"You see these things," Meg said. "I'm only creeping behind you."
"You see that if we understand God and give Him His proper place, He'd rule us, His throne would govern a world-state. His love would be the law of mankind."
"I know," Margaret said. "It's beautiful, it's what ought to be, if poor mortals were not human beings."
"Mortals are the best things in God's kingdom—it's all been worked up for their enjoyment and benefit."
"I know, dear, I know, but you and I are just you and I, and we have just found love, and it is so wonderful, I want to enjoy it."
"Doesn't love make it all the more forcible, Meg? The closeness of God all the more certain? The weaving of the threads of His beautiful fabric all the more golden?—Akhnaton's great 'Lord of Fortune,' the 'Master of Things Ordained,' the 'Chance which gives Life,' the 'Origin of Fate,' call it what you will—the power which brought us here, you and I."
"And if we didn't follow that clear voice, Mike, whose rule is righteousness, why should He allow it?"
"Do we ever deliberately do what we know to be wrong and not pay for it, dearest?"
"But why does He allow it? It's a mill, dearest—one can go round and round, and round and round."
"And in the end," Mike said. "It's just God, His prescribed rule, His unfightable force."
* * * * * *
When the two lovers entered the sitting-room, Freddy was instantly as conscious of the new aura which surrounded them as he was conscious of the sweet desert air which clung to their clothes and bodies. It came like a whiff from a far pure world.
"How fuggy you are in here," Meg said. "Dear boy, stop working."
"All right," he said. "I was only waiting for you to come in." Freddy was not the sort to see anything which he was not meant to see. If the two lovers had anything to tell him, they would tell him. Until then, he would mind his own business.
"You go and have a smoke outside," Meg said. "I'll put away all this."
"All this" meant the boxes of "finds" and the papers of plans and figures which they had all been working at earlier in the evening.
It was the dawn of the morning on which the tomb was to be opened. Meg could not sleep; the overseer's shrill whistle for the roll-call of the workmen had banished her last hopes that a little sleep would come to her before the exciting day began.
The clear whistle called the straggling figures together. They were still indefinite objects, moving white columns in the darkness which heralds the dawn. They were to begin work earlier than usual; Meg could see no signs of the coming day in the sky.
She sprang out of bed, glad to begin some practical work to banish the confusion of thoughts which had made her brain too active for sleep. Before she had her bath or dressed, she felt that she must breathe the cool, pure air outside the hut for a moment or two.
During the night her thoughts had been mastered by a consciousness of the fact that after the great day, after the tomb was satisfactorily opened and Michael had accomplished the necessary work in connection with it which Freddy might demand of him, he would start out on his desert journey. She could not and would not hold him back. Things too delicate and indefinite to be described had gathered and accumulated, strengthening his determination to leave the valley and start out on his apparently objectless journey. As the accumulation of atoms has formed continents, so the accumulation of thoughts becomes a thing which controls our destinies.
The treasure-trove of gold which had been hidden by Akhnaton the Dreamer was now as real to Michael as the gold-mines in California were real to the miners of the '49 rush. He had visualized it over and over again. He was undaunted by the fact that many visionaries had seen their King Solomon's mines equally clearly; but how many have reached them? He was satisfied that, though his journey might prove a complete failure from Freddy's point of view, until he made it any work he tried to do would be a more complete one. There are treasures laid up in heaven far beyond the value of rubies and precious jewels, and the Kingdom of Heaven which is within us Mike was determined to find.
Meg had given her abundant sympathy, but advice she had none to offer. The thing was beyond her, taken out of her hands; it belonged to the part of Michael which she loved and admired but did not fully comprehend—the superman. Her practical common sense was her stumbling-block; it held her with the chains of caution and the doubts of a scientific trend of mind, which demands practical proofs before it accepts any theory or idea. Although she was influenced more deeply by Egypt than she had ever imagined it possible to be influenced by the unseen, or by atmosphere and surroundings, she still walked firmly on her two feet. Her momentary standings on her head were passing and spasmodic. She neither felt convinced nor unconvinced upon the subject of Akhnaton's vision or upon the truth and reliability of the old man's words at el-Azhar. Suggestion is so often at the root of what appears to be the supernatural. Michael might have talked to the old man, as he had often talked to herself, about the possibility of such a treasure having been hidden by the King when he, Akhnaton, knew that he was dying and when he realized that his new capital of Tel-el-Amarna would not long survive his decease, that the priests of the old religion would do all in their power to obliterate his memory and teachings. She knew that Michael was not the only person who held this view. He was not the originator of the theory.
Meg had never had anything to do with people who believed in visions and the power of seeing into the future. The occult had had no fascination for her. Until she arrived in the valley all such things had come under the heading of charlatanism. Her thoughts were different now. She had learned more; she had discovered that her powers of vision might be limited to the very fine mental qualities of which her family were so proud; she had found out that the sharpest brains for practical purposes may be extremely blunt for higher ones. Freddy and she could play with figures; problems which could be worked out by practical methods were to them difficulties to be mastered by hard work, and hard work was pleasure to the Lamptons; it was their form of enjoyment. They were not imaginative; they were combative; they enjoyed a fight which usurped their mental energies.
In Egypt Meg had been given new eyes, new understanding. There were finer things than mathematical problems, things of the super-intellect, infinitely more delicate and wonderful, to which neither she nor Freddy held the key. She felt like a child. She was a child again, an inquisitive child, crying out for answers which would satisfy her awakening intelligence. Her fine college education had been confined to the insides of books. She knew nothing whatever of the finer truths which were every day being thrust upon her senses. It was just as if Freddy and she were watching a play from a great distance without opera-glasses, while Michael had very powerful ones. He could see things beyond their horizon; he was in touch with people who inhabited a world to which they could not travel.
Too often Michael's thoughts were divided from hers by continents of space. She was often alone. She longed passionately to say to him that she really believed in all that he believed in. Her beautiful honesty did not permit it. Her limitations tormented her. It was like having a cork leg in a race. If she could only get rid of her Lampton, materialistic, common-sense nature, she would be more able to advise and counsel her lover. Poor Meg! Thoughts like these had fought for coherence all night.
She little knew that her nature was the perfect adjustment which Michael's needed. He came to her, not only as a lover, but as a tired traveller in search of rest. Her reasoning mind and cautious nature gave him balance. When he had been standing on his head for too many hours together, Meg put him on his feet again.
This morning Meg needed putting on her own feet. She was hopelessly tormented with questions which she could not answer. One minute Michael's whole scheme ought to be discouraged; his belief in the occult was a thing to be suppressed; it was dangerous and unhealthy. The next, she found herself with energies vitalized and glowing over the certainty that there must be truth in the idea, that there must be some meaning in the repeated messages conveyed either by dreams or by whatsoever one chose to call them. Thoughts certainly had been conveyed to him.
