Then the day came when exactly one-half of our provisions which we had taken with us had been consumed by us and by the beasts, the day after which the question of turning back would become more and more difficult to answer; and still before us sand and shingle, and rising upland, and monotony, and slowly-creeping mortalennui.
I fought against it honestly as hard as I could. I was ashamed that I, the stronger physically when we started, should be the first to show signs of weakness, but somehow thisennui, caused by the ceaseless, terrible, appalling monotony of the wilderness, and of the slow shambling gait of the camels, developed into a malady which robbed me totally of sleep. Still, I said nothing to Hugh, but I could see that he knew what ailed me, for the efforts he made to distract my thoughts became positively touching.
One night, when we crouched as usual under our tents smoking, I asked:
“Girlie, how long is it since we left Wady-Halfa?”
“Thirty-one days,” he replied quietly.
Yes, quietly. He could speak with equanimity of thirty-one times twenty-four hours, of thirty-one times 1440 minutes spent in gazing at the same sand, the same scraps of coarse grass, the same limitless blue sky, the same horizon far away.
“And how many miles do you reckon that we have travelled due west?”
“Nearly six hundred, I should say.”
I said nothing more, and he went outside the tent, where I could see him presently gazing out longingly towards the west. I went up to him and put my hand on his shoulder.
“Girlie,” I said, “we have wandered thirty-one days in the wilderness. If everything goes at its best, and if we are very economical with our food, we can perhaps wander another thirty and no more.”
He did not reply, and I had not the courage or the cowardice to continue with what was going on in my mind. But I knew that he guessed it, for later on in the evening, when we made a fresh start, I saw him examining the various packages on the camels’ backs, and, when he thought I was not looking, he hastily passed his hand across his eyes as if he wished to chase away a persistent, unpleasant thought.
Two more days elapsed without any change, save that one of our camels, the one which had given us the best milk, suddenly sickened and died. We left her by the wayside and continued to wander on, but a couple of hours later, when we took our customary midnight rest, Hugh said to me:
“Mark, old fellow, there are three sound camels left. Will you take two and a sufficient amount of provisions and return eastward to-night?”
“And you?”
“I am going on, of course.”
“So am I, Girlie.”
“I refuse to take you any further, Mark.”
“I was not aware that I was being taken, Girlie.”
“I was a fool to persuade you to come. I feel morally responsible for your welfare, and…”
“And?”
“The game is becoming dangerous.”
“So much the better, Girlie, it was getting deuced monotonous.”
“Will you turn back, Mark?”
“No! I won’t. Not without you, at least.”
We laid ourselves down to sleep after that, but I don’t think that either of us found much rest. I, for one, never closed an eye, and I could hear Hugh tossing about restlessly in his rug on the ground. Towards early dawn I got up and looked out on the ever-monotonous landscape, when, from afar, towards the west, high over head, I saw three or four tiny black specks approaching—birds, of course. I gazed astonished, for it was over three weeks since we had seen any sign of bird or beast. The specks came nearer, and soon I recognised a flight of vultures, attracted, no doubt, by the dead camel we had left on the way, while at the same time, through the oppressive silence around, my ears caught the dismal sound of a pack of hyenas crying in the wilderness. As I turned I saw that Hugh stood behind me; he, too, had seen the carrion beast and heard the melancholy cry. His whole face beamed with a sudden reawakened enthusiasm, and he laid his hand on my shoulder, saying:
“Will you come with me for another five days, Mark? and I promise you that if at the end of that time we have found no further traces that we are on the right track, I will accompany you back to Wady-Halfa. We can be a little more economical with our provisions and make them last out a few days longer than we had intended.”
Strangely enough, with the dismal advent of the birds of prey, my enthusiasm seemed to have revived. I think it must have been owing to the sound of other life than ours, through the terrible, unvarying silence. Hugh’s promise also comforted me, and for the next three days I delighted him with my reawakened spirits.
One morning, at break of day, as we were loading the camels, Hugh pointed westward.
“The enemy at last, Mark. It is no use attempting to make a start; he will overtake us before we are well on our way. I have been wondering how it was that he has avoided us all this while.”
I had read a great deal about sandstorms, and had, when we first started, spoken about the chances of our meeting with one with perfect equanimity. We made what preparations were necessary to meet the enemy: the camels, poor things, were trembling from head to foot. We spread the canvas of our tent right over them and us, and our heads well protected with cloaks and rugs, we could but wait and trust our lives to a higher keeping.
The experience was a terrible one, one that made me forget myennuiand Hugh his visionary dreams. The stunning blows from sand and shingle, the darkness, the fright of the camels, the suffocation, all helped to make me long for that monotony of calm desert sand which I had railed against for so many days.
I think I must have been hit on the back of the head by some sharp loose stone, for I can remember the sensation of a terrible blow and then nothing more. When I recovered consciousness it was with the sensation of brandy trickling down my throat, of an even blue sky above me, and of Hugh’s cheerful voice asking me how I felt.
“Just like one gigantic and collapsed sand dune,” I murmured.
Indeed it seemed to me as if it ought to be impossible for any one human being to hold as much sand about their person as I did. It was absolutely everywhere: in my mouth, in my eyes, in the brandy which I drank, at the back of my throat, in my shoes, and under the roots of my hair.
“How are the camels?” I asked.
“Badly, I am afraid. One of them refuses to stir.”
“Not our milcher, I hope?”
“Unfortunately, yes!”
This was bad business, for the milk had been very delicious and nourishing, and the water, which had been stored in goats’ skins, was but a very unpalatable substitute.
The question of going back the way we came was thus finally settled: we had been on the road since thirty-four days, the last pool of stagnant water we had seen was thirty days ago, and that was undrinkable, and we certainly had not water enough to last us another thirty-four days.
“It is obviously a case of ‘Forward does it!’ old man,” I said, “and the sooner we reach that fertile and elusive land the better I shall be pleased.”
We covered another fifteen miles westward that day, and as night drew on, it seemed to me as if I had never breathed such delicious and invigorating air as reached us through the folds of our tent. The moon had risen and looked down placidly at the unvarying monotony beneath her, and I, in spite of the peace and silence of the night, could not get to sleep, but tossed about restlessly on my rug, with intervals of short, troubled unconsciousness.
Suddenly something roused me and caused me to sit up listening and wide awake; the cry of the vultures, perhaps, or of a hyena rendered bold in the night. Hugh, too, had jumped up, and I followed him outside the tent, with an unaccountable feeling of something strange in the air round me.
The wilderness, arid and desolate, looked almost poetic as it lay bathed in the moonlight. The stars shone down bright and mysterious overhead; to the south we could see the summits of a long range of hills dimly outlined against the deep indigo of the sky, and before us the great and immeasurable vastness, with its secrets and its mysteries, its evenness and peace, which we had learned to know so well, and yet I could not say what it was that seemed so strange, so unaccountable in the air.
