As Michael got off his kneeling camel, a young Englishman left a tent,
the outer one of the three which formed the excavation-camp, the white
tents which Michael had seen from his high seat, and came quickly
forward. It was obvious that strangers might come thus far and no
further. In a voice of official authority, yet by no means
ungraciously, he said to Michael:
"Can I do anything for you? What do you want? I'm afraid you can't
come any nearer."
Michael looked blankly into the thin, intelligent face, a sunburnt
face, which any woman would have described as attractively ugly. For a
moment or two neither man spoke. There was an unpleasant silence. It
was significant of the atmosphere of the meeting. It expressed to the
excavator strain, rather than shyness, on the traveller's part. He had
told Michael that he might come no further; he had asked him if he
wanted anything.
At both remarks Michael almost laughed hysterically. He was not
allowed to come any closer to his own treasure, to the gift of
Akhnaton, to the legacy of the Pharaoh, which had been divinely
revealed to him! This interloper had asked him if he wanted anything!
Quicker than light these thoughts flashed through his bewildered brain,
while between himself and this representative of the Government the
figure of the world's first divinely-inspired man, with the rays of
Aton shining brilliantly from behind his head, became clearer and
clearer. It obliterated the figure of the excavator.
"What are these tents doing here?" He managed to ask the question by
sheer force of will power; he felt relieved that the words had come.
"And that flag?"--he pointed to the Khedivial banner.
His companion hesitated for a moment. Who was this dazed questioner,
who had suddenly appeared out of the sands of the desert? He looked
almost as worn and physically exhausted as a desert fanatic.
"This is an excavation camp which has just been sanctioned by the
Minister of Public Works. We are engaged in making temporary
researches. The time-limit is one month."
Without being in the least discourteous, his words conveyed the
impression that in so short a time there was more to be done than talk
to curious travellers.
"How long has the camp been here?" Michael asked. "I hope you won't
think my questions impertinent. I have a very particular reason for
wishing to know."
The blue eyes in the thin face became more alert. They searched
Michael's face with the same scrutiny as they searched the debris of
the ruins.
"About four days," he said coldly.
"Has the Government claimed the site?" Michael's voice trembled as he
asked the question; it was so hard to keep cool.
"The Government is entitled to expropriate any land containing
antiquities on paying a valuation and ten per cent. over, but this, of
course, was not private property. It belongs to the Government."
"Yes, of course. I know something about these new rules--I have been
working with Lampton in the Valley."
"Oh!" The stranger's voice at once became cordial and intimate. "I
didn't know that I was speaking to a fellow-digger. How's Lampton?"
"I wasn't actually digging--I was doing some painting for him, and
inking the pottery drawings. His latest discovery has developed
amazing theories."
"So I've heard. But you look a bit done up. Come inside and have a
drink." Before entering the tent, the stranger looked round. "Who's
your man? Is he all right?"
"He's one of Lampton's men--absolutely trustworthy. He's been more
than a servant to me for some weeks now." Michael paused, and then
said abruptly, "Who told the Government of this site? What do you
expect to find?"
"Will you first tell me where you got your information? Did you know
we were here?"
"The _Omdeh_ in the subterranean village spoke of it. He told me that
the natives had discovered a hidden treasure, a sort of King Solomon's
Mine, and that they were wading knee-deep in jewels and falling over
crocks stuffed with Nubian gold--a desert fairytale, I suppose?"
"Absolutely! If there ever was any gold, it was not here when we
arrived, and as for the jewels. . . !" He laughed. "Hallo! Are you
feeling queer?"
Michael had managed to get inside the tent, but it was the limit of
what his legs and head were fit for. He collapsed on to a lounge, made
of wooden boxes covered with some rugs.
The stranger unfastened the padlock of a similar box to one of those
upon which he was sitting with a key which hung from a chain at his
side. He raised the lid; it had been converted into a wine-cellar.
"Hold hard," he said, in a kindly voice. "I'll give you a drink."
Michael was not fainting; he was merely in a state of physical
collapse. He gladly accepted the proffered hospitality.
When he had swallowed the whisky, he said: "I'm sorry, but I've been
feeling a bit queer lately. For some days past I've had a touch of the
sun." He could not tell this stranger of his bitter disappointment.
"Have you ridden far to-day?"
"Yes. I've been in the desert for some time now. We started this
morning at dawn." He put the glass down on the rough trestle-table.
"Thanks most awfully. I feel a lot better. You said there was no
truth in the report about the gold and the jewels--what are you
expecting?"
