II
Smith was seated in the sanctum of the distinguished Director-General
of Antiquities at the new Cairo Museum. It was a very interesting
room. Books piled upon the floor; objects from tombs awaiting
examination, lying here and there; a hoard of Ptolemaic silver coins,
just dug up at Alexandria, standing on a table in the pot that had
hidden them for two thousand years; in the corner the mummy of a royal
child, aged six or seven, not long ago discovered, with some
inscription scrawled upon the wrappings (brought here to be deciphered
by the Master), and the withered lotus-bloom, love's last offering,
thrust beneath one of the pink retaining bands.
"A touching object," thought Smith to himself. "Really, they might
have left the dear little girl in peace."
Smith had a tender heart, but even as he reflected he became aware
that some of the jewellery hidden in an inner pocket of his waistcoat
(designed for bank-notes) was fretting his skin. He had a tender
conscience also.
Just then the Director, a French savant, bustled in, alert, vigorous,
full of interest.
"Ah, my dear Mr. Smith!" he said, in his excellent English. "I am
indeed glad to see you back again, especially as I understand that you
are come rejoicing and bringing your sheaves with you. They tell me
you have been extraordinarily successful. What do you say is the name
of this queen whose tomb you have found--Ma-Mee? A very unusual name.
How do you get the extra vowel? Is it for euphony, eh? Did I not know
how good a scholar you are, I should be tempted to believe that you
had misread it. Me-Mee, Ma-Mee! That would be pretty in French, would
it not? /Ma mie/--my darling! Well, I dare say she was somebody's
/mie/ in her time. But tell me the story."
Smith told him shortly and clearly; also he produced his photographs
and copies of inscriptions.
"This is interesting--interesting truly," said the Director, when he
had glanced through them. "You must leave them with me to study. Also
you will publish them, is it not so? Perhaps one of the Societies
would help you with the cost, for it should be done in facsimile. Look
at this vignette! Most unusual. Oh, what a pity that scoundrelly
priest got off with the jewellery and burnt her Majesty's body!"
"He didn't get off with all of it."
"What, Mr. Smith? Our inspector reported to me that you found
nothing."
"I dare say, sir; but your inspector did not know what I found."
"Ah, you are a discreet man! Well, let us see."
Slowly Smith unbuttoned his waistcoat. From its inner pocket and
elsewhere about his person he extracted the jewels wrapped in mummy-
cloth as he had found them. First he produced a sceptre-head of gold,
in the shape of a pomegranate fruit and engraved with the throne name
and titles of Ma-Mee.
"What a beautiful object!" said the Director. "Look! the handle was of
ivory, and that /sacre/ thief of a priest smashed it out at the
socket. It was fresh ivory then; the robbery must have taken place not
long after the burial. See, this magnifying-glass shows it. Is that
all?"
Smith handed him the surviving half of the marvellous necklace that
had been torn in two.
"I have re-threaded it," he muttered, "but every bead is in its
place."
"Oh, heavens! How lovely! Note the cutting of those cornelian heads of
Hathor and the gold lotus-blooms between--yes, and the enamelled flies
beneath. We have nothing like it in the Museum."
So it went on.
"Is that all?" gasped the Director at last, when every object from the
basket glittered before them on the table.
"Yes," said Smith. "That is--no. I found a broken statuette hidden in
the sand outside the tomb. It is of the queen, but I thought perhaps
you would allow me to keep this."
"But certainly, Mr. Smith; it is yours indeed. We are not niggards
here. Still, if I might see it----"
From yet another pocket Smith produced the head. The Director gazed at
it, then he spoke with feeling.
"I said just now that you were discreet, Mr. Smith, and I have been
reflecting that you are honest. But now I must add that you are very
clever. If you had not made me promise that this bronze should be
yours before you showed it me--well, it would never have gone into
that pocket again. And, in the public interest, won't you release me
from the promise?"
"/No/," said Smith.
"You are perhaps not aware," went on the Director, with a groan, "that
this is a portrait of Mariette's unknown queen whom we are thus able
to identify. It seems a pity that the two should be separated; a
replica we could let you have."
"I am quite aware," said Smith, "and I will be sure to send /you/ a
replica, with photographs. Also I promise to leave the original to
some museum by will."
The Director clasped the image tenderly, and, holding it to the light,
read the broken cartouche beneath the breasts.
"'Ma-Me, Great Royal Lady. Beloved of ----' Beloved of whom? Well, of
Smith, for one. Take it, monsieur, and hide it away at once, lest soon
there should be another mummy in this collection, a modern mummy
called Smith; and, in the name of Justice, let the museum which
inherits it be not the British, but that of Cairo, for this queen
belongs to Egypt. By the way, I have been told that you are delicate
in the lungs. How is your health now? Our cold winds are very trying.
Quite good? Ah, that is excellent! I suppose that you have no more
articles that you can show me?"
"I have nothing more except a mummied hand, which I found in the
basket with the jewels. The two rings off it lie there. Doubtless it
was removed to get at that bracelet. I suppose you will not mind my
keeping the hand----"
"Of the beloved of Smith," interrupted the Director drolly. "No, I
suppose not, though for my part I should prefer one that was not quite
so old. Still, perhaps /you/ will not mind my seeing it. That pocket
of yours still looks a little bulky; I thought that it contained
books!"
Smith produced a cigar-box; in it was the hand wrapped in cotton wool.
"Ah," said the Director, "a pretty, well-bred hand. No doubt this
Ma-Mee was the real heiress to the throne, as she describes herself.
The Pharaoh was somebody of inferior birth, half-brother--she is
called 'Royal Sister,' you remember--son of one of the Pharaoh's
slave-women, perhaps. Odd that she never mentioned him in the tomb. It
looks as though they didn't get on in life, and that she was
determined to have done with him in death. Those were the rings upon
that hand, were they not?"
He replaced them on the fingers, then took off one, a royal signet in
a cartouche, and read the inscription on the other: "'Bes Ank, Ank
Bes.' 'Bes the Living, the Living Bes.'
"Your Ma-Mee had some human vanity about her," he added. "Bes, among
other things, as you know, was the god of beauty and of the adornments
of women. She wore that ring that she might remain beautiful, and that
her dresses might always fit, and her rouge never cake when she was
dancing before the gods. Also it fixes her period pretty closely, but
then so do other things. It seems a pity to rob Ma-Mee of her pet
ring, does it not? The royal signet will be enough for us."
With a little bow he gave the hand back to Smith, leaving the Bes ring
on the finger that had worn it for more than three thousand years. At
least, Smith was so sure it was the Bes ring that at the time he did
not look at it again.
