brightness and fragrance to her garden-square
told her that in the larger open spaces the flowering shrubs would be
at their best.
As she ran down the steps of the tube station, she saw that a train
which would take her to Hammersmith, where she would have to change for
Kew Gardens, was drawn up at the platform; the passengers who were
leaving it were trying to ascend the stairs. With youthful tightness
she leapt down the last two or three steps and sprang across the
platform. She only just had time to step into the train before the
iron gates closed behind her.
A little breathless with excitement and greatly pleased that she had
succeeded in catching the train, she obeyed the order of the officious
guard to "Step along--don't block the gangway!"
The carriage was not full, but there were not many empty seats in it,
so Margaret hastily sank into the one which was nearest to her and
close to the door. It happened to be near to one on which a soldier
was seated. His kit was lying at his feet in front of him. As she sat
down, a voice said quietly:
"I'd advise you to sit a little further on--I'm not very nice."
Margaret never grasped the meaning of the words; the voice was all she
heard. It made her heart bound, and her senses reel; her bewilderment
was overwhelming.
Some instinct made the soldier swing right round; he had been sitting
with his broad back turned to the vacant seat, which Margaret still
occupied. They faced each other; the soldier was Michael.
Under his ardent gaze Margaret paled pitifully and made a valiant
effort to speak, to collect her thoughts. All that came from her
trembling lips were the prosaic words, rather timidly spoken:
"Is it you, Michael?"
They seemed to content Michael and tell him a thousand things which
dazed and intoxicated him. His surprise was even greater than
Margaret's.
"Yes, it is me, Meg," he said. "Thank God we've met!"
For Margaret, in one moment all the long months of doubt and pride were
wiped out. Michael's eyes had banished them. Her characteristic
courage and her self-possession returned. She put her hand on the top
of Michael's, the one which held his rifle. Her touch thrilled the
soldier home from the Front; it travelled through his veins like an
electric current. Margaret's eyes had dropped; now they met her
lover's again.
The train in its narrow channel under the city was making such a noise
that it was impossible to hear even a loud voice above its hideous
rattle. There are few noises more devastating to conversation than the
awful roar of a London tube-railway. But Love speaks with an eloquence
which no noise can drown; its sympathy and passion carry it far above
the din and noise of battle. Margaret and Michael knew it well. If
Love depended upon words, what a poor cold thing it would be! No
quarrels would ever be settled, no journeys end in lovers' meetings.
Michael moved the hand which Margaret clasped. It was hard to do it,
but he felt compelled to.
"I'm horribly verminous," he said, apologetically. "I'm just back from
the trenches--you ought to keep further off."
Margaret's eyes dropped; a flame of love's shyness spread over her
glowing face. It heightened her beauty and bewildered Michael. He
longed to take her in his arms and kiss her--even before the whole
carriage-full of people. Perhaps in the early days of the war the
scene would only have brought tears and tender smiles to worldly eyes.
Margaret tried to say something, she scarcely knew what--just anything
to break the passion of their silence, but the roaring of the train
drowned her trembling question. How she hated the swaying and groaning
and the rattling of the tube train as it dashed through its confined
way! Never before had it seemed so awful, so maddening.
Michael, too, was tongue-tied. How could he offer Margaret any
explanation, or ask if she had understood, while the train drowned the
loudest voices? What a hideous place for a lovers' meeting, after
months of weary longing!
When the train drew up at Knightsbridge Margaret rose from her seat.
Her desire to see Kew had fled. It mattered little now where she went;
she was only conscious of the fact that she must put an end to the
present strain. If Michael was as anxious to speak to her as she was
to speak to him, he would follow her. He was obviously home on leave.
He was a free man.
As she rose from her seat, Michael hurriedly gathered his kit together
and rose also, and pushed his way through the crowd of passengers who
were disgorging from the train. Whatever happened, he must keep her in
sight; her obviously unpremeditated leaving of the train left him in
doubt as to her feelings towards him.
He was on leave, he was in "Blighty," and Margaret was only a few steps
ahead. He would risk anything rather than let her disappear and be
lost once more.
When Margaret reached the platform, she turned round. She wondered if
Michael had left the train. He was standing by her side. She laughed
delightedly, a girl's healthy laugh, and gave a breathless gasp.
"May I?" he said. "I have risked annoying you."
"Annoying me!" Margaret's eyes banished the idea; they carried him off
his feet. He was a soldier, home from the war; she was a girl, fresh
and sweet. She laid her hand on his arm. "I'm not angry, Michael--I
never was angry. Besides, you're . . . you're . . ." she hesitated.
"You're a Tommy," she said, "and I love every one of them."
Michael knew that her shyness made her link him with the men who were
fighting for their country. Even with the fondest lovers, there is a
nervous shyness between them for the first moments of meeting after a
prolonged separation. Margaret had moved closer to his side. His
passion drew her to him; it was like the current of a magnet.
"You mustn't stand so close," he said, laughingly. "I'm horribly
verminous--really I am!"
"As if I cared, Mike!" Margaret's words poured from her lips.
Ordinary as they were, they were a love-lyric to his ears.
"May I come with you?" he asked. "Where were you going to? I've so
much to say, so much to ask you!"
"I was going to Kew," she said, blushingly. "But I changed my mind."
Their eyes laughed as they met; he knew why she had changed her plans.
As they went up the station steps together, they were separated by a
number of people who were hurrying to catch the next train. When they
reached the open street, Michael made a signal to the driver of a
taxi-cab who was touting for passengers. He instantly drew up, jumped
from his seat and opened the door. Michael stood beside him, while
Margaret, obeying his eyes, stepped into the cab. She asked herself no
questions; she was only conscious of Michael's air of protection and
possession. After her lonely life in London, it almost made her cry.
It was the most delicious feeling she had ever experienced. She gave
herself up to it.
In Michael's presence her pride and dignity and wounded womanhood were
swept away. Even Freddy, in his soldier's grave, was forgotten. Her
whole life and world was Michael; he began it and ended it. This
verminous and roughly-dressed Tommy, who was gazing at her with eyes
which bewildered and humbled her, was the dearest thing on earth.
She was comfortably seated; Michael had shut the door, and they were
side by side, waiting for the taxi to go on. The next moment the
driver popped his head in at the window.
"Where to, sir?" he said, politely. Michael's worn, weatherbeaten face
had called up his sentiment for the men at the front.
"Where to?" Michael repeated foolishly. He paused. "Oh, anywhere!
Anywhere will do--it doesn't matter." He smiled. "I'm back in old
Blighty--that's all that matters--anywhere is good enough for me."
"Right you are, sir! I'll take you somewhere pleasant."
Margaret smiled. She was, indeed, all smiles and heart-beats and
nervous anticipation.
The moment the taxi had swung away from the station, it entered a quiet
street, bordered with high houses on either side. Michael lost no
time; he folded her in his arms and kissed her again and again, and
held her to him.
"This is heaven, just heaven, darling!" he said ardently. "I could eat
you all up, you're so fresh and sweet and delicious!"
Meg was unresisting. Her yielding told her lover more than hours of
explanation could have done. All she said was:
"But what if I don't think it's heaven?"
"What indeed?" he said, happily. "But don't you?" He had released her
to read her answer in her eyes.
She said nothing; words seemed for lighter moments.
"Say something nice," he pleaded.
"I love you, Mike," she said shyly. "Is that enough?"
"It's all I want," he said, while Meg wound her arms round his neck and
drew his face nearer hers to receive her kiss. As she nestled against
him, he said tenderly, "Remember, I'm verminous; I'm not fit to touch,
dearest."
"I don't care! I don't mind if I get covered with them," she laughed.
"And I don't care if all the world sees me kissing you! I just love
you, Mike, and you're here--nothing in all the world matters except
that!"
She unclasped her hands. Her weeping face was pressed to his rough
uniform; horrible as it was, she was kissing it tenderly, almost
devoutly, stroking it with her fingers. It gave her a sense of pride
and assurance that he was there beside her.
In the beautiful way known to love and youth, the foolish things they
said and left unsaid told them whispers of the wonderful things which
were to be. Michael was too exacting in his demands to allow of
sustained conversation; sentences lost themselves in "one more kiss,"
or in one more bewildering meeting of happy eyes.
At last Michael said--not without a feeling of nervousness, for he had
asked few questions, and the scraps of information which Margaret had
volunteered he had so often interrupted by his own impetuous demands,
that she had accepted the fact that all explanations and questioning
must wait until the excitement of their meeting had abated--"Why did
Freddy not answer my letters? Why did you leave Egypt without one
word?"
His voice expressed the fact that his letters had contained the full
explanation of his conduct. It also said, "Why this forgiveness, if
you were so unkind?"
It brought a strange revelation to Margaret of the ravages of war, of
the changes which it had made in their lives. She remained lost in
thought.
"Will Freddy consent? Will he understand, as you do?"
Margaret shivered. Her hand left Michael's; her fingers touched the
band of crêpe which she was wearing on her uniform coat-sleeve.
"No, no, Meg!" he cried. "Not Freddy! Anybody but Freddy!" His words
were a cry of horror, of anguish. In the surprise and excitement of
their meeting, he had forgotten to ask for Freddy. Even though he was
in his soldier's uniform, his happiness had obliterated the war. He
had the true soldier's temperament--a fighter while fighting had to be
done, a lover of pleasure in peace-time.
"Yes," she said, "Freddy. He was only in Flanders a few weeks."
Michael put his arms round her tenderly, protectingly. "You poor
little girl, you brave little woman!"
Margaret loved his anguish, his complete understanding of the fact that
of all people it was Freddy who should have been spared.
"If you had only seen him, Mike! He was so young, so fair. And he
never had a chance."
Michael's eyes questioned her words.
"He was just sniped at the very beginning. That was the hardest part
of it--to know that all his talents and intellect had been wasted!"
Michael held her closer. "Not wasted, dearest, don't say that."
"I didn't exactly mean wasted. But he could have done such great
things for the world; he could surely have been given work more worthy
of his abilities!"
"He is doing wonderful things now, Meg, he's hard at work. Freddy just
got his promotion--look at it that way." He kissed her trembling lips;
tears were flooding her glorious eyes.
"That's what Hadassah says."
"Hadassah?"
"Yes, Hadassah." Margaret sighed. "Oh, Michael, we have so much to
talk about--whatever shall we do?" She laughed tearfully. Telling
Michael about Freddy's death had brought back the anguish of the year
which had separated them. "You can't imagine how kind and sweet she
has been to me, and how hard they both tried to find you!" She paused.
"Freddy tried, too--he was the best and dearest brother, Mike."
"I know it," he said; his words were a groan. He was trying to grasp
the truth of Margaret's news. Nothing which he had seen in the war
brought its waste and sacrifice more vividly before his eyes than the
fact that Freddy was dead, the living, vital Freddy, the energetic,
brilliant Freddy, whom he always visualized picking up the gleaming
gems in the vast Egyptian tomb; he saw the scene with painful clearness.
There was a little silence. Margaret's hands were clasped tightly in
the sunburnt hands of her "Tommy." Freddy was in both their minds, and
the life they had shared with him in the Valley--the sense of order and
method and ardour for work which he had instilled into their days.
Margaret was resting against Michael, as open about her love for him as
any 'Arriet. She could think of Freddy without any feeling of guilt or
even doubt of his approval. The things which come from within cannot
be explained by forces from without. It was not what Michael had done
or had said which had banished her pride and told her of his
faithfulness. It was the consciousness which came from within, the
consciousness which had always fought back the forces from without.
