Doubts and Fears
We learn of great things by little experiences. The history of ages is
but an indefinite repetition of the history of hours. The record of a
soul is but a multiple of the story of a moment. The Recording Angel
writes in the Great Book in no rainbow tints; his pen is dipped in no
colours but light and darkness. For the eye of infinite wisdom there
is no need of shading. All things, all thoughts, all emotions, all
experiences, all doubts and hopes and fears, all intentions, all wishes
seen down to the lower strata of their concrete and multitudinous
elements, are finally resolved into direct opposites.
Did any human being wish for the epitome of a life wherein were
gathered and grouped all the experiences that a child of Adam could
have, the history, fully and frankly written, of my own mind during the
next forty-eight hours would afford him all that could be wanted. And
the Recorder could have wrought as usual in sunlight and shadow, which
may be taken to represent the final expressions of Heaven and Hell.
For in the highest Heaven is Faith; and Doubt hangs over the yawning
blackness of Hell.
There were of course times of sunshine in those two days; moments when,
in the realisation of Margaret’s sweetness and her love for me, all
doubts were dissipated like morning mist before the sun. But the
balance of the time—and an overwhelming balance it was—gloom hung
over me like a pall. The hour, in whose coming I had acquiesced, was
approaching so quickly and was already so near that the sense of
finality was bearing upon me! The issue was perhaps life or death to
any of us; but for this we were all prepared. Margaret and I were one
as to the risk. The question of the moral aspect of the case, which
involved the religious belief in which I had been reared, was not one
to trouble me; for the issues, and the causes that lay behind them,
were not within my power even to comprehend. The doubt of the success
of the Great Experiment was such a doubt as exists in all enterprises
which have great possibilities. To me, whose life was passed in a
series of intellectual struggles, this form of doubt was a stimulus,
rather than deterrent. What then was it that made for me a trouble,
which became an anguish when my thoughts dwelt long on it?
I was beginning to doubt Margaret!
What it was that I doubted I knew not. It was not her love, or her
honour, or her truth, or her kindness, or her zeal. What then was it?
It was herself!
Margaret was changing! At times during the past few days I had hardly
known her as the same girl whom I had met at the picnic, and whose
vigils I had shared in the sick-room of her father. Then, even in her
moments of greatest sorrow or fright or anxiety, she was all life and
thought and keenness. Now she was generally distraite, and at times in
a sort of negative condition as though her mind—her very being—was
not present. At such moments she would have full possession of
observation and memory. She would know and remember all that was going
on, and had gone on around her; but her coming back to her old self had
to me something the sensation of a new person coming into the room. Up
to the time of leaving London I had been content whenever she was
present. I had over me that delicious sense of security which comes
with the consciousness that love is mutual. But now doubt had taken
its place. I never knew whether the personality present was my
Margaret—the old Margaret whom I had loved at the first glance—or the
other new Margaret, whom I hardly understood, and whose intellectual
aloofness made an impalpable barrier between us. Sometimes she would
become, as it were, awake all at once. At such times, though she would
say to me sweet and pleasant things which she had often said before,
she would seem most unlike herself. It was almost as if she was
speaking parrot-like or at dictation of one who could read words or
acts, but not thoughts. After one or two experiences of this kind, my
own doubting began to make a barrier; for I could not speak with the
ease and freedom which were usual to me. And so hour by hour we
drifted apart. Were it not for the few odd moments when the old
Margaret was back with me full of her charm I do not know what would
have happened. As it was, each such moment gave me a fresh start and
kept my love from changing.
I would have given the world for a confidant; but this was impossible.
How could I speak a doubt of Margaret to anyone, even her father! How
could I speak a doubt to Margaret, when Margaret herself was the theme!
I could only endure—and hope. And of the two the endurance was the
lesser pain.
I think that Margaret must have at times felt that there was some cloud
between us, for towards the end of the first day she began to shun me a
little; or perhaps it was that she had become more diffident that usual
about me. Hitherto she had sought every opportunity of being with me,
just as I had tried to be with her; so that now any avoidance, one of
the other, made a new pain to us both.
On this day the household seemed very still. Each one of us was about
his own work, or occupied with his own thoughts. We only met at meal
times; and then, though we talked, all seemed more or less preoccupied.
There was not in the house even the stir of the routine of service.
