Part 70 (1/2)

At first Michael was unable to appreciate the excellence of the music he listened to, for the finer and more delicate gradations of tone are difficult to discriminate with exactness; they are seldom heard in the vocal and instrumental music of people who have not made a regular study of the art. But as his ear became more habituated to the style, the more it delighted him. He had seen the rapture on Abdul's face and had heard the exclamations of ”G.o.d approve thee!” ”G.o.d preserve thee!”

from the _Omdeh_, many times before the knowledge came to him. He knew that it was his own ignorance, and not the musicians' lack of skill, which was to blame. Until now he had only been familiar with the music of the Nile boatmen and the popular music of the people.

It was delicious, or so Abdul thought, to sit with his master and the _Omdeh_ in the cool garden, under the shade of a fantastic arbour, darkened by the leaves of oleanders and other semi-tropical trees, and there listen to the songs of famous Arab singers, or to the music of the _'ood_, or the _nay_, a picturesque native flute, made out of a reed about half a yard in length, pierced with holes.

Sometimes story-tellers would arrive. One would begin his romance early in the evening and it would not be nearly finished by bed-time, which came late in the hot summer nights. The reciting of it was broken by pleasant intervals for discussions, or for the sipping of sweet syrups and cool native drinks. The romance always left off at a thrilling point; sometimes it took three evenings to finish it.

Abdul lived in a condition of satisfaction only to be expressed by a Moslem mind. As for Michael, he had never imagined that he could feel himself so much at home and so closely in sympathy with purely native life. He began it at the point in his convalescence when nothing mattered; the path of least resistance was the only one which he could take. He continued in it when he no longer desired to resist.

He had received no word from the Valley or from the outer world. He felt that he was cut off and abandoned. Millicent had no doubt taken pains to let Margaret know that she had been with him in the desert, and what could he expect but that Freddy would be justly indignant?

But he was getting better every day. He had had no return of the fever for some time. Whenever he felt fit to travel, he would go to the Valley and see if he could discover anything of Freddy's whereabouts.

Of course, he could not stay there during the hot weather, but the guards in charge of the excavation-site might be able to tell him where he was to be found.

It was no difficult matter for Michael to let things drift, and easier for him under the circ.u.mstances than it might otherwise have been.

It was only after his complete recovery, and at the end of his long journey with the faithful Abdul back to the Valley, that he realized the utter desolation which faced him.

He had said good-bye with regret and grat.i.tude to the Omdeh, who was every day becoming more concerned about the secret propaganda which was being preached in the desert mosques, and had travelled as quickly as he could, more by train than by camel, back to Luxor. On an afternoon of blistering heat he had crossed the Nile and ridden over the plain of Thebes. He had to rest for a little time under the cliffs which shelter the great temple of Hatshepsu at Der-el-Bahari, before he continued his journey up the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, to the hut in the wrinkles of the hills.

As he rode through the Valley, his thoughts were full of his first meeting with Margaret. He remembered how at a certain point of the desolate track, which winds like a dry river-bed through the Theban hills, she had said, ”Does Freddy live here all alone?” and how, when he had a.s.sured her that Freddy was well guarded by watch-dogs at night, she had said. ”But dogs couldn't keep off this!” For Margaret they had not kept off ”this,” the spirit of Egypt; nothing can keep off Egypt; its power and mystery defy both time and science.

He remembered her almost childish eagerness, when she first listened to his explanation of Akhnaton's beliefs and teachings. Then her vision of the suffering Pharaoh came back to him, and all her arguments against her super-sense, which told her that she had seen the spirit of the first divinely-inspired man. He visualized her honest eyes and their expression of interest when he had argued with her that G.o.d had revealed Himself to mankind in many individuals and in many countries.

Surely she could not believe that G.o.d had left a single nation without some revelation of Himself, that he had not sent upon all nations the gift of His Spirit by some redeemer?

Margaret had said. ”You mean, don't you, that Christ revealed Himself to all nations?”

Michael had rejected her correction, for Christ was but one of G.o.d's manifestations of Himself upon earth. There have been others--Buddha was one, so was Mohammed; all great reformers, and those who are inspired with the spirit of truth, and seek to reveal its beauty to mankind, were to Michael G.o.d's revelations of Himself upon earth. He gave to China, Confucius, to India, Krishna, and so on. To Palestine he gave Jesus, Whose teachings have lightened the darkness of the Western world.

”You may call them all Christ or Jesus, if you like,” he had said.

”For they are all imbued with the same Spirit, which is of G.o.d. Jesus has become our ideal and example, He it is Whom G.o.d chose to teach a doctrine suited to Western minds.”

In the heat and stillness of the Valley Michael pondered in his heart over all the arguments and discussions which he had had with Margaret under the star-lit heavens, or in an expanse of blinding sunlight, which left not a shadow as big as a man's hand on the golden sands of the Sahara.

He was living again in the days which preceded his adventures in the Libyan Desert. Abdul was conscious of his master's total absorption in the thoughts which his return to the Valley had called up. For many weeks the heat of the summer sun had made the Valley like a furnace; even now, though the hottest hours of the day were past, it was stifling and almost unendurable. The air scorched Michael's face like the hot air which comes from an oven when its door is opened.

As they drew near to the hut which had once been his home, the loneliness and desolation became more intense. It hurt Michael indescribably; the contrast between the present and the past was horrible. What he had looked upon as his home, and what had meant for him so much activity of mind and body, was now a mere wilderness. It was an inferno of heat and sandhills; even lizards and scorpions sought the shade. Nothing but the dead Pharaohs under the hills remained to tell him that this had been his Eden, where pa.s.sion-flowers bloomed.

The wooden hut was bolted and barred and closely shuttered.

”Certainly the family are not at home,” he said to Abdul, with grim humour. ”There's no good looking for Mohammed Ali--he won't greet us with his white teeth and smiling eyes.”

They halted. Not a movement or sound disturbed the Pharaonic stillness; not a sign of even insect life caught their searching eyes.

Abdul drew a native whistle from his pocket and put it to his lips; its sound travelled and echoed round the hills.

Instantly a white turban appeared and the tall figure of a _gaphir_ came forward, with his signal of office, a long staff carried in the Biblical manner, in his hand. Tall and bearded, in his flowing white robes, he might have been Moses praying apart in the wilderness, pleading for the children of Israel until the anger of the Lord was turned away.

With inimitable dignity he came towards the two riders, who had so suddenly appeared in the Valley. He was the trusted servant of the Excavation Society; his duty it was to patrol the district which surrounded the freshly-opened tomb, the one which Freddy had discovered; his duty it was also to see that no harm came to the hut, to which the Effendi Lampton would return in the autumn.

When Michael asked him for information about the Effendi Lampton, he threw back his head. He had heard nothing from him, or about him, since he had left the Valley and that was in the second week in May.