Part 16 (1/2)

”You know I always abhorred town-life,” Mike said, ”and all its artificiality and rottenness and needless acc.u.mulation of unnecessary things.”

”Brains congregate in cities, all the same,” Freddy said, ”if you can only strike them. We'd get too one-sided here, too lost in the past.

It's never wise to let your hobbies and work exclude all other interests.”

”I begin to think there is no past,” Meg said. ”Time lost itself in Egypt. Three thousand years mean nothing. The people who lived and ruled before Moses was born are more alive and real to-day for us than the events of yesterday's evening paper. I think I have learned just a tiny bit of what infinity means.”

”Or rather, you have learned that you haven't,” Mike said. ”By the time you have discovered that three thousand years are just yesterday, you have grasped the truth of the fact that no mortal mind can conceive the meaning of the word infinity.”

”Have you ever seen a ghost in Egypt, Freddy?” Margaret said, irrelevantly.

”No, never,” he said.

”Did the ancients believe in them?”

Freddy was locking up the hut. ”We never come across any writing or pictures to show us that they did, so I don't think it's likely. They have told us most things about themselves and about what they saw and feared.”

”I wonder?” Margaret said meditatively. ”I wonder if they did or didn't?”

”Of course they believed,” Michael said, ”that the soul of a man, the _anima_, at the death of the body, flew to the G.o.ds. It came back at intervals to comfort the mummy.”

”That's nothing to do with what we call ghosts,” Freddy said, ”and no one but the mummy is supposed to have been visited by it. It took the form of a bird with human hands and head; it was called the _ba_.”

”Oh, my friendly _ba_!” Meg said. ”I have just been reading all about it--in Maspero's book you see pictures of it sitting on the chest of the mummy.”

”That's it,” Freddy said. ”You're getting on. But as for real ghosts, there's no record of them--not that I know of. Good-night,” he said, ”I'm off.”

”Good-night,” Meg said, ”and the best of luck to tomorrow's dig.”

For a moment Michael and Meg stood together. ”I know what is in your heart,” she said. ”I begin to think that Egypt is making practical me quite psychic.”

”I feel I ought to be up and doing. I believe there is work I can do--I believe it is the work I can do best.”

”You only can judge,” Meg said.

”I have always maintained that a man should devote himself to the work he can do best, no matter how unpractical or how unremunerative it may seem to others. He must be himself, he must work from the inside.”

”You are doing good work here.”

”Not my work--another's.”

”I can't advise. I know you must judge.”

”It means leaving this valley if I do it.”

”Oh,” Meg said, ”not yet? Not until the tomb is opened, anyhow?”

”No,” he said, ”I'll wait for that. I want to see Ireton--I'm going to see him to-morrow when I go to Luxor for Freddy.”

”Are you going?” she said. ”I didn't know.”