The Wanderer's Necklace Part 38

Greeting! To thee, / Or soon or late, I, bond or free, / Am dedicate."

And from somewhere far away in the recesses of that great cave came the answering strophe.

"O Love sublime / And undismayed, No touch of Time / Upon thee laid.

That that is thine; / Ended the quest!

I seek _my_ shrine / Upon _thy_ breast."

Then I laid down the harp.

At last a voice, the voice of Heliodore speaking whence I knew not, asked,

"Do the dead sing, or is it a living man? And if so, how is that man named?"

"A living man," I replied, "and he is named Olaf, son of Thorvald, or otherwise Michael. That name was given him in the cathedral at Byzantium, where first his eyes fell on a certain Heliodore, daughter of Magas the Egyptian, whom now he seeks."

I heard the sound of footsteps creeping towards me and Heliodore's voice say,

"Let me see your face, you who name yourself Olaf, for know that in these haunted tombs ghosts and visions and mocking voices play strange tricks. Why do you hide your face, you who call yourself Olaf?"

"Because the eyes are gone from it, Heliodore. Irene robbed it of the eyes from jealousy of you, swearing that never more should they behold your beauty. Perchance you would not wish to come too near to an eyeless man wrapped in a beggar's robe."

She looked--I felt her look. She sobbed--I heard her sob, and then her arms were about me and her lips were pressed upon my own.

So at length came joy such as I cannot tell; the joy of lost love found again.

A while went by, how long I know not, and at last I said,

"Where is Martina? It is time we left this place."

"Martina!" she exclaimed. "Do you mean Irene's lady, and is she here? If so, how comes she to be travelling with you, Olaf?"

"As the best friend man ever had, Heliodore; as one who clung to him in his ruin and saved him from a cruel death; as one who has risked her life to help him in his desperate search, and without whom that search had failed."

"Then may G.o.d reward her, Olaf, for I did not know there were such women in the world. Lady Martina! Where are you, lady Martina?"

Thrice she cried the words, and at the third time an answer came from the shadows at a distance.

"I am here," said Martina's voice with a little yawn. "I was weary and have slept while you two greeted each other. Well met at last, lady Heliodore. See, I have brought you back your Olaf, blind it is true, but otherwise lacking nothing of health and strength and station."

Then Heliodore ran to her and kissed first her hand and next her lips.

In after days she told me that for those of one who had been sleeping the eyes of Martina seemed to be strangely wet and red. But if this were so her voice trembled not at all.

"Truly you two should give thanks to G.o.d," she said, "Who has brought you together again in so wondrous a fashion, as I do on your behalf from the bottom of my heart. Yet you are still hemmed round by dangers many and great. What now, Olaf? Will you become a ghost also and dwell here in the tomb with Heliodore; and if so, what tale shall I tell to Palka and the rest?"

"Not so," I answered. "I think it will be best that we should return to Kurna. Heliodore must play her part as the spirit of a queen till we can hire some boat and escape with her down the Nile."

"Never," she cried, "I cannot, I cannot. Having come together we must separate no more. Oh! Olaf, you do not know what a life has been mine during all these dreadful months. When I escaped from Musa by stabbing the eunuch who was in charge of me, for which hideous deed may I be forgiven," and I felt her shudder at my side, "I fled I knew not whither till I found myself in this valley, where I hid till the night was gone.

Then at daybreak I peeped out from the mouth of the valley and saw the Moslems searching for me, but as yet a long way off. Also now I knew this valley. It was that to which my father had brought me as a child when he came to search for the burying-place of his ancestor, the Pharaoh, which records he had read told him was here. I remembered everything: where the tomb should be, how we had entered it through a hole, how we had found the mummy of a royal lady, whose face was covered with a gilded mask, and on her breast the necklace which I wear.

"I ran along the valley, searching the left side of it with my eyes, till I saw a flat stone which I knew again. It was called the Table of Offerings. I was sure that the hole by which we had entered the tomb was quite near to this stone and a little above it, in the face of the cliff. I climbed; I found what seemed to be the hole, though of this I could not be certain. I crept down it till it came to an end, and then, in my terror, hung by my hands and dropped into the darkness, not knowing whither I fell, or caring over much if I were killed. As it chanced it was but a little way, and, finding myself unhurt, I crawled along the cavern till I reached this place where there is light, for here the roof of the cave has fallen in. While I crouched amid the rocks I heard the voices of the soldiers above me, heard their officer also bidding them bring ropes and torches. To the left of where you stand there is a sloping pa.s.sage that runs down to the great central chamber where sleeps some mighty king, and out of this pa.s.sage open other chambers. Into the first of these the light of the morning sun struggles feebly. I entered it, seeking somewhere to hide myself, and saw a painted coffin lying on the floor near to the marble sarcophagus from which it had been dragged. It was that in which we had found the body of my ancestress; but since then thieves had been in this place. We had left the coffin in the sarcophagus and the mummy in the coffin, and replaced their lids. Now the mummy lay on the floor, half unwrapped and broken in two beneath the breast. Moreover, the face, which I remembered as being so like my own, was gone to dust, so that there remained of it nothing but a skull, to which hung tresses of long black hair, as, indeed, you may see for yourself.

