Stephen: A Soldier of the Cross

by Florence Morse Kingsley

The face of Amu blanched to a sickly yellow hue. His eyes glowed with fury, but he said not a word; with a sudden quick movement, he seized the bridle of his mule, and leaping upon its back galloped away towards Memphis.

Besa looked after him quietly. "What may be the meaning of all this?" he said to himself. "Stay, let me consider for a moment. The man comes to me and says in effect this: 'Thou art a dealer in slaves; I can procure for thee two of good value, a lad and a maiden. The maiden hath a voice like to the sound of nightingales; yet cannot I bring them to the proper purchasers.' At the same time I, Besa, am commissioned to procure a singing slave for the princess, who pineth in a sickly melancholy. But what have I suffered in the matter thus far? I have been half killed by a fall, now am I parched with thirst, and the man lies to me concerning his water-bottle. I saw him fill it before we started, therefore I ventured to leave mine own, which I could not at the moment lay my hands upon. There is no fountain behind the brow of yonder hill. For what purpose hath the man lied? There is something here that I cannot see. I will for the present forego the matter, but there are two things to be set down for the future, and Besa is not the man to forget."

Then he advanced to the opening of the tomb, which showed black in its setting of yellow sand; kneeling clown, he looked carefully at the stone stairway which led down into the depths. The sand was sifting in with each breath of the hot desert wind. "It has been opened but a short time," he remarked at length. "It will be a pious act for me to replace the stone; Anubis will reward me for it. One must not fail in duty to the sacred dead." Then he raised his voice, "Rest quietly, my children; there is nought to hurt thee in the abodes of the departed. Song and sunlight, laughter and air are needed no more by the slaves of Anubis. His slave shalt thou be unless thou presently come forth in answer to my cry."

The sound of his voice echoed in dismal reverberations through the hollow blackness within, but there was no sign that his words fell upon other ears than those sealed to eternal silence within their swathings of spiced linen. The heavy odor of death ascended in stupefying clouds into the face of the man as he knelt at the edge of the tomb. He drew back a little, and the malignant smile faded from his face.

"The stone shall be put back," he said doggedly, "for I believe, by my life, that they be down there. They will live till I shall return with torches and men. If I secure them both, I shall be avenged also upon Amu."

Forthwith he bent over and laid hold upon the stone. It was heavy, and though the lad in his mad fear had succeeded in shoving it to one side, the man could with difficulty stir it a single inch. The sun beat down in fury upon his head, the hot wind sang in his ears with a strange sound of buzzing insects and humming wheels. He stepped down into the stairway, the better to grasp the stone for another mighty effort. Suddenly a wave as of fire swept before his eyes, his hands relaxed their hold, he reeled a little, and then fell, a nerveless heap, into the darkness.

To Seth and Anat, who were crouching behind a huge sarcophagus, the sound at first signified nothing but some fresh horror.

"I must cry out," urged Seth in a vehement whisper. "We shall perish in this place, for I cannot move the stone from beneath."

But Anat held him fast. "Better slavery to death than to such a man."

Seth watched the shaft of yellow light that pierced the thick darkness. "Presently," he thought shudderingly, "it will disappear." But the moments crept slowly by, and the sun still poured in, revealing the countless dancing atoms which had leapt up from the sleep of centuries beneath the feet of the fugitives.