CHAPTER XXI.

THE AWAKENING

Perhaps, in his heart of hearts, no one of the party--excepting

Danbazzar--had ever really counted on success. Certainly, in their

wildest imaginings, they had not schooled their minds to acceptance of

the miracle; had not realized what success would mean.

Slowly, and by different mental processes, realization came in turn to

John Cumberland and to Barry, as it had come, instantly,

insupportably, to the scientific mind of Professor Blackwell. A girl

who had lived during the reign of Seti I--a girl barely out of her

teens--was living now. She must be, according to ordinary human

computation, fully three thousand two hundred years old; but,

according to all the laws of modern physiology, she was still no more

than nineteen or twenty!

To the Professor, the problem presented was one of scientific faith.

Acceptance meant destruction of his life’s labour, the tearing up of

every textbook written on the subject; it assailed the very throne of

reason itself. Rejection, with Zalithea living, meant closing his eyes

to the truth. For a long time he remained alone in his tent and could

not be induced to see her.

John Cumberland’s problem was a legal one. To whom did Zalithea

belong? Since she antedated any government of which documentary trace

remained, surely not to the authorities at Cairo? The thought that a

false step might result in her loss was terrifying.

But, if these two found their ideas chaotic, how infinitely more so

were those of Barry. At one moment he was raised to a poetic heaven.

In the next he found himself plunged in an inferno of such torturing

doubts that he longed for the power to run away from himself.

Upon the realization of his shadowy ideal, the proof that the unknown

might become known, had followed, what? A knowledge that he must

either fly from Zalithea or learn to love her--and that she was, to

all intents and purposes, a supernatural being!

Such were the early reactions of these three to a phenomenon--and a

phenomenon in the form of an unusually lovely girl--which struck deep

at the roots of human credulity; which forced them to accept the

inacceptable, to remain sane though face to face with madness.

Danbazzar alone attacked the problem with confidence. A large Bell

tent was set up at the lower end of the _wâdi_, and furnished, though

simply, in Ancient Egyptian fashion. The necessary materials he had

brought with him and Hassan es-Sugra supervised the work. His

optimistic foresight had not stopped here. A messenger who had been

dispatched to Luxor at dawn returned before midday with an elderly

Arab woman.

“She has been standing by over a week,” said Danbazzar. “Hassan

engaged her. She’s a trained servant and was seven years in the harem

of the last Khedive. Remember!” he warned. “Hassan doesn’t know what

we found in the sarcophagus! Nobody outside of this party knows.

Zalithea is the sick daughter of a friend of mine in El Kasr who has

come down for treatment by Professor Blackwell. That’s the story, and

we’ve got to stick to it. The sarcophagus was empty.”

Accordingly Safîyeh was installed, with her few belongings, in the

new tent. A covered litter was extemporized and Hassan dispatched on a

mission to Kurna.

Danbazzar, following two hours of profound sleep, had become his

capable self again. Three visits he had made to the tomb, and reported

that Zalithea slumbered soundly. John Cumberland’s anxiety was

intense. He had urged the immediate removal of the girl from that

nearly unbreathable atmosphere but had been overruled.

“We’ll stick to the formula,” said Danbazzar truculently, “with or

without your permission. She has to stay there eight hours. After that

we have nothing to go upon.”

They carried the litter up to the tomb, setting it close to the

screen. Professor Blackwell mounted guard at the top of the valley and

Barry at the bottom. They wore their ordinary working kit; but John

Cumberland and Danbazzar had arranged to put on the Ancient Egyptian

dresses under cover of the screen before awakening the sleeper.

That Danbazzar could make himself understood in the long dead language

known to Zalithea had been already proved. It was one further item of

evidence showing his knowledge of Egyptology to be masterful.

“I know very few words,” he admitted, “and until to-day I couldn’t

tell if my pronunciation was understandable. Others have claimed to

know how to speak the language. But no living man for a thousand-odd

years back has been able to prove it! I shall have to try to talk to

her. She is sure to be frightened. I expect she’ll be as weak as a

kitten. And it’s going to be no easy job to carry her up past that

broken door.”

“Let me help!” said John Cumberland eagerly.

Danbazzar shook his head.

“Just stand by with the litter,” he directed. “The fewer strange faces

she sees the better. I can manage alone.”

But the wonder of Egypt’s sunset was stealing over the Valleys before

the litter was borne down the _wâdi_ to the tent and a slight,

muffled figure tenderly carried inside.

Barry was wild to see her. Danbazzar would not consent.

“She’s frightened to death,” he said, “poor little girl. When she saw

old Safîyeh she just fell into her arms and hid her face against

her.”

Professor Blackwell looked up. They were seated in the big tent.

“I have been endeavouring to do as you requested,” he said. “But to

prescribe any routine or diet for such a patient is quite beyond my

powers. I have somewhat recovered from the first shock, however, and I

am prepared to give her an examination at any time that may be

convenient.”

“When she has bathed and recovered from the journey,” Danbazzar

replied, “I should like you to see her. I think I have made her

understand that the High Priest is coming.”

“The High Priest!” exclaimed Professor Blackwell.

“Well, you must remember,” said Danbazzar, “the priests were the

doctors in her time. And I figured out that someone must have looked

her over on the other occasions.”

Professor Blackwell clutched his high brow.

“I was about to say something insane,” he murmured. “I was going to

ask if she seems to remember her last awakening. It suddenly occurred

to me that this took place roughly three thousand years ago!”

“Yet she _does_ seem to remember it,” Danbazzar declared.

“What!” cried John Cumberland. “You have gathered this?”

Danbazzar inclined his head in that graceful manner which was his.

