"Stop, that"s enough!" Michael cried. "Stop it!" Every word had lashed his nerves and brought back to his memory his own struggles, his own weakness.
"I fled," Millicent went on, not heeding his interruption. "I spent some weeks in Upper Egypt. I thought I had escaped the horrible disease. . . . I thought Ha.s.san had taken every precaution. He sent some of my boxes straight on to Cairo; I opened them the night I saw you. They must have carried the infection--that is how I got smallpox.
It lay in wait for me." She paused, breathless, and then went on excitedly: "I know nothing about the treasure. I am absolutely innocent in that one respect. I can tell you nothing more, nothing."
As Millicent ceased speaking, Michael took up her story.
"Margaret," he said, "some days after she left us the saint died. When he was buried, we moved on." As he spoke, he visualized the desert burial. "We journeyed to the hills. On our way we pa.s.sed through a subterranean village--a terrible place, of flies and filth! The _Omdeh_ of the village, a fine old gentleman, told us of the growing unrest among the desert tribes--German work, of course; we are seeing the fruit of it now. I paid no heed to him; I felt too ill, too tired.
I only cared about reaching the hills. When we did reach them, we found that a camp was already established. Information had been given to the Government." He heaved a deep sigh. "The thing was out of my hands. I suppose the shock finished me for the time being, for when I left the excavation-camp I became ill, so ill that Abdul had to take me as quickly as he could to the _Omdeh"s_ house near the subterranean village. I stayed there until late on in May." He stopped abruptly.
"The rest won"t bear speaking about. What made things so much worse, Meg, was thinking about what you would be suffering, what Freddy would be saying." His eyes sought Margaret"s. "It is best to forget, it is wiser to think of tomorrow."
"Yes, let us forget all about it," Margaret said. Michael"s expression frightened her. As a soldier he had enough to bear without raking up what was past.
"Abdul became as dear to me as a brother," Michael said quietly. "His devotion was wonderful! We are not of the same faith"--he was speaking to himself--"but our G.o.d is the same G.o.d, our love for Him the same.
Abdul knew that."
"And your illness?" Millicent said. "Was it smallpox?"
"No, no--none of my camp caught it. It was enteric fever. I suppose I was worn out, both mentally and physically. The disappointment about the treasure was the last straw, it was so cruel. I am able to accept it now, it doesn"t hurt me any longer. The war has done that; the war is like concentrated time--it obliterates and wipes out, and even heals."
"But you discovered it, Michael! You were the real discoverer. If it hadn"t been for you, and for your special knowledge, the man who stole it, who gave the information, would never have found it. And, after all, as Michael Ireton says, that is the main point of interest."
Margaret"s eyes glowed with pride. "And haven"t you heard the sequel to that tragedy?--the finding of some ancient jewels which the thief must have dropped in the desert, not so very far from the hill-chambers?"
As Michael had not heard that the gems had been found, Margaret told him the story which Hada.s.sah had written to her.
"They prove, Mike, what after all is to us the most important fact in the whole affair--that you were right, that all the information given you by the seer was correct."
Margaret did not include her vision of Akhnaton in Millicent"s presence; it was always a sacred subject between them.
"That is what Abdul said, and I know it is true. But who can prove it?
To the disbelieving no one can prove that there was any treasure, any gold or great wealth of jewels." He looked into Margaret"s eyes. He said plainly, "Freddy died unconvinced on that point."
Margaret understood. She had so often wished that Freddy could have known all that had transpired since his death.
"I will spend all my money and wits on finding the wretch," Millicent said humbly. "I will hunt this treasure to earth. If there were jewels, they shall be found. I will never stop until I have traced them, never! That will give me some interest in life--if you will let me do it, that is to say."
"The jewels will all be cut by this time, the gold will be melted. No one will be able to recognize them."
"You can"t find the thief," Margaret said. "He died of smallpox--Mr.
Ireton heard that from the Government authorities. They set detectives on his track, and discovered his whereabouts, but he was unconscious.
They think that he buried the treasure, that it is again lost to the world. It is still waiting for you, Mike."
"I know that there were many more jewels where the crimson amethyst came from," Michael said, "whether they are ever found again or not."
He was thinking of the words of his old friend in el-Azhar. If he came out of the war alive, he might again hope to discover them.
"I can do something else," Millicent spoke pleadingly. "Say you will let me! I am rich--my money is no good to me."
Michael looked at her for an explanation. His eyes were cold.
