FOXY DUFFING
"I'll show you your place," Corkran volunteered, lying in wait for me
inside the saloon door, with a cocktail in his hand. "Sorry you
wouldn't have one. You'll need it. But no time to change your mind.
I've put you at the head of the table that would be the captain's, if
he ate with us, which he doesn't--happy man! Place of honour. 'Twas
mine, 'tis yours. But I can't go on with the quotation unless I turn it
into 'You're slave to thousands.' Sixty odd can be as formidable as
thousands."
"Are there sixty odd?" I asked.
"Yes, very 'odd.' The Egypt lot will be about twenty-five. But the
whole gang's yours for the present. I give them to you, with the seat
of honour."
"Please don't put me in your place," I protested. "I prefer------"
"My poor boy, it isn't a question of what you prefer, as you'll learn
if you stick this out. Of course if you funk it--but that's a joke!
This table's the only one where you can be heard. Do you see?"
I did see; and accepted the situation, because the dinner bugle began
to sound, and I could not be scampering round the saloon like a
frightened rabbit as the Set and the Flock began dropping in to dinner.
As it happened, they did not drop--they poured into the room in a
steady stream, which phenomenon, whispered Corkran, was caused by
curiosity for a first sight of me. My heart counted each new arrival,
with a bump.
If Corkran had not represented "Lark's Party" as being a menagerie for
which I had inadvertently engaged as tamer, I should have thought they
looked a harmless crowd. But then, of course, I was not obliged to tame
anybody on the _Laconia,_ which makes a difference in one's point of
view. Miss Gilder needed taming, no doubt, but I hadn't tackled the
task. My thoughts flew to Cairo, as I stood struggling to look
pleasant; and I wished myself back where Anthony Fenton was now in the
taming business. I envied him, for there was only one Monny, whereas in
this terrible, bright dining saloon, the air was pink and white with
girls, dozens of girls, with eyes fixed on me, glittering eyes, which
appeared like the headlights of motor cars. I didn't suppose there
could be so many eyes in the world as these people of all ages and
every possible sex seemed to own. Sixty odd they were, according to
Corkran, but they looked like six hundred; a human miracle of loaves
and fishes.
Yes, the creatures might have appeared harmless enough had there been
no retired colonel. But there was a retired colonel, and so deftly had
he undermined my courage that almost any shock might cause it to
explode in a blue flame of funk. His speech of introduction was now to
come, and if I survived that, I might hope to live through my own
fireworks.
"They've put on their best bibs and tuckers," Corkran mumbled in a
stage whisper, as the eight dwellers at our table began to sort
themselves for places. Then, in portentous silence he paused till
everybody everywhere was seated. Waiting still, until satisfied that
eyes and ears were focussed upon us, he rapped on the table with the
handle of a knife.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he roared, "I have the pleasure of introducing
to you Sir Marcus Lark's Great Surprise, entitled Lord Ernest Borrow,
younger brother of the Marquis of Killeena, a peer, as Sir Marcus has
reminded us, of the oldest lineage in Ireland. Let me reassure you all
by saying that Lord Ernest's last name is as unsuited to his nature as
the first is true to it. If you'll pardon the pun it is Sir Marcus who
'Borrows' for your benefit, and he hasn't Borrowed Trouble, but a
Blessing--in disguise. I am now left free, as suits my superior age and
experience, to devote my attention to the serious minded ones among
you, who are to proceed with the Reverend Mr. Watts and myself to
Palestine. This young and gallant neophyte will 'lord' it over the
fleshpots of Egypt and those about to seek them. I hope you'll help him
as loyally as you have helped _me:_ and later we'll drink to his health
and success, in any beverage we happen to have signed for!"
To have killed Corkran might have been butchery; no jury could have
brought in a verdict of murder or even manslaughter, had I stabbed him
with the knife he used to pound upon the table. I smiled the smile of a
skull in a doctor's waiting-room, and in a sickly voice bleated my
pleasure in meeting these new acquaintances. I hoped we might be--er
--friends as well as shipmates. Then like a mass of jelly out of its
mould I plopped onto my chair. The colonel had sneaked off to his own
table and I was left to recover myself as best I might among eight of
his enemies. They proved (in whispers) to be the most active of these,
and tacitly offered me allegiance which I accepted in the same manner.
