Cleopatra | Page 7

much care we

ripped loose the sack-like garment, and at last the body of a man lay
before us. Between his knees was a third roll of papyrus. I secured it,
then held down the light and looked at him. One glance at his face was
enough to tell a doctor how he had died.
"This body was not much dried up. Evidently it had not passed the
allotted seventy days in natron, and therefore the expression and
likeness were better preserved than is usual. Without entering into
particulars, I will only say that I hope I shall never see such another
look as that which was frozen on this dead man's face. Even the Arabs
recoiled from it in horror and began to mutter prayers.
"For the rest, the usual opening on the left side through which the
embalmers did their work was absent; the finely-cut features were those
of a person of middle age, although the hair was already grey, and the
frame was that of a very powerful man, the shoulders being of an
extraordinary width. I had not time to examine very closely, however,
for within a few seconds from its uncovering, the unembalmed body
began to crumble now that it was exposed to the action of the air. In
five or six minutes there was literally nothing left of it but a wisp of
hair, the skull, and a few of the larger bones. I noticed that one of the
tibiæ--I forget if it was the right or the left--had been fractured and very
badly set. It must have been quite an inch shorter than the other.
"Well, there was nothing more to find, and now that the excitement was
over, what between the heat, the exertion, and the smell of mummy
dust and spices, I felt more dead than alive.
"I am tired of writing, and this ship rolls. This letter, of course, goes
overland, and I am coming by 'long sea,' but I hope to be in London
within ten days after you get it. Then I will tell you of my pleasing
experiences in the course of the ascent from the tomb- chamber, and of
how that prince of rascals, Ali Baba, and his thieves tried to frighten
me into handing over the papyri, and how I worsted them. Then, too,
we will get the rolls deciphered. I expect that they only contain the
usual thing, copies of the 'Book of the Dead,' but there /may/ be
something else in them. Needless to say, I did not narrate this little
adventure in Egypt, or I should have had the Boulac Museum people on

my track. Good-bye, 'Mafish Fineesh,' as Ali Baba always said."

In due course, my friend, the writer of the letter from which I have
quoted, arrived in London, and on the very next day we paid a visit to a
learned acquaintance well versed in Hieroglyphics and Demotic writing.
The anxiety with which we watched him skilfully damping and
unfolding one of the rolls and peering through his gold-rimmed glasses
at the mysterious characters may well be imagined.
"Hum," he said, "whatever it is, this is /not/ a copy of the 'Book of the
Dead.' By George, what's this? Cle--Cleo--Cleopatra---- Why, my dear
Sirs, as I am a living man, this is the history of somebody who lived in
the days of Cleopatra, /the/ Cleopatra, for here's Antony's name with
hers! Well, there's six months' work before me here--six months, at the
very least!" And in that joyful prospect he fairly lost control of himself,
and skipped about the room, shaking hands with us at intervals, and
saying "I'll translate--I'll translate it if it kills me, and we will publish it;
and, by the living Osiris, it shall drive every Egyptologist in Europe
mad with envy! Oh, what a find! what a most glorious find!"

And O you whose eyes fall upon these pages, see, they have been
translated, and they have been printed, and here they lie before you-- an
undiscovered land wherein you are free to travel!
Harmachis speaks to you from his forgotten tomb. The walls of Time
fall down, and, as at the lightning's leap, a picture from the past starts
upon your view, framed in the darkness of the ages.
He shows you those two Egypts which the silent pyramids looked
down upon long centuries ago--the Egypt of the Greek, the Roman, and
the Ptolemy, and that other outworn Egypt of the Hierophant, hoary
with years, heavy with the legends of antiquity and the memory of
long-lost honours.
He tells you how the smouldering loyalty of the land of Khem blazed

up before it died, and how fiercely the old Time-consecrated Faith
struggled against the conquering tide of Change that rose, like Nile at
flood,