RACHEL AND THE
SEVEN WONDERS
[Illustration: THE STATUE IN THE HARBOUR]
[Illustration:
RACHEL AND THE
SEVEN WONDERS
BY NETTA SYRETT
ILLUSTRATED BY JOYCE MERCER]
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO ROBIN
CONTENTS
_Page_
FIRST WONDER
THE GREAT PYRAMID 13
SECOND WONDER
THE HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON 33
THIRD WONDER
THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES 55
FOURTH WONDER
THE TEMPLE OF DIANA 79
FIFTH WONDER
THE MAUSOLEUM OF ARTEMISIA 109
SIXTH WONDER
THE LIGHTHOUSE OF ALEXANDRIA 129
SEVENTH WONDER
THE STATUE OF JUPITER OLYMPIUS 146
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Statue in the Harbour (_Colour_) _Frontispiece_.
The Rosetta Stone (_Colour_) _To face page_ 16
Pharaoh in his Chariot " " 22
‘It will last for ever’ " " 74
A little boy walked in front of the
procession (_Colour_) " " 88
‘This is Diana of the Ephesians’ " " 100
They had a glimpse of the City " " 114
The Pharos Lighthouse (_Colour_) " " 136
The Olympic Games (_Colour_) " " 160
FIRST WONDER
[Illustration: THE GREAT PYRAMID]
Rachel was a very unhappy little girl as she sat in an omnibus with
Miss Moore, on her way to the British Museum. She didn’t want to go
to the British Museum. She didn’t want to be in London at all. She
longed desperately to be back in her country home with her father and
mother—now, alas! far away in Egypt.
Everything as Rachel said had happened so suddenly. Certainly her
mother had been ill some time, but it was all at once decided that the
only possible place to send her little daughter in a hurry, was to Aunt
Hester, in London.
Aunt Hester, who was her father’s eldest sister, and in the eyes
of Rachel, at least, awfully old, was quite kind, but also, as she
admitted, quite unused to children. The first thing she did therefore,
was to engage a governess to look after her niece for the seven weeks
she would have to remain with her.
Miss Moore, a rather uninteresting, middle-aged lady, had duly arrived
the previous evening, and at breakfast time Aunt Hester had suggested
the British Museum as a suitable place to which Rachel might be
conducted.
“She’s never been to London before, and, though I don’t want her to sit
too long over lessons, I think she should improve her mind while she
is here. The British Museum is an education in itself,” declared Aunt
Hester, and Miss Moore had primly agreed.
So it happened that at eleven o’clock on a bright spring morning, a
secretly unwilling little girl climbed the steps leading to the great
entrance of the great museum. The pigeons on the steps reminded her
of the dovecote at home, and the tears came suddenly to her eyes, as
almost without thinking she counted the number of birds on the top step.
“Seven,” she murmured half aloud.
“Seven what?” asked Miss Moore.
“Seven pigeons on this step. Aren’t they pretty?” Rachel lingered to
look at the burnished shining necks. She would much rather have stayed
outside with the pigeons, but Miss Moore hurried on to the swing doors,
and Rachel was obliged to follow her into the huge building.
“What do they keep here?” she asked listlessly, when Miss Moore had
given up her umbrella to a man behind a counter, just inside.
“All sorts of things,” returned her governess vaguely. “It’s a
_museum_, you know.”
Rachel was not very much the wiser but, as she walked with Miss Moore
from one great hall to another, she was confused and wearied by the
number of things of which she had glimpses. There were rows of statues,
cases full of strange objects, monuments in stone all covered with
carvings; curious pictures on the walls. Indeed, there _were_ “all
sorts of things” in the British Museum! But, as she knew nothing about
any of them, and Miss Moore volunteered very little information, she
was yawning with boredom by the time her governess remarked:
“Now, _these_ things come from Egypt.”
For the first time Rachel pricked up her ears. Mother and Dad were now
in Egypt, and as she glanced at the long stone things like tombs, at
drawings and models and a thousand other incomprehensible objects all
round her, she wished she knew something about them. Instead of saying
so, however, and almost without thinking, she murmured, “This is the
seventh room we’ve come to. I’ve counted them.”
“This is the famous _Rosetta_ Stone,” observed Miss Moore, reading an
inscription at the foot of a dull-looking broken block of marble in
front of them.
Rachel yawned for the seventh time with such vigour that her eyes
closed, and when she opened them a queer-looking little old man was
bending over the big block.
“What is the date of the month?” he asked so suddenly that she started
violently.
“Let me see. The seventh, I think. Yes—the seventh,” she stammered,
raising her eyes to his face.
He was so muffled up, that nearly all Rachel could see of him was a
pair of very large dark eyes, under a curious-looking hat. He wore a
long cloak reaching to his heels, and one end of the cloak was flung
over his left shoulder almost concealing his face.
Rachel scarcely knew why she thought him so old, except perhaps, that
his figure seemed to be much bent.
“Quite right. It’s the seventh,” he returned. “And what’s the name of
your house?”
Rachel looked round for Miss Moore, who strangely enough was still
reading the inscription on the stone, and seemed to be paying no
attention to the old man’s questions.
“It’s called ‘The Seven Gables,’” she answered.
“And where are you living now?”
“At number seven Cranborough Terrace.”
“And your name is _Rachel_. Do you read your Bible? How many years did
Jacob work for his wife?”
“He waited for her seven years. And her name was Rachel,” she
exclaimed, forgetting to wonder why Miss Moore didn’t interfere, or
join in a conversation which was becoming so interesting.