Then they parted, Smith promising to return upon the morrow, which,
owing to events to be described, he did not do.
"Ah!" said the Master to himself, as the door closed behind his
visitor. "He's in a hurry to be gone. He has fear lest I should change
my mind about that ring. Also there is the bronze. Monsieur Smith was
/ruse/ there. It is worth a thousand pounds, that bronze. Yet I do not
believe he was thinking of the money. I believe he is in love with
that Ma-Mee and wants to keep her picture. /Mon Dieu!/ A well-
established affection. At least he is what the English call an odd
fish, one whom I could never make out, and of whom no one seems to
know anything. Still, honest, I am sure--quite honest. Why, he might
have kept every one of those jewels and no one have been the wiser.
And what things! What a find! /Ciel!/ what a find! There has been
nothing like it for years. Benedictions on the head of Odd-fish
Smith!"
Then he collected the precious objects, thrust them into an inner
compartment of his safe, which he locked and double-locked, and, as it
was nearly five o'clock, departed from the Museum to his private
residence in the grounds, there to study Smith's copies and
photographs, and to tell some friends of the great things that had
happened.
When Smith found himself outside the sacred door, and had presented
its venerable guardian with a baksheesh of five piastres, he walked a
few paces to the right and paused a while to watch some native
labourers who were dragging a huge sarcophagus upon an improvised
tramway. As they dragged they sang an echoing rhythmic song, whereof
each line ended with an invocation to Allah.
Just so, reflected Smith, had their forefathers sung when, millenniums
ago, they dragged that very sarcophagus from the quarries to the Nile,
and from the Nile to the tomb whence it reappeared to-day, or when
they slid the casing blocks of the pyramids up the great causeway and
smooth slope of sand, and laid them in their dizzy resting-places.
Only then each line of the immemorial chant of toil ended with an
invocation to Amen, now transformed to Allah. The East may change its
masters and its gods, but its customs never change, and if to-day
Allah wore the feathers of Amen one wonders whether the worshippers
would find the difference so very great.
Thus thought Smith as he hurried away from the sarcophagus and those
blue-robed, dark-skinned fellaheen, down the long gallery that is
filled with a thousand sculptures. For a moment he paused before the
wonderful white statue of Queen Amenartas, then, remembering that his
time was short, hastened on to a certain room, one of those which
opened out of the gallery.
In a corner of this room, upon the wall, amongst many other beautiful
objects, stood that head which Mariette had found, whereof in past
years the cast had fascinated him in London. Now he knew whose head it
was; to him it had been given to find the tomb of her who had sat for
that statue. Her very hand was in his pocket--yes, the hand that had
touched yonder marble, pointing out its defects to the sculptor, or
perhaps swearing that he flattered her. Smith wondered who that
sculptor was; surely he must have been a happy man. Also he wondered
whether the statuette was also this master's work. He thought so, but
he wished to make sure.
Near to the end of the room he stopped and looked about him like a
thief. He was alone in the place; not a single student or tourist
could be seen, and its guardian was somewhere else. He drew out the
box that contained the hand. From the hand he slipped the ring which
the Director-General had left there as a gift to himself. He would
much have preferred the other with the signet, but how could he say
so, especially after the episode of the statuette?
Replacing the hand in his pocket without looking at the ring--for his
eyes were watching to see whether he was observed--he set it upon his
little finger, which it exactly fitted. (Ma-Mee had worn both of them
upon the third finger of her left hand, the Bes ring as a guard to the
signet.) He had the fancy to approach the effigy of Ma-Mee wearing a
ring which she had worn and that came straight from her finger to his
own.
Smith found the head in its accustomed place. Weeks had gone by since
he looked upon it, and now, to his eyes, it had grown more beautiful
than ever, and its smile was more mystical and living. He drew out the
statuette and began to compare them point by point. Oh, no doubt was
possible! Both were likenesses of the same woman, though the statuette
might have been executed two or three years later than the statue. To
him the face of it looked a little older and more spiritual. Perhaps
illness, or some premonition of her end had then thrown its shadow on
the queen. He compared and compared. He made some rough measurements
and sketches in his pocket-book, and set himself to work out a canon
of proportions.
So hard and earnestly did he work, so lost was his mind that he never
heard the accustomed warning sound which announces that the Museum is
about to close. Hidden behind an altar as he was, in his distant,
shadowed corner, the guardian of the room never saw him as he cast a
last perfunctory glance about the place before departing till the
Saturday morning; for the morrow was Friday, the Mohammedan Sabbath,
on which the Museum remains shut, and he would not be called upon to
attend. So he went. Everybody went. The great doors clanged, were
locked and bolted, and, save for a watchman outside, no one was left
in all that vast place except Smith in his corner, engaged in
sketching and in measurements.
The difficulty of seeing, owing to the increase of shadow, first
called his attention to the fact that time was slipping away. He
glanced at his watch and saw that it was ten minutes to the hour.
"Soon be time to go," he thought to himself, and resumed his work.
How strangely silent the place seemed! Not a footstep to be heard or
the sound of a human voice. He looked at his watch again, and saw that
it was six o'clock, not five, or so the thing said. But that was
impossible, for the Museum shut at five; evidently the desert sand had
got into the works. The room in which he stood was that known as Room
I, and he had noticed that its Arab custodian often frequented Room K
or the gallery outside. He would find him and ask what was the real
time.
Passing round the effigy of the wonderful Hathor cow, perhaps the
finest example of an ancient sculpture of a beast in the whole world,
Smith came to the doorway and looked up and down the gallery. Not a
soul to be seen. He ran to Room K, to Room H, and others. Still not a
soul to be seen. Then he made his way as fast as he could go to the
great entrance. The doors were locked and bolted.
"Watch must be right after all. I'm shut in," he said to himself.
"However, there's sure to be someone about somewhere. Probably the
/salle des ventes/ is still open. Shops don't shut till they are
obliged."
Thither he went, to find its door as firmly closed as a door can be.
He knocked on it, but a sepulchral echo was the only answer.
"I know," he reflected. "The Director must still be in his room. It
will take him a long while to examine all that jewellery and put it
away."
So for the room he headed, and, after losing his path twice, found it
by help of the sarcophagus that the Arabs had been dragging, which now
stood as deserted as it had done in the tomb, a lonesome and
impressive object in the gathering shadows. The Director's door was
shut, and again his knockings produced nothing but an echo. He started
on a tour round the Museum, and, having searched the ground floors,
ascended to the upper galleries by the great stairway.
