"Never!" I insisted. "You could be engaged to a dozen men any moment, if you wanted to."

"I think you're exaggerating a little, Lord Ernest," Cleopatra replied modestly and unsmilingly. But her countenance brightened faintly. "Of course there are a few men--there were some in New York--"

"You don't need to tell me that," I a.s.sured her.

"I feel as if I'd like to tell you something else," she went on, "if you can spare a few minutes."

"Will you sit out the next dance?" I asked. "It isn't a Bunny Hug or Tango, or anything distracting for lookers-on."

"Aren't you dancing with Brigit?"

"No such luck--I mean, fortunately not. She has grabbed Slatin Pasha, and forgotten that I exist. By jove, there come Miss Gilder and Fenton.

What a couple! They're rather gorgeous, waltzing together--what?"

"Very nice," said Cleopatra, trying with all her over-amuleted heart, not to be acid. "But oh, Lord Ernest, that _settles_ it! I _must_ be engaged myself, _before_ Monny brings him to show me, like a cat with a mouse it's caught. Otherwise I couldn't _stand_ it; and afterward would be too late."

Hastily I rushed her out into the garden, where the s...o...b..ll regarded her with one eye of prehistoric wisdom. If she really were a reincarnation, I'm sure he knew it: and had probably belonged to her in Alexandria, when she was Queen.

"There's a Mr. Talmadge in New York," she went on, wildly. "He said he would come to me from across the world, at a moment's notice, if I wired. Only it would be awkward if I announced our engagement to-night, and then found he'd changed his mind. Besides, he'd be a _last_ resort: and Sayda Sabri said I ought--"

"Why not wire _Sir Marcus_?" I ventured. (If his telegram had not come yesterday, I would as soon have advised Cleopatra to adopt an asp.)

"Oh! well--I _was_ thinking of it. That's one thing I wanted to ask your advice about. I believe he does love me."

"Idolizes is the word."

"And now and then in the night I've had a feeling, it was almost like wasting something _Providential_, to refuse a Marcus Antonius. Sayda Sabri warned me to wait for a man named Antony, whom I should meet in Egypt. That's why I--but no matter now. The 'Lark' is a dreadful obstacle, though. How could I live with a lark?"

"Lady Lark has quite a musical lilt."

"Do you think so? There's one thing, even if you're the wife of a marquis or an earl, you can only be called 'Lady' This or That. You might be _anything_. He's taller than Antoun--I mean, Captain Fenton.

And his eyes are just as nice--in their way. They quite haunt me, since Philae. But Lord Ernest, he has some horrid, common little tricks! He scratches his hair when he's worried. If you look up his coat sleeves you catch glimpses of gray Jaeger, a thing I always felt I could _never_ marry. And worst of all, when he finishes a meal and goes away from the table, he walks off _eating!_"

"I don't suppose," said I, "that your first Marcus Antonius ever went away from a table at all--on his feet; anyhow, while you were doing him so well in Egypt. He had to be carried. _I_ call Sir Marcus (and I stole the Sirdar's epithet for the other Anthony) a Romantic Figure!

His adoration for you is a--a sonnet. There's no 'h' in his name to bother you. And he fell in love at first sight, like a real sport--I mean, like the hero of a book. If he has ways you don't approve, you can cure them; redecorate and remodel him with the latest American improvements. Why, I believe he'd go so far as to give his Lark a tail if you asked him to spell it with an 'e'."

"Well--I suppose you're right about what I'd better do," she sighed. "A bird in the hand--oh, I'm not making a silly pun about a lark--is worth two in New York! Please tell _every one_ you see I'm engaged to Sir Marcus, for he is my bird in the hand: and I'll send off a telegram the first thing to-morrow morning, for fear he hears the news that he's engaged to me, prematurely. Where is he--do you know?"

"By to-morrow he'll be at Meroe Camp," I said: But I did not add: "So shall we!"

CHAPTER x.x.xI

THE MOUNTAIN OF THE GOLDEN PYRAMID

There was not much room in our hearts for mountains or gold just then: yet somehow, before we left the Palace, Anthony and I had told Brigit and Monny the secret which had been the romance of our lives, until they came into it to paint dead gold with the living rose of love.