The precaution of Mr. Trelawny in having three rooms prepared for each
of us had rendered servants unnecessary. The dining-room was solidly
prepared with cooked provisions for several days. Towards evening I
went out by myself for a stroll. I had looked for Margaret to ask her
to come with me; but when I found her, she was in one of her apathetic
moods, and the charm of her presence seemed lost to me. Angry with
myself, but unable to quell my own spirit of discontent, I went out
alone over the rocky headland.
On the cliff, with the wide expanse of wonderful sea before me, and no
sound but the dash of waves below and the harsh screams of the seagulls
above, my thoughts ran free. Do what I would, they returned
continuously to one subject, the solving of the doubt that was upon me.
Here in the solitude, amid the wide circle of Nature’s force and
strife, my mind began to work truly. Unconsciously I found myself
asking a question which I would not allow myself to answer. At last
the persistence of a mind working truly prevailed; I found myself face
to face with my doubt. The habit of my life began to assert itself,
and I analysed the evidence before me.
It was so startling that I had to force myself into obedience to
logical effort. My starting-place was this: Margaret was changed—in
what way, and by what means? Was it her character, or her mind, or her
nature? for her physical appearance remained the same. I began to
group all that I had ever heard of her, beginning at her birth.
It was strange at the very first. She had been, according to Corbeck’s
statement, born of a dead mother during the time that her father and
his friend were in a trance in the tomb at Aswan. That trance was
presumably effected by a woman; a woman mummied, yet preserving as we
had every reason to believe from after experience, an astral body
subject to a free will and an active intelligence. With that astral
body, space ceased to exist. The vast distance between London and
Aswan became as naught; and whatever power of necromancy the Sorceress
had might have been exercised over the dead mother, and possibly the
dead child.
The dead child! Was it possible that the child was dead and was made
alive again? Whence then came the animating spirit—the soul? Logic
was pointing the way to me now with a vengeance!
If the Egyptian belief was true for Egyptians, then the “Ka” of the
dead Queen and her “Khu” could animate what she might choose. In such
case Margaret would not be an individual at all, but simply a phase of
Queen Tera herself; an astral body obedient to her will!
Here I revolted against logic. Every fibre of my being resented such a
conclusion. How could I believe that there was no Margaret at all; but
just an animated image, used by the Double of a woman of forty
centuries ago to its own ends...! Somehow, the outlook was brighter to
me now, despite the new doubts.
At least I had Margaret!
Back swung the logical pendulum again. The child then was not dead.
If so, had the Sorceress had anything to do with her birth at all? It
was evident—so I took it again from Corbeck—that there was a strange
likeness between Margaret and the pictures of Queen Tera. How could
this be? It could not be any birth-mark reproducing what had been in
the mother’s mind; for Mrs. Trelawny had never seen the pictures. Nay,
even her father had not seen them till he had found his way into the
tomb only a few days before her birth. This phase I could not get rid
of so easily as the last; the fibres of my being remained quiet. There
remained to me the horror of doubt. And even then, so strange is the
mind of man, Doubt itself took a concrete image; a vast and
impenetrable gloom, through which flickered irregularly and
spasmodically tiny points of evanescent light, which seemed to quicken
the darkness into a positive existence.
The remaining possibility of relations between Margaret and the mummied
Queen was, that in some occult way the Sorceress had power to change
places with the other. This view of things could not be so lightly
thrown aside. There were too many suspicious circumstances to warrant
this, now that my attention was fixed on it and my intelligence
recognised the possibility. Hereupon there began to come into my mind
all the strange incomprehensible matters which had whirled through our
lives in the last few days. At first they all crowded in upon me in a
jumbled mass; but again the habit of mind of my working life prevailed,
and they took order. I found it now easier to control myself; for
there was something to grasp, some work to be done; though it was of a
sorry kind, for it was or might be antagonistic to Margaret. But
Margaret was herself at stake! I was thinking of her and fighting for
her; and yet if I were to work in the dark, I might be even harmful to
her. My first weapon in her defence was truth. I must know and
understand; I might then be able to act. Certainly, I could not act
beneficently without a just conception and recognition of the facts.
Arranged in order these were as follows:
Firstly: the strange likeness of Queen Tera to Margaret who had been
born in another country a thousand miles away, where her mother could
not possibly have had even a passing knowledge of her appearance.
Secondly: the disappearance of Van Huyn’s book when I had read up to
the description of the Star Ruby.
Thirdly: the finding of the lamps in the boudoir. Tera with her
astral body could have unlocked the door of Corbeck’s room in the
hotel, and have locked it again after her exit with the lamps. She
could in the same way have opened the window, and put the lamps in the
boudoir. It need not have been that Margaret in her own person should
have had any hand in this; but—but it was at least strange.