Presently he found himself in that devoted to the royal mummies, and,
being tired, rested there a while. Opposite to him, in a glass case in
the middle of the gallery, reposed Rameses II. Near to, on shelves in
a side case, were Rameses' son, Meneptah, and above, his son, Seti
II, while in other cases were the mortal remains of many more of the
royalties of Egypt. He looked at the proud face of Rameses and at the
little fringe of white locks turned yellow by the embalmer's spices,
also at the raised left arm. He remembered how the Director had told
him that when they were unrolling this mighty monarch they went away
to lunch, and that presently the man who had been left in charge of
the body rushed into the room with his hair on end, and said that the
dead king had lifted his arm and pointed at him.
Back they went, and there, true enough, was the arm lifted; nor were
they ever able to get it quite into its place again. The explanation
given was that the warmth of the sun had contracted the withered
muscles, a very natural and correct explanation.
Still, Smith wished that he had not recollected the story just at this
moment, especially as the arm seemed to move while he contemplated it
--a very little, but still to move.
He turned round and gazed at Meneptah, whose hollow eyes stared at him
from between the wrappings carelessly thrown across the parchment-like
and ashen face. There, probably, lay the countenance that had frowned
on Moses. There was the heart which God had hardened. Well, it was
hard enough now, for the doctors said he died of ossification of the
arteries, and that the vessels of the heart were full of lime!
Smith stood upon a chair and peeped at Seti II. above. His weaker
countenance was very peaceful, but it seemed to wear an air of
reproach. In getting down Smith managed to upset the heavy chair. The
noise it made was terrific. He would not have thought it possible that
the fall of such an article could produce so much sound. Satisfied
with his inspection of these particular kings, who somehow looked
quite different now from what they had ever done before--more real and
imminent, so to speak--he renewed his search for a living man.
On he went, mummies to his right, mummies to his left, of every style
and period, till he began to feel as though he never wished to see
another dried remnant of mortality. He peeped into the room where lay
the relics of Iouiya and Touiyou, the father and mother of the great
Queen Taia. Cloths had been drawn over these, and really they looked
worse and more suggestive thus draped than in their frigid and
unadorned blackness. He came to the coffins of the priest-kings of the
twentieth dynasty, formidable painted coffins with human faces. There
seemed to be a vast number of these priest-kings, but perhaps they
were better than the gold masks of the great Ptolemaic ladies which
glinted at him through the gathering gloom.
Really, he had seen enough of the upper floors. The statues downstairs
were better than all these dead, although it was true that, according
to the Egyptian faith, every one of those statues was haunted
eternally by the /Ka/, or Double, of the person whom it represented.
He descended the great stairway. Was it fancy, or did something run
across the bottom step in front of him--an animal of some kind,
followed by a swift-moving and indefinite shadow? If so, it must have
been the Museum cat hunting a Museum mouse. Only then what on earth
was that very peculiar and unpleasant shadow?
He called, "Puss! puss! puss!" for he would have been quite glad of
its company; but there came no friendly "miau" in response. Perhaps it
was only the /Ka/ of a cat and the shadow was--oh! never mind what.
The Egyptians worshipped cats, and there were plenty of their mummies
about on the shelves. But the shadow!
Once he shouted in the hope of attracting attention, for there were no
windows to which he could climb. He did not repeat the experiment, for
it seemed as though a thousand voices were answering him from every
corner and roof of the gigantic edifice.
Well, he must face the thing out. He was shut in a museum, and the
question was in what part of it he should camp for the night.
Moreover, as it was growing rapidly dark, the problem must be solved
at once. He thought with affection of the lavatory, where, before
going to see the Director, only that afternoon he had washed his hands
with the assistance of a kindly Arab who watched the door and
gracefully accepted a piastre. But there was no Arab there now, and
the door, like every other in this confounded place, was locked. He
marched on to the entrance.
Here, opposite to each other, stood the red sarcophagi of the great
Queen Hatshepu and her brother and husband, Thotmes III. He looked at
them. Why should not one of these afford him a night's lodging? They
were deep and quiet, and would fit the human frame very nicely. For a
while Smith wondered which of these monarchs would be the more likely
to take offence at such a use of a private sarcophagus, and, acting on
general principles, concluded that he would rather throw himself on
the mercy of the lady.
Already one of his legs was over the edge of that solemn coffer, and
he was squeezing his body beneath the massive lid that was propped
above it on blocks of wood, when he remembered a little, naked,
withered thing with long hair that he had seen in a side chamber of
the tomb of Amenhotep II. in the Valley of Kings at Thebes. This
caricature of humanity many thought, and he agreed with them, to be
the actual body of the mighty Hatshepu as it appeared after the
robbers had done with it.
Supposing now, that when he was lying at the bottom of that
sarcophagus, sleeping the sleep of the just, this little personage
should peep over its edge and ask him what he was doing there! Of
course the idea was absurd; he was tired, and his nerves were a little
shaken. Still, the fact remained that for centuries the hallowed dust
of Queen Hatshepu had slept where he, a modern man, was proposing to
sleep.
He scrambled down from the sarcophagus and looked round him in
despair. Opposite to the main entrance was the huge central hall of
the Museum. Now the cement roof of this hall had, he knew, gone wrong,
with the result that very extensive repairs had become necessary. So
extensive were they, indeed, that the Director-General had informed
him that they would take several years to complete. Therefore this
hall was boarded up, only a little doorway being left by which the
workmen could enter. Certain statues, of Seti II. and others, too
large to be moved, were also roughly boarded over, as were some great
funeral boats on either side of the entrance. The rest of the place,
which might be two hundred feet long with a proportionate breadth, was
empty save for the colossi of Amenhotep III. and his queen Taia that
stood beneath the gallery at its farther end.
It was an appalling place in which to sleep, but better, reflected
Smith, than a sarcophagus or those mummy chambers. If, for instance,
he could creep behind the deal boards that enclosed one of the funeral
boats he would be quite comfortable there. Lifting the curtain, he
slipped into the hall, where the gloom of evening had already settled.
Only the skylights and the outline of the towering colossi at the far
end remained visible. Close to him were the two funeral boats which he
had noted when he looked into the hall earlier on that day, standing
at the head of a flight of steps which led to the sunk floor of the
centre. He groped his way to that on the right. As he expected, the
projecting planks were not quite joined at the bow. He crept in
between them and the boat and laid himself down.
