Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales - Henry Rider Haggard
SMITH AND THE PHARAOHS AND OTHER TALES
By H. Rider Haggard
Contents:
Smith And The Pharaohs
Magepa The Buck
The Blue Curtains
Little Flower
Only A Dream
Barbara Who Came Back
SMITH AND THE PHARAOHS
I
Scientists, or some scientists--for occasionally one learned person
differs from other learned persons--tell us they know all that is worth
knowing about man, which statement, of course, includes woman. They
trace him from his remotest origin; they show us how his bones changed
and his shape modified, also how, under the influence of his needs and
passions, his intelligence developed from something very humble.
They demonstrate conclusively that there is nothing in man which the
dissecting-table will not explain; that his aspirations towards another
life have their root in the fear of death, or, say others of them, in
that of earthquake or thunder; that his affinities with the past are
merely inherited from remote ancestors who lived in that past, perhaps a
million years ago; and that everything noble about him is but the fruit
of expediency or of a veneer of civilisation, while everything base must
be attributed to the instincts of his dominant and primeval nature. Man,
in short, is an animal who, like every other animal, is finally subdued
by his environment and takes his colour from his surroundings, as cattle
do from the red soil of Devon. Such are the facts, they (or some of
them) declare; all the rest is rubbish.
At times we are inclined to agree with these sages, especially after it
has been our privilege to attend a course of lectures by one of them.
Then perhaps something comes within the range of our experience which
gives us pause and causes doubts, the old divine doubts, to arise again
deep in our hearts, and with them a yet diviner hope.
Perchance when all is said, so we think to ourselves, man _is_ something
more than an animal. Perchance he has known the past, the far past, and
will know the future, the far, far future. Perchance the dream is true,
and he does indeed possess what for convenience is called an immortal
soul, that may manifest itself in one shape or another; that may sleep
for ages, but, waking or sleeping, still remains itself, indestructible
as the matter of the Universe.
An incident in the career of Mr. James Ebenezer Smith might well
occasion such reflections, were any acquainted with its details, which
until this, its setting forth, was not the case. Mr. Smith is a person
who knows when to be silent. Still, undoubtedly it gave cause for
thought to one individual--namely, to him to whom it happened. Indeed,
James Ebenezer Smith is still thinking over it, thinking very hard
indeed.
J. E. Smith was well born and well educated. When he was a good-looking
and able young man at college, but before he had taken his degree,
trouble came to him, the particulars of which do not matter, and he was
thrown penniless, also friendless, upon the rocky bosom of the world.
No, not quite friendless, for he had a godfather, a gentleman connected
with business whose Christian name was Ebenezer. To him, as a last
resource, Smith went, feeling that Ebenezer owed him something in return
for the awful appellation wherewith he had been endowed in baptism.
To a certain extent Ebenezer recognised the obligation. He did nothing
heroic, but he found his godson a clerkship in a bank of which he was
one of the directors--a modest clerkship, no more. Also, when he died a
year later, he left him a hundred pounds to be spent upon some souvenir.
Smith, being of a practical turn of mind, instead of adorning himself
with memorial jewellery for which he had no use, invested the hundred
pounds in an exceedingly promising speculation. As it happened, he was
not misinformed, and his talent returned to him multiplied by ten. He
repeated the experiment, and, being in a position to know what he was
doing, with considerable success. By the time that he was thirty he
found himself possessed of a fortune of something over twenty-five
thousand pounds. Then (and this shows the wise and practical nature of
the man) he stopped speculating and put out his money in such a fashion
that it brought him a safe and clear four per cent.
By this time Smith, being an excellent man of business, was well up in
the service of his bank--as yet only a clerk, it is true, but one who
drew his four hundred pounds a year, with prospects. In short, he was in
a position to marry had he wished to do so. As it happened, he did not
wish--perhaps because, being very friendless, no lady who attracted him
crossed his path; perhaps for other reasons.
Shy and reserved in temperament, he confided only in himself. None, not
even his superiors at the bank or the Board of Management, knew how
well off he had become. No one visited him at the flat which he was
understood to occupy somewhere in the neighbourhood of Putney; he
belonged to no club, and possessed not a single intimate. The blow which
the world had dealt him in his early days, the harsh repulses and the
rough treatment he had then experienced, sank so deep into his sensitive
soul that never again did he seek close converse with his kind. In fact,
while still young, he fell into a condition of old-bachelorhood of a
refined type.
