There was a King in Egypt Part 47

Michael had watched with interest to see if this would take place, if the bearers halted or altered their course. Evidently the saint was pleased with the spot they had selected, for they journeyed on unhaltingly until they were lost to sight.

And now the little procession was returning, in the fading sunlight.

The holy man's emaciated frame, enclosed in its white bag, lay under the golden sand of the eastern desert.

This desert burial seemed to Michael a very simple and beautiful method of disposing of the dead. The dull chanting of the mourners had lent an emotional note to the scene. It was a sad little incident, but one totally free from the ordinary melancholy which attends a Western burial. For a Moslem, death has little horror. A pilgrim in the desert, when he knows that his death is approaching, either from fatigue or exhaustion or some disease, will dig his own grave and lay himself down in it, covering his body up to his neck with sand. There he will quietly, with Eastern philosophy, await his end. He knows that the four winds will bring drifting sand to the spot where his body lies; it will gather and gather, as it does against any excrescence, until his body is well covered. In the desert many are the s.h.i.+ps that pa.s.s in the night.

The saint had been in Michael's camp for a fortnight and during that time no other member of the party had developed smallpox. Michael was in blissful ignorance of the fact that the servant whom he had sent back to Freddy Lampton's hut in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, bearing a letter to Margaret, in which he had told her everything that had happened--not omitting Millicent's visit and her sudden departure--had never even reached Luxor. He had fallen sick by the way and had died of smallpox in a desert village. He alone of the whole party had contracted the disease. The letter which he carried was burned by the _sheikh_ of the village, a wise and cautious man, who had been called in to give his advice as to the treatment of the infectious traveller. A _sheikh's_ duties are many and varied; he is indeed the father of his village. The traveller had, of course, gone to the hostel or rest-house for travellers in the village, where he was ent.i.tled to one night's rest and food.

It was during the long, anxious days when the saint hovered between life and death that the true hospitality of the Bedouin camp was put to the test. And it was not wanting; whatever was theirs to give they gave with a beautiful hospitality. It was to them a pleasure and satisfaction; Allah be praised that they were able to render any service to the holy man and to help the stranger who had shown him so great an act of charity. Eggs and milk and the flesh of young kids they had in abundance, and these offerings they sent to the camp in such quant.i.ties that Michael felt embarra.s.sed and overwhelmed. Michael knew that they are not a devout people, but in this instance their instinctive hospitality, stimulated by their superst.i.tions, served in place of blind obedience to the teachings of the Koran, in which the rules set forth on the subject of charity are splendid and far-reaching.

The little figure with the silver disc and the protruding "tummy" had become quite a familiar sight in his camp; it came and went with the nervous agility of an antelope.

On this evening, as Michael watched the party of mourners drawing nearer and nearer to the camp, he tried to understand their thoughts.

He knew that each one of them believed exactly the same thing; their spiritual ideas never strayed one letter from the Koran; their minds had never thought for themselves--it would have been rank heresy so to do. They were as certain now as though they had seen it there that the saint's soul was in Barzakh. It had left this, the first world, the world of earning and of the "first creation," the world where man earns his reward for the good or bad deeds which he has done. In Barzakh the saint would have a bright and luminous body, for such is the reward of the pious.

Was not this in keeping with the luminous appearance of Meg's vision?

Abdul had often told Michael that he himself had seen in this, the "first world," the spirits of both evil and right doers, and that the spirits of the evildoers were black and smoky, whereas the spirits of the pious were luminous as a full moon.

Michael envied the completeness of their belief, even while he pitied them. They had evolved nothing for themselves; their salvation was merely a matter of obeying the teachings of the Koran unquestioningly.

Obedience and surrender were their watchwords. How much better were Akhnaton's "Love and the Companions.h.i.+p of G.o.d"! To walk and talk with G.o.d, how much more enjoyable, how much more edifying to man's higher self, than the mere obeying of His laws! Even though they prayed, these simple Moslems, five times a day, they never recognized G.o.d's voice in the song of the birds: they did not know that it was He Who was singing--the birds were His mediums. In the winds of the desert, heaven's wireless messengers, they caught no messages. What the Koran did not specify did not enter into their religion or spiritual understanding.

Abdul approached his master. The saint was buried and the procession of the faithful had gone to perform their various tasks; it was now time to return to practical matters. Michael was amazed at his cheerful expression. Abdul asked his master if it would suit him to continue their journey the next day. Would he give instructions?

Michael a.s.sented. A little of his ardour had vanished. "Yes, Abdul,"

he said. "I suppose we must be going on our way. It is sad to leave this camp, where we have witnessed such a wonderful example of humility and singleness of purpose. Don't you shrink from leaving him to such utter desolation?"