Victorian women would have been grieved or angry with men who could leave them at such a time; but these two, instead of reproaching us, urged us on. Naturally, they wanted to go with us. They said, if there were danger, they wished to share it. And if there were to be a "find,"

they wished to be among the first to see what no eyes had seen for two thousand years. But when Anthony explained that there wasn't time to get tents together and make a decent camp for ladies, even if we were sure not to tumble into trouble, they said no more. This was surprising in Monny, if not in Brigit. I supposed, however, that she was being on her best behaviour, as a kind of thank-offering to Providence for its unexpected gift of legitimate happiness.

Our secret was to be kept. Only the Sirdar knew--and gave Fenton leave of absence for a few days. The Set did not suspect the existence of a mountain at Meroe more important than its neighbours. They did not even know what had become of Antoun Effendi after he bade them farewell, and "good luck." From the first, he had given it out that he must leave the party at Khartum. The object of returning to Meroe was to "meet Sir Marcus;" and I promised to be back in plenty of time to organize the return trip to Cairo. My departure, therefore, was all in the day's work: and the great sensation was Mrs. East's engagement. Even though, for obvious reasons, Monny's love affair was kept dark, Cleopatra could not resist parading hers, the minute her wire to Sir Marcus had been safely sent. I got an invitation for all the members of the Set to a tennis party in the Palace gardens, at which the Sultan of Dafur and a bodyguard armed with battle axes would be the chief attraction. Also I induced the landlord of our hotel to promise special illuminations, music, and an impromptu dance for the evening. This was to make sure that none of our friends should find time to see me off at the train.

Anthony was to join me there, in mufti, and might be recognised by sharp eyes on the lookout for mysteries. Once we got away, that danger would be past: unless Cleopatra told. But I was certain that she would not to any one ever again mention the name of Antoun.

It was a full train that night, but no one in it who knew Antoun. Many people who had been visiting friends or staying at an hotel for weeks, were saying good-bye. The narrow corridors of the sleeping-cars had African spears piled up on the floor against the wall, very long and inconvenient. Ladies struggled in, with rainbow-coloured baskets almost too big for their compartments. Seats were littered with snake-skins like immense, decayed apple parings; fearsome, crescent-shaped knives; leopard rugs in embryo; and strange headgear in many varieties. Stuffed crocodiles fell down from racks and got underfoot: men walked about with elephant tusks under their arms; dragomans solicited a last tip; a six-foot seven d.i.n.ka, black as ink and splendid as a Greek statue, brought flowers from the Palace for some departing acquaintance of the Sirdar and his wife. Officers in evening dress dashed up through the sand, on donkey-back, to see the last of friends, their mess jackets making vivid spots of colour in the electric light. All the fragrant blossoms of Khartum seemed to be sending farewell messages of perfume on the cool evening air. No more fantastic scene at a railway-station could be imagined. If the world and its doings is but a moving picture for the G.o.ds on Olympus they must enjoy the film of "a train departing from Khartum."

Anthony did not join me until just as the train was crawling out of the station, for we had asked Brigit and Monny not to see us off, and they had been startlingly acquiescent. We had a two-berthed compartment together, and talked most of the night, in low voices; of the mountain; of the legends concerning it, and the papers of the dead Egyptologist Ferlini, which indirectly had brought Fenton into Monny Gilder's life, and given Brigit back to me. There was the out-of-doors breakfast party, too, on the terrace at Shepheard's. Had it not been for this incident Antoun, the green-turbaned Hadji, would never have been selected by Miss Gilder, in words she might now like to forget. "I'll have _that_!" But, had not a distressed artist called on me one morning in Rome, months ago, with an old notebook to sell, I should not have come to Egypt for my sick-leave; and none of us would have met. I had visited the artist's studio to please a friend, and bought a picture to please him (not myself); therefore he regarded me as a charitable dilettante, likely to buy anything if properly approached. Bad luck had come to him; he wanted to try pastures new, and needed money at short notice: therefore he wished to dispose of a secret which might be the key to fortune. Why didn't he use the key himself? was the obvious question; which he answered by saying that a poor man would not be able to find the lock to fit it.

The notebook he had to sell had been the property of a distinguished distant relative, long since dead; the Italian, Ferlini, who about 1834 ransacked the ruins of Meroe in the kingdom of Candace. Ferlini had given treasure in gold, scarabs, and jewels to Berlin, all of which he had discovered in a secret _cache_ in the masonry of a pyramid, in the so-called "pyramid field" of Meroe. But he had been blamed for unscientific work, and in some quarters it was not believed that he had found the h.o.a.rd at Meroe. This jealousy and injustice had prevented Ferlini's obtaining a grant for further explorations he wished to make.