She had not felt one qualm of conscience, for Freddy was understanding
and approving. He would know that any doubt she had ever had had been
banished the moment Michael had taken her in his arms. Freddy, who had
only blamed him for his weakness, would realize that even in that he
had misjudged him. If Michael had had any guilt on his conscience, he
would never have behaved as he had done. He had read in her eyes that
her love for himself was unchanged, and knowing himself to be worthy of
her love, he had not stopped to consider smaller things. She was so
thankful that he had taken the bull by the horns.
* * * * * *
And now they were thinking of less bewildering things than their own
love for each other. Michael was tenderly dreaming of Freddy.
Margaret was reviewing Freddy's true attitude towards Michael in her
mind. It was true that he had said that until he gave some
satisfactory explanation of his behaviour, she was not to treat him as
her lover. Well, her finer senses told her that Michael had given her
a satisfactory explanation, and she was certain that Freddy also knew
it. He had, by his taking her in his arms without one word of pleading
or explanation, given her the fairest and most perfect assurance of his
faithfulness to her and of his right to ask for her love.
These thoughts passed rapidly through her mind, while she silently
enjoyed the delight of feeling Michael's close presence by her side.
Never, even in Egypt, under the high-sailing moon in the great Sahara,
had she loved him as romantically as she did at this moment. As a
weather-stained, wind-tanned Tommy he was dearer to her than ever he
had been in the days when, as a painter and an Egyptologist, he had
opened her eyes to a new world of intellectual enjoyment.
Michael's mind was obsessed by Freddy's death. He had never for one
moment imagined that such a thing was in the least likely to happen.
He did not know that Freddy was at the Front; he had imagined to
himself that such exceptional brains and unusual qualities would have
been given other work to do, than to stand all day long knee-deep in
mud in the trenches of Flanders. His heart ached for Margaret. Her
devotion to Freddy was exceptional; her pride in him had been the
keynote of her existence. He spoke abruptly, while his hands clasped
hers hungrily and tightly.
"Would Freddy mind?" he said. "I can't be disloyal to him!"
"Mind?" Meg said questioningly. "Mind my loving you? He knew my love
could never change--it was born in unchanging Egypt."
"Yes, mind if you married me while I'm on leave?--I've got a whole
fortnight, and my commission."
"Oh!" Meg said breathlessly. "You go at such a pace!"
Michael laughed boyishly at her astonishment. Her woman's mind had not
thought of marriage; it was satisfied with the present conditions.
"I don't think Freddy would mind--not now. But"--her laugh joined
Michael's--"you see, you haven't asked if I'd mind. We aren't even
engaged--you wouldn't be. Do you remember?"
Michael pulled round her head with his hands, and kissed her lips. "I
don't care if the whole world sees," he said, quoting her words.
"Don't pull away your head--I'm just 'a bloomin' Tommy' back in Blighty
with his girl."
Meg resigned herself to his kisses. "All London's doing it," she said
breathlessly. "You'll see fathers and sons, and mothers and sons, and
lovers walking arm in arm, in the West End even. Their time together
is too short and precious to think of stupid conventions. The national
reserve of the English nation is swept away."
While Margaret was speaking, she was thinking and thinking. Could she
marry him before he returned to the Front? It was all so sudden. But
why not? War had taught women to take what happiness they could get in
their two hands, not to let it slip. Michael made her thoughts more
definite.
"Did Freddy trust me?" he asked.
Meg's eyes dropped; her heart beat painfully.
"He didn't," Michael said. "Don't pain yourself, dearest, by
answering. He'll understand better now--everything will be made clear."
"Don't blame him, Mike!"
"I'm not blaming him--I'd have done the same. It sounded beastly, the
whole story. Hang Millicent Mervill!"
Margaret proceeded to tell him in broken sentences that she had seen
Millicent in Cairo, and related something of what she had told her and
how, after that, she had kept the promise which she had made to Freddy,
to go back to England if she heard from either Michael himself or from
Millicent that they had been together in the desert.
"And you heard that she was in my camp?"
"Yes--Millicent took care that I heard that, and . . ." she paused.
Michael looked into her eyes. "And you went back England?"
"Yes, I kept my promise." Her eyes told him that she had kept it
because her honour demanded it, not because she believed all that
Millicent had told her.
"And, knowing her story, you didn't condemn me, you still believed in
me and loved me?" His eyes thanked her.
Margaret returned his steadfast gaze. "Yes, it was not hard to trust
you, Mike. I remembered our promise to help and trust one another.
What are promises and vows made for if they are not to be kept when
they are put to the test? We did not make ours lightly--I told you I
should understand."
"Dearest, how beautiful your love is! To-day you welcomed me without
one shadow of reproach! Had I not read in your eyes all that I did, I
should not have dared to follow you when you left the train."
"Would you have taken me in your arms if you had been guilty, if
Millicent had told the truth?" The words conveyed a world of meaning
to Michael. "I have often grumbled, Mike--I have thought that you
might have let me hear the story from your own lips, or by letter. I
know that in his heart Freddy always thought you were only to be blamed
for allowing her to stay in your camp--I know he never really believed
that you had arranged the meeting, or that you were her lover."
Michael grasped her two hands in his, tightly. "I never was, Meg, I
never was! I hated her for coming, I tried to get rid of her."
"I knew it, Mike--deep, deep down I knew it. But it hurt." She leaned
against him. "Oh, how it hurt, dearest! And you never wrote or
explained--that was what I found hardest to bear. I suppose you were
so certain that I trusted you that you never thought about what others
might say; but love makes us exacting, jealous, and you might have
written, dearest! Then Freddy would have known. How could I make him
understand all that my heart knew? How can one make others see the
things which come from within?"
Michael put his arms round her. "My darling," he said, "I did write, I
wrote often. I wrote directly Millicent appeared in the desert; I
wrote again before I was ill. You know how many letters go astray--you
know how many were intercepted by German spies before the war broke
out."
"You were ill?" Meg started. "I knew you were, I told Freddy you were
ill. But Millicent spoke as if you were in such perfect health that I
had to abandon the conviction."
Her voice was an apology.
"I was so ill with fever," Michael said, "that I wasn't able to write,
and the faithful Abdul couldn't. Like many Arabs, he can speak a
smattering, and a very fair one, of three or four languages, but he
can't write a line in any one of them. As soon as I was strong enough
to travel I went back to the Valley."
"Oh, did you?" He felt Margaret tremble as she said the words.
"I went back to find our Eden a barren desert, Meg, no sign of either
Freddy or you in it. It was horrible. I started off to Cairo in hopes
of learning from the Iretons where you had gone to, to discover what
you had heard of Millicent." His pressure of Meg's hands explained the
full meaning of his words. "But they had left Cairo--it was very
hot--so I returned to England by way of Italy. In Naples I had a
slight relapse--I had to wait there for some time, until I was able to
continue my journey. I only arrived in London the day before war was
declared. Of course I volunteered at once--I was glad to do it. Life
seemed empty of all its former sweetness. I don't think I cared what
happened to me; and I did care what happened to England and Belgium. I
was at last going to fight in the great fight against absolute monarchy
and militarism!"
When Michael had finished his short account of his doings, which merely
touched on essentials, they realized that they were in Hyde Park.
Margaret's eyes had caught sight of a clock over the gateway as they
entered; she had noticed how her two hours were flying, even while her
conscious self was enthralled with her lover's story. Spring was in
the year; it was in the hearts of the united lovers. Love smiled to
them from the budding shrubs and from the daffodils swaying in the
breeze.
To Michael "Blighty" was the most beautiful land in the world. His
heart was so burdened with happiness that Margaret had to laugh at his
high spirits and absurd remarks. He was the old enthusiastic Mike,
delighting in life and embracing it rapturously.
In the midst of this intoxication of happiness, Margaret's sense of
duty and responsibility, her Lampton characteristics, urged her. The
clock over the archway had subconsciously reminded her that she was,
after all, a pantry-maid in a hospital full of wounded soldiers; that
the soldier by her side was a part and portion of the great war; that
war, not love, ruled the world; this interlude had been stolen from the
God of Battles.
"Time's flying, dearest," she said. "I've less than one more hour.
Let's drive to a little garden-square close to my hospital--we can
dismiss the taxi there and talk until I have to go in--that's to say,
if you are free to come."
"Are you nursing?" he said. His eyes looked questioningly at her blue
uniform.
"No, not yet--I'm a pantry-maid."
"A what?" he said, laughingly. "You're a darling!"'
"I wash up tea-cups and saucers which Tommies drink from, and lay out
trays with tea-cups and saucers all day long." She paused. "That's as
near as I've got to the war."
"With your brains, Meg--is that all they could find for you to do?"
His encircling arm hugged her closely. Each moment she was becoming
more desirable and beautiful in his eyes; each moment life in the
trenches seemed further and further away.
"Freddy was sniped," Margaret said, "before he even killed a German.
Washing up dirty cups makes me mind it less."
"You dear darling," Michael said. "I understand and Freddy knows."
"I'll tell the man where to drive to," Margaret said bravely. "Then we
can be together until I have to begin work." She raised the
speaking-tube to her lips and told the driver where to go, explaining
the most direct way to the secluded square, When she dropped the tube
and sank back into her seat Michael's arm was round her; she had felt
his eyes and their passion, gazing at her while she instructed the
driver.
"Will you marry me the day after to-morrow?" he said. "I'll get a
special licence. Let's start this little time of perfect happiness at
once, Meg--it may never come again."
Meg laughed nervously, but there was gladness in the sound of her
voice. "But, Mike, it's so sudden--the day after to-morrow!"
"So was our love, darling--don't you remember?" He paused. "Am I
asking too much? You might be my wife for less than two weeks,
beloved, remember that."
They looked into each other's eyes. Meg knew the meaning of his words;
he was a Tommy on leave.
"I can't go on having hairbreadth escapes to the end of the war," he
said. "Up to now I'm the mascot amongst the boys; I've had prodigious
luck."
Meg remained silent. Her heart was beating. His hair-breadth
escapes--what were they due to? She saw her vision of him in her
London bedroom, surrounded by the rays of Aton. She nursed the
knowledge of it in her heart--she dared not tell him.
"Over and over again, Meg, the most extraordinary things have happened.
I can't tell you them all now--they would sound like exaggerations, but
I'm almost beginning to agree with the boys that I've a charmed life."
Meg longed to confide her secret to him, but something held her back;
something said to her that he was not meant to know it, that if he knew
he might be tempted to do still more foolhardy deeds, he would feel
compelled to put her mystical message to the test. She remained
silent; her mind was working too quickly for speech. She had forgotten
that Michael wanted her answer. Her heart had given it so willingly
that words were scarcely needed, but he pressed her for her consent.
There are some words which lovers like to hear spoken by beautiful lips.
"You are the mistress of my happiness," he urged. "And if our
happiness in this world is to be condensed into twelve days, surely it
would be worth while seizing it and being thankful for it? In this
world of agony and death, twelve days of life at its fullest is of more
account than a long lifetime of unrecognized benefits and indefinite
happiness."
Meg agreed that the war had taught people to be thankful for what
seemed to her pitifully small mercies; people married for ten days or
for a fortnight at the longest, knowing that for that little time of
forgetfulness their husbands were among the quick; at the end of it
they might be among the dead.
"Then, if I can get a special licence to-morrow, will you marry me the
day after? If I may go back to the Front as your husband, Meg, I think
I can win the war. My life will be more charmed than ever." He
laughed gaily. "What will the boys say? I'm the only one in the
trench who doesn't write to about six girls every day, telling each one
that she is the only girl he loves."
Margaret's answer was in her laugh, which was all love, and in the lips
she held up to meet Michael's kiss. "And it's proud I'll be to be Mrs.
