THE SECRET

Anthony lifted the flap, holding up the lantern, and we both looked in.

No one was there—but the tent had the look of recent occupation. It was neatly arranged, as the tent of an old soldier should be: but on the table stood a half-used candle stuck in a bottle; and beside it a book lay open, face downward. Entering the tent the first thing I did was to glance at the title of this book. It was a learned archeological treatise. Here and there a paragraph was marked, and leaves dog's-eared. Three other volumes of the same sort were piled one upon the other. Anthony and I had read all four during the last few months, since our minds had concentrated on the subject of pyramids and rock tombs.

"What do you think has become of Corkran?" I said to Anthony.

"I think the djinns have got him," he answered, gravely.

"You mean—"

"I don't quite know what I mean. But—he must have hit upon something, and then—have been prevented from coming back."

"Why should he have had such luck, after a few weeks' work, an unscientific fellow like him, if the secret of the mountain has been inviolate for over two thousand years?"

"Wait and see what's happened to him before you call it 'luck,' Duffer. But you must remember that nobody except Ferlini and a few superstitious blacks ever believed that the mountain had a secret. Incredulity has protected it. And Corkran had to work like a thousand devils if he hoped to get hold of anything before he was found out. I believe he has got hold of something, and—that it then got hold of him. But we shall see."

"Yes, we shall see," I repeated. "And before long if we too have luck."

"I hope it won't be the same kind as his. But come along out of this. We must get to work before sunrise, and try for a result of some sort before the worst of the heat. If he's found anything, we ought pretty quickly to profit by his weeks of frantic labour. That, maybe, will be our revenge."

We had to tell the party what we had found in the tent, and what we meant to do next. Sir Marcus was now excused by Mrs. East; but until summoned by us the ladies were to remain where they were, under shelter of the tent which the camel-boys were getting into shape. When exhorted to be patient, they received the advice in sweet silence; but we did not until later attach much importance to this unusual mood. Perhaps at the moment we were too preoccupied to notice expressions, even in the eyes we loved best.

We took with us two men whom Asmack had provided as diggers, and in five minutes we were at the base of the little dark, conical mountain which for weeks had been the object of our dreams. Now, standing face to face with it, the glamour faded. The Mountain of the Golden Pyramid was exactly like a dozen other tumbled shapes of black rock, grouped or scattered over the dull clay desert which many centuries ago had been the fertile realm of Candace. Why should a queen have selected it from among its lumpish fellows, to do it secret honour? But Corkran had had faith. Here were traces of what Fenton called his "frantic labours."

A parallel trench had been dug with the evident object of unearthing a buried entrance into the mountain. Down it went through hardened sand and clay, to a depth of eight or ten feet; and descending, we found as we expected to do, several low tunnels driven at right angles toward the mountain itself. One after another we entered, crawling on hands and knees, only to come up against a solid wall of rock at the end. Each of these burrows represented just so much toil and disappointment. But Corkran, whose undertaking could be justified even to his own mind only by success, had not been discouraged. The trench went round three sides of the mountain, as we soon discovered; and the corner of the fourth faÇade not having yet been turned, it seemed a sign that Corkran had, as Anthony said, "hit upon something," or thought that he had done so. Otherwise he would not have discharged his men before the fourth gallery was begun. We had started from the south because our camp faced the long trench on that side, and it was quicker to jump into it than to walk round and examine the excavations from ground-level. On the east, the plan of the work was the same as on the south, except that the tunnels leading mountainward were driven at different distances, relatively to each other; and each of these also ended in a cul de sac. Now remained the trench on the north side of the mountain, which was the most promising direction for a "find": and as we turned the corner which brought us into this third trench the sun rose, making the sky blossom like the primrose fields of heaven.

On this side, sand driven by the northerly wind which never rests had banked itself high against the mountain, and the excavation had been a more serious task. There were only two tunnels, and into both sand had fallen. One was nearly blocked up, and impossible to enter without reopening; but we took it for granted hopefully that the second had been made later. This ran toward the mountain with a northeasterly slant; and though it was partly choked by sand, it was possible to crawl in. Anthony insisted on going first. I followed, at the pace of my early ancestor the worm, and Sir Marcus comfortably waited outside. He wanted to be a pioneer only in financial paths; and after all, this was our mountain now. It wasn't worth his while to be killed in it. Besides, as he pointed out, if anything happened to us there must be some one to organize a rescue, and break the news to the ladies.

Anthony had a small electric torch, and I a lantern, but going on hands and knees, we could use the lights only now and then. When we had crept ahead (descending always) for twelve or fifteen feet, Anthony stopped. "Hullo!" I heard him call, in a muffled, reverberating voice. "Here's the reason why Corkran sent his Arabs away!"

"What is it?" I yelled, my heart jumping.

"The rock's been cut back, by the hands of men."

"His men, perhaps."

"No, it isn't done like that nowadays. The tunnel turns here, dips down, and goes on along this flat wall. I bet Corkran always kept ahead of the men. When he saw this, he discharged his workers—And yet, it may be nothing of importance after all. Only a flat surface for some old wall-inscription such as Romans and even Egyptian soldiers made constantly, on the march."

The rumbling voice ceased, as Anthony crawled round the turn of the passage. I followed, literally close on his heels, the burrow descending like a rabbit-hole. Suddenly Anthony stopped again. "I've come into a sort of chamber Corkran's scooped out," I heard him say. "It's high enough to sit up in—no, to stand up in. This is the end of the passage, I think. By Jove, look out!" He had disappeared in the darkness behind a higher arch in the roof of the gallery. As he cried out, I slipped through after him, slid down a steep, abrupt slope, and by the light of my agitated lantern saw Anthony standing waist-deep in a well-like hole, into which he had evidently stumbled.

"Let me give you a hand up," I said.

"No thank you," he answered, in a tense, excited voice. "This is where I want to be. Look!"

I looked and saw, at the bottom of the scooped-out hole, a crevice in the flat wall of rock which we had been following down the passage, after its turn from the right angle way to creep along the mountainside. Out of this crevice protruded a large iron crowbar, apparently jammed into place, the first tool we had seen anywhere.

The chamber in which I stood, was littered and piled up with hard masses of earth which had been thrown out of the hole; and on the rough floor of the latter I stepped on the spade which had done the work. It nearly turned my ankle as I jumped on to it, but I hardly felt the pain. Torch and lantern showed clearly that the crevice in the wall was not a natural crack, but a man-made opening. It was as if a slab of rock fitted roughly into grooves had first been lifted, and had then fallen heavily on to the crowbar.

I set the lantern on the earthy floor and its yellow light streamed through the crack, whence the crowbar protruded like a black pipe in a negro's mouth. It was all darkness on the other side; from behind the screen of rock, set in its deep grooves, came the strangest sound I ever heard, or shall ever hear. It was a voice, groaning, yet it was not like a human voice. The horrid idea jumped into my head that it was the howl of an evil spirit sitting in a dead man's skull.

"He's alive then," exclaimed Anthony, pale in the sickly light. "Is that you, Corkran?" he called. The only answer was another groan.

"I see the whole business now, don't you?" Fenton said. "This passage is very steep. Already it was far under ground-level, before we got to the cutting on the mountain wall, and it must have been under ground-level for many centuries. They dug deep down, to make the tomb, and then covered up the entrance with earth. When Corkran got to his portcullis, he thought he'd reached the reward of his labours. Well—so he had—the punishment. Here's the heap of stone he used as a fulcrum for his lever. The heap tumbled when he was on the other side, and the slab of rock came down to trap him. We'll have to build up his fulcrum again, before we can do anything ourselves."

Together we forced the flat end of the crowbar into the crevice, pressed a piece of rock under it, and exerted all our strength. The slab moved upward an inch or two, grating in its rough grooves. The crack, no higher than the diameter of the crowbar plus a stone or two, when we saw it first, was now twice its original height. In went another stone, and so on. We worked like demons in hell, and in an atmosphere almost as hot and breathless. Yet we could breathe. Whether all the air we got came through the long twisting passage Corkran had made, or whether there were ventilation from the other side of the rock-curtain—some opening in an unseen cave—we could not tell. All we knew was that the mountain had a secret, and that the man who had tried to rob us of our rights to it, was caught in the trap of the djinns.

Our "rights!" How fragile as spider-webs, how almost laughable they seemed down here! Rights we had bargained for with men, which they, not owning them, had gravely given! I suddenly realized, and I think Anthony realized, as sweating and silent we piled up the fulcrum of stones thrown down by the djinns, that they alone, or the sleeping queen they guarded, had "rights" in this hidden place.

When we had raised the slab to a height of about two feet in its grooves, and had made sure that the stones held it firmly in place, we told each other that it was time to cross the threshold. The rock-door was scarcely more than a yard in width, and we crawled through in single file, Anthony going ahead as before, with his torch. I passed my lantern in after him, and then followed. As I crept through the narrow aperture I was conscious, among other emotions, of vague disappointment. "If this is the way to a tomb, and the only way, there can't be anything very fine to discover," I said to myself. "Why, the entrance isn't big enough to let in a decent-sized sarcophagus."

"It's the man of my dreams all right, and he's lying close to a deep-set doorway, like the one where I've seen him often. I told you so!" Anthony was saying in quite a commonplace voice, as I picked myself up, on the other side of the rock-screen.

We were in a small chamber more roughly hewn, and not so large as the inner sanctuary of Abu Simbel, which I had such good cause to remember. Exactly opposite the entrance by which we had come in was—as Anthony had said—a door, deeply set in the rock—a door of the same type as that through which we had passed; and in the shadow of the overhanging arch lay the heavy figure of Colonel Corkran, dressed in khaki.

His eyes were open, but he did not stir as we bent over him. Only his lips moved slightly, as if he were making a grimace.

"He's trying to ask for something to eat or drink," said Fenton. "What a confounded fool I am!—I've nothing, not even a flask. Have you?"

"No. I'll go back at once and get something," I answered. Strange, but I was not in the least angry with Corkran, whom I had been execrating. Perhaps this was partly because the impression that the djinns had sole rights here was growing stronger every moment. We were all interlopers, usurpers.

Without stopping for more words, I turned my back to the secret still unsolved. To my surprise, however, I saw a light stronger than our own shining outside the partly raised screen of rock. Getting on my knees to crawl out, my face almost met the face of Monny Gilder, about to crawl in. Involuntarily I gave way, and in she crept like a big baby, Biddy coming after. Then we laughed, though I had seldom felt less like laughing. And the echo of our laughter was as if the spirits laughed, behind our backs.

"We never promised we wouldn't come," Monny hastily began, before Anthony could speak. "We just kept still. And Sir Marcus thought you wouldn't much mind, because the two nicest Nubians brought us quite safely. Oh, isn't it wonderful? And to be here when you open that door! But—why, it isn't one of our men with you. It's—it's the thief!"

"Don't call him names now, dearest," Brigit begged. "Poor wretch! He looks nearly dead. What a good thing we brought the biscuits and brandy."

"I was going for some," I said. Not only had I got to my feet again, but had helped Biddy to hers, and Anthony had snatched his tall Monny up, as if she had been a bundle of thistle-down. The Angels! It would never have done to tell them how glad we were that they had disobeyed us. It was Providence, apparently, not Marcus Lark, who had sent them to the rescue.

"We thought perhaps if you found anything interesting you'd want to stay with it a long time," explained Monny. "That's why we brought you food and drink. It is a good thing we came, isn't it?"

Fenton and I did not answer. Instead, we occupied ourselves with ministering to the enemy: a few bits of crumbled biscuit, a few drops of brandy to moisten them. He mumbled and swallowed and choked; and slowly the veinous red came back to the flabby gray cheeks, with their prickles of sprouting beard.

"It's fresh air he needs now," said Anthony. "He won't die from two or three days' fasting, not he! And it can't be more, for it would have taken him days and nights of hard work to get here, after his men were sent off. Jove, I believe it's more funk than anything else, that's laid him low. Thought he was done for, and all that. Look, there's his candle-lantern upset on the floor. It couldn't have been very gay for him when the light went out. Lend a hand, Duffer, and we'll give him to the Nubians the girls have brought. They'll carry him to his own tent. He never got as far in as the second door here, so we needn't search him. Otherwise I would, like a shot."

Yes, it was Something higher than a mere financier who sent the girls to us in the antechamber of the secret. We could not, for their own sakes, have risked bringing them. But here they were, and we should always have this memory together, we told ourselves, though we did not tell the disobedient ones. That would have been a bad precedent. What there was to see, they would see with us. And even the djinns could not work harm to Angels.

We went out and collected more stones with which to prop up the second screen of rock, which was not so thick as the first, and used Corkran's spade to hold it up at last. Beyond, was another roughly hewn chamber, and at the far end, set in a curiously fitted frame of wood, a wooden door, looking almost as new as though it had been made yesterday. Anthony flashed his electric torch over it, and we saw the grain of deal. There was a bronze lock, and a latch of strange, crude workmanship which Monny touched deprecatingly. "May I?" she half whispered. For to her also the place was haunted. She seemed to ask permission of spirits rather than of her lover. But the latch did not move.

"It would be sacrilege to break the lock," she said. "What shall you do?"

"Take the door off its supports: they're not hinges," Fenton answered, in the queer low tone which somehow we all instinctively adopted. "We've got one or two implements may help to do the trick."

He worked cautiously, even tenderly: for this queen's secret was our secret in the finding, even if the right to it was in the keeping of the djinns. Monny held my lantern, and it was a good half hour before Anthony and I together could carefully lift the deal door, unbroken, from its place.

Still Monny held the lantern, and at the threshold of a dimly seen room beyond, we all drew back: for on the sanded floor were footprints. To them the girl pointed, her eyes turning to Anthony's face, as if to ask; "How can it be that any one came in, when the door was locked, and there was that screen of rock to raise?"

But as we looked, over one another's shoulders, we realised that the prints were not made by modern boots. They were the marks of sandals; and they went across the floor to a thing that glittered in the middle of the room—a vague shape like a draped coffin, with something high and pointed on top: crossed to a glittering table on which a ray from the lantern revealed offerings to the dead: a loaf; a roasted duck, its wings neatly tied with string: cakes and fruit, all dried and blackened, but perfect in form: and a saucer of incense, from which a little ash had fallen from a ghostly pastille onto the table. There the sandalled feet had paused, while the incense caught a spark, and moving on, had walked straight to the door.

A faint fragrance from perfume jars came to our nostrils: a strange, subtle fragrance still, though most of its sweetness had gone, leaving more marked the smell of fat which had held the perfume all these years, while civilizations grew up and perished. The man who had lit the incense and locked the door seemed to have hurried back from—who knew where?—to stand behind us, saying "I forbid you entrance, in the name of the ancient gods!" We could not see him, nor hear his voice; but we could feel that he was there, and something in us revolted against the ruthlessness of disobeying, of forcing our way into the room in spite of him, to crush his footprints with ours.

"Why does the sand glitter so?" Monny asked. "Everything glitters! Everything looks as if it were made of gold."

"The Mountain of the Golden Pyramid," Biddy murmured.

"Go in first, you two, and bless the place," I said, my heart wildly beating.

They obeyed for once, moving delicately as if to music which ears of men were not fine enough to hear. They went hand in hand: and as Monny in her straight, pale-tinted dress, held up the lantern, I thought of the Wise Virgin. When this room had last been lighted, the parable of the Virgins of the Lamps was yet unspoken.

"It is not sand," said Monny, gasping a little in the heavy air. "It is sprinkled gold dust. Now it is on the soles of our feet. It shines—it shines!"

Anthony and I followed, still with that curious sense of hesitation, as if we ought to apologize to some one. The room of the dead was very close, and we drew our breath with difficulty for a moment. But the discomfort passed. Mechanically we avoided the footmarks printed in gold—avoided them as if they had been covered by invisible feet.

Monny was right. Everything was gold—and it shone—it shone. Dust from the terrible mines of Nub, whence the convict-miners never returned, lay thickly scattered over the rock-floor. The walls of rock were plastered with gold leaf, as high as the low ceiling: and upon the ceiling itself, on a background of deep blue colour, was traced in gold the form of Nut, goddess of Night, her long arms outspread across an azure sky of golden stars.

The table of offerings was decorated with gold in barbaric patterns, and the saucer which held the burnt pastille of incense was of gold, crudely designed, but beautiful. Cloth of gold, soft as old linen, draped a coffin in the centre of the room, and hid the conical object on the coffin's lid. On a sudden half savage impulse I lifted the covering, with a pang of fear lest the fabric should drop to pieces. But it did not. Its limp, yet heavy folds fell across my feet, as I stood looking at the wonderful thing it had concealed.

There was no sarcophagus of stone. The doors leading to the rock-tomb were not large enough to have admitted one. Instead, there was an extraordinarily high, narrow coffin or mummy-case, richly gilded, and decorated with intricate designs different from any I had seen in the museum at Cairo. The top of the case represented the figure of a woman, with a smiling golden face, painted lips and hair. But the strangeness and wonder were under the long eyelids, and in the woman's hands. The slanting eyes had each an immense cabuchon emerald for its iris, set round with brilliant stones like diamonds, curiously cut. And the carved, gilded hands of wood, with realistic fingers wearing rings, were clasped round a pyramid of gold. This it was which had betrayed its conical shape through the drapery of gold cloth.

The opening in the miniature pyramid was not concealed. There was a little door, guarded by a tiny golden sphinx; and on the neck of the sphinx, suspended by a delicate chain, was a bell.

"It is to call the spirit of the queen, if a profane touch should violate her tomb," Fenton said, dreamily. He was beginning to look like a man hypnotized. Perhaps it was the close air, with its lingering perfume of two thousand years ago. Perhaps it was something else, more subtile; something else that we could all feel, as one feels the touch of a living hand that moves under a cloak.

No one spoke for an instant. I think we half expected the bell to ring. Then Fenton said: "Monny, you and Mrs. O'Brien must choose which is to have the privilege of finding out the secret of the golden pyramid. The Duffer and I want it to be one of you."

"Oh no, not I!" cried Monny, almost angrily.

"Nor I," Biddy firmly echoed.

"Duffer, the papers were yours. Will you—" Anthony began.

"No—I—It was your faith in the mountain that brought us to it," I reminded him. "It ought to be you—"

"If—if it ought to be any one of us," Monny broke in, with a little breathless catch in her voice.

"If—But what do you mean?" Anthony turned an odd, startled look upon the girl.

"I—hardly know what I mean. Only—I couldn't touch anything here. They are—hers. They've been hers for two thousand and two hundred years. I never thought I should feel like this. I'd rather drop dead, this minute, than try to take that little pyramid out of those golden hands. They've clasped it so long! She wanted so much to keep the secret. Anthony—this is the strongest feeling that ever came into my heart —except love for you, this feeling that—we have no right—that it would be monstrous to rob—this queen."

"It wouldn't be robbing," Anthony said, heavily, "we have the right—"

"Oh, I wonder?" Biddy whispered.

"What would become of museums if everybody felt as you suddenly feel —or think you feel?" Fenton went on. "If it were wrong to open tombs, the best men in Egypt—"

"Not wrong, perhaps," Monny explained, "but—oh, I'm sure you understand. I'm sure in your hearts you both—you men—feel just as we do now we're in this wonderful secret place. That something forbids—I don't know whether it's something in ourselves or outside, but it's here. It says "No; whatever others do, you cannot do this thing." If you didn't feel it, you would have taken the pyramid out of those poor hands, and tried to tear off the rings, and open the coffin itself, to get at the mummy. But you haven't—either of you. You don't want to do it. You can't! I dare one of you to tell me it's only for Biddy and me that you've kept your hands off."

"We've come a long way, and have done a good deal to find this secret that we expected Egypt to give us," I said, dully, instead of answering her challenge.

Monny had no argument for me. She turned to Anthony.

"The secret you expected Egypt to give!" she echoed. "And hasn't Egypt given you a secret?"

"Yes," said Anthony, "Egypt has given us a secret: the greatest secret of all. But—"

"Is there a 'but'? I wonder if that isn't the only secret which one can open and learn by heart, without breaking the charm?" Biddy seemed to be speaking to herself, but we heard. "The secret of love goes on forever being a secret, doesn't it, the more you find out about it, just as the world and its beauty grows greater and more wonderful the higher you climb up a mountain? But other secrets!—You find them out, and they're gone, like a bright soap bubble. Nothing can mend broken romance!"

"If we didn't touch anything here, what a memory this would be to carry away!" Monny said. "Don't you remember, Anthony, my saying once how I loved to dream of all the beautiful lost things, hidden beneath the sea and earth, never to be found while the world lasts, and stuck miserably under glass cases? You said you felt the same, in some moods. I love those moods!"

"I felt—I feel—so about things in general," Anthony admitted. "It was my romantic side you appealed to—"

"Have you a better side?"

"No better, but more practical. This isn't 'things in general.' It's a thing particular, personal, and definite. If we should be quixotic enough not to take what we've earned the right to take, we should be called fools. Instead of claiming our half, the Egyptian government would get all—"

"Let it!" Monny cried. "A government is a big, cold, soulless —impersonality! It never could know the thrill that's in our blood this wonderful minute—or miss the thrill if it were destroyed. Do you mind being called a fool, Anthony—and you, Lord Ernest?"

Anthony was silent; but something made me speak. "I don't mind. You know, I've always been a Duffer."

"Our future largely depends on this," Fenton persisted, with a conscientious wish to persuade us—and himself.

"I believe it does!" Monny strangely agreed with him.

"What do you mean?" Anthony's voice was suddenly sharp with some emotion; which sounded more like anxiety than anger. "Do you mean, that if Ernest Borrow and I insist on our rights to whatever treasure is hidden here, you and Mrs. O'Brien will think less of us?"

"Not less. Nothing you could do would make us think less, after all that has happened to us, together. But—could it ever be as it has been—as beautiful, as sweet, with all the dearest kind of romance in our thoughts of you? You see, you have the glory of finding the secret. Queen Candace saved it for you. She wouldn't give it to such a man as Colonel Corkran. She knew he wouldn't respect her. Maybe she hoped you would. I seem to hear her saying so. All this gold, and the treasure we haven't seen, is hers. It's been hers for more than two thousand years. Why should we steal it? We aren't a horrid, cold Government. It won't be our fault, whatever a Government may choose to do. She'll know that, and so shall we. Besides, we can beg to have the tomb kept like this for the great shrine of MerÖe. Our memory of this place can't have the glamour torn away whatever happens. Nothing sordid will come between it and us, as it would if—why, after all, where's the great difference between opening the coffin of a woman dead thousands of years ago, or a few months? Supposing people wanted to dig up Queen Elizabeth, to see what had been buried with her? Or Napoleon? What an outcry there'd be all over the world. This poor queen is defenceless, because her civilization is dead, too. Could you force open the lid of her coffin, Lord Ernest, and take the jewels off her neck?"

"Just now, I feel as if I couldn't," I confessed humbly.

"And you, Anthony? What if I died, and asked to have the jewels I loved because you'd given them, put on my body to lie there till eternity, and—"

"Don't," Anthony cut her short. "There are some things I can't listen to from you."

"And some things you can't do. You may think you could, but—Go and take the golden pyramid out of those golden hands if you can!"

"I shall not take it," said Anthony, "I shall never take it now. You must know that."

"I'm not saying I shan't go on loving you if you go against me. I shall love you always. I can't help that. But—"

"That's it: the 'but'. Let it all go! At least, we've had the adventure. And we've got Love. I don't want the treasure, now. Or the secret. I give up my part in them forever."

"For me?"

"Yes, for you. But there's something more."

"Another reason?"

"I think so. Frankly, it isn't all for you. Only, you've made me feel it. Without you, I might have felt it—but too late. If there's a drop of Egyptian blood in my veins—why, yes, it must be that, telling me the same thing that you have told. This Egyptian queen may lose her treasure, and must lose her secret; but it won't be through me."

"And because you wouldn't steal them, she has given you the secret and the treasure, the best of both, with her royal blessing," Biddy said. "This is what Ferlini's papers, and the legends, really meant for you and Ernest. Everything that's happened, not only in Egypt, but in our whole lives, has been leading up to the discovery of the Treasure and the Secret that we can take without stealing. Do you know what I'm talking about? And if you do, was it worth coming so far to find—this treasure that I mean, and this secret?"

"We know very well," Anthony said, "and you know that we realize it was worth journeying to the end of the world for—or into the next."

"Or into the next!" Monny echoed. "Here we're on the threshold of the next. That's why the Queen's blessing feels so near."

THE END