THE ZONE OF FIRE
Just at the first moment of waking, when I was moved by my subconscious
self to roll out of my berth and bound to the cabin window, I forgot
that we had anything more active to do at Luxor than worship the glory
of sky and river and temples. I had room in my mind only for the
dream-beauty of that astounding picture, into the foreground of which I
seemed to have been thrust, so close upon my eyes loomed the line of
lotus columns. It was as if the ancient gods had poured a libation of
ruby wine from their zenith-dwelling into the translucent depths of the
Nile. Even the long colonnade of broken pillars was deep rose-red
against a pale rose sky, repeated again in deeper rose down in a magic
world beneath the pink crystal roof of shining water. Then, suddenly,
bright windows of sky behind the dark rose-columns flamed to the colour
of primroses, were shot with pansy purple, and cleared to the
transparent green of unflawed emerald. The thought came as I gazed at
the carved wonder (reflected flower for flower and line for line in the
still river) that here was illustrated in unearthly beauty the chief
religious legend of ancient Egypt. As each human soul was believed to
be a part of the World-Soul, Osiris, reunited with him beyond the
western desert, after death, so did these columns made by human hands
unite themselves at sunrise with the soul of the Nile, the life of
Egypt. I caught a glimpse as if in an illuminated parable, of the
Egyptian Cosmos, the Heavens, the Earth, the Depths, three separate
entities, yet forever one as is the Christian's Trinity. Almost I
expected to see the sun-boat of the gods steered slowly across the
river from the city of Kings, westward to the tombs of Kings; and the
little white-breasted birds, which promenaded the deck of our boat as
though it belonged to them, might have been Heart-birds from the world
of mummies across the Nile, escaped for a glimpse of Rameses' gayly
painted, mosaiced white palace with its carved brass balconies, its
climbing roses, its lake of lotuses and its river gardens. I was sure
that, if I told these tiny creatures that the Pharaohs and all their
glories had vanished off the earth except for a few bits in museums,
they would not believe the tale. I wasn't even sure I believed it
myself; and deliberately blotting out of sight the big modern hotels
and the low white line of shops away to the right of the temple, I
tried to see with the Ba-birds, eastern Thebes as it must have been in
the days of Rameses II. I pictured the temple before Cambyses the
Persian, and the great earthquake felled arches and pillars, obelisks
and kingly statues. I built up again the five-story houses of the
priests and nobles, glistening white, and fantastically painted in many
colours: I laid out lawns and flower beds, and set fountains playing.
Then, with a rumbling shock, a chasm many thousand years deep yawned
between me and ancient No, the City of Palaces:
It was the voice of Sir John Biddell which opened the ravine of time,
and let the Nile pour through it. He was on deck, in pyjamas and
overcoat, with General Harlow, holding forth on his favourite topic of
mummies--an appropriate subject for this neighbourhood of all others;
yet, I should have preferred silence.
Poor Sir John! He had been disappointed in Cairo because a villain had
not lurked behind each of the trees in the Esbekîya Gardens, and notes
tied with silken black hairs had not tumbled on his respectable bald
head from the mystery of latticed windows; but he was thoroughly
enjoying his Nile trip, and learning something every day to tell at
home. Lady Biddell had humiliated him twice, once by asking me if
"those old hieroglyphics were written in Arabic?" again by inquiring
whether the stone-barred temple windows had been "filled in once with
pretty stained glass?" But he had forgiven her because yesterday had
been their silver-wedding day, and he meant to buy her a present at
some curiosity-shop at Luxor. "A pity it isn't the wooden wedding," I
heard him say to General Harlow, "for I might give a handsome mummy-case.
I suppose silver will have to be Persian or Indian, unless I can
get hold of one of those old bracelets or discs the Egyptians used for
money: but that's too good to hope for."
It certainly was: though no doubt some industrious manufacturer of
antiques would cheerfully have made and dug up any amount on the site
of Rameses' palace, could he have known in time.
We were to have three days at Luxor--three days, when three months
would have been too little!--and the second attempt at abducting an
ill-used lady from the harem of her treacherous lord would take place
as soon as we could learn that our auxiliaries, the Bronsons, had
arrived. Until they were on the spot, even a success might prove an
anti-climax. Meanwhile I had plenty to do in playing my more obvious
part of Conductor, and arranging the last details of our excursion
programme. Every one had bundled out early to see the sunrise.
Consequently most members of the Set were cross or hungry, or both.
Nothing could be less suitable than to clamour for porridge on the
Nile, but they did it, and called for bacon, too, in a land where the
pig is an unclean animal. They were the same people who played "coon
can" and bridge on the deck at twilight, when moving figures on shore
were etched in black on silver, or against flaming wings of sunset, and
in gathering darkness the blue-robed shadoof-men who bent and rose
against gold-brown dykes, were like Persian enamels done on copper.