Presumably, being altogether tired out, Smith did ultimately fall
asleep, for how long he never knew. At any rate, it is certain that,
if so, he woke up again. He could not tell the time, because his watch
was not a repeater, and the place was as black as the pit. He had some
matches in his pocket, and might have struck one and even have lit his
pipe. To his credit be it said, however, he remembered that he was the
sole tenant of one of the most valuable museums in the world, and his
responsibilities with reference to fire. So he refrained from striking
that match under the keel of a boat which had become very dry in the
course of five thousand years.
Smith found himself very wide awake indeed. Never in all his life did
he remember being more so, not even in the hour of its great
catastrophe, or when his godfather, Ebenezer, after much hesitation,
had promised him a clerkship in the bank of which he was a director.
His nerves seemed strung tight as harp-strings, and his every sense
was painfully acute. Thus he could even smell the odour of mummies
that floated down from the upper galleries and the earthy scent of the
boat which had been buried for thousands of years in sand at the foot
of the pyramid of one of the fifth dynasty kings.
Moreover, he could hear all sorts of strange sounds, faint and far-
away sounds which at first he thought must emanate from Cairo without.
Soon, however, he grew sure that their origin was more local.
Doubtless the cement work and the cases in the galleries were cracking
audibly, as is the unpleasant habit of such things at night.
Yet why should these common manifestations be so universal and affect
him so strangely? Really, it seemed as though people were stirring all
about him. More, he could have sworn that the great funeral boat
beneath which he lay had become re-peopled with the crew that once it
bore.
He heard them at their business above him. There were trampings and a
sound as though something heavy were being laid on the deck, such, for
instance, as must have been made when the mummy of Pharaoh was set
there for its last journey to the western bank of the Nile. Yes, and
now he could have sworn again that the priestly crew were getting out
the oars.
Smith began to meditate flight from the neighbourhood of that place
when something occurred which determined him to stop where he was.
The huge hall was growing light, but not, as at first he hoped, with
the rays of dawn. This light was pale and ghostly, though very
penetrating. Also it had a blue tinge, unlike any other he had ever
seen. At first it arose in a kind of fan or fountain at the far end of
the hall, illumining the steps there and the two noble colossi which
sat above.
But what was this that stood at the head of the steps, radiating
glory? By heavens! it was Osiris himself or the image of Osiris, god
of the Dead, the Egyptian saviour of the world!
There he stood, in his mummy-cloths, wearing the feathered crown, and
holding in his hands, which projected from an opening in the
wrappings, the crook and the scourge of power. Was he alive, or was he
dead? Smith could not tell, since he never moved, only stood there,
splendid and fearful, his calm, benignant face staring into
nothingness.
Smith became aware that the darkness between him and the vision of
this god was peopled; that a great congregation was gathering, or had
gathered there. The blue light began to grow; long tongues of it shot
forward, which joined themselves together, illumining all that huge
hall.
Now, too, he saw the congregation. Before him, rank upon rank of them,
stood the kings and queens of Egypt. As though at a given signal, they
bowed themselves to the Osiris, and ere the tinkling of their
ornaments had died away, lo! Osiris was gone. But in his place stood
another, Isis, the Mother of Mystery, her deep eyes looking forth from
beneath the jewelled vulture-cap. Again the congregation bowed, and,
lo! she was gone. But in her place stood yet another, a radiant,
lovely being, who held in her hand the Sign of Life, and wore upon her
head the symbol of the shining disc--Hathor, Goddess of Love. A third
time the congregation bowed, and she, too, was gone; nor did any other
appear in her place.
The Pharaohs and their queens began to move about and speak to each
other; their voices came to his ears in one low, sweet murmur.
In his amaze Smith had forgotten fear. From his hiding-place he
watched them intently. Some of them he knew by their faces. There, for
instance, was the long-necked Khu-en-aten, talking somewhat angrily to
the imperial Rameses II. Smith could understand what he said, for this
power seemed to have been given to him. He was complaining in a high,
weak voice that on this, the one night of the year when they might
meet, the gods, or the magic images of the gods who were put up for
them to worship, should not include /his/ god, symbolized by the
"Aten," or the sun's disc.
"I have heard of your Majesty's god," replied Rameses; "the priests
used to tell me of him, also that he did not last long after your
Majesty flew to heaven. The Fathers of Amen gave you a bad name; they
called you 'the heretic' and hammered out your cartouches. They were
quite rare in my time. Oh, do not let your Majesty be angry! So many
of us have been heretics. My grandson, Seti, there"--and he pointed to
a mild, thoughtful-faced man--"for example. I am told that he really
worshipped the god of those Hebrew slaves whom I used to press to
build my cities. Look at that lady with him. Beautiful, isn't she?
Observe her large, violet eyes! Well, she was the one who did the
mischief, a Hebrew herself. At least, they tell me so."
"I will talk with him," answered Khu-en-aten. "It is more than
possible that we may agree on certain points. Meanwhile, let me
explain to your Majesty----"
"Oh, I pray you, not now. There is my wife."
"Your wife?" said Khu-en-aten, drawing himself up. "Which wife? I am
told that your Majesty had many and left a large family; indeed, I see
some hundreds of them here to-night. Now, I--but let me introduce
Nefertiti to your Majesty. I may explain that she was my /only/ wife."
"So I have understood. Your Majesty was rather an invalid, were you
not? Of course, in those circumstances, one prefers the nurse whom one
can trust. Oh, pray, no offence! Nefertari, my love--oh, I beg pardon!
--Astnefert--Nefertari has gone to speak to some of her children--let
me introduce you to your predecessor, the Queen Nefertiti, wife of
Amenhotep IV.--I mean Khu-en-aten (he changed his name, you know,
because half of it was that of the father of the gods). She is
interested in the question of plural marriage. Good-bye! I wish to
have a word with my grandfather, Rameses I. He was fond of me as a
little boy."
At this moment Smith's interest in that queer conversation died away,
for of a sudden he beheld none other than the queen of his dreams, Ma-
Mee. Oh! there she stood, without a doubt, only ten times more
beautiful than he had ever pictured her. She was tall and somewhat
fair-complexioned, with slumbrous, dark eyes, and on her face gleamed
the mystic smile he loved. She wore a robe of simple white and a
purple-broidered apron, a crown of golden /uraei/ with turquoise eyes
was set upon her dark hair as in her statue, and on her breast and
arms were the very necklace and bracelets that he had taken from her
tomb. She appeared to be somewhat moody, or rather thoughtful, for she
leaned by herself against a balustrade, watching the throng without
much interest.
Presently a Pharaoh, a black-browed, vigorous man with thick lips,
drew near.
"I greet your Majesty," he said.