Amory!" she said. "And ye can tell the boys that, if you like." She
broke off suddenly from her mock Irish tones, and said more gravely,
"Isn't it wonderful? Only an hour ago I was alone in London, so lonely
that the very flowers hurt me! I hated the spring in the year--it
laughed at my dull room and humdrum existence. And now----"
"And now," he said, "you are going to be a soldier's wife, you are
going to marry a verminous Tommy in two days' time, you darling!"
Meg looked at her own dark uniform. "I don't see even one," she said,
"but I'll have to be careful. I'll change when I go in. Are you
really as bad as that?"
"I tried to clean myself up a bit," he said. "But I have been awful.
That's the thing I hate most about the whole business. I've got used
to all the other discomforts long ago, and to everything else."
"Even to the killing of human beings, Mike?"
"Yes," he said. "Even to the killing of brave men. I know what you're
saying to yourself--I thought that too, I thought it would send me mad,
I longed to kill myself to get out of it. But, in an attack, when
you've seen your own jolly pals, who have lived in the trenches with
you, bleeding and tattered, spatchcocked against barbed wire, and had
to leave them sticking to it, their eyes haunt you, your blood gets up,
you long for a hundred hands to shoot with, instead of only two. When
you've seen the result of Prussian militarism on decent German
soldiers, you know that it's your duty to destroy it, to give the
German people, as well as the rest of the world, their freedom and
rights."
"If only we could get at the Prussian military power, and spare the
wretched soldiers--they are all sons and husbands, and somebody's
darlings," Meg said pathetically.
"But we can't. It's their punishment, perhaps, poor devils, for having
submitted to such an arrogant, absolute monarchy. To get at the rulers
we have to slaughter the innocent. It sounds all wrong, but I know
it's the only way."
"I suppose so," Margaret said. "But it does seem hard, just because
they have been law-abiding, industrious, obedient subjects, they are to
be slaughtered like sheep and made to do all sorts of cruel acts which
will brand them for ever as barbarians in the eyes of the world. There
must be thousands and thousands of them who are decent men."
"There is a saying that every country has the Government it deserves.
They have got theirs. A German Liberal has written these words to-day,
or something like them. He says, 'Peace and war are, after all, not so
much the result of foreign policy (strange though it may appear) as the
inevitable consequences of the inward constitution of the State.
"International anarchy" is not a thing apart, but only the natural
consequence of feudal military institutions. Hence away with these
institutions.'"
"But will they ever away with them in Germany?"
"Not unless we, the Allies, crush the feudal military constitution; not
until the people realize that their submission has brought this war
upon themselves."
"But surely up to now we have admired law-abiding, uncomplaining
peoples?"
"I haven't," Michael laughed. "You know I haven't."
"Oh no, you haven't! But then you're a firebrand, always 'agin the
Government.'"
"I always walked on my head." He hugged her as he spoke. "I'm doing
it to-day, darling."
"Poor old Freddy!" Margaret said. "If he could only hear us now, he'd
think I was anti-war, and you were pro-war." She sighed. "If he could
only see you in a Tommy's uniform, defending the morality of taking
human lives!"
"_Qui sait_, Meg? He probably sees far more of it than you or I do.
Don't you make any mistake about that. He knows that I'm fighting in
the war because I'm anti-war, with a vengeance. If this war isn't won
by the Allies, Meg, there will be no end to war. It will never cease;
it will burst out at intervals until the Kaiser's Alexandrian and
Napoleonic dream is accomplished. If he wins this war, he'll turn his
eyes in other directions, for new worlds to conquer. With Europe
subdued, there is Egypt, India, America. Lamartine said, 'It is not
the country, but liberty, that is most imperilled by war.'"
"What did he mean?" Margaret asked.
"'That every victorious war means for the victorious nation a loss of
political liberty, whilst for the vanquished it is a foundation of
inspiration and democratic progress.'" [1]
"Oh, Mike, and if we win? I mean, when we win?"
"As our cause is the cause of right over might, ours is not a war of
aggression or annexation. He was speaking of an aggressive war."
"Who was speaking?"
"Well, I was voicing Hermann Fernau, the brave Liberal who is exiled
from the Fatherland. I can't give you his exact words, but he says
something like this in his wonderful book, _Germany and Democracy_:
'For what would happen if we Germans emerged victorious from this war?
Our victory would only mean a strengthening of the dynastic principle
of arbitrary power all along the line. Those of us who bewail the
political backwardness of our Fatherland must realize that a German
victory would prolong this backward condition for centuries. And not
only Germany, but the whole of Europe, would have to suffer the
consequences.'"
"Fancy a German saying that!"
"There are some sane Germans left, darling. Fernau belongs to the
small band of German Liberals who have been driven from their country."
The taxi had reached the garden-square. They got out and Michael
prodigally overpaid the driver. The man took the money.
"I'd have driven you for nothing, sir," he said delightedly, "if the
car was my own. I was young once, and so was the missus." He saluted
respectfully.
As they turned into the quiet little garden, Michael said happily,
"Why, Meg, what a dear little bit of France! How did you discover it?"
"My hospital's just across the square, and so is my bedroom. This is
my sitting-room."
They found a quiet seat amongst the tombstones and sat down, a typical
resort for a Tommy and his sweetheart. When they had been seated for a
few moments, Michael said:
"It's a far cry to the Valley, and the little wooden hut, and the tombs
of the Pharaohs, Meg."
Meg's eyes swept the garden-square; the laburnum-tree was shedding
flakes of gold from its long tassels; they were falling like yellow
rain in the spring breeze.
"Very, very far," she said as her eyes pointed to the smoke-begrimed
tombstones. "Here the homes of the dead seem so forsaken, so humble.
Death has triumphed. In the Valley the dead were the eternal citizens,
their homes were immortal. The dead have no abiding cities here, and
even the palaces of the living will be crumbled into powder before
Egypt's tombs show any signs of wear and decay."
Their thoughts having turned to Egypt, beautiful memories were
recalled. Often broken sentences spoke volumes. Their time was very
short, so short that Love devised a sort of shorthand conversation,
which saved a thousand words.
And so for the rest of Margaret's precious hour they talked and dreamed
and loved. There was so much to explain and so much to tell on both
sides that, as Margaret laughingly said, they would both still be
trying to get through their "bit" when Michael would have to leave for
the Front.
Margaret just left herself time to hurry upstairs and change her
uniform in her lodgings before she returned to the hospital. Michael
waited for her in the square.
Before they left it, Margaret said, "I want you to shake hands with an
old friend of mine. We'll have to pass her seat; she is always here.
She's a great character, an old actress--such a good sort."
As they passed the shabby little woman, picking down old uniforms, Meg
stopped. The woman looked up; her eyes brightened. The V.A.D. had a
soldier with her--her lover, she could see that at a glance. He had
brought an atmosphere of romance and passion into the laburnum-lit
garden.
Margaret introduced Michael, who was perfectly at his ease on such an
occasion.
"My friend has arrived from the Front," she said. "We are going to be
married the day after to-morrow . . ." she paused, ". . . that is to
say, if I can get leave from my hospital for a week."
The woman looked up at the handsome couple. "Well, what a surprise!"
she said, as she stared hard at Michael. "Who would ever have thought
that you were going to be married so soon? You never even told me you
were engaged! You were very sly." She smiled happily.
Margaret laughed at her astonished expression. "I mustn't stop to tell
you about it now," she said. "My time is up--I ought to be back in ten
minutes to my cups and saucers. I just wanted you to shake hands with
the man I'm going to marry."
The woman rose from her seat. As she did so, the old scarlet coat
which she had been unpicking fell to her feet. She glanced at her
hands, as much as to say, "They aren't very clean." Michael held out
his, ignoring her hesitation, and gave her slender, artist's fingers a
hearty shake and warm grasp.
The old actress's emotions were kindled; poverty had not dimmed the
romance of her world.
"You'll do, sir," she said. "You'll do--you'll do for the sweetest and
truest lady that lives in London town."
"We have your blessing, then?" he said gaily. "And you'll look after
her when I'm at the Front--promise me that?"
"That I will, sir. But it's she who looks after me, and more than me."
She cast her eyes round the strange neighbourhood. "Looks after us and
helps us in a hundred different ways." But she was speaking to
Michael's retreating figure, for Margaret and her lover had left her.
As she watched his swinging strides, she murmured to herself, "He'll
do for her--there's no mistaking his kind. He'll do for her." Her
thoughts flew to familiar scenes. "There was something in his voice
which reminded me of . . ." she recalled a celebrated actor. "He would
make a fine Hamlet, a heavenborn Hamlet."
As they left the gardens Margaret said, "I have a feeling, Mike, that
someone has been watching us ever since we came into the gardens--have
you?"
"No," Michael said. "I hadn't any eyes or ears for anything but you."
Margaret smiled. "I felt it," she said, "rather than saw it. But,
just this minute, didn't you see that dark figure?"
"No. Anyhow, let them watch--I don't care. Everybody's doing it."
His arm was round her.
Meg laughed, but not so whole-heartedly, and when she was saying
good-bye to him at the hospital, she said, nervously and anxiously,
"There's that black figure again--she's just passed us. I saw her
yesterday--she watched me go in after my hours on."
In spite of that fact, Margaret kissed her Tommy quite openly and
flagrantly and in the broad daylight. She had promised to walk with
him again on the next afternoon during her hours off, and to marry him
the day after, if he got the licence and she got her leave.
When they had parted she said to herself, "Ours will be a war-wedding
with a vengeance! When I went out for my two hours this afternoon I
was absolutely free, not even engaged. Now," she blushed beautifully,
"I am the bride-elect of a Tommy home on leave for a fortnight!"
After her day's work was done, she tried to find the busy matron. When
she found her, she went straight to the point--it was Margaret's way.
"I want to get married the day after to-morrow," she said. "Could you
get someone to take my place? Can you let me go?"
"For good, do you mean?" The matron was scarcely surprised. These
sudden marriages were all a part of her day's work, the flower and the
passion of war.
Margaret's eyes brightened. "If you could get a temporary V.A.D., I
think I'd like to come back when he's gone."
The older woman looked at her. "I think you'd better take a rest.
You've been at this dull job for a long time now. Don't you think you
would be better for it?"
"Perhaps you are right," Margaret said. "I really haven't had time to
consider details--I'd only got as far as wanting the week while he is
at home, to get married in."
"Take it, by all means," the matron said. "I've a good long
waiting-list on my books of voluntary helpers to choose from." She
paused. "I don't mean that it will be easy to replace you, Miss
Lampton--I wish all my workers gave me as little trouble as you have
done."
"Oh, but it's been such ordinary work! Anyone could have done it as
well."
"I've not been a hospital nurse for twenty years, Miss Lampton, for
nothing. You can comfort yourself with the fact that a good worker
always makes herself felt in whatever capacity she is in. No sentiment
or romance finds its way into an area-pantry, though there's plenty of
it in the wards." She smiled. "But in spite of that, your romance
seems to have progressed. I wish you every happiness and the best of
luck."
Luck nowadays, Margaret knew, meant but one thing--the life of her
husband. "Thank you," she said. "I've loved being of use. I've
really been grateful for the work--it's been what I needed."
"I think I can get a V.A.D. to take your place to-morrow morning--you
will want all your time. If you will look in at your usual hour, you
will hear if we have got one. But take my advice, Miss Lampton," the
matron said, as she turned to leave the astonished Margaret, "if you
are going to nurse, go in for a thorough hospital training. You'd make
a good nurse . . ." she paused, ". . . that is to say, if you are free
to do it when your husband is at the Front. Anyhow, think it over. It
seems to me a pity that you should be content to remain a V.A.D. when
you may be wanted for much more serious work later on."
