He stared at the statue of the happy scribe-the little cross-legged figure with his papyrus on his lap, looking up eagerly. It should have moved him to tears. But all he felt was a vague joy that he had come, he had visited it all as he should, and now he would be leaving.
At last they proceeded up the grand stairway. The room of the Kings, the ordeal he was dreading. He felt Samir at his side.
"Why not forgo this gruesome pleasure, sire? For they are all horrors."
"No, Samir, let me see it through to the finish."
He almost laughed when he understood what it was-a great chamber of glass cases like the cases in the department stores where goods were displayed safe from prying fingers.
Nevertheless the blackened grinning bodies gave him a dull shock. It seemed he could scarcely hear the guide, and yet the words were coming clear:
' 'The Ramses the Damned mummy in England is still a controversial discovery. Very controversial. This is the true Ramses the Second, right before you, known as Ramses the Great."
Edging closer, he stared down at the gaunt horrid thing that bore his name.
". . . Ramses the Second, greatest of all Egypt's Pharaohs."
He almost smiled as he studied the dried limbs, and then the obvious truth hit him, like something physical pressing on his chest, that if he had not gone into that cave with the wicked old priestess, he would indeed be lying in this case. Or what was left of him. And all the world since faded; it was no more suddenly than those years. And to think he would have died without knowing so much; without ever realizing. . . .
Noise. Julie had said something, but he couldn't hear her.
There was a dull roaring in his head. Suddenly he saw them all, these ghastly corpses, like burnt things out of the oven. He saw the filthy glass; he saw the tourists pushing this way and that.
He heard Cleopatra's voice. When you let him die, you let me die! I want to be with him now. Take it away, I won't drink it.
Were they moving again? Had Samir said it was time to go? He looked up slowly from the awful sunken face and saw Elliott gazing at him, with the strangest expression. What was it? Understanding.
Oh, but how can you understand? I myself can scarcely understand.
"Let's go, sire."
He let Samir take his arm and lead him towards the doorway. It seemed Miss Barrington laughed at something Alex had whispered in her ear. And the din of the French tourists nearby was positively frightful. Such a harsh tongue.
He turned, staring back at the glass cases. Yes, leave this place. Why are we going down the corridor to the very back of the building? Surely we have seen it all; the dreams and fervor of a nation come to this; a great and dusty mausoleum where young girls laugh and rightly so.
The guide had stopped at the end of the hall. What was it now? Another body in a case, and how could anyone see it in the shadows? Only weak shafts of dusty light cut through the dirty window above.
"This unknown woman ... a curious example of natural preservation."
"We cannot smoke, can we?" he whispered to Samir.
"No, sire, but we can slip away, surely. We can wait for the others outside, if you wish. . . ."
"... combined to naturally mummify the body of this anonymous woman."
"Let's go," he said. He placed his hand on Samir's shoulder. But then he must tell Julie lest she be alarmed. He stepped forward and gave her sleeve a little tug, and glanced down at the body in the case as he did so.
His heart stopped.
"... though most of the wrappings were long ago torn away-in the search for valuables, no doubt-the woman's body was perfectly preserved by the delta mud, much as bodies found in northern bogs. ..."
The rippling hair, the long slender neck, the gently sloping shoulders! And the face, the very face! For a moment he did not believe his eyes!
The voice pounded in his head: "... unknown woman . . . Ptolemaic period . . . Graeco-Roman. But see the Egyptian profile. The well-molded lips ..."
Miss Barrington's high-pitched laugh went through his temples.
He blundered forward. He had brushed Miss Barrington's arm. Alex was saying something to him, calling him sharply by name. The guide was staring up.
He looked down through the glass. Her face! It was she-the soft cerements molded into her flesh, her naked hands gently curved, her feet bare, the wrappings loose around her ankles. All black, black as the delta mud which had surrounded her, preserved her, hardened her!
"Ramses, what is it!"
"Sir, are you ill!"
They were speaking to him from all sides; they were surrounding him. Suddenly someone pulled him away, and he turned back furiously. "No, let me go."
He heard the glass shatter beside him. An alarm had gone off, shrieking like a woman in terror.
Look at her closed eyes. It's she! It's she. He needed no rings, no ornaments, no names to tell him. It's she.
The armed men had come. Julie pleaded. Miss Barrington was afraid. Alex was trying to make him listen.
"I cannot hear you now. I can hear nothing. It is she. Anonymous woman." She, the last Queen of Egypt.
Again, he jerked free of the hand on his arm. He hovered over the filthy glass. He wanted to shatter it. Her legs no more than bones; the fingers of her right hand dried almost to a skeleton. But that face, that beautiful face. My Cleopatra.
* * *
Finally he had allowed himself to be led away. Julie had questioned him. He had not answered. She had paid for the damage to the case, a small display of jewelry upset. He wanted to say that he was sorry.
He could not remember anything else. Except her face, and the whole picture she made-a thing created from the black earth and lifted up and placed on the bare polished wood of the case, linen wrappings still wrinkled as if by lapping water. And her hair, her thick rippling hair; why, the whole form had almost glistened in the dim light.
Julie spoke words. The lights were soft in the room at Shepheard's Hotel. He wanted to answer, but he couldn't. And then there was that other memory; that strange moment when he had turned in the confusion and the blur, and seen Elliott with those sad gray eyes watching him.
* * *
Oscar hurried after Mr. Hancock and the two chaps from Scotland Yard as they marched right through the drawing rooms and into the Egyptian room. Oh, he never should have let them into the house. They had no right to come into this house. And now they were marching right up to the mummy case.
"But Miss Julie will be so angry, sir. This is her house, sir. And you mustn't touch that, sir, why, it's Mr. Lawrence's discovery. ''
Hancock stared at the five gold Cleopatra coins in their case.
"But the coins could have been stolen in Cairo, sir. Before the collection was cataloged."
"Yes, of course, you're absolutely right," Hancock said. He turned and glared at the mummy case.
* * *
Julie poured the wine in his glass. He merely looked at it.
"Won't you try to explain?" she whispered. "You recognized it. You knew it. That has to be it."
For hours he'd sat there in silence. The late afternoon sun burned through the sheer curtains. The overhead fan churned slowly, monotonously, giving off a dull groan.
She didn't want to cry again.
"But it couldn't be . . ." No. She couldn't bring herself even to suggest it. Yet she thought of the woman again; of the gold tiara in her hair, now black and glossy as all the rest of her. "It's not possible that it's she. ..."
Slowly Ramses turned and looked at her. Hard and brilliant his blue eyes were.
"Not possible!" His voice was low, hoarse, no more than an agonized whisper. "Not possible! You've dug up thousands of the Egyptian dead. You've raided their pyramids, their desert tombs, their catacombs. What is not possible!"