A horrible suspicion devastated Michael's brain. He could brook no uncertainty. Abdul's lengthy manner of getting to the point irritated him as it had never done before.
"Out with it, Abdul! Having said so much, you must say more." Michael was compelling his servant to give utterance to the suspicion which had become almost a certainty in his mind.
"Aiwah, Effendi. The treasure has already been discovered."
"Good God! Do you think it is that, Abdul?"
"Aiwah, Effendi." Abdul's voice was contrite.
Michael felt as if all movement in the world had suddenly been arrested. Then his mind began scrambling amid the ruins of his dreams for some lucid thought, for some reason which would explain why he was seated high up on a camel's back in the eastern desert.
He had never dreamed of such an ending to his dreams. In his most despondent moods he had contemplated no greater misfortune than the stealing of the jewels and the gold, the looting of its portable treasures by nativeantikahunters. His super-man had never seriously contemplated even that misfortune; his faith was unshaken, his optimism complete.
The shock he had received affected his physical as well as his mental condition. An overwhelming desire came to him to get off his high seat and throw himself down on the sand and go to sleep for ever and ever. That hateful flag, those smiling tents! whose whiteness had brought a vision of Millicent's tent floating before his eyes.
"There are three tents, Effendi. Shall we journey towards them?" Abdul's voice sounded far away. What was he talking about? Michael tried to concentrate his thoughts.
"Oh yes, of course!" His voice was listless. "We must go on. You may be wrong." He struggled for mind-control.
He urged his camel to a quicker pace. They rode on in silence. Abdul was now convinced that the harlot—or, in other words, Mohammed Ali's "golden lady"—had wreaked her vengeance on his master. He had taken into his camp the fever-stricken saint; she had slipped away in the night and discovered the treasure. With a comprehensiveness which would have astounded the impurest of Western ears, he cursed Millicent and her vile offspring into the third and fourth generations.
As Michael got off his kneeling camel, a young Englishman left a tent, the outer one of the three which formed the excavation-camp, the white tents which Michael had seen from his high seat, and came quickly forward. It was obvious that strangers might come thus far and no further. In a voice of official authority, yet by no means ungraciously, he said to Michael:
"Can I do anything for you? What do you want? I'm afraid you can't come any nearer."
Michael looked blankly into the thin, intelligent face, a sunburnt face, which any woman would have described as attractively ugly. For a moment or two neither man spoke. There was an unpleasant silence. It was significant of the atmosphere of the meeting. It expressed to the excavator strain, rather than shyness, on the traveller's part. He had told Michael that he might come no further; he had asked him if he wanted anything.
At both remarks Michael almost laughed hysterically. He was not allowed to come any closer to his own treasure, to the gift of Akhnaton, to the legacy of the Pharaoh, which had been divinely revealed to him! This interloper had asked him if he wanted anything!
Quicker than light these thoughts flashed through his bewildered brain, while between himself and this representative of the Government the figure of the world's first divinely-inspired man, with the rays of Aton shining brilliantly from behind his head, became clearer and clearer. It obliterated the figure of the excavator.
"What are these tents doing here?" He managed to ask the question by sheer force of will power; he felt relieved that the words had come. "And that flag?"—he pointed to the Khedivial banner.
His companion hesitated for a moment. Who was this dazed questioner, who had suddenly appeared out of the sands of the desert? He looked almost as worn and physically exhausted as a desert fanatic.
"This is an excavation camp which has just been sanctioned by the Minister of Public Works. We are engaged in making temporary researches. The time-limit is one month."
Without being in the least discourteous, his words conveyed the impression that in so short a time there was more to be done than talk to curious travellers.
"How long has the camp been here?" Michael asked. "I hope you won't think my questions impertinent. I have a very particular reason for wishing to know."
The blue eyes in the thin face became more alert. They searched Michael's face with the same scrutiny as they searched the debris of the ruins.
"About four days," he said coldly.
"Has the Government claimed the site?" Michael's voice trembled as he asked the question; it was so hard to keep cool.
"The Government is entitled to expropriate any land containing antiquities on paying a valuation and ten per cent. over, but this, of course, was not private property. It belongs to the Government."
"Yes, of course. I know something about these new rules—I have been working with Lampton in the Valley."
"Oh!" The stranger's voice at once became cordial and intimate. "I didn't know that I was speaking to a fellow-digger. How's Lampton?"
"I wasn't actually digging—I was doing some painting for him, and inking the pottery drawings. His latest discovery has developed amazing theories."
"So I've heard. But you look a bit done up. Come inside and have a drink." Before entering the tent, the stranger looked round. "Who's your man? Is he all right?"
"He's one of Lampton's men—absolutely trustworthy. He's been more than a servant to me for some weeks now." Michael paused, and then said abruptly, "Who told the Government of this site? What do you expect to find?"
"Will you first tell me where you got your information? Did you know we were here?"
"TheOmdehin the subterranean village spoke of it. He told me that the natives had discovered a hidden treasure, a sort of King Solomon's Mine, and that they were wading knee-deep in jewels and falling over crocks stuffed with Nubian gold—a desert fairytale, I suppose?"
"Absolutely! If there ever was any gold, it was not here when we arrived, and as for the jewels. . . !" He laughed. "Hallo! Are you feeling queer?"
Michael had managed to get inside the tent, but it was the limit of what his legs and head were fit for. He collapsed on to a lounge, made of wooden boxes covered with some rugs.
The stranger unfastened the padlock of a similar box to one of those upon which he was sitting with a key which hung from a chain at his side. He raised the lid; it had been converted into a wine-cellar.
"Hold hard," he said, in a kindly voice. "I'll give you a drink."
Michael was not fainting; he was merely in a state of physical collapse. He gladly accepted the proffered hospitality.
When he had swallowed the whisky, he said: "I'm sorry, but I've been feeling a bit queer lately. For some days past I've had a touch of the sun." He could not tell this stranger of his bitter disappointment.
"Have you ridden far to-day?"
"Yes. I've been in the desert for some time now. We started this morning at dawn." He put the glass down on the rough trestle-table. "Thanks most awfully. I feel a lot better. You said there was no truth in the report about the gold and the jewels—what are you expecting?"
"We have seen no trace of gold so far, but you must remember that it was a native who brought the information. Any discoverer is bound to inform the Government, and any portable object accidentally found must be given up within six days."