When she had said good-bye, Margaret fled to the telephone. She had so
much to do and arrange that she had to go from one thing to another as
fast as she could. She rang up the rooms in Clarges Street where she
knew that Hadassah Ireton was going to stay. She ought to have arrived
that afternoon. When at last she got on to the right number, she was
answered by the husband of the landlady, an ex-butler, and an admirable
_maître de cuisine_.
"Has Mrs. Ireton arrived yet?" Margaret asked.
"Yes, she arrived at five o'clock. Who shall I say speaking?"
"Ask her if she can speak to Miss Lampton, please, for a few minutes.
Will you tell her that it is very urgent?"
The next minute Margaret heard Hadassah's voice.
"Hallo! Miss Lampton, is that you?"
"Yes," Margaret said. "But, please, not Miss Lampton!"
"Well, Margaret--I always think of you as Margaret. How nice of you to
ring me up and welcome me to London!"
"Hadassah," Margaret said breathlessly; her heart was beating with her
news; she spoke rather loudly, "I rang you up to tell you that I'm
going to be married the day after tomorrow!"
Hadassah heard Margaret sigh even through the telephone. It was a sigh
of pent-up emotion, an expression of relief.
Margaret waited. She knew that she had taken Hadassah so completely by
surprise that she had no answer ready.
"Margaret!" she said at last, in amazement, "who to?"
Margaret detected, or fancied she did, a little coldness in her
question. There was certainly not the pleased ring of congratulation
which she had expected in her words.
"Why, to Michael Amory, of course! Who else could it be?" Margaret's
happy laugh crackled in Hadassah's ears.
"Oh, my dear, I'm so glad! What a wonderful surprise! Is he in
London? When did he turn up?"
"He has been to the Front--as a Tommy, but he's got his commission in
the same regiment. I only met him to-day--he's just got back. I feel
too bewildered to think; I scarcely know what I am saying."
"Is this the first time that you've seen him since you parted in
Egypt?" Hadassah's voice expressed both amusement and eager curiosity.
"Yes, to speak to. We met in the train. Some months ago I saw him at
a railway-station in the North. He was passing through, and I was
there, but we had no opportunity of speaking to each other." In the
same breathless voice she said, "Freddy would approve. I know what you
are thinking, but it's all right--he's as keen as Freddy about the war,
and there never was anything wrong."
"I'm so awfully glad. You know I never doubted him."
"He arrived in England the day before war was declared by us. He tried
to find me, but he couldn't, and so he just gave himself up to the war.
He lost himself in it--you know his way! He thought that Freddy and I
would approve. He was always worthy of me, Hadassah, but now I'm so
proud of him. He would have joined up in any case, but he thought that
in doing his bit he would atone for his weakness about Millicent. It
was only his old method of letting things slide--he couldn't get rid of
her, but he was absolutely loyal to me."
"I understand," Hadassah said. "But I admit that it was difficult for
Freddy to look at it in that light."
"It's so hard to explain over the 'phone," Margaret said. "And indeed,
it isn't what he has told me so much--it's just what he makes me feel."
"I know, dear. I feel it's all right--I always felt it was."
"He has been absolutely true, Hadassah. Freddy must know that now.
And you know, I can afford to marry." Her voice lost its buoyancy.
"Yes, I know, dear. I saw your brother's will."
"And you approve, Hadassah? It seems a shame not to grasp this little
bit of happiness." She paused, for above her practical words came the
assurance of Michael's safety; the words of the message almost came to
her lips.
"I quite approve. In these awful days, even a fortnight of happiness
is a wonderful thing. Use your own judgment, Margaret--it's been
unerring so far. Take this joy right to your heart."
"Will you and your husband witness our marriage? I want to telegraph
to Aunt Anna--may I say that I am being married from your house? We
won't bother you--is it awful cheek asking you?"
"Why, my dear, of course you can come here to-morrow, as early as ever
you like, and we'll go into all the details, and fix up everything
quite nicely. With telephones and money and London at our backs, you
will be astonished at what a nice little _déjeuner_ we shall have ready
for you." Hadassah laughed. "Money has its uses, my dear, in spite of
all your Mike's oblivion of the fact."
"Oh, you are too kind! Won't it be nice--a little _déjeuner à quatre_
in your rooms? Your husband is with you? I forgot to ask."
"Yes, he's here. He'll stand by your Michael. Now, all you've got to
do is to look after your own concerns--get your things together and
send them here. I'll have them packed for you and do all the rest."
"You angel!" Margaret said. "Oh, don't cut us off!" she cried to the
girl at the exchange, for a buzzing sound filled her ears. "Are you
there? Can you hear? I won't take much on my honeymoon," she said,
but her words did not reach Hadassah; no answer came back to her. They
had been cut off. She quickly put the receiver back on its hook and
hurried off to do the next thing which suggested itself as being the
most important--writing a short list of the things which she would have
to buy the next day, and sending a telegram to her Aunt Anna.
[1] Hermann Fernau: _The Coming Democracy_.
CHAPTER III
The next day, when Margaret met Michael in the garden square, she was
not in her V.A.D.'s uniform. She told him that she was now her own
mistress, so much so that she had that morning almost completed the
purchase of her trousseau, and that she was free to stay out as long as
she liked.
"But I want you," she said, "to return with me now to Clarges Street,
to the Iretons. They are in town, and Hadassah says we can be married
from their rooms to-morrow."
"They are the kindest people in the world," he said. "I felt sure you
were making friends with Hadassah while I was in the desert. I often
comforted myself with the fact that she would understand the whole
situation and help you."
"She's a brick!" Margaret said. "She has been your ardent champion all
the time."
They signalled to a taxi-cab to drive them to Clarges Street. It was
necessary to do everything as quickly as they could; there was no time
for leisurely walking or discussion.
Suddenly Margaret said, "Look! Quick, Mike, there! I saw that black
figure again. She was sitting in the gardens when I arrived. She
never used to be here--I feel convinced that she is following us. I
believe one of these taxies is waiting for her." Her eyes indicated
two taxis, which were waiting outside the gardens.
"Why do you think so?" Michael said. "What can any human being want
with us? Why should our movements be interesting to any one but our
two selves?" He laughed. "By Jove, they are interesting to us,
though, aren't they?"
His eyes spoke of the morrow.
Margaret laughed, too. Michael's high spirits allowed her no time for
reflection. He was carrying her off her feet in his old magnetic way.
If he had only beckoned, she would have followed him to the ends of the
earth; wings would have carried her, the air would have borne her. The
dull realities of her life in London had vanished as if they had never
been. The black figure, which had stepped into a cab and followed
them, was forgotten.
* * * * * *
For something like half an hour Michael sat talking with Hadassah and
Margaret. He had so much to tell them that he succeeded in telling
them nothing connectedly or completely. He began a hundred different
things and left most of them halfway through, to plunge headlong into
another and entirely different subject. The things he wanted to say
were tumbling over each other in his mind. The bewildering idea that
he was going to be married the next day sent all his thoughts reeling.
Margaret was not the sort of girl to worry over a lot of superficial
clothes for a ten days' honeymoon. What she needed she had got
together in a couple of hours at Harrod's and one or two good shops in
the West End.
They had made up their minds to spend their brief period of married
life together at Glastonbury. It was not too far from London and
Michael had once stayed in the historical old inn in that quiet city of
Arthurian romance. In Egypt he had inspired Margaret with a desire to
see Glastonbury in the spring time, when the maythorns were in bloom
and the luscious meadows gay with flowers.
Like all soldiers, Michael was very silent upon the subject of his own
personal experiences at the Front, although at intervals he would
suddenly burst out with some dramatic incident in which he had taken
part.
When Hadassah congratulated him on being offered a commission, he
laughingly said, "Oh, I must accept it. It isn't fair to shirk it,
though I'd rather remain as I am."
Margaret's heart stood still. She knew what he meant; she was not
ignorant of the appalling death-rate of officers.
"You mean," Hadassah said, "that----"
She got no further, for Michael interrupted her. "I mean that if I'm
capable of leading the men I ought to do it, but I dread the
responsibility. That's why I never tried for a commission--I. didn't
feel confident. But as the deaths amongst the officers are much
greater than among the men, I can't remain a Tommy, can I?" He pulled
his notebook out of his pocket. "Read that," he said. "That's the
sort of thing that proves whether a man can lead or not."
Margaret and Hadassah read the newspaper cutting. It had been quoted
from the _Petit Journal_.
"The British High Command relies more and more on the value of the
individual soldier, and in this we see one of the main factors which
will mean German defeat. Take the case of the heroism of a sergeant
who, seeing his officer seriously wounded, himself assumed command of
his company and led them victoriously to the third line. There he fell
in his turn, but one of the men immediately took his place and
completed the conquest of the objective. It is thanks to such acts
that . . . has been seized, crossed and left behind."
When Hadassah and Margaret looked up, they met Michael's eyes. They
were looking into the things beyond, things very far from Clarges
Street.
"That was my sergeant," he said, "the finest fellow that ever wore
shoe-leather!"
"And the Tommy," Hadassah said, "has he been promoted?"
Michael's eyes dropped; his tanned skin flushed slightly.
"Of course he'll have to take a commission if it's offered to him. He
can't very well refuse. He has proved his ability to lead, poor chap!
I expect he'd rather remain as he was. I know I would--it's a terrible
responsibility, inspiring your men as well as teaching them, but one
can't shelter oneself while others face greater risks."
Hadassah's quick brain read the truth, while Margaret merely lost
herself in visualizing the dangers which Michael would so soon have to
face. The twelve days would be gone so soon that they were scarcely
worth counting.
From the war their sketchy talk returned again to Michael's experiences
in the desert. He told them briefly about the saint, omitting the
nature of his illness. He spoke so naturally and unguardedly about
Millicent, and of his annoyance at her appearance and at her
persistence in remaining, that if there had been any lingering doubt in
Hadassah's mind upon the subject of his absolute loyalty to Margaret,
it was completely dispersed.
When he was hurriedly telling them about the meeting of the saint and
all about his knowledge of the hidden treasure, and how completely it
tallied with the African's prophecies, he produced a tiny parcel from
his pocket-book. He handed it to Margaret, who felt as if she had been
listening to the last chapter of a long story from _The Arabian Nights_.
The little packet was made up of many folds of tissue-paper. With
nervous fingers Margaret unwrapped it.
When the last piece was discarded and she saw that uncut jewel lying
against the palm of her hand, she gave a cry of delight mixed with
apprehension. Its beauty was unique, its colour as indescribable as
the crimson of an afterglow in the Valley.
She looked almost pitifully at Michael. She wished that the world was
a little less strange; some of the humdrum of her pantry-maid's
existence would be almost welcome.
"The saint carried it in his ear," he said. "He took it from
Akhnaton's treasure."
"Have you had it with you at the Front all this time?" Hadassah said.
Margaret's emotion touched her.
"Yes. But now it is for you, Meg. I will have it made into anything
you like, so that you can always wear it. It will be my
wedding-present, a jewel of Akhnaton."
"No, no!" Margaret said quickly. "You must take it, it belongs to you.
You must always carry it about with you, Mike--it is your talisman."
She stopped, for Michael had closed her fingers over the stone.
"But I want you to have it," he said. "Let it be my
wedding-gift--there is no time for the buying of presents."
"No," Margaret said. "Don't urge me, Mike. I shan't like it.
Hadassah, don't you agree with me?--he must never part with it!" She
smiled. "I should be terribly afraid if you did, I should think your
luck had deserted you. Dearest, do take it--I believe Akhnaton meant
you to keep it."
