"I wonder what you"d do if Germany strayed into ours? Sit down and let them walk over you?"
"I"d do what you"d do," Mike said, with a flash of Irish anger in his eyes--"kill every d.a.m.ned one of them!"
"There you are!" Freddy said hotly.
"No, I am not," Michael said, "for, as I said, what we"ve got, let us keep--England"s possessions no more belong to Germany than my soul does. But some of our wars--well!" he laughed. "Empires are built up in rum ways, ways I don"t agree with, but we won"t do any good by handing them over now to feed the vanity of the Kaiser. But the Egyptians had enough land in Africa to expand in, there was no need for their warrioring in strange lands."
"Let"s chuck the subject," Freddy said good-naturedly, "and stick to work. I want to get these boxes cleared out to-night and we never do good work while we argue."
"I can"t help smiling," Margaret said. "It"s really too funny to think that we"ve got quite cross and snappy over the character of a man who lived more than three thousand years ago."
"Oh, we often do that," Michael said. "You should have heard about a dozen of us quarrelling some time ago over hair-splitting theories on a much less human subject, one belonging to pre-dynastic times!"
"I wish Aunt Anna could see us, Freddy, sitting in this funny hut in this lonely desert valley, cleaning little objects and broken fragments of things that were buried three thousand years ago and fighting over a mummy, as she would say!"
Margaret had been working busily, so her tin cigarette-box, which had been quite full early in the evening with all sorts of small blue beads and tiny bits of pottery, was almost empty. She had been able to enjoy and follow all her brother"s remarks about Akhnaton, as Michael had told her a great deal about him. In the three weeks which had pa.s.sed since their visit to a.s.suan there had been no return of the vision, so she had insisted upon Michael telling her all that he could about Akhnaton. She felt anxious to understand something about the king whose personality interested and influenced him so greatly.
Michael had by no means banished the vision from his thoughts. He was convinced that Margaret had been privileged to see a vision of Akhnaton--indeed, the more he dwelt on his message, the more he felt sure that it was the beginning of a new phase in his life.
Over and over again he had repeated to himself the message: "Tell him to carry on my work."
Was he doing any work at the present time to help forward mankind? He was enjoying himself in a delightful way and to a certain extent he was a.s.sisting Freddy; but such a.s.sistance as he gave could easily be given by another; he was not essential.
There was only one man whom he had a longing to consult and that was Michael Ireton. Since his marriage with Hada.s.sah Lekejian, a Syrian girl of great beauty and strength of character, Michael Ireton had given his time and brains and money to the founding of settlements in various parts of Egypt for the raising of the moral status of women in Egypt. He was a practical man of the world, with a charming personality. His wife was one of the most cultivated and fascinating women Michael had ever met.
If he confided to Freddy his growing desire to do the work which he felt was the work he was called upon to do, Freddy would only look upon it as a fresh example of his drifting character.
The subject of Akhnaton had been dropped and perfect good humour was restored again. Michael"s thoughts had soared into what Freddy called his "Kingdom of Idle Dreams." Freddy"s thoughts were very practical, although they related to the history of a lost civilization and to the unearthing of objects which the sands of the desert had concealed for thousands of years. He and the workers knew that the next few days would be days of intense excitement.
So far Freddy"s surmises had been correct. The chaff and scoffing which he had so good-naturedly put up with from the fellow-excavators who had been to visit the camp were likely to be turned the other way.
He had little or no doubt left that he had struck an important tomb, probably the tomb of the Pharaoh for whom he was looking.
In a few days the big shaft which led to the mouth of the tomb would be cleared. Tons upon tons of debris had been thrown out of it; the work had been stupendous. The two hundred native workers and the other more experienced diggers had worked unremittingly. Freddy was living in a high state of nervous tension. The news had spread far and wide that "Mistrr Lampton" had discovered a new tomb and one which presumably had never been entered. Freddy knew that this news would spread, would be carried on the wings of the morning in a manner which no European can ever discover. Means of transmitting news is one of the secrets which no native in Africa, North or South, has ever divulged to an European.