Then the glowing vision of Michael actually discovering the lost treasure of Akhnaton would vanish and she would see him, just as clearly, alone and ill in the desert, in lack of funds and abandoned by his men. She knew his casual methods of making practical arrangements and his total disregard for his personal health and safety.
She was watching the coming dawn while her thoughts were creating misfortunes and calling up unhappy visions of Michael alone in the desert. The old man at el-Azhar had spoken of temptations and sickness. If the treasure was a fact, then the sickness and temptation were facts also. But what were the temptations? Did he allude to the spiritual or the material man?
Suddenly her thoughts were obliterated, her self-inflicted suffering wiped out. She had no thoughts, no consciousness; for her nothing existed but the luminous and wonderful figure of Akhnaton which had formed itself in front of her. At first her astonished eyes had seen it dimly, then clearly and still more clearly.
Meg remained perfectly still. She was too awestruck, too amazed, to move or speak. The vision became surrounded by light, by the rays of Aton. It was months since she had first seen it; now in the dawn, it seemed as if it had only been the night before. A sense of rest came to her as she gazed at it.
"Thy dawning is beautiful in the horizon of heaven,O living Aton, Beginning of Life!When thou risest in the eastern horizon of heaven,Thou fillest every land with thy beauty;For thou art beautiful, great, glittering, high over the earth,Thy rays, they encompass the land, even all thou hast made."
Meg listened intently to the words. They were part of Akhnaton's Hymn to the Rising Sun, the hymn which Mike had repeated to her.
She waited until the words were lost in the silent hour. Every thought of hers was known to the sad eyes, every longing in her heart to be given power to speak was understood. It seemed to come naturally to her, the understanding of the needlessness for her to do aught but listen. The vision was her over-soul, her higher self, which understood.
"You have delivered my message. I have seen, I have approved. The Lord of Peace, the Living Aton, besides whom there is none other, has brought Life to his heart. The beauty of Aton is there."
It was of Michael the vision spoke. Meg never doubted. "His pleasure is to do thy bidding," she said. The words were the unstudied, simple truth.
"I have seen, always I have guided, always I have prayed. I have revealed to him the Light which is Truth. His work, which is the Love of Aton, is in his heart. The Lord of Fate has perfected it."
"I would have him go, and yet, because I am not fully in the Light, I would have him stay. All that is in my heart is plain to you—my fears, my joys, my imperfect faith. I ask for help; I am troubled."
"There is no poverty, no fear, for those who have set Aton in their hearts; for my servant there is no danger. Hearts have health where Aton shines."
"But for me—how can I help him?"
"By the perfection of Love."
"But my love is imperfect. It is not divine. I fear for his bodily welfare. I cannot willingly offer him to the Aton of whom you speak. I can only understand my own selfish love . . . it is human."
"You are the mistress of his happiness. In my Kingdom, while it was on earth, my heart was happy in my Queen and in my children. The great Lord and Giver of Light is none other than the Loving Father, the tender husband, the devoted son. There is none other than the living Aton, whose kingdom is within us. We are Love, we are Aton."
"Then my love is no hindrance?"
"God is Love, God is Happiness, God is Beauty."
There was infinite understanding and tenderness in the words, but Meg's honesty was persistent.
"My love is not that sort of love, but it is very dear to me. It is selfish and human. It is wrapped round with natural desires, my own personal wants."
"Is there any love which is not of Aton? Does He expect things other than He has made?"
"I am in darkness; I have so many fears."
"Your soul is not shut off from that which it desires. Your fears can be turned to understanding; no forces of darkness can hold against the powers of Light. If you open your heart to the Living Truth, the powers of darkness are disarmed, Aton is enthroned. He is the sole creator of all things created."
The sky was changing from a cold grey to the opalescence of dawn. A line of light was slowly appearing and widening on the horizon. As it spread and grew more distinct, the luminous figure became less clear; the rays of Aton shone less vividly. Akhnaton's spirit had come forth from the Underworld to see the sun rise on the world he so passionately loved. This had been one of his most insistent and ardent prayers while he reigned on earth, that after death his "two eyes might be opened to see the sun," that "the vision of the sun's fair face might never be lost to him," that he might "obtain a sight of the beauty of each recurring sunrise."
Meg stood in an awed silence, her subliminal self alone conscious of the grave, sad eyes, which were watching the splendour of the sun as it came over the edge of the desert. The rapidity of its uprising was amazing. It had burst the bonds of darkness with a strength and force which resembled the triumph of a victorious army. At its coming the darkness was scattered. Its quickly-spreading rays were driving back the forces of the enemy. With fine generalship it was following up the victory with renewed attacks.
The form of the Pharaoh was only dimly visible. Its luminousness had disappeared. It was a shadow in the light. The prayer of all Egyptians from time immemorial had been that they might each day "leave the dim Underworld in order to see the light of the sun upon earth." Akhnaton had prayed this prayer, which was ancient before his day.
Meg knew that his prayer had been answered. Akhnaton, the King, the passionate heretic, the visionary and the prophet, was seeing his adored Sun rising over his kingdom. His persistent prayers had been granted, his desire realized. His spirit had come forth to see the sun's rays. As he gazed at the sun, the years had rolled back. Three thousand years are but a span in the march of eternity. He was alone with his God, as alone as the Moslem figures who were prostrating themselves to the ground. He was enjoying the beauty of Aton in the silent valley, which his footsteps had so often trod, the valley overlooking the city which to him, in his manhood, became the city of abomination and desolation, the city of false gods.
As the light of day flooded the desert, the figure became invisible to Meg. It seemed to melt into the golden air. She felt that it might still be standing there, quite close to her, only she could not see it. Her powers were limited; the light concealed the figure. Being luminous, she had been able to see it clearly in the darkness, just as she was able to see the luminous match-box which she always kept on a table by her bedside. She knew it was there, always shining, only her eyes were unable to see its brightness in the daylight. The figure of Akhnaton might be near her still. How clearly it had stood out in the darkness, how brightly the rays of the sun had declared the symbol of Aton!
Had it all been an optical delusion, born of her nervous condition? Or was it a dream? Was she still in bed sleeping? How could she prove to herself that she was awake, that she had come out to see the dawn, that she was standing in front of her hut and not asleep in bed? In her dreams, she had often dreamed that she was dreaming; she had often told herself that her dreams were all dreams; she had often done things in her dreams to prove to herself that they were not dreams. If she stooped to pick up some sand to prove that her feet were pressing the desert, might not that, too, be a part of her dream? What on earth was there to prove the real from the unreal?
Now that she knew about Akhnaton and his beautiful religion, which is the religion of all reasoning mortals to-day, and had read something of his life and mission, was it not quite probable that she was creating all that she had seen, that she was deceiving herself? It was still possible that she was dreaming.