While she spoke she was longing to tell him of the hand which had
written, of her message. The words almost passed her lips, but again
she refrained, she obeyed her super-senses. She was convinced that
Michael, when his blood was up, ran terrible risks, that he was
reckless to the verge of folly. She had heard a letter read in the
hospital which had been written to a mother about her son. His Colonel
had said, "There are some men who will storm hell, there are others who
will follow, and there are some who will lag behind. Your son belongs
to the first of the three. What he needs to learn is caution and the
value in this war of officers as able as himself." Margaret knew that
Michael's rash nature needed no encouragement.
Hadassah championed Margaret. "I think you should keep it," she said
to Michael, "and give it to Margaret after the war."
They all laughed, not unmirthfully, and yet not happily. "After the
war!" they echoed in one voice. "Oh, that wonderful 'after'!"
"That promised land," Michael said. "Never mind--it's coming. The
labour and travail of the war will bring forth Liberty. The pains of
childbirth are soon forgotten--mothers know how soon, when the infant
is at their breast."
Hadassah and Margaret looked at one another. Their eyes said many
things; Margaret's were full of pride because Hadassah was hearing from
his own lips that Michael was as whole-heartedly in the war as even
Freddy could have desired.
She was still fingering and gazing at the wonderful stone. It seemed
scarcely more strange to her that it had actually once belonged to the
first king who had abhorred war, had once formed a part of his great
royal treasury, than the fact that it had played its part in the
mystical drama of her life in Egypt. As Michael talked, she questioned
herself dreamily. Which was real--her humdrum pantry-maid existence in
London, with her dreary walks through darkened streets, with now and
then a Zeppelin scare to make her lonely bedroom seem more lonely? Or
her life in the Valley, surrounded by the unearthly light of the Theban
hills, her life of intellectual excitement and strange intimacy with
things and people which the world had forgotten for thousands of years?
Michael felt her abstraction. He put his hand on the top of hers,
which held the jewel, and pressed it.
"Come back," he said, laughing. "We're in Clarges Street, and we're
going to be married to-morrow."
Meg looked up with startled eyes. "Are we?" she said.
"My dear, practical mystic, we are." He caught her round the waist and
looked at Hadassah as he spoke. "You'll get her ready, won't you?"
She laughed. "Well, if you really mean it, I think we must all be up
and doing."
"If!" Michael cried. "With this in my pocket, I should rather think I
do mean it!" He brandished the special licence in the air. "Do you
know what this means, Meg? It's your death-warrant. Are you resigned?
Have you anything to confess? You've not been married to anyone else
while I was away?"
Margaret shook her head. He had brought laughter back to her eyes.
Just at that moment the ex-butler entered the room. As they all turned
to look at him, he said:
"A person has called to see Miss Lampton."
"Who is it?" Margaret said. Her thoughts flew to her dressmaker, who
was hurriedly making a light frock, bought ready-made, the proper
length for her; in all other respects it fitted her.
"I don't know, miss. She has a box in her arms."
"Oh, I'll go," Margaret said. "I won't be long."
"Then, while you're gone, I'll make use of my time," Michael said as he
rose to his feet. "I'll be back in ten minutes." He looked into
Margaret's eyes. "Don't waste any time on dressmakers, Meg! Wear any
old things,--you always look delightful."
"Catch me wasting time!" Margaret said. Her eyes assured him of her
words. "Come upstairs for me in ten minutes--I'll be ready."
* * * * * *
A minute or two later Margaret returned to the sitting-room. Michael
had left it. She was glad.
"Hadassah," she said, "listen. The most extraordinary thing has
happened. Millicent Mervill is up in the drawing-room." Margaret was
trembling with anger and nervousness.
"What? That woman here? How has she found you, how dare she come to
see you?" Hadassah's voice was indignant, furious; her eyes flashed.
Margaret hurriedly explained to her how for the last two days she had
felt that someone was following her, a dark figure, indistinctly
dressed in black.
"She watched me in the square this morning. With her old cunning, she
managed to get in by bringing some corset-boxes with her. Smith
thought she had come to try something on. Isn't it like her?"
"Have you seen her?"
"No, not yet. She gave this note to Smith to give to me; he thought it
was just a list of the things she had brought. I knew her handwriting
the moment I saw it. Please read it."
Hadassah read the letter. It was very short.
"Dear Miss Lampton,
"If you will let me see you, I will tell you something which you ought
to know. Please don't refuse. What I know may greatly help Mr. Amory.
"I only heard the other day that he never discovered the treasure. It
is about that I want to see you.
"Yours,
"MILLICENT MERVILL."
When Hadassah had finished reading the note, she raised her eyes; they
met Margaret's.
"You had better see her." Hadassah spoke quickly.
"Yes, I must, I suppose. I only wanted to know if you would mind--it
is your house. I think it's such impertinence."
"Of course not. But what can she have to tell you?"
"I don't know, but whatever it is, I do wish she hadn't come."
Margaret sighed. "We were all so happy, and she is associated with
everything that is hateful."
"Would you like me to come with you?"
"No, no." Margaret shook her head. "I am always best alone, but I
dread the interview."
She paused for a moment or two before leaving the room. She was
building up her courage, trying to subdue her nervousness. As she went
out, Hadassah's eyes followed her.
"Poor girl!" she said to herself. "She has gone through so much. I
thought she was in for a little time of peace and happiness. Poor
Margaret!" She sighed. "And what is there still before her?"
Hadassah's eyes looked into the future, "with this cruel, cruel war
only beginning, for we are really just getting into it!"
She had been preparing to write some letters relating to Margaret's
affairs, but for a moment or two she did not take up her pen. A little
of the truth of what did actually happen to Michael on the battlefields
of Flanders swam before her eyes; it was just the things which were
happening and have happened to England's brave boys and men during
these three wonderful years. The war was still in its infancy, but
even then the vices of Germany were as old as her race and as terrible.
She pictured the truth--Michael's charmed life, his reckless courage,
his magnetic power over his men. She foresaw it all. His temperament
foretold it, his absolute belief in the triumph of righteousness.
While Hadassah was thinking these things, and thanking God in her heart
that her husband, by reason of his special qualifications, had at once
been placed in a post of great responsibility and one far removed from
the danger-zone, Margaret had reached the drawing-room. She paused for
a moment outside the door; she needed all her self-control.
As she entered the room, and before she had closed the door behind her,
a slight figure, so shapelessly enveloped in black and closely-veiled
that she could not distinguish any individuality, turned from the
window, which opened into a small glass recess full of ferns and
flowers.
Margaret did not hold out her hand; she could not. Nor did Millicent
Mervill; she stood before Margaret, her head bent and her hands clasped
in front of her, a slight bundle of drooping black, as mysterious as
any veiled Egyptian woman.
"You have something to tell me?" Margaret said. In spite of her anger,
the humility of the fragile figure brought a suggestion of pity into
her voice. The radiant beauty whom she had steeled her nerves to meet
had given place to this meek, formless penitent. "Please put up your
veil--I can't see you." She knew that she could not trust the woman's
words; she wished to watch her eyes while she spoke.
"I am wearing it," Millicent said, "because I can't bear you to look at
me, to see how changed I am. Please let me keep it down, while I tell
you all I know about Mr. Amory and the treasure."
"What has happened?" Margaret said. Millicent's voice was agonized.
"I had smallpox in Alexandria--it has left me hideous. Soon after I
last saw you I sickened with it. I was very, very ill."
"Smallpox!" There was genuine sympathy in Margaret's voice. "Are you
really disfigured? How dreadful that nowadays you should be!"
"Yes," Millicent said, lifelessly. "I have nothing left to live for
now. My looks are gone. I was very ignorantly nursed; they were kind
people, but hopelessly ignorant."
"Perhaps your looks will come back--give yourself time." Even as
Margaret spoke, she wondered how she found it possible to talk to the
woman in the way she was doing. Only five minutes ago she had hated
her, hated her so intensely that she had had to exercise great control
over her passions so that she should not lose her temper in her
presence. Now she felt a sincere pity for her, the poor creature.
Margaret's subconscious womanhood knew the reason. It was because she
could afford, to be sorry for her, now that all rivalry between them
was dead.
"I didn't come to tell you about myself," Millicent said. "It is
nothing to you--you must be glad." She wrung her hands more tightly.
"You are saying in your heart at this moment that I deserve it. So I
do. I see things clearly now--I do deserve it. I brought it all on
myself, everything. But I have suffered, you don't know how I have
suffered."
"Sit down," Margaret said quietly, "and tell me all about it."
"No, no. You are only speaking like this because you feel you ought
to, because I am now a thing to pity. You really hate me. I came to
tell you that I never reached the hills, I never saw the hidden
treasure, I never tried to find it." She paused. "And that your lover
was never mine. He never desired any woman but you--he scorned me,
ignored my advances."
"I know that," Margaret said hotly. A fire had kindled her calm eyes;
it quickened her spirit.
"But it is none the less my duty to tell you. Your lover is too fine,
too loyal--he won't stoop to tell you how I tempted him. He wouldn't
blacken even _my_ name. He has too much respect for womanhood."
"Then why tell me?" Margaret said. "I don't want to hear it. All that
is past. We are going to be married tomorrow--Michael is home from the
Front. We are perfectly happy--don't recall it all."
A cry rang through the room. Its tone of envy and passion convinced
Margaret that even in the worst human beings there is the divine spark.
It actually hurt her that her own joy should mean this agony to another
woman.
"You are going to be married," Millicent said, "to the finest lover and
the truest gentleman I have ever known, or ever shall know, the finest
in the world, I think."
"Yes," Margaret said. "He is all that, and more--at least, to me."
"Much more," Millicent said, "much more. And will you tell him that I
never reached the hills, that I am not guilty of that one meanness?"
"Then who did?" Margaret said quickly.
"Oh, then you thought I did? You thought I robbed him of his
discovery? Does he think so, too?" Her voice shook. Her curious
sense of honour scorned the idea.
"No, no," Margaret said. Her love of truth made her speak frankly.
"He wouldn't believe it. He is still convinced that you never went to
the hills, that you are innocent."
"But you believed it?"
"Yes," Margaret's voice was stern. "Yes, I believed it for a time."
"I have nothing worth lying for now," Millicent said bitterly; "so what
I tell you is perfectly true. I never reached the hills; I was too
great a coward. I fled away in the night, as fast as I could, back to
civilization."
"Then who anticipated Michael's discovery? It's absurd to assume that
someone who knew nothing of his theory should have discovered it at the
very same time, almost. Do you expect me to believe that?"
"My dragoman told me that one of my men absconded. He left me on the
same night as I left Michael's camp. He must have discovered it; he
must have heard the saint telling Michael all about it." She paused.
"You know the whole story, don't you? All about the saint, and how his
illness turned out to be smallpox?" She shuddered at the very mention
of the saint.
"No," Margaret said. "I haven't heard about the smallpox. Was that
how you got it?"
"Indirectly, yes, but it was my own fault. When I heard that he had
got it, I stole away in the night, I left Michael to face it alone."
She paused.
Margaret held her tongue. There was something so horrible about
smallpox that, in spite of the woman's cowardly behaviour, she felt
some sympathy for her.
"He had begged me to go before the saint turned up. I wouldn't. When
the saint appeared he forgot almost everything else, and so for one
whole day I remained confident in the belief that he had taken my
presence for granted. And then," she shuddered, "he came to tell me
that the holy man had smallpox."
"And you forgot your love?" Margaret said.
"It was swallowed up in fear, in anger. I was so furious at Michael's
rash generosity. I had warned him that the man might be suffering from
some contagious malady, but I never dreamed of smallpox."
"It was horrible!" Margaret said. "And Michael has never said a word
about it."
