During the day the dahabiyeh was towed a few yards to the south of the
great bluff of rock in which the temple is cut, and was moored in a
small, secluded bay, where it would be sheltered from the prying eyes
of tourists who would be coming ashore from the weekly steamer. Here,
on the one side, there were slopes of sand topped by palms and acacias,
behind which were precipitous cliffs; and, on the other, the wide river
stretched out to the opposite bank, where, amongst the trees at the foot
of the rocky hills, stood the brown huts of the village of Farêk.
It was a hot little cove, and by day the sun beat down from cloudless
blue skies upon the white dahabiyeh; but the richly-coloured awnings
protected the deck, and a constant breeze brought a delectable coolness
through the open windows of the cabins below, fluttering the little green
silk curtains and gently swinging the hanging lamps. By night the moon
and the stars shone down from the amazing vault of the heavens, and were
reflected with such clarity in the still water of the bay that the vessel
seemed to be floating in mid-air with planets above and below.
A scramble over the sand and the boulders around the foot of the headland
brought one to the terraced forecourt of the temple where sat the four
colossal statues; and at the side of this there was a mighty slope of
golden sand, sweeping down from the summit of the cliffs, as though in an
attempt to engulf the whole temple. A laborious climb up this drift led
to the flat, open desert, which extended away into the distance, until,
sharply defined against the intense blue of the sky, the far hills of the
horizon shut off the boundless and vacant spaces of the Sahara beyond.
It was a place which, save at the coming of the tourist steamers, was
isolated from the modern world: a place of ancient memories, where
Hathor, goddess of love and local patroness of these hills, might be
supposed still to gaze out from the shadows of the rocks with languorous,
cow-like eyes, and to cast the spell of her influence upon all who
chanced to tread this holy ground.
Of all the celestial beings worshipped by mankind this goddess must
surely make the fullest appeal to a man in love, for she is the
deification of the eternal feminine; and Jim, having lately studied
something of the old Egyptian religion, deemed it almost a predestined
fate that had brought him to this territory dedicated to a goddess who
personified those very qualities that he loved in Monimé.
Hathor, the Ashtaroth and the Istar of Asia, was the patroness of all
women. Identified with Isis, her worship extended in time to Rome, where
she was at last absorbed into the Christian lore and became one with the
Madonna, so that even to this day, in another guise, she accepts the
adoration of countless millions.
Here at Abu Simbel, in her aspect as Lady of the Western Hills, she
received into her divine arms each evening the descending sun, and
tended him, as a woman tends a man, at the end of his day’s journey. As
goddess of those who, like the sun, passed down in death to the nether
regions, she appeared as a mysterious saviour amidst the foliage of her
sacred sycamore, and gave water to their thirsty souls; while to the
living she was the mistress of love and laughter, she was the presiding
spirit at every marriage, she was the succouring midwife and the tender
nurse at the birth of every child, and upon her broad bosom every dying
creature laid its weary head.
In this charmed region, where yellow rocks and golden sand, green trees
and blue waters, were met together under the azure sky, which again was
one of the aspects of Hathor, Jim passed his days in supreme happiness,
now working with tremendous mental energy at some poem which he was
composing, now tramping for miles over the high plateau of the desert,
whistling and singing as he went, and now basking in the sun upon the
terrace of the temple where Monimé was painting. The benign influence
of the great goddess seemed to act upon them, for daily their love grew
stronger, working at them, as it were, with pliant hands, until it
smoothed out their every thought and rounded their every action.
Each week the post-boat on its way to Wady Halfa delivered to them a
letter from England in which Ian’s nurse gave them news of her charge;
but this was almost their only connection with the outside world, for
they usually avoided the temple when the weekly party of tourists were
ashore. Eagerly they read these letters, which told of the boy’s
boisterous health in the vigorous air of an English watering-place;
and afterwards they would sit hand-in-hand talking of him and of his
future. Jim was immensely proud of his son, and many were the plans that
developed in his head for the child’s happiness and good standing. It
would not be long now before he would be able to confess to Monimé his
true name and position, and to tell her that a home and an income were
assured to the boy.
Love is a kind of interpreter of the beauties of nature; and in these
sun-bathed days Jim’s heart seemed to be opened to a greater appreciation
of the wonders of creation than he had ever known before. In the winter
season there is an amazing brilliancy of colour in a Nubian landscape,
and the air is so clear that to him it seemed as though he were ever
looking at some vast kaleidoscopic pattern of glittering jewels set
in green and blue and gold, to which his brain responded with radiant
scintillations of feeling.
In whatever direction his eyes chanced to turn he found some sight
to charm him. Now it was a kingfisher hovering in mid-air beside the
dahabiyeh, or falling like a stone into the water; now it was a bronzed
goatherd, flute in hand, wandering with his flock under the acacias
beside the water; and now it was a desert hare, with its little white
tail, bounding away over the plateau at the summit of the cliffs.
Sometimes a great flight of red flamingos would pass slowly across the
blue sky; or in the darkness of the night the whirr of unseen wings
would tell of the migration of a flock of wild duck. Sometimes in his
rambles he would disturb the slumbers of a little jackal, which would go
scuttling off into the desert, while he waved his hand to it. Or again, a
lizard basking on a rock, or a pair of white butterflies dancing in the
sunlit air, would hold him for a moment enthralled.
The grasses and creepers which grew amidst the tumbled boulders at the
edge of the Nile would now attract his attention; and again a great palm,
spreading its rustling branches to the sunlight and casting a liquid blue
shadow upon the ground, would hold his gaze. Here there was the ribbed
back of a sand-drift to delight him with its symmetry; there a distant
headland jutting out into the mirror of the water. Sometimes he would
lie face downwards upon the sand to admire the vari-coloured pebbles and
fragments of stone—gypsum, quartz, flint, cornelian, diorite, syenite,
hæmatite, serpentine, granite, and so forth; and sometimes he would go
racing over the desert, bewitched by the riotous north wind itself and
the sparkle of the air.
But ever he came back at length to the woman who, like the presiding
Hathor, was the fount of this overflowing happiness of his heart. In the
glory of the day he watched her as she walked in the sunlight, the breeze
fluttering her pretty dress, or as she slid with him, laughing, down the
slope of the great sand-drift beside the temple; or again as she ran
hand-in-hand with him along the edge of the river after a morning swim,
her black hair let down and tossing about her shoulders.
By night he watched her as she stood in the star-light, like a mysterious
spirit of this ancient land; or as she came out from the dark halls of
the temple, like the goddess herself, gliding towards him in a moonbeam
with divine white arms extended, and the smile of everlasting love
upon her shadowed lips. In the dim light of their cabin he saw her as
she lay by his side, her eyes reflecting the gleam of the stars, the
perfect curve of her breast scarcely apparent save to his touch, and her
whispered words coming to him out of the veil of the midnight.
It is not easy to select from the nebulous narrative of these secluded
days any particular occurrence which may here be recorded; yet there
was no lack of incident, no dulness, no stagnation, such as he had
experienced in the seclusion of Eversfield. Towards sunset one afternoon
he and she were walking together upon the high desert at the summit of
the cliffs, and were traversing an area which in Pharaonic days was used
as a cemetery. Here there are a number of small square tomb-shafts cut
perpendicularly into the flat surface of the rock, at the bottom of which
the mummies of the Nubian princes of this district were interred. These
burials have all been ransacked in past ages by thieves in search of the
golden ornaments which were placed upon the bodies; and now the shafts
lie open, partially filled with blown sand.
Presently Jim paused to throw a stone at a mark which chanced to present
itself; but, missing his aim, he picked up a handful of pebbles and threw
them one by one at his target until his idle purpose was accomplished.
Meanwhile Monimé had strolled ahead, and Jim now ran forward to overtake
her. The setting sun, however, dazzled his eyes, and suddenly he stumbled
at the brink of one of these open tombs. There was a confused moment in
which he clutched desperately at the edge of the rock, and then, falling
backwards, his head struck the side of the shaft, and he went crashing
to the bottom, twenty feet below, landing upon the soft sand with a thud
which seemed to shake the very teeth in his jaws.
For some moments he sat dazed, while little points of light danced before
his eyes, and the blood slowly ran down his cheek from a wound amidst his
hair. Then he looked around him at the four solid walls which imprisoned
him, and up at the square of the blue sky above him, and swore aloud at
himself for a fool.
A few seconds later the horrified face of Monimé came into view at the
top of the shaft, and, to reassure her, he broke into laughter, telling
her he was unhurt and describing how the accident had happened.
“But your head’s bleeding,” she cried in anguish. “Where’s your
handkerchief?”
“Haven’t got one,” he laughed. “Lend me yours.”
She threw down to him an absurd little wisp of cambric, with which he
endeavoured vainly to staunch the red flow.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “It’s only a little cut. How the devil am I to
get out of this?”
She plied him with anxious questions; and presently, recklessly ripping
off the flounce of her muslin dress, she tossed it to him, telling him to
bandage the wound with it.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to go back to the boat,” he said, “and get a rope
and a sailor to hold it. I’m most awfully sorry.”
She would not go for help until she had satisfied herself that he was in
no danger; and when at last she left him it was with the assurance that
she would be back with all possible speed.
“Try rolling down the big sand-drift,” he said, anxious to be jocular.
“It’s the quickest way. I did it yesterday, and was down in no time. It’s
a pity you haven’t a tea-tray about you: it makes a fine toboggan.”
But when he was alone he leant heavily against the wall, feeling dizzy
from the loss of blood and suffering considerable pain. Presently his
attention was attracted by one of those hard, black desert beetles which
are to be seen so frequently in Egypt parading busily over the sand with
creaking armour: it was hurrying to and fro at the foot of the wall,
vainly seeking for a way of escape from the prison into which it had
evidently tumbled but a short time before. Upon the sand around him there
were the dried remains of others of its tribe which had fallen down the
shaft and had perished of starvation; and in one corner there was the
skeleton of a jerboa which had died in like manner.
For a considerable time he sat staring stupidly at this beetle and
mopping his head with the muslin flounce; but at last Monimé returned
with two native sailors, who speedily lowered a rope to him. To climb the
twenty feet to the surface, however, was no easy matter in his stiff and
exhausted condition; and very laboriously he pulled himself up, barking
his shins and his knuckles painfully against the rock.
He had nearly reached the top when suddenly he remembered the imprisoned
beetle; and his fertile imagination pictured, as in a flash, its
lingering death. “Wait a minute,” he said, “I’ve forgotten something.”
And down the rope he slid to the bottom, while Monimé wrung her hands
above.
He picked up the beetle. “Come along, old sport,” he whispered. “Blessed
if I hadn’t forgotten all about you.” He placed the little creature in
the pocket of his coat, and once more began the painful ascent. The
exertion, however, had opened the wound again, and now the blood ran down
his face as he strained and swung on the rope. His strength seemed to
have deserted him, and had it not been for the two sailors who drew him
up bodily as he clung, and at last caught hold of him under the arms, he
would have fallen back into the shaft.
No sooner had he reached the surface than he carefully took the beetle
from his pocket, and sent it on its way. Then turning to Monimé, who had
knelt on the ground, he obeyed her order to lie down and place his head
upon her knee, whereupon she began to bathe the wound with water from a
bottle she had brought with her. She had also remembered, even in her
haste, to bring scissors and bandages; and now with deft fingers she cut
away the hair from around the wound, and bound up his head with almost
professional skill.
The two sailors were presently sent back to the dahabiyeh, and, as soon
as they were out of sight, she bent over his upturned face and kissed him
again and again. To his great surprise he felt her tears upon his cheek.
“Why, what’s the matter?” he asked, tenderly passing the back of his hand
across her eyes. “Did I give you an awful fright?”
“No, it isn’t that,” she answered, trying to smile. “I’m only being
sentimental. I was thinking about your beetle, and about the text in the
Bible that says, ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of
these....’”
It was not many days before Jim had fully recovered from his hurts. The
bracing air of Lower Nubia at this season of the year is not conducive to
sickness. The vigorous north-west wind seems to sweep the mind clear of
all suggestion of ailment, and the sun to purge it of even the thought
of infirmity. Monimé, indeed, had difficulty in persuading him to submit
at all to her ministrations, dear though they were to him; for the heart
is here set upon the idea of physical well-being, and nature thus heals
herself.
Sometimes, as Jim walked upon the cliffs in the splendour of the day, his
nerves tingling with the joy of life, his thoughts went back to those
long years at Eversfield, and he compared his present attitude of mind
with that he had known at the manor. There the grey steeples and towers
of Oxford, seen beyond the haze of the trees, were sedative and subduing.
There the passionate heart was tempered, the violent thought was sobered,
the emotions were quieted.
But here the brilliant sunlight, the sparkling air, and the great open
spaces, induced a grand heedlessness, a fine improvidence, a riotous
prodigality of the forces of life. Here a man lived, and knew no more
than that he lived; nor did he care what things the future held in
store for him. During these weeks Jim gave no thought to his coming
movements, save in a very general way. His mind leapt across the abyss
of difficulties which lay in his path, and arrived at the fair places
beyond, where Monimé and Ian were to travel hand-in-hand with him.
His attitude towards his little son was shaping itself in his mind
at this time into some sort of clear recognition of his parental
responsibilities, vague perhaps, but none the less sincere. As an
instance of this development in his character mention may be made of a
certain sunset hour in which he and Monimé were seated together upon the
high ground overlooking the vast expanse of the desert to westward of the
Nile.
In this direction, behind the far horizon, lay the unexplored Sahara,
extending in awful solitude across the whole African continent to its
western shores, three thousand miles away. For a thousand miles and
more this vast and almost uninhabited land of silence is known as the
Libyan Desert. Behind this is the great Tuareg country, extending for
another fifteen hundred miles; and beyond this lies the ancient land of
Mauretania, where at last, in the region of Rio de Oro, there is again a
populated country.
In no other part of the world can a man stand facing so huge a tract of
uncharted country, and nowhere does the call of the unknown come with
such insistence to the ears of the imagination. In this untenanted area
there is room for many an undiscovered kingdom, and hidden somewhere
amidst its barren hills and plains there may be cities and peoples cut
off from the outer world these many thousands of years.
It is the largest of the world’s remaining areas of mystery; it is the
greatest of all the regions still to be explored; for the sterile and
waterless desert holds its secrets secure by the fear of hunger and the
terror of thirst. The inhabitants of the Nile Valley declare to a man
that somewhere in this wilderness there stands a city of gold, whose
shining cupolas and domes are as dazzling as the sun itself, and whose
streets are paved with precious stones.
Jim had often talked to the natives in regard to this lost city, and all
had assured him that it truly existed, though no living eyes had seen it.
On this particular occasion, as he watched the sun go down amidst the
distant hills which were the first outworks in the defences of these
impregnable secrets, he was overwhelmed with the desire to penetrate, if
only for a few hundred miles, into this mysterious territory, and eagerly
he spoke to Monimé in regard to the possibilities of such an expedition.
She sighed. “I shouldn’t be able to come with you, Jim,” she said,
“however much I should long to do so. I have to consider Ian first.”
“Yes,” he answered at once. “I was not really speaking seriously. The
thought of what may lie hidden over there sets one dreaming; but actually
I wouldn’t feel it right now to go hunting for fabulous cities.”
He spoke with sincerity, and it was only after the words were uttered
that he realized the change which had taken place in his outlook. No
longer was he free to act as he chose: he had to consider the interests
of another, and, strange to relate, he was quite willing to do so.