CHAPTER XXII.

A SUMMONS FROM THE PRINCESS

“I have reached a decision,” declared Professor Blackwell, “upon a

point that has been worrying me.”

Dinner dispatched, they sat around the table in council, pipes and

cigars going. Safîyeh had reported that her charge had found the

soup, the fried chicken, the Château y’Quem--of which they had only

three bottles--and the peaches entirely to her satisfaction.

“What point?” asked John Cumberland.

“Distinctly,” the Professor resumed, “distinctly she is the property

of the Department of Antiquities.”

“What’s that!” cried Barry. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“He’s talking sense,” Danbazzar’s deep voice broke in. “There are no

two ways about it. She is.”

“Are you all mad?” said Barry. “You behave as though the Department of

Antiquities were an orphanage!”

“Or a harem agency,” prompted the Professor. “Yet the fact remains

that they and no one else have a legal claim upon her person. We are

no more entitled to remove her from the country, alive, than we should

have been entitled to do so had we found her in what I may term a

normal state. I mean dead. She is as much the property of the

Department as the sarcophagus she lay in.”

“I must agree with you,” John Cumberland admitted. “Our difficulties

are enormous. The more I think about them the bigger they get. For

instance--since none of us dare testify that he was present at the

discovery, how can we ever give an account of it to the world?”

“We can’t!” said the Professor. “Distinctly and definitely, I for one

should not consent under any circumstances to lend my name to a

statement on the subject. In the first place, assuming I were safely

out of the country before the issue of such a report, criminal

proceedings would undoubtedly be taken by the Egyptian government!

This applies to all of us!”

Some moments of uncomfortable silence followed, then:

“The fact is,” Danbazzar stated, “the greatest find in Egyptology

since the game began has got to blush unseen. I hadn’t thought of it.

I’ll say so honestly. None of us had thought of it. But there it is

all the same. The testimony of this bunch would carry a lot of weight

in America. I don’t say we’d go unchallenged. But we’d be taken

seriously. We’re not going to get the chance. We started working in

the dark. We’ve got to go on that way.”

“I wish, now,” said John Cumberland regretfully, “that I had curbed my

impatience and formally applied for a permit to excavate.”

“You’d never have got it!” Danbazzar assured him. “You might as well

apply for a pass-out check to heaven! And once you’d applied and been

turned down, to come here as we’ve done would have been to ask for

trouble. No, sir, I’d worked on it from that angle before I put up my

proposition.”

“Then where do we stand?” cried Barry in bewilderment. “What have we

gained if our discoveries can’t be published?”

Danbazzar regarded him fixedly across the table.

“We have gained knowledge,” he replied, “that has been lost for

thousands of years. With what we know, and what Zalithea can tell us

when we teach her English, we’re going to revolutionize archæology,

physiology, and psychology--to say nothing of chemistry!”

“It appears to me,” murmured Professor Blackwell, “that this tent

contains the nucleus of a sort of New Rosicrucian order. We are bound

together by a living secret which none of us dare divulge. Our present

access of knowledge is very great. What we shall learn in the future

from this phenomenal girl is also sure to be valuable. But of what use

any of it is going to be to the world during our lifetime I confess I

fail to see.”

Evidently nobody was very clear on the point, for not a suggestion was

forthcoming; but:

“In one sense,” said John Cumberland, “our course is unavoidable. We

are committed to go on. Until we have got clear and reclosed the tomb,

we aren’t safe! Personally, I’m satisfied. Our very highest hopes have

been realized. We have triumphed! That’s good enough for me. Let the

future take care of itself. My present big worry is the girl.”

“Explain what you mean, Dad,” said Barry.

“I will,” his father agreed. “In the first place, as soon as we can

make her understand how much the world has changed, we have got to get

over to Luxor. Difficulty number one: How do we explain her to the

folks in Luxor? Assuming we manage this and arrive in Cairo, how in

the name of Mike do we get her a passport that will be accepted in New

York?”

“Passport?” murmured the Professor. “Quite--quite. The point had not

occurred to me. Of course, a certain difficulty is bound to arise in

regard to a minor whose legal guardians have been dead for three

thousand years.” He scratched his head furiously. “There are times

when I doubt my own sanity,” he declared.

Danbazzar flicked a cone of ash from his cigar. In the lamplight a

queer green spark moved on the face of the scarab in his ring.

“Leave the story to me,” he said. “The stuff, I can get away. It’s

part of my business. The girl we’ll smuggle out nearly as easily.

We’ve got to lie like bond salesmen, but we’ll get her away.”

“Fried chicken,” murmured the Professor.

“What’s that, Blackwell?” John Cumberland asked.

“I was reflecting,” the Professor explained, “upon the fact that a

princess who doubtless has dined in the palace of the Pharaoh Seti I

this evening partook of soup canned in Pittsburgh. I think I shall go

to bed.”

He was as good as his word, departing almost immediately. Danbazzar

set out to learn if the two guards posted in the valley were on the

alert, and Barry and his father were left alone. Hassan es-Sugra, that

unfathomable man, was sleeping in the entrance to the tomb to insure

against pilfering.

As the sound of Danbazzar’s receding footsteps died away in the

_wâdi_:

“You haven’t said much, Barry,” John Cumberland remarked, after an

interval during which he had been closely watching his son; “but I

think you have quite a lot to say all the same.”

Barry started, looking up. Then he began to knock out his pipe on the

heel of his shoe.

“You mean, about--Zalithea?”

John Cumberland nodded.

“Well--I have!” Barry admitted. “She is the girl I saw twice in New

Jersey and twice in New York!”

“I knew it!” said John Cumberland. “I didn’t speak, when I saw it

first. I was waiting. Now that we have actually found her, alive, it’s

a different matter. Barry--I think I can explain the whole thing.”

“Then go ahead, Dad!” Barry invited.

“We have proof--living proof--that the Ancient Egyptians knew more

than _we_ know. If they were wiser in one respect, it’s only

reasonable to suppose they were wiser in others. Now, here’s what I

believe: you didn’t see Zalithea in America. You had _prevision_ of

her! Danbazzar spoke of what we know, upsetting physiology and

psychology. It’s going to upset religion as well. I believe you had an

incarnation in Egypt at the time of Seti I, and I believe Zalithea

remembers you!”

Barry started up excitedly.

“Why,” he exclaimed, “I had come to just that conclusion only

to-night! It’s unavoidable, Dad! There’s no other explanation.”

They discussed the problem at some length, with the result that they

agreed upon the main issue while differing about minor points.

“Poor humanity’s unanswerable question--the destiny of the soul--has

been answered for _us!_” said John Cumberland. “I’m dazzled, Barry, by

the magnificence of all these revelations. We have learned something,

or are on the verge of learning it, which has taxed the greatest

intellects in history.”

When finally John Cumberland turned in, Danbazzar had not come back

from his tour of inspection. Barry, feverishly restless, lighted a

fresh pipe and strolled out into the _wâdi_.

The night was very dark. Leaving the door of the tent, he walked into

a wall of shadow, until, around a natural buttress, he saw a patch of

light upon the sand ahead. It came from the entrance of Zalithea’s

tent. Danbazzar was just coming out. He wore the priest’s robe and

linen skullcap. Barry paused: and in the next moment Danbazzar saw

him.

“I was coming to get you,” he called.

“Why? Is there anything wrong?”

Danbazzar joined him.

“No,” he replied. “But old Safîyeh was hanging around to speak to me.

She caught me on my way back. Come along and get into a robe.”

“What!” Barry exclaimed. “Why?”

“Because Princess Zalithea wants to see you!”

Barry pulled up dead in his tracks. His heart began thumping.

“How do you know?” he demanded. “I mean, how did she make you

understand?”

“Largely by signs,” Danbazzar admitted. “My Egyptian is mighty

limited. But I’m learning.”

That old sensation of unreality, phantasy, came to Barry again. Urged

by Danbazzar, he attired himself in the strange dress that they had

adopted with the idea that it would be more familiar to the awakened

girl. Then, not entirely master of himself, he walked back along the

_wâdi_. At Zalithea’s tent:

“Wait outside,” Danbazzar directed. “Safîyeh will call you when I

have made her understand you are here. I’ll do my best as

interpreter.”

He went in, leaving Barry alone in the darkness.

Vaguely, a sound of voices came to him where he waited. The deep,

subdued tones of Danbazzar made a marked contrast to the silvery note

of that other voice! How well he seemed to know it!

Barry wondered why he was so nervous.

Suddenly the flap was drawn open, and the old Arab woman looked out,

beckoning. Barry stooped and went in.

He found himself in a sort of tiny antechamber or lobby constructed of

hanging tent cloths. An antique lamp hung from above. There were

carpets on the sandy floor, but no furniture.

Safîyeh held one of the tent cloths aside and intimated that he was

to enter. He stepped forward. Some hazy impression he had of a silver

lamp, of embroidered curtains, of cushions, queer-looking inlaid

chests, but these were an indistinct background into which the tall

robed figure of Danbazzar merged appropriately. He was standing behind

a cushioned divan, or native mattress.

Upon it, her cheek resting in her upraised hand, lay Princess

Zalithea.

She was dressed in a manner which perhaps represented a compromise

between the ancient and the modern Egyptian style. Her beautiful arms

were bare to the shoulders, and she wore no jewellery of any kind. A

sort of tightly fitting tunic and some sort of gauzy dress disguised

in a measure the delicate shape which Danbazzar’s scissors had so

mercilessly revealed in the tomb. Her white ankles were bare, as also

were her little feet. It was so that he remembered her.

Long, dark, heavily fringed eyes were raised to Barry as he entered.

They were the deeply mysterious eyes that had watched him since memory

began--the beckoning eyes of the women who lived upon the frescoes

surrounding his father’s walls--the eyes that had smiled down upon him

from a New Jersey balcony!

How beautiful she was! But how pale and fragile. He found himself

unable to believe Safîyeh’s report that she had enjoyed the meal so

carefully prepared for her. Those full red lips, though, spoke of

health. He was hopelessly, speechlessly embarrassed, under the grave

scrutiny of unreadable eyes. But how beautiful she was!

“Speak to her,” Danbazzar prompted.

Barry bowed awkwardly.

“Princess Zalithea,” he said, “I am deeply honoured.”

She watched him, unmoved, for several moments more. Then, a slow,

delightful smile revealed her little gleaming teeth. She turned her

head slightly, looking up at Danbazzar. She spoke in soft, queerly

modulated syllables. One word which might have been “Zalithea,” but

accented very differently from Barry’s rendering, gave him a clue to

her question. Danbazzar replied, slowly, haltingly; then:

“I think,” he said, “she is curious about how you learned her name.

She seems to have recognized it. I told her that you were a very

learned priest. She wants to know what you are called. Tell her.”

Zalithea turned her disturbing glance upon him again, as:

“I am called Barry Cumberland,” he responded.

Zalithea considered the words, then:

“Bahree?” she said--and nodded interrogatively.

“Yes--Barry; Barry Cumberland.”

She smiled, shaking her head in bewilderment. She looked up at

Danbazzar and addressed him again. He listened, interpolating hesitant

questions, while Barry watched, fascinated. Presently:

“She understands that you are called Barry,” he explained. “Cumberland

is too much for her. Now, she is going to tell you how to pronounce

_her_ name properly.”

Zalithea turned to Barry, and, laying one slender hand on her breast:

“Zal’ith-_eeah_,” she said distinctly, and beckoned to him to approach

closer.

He did so, almost trembling: the mad wonder of it all had seized upon

him anew. Zalithea, in a sweetly imperious way, intimated that he

should kneel. He obeyed, and she laid her hand on his breast. His

heart was thumping wildly. She looked fixedly into his eyes.

“Bahree,” she said, and smiled.