He claimed to have proof that in a certain mountain not far from the Meroe pyramids, and much resembling them in shape, was hidden the tomb of a Candace who lived two hundred years earlier than the queen of that name mentioned in the New Testament, mistress of the eunuch baptized by St. Philip. In the notebook which had come down with other belongings of Ferlini the Egyptologist, to Ferlini the artist, was a copy of certain Demotic writing, of a peculiar and little known form. The original had existed, according to the dead Ferlini's notes, on the wall of an antechapel in one of the most ruinous pyramids at Meroe, decorated in a peculiarly barbaric Ethiopian style. The wall-writing described the making of the mountain tomb, ordered by Candace in fear that her body might be disturbed, according to a prophecy which predicted the destruction of the kingdom if the jewels of the dead were found.

Ferlini, a student of the Demotic writings which had superseded hieroglyphics, doubted not that he had translated the revelation aright, though he admitted supplying many missing words in accordance with his own deductions. He was in disfavour at the time he tried to organize an expedition in search of the queen's h.o.a.rd, and though legends of the mountain confirmed the writings which Ferlini was the first to translate, the Italian could induce no one to finance his scheme. The one person he succeeded in interesting had a relative, already excavating in Egypt: but eventually addressed on the subject, this young man replied that the antechapel in question had fallen completely into ruin. It would be impossible, therefore, to find the wall-writing, "if indeed it ever existed."

This verdict had put an end to Ferlini's hopes, and nothing remained of them save the translated copy of the writing in his notebook (the missing words inserted) and the legends of the negroes who, generation after generation since forgotten times, had told the story of the "Mountain of the Golden Pyramid." n.o.body, within the memory of man, had ever searched for the problematical tomb: and as tales of more or less the same character are common in Egypt, I did not place much faith in the enthusiastic jottings of Ferlini. However, my love of the unknown, the mysterious and romantic, made me feel that the possession of the notebook was worth the price asked: two thousand lire. When I had brooded over it myself, I posted it to Fenton at Khartum; and his opinion had brought me to Egypt. Thinking of the matter in this way, it seemed that we owed our love stories to the impecunious artist, who had probably spent his eighty pounds and forgotten me by this time. In a few hours, or a few days, we might owe him even more.

Anthony, acquainted with Meroe, its pyramids and pyramidal mountains, since his first coming to the Sudan, had been able to plan out our campaign almost at an hour's notice. He knew where to wire for camels [to take us to our destination, eighteen miles from Kabushia], also for trained excavators. And he knew one who, if the white men were in ignorance, could tell us all the most hidden happenings of the desert for fifty miles around. This was the great character of the neighbourhood, among the blacks, the Wise Man of the Meroitic desert, who claimed to be over a hundred years old, had a tribe of sons and grandsons, and practically ruled the village of Bakarawiya. For countless generations his forbears had lived under the shadow of the ruined pyramids. Family tradition made them the descendants of those Egyptian warriors who revolted in the time of King Psammetichus, migrating from Elephantine Island to Ethiopia. There they were well received by the sovereign, given lands in Upper Nubia, and the t.i.tle of Autolomi, or Asmack, meaning "Those who stand on the left side of the King." Anthony's friend and instructor in the lore of legends rejoiced in the name of "Asmack," which, he proudly said, had been bestowed on the eldest son in his family, since time immemorial.

Asmack the old and wise was to meet us at Kabushia Station, with camels, one for each, and one for Sir Marcus, in case he had arrived and wished to ride to the Mountain of the Golden Pyramid.

It was orange-red afternoon when our white train slowed down, to pause for a moment at Kabushia Station, and the first face we saw was that of Sir Marcus Antonius--a radiant face whose beaming smile was, I knew, not so much a welcome for us as a sign that he had received the telegram from Cleopatra. He hurried along the platform to the steps of our sleeping car; and Anthony, ready to swing himself down before the train stopped, pointed out Asmack not far off,--a thin old black man who must once have been a stately giant, but bent forward now as if searching the earth for his own grave. He had got to his feet, from a squatting position in the coal-stained, alluvial clay of this strange desert, and was gazing toward us, his few rags fluttering in the warm wind. Beside him stood a mere youth of fifty or so, and two or three young men, with several sulky camels.