"Hundred gated" Thebes, the dwelling of Amen-Rã whom Greece adopted as
Jupiter-Amon, used to lie on both banks of the Nile; the east for the
living, the west for the dead and those who lived by catering for
mummyhood.
I had arranged to take our people first round Luxor, making them
acquainted with the temple which had already introduced its reflection
to us. As for the town, they were capable of making themselves
acquainted with that, its hotels and curiosity-shops, when there was
nothing more important on hand. Next was to come Karnak, the "father of
temples," once connected with the younger temple at Luxor as if by a
long jewelled necklace of ram-headed sphinxes. And for those whose
brains and legs were intact, by evening I thought of a visit to the
thrilling temple of Mût. This last would be an adventure; for Mût,
goddess of matter, the Mother goddess, has apparently not taken kindly
to Moslem rule. Any disagreeable trick she, and her attendant black
statues of passion, fierce Sekhet, can play on a devout Mohammedan, are
meat and drink to her: but she can work her spells only after dusk,
therefore none save the bravest Arab will venture his head inside her
domain, past sunset. I was sure we could get no dragoman to go with us,
and equally sure that the adventure would be more popular for its spice
of horror.
The second and third days I allotted to western Thebes, the city of the
dead: the tombs of the Kings, the tombs of the Queens and the Nobles;
then the Ramesseum, the "Musical Memnon" with his companion Colossus,
and the great temples wrapped in the ruddy fire of the western desert,
where Hathor receives the setting sun in outstretched arms.
As I was about to unfold these projects at breakfast, a telegram was
handed to me. I read it; and while bacon plates were being exchanged
for dishes of marmalade, I cudgelled my brain like a slave to make it
rearrange the whole programme without a hitch.
The American Consul wired from Asiut that he was detained by an
Important Personage, who wanted to know things about Egyptian Cotton
and its enemy the boll worm. But Mr. and Mrs. Bronson would arrive at
the Villa Sirius, Luxor, day after to-morrow, "ready for emergencies."
Of course, being Conductor of a tour, and next a man, I ought to have
put the interests of Sir Marcus and his "Lark Pie" (as we were called
by rival firms) ahead of personal concerns. I ought to have immolated
myself in the western Mummyland with the consciousness of duty done,
while on the eastern side of the Nile, Anthony Fenton and Monny Gilder
and Biddy played the live, modern game of kidnapping a lady. But I
determined to do nothing of the sort. I gazed at the telegram with the
air of committing to heart instructions from my superior officer; and
without sign of inward tremour, announced that we would explore the
wonders of the west before visiting those nearer at hand. The weather
being cool and the wind not too high (I said), it would be well to
seize this opportunity for the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, an
expedition trying in heat or sand storms. To-morrow also would be
devoted to the west, and our third day would belong to Luxor and
Karnak. As a _bonne bouche_, I dangled the adventure of the Temple of
Mût, to sweeten the temper of grumblers: but there were no grumblers.
The Set listened calmly to my honeyed plausibilities; and the alarmed
stewards dared not betray their consternation at the lightning change.
No doubt they thought me mad, or worse, because a day in western Thebes
meant a picnic: magical apparition at the right moment, in a convenient
tomb, of smiling Arabs and Nubian men with baskets of food and iced
drinks.
Somehow the trick had to be managed, however; for I must be in eastern
Thebes, alias Luxor, on the day when the Bronsons' presence would
render our second attempt at rescue feasible. I had to interview the
chêf--a formidable person--hypnotizing him and the stewards to work my
will, and above all, I had to make sure of boats and donkeys for the
party at short notice. Only by a miracle could all go well; but I set
my heart upon that miracle. "Antoun," hurriedly taken into my
confidence, volunteered to arrange about the boats, and the donkeys for
the other side. Fortunately there was no rival ahead of us; and with
juggling of plans and jingle of silver, Anthony's part was done. Just
at the moment when, by dint of bribes and adjurations I had induced
chêf and stewards to smile, Fenton dashed on board to cry "Victory!"
Somehow, less than an hour later than we should have started, we got
off in two big boats with white sails and brown rowers. The canvas did
its work in silent, bulging dignity; but the rowers exhausted
themselves by breathlessly imploring Allah to grant them strength, and
shouting extra prayers to some sailor-saint whose name was calculated
to pump dry the strongest lungs.
