She who sleeps A romance of New York and the Nile
together by a living secret which none of us dare divulge. Our present
access of knowledge is very great. What we shall learn in the future
from this phenomenal girl is also sure to be valuable. But of what use
any of it is going to be to the world during our lifetime I confess I
fail to see.”
Evidently nobody was very clear on the point, for not a suggestion was
forthcoming; but:
“In one sense,” said John Cumberland, “our course is unavoidable. We
are committed to go on. Until we have got clear and reclosed the tomb,
we aren’t safe! Personally, I’m satisfied. Our very highest hopes have
been realized. We have triumphed! That’s good enough for me. Let the
future take care of itself. My present big worry is the girl.”
“Explain what you mean, Dad,” said Barry.
“I will,” his father agreed. “In the first place, as soon as we can
make her understand how much the world has changed, we have got to get
over to Luxor. Difficulty number one: How do we explain her to the
folks in Luxor? Assuming we manage this and arrive in Cairo, how in
the name of Mike do we get her a passport that will be accepted in New
York?”
“Passport?” murmured the Professor. “Quite--quite. The point had not
occurred to me. Of course, a certain difficulty is bound to arise in
regard to a minor whose legal guardians have been dead for three
thousand years.” He scratched his head furiously. “There are times
when I doubt my own sanity,” he declared.
Danbazzar flicked a cone of ash from his cigar. In the lamplight a
queer green spark moved on the face of the scarab in his ring.
“Leave the story to me,” he said. “The stuff, I can get away. It’s
part of my business. The girl we’ll smuggle out nearly as easily.
We’ve got to lie like bond salesmen, but we’ll get her away.”
“Fried chicken,” murmured the Professor.
“What’s that, Blackwell?” John Cumberland asked.
“I was reflecting,” the Professor explained, “upon the fact that a
princess who doubtless has dined in the palace of the Pharaoh Seti I
this evening partook of soup canned in Pittsburgh. I think I shall go
to bed.”
He was as good as his word, departing almost immediately. Danbazzar
set out to learn if the two guards posted in the valley were on the
alert, and Barry and his father were left alone. Hassan es-Sugra, that
unfathomable man, was sleeping in the entrance to the tomb to insure
against pilfering.
As the sound of Danbazzar’s receding footsteps died away in the
_wâdi_:
“You haven’t said much, Barry,” John Cumberland remarked, after an
interval during which he had been closely watching his son; “but I
think you have quite a lot to say all the same.”
Barry started, looking up. Then he began to knock out his pipe on the
heel of his shoe.
“You mean, about--Zalithea?”
John Cumberland nodded.
“Well--I have!” Barry admitted. “She is the girl I saw twice in New
Jersey and twice in New York!”
“I knew it!” said John Cumberland. “I didn’t speak, when I saw it
first. I was waiting. Now that we have actually found her, alive, it’s
a different matter. Barry--I think I can explain the whole thing.”
“Then go ahead, Dad!” Barry invited.
“We have proof--living proof--that the Ancient Egyptians knew more
than _we_ know. If they were wiser in one respect, it’s only
reasonable to suppose they were wiser in others. Now, here’s what I
believe: you didn’t see Zalithea in America. You had _prevision_ of
her! Danbazzar spoke of what we know, upsetting physiology and
psychology. It’s going to upset religion as well. I believe you had an
incarnation in Egypt at the time of Seti I, and I believe Zalithea
remembers you!”
Barry started up excitedly.
“Why,” he exclaimed, “I had come to just that conclusion only
to-night! It’s unavoidable, Dad! There’s no other explanation.”
They discussed the problem at some length, with the result that they
agreed upon the main issue while differing about minor points.
“Poor humanity’s unanswerable question--the destiny of the soul--has
been answered for _us!_” said John Cumberland. “I’m dazzled, Barry, by
the magnificence of all these revelations. We have learned something,
or are on the verge of learning it, which has taxed the greatest
intellects in history.”
When finally John Cumberland turned in, Danbazzar had not come back
from his tour of inspection. Barry, feverishly restless, lighted a
fresh pipe and strolled out into the _wâdi_.
The night was very dark. Leaving the door of the tent, he walked into
a wall of shadow, until, around a natural buttress, he saw a patch of
light upon the sand ahead. It came from the entrance of Zalithea’s
tent. Danbazzar was just coming out. He wore the priest’s robe and
linen skullcap. Barry paused: and in the next moment Danbazzar saw
him.
“I was coming to get you,” he called.
“Why? Is there anything wrong?”
Danbazzar joined him.
“No,” he replied. “But old Safîyeh was hanging around to speak to me.
She caught me on my way back. Come along and get into a robe.”
“What!” Barry exclaimed. “Why?”
“Because Princess Zalithea wants to see you!”
Barry pulled up dead in his tracks. His heart began thumping.
“How do you know?” he demanded. “I mean, how did she make you
understand?”
“Largely by signs,” Danbazzar admitted. “My Egyptian is mighty
limited. But I’m learning.”
That old sensation of unreality, phantasy, came to Barry again. Urged
by Danbazzar, he attired himself in the strange dress that they had
adopted with the idea that it would be more familiar to the awakened
girl. Then, not entirely master of himself, he walked back along the
_wâdi_. At Zalithea’s tent:
“Wait outside,” Danbazzar directed. “Safîyeh will call you when I
have made her understand you are here. I’ll do my best as
interpreter.”
He went in, leaving Barry alone in the darkness.
