1
HE GRAND Colonial Hotel was a rambling pink confection of moorish arches, mosaic floors, lacquered screens and peacock wicker chairs, its broad verandas overlooking the shining sand and the endless blue of the Mediterranean beyond it.
Rich Americans and Europeans in perennial summer white thronged its immense lobby and other public rooms. An orchestra played Viennese music in one of its open bars. A young American pianist played ragtime in another. The ornate brass lifts, riding directly upwards beside the curving grand stair, seemed eternally in operation.
Surely if this resort had existed in any other place, Ramsey would have loved it. But Elliott could see in the very first hour of their arrival that Alexandria was a profound shock to him.
His vitality seemed immediately sapped. He fell quiet at tea, and excused himself to go wandering.
And that night at dinner, when the subject of Henry's abrupt departure for Cairo was raised, he was almost snappish.
"Julie Stratford's a grown woman," he said, glancing at her. "It's preposterous to think she requires the companionship of a drunken, dissolute being. Are we not, all of us, as you say, gentlemen?"
"I suppose so," Alex responded with predictable brightness. "Nevertheless he is her cousin and it was her uncle's wish-"
"Her uncle doesn't know her cousin!" Ramsey declared.
Julie cut the conversation short. "I'm glad Henry's gone. We'll join him in Cairo soon enough. And Henry in Cairo will be a cross as it is. Henry in the Valley of the Kings would be intolerable.''
"Quite right." Elliott sighed. "Julie, I am your guardian now. Officially."
"Elliott, the trip is far too difficult for you. You ought to go on to Cairo and wait for us there, also."
Alex was about to protest when Elliott motioned for silence. "That's out of the question now, dearest, and you know it. Besides, I want fo see Luxor again, and Abu Simbel, perhaps for the last time."
She looked at him thoughtfully. She knew that he was speaking the truth on both counts. He couldn't let her travel alone with Ramsey, no matter how much she wanted to. And he did want to see those monuments again. But she also sensed he had his own distinct priorities.
Regardless, her acceptance was quite enough for Elliott.
"And when do we go on to the Nile steamer?" Alex asked. "How much time do you need in this city, old boy?" he asked Ramsey.
"Not very much," Ramsey said dismally. "There is precious little left of the old Roman times which I hoped to see."
Ramsey, after devouring three courses without ever touching a knife or a fork, excused himself before the others had finished.
By the following afternoon, it was clear he was in a dismal state. He said almost nothing at luncheon; declined to play billiards and again went out walking. It was soon obvious that he was walking at all times of the night and day, and had left Julie entirely to Alex for the time being. Even Samir did not apparently have his confidence.
He was a man alone in the midst of a struggle.
Elliott watched all this; and then came to a decision. Through his man Walter he hired a young Egyptian boy, a hanger-on at the hotel who did nothing but continuously sweep off the red carpeted steps, to follow Ramsey. It was quite a risk. And Elliott felt ashamed. But this obsession was consuming him.
By the hour he sat in a comfortable peacock chair in the lobby reading the English papers, and watching all comings and goings. And then at odd moments, he would take reports from the Egyptian boy, who spoke tolerable English.
Ramsey walked. Ramsey stared for hours at the sea. Ramsey explored great fields beyond the city. Ramsey sat in European cafes, staring at nothing, drinking huge quantities of sweet Egyptian coffee. Ramsey had also gone to a brothel, and there he had astonished the greasy old proprietor by taking every woman in the place between sunset and sunrise. That meant twelve couplings. The old pimp had never seen anything like it. Elliott smiled. So he beds them in the same manner that he satisfies every other appetite, he thought. And this meant surely that Julie had not admitted him to her inner sanctum. Or did it?
* * *
Narrow alleyways, the old section of town, they called it. But it was no more than a few hundred years old, and no one knew that the great library had once stood here. That below on the hill had been the university where the teachers lectured to countless hundreds.
Academy of the ancient world, this city; and now it was a seaside resort. And that hotel stood on the very spot where her palace had been; where he had taken her in his arms and begged her to stop her mad passion for Mark Antony.
"The man will fail, don't you see?" he had pleaded. "If Julius Caesar had not been struck down, you would have been Empress of Rome. But this man will never give you that. He is weak, corrupt; he lacks the mettle."
But then, for the first time he'd seen the savage self-defeating passion in her eyes. She loved Mark Antony. She didn't care! Egypt, Rome, what did it matter? When had she ceased to be the Queen and become the mere mortal? He didn't know. He knew only that all his great dreams and plans were dissolving.
"What do you care about Egypt!" she had demanded. "That I be Empress of Rome? That's not what you want of me. You want that I should drink your magic potion, which you claim will make me immortal as you are. And to hell with my mortal life! You would kill my mortal life and my mortal love, admit it! Well, I cannot die for you!"
"You don't know what you're saying!"
Ah, stop the voices of the past. Listen only to the sea crashing on the beach below. Walk where the old Roman cemetery stood, where they laid her to rest beside Mark Antony.