There was a Sir John Biddell, who informed me in the first five minutes
that he had been Lord Mayor of London. He promised to show me a speech
he had made in the presence of King Edward which, in the form of a
newspaper cutting, he never travelled without. This, however, was his
first trip farther than Paris, and he had brought with him, not only
the speech, but his wife and twin daughters. The distinguished family
occupied one side of my table: the other was given up to a General
Harlow, his wife (both with high profiles and opinions of themselves),
a youngish newspaper proprietor from Manchester, evidently rich and a
"catch," and a maiden lady doubtless of importance equal to her
proportions, as she was allowed to bring to the table a melancholy
marmoset. These people did their best to raise my spirits. The girls,
who copied royalties in their hair-dressing, looked alike, dressed
alike, talked and laughed alike, and entertained me with chat about
high society in London. They had red cheeks, black eyes, white teeth,
and an almost indecent familiarity with the private lives of the
aristocracy. The Misses Biddell and fat Miss Hassett-Bean (the lady of
the marmoset) hinted that the cream of the yacht's social life had
risen to our table, and told me, not only what to lecture about, but
how to treat the rival cliques. My brain felt more and more like a
blotting-pad. I answered at random and longed for the meal to end
--until I remembered my lecture. Then I wished that dinner might go on
indefinitely like the tea party of the Mad Hatter. All too soon the
glory of a French menu flickered down to a dying spark of nuts and
raisins, and hardly had I cracked my first almond (was it an ill omen
that there should be a worm in it?) when a steward handed me a twisted
note from the executioner. "The rule for conductor's dinner speech is,
rise with the raisins! Hope you won't find your lecture too hard a nut
to crack. Yours sympathetically, Corkran. Bang on the table to make
them stop gabbling. Or shall I do it for you? If you haven't by the
time I count ten, I will."
He did. I trust it wasn't my courage that failed. But having a raisin
in my mouth I could not on the instant respond to the lash. And as
Corkran would have said, it takes more than one swallow to make a
speech. Ruthlessly he rapped, seizing what I wished might be his dying
chance to indulge a mania for puns and thumping wood.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he bawled from his comparatively obscure
corner. "Lord Ernest Borrow will render your last moments the most
enjoyable of the meal, by washing down your nuts and raisins with the
wine of his eloquence. Take your desserts now. We conscientious
conductors hope for ours in heaven."
How ardently I desired that these might indeed be the "last moments"
not only of my audience but of Colonel Corkran. If the next second had
brought a tidal wave or a collision I should have blessed Providence.
But I got to my feet--and nothing happened. I seemed to be in a dream,
of having shot up to a gigantic height, and having put on the wrong
clothes, or none. My hands weighed two pounds each, and ought to have
been at the butcher's. My mouth was the size of a negro minstrel's, and
so full of large bones which once had been teeth that I could not utter
a syllable. I clacked my jaws, and emitted a hacking cough which
fortunately so much resembled that of a professional lecturer that I
kept my senses. Not only did I keep them, but they seemed suddenly to
become my servants. The thought of a certain fable jumped into my head,
and I began thereupon to speak; although I had forgotten everything I
had ever read of Egyptian history.
"It happens," said I, in a phonographic voice, "that I was born in
Egypt. I played with clay gods and goddesses instead of tin soldiers. I
preferred stories of Egypt's past and present to tales of adventure. I
confess to you what I fear I didn't confess to Sir Marcus Lark. The
trouble is, I'm stuffed too full of facts about Egypt. I want you to
help me get them out, and not duplicate yours. No doubt all of you, in
travelling to the East, have packed your brains with knowledge as well
as your boxes with guide books. Why should I bore you by telling you
things that you were born knowing? A plan has occurred to me by which
your knowledge can be turned into account. As I said, I beg your help.
And permission to drink a cup of coffee would be first aid."