"But the finder receives half its value?"
"Yes, but if there was this treasure-trove of gold and jewels, it's doubtful if natives would hand that over. It would have been a different thing if it had been monumental objects, or even antiques, as they always run the risk of being caught trafficking in them. They would be inclined to think that half their value is better than none, with the added risk of the heavy penalty. The new rules are very stringent."
"But the jewels? Is there no trace of any precious stones? Don't you think there's a little fire for all that smoke?"
"We heard all these wonderful reports, but we have found no trace of any treasure. What the native reported was that he, along with some otherfellahin, had accidentally come across some traces of ancient masonry, not far from Akhnaton's tomb. After digging for a few days, they discovered an underground passage, which led into a chamber; in it we came upon some papyri."
"You have found papyri?" Michael said. His tired eyes suddenly glowed; his excitement was obvious.
"Yes, we have found papyri. They promise to be of exceptional interest."
"Of what dynasty?" Michael could scarcely speak, or hide his anxiety while he waited for an answer to his question. To be able to assume an outward appearance of calmness, he was putting a great strain on his self-control. He held himself so well in hand that the stranger little guessed how much his answer meant to the exhausted traveller.
"Amenhotep IV."
A cry rang through the room. "Akhnaton! did you say? Then it is true!" Margaret, the old man in el-Azhar, and the saint, they had all seen and spoken the truth. For a moment the stranger was forgotten. It was Margaret who was looking at him with glad triumphant eyes. Happy Meg!
"Yes, the heretic Pharaoh," the stranger said, as he gazed fixedly at Michael. Was this man more than a little touched with the sun? He felt nervous of how to proceed. Why was he so excited and pleased? "These hills, you know, were the boundary of his capital. You appear interested in him? He certainly was a wonderful character."
The more conventional and colder tones of his voice made Michael guarded. Kind as he was, he was just the type of man who would laugh to scorn anything he might have told him. Freddy's friendly laughter never troubled Michael; the scorn of a stranger was a different thing.
"Have they deciphered any of the papyri?"
"No, we haven't had the time. We've only gone into them sufficiently to discover their date. This is, of course, a temporary search. We can only do in a month what is absolutely necessary. If regular excavations are to be made, which I presume there will be, we shall, of course, have to wait for a bit, while the final regulations are gone through, and until the necessary money is forthcoming. These last new rules and restrictions are putting a stop to any private enterprise. There is nothing left to pay the cost of the dig."
"On the whole, I suppose, they do good?"
"They don't do what they were meant to do—and that is, stop the stealing and the selling of valuable antiques which the Government, rightly enough, does not wish to leave the country, and desires to have the disposal of."
"I had hoped the new restrictions would stop that."
"You see, the penalties only apply to the natives and the Turks, with the result that the native dealer simply puts an Italian or a Greek name over his door. To the foreigner, the native is only the agent, officially—the dealer is the Greek or Italian whose name is over the door."
"They'd be sure to get out of the difficulty somehow," Michael said."About antiques they have no conscience, and they are awfully clever."
"An inspector may now raid their premises at any time of the day or night, and nothing is allowed to be sold outside authorized and licensed shops. Every dealer has to keep a day-book, with an entry of each object in his shop over five pounds in value, the purchaser's name must be filled in, and every page of the register sealed by the Inspector of Antiquities."
Michael laughed. "Trust the native mind to find a way to circumvent all these fine restrictions!"
His thoughts had flown to Millicent. If she had, as Abdul believed, discovered the jewels and the gold, where were they now? It was very odd that, even with this damning evidence that she had anticipated his find before his eyes—for she and she alone could have known of it—his finer senses refused to believe that she had cheated and tricked him. He had no argument to put forward to justify his belief; it was one of those beliefs which are rooted in something finer and truer than circumstantial evidence. His only argument in her favour was that he had never found her mercenary, but, as Abdul had answered him, a woman will sell her soul for jewels.
He felt woefully sick and dejected, far too physically exhausted to run the risk of exposing himself to the scorn and laughter of the excavator, who was speaking to him in a manner which unconsciously betrayed to the hypersensitive Michael that he considered the traveller rather too odd to waste much valuable time over. Michael wondered, in a slow, broken sort of way, what the cold eyes would look like if he suddenly produced the uncut crimson amethyst from the purse in his waistbelt. He would probably have said that it was a clever part of the native fable; he would probably say that the ancient stone might have come from any royal tomb in Egypt, that it proved nothing.
As a lengthy silence had elapsed, Michael felt that it was incumbent on him to be getting on his way. He must pretend to the excavator that he was now well enough to resume his journey. As he rose, rather inertly, from his low seat, he said:
"You say the native who brought the information of the find said nothing at all about the jewels and the gold?"
"Not a word! We have heard all that since. As you know, news travels in the desert in the most amazing fashion, once the natives get ear of it."
"Won't you try and follow up the track of the story—find out how it originated? Are you content to take it for granted that it is all moonshine?"
"We are doing something about it—but it's very difficult." The stranger spoke guardedly. "The only way is to set a thief to catch a thief. Gold can be melted, ancient stones can be cut, a hundred dealers will be eager to run any risk to get them."
A flood of anger coloured Michael's face; it brought out beads of perspiration on his forehead. He could scarcely contain himself; his rage tore at his bowels. His long journey, all that he had gone through—was this the end of it? Could anything be more fiat, more stale, more unprofitable? What a sudden tumble from the blue to brown earth! Above all, how maddening to have to hold his tongue, because no man would believe the story he could tell them, to have meekly to submit to the conventional etiquette of the moment! He felt anything but conventional. His anger had driven all finer feelings from his mind. If he could only find the native who had desecrated the treasure-trove, he would hang and quarter him without mercy!
"I'm afraid I must be getting back to my work," the excavator said. "But you needn't hurry. Rest here for as long as you like, only don't think me inhospitable if I leave you. Time's too precious to waste one moment."
"Thanks very much," Michael said. "But I'm quite fit. You've been awfully kind. It's time I was on my way."
"Where are you going to?"
"Back to my camp."
"Back to your camp? where did you leave it?"
Michael told him.
"Then did you come on here on purpose to visit this dig? Had you heard of it before you saw theOmdehin the underground village?"
