CHAPTER XVII.
MR. TAWWAB COMES TO TERMS
“In my opinion,” said Professor Blackwell, “the whole thing might be described as a demonstration.”
John Cumberland nodded.
“I agree with you,” said he.
“You are right,” Danbazzar confirmed, “and we’ll have proof of it in the next few hours.”
“In what form?” Barry asked.
“A visit from Mr. Ahmed Tawwab!”
Danbazzar tensed his lips, looking fiercely from face to face. The anxious night was ended, and in the light of early morning this was a somewhat haggard company. Danbazzar with Hassan es-Sugra had been up onto the crest and had explored the Farshût caravan road for some five miles northwest of the camp, but had found no trace of the Arabs. It was possible that they were still somewhere in the vicinity, but Danbazzar considered this unlikely.
“We’ll drive right on!” he boomed. “I wouldn’t check now for a million dollars! The work below can’t be heard in the valley, and all we have to watch for is that we’re not seen coming or going.”
“Mahmoud tells me that two or three of the men are nervous,” said Barry.
“What about?” his father inquired—“the Arabs?”
“Yes.”
“They’d better keep their nerves out of sight!” roared Danbazzar’s great voice. “If Hassan sees any signs of nerves he’ll knock stars out of them!”
“A most surprising character,” Professor Blackwell murmured.
“He’s the most efficient headman, sir,” Danbazzar assured him, “at this kind of work that ever came out of Egypt. We’re surely lucky to have him.”
“Quite!” said the Professor. “I quite agree.”
Mahmoud, grinning cheerfully, appeared with steaming coffee, and as the sun crept up into the sky the vapours of the night disappeared. Triumph was in sight. The discovery of the granite sarcophagus, alone, in John Cumberland’s opinion justified the expedition.
“Even if it were empty,” said he, “its existence confirms the authenticity of the papyrus.”
“It won’t be empty,” Danbazzar asserted confidently. “That lid has never been moved since a Rameses reigned in these parts. When early tomb robbers have been at work, it’s generally found smashed. Certainly they would never have taken the trouble to put it back again.”
“There is another possibility,” Professor Blackwell interrupted. “I believe it was Dr. Rittenburg who mentioned it: the possibility that the story of Princess Zalithea was merely a sort of religious ceremonial. I am disposed to share his theory. I seem to recall that no bull has ever been found in the Apis mausoleum. The sarcophagi are all empty.”
John Cumberland, behind the speaker’s back, pulled a wry face.
“True enough, Blackwell,” he admitted; “but then the lids had all been moved!”
“Quite, quite!” the Professor said. “The parallel is not exact, I agree.”
“There’s no damned parallel at all!” boomed Danbazzar. “Inside this granite sarcophagus there’s a wooden sarcophagus, and in that there’s a mummy!”
“How long will it take to remove the other blocks?” Barry asked excitedly.
“We ought to be in to-night!” was the reply. “It’s an easy job. That doorway was only temporarily walled up—as we might have expected.”
“And what about lifting the lid?”
“We have a set of jacks for the purpose, Barry,” his father replied. “They are in the cases that were shipped from Birmingham to Port Said. It is this sort of heavy gear that makes our position so dangerous. If Mr. Tawwab saw those jacks, for instance——”
“Quite!” said Professor Blackwell, and poured out another cup of coffee, to which he added a finger of rum.
Danbazzar had brought some mail across from Luxor, including a cable for Barry from Jim Sakers, which had infuriated the former to the very limits of endurance. It was conceived as follows:
Called on Mr. Brown yesterday afternoon. Door was opened by Princess. Recognized description. Height five eight. Age fifty-two. Weight thirteen ten. She carried a rolling pin at beginning of interview and threw it at end of same. Congratulations.
Jim.
There was also a letter from Aunt Micky touching briefly upon the principal causes of dysentery in hot climates and emphasizing the claims of Vichy water as a dentifrice. There was much home chat about mutual friends, and then a brief postscript which read:
Avoid Nile boils. I had one on my honeymoon.
Barry hurried back to the excavation, his father accompanying him. Danbazzar had a number of arrangements to make in regard to the transport of necessary implements to the tomb, and it was considered desirable that one representative of the party should remain in camp. Therefore Professor Blackwell remained.
And so it happened that late in the afternoon, while the Professor sat in the shade before his tent, studying through a magnifying glass a number of small bones from the arm of a mummy, neatly arranged upon a sheet of white paper, he started suddenly and looked up from his task.
The cause of his disturbance was a distant shot. It came from somewhere between the camp and Kurna, and ordinarily it would not have aroused especial interest. This morning it had a particular meaning.
Professor Blackwell placed the specimens inside the tent, and, standing up, clapped his hands sharply. An Arab appeared from the kitchen. In the absence of Mahmoud, who was a specialist in the kind of work now going forward in the tomb of Zalithea, this man was preparing the midday meal. But he had other duties; and, as he saluted the Professor:
“Danbazzar Effendi!” said the latter, and pointed southwest.
The Arab saluted again and set off at a steady trot along the wâdi. Professor Blackwell peered into the kitchen. He found nothing more formidable going forward than the slow stewing of a sort of vegetable ragout; and so he contentedly lighted his pipe, which had gone out.
Already the morning was uncomfortably hot, and Professor Blackwell’s costume must have occasioned some little comment had he seen fit to wear it before a class of students at Columbia. It consisted of canvas shoes, B.V.D’s and a sun helmet. The more exposed parts of his person presented a glistening appearance, occasioned by the presence of a certain pungent oil with which he anointed himself against the onset of mosquitoes and sand flies.
About half an hour later Danbazzar appeared, followed by the Arab messenger. His was a picturesque and attractive figure. His great height and breadth of shoulder appeared to best advantage in such attire as he wore now: A very clean white shirt with sleeves rolled up above the elbow, the low pointed collar unbuttoned, white breeches, and tan riding boots. He wore also a soft felt hat, wide brimmed, light gray in colour, and he held a cigar between his small, strong-looking teeth.
“You got the signal?” he asked abruptly.
Professor Blackwell nodded.
“Half an hour ago,” he replied.
“Then we can expect him almost any time,” said Danbazzar.
“Have you got everything ready to be moved up to the tomb?” the Professor asked.
“Yes.” Danbazzar nodded. “I’m only waiting to get the measure of Tawwab. Then I’ll shoot it all along.”
They were apparently deep in conversation and quite unaware of the presence of any stranger, when presently Ahmed Tawwab strolled into the wâdi. He was smoking a cigarette and looking about him, as one who lounges in Bond Street, or idly glances at the notices in the lobby of his club.
Danbazzar suddenly saw him, and:
“Why! Mr. Tawwab!” he exclaimed, and jumped up. “Look, Professor, who’s here!”
“Surely, Mr. Tawwab?” the Professor murmured. “How fortunate you find us at home!”