Fourthly: here the suspicions of the Detective and the Doctor came
back to me with renewed force, and with a larger understanding.
Fifthly: there were the occasions on which Margaret foretold with
accuracy the coming occasions of quietude, as though she had some
conviction or knowledge of the intentions of the astral-bodied Queen.
Sixthly: there was her suggestion of the finding of the Ruby which her
father had lost. As I thought now afresh over this episode in the
light of suspicion in which her own powers were involved, the only
conclusion I could come to was—always supposing that the theory of the
Queen’s astral power was correct—that Queen Tera being anxious that
all should go well in the movement from London to Kyllion had in her
own way taken the Jewel from Mr. Trelawny’s pocket-book, finding it of
some use in her supernatural guardianship of the journey. Then in some
mysterious way she had, through Margaret, made the suggestion of its
loss and finding.
Seventhly, and lastly, was the strange dual existence which Margaret
seemed of late to be leading; and which in some way seemed a
consequence or corollary of all that had gone before.
The dual existence! This was indeed the conclusion which overcame all
difficulties and reconciled opposites. If indeed Margaret were not in
all ways a free agent, but could be compelled to speak or act as she
might be instructed; or if her whole being could be changed for another
without the possibility of any one noticing the doing of it, then all
things were possible. All would depend on the spirit of the
individuality by which she could be so compelled. If this
individuality were just and kind and clean, all might be well. But if
not! ... The thought was too awful for words. I ground my teeth with
futile rage, as the ideas of horrible possibilities swept through me.
Up to this morning Margaret’s lapses into her new self had been few and
hardly noticeable, save when once or twice her attitude towards myself
had been marked by a bearing strange to me. But today the contrary was
the case; and the change presaged badly. It might be that that other
individuality was of the lower, not of the better sort! Now that I
thought of it I had reason to fear. In the history of the mummy, from
the time of Van Huyn’s breaking into the tomb, the record of deaths
that we knew of, presumably effected by her will and agency, was a
startling one. The Arab who had stolen the hand from the mummy; and the
one who had taken it from his body. The Arab chief who had tried to
steal the Jewel from Van Huyn, and whose throat bore the marks of seven
fingers. The two men found dead on the first night of Trelawny’s taking
away the sarcophagus; and the three on the return to the tomb. The
Arab who had opened the secret serdab. Nine dead men, one of them
slain manifestly by the Queen’s own hand! And beyond this again the
several savage attacks on Mr. Trelawny in his own room, in which, aided
by her Familiar, she had tried to open the safe and to extract the
Talisman jewel. His device of fastening the key to his wrist by a
steel bangle, though successful in the end, had wellnigh cost him his
life.
If then the Queen, intent on her resurrection under her own conditions
had, so to speak, waded to it through blood, what might she not do were
her purpose thwarted? What terrible step might she not take to effect
her wishes? Nay, what were her wishes; what was her ultimate purpose?
As yet we had had only Margaret’s statement of them, given in all the
glorious enthusiasm of her lofty soul. In her record there was no
expression of love to be sought or found. All we knew for certain was
that she had set before her the object of resurrection, and that in it
the North which she had manifestly loved was to have a special part.
But that the resurrection was to be accomplished in the lonely tomb in
the Valley of the Sorcerer was apparent. All preparations had been
carefully made for accomplishment from within, and for her ultimate
exit in her new and living form. The sarcophagus was unlidded. The oil
jars, though hermetically sealed, were to be easily opened by hand; and
in them provision was made for shrinkage through a vast period of time.
Even flint and steel were provided for the production of flame. The
Mummy Pit was left open in violation of usage; and beside the stone
door on the cliff side was fixed an imperishable chain by which she
might in safety descend to earth. But as to what her after intentions
were we had no clue. If it was that she meant to begin life again as a
humble individual, there was something so noble in the thought that it
even warmed my heart to her and turned my wishes to her success.
The very idea seemed to endorse Margaret’s magnificent tribute to her
purpose, and helped to calm my troubled spirit.
Then and there, with this feeling strong upon me, I determined to warn
Margaret and her father of dire possibilities; and to await, as well
content as I could in my ignorance, the development of things over
which I had no power.
I returned to the house in a different frame of mind to that in
which I had left it; and was enchanted to find Margaret—the old
Margaret—waiting for me.