With nerves unstrung and a beating heart, she saw Michael appear. He was in his early-morning top-coat. He, too, had been greeting the sun. He had made a hasty sketch of the first colours in the sky.
"Mike," Meg cried, in a tone of relief and anxiety. "Mike, I want you, do come here!"
The next moment Mike's arms were round her; her head was on his shoulder.
"What is the matter, dearest?"
"The vision, Mike! I have seen it again—it has been even more wonderful. Oh, Mike!" A stifled sob came from Margaret's full heart; the tension of her nerves was relaxed by the comfort of human arms, of human magnetism.
"And you were afraid, dearest?" He held her closer; his strength nerved her. Oh, welcome humanity!
"Afraid? No—oh, no, it wasn't fear."
"What then, dear one?"
"I can't explain it. If only you had been with me!" She clung to him.
"I should not have seen him, Meg, it is not meant that I should. Look, darling, I have been near you—I was making a sketch of the sunrise."
Meg looked in wonder at the sketch. There was no figure there; that was the only point of interest it contained for her at the moment.
"It is not there," she said disappointedly; her voice expressed astonishment. "Then you saw nothing?"
"Nothing of what you saw."
"Then why does it come to me? I am the very last person to understand, to desire it."
"Dearest, the wisdom of God's ways is past our present very limited understanding. Why did He make the world as He did? Why did He form the mountains by the drifting of particles into the ocean? Why did He evolve the spirit of man from a source which has baffled science? Why does He let us know so much and understand so little?"
"I loved seeing him, Mike. He talked to me. I wasn't afraid while he was there. It's the wonder of it now that it's past, the strangeness; something greater than myself gets into me when the vision is there."
"Consider the privilege, Meg, the amazing privilege!"
Mike's brain was working and wondering. Why, oh why, had he not been privileged? Why had Meg again seen the Living Truth?
Meg divined his thoughts; her fervent wish was that he also had seen it. "Nothing further from fear ever possessed me, Mike, and yet now I feel horribly unnerved. If you hadn't come to me, I don't know what I should have done. The first time it was different. I wonder why. I wasn't a bit like this, was I, dearest?"
"No, I don't know why you feel so differently this time. What happened? Can you tell me, or would you rather wait?" Mike recognized her nervous state.
"I came out to see the sunrise. I hadn't slept—I was thinking about the opening of the tomb and of all that is to happen afterwards." Mike kissed her tenderly and understandingly. "I was really feeling very selfish and worldly; and anything but spiritual. I was wondering if your plans weren't too utterly silly, dearest, if, after all, we hadn't got into a rather unreal and unhealthy way of looking at things. I was almost convinced that you ought to stop standing on your head. Quite suddenly the luminous figure, with the sunrays behind its head, stood in front of me. Its eyes were fixed on me with a full and wonderful understanding of all that was in my heart. I instantly knew that my fears were understood, and the odd thing, now that I look back upon it, is that I wasn't afraid. The understanding seemed natural, the understanding of my higher self. It was only when the vision grew dimmer and dimmer that I began to feel this silly nerve-exhaustion; it was only then that I began to wonder and doubt."
"I'm not surprised, Meg—you're splendid. Any other woman would have fainted, I suppose."
"No, Mike, they wouldn't; once you've seen and understood, it is like being born again, with fresh understanding, with fresh eyes. There's nothing more to be afraid of than there is in seeing death. I was terrified of death until I saw Uncle Harry die. This is just the same thing. Your fear is forgotten, a new understanding possesses you. My only wonder is why I have never seen anything of the same sort before, and now why, oh why, is it this strange figure of Akhnaton? Why this King who lived thirteen hundred years before we begin to count our centuries? I should so love to see Uncle Harry, and it is such a little time since he went. Why have I never seen him?"
"My darling, three thousand years are like the minutes spent in boiling an egg when you dabble with eternity. There is nothing to choose between Noah and Napoleon; Moses and Mohammed are twins in point of years."
"I know," Meg said. "There is nothing so hard for a human mind to grasp as the impossibility of grasping the meaning of infinity. It can't shake off its own limitations. But all the same, if I was to tell anyone except you, dearest, that I had seen and held a conversation with the spirit of a Pharaoh who lived before Moses, what would they think? what would they say?"
"The very few who stand in the Light would not be astonished. Those who are still completely earth-tied and glory in their ignorance would scoff and call you crazy; but would they matter?"
"There was one thing he told me, Mike, which gives me great happiness. He called me 'the mistress of your happiness,' he understood about our love."
"That was his favourite name for his wife. He was a devoted husband and lover."
"Then he really understood?"
"What does Aton not understand, beloved?"
"But this was Akhnaton, Mike. He said, 'my heart was happy in my Queen.' He said 'the great Giver of Light is none other than the loving father, the tender husband, the devoted son, because there is none other than the living Aton, whose kingdom is within you. You are Aton and Aton is you. He is everything which He has made.'"
"That is exactly it," Mike said. "You saw the figure of Akhnaton just as people who lived in Syria saw the figure of Christ—God's manifestation of Himself. Of course He understood our love and our happiness. His bowels of compassion yearn for His children. He is the spirit of Aton—of God—as manifested by Akhnaton."
"You are to go, beloved, there is to be no holding you back. I have received my commission; it is to buckle on your armour. Oh, dearest, even if all this should be the fabrication of my own dreams, my brain, it is not self-created—it has some purpose, some meaning. God has put it there."
"Everything has its meaning, Meg, nothing is too small to be intentional."
"I am to help you by 'the perfection of my love,' and oh, Mike, it is so imperfect, so pitifully imperfect, so pitifully human!".
"Pitifully, darling? Why not beautifully human?"
"Because it thinks first of my own wants; my love makes me wish to keep you all to myself, to prevent you going on this journey."
"The beautiful thing about Akhnaton's teachings, beloved, is the value of happiness, the beauty of humanity. In this capital he gave his people wonderful gardens and decorated his public places and temples with the simple joys of nature; he encouraged music and art and everything that could give his people happiness. He desired his people to enjoy the world, he wanted them to see it as he saw it, a wonderful kingdom, radiating with love. He first taught the world that there need be no sickness or misery if there was no sin. Light disperses darkness. His was the purest and highest religion the world was ever given until the mission of Jesus Christ. The rays of Aton first symbolized the divinity of God."
The voice of Mohammed Ali brought the lovers back to the practical things of the hour—a hot bath and the necessity of dressing and eating a good breakfast. For the time being, the opening of the tomb had been forgotten. Indeed, Meg found it very hard to bring herself into touch with all which had been until this morning the absorbing topic for days past.
She had a number of household duties to attend to as soon as breakfast was over—putting in order the room for the Overseer-General and devising the menu for the day's food. There were to be extra mouths to feed—the photographer, the Chief Inspector and a few invited fellow-Egyptologists who had been asked for the occasion. It was Freddy's day.
