The Tracer, motionless, intent, scarcely breathed; the younger man moved restlessly in his chair, the dazed light in his eyes clearing to sullen consciousness.
“What more is there to tell?” he said. “And to what purpose? All this is time wasted. I have my work cut out for me. What more is there to tell?”
“What you have left untold,” said the Tracer, with the slightest ring of authority in his quiet voice.
And, as though he had added “Obey!” the younger man sank back in his chair, his hands contracting nervously.
“I went back to El Teb,” he said; “I walked like a dreaming man. My sleep was haunted by her beauty; night after night, when at last I fell asleep, instantly I saw her face, and her dark eyes opening into mine in childish bewilderment; day after day I rode out to the fallen pillar and descended to that dark chamber where she lay alone. Then there came a time when I could not endure the thought of her lying there alone. I had never dared to touch her. Horror of what might happen had held me aloof lest she crumble at my touch to that awful powder which I had trodden on.
“I did not know what to do; my Arabs had begun to whisper among themselves, suspicious of my absences, impatient to break camp, perhaps, and roam on once more. Perhaps they believed I had discovered treasure somewhere; I am not sure. At any rate, dread of their following me, determination to take my dead away with me, drove me into action; and that day when I reached her silent chamber I lighted my candle, and, leaning above her for one last look, I touched her shoulder with my finger tip.
“It was a strange sensation. Prepared for a dreadful dissolution, utterly unprepared for cool, yielding flesh, I almost dropped where I stood. For her body was neither cold nor warm, neither dust-dry nor moist; neither the skin of the living nor the dead. It was firm, almost stiff, yet not absolutely without a certain hint of flexibility.
“The appalling wonder of it consumed me; fear, incredulity, terror, apathy succeeded each other; then slowly a fierce shrinking happiness swept me in every fiber.
“This marvelous death, this triumph of beauty over death, was mine. Never again should she lie here alone through the solitudes of night and day; never again should the dignity of Death lack the tribute demanded of Life. Here was the appointed watcher — I, who had found her alone in the wastes of the world — all alone on the outermost edges of the world — a child, dead and unguarded. And standing there beside her I knew that I should never love again.”
He straightened up, stretching out his arm: “I did not intend to carry her away to what is known as Christian burial. How could I consign her to darkness again, with all its dreadful mockery of marble, all its awful emblems?
“This lovely stranger was to be my guest forever. The living should be near her while she slept so sweetly her slumber through the centuries; she should have warmth, and soft hangings and sunlight and flowers; and her unconscious ears should be filled with the pleasant stir of living things. . . . I have a house in the country, a very old house among meadows and young woodlands. And I — I had dreamed of giving this child a home—”
His voice broke; he buried his head in his hands a moment; but when he lifted it again his features were hard as steel.
“There was already talk in the bazaar about me. I was probably followed, but I did not know it. Then one of my men disappeared. For a week I hesitated to trust my Arabs; but there was no other way. I told them there was a mummy which I desired to carry to some port and smuggle out of the country without consulting the Government. I knew perfectly well that the Government would never forego its claim to such a relic of Egyptian antiquity. I offered my men too much, perhaps. I don’t know. They hesitated for a week, trying by every artifice to see the treasure, but I never let them out of my sight.
“Then one day two white men came into camp; and with them came a government escort to arrest me for looting an Egyptian tomb. The white men were Joram Smiles and that Eurasian, Emanuel Gandon, who was partly white, I suppose. I didn’t comprehend what they were up to at first. They escorted me forty miles to confront the official at Shen-Bak. When, after a stormy week, I was permitted to return to Saïs, my Arabs and the white men were gone. And the stone chamber under the water garden wall was empty as the hand I hold out to you!”
He opened his palm and rose, his narrowing eyes clear and dangerous.
“At the bazaar I learned enough to know what had been done. I traced the white men to the coast. They sailed on the Scythian Queen, taking with them all that I care for on earth or in heaven! And you ask me why I measure their distance from me by a bullet’s flight!”
The Tracer also rose, pale and grave.
“Wait!” he said. “There are other things to be done before you prepare to face a jury for double murder.”
“It is for them to choose,” said Burke. “They shall have the choice of returning to me my dead, or of going to hell full of lead.”
“Exactly, my dear sir. That part is not difficult,” said the Tracer quietly. “There will be no occasion for violence, I assure you. Kindly leave such details to me. I know what is to be done. You are outwardly very calm, Mr. Burke — even dangerously placid; but though you maintain an admirable command over yourself superficially, you are laboring under terrible excitement. Therefore it is my duty to say to you at once that there is no cause for your excitement, no cause for your apprehension as to results. I feel exceedingly confident that you will, in due time, regain possession of all that you care for most — quietly, quietly, my dear sir! You are not yet ready to meet these men, nor am I ready to go with you. I beg you to continue your habit of self-command for a little while. There is no haste — that is to say, there is every reason to make haste slowly. And the quickest method is to seat yourself. Thank you. And I shall sit here beside you and spread out this papyrus scroll for your inspection.”