After dinner, when I was alone for a time with the father and daughter,
I opened the subject, though with considerable hesitation:
“Would it not be well to take every possible precaution, in case the
Queen may not wish what we are doing, with regard to what may occur
before the Experiment; and at or after her waking, if it comes off?”
Margaret’s answer came back quickly; so quickly that I was convinced
she must have had it ready for some one:
“But she does approve! Surely it cannot be otherwise. Father is
doing, with all his brains and all his energy and all his great
courage, just exactly what the great Queen had arranged!”
“But,” I answered, “that can hardly be. All that she arranged was in a
tomb high up in a rock, in a desert solitude, shut away from the world
by every conceivable means. She seems to have depended on this
isolation to insure against accident. Surely, here in another country
and age, with quite different conditions, she may in her anxiety make
mistakes and treat any of you—of us—as she did those others in times
gone past. Nine men that we know of have been slain by her own hand or
by her instigation. She can be remorseless if she will.” It did not
strike me till afterwards when I was thinking over this conversation,
how thoroughly I had accepted the living and conscious condition of
Queen Tera as a fact. Before I spoke, I had feared I might offend Mr.
Trelawny; but to my pleasant surprise he smiled quite genially as he
answered me:
“My dear fellow, in a way you are quite right. The Queen did
undoubtedly intend isolation; and, all told, it would be best that her
experiment should be made as she arranged it. But just think, that
became impossible when once the Dutch explorer had broken into her
tomb. That was not my doing. I am innocent of it, though it was the
cause of my setting out to rediscover the sepulchre. Mind, I do not
say for a moment that I would not have done just the same as Van Huyn.
I went into the tomb from curiosity; and I took away what I did, being
fired with the zeal of acquisitiveness which animates the collector.
But, remember also, that at this time I did not know of the Queen’s
intention of resurrection; I had no idea of the completeness of her
preparations. All that came long afterwards. But when it did come, I
have done all that I could to carry out her wishes to the full. My
only fear is that I may have misinterpreted some of her cryptic
instructions, or have omitted or overlooked something. But of this I
am certain; I have left undone nothing that I can imagine right to be
done; and I have done nothing that I know of to clash with Queen Tera’s
arrangement. I want her Great Experiment to succeed. To this end I
have not spared labour or time or money—or myself. I have endured
hardship, and braved danger. All my brains; all my knowledge and
learning, such as they are; all my endeavours such as they can be, have
been, are, and shall be devoted to this end, till we either win or lose
the great stake that we play for.”
“The great stake?” I repeated; “the resurrection of the woman, and the
woman’s life? The proof that resurrection can be accomplished; by
magical powers; by scientific knowledge; or by use of some force which
at present the world does not know?”
Then Mr. Trelawny spoke out the hopes of his heart which up to now he
had indicated rather than expressed. Once or twice I had heard Corbeck
speak of the fiery energy of his youth; but, save for the noble words
of Margaret when she had spoken of Queen Tera’s hope—which coming from
his daughter made possible a belief that her power was in some sense
due to heredity—I had seen no marked sign of it. But now his words,
sweeping before them like a torrent all antagonistic thought, gave me a
new idea of the man.
“‘A woman’s life!’ What is a woman’s life in the scale with what we
hope for! Why, we are risking already a woman’s life; the dearest life
to me in all the world, and that grows more dear with every hour that
passes. We are risking as well the lives of four men; yours and my
own, as well as those two others who have been won to our confidence.
‘The proof that resurrection can be accomplished!’ That is much. A
marvellous thing in this age of science, and the scepticism that
knowledge makes. But life and resurrection are themselves but items in
what may be won by the accomplishment of this Great Experiment.
