THE CIRCLE OF RA
The next thing was to break the news gently and convincingly to the
family. Kit figured it out from all sides, and finally decided to walk
right up to the horns of the dilemma in a fearless attack. Writing back a
long, chatty letter to the Mother Bird, she simply tacked on the
postscript:
"Don't be at all surprised to see me arrive with the other Christmas
packages, and have a fire laid in the guest room."
At first she had thought only the Dean would accompany her, but when Miss
Daphne heard of the plan, she declared she would not be left out of it.
"Why, brother, I haven't seen any of the folks down east in years and
years, and it would hearten me up wonderfully to visit them. I think I'd
like to be with Roxy as much as possible, because we were girl friends
together."
Whether it was the prospect of going home or the longing to leave a good
record behind her, no one could say, not even Kit herself, but she took
her midwinter examinations with full speed up and colors flying, as Billie
would say.
The girls took her coming departure with many objections, but they
proceeded to give her various send-offs. Charity and Anne decided on a
formal tea, up in the former's room, but the solemnity of the occasion was
banished when Peggy rose to read some farewell poesy, concocted by herself
and the "Jinx."
"She hoped to be the hope of Hope
Alas, how soon she flew,
To bleak New England's rock-ribbed hills,
Ere she her Virgil knew."
"And we her comrades tried and true,
No laurel crowns may weave.
The magic circle broken is,
For Kathleen fair we grieve."
After which, Amy led a procession of solemn-visaged, sombre-clad academic
maidens, who approached the divan where Kit sat, and each presented her
with some sage advice, in couplets. Amy explained later that she got the
idea from Sargent's "Gifts of the Hours."
"Although, if it had been summer time, we would have tried to make it more
like Tennyson's 'Princess,' but I think this carries the idea all right.
Norma wrote the couplets, and they almost have a prophetic note. Don't you
think so, Kit?"
Kit agreed that they did, and long afterwards, up in the old cupola
council room, she read them aloud to Helen and some of the Gilead girls.
One in particular rather hit her fancy, because Kit hated early rising.
"Rise, sweet maid, when the cock is crowing,
If Fortune's bugles you'd be blowing."
The Saturday before they left was Kit's day for entertaining. Miss Daphne
took the keenest delight in making it a success. There was a luncheon at
one, followed by a whole afternoon of entertaining. Even the Dean emerged
from his sanctum to mingle a little, and the "Jinx" declared she had never
seen him so human before. He brought out the royal statuette of Annui and
even the sacred memorial urn to show the girls. As Miss Daphne said
afterwards, this showed what a friendly, benign mood he was in.
Kit was standing on the outskirts of the group around the old grand piano,
where he had placed both antiques, when she suddenly saw, through the long
French windows, Marcelle Beaubien coming up the drive. The Dean was deep
in a happy, explanatory speech and she slipped away unnoticed by the rest.
"It was awfully nice of you to come, Marcelle," she exclaimed. "I've been
watching for you ever since lunch. Why didn't you come earlier?"
"But I am early," smiled Marcelle. "It is only about three o'clock.
Generally, I have to stay in all day Saturday, and give the boys a chance
to go out. Will you write to me when you are away?"
"I'd love to. You know it's a queer thing, Marcelle, but really and
truly, out of all the girls I have met here I feel better acquainted with
you than with any of them."
Kit said this rather slowly, as if it were a sort of self-revelation which
she had just discovered that minute. And yet it was true. She had enjoyed
the class friendships at Hope immensely, but Marcelle had seemed to stand
out from the rest of the girls as such a distinctly interesting
personality. In a way, she was like Billie, because she loved nature and
all the romance of adventure. There was in her nature the mingling of the
three races, the French, the Indian, and the Scotch, and besides, Kit felt
personally responsible for her success up at Hope. The girls had played
absolutely fair and square, once they had decided to bury the hatchet, and
given the chance, Marcelle herself had justified the opening of doors to
her. As Amy said:
"It doth not behoove us to say a blessed word against Marcelle when she is
racing ahead in all our classes, and plucking honors right and left."
Marcelle smiled at Kit's remark.
