CHAPTER XXIV.

THE RETURN TO LUXOR

Work in the valley was ended. The tomb, stripped of its contents, had been reclosed so that even Mr. Howard Carter could not have found it. The workmen, well paid and happy, had dispersed to their homes. Most of them were men of the Fayyum.

Danbazzar and Hassan es-Sugra had contrived the transport of Zalithea from the camp in the _wâdi_ to a carefully chosen suite at a Luxor hotel without provoking comment. John Cumberland’s bank account had silenced any criticisms regarding the nature of his interest in the heavily veiled Moslem lady for whose accommodation he had arranged. The thing had run on oiled wheels, dollars being the lubricant; but since there is more grit in the world than there are dollars, this smooth running inevitably couldn’t last.

Barry, whose dream woman had miraculously come to life, found himself in a frame of mind which he was sane enough to recognize as unique. The Zalithea he knew, the adorable, winning, childish, petulant, sometimes frightening girl, he was learning to worship. The Zalithea of the papyrus, the princess of unknown origin who had been captured by the troops of Seti in an unimaginable past, he fought to forget.

Advance guards of the Thomas Cook army had already established themselves in Luxor. A German party, some days earlier, and on the eve of striking camp, had penetrated to the _wâdi_. Their insatiable Teutonic curiosity was their only guide; Danbazzar’s lurid profanity their only reward. Even the donkey boys had blushed.

But the incident had gone to prove that they had achieved their purpose only just in time. It was the tourist invasion which had checked Danbazzar a year before.

That remarkable man, whose resourcefulness knew no bounds, had long since set out, accompanied by Hassan es-Sugra, two camel drivers and a large sum of ready money, for the Great Oasis. Here he had arranged to meet a certain sheik of the Shorbagis from Dakhla and to obtain from him a document, suitably witnessed, authorizing John Cumberland to escort the sheik’s daughter, Zalithea, to America for neuropathic treatment prescribed by Professor Blackwell.

“The Senussi,” Danbazzar had admitted, “are the most dangerous fanatics in Africa. One of that bunch would be about as likely to send his daughter to America as to burn his whiskers for firewood. But nobody here will be any wiser, never having been to those parts, and the American consul, who is a Greek from Alexandria, doesn’t know an Arab from an onion. We’ll get her passport without any trouble.”

Zalithea’s balcony overlooked the Nile. Here she spent many hours every day, watching the varied life of the river front. Her bewilderment Barry found at once pathetic and delicious. The dragomans, who were now beginning to put in an appearance, she mistook for priests. The strangely garbed tourists she assumed to be foreign captives!

The advent of the first steamer from Cairo aroused such terror that Barry grew alarmed. He found himself utterly incapable of explaining this mystery, handicapped as he was. Automobiles, for some reason, frightened her but little. Indeed, she managed to make him understand at last that she wished to ride in one!

That once vexed question of dress had been settled. Zalithea understood that no slight was intended by the wearing of a lounge suit. She seemed to think that the Winter Palace was the palace of Pharaoh, and she tried to ask if the reigning monarch was absent at war.

She was extraordinarily observant. In the cool of the evening, with Safîyeh in attendance, and escorted by Barry or John Cumberland, Zalithea would walk along the bank as far as the old _shadûf_. The really fashionable crowd was not yet in evidence, but, nevertheless, she quickly noticed--since wealthy Moslem women rarely appear in public--that except among the lower classes veils were nowhere to be seen.

This problem was quite beyond Barry’s power of explanation. But John Cumberland, in his practical way, set to work to solve it.

From Cairo one day stacks of boxes arrived and were duly carried up to Zalithea’s apartment. Barry had just bought her a bundle of illustrated magazines and was watching her, fascinatedly, as she pored over pages of photographs showing society groups in various sun traps from Mentone to Miami.

What an exquisite profile she had! He wondered, was eternally wondering, where the island of Unu had been. Zalithea’s long, narrow dark eyes were of a kind he had never seen among the modern Egyptians, but they were typical of the women depicted on the ancient wall paintings. Her profile, too, was purely aristocratic and bore a remarkable resemblance to that of the beautiful queen Ameniritis. His rapt study of the girl was interrupted by the delivery of the boxes.

Zalithea ran in from the balcony immediately, filled with childish interest. As box after box was laid on the carpet, her excitement grew intense. Stooping, she touched a label, looked at Barry interrogatively and then indicated herself.

“Yes,” he said, “for you! All for you.”

“Fo-ah you?”

“No--you! you are me! I don’t know how to explain!” He rested his hand on her shoulder. “Me,” he said.

Zalithea, watching him eagerly, touched her own breast, and:

“Me,” she echoed.

“Yes!” Barry nodded. “For me.”

“Fo-ah me.”

She clapped her hands excitedly and indicated that he should cut the fastenings. Happy because Zalithea was happy, he obeyed.… and out from this box and from that, with a vast rustling of tissue paper, came frocks, stockings, hats, flaky, delicate underwear--priceless loot of Paris.

Never had he seen Zalithea so excited. Taking up piece after piece, she literally danced in her joy!

Then, crying, “Safîyeh! Safîyeh!” she gathered up a great armful of assorted garments and ran into her bedroom. She had apparently forgotten Barry’s existence. But he walked out onto the balcony to await her reappearance. Knowing his father’s thoroughness, he didn’t doubt that John Cumberland would have found some way to obtain things to fit. Zalithea had been early introduced to shoes; so that this part of her equipment was comparatively simple. As for the other items, perhaps he had enlisted Safîyeh’s aid.

Barry looked out across the Nile to where the Libyan Desert baked under the merciless sun. He could hear Zalithea’s delicious, childish laughter and the harsher tones of Safîyeh. The miracle of it all crashed down suddenly upon his mind like a palpable weight.

This gay, light-hearted girl, whose laughter rang out clear as a bell, happily as a child’s, had lain for three thousand years over yonder in the Valley of the Dead!

He picked up a magazine at random from the little table set upon the balcony. There were things he couldn’t face--yet. He wondered if he ever would be capable of facing them. He dropped into a cane chair and began to scan the pictured pages.

In a section devoted to the doings of New York Society, he came across photographs of two or three people he knew. He stared at them as at the pictures of strangers. He felt that a great gulf had opened between himself and the empty life he had known. Upon one side of it were the old set, Aunt Micky, Jim and the rest; upon the other he stood, alone--with Zalithea.

Beneath, beside the river, moved men and women to whom Thebes meant sightseeing and sunshine--no more. He watched them as through a haze or as in a glass, darkly. Then, from a minaret at the back of the town, distantly, sweetly, came the voice of the _muezzin_ raised in the _adan_, or noonday call to prayer:

“_Alla-hu akbar.… La illa-ha illa Allah!_…”

“God is most great.… There is no God but God!” He listened to those words, which he knew, with a fresh wonder. For some reason they soothed his troubled mind. The passive attitude of Islam toward life was very wise, after all. He found himself thinking of Hassan es-Sugra, that grave, graceful philosopher, when:

“Bahree!” came a cry from the room behind him.

He turned. His eyes, dazzled by the blazing sunlight, at first could see little in the darkened room. Then, standing just within the doorway communicating with her bedroom, he saw Zalithea.

She wore a very up-to-date dance frock which displayed more of her creamy skin than Barry had seen since that unforgettable hour in the tomb when Danbazzar’s scissors had stripped off the wrappings. With unfailing instinct she had selected shoes to harmonize with the frock, which was very short.

Manlike, he thought she looked exquisite--and showed that he thought so. The admiring, grinning face of old Safîyeh appeared in the doorway, as Zalithea, almost timidly, came forward into the room. The girl’s wonderful, black-fringed eyes were set upon Barry with an expression of childish eagerness.

Something very unusual there was in her appearance, not due to her wholly different style of beauty, but to some irregularity in her attire which for a moment he failed to place.

Then, all at once, he saw what it was.

Zalithea’s shapely creamy legs were bare! She had forgotten to put stockings on! Watching him anxiously, she spoke.

“Zal’ith-eeah!” she said. “You-ah-addorahble!”