by John Burke
Down the ages there had been writings and poems and tales in Egypt of the legend of the brothers. Here, from their own time, were the pictures which told the story with a dramatic immediacy.
Be was jealous of his elder brother’s position and popularity. He jeered at Ra’s profound thinking and deep wisdom, and continually conspired to have him branded as a sorcerer. His circle of sycophants did all they could to aid him in this. In the end he was so successful that the ageing Rameses, in an effort to avoid a civil war, was forced to accept the insinuations of his worried advisers and banish his favorite son.
After months of wandering in the desert, Ra and a small band of faithful followers were befriended by an ancient nomadic people in the remote wastes of the Sahara. These wanderers never ventured to the fertile pastures of the Nile. They knew the oases of the deepest desert, and had hardened themselves to the rigorous life which they considered preferable to subservience to an autocratic Pharaoh.
As time passed the respect of the nomads for Ra grew. They realized that they had a prince in their midst. His philosophy became their philosophy. Noble in themselves, they recognized in him an even greater nobility. They asked him to become their king and rule over them.
At Ra’s coronation he was presented with the most precious object which the nomads possessed. They scorned all valuables save this one. It was a small medallion on which had been inscribed the sacred words of life, a secret which had been in their possession for centuries. It was said that in certain circumstances it had the power to confer immortality, but this power could only be invoked by one blessed by the gods with the awareness of it.
After years with these devoted followers, Ra made plans to return to his homeland so that he could set right the wrongs which had been done to him. He prayed to Bubastis, the powerful cat-headed immortal who would do all things for him. He asked for spiritual guidance and for the strength to use the secrets of the words of life wisely. He then turned towards his own land with the assurance that he would be able to accomplish his mission.
But Be had heard rumors of his brother’s plans on the desert wind. None of Ra’s followers had betrayed him: there were other nomads, less proud and less courageous, and their jealousy led them to give spiteful warning. Be sent assassins into the desert to find and kill Ra.
The most intricately designed panel on the gilded doors showed an interwoven turmoil of men stabbing and slaying. The stylized emotionless faces conveyed a greater terror than could have been achieved by would-be realistic expressions. Ra kneeled between two priests with his head bowed. The enemy pressed in from all sides, caught forever on the golden panel in the accursed motion of killing.
They showed no mercy. They killed nomads and priests alike, and at last they reached their main victim. They slew Ra, and as he lay dying they cut off his left hand on which he wore his rings of high birth. This hand they took back to Be as proof that their cruel work was done.
The burial of Ra Antef was a hurried and unworthy affair. But later, when close to death, Rameses sent for the body to be removed to a magnificent burial chamber and surrounded with all the splendors that were the due of a royal prince.
“And now the mummy has been disinterred once more,” said a voice close beside Annette.
She was transported from the past to the present. Adam Beauchamp stood on her left, scanning the story that unfolded on the magnificent doors.
“Annette . . . !”
It was John calling. She indicated that Adam should come with her, and together they made their way round the screen formed by the doors. The coffin was in position now, raised so that the wooden head stared out at the audience, its expression one of sorrow but the overall effect one of blazing majesty as a result of the inlays of glass paste and semi-precious stones.
Annette and Adam stopped before this splendid sight. The workmen who had been fussing around it were reduced to silence. Now that it was in place, the sarcophagus dominated not merely the dead relics all round it but the living beings who had brought it here.
“Well”—there was one voice that nothing could still—“what have you got to say about that, hey?”
“Most impressive.” Adam was lost in contemplation.
“We’ll have the whole of London filing through here,” said King jubilantly.
Adam emerged from his brief trance. “And will you open the coffin?”
“I sure will. Do you want to see what the act is?”
Before they could speak, King snapped his fingers in the air. Lights blazed and then went slowly green and sinister. In a curtained enclosure to one side, pipes and reeds began to play eastern music of dubious origin, interspersed with deep reverberations from a gong.
King snapped his fingers again and held out his hand. A girl handed him a knife. He went towards the mummy case and there was a metallic roar of thunder from an effects sheet behind the curtain.
Annette glanced disconsolately at Adam. His face was inscrutable. With his impeccable good taste he must have been disgusted by this barnstorming crudity; but he gave no sign.
“What’s ’appenin’, Bert?” came a whisper from behind.
“They’re openin’ that coffin.”
“Well, they can do without me.”
“Without me an’ all.”
The workmen withdrew into the shadows, away from the lurid lights and that dignified, implacable, royal head.
Alexander King bent towards the seal that was meant to protect the dead prince from all harm. He raised the knife. For a moment he hesitated, then turned to wink at John, Adam, and Annette as they watched him.
“Better rehearse it right the way through. Don’t want it to go wrong on the opening night.”
He cut the seal. Its two halves parted. King stood back and made a melodramatic gesture which summoned two Nubians from the shadows. They took hold of the lid and stepped back with it.