Mr. Tawwab agreed that Fate had indeed been very kind, coffee was prepared, and a perfectly meaningless conversation began. After a long time:
“Mr. Cumberland and your other young friend will be returning shortly?” Mr. Tawwab inquired.
“Probably in an hour or so,” Danbazzar assured him. “They are visiting one of the more interesting tombs.”
“Ah! the tombs—Yes. I thought they might be shooting.”
“Shooting?” Danbazzar echoed. “No, I don’t think so; not this morning.”
“I thought I heard a shot,” Mr. Tawwab explained, “down on the edge of the swampy ground, to the left of the road. You know the spot I mean?”
“Quite!” murmured Professor Blackwell. “Quite! It might have been one of our fellows after quail.”
“Sure it might,” Danbazzar agreed. “We’re devils for poultry in this camp.”
“You are wise, however, in delaying your departure,” said the Egyptian.
“How is that?” Professor Blackwell asked politely.
“Well,” Mr. Tawwab extended his palms apologetically, “it is not to our credit to say so, but the whole of the country west of the Nile, from here across to Farshût or even further north, is in a somewhat disturbed condition. In fact”—he sighed reflectively—“the Mudîr, I am sure, would feel more happy if you would return to Luxor.”
“That would cheer him up, would it?” said Danbazzar.
“It would be most agreeable to him,” Mr. Tawwab assured the speaker.
“Much as we are indebted for the offer,” said Danbazzar gravely, “I fear that to return to Luxor would interfere with our plans.”
“We should never forgive ourselves,” Mr. Tawwab murmured, “if you were molested in any way. Even if you were not harmed personally, your property might be destroyed, or stolen. I dislike to think of it.”
“So do I,” Professor Blackwell declared.
“We know rather more about the nature of the disturbance,” Tawwab pursued evenly, “than when you called upon us. It is a matter concerning the collection of certain revenues. Concessions demanded by the Sheik Ishmail we are not, as a matter of fact, prepared to grant. But, oddly enough, the negotiations have been left practically in my hands, as I know the Sheik Ishmail quite intimately.”
“I rather thought you did,” said Danbazzar, with a large, amiable smile.
He exchanged a significant glance with Professor Blackwell, and the latter, by a prearranged plan, stood up glancing at his wrist watch.
“I have a few notes to make on the subject of those mummy bones,” he murmured, “and there’s only just time before lunch. Perhaps, Mr. Tawwab, you will excuse me for a few minutes?”
Mr. Tawwab also stood up and bowed most ceremoniously as the Professor departed to his own tent. This haven reached, Blackwell produced the paper of small bones again, and ostentatiously spread them upon a table before his door.
The interview between Danbazzar and Mr. Tawwab occupied an inordinately long time. Two relays of coffee were requisitioned, and at intervals Danbazzar’s great voice was raised in a manner rather unparliamentary. But as the debate was throughout conducted in Arabic, Professor Blackwell could only assume that the question was one of terms.
It was ultimately settled amicably, however, Mr. Tawwab expressing his profound regret that he could not wait for the return of Messrs. John and Barry Cumberland. But important official business demanded his speedy reappearance in Luxor.
As Danbazzar walked beside him along the wâdi, one large hand laid caressingly on his shoulder, the contrast between his slight Egyptian figure and the great bulk of his companion was notable. Professor Blackwell derived an odd impression that Danbazzar would have loved to twist Mr. Tawwab’s neck.
Having escorted him to where a servant waited with two horses, Danbazzar threw a stump of cigar upon the sand and selected a fresh one from several which he kept loose in the breast pocket of his white shirt. He bit off the end and spat it out reflectively, standing, a huge, picturesque figure, staring after the horsemen.
When presently he rejoined Professor Blackwell:
“How much?” the latter asked, standing up to greet him.
“Ten thousand piastres for the first week,” Danbazzar replied calmly, and critically surveyed the end of his lighted cigar, which he extracted from between his teeth apparently for no other purpose; “twenty thousand piastres for the second week; forty thousand piastres if we stay over into a third, and so on. In other words, if we stayed for three months we’d need to send an SOS to Mr. Rockefeller! That’s our rent, and we’ve got to pay it!”
“Quite, quite!” the Professor murmured. “Five hundred dollars for the first week, a thousand dollars for the second, and two thousand dollars for the third, or any part of the third, during which we remain here. Is that the figure?”
“You said it.”
“And suppose John Cumberland declines to submit to this extortion?”
“Let’s suppose.” Danbazzar dropped down upon a small packing case which sometimes served as a chair. “In the first place, we’d be raided to-night by some scurvy bunch of Arabs in the pay of Tawwab. If we came out smiling, from to-morrow onward we’d be watched so closely the game wouldn’t be worth the candle. He would then threaten official interference. And if we kept right on smiling, there’d be another raid—and they’d take our shirts! They’d also take our excavation and every damn thing they could find in it! The real shape of our job in the valley shown up, Mr. Tawwab would next suggest, say a hundred thousand piastres to let us go home to America. Alternative—send us to Cairo for trial! Professor”—he extended his palms in an extravagant imitation of Ahmed Tawwab’s favourite gesture—“he has walked away with my check on the National Bank of Egypt for ten thousand piastres. We’ve got a clear week.”
“Do you think he will stick to his bargain?”
“Certainly not!” roared Danbazzar, and brought his hand down with a resounding bang on the side of the box, so that it emitted a drumlike note. “If we were ready to move in three days, it would make no difference. He’d want at least another fifty thousand piastres to let us leave Luxor.”
“It is expensive,” the Professor murmured.
“It would be,” Danbazzar returned, “if we paid it.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE LOTUS SARCOPHAGUS
The sun was casting its last shafts of gold across the fringe of the Libyan Desert when Barry Cumberland stepped over the threshold and entered the tomb of Zalithea. He had pleaded for this privilege, and it had been granted to him. Danbazzar and John Cumberland followed, Professor Blackwell hard upon their heels; and Hassan es-Sugra, smiling in gentle triumph, brought up the rear.
Sweat-grimed workmen crowded the outer chamber.…
No inscription of any kind appeared upon the sides or lid of the great granite sarcophagus, but the walls were very beautifully painted. The atmosphere was so oppressive as to be almost insupportable.
There was something awesome in this sudden silence which had succeeded upon clamour. Danbazzar was the first to break it.
“The name of Princess Zalithea,” he said, his deep voice oddly hushed, “occurs, as you can see, in several places.” He directed the ray of his torch from point to point. “Much of the decorations—such as the procession of boats, the Sem-priest in his mystic trance, the funeral offerings, and so forth—are quite conventional in character. You will notice, though, that the Lotus constantly occurs, as well as the Ankh, emblem of eternal life.” He shone the light all around. “There are other important points, too,” he mused, “which we can look into later. Be very careful. Touch nothing.”
