Part 7 (1/2)
”As I told you,” Margaret continued, ”he had a very strangely-shaped head, more curiously-shaped than I can describe--very long and sloping upwards to the back. He wore a high head-dress which seemed too heavy for his slender neck. Coming from behind it there were bright rays, just like rays of the sun--I have never seen anything like them in any picture . . . oh, it must have been a dream! It all sounds quite absurd.” Margaret's trembling voice belied her words.
”Akhnaton!” Michael cried excitedly. ”Now there can be no doubt. Oh, Meg!” He had unconsciously been using Freddy's pet-name for her, his hand sought hers sympathetically.
Margaret prized the word ”Meg” as it came affectionately from his lips.
”Meg, it is all too wonderful!”
Michael said no more; he had buried his face in his two hands. He would have given his youth to have seen what Margaret had seen.
”Then you don't think it was a dream?”
”How could you have dreamed the very appearance of Akhnaton, or dreamed his personality, when you have never heard of him?”
”I suppose I couldn't,” she said. ”But was Akhnaton unlike any other Pharaoh of Egypt?”
”As unlike as St. Francis was to Nero.”
A sudden idea came to Margaret. ”But,” she said, ”he spoke to me in English, in my own language. If it was really the spirit of Akhnaton, how could he?”
”Dear Meg, there are more things in divine philosophy than are dreamed of by you or me. In what language did Our Saviour speak to St.
Francis, who was an Italian, and to St. Catherine?”
”That is true,” Margaret said, in a changed tone. ”Will you tell me all about this Pharaoh?”
Michael thought before answering her question, and then he said, ”I'd rather not, not yet.”
”But why?”
”Because I don't want to put any ideas into your head. All this has come perfectly naturally, and through a modern who was totally ignorant of the message she was conveying. If you were to receive another message, if you ever were to see Akhnaton again, and you knew all about him, it would not be the same thing.”
”Oh,” Margaret said quickly, ”I forgot--he said as he disappeared, 'I will return.'” She gave a deep-drawn sigh and said nervously, ”Do you think he will?”
”Will you be afraid? Were you afraid?” Michael's arm had slipped almost round her shoulders. It was a moment when close human contact came very graciously to the girl.
”Afraid? No, he was too gentle, too sad--there was absolutely nothing to be afraid of. I didn't stop to think of the supernaturalness of the vision--I was much too interested. If it was a ghost, I shall never be afraid of ghosts again.”
Michael s.h.i.+vered.
Meg looked at him. She had hurt him; she felt a slight shrinking in his sympathy.
”Don't speak of ghosts, Meg--I hate the term, with all its cheapness and irreverence!”
”Then you believe in visions? You are convinced that I have not dreamed all this?”
”If it had been Freddy who had told me, I should have said that he had been asleep and dreamed it, because he knows all about Akhnaton. We are constantly discussing his character, a character I admire much more than he does. But as it was you who saw him and you who have described him as accurately as if you had his portrait in front of you, I feel certain it was not a dream.”
Meg remained silent, while her thoughts worked with a new and amazing rapidity. In Egypt she felt that anything was possible; the supernatural might very soon become natural. And certainly the face which she had seen was so unlike the types of the conventional figures of the Egyptian kings she would have visualized if she had tried her best to picture one from imagination, that she began to wonder if Michael was right in his a.s.sumption that she had actually seen and been in communication with the spirit of Akhnaton.
”But why should he have chosen me, this great Pharaoh?” she said.
”Modern me, with no knowledge whatsoever of his kingdom or his beliefs!”