“The _seventh_ of the month, and the Seven Gables, and _seven_ years
for Rachel—and, why, there were _seven_ pigeons just outside as I came
in, and this is the seventh room we’ve come to. Because I counted them.
I don’t know why—but I did. What a lot of sevens.”
“Can you think of any other sevens in your life?” asked the little old
man, quietly.
“Why, yes!” she answered, excitedly. “There are seven of us. All grown
up except me. And I’m the seventh child, and the youngest!”
“Seven is a magic number, you know,” said her companion, gravely.
“Is it? Really and truly?” asked Rachel. “Oh, I do love hearing about
magic things! But I thought there weren’t any now?”
“On the contrary, the world is full of them. Take this, for instance.”
He pointed to the broken marble block. “That’s a magic stone.”
Rachel gazed at it reverently. “What does it do?” she asked almost in a
whisper.
“It’s a gate into the Past,” returned the old man in a dreamy voice.
“But come now,” he went on more briskly, “can we remember any more
sevens? You begin.”
“There are seven days in the week,” said Rachel, trying to think,
though she was longing to ask more about the magic stone.
“There’s the seven-branched candlestick in the Bible,” the old man went
on, promptly.
“And the seven ears of corn and the seven thin cows that Pharaoh dreamt
about,” returned Rachel, entering into the spirit of the game.
“The story of the Seven Sleepers.”
“The Seven Champions of Christendom,” added Rachel, who had just read
the book. “Oh, there are thousands of sevens. I can think of lots more
in a minute.”
“It’s my turn now,” was the old man’s answer. “The Seven Wonders of the
World.”
“I never heard of them. What are they?” Rachel demanded.
Again the old man pointed to the stone. “That gateway would lead you to
one of them,” he said, quietly, “if, as I’m beginning to think, you’re
one of the lucky children.”
[Illustration: THE ROSETTA STONE]
“Do lucky children have a lot to do with _seven_? Because if so,
I ought to be one, oughtn’t I? It’s funny I never thought about it
before, but there’s a seven in everything that has to do with me! And—”
“We’ll try,” interrupted the little old man. “Shut your eyes and bow
seven times in the direction of this stone. Never mind this lady”—for
Rachel had quite suddenly remembered the curious silence of her
governess. “She won’t miss you. You may do as I tell you without fear.”
Casting one hasty glance at Miss Moore, who had moved to a little
distance and was just consulting her watch, Rachel, full of excited
wonder, obeyed. Seven times she bent her head with fast-closed eyes,
and opened them only when her companion called softly “_Now._”
Even before she opened them, Rachel was conscious of a delicious warmth
like that of a hot midsummer day. A moment ago she had felt very chilly
standing before the marble block Miss Moore called the _Rosetta_ Stone,
in a big, gloomy hall of the British Museum. How could it so suddenly
have become warm?
In a second the question was answered, for she stood under a sky blue
as the deepest blue flower, and the glorious sun lighted a scene so
wonderful that Rachel gave a scream of astonishment.
“Where are we?” she gasped.
“In the mighty and mysterious land of Egypt,” answered her companion,
“as it appeared thousands of years before the birth of Christ.”
His tone was so solemn that Rachel turned quickly to look at him, and,
wonder of wonders, no old man was by her side! A dark-skinned youth
stood there, dressed in a curious but beautiful robe with strange
designs embroidered on its hem, and a no less strange head-dress, from
which gold coins fell in a fringe upon his forehead.
“Oh!” cried Rachel, when she could speak for amazement. “You were old
just now. I don’t understand. Who are you?” she added, in confusion.
The young man smiled, showing a row of beautiful white teeth. “My name
is Sheshà. I _am_ old,” he said. “Very, very old.” He pointed to a
great object at which, so far, in her astonishment, Rachel had scarcely
had time to glance. “I was born before _that_ was quite finished—six
thousand years ago.”
Rachel gasped again.
“But you look younger than my brother, and _he’s_ only twenty,” she
exclaimed.
“In returning to the land of my birth I return also to the age I was
when I lived in it.... But now, little maid of To-day, look around you,
for there stands, as it stood six thousand years ago, one of the Seven
Wonders of the World.”
Rachel obeyed and gazed upon a huge building with a broad base,
tapering almost to a point, whose walls were of smooth polished stones
of enormous size. Only a moment previously she had glanced carelessly
at pictures of buildings like this one, but now, as she saw it rising
before her in all its grandeur out of the yellow sand, and under a
canopy of blue sky, she almost held her breath.
“It is a pyramid, isn’t it?” she whispered. “I’ve seen pictures of
pyramids, but I don’t know anything about them.”
“It is the first great pyramid of Egypt,” answered the young man. “And,
little maid, you are highly favoured, for you see it as it looked
nearly six thousand years ago. It was already old when Joseph was
in Egypt, and Moses saw it when he lived in the palace of Pharaoh’s
daughter.”
Rachel gasped. “But what is it? What is it built for?” she asked.
“For the tomb of a king. That pyramid—” he pointed towards it—“was
built by the great King Cheops, and because you are one of the
fortunate children of the magic number seven, you see one of the Seven
Wonders of the World as it stood fresh from the workers’ hands.”
“Dad is in Egypt now. _He_ doesn’t see it like this then?”
Sheshà smiled. “Nay. He has already approached the Wonder in an
electric car—like all the other travellers of to-day, and instead of
these walls of granite which you behold, graven over with letters and
strange figures, he has seen great rough steps.”
“Steps?” echoed Rachel. “Why are there _steps_ up the side now?”