People laughed, whether at me, or with me, I was not sure; yet I felt
that I had tickled their curiosity. Coffee was going round. Corkran was
unctuously sipping his, and had not expected me to receive mine till
after the battle. But I got it in spite of him, and mapped out a
programme as I drank. Then I ceased to tremble before the confused
assemblage or bird-headed gods, cat-faced goddesses, and sacred
vultures that danced or flapped in my brain.
I no longer felt inclined to commit suicide because I could remember
nothing about Egypt except that the Delta was shaped like a lily, with
the Fayum for a bud, and the Nile for its stem: that Alexander the
Macedonian defeated Darius the Persian B. C. three hundred and
something; that ancient Egyptians loved beer, but were forbidden to eat
beans.
"My proposal is," I went on, "that before I unload any of my knowledge
upon you, I gleam some idea of what you know already. Thus I can spare
you repetitions. Any one who has anything particularly interesting to
say about Egypt, let him--or her--hold up a hand."
Now was the crucial moment. If no hand went up, I was lost. But hardly
were the words out of my mouth when there was a waving as if in a
wind-swept wheatfield _Place aux dames!_ I called upon Miss Hassett-Bean
to begin. She rustled silkily up, bowing to me, then directing an
acetylene glare upon Colonel Corkran's end of the room. She was, I
foresaw, about to kill two birds with one stone, to say nothing of the
marmoset, who fell off her arm into General Harlow's coffee and created
a brief diversion. As soon, however, as the monkey was rescued and
before General Harlow's shirt front was dried, the lady began to speak.
"We all thank Lord Ernest," she said, looking from the colonel to the
Reverend Wyman Watts, and back again, "for sparing us one of those
commonplace inflictions from which we've nightly suffered on board this
yacht. If we didn't know already, such school-book facts as
Christianity being introduced to Egypt by St. Mark in Nero's time, and
Moses and Plato both studying philosophy at Heliopolis, and things like
that, we wouldn't be spending our money with Sir Marcus A. Lark to see
Egypt. Never before have we been encouraged to air our views. Those of
us with political opinions have been snubbed; and we who are interested
in Woman Suffrage have been assured that we'll find nothing to please
us in the land of Veiled Women. At last I am given a chance to state
without being interrupted that Egypt was once the most enlightened
country in her treatment of women. Long before the time of the Greeks,
and even before the Shepherd Kings Mr. Watts has told us so much about,
using his Old Testament as if it were a Baedeker, the women of Ancient
Egypt had rights according to their class. Queens and princesses were
considered equal with their husbands. Women were great musicians,
playing on many instruments, especially the sistrum, sacred to the
goddess Hathor. And weren't all the best gods goddesses, when you come
to think of it? Women used to drive their own chariots, as we do our
motors, and hold salons, like the French ladies. There was Rhodopis,
for instance, who married the brother of Sappho. I wonder if Colonel
Corkran could have told you that the story of Cinderella comes from an
anecdote of Rhodopis? I hardly think that he's been able to spare
enough time from bridge to study Strabo, who was the Baedeker of Egypt
for tourists six hundred years before Christ. An eagle saw Rhodopis
bathing, and stealing one of her sandals flew with it to Memphis, where
he dropped it into the king's lap. It was so small and dainty that King
Hophra scoured Egypt for the owner, and when he found her at last,
according to Strabo, made her his queen."
"If Strabo was right, she lived long before Sappho's day!" interpolated
the colonel's voice.
"Of course, Strabo was right. There were two of Rhodopis. Everybody
knows that. The Third Pyramid was built for the tomb of the first one,
_not_ for King Mycineris, _I_ believe. Why shouldn't a woman have a
Pyramid to herself? The Sphinx is a woman, as I will insist to my dying
day, if it were my last word! I hope Lord Ernest won't ram down our
throats any nonsense about that noble and graceful tribute to the
Mystery of Womanhood being a stupid King Harmachis, or Horemkhu. I
wouldn't believe it if I found a hundred nasty stone beards lying
buried in the sand under her chin, instead of one, which could easily
have been put there to deceive people. Probably King Harmachis had the
Sphinx altered to look like him. No wonder she shuddered at such
profanation, and shed her false beard. There you have my theory. And as
for Egypt being now the land of Veiled Women, where Suffragettes find
no sympathy, I've heard that the prophet's order for veiling has been
purposely misconstrued by tyrannical men, with their usual jealousy.
