On the Lightship Part 12

THE PRIESTESS OF AMEN RA

In the cold light from the tall studio window Frank Morewood's face seemed almost haggard, and certainly the right hand which held the little square of photographic paper trembled perceptibly. His left hand still retained its glove, although he had been George Dunbarton's guest for fully half an hour; his hat was pushed back on his head, his cane beneath his arm, as though he had forgotten everything except the negative before his eyes.

"Dunbarton," he demanded, with an obvious effort at unconcern, "is this some silly trick you have been playing me?"

The other, openly impatient, shrugged his shoulders beneath the velvet painter's jacket, and took a step toward the Frisian cabinet upon which lay a box of cigarettes.

"A trick, indeed!" he repeated across the flaming match. "You must think I have very little on my mind!" Then, under the inspiring influence of the Melachrino, his just resentment of the charge expressed itself more vehemently. "You break in upon me like a wild man; you insist that I stop in my serious work to develop your wretched little film; you watch every step of the process with the most unflattering suspicion, and now, by Jove, you're not satisfied!"

"Dunbarton," Morewood calmly replied, holding the print above his head, "you cannot realize what this may mean to me; the thing is too strange, too weird."

Dunbarton blew a smoke ring toward the ceiling, thoughtfully. "These amateur snap-shots are usually a trifle weird," he admitted, "they seldom do the subject justice, especially in the eyes of ardent admiration. Better keep your treasure covered up, old man, if you don't want it to fade out altogether. It isn't fixed, you know; it's just a negative."

"It's the most positive thing that ever came into the world," his visitor a.s.serted; "the truest, the most wonderful."

"And so have twenty other pretty faces been for you, my dear boy," the confidant urged. "Each wonder commonly endures about a month."

"This wonder has endured three thousand years and more," retorted Morewood, once more regarding the photograph with reverent awe.

"A case of re-incarnation, I suppose?" the other suggested lightly, with a glance at his neglected easel that might have been accepted as a hint.

"You'll excuse me if I daub a little on the masterpiece while the light lasts?" he added. "Going; no? Well, I'm glad to have you stay. Trouble?

Oh, none at all. Always happy to oblige a friend. Of course, if you mean to follow up photography you ought to learn how to do these little things for yourself. And, by the way, do get a decent camera instead of a Cheap Jack department store affair such as every Seeing New Yorker has slung across his shoulder. Get out of the light, please. Sit down, do! Take off your hat; have a cigarette; make yourself comfortable, confound you!"

"Thanks, old man," Morewood answered, "I won't smoke; and, as for work this afternoon, I mean to tell you something which shall put all other thoughts out of your head for a while. I mean to tell you presently of the most wonderful thing that ever happened in the world."

"Great Scott!" the artist groaned; "is it as bad as that? Please keep your stick a little farther from my canvas, if you don't mind."

"It's quite a long story," Morewood admitted, disposing of the cane.

"Most of yours are!" his friend interjected.

Already the shadows were beginning to invade the painter's s.p.a.cious studio; lurking in the folds of Flemish tapestry and Oriental stuffs, and filling distant corners where the glint of steel and copper arms and arabesques suggested the twinkling eyes of impish and unearthly listeners. If there is a time for everything, the early twilight is the season for story-telling, and the painter felt far less reluctance than he feigned when he resigned himself to listen. Throwing himself upon a divan and clasping his hands about an elevated knee, he said, "Begin your yarn, old fellow, I'm all attention."

Morewood took off his hat, bestrode a chair, and rested both elbows on its back.

"Dunbarton," he remarked, by way of introduction, "I don't suppose you have ever so much as heard of the college of Amen Ra?"

"Never in my life!" the other admitted frankly. "Where under the sun may be the college of Amen Ra?"

"No longer anywhere beneath the sun," Morewood replied, "but it used to be in Thebes about sixteen hundred years before Christ, as nearly as I can remember."

"Quite near enough," Dunbarton a.s.sented amiably. "We will not let a century or so r.e.t.a.r.d a narrative which is to comprehend three thousand years."

