The dreadful rumour ran that the woman was none other than the great Queen Hatasu (never mind her more scientific names), her mummy never having been found, or, at any rate, identified: and it was pitiful seeing her so small and female, when in life she had wished to be represented with a beard and the clothing of a man. Our dragoman, who read English newspapers and whose idea of entertaining his crowd was to make cheap jokes (just as his family doubtless manufactured cheap scarabs), announced that Hatasu was the "first suffragette." But even those who thought her downtrodden nephew, Thothmes III, justified in erasing every trace of her existence wherever possible, did not smile at this jest. In fact, having Antoun and me to refer to, the Set as a whole sat upon the unfortunate dragoman, trying to talk him down in tombs and temples, or ostentatiously reading Weigall, Maspero, Petrie, Sladen, and Lorimer when he attempted to give them information. A few with kinder intentions, however, interrupted his flow of historical narrative by exclaiming, "Why, yes, of course!" "I thought so!" and "Now I remember!" He revenged himself by advising everybody to buy antiques from an extraordinary old gentleman, extremely like a galvanized mummy. The antiques were extraordinary, too, so everybody took the dragoman's advice, neglecting the other curiosity merchants of the squatting row near the luncheon-tomb and the glorious three-tier temple, in that vast copper cup of desert and cliff which is called Der el-Bahari. The sale in mummied hawks, gilded rams' horns, broken tiles with beetles flying out of the sun, boats of the gods, and gods themselves, was brisk round this ancient gentleman, who advertised a blue mummy-cap by wearing it on his bald pate, and seemed to possess as many royal scarabs as a dressmaker has pins. Afterward I learned that he was our dragoman's father; but I was loyal and did not tell.
It was a wonderful day, all the more wonderful perhaps because it left in the mind a colourful confusion; pictures of painted tombs hidden deep under red rock and drifted sand, tombs which we should perhaps never reach again through their guarding zone of fire—tombs of kings and queens and nobles forgotten through thousands of centuries save by their kas and has, their friends and servants, painted or sculptured on the walls with the sole purpose of caring for or entertaining them eternally.
Already we had ceased to remember which was which. And back on the boat, in the hour of sunset, when dazzling tinsel and pale pink cloud-flowers sailed over a lake of clear green sky, the Set argued whether the King with the Horses, or the Queen with the Retroussé Nose was in this or that tomb. Sir John Biddell recalled the fact that Egyptian horses had been celebrated, and that it was "as swell a thing to be a charioteer then as it was now to be a Vanderbilt with a coach and four." As for a retroussé nose, it didn't matter where it was, on a tomb-wall or on a girl's face.
Monny thought differently. She and Biddy were glad that the sand and rocks would still hide many secret treasures, while the world lasted. It would be dreadful to think that everything was dug up, for tourists to pry into, or to cart away to museums, and no mysteries left. As for Mrs. East, she was doubtful whether to rejoice or grieve that Cleopatra's mummy had not been found. If, however, it were like the incised wall portrait at Denderah, it would be well that it should share the fate of Alexander's body and remain lost forever.
The next day gave us another trip to the west of the Nile: not again in the burning desert, but only as far as the Ramesseum, and then to see the Colossi, seated side by side on their green carpet of meadow, looking out past the centuries toward eternity.
We had a dance on board that night; and next morning it came out that Rachel Guest, who had disappeared during a "turkey trot" and a "castle walk," had got herself engaged to Bailey. I was not as pleased about this event as was Enid Biddell, who now saw her "title clear" to Harry Snell; for I had "bagged" Willis Bailey and Neill Sheridan for Sir Marcus in order to gain Kudos for myself: but Biddy, appealed to, consoled me by saying it served Bailey right if he were mercenary: and that both men would have come in any case.
The third day was to be the Great Day for us, the day big with fate for Mabella Hânem; and the first thing that happened was a letter sent by hand from the Bronsons at the Villa Sirius. They had arrived. The fireworks could begin.
CHAPTER XXI
THE OPENING DOOR