“Al Zameri!” ejaculated Au, who had moved some steps backward horrified.
“That is my name; credulity couples it with sin, greed, famine, war, inundations, hurricanes and pestilence. While thou art within the reach of my breath, warned by instinct, no man will do thee harm,” promised the wretched wanderer.
“Allah confound the devil!—Thou wouldst have perished in the flood if I had not rescued thee; there must be a hidden purpose in the accident of our meeting. Born a slave, destiny has given me the power to defy and defeat the Caliph of Islam. My sword has made me sole ruler over the empire on the banks of the Nile. In open battle I fear no foe; it is conspiracy and the assassin’s dagger that I am fleeing, and thy thwarting my pathway, or my thwarting thine, means something to me, Al Zameri. I am in the hand of Allah, the most merciful. —But speak, thou man of immortal woe, how didst thou provoke the anger of thy people’s God? Why was the golden idol fashioned? Why by thee? What has been thy experience since?—For few are the Prophet’s words in his reference to thy transgression in the Koran,” resumed Ali, making the best of his unique acquaintance.
“Sheykh el-Beled, thy kindness, not thy service, requires my acknowledgment. Thy succor was wasted on a man whom perdition would not have. For three thousand years death shuns me as ruthlessly as I long to hug it. My tale is a nightmare of three millenniums, taking me back to ancient Egypt, where I, a Hebrew, was born into abject slavery. My hot blood resented the taskmaster’s rod. In a moment of rage I struck back one of my tormentors, blow for blow, and was with other rebels doomed to dig in one of Pharaoh’s copper mines on the coast of Akabah in the valley of Semud. Here many of the Egyptian idols were fashioned, and here I learned the secret of the priests, who caused metallic forms to utter sound, to articulate oracular speech. Certain instruments were skilfully inserted into the interior of the idol, and the priest manipulated them to the great wonderment of the populace, who lay prostrate before their all-knowing, warning or blessing gods. The fraud was guarded by the loss of the tongue that betrayed it.
“I was young and strong when the joyous tidings penetrated our penal colony, that a man of God had afflicted Egypt with plague after plague, insisting that the Israelites be freed from bondage, and we soon read Egypt’s doom in the face of our taskmaster. We conspired, made a desperate break for liberty, and marked our track with the blood of those who offered resistance. Love for parents long missed impelled rue to disdain danger. Disguised as an Egyptian, I was determined to steal into the land of the Pharaohs, when one night my progress was stopped by a manifestation in the desert, which filled me with consternation. A pillar of lurid flame, having its base on earth, advanced eastward with a rotatory motion, its upper end obeying a force among the stars. It was a glowing meteor, enormous in volume, endless in height, and terrible to behold, setting earth and heaven on fire, and bathing the desert in fearful glory. As I hurried to get out of the pillar’s reach, lest I be consumed, I fell in with the vanguard of my liberated brethren in the rear of their fiery guide. What I saw and heard thrilled me with awe. A power greater than Osiris lowered Egypt to the dust, and that was the God of my people. My father was no more; I embraced my aged mother and one surviving sister, and we wept for joy.
“Before I had been an hour in the great camp, which extended over many miles, the cry ran from lip to lip, ‘We are pursued! The Egyptians are at our heels!’ Terror and confusion seized the enormous multitude, men, women and children acting like maniacs, while a throng of lusty fellows, myself among them, pressed on to see what the Man of God was going to do. We found him in company of Aaron and Hur, his countenance beaming, as though it had concentrated the blaze of the flaming pillar to reflect it in a milder beam. He was Moses, the son of Amram. In his hand a staff, his gray beard and curly locks setting off a face of manly firmness, tempered by feminine grace and a visionary dreaminess, his eyes turned fixedly where the top of the fire-pillar lost itself in azure. As if in compliance with his tacit prayer, the prodigious beam swerved from its forward course, wheeled backward to the right, and thus transferred its base from the front of the moving camp to its rear, interposing its volume between the pursuer and the pursued. It was the second watch of the night; we were within a short hour of the Yam-Mitzrayim, the Egyptian Sea,1 and a dense fog left us in doubt as to the distance of the enemy behind us. The suspense was unbearable, and Moses was besieged by the rebellious and the craven, who rent the air with reproaches and appeals. He spoke a few words of encouragement, asking the people to faithfully await the salvation of the Lord, but his voice was drowned in the vociferation of the threatening crowd.