On the mystic western side, where once landed with pomp and pageant the
sun-boat of the gods, and the mourning boats of the dead, we scrambled
on shore with that ribald mirth which always made the Set feel it was
getting its money's worth of enjoyment. Many donkeys and a few
carriages awaited us: the whole equipment previously engaged for
to-morrow! and in opaline sunshine which stained with pale rose the Theban
hills and piled the shadows full of dark, dulled rubies, we started
across an emerald plain, kept ever verdant by Nile water. The touch of
comedy in the dream of beauty was the queer, mud-brick village of
Kurna, with its tomb dwellings of the poor, and immense mud vases
shaped like mushrooms, standing straight up on thick brown stems before
the crowded hovels. In each vase reposed sleeping babies, brooding
hens, dogs, rabbits, or any other live stock, mixed with such rubbish
as the family possessed: and the most ambitious mushrooms were
decorated with barbaric crenellations.
Almost as far as the Temple of Seti I flowed the green wave like a lake
in the desert, but beyond, to join the Sahara, rolled and billowed a
waste of rose-pink sand, shot with topaz light, and walled with
fantastic rocks, yellow and crimson, streaked with purple. In the heart
of each shadow, fire burned like dying coals in a mass of rosy ashes:
and the light over all was luminous as light on southern seas at
moonrise and sunset. Before our eyes seemed to float a diaphanous veil
of gilded gauze; and white robes and red sashes of donkey-boys,
animals' bead necklaces, and blue or green scarfs on girls' hats, were
like magical flowers blowing over the gold of the desert.
Everything blew: above all, sand blew. We found that out to our sorrow,
after we had seen the Temple of Kurna, with its noble columns, and its
fine fragment of roof, where squares of sky were let in like blocks of
lapis lazuli. I rushed here and there on donkey-back assuring people
that this was not _wind_ we felt: it was only a breeze. We could not
have a more favourable day for our excursion into this world of the
dead. Why, if we'd waited till to-morrow we might have met a _real_
wind, perhaps even Khamsin, alias Simoom, the terror of the desert. To
make Miss Hassett-Bean and Cleopatra forget the smarting of their eyes,
I told them what a true-sand-storm was like, and how its names in
Arabic, Turkish, and Persian all came from the fiend "Samiel," who
destroyed caravans, just as "devil" came from the Persian "div." _Our_
little breeze was from the east, which at Thebes in old days was
considered lucky. The west wind used to bear across the river evil
spirits disguised as sand-clouds. And these wicked ones had not far to
travel, because the Tuat, or Underworld, was a long narrow valley
parallel to Egypt, beginning on the west bank of the Nile. Red-haired
Set was ruler there, the god who had to be propitiated by having kings
named after him. But Rä, greater than he, could safely pass down the
dim river running through that world: could pass in his golden
sun-boat, guided by magic words of Thoth instead of oars or sails; and the
guardian hippopotamus (whom Greeks turned into the dog Cerberus) dared
not put out a paw.
Mrs. East remembered that Thebes was Tape in "her day," at which Miss
Hassett-Bean snorted: and when out came that familiar story about
Cleopatra making red hair fashionable, Miss Hassett-Bean stared coldly
at the lady's auburn waves. "I wonder if the queen got the colour at
her hairdresser's, as people do now?" she murmured. "I've read that
they had beauty-doctors in those days, and used arsenic for their
complexion, and all sorts of mixtures. Besides, I can't imagine
anything natural about Cleopatra, except the asp wanting to bite her!"
Upon this, Mrs. East retaliated by calling her companion Miss Bean
without the Hassett.
I shall always think of the Valley of the Tombs as a place of terror
and splendour, meant to be hidden from mortals by the spells of Thoth,
who circled the rock-houses of the dead with a zone of fire, as Wotan
hid Brunhilda, and decreed that they should be lost forever in the
blazing desert. Despite Thoth and his magic, men have burst through the
blazing belt and found in the gold-rose heart of the rocks, sacred
shrines the wise old god would have protected. They have found many but
not all: for in the breast of some one among Thoth's sleeping lions
which masquerade as rocks, may yet be discovered a tomb, better than
all those we know with their buried store of jewels, and their painted
walls like drapings of strange tapestry.
We broke through the zone of fire, and it pursued us with burning smoke
of sand, pink as powdered rubies. Always it was beautiful and terrible
as we rode in the blowing pink mist: and still it was beautiful and
terrible, when half dazed we slipped off donkeys or slid out of
carriages, to enter the tombs which the desert had vainly striven to
hide. It was hot and breathless in those underground chambers, scooped
out of solid rock thousands of years ago, that great kings and their
queens and families and friends might rest with their kas in eternal
privacy. Enid Biddell waited until Harry Snell happened to be exactly
behind her, and then fainted, with dexterity beyond praise. Cleopatra,
however, was in her element. She felt at home, and did not turn one of
those auburn hairs scorned by "Miss Bean," at sight of the royal
mummies lit up by electricity in their coffins. These gave the rest of
us a shock, our nerves being already in the condition of Aladdin's on
his way down to the Cave of Jewels. When the guardian of the Tomb of
Amenhetep (the king had several other names, which annoyed Sir John
Biddell) darkened the painted, royal chamber of death, and suddenly lit
up several white, sleeping faces, the ghostly dusk was alive with
little gasps. There lay Amenhetep himself, in a disproportionately
large sarcophagus of rose-red granite from Suan; and in companion
coffins were a woman and a girl, all three brilliantly illuminated.
