Chapter XV
The Purpose of Queen Tera
"Now, as to the Star Jewel! This she manifestly regarded as thegreatest of her treasures. On it she had engraven words which none ofher time dared to speak.
"In the old Egyptian belief it was held that there were words, which,if used properly--for the method of speaking them was as important asthe words themselves--could command the Lords of the Upper and theLower Worlds. The 'hekau', or word of power, was all-important incertain ritual. On the Jewel of Seven Stars, which, as you know, iscarved into the image of a scarab, are graven in hieroglyphic two suchhekau, one above, the other underneath. But you will understand betterwhen you see it! Wait here! Do not stir!"
As he spoke, he rose and left the room. A great fear for him came overme; but I was in some strange way relieved when I looked at Margaret.Whenever there had been any possibility of danger to her father, shehad shown great fear for him; now she was calm and placid. I saidnothing, but waited.
In two or three minutes, Mr. Trelawny returned. He held in his hand alittle golden box. This, as he resumed his seat, he placed before himon the table. We all leaned forward as he opened it.
On a lining of white satin lay a wondrous ruby of immense size, almostas big as the top joint of Margaret's little finger. It was carven--itcould not possibly have been its natural shape, but jewels do not showthe working of the tool--into the shape of a scarab, with its wingsfolded, and its legs and feelers pressed back to its sides. Shiningthrough its wondrous "pigeon's blood" colour were seven differentstars, each of seven points, in such position that they reproducedexactly the figure of the Plough. There could be no possible mistakeas to this in the mind of anyone who had ever noted the constellation.On it were some hieroglyphic figures, cut with the most exquisiteprecision, as I could see when it came to my turn to use themagnifying-glass, which Mr. Trelawny took from his pocket and handed tous.
When we all had seen it fully, Mr. Trelawny turned it over so that itrested on its back in a cavity made to hold it in the upper half of thebox. The reverse was no less wonderful than the upper, being carved toresemble the under side of the beetle. It, too, had some hieroglyphicfigures cut on it. Mr. Trelawny resumed his lecture as we all sat withour heads close to this wonderful jewel:
"As you see, there are two words, one on the top, the other underneath.The symbols on the top represent a single word, composed of onesyllable prolonged, with its determinatives. You know, all of you, Isuppose, that the Egyptian language was phonetic, and that thehieroglyphic symbol represented the sound. The first symbol here, thehoe, means 'mer', and the two pointed ellipses the prolongation of thefinal r: mer-r-r. The sitting figure with the hand to its face is whatwe call the 'determinative' of 'thought'; and the roll of papyrus thatof 'abstraction'. Thus we get the word 'mer', love, in its abstract,general, and fullest sense. This is the hekau which can command theUpper World."
Margaret's face was a glory as she said in a deep, low, ringing tone:
"Oh, but it is true. How the old wonder-workers guessed at almightyTruth!" Then a hot blush swept her face, and her eyes fell. Herfather smiled at her lovingly as he resumed:
"The symbolisation of the word on the reverse is simpler, though themeaning is more abstruse. The first symbol means 'men', 'abiding', andthe second, 'ab', 'the heart'. So that we get 'abiding of heart', orin our own language 'patience'. And this is the hekau to control theLower World!"
He closed the box, and motioning us to remain as we were, he went backto his room to replace the Jewel in the safe. When he had returned andresumed his seat, he went on:
"That Jewel, with its mystic words, and which Queen Tera held under herhand in the sarcophagus, was to be an important factor--probably themost important--in the working out of the act of her resurrection.From the first I seemed by a sort of instinct to realise this. I keptthe Jewel within my great safe, whence none could extract it; not evenQueen Tera herself with her astral body."