Before they parted to get ready for breakfast Meg said, "I suppose Freddy will be quite lost to us until the hour arrives! I wonder when we shall be permitted to see inside it?" She referred to the tomb.
"Not to-day," Mike said. "At least, I don't expect so. Perhaps to-morrow. Anyhow, we shall hear all that Freddy has to tell us to-night or at lunch-time."
"Poor old Freddy! I shall be relieved when the thing is over, when he can settle down to regular work again. There will be lots to do, won't there?"
"You look tired," Mike said. Meg's eyes were deeply shadowed.
"Do you wonder? I've lived three thousand years in half an hour. I've been born again, so to speak. I really feel only half here. Oh, Mike," she said, impulsively, "I wish I knew more! I should so like to quite believe, to understand. I can never be the same again, not my careless, young, old self." She sighed.
"Do you regret it?"
"No, only I feel different, not quite so close to earth, lonely. I can't explain. I wonder how Lazarus felt? I know I'm alive, dearest, and here with you, but—don't laugh or think me hysterical—in some other way, a way I can't speak about, I feel as if I had been dead and come back. I've seen what no one else has, I've been where neither you nor Freddy have been."
"With those whose existence is in 'the hills of the West.'"
"A cold tub will do me good, dearest." Meg hurried off.
The sun was pouring its full wonder over the land. The mystery of the dawn was as if it had never been. Egypt was bathed in light, the fullest light that ever was on land or sea.
The great hour had arrived. Margaret and Michael were on their way to see the inside of the tomb, which had proved to be greater by far in importance and splendour than even the Arab soothsayer had predicted. It was, in fact, a tomb of unique interest, a tomb whose history was to baffle the most expert Egyptologists. Freddy had kept the wonder of it a secret from Mike and Margaret. He had told them practically nothing. He wished to give them a surprise.
It had been inspected and photographed and all the necessary formalities had been gone through, and now, after an admirably borne period of waiting, Michael and Margaret were to be allowed to visit it.
Freddy was to await their arrival on the actual site, either the tomb itself or outside it.
As Michael and Margaret hurried through the valley and climbed the hill, leading down into the side valley which held the tomb, they spoke very little to each other. Their hearts were full of an intense excitement. Freddy's silence had prepared them for something unusual.
The sun was blazing like a furnace in the valley; a hot wind was blowing from the Sahara. Meg and Michael were too excited to be conscious of their surroundings. Their feet took them mechanically to the scene of operations.
The tomb had been photographed before any modern had set foot in it.
Very hot and very excited, they at last arrived at its entrance, which was guarded by two important-looking Egyptian policemen in modern uniforms. Until Michael and Margaret had satisfactorily proved to them that they had come to assist Effendi Lampton and that they were members of his camp, they were not permitted to go near the aperture.
Their identity being established, they at last began their descent down the deep shaft into the tomb. The hot air which ascended in puffs from the depths below scorched their faces. Meg felt stifled. Still hotter air met them as they continued their descent.
One of the Arab workmen helped Meg by going on in front and making himself into a pillar for her to rest against when she lost her footing. Her feet slipped and stumbled in the soft debris, yet pluckily she always managed to reach the stately Arab. Each time she reached him, she would halt and take a little breath, and with renewed forces she would stumble on a few paces further. It was a very undignified proceeding and an exhausting one.
At last they reached the level of the tomb; they could safely raise their eyes. As they did so, Meg gave a sharp cry of surprise. Never in all the world had she imagined such a wonderful, wonderful sight. A glitter of gold and white and the gleam of precious stones and the brilliant hues of vivid enamels, caught her eyes. Freddy was holding an electric torch in one hand, while with the other he picked up as fast as he could from the ground the bits of carnelian and turquoise and bluelapis-lazuliwhich lay scattered at his feet. Margaret could see nothing clearly; after the darkness, things were all blurred. But she recognized the friendly cigarette-boxes; they were there, and Freddy was filling them as fast as his one hand would allow him. Thousands of mummy-beads powdered the floor with bright blue. The white walls showed a wealth of colour in their paintings.
Freddy was in his white flannels; his modern athletic figure seemed oddly incongruous. He looked up as they appeared.
"Hallo, Meg! Take care—stay where you are—don't move one step further."
He instantly stopped his work and came to their assistance.
"You can't walk too softly or be too careful. All these things are as brittle as burnt egg-shells—the slightest jar may shatter them to atoms." His voice was full of eager happiness.
"Oh, Freddy," Meg said. "It's too wonderful! I never imagined such a scene. You darling!" She hugged his arm.
"Wait a bit," Freddy said. "There's better things to come. I say,Mike, keep your coat close to you—that's right. Now, step like cats."
All three became silent as they picked their way gingerly; their advance required a nicety and precision of step which permitted of no talking or examination of the scene which enthralled them.
At last they reached an inner chamber, the actual tomb itself. An exclamation of amazement burst from both Michael and Margaret simultaneously. It certainly was an extraordinary scene which met their gaze.
"Good heavens!" Mike said, while Meg caught hold of Freddy's arm. She was afraid lest their loud cry might shatter the vision before their eyes. Would it vanish with the coming of the light as the figure of Akhnaton had vanished two mornings before?
A queen, dressed as a bride, in all the magnificence of old Theban splendour, lay stretched at full length on the floor; her arms were folded across her breast, her face dignified by the repose of death, the repose of a Buddha, whose eyes have seen beyond.
This royal effigy was so magnificent, its colours were so untarnished, that light seemed to radiate from the still figure. Here the might of royalty had defied time.
Meg and Mike saw nothing but the bridal figure; they had eyes for it alone, its pathos, its dignity.
Freddy pointed to a coffin which lay near the queen. It was empty; one side of it had been smashed open. A brown and shrivelled mummy, a ghastly object, had fallen out. It lay quite close to the brilliant effigy. Surely this was the skeleton at the feast?
Meg shrank back. In the hot tomb a chill struck her heart. This poor brown object was the real queen. Here time had triumphed.
She looked again, while Freddy held the torch nearer. A vulture with outstretched wings, the ancient emblem of divine protection, cut out of flat gold, sat upon the forehead of the mummy. Its left claw had slipped into the empty eye-socket. A row of long white teeth gaped threateningly up to the roof. The lips had dried and withered until they had become as hard as brown leather. Alas for human vanity! Those lips had once been a lover's, those lips had once responded to human caresses and desires!
Meg's flesh shrank. It was horrible. It was wrong to pry upon this pitiful object which centuries had hidden from man's sight, this humiliation of royal power. Nothing could have illustrated more vividly the mockery and the futility of human greatness. The ghastly cheeks, covered with something which had once been human flesh, the menacing teeth, the embalmed skull, sickened Meg.
