CHAPTER III
THE VALLEY OF THE DEAD KINGS
Martina and I had made a plan. Palka, after much coaxing, took us with
her one evening when she went to place the accustomed offerings in the
Valley of the Dead. Indeed, at first she refused outright to allow us
to accompany her, because, she said, only those who were born in the
village of Kurna had made such offerings since the days when the
Pharaohs ruled, and that if strangers shared in this duty it might
bring misfortune. We answered, however, that if so the misfortune
would fall on us, the intruders. Also we pointed out that the jars of
water and milk were heavy, and, as it happened, there was no one from
the hamlet to help to carry them this night. Having weighed these
facts, Palka changed her mind.
"Well," she said, "it is true that I grow fat, and after labouring all
day at this and that have no desire to bear burdens like an ass. So
come if you will, and if you die or evil spirits carry you away, do
not add yourselves to the number of the ghosts, of whom there are too
many hereabouts, and blame me afterwards."
"On the contrary," I said, "we will make you our heirs," and I laid a
bag containing some pieces of money upon the table.
Palka, who was a saving woman, took the money, for I heard it rattle
in her hand, hung the jars about my shoulders, and gave Martina the
meat and corn in a basket. The flat cakes, however, she carried
herself on a wooden trencher, because, as she said, she feared lest we
should break them and anger the ghosts, who liked their food to be
well served. So we started, and presently entered the mouth of that
awful valley which, Martina told me, looked as though it had been
riven through the mountain by lightning strokes and then blasted with
a curse.
Up this dry and desolate place, which, she said, was bordered on
either side by walls of grey and jagged rock, we walked in silence.
Only I noted that the dog which had followed us from the house clung
close to our heels and now and again whimpered uneasily.
"The beast sees what we cannot see," whispered Palka in explanation.
At last we halted, and I set down the jars at her bidding upon a flat
rock which she called the Table of Offerings.
"See!" she exclaimed to Martina, "those that were placed here three
days ago are all emptied and neatly piled together by the ghosts. I
told Hodur that they did this, but he would not believe me. Now let us
pack them up in the baskets and begone, for the sun sets and the moon
rises within the half of an hour. I would not be here in the dark for
ten pieces of pure gold."
"Then go swiftly, Palka," I said, "for we bide here this night."
"Are you mad?" she asked.
"Not at all," I answered. "A wise man once told me that if one who is
blind can but come face to face with a spirit, he sees it and thereby
regains his sight. If you would know the truth, that is why I have
wandered so far from my own country to find some land where ghosts may
be met."
"Now I am sure that you are mad," exclaimed Palka. "Come, Hilda, and
leave this fool to make trial of his cure for blindness."
"Nay," answered Martina, "I must stay with my uncle, although I am
very much afraid. If I did not, he would beat me afterwards."
"Beat you! Hodur beat a woman! Oh! you are both mad. Or perhaps you
are ghosts also. I have thought it once or twice, who at least am sure
that you are other than you seem. Holy Jesus! this place grows dark,
and I tell you it is full of dead kings. May the Saints guard you; at
the least, you'll keep high company at your death. Farewell; whate'er
befalls, blame me not who warned you," and she departed at a run, the
empty vessels rattling on her back and the dog yapping behind her.
When she had gone the silence grew deep.
"Now, Martina," I whispered, "find some place where we may hide whence
you can see this Table of Offerings."
She led me to where a fallen rock lay within a few paces, and behind
it we sat ourselves down in such a position that Martina could watch
the Table of Offerings by the light of the moon.
Here we waited for a long while; it may have been two hours, or three,
or four. At least I knew that, although I could see nothing, the
solemnity of that place sank into my soul. I felt as though the dead
were moving about me in the silence. I think it was the same with
Martina, for although the night was very hot in that stifling, airless
valley, she shivered at my side. At last I felt her start and heard
her whisper:
"I see a figure. It creeps from the shadow of the cliff towards the
Table of Offerings."
"What is it like?" I asked.
"It is a woman's figure draped in white cloths; she looks about her;
she takes up the offerings and places them in a basket she carries. It
is a woman--no ghost--for she drinks from one of the jars. Oh! now the
moonlight shines upon her face; it is /that of Heliodore!/"
I heard and could restrain myself no longer. Leaping up, I ran towards
where I knew the Table of Offerings to be. I tried to speak, but my
voice choked in my throat. The woman saw or heard me coming through
the shadows. At least, uttering a low cry, she fled away, for I caught
the sound of her feet on the rocks and sand. Then I tripped over a
stone and fell down.
In a moment Martina was at my side.
"Truly you are foolish, Olaf," she said. "Did you think that the lady
Heliodore would know you at night, changed as you are and in this
garb, that you must rush at her like an angry bull? Now she has gone,
and perchance we shall never find her more. Why did you not speak to
her?"
"Because my voice choked within me. Oh! blame me not, Martina. If you
knew what it is to love as I do and after so many fears and
sorrows----"
"I trust that I should know also how to control my love," broke in
Martina sharply. "Come, waste no more time in talk. Let us search."
Then she took me by the hand and led me to where she had last seen
Heliodore.
"She has vanished away," she said, "here is nothing but rock."
"It cannot be," I answered. "Oh! that I had my eyes again, if for an
hour, I who was the best tracker in Jutland. See if no stone has been
stirred, Martina. The sand will be damper where it has lain."
She left me, and presently returned.
"I have found something," she said. "When Heliodore fled she still
held her basket, which from the look of it was last used by the
Pharaohs. At least, one of the cakes has fallen from or through it.
Come."
She led me to the cliff, and up it to perhaps twice the height of a
man, then round a projecting rock.
"Here is a hole," she said, "such as jackals might make. Perchance it
leads into one of the old tombs whereof the mouth is sealed. It was on
the edge of the hole that I found the cake, therefore doubtless
Heliodore went down it. Now, what shall we do?"
"Follow, I think. Where is it?"
"Nay, I go first. Give me your hand, Olaf, and lie upon your breast."
I did so, and presently felt the weight of Martina swinging on my arm.
"Leave go," she said faintly, like one who is afraid.
I obeyed, though with doubt, and heard her feet strike upon some
floor.
"Thanks be the saints, all is well," she said. "For aught I knew this
hole might have been as deep as that in the Chamber of the Pit. Let
yourself down it, feet first, and drop. 'Tis but shallow."
I did so, and found myself beside Martina.
"Now, in the darkness you are the better guide," she whispered. "Lead
on, I'll follow, holding to your robe."
So I crept forward warily and safely, as the blind can do, till
presently she exclaimed,
"Halt, here is light again. I think that the roof of the tomb, for by
the paintings on the walls such it must be, has fallen in. It seems to
be a kind of central chamber, out of which run great galleries that
slope downwards and are full of bats. Ah! one of them is caught in my
hair. Olaf, I will go no farther. I fear bats more than ghosts, or
anything in the world."
Now, I considered a while till a thought struck me. On my back was my
beggar's harp. I unslung it and swept its chords, and wild and sad
they sounded in that solemn place. Then I began to sing an old song
that twice or thrice I had sung with Heliodore in Byzantium. This song
told of a lover seeking his mistress. It was for two voices, since in
the song the mistress answered verse for verse. Here are those of the
lines that I remember, or, rather, the spirit of them rendered into
English. I sang the first verse and waited.
"Dear maid of mine,
I bid my strings
Beat on thy shrine
With music's wings.
Palace or cell
A shrine I see,
If there thou dwell
And answer me."
There was no answer, so I sang the second verse and once more waited.
"On thy love's fire
My passion breathes,
Wind of Desire
Thy incense wreathes.
Greeting! To thee,
Or soon or late,
I, bond or free,
Am dedicate."
And from somewhere far away in the recesses of that great cave came
the answering strophe.
"O Love sublime
And undismayed,
No touch of Time
Upon thee laid.
That that is thine;
Ended the quest!
I seek /my/ shrine
Upon /thy/ breast."
Then I laid down the harp.
At last a voice, the voice of Heliodore speaking whence I knew not,
asked,
"Do the dead sing, or is it a living man? And if so, how is that man
named?"
"A living man," I replied, "and he is named Olaf, son of Thorvald, or
otherwise Michael. That name was given him in the cathedral at
Byzantium, where first his eyes fell on a certain Heliodore, daughter
of Magas the Egyptian, whom now he seeks."
I heard the sound of footsteps creeping towards me and Heliodore's
voice say,
"Let me see your face, you who name yourself Olaf, for know that in
these haunted tombs ghosts and visions and mocking voices play strange
tricks. Why do you hide your face, you who call yourself Olaf?"
