Part 30 (2/2)

”Oh, I've lost it!” she said. ”My precious eye of Horus, Mike. I wouldn't have lost it for the world!” Her tone conveyed his understanding of the personal value which she attached to the amulet.

”What was it?” Freddy said. ”Can't we get another? If you bought it, it was probably a fake.”

”A new one would never be the same--Mike gave me the one I've lost”--she purposely used Michael's intimate name--”while we were staying at Luxor. It has been my 'heaven-sent gift'”--(the ancients'

name for the amulet, which represented the right eye of Horus).

They all looked to see if the amulet had been dropped in the room, if it was under the table. But it was nowhere to be found; the eye of Horus was concealing itself.

”It was probably only a fake,” Freddy said, ”if you bought it in Luxor.

I'll try and get a genuine one for you--for ages and ages they were the commonest of all amulets, judging by the number we find. Almost every ancient Egyptian must have worn one. It was the all-seeing eye, the protecting light.”

”The moon was the left eye of Horus and the sun was the right--isn't that so?” Millicent asked.

”Roughly speaking, but the eye of Horus is a complicated subject. It's not just the evil or good eye of Italy, by any means. The eye of Horus is the eye of Heaven, Shakespeare's 'Heaven's eye,' but it's when it gets identified with Ra that the complication comes in. The _sacred_ eye is the eye of Heaven, or Ra. Poets, ancient and modern, have sung of it, from the time of Job to the days of Shakespeare. But there was also the evil eye, the one we hear so much about in Southern Italy.”

”Tell me about that. I always like the naughty stories. I've never grown up in that respect. The evil eye is more interesting to me than the eye of Heaven. I knew a woman in Italy who was selling lace; she let a friend of mine buy all she wanted from her at the most absurdly cheap prices you can imagine. When the lady of the house we were staying in, who had allowed the woman to call and bring her lace, asked her why she had sold the lace to a stranger at a price for which she had refused to part with it to her, she simply threw up her eyes and said, '_Ma_, Signora, what could I do? She had the evil eye--if I had not given it to her, what terrible misfortunes she could have brought to me!'”

”I remember seeing a crowded tramcar in Rome empty itself in a moment when a well-known Prince, who was supposed to have the evil eye, got into it,” Michael said.

”A common expression for a woman in ancient Egypt was _stav-ar-ban_, which meant 'she who turns away the evil eye,'” Freddy said.

”Then the Egyptians believed in the evil eye, as apart from the sacred eye of Ra?” Millicent said. ”What a universal belief it seems to have been! One meets with it all over the world.”

”Wasn't there a book found in the ancient library of the temple of Dendereh which told all about the turning away of the evil eye?” Mike asked.

”I believe so,” Freddy said. ”But I've never seen it.”

Millicent was still fingering her empty chain. ”I feel lost without my eye,” she said to Mike, who had answered her persistent gaze. ”You bought it for me after that long, long day we spent together in the desert behind Karnak. Do you remember that Coptic convent”--she made a face of disgust--”and the amus.e.m.e.nt of the nuns at my blue eyes, and all the dreadful dogs? You bought the eye from the old man who looked as if he had lived inside a pyramid all his life.” She turned to Margaret. ”It was a wonderful day, and we behaved like children in the desert, didn't we, Mike?”

Meg managed to hide her annoyance, but something hurt inside her--probably her bowels of wrath.

”It was a lovely day, I remember. The Coptic convent looked like a collection of beehives huddled together in the desert. You wouldn't go inside it because you were afraid of the fleas, and I wasn't allowed to go in because I was a man.”

”I'd had enough of Coptic churches. Have you ever been in the early Christian churches in Cairo?” she asked Margaret.

”No, but I've heard about them.”

”Well, I have, and all I can say is that if the early Christians in Rome were as dirty as the survivors of the Church of St. Mark are in Cairo, I don't wonder at the pagans. I wasn't going to risk the monastery after the appalling filth of their churches, dirty pigs!”

At that precise moment Mohammed Ali brought in the coffee. It was served in the native fas.h.i.+on, in small enamelled bra.s.s bowls, on a bra.s.s tray. When he handed the tray to Mrs. Mervill he pointed to a small object lying beside her cup.

”Lady, I find _antika_ all safe.”

Millicent's heart beat more quickly; a little deeper rose warmed her cheeks. She picked up the eye of blue faience from the bra.s.s tray with well-a.s.sumed delight. Margaret's dark eyes were resting on her. She felt them.

”Thank you,” she said to Mohammed Ali. ”I'm so glad.” Her hand shook a little as she lifted her cup. ”Heaven's eye is not withdrawn,” she said gaily to Michael.

”Where did you find it, Mohammed?” Michael asked the question innocently.

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