Barry, wholly absorbed in his own peculiar reflections, was passing around the sarcophagus; feeling its surface with his fingers; peering into the tiny crevices between the lid and the lip. Meanwhile, Danbazzar and John Cumberland were bending almost reverently over a strangely shaped, squat table on which were salvers, bowls, curious-looking phials, and a number of tall, slender lamps.
“Observe,” said Danbazzar, a note of triumph in his deep voice: “these are not the usual funerary offerings!”
Professor Blackwell’s long bony fingers were extended toward one of the phials, but:
“No, no! Blackwell!” cried John Cumberland excitedly. “Don’t touch it! Touch nothing! It may crumble!”
The Professor withdrew his greedy hand reluctantly.
“And I wonder what that casket contains?” he murmured.
The casket to which he referred, an exquisitely carved object, stood by itself upon a sort of pedestal, some little distance from the table and beside a long, low couch, the legs carved to represent the feet of a leopard. Danbazzar almost imperiously waved him to silence. Then, turning his back to the sarcophagus, the table, and the pedestal, he addressed them as a speaker addresses an audience.
“The casket, gentlemen,” he said, “as well as the bowls and bottles, contains the ingredients mentioned in the formula! I have seen enough already to tell me my preparations are complete. Presently, Professor”—he turned to Professor Blackwell—“maybe you can assist me in checking these; but the task of preserving many of the fragments is going to be a delicate one. We mustn’t forget they’re three thousand years old.”
“It is almost more than I can believe!” declared John Cumberland rapturously.
Barry, one hand resting upon the sarcophagus, faced him, and:
“Dad,” he said, “it’s altogether more than I can believe!”
“What?” Danbazzar demanded. “That here before us, perished but recognizable, lie the ingredients of the formula as they were prepared by the last priest to wake Zalithea, for the use of his successor?”
“No,” Barry replied: “that’s hard enough—but what I cannot believe is that the woman who is the centre of this incredible story lies here, in this sarcophagus!”
“Personally, my mind is open!” Professor Blackwell asserted, glancing around him. “There is no other entrance to this chamber?”
“None whatever,” Danbazzar confirmed.
“Therefore,” the Professor went on, shaking perspiration from his high brow, “we are the first explorers, since this amazing ritual came to an end for reasons which, probably, we shall never know.” He glanced aside at the sarcophagus. “It’s uncanny,” he murmured, “the thought that inside those walls of granite—— But, no! I stick to my opinion!”
“How long will it take to raise the lid?” Barry interrupted.
John Cumberland, hot, tired, met his son’s glance with one fired by no less enthusiasm.
“With the aid of the apparatus which we have with us, Barry,” he answered, “not long. You agree, Danbazzar?”
The latter, who was less excited than the others—always excepting Hassan es-Sugra—bowed in his old-world manner.
“We’ll have that lid off in an hour!” he declared. “But before we start there are quite a lot of precautions we have to take.…”
Two hours later the gear for lifting the great granite lid was brought from its hiding place; and everything was put in order for the operation, the result of which would prove or disprove Dr. Rittenburg’s theory (now shared by Professor Blackwell) that Princess Zalithea was a myth; that no such person had ever existed; that the tradition was a priestly invention designed to impress the vulgar mind.
Ever distrustful of Ahmed Tawwab, guards armed with rifles had been placed at selected spots northwest of the camp along the caravan road to Farshût; these reinforcing the ordinary guards in the valley.
The wildest excitement prevailed among the party. Apparently, as well as Barry could make out, apart from the problematical contents of the sarcophagus, the objects found in the tomb were in many ways unique.
There was an exquisitely embossed bowl, which, he learned, was of pure gold. The figures upon it were apparently different from any found hitherto. Professor Blackwell succeeded in identifying seven of the substances found, in the vials and the casket, as identical with those mentioned in the formula possessed by Danbazzar. One or two defied speculation, or the Professor’s knowledge, until Danbazzar enlightened him as to their nature. Whereupon he recognized them, but raised his voice in doubt respecting the possibility of obtaining these at the present day.
“I have obtained them!” Danbazzar assured him. “When the time comes, you shall see them. Oh! I’ve been busy, Professor. Where the Ancient Egyptians got these things God only knows! They can’t have had a colony in Russia in those days.”
“Russia!” the Professor echoed.
“I said Russia,” Danbazzar affirmed. “One of the ingredients—the one we have been arguing about—I ultimately got from Russia!”
“You refer to the substance which you tell me is of mammalian origin?”
“Precisely.”
“Mammals have been found in Africa,” the Professor murmured.…
And so in the atmosphere of excited debate and unceasing toil the day wore on.
Hassan es-Sugra never left the tomb. It would have been impossible for any workman to remove a grain of dust from it and escape the scrutiny of those gazelle-like eyes. Barry’s enthusiasm was such that the tedious methods employed by Danbazzar for raising the lid of the sarcophagus tortured him to the borders of frenzy. At one point:
“Why all these precautions?” he cried. “It would need a steam hammer to crack that lid!”
“Surely it would,” Danbazzar returned gravely. “What’s the big point?”
“The point is,” said Barry, “that you are making a perfectly preposterous fuss about lifting it—as though it would matter very much if we dropped it!”
“I see!” Danbazzar spoke softly, regarding the younger man through half-closed eyes. “If you were lying in a stone chest next to hermetically sealed, and somebody dropped half a ton of granite on top of it”—his voice suddenly rose, booming around the enclosed chamber—“where in hell do you think you’d be?”
“Good Lord!” Barry was startled. “Of course! You are quite right!”
“You’d be dead of concussion!” Danbazzar shouted. “Thundering concussion! This is my business—and I’ll do it my own way!”
He was formidable in his sudden anger, and Barry realized that he had committed an unforgivable faux pas—that of criticizing an artist in the practice of his profession.…
The coming of dusk found the raising gear in place to Danbazzar’s satisfaction, at which point he cleared the tomb, leaving Hassan es-Sugra on guard in the outer chamber.
“The eight o’clock shift will start the lifting,” he pronounced. “We all want dinner, so we’ll all have it.”
John Cumberland, sweat-grimed but happy, looked up from the task which he had been performing side by side with the Arab workmen. Barry leaned up against the rugged masonry beside the opening and mopped his forehead with a very dirty handkerchief.
“It’s torture to quit,” he declared honestly, “but you are right, Danbazzar. I am dead tired. Aren’t you, Dad?”
“I am!” his father admitted. “I would give a big price for a real hot bath before dinner!”
“It would be most acceptable,” declared Professor Blackwell. “Association with these very worthy natives adds to one’s knowledge of humanity but results in so many fleas!”
They returned to camp in the wâdi, taking turns in the portable bath supervised by the grinning Mahmoud. This was a rare luxury, for water had to be brought a great distance, and inadequate though these baths might be, they were keenly appreciated by the party.