“Because beneath these smooth walls the pyramid is built of gigantic
blocks of stone, and now that their covering has been removed, the
blocks look like steps which can be, and _are_ climbed by people who
live in the world to-day.”
“But why was its beautiful shining case taken off?” Rachel asked,
looking with curiosity at the carving upon it.
“Because in the course of long years the people of other nations who
conquered Egypt and had no respect for my wondrous land, broke up the
‘beautiful shining case,’ to quote your own words, little maid, and
used it for building temples in which they worshipped gods strange and
new.”
Rachel glanced again at her companion. She was still so bewildered that
she scarcely knew which she should ask first of the hundred questions
crowding to her mind. And then everything around her was so strange and
beautiful! The yellow sand of the desert, the blue sky, the burning
sun, the long strip of fertile land bordering a great river.
“That must be the Nile,” she thought, remembering her geography. “The
Nile is in Egypt.”
Just as though he read her thoughts, Sheshà again broke silence.
“Do you wonder that we worshipped the river in those far-off days?” he
asked, dreamily.
“Did you? Why?” Rachel gazed at him curiously.
“It was, and is, the life-giver,” returned Sheshà. “But for that river,
there would never have been any food in this land. And therefore no
cities, no temples, no pyramids, no great schools of learning as there
were here in ancient days when Moses was ‘learnèd in all the wisdom of
the Egyptians.’”
“Yes, but how could the river make the corn grow, and give you food?”
asked Rachel. “I thought it was the _rain_ that made things grow.”
“In Egypt rain does not fall. But the river, this wondrous river of
ours, does the work of rain. Once every year it overflows its banks,
and the thirsty land is watered, and what would otherwise be all
desert, like the yellow sand you see that is not reached by the flood,
becomes green with waving corn, and shady palm trees, and beautiful
with fruit and flowers. Yes, no wonder we worshipped our river.”
Rachel would like to have asked him how the river was worshipped, but
Sheshà seemed rather to be talking to himself than to her, and there
was such a curious far-away look on his face that she felt shy of
questioning him. He stood gazing at the Pyramid as though he saw things
even more amazing than its mighty form.
“It must have taken a long time to build,” she ventured at last, rather
timidly.
Sheshà started.
“I was dreaming,” he said. “A long time to build? Verily. Would you
care to see by whom, and at what cost it was raised? I can show you. We
have but to travel a little further back into the Past for that. Shut
fast your eyes and bow seven times as before.”
[Illustration]
Rachel needed no second bidding, and in a few seconds, having obeyed
the instructions of her companion, she looked again upon a scene
strange and marvellous. The great Pyramid was there as before, but as
yet not quite finished. Its mighty walls were built, and were being
covered by the smooth case of granite, and round the great pile, like
ants swarming over an ant hill, were the builders—thousands upon
thousands of dark-skinned, almost naked, men, toiling like the slaves
they were. Here great blocks of marble and granite were being dragged
from barges on the river. There, hundreds of slaves were hoisting the
huge slabs into place on the as yet, unfinished walls, while multitudes
of others swarmed over and round the monument, cutting, hammering,
polishing, chiselling. A hum as of innumerable bees filled the air, and
indeed, Rachel was reminded of a hive, the inside of which her father
had once shown her, all quivering with the movement of the worker bees
as they toiled to make their cells.
She gave a little scream of astonishment at the sight of the thronging
multitudes, and presently heard the grave voice of Sheshà speaking.
“Behold, little maiden, in what manner this Wonder of the World was
fashioned. Out of the toil and labour of flesh and blood, in the days
when the Pharaohs ruled in this land, and cared naught for the lives of
their humbler subjects. Of these, as you see, they made slaves who did
the work that in the world of to-day is performed by machines, by steam
power, by electricity, by all the new inventions of modern times.”
“Do the people who come to Egypt now know all this? I mean people who
don’t come in a _magic_ way like me. Are there history books all about
Egypt as it was long ago?”
Sheshà pointed to the Pyramids. “That and many other monuments are the
history books—the great tombs, and all the palaces and temples and
columns still standing after thousands of years. On them are written
the story of the land. Behold, it is being written before your eyes,
since by what you call _magic_ you are watching the work of men who
laboured four thousand years before Christ.”
“But how can those funny pictures and signs they are cutting be
_writing_?” asked Rachel, watching a man who was graving strange marks
on the granite blocks.
“Such was the writing of the ancient Egyptians,” replied Sheshà,
“called in later days _hieroglyphics, or secret_ writing, because, as
ages passed, the meaning of the writing was forgotten, and men gazed at
these strange signs and wondered what they meant, and what secrets were
hidden from them by a language which no one could read.”
“And did they _ever_ find out the secret?” asked Rachel, eagerly. “Can
anyone nowadays read what is written on stones like these?”
“Yes. The secret has at last been discovered. For thousands of years it
was hidden, but at last, in modern days, almost within the life-time of
some old men and women still on this earth, the mystery was revealed by
means of a magic stone.”
“I know!” cried Rachel excitedly. “That was the piece of marble I
was looking at when I met you in the British Museum—was it a minute
ago, or ages?” she went on, looking puzzled. “It all seems like a
dream, somehow. But I remember Miss Moore, saying ‘This is the Rosetta
Stone’—and I didn’t know what she meant. And then _you_ said, ‘_That
stone is a gate into the Past_,’ and I didn’t know what you meant,
either!”
Again Sheshà smiled gravely as he looked down at her.
