"What can you do for a man who loves the shadow of Life?" he asked.
"If you love the shadow because the substance has pa.s.sed away--if you love the soul because the dust has returned to the earth as it was--"
"It has _not_!" said the younger man.
The Tracer said very gravely: "It is written that whenever "the Silver Cord" is loosed, "then shall the dust return unto the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto Him who gave it.""
"The spirit--yes; _that_ has taken its splendid flight--"
His voice choked up, died out; he strove to speak again, but could not.
The Tracer let him alone, and bent again over his desk, drawing imaginary circles on the stained blotter, while moment after moment pa.s.sed under the tension of that fiercest of all struggles, when a man sits throttling his own soul into silence.
And, after a long time, Burke lifted a haggard face from the cradle of his crossed arms and shook his shoulders, drawing a deep, steady breath.
"Listen to _me_!" he said in an altered voice.
And the Tracer of Lost Persons nodded.
CHAPTER XVIII
"When I left the Point I was a.s.signed to the colored cavalry. They are good men; we went up Kettle Hill together. Then came the Philippine troubles, then that Chinese affair. Then I did staff duty, and could not stand the inactivity and resigned. They had no use for me in Manchuria; I tired of waiting, and went to Venezuela. The prospects for service there were absurd; I heard of the Moorish troubles and went to Morocco.
Others of my sort swarmed there; matters dragged and dragged, and the Kaiser never meant business, anyway.
"Being independent, and my means permitting me, I got some shooting in the back country. This all degenerated into the merest nomadic wandering--nothing but sand, camels, ruins, tents, white walls, and blue skies. And at last I came to the town of Sa-el-Hagar."
His voice died out; his restless, haunted eyes became fixed.
"Sa-el-Hagar, once ancient Sas," repeated the Tracer quietly; and the young man looked at him.
"You know _that_?"
"Yes," said the Tracer.
For a while Burke remained silent, preoccupied, then, resting his chin on his hand and speaking in a curiously monotonous voice, as though repeating to himself by rote, he went on:
"The town is on the heights--have you a pencil? Thank you. Here is the town of Sa-el-Hagar, here are the ruins, here is the wall, and somewhere hereabouts should be the buried temple of Neith, which n.o.body has found." He shifted his pencil. "Here is the lake of Sas; here, standing all alone on the plain, are those great monolithic pillars stretching away into perspective--four hundred of them in all--a hundred and nine still upright. There were one hundred and ten when I arrived at El Teb Wells."
He looked across at the Tracer, repeating: "One hundred and ten--when I arrived. One fell the first night--a distant pillar far away on the horizon. Four thousand years had it stood there. And it fell--the first night of my arrival. I heard it; the nights are cold at El Teb Wells, and I was lying awake, all a-shiver, counting the stars to make me sleep. And very, very far away in the desert I heard and felt the shock of its fall--the fall of forty centuries under the Egyptian stars."
His eyes grew dreamy; a slight glow had stained his face.
"Did you ever halt suddenly in the Northern forests, listening, as though a distant voice had hailed you? Then you understand why that far, dull sound from the dark horizon brought me to my feet, bewildered, listening, as though my own name had been spoken.
"I heard the wind in the tents and the stir of camels; I heard the reeds whispering on Sas Lake and the yap-yap of a shivering jackal; and always, always, the hushed echo in my ears of my own name called across the star-lit waste.
"At dawn I had forgotten. An Arab told me that a pillar had fallen; it was all the same to me, to him, to the others, too. The sun came out hot. I like heat. My men sprawled in the tents; some watered, some went up to the town to gossip in the bazaar. I mounted and cast bridle on neck--you see how much I cared where I went! In two hours we had completed a circle--like a ruddy hawk above El Teb. And my horse halted beside the fallen pillar."
As he spoke his language had become very simple, very direct, almost without accent, and he spoke slowly, picking his way with that lack of inflection, of emotion characteristic of a child reading a new reader.
"The column had fallen from its base, eastward, and with its base it had upheaved another buried base, laying bare a sort of cellar and a flight of stone steps descending into darkness.