For relief she turned her eyes once more to the sublime effigy, to the waiting bride. Her chamber had been furnished with the lavish indulgence of an ardent bridegroom.
Michael was standing by Margaret's side. Her hand caught his; human contact was essential.
The coffin which had once held the mummy had rested on a beautiful wooden trestle, which had been covered with a golden canopy. The legs of the trestle had given way, probably with the weight of the coffin, for the wood had become as brittle and dry as fine egg-shell. With the fall the mummied body had rolled out and landed on the ground.
This, Freddy conjectured, was the explanation of the apparent desecration of the tomb.
After they had looked at all that Freddy could show them until more work had been accomplished, at the two figures which occupied the tomb, the one so abject and distressing the other so magnificent and romantic, and at the furniture which appeared to Meg to have been made only the day before, in spite of Freddy's warning that a breath of cold air would disperse it before their eyes, he told them that "time was up."
Meg's astonishment had increased with the examination of every object—the carved wooden armchair, which appeared to belong to the best Empire period; the exquisite wedding-chest, of lacquer, the blues and greens of its floral decorations still daringly brilliant and vivid—they were far brighter and more perfect than any decorations which a faker of antiquities would dare to perpetrate.
"But, surely," she said at last, when they had come to the end, "this furniture's just pure Empire? Look at it, Mike." She pointed to the exquisite armchair, an object too beautiful and rare for mere human forms to rest in; then she made him examine the couch. A portion of its fine cane seating had given way. Had a ghostly form sat on it? "I thought the French copied their Empire furniture from ancient Greek models?" she said.
"Well, if they did, here we have it in all its perfection," Freddy said. "In Egypt you'll find the originals of more than Empire furniture. The thing is, where did the Egyptians get their models from? None of the Louis's ever gave their Pompadours, nor Napoleon his Josephine, anything as beautiful as that." He pointed to the casket.
"And the very air which keeps us alive will destroy these," said Meg. "It's odd, the way which things that have existed intact for three thousand years without air will be killed by it!"
"Have you any definite ideas about that figure?" Mike referred to the mummy. "Whose is it?"
"The whole thing is very bewildering. The tomb obviously hasn't been plundered, for nothing of any value is missing, and yet, as you can see, some of the gold wrappings have been torn from the mummy, certain things have been defaced on the walls—the tomb is not as it was when the body was first laid here."
"No," Mike said. "Obviously not. The entrance has been tampered with and those outer walls built; and look at all that debris in the shaft. Yet, as you say, the obvious things of intrinsic value have not been removed."
Meg pointed to a recess in the wall; it still held the canopic jars. Their lids were splendidly formed out of head-portraits of the queen. Meg knew their meaning, their use; they held the intestines of the dead. The Biblical expression, "bowels of compassion," always came to her mind when she looked at canopic jars. These jars had their significance.
A very good significance, too, she thought, for certainly our bowels are highly sensitive organs, responding and acting in complete sympathy with our mental condition. And who can say for certain where our compassions are seated, our sensibilities and sympathies? Why not, as the Egyptians thought, in our bowels rather than in our brains? "Joseph's bowels did yearn upon his brother Benjamin."
"Then you have no idea who the queen was?" Meg said.
"Not yet," Freddy said. "But we shall know. No Egyptian could enter into his future abode without his name. It was always plainly and repeatedly written on the embalmed mummy. His identification was absolutely essential."
"What a help to Egyptologists!" Meg said.
"Probably her name will be written on these golden wrappings and on the scarabs, if we find any. Nothing has been done yet. This precaution of the ancients, in the matter of names, has, as you say, saved us endless work. If plunderers haven't obliterated the name and stolen the scarabs and other marks of identification, we generally discover who it is."
Meg sighed. "Is it just ordinary desert and daylight still up above,Freddy? I can't believe it. We seem to be back in the Egypt of thePharaohs down here."
They all looked silently again at the wonderful sight, far more wonderful than words can suggest—the power of Egypt, the mystery of death.
"The soothsayer was quite true," Meg said. "His words were more than true."
"Yes," Freddy said, "more than true. And the odd thing is that he said what I thought was a lot of rot about a 'bridal figure,' its splendour, its brilliance. He visualized it almost correctly. He said, too, that there would be great trouble for us in the work; he saw difficulties and errors and wrong judgments. Nothing was clear, beyond the brilliance of the figure and the objects. I wonder if he will be right in that as well?"
Michael and Margaret looked at each other. Obviously Freddy had been influenced by the accuracy of the visionary's predictions. His voice was free from scoffing. He owned that it was extraordinary—the manner in which the man's words had come true. Neither Meg nor Michael made any remark; they held their tongues in patience.
"There is certainly plenty of gold," Freddy said, "and jewels and much fine apparel. I hope we shan't encounter the great difficulty he expects, as regards the historical problems and arguments it may open up. He predicts that the opinions of the learned Egyptologists will be cast out; their judgments will be at fault. What at first will appear obvious and clear will not be the lasting truth."
"How odd!" Mike said. "Was he very pleased to hear of the correctness of his predictions so far?"
"I haven't told him."
"Not told him?"
"No, it's wiser not. I've done my best to keep the astonishing richness of the tomb from the ears of the natives. No one has been inside it but the Chief Inspector and the photographer and you two. No words have been spoken—you must not talk."
Meg's heart bounded. It was delightful to be one of the privileged few, to be trusted and accepted as one of the school. She felt like a great explorer who had set foot in untravelled country.
"If we stand here, without moving," she said; "quite, quite still, mayn't we stay for a little bit longer? I'm so full of wonder and amazement, Freddy. I can't begin to think intelligently or see things separately—everything is a blurred mass of white and gold and blue and priceless objects."
"No, Meg, I'm sorry—I can't let you stay. You see, I must take this light with me and get on with picking up those small objects. You'll see all of them to-night. And with out the light you would be in total darkness—real Egyptian darkness."
"That's the thing that beats me. Freddy, how do you solve the problem?—had they electric torches, or were these tombs only built for supernatural eyes to enjoy?"
"They certainly didn't use flares or torches in tombs, as the early Christians did in the Roman catacombs, for there's no trace on the walls of dirt or smoke as there is on the low walls of the catacombs. There is absolutely nothing to tell us how they lighted these vast buildings up, how they even introduced sufficient light to paint them by or to build them. Look at the minuteness of these figures."
"Surely they never built all these wonderful tombs and took the trouble to paint them with the brightest colours if they were never again to be seen with mortal eyes? I can't believe it."
"So far we don't know. Perhaps theKa, the part of a man who lived for ever in his eternal home, had supernatural powers of sight. The joys were for him. But how did they paint them in the darkness?"
"Is that fact ever alluded to?"
"No, theKais treated in a perfectly human and natural manner. All his pleasures were material ones. It's very odd—but we'll discover the secret yet."
