"That's lovely, Mike—that's you and me! That's our certain human love, our happiness! It is worth while, and it's not going to be like the running out of an hour-glass while an egg is boiling! It's going to last for ages and ages, isn't it? Say it is, Mike!"
"Yes, beloved." Mike kissed her hands.
She drew them away. "Don't kiss them, Mike. I feel as if they will be dried skeletons by to-morrow, and as if your lips, dearest, will have shrunk and shrunk right back until your teeth gape out of your hideous brown skull up to the blue above. Do you wonder that Akhnaton prayed so ardently that his spirit might come out and see the sun?"
Meg's head was buried in her hands. She was visualizing again the wonderful scene, which had taught her the mockery of all things which had formerly appeared so precious and important. It seemed to her at the moment that to sit down in the desert under the blue sky, and there wait for death, was the only thing to do. Nothing really mattered. Eternity enthralled her. Her happiness with Mike was but the swift hurrying of a white cloud across a summer sky, the work of the Exploration School a mere illustration of worldly vanity. In the great chaos which possessed her soul there was no light to comfort her. In looking into the past she had unexpectedly seen into the future. She had beheld the scorn and callousness of eternity.
Oddly enough, it was Michael who helped her to pull herself together and turn her thoughts to practical things, to the needs of the day. His more mystical nature, his familiarity with the mythology of Egypt and other occult subjects, had in a measure prepared his mind for the things which had burst suddenly upon Meg's practical nature. He had been subconsciously prepared for the tomb to be one of unusual importance. The soothsayer's prediction had not been mere charlatanry to him. His secret thoughts were so constantly focussed on what is termed the superhuman, that Meg's wonder and horror formed only a minor part of his emotions.
A thousand thoughts had flashed through his mind when he first saw the amazing display of jewels and faience and gold, the resplendent queen, whose royal magnificence had mocked at time. The inexhaustible wealth of buried Egypt forced before his eyes the treasure of gold of which Akhnaton had spoken, that imperial wealth which he had buried behind the hills of his fair capital. He felt convinced that it was there; he felt convinced that his friend in el-Azhar had seen it, just as the Arab soothsayer had seen the royal effigy dressed as a bride.
Mike had little conversation even for Meg. His mind was harassed and absorbed. The fresh impetus which he had received was pounding like a sledge-hammer at his natural and supernatural forces. His natural self was the devil's advocate, and a very able one. It argued against the super-instincts which led him to the treasure. It made him practical. It made him, as Freddy would have declared, "sanely critical of the insane." It admitted the apparent folly of the thing into which he was drifting.
He pulled Meg up from her seat on the sand. He realized that her domestic duties were what her nerves needed; they had lately been greatly taxed, first by her vision of Akhnaton and now by the excitement of their entry into the tomb.[1]
A lover's kisses and strong human arms had done much for Meg. She had a horror of hysterical females. She pulled herself together and determined to be practical. Only a few moments before she had felt an almost uncontrollable desire to burst into tears. How thankful she was that Mike had saved her from the humiliation!
But how in the world was she going to bring herself back to the paltry things of every day? How was she ever again going to feel that life was real and actual?