Even Mohammed himself was jealous."
With this Miss Hassett-Bean sat down, amid fitful applause; and at my
earnest request, Miss Enid Biddell, the prettier twin, stood bravely
up. She wished, before the subject was changed, to tell some little
things she had read about the girls of Ancient Egypt, how like they
were to girls of to-day, in all their ways, especially in--in things
concerning love. It was they who first questioned the petals of flowers
for their lovers' loyalty. How much they thought about their clothes,
too, getting their best things from foreign countries, as women did
now, from Paris! It was so funny to read how the girls of Old Egypt had
consulted palmists and fortune tellers and astrologers just as girls
did in Bond Street now; and that what 'Billikens' and 'Swasticas' and
birth-stones were to us, images of gods were to the girls of Egypt who
lived before the days of Moses! They had scarab rings with magic
inscriptions, and sacred apes for the symbol of Intelligence, and lucky
eyes of Horus, wounded by the wicked god Set, and cured by the love of
Isis. On their bracelets and necklaces they hung charms, and their
dressing-tables were covered with images of favourite gods and
goddesses. Hathor, the goddess of Love and Joy, was supposed to give
her choicest gifts to girls who wore her special colour (that green-blue
in the Temple of Edfu which Robert Hichens calls "the colour of
love") and to those who had her pet stones, emeralds, or turquoises.
Nowadays, in Egypt, the jewels of the women Were only lent to them by
their men, and could be taken away as a punishment, or be pawned or
sold in case of need; but in old days Egyptian women had all their most
beautiful possessions buried with them.
When her sister had finished I urged the other twin to speak, and
timidly Miss Elaine repeated to us what a friend of hers, a clergyman
(here a blush) had told her. That the Red Sea was not red but a
brighter blue than any sea in the world, and called red only because it
washed the Red Lands. Her friend had written down for her in verse
_such_ a sweet legend about the Nile rising every spring from a single
tear shed by Isis, a _much_ more powerful goddess than Hathor, because
she was the goddess of goodness as well as love. And the Nile used to
be named Sihor by the Egyptians; and the year separated into three
seasons, Flood time, Seed time, and Harvest. Miss Biddell's friend was
writing a book about Egypt and was going to divide it in three parts
like that. It was to be dedicated to _her_.
Bless the dear creatures, how they kept the ball rolling to please
themselves, and--indirectly--to sort out my stock of ideas!
Harry Snell, the newspaper man, was not hard to persuade to his feet.
He was studying the resemblance between Arabic and English words. He
had found out, among other things, that Tallyho was "Tallyhoon,"
brought home by the Crusaders. He even had a theory that some of our
words came from the early Egyptian. "Amen," for instance, he believed
to be derived from "Amon," the name of the great god, father of all the
other gods of Egypt, which was cried aloud, he understood, in the
temples, during religious services. The parson jumped eagerly up to
dispute this theory, and happily forgetful of me, seized the
opportunity to spring upon us a few facts from his own store. When,
however, Mr. Watts' discourse got him as far as Joseph's Well in the
Citadel, General Harlow could bear no more, but sprang up to inform us
that the Joseph of the Well in the Citadel was quite another Joseph,
some Yusef of the Arab conquerors. The general knew all about that,
because his son was stationed in the Citadel. And he proceeded to
meander on historically, over a period between the first Arab conqueror
Amru, to Haroun-al-Raschid, assuring us that old Cairo was the city of
the Arabian Nights. He would, to my joy, have gone on indefinitely from
Saladin to Napoleon if Sir John Biddell, as the only baronet on board,
had not cut the only general short. He is a square man whose portrait
could be properly done only by a Cubist. "Too much history, my friend!"