“I will tell you. Ninety years ago, a Frenchman was living in this
mysterious land of Egypt; knowing no more of the secret writing on
palaces and tombs and temples than do you, little maiden. But while he
was at _Rosetta_, which is a town on the sea coast not far from where
we stand, he found a broken block of marble—a fragment from what was
once, perhaps, a mighty temple. Upon it he saw the secret marks he
could not understand, but _beneath_ it were some lines in Greek, which
he and other people _could_ read. Now, thought the Frenchman, ‘What
if these Greek words should be the translation of those hieroglyphics
above, which no one for thousands of years has been able to decipher?’
So he brought the broken stone away with him. And the scholars examined
it, and at last, after patient study, comparing the Greek words,
which they _could_ understand, with the mysterious signs and pictures
above, they learnt to read _them_ also. And so, from that piece of
black marble which now rests in the great museum of your great city of
London, learned men have made Egypt give up one of its many secrets.
All that is written on columns, walls and tombs, can now be read by
the scholars who have studied the hieroglyphic writing of this ancient
land, and translated it into English and French, and all the languages
of men who live to-day. Was I not right to call ‘the _Rosetta_ Stone’ a
stone of magic, a gateway into the Past?”
[Illustration: PHARAOH IN HIS CHARIOT]
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Rachel, drawing a long breath. “If that Rosetta
Stone had never been found, people would still be looking at the—what
did you call the writing? Oh yes, the _hieroglyphics_, and wondering
what they mean, wouldn’t they? But you know, of course? You have always
known.”
“I wrote signs and figures like these, six thousand years ago,” replied
Sheshà, gazing upon the mighty unfinished Pyramid upon which, like
clustering bees, the brown-skinned, half-naked men were slaving.
“Will you read me something that’s written there? Please read what that
man has just finished carving,” begged Rachel, pointing to a youth who
was working at the base of the Pyramid. “What do those signs mean?”
“They record,” said Sheshà, glancing at them, “that a hundred thousand
men were always kept working upon this tomb. These slaves that you
behold are the last hundred thousand, for as you see the Pyramid is
nearly built. But for twenty years previous to this moment of Past
time, every day, a hundred thousand men have been working in the same
way as these poor slaves before your eyes.”
Rachel was just trying to put into words something of all the wonder
and bewilderment she felt, when a strain of music that sounded rather
faint and far away made her turn quickly. The sight she saw was so
wonderful that I scarcely know how to describe it.
“Who is this?” she whispered. “Why are the people bowing down before
him?”
“It is Pharaoh the king, come to look at his Pyramid—the tomb for
himself which is rising under the hands of his slaves. Well may you
gaze in wonder, O child, for never before this, has a little English
maid been given sight of the far, far Past. You behold Pharaoh in all
his pomp and glory as he lived six thousand years ago.”
And indeed Rachel gazed in wonder.
Looking down from the raised platform of soil on which stood the nearly
finished Pyramid, she saw a broad road, thronged with a glittering
company. In their midst, standing upright in a chariot painted with
brilliant colours and enriched with gold, was the imposing figure of
a man with an olive-tinted skin, dressed in a white robe, bordered
with gold. A head-dress strangely shaped almost shrouded his face, and
on his bare brown arms were bracelets, and hanging from his neck long
chains of metal work.
Running beside and behind the chariot, were slaves carrying great fans,
made, some of palm leaves, some of feathers. They were followed by a
crowd of girls in gauzy robes, whose black hair fell in tight ringlets
on their bare shoulders, holding in their hands musical instruments of
curious form. Behind them followed other chariots filled with men clad
in the same sort of dress as that worn by Sheshà.
[Illustration]
Rachel saw the wonderful procession clearly enough, yet it seemed as
though she was looking at it through a slight mist which quivered
like hot air, and made the figures behind it a little unreal, as if
something in a dream. This gauze-like mist she had noticed before, in
gazing at the workers on the Pyramid. It stretched between her and the
slaves like a barrier behind which, though she could watch them, they
toiled out of touch, and somehow a long way from her.
“You are beholding scenes that took place thousands of years ago,
remember,” said the voice of Sheshà, and though Rachel had not spoken,
she knew he read her thoughts, and was explaining. “Ages ago all these
people were turned to dust. They have arisen before your eyes—but only
like painted figures real though they seem. If you tried to touch them
your hand would but meet the air.”
“What is he going to do? Where is he going?” whispered Rachel, who was
feeling awe-struck, and perhaps a little frightened.
“Pharaoh is going to look at the tomb which has been prepared for him,”
said Sheshà, gravely. “In a moment we will follow him into the heart of
the Pyramid.”
“_Pharaoh_ comes into the Bible,” began Rachel, looking puzzled. “But I
thought you said it was another man, King Cheops, who had this Pyramid
built.”
“_Pharaoh_ was the name given to _all_ the kings of Egypt, but this is
not the Pharaoh who dreamt of the fat and lean kine, nor the Pharaoh
Moses knew, who was stricken with plagues. _This_ Pharaoh, whose other
name was King _Cheops_, lived long before the days of Joseph and Moses.”
Rachel gave a funny little murmur of excitement.
“We _have_ gone back far into the Past, haven’t we? It’s—it’s rather
frightening. I feel as though I should never get home again!” She
looked really anxious, and Sheshà laid his brown hand gently upon her
head.
“Have no fear. In less time than I take to say it, you will be seated
in an omnibus, travelling back to your aunt’s home,” he declared with a
curious smile.
“Oh, but I don’t want to go yet!” Rachel hastily assured him. “I want
to see everything. It’s so _frightfully_ interesting,” she went on,
incoherently.