"Into this excavation the sand was still running in tiny rivulets.
Listening, I could hear it pattering far, far down into the shadows.
"Sitting there in the saddle, the thing explained itself as I looked.
The fallen pillar had been built upon older ruins; all Egypt is that way, ruin founded on the ruin of ruins--like human hopes.
"The stone steps, descending into the shadow of remote ages, invited me.
I dismounted, walked to the edge of the excavation, and, kneeling, peered downward. And I saw a wall and the lotus-carved rim of a vast stone-framed pool; and as I looked I heard the tinkle of water. For the pillar, falling, had unbottled the ancient spring, and now the stone-framed lagoon was slowly filling after its drought of centuries.
"There was light enough to see by, but, not knowing how far I might penetrate, I returned to my horse, pocketed matches and candles from the saddlebags, and, returning, started straight down the steps of stone.
"Fountain, wall, lagoon, steps, terraces half buried--all showed what the place had been: a water garden of ancient Egypt--probably royal--because, although I am not able to decipher hieroglyphics, I have heard somewhere that these picture inscriptions, when inclosed in a cartouch like this"--he drew rapidly--
[Ill.u.s.tration: Glyph]
"or this
[Ill.u.s.tration: Glyph]
indicate that the subject of the inscription was once a king.
"And on every wall, every column, I saw the insignia of ancient royalty, and I saw strange hawk-headed figures bearing symbols engraved on stone--beasts, birds, fishes, unknown signs and symbols; and everywhere the lotus carved in stone--the bud, the blossom half-inclosed, the perfect flower."
His dreamy eyes met the gaze of the Tracer, unseeing; he rested his sunburned face between both palms, speaking in the same vague monotone:
"Everywhere dust, ashes, decay, the death of life, the utter annihilation of the living--save only the sparkle of reborn waters slowly covering the baked bed of the stone-edged pool--strange, luminous water, lacking the vital sky tint, enameled with a film of dust, yet, for all that, quickening with imprisoned brilliancy like an opal.
"The slow filling of the pool fascinated me; I stood I know not how long watching the thin film of water spreading away into the dimness beyond.
At last I turned and pa.s.sed curiously along the wall where, at its base, mounds of dust marked what may have been trees. Into these I probed with my riding crop, but discovered nothing except the depths of the dust.
"When I had penetrated the ghost of this ancient garden for a thousand yards the light from the opening was no longer of any service. I lighted a candle; and its yellow rays fell upon a square portal into which led another flight of steps. And I went down.
"There were eighteen steps descending into a square stone room. Strange gleams and glimmers from wall and ceiling flashed dimly in my eyes under the wavering flame of the candle. Then the flame grew still--still as death--and Death lay at my feet--there on the stone floor--a man, square shouldered, hairless, the cobwebs of his tunic mantling him, lying face downward, arms outflung.
"After a moment I stooped and touched him, and the entire prostrate figure dissolved into dust where it lay, leaving at my feet a shadow shape in thin silhouette against the pavement--merely a gray layer of finest dust shaped like a man, a tracery of impalpable powder on the stones.
"Upward and around me I pa.s.sed the burning candle; vast figures in blue and red and gold grew out of the darkness; the painted walls sparkled; the shadows that had slept through all those centuries trembled and shrank away into distant corners.
"And then--and then I saw the gold edges of her sandals sparkle in the darkness, and the clasped girdle of virgin gold around her slender waist glimmered like purest flame!"
Burke, leaning far across the table, interlocked hands tightening, stared and stared into s.p.a.ce. A smile edged his mouth; his voice grew wonderfully gentle:
"Why, she was scarcely eighteen--this child--there so motionless, so lifelike, with the sandals edging her little upturned feet, and the small hands of her folded between the b.r.e.a.s.t.s. It was as though she had just stretched herself out there--scarcely sound asleep as yet, and her thick, silky hair--cut as they cut children"s hair in these days, you know--cradled her head and cheeks.