All brought keen appetites to dinner, which was well up to Mahmoud’s standard. Having reached coffee (into which they were forced to pour their cognac, lest Mahmoud should see the bottle which they kept concealed in the sand, or, worse, smell the glasses):
“To-night,” said Danbazzar, selecting a cigar, “the lid of the sarcophagus will be raised.”
“What then?” cried Barry.
“There’ll be an inner sarcophagus,” was the reply, “probably of sycamore and elaborately painted. Our next task will be to raise that, which won’t be difficult. Nor will the opening of the wooden lid; but—” he paused, carefully lighted his cigar and rolled it between his fingers for a moment—“I’m going to give orders, and in these orders you are included, Mr. Cumberland.”
“I am at your service,” said John Cumberland. “You know more of this business than I do.”
“Very well,” Danbazzar went on. “The raising of the second lid will be easy. But it won’t be raised until I say the word.”
“Why?” cried Barry.
Danbazzar turned to him.
“Because,” he answered, “the raising of that lid will be the first critical moment. We don’t know what we shall find. We don’t care to think what we shall find. But we have to suppose that there is a woman there—in what we might describe as a trance. Now”—he performed a slow, impressive gesture—“according to the formula, as you’ll remember, Mr. Cumberland, there must be no delay between the opening of the sarcophagus and the beginning of the ceremony for waking the sleeper.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Professor Blackwell. “Is this some strange dream?”
“It may be,” Danbazzar admitted, “but we have to suppose that it isn’t. Also, we have to suppose, or rather to remember, that the Princess Zalithea, if she’s there and still living, last saw this world in the days of the Pharaohs!—according to my calculations, about the time of Rameses the Ninth. Let’s put ourselves in her place. If we aren’t all crazy—if those old priests weren’t all crazy—she will suddenly find herself surrounded by a group of wild-eyed devils—I include myself—wearing fantastic clothes and speaking a barbaric language! Now this can’t be. Think a minute!”
“I follow you entirely,” said Professor Blackwell. “Quite! Quite! And I see what you are about to propose.”
“Good for you, Professor!” Danbazzar nodded appreciatively. “We’ve got to dress the part, and I came prepared for it.”
“What!” Barry exclaimed.
“Yes, sir,” Danbazzar went on; “when we take that lid off, we have got to be dressed like Ancient Egyptians!—and we have got to be silent! Leave the talking to me. I have the outfit. Does everybody agree?”
Everybody agreed.…
They did not linger long over their coffee, but hurried back to the excavation.
Guards were posted as on the previous night. Excitement ran higher than ever. They worked, and the Arabs worked, under the direction of Hassan es-Sugra, like men whose lives depended upon their speedy success.
But the eight o’clock shift had returned to quarters and the twelve o’clock shift were near to their time of departure, before the great lid was raised high enough to enable them to explore the interior of the granite coffin.
Not one of the party was wholly master of himself. Barry experienced an unfamiliar desire either to laugh or to cry. But, composure regained, light was directed into the interior.…
It contained a magnificent wooden sarcophagus, highly gilded and painted. The lid, which was in relief, represented the figure of the occupant—a girl, clad in a gauzy robe, her hands clasped upon her bosom and holding a Lotus flower. The Ankh—symbol of life—was at her head and her feet. The presentment was wonderful—uncanny.
Barry’s mood changed. He felt suddenly sick. He believed that he was likely to swoon.
The eyes, the hair, the full lips, the slender, cloudily clad figure! This was madness! He stood upright, his hand on his brow. Perspiration was dripping into his eyes.
It was she! It was the girl of his dreams! More, far more than a coincidence, this was a miracle—or a delusion!
CHAPTER XIX.
THE VOICE IN THE VALLEY
The hours that followed were feverish hours. They were marked by at least one strange event.
Barry’s excitement grew so intense that the mere idea of sleep was out of the question. If he had had his way, the wonderful painted lid would have been torn off and the occupant revealed within a very few minutes of its discovery. But Danbazzar sternly took command. The tomb was cleared; the triumphant workmen were sent off to their quarters; all operations were suspended until morning. And on this point Danbazzar proved adamant.
In view of the advanced state of the work, and of what interference at this critical step would mean, he determined to supplant the ordinary guards. It was arranged that John Cumberland and Barry should take a dog-watch (two hours) at the high and low ends of the valley; then Hassan and Danbazzar; and finally Professor Blackwell and Mahmoud. All would be armed.
“It’ll take me right through the first spell,” said Danbazzar, “and most of the third, to collect up the stuff I want to get along. Maybe I’ll make more than one journey each time, and Hassan can help.”
“Don’t forget the signal!” Professor Blackwell warned. “We are all tuned up above concert pitch!”
And so, beneath a glorious moon that painted the Valleys of the Kings and Queens with silvern mystery, Barry and his father began the first watch. Wholly animated now by the spirit of adventure, they tossed for positions—and Barry got the low end.
Shouldering his rifle, he marched down the slope; and, his post reached, gave himself over to reflection. The first idea to claim his mind was a grotesque one. Here were a group of eminently respectable Americans mounting armed guard over a tomb that belonged to the Egyptian government! True, they had evidence pointing to the possibility that it contained a living woman; but to pretend that they were in any sense actuated by the motives of a rescue party would be sheer hypocrisy.
The spot, if somewhat inaccessible, was nevertheless open to the public. He experienced momentarily the sensations of one who claims a certain mound in Central Park and posts sentinels over it.
Then, swiftly, his thoughts changed. Zalithea! To no living soul had he breathed his conviction that Zalithea—if she really lay under that painted cover—had already appeared to him, perhaps in visions, but apparently in the flesh! He knew that he had not spoken of this because he had not dared. Even now he was afraid to think of the painted figure, afraid to face the question: What does it all mean?
He tried to banish these ideas. They definitely disturbed him. And the morrow would show—what?
Resting his rifle against a rock, he filled and started a pipe. The flame of the little gold lighter—a parting present from Jim Sakers—made grotesque shadows. He remembered that at this point he was no great distance from the haunted valley where he had seen the mummylike figure moving.
The thought was unnerving. He imagined that gaunt, half-human shape creeping toward him, secretly, through the darkness. In the little hollow were ruins of those huts which had been built in a remote age for the accommodation of the tomb guards.
If the spirit of such a guard could revisit that spot, how bitter—and how just—would be his resentment!
He toyed with this idea. And, largely because of an unpleasant tingling of his scalp which he was brave enough to admit to himself betokened approaching panic, he argued that the case presented peculiar and extenuating features. Here was no violation of the mighty dead. On the contrary, they were carrying on the labours of the priests who had begun this amazing experiment. They were attempting to make possible that dream of Pharaoh in which he had seen men of a future age listening to a story of his grandeur from the lips of one who had witnessed it!
From this convincing argument he derived much comfort. The supernatural dread which had threatened to claim him receded like a real presence—only to return suddenly, magnified a hundredfold.