“Again have no fear. You shall see and hear, for Time itself is a
‘magic’ thing, little maiden, and wonders can be worked during the
opening and shutting of the eyes. Let us now follow that procession to
the royal tomb.”
The painted chariot drawn by white horses with marvellous trappings,
had now been reined up before the entrance to a passage on one side
of the Pyramid. On either hand the workmen and the other people who
had been passing to and fro now lay prostrate in the dust, while the
great king was led from the chariot by the men Rachel had already seen
dressed in robes like that worn by Sheshà.
“Those are the priests of the order to which I belong,” he said.
“They are the people nearest to Pharaoh, the learned men whom he
honours—poets, historians, physicians, as well as priests. With them
he talks and takes counsel. These others,” he pointed to the poor men
on the ground, “are his slaves who bow down before him, and are used as
beasts of burden.”
[Illustration]
Rachel looked at them pityingly as with Sheshà she followed the wise
men and the reigning Pharaoh, King Cheops, into the passage hewn within
the Pyramid. No one noticed her presence, and somehow, though she was
almost close enough to touch the robes in front of her, Rachel was not
surprised. Plainly, as through the quivering haze surrounding them she
could see the wonderful group of people, she knew they were not exactly
_real_. She could not have touched them. She saw their lips move, but
she heard no sound.
In a few minutes the passage, which sloped upwards, broadened out
into a little hall lined with polished granite. Here the priests
who were following the mighty Pharaoh, very slowly and solemnly
ranged themselves against the walls, leaving the middle of the floor
clear. Rachel then saw the king standing alone, and looking down upon
something that looked like a coffin made of red granite placed in the
centre of the hall. The priests bowed their heads, and she saw their
lips moving, while the king stood motionless as a statue, his white
robes and his strange head-dress appearing as though they were carved
upon a painted figure.
For a second Rachel saw this, and then almost before she could breathe,
she was standing under the blue sky, looking at the scarcely finished
outside of the Pyramid, from which all the builders had disappeared, as
had also the crowds upon the road bordering the river Nile.
She rubbed her eyes. “It’s so strange,” she began, dreamily. “Was all
that great Pyramid built only to hold a little grave? Because I suppose
that was what the stone thing that the king looked down on, really was?”
“It was the outside _case_ of a coffin—yes,” said Sheshà. “Such a case
is called a _sarcophagus_. The real coffin was made of wood, placed
within the sarcophagus, upon which a granite lid was fixed and sealed
down when a man was dead.”
“Why did this Pharaoh want such a great place only for a tomb?” asked
Rachel, still puzzled. “Fancy making thousands and thousands of people
work, just to build a great heap over a grave! Why did he do it?”
“Partly because he wanted to be remembered for ever (and though he was
forgotten for ages, we are now talking about him after six thousand
years!) But also because of what was taught by the ancient religion of
the Egyptians.”
“What was that?” asked Rachel.
Sheshà smiled, his grave, strange smile. “It taught many things
difficult to explain to a little maid of to-day. But one thing was
this. When a man died, his soul left his body, and wandered about,
entering into other bodies—possibly for hundreds of years. But it
might happen that, after many ages, the soul should want to return
to its old home—its old body. Therefore, that body was carefully
preserved, in case the soul should wish to re-enter it.”
“But if it was very long before it wanted to come back it would find
its home turned to dust, wouldn’t it?”
“For that we provided,” answered Sheshà, “by preserving the poor body
in a way that is called _embalming_. We filled it with sweet spices,
and wrapped it closely in linen bandages, and——”
“I know! The dead people like that are called _mummies_, aren’t they?
I was just going to ask Miss Moore to take me to see them when I met
you!” Rachel interrupted.
[Illustration]
“There are many such embalmed bodies in your great museum. When you see
them, little maid, remember that you are looking upon the very features
of men and women who lived under this blue sky, and enjoyed this
sunshine, thousands of years before their bodies were taken to your
grey city beside the Thames. They were people who worshipped indeed,
but gods very different from the God worshipped in your churches and
cathedrals of to-day.”
“You worshipped the river, didn’t you?” asked Rachel, presently, as
Sheshà was silent.
“Osiris, God of the River and the Sun,” murmured Sheshà, as though to
himself. “Him we worshipped, and Isis, the fruitful Earth, and—” He
paused suddenly, and looked down at Rachel. “Our worship is difficult
for you to understand. Would it please you instead, to behold this
place as it looks _now_—to the travellers of To-day. As your father,
for instance, beheld it only this morning?”
“Oh _yes_,” cried Rachel eagerly. “That’s just what I _should_ like.”
“Prepare then to see _nine_, instead of one of these mighty
works—eight of them built after this first Pyramid of King Cheops,
but, even so, thousands of years old, and battered not so much by the
hand of Time as by the hands of destructive men. Turn towards the
river, child of To-day, and, with closed eyes, bow seven times.”
Rachel again obeyed, and, when she turned and looked, instead of one,
a group of Pyramids stood up grandly against such a sunset sky as she
had never before imagined. The sand of the desert, the flowing river,
the worn sides of the huge buildings, were washed by a rosy glow. And
battered and worn, as they now looked, they were still the Pyramids as
they had stood for thousands and thousands of years before she was born.
Changed though it was, Rachel recognised at once the great tomb of
King Cheops, and as she looked she listened to Sheshà speaking, though
somehow the voice sounded faint and far away.