"His charity is divine," Millicent said. "It is Christ-like, if you
like."
"It is true charity, for it is love, love for everything which God has
created."
"He is so happy that he can afford to love almost everything and
everyone."
"He is happy because he loves them."
"I don't believe he has ever heard of hell," Millicent said. "His
religion's all heaven and beauty and love."
"Hell!" exclaimed Margaret. "But surely," she paused, "surely we're
not primitives, we don't need the fear of such impossible cruelties to
keep us from doing wrong? His great saint, or reformer, Akhnaton, had
no hell in his religion, and he lived, as you know, centuries before
David. Even Akhnaton realized that human beings create their own
hells. The other hell, of fire and brimstone, which terrorized the
ignorant people into obedience and order, belongs to the same category
as the crocodile god and the wicked cat-goddess Pasht, of Egypt. It
was necessary in its day."
"You and Michael live on such a high plane!"
"Oh no, we don't. You know Michael is very human--that is why he is so
understanding, so forgiving."
"He will never forgive me--that would be expecting too much. But I had
to come and tell you all that I know about his treasure. I have only
just heard--I saw it in the Egyptian monthly Archaeological
Report--that Michael never had the glory of discovering the Akhnaton
chambers in the hills."
"You didn't know that when I saw you in Cairo?"
"No, I never dreamed of it. If you had only told me that he hadn't, I
should have explained, I should have told you about the man who
absconded."
Margaret looked at her searchingly, but she could learn nothing more
than the voice told her, for Millicent's veil was still covering her
disfigured face.
"I never wished to rob him of the honour of the discovery. If I had
known when I saw you, I should have cleared my name, at least, of that
contemptible deed."
Margaret blushed. "I couldn't tell you," she said. "I was too
unhappy, too angry. I didn't want you to know of our disappointment.
I pretended that I had heard from Michael."
"You led me to suppose that he had discovered it."
"I know," Margaret said. "I didn't wish to add to your satisfaction by
telling you of his disappointment. I was convinced that you knew, and
that you had slipped off to the hills." She paused. "We were bluffing
each other."
"I was incubating smallpox. I was wearing a blouse and skirt which had
been packed with the clothes I wore in the desert. Probably it had
come in touch with some infected thing."
"Were you very bad?" Margaret said. "Where have you been all this
time?"
Millicent shivered. "I was just going to sail for England, but I was
too ill when I reached Alexandria to go on board the boat--I had to
stay behind. I have been hiding myself from the world ever since.
Yes, I was dreadfully ill, and now. . . ." Her voice broke. "You
don't know what I feel when I look at myself--my own face makes me
sick."
"I am so sorry," Margaret said. "You were so beautiful, such a
wonderful colour!"
"How kind of you to say so!" Millicent's voice left no doubt of her
feeling of shame, although Margaret's nobility was beyond her
understanding; it humbled her. "I came to you because I wanted to do
what I can to undo what I have done. If Michael had known that my
servant anticipated his discovery, it might have given him a clue as to
where the treasure has gone. You do believe now that I never saw the
jewels? I never dreamed of robbing him!" She paused. "In my poor way
I loved him. I couldn't have done that--not that."
"And yet you were so horribly cruel! You knew a great deal about men.
Michael is only human, and he is so ready to believe the best of
everyone."
"Yes, I know. But I suppose I was born bad, born with feelings you
don't understand. Michael did his best to help me; he tried to awaken
something higher in me. I suppose you won't believe it, but he has--he
has helped me; I am not quite what I was. While I was ill, when I
thought I was dying, all that he had ever said to me came back to me
with a new meaning. I determined that if I got well I would tell you
everything--how wonderful his love for you is, how strong he can
be--and it is not the strength of a man who does not feel."
"Oh, I know it," Margaret said. Her voice was resentful.
"But please let me tell you, even if you do know it. It is only right
to Michael--I must exonerate him, even if you resent hearing me speak
of his love for you. Let me make a clean breast of it, show you how
ignorant he was of my plans for meeting him. He never was more
surprised in his life."
"I didn't mean to resent it, but there are some things we never need
telling, things which are better left unsaid. Michael needs no telling
that you never stole the jewels, for instance, that you never tried to
reach the hills."
"Stole the jewels! No, I never stole them. You thought that?" Horror
was in Millicent's voice. "You thought I stole them for my personal
use? To wear them?"
"It would not have been so cruel as to steal my lover, would it?"
"It would have been less difficult."
"You tried--oh, how you tried to steal him! How could--you?" A
revulsion of feeling hardened Margaret. Her eyes showed it. She was
visualizing Millicent in all her former beauty. Even without beauty,
she knew how strongly her vitality would appeal to men. Despondent, in
her drooping black shawls, Millicent was keenly alive still. Margaret
had always felt her vitality; she knew that men felt it. It stirred
them to conquest; it invited contest.
Millicent answered her truthfully. "Because I am bad, not good, and I
loved him with the only kind of love I know. It swept aside all
scruples. You can't judge--try to believe that--you can't begin to
judge. I lived for conquest and men's admiration, and now I have lost
both."
Margaret felt humbled to the dust. Her judgment had been so crude, so
narrow. She realized that the woman before her left her far behind in
the matter of vitality, passion and self-criticism. Her energy and
vitality demanded an outlet, an object.
"Don't feel like that," she said gently. "Your looks will come back.
Do let me see your face. It is early days yet--the marks will
disappear, grow fainter. It is only one year--give it time, forget all
about it in hard work, and while you are working. Nature will be
working too."
"No, no!" Millicent cried. "Never! I am going to fly from my
friends--I am going to hide myself."
Margaret had attempted to raise her thick veil, but Millicent refused
to let her. Instead, she threw another thickness of it over her face.
Her pride could not stand even Margaret's pity and comforting words.
"I am humbled enough as it is," she said. "Don't do that."
"I didn't want to humble you," Margaret said. "I only thought, and I
do still think, that you are exaggerating the change in your
appearance. One sees every little thing about oneself so clearly. I
know how a wee spot seems like a Vesuvius when it is on one's nose.
With smallpox the marks do get more and more invisible."
"No, my looks will never come back," Millicent said miserably. "And
for a woman like me, when her looks are gone, what is there left?"
"Work," Margaret said. "The war will make you forget all about
personal things--it will, really. Life is different now. If you will
only take up some war-work--and I know you will, for every able-bodied
woman in England is working at something; every superfluous woman has
become a thing of value--life will be completely changed. There is
only one idea, one aim for us all--to win the war. You must do your
bit. It is just our 'bit' that keeps us sane, for without it we should
have time to think. We women must not think, we must work."
"But what could I do?"
"Almost anything," Margaret said. "You know you could--you are so
clever."
"Don't flatter, please," Millicent said. "How can you be so forgiving?"
"I suppose because I'm so happy. As soon as ever you can," Margaret
said, "take up some work which necessitates using all your brain, all
your energy. You will become so interested in what you are doing that
you will forget your troubles. I had no time to grieve over mine when
I was working in the hospital. At night I was so tired out that I went
to sleep as soon as my head was on the pillow. The atmosphere of work,
the awfulness of this war, makes personal things seem very trivial--one
grows ashamed of them."
"You are trying to give me hope," Millicent said. "It is so big and
kind of you, but honestly, I only came here to tell you about your
lover, not to talk about my hideous self. What does it matter what I
do? You were always a worker--I was not."
"Well, you have told me about Michael, and now I can at least try to
help you. I have seen the effect of almost a year of the war on the
idle women of England. It is wonderful! And we used to be called
superfluous!" Margaret laughed proudly.
"You believe me? You know that I am not lying? that I never reached
the hills? that I never knew that Michael had not discovered the
treasure?" Millicent had gone back to the original object of her
visit. What Margaret had advised seemed to her impossible.
As she said the last words, the door opened and Michael entered the
room. He had heard Millicent's voice. His eyes were fixed on
Margaret. The tableau created by his unexpected entrance was tense,
painful.
Millicent turned her head away and hid her face in her hands. Her
first thought was that he must not see her face. She flung herself
down on the sofa.
Margaret became deadly pale, but remained motionless. Michael looked
from her to Millicent with an expression of horrified surprise on his
face. He had expected to see her in all her perfection of toilet and
looks, her shining head, the "golden lady," instead of which a bundle
of crêpe, a mere armful, something soft and black, lay face downwards
on the sofa before him.
"What are you doing here?" he said sternly. "Haven't we seen the last
of you yet?"
Margaret put up her hands as if to ward off his words. Her own
happiness had made her feel more pity than anger for the miserable
woman, who for probably the first time in her life was trying to act
honourably and courageously. The security of love made her wondrous
kind.
"What has she come for?" Michael demanded. But for his sunburn, his
face would have been as white as Margaret's own. The sight of
Millicent's cowering figure brought back to him, with the quickness of
light, the evening in the desert when he had flung her from him in his
agony of temptation.
"She came to give us some information, Mike. Tell him, Millicent, why
you have come."
Millicent took no notice of Margaret's words. She was crouching on the
sofa, her face still buried in her hands.
"No, no," she moaned, when Margaret again urged her to speak. "I only
wanted to tell you. Ask him to go away--do, please, beg him to go. If
he wants you I will disappear and never come back again. I have said
all I have to say."
"I am going to stay here," Michael said, "until I hear what you came to
say. Was it necessary to come?" He looked to Margaret for his answer.
"It was better," Margaret said. "She never reached the hills, she
never saw the treasure."
Michael started. "Go on," he said. "That is not all--she need not
have come to tell us that. I never accused her; I never believed it.
I thought that after all she did do, she would have had shame enough to
stay away."
Millicent's body quivered. His words lashed her.
"One of her servants ran away--he left her the same night as she left
your camp," Margaret said. Again Michael saw the black figure shiver
as Margaret spoke of her cowardly act. The very mention of it brought
to both their eyes a vivid picture of the surroundings which had
witnessed their last meeting. Millicent knew that Michael was seeing
it as clearly as though they had been standing together under the
golden stars, the tents dotted about on the pale night sands. She
could hear the sick man reciting _suras_ from the Koran in sonorous
tones.
"And she thinks he found the treasure?" Michael said the words
absently, as though his mind was occupied with distant visions.
"Yes--he was a likely character to do the deed."
"Does she know anything about him--where he went to?"
"No, Mike, but I do." Margaret spoke gently. "Millicent has been very
ill. She only heard yesterday that the Government had anticipated your
discovery. She came to try and help you. She is in trouble."
Margaret's voice told Michael more than her words.
"She scarcely deserves your pity," he said. "Only her own heart knows
how she has tricked us both . . . there are some things one cannot
forgive . . . Millicent knows."
The black figure slipped from the couch to the floor. "Look, I will
kneel at your Margaret's feet," she said in tones of abject shame.
"Tell her everything. Tell her what a beast she has been kind to. She
ought to know." She raised her head. "I think I shall enjoy the
agony--anything but this living death."
She pressed her hands on Margaret's feet. "I am far worse than you
knew! You are not made like me, you won't even understand if he tells
you the things I did."
"I don't wish to speak of it to Margaret," Michael said. "Get up. I
have seen your penitence once too often to believe in it now--get up."
"Oh," Millicent moaned, "I know, I know! You think this is just
another bit of the old Millicent. It isn't--it is true."
"Get up," Margaret said kindly. "I was only trying to be kind because
. . . well, perhaps it is because I am so happy myself that I can
afford to forgive you. Don't kneel like that . . . I hate to see you.
Michael knows how little I deserve it . . . I have hated you with all
my heart and soul, I have longed for my revenge."