She started, and answered: "Oh, it is you! I make my obeisance to your
Majesty," and she curtsied to him, humbly enough, but with a
suggestion of mockery in her movements.
"Well, you do not seem to have been very anxious to find me, Ma-Mee,
which, considering that we meet so seldom----"
"I saw that your Majesty was engaged with my sister queens," she
interrupted, in a rich, low voice, "and with some other ladies in the
gallery there, whose faces I seem to remember, but who I think were
/not/ queens. Unless, indeed, you married them after I was drawn
away."
"One must talk to one's relations," replied the Pharaoh.
"Quite so. But, you see, I have no relations--at least, none whom I
know well. My parents, you will remember, died when I was young,
leaving me Egypt's heiress, and they are still vexed at the marriage
which I made on the advice of my counsellors. But, is it not annoying?
I have lost one of my rings, that which had the god Bes on it. Some
dweller on the earth must be wearing it to-day, and that is why I
cannot get it back from him."
"Him! Why 'him'? Hush; the business is about to begin."
"What business, my lord?"
"Oh, the question of the violation of our tombs, I believe."
"Indeed! That is a large subject, and not a very profitable one, I
should say. Tell me, who is that?" And she pointed to a lady who had
stepped forward, a very splendid person, magnificently arrayed.
"Cleopatra the Greek," he answered, "the last of Egypt's Sovereigns,
one of the Ptolemys. You can always know her by that Roman who walks
about after her."
"Which?" asked Ma-Mee. "I see several--also other men. She was the
wretch who rolled Egypt in the dirt and betrayed her. Oh, if it were
not for the law of peace by which we must abide when we meet thus!"
"You mean that she would be torn to shreds, Ma-Mee, and her very soul
scattered like the limbs of Osiris? Well, if it were not for that law
of peace, so perhaps would many of us, for never have I heard a single
king among these hundreds speak altogether well of those who went
before or followed after him."
"Especially of those who went before if they happen to have hammered
out their cartouches and usurped their monuments," said the queen,
dryly, and looking him in the eyes.
At this home-thrust the Pharaoh seemed to wince. Making no answer, he
pointed to the royal woman who had mounted the steps at the end of the
hall.
Queen Cleopatra lifted her hand and stood thus for a while. Very
splendid she was, and Smith, on his hands and knees behind the
boarding of the boat, thanked his stars that alone among modern men it
had been his lot to look upon her rich and living loveliness. There
she shone, she who had changed the fortunes of the world, she who,
whatever she did amiss, at least had known how to die.
Silence fell upon that glittering galaxy of kings and queens and upon
all the hundreds of their offspring, their women, and their great
officers who crowded the double tier of galleries around the hall.
"Royalties of Egypt," she began, in a sweet, clear voice which
penetrated to the farthest recesses of the place, "I, Cleopatra, the
sixth of that name and the last monarch who ruled over the Upper and
the Lower Lands before Egypt became a home of slaves, have a word to
say to your Majesties, who, in your mortal days, all of you more
worthily filled the throne on which once I sat. I do not speak of
Egypt and its fate, or of our sins--whereof mine were not the least--
that brought her to the dust. Those sins I and others expiate
elsewhere, and of them, from age to age, we hear enough. But on this
one night of the year, that of the feast of him whom we call Osiris,
but whom other nations have known and know by different names, it is
given to us once more to be mortal for an hour, and, though we be but
shadows, to renew the loves and hates of our long-perished flesh. Here
for an hour we strut in our forgotten pomp; the crowns that were ours
still adorn our brows, and once more we seem to listen to our people's
praise. Our hopes are the hopes of mortal life, our foes are the foes
we feared, our gods grow real again, and our lovers whisper in our
ears. Moreover, this joy is given to us--to see each other as we are,
to know as the gods know, and therefore to forgive, even where we
despise and hate. Now I have done, and I, the youngest of the rulers
of ancient Egypt, call upon him who was the first of her kings to take
my place."
She bowed, and the audience bowed back to her. Then she descended the
steps and was lost in the throng. Where she had been appeared an old
man, simply-clad, long-bearded, wise-faced, and wearing on his grey
hair no crown save a plain band of gold, from the centre of which rose
the snake-headed /uraeus/ crest.
"Your Majesties who came after me," said the old man, "I am Menes, the
first of the accepted Pharaohs of Egypt, although many of those who
went before me were more truly kings than I. Yet as the first who
joined the Upper and the Lower Lands, and took the royal style and
titles, and ruled as well as I could rule, it is given to me to talk
with you for a while this night whereon our spirits are permitted to
gather from the uttermost parts of the uttermost worlds and see each
other face to face. First, in darkness and in secret, let us speak of
the mystery of the gods and of its meanings. Next, in darkness and in
secret, let us speak of the mystery of our lives, of whence they come,
of where they tarry by the road, and whither they go at last. And
afterwards, let us speak of other matters face to face in light and
openness, as we were wont to do when we were men. Then hence to
Thebes, there to celebrate our yearly festival. Is such your will?"
"Such is our will," they answered.
It seemed to Smith that dense darkness fell upon the place, and with
it a silence that was awful. For a time that he could not reckon, that
might have been years or might have been moments, he sat there in the
utter darkness and the utter silence.
At length the light came again, first as a blue spark, then in upward
pouring rays, and lastly pervading all. There stood Menes on the
steps, and there in front of him was gathered the same royal throng.
"The mysteries are finished," said the old king. "Now, if any have
aught to say, let it be said openly."
A young man dressed in the robes and ornaments of an early dynasty
came forward and stood upon the steps between the Pharaoh Menes and
all those who had reigned after him. His face seemed familiar to
Smith, as was the side lock that hung down behind his right ear in
token of his youth. Where had he seen him? Ah, he remembered. Only a
few hours ago lying in one of the cases of the Museum, together with
the bones of the Pharaoh Unas.
"Your Majesties," he began, "I am the King Metesuphis. The matter that
I wish to lay before you is that of the violation of our sepulchres by
those men who now live upon the earth. The mortal bodies of many who
are gathered here to-night lie in this place to be stared at and
mocked by the curious. I myself am one of them, jawless, broken,
hideous to behold. Yonder, day by day, must my /Ka/ sit watching my
desecrated flesh, torn from the pyramid that, with cost and labour, I
raised up to be an eternal house wherein I might hide till the hour of
resurrection. Others of us lie in far lands. Thus, as he can tell you,
my predecessor, Man-kau-ra, he who built the third of the great
pyramids, the Pyramid of Her, sleeps, or rather wakes in a dark city,
called London, across the seas, a place of murk where no sun shines.
