The way of the spirit

by H. Rider Haggard

“I am not sure what I believe,” she answered, “but departed faiths still haunt the blood of those whose fathers held them, and the ancient gods live on in other forms. To-day none worship ours, save I, for Mea turned from him to you, and the people have forgotten long ago. Well, I was sure that ill-luck would come, and so it has. Still, I do not blame you, Rupert Bey, who are brave and honest, and have dealt well by her whom you might have betrayed and left. Nor,” she added, with a curious burst of conviction, “nor am I sure that things will go so ill after all. You said to us one day that the spirit is greater than the flesh, and that those who follow the spirit win at last. Though you seem such a fool, perhaps you are right, Rupert Bey. I think so at times, for, look you, I also have put aside the flesh and followed the spirit all my life, and learned much, for do they not call me wise and foresighted? Only,” she added reflectively, “perhaps I have followed the false spirit, and you follow the true. Perhaps the old gods are really dead at last, and new ones rule the world. But if so, in the Soudan they are devils. Meanwhile, Rupert Bey, deal gently with the flower whose stalk you have broken in your clumsy hand, lest the air should soon lack its fragrance.”

On the third day Mea reappeared, looking rather pale and red-eyed, but outwardly, at any rate, in a cheerful mood. Not one word did she say then or afterwards to Rupert about their great argument as to the moralities of the East and West. For whether she had been visiting her crops, or perchance lying weeping on her bed, at least it would seem that she had conquered herself, and was determined to adapt her life to the conditions upon which they had tacitly agreed. By now it was certain that his sight would be restored to Rupert, and this joyful fact worked wonders for them both. For instance, mounted on a quiet mule, which a servant led, whilst others ran before, behind, and around him, and Mea herself rode at his side, she conducted him about the oasis that was her heritage.

It was a large place, thirty miles or more in length by perhaps fifteen in breadth, which would have supported a great population, as once it must have done, for its soil, washed down from the mountain-sides, was of a marvellous fertility and very well-watered. The local methods of cultivation, however, were primitive, and as the trade with outside people was very small, its inhabitants had no incentive to grow more than they could consume.

“If I had the management of this oasis for ten years,” said Rupert to Mea, after he had inspected most of it, “I would make you the richest woman in the Soudan.”

“Then stay and make me so,” she answered, smiling. But he felt that it was not the riches which she desired.

What interested him even more were the ruins of the great temple which had evidently been devoted to the worship of Ra—that is, the Sun as the robe and symbol of Divinity. It was of a late period, Ptolemaic indeed, and not of the best workmanship, and there were various passages in the inscriptions which seemed to suggest that it was founded by some Egyptian prince of the thirtieth dynasty, who fled hither after the reconquest of Egypt by the Persians. It appeared that his descendants for many generations kept a kind of royal state in this far-off oasis where nobody thought it worth while to attack them. Indeed, on the sarcophagus of one of them who died as late as the reign of Theodosius four centuries after Christ, was an inscription pompously describing the deceased as “Beloved of Ra, King of Tama and of Upper and Lower Egypt.”

The most impressive part of this temple, indeed, was the mausoleum of the rulers of the oasis who had called themselves kings. Probably because they could not afford to make for themselves great separate tombs after the fashion of those in the Valley of Kings at Thebes, they hollowed in the rock beneath the temple a vast crypt, from which opened outside chambers like to those of the Serapeum, the burying-place of the sacred bulls of Memphis. At the head of this crypt stood a huge and solemn statue of Osiris in his mummy wrappings, but wearing the crown and feathers of Amen-Ra, and at its entrance was a great underground pool or cistern of water, across which the bodies of the dead were ferried, in imitation, doubtless, of the last journey across the Nile. Certain of the side-chambers were bricked up, but others were either never closed, or had been opened, and there in their sarcophagi lay the dead.

In a past age some of the granite coverings and coffin-lids had been removed, but the mummies remained inviolate, even their golden ornaments were not disturbed. Those of one young queen, or rather chieftainess, who had died a few years before the birth of Christ were indeed of remarkable beauty and great value, comprising a crown of gold filagree and enamelled flowers of marvellous workmanship, inlaid pectoral and bracelets and a sceptre of gold surmounted by a crystal symbol of the sun. Mea took them from the body and arrayed herself in them and stood before Rupert a queen of Egypt, as once he had seen her stand in the sanctuary at Abu-Simbel. Very wonderful she looked thus with the lamp-light shining upon her in that awesome, silent place.

“What are you doing?” he asked, for notwithstanding the bizarre beauty of her decorations, it jarred upon him to see her ornamented with these insignia of death.

“I try them on, Rupert Bey,” she answered. “As we cannot make such things now I will borrow them from the lady, my long-ago grandmother, to be buried in. Come here; I show you my tomb.”