Soon, however, Smith discovered--it was after he had given up
speculating--that a man must have something to occupy his mind. He tried
philanthropy, but found himself too sensitive for a business which
so often resolves itself into rude inquiry as to the affairs of other
people. After a struggle, therefore, he compromised with his conscience
by setting aside a liberal portion of his income for anonymous
distribution among deserving persons and objects.
While still in this vacant frame of mind Smith chanced one day, when the
bank was closed, to drift into the British Museum, more to escape the
vile weather that prevailed without than for any other reason. Wandering
hither and thither at hazard, he found himself in the great gallery
devoted to Egyptian stone objects and sculpture. The place bewildered
him somewhat, for he knew nothing of Egyptology; indeed, there remained
upon his mind only a sense of wonderment not unmixed with awe. It must
have been a great people, he thought to himself, that executed these
works, and with the thought came a desire to know more about them. Yet
he was going away when suddenly his eye fell on the sculptured head of a
woman which hung upon the wall.
Smith looked at it once, twice, thrice, and at the third look he fell in
love. Needless to say, he was not aware that such was his condition.
He knew only that a change had come over him, and never, never could
he forget the face which that carven mask portrayed. Perhaps it was not
really beautiful save for its wondrous and mystic smile; perhaps the
lips were too thick and the nostrils too broad. Yet to him that face
was Beauty itself, beauty which drew him as with a cart-rope, and awoke
within him all kinds of wonderful imaginings, some of them so strange
and tender that almost they partook of the nature of memories. He stared
at the image, and the image smiled back sweetly at him, as doubtless it,
or rather its original--for this was but a plaster cast--had smiled at
nothingness in some tomb or hiding-hole for over thirty centuries, and
as the woman whose likeness it was had once smiled upon the world.
A short, stout gentleman bustled up and, in tones of authority,
addressed some workmen who were arranging a base for a neighbouring
statue. It occurred to Smith that he must be someone who knew about
these objects. Overcoming his natural diffidence with an effort, he
raised his hat and asked the gentleman if he could tell him who was the
original of the mask.
The official--who, in fact, was a very great man in the Museum--glanced
at Smith shrewdly, and, seeing that his interest was genuine, answered--
"I don't know. Nobody knows. She has been given several names, but none
of them have authority. Perhaps one day the rest of the statue may
be found, and then we shall learn--that is, if it is inscribed. Most
likely, however, it has been burnt for lime long ago."
"Then you can't tell me anything about her?" said Smith.
"Well, only a little. To begin with, that's a cast. The original is in
the Cairo Museum. Mariette found it, I believe at Karnac, and gave it
a name after his fashion. Probably she was a queen--of the eighteenth
dynasty, by the work. But you can see her rank for yourself from the
broken _uraeus_." (Smith did not stop him to explain that he had not
the faintest idea what a _uraeus_ might be, seeing that he was utterly
unfamiliar with the snake-headed crest of Egyptian royalty.) "You should
go to Egypt and study the head for yourself. It is one of the most
beautiful things that ever was found. Well, I must be off. Good day."
And he bustled down the long gallery.
Smith found his way upstairs and looked at mummies and other things.
Somehow it hurt him to reflect that the owner of yonder sweet, alluring
face must have become a mummy long, long before the Christian era.
Mummies did not strike him as attractive.
He returned to the statuary and stared at his plaster cast till one of
the workmen remarked to his fellow that if he were the gent he'd go and
look at "a live'un" for a change.
Then Smith retired abashed.
On his way home he called at his bookseller's and ordered "all the
best works on Egyptology". When, a day or two later, they arrived in
a packing-case, together with a bill for thirty-eight pounds, he was
somewhat dismayed. Still, he tackled those books like a man, and, being
clever and industrious, within three months had a fair working knowledge
of the subject, and had even picked up a smattering of hieroglyphics.
In January--that was, at the end of those three months--Smith astonished
his Board of Directors by applying for ten weeks' leave, he who had
hitherto been content with a fortnight in the year. When questioned he
explained that he had been suffering from bronchitis, and was advised to
take a change in Egypt.