"Her 'astral body'? What is that, Father? What does that mean?" Therewas a keenness in Margaret's voice as she asked the question whichsurprised me a little; but Trelawny smiled a sort of indulgent parentalsmile, which came through his grim solemnity like sunshine through arifted cloud, as he spoke:
"The astral body, which is a part of Buddhist belief, long subsequentto the time I speak of, and which is an accepted fact of modernmysticism, had its rise in Ancient Egypt; at least, so far as we know.It is that the gifted individual can at will, quick as thought itself,transfer his body whithersoever he chooses, by the dissolution andreincarnation of particles. In the ancient belief there were severalparts of a human being. You may as well know them; so that you willunderstand matters relative to them or dependent on them as they occur.
"First there is the 'Ka', or 'Double', which, as Doctor Budge explains,may be defined as 'an abstract individuality of personality' which wasimbued with all the characteristic attributes of the individual itrepresented, and possessed an absolutely independent existence. It wasfree to move from place to place on earth at will; and it could enterinto heaven and hold converse with the gods. Then there was the 'Ba',or 'soul', which dwelt in the 'Ka', and had the power of becomingcorporeal or incorporeal at will; 'it had both substance and form....It had power to leave the tomb.... It could revisit the body in thetomb ... and could reincarnate it and hold converse with it.' Againthere was the 'Khu', the 'spiritual intelligence', or spirit. It tookthe form of 'a shining, luminous, intangible shape of the body.'...Then, again, there was the 'Sekhem', or 'power' of a man, his strengthor vital force personified. These were the 'Khaibit', or 'shadow', the'Ren', or 'name', the 'Khat', or 'physical body', and 'Ab', the'heart', in which life was seated, went to the full making up of a man.
"Thus you will see, that if this division of functions, spiritual andbodily, ethereal and corporeal, ideal and actual, be accepted as exact,there are all the possibilities and capabilities of corporealtransference, guided always by an unimprisonable will or intelligence."As he paused I murmured the lines from Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound":
"'The Magnus Zoroaster... Met his own image walking in the garden.'"
Mr. Trelawny was not displeased. "Quite so!" he said, in his quietway. "Shelley had a better conception of ancient beliefs than any ofour poets." With a voice changed again he resumed his lecture, for soit was to some of us:
"There is another belief of the ancient Egyptian which you must bear inmind; that regarding the ushaptiu figures of Osiris, which were placedwith the dead to its work in the Under World. The enlargement of thisidea came to a belief that it was possible to transmit, by magicalformulae, the soul and qualities of any living creature to a figuremade in its image. This would give a terrible extension of power toone who held the gift of magic.
"It is from a union of these various beliefs, and their naturalcorollaries, that I have come to the conclusion that Queen Teraexpected to be able to effect her own resurrection, when, and where,and how, she would. That she may have held before her a definite timefor making her effort is not only possible but likely. I shall notstop now to explain it, but shall enter upon the subject later on.With a soul with the Gods, a spirit which could wander the earth atwill, and a power of corporeal transference, or an astral body, thereneed be no bounds or limits to her ambition. The belief is forced uponus that for these forty or fifty centuries she lay dormant in hertomb--waiting. Waiting with that 'patience' which could rule the Godsof the Under World, for that 'love' which could command those of theUpper World. What she may have dreamt we know not; but her dream musthave been broken when the Dutch explorer entered her sculptured cavern,and his follower violated the sacred privacy of her tomb by his rudeoutrage in the theft of her hand.
"That theft, with all that followed, proved to us one thing, however:that each part of her body, though separated from the rest, can be acentral point or rallying place for the items or particles of herastral body. That hand in my room could ensure her instantan
eouspresence in the flesh, and its equally rapid dissolution.