Others have been burnt with fire, others are scattered in small dust.
The ornaments that were ours are stole away and sold to the greedy;
our sacred writings and our symbols are their jest. Soon there will
not be one holy grave in Egypt that remains undefiled."
"That is so," said a voice from the company. "But four months gone the
deep, deep pit was opened that I had dug in the shadow of the Pyramid
of Cephren, who begat me in the world. There in my chamber I slept
alone, two handfuls of white bones, since when I died they did not
preserve the body with wrappings and with spices. Now I see those
bones of mine, beside which my Double has watched for these five
thousand years, hid in the blackness of a great ship and tossing on a
sea that is strewn with ice."
"It is so," echoed a hundred other voices.
"Then," went on the young king, turning to Menes, "I ask of your
Majesty whether there is no means whereby we may be avenged on those
who do us this foul wrong."
"Let him who has wisdom speak," said the old Pharaoh.
A man of middle age, short in stature and of a thoughtful brow, who
held in his hand a wand and wore the feathers and insignia of the heir
to the throne of Egypt and of a high priest of Amen, moved to the
steps. Smith knew him at once from his statues. He was Khaemuas, son
of Rameses the Great, the mightiest magician that ever was in Egypt,
who of his own will withdrew himself from earth before the time came
that he should sit upon the throne.
"I have wisdom, your Majesties, and I will answer," he said. "The time
draws on when, in the land of Death which is Life, the land that we
call Amenti, it will be given to us to lay our wrongs as to this
matter before Those who judge, knowing that they will be avenged. On
this night of the year also, when we resume the shapes we were, we
have certain powers of vengeance, or rather of executing justice. But
our time is short, and there is much to say and do before the sun-god
Ra arises and we depart each to his place. Therefore it seems best
that we should leave these wicked ones in their wickedness till we
meet them face to face beyond the world."
Smith, who had been following the words of Khaemuas with the closest
attention and considerable anxiety, breathed again, thanking Heaven
that the engagements of these departed monarchs were so numerous and
pressing. Still, as a matter of precaution, he drew the cigar-box
which contained Ma-Mee's hand from his pocket, and pushed it as far
away from him as he could. It was a most unlucky act. Perhaps the
cigar-box grated on the floor, or perhaps the fact of his touching the
relic put him into psychic communication with all these spirits. At
any rate, he became aware that the eyes of that dreadful magician were
fixed upon him, and that a bone had a better chance of escaping the
search of a Rontgen ray than he of hiding himself from their baleful
glare.
"As it happens, however," went on Khaemuas, in a cold voice, "I now
perceive that there is hidden in this place, and spying on us, one of
the worst of these vile thieves. I say to your Majesties that I see
him crouched beneath yonder funeral barge, and that he has with him at
this moment the hand of one of your Majesties, stolen by him from her
tomb at Thebes."
Now every queen in the company became visibly agitated (Smith, who was
watching Ma-Mee, saw her hold up her hands and look at them), while
all the Pharaohs pointed with their fingers and exclaimed together, in
a voice that rolled round the hall like thunder:
"Let him be brought forth to judgment!"
Khaemuas raised his wand and, holding it towards the boat where Smith
was hidden, said:
"Draw near, Vile One, bringing with thee that thou hast stolen."
Smith tried hard to remain where he was. He sat himself down and set
his heels against the floor. As the reader knows, he was always shy
and retiring by disposition, and never had these weaknesses oppressed
him more than they did just then. When a child his favourite nightmare
had been that the foreman of a jury was in the act of proclaiming him
guilty of some dreadful but unstated crime. Now he understood what
that nightmare foreshadowed. He was about to be convicted in a court
of which all the kings and queens of Egypt were the jury, Menes was
Chief Justice, and the magician Khaemuas played the /role/ of
Attorney-General.
In vain did he sit down and hold fast. Some power took possession of
him which forced him first to stretch out his arm and pick up the
cigar-box containing the hand of Ma-Mee, and next drew him from the
friendly shelter of the deal boards that were about the boat.
Now he was on his feet and walking down the flight of steps opposite
to those on which Menes stood far away. Now he was among all that
throng of ghosts, which parted to let him pass, looking at him as he
went with cold and wondering eyes. They were very majestic ghosts; the
ages that had gone by since they laid down their sceptres had taken
nothing from their royal dignity. Moreover, save one, none of them
seemed to have any pity for his plight. She was a little princess who
stood by her mother, that same little princess whose mummy he had seen
and pitied in the Director's room with a lotus flower thrust beneath
her bandages. As he passed Smith heard her say:
"This Vile One is frightened. Be brave, Vile One!"
Smith understood, and pride came to his aid. He, a gentleman of the
modern world, would not show the white feather before a crowd of
ancient Egyptian ghosts. Turning to the child, he smiled at her, then
drew himself to his full height and walked on quietly. Here it may be
stated that Smith was a tall man, still comparatively young, and very
good-looking, straight and spare in frame, with dark, pleasant eyes
and a little black beard.
"At least he is a well-favoured thief," said one of the queens to
another.
"Yes," answered she who had been addressed. "I wonder that a man with
such a noble air should find pleasure in disturbing graves and
stealing the offerings of the dead," words that gave Smith much cause
for thought. He had never considered the matter in this light.
Now he came to the place where Ma-Mee stood, the black-browed Pharaoh
who had been her husband at her side. On his left hand which held the
cigar-box was the gold Bes ring, and that box he felt constrained to
carry pressed against him just over his heart.
As he went by he turned his head, and his eyes met those of Ma-Mee.
She started violently. Then she saw the ring upon his hand and again
started still more violently.
"What ails your Majesty?" asked the Pharaoh.
"Oh, naught," she answered. "Yet does this earth-dweller remind you of
anyone?"
"Yes, he does," answered the Pharaoh. "He reminds me very much of that
accursed sculptor about whom we had words."
"Do you mean a certain Horu, the Court artist; he who worked the image
that was buried with me, and whom you sent to carve your statues in
the deserts of Kush, until he died of fevers--or was it poison?"
"Aye; Horu and no other, may Set take and keep him!" growled the
Pharaoh.
Then Smith passed on and heard no more. Now he stood before the
venerable Menes. Some instinct caused him to bow to this Pharaoh, who
bowed back to him. Then he turned and bowed to the royal company, and
they also bowed back to him, coldly, but very gravely and courteously.
"Dweller on the world where once we had our place, and therefore
brother of us, the dead," began Menes, "this divine priest and
magician"--and he pointed to Khaemuas--"declares that you are one of
those who foully violate our sepulchres and desecrate our ashes. He
declares, moreover, that at this very moment you have with you a
portion of the mortal flesh of a certain Majesty whose spirit is
present here. Say, now, are these things true?"