"We have seen no trace of gold so far, but you must remember that it
was a native who brought the information. Any discoverer is bound to
inform the Government, and any portable object accidentally found must
be given up within six days."
"But the finder receives half its value?"
"Yes, but if there was this treasure-trove of gold and jewels, it's
doubtful if natives would hand that over. It would have been a
different thing if it had been monumental objects, or even antiques, as
they always run the risk of being caught trafficking in them. They
would be inclined to think that half their value is better than none,
with the added risk of the heavy penalty. The new rules are very
stringent."
"But the jewels? Is there no trace of any precious stones? Don't you
think there's a little fire for all that smoke?"
"We heard all these wonderful reports, but we have found no trace of
any treasure. What the native reported was that he, along with some
other _fellahin_, had accidentally come across some traces of ancient
masonry, not far from Akhnaton's tomb. After digging for a few days,
they discovered an underground passage, which led into a chamber; in it
we came upon some papyri."
"You have found papyri?" Michael said. His tired eyes suddenly glowed;
his excitement was obvious.
"Yes, we have found papyri. They promise to be of exceptional
interest."
"Of what dynasty?" Michael could scarcely speak, or hide his anxiety
while he waited for an answer to his question. To be able to assume an
outward appearance of calmness, he was putting a great strain on his
self-control. He held himself so well in hand that the stranger little
guessed how much his answer meant to the exhausted traveller.
"Amenhotep IV."
A cry rang through the room. "Akhnaton! did you say? Then it is
true!" Margaret, the old man in el-Azhar, and the saint, they had all
seen and spoken the truth. For a moment the stranger was forgotten.
It was Margaret who was looking at him with glad triumphant eyes.
Happy Meg!
"Yes, the heretic Pharaoh," the stranger said, as he gazed fixedly at
Michael. Was this man more than a little touched with the sun? He
felt nervous of how to proceed. Why was he so excited and pleased?
"These hills, you know, were the boundary of his capital. You appear
interested in him? He certainly was a wonderful character."
The more conventional and colder tones of his voice made Michael
guarded. Kind as he was, he was just the type of man who would laugh
to scorn anything he might have told him. Freddy's friendly laughter
never troubled Michael; the scorn of a stranger was a different thing.
"Have they deciphered any of the papyri?"
"No, we haven't had the time. We've only gone into them sufficiently
to discover their date. This is, of course, a temporary search. We
can only do in a month what is absolutely necessary. If regular
excavations are to be made, which I presume there will be, we shall, of
course, have to wait for a bit, while the final regulations are gone
through, and until the necessary money is forthcoming. These last new
rules and restrictions are putting a stop to any private enterprise.
There is nothing left to pay the cost of the dig."
"On the whole, I suppose, they do good?"
"They don't do what they were meant to do--and that is, stop the
stealing and the selling of valuable antiques which the Government,
rightly enough, does not wish to leave the country, and desires to have
the disposal of."
"I had hoped the new restrictions would stop that."
"You see, the penalties only apply to the natives and the Turks, with
the result that the native dealer simply puts an Italian or a Greek
name over his door. To the foreigner, the native is only the agent,
officially--the dealer is the Greek or Italian whose name is over the
door."
"They'd be sure to get out of the difficulty somehow," Michael said.
"About antiques they have no conscience, and they are awfully clever."
"An inspector may now raid their premises at any time of the day or
night, and nothing is allowed to be sold outside authorized and
licensed shops. Every dealer has to keep a day-book, with an entry of
each object in his shop over five pounds in value, the purchaser's name
must be filled in, and every page of the register sealed by the
Inspector of Antiquities."
Michael laughed. "Trust the native mind to find a way to circumvent
all these fine restrictions!"
His thoughts had flown to Millicent. If she had, as Abdul believed,
discovered the jewels and the gold, where were they now? It was very
odd that, even with this damning evidence that she had anticipated his
find before his eyes--for she and she alone could have known of it--his
finer senses refused to believe that she had cheated and tricked him.
He had no argument to put forward to justify his belief; it was one of
those beliefs which are rooted in something finer and truer than
circumstantial evidence. His only argument in her favour was that he
had never found her mercenary, but, as Abdul had answered him, a woman
will sell her soul for jewels.
He felt woefully sick and dejected, far too physically exhausted to run
the risk of exposing himself to the scorn and laughter of the
excavator, who was speaking to him in a manner which unconsciously
betrayed to the hypersensitive Michael that he considered the traveller
rather too odd to waste much valuable time over. Michael wondered, in
a slow, broken sort of way, what the cold eyes would look like if he
suddenly produced the uncut crimson amethyst from the purse in his
waistbelt. He would probably have said that it was a clever part of
the native fable; he would probably say that the ancient stone might
have come from any royal tomb in Egypt, that it proved nothing.
As a lengthy silence had elapsed, Michael felt that it was incumbent on
him to be getting on his way. He must pretend to the excavator that he
was now well enough to resume his journey. As he rose, rather inertly,
from his low seat, he said:
"You say the native who brought the information of the find said
nothing at all about the jewels and the gold?"
"Not a word! We have heard all that since. As you know, news travels
in the desert in the most amazing fashion, once the natives get ear of
it."
"Won't you try and follow up the track of the story--find out how it
originated? Are you content to take it for granted that it is all
moonshine?"
"We are doing something about it--but it's very difficult." The
stranger spoke guardedly. "The only way is to set a thief to catch a
thief. Gold can be melted, ancient stones can be cut, a hundred
dealers will be eager to run any risk to get them."
A flood of anger coloured Michael's face; it brought out beads of
perspiration on his forehead. He could scarcely contain himself; his
rage tore at his bowels. His long journey, all that he had gone
through--was this the end of it? Could anything be more fiat, more
stale, more unprofitable? What a sudden tumble from the blue to brown
earth! Above all, how maddening to have to hold his tongue, because no
man would believe the story he could tell them, to have meekly to
submit to the conventional etiquette of the moment! He felt anything
but conventional. His anger had driven all finer feelings from his
mind. If he could only find the native who had desecrated the
treasure-trove, he would hang and quarter him without mercy!
"I'm afraid I must be getting back to my work," the excavator said.
"But you needn't hurry. Rest here for as long as you like, only don't
think me inhospitable if I leave you. Time's too precious to waste one
moment."
"Thanks very much," Michael said. "But I'm quite fit. You've been
awfully kind. It's time I was on my way."
"Where are you going to?"
"Back to my camp."
"Back to your camp? where did you leave it?"
Michael told him.
"Then did you come on here on purpose to visit this dig? Had you heard
of it before you saw the _Omdeh_ in the underground village?"
"I'd rather not answer your question at present, if you don't mind.
All that I know about it, Lampton also knows. . . . Some day, I hope,
if we meet again, I will tell you the whole thing. It's an odd story,
even for Egypt."
The man looked annoyed. "You can't tell me anything more? Have you
any information that could help us? We have our suspicions that things
aren't straight. If the natives weren't wading knee-deep in jewels,
there was probably, as you say, some truth in the report that there
were valuable antiques."
"I've nothing reliable to go upon," Michael said. "Nothing that a man
in his normal senses would pay any attention to--that was Lampton's
verdict."
Again the stranger looked at Michael with calm, searching eyes.
"Yet you believe in what you heard? You believed enough to bring you
across the desert to find it?"
"If you ask Lampton, he'll tell you that I'm not quite in my normal
senses--that I frequently walk on my head."
"Lampton's a sound man."
"Well, that's his opinion."
"You're a rum chap," the stranger said, as he noticed that a glint of
humour had for the moment driven the expression of exhaustion from
Michael's eyes. "Anyhow, I hope you'll not feel too knocked up when
you arrive in camp, and that we'll meet again."
"I feel as if I could sleep for a year."
"Have another whisky before you go?"
"No thanks. I think one has been more than enough--it's made me
confoundedly tired."
They were standing at the open front of the tent.
"Good-bye," Michael said. "And thanks most awfully for your
hospitality. I suppose you won't settle on the work here until next
season?"
"No, it will be hot enough at the end of three weeks, though it's
cooler here than with Lampton in the Valley. If the money is
forthcoming, we shall take up work again next October."
They parted abruptly, as Englishmen do. Two _fellahin_, mere hewers of
wood and drawers of water, would have gone through a set formula of
graceful words before they separated. They are ever mindful of the
teachings of the Koran, which says:
"If you are greeted with a greeting, then greet ye with a better
greeting. God taketh account of all things."
Michael had turned his back on the stranger and the waving flag.
Mechanically he put his hand to his belt-pouch. Yes, the crimson
amethyst was still there. He felt for it as though he were in a dream.
The bright light made him giddy. The stone was his link with and his
tangible assurance that the life which he had led for the past weeks
was a reality; it was his sacred token that the vision of Akhnaton was
no mere phantom of an over-imaginative brain. Yet, even as he felt its
hard substance between his thumb and forefinger, he wondered if it was
really there. He knew that imagination can create strange things;
phantom tumours have been produced by imagination, tumours which are
visible to a physician's eye while the patient is conscious and his
mind obsessed with the conviction that it is there; he knew that such
swellings disappear when the patient is asleep. He felt dazed, and as
if he himself were unreal; his feet refused to tread firmly on the
earth; they never managed to reach it. When he looked for Abdul and
the camels, they were floating in the heavens above the horizon, miles
and miles away; there was a belt of sky between them and the desert
sand. If his legs had been paralysed, they could not have felt heavier
or more useless.
He struggled on, but very soon the desert and the sky became one; the
world in front of him rose suddenly up and stood on end. It was quite
impossible to reach Abdul--he was receding as the horizon recedes when
a clear atmosphere foreshortens the distance. In his brain there was a
confused jumble; it was full of things which had no meaning or
cohesion. Millicent was the centre of the absurd medley, Millicent,
naked and unashamed, her slender figure as thickly covered with uncut
jewels of huge dimensions as the statues of Diana of Ephesus are
covered with breasts. The jewelled vision of Millicent dominated every
other picture in his brain. It was clearer than the village of flies,
or the African's cell in far-off el-Azhar, or the procession of white
figures returning from the burial of the desert saint. It moved along
in the clear air in front of him. He had no reasoning powers left, or
he would have asked himself why his subconscious brain had fashioned
this vision of Millicent wearing the sacred jewels when he still
believed in her innocence. The clear voice, man's divine messenger,
had kept him assured of the truth of his conviction.
Everything was dreadfully confused. He wished that the horizon would
not come right forward and almost throw him off his balance. He seemed
to be constantly hitting up against it. And Abdul, why was he floating
further and further away? The harder he tried to get to him, the
further he went. And yet he could actually hear him reciting his
prayers. He was telling his rosary. Why did he tantalize him by
coming so near and then floating off again? Sometimes he came so near
that he could see his fine fingers automatically pulling the beads
along the string; a tassel of red silk hung from the end of it. There
were ninety-nine small red beads and one large one. He had reached the
fifty-ninth. Michael could tell that, because the words "O Giver of
Life" came to him sonorously across the desert stillness. The next one
would be "O Giver of Death," but Abdul had floated away again. Now he
had come back; he had said "O Living One," "O Enduring," "O Source of
Discovery."
That was the sixty-third bead. Why had Abdul stopped at that one? Why
did he keep on repeating the words "O Source of Discovery," "O Source
of Discovery"? He ought to pass on to the next--"O Worthy of All
Honour," and after that the sixty-fifth, "O Thou Only One." No one
ever stopped at the sixty-third bead; all the attributes of Allah had
to be recited. But Abdul was still saying it over and over again. "O
Source of Discovery," "O Source of Discovery." The words danced before
Michael's eyes in letters of gold, like the advertisement of Bovril
which he had watched so often from the Thames Embankment, as it
appeared and disappeared in the sky across the river.
And then again the letters were obliterated by the nude figure of
Millicent, with her hanging breasts of jewels. How delicate her limbs
were, how white her skin! The sun would blister it; if he could only
reach her, he would give her his coat. Like himself, she was walking
in the clear air and not on the firm earth. She was walking as St.
Peter had walked on the waves of the sea.
Then something happened. He stumbled and would have fallen, but for a
great strength which gathered him up and sheltered him under the shadow
of Everlasting Arms.
* * * * * *
Abdul, with Eastern philosophy, had sat himself down to wait while his
master interviewed the director of the "dig." His soul was vexed and
his mind was ill at ease. His master's health was the principal cause
of his anxiety. His anger at the harlot, and his disappointment,
mingled with this anxiety, made him unusually despondent.
He seated himself on a knoll where his master could easily see him when
he left the excavator's tent. It was not yet time for the performance
of his maghrib, or sunset prayer, which had to be said a few minutes
after the sun had set. He began to recite his rosary, telling an
attribute of God to each bead. When he had got about half-way through
the long list of names which form the Mohammedan rosary and by which
the Moslem addresses his Creator, he saw Michael leave the tent and
walk out into the sunlight.
For a moment or two he seemed to be walking quite steadily and to be
coming towards him. Then suddenly he began to stagger and lurch like a
drunken man.
Abdul rose from his seat and hurried towards him. What had seemed such
a long way to Michael had only been a few yards. His visions and fears
and the constant repetition of the sixty-third attribute of Allah had
been concentrated into the last few seconds before he stumbled and
fell, just as our dreams are enacted in the last moments before we
wake. Abdul had scarcely said the words "O Source of Discovery" for
the first time when he rose from his seat and hurried to his master,
who had stumbled and fallen. In his Moslem arms was God's Everlasting
Mercy.