"Now comes the crown of my argument. The purpose of the attack on mewas to get the safe open, so that the sacred Jewel of Seven Stars couldbe extracted. That immense door of the safe could not keep out herastral body, which, or any part of it, could gather itself as wellwithin as without the safe. And I doubt not that in the darkness ofthe night that mummied hand sought often the Talisman Jewel, and drewnew inspiration from its touch. But despite all its power, the astralbody could not remove the Jewel through the chinks of the safe. TheRuby is not astral; and it could only be moved in the ordinary way bythe opening of the doors. To this end, the Queen used her astral bodyand the fierce force of her Familiar, to bring to the keyhole of thesafe the master key which debarred her wish. For years I havesuspected, nay, have believed as much; and I, too, guarded myselfagainst powers of the Nether World. I, too, waited in patience till Ishould have gathered together all the factors required for the openingof the Magic Coffer and the resurrection of the mummied Queen!" Hepaused, and his daughter's voice came out sweet and clear, and full ofintense feeling:
"Father, in the Egyptian belief, was the power of resurrection of amummied body a general one, or was it limited? That is: could itachieve resurrection many times in the course of ages; or only once,and that one final?"
"There was but one resurrection," he answered. "There were some whobelieved that this was to be a definite resurrection of the body intothe real world. But in the common belief, the Spirit found joy in theElysian Fields, where there was plenty of food and no fear of famine.Where there was moisture and deep-rooted reeds, and all the joys thatare to be expected by the people of an arid land and burning clime."
Then Margaret spoke with an earnestness which showed the conviction ofher inmost soul:
"To me, then, it is given to understand what was the dream of thisgreat and far-thinking and high-souled lady of old; the dream that heldher soul in patient waiting for its realisation through the passing ofall those tens of centuries. The dream of a love that might be; a lovethat she felt she might, even under new conditions, herself evoke. Thelove that is the dream of every woman's life; of the Old and of theNew; Pagan or Christian; under whatever sun; in whatever rank orcalling; however may have been the joy or pain of her life in otherways. Oh! I know it! I know it! I am a woman, and I know a woman'sheart. What were the lack of food or the plenitude of it; what werefeast or famine to this woman, born in a palace, with the shadow of theCrown of the Two Egypts on her brows! What were reedy morasses or thetinkle of running water to her whose barges could sweep the great Nilefrom the mountains to the sea. What were petty joys and absence ofpetty fears to her, the raising of whose hand could hurl armies, ordraw to the water-stairs of her palaces the commerce of the world! Atwhose word rose temples filled with all the artistic beauty of theTimes of Old which it was her aim and pleasure to restore! Under whoseguidance the solid rock yawned into the sepulchre that she designed!
"Surely, surely, such a one had nobler dreams! I can feel them in myheart; I can see them with my sleeping eyes!"
As she spoke she seemed to be inspired; and her eyes had a far-awaylook as though they saw something beyond mortal sight. And then thedeep eyes filled up with unshed tears of great emotion. The very soulof the woman seemed to speak in her voice; whilst we who listened satentranced.
"I can see her in her loneliness and in the silence of her mightypride, dreaming her own dream of things far different from those aroundher. Of some other land, far, far away under the canopy of the silentnight, lit by the cool, beautiful light of the stars. A land underthat Northern star, whence blew the sweet winds that cooled thefeverish desert air. A land of wholesome greenery, far, far away.Where were no scheming and malignant priesthood; whose ideas were tolead to power through gloomy temples and more gloomy caverns of thedead, through an endless ritual of death! A land where love was notbase, but a divine possession of the soul! Where there might be someone kindred spirit which could speak to hers through mortal lips likeher own; whose being could merge with hers in a sweet communion of soulto soul, even as their breaths could mingle in the ambient air! I knowthe feeling, for I have shared it myself. I may speak of it now, sincethe blessing has come into my own life. I may speak of it since itenables me to interpret the feelings, the very longing soul, of thatsweet and lovely Queen, so different from her surroundings, so highabove her time! Whose nature, put into a word, could control the forcesof the Under World; and the name of whose aspiration, though but gravenon a star-lit jewel, could command all the powers in the Pantheon ofthe High Gods.
"And in the realisation of that dream she will surely be content torest!"