To his astonishment Smith found that he had not the slightest
difficulty in answering in the same sweet tongue.
"O King, they are true, and not true. Hear me, rulers of Egypt. It is
true that I have searched in your graves, because my heart has been
drawn towards you, and I would learn all that I could concerning you,
for it comes to me /now/ that once I was one of you--no king, indeed,
yet perchance of the blood of kings. Also--for I would hide nothing
even if I could--I searched for one tomb above all others."
"Why, O man?" asked the Judge.
"Because a face drew me, a lovely face that was cut in stone."
Now all that great audience turned their eyes towards him and listened
as though his words moved them.
"Did you find that holy tomb?" asked Menes. "If so, what did you find
therein?"
"Aye, Pharaoh, and in it I found these," and he took from the box the
withered hand, from his pocket the broken bronze, and from his finger
the ring.
"Also I found other things which I delivered to the keeper of this
place, articles of jewellery that I seem to see to-night upon one who
is present here among you."
"Is the face of this figure the face you sought?" asked the Judge.
"It is the lovely face," he answered.
Menes took the effigy in his hand and read the cartouche that was
engraved beneath its breast.
"If there be here among us," he said, presently, "one who long after
my day ruled as queen in Egypt, one who was named Ma-Me, let her draw
near."
Now from where she stood glided Ma-Mee and took her place opposite to
Smith.
"Say, O Queen," asked Menes, "do you know aught of this matter?"
"I know that hand; it was my own hand," she answered. "I know that
ring; it was my ring. I know that image in bronze; it was my image.
Look on me and judge for yourselves whether this be so. A certain
sculptor fashioned it, the son of a king's son, who was named Horu,
the first of sculptors and the head artist of my Court. There, clad in
strange garments, he stands before you. Horu, or the Double of Horu,
he who cut the image when I ruled in Egypt, is he who found the image
and the man who stands before you; or, mayhap, his Double cast in the
same mould."
The Pharaoh Menes turned to the magician Khaemuas and said:--
"Are these things so, O Seer?"
"They are so," answered Khaemuas. "This dweller on the earth is he
who, long ago, was the sculptor Horu. But what shall that avail? He,
once more a living man, is a violator of the hallowed dead. I say,
therefore, that judgment should be executed on his flesh, so that when
the light comes here to-morrow he himself will again be gathered to
the dead."
Menes bent his head upon his breast and pondered. Smith said nothing.
To him the whole play was so curious that he had no wish to interfere
with its development. If these ghosts wished to make him of their
number, let them do so. He had no ties on earth, and now when he knew
full surely that there was a life beyond this of earth he was quite
prepared to explore its mysteries. So he folded his arms upon his
breast and awaited the sentence.
But Ma-Mee did not wait. She raised her hand so swiftly that the
bracelets jingled on her wrists, and spoke out with boldness.
"Royal Khaemuas, prince and magician," she said, "hearken to one who,
like you, was Egypt's heir centuries before you were born, one also
who ruled over the Two Lands, and not so ill--which, Prince, never was
your lot. Answer me! Is all wisdom centred in your breast? Answer me!
Do you alone know the mysteries of Life and Death? Answer me! Did your
god Amen teach you that vengeance went before mercy? Answer me! Did he
teach you that men should be judged unheard? That they should be
hurried by violence to Osiris ere their time, and thereby separated
from the dead ones whom they loved and forced to return to live again
upon this evil Earth?
"Listen: when the last moon was near her full my spirit sat in my tomb
in the burying-place of queens. My spirit saw this man enter into my
tomb, and what he did there. With bowed head he looked upon my bones
that a thief of the priesthood had robbed and burnt within twenty
years of their burial, in which he himself had taken part. And what
did this man with those bones, he who was once Horu? I tell you that
he hid them away there in the tomb where he thought they could not be
found again. Who, then, was the thief and the violator? He who robbed
and burnt my bones, or he who buried them with reverence? Again, he
found the jewels that the priest of your brotherhood had dropped in
his flight, when the smoke of the burning flesh and spices overpowered
him, and with them the hand which that wicked one had broken off from
the body of my Majesty. What did this man then? He took the jewels.
Would you have had him leave them to be stolen by some peasant? And
the hand? I tell you that he kissed that poor dead hand which once had
been part of the body of my Majesty, and that now he treasures it as a
holy relic. My spirit saw him do these things and made report thereof
to me. I ask you, therefore, Prince, I ask you all, Royalties of Egypt
--whether for such deeds this man should die?"
Now Khaemuas, the advocate of vengeance, shrugged his shoulders and
smiled meaningly, but the congregation of kings and queens thundered
an answer, and it was:--
"/No!/"
Ma-Mee looked to Menes to give judgment. Before he could speak the
dark-browed Pharaoh who had named her wife strode forward and
addressed them.
"Her Majesty, Heiress of Egypt, Royal Wife, Lady of the Two Lands, has
spoken," he cried. "Now let me speak who was the husband of her
Majesty. Whether this man was once Horu the sculptor I know not. If so
he was also an evil-doer who, by my decree, died in banishment in the
land of Kush. Whatever be the truth as to that matter, he admits that
he violated the tomb of her Majesty and stole what the old thieves had
left. Her Majesty says also--and he does not deny it--that he dared to
kiss her hand, and for a man to kiss the hand of a wedded Queen of
Egypt the punishment is death. I claim that this man should die to the
World before his time, that in a day to come again he may live and
suffer in the World. Judge, O Menes."
Menes lifted his head and spoke, saying:--
"Repeat to me the law, O Pharaoh, under which a living man must die
for the kissing of a dead hand. In my day and in that of those who
went before me there was no such law in Egypt. If a living man, who
was not her husband, or of her kin, kissed the living hand of a wedded
Queen of Egypt, save in ceremony, then perchance he might be called
upon to die. Perchance for such a reason a certain Horu once was
called upon to die. But in the grave there is no marriage, and
therefore even if he had found her alive within the tomb and kissed
her hand, or even her lips, why should he die for the crime of love?
"Hear me, all; this is my judgment in the matter. Let the soul of that
priest who first violated the tomb of the royal Ma-Mee be hunted down
and given to the jaws of the Destroyer, that he may know the last
depths of Death, if so the gods declare. But let this man go from
among us unharmed, since what he did he did in reverent ignorance and
because Hathor, Goddess of Love, guided him from of old. Love rules
this world wherein we meet to-night, with all the worlds whence we
have gathered or whither we still must go. Who can defy its power? Who
can refuse its rites? Now hence to Thebes!"