He saw the procession in his mind's eye. He heard the weeping. And worst of all, he saw her again in those last hours. "Take away your promises. Antony calls me from the grave. I want to be with him now.''
And now all trace of her was gone, save what remained inside him. And what remained in legend. He heard again the crowds who blocked the narrow streets, and flooded down the grassy slope to see her coffin placed within the marble tomb.
"Our Queen died free."
"She cheated Octavian."
"She was no slave of Rome."
Ah, but she could have been immortal!
* * *
The catacombs. The one place he had not ventured. And why had he asked Julie to come with him? How weak he'd become, that he needed her there. And to think, he'd told her nothing.
He could see the concern in her face. So lovely she looked in her long, lace-trimmed dress of pale yellow. These modern women had all seemed preposterously overdressed to him at first, but he understood the seductiveness of their clothing-the full sleeves tapering to tight cuffs at the wrists, the tiny waists and flowing skirts. They had begun to look normal to him.
And he wished suddenly that they were not here. That they were back in England again, or far away in America.
But the catacombs, he had to see the catacombs before they went on. And so with the other tourists they walked, listening to the droning voice of the guide, who spoke of Christians hiding here, of ancient rituals performed long before that in these rock chambers.
"You've been here before," Julie whispered. "It's important to you."
"Yes," he answered under his breath, holding her hand tightly. Oh, if only they could leave Egypt now and forever. What was the point of this agony?
The unwieldy party of chattering, whispering tourists came to a halt. His eyes moved anxiously over the wall. He saw it, the small passageway. The others moved on, cautioned again to remain with the guide, but he held Julie back, and then as the other voices died away, he switched on the electric torch and entered the passage.
Was it the same? He could not tell. He could only remember what had happened.
Same smell of damp stone; Latin markings on the wall.
They came to a large room.
"Look," she said. "There's a window there cut high in the rock, how amazing! And hooks in the wall, do you see it!"
It seemed her voice was very far away. He meant to answer, but that was not possible.
He stared into the gloom at the great rectangular stone to which she pointed now. She said something about an altar.
No, not an altar. A bed. A bed where he had lain for three hundred years, until that portal high up there had been opened. The ancient chains had pulled the heavy wooden blind, and the sun had come down, falling warm on his eyelids.
He heard Cleopatra's girlish voice:
"Ye gods, it's true. He's alive!" Her gasp echoing off the walls. The sun flooding down upon him.
"Ramses, rise!" she cried. "A Queen of Egypt calls you."
He'd felt the tingling in his limbs; felt the suddenly zinging sensation in his hair and skin. Half in sleep still he'd sat up and seen the young woman standing there, rippling black hair loose over her shoulders. And the old priest, shivering, jabbering under his breath, hands clasped as if in prayer, bowing from the waist.
' 'Ramses the Great," she had said.' 'A Queen of Egypt needs your counsel."
Soft dusty rays falling down from the twentieth-century world outside. The roar of motor cars on the boulevards of the modern city of Alexandria.
"Ramses!"
He turned. Julie Stratford was looking up at him.
"My beautiful one," he whispered. He took her in his arms, tenderly. Not passion, but love. Yes, love. "My beautiful Julie," he whispered.
* * *
In the lobby they took high tea. The whole ritual made him laugh. To eat scones, eggs, cucumber sandwiches, and not call this a meal. But why should he complain? He could eat three times what everyone else was eating and still be hungry for dinner.
He cherished this time alone with her. That Alex and Samir and Elliott were not about.
He sat staring at the parade of plumed hats, frilly umbrellas. And the big shiny open motor cars, chugging up to the side entrance, right along with the open leather carriages.
These were no longer the people of his time. The racial mix was different. She'd said he would see it was the same with the Greeks when they went there. Oh, so many places to go. Was he feeling relief?
"You've been so patient with me," he said, smiling. "You don't ask me to explain anything."
Ah, but she looked radiant; her dress was a pale flowered silk; lace at the wrists and those tiny pearl buttons he was growing to love. Thank God she had not worn an open gown since that first night at sea. The sight of all that flesh drove him mad completely.
"You'll tell me when you want to tell me," she said. "What I can't bear is to see you suffering."
"It's all as you said," he murmured. He drank down the tea, a beverage he didn't much like. It seemed to be half of something. "All gone without a trace. The mausoleum, the library, the lighthouse. All that Alexander built; and Cleopatra built. Tell me, why are the pyramids still standing at Giza? Why is my temple still standing at Luxor?"
"Do you want to see them?" She reached across the little table and took his hand. "Are you ready to leave here now?"
"Yes, it's time to go on, isn't it? And then when we've seen it all, we can leave this land. You and I. ... That is, if you want to remain with me."
Such lovely brown eyes with their deep fringe of brown lashes; and the pure sweetness of her mouth as she smiled. And wouldn't you know? The Earl had just come out of the lift, along with his charming nincompoop of a son, and Samir.