"I'd rather not answer your question at present, if you don't mind. All that I know about it, Lampton also knows. . . . Some day, I hope, if we meet again, I will tell you the whole thing. It's an odd story, even for Egypt."
The man looked annoyed. "You can't tell me anything more? Have you any information that could help us? We have our suspicions that things aren't straight. If the natives weren't wading knee-deep in jewels, there was probably, as you say, some truth in the report that there were valuable antiques."
"I've nothing reliable to go upon," Michael said. "Nothing that a man in his normal senses would pay any attention to—that was Lampton's verdict."
Again the stranger looked at Michael with calm, searching eyes.
"Yet you believe in what you heard? You believed enough to bring you across the desert to find it?"
"If you ask Lampton, he'll tell you that I'm not quite in my normal senses—that I frequently walk on my head."
"Lampton's a sound man."
"Well, that's his opinion."
"You're a rum chap," the stranger said, as he noticed that a glint of humour had for the moment driven the expression of exhaustion from Michael's eyes. "Anyhow, I hope you'll not feel too knocked up when you arrive in camp, and that we'll meet again."
"I feel as if I could sleep for a year."
"Have another whisky before you go?"
"No thanks. I think one has been more than enough—it's made me confoundedly tired."
They were standing at the open front of the tent.
"Good-bye," Michael said. "And thanks most awfully for your hospitality. I suppose you won't settle on the work here until next season?"
"No, it will be hot enough at the end of three weeks, though it's cooler here than with Lampton in the Valley. If the money is forthcoming, we shall take up work again next October."
They parted abruptly, as Englishmen do. Twofellahin, mere hewers of wood and drawers of water, would have gone through a set formula of graceful words before they separated. They are ever mindful of the teachings of the Koran, which says:
"If you are greeted with a greeting, then greet ye with a better greeting. God taketh account of all things."
Michael had turned his back on the stranger and the waving flag. Mechanically he put his hand to his belt-pouch. Yes, the crimson amethyst was still there. He felt for it as though he were in a dream. The bright light made him giddy. The stone was his link with and his tangible assurance that the life which he had led for the past weeks was a reality; it was his sacred token that the vision of Akhnaton was no mere phantom of an over-imaginative brain. Yet, even as he felt its hard substance between his thumb and forefinger, he wondered if it was really there. He knew that imagination can create strange things; phantom tumours have been produced by imagination, tumours which are visible to a physician's eye while the patient is conscious and his mind obsessed with the conviction that it is there; he knew that such swellings disappear when the patient is asleep. He felt dazed, and as if he himself were unreal; his feet refused to tread firmly on the earth; they never managed to reach it. When he looked for Abdul and the camels, they were floating in the heavens above the horizon, miles and miles away; there was a belt of sky between them and the desert sand. If his legs had been paralysed, they could not have felt heavier or more useless.
He struggled on, but very soon the desert and the sky became one; the world in front of him rose suddenly up and stood on end. It was quite impossible to reach Abdul—he was receding as the horizon recedes when a clear atmosphere foreshortens the distance. In his brain there was a confused jumble; it was full of things which had no meaning or cohesion. Millicent was the centre of the absurd medley, Millicent, naked and unashamed, her slender figure as thickly covered with uncut jewels of huge dimensions as the statues of Diana of Ephesus are covered with breasts. The jewelled vision of Millicent dominated every other picture in his brain. It was clearer than the village of flies, or the African's cell in far-off el-Azhar, or the procession of white figures returning from the burial of the desert saint. It moved along in the clear air in front of him. He had no reasoning powers left, or he would have asked himself why his subconscious brain had fashioned this vision of Millicent wearing the sacred jewels when he still believed in her innocence. The clear voice, man's divine messenger, had kept him assured of the truth of his conviction.
Everything was dreadfully confused. He wished that the horizon would not come right forward and almost throw him off his balance. He seemed to be constantly hitting up against it. And Abdul, why was he floating further and further away? The harder he tried to get to him, the further he went. And yet he could actually hear him reciting his prayers. He was telling his rosary. Why did he tantalize him by coming so near and then floating off again? Sometimes he came so near that he could see his fine fingers automatically pulling the beads along the string; a tassel of red silk hung from the end of it. There were ninety-nine small red beads and one large one. He had reached the fifty-ninth. Michael could tell that, because the words "O Giver of Life" came to him sonorously across the desert stillness. The next one would be "O Giver of Death," but Abdul had floated away again. Now he had come back; he had said "O Living One," "O Enduring," "O Source of Discovery."
That was the sixty-third bead. Why had Abdul stopped at that one? Why did he keep on repeating the words "O Source of Discovery," "O Source of Discovery"? He ought to pass on to the next—"O Worthy of All Honour," and after that the sixty-fifth, "O Thou Only One." No one ever stopped at the sixty-third bead; all the attributes of Allah had to be recited. But Abdul was still saying it over and over again. "O Source of Discovery," "O Source of Discovery." The words danced before Michael's eyes in letters of gold, like the advertisement of Bovril which he had watched so often from the Thames Embankment, as it appeared and disappeared in the sky across the river.
And then again the letters were obliterated by the nude figure of Millicent, with her hanging breasts of jewels. How delicate her limbs were, how white her skin! The sun would blister it; if he could only reach her, he would give her his coat. Like himself, she was walking in the clear air and not on the firm earth. She was walking as St. Peter had walked on the waves of the sea.
Then something happened. He stumbled and would have fallen, but for a great strength which gathered him up and sheltered him under the shadow of Everlasting Arms.
* * * * * *
Abdul, with Eastern philosophy, had sat himself down to wait while his master interviewed the director of the "dig." His soul was vexed and his mind was ill at ease. His master's health was the principal cause of his anxiety. His anger at the harlot, and his disappointment, mingled with this anxiety, made him unusually despondent.
He seated himself on a knoll where his master could easily see him when he left the excavator's tent. It was not yet time for the performance of his maghrib, or sunset prayer, which had to be said a few minutes after the sun had set. He began to recite his rosary, telling an attribute of God to each bead. When he had got about half-way through the long list of names which form the Mohammedan rosary and by which the Moslem addresses his Creator, he saw Michael leave the tent and walk out into the sunlight.