"If they had some secret form of wireless telegraphy, they may just as well have had some secret means of producing light, don't you think? You've not discovered their wireless code, yet, have you?"
"No, that's still a secret. And they certainly used no apparatus for electric light, if they knew of it. There are no wires in the tombs." He laughed. "You know, there is a lift in the Forum at Rome; it was used for bringing the beasts up to the arena from underground cages. It is in use to-day, I believe."
"We've not discovered one hundredth part of what they had or hadn't,"Meg said. "They probably used radium to cure diseases."
"The Etruscans had dentists who knew the use of gold for stopping teeth—we know that."
"Yes, I've seen a skull with gold-stopped teeth in the Etruscan Museum at Rome."
They had reached the beginning of the steep climb which was to take them up to the open desert. Freddy left them with the assurance that he would come back to lunch. The two policemen were to be responsible for the guarding of the tomb. If anything was disturbed, they would be held to account.
When Margaret and Michael at last reached the open desert, Meg flung herself down and gazed up into the sky. It had never seemed so blue and beautiful before. The clear air rushed into her lungs. Oh, the sweetness and the dearness of the daylight and the real world! The joy it was to press her body close, close to the desert! She put her face down to it. Nothing in all her life had ever been so reassuring and comforting.
Michael was seated beside her. The world was so wide and open and bewildering; he felt giddy, stupefied. Surrounding them was the ever-wonderful light of the desert, the yellow sands and, in the distance, the masses of moving figures, working like busy insects at the clearing away of the tomb-rubbish. Native chants and the noise of picks and spades shovelling up the debris broke the stillness. Life was just as it had been for the last two months. The desert was as it had been before the tribes of Israel followed Moses. Down below them, under the golden sand, in the dark bowels of the earth, Freddy was still picking up precious jewels and packing them into the cigarette-boxes, the effigy of the royal bride still lay in all her Pharaonic splendour. She was there, underneath them, waiting and waiting as she had waited for three thousand years for her heavenly bridegroom. And still by her side lay that shrivelled, withered corpse, the real queen, for whose pride and honour the vast underground temple had been built. The brown mummy was the thing which mattered, the real owner of the costly home.
Freddy, in his white flannels, with his modern mind, was alone with these two forms, alone and shut off from the embracing, loving light of the desert. It was not a quarter of an hour since Meg and he had been there; now they were as far away from the withered mummy and the resplendent bride as though they had travelled across the breadth of the world.
His mind went back to the time before the excavating of the tomb was begun, when it had seemed absurd to suppose that all this splendour lay under their feet. It seemed to him now as though the whole of Egypt might be honeycombed in this subterranean manner.
Meg still lay embracing the sun-warmed sand, rejoicing in the dazzling sunshine.
"It makes one feel very humble," she said at last. "So utterly, utterly unimportant. It doesn't seem as if it much matters what happens, not even to our love, Mike."
Mike raised his face from his hands. "I know," he said. "It is absolute devastation, nothing more or less. I'm shattered, Meg."
"It seems hardly worth while trying to do anything. Tomorrow we'll be like that. It's so difficult to explain, except that it's just wiped out my eagerness, it's made our own precious happiness seem absurd and hollow, human beings ridiculous."
"Dearest, I understand, I feel the same," Mike said. "All that down there"—he stuck his stick into the sand—"illustrates a bit too plainly the things we want to forget."
"It shows us the absurdity of what we think are the things that matter.It's really destructive to anything like worldly fame and ambition.Those poor shrunken cheeks, those poor leathery lips, those poor, poordiadems and jewels!"
Mike let her ramble on. It was good for her to give utterance to her incoherent thoughts.
"They are so different when you see them in a museum," she said."They're impersonal there. They don't hurt one's self-importance."
"In Cairo they belong to a number and a glass case," Mike said. "They lose their individuality."
"Here they are a part of Egypt, that ancient, undying Egypt! You and I, like those dogs, Mike, won't have even bones to record us after three thousand years. Our bowels of tenderness will not lie intact in alabaster jars! Oh, Mike, take me in your arms! I want humanity, I want the things of to-day, I want all which that mummy has ridiculed! I hated it, Mike! I love life and your love! I want to forget that we are here to-day and gone to-morrow, mere human gnats."
Mike held her close to his heart. Meg could hear it beating. Oh, beloved humanity! Oh, dear human flesh and blood!
"That's lovely, Mike—that's you and me! That's our certain human love, our happiness! It is worth while, and it's not going to be like the running out of an hour-glass while an egg is boiling! It's going to last for ages and ages, isn't it? Say it is, Mike!"
"Yes, beloved." Mike kissed her hands.
She drew them away. "Don't kiss them, Mike. I feel as if they will be dried skeletons by to-morrow, and as if your lips, dearest, will have shrunk and shrunk right back until your teeth gape out of your hideous brown skull up to the blue above. Do you wonder that Akhnaton prayed so ardently that his spirit might come out and see the sun?"
Meg's head was buried in her hands. She was visualizing again the wonderful scene, which had taught her the mockery of all things which had formerly appeared so precious and important. It seemed to her at the moment that to sit down in the desert under the blue sky, and there wait for death, was the only thing to do. Nothing really mattered. Eternity enthralled her. Her happiness with Mike was but the swift hurrying of a white cloud across a summer sky, the work of the Exploration School a mere illustration of worldly vanity. In the great chaos which possessed her soul there was no light to comfort her. In looking into the past she had unexpectedly seen into the future. She had beheld the scorn and callousness of eternity.
Oddly enough, it was Michael who helped her to pull herself together and turn her thoughts to practical things, to the needs of the day. His more mystical nature, his familiarity with the mythology of Egypt and other occult subjects, had in a measure prepared his mind for the things which had burst suddenly upon Meg's practical nature. He had been subconsciously prepared for the tomb to be one of unusual importance. The soothsayer's prediction had not been mere charlatanry to him. His secret thoughts were so constantly focussed on what is termed the superhuman, that Meg's wonder and horror formed only a minor part of his emotions.
A thousand thoughts had flashed through his mind when he first saw the amazing display of jewels and faience and gold, the resplendent queen, whose royal magnificence had mocked at time. The inexhaustible wealth of buried Egypt forced before his eyes the treasure of gold of which Akhnaton had spoken, that imperial wealth which he had buried behind the hills of his fair capital. He felt convinced that it was there; he felt convinced that his friend in el-Azhar had seen it, just as the Arab soothsayer had seen the royal effigy dressed as a bride.
Mike had little conversation even for Meg. His mind was harassed and absorbed. The fresh impetus which he had received was pounding like a sledge-hammer at his natural and supernatural forces. His natural self was the devil's advocate, and a very able one. It argued against the super-instincts which led him to the treasure. It made him practical. It made him, as Freddy would have declared, "sanely critical of the insane." It admitted the apparent folly of the thing into which he was drifting.