“_All things dread Time, but Time itself dreads the Pyramids_,” she
heard him say. And then, after a moment, “Gaze well, O child, upon one
of the Seven Wonders of the World.”
The last words came so faintly that Rachel turned to look at her
friend—and instead found Miss Moore at her elbow.
She was still consulting her watch, and Rachel was still standing in
front of the black Rosetta Stone.
“I think we ought to go,” said Miss Moore. “It will take us some time
to get back, and we mustn’t be late for lunch.”
Rachel drew a long breath, and followed her governess in silence.
When you have just stepped out of Egypt into the British Museum, you
feel you don’t want to talk—and Rachel scarcely spoke all the way home.
On the hall table, waiting for her, lay a letter from her father, and
his little daughter eagerly pounced upon it, and ran with it to her
bedroom. Mother was much better already, the letter said, and, after a
great deal of other news, Rachel came upon a sentence which interested
her more than her father could have imagined, when he wrote it.
“I have just seen the Pyramids! One of these days you and I will go to
Egypt and look at them again together. But you must learn something
about them first, or you won’t be half so excited about them as I am.”
Rachel laughed gleefully. “Dad hasn’t seen King Cheops, anyhow,” she
thought. “And he’d be certain to think I dreamt it if I told him all
about Sheshà and the slaves. No one would believe me—so I shan’t say
anything about this lovely adventure.”
She ran down to lunch, happy and excited by her secret.
“Well, how did you enjoy the British Museum?” enquired Aunt Hester,
when she had heard all the news contained in the letter from Egypt.
“Oh, I _loved_ it!” exclaimed Rachel, and two little dimples appeared
at the corners of her mouth as she tried to repress a smile. “When can
I go again?”
Miss Moore looked a little surprised, for she remembered no particular
enthusiasm on Rachel’s part during the morning.
“A most instructive place,” she observed, turning to Aunt Hester. “I’m
sure Rachel will learn a great deal there.”
And again Rachel tried to keep back a smile.
[Illustration]
SECOND WONDER
[Illustration: THE HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON]
All the rest of that day Rachel went about feeling excited and happy.
It was not till next morning when she woke that doubt crept into her
mind. Could she _really_ have been to Egypt and seen the great Pyramid
of Cheops before it was quite finished? Surely, she couldn’t _really_
have talked to Sheshà, the priest of that ancient king! It must, of
course, have been a dream. Yet how had she managed to go to sleep
in the British Museum? And how was it, if she had dreamt the whole
adventure, that she remembered everything distinctly, and not in the
confused fashion of an ordinary dream? Rachel was puzzled, but she was
obliged to come to the sad conclusion that somehow or other the glowing
pictures in her mind, of slaves, of Pharaoh in his chariot, of the room
within the Pyramid holding the sarcophagus, were, as her old nurse used
to say, “all imagination.”
It was a terribly disappointing thought, and for the whole of the
following day she felt quite dull and miserable, especially as Aunt
Hester wouldn’t hear of another immediate visit to the British Museum.
“It’s too far,” she declared. “You may go next week. But I can’t
think why you’re so anxious about it. Miss Moore says you didn’t seem
particularly interested while you were there.”
Rachel couldn’t of course tell Aunt Hester that in her longing for
the British Museum, there was a faint hope that if by any chance the
adventure had been “real”—there, if anywhere, “something might happen.”
A few mornings afterwards, however, something _did_ happen. At
breakfast time Aunt Hester put down a letter she had been reading, and
looked across at her niece.
“Old Mr. Sheston is coming to lunch,” she remarked. “He says he thinks
he must have seen you the other day. He knew you from your likeness to
your father.”
“Who is old Mr. Sheston?” asked Rachel, looking up from putting more
sugar on her porridge.
Aunt Hester smiled. “He’s a funny old man who has been a friend of
our family for years, and knew your father as a boy. He is doing some
important work at the British Museum, so you’ll be able to talk to him
about it.”
Rachel pricked up her ears.
“Why is he funny?” she enquired.
Again Aunt Hester smiled. “He dresses in a strange way for one thing,
and he has all sorts of curious ideas that you wouldn’t understand.
He’s a dear old man—but eccentric. Certainly eccentric,” she added as
though to herself.
“_Eccentric_ means not like other people, doesn’t it?” murmured Rachel.
“I’ve never heard Dad talk about him.”
“I don’t think he’s seen him since he was a boy.... Certainly you _are_
very like your father as he was at your age, child! I’m not surprised
that the old man recognized you.”
Rachel was running across the hall just before lunch, when in answer
to a knock at the front door, the parlourmaid admitted a strange
figure, wrapped in a long cloak, one end of which was thrown over the
left shoulder. A battered hat almost hid the face of the little old
gentleman who entered—but in a flash Rachel remembered him. He was
looking at the Rosetta Stone the day she and Miss Moore went to the
British Museum! And he had spoken to her—or had she dreamt this? It
was curious, but she really couldn’t remember. All she knew at the
moment was, that he and the Rosetta Stone were, as she put it, “mixed
up together in her mind.”
By this time the visitor had taken off his hat, and Rachel, so puzzled
and curious that she had stopped short in the middle of the hall, saw a
pair of dark eyes in a crinkled, wrinkled face under a fringe of white
hair.
The old man smiled and held out both hands.
“You are Rachel,” he said. “I knew when I saw you last week in the
Egyptian gallery, that you must be your father’s daughter.”
Rachel felt suddenly shy, and was glad when Aunt Hester came down the
stairs and, after a word or two of greeting, led the way straight into
the dining-room.
