The Lost Million

by William Le Queux

“Yes,” I cried eagerly. “Let us take it to the British Museum. Professor Stewart will be able to decipher it at once.”

So, replacing the papyri in its bronze case, we took it with us in a taxi, and half an hour later sat in the room of the professor, the same eminent Egyptologist whom I had seen on my previous visit there.

The great scholar put on his spectacles very leisurely, and with great care opened the crumbled relic out before him as he sat at this table and placed a sheet of glass over it.

Then for a long time he pored closely over the queer, crude drawings. At last he broke the silence as he looked up at us through his round glasses, saying—

“This, I may as well tell you, is one of the most remarkable and interesting records that have ever come out of Egypt, and, like the papyri which I deciphered for Mr Arnold, and which was found accompanying this cylinder, it is in the hieroglyphics in use during the period after Alexander the Great had delivered Egypt and it was ruled by Ptolemy and his descendants. Ptolemy the First, you will remember, perhaps, reigned from 323 to 285 B.C., and was succeeded by twelve other kings of his dynasty. The famous Cleopatra was daughter of Ptolemy the Eleventh, and in 43 B.C. became Queen of Egypt. Here we have before us, upon this piece of papyri, a most important record concerning that famous woman. This was written at Thebes by one Sanehat, or Sa-nehat, son of the sycamore, a general and a royal favourite in the year and month of Antony’s death. Listen, and I will decipher one or two extracts to show you its purport,” and carefully wiping his spectacles the celebrated Egyptologist readjusted them; and then, examining the half-faded lines of hieroglyphics, said—

“The opening is a long one in which Sanehat, son of the sycamore—probably from his having been born or living at some place where there was a celebrated sacred sycamore—describes the love between Cleopatra and Antony, and the great treasures of the wonderful palace of the Ptolemies, which stood about in the centre of the shore of the eastern bay of Alexandria. He relates how Antony and Octavian fought desperately for the possession of the world at the Battle of Actium, and how, after that wonderful royal banquet which Athenaeus has already described to us in his writings, Antony sank deeper and deeper in the flood of his wild passion for Cleopatra. We have the Queen’s marvellous beauty, her fascinations—her limbs like gold and her hair like lapis lazuli, so precious in Egypt in those days—and her sins here described by the hand of one who was her most trusted general—and who, by the way, is mentioned in at least two other records of this period, one now preserved at St. Petersburg, and the other at Berlin, published in facsimile in the Denkmaler of Lepsius. It tells us of the gorgeous life led by this most brilliant Queen of Queens, of the wealth and favours she lavished upon Antony and his captains, and of how she built her tomb near the temple of Isis Lochais, at the eastern end of the harbour where Fort Silsileh stands to-day. All this is most intensely interesting, coming as it does from the hand of the Queen’s trusted favourite, but there is something more—something which certainly arouses our curiosity and which must be investigated. Listen, and I will read just the most important extracts.”

Then again he paused for a few moments, and halfway down the crinkled papyri he read a disjointed decipher as follows:—

“The Horus, life of births, lords of crowns, life of births, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Kheper-ha-ra, son of the Sun, Amen-em-hat, ever rising into eternity. Order for those who read. Behold this order of the Queen is sent to thee to instruct thee of her will...

“Cleopatra, whose ruling passion was to be a monarch of a greater Egypt and to enlarge the borders of the South, remained in the Palace of her fathers, but Antony was valiantly defending the fortress of Pelusium against Octavian. In dead of night I was called by the Lord Steward unto the pearl chamber of the Queen, and she, reclining upon her bed of pearl and gold with censers of sweet perfumes burning, commanded me to silence, and sent away her slaves. She had received Neb-ka-n-ra as messenger from Antony telling her of Octavian’s strength... She therefore commanded me with my captains User-ref and Hordedef to repair unto the treasury of the while house and take possession of the greatest of her jewels and place them in a place of safety, lest the accursed Octavian conquering, the Palace be attacked.

“In obedience I called my two most trusted captains, and went in secret unto the white house, and opening it with the Queen’s own key, obtained therefrom much gold and precious stones... with the great jewels of Sotor of Euegates, and of Ruddidet... and the sacred sapphires of Amen-em-hat... and next night we concealed them. Five times did we journey, under cover of night, unto the treasury, and in baskets of green tamarisk took therefrom... strings of emeralds and of pearls and electrum and new malachite... the hundred rubies the size of pigeons’ eggs... the goblets of gold and stones and the great bowls of gold encrusted with jewels which were served at the banquet to Antony... Know ye that fifteen basketsful of precious stones of ka, statues of gold, breast ornaments of emeralds, beads of lapis lazuli, and pearls of great price did we take and conceal in the place where Octavian—whose name be accursed—should not know.