For a moment or two he seemed to be walking quite steadily and to be coming towards him. Then suddenly he began to stagger and lurch like a drunken man.
Abdul rose from his seat and hurried towards him. What had seemed such a long way to Michael had only been a few yards. His visions and fears and the constant repetition of the sixty-third attribute of Allah had been concentrated into the last few seconds before he stumbled and fell, just as our dreams are enacted in the last moments before we wake. Abdul had scarcely said the words "O Source of Discovery" for the first time when he rose from his seat and hurried to his master, who had stumbled and fallen. In his Moslem arms was God's Everlasting Mercy.
The heat in the Valley had become intense. The work in the excavation-camp was at a standstill; nothing more could be done on the actual site until the late autumn.
Margaret and Freddy were soon to say good-bye to the little hut which had been their home for many months.
No direct news had come to them of Michael. Freddy had heard many accounts and varying reports from unreliable sources of his travels in the eastern desert. He was almost convinced that Michael's silence was due to the fact that there was some foundation for the scandal, which was persistent, that Millicent was one of his party. The report had drifted to him from so many sources that he could scarcely doubt it. It had sprung up and flourished like seed blown over light soil. He was loath to believe that his friend, even if it had not been by his own willing or desire, should have permitted the woman to stay with him when he was Margaret's acknowledged lover. He despised him for being such a weak fool. If Freddy could have left his work, he would have started off without delay to look for Michael, or at least he would have contrived to discover the reason for his silence and what degree of truth there was in the story of Millicent's being with him. Situated as he was, it was impossible for him to desert his post. He had purposely avoided opening up the subject again with Margaret; it was better to wait until a sufficient length of time had elapsed and then, if no word came from Michael, he would speak to her again and hold her to her promise to return home and try to drive the whole affair from her mind.
Even as he said the words to himself, he knew that they were absurd, that such a thing was hopeless. Meg was not the sort of woman to trust and love a man and then forget him. There could be no driving him from her mind. Freddy knew that she had enough strength of character to do whatever she thought was right. If circumstances compelled her to give Michael up, she would do it, but in so doing her youth would be killed, her heart broken. Her life would have to be re-made. A love like Margaret's was a serious thing; Freddy realized that. He must go to work carefully and judiciously.
It hurt him more than Meg ever knew, to watch her suffering and ever-growing anxiety. She made no complaint and very seldom alluded to her lover's silence or to his absence. When she spoke of him, it was generally to recall some happy incident which had happened in their secluded life, little things culled from the store-closet of her precious memories.
It was to the stars and to the wide heavens that her heart relieved itself. They heard the full story of her trust and loyalty and the confessions of her jealous woman's heart; they bore her cry to the understanding ear.
It was impossible for Margaret to believe any wrong of her lover. If she had short waves of doubt and agonizing moments of uncertainty and indecision, they were always dispelled by the sudden inflow of beautiful thoughts, which came like divine visions to her, as direct assurances of Mike's loyalty and steadfastness.
It was Freddy who caused her the cruellest suffering. It was so dreadful to think that he, of all people, doubted, distrusted Mike! If she had not cared for him so greatly it would not have mattered, but apart from Michael he was the being she loved and respected most on earth. His eyes haunted her; the doubt in them never left her mind; it argued against her finer judgment. That her dear chum should be working against her higher voice, her super-self, troubled her. It seemed to set up a barrier between them, which was the cruellest part of the whole affair. If he would only let her alone, she would go to some cooler spot and there wait and wait until Michael came to her, for she knew that he would come back to her, bringing her the same beautiful love as he had carried away. She knew perfectly well that in spite of her foolish fits of depression and distrust, he was wholly and absolutely hers while he was alive on this earth.
Freddy bore the expression of one who was waiting to deliver judgment. Meg could see his annoyance kindling day by day. She could feel him looking at her when he thought that she was not noticing. The deeper circles under her eyes told Freddy their tale; the sagging of her clothes, as they hung from her boyish limbs, the pitiful flattening of her young breasts. This new and delicate-looking Margaret was very beautiful. Our Lady of Sorrows had laid her hand upon her with a softening grace; the new Meg had acquired what boyish Meg had never possessed. Under her eyes, on her clear skin there were dark shadows, which looked as if they had been made by the impress of carboned thumbs which had pressed tired eyes to sleep. Meg's steadfast, honest eyes now expressed things of a deeper meaning than mere comradeship and brains; their beauty was quickened by the soul of suffering. Even in Freddy's eyes she was much more attractive than she had been six months ago. She was now a great deal more than merely pretty. As he watched her bearing her anxiety and what appeared to him her humiliation with so much calm dignity and braveness, he said to himself over and over again, "She's a thousand times too good for a man who could behave like a weak fool, if indeed Mike isn't worse!"
He was looking at her now, as she lay in a deck-chair, her eyes closed and her hands folded across her book. They had both been reading, after a hard day's work. Meg had not turned many pages of her book; her thoughts had wandered. As she felt her brother's eyes upon hers, she raised her eyelids and looked at him steadily as she said:
"Freddy, I'm going to see Hadassah Ireton."
Freddy sat bolt upright. He, too, had been lying stretched out on a lounge-chair.
"Going to see Mrs. Ireton? But you don't know her!"
He did not ask Meg why she was going; he knew.
"That doesn't matter—I know all about her. My heart and mind know her, and, after all, that's the important thing—it's the only thing that matters."
"But, Meg——"
"Chum, no 'buts'—'buts' belong to small things. This is my life. We must do something. You can't leave your work; I am no longer needed."
"But what can Hadassah Ireton do?"
"I don't know—she'll know, I feel she'll know. That's why I'm going."She paused. "I've been told to go."
"Oh, nonsense! How's this going to clear things up?" Freddy paused.
"I don't know. If I did, I shouldn't go to the Iretons'. It's because I don't know, and nothing's being done, that I mean to go to her and consult her."
"But why on earth trouble a stranger? I dislike the idea."
"There are some human beings who are never strangers. Suffering unites people. Hadassah Ireton has suffered."
Freddy knocked the ash from his cigarette. A lump had risen up in his throat.
"What are you going to ask her to do?" Meg did not know the pain her words had given him; he spoke huskily.
"She's going to advise me what to do." Meg raised herself from her reclining position. "She will help me, if Michael's ill, Freddy."