“Can you smell it, Mark?” asked Hugh, suddenly.
Smell it! Yes, that was it! I realised it now; my nostrils had been so long accustomed to the smell of sand, and rugs, and camels that they did not recognise the strange and penetrating scent which filled the air. It was sweet, yet pungent, like a gigantic bouquet of lotus blossoms; the very atmosphere, clear and cool, had become oppressive with this curious scent.
“Where does it come from?” I asked.
We strolled out farther and climbed up the low hillock, at the base of which we had pitched our tent.
When we reached the top of the boulder, and our eyes, as usual, searched the horizon longingly towards the west, we both uttered a cry and gazed outwards, not daring to trust to our senses. There, far ahead, outlined clearly against the dark, starlit canopy of the sky, towered, some thousand feet above the surrounding tableland, a white solitary rock, the summit of which, carved by almighty nature in a moment of playful fancy, was a perfect stone image of a jackal’s head: the black cloud of the sirocco had hidden it from our view this morning, and even now we stood, wondering whether our excited brain was not playing our wearied eyes a cruel and elusive trick.
“The Rock of Anubis,” whispered Hugh.
All around us the same deathlike silence reigned; the shingle and sand glittered in the moonlight like myriads of diamonds, the rugged upland rose in majestic billows, while the midnight air was filled with the strange, pungent odour of a thousand lotus blossoms, and a score of miles ahead, dominating this wilderness with awesome and mysterious majesty, the Rock of Anubis stood before us as the first tangible sign that Hugh’s conjectures were no empty dreams. Perforce we had to wait until dawn to start once more upon our way; the night, lovely as it was, seemed interminably long, and the first streak of light found us loading our two remaining camels. We were both keenly excited now that the end of our journey was near. The ground was very rough, rising over precipitous boulders and crags at times, but nevertheless with a decided downward slope towards the valley in which stood the Rock of Anubis. Our camels were tired and weakened with sparse food; at midday we seemed only to have covered half the distance, and the base of the rock was still hidden from our view.
“Do you notice, Girlie, those white specks which lie dotted about on the ground to the south of the rock?” I remarked to Hugh later in the day.
“Yes, I have been wondering what they are.”
The sun was just setting when we at last reached the top of the last boulder that divided us from the valley. The Rock of Anubis now stood before us in its entirety, with the jackal’s head sharply silhouetted against the ruddy sky not two miles away.
From its base a path led due south towards the distant long range of hills: it was easily traceable by the numerous white specks which glittered on it, clear and distinct, against the yellow sand. As we emerged with our camels over the crest of the hill a great noise suddenly rent the deathlike stillness of the air, and a gigantic black cloud seemed to rise from the ground. It was a flight of vultures which flew with dismal croaking upwards, while, terrified, a pack of hyenas fled screeching into the wilderness.
Then we saw that the white specks on the ground were human bones, and that the Rock of Anubis towered over a gigantic graveyard.
Wewere forced to encamp in the very midst of this weird desolation. A thousand conflicting conjectures chased one another in our bewildered minds. What was the explanation of this strange and solitary abode of the dead? who were these whose whitening bones were left to mingle with the sand and shingle of the desert?
“The wandering hordes of Egypt, who found death on this spot after ceaseless roaming in the desert,” was my first suggestion; obviously a foolish one, for Hugh quietly pointed to one or two skeletons on which the flesh still hung.
“None of these skeletons have been here more than ten years, I should say,” he remarked.
“A battle-field, then, where some wild tribes of the desert have lately fought a bloody battle.”
But he shook his head.
“There is not a single skeleton of beast among them.”
“Anyhow, it is horrible,” I said.
“Horrible? Well! perhaps it is. But I feel convinced that it marks the end of our journey.”
“Do you think, then, that we shall add our British bones to this interesting collection?” I asked.
“No, I don’t, Mark. But I think that after we have had a night’s rest we shall follow this path, which obviously leads southward to that distant range of hills.”
“About another twenty miles?”
“Behind it lies the land of wheat and barley of ancient Kamt.”
I looked across the horizon, where the crests of those distant hills caught the last rays of the setting sun, and again I could smell the strange and pungent odour of lotus blossoms, which brought back to my memory visions of the great people in gorgeous garments and gems, and of palaces and temples, such as sober, twentieth-century moderns can hardly conceive.
I wanted to start at once, the path seemed so clear.
“Am I to be the cautious one this time, Mark?” said Hugh, with a smile. “We are not going to jeopardise success, just when it lies so near.”
“That’s so, old man,” I replied with my old flippancy. “I had better occupy myself with brushing up those Egyptian prepositions and personal pronouns. I feel I shall have need of them soon, if I don’t want to disgrace myself.”
I am afraid that that night we spent a considerable amount of time in foolish vanity. We dared not waste our minute provision of water, but we indulged in a shave with the patent cream, brushed our clothes, and generally endeavoured to assume a respectable appearance. The poor camels were very sick, and we were much afraid that one of them at least might not manage another day’s march. However, neither of us felt as if we could leave the poor creature behind, and lightening its load as much as possible, we all four started to walk southward in the early morning. I must say it was not cheerful walking on the road: skulls and skeletons lay in great numbers, and black ravens and vultures, disturbed in their grim meal by our footsteps, hovered over our heads, filling the air with their dismal croaking; but, against that, each step brought us nearer to that range of hills behind which, both our convictions told us, there lived the people who used the wilderness as a burying-place for their dead.
Hugh felt convinced that those people would appear before us in all the glory of ancient Egypt: I, less sanguine, dared hope no more than that they would prove to be a friendly desert tribe, who would give us the means of returning to civilisation once more.
The road, at first, had wound round a number of low and rugged boulders, but now, after a last sharp turn southward, it lay even and flat, stretching out for many miles before us; and as I looked straight along it, it seemed to me as if I saw an object moving in the distance.
“Can you see it too, Girlie?” I asked. But there was no need for a reply, for Hugh was staring, with eyes literally blazing with excitement, on that moving object.
“A bird?” I suggested.
“No, a man!”
“Yes, a man! He seems to be gesticulating furiously.”
“Now he has started to run.”
“It is becoming decidedly exciting, Girlie,” I said.
We had paused beside our camels, who, hungry and half dead with thirst, had lain down in the road. We waited, hardly daring to speak.
