Читать книгу There was a King in Egypt - Norma Lorimer - Страница 11

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The next day Freddy announced at breakfast, which was a typically

English meal—except for the excellence of the coffee—that there was

to be a very extra-special ball the next night at the Cataract Hotel at

Assuan.

"Would you like to go to it, Meg?" he asked. "I think you'd enjoy it—I can guarantee you plenty of partners."

"Would you go to it if I wasn't here?" Meg asked tentatively. The old Meg in her thrilled at the idea of dancing on a good floor with good partners. Freddy had told her of Michael's record as a dancer, so she knew that she could count on two partners, at least, for Freddy and she had learnt dancing together, and had enjoyed nothing better than waltzing with each other.

"Yes, I thought of going," Freddy said. "I can leave everything all right here, and it's about time we had a day off." He turned to Michael. "Carruthers is coming to see me. He wants to stay the night, so that's all right." Carruthers was a fellow-excavator attached to a camp at Memphis.

"Then I'd love to go," Meg said. "I haven't danced for ages, but I left my 'gay rags' at Luxor."

"I'll send Abdul for them," Freddy said, "and you can go to Assuan early to-morrow and get your traps in order. I don't want a fright, mind—the tourists dress like anything."

Meg laughed. "I'll do my best, but don't expect too much of travelled garments."

While she was speaking quite naturally and with genuine interest about the ball, a vision was forming itself before her eyes, her visitor of the night before; the dark sad eyes and the emaciated face of the heretic Pharaoh became extraordinarily clear. It usurped her mind so completely that she found it difficult to pay attention to the subject which she was discussing.

She tried to banish the influence, but failed. She had forgotten the name which Michael gave to the God whom the Pharaoh had so greatly loved. She could not even recollect the words of his message. Only his luminous form and melancholy eyes were there in the sunlight before her.

She began to wonder which vision was the more fantastic and unreal—the picture which she had visualized of the grand ballroom in the magnificent hotel at Assuan, filled with men and women in modern evening dress, or the figure of the ancient Pharaoh, as he had come to her in this barren valley in the western desert.

"Wake up, Meg!" Freddy said. "Dreaming seems infectious."

Meg knew what her brother meant. So did Mike.

"Don't forget that the practical Lampton mind is a jolly good thing. That old drifter won't like living in a tent or a caravan, on twopence a day, when he's sixty!" Freddy lit his cigarette; he had finished breakfast. "You'll come, of course?" His eyes spoke to Mike. "Gad, what a topping morning it is?"

"Rather!" Mike said abstractedly. "Unless you want me to stay here?"

"Carruthers will be all right here alone—he knows the place as well as I do." Freddy's voice did not express much eagerness for Michael's company at the ball, and Michael knew the reason. Freddy was unable to decide in his own mind whether it was wiser to urge Mike to go and let him see Meg as Freddy knew he would see her in all her pretty finery, and let him enjoy the pleasure of her perfect dancing, or allow him to stay behind and so avoid the risk of meeting the woman whom he knew would be there. He had seen her name in the visitors' list in the Egyptian Gazette. She was staying at the Cataract Hotel at Assuan. He was so divided as to the wisdom of Michael's going or staying that his response had lacked his usual note of sincerity.

"Then I'll go," Michael said, for into his mind had floated a vision of Margaret dressed in her ball-finery and dancing as Freddy's sister would dance—dancing with other men.

"Then that settles it," Freddy said. "We'll go a buster to-morrow night and we'll make up for it after. You can begin real work next week, Meg—sorting and painting, if you care to."

When Freddy was ready to start off to his work, Meg went with him. It was too early for the sun to be dangerous and the air was deliciously fresh and clean. Meg's hands were dug deep down into the pockets of her white silk jersey, just as her brother's were dug deep down into the pockets of his white flannel coat. Meg's long limbs looked almost as clean-cut as her brother's in her closely-fitting white skirt. As Michael watched them walk off together, he said to himself, "They are absurdly alike; they are like twins—they see eye to eye and think mind to mind."

As he said the words his sense of Meg contradicted his last remark, for he knew that he could say things to Meg which Freddy would not understand; he knew that if they had thought mind to mind he would not have asked her to keep the secret which they now held between them.