he shouted, getting up with the manner of one accustomed to making
dinner-table speeches. "What most of us are coming to Egypt for is
_mummies_. Egyptian history is too troublesome, anyhow, for a normal
man to grasp. Give me mummies! There's something _in_ them. Why, even
if you get a king or queen fixed in your head, somebody who's paid to
make you know things you don't know" (an eye-shot for Corkran) "comes
along and swears they didn't exist. Now, there's Mena. I'd pinned him
like a stuck butterfly. I could remember that he was the first known
king, and founded Memphis and lived six thousand years before Christ,
all because we're going to stay at Mena House, which is named after
him. I don't know why I remembered him that way, but I did. Just as I
could recall the queen with a name like a sneeze by thinking of her as
Queen Hat-and-Shoes. Now Colonel Corkran informs us that we must
pronounce her, in a different way. And what's the consequence to me?
I've ceased to try and keep track of her. King Mena, too, is lost to me
forever, through the over-conscientiousness of our late conductor, who
says there never was a Mena, only several kings they've mixed into one.
I seem to be the one who's most mixed up! To whet my appetite for Egypt
now, I have to have something tasty. Where's the good of stuffing my
mind with a string of names which I couldn't mention to any one at
home, because I can't pronounce them? The word Dynasty (he pronounced
it Die-nasty) makes me sick! Luckily I feel that nobody else will know
any more than I do. I'm coming to Egypt for a rest-cure, because I
don't have to learn its history. But some lecturers won't let me have a
minute's peace. A king named Sneferu couldn't expect to appeal to a man
like me, even if he did build the oldest Pyramid, and even if you could
show me his mummy, which you can't. But I draw the line at kings
without mummies. I don't want to know them. Now, my wife is against
mummies on show. She's heard that the malignance of mummies, especially
in museums, is incredible. And she thinks it a judgment that some of
the most distinguished ones are going bad. She says it's spite. I say
its management. But I'm not ready to sit down yet! My wife means to
start a society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Mummies, with the
object of sending them back to their tombs where they can rest in that
state of death it pleased their gods to call them to. Their object was
eternal privacy, and they spent more on their tombs than their houses,
because they expected to be dead a long tune, and wanted all the
comforts of home. But I judge mummies by myself. It wouldn't have taken
me these thousands of years to realize how narrow and un-christian my
notions had been. I should see that I owed some duty to the world; and
as so much posterity had rolled by since my day, I'd feel that lying in
a museum at some large place like Cairo, was, after all, the only way
to keep my name before the public. Now, that brings me to my tip for
Lord Ernest. He asks what there is we don't know, and want to know.
I'll answer for us all, being used to feel the pulse of crowds. We want
to know what the deuce Ancient Egyptians really believed about death
and religion. Had they any sense, or were they just plain fools?"
On the tide of applause which congratulated the boat's only baronet, I
rose. I felt that I was on the crest of the wave; for the ancient
religion of Egypt appeals to me; and as I now had reason to hope that
others were comfortably ignorant of my subject I could spread myself as
much as I pleased.
"The Ancient Egyptians were far from being fools," I answered Sir John
with the air of being in their confidence. "We who are tempted to think
so, don't take the trouble to try the key of their Faith in its door. I
might say that its door was the door of the Tomb. If we go through that
door into the Kingdom of Osiris, Amenti, which the Greeks renamed
Hades, the mysteries which appear tangled sort themselves graciously
out. The story of Isis the Great Enchantress, and her search for the
body of her husband Osiris, murdered by Set, his wicked and jealous
brother, Spirit of Evil, is perhaps the most lovable legend of the
world. But in hearing that Horus, the son of Isis, was really the same
god as Osiris, modern ideas begin to get mixed, and confuse themselves
over Isis, goddess of love and goodness, cow-headed Hathor, mistress of
love and joy, cat-headed Pasht and lioness-headed Sekhet, goddesses of
love and passion. There's hawk-headed Horus, the youth, too; and Horus
the child, represented in statues with his thumb in his mouth. How is
one to make sense of them all? But once you have the key, it is easy
and even beautiful. The esoteric or secret religion known to the high
priests and the instructed ones was different from the animal-worship
and adoration of bird-headed deities, which gave the common people such
interest in daily life. They would have been lost without their
monsters; and the priests would have been lost without the temples
necessary for the worship of such a menagerie. For Egypt was a
priest-ridden country in old days. The explanation of the many gods and
goddesses was this: each was a different phase of the one God, Rã, the
Sun, by whom and through whom only the world could exist. Animals and
birds were chosen to express the different phases, because animals were
considered to be nearer nature, therefore nearer God than human beings;
besides, to give a god the head of a man would not set him apart from
humanity, as it would to make him appear with the body of a man and the
head of some bird or beast. Horus, finished off with the head of a hawk
(that sacred bird who could look the sun in the face), became to the
uneducated eye a supernatural being, which he would not have been with
the face of a smiling youth. The child Horus, or Harpocrates, was not
respected as was Horus of the Hawk Head. He was merely petted and
loved. Even Set, god of evil, wasn't all bad. He was the Spirit of
Storm and Strife in Nature, and had to be propitiated by the ignorant.