"I don't suppose he is—I think we'd have heard."
"I think that's why we haven't heard," Margaret said quickly.
Freddy remained silent. He thought otherwise. He had a man's knowledge of men. If Millicent Mervill was with him, he did not for one moment believe that even Mike would be proof against such temptation.
"If he is ill," Meg said, "the Iretons will find out. They are in such close touch with native life. Anyhow, they understood Mike and I want to see them."
Meg's last words were a little cry. Freddy could only feel pity for her, although her words stung him. She must actually go from him to strangers for the sympathy she needed.
"Well, I won't stop you, but I think it's a pity. Whatever made you think of such a thing?"
"The thing that you call inspiration, chum—I know another name for it now."
Freddy looked amazed; Meg had absorbed so many of Mike's strange ideas."I don't know Ireton," he said. His voice had grown colder.
"He married a Syrian—you wouldn't. The Lamptons don't do that sort of thing."
Freddy kept his temper, and the moment after Meg had said the words she felt ashamed, disgraced.
"I'm sorry, chum." She spoke gently. "It's my tongue that says these hateful things, not my heart. Forgive me, like a dear."
"All right, old girl." Freddy had never told his sister that he had refused the hospitality and cut himself off from the friendship of more than two English families, residents in Cairo, because they had taken a prominent part in the outcasting of Michael Ireton from English society when he had married Hadassah Lekejian. He knew that Margaret had spoken the words hastily and unthinkingly. When Meg's nerves were on edge was the only time she was ever cross and out of temper. "The Iretons are delightful people. If I'd known Ireton when he was a bachelor, I should have visited them after his marriage, but I didn't, and I haven't much time for paying society calls. Besides, it might have looked like patronizing them. The way they were treated by some of the English out here was so abominable that one had to be jolly careful. Ireton never minded a scrap—he's too big to care for the social rot that goes on out here, but all the same, I didn't like to make a point of calling. I'm a digger, Meg, not a resident with a house to invite people to."
"From what Mike told me, they must be the most delightful people. I can't imagine Hadassah snubbing me if I went to see her, can you?"
"I don't suppose she would. What will you say to her? It's a rum idea." Freddy became meditative.
"I don't know, but whatever one arranges to say on such occasions is just the thing one doesn't say. The atmosphere will suggest the words—it always does with me. I've never yet said the things I planned to say. Have you?"
"Scarcely ever, but it might be well to think things out." Freddy disliked the idea of confiding family secrets to strangers. "When do you think of going?"
"When you leave here, I can go straight to Cairo. It will be cooler there. I don't know Cairo—don't forget, I've never seen even the Pyramids."
"And when do you mean to go home? The season's getting on."
"I don't know. It all depends on what news I can gather, or if a letter comes. I can easily stay in Cairo until I hear. You won't object to that?"
"No. It's beastly hot here, by Jove!" Freddy poured himself out a lemon-squash and drank it off. "I'm not sorry it's time to go home."
"I don't feel the heat very much—the nights keep pretty cool."
"You're looking fagged, all the same."
"Oh, I'm all right—it's anxiety that kills. If only I was certain that he wasn't ill, Freddy!"
"I don't see why you should think Mike's ill. He's leading an awfully healthy life. He's well accustomed to the desert. It's cooler with him than it is here."
"I know, but it's a very strained life. I have a conviction that he's ill. Whenever I think intently of him, I see him ill and suffering. These things must have their meaning."
"I think we should have heard if he was ill. We got the other news quick enough, didn't we!"
Meg frowned.
"It will be cooler in Cairo, but give me your word that you personally won't do anything foolish in the way of looking for Michael, or going off alone into the desert."
"No, I won't do anything foolish. That's not in my line, is it now? I have some Lampton common sense."
"Not about some things."
Meg laughed. "Wait till you know what it is like, chum."
"Well, you'll not forget your other promise?"
Meg thought for a moment before answering and then she said emphatically, "No, I won't forget my promise. I'm not in the least afraid that I shall be tempted to break it."
"You have promised to go back to England if you find undeniable proof that Michael and Millicent were together in the desert."
"Yes, I promise. I will go back to the old life, which seems like a dream." Meg gave a little shiver as she visualized her old-world Suffolk home and the narrowness of her life there. "Any old place would do, chum, to bury myself in if my heart was broken."
Through a labyrinth of narrow streets, echoing with native cries and Oriental traffic, a wonderful sight and sensation to strangers unfamiliar with Cairene commercial life, Margaret Lampton found her way to "the home of enchantment," as she afterwards called the Iretons' ancient mansion. It was a native house, typical and expressive of the most resplendent years of the Mameluke rule in Egypt.
A licensed guide, with a brass-lettered number on his arm, in a blue cotton jebba and a scarlet fez, had volunteered to show her the way; it would have been impossible for a stranger to find it alone. The Cairene licensed guides, although they are pests, have their uses.
As Margaret passed under the lintel of the outer door, which led into a quiet courtyard, of Hadassah Ireton's house, a Nubian servant rose from the stonemastaba—the guards' seat—upon which he had been lying half asleep; he conducted her with the silence of a shadow to the gate of the inner or women's courtyard. This courtyard was overlooked by the women's quarters of the house only.
Margaret rather timidly entered the second courtyard. She scarcely knew what to expect. She was certainly not prepared for the vision of beauty which she saw directly the door was opened. She had heard nothing at all of the fantastic beauty of the superb old Mameluke palaces in Cairo; she did not know that the Iretons lived in one.
A fat servant, also a Nubian, but more amply clad the guard at the outer door, rose from a wooden seat, grown grey with age. With the same silence and mystery he conducted Margaret across the courtyard.
Margaret could, of course, only glance at the bewildering beauty of her mediaeval surroundings as she followed the servant, but brief as her vision of it was, it left a never-to-be-forgotten picture in her mind. A vision of coolness and peace, of oriel windows—chamber-windows for unreal people, jealously screened with weather-bleachedmeshrahiyehwork—and one high balcony, the special feature of the courtyard, a dream of romantic beauty, shaded by the dark leaves of an ancient lebbek tree. It was a vision as dignified as it was touching. It was like a lost piece of a world which had passed away, a lonely cloud which had detached itself from a world of romance and had hidden itself in the heart of a seething city of ugliness and sin.