"I'll go with you to the ends of the earth," she whispered.
He held her gaze for a long moment. Did she know what she was saying? No. The question was, did he know what she was saying? That she loved him, yes. But the other, the other great question had never been asked, had it?
* * *
They had been heading up the Nile for the better part of the afternoon, the sun beating down with full force upon the striped awnings of the small, elegant steamer. The combination of Julie's purse and Elliott's gift for command had provided them with every luxury. The staterooms of the small boat were as fine as those of the P&O liner which had brought them across the sea. The saloon and dining room were more than comfortable. The cook was a European; the servants, with the exception, of course, of Walter and Rita, were Egyptian.
But the greatest luxury of all was that it was their craft. They shared it with no one else. And they had become, much to Julie's surprise, an extremely congenial group of travelers. Now that Henry was gone, that is. And for that she couldn't have been more grateful.
He'd fled like a coward as soon as they landed in Alexandria. And what a preposterous story, that he would prepare things for them in Cairo. Shepheard's Hotel would prepare things for them in Cairo. They had cabled before they ever started the journey south towards Abu Simbel. They did not know how long their cruise would be; but Shepheard's, the old standby of the British abroad, would be waiting.
Opera season was about to begin, they'd been advised. Should the concierge arrange for box seats for all of them? Julie had said yes, though she could not imagine how this trip would end.
She knew only that Ramses was in fine spirits; that he loved being on the Nile. That he had stared for hours from the deck at the palm trees and the golden desert on either side of the broad, gleaming strip of brown water.
No one had to tell Julie that these were the same airy, fanlike palms painted upon the walls of ancient Egyptian tombs. Or that the dark-faced farmers were drawing water from the river by the very same crude means they had used four thousand years ago. No one had to tell her that the many native boats which passed them were little changed since the time of Ramses the Great.
And the wind and the sun changed for no one.
But there was something she had to do, and it could wait no longer. She sat contentedly in the saloon, idly watching Samir and Elliott play chess. And then when Alex rose from his game of solitaire and went out on the deck alone, she followed him.
It was almost evening; the breeze was cool for the first time, and the sky was slowly turning a deep shade of blue which was almost violet.
"You're a darling," she said. "And I don't want to hurt you. But I don't want to marry you, either."
"I know," he said. "I've known for a long time. But I'm going to continue to pretend it isn't so. Just as I've always done.''
"Alex, don't-"
"No, darling, don't give advice. Let me do things my own way. After all, it's a woman's privilege to change her mind, isn't it? And you may change yours, and when you do, I'll be waiting. No, don't say anything more. You're free. You've always been free, really."
She drew in her breath. A deep pain radiated through her. She felt it in her chest; in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to cry, but this was not the place. She kissed him quickly on the cheek, and then she went down the deck, and into her cabin.
Thank God, Rita wasn't there. She lay down on the small bed and cried softly in the pillow. And then, exhausted, she drifted into a half sleep, her last thought being, May he never find out that I never loved him. May he always think it was another man, an adversary who swept me off my feet. That he can understand, not the other.
It was dark beyond the windows when she opened her eyes. Rita had lighted a small lamp from the deck. And she realized Ramses was standing in the room, looking down at her.
She felt no anger, and certainly no fear.
And then suddenly she realized that she was still dreaming. Only now did she fully wake and find the room lighted and empty. Oh, if only he had been there. Her body ached for him. She no longer cared about past or future. She cared only for him, and surely he knew this.
When she came into the dining room, he was in fast conversation with others. The table was littered with exotic dishes.
"Should we have awakened you, my dear, we weren't sure," Elliott said, rising at once to help her with her chair.
"Ah, Julie," Ramses said, "these native dishes are simply delicious." He was gaily helping himself to shish kebab and grape leaves and spiced dishes for which she didn't know the names, fingers moving as always with great delicacy and deliberation.
"Wait a minute," Alex said. "You mean, you've never had this food before?"
"Well, no, in that crazy pink hotel we ate meat and potatoes if memory serves me right," Ramses said. "And this is a very fine dish, this chicken and cinnamon."
"But wait a minute," Alex said. "Are you not a native Egyptian?"
"Alex, please, I think Mr. Ramsey likes to be mysterious about his origins," Julie said.
Ramses laughed. He drank down a tumbler full of wine. "That's true, I must confess. But if you must know, I am ... Egyptian, yes."
"And where in the world . . ?"
"Alex, please," Julie said.
Alex shrugged. "What a puzzle you are, Ramsey!" "Ah, but I don't offend you, do I, Alexander?" "Call me that again and I'll call you out," Alex said. "What does this mean?"
"Nothing," Elliott said. He patted his son's hand. But Alex wasn't cross. And certainly he wasn't offended. He gazed at Julie across the table. He gave her a little sad secret smile, for which she knew she would be forever grateful.
* * *
It was burning hot at midday in Luxor. They waited until late afternoon before going ashore and taking the long stroll through the immense temple complex. Ramses had no need to be alone, she could see that. He walked among the pillars, now and then looking up, but for the most part deep in his own thoughts.