"I can spend some of my money in paying the expenses of the digging, for excavating on the site. The war will put a stop to all excavating work in Egypt and the Holy Land so far as England is concerned, but if I give sufficient money, you can employ the best Egyptologists in America, so that the work can go on this autumn. You will not have to wait until the war is over before you find out all there is to be known on the subject."
"The papyri will prove a great deal," Michael said; "they found papyri." Millicent"s words scarcely penetrated to his brain. He was obsessed with the idea that the Egyptologists suspected that the treasure was again buried. If it was, how exactly it all tallied with the African"s vision!
"I believe that there is very little excavating work to be done,"
Margaret said. "I have had so little time with Hada.s.sah that I have not even referred to the subject." She smiled, surprised at the fact when it was brought before her. "But in a letter she told me that the chambers were singularly perfect. They are cut in the virgin rock; they are not extensive, but nothing had been destroyed. One of the chambers was evidently intended for a royal treasury."
"In Flanders," Michael said, "life is very real." He turned to the window as he spoke; Margaret"s news had troubled him. "Germany has made all our lives horribly real. What you have told me seems to belong to another state of our existence." His eyes were far away from either Margaret or Millicent; they were with his comrades in the trenches. "When I was knee-deep in mud in the trenches I often thought that our hut-home in the silent Valley was a dream, a beautiful dream, one of those dreams we can never forget, however long we live, but only a dream."
He drew himself up. "We have been brought back to firm earth. Our apprenticeship on this side isn"t finished, Meg. We aren"t ready to fully understand the things beyond. While we are on this earth, I believe it is wiser to rest content with the things that are here." He smiled. "Perhaps Freddy is right--it is wiser to walk on our two feet."
"Perhaps it is," Margaret said wistfully. "But thank G.o.d I trusted to the progress of one person who occasionally walks on his head."
While Michael"s back was turned to the door, and Margaret was looking at him with eyes of sympathy, and with the knowledge in her heart that he was living over again scenes and actions in Flanders which left her far behind him, Millicent had slipped from the room. With her white corset-boxes in her arms she fled downstairs and silently opened the front door. As silently it shut behind her.
For a moment she paused, before descending the steps. London was there in front of her, London with its luxuries and its sins, which not even the strength of Germany or the sacrifice of young lives could obliterate. The spring made no call to her; the sunshine mocked her because of her empty world.
When Michael and Margaret discovered that she was gone, they stood for a little while locked in each other"s arms. As Margaret raised her head from Michael"s breast, he bent his head and kissed her lips.
"Dearest," he said, "you and I can afford to forgive her, poor lonely little soul!"
"I can forgive anybody anything, Mike."
"Even the Kaiser, beloved woman?"
Margaret shivered. "Don"t let"s think of him--not for eleven days, at least."
"We shall be able to be sorry for even him some day," he said. His confident tones delighted her, for his mention of the war had brought the angel with the flaming sword into her Eden.
"You really think so, Mike? Your inner self feels it? Sometimes I almost despair--they are so strong, so clever."
"I do believe it," he said. "You foolish woman, of course I believe it. The day may be a long way off, but it is coming, just the same.
The triumph of light over darkness, Meg, the old, old fight--we shall see the resurrection of Osiris and the defeat of Set all over again.
The sun of righteousness will stream over the world when the devil of militarism is crushed for ever."
He kissed her again rapturously. Their time together was so short; it left them little opportunity for lengthy talks on any subject. The way in which Michael broke off in the middle of his sentences to make love to her, and question her eagerly and impetuously, suggested the hosts that disturbed his mind. He wanted to tell her all about the old African"s idea of the meaning of the war, and about his visualizing of the treasure for the second time; but he wanted still more her lips and her own exquisite a.s.surances of her love for him, the eternal subject, which neither age nor war can affect. The one important fact which could not wait was that tomorrow she was to be his wife, and if he did not let her return to her preparations, there was the possibility that some hitch a might occur. So they went back to Hada.s.sah and told her all that had happened.
For everyone concerned the rest of that day flew on wings. Each hour pa.s.sed like a flash. Bed-time came, and Margaret scarcely seemed to have achieved half or quarter of the things she had meant to do.
A telegram had arrived, in answer to hers, from the aunt with whom she had lived as a child and young girl. The bride-elect had felt just a little worried about her aunt; she had written her a letter which she would receive on her wedding morning. In it Margaret had told her all about her friendship with Michael while she was living with Freddy in Egypt, and of Freddy"s friendship with him, which was of a much longer duration. Also, she took pains to a.s.sure her aunt that, as far as pedigree was concerned, he had the blood of Irish kings in his veins.
CHAPTER IV
Their wedding-day was the sort of day which made Browning, when he lived in Florence, sing: