Smith and the Pharaohs, and other Tales, Page 2

  "Sons of cowards!" roared Smith after them, in his most vigorous Arabic."It is I, your master, not an _afreet_."

  They heard, and by degrees crept back again. Then he perceived that inorder to account for their number each of them carried some article.Thus one had the bread, another the lantern, another a tin of sardines,another the sardine-opener, another a box of matches, another a bottleof beer, and so on. As even thus there were not enough things to goround, two of them bore his big coat between them, the first holding itby the sleeves and the second by the tail as though it were a stretcher.

  "Put them down," said Smith, and they obeyed. "Now," he added, "run foryour lives; I thought I heard two _afreets_ talking up there just nowof what they would do to any followers of the Prophet who mocked theirgods, if perchance they should meet them in their holy place at night."

  This kindly counsel was accepted with much eagerness. In another minuteSmith was alone with the stars and the dying desert wind.

  Collecting his goods, or as many of them as he wanted, he thrust theminto the pockets of the great-coat and returned to the mouth of thetomb. Here he made his simple meal by the light of the lantern, andafterwards tried to go to sleep. But sleep he could not. Somethingalways woke him. First it was a jackal howling amongst the rocks; nexta sand-fly bit him in the ankle so sharply that he thought he must havebeen stung by a scorpion. Then, notwithstanding his warm coat, thecold got hold of him, for the clothes beneath were wet through withperspiration, and it occurred to him that unless he did something hewould probably contract an internal chill or perhaps fever. He rose andwalked about.

  By now the moon was up, revealing all the sad, wild scene in its everydetail. The mystery of Egypt entered his soul and oppressed him. Howmuch dead majesty lay in the hill upon which he stood? Were they allreally dead, he wondered, or were those fellaheen right? Did theirspirits still come forth at night and wander through the land where oncethey ruled? Of course that was the Egyptian faith according to whichthe _Ka_, or Double, eternally haunted the place where its earthlycounterpart had been laid to rest. When one came to think of it, beneatha mass of unintelligible symbolism there was much in the Egyptian faithwhich it was hard for a Christian to disbelieve. Salvation through aRedeemer, for instance, and the resurrection of the body. Had he, Smith,not already written a treatise upon these points of similarity which heproposed to publish one day, not under his own name? Well, he would notthink of them now; the occasion seemed scarcely fitting--they came hometoo pointedly to one who was engaged in violating a tomb.

  His mind, or rather his imagination--of which he had plenty--went off ata tangent. What sights had this place seen thousands of years ago! Once,thousands of years ago, a procession had wound up along the roadwaywhich was doubtless buried beneath the sand whereon he stood towardsthe dark door of this sepulchre. He could see it as it passed in andout between the rocks. The priests, shaven-headed and robed in leopards'skins, or some of them in pure white, bearing the mystic symbols oftheir office. The funeral sledge drawn by oxen, and on it the greatrectangular case that contained the outer and the inner coffins, andwithin them the mummy of some departed Majesty; in the Egyptian formula,"the hawk that had spread its wings and flown into the bosom ofOsiris," God of Death. Behind, the mourners, rending the air with theirlamentations. Then those who bore the funeral furniture and offerings.Then the high officers of State and the first priests of Amen and ofthe other gods. Then the sister queens, leading by the hand a wonderingchild or two. Then the sons of Pharaoh, young men carrying the emblemsof their rank.

  Lastly, walking alone, Pharaoh himself in his ceremonial robes, hisapron, his double crown of linen surmounted by the golden snake, hisinlaid bracelets and his heavy, tinkling earrings. Pharaoh, his headbowed, his feet travelling wearily, and in his heart--what thoughts?Sorrow, perhaps, for her who had departed. Yet he had other queens andfair women without count. Doubtless she was sweet and beautiful, butsweetness and beauty were not given to her alone. Moreover, was she notwont to cross his will and to question his divinity? No, surely itis not only of her that he thinks, her for whom he had prepared thissplendid tomb with all things needful to unite her with the gods. Surelyhe thinks also of himself and that other tomb on the farther side of thehill whereat the artists labour day by day--yes, and have laboured thesemany years; that tomb to which before so very long he too must travel injust this fashion, to seek his place beyond the doors of Death, who layshis equal hand on king and queen and slave.

  The vision passed. It was so real that Smith thought he must have beendreaming. Well, he was awake now, and colder than ever. Moreover, thejackals had multiplied. There were a whole pack of them, and not faraway. Look! One crossed in the ring of the lamplight, a slinking, yellowbeast that smelt the remains of dinner. Or perhaps it smelt himself.Moreover, there were bad characters who haunted these mountains, and hewas alone and quite unarmed. Perhaps he ought to put out the light whichadvertised his whereabouts. It would be wise, and yet in this particularhe rejected wisdom. After all, the light was some company.

  Since sleep seemed to be out of the question, he fell back upon poorhumanity's other anodyne, work, which has the incidental advantage ofgenerating warmth. Seizing a shovel, he began to dig at the doorway ofthe tomb, whilst the jackals howled louder than ever in astonishment.They were not used to such a sight. For thousands of years, as the oldmoon above could have told, no man, or at least no solitary man, haddared to rob tombs at such an unnatural hour.

  When Smith had been digging for about twenty minutes something tinkledon his shovel with a noise which sounded loud in that silence.

  "A stone which may come in handy for the jackals," he thought tohimself, shaking the sand slowly off the spade until it appeared. Thereit was, and not large enough to be of much service. Still, he picked itup, and rubbed it in his hands to clear off the encrusting dirt. When heopened them he saw that it was no stone, but a bronze.

  "Osiris," reflected Smith, "buried in front of the tomb to hallow theground. No, an Isis. No, the head of a statuette, and a jolly goodone, too--at any rate, in moonlight. Seems to have been gilded." And,reaching out for the lamp, he held it over the object.

  Another minute, and he found himself sitting at the bottom of the hole,lamp in one hand and statuette, or rather head, in the other.

  "The Queen of the Mask!" he gasped. "The same--the same! By heavens, thevery same!"

  Oh, he could not be mistaken. There were the identical lips, a littlethick and pouted; the identical nostrils, curved and quivering, but alittle wide; the identical arched eyebrows and dreamy eyes set somewhatfar apart. Above all, there was the identical alluring and mysterioussmile. Only on this masterpiece of ancient art was set a whole crown of_uraei_ surrounding the entire head. Beneath the crown and pressed backbehind the ears was a full-bottomed wig or royal head-dress, of whichthe ends descended to the breasts. The statuette, that, having beengilt, remained quite perfect and uncorroded, was broken just above themiddle, apparently by a single violent blow, for the fracture was veryclean.

  At once it occurred to Smith that it had been stolen from the tomb bya thief who thought it to be gold; that outside of the tomb doubt hadovertaken him and caused him to break it upon a stone or otherwise. Therest was clear. Finding that it was but gold-washed bronze he had thrownaway the fragments, rather than be at the pains of carrying them. Thiswas his theory, probably not a correct one, as the sequel seems to show.

  Smith's first idea was to recover the other portion. He searched quite along while, but without success. Neither then nor afterwards could itbe found. He reflected that perhaps this lower half had remained in thethief's hand, who, in his vexation, had thrown it far away, leavingthe head to lie where it fell. Again Smith examined this head, and moreclosely. Now he saw that just beneath the breasts was a delicately cutcartouche.

  Being by this time a master of hieroglyphics, he read it withouttrouble. It ran: "Ma-Mee, Great Royal Lady. Beloved of ----" Here thecartouche was broken away.

&nbs
p; "Ma-Me, or it might be Ma-Mi," he reflected. "I never heard of a queencalled Ma-Me, or Ma-Mi, or Ma-Mu. She must be quite new to history. Iwonder of whom she was beloved? Amen, or Horus, or Isis, probably. Ofsome god, I have no doubt, at least I hope so!"

  He stared at the beautiful portrait in his hand, as once he had staredat the cast on the Museum wall, and the beautiful portrait, emergingfrom the dust of ages, smiled back at him there in the solemn moonlightas once the cast had smiled from the museum wall. Only that had been buta cast, whereas this was real. This had slept with the dead from whosefeatures it had been fashioned, the dead who lay, or who had lain,within.

  A sudden resolution took hold of Smith. He would explore that tomb, atonce and alone. No one should accompany him on this his first visit;it would be a sacrilege that anyone save himself should set foot thereuntil he had looked on what it might contain.

  Why should he not enter? His lamp, of what is called the "hurricane"brand, was very good and bright, and would burn for many hours.Moreover, there had been time for the foul air to escape through thehole that they had cleared. Lastly, something seemed to call on him tocome and see. He placed the bronze head in his breast-pocket over hisheart, and, thrusting the lamp through the hole, looked down. Here therewas no difficulty, since sand had drifted in to the level of the bottomof the aperture. Through it he struggled, to find himself upon a bed ofsand that only just left him room to push himself along between it andthe roof. A little farther on the passage was almost filled with mud.

  Mahomet had been right when, from his knowledge of the bed-rock, he saidthat any tomb made in this place must be flooded. It _had_ been floodedby some ancient rain-storm, and Smith began to fear that he would findit quite filled with soil caked as hard as iron. So, indeed, it was toa certain depth, a result that apparently had been anticipated by thosewho hollowed it, for this entrance shaft was left quite undecorated.Indeed, as Smith found afterwards, a hole had been dug beneath thedoorway to allow the mud to enter after the burial was completed. Only amiscalculation had been made. The natural level of the mud did not quitereach the roof of the tomb, and therefore still left it open.

  After crawling for forty feet or so over this caked mud, Smith suddenlyfound himself on a rising stair. Then he understood the plan; the tombitself was on a higher level.

  Here began the paintings. Here the Queen Ma-Mee, wearing her crowns anddressed in diaphanous garments, was presented to god after god. Betweenher figure and those of the divinities the wall was covered withhieroglyphs as fresh to-day as on that when the artist had limned them.A glance told him that they were extracts from the Book of the Dead.When the thief of bygone ages had broken into the tomb, probably notvery long after the interment, the mud over which Smith had just crawledwas still wet. This he could tell, since the clay from the rascal'sfeet remained upon the stairs, and that upon his fingers had stained thepaintings on the wall against which he had supported himself; indeed,in one place was an exact impression of his hand, showing its shape andeven the lines of the skin.

  At the top of the flight of steps ran another passage at a higherlevel, which the water had never reached, and to right and left were thebeginnings of unfinished chambers. It was clear to him that this queenhad died young. Her tomb, as she or the king had designed it, was neverfinished. A few more paces, and the passage enlarged itself into a hallabout thirty feet square. The ceiling was decorated with vultures, theirwings outspread, the looped Cross of Life hanging from their talons.On one wall her Majesty Ma-Mee stood expectant while Anubis weighed herheart against the feather of truth, and Thoth, the Recorder, wrote downthe verdict upon his tablets. All her titles were given to her here,such as--"Great Royal Heiress, Royal Sister, Royal Wife, Royal Mother,Lady of the Two Lands, Palm-branch of Love, Beautiful-exceedingly."

  Smith read them hurriedly and noted that nowhere could he see the nameof the king who had been her husband. It would almost seem as thoughthis had been purposely omitted. On the other walls Ma-Mee, accompaniedby her _Ka_, or Double, made offerings to the various gods, or utteredpropitiatory speeches to the hideous demons of the underworld, declaringtheir names to them and forcing them to say: "Pass on. Thou art pure!"

  Lastly, on the end wall, triumphant, all her trials done, she, thejustified Osiris, or Spirit, was received by the god Osiris, Saviour ofSpirits.

  All these things Smith noted hurriedly as he swung the lamp to and froin that hallowed place. Then he saw something else which filled him withdismay. On the floor of the chamber where the coffins had been--for thiswas the burial chamber--lay a heap of black fragments charred with fire.Instantly he understood. After the thief had done his work he had burnedthe mummy-cases, and with them the body of the queen. There could beno doubt that this was so, for look! among the ashes lay some calcinedhuman bones, while the roof above was blackened with the smoke andcracked by the heat of the conflagration. There was nothing left for himto find!

  Oppressed with the closeness of the atmosphere, he sat down upon alittle bench or table cut in the rock that evidently had been meantto receive offerings to the dead. Indeed, on it still lay the scorchedremains of some votive flowers. Here, his lamp between his feet, herested a while, staring at those calcined bones. See, yonder was thelower jaw, and in it some teeth, small, white, regular and but littleworn. Yes, she had died young. Then he turned to go, for disappointmentand the holiness of the place overcame him; he could endure no more ofit that night.

  Leaving the burial hall, he walked along the painted passage, the lampswinging and his eyes fixed upon the floor. He was disheartened, and thepaintings could wait till the morrow. He descended the steps and came tothe foot of the mud slope. Here suddenly he perceived, projecting fromsome sand that had drifted down over the mud, what seemed to be thecorner of a reed box or basket. To clear away the sand was easy,and--yes, it was a basket, a foot or so in length, such a basket asthe old Egyptians used to contain the funeral figures which are called_ushaptis_, or other objects connected with the dead. It looked asthough it had been dropped, for it lay upon its side. Smith openedit--not very hopefully, for surely nothing of value would have beenabandoned thus.

  The first thing that met his eyes was a mummied hand, broken off at thewrist, a woman's little hand, most delicately shaped. It was witheredand paper-white, but the contours still remained; the long fingers wereperfect, and the almond-shaped nails had been stained with henna, as wasthe embalmers' fashion. On the hand were two gold rings, and for thoserings it had been stolen. Smith looked at it for a long while, and hisheart swelled within him, for here was the hand of that royal lady ofhis dreams.

  Indeed, he did more than look; he kissed it, and as his lips touchedthe holy relic it seemed to him as though a wind, cold but scented, blewupon his brow. Then, growing fearful of the thoughts that arose withinhim, he hurried his mind back to the world, or rather to the examinationof the basket.

  Here he found other objects roughly wrapped in fragments of mummy-cloththat had been torn from the body of the queen. These it is needless todescribe, for are they not to be seen in the gold room of the Museum,labelled "Bijouterie de la Reine Ma-Me, XVIIIeme Dynastie. Thebes(Smith's Tomb)"? It may be mentioned, however, that the set wasincomplete. For instance, there was but one of the great gold ceremonialear-rings fashioned like a group of pomegranate blooms, and the mostbeautiful of the necklaces had been torn in two--half of it was missing.

  It was clear to Smith that only a portion of the precious objects whichwere buried with the mummy had been placed in this basket. Why had thesebeen left where he found them? A little reflection made that clear also.Something had prompted the thief to destroy the desecrated body and itscoffin with fire, probably in the hope of hiding his evil handiwork.Then he fled with his spoil. But he had forgotten how fiercely mummiesand their trappings can burn. Or perhaps the thing was an accident. Hemust have had a lamp, and if its flame chanced to touch this bituminoustinder!

  At any rate, the smoke overtook the man in that narrow place as he beganto climb the sl
ippery slope of clay. In his haste he dropped the basket,and dared not return to search for it. It could wait till the morrow,when the fire would be out and the air pure. Only for this desecrator ofthe royal dead that morrow never came, as was discovered afterwards.

  When at length Smith struggled into the open air the stars were palingbefore the dawn. An hour later, after the sky was well up, Mahomet(recovered from his sickness) and his myrmidons arrived.

  "I have been busy while you slept," said Smith, showing them the mummiedhand (but not the rings which he had removed from the shrunk fingers),and the broken bronze, but not the priceless jewellery which was hiddenin his pockets.

  For the next ten days they dug till the tomb and its approach were quiteclear. In the sand, at the head of a flight of steps which led down tothe doorway, they found the skeleton of a man, who evidently had beenburied there in a hurried fashion. His skull was shattered by the blowof an axe, and the shaven scalp that still clung to it suggested that hemight have been a priest.

  Mahomet thought, and Smith agreed with him, that this was the person whohad violated the tomb. As he was escaping from it the guards of the holyplace surprised him after he had covered up the hole by which he hadentered and purposed to return. There they executed him without trialand divided up the plunder, thinking that no more was to be found. Orperhaps his confederates killed him.

  Such at least were the theories advanced by Mahomet. Whether they wereright or wrong none will ever know. For instance, the skeleton may nothave been that of the thief, though probability appears to point theother way.

  Nothing more was found in the tomb, not even a scarab or a mummy-bead.Smith spent the remainder of his time in photographing the picturesand copying the inscriptions, which for various reasons proved to be ofextraordinary interest. Then, having reverently buried the charred bonesof the queen in a secret place of the sepulchre, he handed it over tothe care of the local Guardian of Antiquities, paid off Mahomet and thefellaheen, and departed for Cairo. With him went the wonderful jewelsof which he had breathed no word, and another relic to him yet moreprecious--the hand of her Majesty Ma-Mee, Palm-branch of Love.