They had the look of the light hurting their poor eyes, and being
outraged because, against their will, they were treated as if they had
been paintings by old masters.
The dreadful rumour ran that the woman was none other than the great
Queen Hatasu (never mind her more scientific names), her mummy never
having been found, or, at any rate, identified: and it was pitiful
seeing her so small and female, when in life she had wished to be
represented with a beard and the clothing of a man. Our dragoman, who
read English newspapers and whose idea of entertaining his crowd was to
make cheap jokes (just as his family doubtless manufactured cheap
scarabs), announced that Hatasu was the "first suffragette." But even
those who thought her downtrodden nephew, Thothmes III, justified in
erasing every trace of her existence wherever possible, did not smile
at this jest. In fact, having Antoun and me to refer to, the Set as a
whole sat upon the unfortunate dragoman, trying to talk him down in
tombs and temples, or ostentatiously reading Weigall, Maspero, Petrie,
Sladen, and Lorimer when he attempted to give them information. A few
with kinder intentions, however, interrupted his flow of historical
narrative by exclaiming, "Why, yes, of _course_!" "I thought so!" and
"Now I remember!" He revenged himself by advising everybody to buy
antiques from an extraordinary old gentleman, extremely like a
galvanized mummy. The antiques were extraordinary, too, so everybody
took the dragoman's advice, neglecting the other curiosity merchants of
the squatting row near the luncheon-tomb and the glorious three-tier
temple, in that vast copper cup of desert and cliff which is called Der
el-Bahari. The sale in mummied hawks, gilded rams' horns, broken tiles
with beetles flying out of the sun, boats of the gods, and gods
themselves, was brisk round this ancient gentleman, who advertised a
blue mummy-cap by wearing it on his bald pate, and seemed to possess as
many royal scarabs as a dressmaker has pins. Afterward I learned that
he was our dragoman's father; but I was loyal and did not tell.
It was a wonderful day, all the more wonderful perhaps because it left
in the mind a colourful confusion; pictures of painted tombs hidden
deep under red rock and drifted sand, tombs which we should perhaps
never reach again through their guarding zone of fire--tombs of kings
and queens and nobles forgotten through thousands of centuries save by
their kas and has, their friends and servants, painted or sculptured on
the walls with the sole purpose of caring for or entertaining them
eternally.
Already we had ceased to remember which was which. And back on the
boat, in the hour of sunset, when dazzling tinsel and pale pink
cloud-flowers sailed over a lake of clear green sky, the Set argued
whether the King with the Horses, or the Queen with the Retroussé Nose
was in this or that tomb. Sir John Biddell recalled the fact that Egyptian
horses had been celebrated, and that it was "as swell a thing to be a
charioteer then as it was now to be a Vanderbilt with a coach and
four." As for a retroussé nose, it didn't matter _where_ it was, on a
tomb-wall or on a girl's face.
Monny thought differently. She and Biddy were glad that the sand and
rocks would still hide many secret treasures, while the world lasted.
It would be dreadful to think that everything was dug up, for tourists
to pry into, or to cart away to museums, and no mysteries left. As for
Mrs. East, she was doubtful whether to rejoice or grieve that
Cleopatra's mummy had not been found. If, however, it were like the
incised wall portrait at Denderah, it would be well that it should
share the fate of Alexander's body and remain lost forever.
The next day gave us another trip to the west of the Nile: not again in
the burning desert, but only as far as the Ramesseum, and then to see
the Colossi, seated side by side on their green carpet of meadow,
looking out past the centuries toward eternity.
We had a dance on board that night; and next morning it came out that
Rachel Guest, who had disappeared during a "turkey trot" and a "castle
walk," had got herself engaged to Bailey. I was not as pleased about
this event as was Enid Biddell, who now saw her "title clear" to Harry
Snell; for I had "bagged" Willis Bailey and Neill Sheridan for Sir
Marcus in order to gain Kudos for myself: but Biddy, appealed to,
consoled me by saying it served Bailey right if he were mercenary: and
that both men would have come in any case.
The third day was to be the Great Day for us, the day big with fate for
Mabella Hânem; and the first thing that happened was a letter sent by
hand from the Bronsons at the Villa Sirius. They had arrived. The
fireworks could begin.