"A very good idea," said the manager; "but I'm afraid you'll find it
expensive. They fleece one in Egypt."
"I know," answered Smith; "but I've saved a little and have only myself
to spend it upon."
So Smith went to Egypt and saw the original of the beauteous head and
a thousand other fascinating things. Indeed, he did more. Attaching
himself to some excavators who were glad of his intelligent assistance,
he actually dug for a month in the neighbourhood of ancient Thebes, but
without finding anything in particular.
It was not till two years later that he made his great discovery, that
which is known as Smith's Tomb. Here it may be explained that the state
of his health had become such as to necessitate an annual visit to
Egypt, or so his superiors understood.
However, as he asked for no summer holiday, and was always ready to do
another man's work or to stop overtime, he found it easy to arrange for
these winter excursions.
On this, his third visit to Egypt, Smith obtained from the
Director-General of Antiquities at Cairo a licence to dig upon his
own account. Being already well known in the country as a skilled
Egyptologist, this was granted upon the usual terms--namely, that the
Department of Antiquities should have a right to take any of the objects
which might be found, or all of them, if it so desired.
Such preliminary matters having been arranged by correspondence, Smith,
after a few days spent in the Museum at Cairo, took the night train
to Luxor, where he found his head-man, an ex-dragoman named Mahomet,
waiting for him and his fellaheen labourers already hired. There were
but forty of them, for his was a comparatively small venture. Three
hundred pounds was the amount that he had made up his mind to expend,
and such a sum does not go far in excavations.
During his visit of the previous year Smith had marked the place where
he meant to dig. It was in the cemetery of old Thebes, at the wild spot
not far from the temple of Medinet Habu, that is known as the Valley of
the Queens. Here, separated from the resting-places of their royal lords
by the bold mass of the intervening hill, some of the greatest ladies of
Egypt have been laid to rest, and it was their tombs that Smith desired
to investigate. As he knew well, some of these must yet remain to be
discovered. Who could say? Fortune favours the bold. It might be that he
would find the holy grave of that beauteous, unknown Royalty whose face
had haunted him for three long years!
For a whole month he dug without the slightest success. The spot that
he selected had proved, indeed, to be the mouth of a tomb. After
twenty-five days of laborious exploration it was at length cleared out,
and he stood in a rude, unfinished cave. The queen for whom it had been
designed must have died quite young and been buried elsewhere; or she
had chosen herself another sepulchre, or mayhap the rock had proved
unsuitable for sculpture.
Smith shrugged his shoulders and moved on, sinking trial pits and
trenches here and there, but still finding nothing. Two-thirds of his
time and money had been spent when at last the luck turned. One day,
towards evening, with some half-dozen of his best men he was returning
after a fruitless morning of labour, when something seemed to attract
him towards a little _wadi_, or bay, in the hillside that was filled
with tumbled rocks and sand. There were scores of such places, and this
one looked no more promising than any of the others had proved to be.
Yet it attracted him. Thoroughly dispirited, he walked past it twenty
paces or more, then turned.
"Where go you, sah?" asked his head-man, Mahomet.
He pointed to the recess in the cliff.
"No good, sah," said Mahomet. "No tomb there. Bed-rock too near top. Too
much water run in there; dead queen like keep dry!"
But Smith went on, and the others followed obediently.
He walked down the little slope of sand and boulders and examined the
cliff. It was virgin rock; never a tool mark was to be seen. Already the
men were going, when the same strange instinct which had drawn him to
the spot caused him to take a spade from one of them and begin to shovel
away the sand from the face of the cliff--for here, for some unexplained
reason, were no boulders or _debris_. Seeing their master, to whom they
were attached, at work, they began to work too, and for twenty minutes
or more dug on cheerfully enough, just to humour him, since all were
sure that here there was no tomb. At length Smith ordered them to
desist, for, although now they were six feet down, the rock remained of
the same virgin character.
With an exclamation of disgust he threw out a last shovelful of sand.
The edge of his spade struck on something that projected. He cleared
away a little more sand, and there appeared a rounded ledge which seemed
to be a cornice. Calling back the men, he pointed to it, and without a
word all of them began to dig again. Five minutes more of work made it
clear that it was a cornice, and half an hour later there appeared the
top of the doorway of a tomb.
