‘I revoke it unconditionally.’
‘Why did you not tell me this five minutes ago!’
‘Better to tell it you now than not at all. You will not leave us now?’
‘But I must, I fear—must.’ She gave him her hand for a moment, and then turned away.
As the Baronet watched her retreating figure, he muttered to himself: ‘Mr Boyd said we were quits. He was mistaken. We shall be quits after to-day. Hum, hum.’
As Lady Dimsdale was crossing the terrace, she dropped one of her gloves—whether by design or accident, who shall say. Oscar Boyd sprang forward and picked it up. Laura stopped, turned, and held out her hand for the glove. As Oscar gave it back to her, his fingers closed instinctively round hers. For a moment or two he gazed into her eyes; for a moment or two she glanced shyly into his. I don’t in the least know what he saw there; but suddenly he called out to the coachman: ‘Henry, you can drive back to the stables. Lady Dimsdale will not go to London to-day.’
THE MONTH:
SCIENCE AND ARTS.
The interesting lecture upon Celtic and Roman Britain, which was delivered last month at the London Institution by Mr Alfred Tylor, F.G.S., was illustrated by several drawings of curious antiquities. There was also shown a map prepared by the lecturer, which depicted all the Roman roads which at the present time still form important highways. A large number of these are seen upon this map to converge at Winchester, which at one time formed a central depôt for the metallurgical products of this country, before their dispersion abroad. From Winchester the metals won from the earth in Cornwall, Wales, &c., were carried to Beaulieu, in Hampshire, thence to the Solent, close by. Two miles across the Solent is Gurnard’s Bay, in the Isle of Wight, whence there was an easy road to the safe harbour of Brading, where the ores could be shipped for continental ports. It is believed, from the existence of so many British sepulchral mounds along these routes, that the roads were established and in constant use many centuries before the Roman occupation. The lecturer also referred to the curious Ogham inscriptions which are found nowhere except in the British Isles, and which are written in a kind of cipher of the simplest but most ingenious kind. A horizontal bar forms the backbone of this curious system of caligraphy. Five vertical strokes across this line would express the first five letters of an alphabet; the next five would be expressed by like lines kept above the horizontal bar, and five more by similar lines kept below it. Other five, making up a total of twenty signs, corresponding to a twenty-letter alphabet, are expressed by diagonal lines across the bar. This primitive method of writing is due to the Irish division of the Celtic race, and indicates a proof of early culture, which is seen in more enduring form in the artistic skill evident in such metallurgical work as has been assigned to the same period and people.
Professor Maspero’s recently issued new catalogue of the Boulak Museum, Cairo, deals with antiquities compared with which those referred to the Roman period in Britain seem but things of yesterday. Many of these archæological treasures, but more particularly the funerary tablets or stelæ, cover the enormous period of thirty-eight centuries, a period, too, which ends two thousand years before the Christian era. As to the object of these tablets, which are almost invariably found attached to ancient Egyptian tombs, Professor Maspero gives a new theory. There is no doubt that the ancient Egyptians believed in the immortality of the soul, but coupled with this was a belief in the existence of a something outside the soul and body—a kind of shade or double, called the Ka. The preservation of this Ka was essential to the preservation of the soul; and images of the defunct in which this spirit could dwell were entombed with the mummy. The various scenes of domestic labour and pastoral pursuits were not—as was until recently supposed—inscribed upon the Egyptian tombs merely as records of manners and customs, but were associated with the belief in the Ka. The pursuits carried on in life could by these representations enable the spiritual double to carry on the same line of conduct. Representations of various kinds of food in baked clay, limestone, or other material, formed the food of the Ka, and such things have been found in abundance. According to Professor Maspero’s new theory, the stela or tablet enumerated the funereal offerings of the deceased, and contained a prayer for their continuance. This prayer, repeated by a priest—or passer-by, even—would insure the well-being of the Ka. The name and status of the deceased were also inscribed upon the tablet; for, according to Egyptian ideas, a nameless grave meant no hereafter for its inmate. The catalogue referred to is intended to be a popular guide for the use of visitors, but it contains very much which will be of value to the student.
Mr Petrie’s recently published book upon the Pyramids of Gezeh, while it makes short work of many previously accepted theories as to the intention and uses of those gigantic structures, gives much information of a most interesting kind, and throws a new light upon many previously obscure portions of the subject. Most interesting is that part of the work devoted to the mechanical means employed by the builders of the Pyramids. Mr Petrie traces in the huge stones of which the Pyramids are built, the undoubted marks of saw-cutting and tubular drilling. He believes that the tools employed were of bronze, and asserts that this metal has left a green stain on the sides of the saw-cuts. Jewels, to form cutting-points, he believes to have been set both in the teeth of the saws and also on the circumference of the drills. (If this be true, rock-boring diamond drills are no new things.) He has even detected evidence of the employment of lathes with fixed tools and mechanical rests.