Part 17 (1/2)
The Princess looked at him with a strange, weird gleam in her dark eyes.
”You are right,” she said. ”It is just the Hereafter that men never think of. I am glad you, at least, acknowledge the truth of the life beyond death.”
”I am bound to acknowledge it,” returned the Doctor; ”inasmuch as I know it exists.”
Gervase glanced at him with a smile, in which there was something of contempt.
”You are very much behind the age, Doctor,” he remarked lightly.
”Very much behind indeed,” agreed Dr. Dean composedly. ”The age rushes on too rapidly for me, and gives no time to the consideration of things by the way. I stop,--I take breathing s.p.a.ce in which to think; life without thought is madness, and I desire to have no part in a mad age.”
At that moment they entered the Red Saloon, a stately apartment, which was entirely modelled after the most ancient forms of Egyptian architecture. The centre of the vast room was quite clear of furniture, so that the Princess Ziska's guests went wandering up and down, to and fro, entirely at their ease, without crush or inconvenience, and congregated in corners for conversation; though if they chose they could recline on low divans and gorgeously-cus.h.i.+oned benches ranged against the walls and sheltered by tall palms and flowering exotics.
The music was heard to better advantage here than in the hall where the company had first been received; and as the Princess moved to a seat under the pale green frondage of a huge tropical fern and bade her two companions sit beside her, sounds of the wildest, most melancholy and haunting character began to palpitate upon the air in the mournful, throbbing fas.h.i.+on in which a nightingale sings when its soul is burdened with love. The pa.s.sionate tremor that shakes the bird's throat at mating-time seemed to shake the unseen instruments that now discoursed strange melody, and Gervase, listening dreamily, felt a curious contraction and aching at his heart and a sense of suffocation in his throat, combined with an insatiate desire to seize in his arms the mysterious Ziska, with her dark fathomless eyes and slight, yet voluptuous, form,--to drag her to his breast and crush her there, whispering:
”Mine!--mine! By all the G.o.ds of the past and present--mine! Who shall tear her from me,--who dispute my right to love her--ruin her--murder her, if I choose? She is mine!”
”The bas-relief I told you of is just above us,” said the Princess then, addressing herself to the Doctor; ”would you like to examine it?
One of the servants shall bring you a lighted taper, and by pa.s.sing it in front of the sculpture you will be able to see the design better.
Ah, Mr. Murray!” and she smiled as she greeted Denzil, who just then approached. ”You are in time to give us your opinion. I want Dr. Dean to see that very old piece of stone carving on the wall above us,--it will serve as a link for him in the history of Araxes.”
”Indeed!” murmured Denzil, somewhat abstractedly.
The Princess glanced at his brooding face and laughed.
”You, I know, are not interested at all in old history,” she went on.
”The past has no attraction for you.”
”No. The present is enough,” he replied, with a glance of mingled hope and pa.s.sion.
She smiled, and signing to one of her Egyptian attendants, bade him bring a lighted taper. He did so, and pa.s.sed it slowly up and down and to the right and left of the large piece of ancient sculpture that occupied more than half the wall, while Dr. Dean stood by, spectacles on nose, to examine the carving as closely as possible. Several other people, attracted by what was going on, paused to look also, and the Princess undertook to explain the scene depicted.
”This piece of carving is of the date of the King Amenhotep or Amenophis III., of the Eighteenth Dynasty. It represents the return of the warrior Araxes, a favorite servant of the king's, after some brilliant victory. You see, there is the triumphal car in which he rides, drawn by winged horses, and behind him are the solar deities--Ra, Sikar, Tmu, and Osiris. He is supposed to be approaching his palace in triumph; the gates are thrown open to receive him, and coming out to meet him is the chief favorite of his harem, the celebrated dancer of that period--Ziska-Charmazel.”
”Whom he afterwards murdered, you say?” queried Dr. Dean meditatively.
”Yes. He murdered her simply because she loved him too well and was in the way of his ambition. There was nothing astonis.h.i.+ng in his behavior, not even if you consider it in the light of modern times. Men always murder--morally, if not physically--the women who love them too well.”
”You truly think that?” asked Denzil Murray in a low tone.
”I not only truly think it, I truly know it!” she answered, with a disdainful flash of her eyes. ”Of course, I speak of strong men with strong pa.s.sions; they are the only kind of men women ever wors.h.i.+p. Of course, a weak, good-natured man is different; he would probably not harm a woman for the world, or give her the least cause for pain if he could help it, but that sort of man never becomes either an adept or a master in love. Araxes was probably both. No doubt he considered he had a perfect right to slay what he had grown weary of; he thought no more than men of his type think to-day, that the taking of a life demands a life in exchange, if not in this world, then in the next.”
The group of people near her were all silent, gazing with an odd fascination at the quaint and ancient-sculptured figures above them, when all at once Dr. Dean, taking the taper from the hands of the Egyptian servant, held the flame close to the features of the warrior riding in the car of triumph, and said slowly:
”Do you not see a curious resemblance, Princess, between this Araxes and a friend of ours here present? Monsieur Armand Gervase, will you kindly step forward? Yes, that will do, turn your head slightly,--so!
Yes! Now observe the outline of the features of Araxes as carven in this sculpture thousands of years ago, and compare it with the outline of the features of our celebrated friend, the greatest French artist of his day. Am I the only one who perceives the remarkable similarity of contour and expression?”
The Princess made no reply. A smile crossed her lips, but no word escaped them. Several persons, however, pressed eagerly forward to look at and comment upon what was indeed a startling likeness. The same straight, fierce brows, the same proud, firm mouth, the same almond-shaped eyes were, as it seemed, copied from the ancient entablature and repeated in flesh and blood in the features of Gervase.
Even Denzil Murray, absorbed though he was in conflicting thoughts of his own, was struck by the coincidence.
”It is really very remarkable!” he said. ”Allowing for the peculiar style of drawing and design common to ancient Egypt, the portrait of Araxes might pa.s.s for Gervase in Egyptian costume.”