Coming unmistakably from the direction of the haunted hollow, a sound broke the profound silence of the night—a woman’s voice!
Utterly unexpected, wholly incomprehensible, it seemed to make Barry’s heart stand still. No word reached him; merely the silvery tones. From a great distance it came—and ceased abruptly—almost as though the speaker had been silenced.
A woman—in that place—at that hour! The idea simply wasn’t admissible. Yet he had heard her voice! His hands closed like a vise upon the rifle. He gripped his pipe between his teeth desperately. Compromise with himself was no longer possible. For this was no trick of his imagination. Beyond shadow of doubt he had heard a thing admitting of no reasonable explanation; and he was definitely, dreadfully scared.
Intently he listened, but could hear only a drumming in his ears. The tinkle of a camel bell up on the caravan road would have been as balm to his fevered mind; for it would have offered a possible solution of the mystery. But nothing stirred.
He longed to join his father, to tell him of the phenomenon. But he knew that he must not desert his post. Nor could he conscientiously convince himself that there was justification for blowing the whistle he carried—a signal that would summon John Cumberland.
And so he stood there, holding grimly onto his slipping courage—while minute after minute passed in profound silence, that great, deep silence of the desert which can almost be heard.
Hours seemed to elapse in this way. But, when Barry glanced at the luminous dial of his wrist watch, he learned that he had been on guard for less than half the allotted span. In the act of consulting the watch, his heart gave a great leap.
Another sound had broken the stillness.
Then he heaved a sigh of relief. It was the signal, higher up the valley. Someone had clapped his hands three times. Immediately, John Cumberland’s voice came:
“Who’s there?”
“Danbazzar,” Barry heard.
After this, words became indistinguishable; but a human link had been established; he no longer felt alone with the shadows. And his dread slipped from him like a discarded garment.
He wondered, practically, if he should report the occurrence. He decided to wait until he was relieved by the next watch.
So the second hour of his duty wore on, uneventfully, and at last came the familiar signal again. Some conversation there was; then an interval of silence. Finally, he heard the voices of John Cumberland and Danbazzar drawing nearer as they walked down the slope. Coming around the last bend:
“Two more loads will do it,” Danbazzar was saying. “I’ll bring them up while Blackwell and Mahmoud are on watch. Then everything will be safely planted by daylight.” As they came into view: “Hullo, there!” Danbazzar called. “All clear?”
“Yes,” said Barry, “except that I heard a most extraordinary thing about an hour ago.”
“What?” Danbazzar demanded sharply.
He bent forward, so that even in the darkness of the wâdi Barry could see the gleam of his fierce eyes.
“A woman’s voice!”
“Eh!” John Cumberland exclaimed. “You must have been dreaming, Barry!”
“I wasn’t dreaming, Dad.”
“Where did it come from?” Danbazzar asked rapidly. “Which direction?”
Barry pointed.
“Down there—where we saw the mummy man.”
“Good heavens!” said his father—“the haunted valley!”
He was acquainted with the story of the apparition seen by Danbazzar and Barry, and had even explored the hollow by daylight, but had found no evidence of human habitation.
“Strange,” Danbazzar muttered, in his deep voice. “Did she seem to be speaking English?”
“I couldn’t say. No words were distinguishable.”
“Was it a young voice?” John Cumberland asked.
“Yes.”
Danbazzar and John Cumberland exchanged swift glances. Then:
“Is it possible,” asked the latter, “that some camping party has crossed?”
“No!” Danbazzar spoke confidently. “I’d have had news of it from Hassan. He knows everything that’s arranged in Luxor. And there’s no dahabîyeh up either. I can’t account for it.”
He stared hard at Barry.
“I heard it,” the latter repeated.
“I don’t doubt you heard something,” Danbazzar admitted. “But I’m just wondering what it was. There are night birds that have a note not unlike a woman’s voice. Some small animals, too, when a jackal gets them, squeal like hares. And the cry of a hare is very human. Did you know that?”
“I knew it,” Barry replied, “although I never heard one. But this was no animal or bird. It was a woman a long way off, but unmistakably a woman.”
The mystery unsolved, they presently parted; Danbazzar taking over the watch, and John Cumberland and Barry returning to camp. They exchanged greetings with Hassan es-Sugra, posted at the head of the valley, and then, silent for the most part, tramped on to the tents.
Professor Blackwell was very much awake. In fact, he had got Mahmoud to prepare coffee for them. Sandwiches consisting of Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits, native butter, and bottled prawns were also in readiness.
“Highly indigestible,” the Professor admitted. “But one or two extra nightmares count for little upon such an expedition.”
The phenomenon of the mysterious voice was discussed at length.
“I vote for some kind of nighthawk,” John Cumberland finally declared.
“It was no nighthawk,” Barry assured him.
“H’m!” murmured Professor Blackwell. “I am consistently unfortunate at games of chance. But I venture to hope that on my watch I may draw the upper end of the valley and Mahmoud the lower!”
How this fell out, and what Danbazzar and Hassan had to report, Barry did not learn. Determined though he had been not to close his eyes until the night was ended, tired nature prevailed. Not even the prawns and coffee could keep him awake. He found himself nodding over his pipe. John Cumberland was deep in slumber in a chair, and Professor Blackwell’s snores rang out sonorously upon the desert silence.
Barry aroused himself, and:
“It’s no good, Dad!” he said.
John Cumberland started into wakefulness. The Professor snored on.
“We must turn in,” Barry continued. “We are both dead beat!”
“You’re right, my boy,” his father agreed. “But who’s going to wake Blackwell when the time comes?”
Barry pointed, laughing sleepily.
A cheap alarum clock, set for fifteen minutes ahead of the Professor’s watch with Mahmoud, stood only six inches from the sleeper’s head!
“The scientific mind,” murmured John Cumberland—“always methodical. Good-night, Barry. I’m for bed.”
“Good-night,” said Barry.
Five minutes later he was fast asleep.
No dreams visited him to-night. He slept the sleep of utter weariness. A gunshot would not have awakened him. And the sun was high above the valleys where those who ruled Egypt in the golden past slept even more soundly than he, when a booming voice ended his slumbers.
“Turn out!”
Barry opened his eyes. Danbazzar stood looking into the tent. This extraordinary man, from his leonine head with its well-brushed gray hair down to his polished riding boots, was spruce as though the dust of deserts positively avoided him.
“We open the sarcophagus in an hour!”
CHAPTER XX.
THE RITUAL
Barry looked around the square, rock-hewn chamber communicating with the tomb, and wondered why he felt no inclination to laugh. Had Jim Sakers formed one of the party, his mood might have been different; but, in the company of his father, Danbazzar, and Professor Blackwell, he found himself touched by awe.