Vaguely, a sound of voices came to him where he waited. The deep,
subdued tones of Danbazzar made a marked contrast to the silvery note
of that other voice! How well he seemed to know it!
Barry wondered why he was so nervous.
Suddenly the flap was drawn open, and the old Arab woman looked out,
beckoning. Barry stooped and went in.
He found himself in a sort of tiny antechamber or lobby constructed of
hanging tent cloths. An antique lamp hung from above. There were
carpets on the sandy floor, but no furniture.
Safîyeh held one of the tent cloths aside and intimated that he was
to enter. He stepped forward. Some hazy impression he had of a silver
lamp, of embroidered curtains, of cushions, queer-looking inlaid
chests, but these were an indistinct background into which the tall
robed figure of Danbazzar merged appropriately. He was standing behind
a cushioned divan, or native mattress.
Upon it, her cheek resting in her upraised hand, lay Princess
Zalithea.
She was dressed in a manner which perhaps represented a compromise
between the ancient and the modern Egyptian style. Her beautiful arms
were bare to the shoulders, and she wore no jewellery of any kind. A
sort of tightly fitting tunic and some sort of gauzy dress disguised
in a measure the delicate shape which Danbazzar’s scissors had so
mercilessly revealed in the tomb. Her white ankles were bare, as also
were her little feet. It was so that he remembered her.
Long, dark, heavily fringed eyes were raised to Barry as he entered.
They were the deeply mysterious eyes that had watched him since memory
began--the beckoning eyes of the women who lived upon the frescoes
surrounding his father’s walls--the eyes that had smiled down upon him
from a New Jersey balcony!
How beautiful she was! But how pale and fragile. He found himself
unable to believe Safîyeh’s report that she had enjoyed the meal so
carefully prepared for her. Those full red lips, though, spoke of
health. He was hopelessly, speechlessly embarrassed, under the grave
scrutiny of unreadable eyes. But how beautiful she was!
“Speak to her,” Danbazzar prompted.
Barry bowed awkwardly.
“Princess Zalithea,” he said, “I am deeply honoured.”
She watched him, unmoved, for several moments more. Then, a slow,
delightful smile revealed her little gleaming teeth. She turned her
head slightly, looking up at Danbazzar. She spoke in soft, queerly
modulated syllables. One word which might have been “Zalithea,” but
accented very differently from Barry’s rendering, gave him a clue to
her question. Danbazzar replied, slowly, haltingly; then:
“I think,” he said, “she is curious about how you learned her name.
She seems to have recognized it. I told her that you were a very
learned priest. She wants to know what you are called. Tell her.”
Zalithea turned her disturbing glance upon him again, as:
“I am called Barry Cumberland,” he responded.
Zalithea considered the words, then:
“Bahree?” she said--and nodded interrogatively.
“Yes--Barry; Barry Cumberland.”
She smiled, shaking her head in bewilderment. She looked up at
Danbazzar and addressed him again. He listened, interpolating hesitant
questions, while Barry watched, fascinated. Presently:
“She understands that you are called Barry,” he explained. “Cumberland
is too much for her. Now, she is going to tell you how to pronounce
_her_ name properly.”
Zalithea turned to Barry, and, laying one slender hand on her breast:
“Zal’ith-_eeah_,” she said distinctly, and beckoned to him to approach
closer.
He did so, almost trembling: the mad wonder of it all had seized upon
him anew. Zalithea, in a sweetly imperious way, intimated that he
should kneel. He obeyed, and she laid her hand on his breast. His
heart was thumping wildly. She looked fixedly into his eyes.
“Bahree,” she said, and smiled.
CHAPTER XXIII.
AN ENGLISH LESSON
The sound of a distant shot came--from the direction of the Nile.
Professor Blackwell looked up with a start. He was inclined to
nervousness in these days. Breakfast was temporarily suspended.
“Mr. Tawwab has called for the rent!” said Danbazzar grimly. He raised
his great voice, looking over his shoulder. “Mahmoud!” he boomed.
The grinning face of Mahmoud appeared in the opening of the tent.
Danbazzar spoke rapidly in Arabic. Mahmoud saluted and departed.
“I’ve told him,” Danbazzar explained, “to warn Safîyeh that they must
keep under cover and then to go up and tell the guards, in case they
missed the signal.”
It was now Zalithea’s custom to take exercise, veiled like a Moslem
woman, early each morning and again in the evening. In a manner
reminiscent of that adopted (by request) during the historic ride of
Lady Godiva, not a soul was visible about the camp on these occasions.
Hassan es-Sugra, at a respectful distance, acted as escort. And he had
his instructions touching prohibited areas. After a time, Zalithea had
seemed to recognize where she was. At the first coming of this
recognition--realizing that she was in the Valley of the Dead--she had
been seized with terror. Danbazzar’s linguistic resources had been
taxed to the utmost to pacify her.
Ultimately he succeeded in making her understand that she had slept,
magically, for a very long time; that Thebes (which she knew
apparently as Amen) had altered beyond recognition; and that they
wanted her to become accustomed to strange changes before taking her
there.
Once having conquered her first natural terror, the girl accepted her
situation with astonishing philosophy. A reaction came. Perhaps she
had grasped the fact that a new lease of life had been granted to
her--and that life was sweet. At any rate, she developed a strain of
childish mischief at once delightful and disturbing. For Danbazzar’s
orders she had little respect, apparently; but that diplomat was quick
to learn that for Barry she would do anything.
“I trust,” said the Professor, nervously glancing at his watch, “that