CHAPTER XXII

"_Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art

thou? that being nothing art everything! . . . .

The mighty future is as nothing, being

everything! the past is everything, being nothing!"

LAMB.

In spite of her tongue, which was somewhat unduly inclined to gossip,

Lady Thistleton was a motherly old soul and had a great affection for

Damaris.

". . . I should not like either of my little girls," she was saying the

morning after the visit to the Terrace Temple, "to visit the ruins or

stay out unchaperoned after dark. I am responsible for you, you know,

dear, and you are very beautiful and very young. Of course I know that

you are a little unhappy, dear, but other girls have been the same. So

you must not worry. Everything will come right. I expect you know all

about my Ellen." Damaris nodded. "And everybody is so fond of you.

Would you like to have a long day in bed to-day, dear, or go to

Denderah with the girls? They are thinking of staying for a few days."

Damaris smiled the radiant smile which made her so attractive, and,

rising, put her arms round the motherly old dear's neck and kissed her,

which was an unusual thing for her to do, as she was, as a rule,

undemonstrative to coldness.

"I'd love to go to Denderah, if I may take Janie and Wellington. And

I'm truly not worrying; it's just a tremendous spirit of adventure

which drives me to do these awful things."

So to Denderah she went, with her spirits at highest pitch at the

thought of getting away from Luxor for a few days and of seeing the

wonderful Temple of Hathor, the goddess of Joy and Youth.

She was in riotous spirits when she arrived at the Hotel Denderah in

Kulla, where the lovely porous jugs come from; in fact, so blithe was

she that Ellen, inclined to despondency and of a superstitious

tendency, remarked:

"I should calm myself a little, my dear Damaris; such gaiety can only

lead to depression, later on."

But Damaris only laughed.

How good it is that we cannot visualise beforehand the hour in which

our tears must flow and our hearts come well-nigh to breaking!

She laughed, she sang, she visited the town, and went to bed early.

She teased Jane Coop the next morning as, perilously perched on

donkey-back, she headed the little procession which wended its way

through the stretches of earth which later would give a harvest of corn

and sweet-scented flowering bean.

She urged the panting bulldog along the three good miles, and laughed

at him when, sneezing and coughing, he rubbed his great paws over his

face, covered with the cobwebs which floated on the air; but she

stopped laughing when she first caught sight of the great arch of

crumbling antiquity which is all that is left of the edifice upon the

site of which the Temple of Hathor was built; and she stood quite still

in the over-powering colonnade, whilst the Thistletons, notebooks in

hand, rushed inside in the wake of the guide. Jane Coop stopped dead

at the outer edge of the colonnade.

"I thought you said it was a Temple of Love, dearie: all white marble,

with doves and lovers'-knots and--and hearts. It's a tomb, that's what

it is, and I'm going to sit outside. I don't like it; it bodes no

good. Let's go back, dearie; I don't like the place or the hotel or

the town. If we go quickly we can catch the first boat. Let the

others stay if they want to. I'm thinking of you; my heart's telling

me that you must not stop, and that if you do, harm'll come to you, or

somebody."

Strange was the persistence of the usually placid woman, as she caught

her young mistress by the arm and quite violently shook her fist at the

sinister face of the goddess which shows on each side of the columns.

And strange it is to know that if the girl had but listened, the harm

might not have befallen.

But Damaris shook her head.

"We must be polite, Janie dear, even if we are dying to go home.

Besides, two or three days will do us good, and it will help pass the

time until Marraine comes back. Come, Well-Well."

The dog followed his mistress up to the door, but there he stopped.

"Come along, Well-Well," she repeated.

The dog sat down, with a definite air of ending further exploration as

far as ruins were concerned, on his part.

"I think you and Janie are bewitched to-day."

Damaris spoke petulantly and watched the dog waddle back and sit down

beside the maid, who, busy crocheting, sat on a stone some few yards

from the Temple, to which she had resolutely turned her back.

Damaris stood for a moment feeling as though the very wettest of wet

blankets had been wrapped round her; then turned, listened until she

heard Ellen's staccato voice coming from the direction of the

antechamber in the middle of the Temple, and tiptoed across to the east

side, where are to be found the ruined Treasury and Store Rooms in

which were stored the incense for sacrifice or offering, the vestments

and banners and other such props needful to the correct fulfilment of

the rites of an ancient worship which, as far as services go, in

display of wealth and sense-stirring accessories, did not differ so

very much from what we see in some of our churches in this present day

of grace.

She came to the stairs, up which so many years ago the mother of Hugh

Carden Ali had climbed, on the day when she had fully realised that the

crown of love had come to her.

Damaris climbed them, and stood on the roof, watching, as had watched

Jill Carden, the clouds of twittering birds as they flew in the

direction of the Libyan Hills; then she crossed to the little shrine of

Osiris, stood for a moment unconsciously passing her finger over the

carvings, turned as though someone had called her, and ran down the

stairs.

She stood and listened until she heard Ellen's voice looming from the

side chapel on the western side, then, and just as though pulled by

some invisible hand, she passed quietly through the antechamber into

the sanctuary where, in the days of Ancient Egypt, the mighty Pharaoh,

and he only, entered to commune with the gods at the birth of the new

year; and where the mother of Hugh Carden Ali, stricken with the glory

of the secret revealed, had fallen unconscious to the ground, over

twenty years ago.

She stood quite still, her heart beating to suffocation; then she

raised her hand and pushed the hair from her forehead.

"I feel just as though the roof was pressing down upon me," she

whispered to herself. "As though, through me, something awful was

going to happen. I----"

She turned, and almost ran out of the sanctuary, her footsteps waking

the echoes of the roof which once had resounded to the clash of cymbal,

the roll of drum and blare of trumpets. She heard Ellen's strident

voice calling to her, telling her to come and join them in the crypts;

she paid no heed, she ran on and out into the sunshine and down to the

maid, who was still placidly crocheting.

And as she left the ruin, the mantle of depression fell from her, and

she laughed as she caught the great dog and forced him to walk upon his

hind-legs.

"No, Janie," she said that night, as the maid tucked her up in bed.

"Here I stay until I have visited the Temple thoroughly, and I'll take

you down into the creepy crypts and lock you in them if you worry any

more. We all got up too early and hadn't had enough breakfast--that is

why we disliked the place so much."

They stayed some days, and then took the public steamer home, Damaris

bubbling over with high infectious spirits, which had their birth in a

secret hope that she might find a letter from Ben Kelham upon her

return.

She was leaning over the rail, thinking about him, as the boat made its

lazy way down-stream.

"So funny," she was saying to herself as they approached Luxor under a

sunset sky. "I wonder if he will be at the hotel. I somehow feel him

quite near."

And then her thoughts were distracted by the exclamations and laughter

of the passengers as they rushed to the side, causing the boat to take

a distinct list.

What little things serve to amuse us!

The bluebottle at the Cathedral service; the stray dog which rushes

athwart the regal procession; the straw hat blown through the traffic!

The steamer was churning up the waters of the river down which

Cleopatra had passed in all her power and beauty; on each side were the

ruins of temples and tombs built to the glory of great god or mighty

emperor; yet the tourists flung down guide-books and left their tea to

shout encouragement and wave their handkerchiefs to Ben Kelham and

Sybil Sidmouth, who were also having tea on the slanting deck of their

private steamer, which had run aground on the pestiferous sand-bank.

Mrs. Sidmouth, in the seclusion of the saloon, was summoning all her

strength for a real nerve-storm.

Damaris looked hard for a moment, then became deadly-white, and backed

her way out through the crowd. She flashed a quick glance round in

search of the Thistletons, and saw them leaning dangerously far over

the rail, trying to attract the attention of Sybil Sidmouth, who was

smiling so contentedly as she handed her companion his tea; then she

turned to run to the saloon to hide herself, and ran, instead, right

into Jane Coop's arms.

There was a grim set to the maid's mouth and a steely glitter in her

eyes.

"I was just coming to ask you, dearie, if you'd like a cup of tea. One

gets fair sick of the ruins and things one sees on this river. The

young ladies can come and find you at tea if they want to."

How often had the motherly woman gone out to bring in the lamb from the

storm, or hunted the fields and hedgerows for her straying chick!

Later, she sat on the edge of her darling's bed and patted the curly

head resting on her faithful heart, to the accompaniment of little

clucking sounds.

"There now, dearie--there now--there now! It isn't worth crying over;

every river is as full of good fish as ever sailed on it in a boat that

couldn't run straight. Let old Nannie dry her baby's tears. There

how--there now!"

She dried the tear-stained little face with a big handkerchief, and

rocked her child to the rhythm of the music which drifted from the

hall, borne by the night breeze, through the open window, until the

sobs had ceased.

And in the ball-room the Thistleton family nodded their heads sagely to

the rhythm of the same music.

"I am sure she didn't see Mr. Kelham and Sybil, Mamma," Ellen was

saying. "She was having tea when we went to find her, and looked quite

all right."

"I was thankful when I saw her," broke in Berenice, patting a thick

envelope with the Edinburgh post-mark. "On the _Nile_, together, it

really did not seem _comme il faut_ at all, and wherever Mrs. Sidmouth

was, she might have countenanced the--er--the courtship by her presence

on deck."

"Well, all's well that ends well," said Mamma placidly, as she secretly

returned thanks that her daughters were not as others.

* * * * * *

But later, far into the night, Damaris stood at her window, with her

arms round the bulldog's neck.

"You're the only one who _really_ loves me, Well-Well. Everybody else

run away and leaves me. I'm--I'm, so unhappy!"

Tears stood in the big eyes as she flung out her arms and cried in a

sudden passionate intensity, "_Marraine_! _Marraine_! I want you--I

want you! If you loved me, you would come to me, because I want you

so!"