Elliott had refused to miss this part of the journey, no matter how difficult it was for him. Alex hung back to give his father an arm to lean on. And Samir walked with the Earl as well. They appeared to be in deep discussion.
"The pain's leaving you, isn't it?" Julie said.
"When I look at you I don't feel it at all," Ramses answered. "Julie is as beautiful in Egypt as she was in London."
"Were these ruins already when you last saw them?"
"Yes, they were, and covered over with sand so deep that only the very tops of the columns were visible. The avenue of the sphinxes was buried entirely. A thousand years had passed since I walked in this place a mortal man, a fool who thought the kingdom of Egypt was the civilized world and that no truth lay outside its boundaries.'' He stopped, turning to her and kissing her quickly on the forehead. Then there was a guilty glance in the direction of the party coming behind him. No, not guilty, only resentful.
She took his hand. They moved on.
"Someday I'm going to tell you all of it," he said. "I shall tell you so much that you'll tire of listening. I shall tell you how we dressed and how we spoke to each other; and how we dined and how we danced; and what these temples and palaces were when the paint still gleamed on the walls; and I came forth at dawn and noon and sunset to greet the god and say the prayers the people expected. But come, there's time for us to cross the river and ride out to the temple of Ramses the Third. I want so much to see it."
He signaled one of the turbaned Egyptians near at hand. He wanted a buggy to take them to the landing. She was glad to be free of the others for a little while.
But when they had made the river crossing and reached the immense roofless temple with its court of pillars within, he fell strangely silent. He looked up at the great reliefs of the warrior King in battle.
"This was my first pupil," he said. "The one to whom I had come after hundreds of years of wandering. I'd come home to Egypt to die, but nothing could kill me. And then I conceived of what I should do. Go to the royal house, become a guardian, a teacher. He believed me, this one, my namesake, my distant child. When I spoke to him of history, of distant lands, he listened."
"And the elixir, did he want it?" Julie asked.
They stood alone in the ruins of the great hall, entirely surrounded by the carved pillars. The desert wind was cold now. It tore at Julie's hair. Ramses slipped his arms around her.
"I never told him I had been a mortal man," he said. "You see, I never told that to any of them. I knew from the last years of my own mortal life what the secret could do. I had seen it turn my son, Meneptah, into a traitor. Of course he failed in his attempt to imprison me and extract from me the secret. I gave him the kingdom, and left Egypt then for centuries. But I knew what the knowledge could do. It was centuries later that I told Cleopatra."
He stopped. It was clear that he didn't want to go on. The pain he'd felt in Alexandria had returned. The light had gone out of his eyes. They walked back to the carriage in silence.
"Julie, let us make this journey fast," he said. "Tomorrow the Valley of the Kings and then we sail south again."
* * *
They went at dawn, before the full heat of the sun came down on them.
Julie took Elliott's arm. Ramses was talking again, with spirit, prompted by any question Elliott asked, and they took their time on the path, descending through desecrated tombs, where the tourists were already thick as well as the photographers and the turbaned peddlers in their filthy gellebiyyas, selling trinkets and fakes with fantastical claims.
Julie was already suffering from the heat. Her big drowsy straw hat did not help much; she had to stop, take a deep breath. The smell of camel dung and urine almost overcame her.
A peddler brushed against her and she looked down to see a blackened hand outstretched, fingers curling like the legs of a spider.
She screamed before she could stop herself.
"Get away!" Alex said roughly. "These native fellows are intolerable."
"Mummy's hand!" cried the peddler. "Mummy's hand, very ancient!"
"I'm sure," Elliott laughed. "Probably came from some mummy factory in Cairo.''
But Ramses was staring at the peddler and at the hand, as if transfixed. The peddler suddenly froze; there was a look of terror in his face. Ramses reached out and grabbed the withered hand, and the peddler let it go, stumbling to his knees and then scrambling backwards off the path.
' 'What in the world? " Alex said. ' 'Surely you don't want that thing."
Ramses stared at the hand, at the ragged bits of linen wrapping still clinging to it.
Julie couldn't tell what was wrong. Was he outraged by the sacrilege? Or did the thing have some other fascination? A memory swept over her; the mummy in the coffin in her father's library, and this living being whom she loved had been that thing. It seemed a century had passed since then.
Elliott was watching all this with keen concentration.
"What is it, sire?" Samir said under his breath. Did Elliott hear it?
Ramses drew out several coins and threw them in the sand for the peddler. The man gathered them up and then took off at a dead run. Then Ramses took out his handkerchief, neatly covered the hand and slipped it in his pocket.
"And what were you saying?" Elliott said politely, resuming their conversation as if nothing had happened. "I believe you were saying that the dominant theme of our time is change?''
"Yes," Ramses said with a sigh. He appeared to be seeing the valley in an entirely new perspective. He stared at the gaping doors of the tombs, at the dogs lying there in the morning sun. Elliott went on:
"And the dominant theme of these ancient times was that things would remain the same, always."