Inside lay the mummy, swathed in the bandages of his embalming. He was less impressive than the symbolic carving on the coffin lid—nothing but a white, featureless, dead thing in the middle of all this pomp and brilliance. But this very pomp was a testimony to what he had once been.
King struck the side of the coffin possessively. “He’s worth ten cents of anybody’s money!”
Adam remained silent, confronting the mummy as though waiting for some message from beyond the grave. The incongruous music went on, and the metal sheet roared a few more times.
Annette said: “Mr. King, you’re . . . incredible.”
“Well, some of us have got it, and the others ride home in a horse cart.”
Adam touched Annette’s arm. He turned away. She took it that he had had enough. He was a decisive man, wasting no time when he had seen or heard his fill. She moved away with him, then waved to John in the background.
“Coming back with us?”
“I’ve got some tidying up to do. I’ll join you later.”
With a twinge of guilt Annette realized that she was not displeased by this. She was glad that Adam had come when he did, and she was not going to ask whether his prime purpose had been to see the exhibition before it opened to the public or to fetch her.
They waited for some time in the expectation of John’s putting in an appearance, and then Adam ordered dinner to be served.
Annette had changed into a dress which she had not worn since leaving France. It was a simple, severely cut green velvet dress which her father had liked and which he fondly imagined was in the latest fashion. Annette had refrained from telling him that its main advantage was its practicality and the fact that it did not date too obviously—a very necessary factor, in view of their unsettled, peripatetic life. But it was true that she looked well in it, and she wanted to look well for Adam.
Its simplicity demanded some added ornament. The jewel which Adam had given her was far too striking. Something small and unpretentious, in a color that would not clash, was what she needed.
At the bottom of her case she found a small d
isc in a dull ochre hue like sullen gold. She had forgotten its existence since leaving Egypt. Or perhaps, to be frank with herself, she had deliberately buried it under her clothes and made herself repudiate it. It was another memory of her father. He had given it to her the day before he was killed. Neither of them could identify it—it was a humble trifle compared with the treasures they were busily excavating from the tomb—and Professor Dubois had not even got round to telling her its origin. He might have picked it up in a bazaar or among the innumerable shards and battered trinkets which were so easily turned up on the approaches to the Valley of the Kings. Now Annette found that, hung on a chain round her neck so that it lay on the bosom of her dress, it was more striking than she had at first realized. It was far more effective against the green velvet than any brooch could have been.
It caught Adam’s attention at once. He put his hands on her arms and drew her close to him.
“This is new?”
“Or very old,” she said.
Then he kissed her bare shoulder so that she was not sure whether he was really interested in the medallion or had merely been using it as an excuse.
At dinner he mentioned it again, and she told him that her father had given it to her. It was a long time since she had spoken of her father. But now it all came out in a rush. The appearance of the grave treasures in their new setting, the dress, and the medallion—all brought back memories, and she found that in Adam’s company she was able to face up to them. He seemed to draw confidences from her by a gentle form of hypnotism. She found it easy to talk and easy to put everything that had happened into its true proportions.
She told Adam about her childhood and of how she had adored her father.
“But when my mother died, he went to Paris to lecture at the Museum of Egyptology. It was six years before I saw him again.”
“Why didn’t he take you with him?”
“I was a great disappointment to him.”
Adam paused with his fork in mid-air. It stabbed an incredulous question at her.
“Why was that?”
“He always wanted a son.”
“What a very foolish man.”
Annette remembered the bitterness, the shame of rejection by the father she so longed to be near. She had been young and easily wounded. She could not understand; but she had tried to understand. And of one thing she had been determined: she would meet her father on his own ground and show herself worthy of him.
“I studied twice as hard as any son would have done,” she recalled. “I read everything he wrote and anything relating to his studies that I could get my hands on. In my circle it was regarded as being very unfeminine, but I persevered. By the time I went to Paris I could converse with him on his level.”
“He was surprised?”
At this point memory became a joy. This she would never forget. “He was delighted,” she said. “He insisted I should join him as his assistant.”
“So the story has a happy ending.”
“Until that night in the desert,” said Annette soberly.
Adam nodded. He did not speak again until coffee was served. Again he had fallen in with an uncanny responsiveness to her mood. She had wanted to talk of her father, to break the spell as it were; and now she wanted to think for a little while rather than talk, giving herself time to readjust. And Adam understood. Adam was as sensitive to the subtlest change as though he had been reading her mind.
When they were drinking a glass of brandy he looked across at her and said lightly, to free her from her reverie:
“A perfect distillation of the most admirable ingredients. Like the blend of beauty and intelligence in a woman.”
They moved away from the table and Annette sat down while Adam stood thoughtfully above her.
“But it often disturbs me,” he went on abruptly, “when women use their intelligence only for academic pursuits.”
She felt a stab of disappointment. It was unthinkable that he should be numbered among those who shook their heads over her and said that a woman’s place was in the home. Sadly she prompted him:
“You think we should sit in seclusion with our embroidery?”