“I’m not certain,” he confessed. “But I think so. I realize I only

know enough of her language to act as a link. From this we must build

up and teach her English as though she were a child. Her difficulties

are going to be worse than those of an ordinary foreigner. We shall

never be able to find any analogies! The objects, the customs--all are

different.”

Hassan es-Sugra, it appeared, had been prepared for the coming of the

mythical sheik’s daughter. He expressed no surprise on his return from

Kurna, nor did he inquire what had become of her escort.

He had been making certain mysterious arrangements for transporting

the tomb furniture to some place of safety. Work was to be resumed on

the shaft next morning, with the object of widening it sufficiently to

allow of the removal of the sarcophagus, and the unusual wall

paintings were to be photographed before the tomb was reclosed.

Meanwhile, Professor Blackwell had completed a professional

examination of his strange and beautiful patient. He returned to the

tent where the other members of the party awaited him, in an

indescribably puzzled frame of mind. Removing his skullcap, he lighted

a cigar and fortified himself with a peg of whisky from one of the

bottles buried in the sand.

“Amazing!” he declared; “quite, quite amazing! Her pulse, respiration,

and temperature are absolutely normal! Her flesh is firm and healthy.

Her hair is vigorous; her teeth are perfect. I could swear that her

nails were manicured yesterday!”

“They were last manicured around 1360 B.C.!” said Danbazzar.

“There is a small scar under the hair just above the right ear which

suggests that the theory--now generally accepted, I believe--that

surgery was practised by the ancients is not without foundation. She

is in extraordinarily good spirits. I twice caught her laughing at

me!”

No one seemed very surprised, but:

“What about diet?” asked John Cumberland. “Surely she should be

treated as an invalid?”

“Frankly,” the Professor returned, “I see no reason whatever to treat

her as an invalid. Apart from the fact that she seems to be rather

tired, I can detect no abnormal conditions of any kind. She addressed

me several times during the interview, but her remarks were naturally

unintelligible. They seemed to afford her considerable amusement,

nevertheless. And the old woman from Luxor must have gathered

something of their gist. She, also, appeared to be highly

entertained.”

“Safîyeh can’t possibly have understood one word,” said Danbazzar

quickly. “Arabic is the only language she speaks, except for a

smattering of English; and we have told her that Zalithea talks

Kabyle.”

“Which,” added John Cumberland, “judging from her style of beauty, she

certainly never did!”

“We’ll know one day!” said Danbazzar.

“You don’t think there’s any danger,” Barry broke in, “of--of----”

He fumbled for words, and:

“Of her crumbling to dust, or something of that sort?” the Professor

concluded for him. “Your frame of mind, Barry, is gradually beginning

to resemble my own! Frankly, I cannot answer your question. According

to my personal observation, the young lady is as healthy as she is

beautiful. According to my training and beliefs, she ought to have

been dead for three thousand-odd years!”

“What amazes me,” Barry declared, “is her cheerfulness! Just think.

Everyone she ever knew is long forgotten. She found herself in a tomb,

buried alive, this morning. Yet this evening you say she is laughing!”

“Her laughter may have been hysterical,” murmured the Professor,

pulling up his robe for greater comfort, and revealing the fact that

beneath he wore a pair of very soiled gray flannel trousers rolled up

some six inches above his sandals. “No doubt a visit from a High

Priest is somewhat awe-inspiring.”

At the end of further discussion, a dinner menu for Zalithea was

decided upon, and Mahmoud given the necessary orders. A new spirit of

restlessness had descended upon the party. If they had solved their

first great problem, another faced them.

Barry, having prepared for the evening meal, climbed the side of the

_wâdi_ to that spot from which on the night of their arrival he had

watched the sun setting. It was not so long ago. It seemed an age. He

knew that something had happened in the interval which marked the end

of one phase of his life, the beginning of another.

Now that he had actually seen Zalithea, that vague dread which had

sometimes troubled him when he had found himself thinking of the girl

on the balcony had gone. Yet, he asked himself to-night, did not his

recognition of this girl increase rather than solve the mystery?

Since it could not possibly have been Zalithea he had seen on that

balcony in New Jersey, then in the garden of Mr. Brown’s house, and

later on Fifth Avenue, it must have been her living double!--this or,

as others had suspected, a delusion. But why should he have suffered

this delusion, not once, but many times, immediately prior to the

night that the papyrus came into his father’s possession?

Surely he was justified in believing that only some form of telepathy

or clairvoyance could explain it… and that this explanation

presupposed a mysterious bond of sympathy between himself and the girl

he was destined to meet?

The Ancient Egyptians, he understood, believed in reincarnation. Since

their wisdom was so great in such matters, as the extended life of

Zalithea proved, quite possibly they were right. _She_ had slept,

miraculously, living on; but _he_ had died, in the ordinary way, and

was now reborn--in the ordinary way!

He recalled, was ever recalling, how she had looked at him in the

moment of opening her long, dark eyes. Death had effaced physical

memory in his own case; only subconscious memory remained. But

Zalithea, never having died, remembered! They had met before, in those

remote days--and she remembered him!

It was an idea that first delighted and then terrified Barry. He had

imagined, on that night in his father’s library, that the shadow of

Ancient Egypt was creeping out to touch him.

He had been right!

What this inexplicable discovery might mean to John Cumberland, to

Danbazzar, to Professor Blackwell, he could only dimly foresee. But

what did it mean to him?

This he could not foresee at all.

And then, as he began mechanically to climb down to the camp, the

sound of a distant voice reached his ears. It was a laughing voice…

and he knew that he had heard it before!