Eight months later, when Michael was in England, he heard through the'Ulamaof theriwakin 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'Ulamato 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 theirsurasof 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'Ulamahad 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 variousriwaksto 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 embracedIslam."
"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 asurafrom 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 anothersurafrom 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 tallsheikhor 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-appliquedportièreof 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'sHotel. Margaret had not forgotten her promise. She was closer thanMillicent.
"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.
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 andcertainly he had no wish to annoy Margaret by unnecessary remarks aboutMillicent 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 wereyoubefore—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 amI 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 yourartistic sense and love of beauty, would have fallen in love with me ifI 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 wereLove. 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 ofyours 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 wasFreddy'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 seeMrs. 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."