CHAPTER XX.

THE RITUAL

Barry looked around the square, rock-hewn chamber communicating with the tomb, and wondered why he felt no inclination to laugh. Had Jim Sakers formed one of the party, his mood might have been different; but, in the company of his father, Danbazzar, and Professor Blackwell, he found himself touched by awe.

They wore robes, sandals, and curious linen skullcaps which entirely concealed their hair. Danbazzar, so arrayed, presented an impressive picture. He did not look like an Egyptian priest, but he might have been a Pharaoh disguised as one, except for his moustache. The others, save for their deeply tanned skin, could by no stretch of the imagination have been mistaken for anything but American citizens masquerading.

Professor Blackwell, oddly enough, was more convincing than the rest. Without his spectacles, although he could see little, he had a distinctly hieratic appearance.

Hassan es-Sugra was not present. With Mahmoud he mounted guard in the valley, above.

A richly embroidered curtain hung in the now demolished doorway of the tomb chamber. The heat was almost insupportable; and the smell of some kind of incense which was burning on the other side of the curtain added to the oppressiveness of the atmosphere. This was _Kyphi_, mentioned in the “Papyrus Ebers,” and, according to Danbazzar, only twice hitherto prepared in modern times.

Danbazzar gave his final instructions.

“To the best of my knowledge,” he said, “everything is ready. One essential oil--you know the one I mean, Professor--has changed colour since I had it distilled. I can only hope that its special properties, whatever they are, remain the same.”

“It has no special properties that I am aware of,” the Professor murmured.

“We shall see,” the deep voice went on. “The seven lamps are ready to be lighted. You know when to light them and which lamps each of you must light. The last one, I light. The two unguents are in the bowls. You”--turning his piercing regard upon Barry--“will put the taper to the liquid in the perfume burner when I give the signal.

“The wine for the final draught, you”--indicating John Cumberland--“will pour into the cup onto the powder at the last moment--when she opens her eyes. I consider the wine to be the most doubtful item. It’s Madeira wine, over a hundred and fifty years old, but I’m not sure of it all the same.”

“That contained in the flagon found here was undoubtedly a similar vintage,” Professor Blackwell said. “It was a grape wine. My microscope has convinced me of this.”

“We can only hope you’re right,” said Danbazzar. “And now--the most important point of all. The sarcophagus I’ve had lifted out onto a sloping trestle. The implements for raising the lid are ready. The couch, described in the formula, is still serviceable, if we take great care. Directly the lid is off, she must be taken out of the sarcophagus and laid on the couch. I’ll do it. From that moment on, no one must speak! No one must make a sound! Just do your jobs. And, for God’s sake, don’t bungle!”

He held the curtain aside, and the party filed into the tomb.

It presented a picture that time could never efface from the minds of those who saw it. Dimly lighted by an ancient lamp set upon a pedestal, the air was misty with clouds of incense arising from a tripod placed on the right of the doorway.

The lotus sarcophagus rested, slanting, near to the great granite box which had contained it for generations. Upon a low table were two bowls containing some kind of ointment; a metal perfume burner; a jewelled cup in which was some gray, powdery substance; a stoppered flagon; and a curiously shaped lamp. The table was set close to the head of a long, narrow, gilded couch, having legs carved to represent those of an animal, and found in the tomb.

Six other lamps were placed at intervals around the walls.

Danbazzar pointed to a bundle of tapers. They were made of some inflammable resinous substance.

“The moment I lift her out,” he directed, “light those tapers at the brazier. The wrappings I look to find perished, and I shall set to work right away. Say all you want to say before I get the lid off. I shall work fast, even if I do damage. Once the thing is open--not a word from anybody.”

He stooped over the sarcophagus, with its startling presentment of the occupant. His shadow, gigantic, moved upon painted walls and ceiling. A sound of wrenching, cracking wood broke the oppressive silence.…

Barry clenched his teeth hard. He glanced at his father. Even through the tan one could see that John Cumberland had grown pale. Professor Blackwell’s gaunt features glistened with perspiration. Barry wondered--as though newly faced with the problem--what he should do if the sarcophagus really proved to contain a woman! A sudden unaccountable conviction had come to him that it was empty.

The heat in the tomb seemed to be growing greater every moment.…

John Cumberland stepped forward, in response to a signal from Danbazzar. Together, they raised the painted lid and rested it upright against the nearest wall.

Through a mist that was not wholly due to the incense, Barry saw the figure of a woman lying in the sarcophagus!

The figure was swathed in saffron-coloured wrappings. The arms and hands were enwrapped also. But within a sort of aperture where the face should have been appeared a thin gold mask. He experienced a sense of suspended animation. He seemed to watch that rigid figure through a vast period of time. Then, casting an imperious glance around him, and raising a finger significantly to his lips, Danbazzar stooped.

Lifting the mummylike form, he placed it on the couch.

With a pair of surgical scissors he began to cut through the wrappings.…

A hand touched Barry’s arm. He started wildly.

Professor Blackwell, his features strangely haggard, handed him a taper and pointed to the tripod.

Barry, by dint of a stupendous effort, regained control of himself. He remembered that it was his duty to light the first two lamps.

This duty he performed blindly. A sound of tearing linen seemed to fill the chamber. The perfume of the oil in the lamps began to mingle with that of the _Kyphi_.…

John Cumberland lighted two more lamps.

Barry turned and looked. Like lilies blooming in corruption, he saw two slender, exquisite arms peeping out from the torn and powdered wrappings… bare, creamy shoulders gleamed in the lamplight.

Danbazzar gently detached the gold mask and removed the turbanlike swathings which confined a mass of short, wavy dark hair.

A pale, exquisite face was revealed, delicate as a Greek cameo. Long, curling black lashes rested on the youthfully rounded cheeks. The pouting lips seemed to smile.…

In on the hush of it burst a loud, harsh cry:

“My God!”

Even as he met a furious glance of Danbazzar’s blazing, wild animal eyes, Barry did not realize that it was _he_ who had cried out. But instantly came recognition of the fact.

He clapped his palm over his mouth, literally choking back the words he had been about to utter. John Cumberland had his hand raised in warning--a hand that shook wildly. Professor Blackwell lighted the last pair of lamps. His face looked waxen--ghastly.

Danbazzar, icily calm again, proceeded to carry out the singular formula. A wave of embarrassment swept over Barry, making his very scalp tingle. He turned aside.

But his heart was leaping--leaping…

Danbazzar lighted the seventh lamp--and glared at Barry.

Barry plunged a taper into the brazier and applied the little tongue of flame to an oily liquid in the perfume burner. It ignited at once. Danbazzar, bending over the girl blew the aromatic smoke gently over her face.

At which moment, Professor Blackwell staggered toward the curtained doorway. John Cumberland, his face masklike, waved to Barry to assist the Professor. Danbazzar never even glanced aside, as Barry threw a supporting arm around the tottering man and helped him to gain the outer chamber. There:

“Air!” he whispered. “I must have air.”

The task of getting him along the sloping passage was no easy one; for Professor Blackwell was heavily built. Especially it was difficult at the point where the roof had collapsed, since here he must negotiate an opening only about eighteen inches high.

But it was done at last. The Professor sank down in that little artificial cave created by the screen, and shakily produced his flask.

“Go back,” he said in a low voice--“go back. You will want to see if----”

“I couldn’t think of it,” Barry returned. “Not until you feel better. Was it the heat down there, Professor?”

Professor Blackwell returned his flask to his pocket. Some trace of normal colour was showing again in his cheeks. From a hiding place beneath his priest’s robe he produced his spectacles and set them in place. He made a very grotesque picture. Then:

“Not entirely,” he replied. “That was not without its effect, of course. But I confess that my threatened collapse was not entirely due to it. Your training, Barry, has not followed the same lines as mine. You are not only a younger man, but you are plastic minded. The sight of a person defying the law of gravity without mechanical aid, for instance, would not appall you?”

“It would certainly interest me.”

“Quite, quite. There’s the difference. It would horrify _me!_ And to-day I have witnessed a thing that has knocked the keystone out of the structure upon which my professional life rests. Those scientific principles to which, as a sane man, I have adhered unquestioningly throughout my career have been ruthlessly destroyed. Either modern physiology is fit only for the scrap heap or the claims of so-called occultists are worthy of close examination.”

“You think she is really alive?” asked Barry eagerly.

“Think!” retorted the Professor. “I _know_ she is! Whether the madhouse treatment now being employed by Danbazzar will terminate her miraculous trance or not I cannot say. But, quite definitely, she is alive! Go back, Barry. _I_ dare not!”

Eagerly Barry obeyed. He returned to the scene of the poor Professor’s seizure in a quarter of the time it had taken to come out. Softly raising the curtain he entered the chamber, all but intolerable, now, because of the clouds of incense.

He found his father and Danbazzar bending over Zalithea, their expressions tense. The slender curves which it had seemed desecration to uncover were hidden beneath a fine Egyptian shawl, but it revealed the delicate lines of her slim, still body.

Barry feasted his eyes on that pale face. Zalithea! Speculation was ended. Doubt was done with. By some unsuspected gift of prevision, of clairvoyance--call it what he might--he had been enabled to see her, though she lay deep in this rocky tomb, long before he had ever set foot on the black soil of Egypt! It was, therefore, predestined. As Hassan would have said, “It is written.” For this he had been born. Because of this wonder which was to come, he had never found his ideal woman but had dreamed of dark mysterious eyes which one day would beckon to him.…

A faint sigh broke the deathly stillness. Princess Zalithea raised her drooping lashes--and looked long and wonderingly into the faces bending over her. Then, without otherwise stirring, she turned her dark, beautiful eyes in Barry’s direction.

Danbazzar, that man of steel, gripped John Cumberland’s shoulder and indicated the stoppered flagon. Cumberland, making a visible effort to steady his hand, poured the old wine into the goblet.

Never removing that fixed, childlike look of inquiry from Barry, the girl allowed Danbazzar very gently to lift her up. He held the draught to her lips and spoke a few words in a language entirely unfamiliar to the others.

Zalithea glanced swiftly up at him and swallowed the drugged wine.

Then once more she looked at Barry, smiled like a tired child, and lay back, closing her eyes.

Danbazzar pointed to the doorway. As John Cumberland and Barry tiptoed out, he extinguished the seven lamps, joining them in the outer chamber.

“She is now sleeping normally,” he whispered. “She should wake in eight or nine hours’ time--and resume life!”

He reeled, clutched at Barry, and:

“Get me out,” he said hoarsely. “I’m through.”