The Jewel of Seven Stars/Chapter 18

Doubts and Fears

We learn of great things by little experiences. The history of ages is
but an indefinite repetition of the history of hours. The record of a
soul is but a multiple of the story of a moment. The Recording Angel
writes in the Great Book in no rainbow tints; his pen is dipped in no
colours but light and darkness. For the eye of infinite wisdom there is
no need of shading. All things, all thoughts, all emotions, all
experiences, all doubts and hopes and fears, all intentions, all wishes
seen down to the lower strata of their concrete and multitudinous
elements, are finally resolved into direct opposites.
Did any human being wish for the epitome of a life wherein were gathered
and grouped all the experiences that a child of Adam could have, the
history, fully and frankly written, of my own mind during the next
forty-eight hours would afford him all that could be wanted. And the
Recorder could have wrought as usual in sunlight and shadow, which may
be taken to represent the final expressions of Heaven and Hell. For in
the highest Heaven is Faith; and Doubt hangs over the yawning blackness
of Hell.
There were of course times of sunshine in those two days; moments when,
in the realisation of Margaret's sweetness and her love for me, all
doubts were dissipated like morning mist before the sun. But the
balance of the time-and an overwhelming balance it was-gloom hung over
me like a pall. The hour, in whose coming I had acquiesced, was
approaching so quickly and was already so near that the sense of
finality was bearing upon me! The issue was perhaps life or death to
any of us; but for this we were all prepared. Margaret and I were one
as to the risk. The question of the moral aspect of the case, which
involved the religious belief in which I had been reared, was not one to
trouble me; for the issues, and the causes that lay behind them, were
not within my power even to comprehend. The doubt of the success of the
Great Experiment was such a doubt as exists in all enterprises which
have great possibilities. To me, whose life was passed in a series of
intellectual struggles, this form of doubt was a stimulus, rather than
deterrent. What then was it that made for me a trouble, which became an
anguish when my thoughts dwelt long on it?
I was beginning to doubt Margaret!
What it was that I doubted I knew not. It was not her love, or her
honour, or her truth, or her kindness, or her zeal. What then was it?
It was herself!
Margaret was changing! At times during the past few days I had hardly
known her as the same girl whom I had met at the picnic, and whose
vigils I had shared in the sick-room of her father. Then, even in her
moments of greatest sorrow or fright or anxiety, she was all life and
thought and keenness. Now she was generally distraite, and at times in
a sort of negative condition as though her mind--her very being--was not
present. At such moments she would have full possession of observation
and memory. She would know and remember all that was going on, and had
gone on around her; but her coming back to her old self had to me
something the sensation of a new person coming into the room. Up to the
time of leaving London I had been content whenever she was present. I
had over me that delicious sense of security which comes with the
consciousness that love is mutual. But now doubt had taken its place.
I never knew whether the personality present was my Margaret--the old
Margaret whom I had loved at the first glance--or the other new Margaret,
whom I hardly understood, and whose intellectual aloofness made an
impalpable barrier between us. Sometimes she would become, as it were,
awake all at once. At such times, though she would say to me sweet and
pleasant things which she had often said before, she would seem most
unlike herself. It was almost as if she was speaking parrot-like or at
dictation of one who could read words or acts, but not thoughts. After
one or two experiences of this kind, my own doubting began to make a
barrier; for I could not speak with the ease and freedom which were
usual to me. And so hour by hour we drifted apart. Were it not for the
few odd moments when the old Margaret was back with me full of her charm
I do not know what would have happened. As it was, each such moment
gave me a fresh start and kept my love from changing.
I would have given the world for a confidant; but this was impossible.
How could I speak a doubt of Margaret to anyone, even her father! How
could I speak a doubt to Margaret, when Margaret herself was the theme!
I could only endure--and hope. And of the two the endurance was the
lesser pain.
I think that Margaret must have at times felt that there was some cloud
between us, for towards the end of the first day she began to shun me a
little; or perhaps it was that she had become more diffident that usual
about me. Hitherto she had sought every opportunity of being with me,
just as I had tried to be with her; so that now any avoidance, one of
the other, made a new pain to us both.
On this day the household seemed very still. Each one of us was about
his own work, or occupied with his own thoughts. We only met at meal
times; and then, though we talked, all seemed more or less preoccupied.
There was not in the house even the stir of the routine of service. The
precaution of Mr. Trelawny in having three rooms prepared for each of us
had rendered servants unnecessary. The dining-room was solidly prepared
with cooked provisions for several days. Towards evening I went out by
myself for a stroll. I had looked for Margaret to ask her to come with
me; but when I found her, she was in one of her apathetic moods, and the
charm of her presence seemed lost to me. Angry with myself, but unable
to quell my own spirit of discontent, I went out alone over the rocky
headland.
On the cliff, with the wide expanse of wonderful sea before me, and no
sound but the dash of waves below and the harsh screams of the seagulls
above, my thoughts ran free. Do what I would, they returned
continuously to one subject, the solving of the doubt that was upon me.
Here in the solitude, amid the wide circle of Nature's foce and strife,
my mind began to work truly. Unconsciously I found myself asking a
question which I would not allow myself to answer. At last the
persistence of a mind working truly prevailed; I found myself face to
face with my doubt. The habit of my life began to assert itself, and I
analysed the evidence before me.
It was so startling that I had to force myself into obedience to logical
effort. My starting-place was this: Margaret was changed--in what way,
and by what means? Was it her character, or her mind, or her nature? for
her physical appearance remained the same. I began to group all that I
had ever heard of her, beginning at her birth.
It was strange at the very first. She had been, according to Corbeck's
statement, born of a dead mother during the time that her father and his
friend were in a trance in the tomb at Aswan. That trance was
presumably effected by a woman; a woman mummied, yet preserving as we
had every reason to believe from after experience, an astral body
subject to a free will and an active intelligence. With that astral
body, space ceased to exist. The vast distance between London and Aswan
became as naught; and whatever power of necromancy the Sorceress had
might have been exercised over the dead mother, and possibly the dead
child.
The dead child! Was it possible that the child was dead and was made
alive again? Whence then came the animating spirit--the soul? Logic was
pointing the way to me now with a vengeance!
If the Egyptian belief was true for Egyptians, then the "Ka" of the dead
Queen and her "Khu" could animate what she might choose. In such case
Margaret would not be an individual at all, but simply a phase of Queen
Tera herself; an astral body obedient to her will!
Here I revolted against logic. Every fibre of my being resented such a
conclusion. How could I believe that there was no Margaret at all; but
just an animated image, used by the Double of a woman of forty centuries
ago to its own ends . . . ! Somehow, the outlook was brighter to me now,
despite the new doubts.
At least I had Margaret!
Back swung the logical pendulum again. The child then was not dead. If
so, had the Sorceress had anything to do with her birth at all? It was
evident--so I took it again from Corbeck--that there was a strange
likeness between Margaret and the pictures of Queen Tera. How could
this be? It could not be any birth-mark reproducing what had been in
the mother's mind; for Mrs. Trelawny had never seen the pictures. Nay,
even her father had not seen them till he had found his way into the
tomb only a few days before her birth. This phase I could not get rid
of so easily as the last; the fibres of my being remained quiet. There
remained to me the horror of doubt. And even then, so strange is the
mind of man, Doubt itself took a concrete image; a vast and impenetrable
gloom, through which flickered irregularly and spasmodically tiny points
of evanescent light, which seemed to quicken the darkness into a
positive existence.
The remaining possibility of relations between Margaret and the mummied
Queen was, that in some occult way the Sorceress had power to change
places with the other. This view of things could not be so lightly
thrown aside. There were too many suspicious circumstances to warrant
this, now that my attention was fixed on it and my intelligence
recognised the possibility. Hereupon there began to come into my mind
all the strange incomprehensible matters which had whirled through our
lives in the last few days. At first they all crowded in upon me in a
jumbled mass; but again the habit of mind of my working life prevailed,
and they took order. I found it now easier to control myself; for there
was something to grasp, some work to be done; though it was of a sorry
kind, for it was or might be antagonistic to Margaret. But Margaret was
herself at stake! I was thinking of her and fighting for her; and yet
if I were to work in the dark, I might be even harmful to her. My first
weapon in her defence was truth. I must know and understand; I might
then be able to act. Certainly, I could not act beneficently without a
just conception and recognition of the facts. Arranged in order these
were as follows:
Firstly: the strange likeness of Queen Tera to Margaret who had been
born in another country a thousand miles away, where her mother could
not possibly have had even a passing knowledge of her appearance.
Secondly: the disappearance of Van Huyn's book when I had read up to
the description of the Star Ruby.
Thirdly: the finding of the lamps in the boudoir. Tera with her astral
body could have unlocked the door of Corbeck's room in the hotel, and
have locked it again after her exit with the lamps. She could in the
same way have opened the window, and put the lamps in the boudoir. It
need not have been that Margaret in her own person should have had any
hand in this; but--but it was at least strange.
Fourthly: here the suspicions of the Detective and the Doctor came back
to me with renewed force, and with a larger understanding.
Fifthly: there were the occasions on which Margaret foretold with
accuracy the coming occasions of quietude, as though she had some
conviction or knowledge of the intentions of the astral-bodied Queen.
Sixthly: there was her suggestion of the finding of the Ruby which her
father had lost. As I thought now afresh over this episode in the light
of suspicion in which her own powers were involved, the only conclusion
I could come to was--always supposing that the theory of the Queen's
astral power was correct--that Queen Tera being anxious that all should
go well in the movement from London to Kyllion had in her own way taken
the Jewel from Mr. Trelawny's pocket-book, finding it of some use in her
supernatural guardianship of the journey. Then in some mysterious way
she had, through Margaret, made the suggestion of its loss and finding.
Seventhly, and lastly, was the strange dual existence which Margaret
seemed of late to be leading; and which in some way seemed a consequence
or corollary of all that had gone before.
The dual existence! This was indeed the conclusion which overcame all
difficulties and reconciled opposites. If indeed Margaret were not in
all ways a free agent, but could be compelled to speak or act as she
might be instructed; or if her whole being could be changed for another
without the possibility of any one noticing the doing of it, then all
things were possible. All would depend on the spirit of the
individuality by which she could be so compelled. If this individuality
were just and kind and clean, all might be well. But if not! . . . The
thought was too awful for words. I ground my teeth with futile rage, as
the ideas of horrible possibilities swept through me.
Up to this morning Margaret's lapses into her new self had been few and
hardly noticeable, save when once or twice her attitude towards myself
had been marked by a bearing strange to me. But today the contrary was
the case; and the change presaged badly. It might be that that other
individuality was of the lower, not of the better sort! Now that I
thought of it I had reason to fear. In the history of the mummy, from
the time of Van Huyn's breaking into the tomb, the record of deaths that
we knew of, presumably effected by her will and agency, was a startling
one. The Arab who had stolen the hand from the mummy; and the one who
had taken it from his body. The Arab chief who had tried to steal the
Jewel from Van Huyn, and whose throat bore the marks of seven fingers.
The two men found dead on the first night of Trelawny's taking away the
sarcophagus; and the three on the return to the tomb. The Arab who had
opened the secret serdab. Nine dead men, one of them slain manifestly
by the Queen's own hand! And beyond this again the several savage
attacks on Mr. Trelawny in his own room, in which, aided by her
Familiar, she had tried to open the safe and to extract the Talisman
jewel. His device of fastening the key to his wrist by a steel bangle,
though successful in the end, had wellnigh cost him his life.
If then the Queen, intent on her resurrection under her own conditions
had, so to speak, waded to it through blood, what might she not do were
her purpose thwarted? What terrible step might she not take to effect
her wishes? Nay, what were her wishes; what was her ultimate purpose?
As yet we had had only Margaret's statement of them, given in all the
glorious enthusiasm of her lofty soul. In her record there was no
expression of love to be sought or found. All we knew for certain was
that she had set before her the object of resurrection, and that in it
the North which she had manifestly loved was to have a special part.
But that the resurrection was to be accomplished in the lonely tomb in
the Valley of the Sorcerer was apparent. All preparations had been
carefully made for accomplishment from within, and for her ultimate exit
in her new and living form. The sarcophagus was unlidded. The oil jars,
though hermetically sealed, were to be easily opened by hand; and in
them provision was made for shrinkage through a vast period of time.
Even flint and steel were provided for the production of flame. The
Mummy Pit was left open in violation of usage; and beside the stone door
on the cliff side was fixed an imperishable chain by which she might in
safety descend to earth. But as to what her after intentions were we had
no clue. If it was that she meant to begin life again as a humble
individual, there was something so noble in the thought that it even
warmed my heart to her and turned my wishes to her success.
The very idea seemed to endorse Margaret's magnificent tribute to her
purpose, and helped to calm my troubled spirit.
Then and there, with this feeling strong upon me, I determined to warn
Margaret and her father of dire possibilities; and to await, as well
content as I could in my ignorance, the development of things over which
I had no power.
I returned to the house in a different frame of mind to that in which I
had left it; and was enchanted to find Margaret--the old Margaret--
waiting for me.
After dinner, when I was alone for a time with the father and daughter,
I opened the subject, though with considerable hesitation:
"Would it not be well to take every possible precaution, in case the
Queen may not wish what we are doing, with regard to what may occur
before the Experiment; and at or after her waking, if it comes off?"
Margaret's answer came back quickly; so quickly that I was convinced she
must have had it ready for some one:
"But she does approve! Surely it cannot be otherwise. Father is doing,
with all his brains and all his energy and all his great courage, just
exactly what the great Queen had arranged!"
"But," I answered, "that can hardly be. All that she arranged was in a
tomb high up in a rock, in a desert solitude, shut away from the world
by every conceivable means. She seems to have depended on this isolation
to insure against accident. Surely, here in another country and age,
with quite different conditions, she may in her anxiety make mistakes
and treat any of you--of us--as she did those others in times gone past.
Nine men that we know of have been slain by her own hand or by her
instigation. She can be remorseless if she will." It did not strike me
till afterwards when I was thinking over this conversation, how
thoroughly I had accepted the living and conscious condition of Queen
Tera as a fact. Before I spoke, I had feared I might offend Mr.
Trelawny; but to my pleasant surprise he smiled quite genially as he
answered me:
"My dear fellow, in a way you are quite right. The Queen did
undoubtedly intend isolation; and, all told, it would be best that her
experiment should be made as she arranged it. But just think, that
became impossible when once the Dutch explorer had broken into her tomb.
That was not my doing. I am innocent of it, though it was the cause of
my setting out to rediscover the sepulchre. Mind, I do not say for a
moment that I would not have done just the same as Van Huyn. I went
into the tomb from curiosity; and I took away what I did, being fired
with the zeal of acquisitiveness which animates the collector. But,
remember also, that at this time I did not know of the Queen's intention
of resurrection; I had no idea of the completeness of her preparations.
All that came long afterwards. But when it did come, I have done all
that I could to carry out her wishes to the full. My only fear is that
I may have misinterpreted some of her cryptic instructions, or have
omitted or overlooked something. But of this I am certain; I have left
undone nothing that I can imagine right to be done; and I have done
nothing that I know of to clash with Queen Tera's arrangement. I want
her Great Experiment to succeed. To this end I have not spared labour
or time or money--or myself. I have endured hardship, and braved danger.
All my brains; all my knowledge and learning, such as they are; all my
endeavours such as they can be, have been, are, and shall be devoted to
this end, till we either win or lose the great stake that we play for."
"The great stake?" I repeated; "the resurrection of the woman, and the
woman's life? The proof that resurrection can be accomplished; by
magical powers; by scientific knowledge; or by use of some force which
at present the world does not know?"
Then Mr. Trelawny spoke out the hopes of his heart which up to now he
had indicated rather than expressed. Once or twice I had heard Corbeck
speak of the fiery energy of his youth; but, save for the noble words of
Margaret when she had spoken of Queen Tera's hope--which coming from his
daughter made possible a belief that her power was in some sense due to
heredity--I had seen no marked sign of it. But now his words, sweeping
before them like a torrent all antagonistic thought, gave me a new idea
of the man.
"'A woman's life!' What is a woman's life in the scale with what we
hope for! Why, we are risking already a woman's life; the dearest life
to me in all the world, and that grows more dear with every hour that
passes. We are risking as well the lives of four men; yours and my own,
as well as those two others who have been won to our confidence. 'The
proof that resurrection can be accomplished!' That is much. A
marvellous thing in this age of science, and the scepticism that
knowledge makes. But life and resurrection are themselves but items in
what may be won by the accomplishment of this Great Experiment. Imagine
what it will be for the world of thought--the true world of human
progress--the veritable road to the Stars, the itur ad astra of the
Ancients--if there can come back to us out of the unknown past one who
can yield to us the lore stored in the great Library of Alexandria, and
lost in its consuming flames. Not only history can be set right, and
the teachings of science made veritable from their beginnings; but we
can be placed on the road to the knowledge of lost arts, lost learning,
lost sciences, so that our feet may tread on the indicated path to their
ultimate and complete restoration. Why, this woman can tell us what the
world was like before what is called 'the Flood'; can give us the origin
of that vast astounding myth; can set the mind back to the consideration
of things which to us now seem primeval, but which were old stories
before the days of the Patriarchs. But this is not the end! No, not
even the beginning! If the story of this woman be all that we think--
which some of us most firmly believe; if her powers and the restoration
of them prove to be what we expect, why, then we may yet achieve a
knowledge beyond what our age has ever known--beyond what is believed
today possible for the children of men. If indeed this resurrection can
be accomplished, how can we doubt the old knowledge, the old magic, the
old belief! And if this be so, we must take it that the 'Ka' of this
great and learned Queen has won secrets of more than mortal worth from
her surroundings amongst the stars. This woman in her life voluntarily
went down living to the grave, and came back again, as we learn from the
records in her tomb; she chose to die her mortal death whilst young, so
that at her resurrection in another age, beyond a trance of countless
magnitude, she might emerge from her tomb in all the fulness and
splendour of her youth and power. Already we have evidence that though
her body slept in patience through those many centuries, her
intelligence never passed away, that her resolution never flagged, that
her will remained supreme; and, most important of all, that her memory
was unimpaired. Oh, what possibilities are there in the coming of such
a being into our midst! One whose history began before the concrete
teaching of our Bible; whose experiences were antecedent to the
formulation of the Gods of Greece; who can link together the Old and the
New, Earth and Heaven, and yield to the known worlds of thought and
physical existence the mystery of the Unknown--of the Old World in its
youth, and of Worlds beyond our ken!"
He paused, almost overcome. Margaret had taken his hand when he spoke
of her being so dear to him, and held it hard. As he spoke she
continued to hold it. But there came over her face that change which I
had so often seen of late; that mysterious veiling of her own
personality which gave me the subtle sense of separation from her. In
his impassioned vehemence her father did not notice; but when he stopped
she seemed all at once to be herself again. In her glorious eyes came
the added brightness of unshed tears; and with a gesture of passionate
love and admiration, she stooped and kissed her father's hand. Then,
turning to me, she too spoke:
"Malcolm, you have spoken of the deaths that came from the poor Queen;
or rather that justly came from meddling with her arrangements and
thwarting her purpose. Do you not think that, in putting it as you have
done, you have been unjust? Who would not have done just as she did?
Remember she was fighting for her life! Ay, and for more than her life!
For life, and love, and all the glorious possibilities of that dim
future in the unknown world of the North which had such enchanting hopes
for her! Do you not think that she, with all the learning of her time,
and with all the great and resistless force of her mighty nature, had
hopes of spreading in a wider way the lofty aspirations of her soul!
That she hoped to bring to the conquering of unknown worlds, and using
to the advantage of her people, all that she had won from sleep and
death and time; all of which might and could have been frustrated by the
ruthless hand of an assassin or a thief. Were it you, in such case
would you not struggle by all means to achieve the object of your life
and hope; whose possibilities grew and grew in the passing of those
endless years? Can you think that that active brain was at rest during
all those weary centuries, whilst her free soul was flitting from world
to world amongst the boundless regions of the stars? Had these stars in
their myriad and varied life no lessons for her; as they have had for us
since we followed the glorious path which she and her people marked for
us, when they sent their winged imaginations circling amongst the lamps
of the night!"
Here she paused. She too was overcome, and the welling tears ran down
her cheeks. I was myself more moved than I can say. This was indeed my
Margaret; and in the consciousness of her presence my heart leapt. Out
of my happiness came boldness, and I dared to say now what I had feared
would be impossible: something which would call the attention of Mr.
Trelawny to what I imagined was the dual existence of his daughter. As
I took Margaret's hand in mine and kissed it, I said to her father:
"Why, sir! she couldn't speak more eloquently if the very spirit of
Queen Tera was with her to animate her and suggest thoughts!"
Mr. Trelawny's answer simply overwhelmed me with surprise. It
manifested to me that he too had gone through just such a process of
thought as my own.
"And what if it was; if it is! I know well that the spirit of her
mother is within her. If in addition there be the spirit of that great
and wondrous Queen, then she would be no less dear to me, but doubly
dear! Do not have fear for her, Malcolm Ross; at least have no more
fear than you may have for the rest of us!" Margaret took up the theme,
speaking so quickly that her words seemed a continuation of her
father's, rather than an interruption of them.
"Have no special fear for me, Malcolm. Queen Tera knows, and will offer
us no harm. I know it! I know it, as surely as I am lost in the depth
of my own love for you!"
There was something in her voice so strange to me that I looked quickly
into her eyes. They were bright as ever, but veiled to my seeing the
inward thought behind them as are the eyes of a caged lion.
Then the two other men came in, and the subject changed.