They wore robes, sandals, and curious linen skullcaps which entirely concealed their hair. Danbazzar, so arrayed, presented an impressive picture. He did not look like an Egyptian priest, but he might have been a Pharaoh disguised as one, except for his moustache. The others, save for their deeply tanned skin, could by no stretch of the imagination have been mistaken for anything but American citizens masquerading.
Professor Blackwell, oddly enough, was more convincing than the rest. Without his spectacles, although he could see little, he had a distinctly hieratic appearance.
Hassan es-Sugra was not present. With Mahmoud he mounted guard in the valley, above.
A richly embroidered curtain hung in the now demolished doorway of the tomb chamber. The heat was almost insupportable; and the smell of some kind of incense which was burning on the other side of the curtain added to the oppressiveness of the atmosphere. This was Kyphi, mentioned in the “Papyrus Ebers,” and, according to Danbazzar, only twice hitherto prepared in modern times.
Danbazzar gave his final instructions.
“To the best of my knowledge,” he said, “everything is ready. One essential oil—you know the one I mean, Professor—has changed colour since I had it distilled. I can only hope that its special properties, whatever they are, remain the same.”
“It has no special properties that I am aware of,” the Professor murmured.
“We shall see,” the deep voice went on. “The seven lamps are ready to be lighted. You know when to light them and which lamps each of you must light. The last one, I light. The two unguents are in the bowls. You”—turning his piercing regard upon Barry—“will put the taper to the liquid in the perfume burner when I give the signal.
“The wine for the final draught, you”—indicating John Cumberland—“will pour into the cup onto the powder at the last moment—when she opens her eyes. I consider the wine to be the most doubtful item. It’s Madeira wine, over a hundred and fifty years old, but I’m not sure of it all the same.”
“That contained in the flagon found here was undoubtedly a similar vintage,” Professor Blackwell said. “It was a grape wine. My microscope has convinced me of this.”
“We can only hope you’re right,” said Danbazzar. “And now—the most important point of all. The sarcophagus I’ve had lifted out onto a sloping trestle. The implements for raising the lid are ready. The couch, described in the formula, is still serviceable, if we take great care. Directly the lid is off, she must be taken out of the sarcophagus and laid on the couch. I’ll do it. From that moment on, no one must speak! No one must make a sound! Just do your jobs. And, for God’s sake, don’t bungle!”
He held the curtain aside, and the party filed into the tomb.
It presented a picture that time could never efface from the minds of those who saw it. Dimly lighted by an ancient lamp set upon a pedestal, the air was misty with clouds of incense arising from a tripod placed on the right of the doorway.
The lotus sarcophagus rested, slanting, near to the great granite box which had contained it for generations. Upon a low table were two bowls containing some kind of ointment; a metal perfume burner; a jewelled cup in which was some gray, powdery substance; a stoppered flagon; and a curiously shaped lamp. The table was set close to the head of a long, narrow, gilded couch, having legs carved to represent those of an animal, and found in the tomb.
Six other lamps were placed at intervals around the walls.
Danbazzar pointed to a bundle of tapers. They were made of some inflammable resinous substance.
“The moment I lift her out,” he directed, “light those tapers at the brazier. The wrappings I look to find perished, and I shall set to work right away. Say all you want to say before I get the lid off. I shall work fast, even if I do damage. Once the thing is open—not a word from anybody.”
He stooped over the sarcophagus, with its startling presentment of the occupant. His shadow, gigantic, moved upon painted walls and ceiling. A sound of wrenching, cracking wood broke the oppressive silence.…
Barry clenched his teeth hard. He glanced at his father. Even through the tan one could see that John Cumberland had grown pale. Professor Blackwell’s gaunt features glistened with perspiration. Barry wondered—as though newly faced with the problem—what he should do if the sarcophagus really proved to contain a woman! A sudden unaccountable conviction had come to him that it was empty.
The heat in the tomb seemed to be growing greater every moment.…
John Cumberland stepped forward, in response to a signal from Danbazzar. Together, they raised the painted lid and rested it upright against the nearest wall.
Through a mist that was not wholly due to the incense, Barry saw the figure of a woman lying in the sarcophagus!
The figure was swathed in saffron-coloured wrappings. The arms and hands were enwrapped also. But within a sort of aperture where the face should have been appeared a thin gold mask. He experienced a sense of suspended animation. He seemed to watch that rigid figure through a vast period of time. Then, casting an imperious glance around him, and raising a finger significantly to his lips, Danbazzar stooped.
Lifting the mummylike form, he placed it on the couch.
With a pair of surgical scissors he began to cut through the wrappings.…
A hand touched Barry’s arm. He started wildly.
Professor Blackwell, his features strangely haggard, handed him a taper and pointed to the tripod.
Barry, by dint of a stupendous effort, regained control of himself. He remembered that it was his duty to light the first two lamps.
This duty he performed blindly. A sound of tearing linen seemed to fill the chamber. The perfume of the oil in the lamps began to mingle with that of the Kyphi.…
John Cumberland lighted two more lamps.
Barry turned and looked. Like lilies blooming in corruption, he saw two slender, exquisite arms peeping out from the torn and powdered wrappings… bare, creamy shoulders gleamed in the lamplight.
Danbazzar gently detached the gold mask and removed the turbanlike swathings which confined a mass of short, wavy dark hair.
A pale, exquisite face was revealed, delicate as a Greek cameo. Long, curling black lashes rested on the youthfully rounded cheeks. The pouting lips seemed to smile.…
In on the hush of it burst a loud, harsh cry:
“My God!”
Even as he met a furious glance of Danbazzar’s blazing, wild animal eyes, Barry did not realize that it was he who had cried out. But instantly came recognition of the fact.
He clapped his palm over his mouth, literally choking back the words he had been about to utter. John Cumberland had his hand raised in warning—a hand that shook wildly. Professor Blackwell lighted the last pair of lamps. His face looked waxen—ghastly.
Danbazzar, icily calm again, proceeded to carry out the singular formula. A wave of embarrassment swept over Barry, making his very scalp tingle. He turned aside.
But his heart was leaping—leaping…
Danbazzar lighted the seventh lamp—and glared at Barry.
Barry plunged a taper into the brazier and applied the little tongue of flame to an oily liquid in the perfume burner. It ignited at once. Danbazzar, bending over the girl blew the aromatic smoke gently over her face.
At which moment, Professor Blackwell staggered toward the curtained doorway. John Cumberland, his face masklike, waved to Barry to assist the Professor. Danbazzar never even glanced aside, as Barry threw a supporting arm around the tottering man and helped him to gain the outer chamber. There:
“Air!” he whispered. “I must have air.”
The task of getting him along the sloping passage was no easy one; for Professor Blackwell was heavily built. Especially it was difficult at the point where the roof had collapsed, since here he must negotiate an opening only about eighteen inches high.
But it was done at last. The Professor sank down in that little artificial cave created by the screen, and shakily produced his flask.
