Part 11 (1/2)

In short, I beheld as in a dream the whole drama of everyday Egyptian royal life, playing itself out anew under my eyes, in its real original properties and personages.

Gradually, as I looked, I became aware that my hosts were no less surprised at the appearance of their anachronistic guest than was the guest himself at the strange living panorama which met his eyes. In a moment music and dancing ceased; the banquet paused in its course, and the king and his n.o.bles stood up in undisguised astonishment to survey the strange intruder.

Some minutes pa.s.sed before any one moved forward on either side. At last a young girl of royal appearance, yet strangely resembling the Ghaziyah of Abu Yilla, and recalling in part the laughing maiden in the foreground of Mr. Long's great canvas at the previous Academy, stepped out before the throng.

”May I ask you,” she said in Ancient Egyptian, ”who you are, and why you come hither to disturb us?”

I was never aware before that I spoke or understood the language of the hieroglyphics: yet I found I had not the slightest difficulty in comprehending or answering her question. To say the truth, Ancient Egyptian, though an extremely tough tongue to decipher in its written form, becomes as easy as love-making when spoken by a pair of lips like that Pharaonic princess's. It is really very much the same as English, p.r.o.nounced in a rapid and somewhat indefinite whisper, and with all the vowels left out.

”I beg ten thousand pardons for my intrusion,” I answered apologetically; ”but I did not know that this Pyramid was inhabited, or I should not have entered your residence so rudely. As for the points you wish to know, I am an English tourist, and you will find my name upon this card;” saying which I handed her one from the case which I had fortunately put into my pocket, with conciliatory politeness. The princess examined it closely, but evidently did not understand its import.

”In return,” I continued, ”may I ask you in what august presence I now find myself by accident?”

A court official stood forth from the throng, and answered in a set heraldic tone: ”In the presence of the ill.u.s.trious monarch, Brother of the Sun, Thothmes the Twenty-seventh, king of the Eighteenth Dynasty.”

”Salute the Lord of the World,” put in another official in the same regulation drone.

I bowed low to his Majesty, and stepped out into the hall. Apparently my obeisance did not come up to Egyptian standards of courtesy, for a suppressed t.i.tter broke audibly from the ranks of bronze-skinned waiting-women. But the king graciously smiled at my attempt, and turning to the nearest n.o.bleman, observed in a voice of great sweetness and self-contained majesty: ”This stranger, Ombos, is certainly a very curious person. His appearance does not at all resemble that of an Ethiopian or other savage, nor does he look like the pale-faced sailors who come to us from the Achaian land beyond the sea. His features, to be sure, are not very different from theirs; but his extraordinary and singularly inartistic dress shows him to belong to some other barbaric race.”

I glanced down at my waistcoat, and saw that I was wearing my tourist's check suit, of grey and mud colour, with which a Bond Street tailor had supplied me just before leaving town, as the latest thing out in fancy tweeds. Evidently these Egyptians must have a very curious standard of taste not to admire our pretty and graceful style of male attire.

”If the dust beneath your Majesty's feet may venture upon a suggestion,”

put in the officer whom the king had addressed, ”I would hint that this young man is probably a stray visitor from the utterly uncivilized lands of the North. The head-gear which he carries in his hand obviously betrays an Arctic habitat.”

I had instinctively taken off my round felt hat in the first moment of surprise, when I found myself in the midst of this strange throng, and I standing now in a somewhat embarra.s.sed posture, holding it awkwardly before me like a s.h.i.+eld to protect my chest.

”Let the stranger cover himself,” said the king.

”Barbarian intruder, cover yourself,” cried the herald. I noticed throughout that the king never directly addressed anybody save the higher officials around him.

I put on my hat as desired. ”A most uncomfortable and silly form of tiara indeed,” said the great Thothmes.

”Very unlike your n.o.ble and awe-spiring mitre, Lion of Egypt,” answered Ombos.

”Ask the stranger his name,” the king continued.

It was useless to offer another card, so I mentioned it in a clear voice.

”An uncouth and almost unp.r.o.nounceable designation truly,” commented his Majesty to the Grand Chamberlain beside him. ”These savages speak strange languages, widely different from the flowing tongue of Memnon and Sesostris.”

The chamberlain bowed his a.s.sent with three low genuflexions. I began to feel a little abashed at these personal remarks, and I _almost_ think (though I shouldn't like it to be mentioned in the Temple) that a blush rose to my cheek.

The beautiful princess, who had been standing near me meanwhile in an att.i.tude of statuesque repose, now appeared anxious to change the current of the conversation. ”Dear father,” she said with a respectful inclination, ”surely the stranger, barbarian though he be, cannot relish such pointed allusions to his person and costume. We must let him feel the grace and delicacy of Egyptian refinement. Then he may perhaps carry back with him some faint echo of its cultured beauty to his northern wilds.”

”Nonsense, Hatasou,” replied Thothmes XXVII. testily. ”Savages have no feelings, and they are as incapable of appreciating Egyptian sensibility as the chattering crow is incapable of attaining the dignified reserve of the sacred crocodile.”

”Your Majesty is mistaken,” I said, recovering my self-possession gradually and realizing my position as a free-born Englishman before the court of a foreign despot--though I must allow that I felt rather less confident than usual, owing to the fact that we were not represented in the Pyramid by a British Consul--”I am an English tourist, a visitor from a modern land whose civilization far surpa.s.ses the rude culture of early Egypt; and I am accustomed to respectful treatment from all other nationalities, as becomes a citizen of the First Naval Power in the World.”

My answer created a profound impression. ”He has spoken to the Brother of the Sun,” cried Ombos in evident perturbation. ”He must be of the Blood Royal in his own tribe, or he would never have dared to do so!”

”Otherwise,” added a person whose dress I recognized as that of a priest, ”he must be offered up in expiation to Amon-Ra immediately.”