Burke stared at the Tracer, then at the scroll.
“What has that inscription to do with the matter in hand?” he demanded impatiently.
“I leave you to judge,” said the Tracer. A dull tint of excitement flushed his lean cheeks; he twisted his gray mustache and bent over the unrolled scroll which was now held flat by weights at the four corners.
“Can you understand any of these symbols, Mr. Burke?” he asked.
“No.”
“Curious,” mused the Tracer. “Do you know it was fortunate that you put this bit of papyrus in the pocket of your shooting coat — so fortunate that, in a way, it approaches the miraculous?”
“What do you mean? Is there anything in that scroll bearing on this matter?”
“Yes.”
“And you can read it? Are you versed in such learning, Mr. Keen?”
“I am an Egyptologist — among other details,” said the Tracer calmly.
The young man gazed at him, astonished. The Tracer of Lost Persons picked up a pencil, laid a sheet of paper on the table beside the papyrus, and slowly began to copy the first symbol:
CHAPTER XIX
“The ancient Egyptian word for the personal pronoun ‘I’ was anuk,” said the Tracer placidly. “The phonetic for a was the hieroglyph
a reed; for n the water symbol
for u the symbols
for k
Therefore this hieroglyphic inscription begins with the personal pronoun
or I. That is very easy, of course.
“Now, the most ancient of Egyptian inscriptions read vertically in columns; there are only two columns in this papyrus, so we’ll try it vertically and pass downward to the next symbol, which is inclosed in a sort of frame or cartouch. That immediately signifies that royalty is mentioned; therefore, we have already translated as much as ‘I, the king (or queen).’ Do you see?”
“Yes,” said Burke, staring.
“Very well. Now this symbol, number two,
spells out the word ‘Meris,’ in this way: M (pronounced me) is phonetically symbolized by the characters
r by
(a mouth) and the comma
>
and the hieroglyph
i by two reeds
and two oblique strokes,
and s by
This gives us Meris, the name of that deposed and fugitive king of Egypt who, after a last raid on the summer palace of Mer-Shen, usurping ruler of Egypt, was followed and tracked to Saïs, where, with an arrow through his back, he crawled to El Teb and finally died there of his wound. All this Egyptologists are perfectly familiar with in the translations of the boastful tablets and inscriptions erected near Saïs by Mer-Shen, the three hundred and twelfth sovereign after Queen Nitocris.”
He looked up at Burke, smiling. “Therefore,” he said, “this papyrus scroll was written by Meris, ex-king, a speculative thousands of years before Christ. And it begins: ‘I, Meris the King.’”
“How does all this bear upon what concerns me?” demanded Burke.
“Wait!”
Something in the quiet significance of the Tracer’s brief command sent a curious thrill through the younger man. He leaned stiffly forward, studying the scroll, every faculty concentrated on the symbol which the Tracer had now touched with the carefully sharpened point of his pencil:
“That,” said Mr. Keen, “is the ancient Egyptian word for ‘little,’ ‘Ket.’ The next, below, written in two lines, is ‘Samaris,’ a proper name — the name of a woman. Under that, again, is the symbol for the number 18; the decimal sign,
and eight vertical strokes,
Under that, again, is a hieroglyph of another sort, an ideograph representing a girl with a harp; and, beneath that, the symbol which always represented a dancing girl
and also the royal symbol inclosed in a cartouch,
which means literally ‘the Ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt.’ Under that is the significant symbol
representing an arm and a hand holding a stick. This always means force — to take forcibly or to use violence. Therefore, so far, we have the following literal translation: ‘I, Meris the King, little Samaris, eighteen, a harpist, dancing girl, the Ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt, to take by violence—’”
“What does that make?” broke in Burke impatiently.
“Wait! Wait until we have translated everything literally. And, Mr. Burke, it might make it easier for us both if you would remember that I have had the pleasure of deciphering many hundreds of papyri before you had ever heard that there were such things.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the young man in a low voice.
“I beg yours for my impatience,” said the Tracer pleasantly. “This deciphering always did affect my nerves and shorten my temper. And, no doubt, it is quite as hard on you. Shall we go on, Mr. Burke?”
“If you please, Mr. Keen.”
So the Tracer laid his pencil point on the next symbol
“That is the symbol for night,” he said; “and that
is the water symbol again, as you know; and that
is the ideograph, meaning a ship. The five reversed crescents
record the number of days voyage; the sign
means a house, and is also the letter H in the Egyptian alphabet.