“At a hint from Aaron five thousand armed men of the tribe of Levi threw themselves between the great leader and the clamoring mob. It was a critical moment. The undaunted chief spread out his hands in prayer.
“The third watch of the night came with a freezing gale; it raised the fog and revealed a sea lashed by the fury of the growing tempest. It was dawn when the leader, inspired from On High, struck the flood with his staff. The waters rose high, broke, scattered in dust, rose again, tumbled, divided up, and froze, leaving a broad highway dry as the shore. With his brother the leader entered the depth followed by the people, till the whole multitude found themselves between the icy wails, emerging on the opposite shore happy and jubilant.
“Just now the blush of morning in the east was eclipsed by a wave of effulgence west of the Sea of Egypt, and as we turned our eyes thither we were amazed to behold the burning pillar replaced by a sun-crowned power that illumined the heavens with his dazzling panoply and his sword of many flames. That presence sealed the doom of the Egyptians. In their impetuous onward rush they plunged into the jaws of death. The miraculous road was not meant to give them passage; and no sooner were they in the heart of the dry abyss than, by a touch of the leader’s staff, the frozen walls, melted by the sun-crowned power, gave way to the devouring sea, burying Egypt’s mighty army. The air shivered with the multitudinous shout of joy sent up by our myriads of grateful fugitives. Song, dance and praise commemorated the great event, to be shortly followed by one greater than anything I know of in the annals of man.
“Ah, let me come to the cause of my doom! What happened between the crossing of the Red Sea and the Day of Revelation is on record, but eternity will not efface the picture burned into my memory of what I have, thousands of years ago, witnessed in this wilderness of Zin.
“After a short encampment hereabout, the leader, he the chief of chiefs, made it known that in three days the Majesty Divine would reveal Himself and His truth on the top of Sinai, the interval to be spent in purifying preparations.
“As though all the earthquakes and thunders of the ages were to spend their furious energy within the space of one daybreak, a convulsed earth and a bursting firmament roused a terrified people from their sleep, summoning them to gather at the foot of the fire-belching, quaking, night-shrouded mountain, there to receive the first commandments of the Torah, the Law of the world. They obeyed the summons, but succumbed to the supernatural manifestations. Himself unseen, the voice of the leader was heard from the thick of the clouds, communing with Omnipotence, the blasts of mighty trumpets intermingling with the bellowing, rumbling and growling of the roused elements. Suddenly a profound silence superseded the universal agitation.
Clearly stood out the apex of the mountain, clear spread the horizon; and ear, heart and soul were entranced by the ineffable melody of utterance which came floating from the empyrean. Like the symphony of an angelic chorus, the Ten Commandments vibrated throughout the ethereal spaces, reclaiming the people from their torpor, to be overawed by a wonder exceeding anything they had yet seen. With a background of azure, and the three summits of the Sinaitic range as base, there spread in the clear infinite blue the likeness of inexpressible Majesty in the transcendental shape of a sovereign, crowned with supernal glory—compassion and benign grace radiating from His dimly discernible features; in His hand an open scroll, covering half the f
irmament, and showing the Decalogue in sunny splendor, each letter proving but the reflex of a yet grander copy visibly set in stars far back in the deepest heavens.
“A season of tumultuous rejoicing followed the closing of that soul-thrilling scene, and the emancipated slaves abandoned themselves to indulgences bordering on license. In the whirl of excitement nobody noticed the absence of the venerated prophet, who had not been seen nor heard from since the Day of Revelation, and his family and closest associates were as ignorant of his whereabouts as the rest of the people. But when a whole month had passed by without a token of the prophet’s being or doing, the craven-hearted mass took umbrage, fearing they had been deserted both by Moses and his God. Aaron was called upon to allay their apprehensions, but he proved unequal to the exigency. Pressed to supply them with a power to worship, and somebody to lead them, instead of bidding them to have patience and wait, in a moment of weakness he yielded, suggesting that all the golden ornaments of the women be delivered to him, that he might fashion for them a god. If the High-priest hoped that the women would not sacrifice their jewelry, he was soon undeceived. And I was at hand to lure him into the most heinous of human transgressions.
