CHAPTER XXIV.

THE RETURN TO LUXOR

Work in the valley was ended. The tomb, stripped of its contents,

had been reclosed so that even Mr. Howard Carter could not have found

it. The workmen, well paid and happy, had dispersed to their homes.

Most of them were men of the Fayyum.

Danbazzar and Hassan es-Sugra had contrived the transport of Zalithea

from the camp in the _wâdi_ to a carefully chosen suite at a Luxor

hotel without provoking comment. John Cumberland’s bank account had

silenced any criticisms regarding the nature of his interest in the

heavily veiled Moslem lady for whose accommodation he had arranged.

The thing had run on oiled wheels, dollars being the lubricant; but

since there is more grit in the world than there are dollars, this

smooth running inevitably couldn’t last.

Barry, whose dream woman had miraculously come to life, found himself

in a frame of mind which he was sane enough to recognize as unique.

The Zalithea he knew, the adorable, winning, childish, petulant,

sometimes frightening girl, he was learning to worship. The Zalithea

of the papyrus, the princess of unknown origin who had been captured

by the troops of Seti in an unimaginable past, he fought to forget.

Advance guards of the Thomas Cook army had already established

themselves in Luxor. A German party, some days earlier, and on the eve

of striking camp, had penetrated to the _wâdi_. Their insatiable

Teutonic curiosity was their only guide; Danbazzar’s lurid profanity

their only reward. Even the donkey boys had blushed.

But the incident had gone to prove that they had achieved their

purpose only just in time. It was the tourist invasion which had

checked Danbazzar a year before.

That remarkable man, whose resourcefulness knew no bounds, had long

since set out, accompanied by Hassan es-Sugra, two camel drivers and a

large sum of ready money, for the Great Oasis. Here he had arranged to

meet a certain sheik of the Shorbagis from Dakhla and to obtain from

him a document, suitably witnessed, authorizing John Cumberland to

escort the sheik’s daughter, Zalithea, to America for neuropathic

treatment prescribed by Professor Blackwell.

“The Senussi,” Danbazzar had admitted, “are the most dangerous

fanatics in Africa. One of that bunch would be about as likely to send

his daughter to America as to burn his whiskers for firewood. But

nobody here will be any wiser, never having been to those parts, and

the American consul, who is a Greek from Alexandria, doesn’t know an

Arab from an onion. We’ll get her passport without any trouble.”

Zalithea’s balcony overlooked the Nile. Here she spent many hours

every day, watching the varied life of the river front. Her

bewilderment Barry found at once pathetic and delicious. The

dragomans, who were now beginning to put in an appearance, she mistook

for priests. The strangely garbed tourists she assumed to be foreign

captives!

The advent of the first steamer from Cairo aroused such terror that

Barry grew alarmed. He found himself utterly incapable of explaining

this mystery, handicapped as he was. Automobiles, for some reason,

frightened her but little. Indeed, she managed to make him understand

at last that she wished to ride in one!

That once vexed question of dress had been settled. Zalithea

understood that no slight was intended by the wearing of a lounge

suit. She seemed to think that the Winter Palace was the palace of

Pharaoh, and she tried to ask if the reigning monarch was absent at

war.

She was extraordinarily observant. In the cool of the evening, with

Safîyeh in attendance, and escorted by Barry or John Cumberland,

Zalithea would walk along the bank as far as the old _shadûf_. The

really fashionable crowd was not yet in evidence, but, nevertheless,

she quickly noticed--since wealthy Moslem women rarely appear in

public--that except among the lower classes veils were nowhere to be

seen.

This problem was quite beyond Barry’s power of explanation. But John

Cumberland, in his practical way, set to work to solve it.

From Cairo one day stacks of boxes arrived and were duly carried up to

Zalithea’s apartment. Barry had just bought her a bundle of

illustrated magazines and was watching her, fascinatedly, as she pored

over pages of photographs showing society groups in various sun traps

from Mentone to Miami.

What an exquisite profile she had! He wondered, was eternally

wondering, where the island of Unu had been. Zalithea’s long, narrow

dark eyes were of a kind he had never seen among the modern Egyptians,

but they were typical of the women depicted on the ancient wall

paintings. Her profile, too, was purely aristocratic and bore a

remarkable resemblance to that of the beautiful queen Ameniritis. His

rapt study of the girl was interrupted by the delivery of the boxes.

Zalithea ran in from the balcony immediately, filled with childish

interest. As box after box was laid on the carpet, her excitement grew

intense. Stooping, she touched a label, looked at Barry

interrogatively and then indicated herself.

“Yes,” he said, “for you! All for you.”

“Fo-ah you?”

“No--you! you are me! I don’t know how to explain!” He rested his hand

on her shoulder. “Me,” he said.

Zalithea, watching him eagerly, touched her own breast, and:

“Me,” she echoed.

“Yes!” Barry nodded. “For me.”

“Fo-ah me.”

She clapped her hands excitedly and indicated that he should cut the

fastenings. Happy because Zalithea was happy, he obeyed.… and out from

this box and from that, with a vast rustling of tissue paper, came

frocks, stockings, hats, flaky, delicate underwear--priceless loot of

Paris.

Never had he seen Zalithea so excited. Taking up piece after piece,

she literally danced in her joy!

Then, crying, “Safîyeh! Safîyeh!” she gathered up a great armful of

assorted garments and ran into her bedroom. She had apparently

forgotten Barry’s existence. But he walked out onto the balcony to

await her reappearance. Knowing his father’s thoroughness, he didn’t

doubt that John Cumberland would have found some way to obtain things

to fit. Zalithea had been early introduced to shoes; so that this part

of her equipment was comparatively simple. As for the other items,

perhaps he had enlisted Safîyeh’s aid.

Barry looked out across the Nile to where the Libyan Desert baked

under the merciless sun. He could hear Zalithea’s delicious, childish

laughter and the harsher tones of Safîyeh. The miracle of it all

crashed down suddenly upon his mind like a palpable weight.

This gay, light-hearted girl, whose laughter rang out clear as a bell,

happily as a child’s, had lain for three thousand years over yonder in

the Valley of the Dead!

He picked up a magazine at random from the little table set upon the

balcony. There were things he couldn’t face--yet. He wondered if he

ever would be capable of facing them. He dropped into a cane chair and

began to scan the pictured pages.

In a section devoted to the doings of New York Society, he came across

photographs of two or three people he knew. He stared at them as at

the pictures of strangers. He felt that a great gulf had opened

between himself and the empty life he had known. Upon one side of it

were the old set, Aunt Micky, Jim and the rest; upon the other he

stood, alone--with Zalithea.

Beneath, beside the river, moved men and women to whom Thebes meant

sightseeing and sunshine--no more. He watched them as through a haze

or as in a glass, darkly. Then, from a minaret at the back of the

town, distantly, sweetly, came the voice of the _muezzin_ raised in

the _adan_, or noonday call to prayer:

“_Alla-hu akbar.… La illa-ha illa Allah!_…”

“God is most great.… There is no God but God!” He listened to those

words, which he knew, with a fresh wonder. For some reason they

soothed his troubled mind. The passive attitude of Islam toward life

was very wise, after all. He found himself thinking of Hassan

es-Sugra, that grave, graceful philosopher, when:

“Bahree!” came a cry from the room behind him.

He turned. His eyes, dazzled by the blazing sunlight, at first could

see little in the darkened room. Then, standing just within the

doorway communicating with her bedroom, he saw Zalithea.

She wore a very up-to-date dance frock which displayed more of her

creamy skin than Barry had seen since that unforgettable hour in the

tomb when Danbazzar’s scissors had stripped off the wrappings. With

unfailing instinct she had selected shoes to harmonize with the frock,

which was very short.

Manlike, he thought she looked exquisite--and showed that he thought

so. The admiring, grinning face of old Safîyeh appeared in the

doorway, as Zalithea, almost timidly, came forward into the room. The

girl’s wonderful, black-fringed eyes were set upon Barry with an

expression of childish eagerness.

Something very unusual there was in her appearance, not due to her

wholly different style of beauty, but to some irregularity in her

attire which for a moment he failed to place.

Then, all at once, he saw what it was.

Zalithea’s shapely creamy legs were bare! She had forgotten to put

stockings on! Watching him anxiously, she spoke.

“Zal’ith-eeah!” she said. “You-ah-addorahble!”