Already we could see clearly the silhouette of the man, tall and gaunt, with long, thin arms, which he waved frantically in the air, brandishing what I at first took to be a club or axe. Then, through the silence of the air, we suddenly heard his cries, which seemed to me like the dismal howls of the carrion beasts of the desert. His hair, which was long, and looked dark, flew about his head. He was naked save for a tattered loin-cloth around him. A few more minutes of suspense and the next moment the man—or apparition, so gaunt and weird was it—had rushed up towards us, and throwing out his arms had fallen on his knees, uttering hoarse and piercing cries:
“Osiris! Anubis! Mercy! Pardon!”
Without a word Hugh turned towards me with a look it were impossible to describe:the words the poor wretch uttered were unmistakably ancient Egyptian. The creature, which seemed hardly human, had crawled at our feet, and his great dark eyes stared upwards at us with a mixture of awe and maniacal terror, and as he crouched before us, to my horror I noticed that what he held in his hand was a human thighbone, half covered with flesh, which he began to gnaw, while uttering the desolate shrieks of a hyena, mingled with the appealing sounds:
“Osiris! Anubis! Pardon! Mercy!”
I must confess that I felt absolutely paralysed with the horror of the situation and the awful dread, which struck me with the chillness of death. Had we toiled and travelled a thousand miles across the terrible wilderness only to find some half-human creatures who lived on the flesh of their kindred, almost deprived of reason through their brutishness, who had forgotten the glorious civilisation of the past in a present of suffering and scantily-eked-out livelihood? I remembered the golden visions of art and majesty which the name of ancient Egypt always evokes, then I looked down upon the creature who babbled that vanished tongue and wondered if, after five thousand years, its people had come to this.
Some such thoughts must have crossed Hugh’s mind too, for it was some time before he brought himself to speak to the thing at his feet.
“Be at peace, my son, thou art pardoned.”
No wonder the poor creature, as it looked up, mistook Hugh Tankerville for one of its gods. He looked simply magnificent. His face, worn thin and ascetic through the privations of the past few weeks, appeared strangely impressive and ethereal; his eyes were very large and dark, and his great height and breadth of shoulders were further enhanced by the long, white burnous which draped him from head to foot. Still, I thought that it was a decidedly bold thing to do for a born Londoner to suddenly assume the personality of an Egyptian god, and to distribute mercy and pardon with a free hand on the first comer who happened to ask for it.
The poor wretch, somewhat comforted, had turned again to his loathsome meal.
“Whence comest thou?” asked Hugh.
“I was cast out from Kamt,” moaned the unfortunate creature, as, evidently overcome by some terrible recollections, he threw himself down once more at our feet and repeated his piteous cry:
“Osiris! Anubis! Mercy! Pardon!”
Thus it was that from this poor dying maniac we first heard with absolute certainty that the papyrus had not lied. Evidently he, like the other unfortunate wretches whose bones littered the desert sands, had been driven out of the fertile land beyond the hills and left to become a prey to the vultures of the wilderness, and slowly to die in the midst of terrible tortures of hunger, thirst and isolation.
“They don’t seem to be very pleasant people to deal with out there,” I remarked, “if this is an example of their retributive justice.”
Hugh looked down at the man at his feet.
“Why wast thou cast out?” he asked.
The maniac looked up, astonished, perhaps, that a god should have need to ask such questions. I could see in his eyes that he was making a vigorous effort to recollect something in the past, then he said:
“How beautiful is thy temple, oh, all-creating Ra!… so beautiful… and so dark… so jealously guarded… no one knows what lies beyond.… I tried to know… to learn thy secrets. I know now!… the valley of death, whence no man returns, the valley of earth and sky, where hunger gnaws the vitals and thirst burns the throat… where evil birds croak of eternal darkness, and vile beasts prowl at night…”
He was trembling from head to foot, and his eyes, quite wild with terror, watched a black raven close by, which had alighted on a skull and was picking some débris of flesh out of the hollow sockets of the eyes.
“Give me sleep, oh Anubis!” he moaned, “and rest… eternal sleep… and rest… and rest…”
“He is dying,” I said, kneeling down beside the maniac and supporting his head. “Give me some brandy, Girlie.”
“I think it would be kinder to knock him on the head; this prolonged agony is terrible. What fiends, I wonder, invented this awful mode of dealing with criminals?”
“Well! we shall know soon enough. I wish he could manage to tell us how he came across those hills, and how best we can find our way.”
I had poured a few drops of brandy down the dying maniac’s throat; it revived him momentarily, for he gave a gasp and murmured:
“Is this thy fire, oh! Osiris?”
“It is life,” said Hugh.
“Life is a curse outside the gates of Kamt.”
“Then thou must endeavour to go back to Kamt.”
And the dying man whispered, after a pause, while his head rolled from side to side upon his shoulders:
“The gates are closed for ever that cast out the evil-doer.… No one can enter Kamt, but thou, oh! Osiris, on thy crested eagle, or thou, Anubis, astride on thy winged jackal.”
He had begun to wander again in the realms of merciful oblivion; his eyes gradually closed, while his lips continued to murmur:
“Take thou my soul, oh! Anubis.… Pardon.… Mercy.… The gates are guarded… I cannot return.… Oh, great and glorious land of Kamt… where eternal streams flow between marble dwellings and gardens of lotus and lilies… where at night Isis smiles down on the beautiful daughters of Kamt… dark-eyed and slim as the white gazelles of the fields… I shall not behold thy loveliness again… my soul flies from my body… already… I feel thy hand… oh! Anubis! guiding me to that mysterious land… where dwelleth Ra… and where thou sittest in judgment, oh, Osiris, the Most High.…”
Obviously it would have been inhuman to try and drag the flitting soul back to earth and suffering. I even thought that it was cruelty to try and prolong his life with brandy and restoratives. I shuddered as I looked round at the terrible wilderness, and as the conviction was forced upon me that these skeletons and débris of human creatures were the records of thousands of such lonely tragedies as we were now witnessing, since the great hordes of Egypt had found a home in the mysterious oasis of the desert.
For of this fact now there could be no doubt. The dying maniac had, with his last breath, blown away the few remaining clouds of doubt that sat upon my mind.
“I think he is dead,” I said after a long pause, whilst I looked around for some hollow where I could put the body in safety from the carrion.
“May God have more mercy on his soul than human justice has had on his body,” said Hugh, looking down compassionately on the gaunt form of the dead criminal.
We improvised a grave for him. At least he, who had drawn before us the first picture of the land we had come out to seek, should not become a prey to the vultures. It certainly had not been a cheerful picture: people who would invent so terrible a form of punishment, and carry it out wholesale, were not likely to be very kindly disposed towards strangers.
“I cannot understand our late friend’s talk about the gates being closed for ever. Surely an entire country cannot be closed up with gates!” I said, after we had thrown a few handfuls of earth and shingle over the body of the unfortunate wretch.
“I imagine that those hills are very precipitous, probably very difficult of access, save perhaps through some passes or valleys across which the gates may have been built.”