Julie could see the subtle changes in his face, the faint shadow of despair; yet as they moved on, he answered Elliott smoothly.
"Yes, no concept of progress whatsoever. But then the concept of time was not as well developed, either. A new count of years began with each King's birth. You know that, of course. No one counted time itself in terms of centuries. I'm not sure the simple Egyptian had any sense at ail ... of centuries."
* * *
Abu Simbel. They had come at last to the greatest of Ramses' temples. The shore excursion had been brief on account of the heat, but now the night wind blew cold over the desert.
Stealthily Julie and Ramses climbed down the rope ladder into the dinghy. She wrapped her shawl tightly over her shoulders. The moon hung perilously low over the shimmering water. With the help of a lone native servant, they mounted the camels awaiting them, and rode towards the great temple where stood the largest statues of Ramses the Great in existence.
It was thrilling to ride this mad, terrifying beast. Julie laughed into the wind. She dared not look at the ground moving unevenly beneath her. But she was glad when they came to a halt, and Ramses jumped down and reached up to catch her.
The servant took the beasts away. Alone they stood, she and Ramses, under the star-filled sky, the desert wind faintly howling. Far off she saw the lighted tent of their little camp waiting for them. She saw the lantern shining through the translucent canvas; she saw the tiny campfire dancing in the wind, winking out and then reappearing in a dazzle of yellow brilliance.
Into the temple they walked, past the giant legs of the Pharaoh god. If there were tears in Ramses' eyes, the wind carried them away, but his sigh she heard. The faint tremor in his warm hand she felt as she cleaved to him.
They walked on, hand in hand, his eyes roving over the great statues still.
"Where did you go," she whispered, "when your reign had ended? You gave the throne to Meneptah and then you went away. ..."
"All over the world. As far as I dared. As far as any mortal man had dared. I saw the great forests of Britannia then. The people wore skins and hid in the trees to shoot their wooden arrows. I went to the Far East; I discovered cities which have now completely vanished, I was just beginning to understand that the elixir worked on my brain as it did on my limbs. The languages I could learn in a matter of days; I could . . . how do you say ... adapt. But inevitably there came . . . confusion,"
"How do you mean?" she asked. They had stopped. They stood on the hard-packed sand. A great soft light from the starry sky illuminated his face as he looked down at her.
"I was no longer Ramses. I was no longer a King. I had no nation."
"I understand."
"I told myself that the world itself was everything. What did I need but to wander, to see? But that was not true. I had to come back to Egypt."
"And that is when you wanted to die."
"And I went to the Pharaoh, Ramses the Third, and told him that I had been sent to be his guardian. That is, after I learned that no poison could kilt me. Not even fire could kill me. Hurt me, yes, beyond endurance, but kill me, no. I was immortal. One draught of the elixir had done this to me. Immortal!"
"Oh, the cruelty of it," she sighed. But there were things she still did not understand, and yet she dared not ask him. Patiently she waited for him to tell her.
"There were many others after my brave Ramses the Third. Great Queens as well as Kings. I came when it pleased me. And I was a legend by then-the human phantom who spoke only to the rulers of Egypt. It was seen as a great blessing when I appeared. And of course, I had my secret life. 1 roamed the streets of Thebes, an ordinary man, seeking companions, women, drinking in the taverns."
"But no one knew VOM, or your secret?" She shook her head. "I don't know how you could bear it."
"Well, I could bear it no more," he said dejectedly, "when I finally wrote it down in the scrolls your father found in my secret study. But in those early days, I was a braver man. And I was loved, Julie. You must realize this."
He paused, as if listening to the wind.
"I was worshipped," he went on. "It was as if I had died, and become the very thing I claimed to be. Guardian of the royal house. Protector of the ruler; punisher of the bad. Loyal not to the King, but the kingdom."
"Don't even gods get lonely?"
He laughed softly.
"You know the answer. But you don't understand the full power of the potion that made me what I am. I myself do not fully comprehend. Oh, the folly of those first years, when I experimented with it like a physician." A look of bitterness came over his face. "To understand this world, that's our task, is it not? And even the simple things elude us."
"Yes, I have no quarrel with that," she whispered.
"In the hardest moments, I put my faith in change. I understood it, though no one around me did. "This too shall pass,' the old axiom. But finally I was so ... weary. So tired."
He put his arm around her, closing her against him gently, as they turned and made their way out of the temple. The wind had died down. He kept her warm. She shaded her eyes only now and then from the tiny grains of sand in the air. His voice was quiet, slow, as he remembered:
"The Greeks had come into our land. Alexander, the builder of cities, the maker of new gods. I wanted only the deathlike sleep. Yet I was afraid, as any mortal man might be."
"I know," she whispered. A shiver went through her.