Surprise temporarily drove from Margaret's mind the object of her visit; it was not until she was seated in the spacious room which overlooked the courtyard, and whose front wall consisted of themeshrahiyehbalcony—it was now Hadassah Ireton's drawing-room—that she was brought face to face with the unusualness of her visit.
The room was beautifully cool, screened as it was by the delicate lace-work.Meshrabiyehwas invented to fill two wants—to screen the windows through which women could look out, without being seen themselves, and to admit fresh air while it excluded the sun. It is a substitute for glass in a warm climate.
Margaret would have liked to have sat for a little time longer to collect her thoughts and to take in the beauty of the room; but that was not to be; the door opened and her hostess entered.
Of all the beautiful pictures which she had seen since she entered the inner courtyard of this mediaeval home, Hadassah Ireton was the most beautiful. She had brought her baby-boy with her; he was just learning to toddle. A sob rose in Margaret's throat, as she saw the fair-haired child beside the tall young mother.
Hadassah had greeted her with the conventional "How do you do?"Margaret answered it as conventionally.
Hadassah lifted her boy up and held him out to Margaret. "This is my son," she said. "I know he wants to welcome you."
The boy held up his face to be kissed. As he did so, Margaret took him in her arms and held him close to her breast. Hadassah, who had brought him to administer to that very want—a woman's empty arms—went to the balcony and made a pretence of letting in some fresh air and excluding the shaft of sunlight which was coming from one of the small oriels that had been left unclosed.
When she turned to her guest, she saw something very like tears in Margaret's eyes. The child, who did not know the meaning of the word fear or shyness, was speaking to Margaret as if he had known her all his short life.
"He has taken you into his elastic heart," Hadassah said. "Because, if you don't mind me saying so, I think we are rather like one another."
"Oh, no!" Margaret said impulsively, while she blushed. "I'm not like you!"
Her words were expressive of admiration. Hadassah did not pretend to misunderstand them; she was well accustomed to admiration.
"The boy sees the resemblance, I'm sure."
"We have both dark heads and we are both tall," Margaret said laughingly. "But there the likeness ends." She looked at Hadassah's eyes as she spoke and wished that she could believe that she was in the least like her. She had never seen such a beautiful expression in any woman's eyes before. Was she really the Syrian girl whom Michael Ireton had dared to marry?
"Let us sit down," Hadassah said. "But before we begin our talk, I must send Michael to the nursery. I am really so foolish about him—I wanted you to see him." She rang the bell and a pretty Coptic girl in native dress came into the room; the boy went on with her without demur. The girl had looked at Margaret with big brown eyes; they carried her mind back to the portraits of Egyptian women painted in Roman times on the walls of tombs.
"What a good little chap!" Margaret said. "I'm sure he wanted to stay with you. How marked the Coptic type is!—they are the true descendants of the ancient Egyptians, aren't they? He looked so fair beside her."
"Dear little son! He will be perfectly happy with her. He loves everybody and everything. I sometimes wonder if it means a lack of character. He rarely cries, and he sings baby-songs to himself all day long."
"What a darling!" Margaret said. "And how fair!"
"Yes," Hadassah said, "quite English." The words were spoken without malice, but they brought the colour to Margaret's cheeks. Hadassah saw it, and said laughingly, "I was granted my wish—I wanted to have a boy as like my husband as possible. He wanted a girl, I think."
Margaret laid her hand on Hadassah's arm. "Did you mind me writing?" she said. "I hope you didn't think it very odd?" Her voice broke. "I wanted your advice. I knew you and your husband could help me."
"Dear Miss Lampton," Hadassah said, "I'm so glad you wrote, and of course I understood. It's worth while to have suffered oneself, so as to be able to understand and help others in their suffering."
Margaret knew all that the words implied, but with her habitual reserve, she answered as though Hadassah had referred to her cousin's death. The Nationalist plot in which he was implicated had added to the horror which British society in Cairo had openly expressed at Michael Ireton's marriage with a Syrian, who was a cousin of the ill-advised youth.
"Michael told me something of the tragedy," Margaret said. "You must have felt his death terribly."
Margaret's words were conventional, but Hadassah did not miss the sympathy and feeling which lay underneath them.
"I did," Hadassah said. "But the boy would never have been happy—he was one of the pitiful instances you meet in Egypt; of misguided idealists. Girgis had a fine character, but he was fastened upon because of his wealth by the wrong set of the Nationalist party, who misled him and then turned on him and killed him because he wouldn't go as far as they wanted him to go in their horrible outrages. It was a pitiful story, greatly distorted and misinterpreted by the press."
"His death was splendid," Margaret said. "It wiped out all the rest—it proved his real worth."
"Yes," Hadassah said. "Poor Girgis died a hero's death. He was as brave as a lion. But come," she said, "let me hear your news. These things we are talking about are ancient history to everybody but myself, and I never think of them if I can help it. It is better not." She sighed reflectively. "Dear Girgis knows that I can never forget him. He gave me all his fierce young love at a time when it was very precious."
"Ignorance was at the bottom of it all," Margaret said. She was alluding to the behaviour of the British residents in Cairo in respect to Hadassah's marriage. Hadassah understood.
"I have learned to know and realize that," she said. "And, after all, one must pity ignorance. I have got so far that I can actually feel sorry for such narrow minds. As for Michael, he never gave it a thought. If our characters are widened through suffering, I have gained—they have lost. Something fine always leaves our natures when we do or think unkind things—nothing is truer or surer than that."
"Michael always says the same thing," Margaret said eagerly. "He thinks unkind thoughts and uncharitable acts—want of love, in fact—the unpardonable sins."
"Both our men have the same name." Hadassah's eyes smiled. "I like your man so much, if I may say so. He is worth a great deal. We can't expect big things to come to us in a small, mediocre way, can we?"
"I am so glad you like him," Margaret said. "And you believe in him? Your husband believes in him, in his . . ." she hesitated ". . . unpractical mind?" Hadassah's understanding and gentleness made her feel childishly weak. It would have been a relief to give way to weeping. Her nerves were at the point when any rebuke would have braced her sympathy was undoing.
"Why, of course!"
"May I tell you why I came?"
"Will you have some tea first? You are tired!"
"No thanks, really. I had numerous cups of coffee on my way here."