Typhon, or Typhoon, and he were one. Red was his colour, and red-haired
people were his children. There were a hundred phases of the one god,
each made incarnate, given his own mission, and worshipped in a
different place. It's an ill wind (of Set) that blows nobody good, and
animals had a gorgeous time in those days. Very few weren't sacred for
some reason or other. It was death and destruction to kill a cat. And I
don't think that cats have forgotten to this day the importance they
had in Egypt. It's made them the most supercilious of animals.
"If Amon-Rã were angry he could become Menthu, the war god. If he were
inclined to be gentle, he could shrink to the dimensions of Horus,
child-god of the Rising Sun. If he were weary, he could rest as the old
god Tum, of the Setting Sun. Probably gods and goddesses never enjoyed
themselves so much as in Ancient Egypt; and though it does seem a
drawback from our artistic point of view for Hathor to have the head or
ears of a cow, for wise Thoth to have the long beak of an ibis, and so
on, it was for them only an amusing kind of masquerade or 'tête' party,
on the walls of the temples and tombs. At home, they could be what they
liked. Think how interesting for the Egyptians to have all these queer
gods, and what variety it gave to their lives. Perhaps the priests
really meant well in keeping the secret of the One God for themselves
and the kings, as the people weren't fitted to bear its solemnity.
Fancy how amusing it was for the children to be told, on silver-bright
nights, about Khonsu, god of the moon, always young, wearing the curled
lock of youth on his brow--who staked five nights of his light playing
draughts with Thoth, father of Magic. But he had a more serious phase,
for when he was not a gambler he was an Expeller of Demons, a most
popular accomplishment. Indeed, almost every god had several thriving
businesses, conducted under different aliases. Khnum the Creator,
dweller at the Cataracts, is my favourite, and is still busy, as he
looks after the rise and fall of the river. Hekt, goddess of birth, was
a pal of his, in spite of her appalling ugliness; and she used to kneel
by his potter's wheel. While he fashioned the clay she would hold the
Sign of Life, so that spirit might enter into the formed body when
Khnum got it to the right state. For very important babies, royal ones
or geniuses, she held a Sign of Life in each hand, which made them
extraordinarily vital. When you arrive in Egypt, the first thing you'll
be asked to buy will be the Sign, or Key of Life, in the shape of paper
knives or brooches or what not, and it will be pointed out to you in
tombs till you're tired and sick of it. You can buy Hekt, too, and
funny old Bes, nurse-goddess of children, quite the golliwog of her
day; and all the other gods and goddesses will be offered to you, to
say nothing of the kings who were entitled to worship themselves as
gods if they wanted to.
"It's easy, you see, to make fun of the ancient religion, and other
nations did make fun of it. But to be serious, the priests were nearer
right than it would seem; for they believed that God was All: that
there was nothing in this or any Universe which was not part of God."
That note was my highest, and I stopped on it. Besides, I could think
of nothing more to say. I ventured to sit down; and because the people
were glad to hear the last of me, or because I had helped them finish
their almonds and raisins, they applauded. Secretly I shook hands with
myself, as the monkey must have done, when, with the catspaw, he had
pulled the hot chestnuts out of the fire. I had carefully selected my
chestnuts--and waited till they were cool. Also, I had disappointed
Colonel Corkran.