“Go back,” he said in a low voice—“go back. You will want to see if——”
“I couldn’t think of it,” Barry returned. “Not until you feel better. Was it the heat down there, Professor?”
Professor Blackwell returned his flask to his pocket. Some trace of normal colour was showing again in his cheeks. From a hiding place beneath his priest’s robe he produced his spectacles and set them in place. He made a very grotesque picture. Then:
“Not entirely,” he replied. “That was not without its effect, of course. But I confess that my threatened collapse was not entirely due to it. Your training, Barry, has not followed the same lines as mine. You are not only a younger man, but you are plastic minded. The sight of a person defying the law of gravity without mechanical aid, for instance, would not appall you?”
“It would certainly interest me.”
“Quite, quite. There’s the difference. It would horrify me! And to-day I have witnessed a thing that has knocked the keystone out of the structure upon which my professional life rests. Those scientific principles to which, as a sane man, I have adhered unquestioningly throughout my career have been ruthlessly destroyed. Either modern physiology is fit only for the scrap heap or the claims of so-called occultists are worthy of close examination.”
“You think she is really alive?” asked Barry eagerly.
“Think!” retorted the Professor. “I know she is! Whether the madhouse treatment now being employed by Danbazzar will terminate her miraculous trance or not I cannot say. But, quite definitely, she is alive! Go back, Barry. I dare not!”
Eagerly Barry obeyed. He returned to the scene of the poor Professor’s seizure in a quarter of the time it had taken to come out. Softly raising the curtain he entered the chamber, all but intolerable, now, because of the clouds of incense.
He found his father and Danbazzar bending over Zalithea, their expressions tense. The slender curves which it had seemed desecration to uncover were hidden beneath a fine Egyptian shawl, but it revealed the delicate lines of her slim, still body.
Barry feasted his eyes on that pale face. Zalithea! Speculation was ended. Doubt was done with. By some unsuspected gift of prevision, of clairvoyance—call it what he might—he had been enabled to see her, though she lay deep in this rocky tomb, long before he had ever set foot on the black soil of Egypt! It was, therefore, predestined. As Hassan would have said, “It is written.” For this he had been born. Because of this wonder which was to come, he had never found his ideal woman but had dreamed of dark mysterious eyes which one day would beckon to him.…
A faint sigh broke the deathly stillness. Princess Zalithea raised her drooping lashes—and looked long and wonderingly into the faces bending over her. Then, without otherwise stirring, she turned her dark, beautiful eyes in Barry’s direction.
Danbazzar, that man of steel, gripped John Cumberland’s shoulder and indicated the stoppered flagon. Cumberland, making a visible effort to steady his hand, poured the old wine into the goblet.
Never removing that fixed, childlike look of inquiry from Barry, the girl allowed Danbazzar very gently to lift her up. He held the draught to her lips and spoke a few words in a language entirely unfamiliar to the others.
Zalithea glanced swiftly up at him and swallowed the drugged wine.
Then once more she looked at Barry, smiled like a tired child, and lay back, closing her eyes.
Danbazzar pointed to the doorway. As John Cumberland and Barry tiptoed out, he extinguished the seven lamps, joining them in the outer chamber.
“She is now sleeping normally,” he whispered. “She should wake in eight or nine hours’ time—and resume life!”
He reeled, clutched at Barry, and:
“Get me out,” he said hoarsely. “I’m through.”
CHAPTER XXI.
THE AWAKENING
Perhaps, in his heart of hearts, no one of the party—excepting Danbazzar—had ever really counted on success. Certainly, in their wildest imaginings, they had not schooled their minds to acceptance of the miracle; had not realized what success would mean.
Slowly, and by different mental processes, realization came in turn to John Cumberland and to Barry, as it had come, instantly, insupportably, to the scientific mind of Professor Blackwell. A girl who had lived during the reign of Seti I—a girl barely out of her teens—was living now. She must be, according to ordinary human computation, fully three thousand two hundred years old; but, according to all the laws of modern physiology, she was still no more than nineteen or twenty!
To the Professor, the problem presented was one of scientific faith. Acceptance meant destruction of his life’s labour, the tearing up of every textbook written on the subject; it assailed the very throne of reason itself. Rejection, with Zalithea living, meant closing his eyes to the truth. For a long time he remained alone in his tent and could not be induced to see her.
John Cumberland’s problem was a legal one. To whom did Zalithea belong? Since she antedated any government of which documentary trace remained, surely not to the authorities at Cairo? The thought that a false step might result in her loss was terrifying.
But, if these two found their ideas chaotic, how infinitely more so were those of Barry. At one moment he was raised to a poetic heaven. In the next he found himself plunged in an inferno of such torturing doubts that he longed for the power to run away from himself.
Upon the realization of his shadowy ideal, the proof that the unknown might become known, had followed, what? A knowledge that he must either fly from Zalithea or learn to love her—and that she was, to all intents and purposes, a supernatural being!
Such were the early reactions of these three to a phenomenon—and a phenomenon in the form of an unusually lovely girl—which struck deep at the roots of human credulity; which forced them to accept the inacceptable, to remain sane though face to face with madness.
Danbazzar alone attacked the problem with confidence. A large Bell tent was set up at the lower end of the wâdi, and furnished, though simply, in Ancient Egyptian fashion. The necessary materials he had brought with him and Hassan es-Sugra supervised the work. His optimistic foresight had not stopped here. A messenger who had been dispatched to Luxor at dawn returned before midday with an elderly Arab woman.
“She has been standing by over a week,” said Danbazzar. “Hassan engaged her. She’s a trained servant and was seven years in the harem of the last Khedive. Remember!” he warned. “Hassan doesn’t know what we found in the sarcophagus! Nobody outside of this party knows. Zalithea is the sick daughter of a friend of mine in El Kasr who has come down for treatment by Professor Blackwell. That’s the story, and we’ve got to stick to it. The sarcophagus was empty.”
Accordingly Safîyeh was installed, with her few belongings, in the new tent. A covered litter was extemporized and Hassan dispatched on a mission to Kurna.
Danbazzar, following two hours of profound sleep, had become his capable self again. Three visits he had made to the tomb, and reported that Zalithea slumbered soundly. John Cumberland’s anxiety was intense. He had urged the immediate removal of the girl from that nearly unbreathable atmosphere but had been overruled.
“We’ll stick to the formula,” said Danbazzar truculently, “with or without your permission. She has to stay there eight hours. After that we have nothing to go upon.”
They carried the litter up to the tomb, setting it close to the screen. Professor Blackwell mounted guard at the top of the valley and Barry at the bottom. They wore their ordinary working kit; but John Cumberland and Danbazzar had arranged to put on the Ancient Egyptian dresses under cover of the screen before awakening the sleeper.
That Danbazzar could make himself understood in the long dead language known to Zalithea had been already proved. It was one further item of evidence showing his knowledge of Egyptology to be masterful.