"I have heard my grandmother say that in her girlhood her people of the
northern forests pledged their friendships by saying, 'While the grass
grows and the waters run, so long shall we be friends.'" She turned and
smiled at Kit her grave-eyed slow smile. "I will say that to you now,
before you go."
Kit laid one arm around her shoulders.
"Me too," she answered, heartily. "Sounds like the blood brother vow they
used to take."
They went up the steps together and into the long double parlors. The
girls were singing at the piano while Amy played one class song after
another, and the Dean hung broodingly over the urn. Kit thought she had
never seen the house so full of life and happiness, and the look on Miss
Daphne's face was one of positive radiance.
"You know," she said, confidentially to Kit, in a low voice, "after we
return from the east, I have undertaken something that I know will do me
good and the Dean, too. I've just been appointed head of the Junior Red
Cross in Delphi, and the girls will meet here every Saturday. We shall
miss you, Kit, but if it gives you any pleasure, my dear, to know it, I
want to tell you it was your coming which opened my eyes to the folly of
sitting with empty hands while there was work to be done. I don't think I
can ever belong to what the Dean calls 'the rocking-chair squad' again,
without a guilty conscience."
Kit hugged her fervently.
"Oh, but you're a dear, Aunt Daphne, to say such things. I only wish I
could stay right here and be in two places at once. I'll tell you what
I've learned here, organization." Kit said this very firmly and earnestly.
"Back home they always said that I knew just what I wanted to do, but I
didn't know how to do it. Well, I know what I want to do now. I want to go
back home and organize."
Miss Daphne laughed and shook her head.
"Oh, Kit, child, do go easy," she said. "Organize yourself all you like,
but be terribly careful how you start organizing other people's lives."
The girls had to leave early, as the Shakespearian entertainment was to
happen that night up at Assembly Hall.
"Your very last chance to mingle, Kit," Norma called, as they all trooped
out of the lower hall. "Don't lose your presence of mind to-night, when
you find yourself in doublet and hose."
Kit stood on the veranda steps waving to them until they turned the corner
of Maple Avenue.
"Oh, dear," she sighed, "I do wish that friendships lasted longer. I mean,
I wish I could have all my friends here down in Gilead. You see, there us
girls are all so scattered around on adjacent hilltops that it's hard to
get together regularly. We've only got our hiking club. I think when I go
back I'm going to start some more."
"The Dean wanted to have a little talk with you before dinner, dear. I
think you'd better go in now, because we want to reach the Hall in good
time for you to dress, and I'm going to have an early dinner. Don't talk
too long. You know how he is when he gets absorbed in anything."
Kit promised and joined the Dean. He had carried back the statue of Annui
and stood before it regarding it with perplexity. Kit slipped her arm
through his. It seemed as though there had sprung up a new comradeship and
understanding between them since their last talk.
"Won't he tell you his secrets, Uncle Cassius?" she asked. "He has such an
aggravating smile, just as if he were amused at baffling you."
"I am baffled," the Dean conceded, genially. "I've reached a certain point
and there there is a blank which no historic record seems to fill. I
thought when I had restored the inscription on the urn that it would tell
me several of the missing points, but it seems to be merely a sort of
sacred invocation. I am amazed at the urn being hollow. Every other
memorial urn which I found during our excavations in Egypt was sealed, and
upon being opened we always found rolls of papyrii within. I am
disappointed."
Kit went into the back parlor and lifted the urn from the piano very
carefully, carrying it out to its customary place on the Dean's desk. Then
she stood staring at it, reflectively. It certainly was not exactly a
thing of beauty, although, as the Dean had pointed out to her, one saw the
influence of Grecian art in its graceful lines. It always reminded Kit of
Indian pottery down among the Zunis and Mexicans.
"What does the inscription say?" Kit leaned forward anxiously.
"It merely traces the origin of King Amenotaph to the god Thoth," said the
Dean, thoughtfully; "that is, the Egyptian Hermes, or Mercury, as we know
him, and it is extremely vague, being a curious mixture of the Coptic and
the ancient Aramaic."
"But what does it say?" asked Kit again.