He pulled Meg up from her seat on the sand. He realized that her domestic duties were what her nerves needed; they had lately been greatly taxed, first by her vision of Akhnaton and now by the excitement of their entry into the tomb.[1]
A lover's kisses and strong human arms had done much for Meg. She had a horror of hysterical females. She pulled herself together and determined to be practical. Only a few moments before she had felt an almost uncontrollable desire to burst into tears. How thankful she was that Mike had saved her from the humiliation!
But how in the world was she going to bring herself back to the paltry things of every day? How was she ever again going to feel that life was real and actual?
She entered the hut with unwilling feet and troubled mind; for some unaccountable reason its atmosphere depressed her; she wished to avoid it—she felt a curious apprehension of bad news or of coming evil. At the same time, practical work would be beneficial.
As they came in together, Mohammed Ali greeted Michael with the news that "One lady and one gentleman has come, very long time they wait. Lady she stays inside, gentleman he go up the valley."
Instantly life was real again, and Meg a living, angry woman. "She" who stayed inside could only mean Mrs. Mervill. The tomb was forgotten, as was the royal bride. They belonged to the past; the present was all-engrossing.
The present hour was the living reality and Michael, her lover, and her own love were the things that mattered, the woman in the hut the one brilliant vision. Life was vital, urgent. A gnat's life would be long enough if it was to be passed with the woman whom she knew, in the coming struggle, would fight with tools which she, Meg, would not dare or deign to touch. As vivid as her vision of the tomb was her memory of Millicent Mervill's beauty. She could see it illuminating their desert hut; she could feel it eclipsing her own less vivid colouring as the sun had eclipsed the rays of Akhnaton.
Mike looked at her. Meg's cheeks were pale, her eyes deeply shadowed.He hated the woman inside the tent. What had she come for?
A silent kiss separated them. With the kiss Meg's heart took courage.It left no room for fear.
[1] The description of the interior of this tomb is taken from various reliable accounts of the interior of the tomb of Thiy. As Queen Thiy was the mother of Akhnaton, her tomb must have been discovered before the events described in this story, otherwise they could not have known that Akhnaton's mummy had been found in his mother's tomb.
When the tomb was first examined, the mummy which had fallen out of the coffin was supposed to be that of Queen Thiy. The light of after-events and of scientific research have proved that the mummy was that of a young man of about twenty-five years of age. The conclusion is that Akhnaton's body was brought from his original burying-place near his "City of the Horizon," and placed in his mother's tomb in the Western Hills.
The name of Akhnaton had been erased from the coffin, but it was still readable on the gold ribbons which encircled the body.
When Michael entered the sitting-room of the hut, Millicent Mervill was reading one of Freddy's French novels. There had been plenty of time for her to powder herself and cool down and settle to her liking her dainty person. She looked as fresh and cool and pink as a bough of apple-blossom.
She greeted Michael with a charming mixture of friendliness and discretion. She had brought a friend up the valley, to see all that tourists had to see. He had been put into her hands by a letter of introduction from friends in America. They had seen all that her health would allow her to see, on such a hot day. She had noticed their camp in passing up the valley and could not resist visiting it on her way back. Might she ask for an hour's rest from the sun? Her friend was going to call back for her on the return journey.
"I knew you wouldn't mind," she said. "And I'm not going to stop your work, or bother you."
"I'm not busy," Michael said—"at least, not for the moment." His eyes avoided Millicent's, which seemed to him bluer than usual; but his voice was less cold. His first greeting had been curt and almost impatient. Millicent was evidently wiser and less difficult; she was the same Millicent who had behaved so delightfully at the Pyramids. When she was like that he was glad to be nice to her; he was almost pleased to see her.
As their conversation continued—it was mostly about the tomb and its great importance—a subconscious thought that she had come to the hut for some reason which she was not divulging forced itself more and more strongly on Michael. He became convinced of it; she seemed so unusually contented and satisfied with the plan of confining her visit to a short rest in the hut and their conversation to "the things of Egyptology," that even Michael was suspicious. She was "douce comme un lupin blanc," as she expressed it to herself later on. Her usual insistence had vanished. She treated Michael as a friend, with the proper touch of intimacy. This was when they were alone.
When Margaret came into the room, she hardened. Naturally Margaret invited her to stay for lunch. She was Michael's friend.
"It is always a very light meal with us," she said. "But such as it is, you are welcome to share it."
"Freddy likes his proper meal at night," Michael said.
"Thanks ever so much," Millicent said; she had noticed the coldness of Margaret's voice. "I'd love to stay—that's to say, if it won't really be giving you any trouble—you're looking fagged." She turned to Michael. "What have you been doing with her?" Millicent spoke as if she really cared. "You're too young for such tired eyes, for these lines," she touched Meg's eyes and pulled open the corners. Meg's shrinking gave her satisfaction. "Don't let Egypt ruin your looks, my dear—a woman is only half a woman when her beauty fades; she's only a woman in the eyes of one half of mankind while it lasts."
"Do you think so?" Meg said. "I dare say you're right, but when one is quite young one never stops to consider these things. As you get older, I suppose you do."
The hit went home; the girl had claws.
"We are only as young as we look, are we not? These few weeks have ragged you to pieces."
"I don't mind," said Meg. "It's been well worth it. You may as well get ten years into ten weeks as ten weeks into ten years. I've been gobbling up life, years and years of new experiences and sensations in these last few weeks." Meg meant no more than her words would have conveyed to any sweet-minded woman, but Millicent Mervill put her own interpretation on them. Margaret was no mean fencer; she could hit back as well as parry strokes.
"You've certainly said good-bye to conventions, my dear. I admire you for taking your life into your own hands." The blue eyes searched Margaret's; they spoke of a hundred things which made Margaret long to throw the tumbler which she was placing on the table at her golden head. Margaret was neither ignorant nor a fool; Millicent's eyes explained her meaning.
"One has to say good-bye to conventions in the desert—nothing can be too simple here. That's why Western fashions look so grotesque, our ideas of becoming garments so ludicrous."
Meg had ignored the innuendoes. Her eyes rested on Millicent's absurd shoes and fashionably-cut white serge coat and skirt—a charming suit, but out of place in the hut.
"Is your brother still here?" Millicent asked the question with a beautiful insouciance. She was perfectly well aware that he was personally superintending the excavation of the tomb. Her words were meant to annoy.
"Here?" Meg said. "In the hut at this moment, do you mean? No—he is busy." Meg's eyes flashed with anger.
Michael was silently enjoying the battle of words and eyes which was taking place between the two women. The very atmosphere was charged with antagonism. He was delighted to find that Margaret held her own.
"No—I meant, is he still in the valley, or are you two alone here? How deliciously romantic!" Millicent sighed. The sigh was more suggestive than her words.