"My God!" Michael said quickly, "I hate to see the little coward near
you! How dared you come? Get up!" he said again. "And clear out! I
thought we had finished with you for ever!"
Millicent dragged herself to her feet. She stood before him, a
slender, nun-like figure; one of the black shawls which enveloped her
had fallen to the floor.
"Go on, say all you feel--I deserve it, every word of it! I left you
to your fate when you were in danger, I fled from the camp with but one
idea in my head--my own safety, my desire to get as far as I could from
the infection of smallpox. I carried the hateful disease with me; I am
so disfigured that you must never see me. Never!" Her words ended in
a low cry of self-pity.
"My God!" Michael said. "Are you speaking the truth! Did you get
smallpox?" He knew that the blame was partly his.
"Yes, but don't look at me. I can't bear it. Anything but that, oh
not that!" Michael had stooped to raise her a veil.
His eyes met Margaret's. "Poor soul!" he said. "Poor little soul!"
"Yes, fate has punished me," Millicent said. "You can do no more."
Michael groaned. "We have not talked of it all yet, Margaret," he said
miserably, "the horror of the smallpox."
"Millicent has told me about it, Michael." She tried to smile. "It is
a thing of the past. What good will talking do? We are happy again."
Millicent turned to Michael. "I have told her a very little," she
said. "And now I have something which I must tell you. When I saw her
in Cairo I told her that I had been with you, I told her that you would
write to me, I inferred that you and I were lovers."
Michael bent his head. He was innocent of any deed of unfaithfulness,
but what of his desires? What of the night when Margaret's presence
had saved him? He wondered if she was conscious of the part she had
played in his renunciation.
"And you still trusted me?" Michael's words were so full of gratitude
and wonder that Margaret's veins were flooded with happiness. How
greatly he had been tempted!
"I remembered my promise. More than once it seemed to me that I
succeeded in being very near you."
Her eyes questioned him. He understood; his eyes answered her.
"I told her that I had been with you," Millicent said, "but not for how
long. She never dreamed that my coming was quite unknown to you, that
I was with you for so short a time, that you hated my presence in the
camp. How well she knew you!"
Margaret turned to Michael. "Yes, I knew him," she said. "Thank God,
I knew him! We learnt to know each other in the Valley, and I think I
realized the situation better than you thought I did."
"But I must tell you, I must show you even more than you dream of how
true and loyal he has been."
"No, no, please don't," Margaret said. "Michael has told me all I want
to know." She was sorry for Michael's embarrassment; he writhed under
the whole thing.
Millicent paid no attention to her words. She repeated the story for
Margaret's benefit. Michael turned away impatiently. He had meant to
tell Margaret all the details of his life in the desert when they were
married and alone together.
"As I told you," Millicent said, "I met him in the desert. I had found
out where he was going to. He was furiously angry . . . he wanted me
to go back. I stayed against his wishes. The saint turning up the
same day as I did made him forget me. I often tried to win him from
you . . . and I thought I was succeeding. The only reason he didn't
turn me out of the camp was because of my equipment and food--they were
good for the holy man, who was ill. He was sickening with the
smallpox, only we didn't know it. Michael took him into his camp. I
told you about that. We didn't know what was the matter with him, but
Michael behaved like an angel to the lunatic. When he discovered that
he had smallpox, I implored him to leave him. When he wouldn't, I
fled. That very night I left him alone, even though I had told him
that I loved him--I had offered myself to him. I took all my luxuries
with me. I was mad . . . furiously angry. He had taken the sick man
in against all my entreaties; he had scorned my love. The next morning
Hassan told me that one of my men had deserted, left our camp at dawn."
"Stop, that's enough!" Michael cried. "Stop it!" Every word had
lashed his nerves and brought back to his memory his own struggles, his
own weakness.
"I fled," Millicent went on, not heeding his interruption. "I spent
some weeks in Upper Egypt. I thought I had escaped the horrible
disease. . . . I thought Hassan had taken every precaution. He sent
some of my boxes straight on to Cairo; I opened them the night I saw
you. They must have carried the infection--that is how I got smallpox.
It lay in wait for me." She paused, breathless, and then went on
excitedly: "I know nothing about the treasure. I am absolutely
innocent in that one respect. I can tell you nothing more, nothing."
As Millicent ceased speaking, Michael took up her story.
"Margaret," he said, "some days after she left us the saint died. When
he was buried, we moved on." As he spoke, he visualized the desert
burial. "We journeyed to the hills. On our way we passed through a
subterranean village--a terrible place, of flies and filth! The
_Omdeh_ of the village, a fine old gentleman, told us of the growing
unrest among the desert tribes--German work, of course; we are seeing
the fruit of it now. I paid no heed to him; I felt too ill, too tired.
I only cared about reaching the hills. When we did reach them, we
found that a camp was already established. Information had been given
to the Government." He heaved a deep sigh. "The thing was out of my
hands. I suppose the shock finished me for the time being, for when I
left the excavation-camp I became ill, so ill that Abdul had to take me
as quickly as he could to the _Omdeh's_ house near the subterranean
village. I stayed there until late on in May." He stopped abruptly.
"The rest won't bear speaking about. What made things so much worse,
Meg, was thinking about what you would be suffering, what Freddy would
be saying." His eyes sought Margaret's. "It is best to forget, it is
wiser to think of tomorrow."
"Yes, let us forget all about it," Margaret said. Michael's expression
frightened her. As a soldier he had enough to bear without raking up
what was past.
"Abdul became as dear to me as a brother," Michael said quietly. "His
devotion was wonderful! We are not of the same faith"--he was speaking
to himself--"but our God is the same God, our love for Him the same.
Abdul knew that."
"And your illness?" Millicent said. "Was it smallpox?"
"No, no--none of my camp caught it. It was enteric fever. I suppose I
was worn out, both mentally and physically. The disappointment about
the treasure was the last straw, it was so cruel. I am able to accept
it now, it doesn't hurt me any longer. The war has done that; the war
is like concentrated time--it obliterates and wipes out, and even
heals."
"But you discovered it, Michael! You were the real discoverer. If it
hadn't been for you, and for your special knowledge, the man who stole
it, who gave the information, would never have found it. And, after
all, as Michael Ireton says, that is the main point of interest."
Margaret's eyes glowed with pride. "And haven't you heard the sequel
to that tragedy?--the finding of some ancient jewels which the thief
must have dropped in the desert, not so very far from the
hill-chambers?"
As Michael had not heard that the gems had been found, Margaret told
him the story which Hadassah had written to her.
"They prove, Mike, what after all is to us the most important fact in
the whole affair--that you were right, that all the information given
you by the seer was correct."
Margaret did not include her vision of Akhnaton in Millicent's
presence; it was always a sacred subject between them.
"That is what Abdul said, and I know it is true. But who can prove it?
To the disbelieving no one can prove that there was any treasure, any
gold or great wealth of jewels." He looked into Margaret's eyes. He
said plainly, "Freddy died unconvinced on that point."
Margaret understood. She had so often wished that Freddy could have
known all that had transpired since his death.
"I will spend all my money and wits on finding the wretch," Millicent
said humbly. "I will hunt this treasure to earth. If there were
jewels, they shall be found. I will never stop until I have traced
them, never! That will give me some interest in life--if you will let
me do it, that is to say."
"The jewels will all be cut by this time, the gold will be melted. No
one will be able to recognize them."
"You can't find the thief," Margaret said. "He died of smallpox--Mr.
Ireton heard that from the Government authorities. They set detectives
on his track, and discovered his whereabouts, but he was unconscious.
They think that he buried the treasure, that it is again lost to the
world. It is still waiting for you, Mike."
"I know that there were many more jewels where the crimson amethyst
came from," Michael said, "whether they are ever found again or not."
He was thinking of the words of his old friend in el-Azhar. If he came
out of the war alive, he might again hope to discover them.
"I can do something else," Millicent spoke pleadingly. "Say you will
let me! I am rich--my money is no good to me."
Michael looked at her for an explanation. His eyes were cold.
"I can spend some of my money in paying the expenses of the digging,
for excavating on the site. The war will put a stop to all excavating
work in Egypt and the Holy Land so far as England is concerned, but if
I give sufficient money, you can employ the best Egyptologists in
America, so that the work can go on this autumn. You will not have to
wait until the war is over before you find out all there is to be known
on the subject."
"The papyri will prove a great deal," Michael said; "they found
papyri." Millicent's words scarcely penetrated to his brain. He was
obsessed with the idea that the Egyptologists suspected that the
treasure was again buried. If it was, how exactly it all tallied with
the African's vision!
"I believe that there is very little excavating work to be done,"
Margaret said. "I have had so little time with Hadassah that I have
not even referred to the subject." She smiled, surprised at the fact
when it was brought before her. "But in a letter she told me that the
chambers were singularly perfect. They are cut in the virgin rock;
they are not extensive, but nothing had been destroyed. One of the
chambers was evidently intended for a royal treasury."
"In Flanders," Michael said, "life is very real." He turned to the
window as he spoke; Margaret's news had troubled him. "Germany has
made all our lives horribly real. What you have told me seems to
belong to another state of our existence." His eyes were far away from
either Margaret or Millicent; they were with his comrades in the
trenches. "When I was knee-deep in mud in the trenches I often thought
that our hut-home in the silent Valley was a dream, a beautiful dream,
one of those dreams we can never forget, however long we live, but only
a dream."
He drew himself up. "We have been brought back to firm earth. Our
apprenticeship on this side isn't finished, Meg. We aren't ready to
fully understand the things beyond. While we are on this earth, I
believe it is wiser to rest content with the things that are here." He
smiled. "Perhaps Freddy is right--it is wiser to walk on our two feet."
"Perhaps it is," Margaret said wistfully. "But thank God I trusted to
the progress of one person who occasionally walks on his head."
While Michael's back was turned to the door, and Margaret was looking
at him with eyes of sympathy, and with the knowledge in her heart that
he was living over again scenes and actions in Flanders which left her
far behind him, Millicent had slipped from the room. With her white
corset-boxes in her arms she fled downstairs and silently opened the
front door. As silently it shut behind her.
For a moment she paused, before descending the steps. London was there
in front of her, London with its luxuries and its sins, which not even
the strength of Germany or the sacrifice of young lives could
obliterate. The spring made no call to her; the sunshine mocked her
because of her empty world.
* * * * * *
When Michael and Margaret discovered that she was gone, they stood for
a little while locked in each other's arms. As Margaret raised her
head from Michael's breast, he bent his head and kissed her lips.
"Dearest," he said, "you and I can afford to forgive her, poor lonely
little soul!"
"I can forgive anybody anything, Mike."
"Even the Kaiser, beloved woman?"
Margaret shivered. "Don't let's think of him--not for eleven days, at
least."
"We shall be able to be sorry for even him some day," he said. His
confident tones delighted her, for his mention of the war had brought
the angel with the flaming sword into her Eden.
"You really think so, Mike? Your inner self feels it? Sometimes I
almost despair--they are so strong, so clever."
"I do believe it," he said. "You foolish woman, of course I believe
it. The day may be a long way off, but it is coming, just the same.
The triumph of light over darkness, Meg, the old, old fight--we shall
see the resurrection of Osiris and the defeat of Set all over again.
The sun of righteousness will stream over the world when the devil of
militarism is crushed for ever."
He kissed her again rapturously. Their time together was so short; it
left them little opportunity for lengthy talks on any subject. The way
in which Michael broke off in the middle of his sentences to make love
to her, and question her eagerly and impetuously, suggested the hosts
that disturbed his mind. He wanted to tell her all about the old
African's idea of the meaning of the war, and about his visualizing of
the treasure for the second time; but he wanted still more her lips and
her own exquisite assurances of her love for him, the eternal subject,
which neither age nor war can affect. The one important fact which
could not wait was that tomorrow she was to be his wife, and if he did
not let her return to her preparations, there was the possibility that
some hitch a might occur. So they went back to Hadassah and told her
all that had happened.