"_Aiwah_, Effendi, but you know there is joy for us all, not sadness.

The beloved ones of G.o.d do not die with their physical death, for they have their means of sustenance with them."

"In the second world, Abdul, is your saint already tasting the joys of paradise?"

"_Aiwah_, Effendi. Punishments and rewards are bestowed immediately after death, and those whose proper place is h.e.l.l are brought to h.e.l.l, while those who deserve paradise are brought to paradise."

"Then in the third world, what greater rewards are there than the pleasures of paradise? Surely that is infinite happiness?"

"The manifestation of the highest glory of G.o.d--that is the supreme reward, Effendi, the meeting of G.o.d face to face."

"Then in paradise, in the second world, the saint will not yet see G.o.d?"

"_La_, Effendi. The day of resurrection is the day of the complete manifestation of G.o.d's glory, when everyone shall become perfectly aware of the existence of G.o.d. On that day every person shall have a complete and open reward for his actions. He shall actually see G.o.d."

Michael's thoughts flew to the vision of Akhnaton. If the luminous state was significant of Barzakh, or the second world, perhaps it was only during that period that the spirits were able to return to earth.

He was never forgetful of the fact that in Eternity time cannot be measured, yet three thousand years spent in the second world seemed to his human mind a long time of waiting!

They were walking together towards the camp.

"_Aiwah_, Effendi," Abdul said, "to-morrow we depart at dawn?--the weather grows hotter."

"Yes, Abdul, at dawn. I will be ready--never fear."

"Has the Effendi ever allowed himself to think that the honourable _Sitt_ who left him two weeks ago may have journeyed to the hidden treasure?"

Michael stared. "No, Abdul, no, I have never thought of such a thing."

"The Effendi has a beautiful mind. The beloved saint, whom Allah has seen fit to remove from our sight, had a heart no more free from evil."

"But, Abdul. . . ." Michael stopped. His mind was suddenly filled with new thoughts. Abdul's suggestion had opened up a deep chasm of ugly suspicions; his whole being seemed to have fallen into it. Abdul waited.

"Madam was terrified--she was flying from the danger of smallpox. She would think of nothing but of getting safely back to civilization, I feel certain."

"_Aiwah_, Effendi, but the honourable _Sitt_ has a woman's soul, and a woman's soul has often been sold for gold and jewels and much fine raiment."

"That is true, Abdul."

Had not Millicent stooped to the lowest means of trapping him and of obtaining the information she desired? If she could do the one deed, why not the other?

But the idea was absurd. She was so totally ignorant of the geography of the desert. She had had no more idea of where she was going than a blind kitten. He reminded Abdul of the fact.

"_Aiwah_, Effendi, but the honourable _Sitt_ had a spy in her camp. I have seen him at his work."

"What could he have discovered? You, I know, never discuss my affairs--we have never even talked of them together."

Abdul salaamed. "My master's secrets are his servant's."

"Then how could he find out?"

"Tents have ears, Effendi. The saint's voice was weak, but not too weak for the super-ears of a spy. When the saint told the Effendi, very secretly and minutely, how to find the hidden treasure, on that night when he knew that Allah had decreed his death, Abdul was also playing the part of a spy. He saw the servant of the honourable _Sitt_, he saw his ear, and how it was placed at a little aperture in the sick man's tent."

Michael was silent for a few seconds.

"_Ma lesh_! The Effendi need not trouble too much. I did not tell him--there was nothing to be gained by causing my master unhappiness."

"I am not troubling, Abdul. If it has been so willed that I am to discover Akhnaton's treasure, even the spy of the cleverest woman on earth will not prevent it. I am fatalist enough for that, Abdul!"

"The Effendi is wise. Avarice destroys what the avaricious gathers.

Allah will reward the spy according to his merits."

Michael smiled. "I'm afraid it is more my nature than my piety which makes it easy for me to resign myself to the inevitable."

"_Ma lesh_! The Effendi understates his obedience to G.o.d's will--there is much good in patiently tolerating what you dislike."

"There's another way of expressing the same thing, Abdul--Effendi Lampton calls it 'drifting.' I am too like the desert sands, he thinks. I am without ambition, I too easily accept what seems to me the deciding finger of fate."

"Content is prosperity, Effendi."

"And we say that G.o.d helps those who help themselves."

"_Aiwah_." Abdul smiled. "Our rendering of the proverb is more beautiful--'G.o.d helps us so long as we help each other.' The Effendi showed much charity--he helps others rather than himself."