The Dean followed the curious markings on the urn with his finger-tip,
bending forward and peering over the rims of his tortoise-shell glasses.
"It says, 'Amenotaph, born of Thoth, shall reign in wisdom. Kings shall
serve at his footstool. Ra shall shine upon him. He shall lie in peace,
encompassed by Ra.'"
"Is that all?"
"That is all," sighed the Dean. "It seems merely a laudatory sentiment."
"Who was Ra?" asked Kit, curiously, running her hand around the top of the
urn.
"The Sun god. His symbol was the circle. You see it here."
Kit repeated again, slowly:
"'He shall lie in peace, encompassed by Ra,' That means surrounded by Ra,
doesn't it, Uncle Cassius?" She picked up the um in both hands and shook
it close to her ear.
"My dear child, do be careful," cried the Dean; "it is priceless."
But Kit put it under one arm as though it had been a milk pail and tapped
around the inside with her knuckles, listening.
"That's a perfectly good hollow jug," she said, solemnly. "Just you tap
it, and listen, uncle. I'll bet a cookie they've hidden something inside
the outside and that Ra has guarded it all these years."
"Just a moment, just a moment, my dear," exclaimed the Dean, smiling like
a happy boy. "You've given me an idea. This may be a cryptogram, or an
ideographic cypher. Just a moment, now; don't speak to me."
He sat down at the desk and figured laboriously for nearly twenty minutes,
working out the inscription in cypher, while Kit stared at him
delightedly. After all, it was rather gratifying, she thought, to have
somebody in the family who could take a little remark made thousands of
years ago in old Egypt and make sense out of it to-day. She waited
patiently until he had finished. His hands were trembling as he reached
for the urn.
"The circle," he repeated, "the circle. 'Ra in his circle shall guard
Amenotaph.' The secret lies in the circle, Kit. Do you suppose it could
mean the rim of the urn?"
Kit knelt beside him, following the inscription on the outside of the urn
carefully with her finger-tip, the same as the Dean had done, and
stopping when she came to a small circle in black and red outline.
"Do you suppose Ra lives here, Uncle Cassius?" she asked, poking at it
thoughtfully. She peered on the inner side at the corresponding spot to
the circle, and gave a little cry of excitement. There was the faintest
sign of a circle here also, like one of the age cracks on Cousin Roxy's
antique china. "See," she cried. "When you push on this side, the other
gives a little bit."
The Dean could not speak. He took the urn from her over to the window and
carefully examined the inner circle through a microscope.
"Yes," he said, fervently, "you are perfectly right, my dear. The circle
moves. I think I shall have to take it to Washington on our way east. I
would not take the responsibility of trying to remove it myself."
"Oh, dear, it seems awful to have to wait so long," Kit exclaimed,
regretfully. "You know it seemed to me as if you could just press it
through with your thumb, like this."
She had not intended pressing so hard, but merely to show him what she
meant, and lo, as Cousin Roxy would have said, under the pressure of Kit's
strong, young, capable thumb, the circle of Ra depressed and pushed slowly
through, just exactly as Kit told the girls long afterwards, like when you
plug a watermelon. The Dean looked on in utter amazement, as Kit lifted
the urn and tested the inner section by shaking it. Then she peered into
the circular hole, about the size of a quarter. The urn was fully two
inches thick, and by inserting her finger into the space she found that it
was made in two sections, with enough room between for a place of
concealment.
"There's something in here like asbestos, Uncle Cassius," she began, and
turning the urn upside down, she tried shaking it, using a little pressure
on the circle to separate the two rims. Slowly they gave, while the Dean
hovered over her, cautioning and directing the operation, until two
complete urns lay before them. But it was not these which the Dean
literally snatched at. It was the curious cap-shaped mass which fell out
in the form of a cone. To Kit it appeared to be of no significance
whatever, but the Dean handled it as tenderly as a new-born infant, and
under his deft and tender touch it unrolled in long scrolls of papyrus.
The Dean rose to his feet solemnly, and his voice was hushed, as he said:
"Kit, you do not know what you have done. Some day the significance of
this occasion will recur to you. All I can say is that you have lifted the
veil of the past, and revealed the secret of Amenotaph."