There was a King in Egypt Part 16

"You know I always abhorred town-life," Mike said, "and all its artificiality and rottenness and needless acc.u.mulation of unnecessary things."

"Brains congregate in cities, all the same," Freddy said, "if you can only strike them. We'd get too one-sided here, too lost in the past.

It's never wise to let your hobbies and work exclude all other interests."

"I begin to think there is no past," Meg said. "Time lost itself in Egypt. Three thousand years mean nothing. The people who lived and ruled before Moses was born are more alive and real to-day for us than the events of yesterday's evening paper. I think I have learned just a tiny bit of what infinity means."

"Or rather, you have learned that you haven't," Mike said. "By the time you have discovered that three thousand years are just yesterday, you have grasped the truth of the fact that no mortal mind can conceive the meaning of the word infinity."

"Have you ever seen a ghost in Egypt, Freddy?" Margaret said, irrelevantly.

"No, never," he said.

"Did the ancients believe in them?"

Freddy was locking up the hut. "We never come across any writing or pictures to show us that they did, so I don't think it's likely. They have told us most things about themselves and about what they saw and feared."

"I wonder?" Margaret said meditatively. "I wonder if they did or didn't?"

"Of course they believed," Michael said, "that the soul of a man, the _anima_, at the death of the body, flew to the G.o.ds. It came back at intervals to comfort the mummy."

"That's nothing to do with what we call ghosts," Freddy said, "and no one but the mummy is supposed to have been visited by it. It took the form of a bird with human hands and head; it was called the _ba_."

"Oh, my friendly _ba_!" Meg said. "I have just been reading all about it--in Maspero's book you see pictures of it sitting on the chest of the mummy."

"That's it," Freddy said. "You're getting on. But as for real ghosts, there's no record of them--not that I know of. Good-night," he said, "I'm off."

"Good-night," Meg said, "and the best of luck to tomorrow's dig."

For a moment Michael and Meg stood together. "I know what is in your heart," she said. "I begin to think that Egypt is making practical me quite psychic."

"I feel I ought to be up and doing. I believe there is work I can do--I believe it is the work I can do best."

"You only can judge," Meg said.

"I have always maintained that a man should devote himself to the work he can do best, no matter how unpractical or how unremunerative it may seem to others. He must be himself, he must work from the inside."

"You are doing good work here."

"Not my work--another's."

"I can't advise. I know you must judge."

"It means leaving this valley if I do it."

"Oh," Meg said, "not yet? Not until the tomb is opened, anyhow?"

"No," he said, "I'll wait for that. I want to see Ireton--I'm going to see him to-morrow when I go to Luxor for Freddy."

"Are you going?" she said. "I didn't know."

"Yes," he said. "He wants a lot done and he can't leave the dig."

"No, he can't." Meg paused; in her heart a fear had suddenly leapt up.

The soft, delicately-tinted woman on the balcony at a.s.suan stood out before her as plainly as the luminous figure of Akhnaton had done. She was at Luxor! Two letters had arrived from Luxor for Mike in a woman's handwriting.

"I will see Michael Ireton," he repeated. "His work is magnificent; so is his wife's. His work is amongst the men."

"In their settlements, you mean?"

"Yes, amongst the Copts, most particularly."

"It will be sad to break up our trio," she said. "We are so happy."

She held out her hand. "Good-night. I was to help, not to r.e.t.a.r.d--I must remember my dream."

"Good-night." Mike grasped her hand. "You are part of the light.

Keep close to me when I am in Luxor tomorrow."

CHAPTER X

Michael not only had to go to Luxor on business for Freddy, but to Cairo also. He had gone willingly, because he knew that someone had to go, and it gave him immense gratification to be able to help his friend in this time of intense anxiety.

It was absolutely essential that as little time as possible should elapse between the opening of the tomb and the arrival of the photographer and the Chief Inspector. Things which have remained intact for thousands of years in the even, dry temperature of an Egyptian tomb, crumble and fade away like the fabric of our dreams when they are exposed to the open air.

It might be that there would be nothing inside it worth all the trouble and the arrangements which had to be made; on the other hand, the Arab seer's vision might be verified. So far, no trace of burglars, either ancient or modern, had been discovered. Not infrequently the finding of an Arab copper coin, or some disk made of modern metal, an amulet similar to those worn by the ancients, but made of a composition unknown to them, will indicate to an excavator that the tomb has been visited, and probably violated, by modern thieves.

Everything when speaking of time in Egypt is comparative. These intruders may have dropped the metal talisman or coin centuries and centuries ago, soon after the Arab invasion.

Michael had done all his business and was well-content to spend the remainder of his day in mediaeval Cairo. He shunned the European quarter, with its expensive hotels and hybrid Western civilization. He preferred the narrow dark streets of the poor natives. In the East poverty has at least its picturesque side; in the East, as in Italy, Our Lady of Poverty has her shrines, not her hovels. In London, he asked himself, could Browning have sung "G.o.d's in His heaven--All's right with the world!"?

In London so much is wrong with the world that the true meaning of Christ's words, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven,"

seems obvious. To Michael Amory the world was beautiful; its systems of laws and customs were all wrong. The misunderstanding of countless human beings, one with another, through their lack of Love, through their obliviousness of G.o.d, made a whirlpool of his reasoning powers.

Mike had talked matters over with Michael Ireton, who had allowed him to unburden his full heart. His ideas and plans were quite unformed.

All that he was now certain of was the fact that he would never settle down to any profession or career which would mean only the furthering of his own worldly interests.

"The clear voice prevents me," he said. "And the fact is, I don't care a rap about my future position--it can look after itself. I want to work as you are working, even if I prove a failure. I want to get something of this off my chest." He laughed. "It's all so difficult to express, and so easy to see, isn't it? Of course, I know that one man can't set the wrong in the world right, but each man can do what his right self advises. Our right self is never wrong."

"Hada.s.sah helped me," Michael Ireton said, "and life has been worth twice what it was before. I agree with you--we must lead our own lives according to our own ideals, not according to the world's."

"Most people think me a fool," Michael said, "simply a rotter and a drifter, just because I can't settle down to work at a career of my own, while the world's burden is booming in my ear."

"Think things well over," Hada.s.sah said. "Don't rush into plans which may prove a disappointment. Let your ideas materialize. You are never really idle--you will be sending thought-waves out into the world; they will bear fruit. Thought never dies; for good or for evil, it is everlasting."

"But I have been thinking--or drifting, as Lampton says, just idly drifting, for what seems to me like ages."