"My brother is in the tomb at this moment," Meg said. "You seem to have very extraordinary ideas of the ways of excavators"—she had flushed to the roots of her hair—"of the behaviour of ordinary English people."
"What was the desert made for, but freedom, my dear? If one can't live in this valley as one wants to, where can one, I should like to know?"
"We are living as we like," Meg said. "Your ideas of freedom may not be mine. Our interests lie apart—our ideas of enjoyment are, as far as I can understand, poles apart."
"A foolish waste of time, my dear, that's all I can say. May I smoke?"
Michael handed her a box of cigarettes; he noticed the exquisite refinement of her hands as she picked out a cigarette, her brightly-polished nails. "Thanks, dear," she said, as she lit the cigarette from the match which he held out to her—the "dear" was for Meg's benefit; for as their eyes met hers were full of genuine fun and mischief.
"I must tease her," she said, in a low whisper; Meg had gone to the end of the room. "I love shocking those dark eyes—I enjoy making her hate me. It's only fun."
Meg's heart was beating. How dared she call Michael "dear"? How dared she intrude herself uninvited upon their simple life? Her beauty, her foolish feminine clothes, angered her. She hated Millicent's fine skin, which was, even in the desert heat, as poreless as a baby's. It was a wonderful skin for a grown person, let alone for a woman of Millicent Mervill's age. Meg thought of the dried mummy's lips. One day that pure soft flesh, which held the tints of a field daisy, would be more revolting to look at if it were unearthed than the skin of the three-thousand-year-old queen. If Meg had possessed a wishing-ring, it would not have taken long to effect the inevitable change.
The impudence of the woman maddened her. She knew that she could not, even if she had wished to, behave as she did. Millicent did exactly as she liked, as the impulse of the minute suggested.
Meg wondered how she had passed the time while they were at the tomb. Had she examined any private object in the hut? Had she interviewed the servants? She was quite capable of doing it.
She heard her whisper to Mike. Her own sensitiveness now drove her out of the hut; if they wished to speak in whispers, let them speak. She stood sullenly outside the door.
Why did not some strong man strangle women like Millicent Mervill? Why had not she herself the courage to tell her what she thought of her? Probably Millicent would only smile and show her perfect teeth—they always made Meg furious, because they were even better than her own, and hers were, so she thought, her strongest asset—and say, "Poor girl! You are a little overtired"; or she would say, "You have so much to make you happy, dear, and I have so little. Don't be unkind—I only long for sympathy."
Millicent's moments of self-pity were mean and contemptible and yet they were effective.
The only thing to do was to leave the two alone, to trust Michael and go about her business.
Presently she heard Michael say: "Well, I'll leave you to rest until lunch-time—I can't idle while Freddy is working like a nigger. You'll be all right, I know, with your book and a cigarette."
Margaret slipped round to the back of the hut; she did not want to speak to Michael; she was thankful that he had left Mrs. Mervill, but his voice had been too kind, too nice. Meg did not know what she would have liked him to do, what he could have done otherwise. She only knew that the niceness of his voice annoyed her.
When the overseer's whistle for the workmen to "down picks and spades" sounded and the time was ripe for Freddy to appear, Margaret sauntered off to meet him. When she saw him coming she hurried towards him. How she loved him!
When they met she said, "That cat Mrs. Mervill is here. Oh, Freddy, I hate her!"
Freddy laughed. Millicent Mervill, with her extreme modernity and virile passions, was so far removed from the thought of the tomb, from the brown mummy, whose golden ribbons he had been examining; his sister's annoyance was so utterly unlike her mood of the earlier morning! He had never seen Meg so moved as she had been in the tomb. He felt a little relieved that a very human and irritating influence had suddenly thrust itself across her path. Meg was getting too enthralled in Egypt. These thoughts flashed through his mind.
"Good old Meg," he said tenderly. "The fighting Lampton's roused, is it?"
"Yes," Meg said. "I am roused. She's so insolent, Freddy."
"What?" he said, stopping her before she got further. "Insolent? to whom?"
"To . . ." Meg hesitated. "To life," she said abruptly. "She says things that I could hit her for saying. Freddy, do squash her!—she suggests something nasty with every word she utters."
"I'll try and flirt with her—won't that do?"
"No, don't, Freddy!" Fear clutched at Meg's heart; the woman in her trembled for her brother. Millicent was so fair, so tempting; Freddy was young and, Meg thought, ignorant of the wiles of women.
"You'd rather I did than Mike?" Freddy's eyes laughed as he watched the blush rise to his sister's cheeks. It made her extraordinarily attractive—indeed, fighting seemed to suit Meg. He pinched her arm; they were close pals, tried chums. "I know your secret, Meg—I've had eyes for other things than the tomb!"
"Do you mind, Freddy?" Meg slipped her arm through her brother's; her eyes shone with happiness.
Freddy pressed her arm close to his side. Meg loved him for it. "If I'd minded I shouldn't have let things go so far, should I? I could have packed you off home."
"You've been a darling, Freddy, and I'm so happy! I never knew anything could be so perfect. I sound silly, don't I?"
"No. Mike's one of the very best, Meg. But you'll have to look after him a bit." Freddy's voice was graver.
"How do you mean, Freddy?" Meg at once thought of Mrs. Mervill.Freddy read her thoughts in her voice.
"I don't mean in that way—rather not! He's as straight as a die. I mean, you'll have to help him to walk on his two legs, Meg—stop him standing on his head, make him practical."
"I love him for it, Freddy."
"But it doesn't pay. We're of this world and we've got to live in this world. Mike's always trying to get beyond it, to get into touch with the other side. It's no good meddling with that sort of thing, it always has a disastrous effect on the human mind and human happiness, which proves to me that we're not intended to know or to get in touch with those who have left us. It's unwise to give up one's thoughts to the supernatural."
"Perhaps it is," Meg said, "but why should we be contented to stand still about all that sort of thing, while we leap ahead in science and material progress and everything else? Mike thinks the true understanding is coming, the darkness we have lived in is passing away."
"He may be right," Freddy said. "But for your happiness, Meg, I wish he'd chuck it. The 'sublime truth of spiritualism' he talks about, and the 'God-ruled world-state'—the one's dangerous to his bodily welfare, the other's the Utopian dream of failures. I don't want you to marry a failure, old girl. I want you to have the sort of life you're fitted for."
"People must be what they are, Freddy, and failure isn't a failure if it's done its bit. Rome wasn't built in a day, or the union of Italy achieved without broken hearts—modern Italy had its failures, its Utopian dreamers, long before Garibaldi's triumphant thousand marched into Rome."
"That's true, only one never wants a failure to be a member of one's own family. I don't want a dreamer for a brother-in-law, Meg—not for your husband."
"The Lamptons always want to come in with the victorious legions," Meg said. They were nearing the hut. "It seems as if the real victors in life were what we call the failures, the pioneers of truth."