“Anyhow, we had better go straight on and trust to the same good luck which has brought us so far.”
“Do you wonder that an elderly Greek priest should at such a juncture have retraced his steps homewards?”
“No, I don’t.… But our late friend drew such a picture of marble halls and dark-eyed girls, that I, for one, am determined to demand admittance into that jealously-guarded land, in my new capacity as one of its gods.”
Unfortunately, as already we had feared, one of our camels now absolutely refused to make a move. It meant, therefore, that we should have to make the rest of the journey on foot, with as small a supply of food and water as possible, as our sole surviving beast of burden was too weak to be very heavily loaded, and would also probably break down in a few hours. Distances are terribly delusive in the desert, and the hills, which at one time had appeared but a few miles from us, seemed no nearer after a whole day’s march. Darkness overtook us, seemingly without our having made much progress southward. We were tired out, and pitched our tent on the wayside. In the early morning our first look was for the hills beyond; they did not appear more than five miles away, and as the sun rose higher in the east its rays suddenly caught one spot on those distant rocks: a large square patch, some hundred feet from the valley beneath, which glistened like a sheet of gold.
“The gates of Kamt, I am sure,” said Hugh.
We started with renewed vigour, and late in the afternoon we reached the foot of the hills. But gradually, as we drew nearer, we realised the truth of the mysterious sayings of the doomed criminal cast out into the desert: “None can enter Kamt, but thou, Osiris, on thy crested eagle, or thou, Anubis, astride on thy winged jackal!”
The range of hills which surrounded the mystic land, an oasis in the midst of the awful wilderness, rose abrupt and precipitous to a height of two and even three hundred feet; they rose side by side in one uninterrupted chain of heights. Like the other rocks of the desert which we had traversed, the incessant action of the sand had polished the stone till every boulder had worn away, leaving a smooth and slippery surface which defied the foot of man.
Immediately facing the road, across the wilderness, there had once been a wide valley between two hills: now it had been built in—by those same hands which had fashioned the pyramid of Ghizeh—with monstrous blocks of granite, placed tier upon tier till they formed a gigantic inverted pyramid sloping out towards the desert from the ground on which its apex rested, while its two sides were encased in the rock right and left.
Some hundred feet above us, in the wall of this mammoth inverted pyramid, there was a huge, solid slab of burnished copper, which glittered with a hundred ruddy colours in the morning sun. As far as our eyes could reach, where Nature had failed to make the chain of rocks uninterrupted, where any break in the line of hills, or any valley occurred, the great people, who had been cast forth by the stranger into the wilderness, and had found beyond it a paradise, had blocked it with gigantic slabs of granite, which barred every entrance to the new home they were so jealous to guard.
“Unless we fly, old man, we cannot get in by this gate,” I remarked.
“No! and I expect that every entrance to this mysterious land is guarded in the same impenetrable way.”
“We must try and get over these hills somehow. Surely there is a valley or mountain pass somewhere.”
“I am absolutely convinced that there is none.”
“Then what do you propose to do?”
“For the present, nothing… wait…”
“We have provisions here which, with the strictest economy, will last us six or eight days,” I remarked casually.
“Exactly. And that is why we cannot afford to go wandering at random in search of imaginary entrances to the stronghold. This entrance is here, above us; we know it, it stands before us, and that is the way we must try to get in.”
“But it seems very hermetically closed.”
“But it will open again,” said Hugh, eagerly. “Listen, Mark. I have reckoned it all out. The poor starving wretch had been cast out say ten or twelve days before we met him, which was two days ago. Ten more days say, during which we can still manage to hold out, making twenty-four days altogether or thereabouts from the time that the copper gate was last opened. Now, assuming that this Elysium has an average of not less than one evil-doer a month, I propose that we wait here until the next unfortunate wretch is hurled out onto the ground where we stand.”
“Even granting,” I objected, “that everything will happen exactly as you imagine—which, by the way, things never do—the gate when it opens will still be a hundred feet above us, and we can neither of us fly.”
“Mark, old chap, reflect a moment. Had our late informant any broken bones?”
“No.”
“Therefore he was not dropped from an altitude of a hundred feet, and the same object which lowers the criminal into the valley of death will be the means of our effecting an entrance into the fortress.”
Hugh was quite right, of course. Obviously there was nothing else we could do but wait. I had no other suggestion to make, and set to work to revise our commissariat. We found that, by the strictest economy, we could divide our water and food supply into eight equal parts. Eight days we could sit and wait opposite that slab of burnished copper, waiting for admittance to the strange and mysterious land which, now that we were near it, seemed farther off than ever. It was a curious vigil, for we never moved out of sight of the glowing gate, but watched it ceaselessly, never both sleeping at the same time. But day followed day in endless monotony beneath hot noonday sun and cool silvery moon. At times we thought that our ears caught strange sounds of sweet music, and every now and then the air was filled with the penetrating odour of myrrh and lotus blossom.
Day followed day, while we lived, as it were, only through our eyes; we were no longer conscious of heat or cold, of the terrible wilderness around us, the thousands of skeletons which told a tale of inexorable justice and vengeance, of a great people, indomitable and masterful, of the weird cries of the hyenas, and the vultures which hovered over our heads, scenting the approach of death. We fought against Nature, who tried to conquer us by hunger and thirst, by weakened nerves and by drowsiness; we allowed our minds free play, and through that grey and frowning barrier, our eyes rendered far-seeing by suffering and enforced asceticism, we saw the marble halls, the gardens of lotus blossoms, the endless rivers and fragrant glades; we saw the procession of priests and priestesses, heard the sound of the sistrum and the harp, smelled the incense, and gazed at the dark-eyed dwellers of this land of paradise, and in these visions and these dreams forgot the awful doom which, with slow and sure footsteps, approached stealthily and threatened to close our eyes for ever in the sight of the opening paradise.
I haveno wish to dwell over that vigil in sight of goal. The sufferings of two men, tortured morally and physically, by anxiety and vanishing hope, by hunger and by thirst, by heat and by cold, are neither pleasant nor interesting reading. Personally, all through those dreadful days I never once lost the belief that we should succeed in the end. As a medical student, my faith in an all-guiding Providence, in the God of our childhood, had necessarily become sadly mauled about by my own dissecting knife, but I had spent now nearly sixty days in the desert between earth and sky, away from civilisation, twentieth century, and modern thought, and in the wilderness had forgotten how to scoff, and begun once more to learn how to believe and how to pray; and now in the face of coming success I refused to believe that the same hand which had guided us unerringly so far, would snatch the glorious prize from us, at the moment when our enfeebled arms were stretched out ready to grasp it.
