Smith and the Pharaohs, and other Tales Read online

  Produced by John Bickers; Dagny

  SMITH AND THE PHARAOHS AND OTHER TALES

  By H. Rider Haggard

  Contents:

  Smith And The Pharaohs

  Magepa The Buck

  The Blue Curtains

  Little Flower

  Only A Dream

  Barbara Who Came Back

  SMITH AND THE PHARAOHS

  I

  Scientists, or some scientists--for occasionally one learned persondiffers from other learned persons--tell us they know all that is worthknowing about man, which statement, of course, includes woman. Theytrace him from his remotest origin; they show us how his bones changedand his shape modified, also how, under the influence of his needs andpassions, his intelligence developed from something very humble.They demonstrate conclusively that there is nothing in man which thedissecting-table will not explain; that his aspirations towards anotherlife have their root in the fear of death, or, say others of them, inthat of earthquake or thunder; that his affinities with the past aremerely inherited from remote ancestors who lived in that past, perhaps amillion years ago; and that everything noble about him is but the fruitof expediency or of a veneer of civilisation, while everything base mustbe attributed to the instincts of his dominant and primeval nature. Man,in short, is an animal who, like every other animal, is finally subduedby his environment and takes his colour from his surroundings, as cattledo from the red soil of Devon. Such are the facts, they (or some ofthem) declare; all the rest is rubbish.

  At times we are inclined to agree with these sages, especially after ithas been our privilege to attend a course of lectures by one of them.Then perhaps something comes within the range of our experience whichgives us pause and causes doubts, the old divine doubts, to arise againdeep in our hearts, and with them a yet diviner hope.

  Perchance when all is said, so we think to ourselves, man _is_ somethingmore than an animal. Perchance he has known the past, the far past, andwill know the future, the far, far future. Perchance the dream is true,and he does indeed possess what for convenience is called an immortalsoul, that may manifest itself in one shape or another; that may sleepfor ages, but, waking or sleeping, still remains itself, indestructibleas the matter of the Universe.

  An incident in the career of Mr. James Ebenezer Smith might welloccasion such reflections, were any acquainted with its details, whichuntil this, its setting forth, was not the case. Mr. Smith is a personwho knows when to be silent. Still, undoubtedly it gave cause forthought to one individual--namely, to him to whom it happened. Indeed,James Ebenezer Smith is still thinking over it, thinking very hardindeed.

  J. E. Smith was well born and well educated. When he was a good-lookingand able young man at college, but before he had taken his degree,trouble came to him, the particulars of which do not matter, and he wasthrown penniless, also friendless, upon the rocky bosom of the world.No, not quite friendless, for he had a godfather, a gentleman connectedwith business whose Christian name was Ebenezer. To him, as a lastresource, Smith went, feeling that Ebenezer owed him something in returnfor the awful appellation wherewith he had been endowed in baptism.

  To a certain extent Ebenezer recognised the obligation. He did nothingheroic, but he found his godson a clerkship in a bank of which he wasone of the directors--a modest clerkship, no more. Also, when he died ayear later, he left him a hundred pounds to be spent upon some souvenir.

  Smith, being of a practical turn of mind, instead of adorning himselfwith memorial jewellery for which he had no use, invested the hundredpounds in an exceedingly promising speculation. As it happened, he wasnot misinformed, and his talent returned to him multiplied by ten. Herepeated the experiment, and, being in a position to know what he wasdoing, with considerable success. By the time that he was thirty hefound himself possessed of a fortune of something over twenty-fivethousand pounds. Then (and this shows the wise and practical nature ofthe man) he stopped speculating and put out his money in such a fashionthat it brought him a safe and clear four per cent.

  By this time Smith, being an excellent man of business, was well up inthe service of his bank--as yet only a clerk, it is true, but one whodrew his four hundred pounds a year, with prospects. In short, he was ina position to marry had he wished to do so. As it happened, he did notwish--perhaps because, being very friendless, no lady who attracted himcrossed his path; perhaps for other reasons.