We men sat silent, as the young girl gave her powerful interpretationof the design or purpose of the woman of old. Her every word and tonecarried with it the conviction of her own belief. The loftiness of herthoughts seemed to uplift us all as we listened. Her noble words,flowing in musical cadence and vibrant with internal force, seemed toissue from some great instrument of elemental power. Even her tone wasnew to us all; so that we listened as to some new and strange beingfrom a new and strange world. Her father's face was full of delight.I knew now its cause. I understood the happiness that had come intohis life, on his return to the world that he knew, from that prolongedsojourn in the world of dreams. To find in his daughter, whose naturehe had never till now known, such a wealth of affection, such asplendour of spiritual insight, such a scholarly imagination, such...The rest of his feeling was of hope!
The two other men were silent unconsciously. One man had had hisdreaming; for the other, his dreams were to come.
For myself, I was like one in a trance. Who was this new, radiantbeing who had won to existence out of the mist and darkness of ourfears? Love has divine possibilities for the lover's heart! The wingsof the soul may expand at any time from the shoulders of the loved one,who then may sweep into angel form. I knew that in my Margaret'snature were divine possibilities of many kinds. When under the shadeof the overhanging willow-tree on the river, I had gazed into thedepths of her beautiful eyes, I had thenceforth a strict belief in themanifold beauties and excellences of her nature; but this soaring andunderstanding spirit was, indeed, a revelation. My pride, like herfather's, was outside myself; my joy and rapture were complete andsupreme!
When we had all got back to earth again in our various ways, Mr.Trelawny, holding his daughter's hand in his, went on with hisdiscourse:
"Now, as to the time at which Queen Tera intended her resurrection totake place! We are in contact with some of the higher astronomicalcalculations in connection with true orientation. As you know, thestars shift their relative positions in the heavens; but though thereal distances traversed are beyond all ordinary comprehension, theeffects as we see them are small. Nevertheless, they are susceptibleof measurement, not by years, indeed, but by centuries. It was by thismeans that Sir John Herschel arrived at the date of the building of theGreat Pyramid--a date fixed by the time necessary to change the star ofthe true north from Draconis to the Pole Star, and since then verifiedby later discoveries. From the above there can be no doubt whateverthat astronomy was an exact science with the Egyptians at least athousand years before the time of Queen Tera. Now, the stars that goto make up a constellation change in process of time their relativepositions, and the Plough is a notable example. The changes in theposition of stars in even forty centuries is so small as to be hardlynoticeable by an eye not trained to minute observances, but they can bemeasured and verified. Did you, or any of you, notice how exactly thestars in the Ruby correspond to the position of the stars in thePlough; or how the same holds with regard to the translucent places inthe Magic Coffer?"
We all assented. He went on:
"You are quite correct. They correspond exactly. And yet when QueenTera was laid in her tomb, neither the stars in the Jewel nor thetranslucent places in the Coffer corresponded to the position of thestars in the Constel
lation as they then were!"
We looked at each other as he paused: a new light was breaking uponus. With a ring of mastery in his voice he went on:
"Do you not see the meaning of this? Does it not throw a light on theintention of the Queen? She, who was guided by augury, and magic, andsuperstition, naturally chose a time for her resurrection which seemedto have been pointed out by the High Gods themselves, who had senttheir message on a thunderbolt from other worlds. When such a time wasfixed by supernal wisdom, would it not be the height of human wisdom toavail itself of it? Thus it is"--here his voice deepened and trembledwith the intensity of his feeling--"that to us and our time is giventhe opportunity of this wondrous peep into the old world, such as hasbeen the privilege of none other of our time; which may never be again.
"From first to last the cryptic writing and symbolism of that wondroustomb of that wondrous woman is full of guiding light; and the key ofthe many mysteries lies in that most wondrous Jewel which she held inher dead hand over the dead heart, which she hoped and believed wouldbeat again in a newer and nobler world!