"Don't jump too quickly at conclusions!" protested Morewood. "The story as I know it goes no farther back than the early sixties, when a party of five friends from Philadelphia----"

"Quakers?" inquired the painter.

"I don't know!" replied the other, not without a touch of irritation.

"Five acquaintances, men of cultivation and means, who in the course of travel ascended the Nile as far as the first cataract. At Luxor they rested for a week, with a view to visiting the site of the great city of Thebes, and especially its marvelous and mystic temple of Amen Ra, unequaled upon earth for the sublimity of its ruined magnificence----"

"For further particulars, see Baedeker!" Dunbarton muttered.

"Upon the night of their arrival," continued the narrator, unheeding the interruption, "a fete was given in their honor by the Consul, Mustapha Aga. It was in the middle of this festivity, and during a dance by the Gaivasi girls of Luxor, that a strange nomad from the desert made his appearance unexpectedly. The Sheik Ben Ali, he was called, and his errand was to inform Mustapha Aga of the discovery, near a certain oasis, of an object of unusual interest, nothing less than a mummy case of surpa.s.sing beauty which had once held the body of a high priestess of Amen Ra."

"Hold on!" Dunbarton interrupted, relinquis.h.i.+ng his grasp upon his knee.

"Your local color is so intense that I feel myself in danger of becoming interested."

"Just wait until I get a little farther," answered Morewood, with a touch of triumph; "I only wish you could hear the story as it was told to me."

"By whom, if one might ask?" inquired Dunbarton, and his friend replied impressively:

"By a venerable man whom I met by the merest chance late one afternoon in the Egyptian room of the Metropolitan Museum--a strange old man, poorly dressed, but who had evidently seen better days, for he had traveled much in the East and knew the country well."

"I recognize the type," Dunbarton commented, "and make no doubt your learned friend was in the end prevailed upon to accept a trifling loan----"

"That has nothing to do with the story," Morewood retorted. "How far had I got?"

"You were in Luxor, at the last reports," the other prompted, "attending an informal little dance of Gaivasi ladies."

"Yes, yes," cried Morewood, taking up his thread again. "It was, indeed, a scene to captivate the traveler's fancy."

"Never mind the scene!"

"I don't intend to. Escorted by Mustapha Aga and his guard, they left the revels and followed the mysterious sheik out into the desert to a grove of palm-trees, where, bathed in the Egyptian moonlight, lay the marvelous mummy-case."

"What had become of the mummy?" asked Dunbarton.

"Hus.h.!.+" Morewood whispered reverently. "Hear the story. The case, though decorated throughout with a surpa.s.sing skill, was most remarkable for the extreme beauty of the woman's face portrayed upon its upper end, in colors which had defied the ravages of time."

"I know the kind!" the painter put in. "Flat nose, wide mouth, two staring eyes, that might be either rights or lefts."

"The art of that period was, as we know, conventional," returned Morewood, "and it was that very fact which made this particular painting so remarkable, for it was realistic, vivid; it conveyed, indeed, a distinct impression of personality."

"Oh, amazing!" Dunbarton murmured.

"The most amazing thing in the world, as you yourself will presently admit," continued the story-teller. "You may believe the travelers were overjoyed to be the first outsiders to whom the treasure had been shown.

They were not only men of talent and cultivation, but each was abundantly able to pay the very moderate price demanded by the sheik, and they lost no time in closing the bargain. To avoid contention, they drew lots among themselves for the privilege of becoming the owner of the mummy-case."

Here the narrator made an effective pause, and Dunbarton took the opportunity to light another cigarette.

"At first," pursued Morewood, "good fortune seemed to favor the eldest of the party, who was designated to me simply as Mr. X., though I strongly suspect him to have been no other than my old acquaintance of the Museum. But he had a generous disposition, and, touched by the keen disappointment of another member of the party, he relinquished his rights in favor of the second highest number, after an owners.h.i.+p of barely thirty seconds. Mr. P. forthwith became the sole possessor of the coveted object. I need not now recount the circ.u.mstances which led in the course of a few months to the transfer of the property to each in turn of the remaining members of the company, Mr. G. and Mr. Q. But here begins the mystery."

Another dramatic pause and the speaker's voice deepened.