“I know very few words,” he admitted, “and until to-day I couldn’t tell if my pronunciation was understandable. Others have claimed to know how to speak the language. But no living man for a thousand-odd years back has been able to prove it! I shall have to try to talk to her. She is sure to be frightened. I expect she’ll be as weak as a kitten. And it’s going to be no easy job to carry her up past that broken door.”
“Let me help!” said John Cumberland eagerly.
Danbazzar shook his head.
“Just stand by with the litter,” he directed. “The fewer strange faces she sees the better. I can manage alone.”
But the wonder of Egypt’s sunset was stealing over the Valleys before the litter was borne down the wâdi to the tent and a slight, muffled figure tenderly carried inside.
Barry was wild to see her. Danbazzar would not consent.
“She’s frightened to death,” he said, “poor little girl. When she saw old Safîyeh she just fell into her arms and hid her face against her.”
Professor Blackwell looked up. They were seated in the big tent.
“I have been endeavouring to do as you requested,” he said. “But to prescribe any routine or diet for such a patient is quite beyond my powers. I have somewhat recovered from the first shock, however, and I am prepared to give her an examination at any time that may be convenient.”
“When she has bathed and recovered from the journey,” Danbazzar replied, “I should like you to see her. I think I have made her understand that the High Priest is coming.”
“The High Priest!” exclaimed Professor Blackwell.
“Well, you must remember,” said Danbazzar, “the priests were the doctors in her time. And I figured out that someone must have looked her over on the other occasions.”
Professor Blackwell clutched his high brow.
“I was about to say something insane,” he murmured. “I was going to ask if she seems to remember her last awakening. It suddenly occurred to me that this took place roughly three thousand years ago!”
“Yet she does seem to remember it,” Danbazzar declared.
“What!” cried John Cumberland. “You have gathered this?”
Danbazzar inclined his head in that graceful manner which was his.
“I’m not certain,” he confessed. “But I think so. I realize I only know enough of her language to act as a link. From this we must build up and teach her English as though she were a child. Her difficulties are going to be worse than those of an ordinary foreigner. We shall never be able to find any analogies! The objects, the customs—all are different.”
Hassan es-Sugra, it appeared, had been prepared for the coming of the mythical sheik’s daughter. He expressed no surprise on his return from Kurna, nor did he inquire what had become of her escort.
He had been making certain mysterious arrangements for transporting the tomb furniture to some place of safety. Work was to be resumed on the shaft next morning, with the object of widening it sufficiently to allow of the removal of the sarcophagus, and the unusual wall paintings were to be photographed before the tomb was reclosed.
Meanwhile, Professor Blackwell had completed a professional examination of his strange and beautiful patient. He returned to the tent where the other members of the party awaited him, in an indescribably puzzled frame of mind. Removing his skullcap, he lighted a cigar and fortified himself with a peg of whisky from one of the bottles buried in the sand.
“Amazing!” he declared; “quite, quite amazing! Her pulse, respiration, and temperature are absolutely normal! Her flesh is firm and healthy. Her hair is vigorous; her teeth are perfect. I could swear that her nails were manicured yesterday!”
“They were last manicured around 1360 B.C.!” said Danbazzar.
“There is a small scar under the hair just above the right ear which suggests that the theory—now generally accepted, I believe—that surgery was practised by the ancients is not without foundation. She is in extraordinarily good spirits. I twice caught her laughing at me!”
No one seemed very surprised, but:
“What about diet?” asked John Cumberland. “Surely she should be treated as an invalid?”
“Frankly,” the Professor returned, “I see no reason whatever to treat her as an invalid. Apart from the fact that she seems to be rather tired, I can detect no abnormal conditions of any kind. She addressed me several times during the interview, but her remarks were naturally unintelligible. They seemed to afford her considerable amusement, nevertheless. And the old woman from Luxor must have gathered something of their gist. She, also, appeared to be highly entertained.”
“Safîyeh can’t possibly have understood one word,” said Danbazzar quickly. “Arabic is the only language she speaks, except for a smattering of English; and we have told her that Zalithea talks Kabyle.”
“Which,” added John Cumberland, “judging from her style of beauty, she certainly never did!”
“We’ll know one day!” said Danbazzar.
“You don’t think there’s any danger,” Barry broke in, “of—of——”
He fumbled for words, and:
“Of her crumbling to dust, or something of that sort?” the Professor concluded for him. “Your frame of mind, Barry, is gradually beginning to resemble my own! Frankly, I cannot answer your question. According to my personal observation, the young lady is as healthy as she is beautiful. According to my training and beliefs, she ought to have been dead for three thousand-odd years!”
“What amazes me,” Barry declared, “is her cheerfulness! Just think. Everyone she ever knew is long forgotten. She found herself in a tomb, buried alive, this morning. Yet this evening you say she is laughing!”
“Her laughter may have been hysterical,” murmured the Professor, pulling up his robe for greater comfort, and revealing the fact that beneath he wore a pair of very soiled gray flannel trousers rolled up some six inches above his sandals. “No doubt a visit from a High Priest is somewhat awe-inspiring.”
At the end of further discussion, a dinner menu for Zalithea was decided upon, and Mahmoud given the necessary orders. A new spirit of restlessness had descended upon the party. If they had solved their first great problem, another faced them.
Barry, having prepared for the evening meal, climbed the side of the wâdi to that spot from which on the night of their arrival he had watched the sun setting. It was not so long ago. It seemed an age. He knew that something had happened in the interval which marked the end of one phase of his life, the beginning of another.
Now that he had actually seen Zalithea, that vague dread which had sometimes troubled him when he had found himself thinking of the girl on the balcony had gone. Yet, he asked himself to-night, did not his recognition of this girl increase rather than solve the mystery?
Since it could not possibly have been Zalithea he had seen on that balcony in New Jersey, then in the garden of Mr. Brown’s house, and later on Fifth Avenue, it must have been her living double!—this or, as others had suspected, a delusion. But why should he have suffered this delusion, not once, but many times, immediately prior to the night that the papyrus came into his father’s possession?
Surely he was justified in believing that only some form of telepathy or clairvoyance could explain it… and that this explanation presupposed a mysterious bond of sympathy between himself and the girl he was destined to meet?
The Ancient Egyptians, he understood, believed in reincarnation. Since their wisdom was so great in such matters, as the extended life of Zalithea proved, quite possibly they were right. She had slept, miraculously, living on; but he had died, in the ordinary way, and was now reborn—in the ordinary way!
He recalled, was ever recalling, how she had looked at him in the moment of opening her long, dark eyes. Death had effaced physical memory in his own case; only subconscious memory remained. But Zalithea, never having died, remembered! They had met before, in those remote days—and she remembered him!
It was an idea that first delighted and then terrified Barry. He had imagined, on that night in his father’s library, that the shadow of Ancient Egypt was creeping out to touch him.