"Because the eyes are gone from it, Heliodore. Irene robbed it of the
eyes from jealousy of you, swearing that never more should they behold
your beauty. Perchance you would not wish to come too near to an
eyeless man wrapped in a beggar's robe."
She looked--I felt her look. She sobbed--I heard her sob, and then her
arms were about me and her lips were pressed upon my own.
So at length came joy such as I cannot tell; the joy of lost love
found again.
A while went by, how long I know not, and at last I said,
"Where is Martina? It is time we left this place."
"Martina!" she exclaimed. "Do you mean Irene's lady, and is she here?
If so, how comes she to be travelling with you, Olaf?"
"As the best friend man ever had, Heliodore; as one who clung to him
in his ruin and saved him from a cruel death; as one who has risked
her life to help him in his desperate search, and without whom that
search had failed."
"Then may God reward her, Olaf, for I did not know there were such
women in the world. Lady Martina! Where are you, lady Martina?"
Thrice she cried the words, and at the third time an answer came from
the shadows at a distance.
"I am here," said Martina's voice with a little yawn. "I was weary and
have slept while you two greeted each other. Well met at last, lady
Heliodore. See, I have brought you back your Olaf, blind it is true,
but otherwise lacking nothing of health and strength and station."
Then Heliodore ran to her and kissed first her hand and next her lips.
In after days she told me that for those of one who had been sleeping
the eyes of Martina seemed to be strangely wet and red. But if this
were so her voice trembled not at all.
"Truly you two should give thanks to God," she said, "Who has brought
you together again in so wondrous a fashion, as I do on your behalf
from the bottom of my heart. Yet you are still hemmed round by dangers
many and great. What now, Olaf? Will you become a ghost also and dwell
here in the tomb with Heliodore; and if so, what tale shall I tell to
Palka and the rest?"
"Not so," I answered. "I think it will be best that we should return
to Kurna. Heliodore must play her part as the spirit of a queen till
we can hire some boat and escape with her down the Nile."
"Never," she cried, "I cannot, I cannot. Having come together we must
separate no more. Oh! Olaf, you do not know what a life has been mine
during all these dreadful months. When I escaped from Musa by stabbing
the eunuch who was in charge of me, for which hideous deed may I be
forgiven," and I felt her shudder at my side, "I fled I knew not
whither till I found myself in this valley, where I hid till the night
was gone. Then at daybreak I peeped out from the mouth of the valley
and saw the Moslems searching for me, but as yet a long way off. Also
now I knew this valley. It was that to which my father had brought me
as a child when he came to search for the burying-place of his
ancestor, the Pharaoh, which records he had read told him was here. I
remembered everything: where the tomb should be, how we had entered it
through a hole, how we had found the mummy of a royal lady, whose face
was covered with a gilded mask, and on her breast the necklace which I
wear.
"I ran along the valley, searching the left side of it with my eyes,
till I saw a flat stone which I knew again. It was called the Table of
Offerings. I was sure that the hole by which we had entered the tomb
was quite near to this stone and a little above it, in the face of the
cliff. I climbed; I found what seemed to be the hole, though of this I
could not be certain. I crept down it till it came to an end, and
then, in my terror, hung by my hands and dropped into the darkness,
not knowing whither I fell, or caring over much if I were killed. As
it chanced it was but a little way, and, finding myself unhurt, I
crawled along the cavern till I reached this place where there is
light, for here the roof of the cave has fallen in. While I crouched
amid the rocks I heard the voices of the soldiers above me, heard
their officer also bidding them bring ropes and torches. To the left
of where you stand there is a sloping passage that runs down to the
great central chamber where sleeps some mighty king, and out of this
passage open other chambers. Into the first of these the light of the
morning sun struggles feebly. I entered it, seeking somewhere to hide
myself, and saw a painted coffin lying on the floor near to the marble
sarcophagus from which it had been dragged. It was that in which we
had found the body of my ancestress; but since then thieves had been
in this place. We had left the coffin in the sarcophagus and the mummy
in the coffin, and replaced their lids. Now the mummy lay on the
floor, half unwrapped and broken in two beneath the breast. Moreover,
the face, which I remembered as being so like my own, was gone to
dust, so that there remained of it nothing but a skull, to which hung
tresses of long black hair, as, indeed, you may see for yourself.
"By the side of the body was the gilded mask, with black and staring
eyes, and the painted breast-piece of stiff linen, neither of which
the thieves had found worth stealing.