"I made a coward's bargain finally. I'd go into the tomb, into the darkness, which I knew by then would mean a gradual weakening and then a deep sleep from which I couldn't wake. But the priests who served the royal house would know where I lay, and that sunlight could resurrect me. They would give the secret to each new ruler of Egypt with the warning that if I were awakened, it must be to serve the good of Egypt. And woe to anyone rash enough to wake me for curiosity only, or with evil intentions, because then I might take my revenge."
They passed out of the temple doors, stopping as he looked back and up at the colossal figures seated there. High above, the King's face was bathed in moonlight.
"Were you conscious at all as you slept?"
"I don't know. I ask myself this question! Now and then I'd come close to waking, of that I'm sure. And I dreamed, oh, how I dreamed. But whatever I knew, I knew as if in a dream. There was no urgency, no panic. And I could not wake myself, you see. I had no strength to pull the chain that would make the great iron-bound wooden shutter above admit the sunlight. Maybe I knew what had happened in the world outside. Surely it did not surprise me to learn it later. I had become legend-Ramses the Damned; Ramses the Immortal, who slept in the cave waiting for a brave King or Queen of Egypt to wake him. I don't think they believed it anymore, not really. Until ..."
"She came."
"She was the last Queen to rule Egypt. And the only one to whom I ever told the full truth."
"But Ramses, did she really refuse the elixir?"
He paused. It was as if he didn't want to answer. Then:
"In her own way, she refused it. You see, she couldn't understand finally what it was, the elixir. Later, she begged me to give it to Mark Antony.''
"I see. It's a wonder I didn't guess it."
"Mark Antony was a man who had destroyed his life and hers also. But she didn't know what she was asking. She didn't understand. She did not realize what such a thing would have meant-a selfish King and Queen with such power. And the formula, they would have wanted that too. Would Antony not have wanted immortal armies?"
"Good God!" she whispered.
Ramses stopped suddenly and moved away from her. They had come some distance from the temple and he turned back, looking at the giant seated figures again.
"But why did you write the story in the scrolls?" she asked. She couldn't stop herself.
"Cowardice, my love. Cowardice, and the dream that someone would come who would find me and my strange tale, and take the burden of secrecy from my shoulders! I had failed, my love. My strength was gone. And so I slipped into dreams and left the story there . . . like an offering to fate. I could be strong no longer."
She came to him and threw her arms around him. He didn't look at her. He was looking at the statues still. The tears were in his eyes.
"Maybe I dreamed that someday I'd be awakened again, to a new world. To new and wise beings. Maybe I dreamed of someone who . . . would take the challenge." His voice broke. "And I would be the lone wanderer no more. Ramses the Damned would become once again Ramses the Immortal."
He looked as if his own words had surprised him. Then he looked down at her and, closing his hands tightly on her shoulders, lifted her as he kissed her.
With her whole soul she yielded. She felt his arras gathering her up. She leaned against his chest as he carried her towards the tent, and the flickering firelight. The stars fell down over the distant shadowy hills. The desert was a great tranquil sea stretching out on all sides from this sanctuary of warmth which they now entered.
Incense here; the smell of wax candles. He set her down on silken pillows, on a carpet of dark woven flowers. The dancing flames of the candles made her close her eyes. Perfume rising from the silk beneath her. A bower he had made, for her, for himself, for this moment.
"I love you, Julie Stratford," he whispered in her ear. "My English Queen. My timeless beauty."
His kisses were paralyzing her. She lay back, eyes closed, and let him open her tight lace blouse, let him loosen the hooks of her skirt. Luxuriating in this helplessness, she let him rip away the chemise and the corset, and pull down the long lace undergarments. She lay naked, looking up at him as he knelt over her, peeling off his own garments.
Regal he seemed, his chest gleaming in the light; his sex hard and ready for her. Then she felt his delicious weight come down upon her, crushing her. The tears had sprung to her eyes, tears of relief. A soft moan escaped her lips.
"Batter down the door," she whispered. "The virgin door. Open it, I am yours forever.''
He went through the seal. Pain; a tiny sputtering pain that burnt itself out in her mounting passion immediately. She was kissing him ravenously; kissing the salt and heat from his neck, his face, his shoulders. He drove hard into her, over and over again, and she arched her back, lifting herself, pressing herself against him.
As the first tide crested she cried out as if she truly would die. She heard the deep growl rise from his throat as he came. But it was only the beginning.
* * *
Elliott had watched the dinghy pull away. Through his binoculars he saw the tiny light of the camp far out over the low, hard-packed dunes. He saw the tiny figure of the servant, and the camels.
Then hurrying down the deck, not daring to use his cane for fear of the sound it would make, he turned the knob of Ramses' door.
Unlocked. He stepped into the darkened stateroom.
Ah, this thing has made me a sneak and a thief, he thought. But he didn't stop. He did not know how long he would have. And now, with only the moon through the portal to light his way, he searched the wardrobe full of neatly hung clothes, the bureau drawers of shirts and other such things; the trunk which contained nothing. No secret formula in this room. Unless it was well hidden.