There was a rushing sound as of a thousand wings, and all were gone.
No, not all, since Smith yet stood before the draped colossi and the
empty steps, and beside him, glorious, unearthly, gleamed the vision
of Ma-Mee.
"I, too, must away," she whispered; "yet ere I go a word with you who
once were a sculptor in Egypt. You loved me then, and that love cost
you your life, you who once dared to kiss this hand of mine that again
you kissed in yonder tomb. For I was Pharaoh's wife in name only;
understand me well, in name only; since that title of Royal Mother
which they gave me is but a graven lie. Horu, I never was a wife, and
when you died, swiftly I followed you to the grave. Oh, you forget,
but I remember! I remember many things. You think that the priestly
thief broke this figure of me which you found in the sand outside my
tomb. Not so. /I/ broke it, because, daring greatly, you had written
thereon, 'Beloved,' not 'of /Horus/ the God,' as you should have done,
but 'of /Horu/ the Man.' So when I came to be buried, Pharaoh, knowing
all, took the image from my wrappings and hurled it away. I remember,
too, the casting of that image, and how you threw a gold chain I had
given you into the crucible with the bronze, saying that gold alone
was fit to fashion me. And this signet that I bear--it was you who cut
it. Take it, take it, Horu, and in its place give me back that which
is on your hand, the Bes ring that I also wore. Take it and wear it
ever till you die again, and let it go to the grave with you as once
it went to the grave with me.
"Now hearken. When Ra the great sun arises again and you awake you
will think that you have dreamed a dream. You will think that in this
dream you saw and spoke with a lady of Egypt who died more than three
thousand years ago, but whose beauty, carved in stone and bronze, has
charmed your heart to-day. So let it be, yet know, O man, who once was
named Horu, that such dreams are oft-times a shadow of the truth. Know
that this Glory which shines before you is mine indeed in the land
that is both far and near, the land wherein I dwell eternally, and
that what is mine has been, is, and shall be yours for ever. Gods may
change their kingdoms and their names; men may live and die, and live
again once more to die; empires may fall and those who ruled them be
turned to forgotten dust. Yet true love endures immortal as the souls
in which it was conceived, and from it for you and me, the night of
woe and separation done, at the daybreak which draws on, there shall
be born the splendour and the peace of union. Till that hour
foredoomed seek me no more, though I be ever near you, as I have ever
been. Till that most blessed hour, Horu, farewell."
She bent towards him; her sweet lips touched his brow; the perfume
from her breath and hair beat upon him; the light of her wondrous eyes
searched out his very soul, reading the answer that was written there.
He stretched out his arms to clasp her, and lo! she was gone.
It was a very cold and a very stiff Smith who awoke on the following
morning, to find himself exactly where he had lain down--namely, on a
cement floor beneath the keel of a funeral boat in the central hall of
the Cairo Museum. He crept from his shelter shivering, and looked at
this hall, to find it quite as empty as it had been on the previous
evening. Not a sign or a token was there of Pharaoh Menes and all
those kings and queens of whom he had dreamed so vividly.
Reflecting on the strange phantasies that weariness and excited nerves
can summon to the mind in sleep, Smith made his way to the great doors
and waited in the shadow, praying earnestly that, although it was the
Mohammedan Sabbath, someone might visit the Museum to see that all was
well.
As a matter of fact, someone did, and before he had been there a
minute--a watchman going about his business. He unlocked the place
carelessly, looking over his shoulder at a kite fighting with two
nesting crows. In an instant Smith, who was not minded to stop and
answer questions, had slipped past him and was gliding down the
portico, from monument to monument, like a snake between boulders,
still keeping in the shadow as he headed for the gates.
The attendant caught sight of him and uttered a yell of fear; then,
since it is not good to look upon an /afreet/, appearing from whence
no mortal man could be, he turned his head away. When he looked again
Smith was through those gates and had mingled with the crowd in the
street beyond.
The sunshine was very pleasant to one who was conscious of having
contracted a chill of the worst Egyptian order from long contact with
a damp stone floor. Smith walked on through it towards his hotel--it
was Shepheard's, and more than a mile away--making up a story as he
went to tell the hall-porter of how he had gone to dine at Mena House
by the Pyramids, missed the last tram, and stopped the night there.
Whilst he was thus engaged his left hand struck somewhat sharply
against the corner of the cigar-box in his pocket, that which
contained the relic of the queen Ma-Mee. The pain caused him to glance
at his fingers to see if they were injured, and to perceive on one of
them the ring he wore. Surely, surely it was not the same that the
Director-General had given him! /That/ ring was engraved with the
image of the god Bes. On /this/ was cut the cartouche of her Majesty
Ma-mee! And he had dreamed--oh, he had dreamed----!
To this day Smith is wondering whether, in the hurry of the moment, he
made a mistake as to which of those rings the Director-General had
given him as part of his share of the spoil of the royal tomb he
discovered in the Valley of Queens. Afterwards Smith wrote to ask, but
the Director-General could only remember that he gave him one of the
two rings, and assured him that that inscribed "/Bes Ank, Ank Bes/,"
was with Ma-Mee's other jewels in the Gold Room of the Museum.
Also Smith is wondering whether any other bronze figure of an old
Egyptian royalty shows so high a percentage of gold as, on analysis,
the broken image of Ma-Mee was proved to do. For had she not seemed to
tell him a tale of the melting of a golden chain when that effigy was
cast?
Was it all only a dream, or was it--something more--by day and by
night he asks of Nothingness?
But, be she near or far, no answer comes from the Queen Ma-Mee, whose
proud titles were "Her Majesty the Good God, the justified Dweller in
Osiris; Daughter of Amen, Royal Heiress, Royal Sister, Royal Wife,
Royal Mother; Lady of the Two Lands; Wearer of the Double Crown; of
the White Crown, of the Red Crown; Sweet Flower of Love, Beautiful
Eternally."
So, like the rest of us, Smith must wait to learn the truth concerning
many things, and more particularly as to which of those two circles of
ancient gold the Director-General gave him yonder at Cairo.
It seems but a little matter, yet it is more than all the worlds to
him!
To the astonishment of his colleagues in antiquarian research, Smith
has never returned to Egypt. He explains to them that his health is
quite restored, and that he no longer needs this annual change to a
more temperate clime.
Now, /which/ of the two royal rings did the Director-General return to
Smith on the mummied hand of her late Majesty Ma-Mee?