  Shy and reserved in temperament, he confided only in himself. None, noteven his superiors at the bank or the Board of Management, knew howwell off he had become. No one visited him at the flat which he wasunderstood to occupy somewhere in the neighbourhood of Putney; hebelonged to no club, and possessed not a single intimate. The blow whichthe world had dealt him in his early days, the harsh repulses and therough treatment he had then experienced, sank so deep into his sensitivesoul that never again did he seek close converse with his kind. In fact,while still young, he fell into a condition of old-bachelorhood of arefined type.

  Soon, however, Smith discovered--it was after he had given upspeculating--that a man must have something to occupy his mind. He triedphilanthropy, but found himself too sensitive for a business whichso often resolves itself into rude inquiry as to the affairs of otherpeople. After a struggle, therefore, he compromised with his conscienceby setting aside a liberal portion of his income for anonymousdistribution among deserving persons and objects.

  While still in this vacant frame of mind Smith chanced one day, when thebank was closed, to drift into the British Museum, more to escape thevile weather that prevailed without than for any other reason. Wanderinghither and thither at hazard, he found himself in the great gallerydevoted to Egyptian stone objects and sculpture. The place bewilderedhim somewhat, for he knew nothing of Egyptology; indeed, there remainedupon his mind only a sense of wonderment not unmixed with awe. It musthave been a great people, he thought to himself, that executed theseworks, and with the thought came a desire to know more about them. Yethe was going away when suddenly his eye fell on the sculptured head of awoman which hung upon the wall.

  Smith looked at it once, twice, thrice, and at the third look he fell inlove. Needless to say, he was not aware that such was his condition.He knew only that a change had come over him, and never, never couldhe forget the face which that carven mask portrayed. Perhaps it was notreally beautiful save for its wondrous and mystic smile; perhaps thelips were too thick and the nostrils too broad. Yet to him that facewas Beauty itself, beauty which drew him as with a cart-rope, and awokewithin him all kinds of wonderful imaginings, some of them so strangeand tender that almost they partook of the nature of memories. He staredat the image, and the image smiled back sweetly at him, as doubtless it,or rather its original--for this was but a plaster cast--had smiled atnothingness in some tomb or hiding-hole for over thirty centuries, andas the woman whose likeness it was had once smiled upon the world.

  A short, stout gentleman bustled up and, in tones of authority,addressed some workmen who were arranging a base for a neighbouringstatue. It occurred to Smith that he must be someone who knew aboutthese objects. Overcoming his natural diffidence with an effort, heraised his hat and asked the gentleman if he could tell him who was theoriginal of the mask.

  The official--who, in fact, was a very great man in the Museum--glancedat Smith shrewdly, and, seeing that his interest was genuine, answered--

  "I don't know. Nobody knows. She has been given several names, but noneof them have authority. Perhaps one day the rest of the statue maybe found, and then we shall learn--that is, if it is inscribed. Mostlikely, however, it has been burnt for lime long ago."

  "Then you can't tell me anything
about her?" said Smith.

  "Well, only a little. To begin with, that's a cast. The original is inthe Cairo Museum. Mariette found it, I believe at Karnac, and gave ita name after his fashion. Probably she was a queen--of the eighteenthdynasty, by the work. But you can see her rank for yourself from thebroken _uraeus_." (Smith did not stop him to explain that he had notthe faintest idea what a _uraeus_ might be, seeing that he was utterlyunfamiliar with the snake-headed crest of Egyptian royalty.) "You shouldgo to Egypt and study the head for yourself. It is one of the mostbeautiful things that ever was found. Well, I must be off. Good day."

  And he bustled down the long gallery.

  Smith found his way upstairs and looked at mummies and other things.Somehow it hurt him to reflect that the owner of yonder sweet, alluringface must have become a mummy long, long before the Christian era.Mummies did not strike him as attractive.

  He returned to the statuary and stared at his plaster cast till one ofthe workmen remarked to his fellow that if he were the gent he'd go andlook at "a live'un" for a change.

  Then Smith retired abashed.

  On his way home he called at his bookseller's and ordered "all thebest works on Egyptology". When, a day or two later, they arrived ina packing-case, together with a bill for thirty-eight pounds, he wassomewhat dismayed. Still, he tackled those books like a man, and, beingclever and industrious, within three months had a fair working knowledgeof the subject, and had even picked up a smattering of hieroglyphics.

  In January--that was, at the end of those three months--Smith astonishedhis Board of Directors by applying for ten weeks' leave, he who hadhitherto been content with a fortnight in the year. When questioned heexplained that he had been suffering from bronchitis, and was advised totake a change in Egypt.

  "A very good idea," said the manager; "but I'm afraid you'll find itexpensive. They fleece one in Egypt."

  "I know," answered Smith; "but I've saved a little and have only myselfto spend it upon."

  So Smith went to Egypt and saw the original of the beauteous head anda thousand other fascinating things. Indeed, he did more. Attachinghimself to some excavators who were glad of his intelligent assistance,he actually dug for a month in the neighbourhood of ancient Thebes, butwithout finding anything in particular.

  It was not till two years later that he made his great discovery, thatwhich is known as Smith's Tomb. Here it may be explained that the stateof his health had become such as to necessitate an annual visit toEgypt, or so his superiors understood.

  However, as he asked for no summer holiday, and was always ready to doanother man's work or to stop overtime, he found it easy to arrange forthese winter excursions.

  On this, his third visit to Egypt, Smith obtained from theDirector-General of Antiquities at Cairo a licence to dig upon hisown account. Being already well known in the country as a skilledEgyptologist, this was granted upon the usual terms--namely, that theDepartment of Antiquities should have a right to take any of the objectswhich might be found, or all of them, if it so desired.

  Such preliminary matters having been arranged by correspondence, Smith,after a few days spent in the Museum at Cairo, took the night trainto Luxor, where he found his head-man, an ex-dragoman named Mahomet,waiting for him and his fellaheen labourers already hired. There werebut forty of them, for his was a comparatively small venture. Threehundred pounds was the amount that he had made up his mind to expend,and such a sum does not go far in excavations.

  During his visit of the previous year Smith had marked the place wherehe meant to dig. It was in the cemetery of old Thebes, at the wild spotnot far from the temple of Medinet Habu, that is known as the Valley ofthe Queens. Here, separated from the resting-places of their royal lordsby the bold mass of the intervening hill, some of the greatest ladies ofEgypt have been laid to rest, and it was their tombs that Smith desiredto investigate. As he knew well, some of these must yet remain to bediscovered. Who could say? Fortune favours the bold. It might be that hewould find the holy grave of that beauteous, unknown Royalty whose facehad haunted him for three long years!

  For a whole month he dug without the slightest success. The spot thathe selected had proved, indeed, to be the mouth of a tomb. Aftertwenty-five days of laborious exploration it was at length cleared out,and he stood in a rude, unfinished cave. The queen for whom it had beendesigned must have died quite young and been buried elsewhere; or shehad chosen herself another sepulchre, or mayhap the rock had provedunsuitable for sculpture.

  Smith shrugged his shoulders and moved on, sinking trial pits andtrenches here and there, but still finding nothing. Two-thirds of histime and money had been spent when at last the luck turned. One day,towards evening, with some half-dozen of his best men he was returningafter a fruitless morning of labour, when something seemed to attracthim towards a little _wadi_, or bay, in the hillside that was filledwith tumbled rocks and sand. There were scores of such places, and thisone looked no more promising than any of the others had proved to be.Yet it attracted him. Thoroughly dispirited, he walked past it twentypaces or more, then turned.

  "Where go you, sah?" asked his head-man, Mahomet.

  He pointed to the recess in the cliff.

  "No good, sah," said Mahomet. "No tomb there. Bed-rock too near top. Toomuch water run in there; dead queen like keep dry!"

  But Smith went on, and the others followed obediently.

  He walked down the little slope of sand and boulders and examined thecliff. It was virgin rock; never a tool mark was to be seen. Already themen were going, when the same strange instinct which had drawn him tothe spot caused him to take a spade from one of them and begin to shovelaway the sand from the face of the cliff--for here, for some unexplainedreason, were no boulders or _debris_. Seeing their master, to whom theywere attached, at work, they began to work too, and for twenty minutesor more dug on cheerfully enough, just to humour him, since all weresure that here there was no tomb. At length Smith ordered them todesist, for, although now they were six feet down, the rock remained ofthe same virgin character.

  With an exclamation of disgust he threw out a last shovelful of sand.The edge of his spade struck on something that projected. He clearedaway a little more sand, and there appeared a rounded ledge which seemedto be a cornice. Calling back the men, he pointed to it, and without aword all of them began to dig again. Five minutes more of work made itclear that it was a cornice, and half an hour later there appeared thetop of the doorway of a tomb.

  "Old people wall him up," said Mahomet, pointing to the flat stones setin mud for mortar with which the doorway had been closed, and to theundecipherable impress upon the mud of the scarab seals of the officialswhose duty it had been to close the last resting-place of the royal deadfor ever.

  "Perhaps queen all right inside," he went on, receiving no answer to hisremark.

  "Perhaps," replied Smith, briefly. "Dig, man, dig! Don't waste time intalking."

  So they dug on furiously till at length Smith saw something which causedhim to groan aloud. There was a hole in the masonry--the tomb had beenbroken into. Mahomet saw it too, and examined the top of the aperturewith his skilled eye.

  "Very old thief," he said. "Look, he try build up wall again, but runaway before he have time finish." And he pointed to certain flat stoneswhich had been roughly and hurriedly replaced.

  "Dig--dig!" said Smith.

  Ten minutes more and the aperture was cleared. It was only just bigenough to admit the body of a man.

  By now the sun was setting. Swiftly, swiftly it seemed to tumble downthe sky. One minute it was above the rough crests of the western hillsbehind them; the next, a great ball of glowing fire, it rested on theirtopmost ridge. Then it was gone. For an instant a kind of green sparkshone where it had been. This too went out, and the sudden Egyptiannight was upon them.

  The fellaheen muttered among themselves, and one or two of them wanderedoff on some pretext. The rest threw down their tools and looked atSmith. "Men say they no like stop here. They afraid of ghost!
Toomany _afreet_ live in these tomb. That what they say. Come back finishto-morrow morning when it light. Very foolish people, these commonfellaheen," remarked Mahomet, in a superior tone.

  "Quite so," replied Smith, who knew well that nothing that he couldoffer would tempt his men to go on with the opening of a tomb aftersunset. "Let them go away. You and I will stop and watch the place tillmorning."

  "Sorry, sah," said Mahomet, "but I not feel quite well inside; think Igot fever. I go to camp and lie down and pray under plenty blanket."

  "All right, go," said Smith; "but if there is anyone who is not acoward, let him bring me my big coat, something to eat and drink, andthe lantern that hangs in my tent. I will meet him there in the valley."

  Mahomet, though rather doubtfully, promised that this should be done,and, after begging Smith to accompany them, lest the spirit of whoeverslept in the tomb should work him a mischief during the night, theydeparted quickly enough.

  Smith lit his pipe, sat down on the sand, and waited. Half an hour laterhe heard a sound of singing, and through the darkness, which was dense,saw lights coming up the valley.

  "My brave men," he thought to himself, and scrambled up the slope tomeet them.

  He was right. These were his men, no less than twenty of them, for witha fewer number they did not dare to face the ghosts which they believedhaunted the valley after nightfall. Presently the light from the lanternwhich one of them carried (not Mahomet, whose sickness had increased toosuddenly to enable him to come) fell upon the tall form of Smith, who,dressed in his white working clothes, was leaning against a rock. Downwent the lantern, and with a howl of terror the brave company turned andfled.