Finally he gave up. He stood over the desk, staring down at the biology books spread open there. And then something black and ugly, glimpsed from the comer of his eye, frightened him. But it was only the mummy's hand, curled there on the blotter.
How foolish he felt. How ashamed. Yet he stood there staring at the thing, his heart knocking dangerously in his chest, and then he felt the burning pain that always followed such shocks and the numbness in his arm. He stood quite still, breathing very slowly.
Finally he went out and closed the door behind him.
A sneak and a thief, he thought. And leaning on his silver cane, he walked slowly back to the saloon.
* * *
It was almost dawn. They had left the warmth of the tent hours ago and come here into the deserted temple, with only the loose silk sheets around them. They had made love in the sand, over and over. And then he had lain in the dark, looking up at the stars, the King who had built this house.
No words now. Only the warmth of his naked body against hers, as he cradled her in his left arm. Only the smooth sheet wound tightly around her.
* * *
Just before sunrise. Elliott dozed in the chair. He heard the little boat come alongside; the lapping; the sound of the ropes creaking as the two lovers came back on board. He heard their furtive quick steps on the deck. Silence again.
When he opened his eyes, his son was there in the shadows. Dishevelled, as if he had not undressed to go to bed, his face unshaven. He watched as his son took a cigarette from the ivory box on the table and lighted it.
Then Alex saw him. For a moment, neither said a word, and then Alex smiled the familiar congenial smile.
"Well, Father," he said slowly. "It will be good to get back to Cairo and a little civilization."
"You're a good man, my son," Elliott said softly.
* * *
They must have all known, she realized. She lay beside Ramses beneath die warm blankets of her bed, the little steamer moving north again, towards Cairo.
Yet they were being discreet. He came and went only when no one was about. There were no displays of affection. Yet they reveled in the freedom they had stolen; until dawn they made love, tumbling, struggling, coupling in the dark as the engines of the ship carried them ever onward.
Too much to wish for anything more. Yet she did. She wished to be rid of those she loved, save for him; she wished to be his bride or to be among those who questioned nothing. She knew when they reached Cairo, she would make her decision. And she would not see England again, for a long time, unless Ramses wanted it.
* * *
Four o'clock. Ramses stood by the bed. She was lovely beyond all reckoning in her sleep, her brown hair a great shadow beneath her against the white pillow. Carefully he covered her, lest she get cold.
He picked up his money belt from the tangle of his coat and pants, and feeling the four vials safely taped against the fabric, he put it around his waist again, buckled it and then dressed quickly.
No one on the deck. The light burned in the saloon, however. And when he peered through the wooden blinds, he saw Elliott fast asleep in the leather wing chair, a book open on his knee, a half-filled glass of red wine beside him.
No one else about.
He went into his room, locked the door and closed the little wooden blinds on the window. Then he went to his desk, turned on the green shaded lamp, sat down in the wooden chair and stared at the mummy's hand which lay there, fingers curled almost to the palm, nails yellowed like bits of ivory.
Did he have the stomach for what he meant to do? In ages past, had he not done enough of these ghastly experiments? But he had to know. He had to know just how powerful it was. He told himself he should wait for laboratories, equipment, wait until he'd mastered the chemistry texts; had listened to the learned physicians.
But he wanted to know now. It had come into his mind like an evil light in the Valley of the Kings when he had seen the hand, the leathery, shriveled hand. No fake. He knew that. He'd known it the minute he'd examined the bit of bone protruding from the severed wrist, the moment he'd seen the black flesh cleaving to it.
Ancient as he was.
He shoved the biology books aside. He placed the thing directly under the lamp, and slowly he unwrapped the linen. There, very faintly, he could see the stamp of the embalmer- the words in Egyptian which told him the thing was from a dynasty before his time. Ah, poor dead soul, who had believed in the gods, and the makers of linen wrappings.
Do not do this. Yet he reached into his shirt, and reached inside the money belt and pulled out the half-full vial and opened the cap with his thumb without even consciously deciding to do it.
He poured the elixir on the blackened thing. Poured it into the palm, and over the stiffened fingers.
Nothing.
Was he relieved? Or disappointed? For a moment he didn't know. He stared at the window, where the pale dawn pushed at the blinds, making tiny seams of brightness. Maybe the sun was needed for the first effect. Though that had not been so when he'd stood in the cave with the priestess. He had felt that powerful alchemy before the sun's rays touched him. Of course they had strengthened him immeasurably. And without them, he would have gone into the sleep within a few days. But he had not needed them initially.
Well, thank the gods it could not work on an ancient dead thing! Thank the gods the horrid potion had its limits.
He drew out a cheroot now and lighted it, and enjoyed the smoke. He poured a little brandy in the glass and drank it.
Slowly the room lightened around him. He wanted to creep back into Julie's arms, and lie there. But that could not be done by day, he knew it. And the truth was, he liked young Savarell enough not to deliberately hurt him. And Elliott, of course, he did not want to injure on any count. Very little stood between real friendship with Elliott.