Imagine what it will be for the world of thought—the true world of
human progress—the veritable road to the Stars, the itur ad astra of
the Ancients—if there can come back to us out of the unknown past one
who can yield to us the lore stored in the great Library of Alexandria,
and lost in its consuming flames. Not only history can be set right,
and the teachings of science made veritable from their beginnings; but
we can be placed on the road to the knowledge of lost arts, lost
learning, lost sciences, so that our feet may tread on the indicated
path to their ultimate and complete restoration. Why, this woman can
tell us what the world was like before what is called ‘the Flood’; can
give us the origin of that vast astounding myth; can set the mind back
to the consideration of things which to us now seem primeval, but which
were old stories before the days of the Patriarchs. But this is not
the end! No, not even the beginning! If the story of this woman be
all that we think—which some of us most firmly believe; if her powers
and the restoration of them prove to be what we expect, why, then we
may yet achieve a knowledge beyond what our age has ever known—beyond
what is believed today possible for the children of men. If indeed
this resurrection can be accomplished, how can we doubt the old
knowledge, the old magic, the old belief! And if this be so, we must
take it that the ‘Ka’ of this great and learned Queen has won secrets
of more than mortal worth from her surroundings amongst the stars. This
woman in her life voluntarily went down living to the grave, and came
back again, as we learn from the records in her tomb; she chose to die
her mortal death whilst young, so that at her resurrection in another
age, beyond a trance of countless magnitude, she might emerge from her
tomb in all the fulness and splendour of her youth and power. Already
we have evidence that though her body slept in patience through those
many centuries, her intelligence never passed away, that her resolution
never flagged, that her will remained supreme; and, most important of
all, that her memory was unimpaired. Oh, what possibilities are there
in the coming of such a being into our midst! One whose history began
before the concrete teaching of our Bible; whose experiences were
antecedent to the formulation of the Gods of Greece; who can link
together the Old and the New, Earth and Heaven, and yield to the known
worlds of thought and physical existence the mystery of the Unknown—of
the Old World in its youth, and of Worlds beyond our ken!”
He paused, almost overcome. Margaret had taken his hand when he spoke
of her being so dear to him, and held it hard. As he spoke she
continued to hold it. But there came over her face that change which I
had so often seen of late; that mysterious veiling of her own
personality which gave me the subtle sense of separation from her. In
his impassioned vehemence her father did not notice; but when he
stopped she seemed all at once to be herself again. In her glorious
eyes came the added brightness of unshed tears; and with a gesture of
passionate love and admiration, she stooped and kissed her father’s
hand. Then, turning to me, she too spoke:
“Malcolm, you have spoken of the deaths that came from the poor Queen;
or rather that justly came from meddling with her arrangements and
thwarting her purpose. Do you not think that, in putting it as you have
done, you have been unjust? Who would not have done just as she did?
Remember she was fighting for her life! Ay, and for more than her
life! For life, and love, and all the glorious possibilities of that
dim future in the unknown world of the North which had such enchanting
hopes for her! Do you not think that she, with all the learning of her
time, and with all the great and resistless force of her mighty nature,
had hopes of spreading in a wider way the lofty aspirations of her
soul! That she hoped to bring to the conquering of unknown worlds, and
using to the advantage of her people, all that she had won from sleep
and death and time; all of which might and could have been frustrated
by the ruthless hand of an assassin or a thief. Were it you, in such
case would you not struggle by all means to achieve the object of your
life and hope; whose possibilities grew and grew in the passing of
those endless years? Can you think that that active brain was at rest
during all those weary centuries, whilst her free soul was flitting
from world to world amongst the boundless regions of the stars? Had
these stars in their myriad and varied life no lessons for her; as they
have had for us since we followed the glorious path which she and her
people marked for us, when they sent their winged imaginations circling
amongst the lamps of the night!”
Here she paused. She too was overcome, and the welling tears ran down
her cheeks. I was myself more moved than I can say. This was indeed my
Margaret; and in the consciousness of her presence my heart leapt. Out
of my happiness came boldness, and I dared to say now what I had feared
would be impossible: something which would call the attention of Mr.
Trelawny to what I imagined was the dual existence of his daughter. As
I took Margaret’s hand in mine and kissed it, I said to her father:
“Why, sir! she couldn’t speak more eloquently if the very spirit of
Queen Tera was with her to animate her and suggest thoughts!”
Mr. Trelawny’s answer simply overwhelmed me with surprise. It
manifested to me that he too had gone through just such a process of
thought as my own.
“And what if it was; if it is! I know well that the spirit of her
mother is within her. If in addition there be the spirit of that great
and wondrous Queen, then she would be no less dear to me, but doubly
dear! Do not have fear for her, Malcolm Ross; at least have no more
fear than you may have for the rest of us!” Margaret took up the
theme, speaking so quickly that her words seemed a continuation of her
father’s, rather than an interruption of them.
“Have no special fear for me, Malcolm. Queen Tera knows, and will
offer us no harm. I know it! I know it, as surely as I am lost in the
depth of my own love for you!”
There was something in her voice so strange to me that I looked quickly
into her eyes. They were bright as ever, but veiled to my seeing the
inward thought behind them as are the eyes of a caged lion.
Then the two other men came in, and the subject changed.