CHAPTER XVIII.

THE LOTUS SARCOPHAGUS

The sun was casting its last shafts of gold across the fringe of the Libyan Desert when Barry Cumberland stepped over the threshold and entered the tomb of Zalithea. He had pleaded for this privilege, and it had been granted to him. Danbazzar and John Cumberland followed, Professor Blackwell hard upon their heels; and Hassan es-Sugra, smiling in gentle triumph, brought up the rear.

Sweat-grimed workmen crowded the outer chamber.…

No inscription of any kind appeared upon the sides or lid of the great granite sarcophagus, but the walls were very beautifully painted. The atmosphere was so oppressive as to be almost insupportable.

There was something awesome in this sudden silence which had succeeded upon clamour. Danbazzar was the first to break it.

“The name of Princess Zalithea,” he said, his deep voice oddly hushed, “occurs, as you can see, in several places.” He directed the ray of his torch from point to point. “Much of the decorations--such as the procession of boats, the Sem-priest in his mystic trance, the funeral offerings, and so forth--are quite conventional in character. You will notice, though, that the Lotus constantly occurs, as well as the Ankh, emblem of eternal life.” He shone the light all around. “There are other important points, too,” he mused, “which we can look into later. Be very careful. Touch nothing.”

Barry, wholly absorbed in his own peculiar reflections, was passing around the sarcophagus; feeling its surface with his fingers; peering into the tiny crevices between the lid and the lip. Meanwhile, Danbazzar and John Cumberland were bending almost reverently over a strangely shaped, squat table on which were salvers, bowls, curious-looking phials, and a number of tall, slender lamps.

“Observe,” said Danbazzar, a note of triumph in his deep voice: “_these_ are not the usual funerary offerings!”

Professor Blackwell’s long bony fingers were extended toward one of the phials, but:

“No, no! Blackwell!” cried John Cumberland excitedly. “Don’t touch it! Touch nothing! It may crumble!”

The Professor withdrew his greedy hand reluctantly.

“And I wonder what that casket contains?” he murmured.

The casket to which he referred, an exquisitely carved object, stood by itself upon a sort of pedestal, some little distance from the table and beside a long, low couch, the legs carved to represent the feet of a leopard. Danbazzar almost imperiously waved him to silence. Then, turning his back to the sarcophagus, the table, and the pedestal, he addressed them as a speaker addresses an audience.

“The casket, gentlemen,” he said, “as well as the bowls and bottles, contains the ingredients mentioned in the formula! I have seen enough already to tell me my preparations are complete. Presently, Professor”--he turned to Professor Blackwell--“maybe you can assist me in checking these; but the task of preserving many of the fragments is going to be a delicate one. We mustn’t forget they’re three thousand years old.”

“It is almost more than I can believe!” declared John Cumberland rapturously.

Barry, one hand resting upon the sarcophagus, faced him, and:

“Dad,” he said, “it’s _altogether_ more than _I_ can believe!”

“What?” Danbazzar demanded. “That here before us, perished but recognizable, lie the ingredients of the formula as they were prepared by the last priest to wake Zalithea, for the use of his successor?”

“No,” Barry replied: “_that’s_ hard enough--but what I cannot believe is that the woman who is the centre of this incredible story lies _here_, in this sarcophagus!”

“Personally, my mind is open!” Professor Blackwell asserted, glancing around him. “There is no other entrance to this chamber?”

“None whatever,” Danbazzar confirmed.

“Therefore,” the Professor went on, shaking perspiration from his high brow, “we are the first explorers, since this amazing ritual came to an end for reasons which, probably, we shall never know.” He glanced aside at the sarcophagus. “It’s uncanny,” he murmured, “the thought that inside those walls of granite---- But, no! I stick to my opinion!”

“How long will it take to raise the lid?” Barry interrupted.

John Cumberland, hot, tired, met his son’s glance with one fired by no less enthusiasm.

“With the aid of the apparatus which we have with us, Barry,” he answered, “not long. You agree, Danbazzar?”

The latter, who was less excited than the others--always excepting Hassan es-Sugra--bowed in his old-world manner.

“We’ll have that lid off in an hour!” he declared. “But before we start there are quite a lot of precautions we have to take.…”

Two hours later the gear for lifting the great granite lid was brought from its hiding place; and everything was put in order for the operation, the result of which would prove or disprove Dr. Rittenburg’s theory (now shared by Professor Blackwell) that Princess Zalithea was a myth; that no such person had ever existed; that the tradition was a priestly invention designed to impress the vulgar mind.

Ever distrustful of Ahmed Tawwab, guards armed with rifles had been placed at selected spots northwest of the camp along the caravan road to Farshût; these reinforcing the ordinary guards in the valley.

The wildest excitement prevailed among the party. Apparently, as well as Barry could make out, apart from the problematical contents of the sarcophagus, the objects found in the tomb were in many ways unique.

There was an exquisitely embossed bowl, which, he learned, was of pure gold. The figures upon it were apparently different from any found hitherto. Professor Blackwell succeeded in identifying seven of the substances found, in the vials and the casket, as identical with those mentioned in the formula possessed by Danbazzar. One or two defied speculation, or the Professor’s knowledge, until Danbazzar enlightened him as to their nature. Whereupon he recognized them, but raised his voice in doubt respecting the possibility of obtaining these at the present day.

“I _have_ obtained them!” Danbazzar assured him. “When the time comes, you shall see them. Oh! I’ve been busy, Professor. Where the Ancient Egyptians got these things God only knows! They can’t have had a colony in Russia in those days.”

“Russia!” the Professor echoed.

“I said Russia,” Danbazzar affirmed. “One of the ingredients--the one we have been arguing about--I ultimately got from Russia!”

“You refer to the substance which you tell me is of mammalian origin?”

“Precisely.”

“Mammals have been found in Africa,” the Professor murmured.…

And so in the atmosphere of excited debate and unceasing toil the day wore on.

Hassan es-Sugra never left the tomb. It would have been impossible for any workman to remove a grain of dust from it and escape the scrutiny of those gazelle-like eyes. Barry’s enthusiasm was such that the tedious methods employed by Danbazzar for raising the lid of the sarcophagus tortured him to the borders of frenzy. At one point:

“Why all these precautions?” he cried. “It would need a steam hammer to crack that lid!”

“Surely it would,” Danbazzar returned gravely. “What’s the big point?”

“The point is,” said Barry, “that you are making a perfectly preposterous fuss about lifting it--as though it would matter very much if we dropped it!”

“I see!” Danbazzar spoke softly, regarding the younger man through half-closed eyes. “If you were lying in a stone chest next to hermetically sealed, and somebody dropped half a ton of granite on top of it”--his voice suddenly rose, booming around the enclosed chamber--“where in hell do you think you’d be?”

“Good Lord!” Barry was startled. “Of course! You are quite right!”

“You’d be dead of concussion!” Danbazzar shouted. “Thundering concussion! This is my business--and I’ll do it my own way!”

He was formidable in his sudden anger, and Barry realized that he had committed an unforgivable _faux pas_--that of criticizing an artist in the practice of his profession.…

The coming of dusk found the raising gear in place to Danbazzar’s satisfaction, at which point he cleared the tomb, leaving Hassan es-Sugra on guard in the outer chamber.

“The eight o’clock shift will start the lifting,” he pronounced. “We all want dinner, so we’ll all have it.”

John Cumberland, sweat-grimed but happy, looked up from the task which he had been performing side by side with the Arab workmen. Barry leaned up against the rugged masonry beside the opening and mopped his forehead with a very dirty handkerchief.

“It’s torture to quit,” he declared honestly, “but you are right, Danbazzar. I am dead tired. Aren’t you, Dad?”

“I am!” his father admitted. “I would give a big price for a real hot bath before dinner!”

“It would be most acceptable,” declared Professor Blackwell. “Association with these very worthy natives adds to one’s knowledge of humanity but results in so many fleas!”

They returned to camp in the _wâdi_, taking turns in the portable bath supervised by the grinning Mahmoud. This was a rare luxury, for water had to be brought a great distance, and inadequate though these baths might be, they were keenly appreciated by the party.

All brought keen appetites to dinner, which was well up to Mahmoud’s standard. Having reached coffee (into which they were forced to pour their cognac, lest Mahmoud should see the bottle which they kept concealed in the sand, or, worse, smell the glasses):

“To-night,” said Danbazzar, selecting a cigar, “the lid of the sarcophagus will be raised.”

“What then?” cried Barry.

“There’ll be an inner sarcophagus,” was the reply, “probably of sycamore and elaborately painted. Our next task will be to raise that, which won’t be difficult. Nor will the opening of the wooden lid; but--” he paused, carefully lighted his cigar and rolled it between his fingers for a moment--“I’m going to give orders, and in these orders you are included, Mr. Cumberland.”

“I am at your service,” said John Cumberland. “You know more of this business than I do.”

“Very well,” Danbazzar went on. “The raising of the second lid will be easy. But it won’t be raised until I say the word.”

“Why?” cried Barry.

Danbazzar turned to him.

“Because,” he answered, “the raising of that lid will be the first critical moment. We don’t know what we shall find. We don’t care to think what we shall find. But we have to suppose that there is a woman there--in what we might describe as a trance. Now”--he performed a slow, impressive gesture--“according to the formula, as you’ll remember, Mr. Cumberland, there must be no delay between the opening of the sarcophagus and the beginning of the ceremony for waking the sleeper.”

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Professor Blackwell. “Is this some strange dream?”

“It may be,” Danbazzar admitted, “but we have to suppose that it isn’t. Also, we have to suppose, or rather to remember, that the Princess Zalithea, if she’s there and still living, last saw this world in the days of the Pharaohs!--according to my calculations, about the time of Rameses the Ninth. Let’s put ourselves in her place. If we aren’t all crazy--if those old priests weren’t all crazy--she will suddenly find herself surrounded by a group of wild-eyed devils--I include myself--wearing fantastic clothes and speaking a barbaric language! Now this can’t be. Think a minute!”

“I follow you entirely,” said Professor Blackwell. “Quite! Quite! And I see what you are about to propose.”

“Good for you, Professor!” Danbazzar nodded appreciatively. “We’ve got to dress the part, and I came prepared for it.”

“What!” Barry exclaimed.

“Yes, sir,” Danbazzar went on; “when we take that lid off, we have got to be dressed like Ancient Egyptians!--and we have got to be silent! Leave the talking to me. I have the outfit. Does everybody agree?”

Everybody agreed.…

They did not linger long over their coffee, but hurried back to the excavation.

Guards were posted as on the previous night. Excitement ran higher than ever. They worked, and the Arabs worked, under the direction of Hassan es-Sugra, like men whose lives depended upon their speedy success.

But the eight o’clock shift had returned to quarters and the twelve o’clock shift were near to their time of departure, before the great lid was raised high enough to enable them to explore the interior of the granite coffin.

Not one of the party was wholly master of himself. Barry experienced an unfamiliar desire either to laugh or to cry. But, composure regained, light was directed into the interior.…

It contained a magnificent wooden sarcophagus, highly gilded and painted. The lid, which was in relief, represented the figure of the occupant--a girl, clad in a gauzy robe, her hands clasped upon her bosom and holding a Lotus flower. The Ankh--symbol of life--was at her head and her feet. The presentment was wonderful--uncanny.

Barry’s mood changed. He felt suddenly sick. He believed that he was likely to swoon.

The eyes, the hair, the full lips, the slender, cloudily clad figure! This was madness! He stood upright, his hand on his brow. Perspiration was dripping into his eyes.

It was _she!_ It was the girl of his dreams! More, far more than a coincidence, this was a miracle--or a delusion!