"By the side of the body was the gilded mask, with black and staring eyes, and the painted breast-piece of stiff linen, neither of which the thieves had found worth stealing.

"I looked and a thought came to me. Lifting the mummy, I thrust it into the sarcophagus, all of it save the gilded mask and the painted breast-piece of stiff linen. Then I laid myself down in the coffin, of which the lid, still lying crosswise, hid me to the waist, and drew the gilded mask and painted breast-piece over my head and bosom. Scarcely was it done when the soldiers entered. By now the reflected sunlight had faded from the place, leaving it in deep shadow; but some of the men held burning torches made from splinters of old coffins, that were full of pitch.

"'Feet have pa.s.sed here; I saw the marks of them in the dust,' said the officer. 'She may have hidden in this place. Search! Search! It will go hard with us if we return to Musa to tell him that he has lost his toy.'

"They looked into the sarcophagus and saw the broken mummy. Indeed, one of them lifted it, unwillingly enough, and let it fall again, saying grimly,

"'Musa would scarce care for this companion, though in her day she may have been fair enough.'

"Then they came to the coffin.

"'Here's another,' exclaimed the soldier, 'and one with a gold face.

Allah! how its eyes stare.'

"'Pull it out,' said the officer.

"'Let that be your task,' answered the man. 'I'll defile myself with no more corpses.'

"The officer came and looked. 'What a haunted hole is this, full of the ghosts of idol worshippers, or so I think,' he said. 'Those eyes stare curses at us. Well, the Christian maid is not here. On, before the torches fail.'

"Then they went, leaving me; the painted linen creaked upon my breast as I breathed again.

"'Till nightfall I lay in that coffin, fearing lest they should return; and I tell you, Olaf, that strange dreams came to me there, for I think I swooned or slept in that narrow bed. Yes, dreams of the past, which you shall hear one day, if we live, for they seem to have to do with you and me. Aye, I thought that the dead woman in the sarcophagus at my side awoke and told them to me. At length I rose and crept back to this place where we stand, for here I could see the friendly light, and being outworn, laid me down and slept.

"At the first break of day I crawled from the tomb, followed that same road by which I had entered, though I found it hard to climb up through the entrance hole.

"No living thing was to be seen in the valley, except a great night bird flitting to its haunt. I was parched with thirst, and knowing that in this dry place I soon must perish, I glided from rock to rock towards the mouth of the valley, thinking to find some other grave or cranny where I might lie hid till night came again and I could descend to the plain and drink. But, Olaf, before I had gone many steps I discovered fresh food, milk and water laid upon a rock, and though I feared lest they might be poisoned, ate and drank of them. When I knew that they were wholesome I thought that some friend must have set them there to satisfy my wants, though I knew not who the friend could be. Afterwards I learned that this food was an offering to the ghosts of the dead.

Among our forefathers in forgotten generations it was, I know, the custom to make such offerings, since in their blindness they believed that the spirts of their beloved needed sustenance as their bodies once had done. Doubtless the memory of the rite still survives; at least, to this day the offerings are made. Indeed, when it was found that they were not made in vain, more and more of them were brought, so that I have lacked nothing.

"Here then I have dwelt for many moons among the dust of men departed, only now and again wandering out at night. Once or twice folk have seen me when I ventured to the plains, and I have been tempted to speak to them and ask their help. But always they fled away, believing me to be the ghost of some bygone queen. Indeed, to speak truth, Olaf, this companionship with spirits, for spirits do dwell in these tombs--I have seen them, I tell you I have seen them--has so worked upon my soul that at times I feel as though I were already of their company. Moreover, I knew that I could not live long. The loneliness was sucking up my life as the dry sand sucks water. Had you not come, Olaf, within some few days or weeks I should have died."

Now I spoke for the first time, saying,

"And did you wish to die, Heliodore?"

"No. Before the war between Musa and my father, Magas, news came to us from Byzantium that Irene had killed you. All believed it save I, who did not believe."

"Why not, Heliodore?"

"Because I could not feel that you were dead. Therefore I fought for my life, who otherwise, after we were conquered and ruined and my father was slain fighting n.o.bly, should have stabbed, not that eunuch, but myself. Then later, in this tomb, I came to know that you were not dead.

The other lost ones I could feel about me from time to time, but you never, you who would have been the first to seek me when my soul was open to such whisperings. So I lived on when all else would have died, because hope burned in me like a lamp unquenchable. And at last you came! Oh! at last you came!"

CHAPTER IV