"Old people wall him up," said Mahomet, pointing to the flat stones set
in mud for mortar with which the doorway had been closed, and to the
undecipherable impress upon the mud of the scarab seals of the officials
whose duty it had been to close the last resting-place of the royal dead
for ever.
"Perhaps queen all right inside," he went on, receiving no answer to his
remark.
"Perhaps," replied Smith, briefly. "Dig, man, dig! Don't waste time in
talking."
So they dug on furiously till at length Smith saw something which caused
him to groan aloud. There was a hole in the masonry--the tomb had been
broken into. Mahomet saw it too, and examined the top of the aperture
with his skilled eye.
"Very old thief," he said. "Look, he try build up wall again, but run
away before he have time finish." And he pointed to certain flat stones
which had been roughly and hurriedly replaced.
"Dig--dig!" said Smith.
Ten minutes more and the aperture was cleared. It was only just big
enough to admit the body of a man.
By now the sun was setting. Swiftly, swiftly it seemed to tumble down
the sky. One minute it was above the rough crests of the western hills
behind them; the next, a great ball of glowing fire, it rested on their
topmost ridge. Then it was gone. For an instant a kind of green spark
shone where it had been. This too went out, and the sudden Egyptian
night was upon them.
The fellaheen muttered among themselves, and one or two of them wandered
off on some pretext. The rest threw down their tools and looked at
Smith. "Men say they no like stop here. They afraid of ghost! Too
many _afreet_ live in these tomb. That what they say. Come back finish
to-morrow morning when it light. Very foolish people, these common
fellaheen," remarked Mahomet, in a superior tone.
"Quite so," replied Smith, who knew well that nothing that he could
offer would tempt his men to go on with the opening of a tomb after
sunset. "Let them go away. You and I will stop and watch the place till
morning."
"Sorry, sah," said Mahomet, "but I not feel quite well inside; think I
got fever. I go to camp and lie down and pray under plenty blanket."
"All right, go," said Smith; "but if there is anyone who is not a
coward, let him bring me my big coat, something to eat and drink, and
the lantern that hangs in my tent. I will meet him there in the valley."
Mahomet, though rather doubtfully, promised that this should be done,
and, after begging Smith to accompany them, lest the spirit of whoever
slept in the tomb should work him a mischief during the night, they
departed quickly enough.
Smith lit his pipe, sat down on the sand, and waited. Half an hour later
he heard a sound of singing, and through the darkness, which was dense,
saw lights coming up the valley.
"My brave men," he thought to himself, and scrambled up the slope to
meet them.
He was right. These were his men, no less than twenty of them, for with
a fewer number they did not dare to face the ghosts which they believed
haunted the valley after nightfall. Presently the light from the lantern
which one of them carried (not Mahomet, whose sickness had increased too
suddenly to enable him to come) fell upon the tall form of Smith, who,
dressed in his white working clothes, was leaning against a rock. Down
went the lantern, and with a howl of terror the brave company turned and
fled.
"Sons of cowards!" roared Smith after them, in his most vigorous Arabic.
"It is I, your master, not an _afreet_."
They heard, and by degrees crept back again. Then he perceived that in
order to account for their number each of them carried some article.
Thus one had the bread, another the lantern, another a tin of sardines,
another the sardine-opener, another a box of matches, another a bottle
of beer, and so on. As even thus there were not enough things to go
round, two of them bore his big coat between them, the first holding it
by the sleeves and the second by the tail as though it were a stretcher.
"Put them down," said Smith, and they obeyed. "Now," he added, "run for
your lives; I thought I heard two _afreets_ talking up there just now
of what they would do to any followers of the Prophet who mocked their
gods, if perchance they should meet them in their holy place at night."
This kindly counsel was accepted with much eagerness. In another minute
Smith was alone with the stars and the dying desert wind.
Collecting his goods, or as many of them as he wanted, he thrust them
into the pockets of the great-coat and returned to the mouth of the
tomb. Here he made his simple meal by the light of the lantern, and
afterwards tried to go to sleep. But sleep he could not. Something
always woke him. First it was a jackal howling amongst the rocks; next
a sand-fly bit him in the ankle so sharply that he thought he must have
been stung by a scorpion. Then, notwithstanding his warm coat, the
cold got hold of him, for the clothes beneath were wet through with
perspiration, and it occurred to him that unless he did something he
would probably contract an internal chill or perhaps fever. He rose and
walked about.