There are hundreds of theories on the subject. Do pigeons act as carriers? Some people suggest this theory. Or is it by some wireless method which has been known to all primitive races and only lately discovered by scientific scholars of the West?
So far no one has fathomed the mystery. But Freddy knew that the news would be sent far and wide, and that every seeker after "antikas" would be prowling round the opened site. Directly the tomb was opened, it would be the Mecca of every tomb-plunderer. He had sent word for a guard of police to be ready to come when he summoned them.
When the tomb was opened he would have to prevent anyone from going into it until a photographer had arrived from Cairo to photograph it and until after the Supervisor-General of the Monuments of Upper Egypt had arrived on the spot and inspected it.
He could feel the excitement of the natives, who have absolutely no sense of honour where "antikas" are concerned. It has proved almost an impossible work to convince them that the excavators and the scholars who are engaged in the work of archaeology in Egypt, or the wealthy man who has paid for the expenses of a camp, are not one and all "out on the make." They are convinced that these eager, enthusiastic scholars are just the same as they are, interested in it from a pecuniary point of view. The curios and wonders which they dig out of the bowels of the earth put gold into their pockets.
Freddy"s _Ras_, or native overseer, was a highly intelligent man, who had a genuine appreciation for antiques--he was a clever hand at faking them and did a good business with tourists--but at heart even he doubted the sincerity and single-minded purpose of the British School of Archaeology in Egypt, and "Mistrr Lampton"s" absolute clean-handedness in the business.
Freddy had never left the camp for more than half an hour since the excavation had become "hot." It was a strenuous time.
Naturally Margaret"s thoughts were centred and engrossed in her brother"s work. She could scarcely hold her soul in patience while the deep shaft was being cleared, a long and tiresome job. But at last they could count the time by days before the entrance to the tomb would be reached.
The little store-room in the hut was packed full of boxes which held the small finds. Margaret"s work for some days past had been to piece together (Freddy had taught her how) the tiny fragments of a smashed vase which her brother had found. The pieces were all there, for it had been discovered in a little hollow in the sand. The conventional decoration was of an unique type; and on it was traced a branch of a plant which seemed to Freddy to resemble with extraordinary exactness a branch of the Indian fig, the p.r.i.c.kly pear, so familiar to all travellers in Southern Italy. As the Indian fig was not introduced into Egypt until the Middle Ages, or so it had generally been supposed, for it was not indigenous, Freddy was anxious to find out if the decoration on the vase was going to prove that after all it was known to the Egyptians long before it was brought over from America. He also held that there was something in the theory which has of late become current that camels may have been known and used in Egypt from very early times, that their absence in all pictorial art in temples and tombs may be owing to the fact that the Egyptians divided animals into two cla.s.ses, the clean and the unclean; that neither into temples nor into tombs could the unclean be introduced in any form of art whatsoever.
These were the sort of discussions with which Margaret had already grown familiar. She felt that in piecing together and sketching as accurately as possible the cactus-like branch of the little plant engraved on the broken vase, she was actually helping to forge a link in one of the minute chains of Egyptian archaeology.
Her brother"s memory amazed her and his intelligence stimulated her.
He had been such a boy at home. Egypt had converted him into a strong serious scholar. His fair head, bent over his work, with the lamplight shining on it, was so dear to her that impulsively she put her long strong fingers on the glittering hair; she longed to kiss it.
"Dear old boy!" she said. "Isn"t it all just too exciting? Isn"t life thrilling? Isn"t it lovely to be alive?"
Freddy did not look up. "Some girls," he said, "mightn"t think this being very much alive--the sorting out of bits of broken rubbish, thrown out of a tomb which has been forgotten for two or three thousand years. Did you ever think you"d care to know whether a p.r.i.c.kly pear was indigenous to Egypt or was not? Or whether canopic jars had their origin in family grocers" jars being lent by the head of the house to hold the intestines of some dear-departed?"