“Herein centres the enormity of my guilt. Aaron could have never fulfilled his promise had not an evil spirit prompted me to offer him my service in moulding for him a golden calf after the pattern of Egypt’s idolatry. Doubting my ability to materialize what I proposed, he gave his assent, and my experience in metal work enabled me to produce a golden calf with the trick of articulating words.
“When the people saw the image and heard it declare itself their god, they went wild with delight, Aaron himself catching the infection. An altar was built, a feast proclaimed, sacrifices offered, and the masses delivered themselves up to orgies.
“The riot of debauch was broken up by the unexpected arrival of the prophet. With his countenance shining like the sun, he rushed down from the mountain, dropped and shattered the tablets, which bore the Commandments he had received from the hand of God, and reduced the idol to powder which he scattered to the winds. Aaron exonerated himself by pointing to the madness of the people, and to me as the real culprit. —‘This Azazel has brought the great sin on the head of the people,’ cried he, his eye fixed in fierce hatred on my detested self. What could I advance in extenuation of my devilish authorship?
“Severe punishment was meted out. Four thousand prominent offenders fell under the sword, but I was singled out for a special fate as a warning to coming ages. ‘Al Zameri shall not die; Al Zameri shall henceforth wander like Cain, shunned, feared, cursed and hated; Al Zameri shall, at the lapse of a hundred years, revisit the scene of his crime, shall be restored to his present condition, and thus go on and on, until time shall wipe out the memory of his evil deed,’ was the verdict I heard. The prophet spoke it under the spell of inspiration, and I was set free.2
“And free I was, and free I am to roam forever like a mad beast, driven hither by the fury to be transformed at the appointed hour into the young man that I was when malicious folly stamped me as the outcast of the human race.
“That same hour! conceived an irrepressible impulse to seek the vast, the void, the desert, the jungle, the swamp—the unlighted cavern, the place of graves, the ruin—evading the blessed haunts of man, abhorring sunshine and courting darkness. Daylight blinds me as it does the owl; the sight of gold confounds, its touch burns me. The ferocious beast flees at my approach; the serpent hisses and writhes away. However teeming the region with animal life, however vocal with the song of bird, my passing turns it into a soundless, lifeless wild. I speed with the wind, sweep with the storm, welcome the lightning’s flare, the thunder’s growl, rage with the elements, curse with the fiends of black Abaddon. The tiger’s den is my shelter, my pillow a coil of venomous reptiles. I throw myself into the jaws of the lion, swallow the essence of poison—it does not avail me. Death is in league with all creation against me. If I try to end my misery by falling into a chasm, I am lighter than air. Water will not drown me, fire will not burn me, steel will cut my flesh but spares my life, and my dread is life—time—time, endless, hopeless, hateful years—decades, cycles, millenniums! Such is the sky-ruled destiny of Al Zameri!”
“Horrible is thy fate! Thine is hell on earth, O, son of guilt, who didst ingraft on the race an evil growth—the worship of gold! Ah, the glittering fetich! What crimes are not traceable to his glossy fascinations!—But the potency of prayer, the tear of remorse dear to Allah the most merciful, the King of the Day of Judgment, are they denied thee?” inquired Ali Bey.
“Prayer, prayer, mans s inward heaven, the unction of life, the solace of the soul— prayer, the heart-feeding stream, with God as its fountainhead and influx, swelled by springs unrevealed and currents vainly searched,” exclaimed Al Zameri, striking the palms of his hands together with a clap of pain;3 “prayer would just as readily commingle with my being as Eden’s blessed rivers with the flames of hell. What heaven and earth reveal of the wonderful and holy is deterring to me, whom neither the sublime nor the beautiful inspires, filled as I am with doubt as to whether there be mercy ample enough to cover my guilt.
“Yea, once—but once—long before the Orient felt the Roman’s iron grip, my lips, prompted by the whisper of a cherub, stammered prayer; and with that inspiration died my feeble hope, leaving a seething caldron in a heart of flint. Ah, from my gloom of hell I had a glimpse of paradise. Thou hast heard of Balbec’s ancient glories, of which her magnificent ruins tell; I saw her in her palmy days, a city of palaces for merchant princes to dwell in, the rival of Tyre, places the date of the crime that entailed perpetual punishment at some 1500 years earlier. To my mind it possesses much the greater psychological interest. The Koran says:
The roaming Al Zameri has in Oriental folklore a counterpart in the wandering Cain, who also is supposed to live forever.