"I looked and a thought came to me. Lifting the mummy, I thrust it
into the sarcophagus, all of it save the gilded mask and the painted
breast-piece of stiff linen. Then I laid myself down in the coffin, of
which the lid, still lying crosswise, hid me to the waist, and drew
the gilded mask and painted breast-piece over my head and bosom.
Scarcely was it done when the soldiers entered. By now the reflected
sunlight had faded from the place, leaving it in deep shadow; but some
of the men held burning torches made from splinters of old coffins,
that were full of pitch.
"'Feet have passed here; I saw the marks of them in the dust,' said
the officer. 'She may have hidden in this place. Search! Search! It
will go hard with us if we return to Musa to tell him that he has lost
his toy.'
"They looked into the sarcophagus and saw the broken mummy. Indeed,
one of them lifted it, unwillingly enough, and let it fall again,
saying grimly,
"'Musa would scarce care for this companion, though in her day she may
have been fair enough.'
"Then they came to the coffin.
"'Here's another,' exclaimed the soldier, 'and one with a gold face.
Allah! how its eyes stare.'
"'Pull it out,' said the officer.
"'Let that be your task,' answered the man. 'I'll defile myself with
no more corpses.'
"The officer came and looked. 'What a haunted hole is this, full of
the ghosts of idol worshippers, or so I think,' he said. 'Those eyes
stare curses at us. Well, the Christian maid is not here. On, before
the torches fail.'
"Then they went, leaving me; the painted linen creaked upon my breast
as I breathed again.
"'Till nightfall I lay in that coffin, fearing lest they should
return; and I tell you, Olaf, that strange dreams came to me there,
for I think I swooned or slept in that narrow bed. Yes, dreams of the
past, which you shall hear one day, if we live, for they seem to have
to do with you and me. Aye, I thought that the dead woman in the
sarcophagus at my side awoke and told them to me. At length I rose and
crept back to this place where we stand, for here I could see the
friendly light, and being outworn, laid me down and slept.
"At the first break of day I crawled from the tomb, followed that same
road by which I had entered, though I found it hard to climb up
through the entrance hole.
"No living thing was to be seen in the valley, except a great night
bird flitting to its haunt. I was parched with thirst, and knowing
that in this dry place I soon must perish, I glided from rock to rock
towards the mouth of the valley, thinking to find some other grave or
cranny where I might lie hid till night came again and I could descend
to the plain and drink. But, Olaf, before I had gone many steps I
discovered fresh food, milk and water laid upon a rock, and though I
feared lest they might be poisoned, ate and drank of them. When I knew
that they were wholesome I thought that some friend must have set them
there to satisfy my wants, though I knew not who the friend could be.
Afterwards I learned that this food was an offering to the ghosts of
the dead. Among our forefathers in forgotten generations it was, I
know, the custom to make such offerings, since in their blindness they
believed that the spirts of their beloved needed sustenance as their
bodies once had done. Doubtless the memory of the rite still survives;
at least, to this day the offerings are made. Indeed, when it was
found that they were not made in vain, more and more of them were
brought, so that I have lacked nothing.
"Here then I have dwelt for many moons among the dust of men departed,
only now and again wandering out at night. Once or twice folk have
seen me when I ventured to the plains, and I have been tempted to
speak to them and ask their help. But always they fled away, believing
me to be the ghost of some bygone queen. Indeed, to speak truth, Olaf,
this companionship with spirits, for spirits do dwell in these tombs--
I have seen them, I tell you I have seen them--has so worked upon my
soul that at times I feel as though I were already of their company.
Moreover, I knew that I could not live long. The loneliness was
sucking up my life as the dry sand sucks water. Had you not come,
Olaf, within some few days or weeks I should have died."
Now I spoke for the first time, saying,
"And did you wish to die, Heliodore?"
"No. Before the war between Musa and my father, Magas, news came to us
from Byzantium that Irene had killed you. All believed it save I, who
did not believe."
"Why not, Heliodore?"
"Because I could not feel that you were dead. Therefore I fought for
my life, who otherwise, after we were conquered and ruined and my
father was slain fighting nobly, should have stabbed, not that eunuch,
but myself. Then later, in this tomb, I came to know that you were not
dead. The other lost ones I could feel about me from time to time, but
you never, you who would have been the first to seek me when my soul
was open to such whisperings. So I lived on when all else would have
died, because hope burned in me like a lamp unquenchable. And at last
you came! Oh! at last you came!"