Adam smiled. “You mistake me. I mean only that intelligence can be as gainfully employed in the home as in the academy. A man should ask not merely the obvious marital duties from his wife: he should be able to expect wit and intellect. She should have a grasp of his work, and at the same time keep her mind fresh by interests of her own. And, of course, the husband must respect these interests. They will be better companions that way—happier, more rewarding . . . and well rewarded.”
To hear her ideals put into words in this way was too much for Annette. She put her glass down on the low table beside her chair. There had been no hint of superiority in Adam’s voice: he had been talking, she realized, to an equal, and talking about a relationship that must be based on equality.
Sharply, as though seized by a desire to wreck what he had just done, he said:
“John understands this, I’m sure.”
“Not . . . not completely.”
“You must have talked this over. You work in the same field. It must mean a lot to you.”
“He’s prepared to allow me to continue my career when we are married.”
“You make it sound like a concession rather than a positive encouragement,” said Adam. He cupped the brandy glass in his hand and swirled the amber liquid gently. “But you will marry him?”
Annette heard herself say: “I’m not sure.” This was treachery and she was appalled by it, yet nothing could have held the words back. It was settled that she and John would marry. She had been sure until . . . until when? It was impossible now to look back and decide at what point she had become aware of the first doubts, the tentative sidestep which had led to this admission.
“Not sure?” said Adam. “Then I implore you to be certain before you go any farther. A wasted life is tragedy enough, but for someone like you to throw away the years on a compromise would be doubly tragic.”
“You’re very . . . disturbing, Adam.”
He said: “And you’re very beautiful, Annette.”
She waited for him to come towards her. When he did she knew she would be unable to resist him. Her world was spinning insanely, but she didn’t want it to stop.
6
John Bray crossed the hall and Jessop opened the sitting-room door for him. Adam and Annette turned to face him. They looked strangely frozen, like two actors interrupted in mid-sentence and waiting for a cue to set them off again. He paused, feeling that he did not belong here. Strictly speaking, neither he nor Annette belonged; yet she had the air of one who was settling down, accepting and being accepted.
He was too tired to sort this out. “I’m sorry I’m late,” he said, and thankfully accepted the glass which Adam put in his hand.
“Are you very tired?” asked his host solicitously. “Would you like to eat in your room? I’ll get Jessop to—”
“Thank you, I’ve eaten.” He remembered with distaste the sandwiches sent in to the tent while he and King added the finishing touches to the exhibition. They had not exactly satisfied his hunger but they had certainly taken away his appetite. “I’m afraid Mr. King’s New World charm is beginning to wear thin. If he continues to work me as hard as he is doing now, I’ll soon be as . . . well, as moribund as the mummy.”
He moved towards a chair facing Annette. On the way he stooped to kiss her. She sat quite rigid. Even through his weariness he began to feel the gnawing of suspicion. Adam Beauchamp was just too smooth; and was contriving to spend too much time with Annette; and was just too inexplicably lavish with his hospitality. John sensed that he was being edged out.
He looked accusingly at Annette. She lowered her eyes. The movement drew his attention to the small medallion which she wore around her neck.
He said: “What’s that? I don’t believe I’ve seen it before.”
Reluctantly Annette lifted it for him to se
e. John blinked. He had been concentrating so intently for the entire day that his vision was blurred. On the small surface of the medallion it was difficult to make out the design, which might be purely ornamental or an extremely fine-etched form of cuneiform writing. One thing was certain: this was an example of very ancient craftsmanship.
John looked past Annette to Adam. “Did he give it to you?”
“My father did,” she said, “the day before he died.”
Adam came closer and held out his hand. As though there were some rapport between them which did away with the need for words, Annette took the chain from round her neck and passed the medallion to him.
“Is it from the tomb?” asked John.
“Of course not.”
Her indignation was immediate and unforced. But he wondered how she could be so sure. It was strange that she should be in possession of something so unusual, passed to her by her father of all people.
He said: “It’s very odd. All discoveries made on the expedition should have been verified by—”
“John, you’re not suggesting my father would have—”
“It can’t be from the tomb,” Adam interrupted, turning the medallion over in his hand. “Both the stone and the hieroglyphs are at least two thousand years older than that. These are Early Old Kingdom.”
John bristled. He had had about enough of this languidly self-assured fellow, and now that they were on his own territory he proposed to put a stop to these pretensions.
“How would you know that?” he demanded.
“My interest in your work is not an entirely amateur one.”
“It’s the first time you’ve mentioned this.” John glanced scornfully at Annette, inviting her to share his scepticism. But she would not look up.
“I did not wish to be too brash on subjects which are so much more your province than mine,” said Adam. The tone was courteous and even deferential, but John would have sworn that there was an edge of irony to it. “My studies,” he added with a disparaging shrug, “were of an earlier period.” He held out the medallion to John.