Meg laughed. "It is all too odd, but being in it, and actually knowing that we are going to see into that tomb in a few days and discover who the king was who was buried there, and all about his personal and family affairs, and be able to touch the jewels he was buried with, it"s too interesting for words, I think!"
"I hope you won"t be disappointed. It may have been robbed."
"But you don"t think so?"
"No, I don"t--not at present. There was a tomb opened at one of the camps, not long ago, which told a tragic story of the end of robbery and plunder. The roof had fallen in while the burglar was busy unwrapping the cloths from the dead mummy. He was evidently trying to get at the heart-scarab, I suppose, and at the jewels which the windings held in their place. He had been smothered, taken in the act.
Probably he had left his fellow-plunderers at the entrance; the roof may have looked unsafe, but he had hoped to collect all the jewels and scarabs before it gave way. Fate played him a nasty trick. The roof caved in, and we have secured all the jewels he had collected together and have learned a lesson of what must have often happened. The mummy"s body was, of course, still perfect. Of the intruder only bones were visible and some fragments of his clothes. Things keep for ever in these hermetically-sealed Egyptian tombs, where neither rust nor moth ever entered in, but where thieves did break through and steal."
"How thrilling!" Margaret said. "How did you guess that the skeleton was the skeleton of a robber? I suppose as he never returned, his friends just went off and left him?"
"By the scattered jewels and the way the mummy was lying. Why should a skeleton be inside a royal tomb? Why should the mummy be out of its coffin and partly unrobed? We have actually found before now plans which the s.e.xtons and the guardians of the tombs had made for themselves, of all the tombs in the cemetery which was in their care.
They knew how they could be entered one from another. Of course, this valley is different. The tombs are isolated and carefully hidden. It was never a public cemetery."
"Was Akhnaton"s tomb intact? Had it been robbed?"
Freddy laughed. "Back again to the tabooed subject?"
Meg laughed too. "We shan"t fight this time, I promise."
"His city and palace and tomb were utterly desolated, but his mummy had been taken away from his own tomb, before it was desolated, and brought to his mother"s."
"Oh, you told me--I forgot." Into Meg"s mind came again the words spoken by the sad voice, "My earthly body was brought to my mother"s tomb in this valley."
When the night"s work was completed, Meg voted that they should sit for a few minutes in front of the hut and try to get the "mummy-sh.e.l.l" and the microbes of Pharaonic diseases out of their nostrils. Freddy had never allowed them to sleep right out in the open, much as they had wished it. It was not safe, even with the dogs and his trustworthy house-boys. He would not hear of it; and he was wise.
Gladly he agreed to refreshing their lungs with the beautiful night air. Indeed, they were all three so happy together and there was so much to talk about and discuss, that bed seemed a bore. Physically tired as they were, owing to the nervous excitement in the atmosphere of their day"s surroundings, sleep seemed very far off.
"Just half an hour, Freddy," Margaret said, as she threw herself down on a long lounge chair, and clasping her hands behind her head, gazed up to the heavens. "How glorious it is!" she said. "I"m so happy."
They all three lighted cigarettes and smoked in silence. Freddy was as happy as Meg; Mike was restless.
At the end of the half-hour Meg got up and said, "Who"d exchange this for a city? Freddy, you ought to get to bed--you"re dead tired, really."
He rose reluctantly. "I suppose I must." His thoughts were on the morrow"s work. If the tomb was going to be a really big thing, it meant a lot more to him than Meg understood. He was very young; he had not as yet struck any remarkable find; he had his reputation to make.
His theories had caused much comment.
"I could never live in a city again," he said. "This life has made it impossible. And the odd thing is that it has made cities seem to me the loneliest, most desolate places in the world. I never feel in touch with anyone. Even the other night at the ball, jolly as it was, I never once talked to anyone about anything that really interested me.
I never felt that anyone would understand a single thing about all that is my real life. I suppose everyone feels the same--that their real selves are lost in crowds."
Michael and Margaret looked at each other. They had experienced the feeling; they had lost each other. In the valley they had come back to the things of Truth.