Throughout the long days of suffering, when gnawing hunger and raging thirst made paltry creatures of us both, Hugh’s wonderful buoyancy of spirits never forsook him entirely, and many a weary hour did he help to lighten with his picturesque descriptions of the people, whom all the world believed to be dead, but which we knew to be living behind those impenetrable walls.
As I said before, I have no wish to dwell on those ten days during which we incessantly watched that brilliant copper gate glistening with a myriad golden tints in the rising and the setting sun, but my thoughts love to linger on that memorable dawn when, suddenly, as the first rays of the sun peeped out across the immensity of the desert, our ears caught a sound, soft, and low, and distant, which made our hearts stop beating and made our weakened pulses thrill with a newly-awakened hope.
It was a chant, melancholy and monotonous, which reached us like the noise of a swarm of myriads of bees, while at intervals there came the roll of muffled drums far away.
“Can you hear it, Mark?” whispered Hugh.
I nodded.
“It sounds like a funeral dirge.”
“Mark! they are bringing a criminal to execution.”
I almost caught myself saying “God grant it!” but felt that such a speech would be doubtful in its morality.
The chant came no nearer, but suddenly it seemed as if a vigorous arm struck a ponderous metal gong. Then there was silence, while we waited and looked…
Looked! and saw that the massive copper door was slowly dropping from out its granite frame, throwing out innumerable sparks of glistening light as it moved; it was gradually being lowered by unseen hands, like a drawbridge in one of our ancient Norman castles, until it remained suspended over our heads like a gigantic and glowing canopy.
The chant died away, the sound of muffled drums had ceased, but from where we stood we became aware of shuffling footsteps on the bridge above, and of something weighty being dragged along; there was also the sound of heavy metal, and presently, over the edge, the body of a man was slowly lowered into space.
He was supported round the waist by a broad metal belt; there was a bandage over his eyes, and his arms and legs hung downward, rigid and inert, as if he were dead or in a drugged sleep.
Gradually the body was lowered to the ground until the feet touched it, quite close to where we stood watching, breathless and appalled, this silent and inexorable act of vengeful justice. Then one of the ropes was jerked from above: the criminal, still wrapped in unconsciousness, rolled in the sand at our feet.
There was no time to think of aught save of swift and sudden action.
“Ready, Mark?” whispered Hugh.
And I knew what he meant. With one bound we had jumped over the body of the condemned man, had passed our arms through the metal belt, and as it was dragged upwards again, it bore two enterprising and victorious Britishers right into the precincts of the jealously-guarded land.
We had managed to get a foothold on the bridge, and to loosen our grasp of the belt, just before it was vigorously jerked over its edge, and was dragged away into the darkness before us by the same invisible hands which had presided over the execution. Before us there yawned what looked like a dark and gigantic tunnel. There was no time for hesitation, nor any desire on our part to delay. Quickly we walked across the bridge; already it was beginning to be raised upwards. Soon the light from outside became more and more narrow, then disappeared altogether. There was no sound, no clash as the ponderous gate shut to; everything remained as silent as the vast grave behind it, but we were for good or for evil—for ever, probably—prisoners in ancient Kamt!
We could see nothing at first, but we seemed to be in a tunnel or cave, so dark was it, and it was only after a few moments that, our eyes becoming accustomed to the gloom, we saw that we were standing on a platform of granite, while before us a flight of steps led downwards. At irregular intervals a thin fillet of light filtrated down from above. The atmosphere was hot and heavy, a faint and penetrating scent, as of some burning aromatic herbs, rendering it peculiarly oppressive. In the far distance we could hear the sound of retreating, shuffling footsteps, those of the executioners, no doubt, who had done the grim work of execution, and as they died away we became aware of a strange, hissing sound, which seemed to come from somewhere below where we stood.
“Welcome to Kamt, old fellow,” said Hugh in a whisper; “there is no turning back now. Here we are!”
“Go ahead, Girlie,” I rejoined; “the adventure has become decidedly interesting.”
“Will you follow me, Mark?”
“To the death, Girlie!” I said.
“Silence, then, till further orders!”
And cautiously, in the darkness, we began to descend. The hissing sound had become louder. I obeyed and followed Hugh, but my hand was on his arm, ready to drag him back, for I had a presentiment of what was to come. We had gone down some twenty steps or so, when suddenly before us, just beneath the shaft of light which illumined their sleek and shiny bodies, two cobras rose, hissing and beating the air with their heads. We had instinctively drawn back before the grim and loathsome guardians of the secrets of Kamt, but obviously hesitation was death. Already the reptiles were creeping up the granite steps towards us; in the thin streak of light we could see their forked tongues glistening like tiny darts of silver. Hugh had quickly torn the burnous from off his shoulders; I had done likewise.
“Swiftly does it, Mark,” he said.
“I’ll tackle the left one, Girlie, you the right,” I replied, “and let us hope to God there are no more of them below.”
As Hugh had said, it was a case of “Swiftly does it!” Our burnouses were large and heavy, fortunately, and violently we threw them right over the venomous reptiles and smothered their hisses in the ample folds of the draperies: then, without looking behind us, we fled down the steps.
Soon the staircase began to widen, and from below a strange blue light reached upwards. We could distinguish the walls on either side of us, of black, polished granite, like the steps, on which our feet slipped as we flew. We were evidently nearing the bottom, for we could see a wide archway before us, which seemed to frame in a flood of weird, blue light, and presently we found ourselves on a circular landing, supported all round by enormous, massive columns of the same black granite, smooth and funereal-looking, without a trace of carving or ornamentation of any kind.
Each side of the stairway we could dimly distinguish the monstrous feet and legs of some huge figures, the bodies of which were lost above us in the gloom. In the centre stood a massive tripod of bronze, supporting a bowl of the same dark metal from which issued a blue flame, that flickered weird and ghostlike over the polished stone, leaving dark, impenetrable shadows behind the pillars, and making the air oppressive with the penetrating fumes of incense and burning herbs.
At the farther end of this hall a curtain made of some dull black stuff hung in heavy folds, and beyond it we could faintly hear the murmur of a distant chant, accompanied by some stringed instruments and drums.
“There is nothing for it, Mark, but to go straight on,” said Hugh; “the burning incense and the pillars suggest to me the rear of some temple through which probably the condemned criminals have to pass on their last journey. We must trust to our good luck that we are not discovered in the very place where we have the least right to be.”
We crossed the great black hall, and Hugh pushed aside the curtain!…
It seemed like the sudden bursting of golden dawn after a dark night. Behind and all round us, black granite, dull bronze, dense shadows, the atmosphere of a threshold to the grave; before us, a glittering radiance of gorgeous colours, a vista of marble columns and golden pillars, a vision of splendours in enamels and gems such as we, in our sober, Western civilisation, have never even dreamed of.
