By the gods beloved

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

“Keep near me, old chap. Don’t let them divide us whatever happens!”

The eight black giants had already raised the Pharaoh’s litter aloft, and he was being borne away among a crowd of prostrate figures, across the vast aisle of the temple. He took no notice, however, of his adoring subjects; contemptuously he passed them by, and as his litter disappeared through the wide portals beyond, I could still hear his audible yawns and his loud, sharp, sarcastic laugh.

The Queen and Hugh were also hoisted upon the shoulders of the bearers, and I was allowed to walk by his side, while a crowd of gorgeous personages, with wands of office, of attendants and of slaves, closed in behind us and followed in solemn procession.

If the picture of the temple of Ra, with its antechamber of black granite, its mysterious vastness, its blind priestesses and solemn priests, had been impressive and majestic, certainly that which lay before us, as we emerged through the open portals, was radiant and bright and beautiful above all: the air was sweet and balmy as an English June, and filled with the penetrating and pungent odour of thousands of mimosa trees and acacia blossoms, and with the sounds of innumerable songs from myriads of bird throats. The sky was cloudless and blue, and from the top of the gigantic marble steps where we stood we could see the city nestling at the foot of the range of frowning hills which divided it from the arid desert waste. The houses were tall and square, with flat roofs supported on massive columns, which glittered with quaint arabesques and devices in tones of exquisite enamel, and between them, forming the streets, broad canals were cut, the waters of which, clear and blue, scintillated as with myriads of gems; on the canals innumerable boats, with tall prow and poop high above the water’s edge, in shape like a crescent moon, flitted busily along. Some were laden with piles of orange and scarlet fruit, and mountains of flowers, all of which threw vivid patches of colour on the canvas as they glided swiftly by. The granite of the houses was a soft-toned pink, and over some of the ponderous gateways huge carvings, covered with enamel, towered between clumps of date palms and acacia trees; and far ahead before us, sharply outlined against the dome of the sky, there rose, awesome, mysterious, majestic, the great and wonderful pyramids, the tombs of the kings of Egypt.

Ay! the picture was truly gorgeous, a realisation of all the beauties, the art, the colours of which scientists tell us, in words which, as I recalled them then, seemed hollow and tame. A picture such as dear old Mr. Tankerville alone knew how to paint before our delighted schoolboy eyes, when he spoke of the temples of Khefren, the sphinxes of Kheops, of the mysterious Neit-akrit, and the beautiful land over which a pall of oblivion had lain for so long. Here it was new and fresh, alive as ever, and we two prosy Britishers were here to enjoy its beauties. The crescent-shaped boats, with bright-coloured sails, the naked boatmen, whose skins shone beneath the sun like pieces of yellow marble, their scarlet tight-fitting caps, their metal collars, the life, the movement, the beauty, the colour, intoxicated me and made me feel as if this were, at last, life and beauty indeed.

I looked at Hugh: he had thrown back his head, and, raised on his elbow, was looking out upon the land he had so daringly decided to rule and which he found so fair. As for the Queen, there was in the midst of all this beauty, this gorgeousness, but one sight which to her eyes was worth the seeing, and which gave a singular softness to her fine voluptuous face, and that was the sight of the mystic stranger who had demanded to share her throne with her, the envoy of Osiris and of Ra, the beloved of the gods.

The invalid Pharaoh had been taken onto one of the boats, and was already being rowed along the canal, followed by his gorgeous retinue; the Queen’s litter had also stopped at the foot of the temple steps, and Hugh helped her to alight and to step into her own boat. She seemed very unwilling to part from him, and prolonged her “sweet sorrow” with many whisperings, which my imperfect knowledge of the language prevented me from catching. At last she waved us a last adieu, the eight oarsmen dropped their sculls into the water, and with slow and rhythmic movement the royal craft, draped in the Queen’s favourite black hangings, and glittering with ornaments of gold, disappeared down the canal, and I at last was, comparatively speaking, alone with Hugh.

A boat was evidently waiting for us, for, prostrate on the ground, eight swarthy-looking men seemed to be waiting for us and to be requesting us to step into it, which we did. From the temple the stream of people had poured out, and stood in dense and picturesque masses on the tall steps, watching from a respectful distance every movement of the beloved of the gods.

“Perhaps you will tell me, old man, how all this is going to end,” I remarked as soon as we, in our turn, were being rowed down the canal some half a dozen lengths behind the Queen’s boat, and I felt that, at last, I was alone with Hugh.

He turned round to me, and the sunniest of smiles drove all the solemnity from his face.