At table, during the meal, Rachel sat opposite to the guest, who now
and then looked across at her, and every time she met his dark eyes she
was puzzled afresh.
“You’ll be glad to hear that Rachel is _most_ interested in the British
Museum,” said Aunt Hester, presently.
“I _am_ glad to hear it,” was all the old man said, but he smiled in
such a way as to make Rachel more excited and puzzled than ever.
She listened eagerly to what he was saying to Aunt Hester. He was
talking about what he called the “explorations” in Egypt, and she
gathered from his conversation that men were often sent out by the
people who took charge of the British Museum, to dig and explore among
the ruins in Egypt and other ancient countries, and to bring back some
of the things they found to London.
He made the story of these explorers and what they discovered, so
exciting, that Aunt Hester, who did not at first seem very curious,
began to ask questions. Rachel wanted to ask a great many more, for her
head was still full of her strange dream—as she now called it—about
Egypt, and it was interesting to know how all the tombs and monuments
and statues she had seen last week had found their way to England.
“You can run away now, Rachel,” said Aunt Hester, when lunch was over,
and Grayson was bringing in coffee.
“Don’t let her run very far,” observed Mr. Sheston. “Because I’m going
to take her back with me to the Museum in ten minutes.”
He said this without looking at her, and Rachel gasped for joy, and
glanced imploringly at Aunt Hester, who laughed.
“You always _announce_ what you are going to do, I remember,” she
declared, speaking to her guest. “You never _ask_.”
“A habit of mine,” returned the old gentleman quietly. “Acquired long
ago.”
“Go and get ready,” said Aunt Hester, with a nod to her niece, and
Rachel flew like the wind.
Ten minutes later she was seated in a taxi-cab with Mr. Sheston, who
talked about her father, about her country home, her brothers and
sisters, and everything in the world except just the things Rachel
wanted him to talk about—Egypt and the Pyramids.
At last, however, he said quite suddenly, just as they were going up
the steps of the Museum, “How long is it since you were here?”
“Five or six days, I think, or perhaps—”
“_Seven_ days,” corrected the old gentleman, quietly, and all at once
Rachel began to get excited.
They entered the building, and she noticed that all the officials in
uniform touched their hats to the little old man who was evidently very
well known there. He turned at once to the Egyptian Gallery, and as
they passed the Rosetta Stone, Rachel looked back.
“I know all about _that_,” she said, glancing up at Mr. Sheston, who
only smiled.
“We will go to the Babylonian Room in a minute,” he said. “Do you know
where to find Babylonia on the map?”
Only that morning, in looking as she always did now, for Egypt, Rachel
had seen it marked in her atlas.
“It’s up above Arabia, isn’t it?” she began, uncertainly “Up above the
Persian Gulf.”
“And do you remember any of its cities that were famous once?”
“Babylon?” suggested Rachel.
Mr. Sheston nodded.
“Babylon,” he repeated, and after a moment added, as though to himself,
“_How far is it to Babylon?_”
“Why, that’s in a book of poetry I’ve got,” exclaimed Rachel. “It’s
called ‘A Child’s Garden of Verses.’”
“Yes, there are a great many things in Stevenson’s Child’s Garden,”
said the old man. “We’ll find out how far it is to Babylon presently.
But, before we do that, just come into this room for a moment.”
He took her hand and led her into a narrow passage to the right of the
big Egyptian hall through which they had come.
“Is there anything here that reminds you of—something else?” he asked.
Rachel glanced about, and suddenly her eyes rested on a monument
against a wall, carved curiously in stone. Beneath it there was an
inscription, and she went nearer and began to read the words aloud.
“_The tomb of Sheshà, High Priest of Cheops_,” she began, and suddenly
stopped short.
“Why...!” she exclaimed, turning to Mr. Sheston, and then again
stopped short, for in his place stood her friend Sheshà in his
beautiful robe, his young face framed by the strange head-dress she so
well remembered! And yet—somehow—it was Mr. Sheston too! Sheshà and
the old man were in a curious way one and the same person!
“Why, you _are_ Sheshà!” cried Rachel, incoherently. “But
then—why?”—she glanced at the tomb—“That means you were _dead_—ages
and ages ago?” she whispered. “How can you be here—?”
The young priest smiled. “Tombs are but folly,” he answered. “Do you
remember, little maid, what I said to you of the soul, and how it lives
and returns after many thousand years to inhabit the same, or perhaps
another body?”
Rachel nodded, too overwhelmed to speak.
“Well, then, are not tombs folly?” he repeated, still smiling. “But
come, of Egypt you have had a glimpse already. Now shall you behold
Babylon.”
He turned and led the way towards another gallery running parallel
with the Egyptian one, and, as Rachel followed him, she wondered for a
moment why the people strolling about in the Museum did not stare in
amazement at the wonderful figure of Sheshà in his priestly robe. No
one took the slightest notice, however, and she remembered that Miss
Moore had on a previous occasion seen and heard nothing.
“They’re not mixed up with _seven_, I suppose,” she reflected, before
Sheshà began to speak again. He talked, she thought, rather as though
he were translating from another language, trying to make what he said
quite modern. “But sometimes,” thought Rachel, “he forgets—and then he
says ‘_behold_,’ and ‘_verily_,’ and old-fashioned words like that!”
“Let us first look at some of the wonders which, long buried, have
come at last to this Museum,” he suggested, pausing in front of a huge
statue. It represented a creature with the body of a bull, and the face
of a man with a long curled beard cut square—while from the shoulders
of the beast sprang two great wings.
“Here is one out of many such marvels,” he added.