Thoughts full of tender affection for Freddy made him feel happily contented; to have such a friend and to be allowed to work with him was a privilege deserving of sincere thanks. For a few moments he stood lost in gratitude and praise. These dreaming moments, about which he was so often good-naturedly chaffed, were not entirely wasted; they gave him the spiritual food his nature demanded. The desert holds many prayers.

"Why so abstracted to-day, Meg?" Freddy said, as they reached the site of excavation. Margaret was no great talker at any time, but there was something new in her silence this morning and Freddy felt it.

"Am I abstracted? I didn't know it."

"A bit off colour? Are you feeling the sun? You'd better go back before it gets any hotter and rest more to-day, if we're to go to the dance to-morrow."

"Oh, I adore the sun," Meg said. "I believe in my former incarnation I worshipped it."

"A disciple of Akhnaton? I think we all are, if we only knew it. Poor

Akhnaton!"

"Oh, Freddy, who was this Akhnaton? No, I forgot—don't tell me." Her voice, for Meg, was emotional, excited. "I want to spell things out for myself."

"What do you know about him?" Freddy said. "I thought you hadn't begun reading yet? Has Mike been preaching his religion? Mike's dotty on Akhnaton—his religion's all right, but as a king he was an ass."

"No, no, Mike hasn't told me anything about him and I really would rather come to him in his proper place in history. I mustn't dip, though it's a great temptation, but it spoils serious work."

They had stopped and were looking down from the height of the desert to the level of the excavation which was furthest advanced. Things had developed greatly since Margaret's first visit. Now she was able to see that they were at work upon a vast building of some description. The enormous size and the beautiful cutting of the stones and the exquisite strength of the mortarless masonry indicated noble proportions.

"How interesting it's getting!" she said. "I love these blocks of evenly-hewn stone in the sand—they look so mysterious, and eternal."

"I want to take the men off this, if we're going to Assuan to-morrow—it's getting too hot."

"Why?"

"Because there were indications yesterday that we had struck a sort of rubbish-heap of things which had been turned out of the tomb."

"What kind of things?"

"I don't know yet … all sorts of things. Probably the relatives of the dead threw them out when they visited the tomb from time to time; just as we throw away faded wreaths and flowers, they threw away accumulations of broken vases and offerings."

"And you don't want the workmen to know?"

"I want to be on hand when they are cleaning it up, and it can't all be done in one day. They are quite capable of sneaking back here before the gaphir's about in the morning, to see what they can pick up, to sell to the visitors in Luxor. It's a great temptation."

"I suppose they consider the tiny things they find far more theirs than ours?"

"I suppose they do, but, mind you, the Museum in Cairo gets its pick and the choice of all that's found in Egypt in the various sites of excavation."

"Oh!" Margaret said. "I didn't know that."

"Certainly it does," he said, "and rightly, too, although nothing would be saved or be in any museum if it wasn't for the various European schools. The natives would eventually plunder and steal everything, and if the excavation had all been in the hands of the Egyptian Government, heaven knows where the treasures would be to-day! As it is, Cairo has the finest Egyptian museum of antiquities in the world."

"Akhnaton was buried in this valley?"

"Yes, in later days in his mother's tomb. His first burial-place was at Tel-el-Amarna."

"How odd! That's what he told me last night," Meg said dreamily, almost unconsciously. She could hear again the sad voice of the Pharaoh, saying, "I was laid in my mother's tomb in this valley."

Freddy looked quickly up at her; he had left her to descend to the workmen's level. "So Mike has told you about him, then? I thought he would!"

Margaret blushed to the roots of her hair. "Just one or two things—nothing really very interesting."

"I knew he would, sooner or later. He's got Akhnaton on the brain."

"He really has scarcely mentioned him to me—never until last night."

"Go back, Meg," Freddy said, as he disappeared down a deep channel in the excavations. "It's getting too hot for no hat. You must be careful—you can't afford to play tricks with the sun in Egypt. It's better to worship it like Akhnaton than to trifle with it."

"All right, I'll go," Meg said, and as she went she wondered how it came to pass that Akhnaton was both a sun-worshipper and a devout believer in the Kingdom of God which is within us.