By now the moon was up, revealing all the sad, wild scene in its every
detail. The mystery of Egypt entered his soul and oppressed him. How
much dead majesty lay in the hill upon which he stood? Were they all
really dead, he wondered, or were those fellaheen right? Did their
spirits still come forth at night and wander through the land where once
they ruled? Of course that was the Egyptian faith according to which
the _Ka_, or Double, eternally haunted the place where its earthly
counterpart had been laid to rest. When one came to think of it, beneath
a mass of unintelligible symbolism there was much in the Egyptian faith
which it was hard for a Christian to disbelieve. Salvation through a
Redeemer, for instance, and the resurrection of the body. Had he, Smith,
not already written a treatise upon these points of similarity which he
proposed to publish one day, not under his own name? Well, he would not
think of them now; the occasion seemed scarcely fitting--they came home
too pointedly to one who was engaged in violating a tomb.
His mind, or rather his imagination--of which he had plenty--went off at
a tangent. What sights had this place seen thousands of years ago! Once,
thousands of years ago, a procession had wound up along the roadway
which was doubtless buried beneath the sand whereon he stood towards
the dark door of this sepulchre. He could see it as it passed in and
out between the rocks. The priests, shaven-headed and robed in leopards'
skins, or some of them in pure white, bearing the mystic symbols of
their office. The funeral sledge drawn by oxen, and on it the great
rectangular case that contained the outer and the inner coffins, and
within them the mummy of some departed Majesty; in the Egyptian formula,
"the hawk that had spread its wings and flown into the bosom of
Osiris," God of Death. Behind, the mourners, rending the air with their
lamentations. Then those who bore the funeral furniture and offerings.
Then the high officers of State and the first priests of Amen and of
the other gods. Then the sister queens, leading by the hand a wondering
child or two. Then the sons of Pharaoh, young men carrying the emblems
of their rank.
Lastly, walking alone, Pharaoh himself in his ceremonial robes, his
apron, his double crown of linen surmounted by the golden snake, his
inlaid bracelets and his heavy, tinkling earrings. Pharaoh, his head
bowed, his feet travelling wearily, and in his heart--what thoughts?
Sorrow, perhaps, for her who had departed. Yet he had other queens and
fair women without count. Doubtless she was sweet and beautiful, but
sweetness and beauty were not given to her alone. Moreover, was she not
wont to cross his will and to question his divinity? No, surely it
is not only of her that he thinks, her for whom he had prepared this
splendid tomb with all things needful to unite her with the gods. Surely
he thinks also of himself and that other tomb on the farther side of the
hill whereat the artists labour day by day--yes, and have laboured these
many years; that tomb to which before so very long he too must travel in
just this fashion, to seek his place beyond the doors of Death, who lays
his equal hand on king and queen and slave.
The vision passed. It was so real that Smith thought he must have been
dreaming. Well, he was awake now, and colder than ever. Moreover, the
jackals had multiplied. There were a whole pack of them, and not far
away. Look! One crossed in the ring of the lamplight, a slinking, yellow
beast that smelt the remains of dinner. Or perhaps it smelt himself.
Moreover, there were bad characters who haunted these mountains, and he
was alone and quite unarmed. Perhaps he ought to put out the light which
advertised his whereabouts. It would be wise, and yet in this particular
he rejected wisdom. After all, the light was some company.
Since sleep seemed to be out of the question, he fell back upon poor
humanity's other anodyne, work, which has the incidental advantage of
generating warmth. Seizing a shovel, he began to dig at the doorway of
the tomb, whilst the jackals howled louder than ever in astonishment.
They were not used to such a sight. For thousands of years, as the old
moon above could have told, no man, or at least no solitary man, had
dared to rob tombs at such an unnatural hour.
When Smith had been digging for about twenty minutes something tinkled
on his shovel with a noise which sounded loud in that silence.
"A stone which may come in handy for the jackals," he thought to
himself, shaking the sand slowly off the spade until it appeared. There
it was, and not large enough to be of much service. Still, he picked it
up, and rubbed it in his hands to clear off the encrusting dirt. When he
opened them he saw that it was no stone, but a bronze.