When he heard the first sounds of the others on deck, he capped the vial and slipped it back into his moneybelt. He got up to change his clothes. Then suddenly a sound startled him.
The cabin was now entirely visible in a bluish morning light. For a moment he dared not turn around. Then again he heard that sound! A scratching.
He could feel the blood pounding in his temples. At last he wheeled around and stared down at the thing. The hand was alive! The hand was moving. On its back it lay, groping, flexing, rocking on the desk, and finally it fell over like a great scarab onto its five legs, and scratched at the blotter.
He found himself shrinking back from it in horror, ft moved forward on the desk, groping its way, struggling, and then suddenly it moved over the edge and fell to the floor with a thud at his feet.
A prayer in the oldest Egyptian escaped his lips. Gods of the underworld, forgive my blasphemy! Trembling violently, he resolved to pick it up, but he could not bring himself to do it.
Like a madman he looked around the room. The food, the tray of food that was always there for him. There would be a knife. Quickly he found it, a sharp paring knife, and grabbing it he stabbed the hand and thrust it down on the desk, its fingers curling as if reaching for the very blade.
He flattened it with his left hand and then stabbed it again and again, and finally cut the tough leathery flesh and bones into pieces. It was spurting blood, living blood. Ye gods, and the pieces were still moving. They were turning pink, the color of healthy flesh, in the growing light.
He hurried into the little bathroom, gathered up a towel and came back, and scooped all the bloody fragments into it. Then closing the towel over them, he pounded them with the handle of the knife, and men with the heavy base of the lamp, the cord of which he'd ripped from the socket. He could still feel movement in the bloody mass.
He stood there weeping. Oh, Ramses, you fool! Is there no limit to your folly! Then he gathered up the bundle, ignoring the warmth he could feel through the cloth, and went out on the deck and emptied the towel over the dark river.
In an instant the bloody little pieces disappeared. He stood there, bathed in sweat, the bloody towel hanging from his left hand, and then that too he committed to the deep. And the knife as well. And then he settled back against the wall, peering at the far bank of golden sand and the distant hills, still a pale violet in the morning.
The years dissolved. He heard the weeping in the palace. He heard his steward screaming before he had reached the throne room doors and forced them open.
"It's killing them, my King. They are retching, vomiting it up; they are vomiting blood with it."
"Gather it all up, burn it!" he'd cried. "Every tree, every bushel of grain! Throw it into the river."
Folly! Disaster.
But he had been only a man of his time, after all. What had the magicians known of cells and microscopes and true medicine?
Yet he couldn't stop hearing those cries, cries of hundreds, as they stumbled out of the houses; as they came into the public square before the palace.
"They are dying, my King. It's the meat. It is poisoning them."
"Slay the remaining animals."
"But, my King ..."
"Chop them into pieces, do you hear? Throw them into the river!''
He looked down now into the watery depths. Somewhere far upstream, the tiny bits and pieces of the hand still lived. Somewhere deep, deep in the muck and mire, the grain lived. The bits and pieces of those ancient animals lived!
I tell you it is a horrible secret, a secret that could spelt the end of the world.
He went back into his cabin, and bolting the door, he sank down in the chair at the desk, and wept.
* * *
It was noon when he came out on deck. Julie was in her favorite chair, reading that ancient history which was so full of lies and gaps it made him laugh. She was scribbling a question in the margin, which of course she would put to him, and he would answer.
"Ah, you're awake at last," she said. And then seeing the expression on his face, she asked: "What is it?"
"I'm done with this place. I want to visit the pyramids, the museum, what one must visit. And then I want to be gone from here."
"Yes, I understand." She motioned for him to take the chair beside her. "I want to be gone, too," she said. She gave him a quick, soft kiss on the lips.
"Ah, do that again," he said. "That comforts me mightily!"
She kissed him twice, slipping her warm fingers around the back of his neck.
"We won't be in Cairo more than a few days, I promise."
"A few days! Can we not take a motor car and see these things, or better yet, simply take the train to the coast and be done with it!"
She looked down. She sighed. "Ramses," she said. "You have to forgive me. But Alex, he wants badly to see the opera in Cairo. And so does Elliott. I more or less promised we would. ..."
He groaned.
"And you see, I want to tell them farewell there. That I'm not going home to England. And . . . well, I need the time." She studied his face. "Please?"
"Of course," he said. "This opera. This is a new thing? Something I should see, perhaps."
"Yes!" she said. "Well, it's an Egyptian story. But it was written by an Italian fifty years ago and especially for the British Opera House in Cairo. I think you'll like it."
"Many instruments."
"Yes." She laughed. "And many voices!"
"All right. I give in." He bent forward, kissing her cheek, and then her throat. "And then you are mine, my beauty-mine alone?"
"Yes, on my soul," she whispered.
* * *
That night when he declined to go ashore at Luxor again, the Earl asked him if his trip to Egypt had been a success, if he had found what he wanted.
"I think I did," he said, scarcely looking up from his book of maps and countries. "I think I found the future."