Immediately in front of us, occupying the centre of an inner sanctuary, there towered upon a pedestal of burnished copper and gold a mammoth figure carved in rose-coloured spotless marble. As we were behind the figure we could only see high above us, half lost in a hovering cloud of incense, the gigantic head crowned with a tiara which literally blazed with gems. A flight of steps covered with sheets of polished copper led up to the statue of the god, and on each step an immense bronze candelabrum stood, supporting great bowls, from which a flickering blue flame emerged, throwing fantastic and ghostly lights on the dull red of the copper, the purity of the marble, the jewels on the head of the god.
The roof above us was lost in the clouds of incense and burning herbs, but from it somewhere high above our heads there hung on metal chains innumerable lamps of exquisite design and workmanship. A solemn peace reigned in the majestic vastness of the temple, only from somewhere, not very far, a sweet, monotonous chant reached our ears, sung by many young, high-pitched voices, and accompanied by occasional touches on stringed instruments and beating of muffled drums.
Cautiously we advanced round the pedestal of the god and looked straight before us. The inner sanctuary was divided from the main body of the temple by a gossamer veil of silver tissue, which looked almost like a tall cloud of incense, rising up to the invisible roof and floating backwards and forwards with a gentle, sighing sound when it was fanned by a sudden current of air. Through it we could only vaguely see row upon row of massive marble pillars of the same rose-hued marble, stretching out before us in seemingly interminable lengths, and here and there great tripods of bronze, with bowls filled with many-coloured lights, which flickered on the granite floor and on the columns, bringing at times into bold relief bits of delicate tracery or quaint designs in bright-coloured enamels. The picture, low in tone, delicately harmonious, in a blending of blue and green and purple, was a perfect feast to the eye.
Hugh had left the protection of the great pedestal and had just stepped forward with a view to exploring further the beautiful building into which Fate had so kindly led us, when the chant we had heard all along suddenly sounded dangerously near, and hastily we both retreated up the copper flight of stairs, and each found shelter immediately behind the huge marble tibias of the presiding god.
In spite of danger and risks of discovery, I could not resist the temptation of craning my neck to try and catch sight at last of the inhabitants of this strange and mystic land, and I could see that Hugh’s dark head also emerged out of his safe hiding-place.
Beyond the filmy, gossamer veil something seemed to have detached itself from the gloom and the massive pillars and was slowly coming towards us. I almost held my breath, wondering what my first impression would be of the great people we had come so far to find.
They advanced in single file, and gradually the outline of the most forward became clearer and more distinct. They were young girls draped in clinging folds of something soft and low-toned in colour; they walked very slowly towards the inner sanctuary—straight towards us, as I thought. Some held quaint, crescent-shaped harps, from which their fingers drew low, monotonous chords. Others beat the sistrum or a small drum, and all were chanting with sweet, young voices the same invocation or prayer, which had been the first sound of life that had greeted us from beyond the gates of Kamt. There were a hundred or more of these fair daughters of the mysterious land, and fascinated, I gazed upon them and listened to their song, heedless of the danger we were running should we be discovered. They looked to me as if they had been carved out of an old piece of ivory; their skins looked matt and smooth, and their eyes—abnormally large and dark—stared straight before them as they approached.
The foremost one I thought must be looking absolutely at me, and I, as if enthralled, did not attempt to move; and then I saw that those eyes, so brilliant and so dark, stared unseeing, sightless before them.
The first songstress had passed and turned, still leaving the gossamer veil between us; the second followed, and then another and another. They all filed past us, walking slowly and beating their instruments, and grouped themselves on the steps of the sanctuary, some crouching, others standing, and each as she turned and passed stared straight before her towards the god, with the same lifeless, sightless gaze.
I shuddered and looked towards Hugh. He too had noticed the vacant look of the young girls; he too stared at them, pale and appalled, and I guessed that he too wondered whether Nature had smitten all these young beings in the same remorseless way, or whether the same hands that cast out their fellow-creatures from their homes and doomed them to slow starvation in the wilderness had taken this terrible precaution to further guard the mysteries of the land of Kamt.
But we had no leisure to dwell for any length of time upon a single train of thought. The picture, full of animation and gorgeousness, changed incessantly before our eyes, like a glittering pageant and ever-moving, brilliant kaleidoscope. Now it was a group of men in flowing yellow robes, tall and gaunt, with sharp features, and heads shorn of every hair, till their crowns looked like a number of ivory balls; now a procession of grotesque masks representing heads of beasts—crocodiles, rams, or cows, with the full moon between their horns; now a number of women with gigantic plaited wigs, which gave their bodies a grotesque and distorted appearance; and now stately figures carrying tall, golden wands headed with sundry devices wrought in enamel and gems. And among them all there towered one great, imposing, central figure, who, after he had stood for awhile with arms stretched upwards facing the mammoth god, now turned towards the multitude of priests and priestesses, and in a loud voice pronounced over them an invocation or a blessing. He was an old man, for his face was a mass of wrinkles, but his eyes, dark and narrow, shone with a wonderful air of mastery and domination. His crown was shaved, as was also his face, but on his chin there was a short tuft of curly hair standing straight out—an emblem of power in ancient Egypt. Over his white flowing robes he wore a leopard’s skin, the head of which hung over his chest, with eyes formed of a pair of solitary rubies.
Fortunately the gossamer veil still hung between us and the group of priests. The sanctuary itself was more dimly lighted than the main body of the temple; we therefore had not yet been discovered, and if no one pushed aside the protecting curtain we were evidently safe for the moment.
Suddenly a terrific fanfare of silver trumpets and beating of metal gongs, accompanied by prolonged shouting from thousands of throats, prepared us for another tableau in the picturesque series.
Thistime it was a litter, which, borne on the shoulders of swarthy, abnormally tall men, detached itself from the distant shadows, and as it approached, suddenly one and all, priests and priestesses, songsters and harpists, prostrated themselves on the ground, touching the granite floor with their foreheads. Only the tall central figure—the high priest evidently—remained standing with arms outstretched, as if in benediction, towards the approaching litter. On it, in the midst of rose-silk cushions and draperies, which helped to enhance the ghastly pallor of his face, there reclined a man—little more than a youth, yet with the foreshadowing of death marked in every line of his countenance: in the deep, sunken eyes, the wax-like tone of the skin, the damp, matted hair which clung to the high forehead, polished like a slab of ivory. He looked strangely pathetic as he lay there, surrounded by so much richness and pomp, his head trembling beneath the weight of a gigantic diadem—the double crown of Egypt, in crimson and white enamel chased with gold, with the royal uræus encircling the pallid brow—the crown, in fact, which is so familiar to every reader of Egyptian mysteries, the crown which told us more plainly than any of the wonders we had seen hitherto that we had penetrated in very truth to the midst of the great people who gave to the astonished world the first glimpses of a wonderful and vanished civilisation.