“Under it, again, we have a repetition of the first symbol meaning I, and a repetition of the second symbol, meaning ‘Meris, the King.’ Then, below that cartouch, comes a new symbol,
which is the feminine personal pronoun, sentus, meaning ‘she’; and the first column is completed with the symbol for the ancient Egyptian verb, nehes, ‘to awake,’
“And now we take the second column, which begins with the jackal ideograph expressing slyness or cleverness. Under it is the hieroglyph meaning ‘to run away,’ ‘to escape.’ And under that, Mr. Burke, is one of the rarest of all Egyptian symbols; a symbol seldom seen on stone or papyrus,
except in rare references to the mysteries of Isis. The meaning of it, so long in dispute, has finally been practically determined through a new discovery in the cuneiform inscriptions. It is the symbol of two hands holding two closed eyes; and it signifies power.”
“You mean that those ancients understood hypnotism?” asked Burke, astonished.
“Evidently their priests did; evidently hypnotism was understood and employed in certain mysteries. And there is the symbol of it; and under it the hieroglyphs
meaning ‘a day and a night,’ with the symbol
as usual present to signify force or strength employed. Under that, again, is a human figure stretched upon a typical Egyptian couch. And now, Mr. Burke, note carefully three modifying signs: first, that it is a couch or bed on which the figure is stretched, not the funeral couch, not the embalming slab; second, there is no mummy mask covering the face, and no mummy case covering the body; third, that under the recumbent figure is pictured an open mouth, not a closed one.
“All these modify the ideograph, apparently representing death. But the sleep symbol is not present. Therefore it is a sound inference that all this simply confirms the symbol of hypnotism.”
Burke, intensely absorbed, stared steadily at the scroll.
“Now,” continued Mr. Keen, “we note the symbol of force again, always present; and, continuing horizontally, a cartouch quite empty except for the midday sun. That is simply translated; the midday sun illuminates nothing. Meris, deposed, is king only in name; and the sun no longer shines on him as ‘Ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt.’ Under that despairing symbol, ‘King of Nothing,’ we have
the phonetics which spell sha, the word for garden. And, just beyond this, horizontally, the modifying ideograph meaning ‘a water garden’;
a design of lotus and tree alternating on a terrace. Under that is the symbol for the word ‘aneb,’
a ‘wall.’ Beyond that, horizontally, is the symbol for ‘house.’ It should be placed under the wall symbol, but the Egyptians were very apt to fill up spaces instead of continuing their vertical columns. Now, beneath, we find the imperative command
‘arise!’ And the Egyptian personal pronoun ‘entuten,’
which means ‘you’ or ‘thou.’
“Under that is the symbol
which means ‘priest,’ or, literally, ‘priest man.’ Then comes the imperative ‘awake to life!’
After that, our first symbol again, meaning ‘I,’ followed horizontally by the symbol
signifying ‘to go.’
“Then comes a very important drawing — you see? — the picture of a man with a jackal’s head, not a dog’s head. It is not accompanied by the phonetic in a cartouch, as it should be. Probably the writer was in desperate haste at the end. But, nevertheless, it is easy to translate that symbol of the man with a jackal’s head. It is a picture of the Egyptian god, Anubis, who was supposed to linger at the side of the dying to conduct their souls. Anubis, the jackal-headed, is the courier, the personal escort of departing souls. And this is he.
“And now the screed ends with the cry ‘Pray for me!’
the last symbol on this strange scroll — this missive written by a deposed, wounded, and dying king to an unnamed priest. Here is the literal translation in columns:
I cunning
Meris the King escape
little hypnotize
Samaris King of Nothing
eighteen place forcibly
a harpist garden
a dancing girl — Ruler of water garden
Upper and Lower wall
Egypt house
took forcibly — night Arise. Do
by water Thou
five days Priest Man
ship Awake
house To life
I I go
Meris the King Anubis
she Pray
awake
“And this is what that letter, thousands of years old, means in this language of ours, hundreds of years young: ‘I, Meris the King, seized little Samaris, a harpist and a dancing girl, eighteen years of age, belonging to the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, and carried her away at night on shipboard — a voyage of five days — to my house. I, Meris the King, lest she lie awake watching cunningly for
a chance to escape, hypnotized her (or had her hypnotized) so that she lay like one dead or asleep, but breathing, and I, King no longer of Upper and Lower Egypt, took her and placed her in my house under the wall of the water garden. Arise! therefore, O thou priest; (go) and awaken her to life. I am dying (I go with Anubis!). Pray for me!’”
CHAPTER XX
For a full minute the two men sat there without moving or speaking. Then the Tracer laid aside his pencil.
“To sum up,” he said, opening the palm of his left hand and placing the forefinger of his right across it, “the excavation made by the falling pillar raised in triumph above the water garden of the deposed king, Meris, by his rival, was the subterranean house of Meris. The prostrate figure which crumbled to powder at your touch may have been the very priest to whom this letter or papyrus was written. Perhaps the bearer of the scroll was a traitor and stabbed the priest as he was reading the missive. Who can tell how that priest died? He either died or betrayed his trust, for he never aroused the little Samaris from her suspended animation. And the water garden fell into ruins and she slept; and the Ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt raised his columns, lotus crowned, above the ruins; and she slept on. Then — you came.”
Burke stared like one stupefied.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 274