Tadmor and Damascus. Perched on the side of the Anti-Libanus, high above the fertile plain of Sahlat-Ba’albec, and encircled by groves and gardens watered by the valley’s never-failing spring of Ra’as-el Ayr, Balbec gloried in rearing great monuments, while the temples dedicated to her gods stood among the marvels of the world. Whatever was precious, useful, or ornamental, was to be had in the bazaars of Balbec. Caravans carried invaluable treasures through her gates, and the royalties she levied enabled her to display a princely munificence in her domestic affairs. With Syria’s fluctuating fortunes, Balbec realized every change, but her deadliest enemy was the earthquake’s fearful visitation. Often did I wish to see creation sink in chaos, and myself engulfed in the universal wreckage; but my attempt to find death in one of Balbec’s catastrophes, instead of bringing deliverance, brought heaven within my touch, with redoubled anguish as the sequel. Satan has his sport with Al Zameri.
“My memory is aglow as I recall the day of lurid skies, an atmosphere saturated with oppressive vapors, an ominous fluttering of birds, and a spasmodic rumbling, as of explosions underground. Too familiar with the symptoms to misunderstand the nature of the impending disturbance, I was thankful to be near Balbec, in whose ruins I hoped to be buried. Quick as my limbs could carry me, I hurried to the doomed city, and entered it through one of her gates, which gave me a full view of her famous Great Temple. Terror distracted the multitude, who rushed about, tumbling one against the other, and bellowing like frightened cattle. Repeated shocks openedgaping crevices in the ground, swallowing houses and closing over man and brute. Down came monumental shafts of skilful workman ship; buildings of massive masonry were either lying in heaps, the graves of their inmates, or stood cracked, ready to tumble at the next upheaval. Death was lurking everywhere. Little affected by the wrecks around me, my only thought was to corner death where escape was wellnigh impossible, and I rushed up the grand flight of steps, which took me to the eastern portico of the stupendous edifice, landing me in a large, hexagonal space. It had the dimensions of a court—which it was not, but a vestibule with one main entrance and two side-
doors to the great court, a peristyle circumscribed by columns of artistic chiselling, back of which were numerous recesses adorned by statues of gods. With no one to question my intrusion into the sacred fane, I stood undetermined and purposeless, when a subterraneous force shook the rock-built foundation of the entablature, which descended with a crash, wrecking the fine statuary by the weight of the fragments. A scream of horror drew me irresistibly in the direction of the voice that uttered it, where, behind a pedestal, I saw a damsel stretched on the floor writhing in convulsions. Bending over the form and raising it from the ground, I held in my arms a being too perfect to be mortal, too substantial to be divine. She was unhurt, except for fright, and, bearing her to the open quadrangle of the peristyle, I seated myself on the floor, allowing her head and shoulders to rest on my lap. ‘Art thou the goddess to whom this temple is dedicated?‘ breathed I. In answer a pair of eyes opened wide, to my indescribable confusion, eyes that would tame the tiger and charm the hydra; but they soon closed again.
“Sheykh, I have seen Sisygambis, Persia’s imperial mistress, the dame of Darius, her cheek shaming the jewelled tiara meant to grace majesty. On the tide of the Cydnus, on a galley, carved, gilded, and inlaid with ivory, gliding to the rhythmic stroke of polished oars, under sails of silk, I saw Cleopatra reclining on the deck, in the shade of a star-spangled canopy, arrayed as Venus, in the midst of voluptuous music, with her women dressed as nymphs, and little boys as Cupids; she moved me no more than did a scone of others famed for beauty in their time. But stirred and stricken was I by the matchless damsel chance had thrown in my way, and there I sat intoxicated by a quaff from some heavenly spring thitherto unknown to me. ‘If thou went mine, eternity! what would it matter to me whether the heavens favor me or curse?’ muttered I half audibly.
The Mummy Megapack Page 24