I think we were both heartily sorry for the unfortunate youth, so helpless in the midst of all his pomp and glory, and I was only too ready to devote myself to him, if the thing was feasible.
“Will you mention it to the Queen to-night?” I suggested.
“Not to-night,” he replied, “but at the Cabinet Council to-morrow when Ur-tasen is present.”
When we returned to the dining-hall the Queen had retired with her attendants, and we were left alone for the remainder of the evening to stroll about under the acacia alleys of the park.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE IRIDESCENT SCARABÆUS
Neither of us felt like sleep. The night was peculiarly balmy and fragrant, even for this fair land where all flowers smelled doubly sweet, all bird song sounded more melodious than anywhere else in the world. There was only one flaw in this land of poetry and of art, but that was a serious flaw. The people did not grow tobacco, and on this beautiful evening, as we wandered aimlessly along the moonlit walks, we could not smoke a good cigar, and our delight did not reach supreme beatitude.
How far England seemed from us at that moment! London, Piccadilly, the Strand, hansom cabs—these were dreams, or rather nightmares I should say, for in these few brief days—so adaptable is the human creature—this gorgeous land, the shaven priests, the sickly Pharaoh, had somehow already become a part of our existence. I could no longer picture myself hailing an omnibus at Piccadilly Circus and getting out at Hammersmith Broadway; I could not think of myself sitting in a stall at His Majesty’s Theatre and watching one of Mr. Beerbohm Tree’s beautiful scenic productions. The individual who used to sit opposite Aunt Charlotte at the breakfast-table in Harley Street, reading the Daily Telegraph, was not I myself; he was a sort of spook who still haunted me now and again, but who had really nothing to do with me, the counsellor of Osiris’s son, the confidant of the beloved of the gods.
I cannot attempt to explain this psychological phase of my sojourn in the land of Kamt. I can but record it, and do so chiefly because I know that Hugh experienced the same sensation as I did, only in a much more intense form.
He walked and looked as if he had never done anything all his life but rule over strange and picturesque nations. He never found his robes uncomfortable, nor got entangled in the intricacies of the native tongue, and he met the great Pharaoh’s sarcastic chuckles, and the high priest’s hypocritical obsequiousness, with the same unruffled composure and truly regal dignity.
To-night, having dismissed our tiresome attendants, we gave ourselves over, heart and soul, to the beauty of the scene around us. To our right and left, in the dark shadows ghostly forms of birds or beasts fled frightened at our approach, and the white cows in the tall papyrus grass, disturbed by our tread, gave forth long and melancholy plaints, while overhead the crowd of monkeys in the branches of the acacia trees pelted us in wanton mischief with showers of white sweet-scented petals as we passed.