Denderah meant work for Fenton. There had been trouble there, and tourists had complained of insults. It was the Hadji's business to find out whether natives or Europeans had been more to blame, and whether there were wrongs to right, misunderstandings to adjust. But to the rest of us, Denderah meant the sacred temple of Hathor, Goddess of Love, in some ways one of the most beautiful of all the Nile temples; though, being not much over two thousand years old (it was built upon ruins more ancient than King Menes) archeologists like Neill Sheridan class it as "late Ptolemaic," uninterestingly modern.
Mrs. East had been looking forward to the temple of Denderah more eagerly than to any other, because she had read that on an outer wall was carved the portrait of Cleopatra the Great. That of Cæsarion was there also, as she must have known; but Cleopatra's son was never referred to by her reincarnation, who chose to ignore the Cæsar incident. Mrs. East had not yet deigned to mount a donkey, but to reach the temple she must do so or walk, or sway in a dangerous looking chaise à porteur. Rather than miss the joy of seeing herself on a stone wall as others had had the privilege of seeing her for two thousand years, she consented to accept as a seat a large gray animal, tasselled with red to keep off flies and evil eyes. "Won't you ride with me, Antoun Effendi?" she asked. "I'm afraid. This creature looks as large as an elephant and as wild as a zebra. I feel you could calm him." But Antoun Effendi was not going to ride. He had other fish to fry; and poor Cleopatra's luminous dark eyes were like overflowing lakes, when he had politely excused himself on the plea of a pressing engagement. I felt sure that she would have been kind to Sir Marcus if at that moment he could have appeared from behind the picturesque group of bead-necklace sellers, or emerged from one of the huge bright-coloured baskets exposed for sale on a hill of brown-gold sand.
I don't know whether it made things better or worse that the gray donkey should be named "Cleopatra," but it was evidently a blow when the animal's white-robed attendant announced himself as Anthony.
"I can't and won't have the creature with me!" she murmured, as I helped her to mount when she had pushed the boy aside. "Thank you, Lord Ernest. You're very kind. But Antoun ought to have been here. Fancy seeing this temple, of all others, without an Anthony of any sort on the horizon! A pity it isn't your middle name! If you could spare time to ride with me, that would be better than nothing!"
"I'll be delighted," I said hypocritically, for I had been dying to talk with Brigit about the Monny and Rachel imbroglio which, as a hard-worked Conductor, I had not since Abydos found a chance to discuss. Besides, Biddy had whispered in passing that a letter just delivered at Denderah, had brought exciting news of Esmé O'Brien: But I was sorry for Cleopatra, and wondered whether I could manage after all to hint an explanation of the hieroglyphic love-letter—that fatal letter of mine which had stealthily made mischief between Mrs. East and Anthony. I didn't quite see how the subject was to be broached: still, some way might open. "I'm sorry about the middle name," I said. "But if I assumed it—like a virtue which I have not—I should be the third person connected with this trip, labelled the same fashion."
"Who is the second person?" she asked abruptly, as all the animals of the party started to trot vivaciously through the blowing yellow sand.
"Sir Marcus. Surely you've heard that his 'A' stands for Antonius?"
"Good heavens!" she gasped: and I hardly knew whether it was the shock of my news, or a jolt of the donkey which forced the exclamation. Whatever it was, the emotion she felt bound her to silence after that one outburst. She said not a word, and did not even groan or threaten to fall off when both our beasts broke into a thumping gallop. In silence we swept round that great bulk of rubbish heap, Roman and early Christian, under which lies An, the town of the Column. Cleopatra did not cry out when suddenly we came in sight of Hathor's temple, honey-gold against the turquoise sky, and vast as some Wagnerian palace of the gods. The tasselled donkey (or I) had given her cause to think. Or perhaps she did not consider me worth talking to, as we approached the temple toward which all her previous travelling had been a mere pilgrimage. Still silently, when we had left our donkeys and were following the crowd up the dromos (Harry Snell actually with Enid, thanks to me and the wisdom of second thoughts), Cleopatra's eyes wandered over the Hathor-headed columns with their clinging colour; and over the portal with its brilliant mass of yellow, of dark Pompeian red, and the green-blue sacred to Hathor, whom Horus loved —Venus-Hathor, whose priestesses danced within these walls in Cleopatra's day. "Oh, this red and this green-blue were my colours, I remember," she murmured, and then hardly spoke when I walked with her in the gloom of the temple itself—the rich gloom under heavily ornamented ceilings. She wanted to save the portrait till the last, she announced, until after she had seen everything else: and she didn't care what Mr. Sheridan said about her temple; it was wonderful. I tried to interest her in the crocodiles, which had been detested and persecuted at Denderah in the late Cleopatra's time as ardently as they were worshipped at Crocodilopolis and other places. I joked about Old Egypt having consisted of "crocs and non crocs," just as the inhabitants of Florence had to be Guelphs or Ghibellines. I explained carefully the geography of the place, or rather, "reminded" Cleopatra of it, adding details of the canal which once led to Koptos, where the magic book of the Wisdom of Thoth lay hidden under the Nile. I could not waken Mrs. East from reverie to interest, as Antoun would have had the power to do; but my vanity was not hurt. It was only my curiosity which suffered, for I wanted desperately to know whether the donkey had seriously jolted the lady's spine, or whether the news that Sir M. A. Lark was Marcus Antonius, not a more obvious Marcus Aurelius, had fired her imagination.
In any case I devoted myself to her while Monny and Brigit frolicked with others; and I had a reward of a kind. When we had seen all the halls and chambers, and the crypt with its carvings all fresh as if made yesterday; when we had been on the roof where chanting priests had once awaited the rising of Sirius; when I had taken her outside the temple, where blowing columns of dusty sand rose like incense from hidden altars of Hathor, we stood at last alone together, gazing up at the figures of Cleopatra and her son. The wall on which they were carved rose behind the Holy of Holies, where the golden statue of the Goddess had been kept; but alas, the figures themselves! Alas! I knew how Cleopatra must be feeling; and I dared not speak. Perhaps she was even blushing: but I did not look. Instead, I gazed helplessly up at that exposed, misshapen form, that flaccid chin.
"Thank heaven it's only you who are with me!" breathed Mrs. East.