For everyone concerned the rest of that day flew on wings. Each hour
passed like a flash. Bed-time came, and Margaret scarcely seemed to
have achieved half or quarter of the things she had meant to do.
A telegram had arrived, in answer to hers, from the aunt with whom she
had lived as a child and young girl. The bride-elect had felt just a
little worried about her aunt; she had written her a letter which she
would receive on her wedding morning. In it Margaret had told her all
about her friendship with Michael while she was living with Freddy in
Egypt, and of Freddy's friendship with him, which was of a much longer
duration. Also, she took pains to assure her aunt that, as far as
pedigree was concerned, he had the blood of Irish kings in his veins.
CHAPTER IV
Their wedding-day was the sort of day which made Browning, when he
lived in Florence, sing:
"Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there. . . .
* * * *
"And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows . . ."
Margaret said the words to herself as the day greeted her when she
pulled up her blind in the morning.
London, even in war time, was inviting and charming for such as drove
about the West End in taxis, for they had not yet disappeared from the
highways and byways. The day was clean and fresh and sweet-smelling.
The promise of brilliant sunshine in the midday hours made the
fashionable streets near the Iretons' rooms very busy and gay.
Khaki-clad figures were everywhere; some were accompanied by
daintily-clad girls, proud of their soldier lovers; others were walking
with portly old gentlemen, their generous grandfathers or godfathers,
most probably; while many of them had given themselves over to their
mothers for the morning. Nor were they, as they would have been in the
days of peace, embarrassed by their affectionate grasp of their arms
and the unconcealed adoration and love.
* * * * * *
Things had happened with such bewildering rapidity that Margaret drove
through the streets to the church in which they were to be married in a
sort of open-eyed dream. She saw with extraordinary vividness all that
was going on around her, even to the faces of the boys and girls who
passed them in taxis; but she was incapable of concentrated thought.
The hurry and excitement in which she had lived for the last two days
left her breathless and vague.
She was driving with Michael Ireton, who was amazed at her outward
calm. He little knew that the bride whom he was to give away was
physically and nervously almost exhausted. The sudden end to the
strain which she had endured so long had produced a dreamlike phase of
almost semi-consciousness.
Margaret knew that Michael was ahead of her, in another taxi with
Hadassah. She also knew that they were driving to the church with the
outside pulpit which stands a little way back from the road in
Piccadilly. She had always felt a special attraction for the quiet
courtyard, right in the hurly-burly of one of the main arteries of
London. She knew that she would have to say her responses in the
marriage-service. Yet somehow she felt more like another person
looking on from a great distance at the doings of someone else. One
would feel the same remoteness if one was saying to oneself, "At this
very moment Margaret will be getting married, she will be on her way to
the church."
"Here we are," Michael Ireton said abruptly.
The taxi had stopped at the iron gate in the centre of the railings
which guarded the precincts of the church. He jumped out quickly and
Margaret followed him. In the porch of the church they stopped for a
moment, to make sure of the fact that Michael was waiting to receive
Margaret at the chancel steps. Then, still in a dream-state, Margaret
walked up the aisle of the church on Michael Ireton's arm. She was not
nervous; things were too unreal for her to be conscious of being
nervous.
A few idle Londoners, seeing that there was going to be a wedding, had
strayed into the church; otherwise it was empty. Michael thought it
rather dark and solemn.
Margaret was daintily dressed in white, a frock suitable for
travelling. Michael was still in his Tommy's uniform.
Nothing could have been simpler than the service which made them man
and wife, or more unlike what Margaret's aunts would have considered
suitable for their niece. It was a wedding after Michael's and
Margaret's own hearts, a solemn sacrament of two people, not a society
gathering of critical guests.
It was not until Michael took Margaret's hand in his, and pressed it
eagerly and firmly, with an air of happy possession, that Margaret came
to her full consciousness and to the significance of what she was
doing. She had repeated her vows after the clergyman clearly and
correctly; she had even said "I will" because her subconscious mind had
impelled her to say it. The importance of the words had escaped her.
It had been only her material body which stood by her lover's side.
Michael felt her air of aloofness, her distance. Her eyes had not met
his when he had sought them, eager to welcome her. She had walked up
the aisle and taken her place by his side like a spirit-woman, who was
a stranger to him.
When at last his strong hand clasped hers, she looked up. Their eyes
met. A long sigh travelled from Margaret's wakening heart to her lips.
Michael felt her emotion. He held her hand more possessingly, as he
said, very clearly:
"I, Michael Amory, take thee, Margaret Lampton, to be my wedded wife."
He tightened his grasp on her hand. Its dearness and magnetism
affected her. Her feeling of somnolence vanished. Things became real,
tremendously real and wonderful.
Michael was saying the words, "to love and to cherish, until death us
do part."
At the word "death" Margaret's throat tightened. Something seemed to
almost choke her. The words made her visualize the blood-soaked fields
of Flanders. Weak tears filled her eyes; the loudness of her heart's
beating made Michael's next vow, "according to God's holy ordinance,"
almost inaudible. The din of battle thundered in her brain. Death was
going to part them almost directly; it was standing behind them now; it
had been coming nearer and nearer for the last four months; it was only
waiting until Michael had left her, until she was no longer near him.
Like an avalanche crushing down upon her from a great height, the
terror of death swept over her. Just as a shot from a rifle, or the
vibration of a body of men marching under a precipice of loosened snow,
will bring it down and cover them, the words "until death us do part"
had overwhelmed Margaret.
Then a strange thing happened. As Michael said proudly and distinctly,
"And thereto I give thee my troth," Margaret saw that he was surrounded
by a brilliant light. He stood in the centre of long shafts of
sunshine; they played round his head like the rays of Aton. Her terror
of death vanished as swiftly as it had come. This was the light which
guarded Michael in battle. A super-elation dispersed the thought of
the brief married life which might be hers, that she might be stepping
into widowhood even while she repeated her vows.
Bewilderment made her forget her part in the ceremony. She felt, but
did not see the clergyman take her hand from Michael's. He separated
them for a moment and then put her hand on the top of Michael's. He
whispered something to her. Then she remembered her part, and said
slowly and clearly after him the same words which Michael had repeated.
The words "until death us do part" were said as she might have said
them in pre-war days.
After that she was free from all nervousness and all sense of
unreality. She saw Michael take the ring from the clergyman's fingers
and hold it in his own hand. She smiled to him happily, as she saw his
expression of relief and tenderness. In one moment more they would be
man and wife; no distance or grief could change that.
When they knelt together for the first time as man and wife, and
listened to the words of the beautiful prayer that they might "ever
remain in perfect love and peace together," Margaret's happiness made
her prayer a song of praise. If it was ordained that Michael was to be
spared to her, how simple and natural a thing it would be for ever to
remain in perfect love and peace together! Loving each other as they
did, that would not be one of their difficulties. It was so restful to
kneel side by side with Michael, listening to the gentle and solemn
words, that she would have liked the prayer to go on for a long time.
Her nervous condition made her apprehensive. Here, in the quiet
church, which lay right in the heart-beat of the city, there was a
divine sense of security.
Their heads were bent together; their arms were almost touching; their
heart-beats were in unison; their minds were one.
But the prayer was finished. Michael's hand had clasped hers again; he
was far more conscious of his part in the ceremony than she was of
hers. He held her hand as if it was his world, the kingdom he had come
into, while his eyes expressed his emotion and gratitude.
As the words "Those whom God hath joined together let no man put
asunder," and "I pronounce you man and wife," echoed through the
chancel, Michael Ireton and Hadassah gave a pent-up sigh of relief.
When the clergyman turned to the altar and read aloud the sixty-seventh
Psalm--Michael had requested it in preference to the hundred and
twenty-eighth, which is perhaps the more usual--Hadassah saw the bride
and bridegroom smile happily to each other. They smiled, because
Michael had often read the Psalm to Margaret and remarked on its
similarity to the prayers of Akhnaton.
"God be merciful unto us, and bless us: and show us the light of His
countenance, and be merciful unto us;
"That Thy way may be known upon earth: Thy saving health among all
nations.
"Let the people praise Thee, O God: yea, let all the people praise Thee.
"O let the nations rejoice and be glad: for Thou shalt judge the folk
righteously, and govern the nations upon earth.
"Let the people praise Thee, O God: yea, let all the people praise
Thee."
"Thou shalt govern the nations upon earth." That had been Akhnaton's
mission, to preach these words, to tell the people that God, and man's
understanding of His Love, must rule the world.
"Then shall the earth bring forth her increase: and God, even our own
God, shall give us His blessing."
Akhnaton had sung his Hymn of Praise in his temples and in the
pleasure-courts of his city in almost the very same words.
Confident that righteousness would triumph, that God's world-kingdom
had come, he suffered the wrath of his military commanders, who were
watching the breaking-up of his kingdom in far-off Syria.
* * * * * *
Two hours later the bride and the bridegroom, the two happiest people
in London, drove away from the Iretons' rooms in Clarges Street.
Hadassah and Michael Ireton watched them until the taxi was out of
sight. As they turned into the hall, with something very like tears in
their eyes--for even in the happiest marriages there is the quality of
tears--Michael put his arms round his wife and drew her to him. As she
looked up into his rugged face, his eyes more than his words said:
"We know how they feel, dearest! God bless them! Such happiness makes
one weep in these days."
Hadassah pressed her dark head against his coat-sleeve. He held her
closely; each day she was more precious in his sight.
"They are worthy of each other." His voice broke. "Really, when one
sees such happiness, one says to oneself, even if they have only a
fortnight together, it is a great deal, a wonderful thing."
Hadassah looked at her husband searchingly. "Somehow I've no fear for
Michael--have you?"
Michael Ireton thought before he answered. "No, I don't think I have."
"There is a certain something about some people that makes one either
afraid or not afraid for them--the men going to the Front, I mean. For
Michael Amory I haven't any fear. I can't explain why--it's not that
he will save himself by caution." She laughed.
"I know," her husband said. "Michael seems extraordinarily lucky. He
told me a few things last night, of the escapes which he daren't tell
Margaret, ghastly adventures. I'm afraid he's awfully rash. Like all
Irishmen, when his blood's up, he hasn't any conception of the danger
he's facing. He has the super-bravery of the Celt, and all his
recklessness."
"I just hope that as a married man he will keep that supernatural
nerve. A wife often destroys it."
"I know," Michael Ireton said. "One sees it so often--No wife, no
danger--a wife at home, more caution, less nerve."
Hadassah was silent. Her husband's arms were still round her. He
kissed her passionately.
"I feel like a bridegroom myself! Seeing Michael standing there
waiting for Margaret brought our wedding-day back to me." His eyes
caressed her.
"Did you notice the wonderful light that suddenly surrounded them just
as Michael took Margaret's hand in his when he said, 'And thereto I
give thee my troth'? The church had been rather dark and dreary up to
then; all at once the sun streamed right down on them. It was really
quite extraordinary, just as if an unseen hand had turned on the
limelight. It was almost uncanny."
"I noticed it," Michael said.
"The effect was startling. I wondered if Margaret noticed it--it
surely was a happy omen?"
Her husband smiled into her eyes. "I feel sure that Michael's
subconscious self would be saying the grand words of his beloved
Akhnaton:
"'Thou bindest them by Thy love.
Though Thou art afar, Thy rays are upon earth;
Though Thou art on high, Thy footprints are the day.'"
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