Hugh, I could see, was, with sheer excitement, almost as pale as the great Pharaoh who lay upon his gorgeous litter; for Pharaoh he was, ruler of a Lower and Upper Egypt, the same as those of his ancestors, of whom we poor Western folk have known, and as all those of whom we know nothing must have been, since they brought their high civilisation, their gorgeous art, their knowledge and beauty to this mysterious oasis in the midst of the ocean of wilderness.
Heavily enough did the noble diadem seem to rest upon the head of the present scion of a thousand kings. Half-fainting he lay among the cushions, while his hands, which were covered with rings and gems, toyed listlessly with a pair of tiny apes, who disturbed the solemn majesty of the temple by their shrill and incessant chatter, while I felt my very brain reeling when I realised that I, Mark Emmett, M.D., of London, a prosy British medical practitioner, was absolutely gazing with my own eyes at a living, a breathing, a real Pharaoh.
A large retinue of trumpeters and gorgeous attendants, too numerous and wonderful for my poor reeling senses to take in all at once, were standing round the Pharaoh’s litter, which was placed a little to the left of the solemn high priest; then suddenly, once again, all those present beat the ground with their foreheads, and I saw a second litter approach, borne by eight men of almost negro-like complexion. This litter was draped in funereal black, with here and there a glint of gold and jewels, and on it there half crouched, half lay a most beautiful woman. She could not have been very young, for there was an obvious look of maturity about her voluptuous figure and graceful pose, but the black of the draperies set off to perfection the ivory whiteness of her shoulders and arms. (A fact of which I doubt not but that the lady was fully aware, for surely the daughters of this mystic country have some of the charming weaknesses of their more sophisticated sisters of the North.) Her small head looked regal beneath the lovely diadem, in shape like a crouching ibis, which we all know so well, and from the top of her head to her tiny sandalled feet she seemed one gorgeous glittering mass of gems. Her garment—the little of it there was—was clinging soft and silky, and of the same most becoming funereal hue.
Her litter had been placed beside that of the Pharaoh, of whom I vaguely wondered if he were her husband, for he seemed, in spite of his ailing look, to be a great deal younger than she. Round the two central personages I caught sight of a great many people, some with tall wands, others with garments covered with devices and hieroglyphics, of groups of naked slaves, and of musicians with sistrum and harps.
The high priest and his satellites were standing with their backs towards us, in a dense group facing the Pharaoh and the royal lady. I could not see what they were doing, but heard the high priest recite one after another a number of short invocations, and presently I heard the bleating of a lamb, while the priestesses again intoned one of their monotonous chants. I was thankful then that I could not see what was going on—a sacrifice, no doubt, to the deity behind whose tibia we crouched. Then the high priest raised his voice, and even my unscholarly ears caught, clearly and distinctly, the words, which he uttered slowly and solemnly in the language which the scientific world of Europe has believed to be dead:
“Oh, arise, Ammon-Ra! Thou self-creating God!
“Isis and Nephthys attend upon Thee!
“Ra! Thou, who givest all goodness, Ra! who dost Thyself create!
“Thou hast caused the vault of heaven to rejoice, by the greatness of Thy soul!
“The earth of Kamt doth fear Thee, oh, Sparrowhawk, that art thrice holy! oh, Eagle, that art blessed!
“Oh, great lion, who defendest Thyself, and dost ope the way to the ship of Sekti!
“King of Heaven! Lord of the Earth! Great image in the two horizons of Heaven!
“Ra! Creator of the world!
“May the son of Osiris, Pharaoh, the Holy, be reverenced through Thy merits!
“Hail to Thee!
“Descend on the Pharaoh! Give him thy merits in Heaven, Thy powers upon earth!
“Oh, Ra, Who hast made the heavens rejoice, and made the earth tremble with holy fear!”
I did not understand every word, but caught the general tone of the invocation, which went on in similar short sentences for some considerable time, while a smell of burnt flesh began to fill the air, quickly smothered by a pungent odour of aromatic herbs.
“Behold! Ra has accepted thy sacrifice, oh! Maat-kha, and thine, oh! holy Pharaoh! He has opened wide the portals of his wisdom to his High Priest, who stands ready to answer thee, and to advise if thou wilt question him.”
Then a woman’s voice, deep and musical—that of the Queen—replied:
“Dismiss thy priests and priestesses, then, for I would be alone with thee!”
And as solemnly as they had entered, at a sign from the high priest all rose to their feet and slowly filed out of the temple, till there remained in the vast building no one, besides ourselves, save the high priest, and the Pharaoh and the Queen upon their litters, borne high on the shoulders of their black slaves. (These, I concluded, were deaf or mute, or both, for they stood as rigid as statues, with a vacant, semi-idiotic look on their dark faces.)
When the Queen was fully satisfied that her entire entourage had gone, she raised herself a little on her litter and began eagerly:
“My son is sick unto death, Ur-tasen. Yesterday again a veil like that of death lay over him for nigh upon an hour. His physicians are ignorant fools. I wish to know if he will live.”
“Thy son will live for a year and a day,” replied the high priest, solemnly.
I don’t know where he had gathered this somewhat enigmatical piece of information. Certainly, if it related to the sick youth before him, it did not need any spiritual powers to gain knowledge of so obvious a fact. The Pharaoh, however, if it was his chance of life which was being so openly discussed, seemed not to trouble himself about it at all. He yawned once or twice very audibly, and amused himself by teasing his hideous little apes, taking no heed whatever of the solemn high priest, nor of the royal lady, his mother.
“Thou art ever ready with evasive answers, Ur-tasen,” said the Queen, with an impatient frown. “It is meet that the Pharaoh, when he attains his twenty-first year, shall take unto himself a princess of royal blood for wife. But if Ra has decreed that the sickness of which he suffers shall ultimately cause his death, then it isnotmeet that he continue ruling over the great people of Kamt, for his hand will soon be too weak to safely guide their destinies.”
“Ra has placed thee beside the throne of the holy Pharaoh to guide his hand when it begins to tremble,” said the high priest.
“But when the hand is stiff and cold, Ur-tasen, I have no other son to share the throne of Kamt with me.”
“Then thy hour will have come, oh, Queen! A woman cannot rule over Kamt, if there be no husband or son to sit upon the throne beside her. Thy hour will have come, together with that peace which Isis doth give to those she loves, and thou wilt be happy, far from the turmoil of thy court and the glitter of thy crown.”
But this charming prospect did not seem to appeal to the royal lady, for she leaned forward on her litter, while her small hands nervously clutched at the black silk cushions.