"There are only loose ends now to consider. Margaret has given us thetrue inwardness of the feeling of the other Queen!" He looked at herfondly, and stroked her hand as he said it. "For my own part Isincerely hope she is right; for in such case it will be a joy, I amsure, to all of us to assist at such a realisation of hope. But wemust not go too fast, or believe too much in our present state ofknowledge. The voice that we hearken for comes out of times strangelyother than our own; when human life counted for little, and when themorality of the time made little account of the removing of obstaclesin the way to achievement of desire. We must keep our eyes fixed onthe scientific side, and wait for the developments on the psychic side.
"Now, as to this stone box, which we call the Magic Coffer. As I havesaid, I am convinced that it opens only in obedience to some principleof light, or the exercise of some of its forces at present unknown tous. There is here much ground for conjecture and for experiment; foras yet the scientists have not thoroughly differentiated the kinds, andpowers, and degrees of light. Without analysing various rays we may, Ithink, take it for granted that there are different qualities andpowers of light; and this great field of scientific investigation isalmost virgin soil. We know as yet so little of natural forces, thatimagination need set no bounds to its flights in considering thepossibilities of the future. Within but a few years we have made suchdiscoveries as two centuries ago would have sent the discoverer's tothe flames. The liquefaction of oxygen; the existence of radium, ofhelium, of polonium, of argon; the different powers of Roentgen andCathode and Bequerel rays. And as we may finally prove that there aredifferent kinds and qualities of light, so we may find that combustionmay have its own powers of differentiation; that there are qualities insome flames non-existent in others. It may be that some of theessential conditions of substance are continuous, even in thedestruction of their bases. Last night I was thinking of this, andreasoning that as there are certain qualities in some oils which arenot in others, so there may be certain similar or correspondingqualities or powers in the combinations of each. I suppose we have allnoticed some time or other that the light of colza oil is not quite thesame as that of paraffin, or that the flames of coal gas and whale oilare different. They find it so in the light-houses! All at once itoccurred to me that there might be some special virtue in the oil whichhad been found in the jars when Queen Tera's tomb was opened. Thesehad not been used to preserve the intestines as usual, so they musthave been placed there for some other purpose. I remembered that inVan Huyn's narrative he had commented on the way the jars were sealed.This was lightly, though effectually; they could be opened withoutforce. The jars were themselves preserved in a sarcophagus which,though of immense strength and hermetically sealed, could be openedeasily. Accordingly, I went at once to examine the jars. A little--avery little of the oil still remained, but it had grown thick in thetwo and a half centuries in which the jars had been open. Still, itwas not rancid; and on examining it I found it was cedar oil, and thatit still exhaled something of its original aroma. This gave me the ideathat it was to be used to fill the lamps. Whoever had placed the oilin the jars, and the jars in the sarcophagus, knew that there might beshrinkage in process of time, even in vases of alabaster, and fullyallowed for it; for each of the jars would have filled the lamps half adozen times. With part of the oil remaining I made some experiments,therefore, which may give useful results. You know, Doctor, that cedaroil, which was much used in the preparation and ceremonials of theEgyptian dead, has a certain refractive power which we do not find inother oils. For instance, we use it on the lenses of our microscopesto give additional clearness of vision. Last night I put some in oneof the lamps, and placed it near a translucent part of the MagicCoffer. The effect was very great; the glow of light within was fullerand more intense than I could have imagined, where an electric lightsimilarly placed had little, if any, effect. I should have triedothers of the seven lamps, but that my supply of oil ran out. This,however, is on the road to rectification. I have sent for more cedaroil, and expect to have before long an ample supply. Whatever mayhappen from other causes, our experiment shall not, at all events, failfrom this. We shall see! We shall see!"
Doctor Winchester had evidently been following the logical process ofthe other's mind, for his comment was:
"I do hope that when the light is effective in opening the box, themechanism will not be impaired or destroyed."
His doubt as to this gave anxious thought to some of us.