Sir Marcus began to shake hands almost before we were on the platform; and so did he engross himself in us and absorb our attention that none of us quite knew when the train went out.

"My dear boys!" he addressed us, nearly breaking our finger bones.

"Lord, Fenton, you're even better looking as a true Britisher than a false Arab! But never mind that now. Borrow, you're a trump. I believe I owe everything to you. I mean, in the matter of Mrs. East--_Clara_.

It always was my favourite name. Fenton knows? Thanks for the congratulations. Thanks to you both. You must be my best men. What?

Can't have but one? Well, it must be Borrow, then, I suppose. Oh, about the mountain? Why, of course you're anxious. Don't think I have not been busy. I have. Got here by special train. Cost me a lot of money.

But who cares? It's worth it. I want to hurry things up, and get to Khartum. What your blessed mountain is to you, that is a certain lady to me."

"What have you found out?" I managed at last to cut short his rhapsodies.

"Why, not much, I'm bound to confess. But I've had only a few hours.

Some one--heaven knows who--came here, it seems, with Arabs he'd engaged heaven knows where, and pretended to be my agent, empowered by me to work at the Mountain of the Golden Pyramid, where it was well known I'd got the right to excavate. Well, the chap was armed with credentials, and had a contract signed by me, so the authorities thought he was all right of course, and let him go on. This was more than a month ago. He pitched his camp out by the mountain, and n.o.body disturbed him. Fact is, from what I hear, I don't believe the excavating men from the Liverpool School of Archeology or whatever you call it, thought much of his chances of success. A case of looking for Captain Kidd's treasure! He and his men were excavating round the mountain, and he'd engaged some more fellows from the neighbourhood to make the work go faster. But a few days ago--not yet a week--he discharged the lot, paid them up and sent them off saying he'd abandoned hope of finding any entrance to an alleged tomb. The Arabs departed by train; but the fellows from hereabouts gossiped a bit, it seemed, and the story was started that they'd been got rid of because the Boss had hit on something, and wanted to be left to himself.

"You haven't told us yet the name of the man," Anthony reminded him.

"By Jove, no more I haven't! I'm so excited about everything. You won't know it, but Borrow will. Colonel Corkran."

Anthony gave me a look. "I do know the name," he said. "It's the man of my dream."

"The man of your dream? Corkran a _dream_?"

"A dream which has kept repeating itself until I grew superst.i.tious about it. A red-faced man with a purplish sort of moustache, I saw coming between you and us, or looking at me out of a dark recess, something like a deep doorway. Borrow said when I told him, I was describing your man, Corkran, whose place he took on your yacht _Candace_."

"Well, I'm hanged! If that's not the rummiest go! I only hope he's not in that recess or deep doorway now, if it leads into your mountain. You remember, Borrow, my telling you he'd been alone for a while in the sitting-room I use as an office at the Semiramis Hotel, and had had a good chance if he wanted to browse among my papers? Well, I didn't mention this to you at the time, but an unsigned contract with you for your services, in return for all my rights in the Mountain of the Golden Pyramid, was lying on the desk. (As for the contract he's been showing here, it could only have been for the trip; but it showed him to be my agent right enough.) And there were two confidential letters on my desk: one from a man I'd written to, an Egyptologist chap, saying in his opinion there _might_ be a tomb in the mountain; the other, an answer, not finished, telling him I meant to run the risk, and had secured the rights. You know how queer I thought it, Corkran should throw up his job, which was paying him pretty well? But it wasn't my business, and I was jolly glad to be rid of him as it happened. Well, here we have the mystery explained."

"Not quite yet! I wish we had," I said, thinking of the sly old poacher on our preserves, who had perhaps by this time skimmed the cream off the secret. It was easy to guess why he had sent away his workers if, indeed, he had imagined himself on the eve of a discovery. Rights to dig are given on the understanding that the Egyptian government shall have half of anything found, worth the taking. Corkran's scheming to be alone must mean that he intended annexing what treasure he could carry off, and then getting out of the bad business. Already six days had pa.s.sed since the Arabs and Nubians had left him alone in his camp; and though it was lucky that we had learned what was going on, it might be too late to profit by the information. Even if we caught Corkran red-handed, he might have hidden his spoil where none but he, or some messenger, could ever find it.