Rachel looked at the monster, full of curiosity.
“Was _this_ dug up by the people you were talking about to Aunt Hester
to-day? I mean—at lunch time—when you were—Mr. Sheston?”
Sheshà smiled. “I was the same person then as now. It was only my
body that was different.... Yes, little maid, this was found by the
explorers not far from Babylon. Now glance with me at these pictures in
stone.” He turned into a narrow gallery close at hand, and pointed to
the walls against which were fastened large slabs of stone sculptured
most beautifully with scenes of hunting, with processions in which
kings rode in chariots under graceful canopies like parasols hung with
fringe, or stood looking down upon long lines of prisoners chained
together.
“These came from the palace of one Tiglath Pileser, a king who lived
more than seven hundred years before Christ was born. He was one of the
conquerors of Babylon.”
“But I do want to see Babylon itself!” exclaimed Rachel. “You did mean
I should _really_ see it, didn’t you?”
“Patience!” murmured Sheshà. “Patience! You are just about to see
Babylon first as it is now—and then as it was in the days of its
splendour. Shut your eyes. Beat seven times with your foot on this
stone floor—and have no fear of what befalls. You are safe with me.”
Trembling with excitement, Rachel did as she was told, and at the
last tap of her foot, was conscious of a most strange and wonderful
sensation. She seemed to be out of doors, and not only out of doors,
but rushing through the air, while a noise like that of a great engine
almost deafened her.
“We are near Babylon!” said a voice close to her ear, and, as she
opened her eyes, Rachel gasped, for she was seated in an aeroplane,
and the pilot of the machine, in the dress of an airman, was—Sheshà!
Rachel had so often longed to fly, that at first she could think of
nothing but the wonder and excitement of her first rush through the
air, and it was only by degrees that she began to notice the earth
below. The machine was dropping nearer to it now, and she saw they
were flying over a vast plain through which flowed a river. Three
large mounds near this river broke the monotony of the desert place,
overarched by the beautiful blue sky, and when the aeroplane skimmed
yet lower, Rachel saw little figures moving near the mounds, like ants
running over an ant heap.
At the same moment the noise of the aeroplane’s engine ceased, and she
was able to talk to the pilot.
“Why those are _men_, aren’t they?” she said, pointing to the tiny
figures. “And what are those heaps of rubbish there?”
“All that is left of Babylon—the beautiful and proud City of Babylon,”
answered the voice of the pilot, Sheshà.
Rachel looked at the desert plain with its three “rubbish heaps,” as
she called them, in silent astonishment.
“Is _that_ where the bulls with wings and the other things in the
British Museum come from?” she added at length.
“Some of them—yes.”
“And are those little men down there digging up other things now?”
“Yes. They are working for the Museum. By-and-by, in a few weeks,
perhaps, you may read a column in your newspaper at breakfast time
giving an account of the latest things found in that heap,” he pointed
to the largest of them. “That mound below you is called _Babil_, and
it covers the palace in which dwelt King Nebuchadnezzar, nearly three
thousand years ago.”
“The Nebuchadnezzar in the Bible that I was reading about with Miss
Moore only this morning?”
“Yes—the Nebuchadnezzar who conquered the city of Jerusalem and
brought the Children of Israel captives to Babylon—the Nebuchadnezzar
who set up the golden image to which Daniel would not bow down.”
“And the fiery furnace!” interrupted Rachel, eagerly, “that didn’t
burn the three Children of Israel when Nebuchadnezzar threw them into
it.... I remember!... And there’s a psalm about them when they were
prisoners in Babylon.”
“_By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when
we remembered Zion_,” quoted Sheshà, in a dreamy voice. “There is
one of the rivers of Babylon.” He pointed to the great stream—the
Euphrates—on both sides of which the city was built.
“It doesn’t look as though there could ever have been a city here,”
Rachel declared, gazing down upon the desert and the mounds of earth.
“How could it have disappeared altogether like that?”
“Thousands of years have passed since it was standing. It has been
burnt to the ground many times, and laid in ruins. The sand of the
desert has swept over it, and new races of men have arisen, knowing
nothing of its ancient grandeur. It is only sixty years ago that
scholars from France and Germany and England began to explore those
heaps of rubbish which cover its palaces and temple.”
“Oh, I _do_ want to see them!” exclaimed Rachel. “I mean as they used
to look when Nebuchadnezzar was king. Not just the bits of them that
people dig up now!”
“We will make a landing,” said Sheshà in a matter-of-fact voice, and
in a few moments the aeroplane had touched the ground, and he was
helping her to jump out of the marvellous machine, which, surrounded as
she was by so many other marvels, Rachel took almost as though she had
been used to an aeroplane all her life.
“You behold Babylon as it looks to-day,” went on Sheshà, stretching
out his hand towards the ruins. “In a second you shall behold it as it
looked three thousand years ago when Nebuchadnezzar was king. And your
guide shall be a little maid of your own years.” Almost before he had
finished speaking he laid his hand gently over Rachel’s eyes....
“Count the magic number aloud.”
The voice that spoke certainly did not belong to Sheshà, and when full
of eagerness her eyes flew open they rested first of all upon the
loveliest and strangest little girl you can possibly imagine.
Her hair, black as ebony, was cut straight across her forehead, and
fell in tight ringlets to her shoulders. She wore a thin gauze robe
spangled with gold, and on her bare brown arms there were bracelets,
and round her slim little ankles golden anklets, which tinkled as she
moved.
As her great dark eyes met Rachel’s blue ones she said gravely: