The Jewel of Seven Stars/Chapter 11

A Queen's Tomb

"Mr. Trelawny's hope was at least as great as my own. He is not so
volatile a man as I am, prone to ups and downs of hope and despair; but
he has a fixed purpose which crystallises hope into belief. At times I
had feared that there might have been two such stones, or that the
adventures of Van Huyn were traveller's fictions, based on some ordinary
acquisition of the curio in Alexandria or Cairo, or London or Amsterdam.
But Mr. Trelawny never faltered in his belief. We had many things to
distract our minds from belief or disbelief. This was soon after Arabi
Pasha, and Egypt was so safe place for travellers, especially if they
were English. But Mr. Trelawny is a fearless man; and I almost come to
think at times that I am not a coward myself. We got together a band of
Arabs whom one or other of us had known in former trips to the desert,
and whom we could trust; that is, we did not distrust them as much as
others. We were numerous enough to protect ourselves from chance
marauding bands, and we took with us large impedimenta. We had secured
the consent and passive co-operation of the officials still friendly to
Britain; in the acquiring of which consent I need hardly say that Mr.
Trelawny's riches were of chief importance. We found our way in
dhahabiyehs to Aswan; whence, having got some Arabs from the Sheik and
having given our usual backsheesh, we set out on our journey through the
desert.
"Well, after much wandering and trying every winding in the interminable
jumble of hills, we came at last at nightfall on just such a valley as
Van Huyn had described. A valley with high, steep cliffs; narrowing in
the centre, and widening out to the eastern and western ends. At
daylight we were opposite the cliff and could easily note the opening
high up in the rock, and the hieroglyphic figures which were evidently
intended originally to conceal it.
"But the signs which had baffled Van Huyn and those of his time--and
later, were no secrets to us. The host of scholars who have given their
brains and their lives to this work, had wrested open the mysterious
prison-house of Egyptian language. On the hewn face of the rocky cliff
we, who had learned the secrets, could read what the Theban priesthood
had had there inscribed nearly fifty centuries before.
"For that the external inscription was the work of the priesthood--and a
hostile priesthood at that--there could be no living doubt. The
inscription on the rock, written in hieroglyphic, ran thus:
"'Hither the Gods come not at any summons. The "Nameless One" has
insulted them and is for ever alone. Go not nigh, lest their vengeance
wither you away!'
"The warning must have been a terribly potent one at the time it was
written and for thousands of years afterwards; even when the language in
which it was given had become a dead mystery to the people of the land.
The tradition of such a terror lasts longer than its cause. Even in the
symbols used there was an added significance of alliteration. 'For
ever' is given in the hieroglyphics as 'millions of years'. This symbol
was repeated nine times, in three groups of three; and after each group
a symbol of the Upper World, the Under World, and the Sky. So that for
this Lonely One there could be, through the vengeance of all the Gods,
resurrection in neither the World of Sunlight, in the World of the Dead,
or for the soul in the region of the Gods.
"Neither Mr. Trelawny nor I dared to tell any of our people what the
writing meant. For though they did not believe in the religion whence
the curse came, or in the Gods whose vengeance was threatened, yet they
were so superstitious that they would probably, had they known of it,
have thrown up the whole task and run away.
"Their ignorance, however, and our discretion preserved us. We made an
encampment close at hand, but behind a jutting rock a little further
along the valley, so that they might not have the inscription always
before them. For even that traditional name of the place: 'The Valley
of the Sorcerer', had a fear for them; and for us through them. With
the timber which we had brought, we made a ladder up the face of the
rock. We hung a pulley on a beam fixed to project from the top of the
cliff. We found the great slab of rock, which formed the door, placed
clumsily in its place and secured by a few stones. Its own weight kept
it in safe position. In order to enter, we had to push it in; and we
passed over it. We found the great coil of chain which Van Huyn had
described fastened into the rock. There were, however, abundant
evidences amid the wreckage of the great stone door, which had revolved
on iron hinges at top and bottom, that ample provision had been
originally made for closing and fastening it from within.
"Mr. Trelawny and I went alone into the tomb. We had brought plenty of
lights with us; and we fixed them as we went along. We wished to get a
complete survey at first, and then make examination of all in detail.
As we went on, we were filled with ever-increasing wonder and delight.
The tomb was one of the most magnificent and beautiful which either of
us had ever seen. From the elaborate nature of the sculpture and
painting, and the perfection of the workmanship, it was evident that the
tomb was prepared during the lifetime of her for whose resting-place it
was intended. The drawing of the hieroglyphic pictures was fine, and
the colouring superb; and in that high cavern, far away from even the
damp of the Nile-flood, all was as fresh as when the artists had laid
down their palettes. There was one thing which we could not avoid
seeing. That although the cutting on the outside rock was the work of
the priesthood, the smoothing of the cliff face was probably a part of
the tomb-builder's original design. The symbolism of the painting and
cutting within all gave the same idea. The outer cavern, partly natural
and partly hewn, was regarded architecturally as only an ante-chamber.
At the end of it, so that it would face the east, was a pillared
portico, hewn out of the solid rock. The pillars were massive and were
seven-sided, a thing which we had not come across in any other tomb.
Sculptured on the architrave was the Boat of the Moon, containing
Hathor, cow-headed and bearing the disk and plumes, and the dog-headed
Hapi, the God of the North. It was steered by Harpocrates towards the
north, represented by the Pole Star surrounded by Draco and Ursa Major.
In the latter the stars that form what we call the 'Plough' were cut
larger than any of the other stars; and were filled with gold so that,
in the light of torches, they seemed to flame with a special
significance. Passing within the portico, we found two of the
architectural features of a rock tomb, the Chamber, or Chapel, and the
Pit, all complete as Van Huyn had noticed, though in his day the names
given to these parts by the Egyptians of old were unknown.
"The Stele, or record, which had its place low down on the western wall,
was so remarkable that we examined it minutely, even before going on our
way to find the mummy which was the object of our search. This Stele
was a great slab of lapis lazuli, cut all over with hieroglyphic figures
of small size and of much beauty. The cutting was filled in with some
cement of exceeding fineness, and of the colour of pure vermilion. The
inscription began:
"'Tera, Queen of the Egypts, daughter of Antef, Monarch of the North and
the South.' 'Daughter of the Sun,' 'Queen of the Diadems'.
"It then set out, in full record, the history of her life and reign.
"The signs of sovereignty were given with a truly feminine profusion of
adornment. The united Crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt were, in especial,
cut with exquisite precision. It was new to us both to find the Hejet
and the Desher--the White and the Red crowns of Upper and Lower
Egypt--on the Stele of a queen; for it was a rule, without exception in
the records, that in ancient Egypt either crown was worn only by a king;
though they are to be found on goddesses. Later on we found an
explanation, of which I shall say more presently.
"Such an inscription was in itself a matter so startling as to arrest
attention from anyone anywhere at any time; but you can have no
conception of the effect which it had upon us. Though our eyes were not
the first which had seen it, they were the first which could see it with
understanding since first the slab of rock was fixed in the cliff
opening nearly five thousand years before. To us was given to read this
message from the dead. This message of one who had warred against the
Gods of Old, and claimed to have controlled them at a time when the
hierarchy professed to be the only means of exciting their fears or
gaining their good will.
"The walls of the upper chamber of the Pit and the sarcophagus Chamber
were profusely inscribed; all the inscriptions, except that on the
Stele, being coloured with bluish-green pigment. The effect when seen
sideways as the eye caught the green facets, was that of an old,
discoloured Indian turquoise.
"We descended the Pit by the aid of the tackle we had brought with us.
Trelawny went first. It was a deep pit, more than seventy feet; but it
had never been filled up. The passage at the bottom sloped up to the
sarcophagus Chamber, and was longer than is usually found. It had not
been walled up.
"Within, we found a great sarcophagus of yellow stone. But that I need
not describe; you have seen it in Mr. Trelawny's chamber. The cover of
it lay on the ground; it had not been cemented, and was just as Van Huyn
had described it. Needless to say, we were excited as we looked within.
There must, however, be one sense of disappointment. I could not help
feeling how different must have been the sight which met the Dutch
traveller's eyes when he looked within and found that white hand lying
lifelike above the shrouding mummy cloths. It is true that a part of
the arm was there, white and ivory like.
"But there was a thrill to us which came not to Van Huyn!
"The end of the wrist was covered with dried blood! It was as though
the body had bled after death! The jagged ends of the broken wrist were
rough with the clotted blood; through this the white bone, sticking out,
looked like the matrix of opal. The blood had streamed down and stained
the brown wrappings as with rust. Here, then, was full confirmation of
the narrative. With such evidence of the narrator's truth before us, we
could not doubt the other matters which he had told, such as the blood
on the mummy hand, or marks of the seven fingers on the throat of the
strangled Sheik.
"I shall not trouble you with details of all we saw, or how we learned
all we knew. Part of it was from knowledge common to scholars; part we
read on the Stele in the tomb, and in the sculptures and hieroglyphic
paintings on the walls.
"Queen Tera was of the Eleventh, or Theban Dynasty of Egyptian Kings
which held sway between the twenty-ninth and twenty-fifth centuries
before Christ. She succeeded as the only child of her father, Antef.
She must have been a girl of extraordinary character as well as ability,
for she was but a young girl when her father died. Her youth and sex
encouraged the ambitious priesthood, which had then achieved immense
power. By their wealth and numbers and learning they dominated all
Egypt, more especially the Upper portion. They were then secretly ready
to make an effort for the achievement of their bold and long-considered
design, that of transferring the governing power from a Kingship to a
Hierarchy. But King Antef had suspected some such movement, and had
taken the precaution of securing to his daughter the allegiance of the
army. He had also had her taught statecraft, and had even made her
learned in the lore of the very priests themselves. He had used those of
one cult against the other; each being hopeful of some present gain on
its own part by the influence of the King, or of some ultimate gain from
its own influence over his daughter. Thus, the Princess had been
brought up amongst scribes, and was herself no mean artist. Many of
these things were told on the walls in pictures or in hieroglyphic
writing of great beauty; and we came to the conclusion that not a few of
them had been done by the Princess herself. It was not without cause
that she was inscribed on the Stele as 'Protector of the Arts'.
"But the King had gone to further lengths, and had had his daughter
taught magic, by which she had power over Sleep and Will. This was real
magic--"black" magic; not the magic of the temples, which, I may explain,
was of the harmless or "white" order, and was intended to impress rather
than to effect. She had been an apt pupil; and had gone further than
her teachers. Her power and her resources had given her great
opportunities, of which she had availed herself to the full. She had
won secrets from nature in strange ways; and had even gone to the length
of going down into the tomb herself, having been swathed and coffined
and left as dead for a whole month. The priests had tried to make out
that the real Princess Tera had died in the experiment, and that another
girl had been substituted; but she had conclusively proved their error.
All this was told in pictures of great merit. It was probably in her
time that the impulse was given in the restoring the artistic greatness
of the Fourth Dynasty which had found its perfection in the days of
Chufu.
"In the Chamber of the sarcophagus were pictures and writings to show
that she had achieved victory over Sleep. Indeed, there was everywhere
a symbolism, wonderful even in a land and an age of symbolism.
Prominence was given to the fact that she, though a Queen, claimed all
the privileges of kingship and masculinity. In one place she was
pictured in man's dress, and wearing the White and Red Crowns. In the
following picture she was in female dress, but still wearing the Crowns
of Upper and Lower Egypt, while the discarded male raiment lay at her
feet. In every picture where hope, or aim, of resurrection was
expressed there was the added symbol of the North; and in many places--
always in representations of important events, past, present, or
future--was a grouping of the stars of the Plough. She evidently
regarded this constellation as in some way peculiarly associated with
herself.
"Perhaps the most remarkable statement in the records, both on the STele
and in the mural writings, was that Queen Tera had power to compel the
Gods. This, by the way, was not an isolated belief in Egyptian history;
but was different in its cause. She had engraved on a ruby, carved like
a scarab, and having seven stars of seven points, Master Words to compel
all the Gods, both of the Upper and the Under Worlds.
"In the statement it was plainly set forth that the hatred of the
priests was, she knew, stored up for her, and that they would after her
death try to suppress her name. This was a terrible revenge, I may tell
you, in Egyptian mythology; for without a name no one can after death be
introduced to the Gods, or have prayers said for him. Therefore, she had
intended her resurrection to be after a long time and in a more northern
land, under the constellation whose seven stars had ruled her birth. To
this end, her hand was to be in the air--'unwrapped'--and in it the Jewel
of Seven Stars, so that wherever there was air she might move even as
her Ka could move! This, after thinking it over, Mr. Trelawny and I
agreed meant that her body could become astral at command, and so move,
particle by particle, and become whole again when and where required.
Then there was a piece of writing in which allusion was made to a chest
or casket in which were contained all the Gods, and Will, and Sleep, the
two latter being personified by symbols. The box was mentioned as with
seven sides. It was not much of a surprise to us when, underneath the
feet of the mummy, we found the seven-sided casket, which you have also
seen in Mr. Trelawny's room. On the underneath part of the wrapping--
linen of the left foot was painted, in the same vermilion colour as that
used in the Stele, the hieroglyphic symbol for much water, and
underneath the right foot the symbol of the earth. We made out the
symbolism to be that her body, immortal and transferable at will, ruled
both the land and water, air and fire--the latter being exemplified by
the light of the Jewel Stone, and further by the flint and iron which
lay outside the mummy wrappings.
"As we lifted the casket from the sarcophagus, we noticed on its sides
the strange protuberances which you have already seen; but we were
unable at the time to account for them. There were a few amulets in the
sarcophagus, but none of any special worth or significance. We took it
that if there were such, they were within the wrappings; or more
probably in the strange casket underneath the mummy's feet. This,
however, we could not open. There were signs of there being a cover;
certainly the upper portion and the lower were each in one piece. The
fine line, a little way from the top, appeared to be where the cover was
fixed; but it was made with such exquisite fineness and finish that the
joining could hardly be seen. Certainly the top could not be moved. We
took it, that it was in some way fastened from within. I tell you all
this in order that you may understand things with which you may be in
contact later. You must suspend your judgment entirely. Such strange
things have happened regarding this mummy and all around it, that there
is a necessity for new belief somewhere. It is absolutely impossible to
reconcile certain things which have happened with the ordinary currents
of life or knowledge.
"We stayed around the Valley of the Sorcerer, till we had copied roughly
all the drawings and writings on the walls, ceiling and floor. We took
with us the Stele of lapis lazuli, whose graven record was coloured with
vermilion pigment. We took the sarcophagus and the mummy; the stone
chest with the alabaster jars; the tables of bloodstone and alabaster
and onyx and carnelian; and the ivory pillow whose arch rested on
'buckles', round each of which was twisted an uraeus wrought in gold.
We took all the articles which lay in the Chapel, and the Mummy Pit; the
wooden boats with crews and the ushaptiu figures, and the symbolic
amulets.
"When coming away we took down the ladders, and at a distance buried
them in the sand under a cliff, which we noted so that if necessary we
might find them again. Then with our heavy baggage, we set out on our
laborious journey back to the Nile. It was no easy task, I tell you, to
bring the case with that great sarcophagus over the desert. We had a
rough cart and sufficient men to draw it; but the progress seemed
terribly slow, for we were anxious to get our treasures into a place of
safety. The night was an anxious time with us, for we feared attack
from some marauding band. But more still we feared some of those with
us. They were, after all, but predatory, unscrupulous men; and we had
with us a considerable bulk of precious things. They, or at least the
dangerous ones amongst them, did not know why it was so precious; they
took it for granted that it was material treasure of some kind that we
carried. We had taken the mummy from the sarcophagus, and packed it for
safety of travel in a separate case. During the first night two
attempts were made to steal things from the cart; and two men were found
dead in the morning.
"On the second night there came on a violent storm, one of those
terrible simooms of the desert which makes one feel his helplessness.
We were overwhelmed with drifting sand. Some of our Bedouins had fled
before the storm, hoping to find shelter; the rest of us, wrapped in our
bournous, endured with what patience we could. In the morning, when the
storm had passed, we recovered from under the piles of sand what we
could of our impedimenta. We found the case in which the mummy had been
packed all broken, but the mummy itself could nowhere be found. We
searched everywhere around, and dug up the sand which had piled around
us; but in vain. We did not know what to do, for Trelawny had his heart
set on taking home that mummy. We waited a whole day in hopes that the
Bedouins, who had fled, would return; we had a blind hope that they
might have in some way removed the mummy from the cart, and would
restore it. That night, just before dawn, Mr. Trelawny woke me up and
whispered in my ear:
"'We must go back to the tomb in the Valley of the Sorcerer. Show no
hesitation in the morning when I give the orders! If you ask any
questions as to where we are going it will create suspicion, and will
defeat our purpose."
"'All right!" I answered. "But why shall we go there?' His answer
seemed to thrill through me as though it had struck some chord ready
tuned within:
"'We shall find the mummy there! I am sure of it!' Then anticipating
doubt or argument he added:
"'Wait, and you shall see!' and he sank back into his blanket again.
"The Arabs were surprised when we retraced our steps; and some of them
were not satisfied. There was a good deal of friction, and there were
several desertions; so that it was with a diminished following that we
took our way eastward again. At first the Sheik did not manifest any
curiosity as to our definite destination; but when it became apparent
that we were again making for the Valley of the Sorcerer, he too showed
concern. This grew as we drew near; till finally at the entrance of the
valley he halted and refused to go further. He said he would await our
return if we chose to go on alone. That he would wait three days; but
if by that time we had not returned he would leave. No offer of money
would tempt him to depart from this resolution. The only concession he
would make was that he would find the ladders and bring them near the
cliff. This he did; and then, with the rest of the troop, he went back
to wait at the entrance of the valley.
"Mr. Trelawny and I took ropes and torches, and again ascended to the
tomb. It was evident that someone had been there in our absence, for
the stone slab which protected the entrance to the tomb was lying flat
inside, and a rope was dangling from the cliff summit. Within, there
was another rope hanging into the shaft of the Mummy Pit. We looked at
each other; but neither said a word. We fixed our own rope, and as
arranged Trelawny descended first, I following at once. It was not till
we stood together at the foot of the shaft that the thought flashed
across me that we might be in some sort of a trap; that someone might
descend the rope from the cliff, and by cutting the rope by which we had
lowered ourselves into the Pit, bury us there alive. The thought was
horrifying; but it was too late to do anything. I remained silent. We
both had torches, so that there was ample light as we passed through the
passage and entered the Chamber where the sarcophagus had stood. The
first thing noticeable was the emptiness of the place. Despite all its
magnificent adornment, the tomb was made a desolation by the absence of
the great sarcophagus, to hold which it was hewn in the rock; of the
chest with the alabaster jars; of the tables which had held the
implements and food for the use of the dead, and the ushaptiu figures.
"It was made more infinitely desolate still by the shrouded figure of
the mummy of Queen Tera which lay on the floor where the great
sarcophagus had stood! Beside it lay, in the strange contorted
attitudes of violent death, three of the Arabs who had deserted from our
party. Their faces were black, and their hands and necks were smeared
with blood which had burst from mouth and nose and eyes.
"On the throat of each were the marks, now blackening, of a hand of
seven fingers.
"Trelawny and I drew close, and clutched each other in awe and fear as
we looked.
"For, most wonderful of all, across the breast of the mummied Queen lay
a hand of seven fingers, ivory white, the wrist only showing a scar like
a jagged red line, from which seemed to depend drops of blood."