"Then let me hear all you want to tell me. Even if I can't help you, I know how nice it is to talk over one's troubles with another woman. You have lived very much cut off from women's society all these months. Where is Mr. Amory? Did he go into the desert? We haven't heard of him or from him since he spoke to my husband about going off on a long journey. He had a great scheme in his head. He's an odd creature." She laughed. "You and I both like individualities, I think."
"He went into the eastern desert soon after you saw him. I haven't heard from him since he went. His letters may have gone astray. But in the meantime a report has been spread abroad that he has taken a woman with him, a Mrs. Mervill. Have you heard of her?"
"Millicent Mervill? I know her!"
"Well, she is in love with him. You know how beautiful she is. . . ."Margaret's voice lost its steadiness.
"Yes, and also I know how thoroughly lacking in morals. She is very well-known by this time. Last season she was the fashion; she entertained lavishly. This year she has thrown caution to the winds."
"She certainly has, for she has positively hunted Michael to earth."
"Michael Amory, of all men!" Hadassah's laugh encouraged Margaret; it was so expressive of what she herself felt.
"Yes, I think she is annoyed because. . . ." Margaret paused ". . . well, I can't express what I mean, but Michael isn't that sort. He would be her friend if she would let him, but friendship isn't enough."
"I know what you mean. He certainly isn't that sort, there can be no mistaking that."
Margaret smiled happily. "Then you believe he isn't?"
"Of course! Who doesn't?"
"My brother objects to my name being mixed up in the scandal." Margaret had evaded answering Hadassah's question.
"But what scandal?"
"The reports that are going about that Mrs. Mervill is with him in the desert, that that is why I haven't heard from Mike. Everyone is saying it." Meg's words conveyed an apology for her brother.
"Your brother really believes this, and yet he knows Mr. Amory?"
"Yes. But you mustn't blame him. He has tried not to believe it; he is really awfully good about it all. And I must admit that it looks as if the story was true, but I just know it isn't."
"Of course it isn't!" Hadassah said, almost sharply. "Who spread the report?"
"First it came from the native diggers in the valley, and then my brother heard it from Mr. King. Now lots of people are talking about it, and my brother wants me to go home. . . . I've promised to go if . . ." Margaret paused. "That's why I came to you. I want your advice. If we could only hear from Michael, I know the whole thing would be explained. My brother would do anything he could to help me, but his business ties him and . . ." again she paused and then said hurriedly, "You know what men are—he hates my name being bandied about."
"I'll get my husband to comb out the truth from all these lies." Hadassah put her hand on Margaret's. "You'll laugh at your fears one day."
"If you only knew how thoughtless Michael is about the opinion of the world! If he isn't doing wrong, he never stops to think what construction the world may be putting on his action, nor does he care."
"Personally I think it's the malicious talk of some enemy, or of Mrs. Mervill herself. Can she have intercepted his letters, and spread the report so as to separate you?"
"She may have followed him. If she is with him, she is self-invited."
Hadassah Ireton interrupted her. "Even Mrs. Mervill could scarcely do that!"
"My brother says that I may wait in Cairo until we can find definite proofs one way or another. A letter may come from Michael at any moment. I know it will come if he is all right, but I'm so afraid he is ill—that is really what I came to ask you about."
"You want us to try to find out if he is ill?"
"Yes, if you will, if it is not asking too much. Something keeps on telling me that he is ill, that he is in need of help." Margaret was speaking more earnestly and with less restraint. "I have had queer visions and many presentiments since I lived in the Valley. I seem to be able to see beyond . . . if you know what I mean. They have come true in many instances—it is not mere imagination. But perhaps you have as little belief as I once had in these things?"
"Where ought Mr. Amory to be just now—have you any idea?" Hadassah's voice conveyed the idea to Margaret that the subject was too serious to be spoken of hastily or decisively.
"He ought to have reached his destination, the hills beyond the ruins of Tel-el-Amarna. Did you know the object of his journey?" Margaret spoke nervously, shyly; she shrank from speaking of her lover's belief in the treasure of Akhnaton.
"Yes. He told my husband the twofold reason of his wish to make the journey. He believes in the theory that there is a buried treasure in the hills beyond Tel-el-Amarna, where Akhnaton was buried, and I think he also wanted . . . what shall I say? . . . to find himself—I suppose I must use that hackneyed phrase for want of a better—to find himself in the desert. Wasn't that it?"
"Yes. He is a born wanderer." Margaret said the words dreamily; her thoughts had flown, to the luminous figure of Akhnaton. In this superb mansion, fashioned by Oriental genius and Eastern wealth and imagination, her vision took its place, not unnaturally, in the strange list of things which her eyes had seen or her mind had received during her life in Egypt.
"Will you enjoy a wandering life? Don't you think women like a home?"
"With an intellectual companion any place is home; with a stupid one a palace becomes a wilderness. I have learnt that in the desert, if I have learnt nothing else, I think. Michael could make a real home out of a bathing-machine and a box of books." She laughed. "He is never dull, he doesn't know the meaning of the word bored. His only trouble is that no day is long enough. He'd forget the dimensions of the bathing-machine—it would become to him a beautiful house like this."
"What a wonderful thing love is!" Hadassah said to herself, as she watched Margaret's eyes glow and shine. Her thoughts had transformed her. "A wonderful and beautiful thing! Whatever would the world be without it? And yet there are some people who go through life without the faintest idea of what it really means!"
"What we three have got to do," she said aloud, "is to discover where the wanderer is. The sooner he is found the sooner he can start life in a bathing-box. I agree with you so far that I think it's more than likely that he is ill—not necessarily seriously ill, but ill enough to have been delayed on his journey. Still, that is not the only solution of the problem. His letters may be lying in some native post-office. I've known letters remain for weeks on end in out-of-the-way village post-offices. The official can't read the address; he puts the letter aside until someone comes along who can. It may be sooner, it may be later; they eventually reach their destination."
Margaret smiled. "Michael's writing is not too clear—that may be the cause of the delay."
"My husband has received letters which have been months on a journey which should have taken days. Time means nothing to desert peoples, as you know."
"You have made me feel much happier," Margaret said brightly. She could have kissed the beautiful woman by her side out of sheer gratitude.
For some time longer they discussed the subject more fully and laid their plans.