“There would be no peace for me, Ur-tasen; for if the Pharaoh die childless, which I fear is Ra’s decree, then my crown and his shall pass on to the heads of those whom I abhor.”
“If the Pharaoh die childless,” repeated the high priest, calmly, “the crown must inevitably fall from thy head on to that of Neit-akrit of the house of Usem-Ra.”
How strange that name sounded in the mouth of the high priest! Neit-akrit! My Queen, as I used to call her! Neit-akrit, of whom Mr. Tankerville originally spoke! She had a namesake then in this land which was her own; or had her shade come wandering back after the lapse of centuries, to fascinate our senses and our minds with the mystic charm of her personality? Evidently, however, Queen Maat-kha was not under the magic spell of that name as I was, for a look of violent rage and hatred suddenly marred all the beauty of her face.
“Thou liest, Ur-tasen!” she said.
“Woman! Queen though thou be,” retorted the high priest, “hold thy sacrilegious tongue, lest thou see the heavenly thunder crush thee and thy throne before the feet of Ra!”
Humbly Maat-kha bowed her proud head at this severe reprimand, and it was with softened, almost appealing tones that she said:
“I hate Neit-akrit of the house of Usem-Ra.”
“The gods care naught for human loves or hates,” pronounced the high priest, coldly.
“Neit-akrit is young…”
“And the gods have made her fair to look upon,” said the high priest, with more enthusiasm, I thought, than his venerable appearance warranted.
“She is vain and frivolous,” added the Queen, with unconcern, which was obviously affected, for I could see that she was watching the effect of her words upon the priest’s face, “and she seldom gives offerings to the gods and their priests.”
“Age will bring wisdom,” he replied quietly.
“It will not, Ur-tasen,” she began with more vehemence, while she raised herself on her litter and drew closer to the priest. “See! I have brought here rich offerings for Ra; emeralds from my mines beyond Se-veneh, sapphires and rubies from Ta-bu. I have brought ostrich feathers as long as a man’s arm, and oil from the sacred tree of Hana, in the garden of my palace. I have brought thee rare pigeons from my aviaries, and an ibis whose plumage is like the opening petals of the lotus blossom. I have brought thee enough gold dust to strew the steps of the altar of the god. Rich gifts and rare, sweet herbs and brilliant gems, that thou mayest pray to Osiris, that he find some other head on which to place the crown of Kamt, than that of hated Neit-akrit.”
“But she is thine own sister’s child! Thou canst not hate her. Thou wouldst not see the crown of Kamt on the head of a stranger?”
I thought this a very weak speech on the part of the high priest. Evidently the visions of those emeralds and sweet-scented herbs, or perhaps the pigeons from the royal garden, had shaken his enthusiasm for the absent Neit-akrit.
“I humbled myself before her and asked her to wed my son. She laughed at me and vouchsafed no answer.”
At this point, for the first time, the sick youth showed some interest in the conversation; he pushed the chattering apes roughly to one side, and over his pale, wan face there came such a look of acute mental suffering that, for the first time since I had trodden upon this strange land, my heart felt the presence of a fellow-being and went out to him accordingly.
Then the Queen made a sign to one of the black giants who stood behind her, and he came forward carrying a gold casket, which he placed on the ground before the high priest. I could not see its contents, but noticed how Ur-tasen made pretence of looking above and beyond it, and concluded that they must have been very tempting.
“Ten white oxen await outside, oh, Ur-tasen,” whispered the Queen; “each is laden with two caskets, the contents of which are richer far than these.”
“But what dost thou ask of me?”
“Give life to my son!”
“The gods alone can do that. I am but mortal. Death is in my hands, but not life.”
“Let me wed again; I am still young, still beautiful; while my son lives, I am still a queen.”
“I cannot forbid thee to do what thou wilt; but the people of Kamt will rise against thee if thou placest one of thy subjects in the bed of Hortep-ra, the most holy. There are no royal princes old enough to wed with thee.”
“They will not rise,” she urged, “if thou wilt but tell them that it is the will of Ra that I should wed again.”
“Woman, wouldst thou urge me to blaspheme?” he retorted in holy wrath, but she repeated:
“Ten more white oxen await at my palace, and in the caves beneath my chambers there are bars of gold which I would give to thee.”
“And Osiris would smite me for the blasphemy,” said the priest. “What good are thy treasures to me if my bones lay whitening in the grave?”
“Ur-tasen!” she pleaded.
But the high priest turned suddenly towards the mammoth figure behind which we crouched, and holding aside the gossamer veil of silver tissue which divided the inner sanctuary from the suppliant Queen, he pointed upwards at the gigantic majesty of the god and said:
“I tell thee, woman, that, Queen as thou art, thou canst not change the thread of thy destiny. The crown of Kamt, after hovering on the head of thy ailing son, will descend on that of Princess Neit-akrit. Ra, who sits up there enthroned, guarding the gates of the valley of death, could alone, through some awful and terrible upheaval, change the course of the future of this land by descending himself to sit upon its throne.”
The priest had spoken very solemnly, and his voice, sonorous and clear, went echoing through the majestic vault of the temple. The Queen, who evidently, in spite of her petty hatred and arrogance, was a devout worshipper of the god, had looked upwards with awe and reverence, while in her eyes I could see that she had realised the crumbling of her last, most cherished hope.
Suddenly, as she looked, I saw a curious change pass over her face; her eyes gradually dilated, her lips were parted as if to utter a cry, her cheeks from ashy pale turned to vivid red, and, stretching forth her jewel-laden arm, she pointed towards the god with trembling hand. The sickly youth, too, was looking in our direction with face as pale as death, while the high priest appeared to tremble from head to foot, as his hand grasped the gossamer tissue of the veil. Then I saw that Hugh Tankerville, with head bare and erect, had come forward from his hiding-place and was standing facing the temple, on the very pedestal of its god. Each side of him, from the bronze tripods, a blue and a purple light threw a flickering radiance upon his tall, commanding figure and his fine dark head, and I must confess that had I not known that he was my old friend, Hugh Tankerville, I should most willingly have admitted that he might be the personification of a pagan deity.
There was a long and awful pause, during which I almost could hear the anxious beating of five human hearts, then the high priest murmured:
“Who, and what, art thou?”
“Thou spakest of Ra,” replied Hugh. “He sent me.”
“Whence comest thou?”
“I come from the land where dwelleth Osiris and his bride, the glorious Isis, where Ra sitteth in judgment, and where Horus intercedes for the dead, whom jackal-headed Anubis has guided to the judgment throne of the Most High.”
“And what is thy will, oh, stranger, who hailest from the land where dwelleth Osiris?”
Hugh calmly pointed towards the Queen, who was still looking at him, wrapt in superstitious ecstasy.
“To wed that woman and sit upon the throne of Kamt.”