Suddenly Hadassah said, "Where are you staying in Cairo?"
When Margaret told her the name of her hotel, she said, "You must come to us. We have lots of spare room in this big house, and if you are here we can work together so much better. The hotel is too public. It would really give us great pleasure if you will. I feel sure it would be wiser."
"How kind of you to ask me!" Margaret said. "I am quite a stranger to you! I'd love to come. Michael has told me something about your work among the Copts—indeed, everyone speaks of it, of your new educational scheme and the progress you have made in so short a time. I should like to understand more about it, if I may."
"Perhaps our minds have met many times before, for I think we are scarcely strangers," Hadassah said. "I hope you don't feel towards me as one?"
Margaret looked pleased. "I have heard so much about you, about your work."
"It is very uphill work. You can only hope for very slow results amongst a people who have been scorned and persecuted and rejected for generations and generations. I, as a Syrian, know what social persecution means, so it is my highest ambition to do what little I can, with my husband's help and my father's wealth, to elevate the ideals and the moral standard of the young Coptic girls. You can do nothing, or next to nothing, with the older women. Their characters are formed, their prejudices too deeply-rooted."
"I suppose so. It is the same in India—the women there are the bitterest opponents to the reforms for women. They cling to the suffering and oppression they endure."
"These Copts have absorbed so many of the worst features of the Mohammedan civilization—their superstitions, their domestic customs as regards the women, and a great many of their least desirable religious ceremonies. It is hard, for instance, for a stranger to distinguish between a Christian native's marriage or funeral and a Moslem's—indeed, it is often not easy even if you have a lifelong knowledge of the country. The finest qualities of Islam—and they are many—they have rejected, and for so doing they have suffered unthinkable hardships and persecutions. Bad as things are to-day, they were far, far worse in the days before the British Occupation, when the Christians were at the mercy of the fanatical Moslems."
"It is such a pity that the native Christian population is the one which no one trusts in this country. The Mohammedans are respected, the Copts are despised. I find that, even in connection with my brother's work. The brains and industry of the country seem to belong to the Copts; the honour and reliability to the Moslems."
"I know," Hadassah said. "And that's what my husband and I are fighting against. He wants to prove that the people of any country and of any religion, even the English," Hadassah's eyes twinkled, "will become degraded and untrustworthy in time, if they are persecuted and oppressed. With the Christian element in Egypt, it has been a case of every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. If we were to take some Coptic children and Mohammedan children, of the same social grade out here, and had them educated in England as Christians, you would soon see that it is not the Copts who ought to be despised, but their intolerant oppressors and persecutors." Hadassah smiled. "You know, Miss Lampton, how easy it is to be good and strong when one is trusted and loved. Love makes finer, better women of us."
Margaret rose from her seat. "You have done me so much good," she said. "I feel as if my world had been re-made."
"That's splendid!" Hadassah said. "I always try to remember that it is a privilege to suffer. It is one of the divine fires which tests us; suffering links us to the great brotherhood. You wouldn't choose to be outside it. The older we grow the more we realize that it is suffering, not happiness, which makes the whole world kin."
Margaret's silence, which often was more eloquent than other women's speech, told Hadassah that she agreed. Suffering was teaching her its lessons.
"When may we expect you?" Hadassah said. "The sooner the better, don't you think?"
"May I come in a day or two? I have some business to do for my brother—I have promised to see one or two people for him; he is going home very soon." She looked round the hall through which they were passing. "I can't imagine myself ever really living here. It looks as if it had all been created by the wand of some magician for a princess in a fairytale. What a contrast to our hut in the Valley!"
"You like it better than a new house in the European settlement? You think I chose wisely?"
"Of course I do. Who wouldn't?"
"This house costs us no more than a good flat would in the European part of the city, but you have to come through the native quarters to get to it, remember. Many people would object to that."
"I hate the European quarter of Cairo," Margaret said. "It seems to me so vulgar and degenerate. The native quarter is just what it sets out to be, no better and no worse."
"Well, you must come and stay with us—my husband will enjoy showing you the hidden beauties of Cairo. He is devoted to it."
Margaret's ears caught the sound of water. It was coming from a tall fountain which was playing in the centre of the outer hall. Above it was a pendentive roof, richly carved and coloured. A suggestion of turquoise-blue and the gleam of iridescent tiles showed through the clear water in the octagonal basin set in the floor. The jets of water came from a large ball of blue faience resting on the top of a slender spiral column. The fountain was only one of the beautiful features of that Eastern mansion which Margaret noticed as her hostess conducted her to the inner courtyard.
"How enchanting it all is!" Margaret said. "I feel much too prosaic to imagine spending my everyday working hours in it." Her life in the hut seemed better suited to her practical nature.
"I love it," Hadassah said. "And I like its emptiness. That is the native idea. We have tried not to make it look like a mediaeval museum, not to stuff it up with things. It's a great temptation."
"Its sense of space is its greatest charm. There is everything you can possibly want in it, and yet it has none of the absurd knick-knacks and useless lumber of Western houses. My brother and I have learned to do without so much that I don't think we shall ever fall into the sin of overcrowding our rooms again."
Hadassah laughed. "Will you have the courage to burn family relics?—Aunt Maria's uncomfortable ottoman, Aunt Elizabeth's escritoire, which is too small to write at, and Aunt Anne's firescreen with strawberries worked in bead-work?"
"Oh, I know them all," Margaret said. "Just compare them to these beautiful things!"
"Don't forget," Hadassah said, "that you are comparing the things of England's worst period to the things of the finest period in Cairo. If you saw some of the native houses, furnished from the European store in the Ezbekiyeh, you would think Queen Victoria's private apartments at Osborne beautiful," Hadassah's voice expressed her meaning.
"Good-bye," Margaret said laughingly. "It is hard to believe that, butI take your word for it."
As Margaret walked through the outer courtyard, she kept saying to herself, "So that is the Syrian's daughter, the girl whom the English people rejected and would have none of!"
Freddy had often corrected his sister for her careless use of the word "beautiful." He maintained that few people had ever seen a really beautiful human being. The Greeks idealized their models in their types of Venus and Apollo. Margaret felt that at last she could truthfully tell him that she had seen a beautiful woman, and that that woman was a Syrian, Michael Ireton's "wife out of Egypt."