The Jewel of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker (books to read in your 20s TXT) 📕

Chapter XI A Queen’s Tomb

“Mr. Trelawny’s hope was at least as great as my own. He is not so

volatile a man as I am, prone to ups and downs of hope and despair; but

he has a fixed purpose which crystallises hope into belief. At times I

had feared that there might have been two such stones, or that the

adventures of Van Huyn were traveller’s fictions, based on some ordinary

acquisition of the curio in Alexandria or Cairo, or London or Amsterdam.

But Mr. Trelawny never faltered in his belief. We had many things to

distract our minds from belief or disbelief. This was soon after Arabi

Pasha, and Egypt was so safe place for travellers, especially if they

were English. But Mr. Trelawny is a fearless man; and I almost come to

think at times that I am not a coward myself. We got together a band of

Arabs whom one or other of us had known in former trips to the desert,

and whom we could trust; that is, we did not distrust them as much as

others. We were numerous enough to protect ourselves from chance

marauding bands, and we took with us large impedimenta. We had secured

the consent and passive co-operation of the officials still friendly to

Britain; in the acquiring of which consent I need hardly say that Mr.

Trelawny’s riches were of chief importance. We found our way in

dhahabiyehs to Aswan; whence, having got some Arabs from the Sheik and

having given our usual backsheesh, we set out on our journey through the

desert.

 

“Well, after much wandering and trying every winding in the interminable

jumble of hills, we came at last at nightfall on just such a valley as

Van Huyn had described. A valley with high, steep cliffs; narrowing in

the centre, and widening out to the eastern and western ends. At

daylight we were opposite the cliff and could easily note the opening

high up in the rock, and the hieroglyphic figures which were evidently

intended originally to conceal it.

 

“But the signs which had baffled Van Huyn and those of his time—and

later, were no secrets to us. The host of scholars who have given their

brains and their lives to this work, had wrested open the mysterious

prison-house of Egyptian language. On the hewn face of the rocky cliff

we, who had learned the secrets, could read what the Theban priesthood

had had there inscribed nearly fifty centuries before.

 

“For that the external inscription was the work of the priesthood—and a

hostile priesthood at that—there could be no living doubt. The

inscription on the rock, written in hieroglyphic, ran thus:

 

“‘Hither the Gods come not at any summons. The “Nameless One” has

insulted them and is for ever alone. Go not nigh, lest their vengeance

wither you away!’

 

“The warning must have been a terribly potent one at the time it was

written and for thousands of years afterwards; even when the language in

which it was given had become a dead mystery to the people of the land.

The tradition of such a terror lasts longer than its cause. Even in the

symbols used there was an added significance of alliteration. ‘For

ever’ is given in the hieroglyphics as ‘millions of years’. This symbol

was repeated nine times, in three groups of three; and after each group

a symbol of the Upper World, the Under World, and the Sky. So that for

this Lonely One there could be, through the vengeance of all the Gods,

resurrection in neither the World of Sunlight, in the World of the Dead,

or for the soul in the region of the Gods.

 

“Neither Mr. Trelawny nor I dared to tell any of our people what the

writing meant. For though they did not believe in the religion whence

the curse came, or in the Gods whose vengeance was threatened, yet they

were so superstitious that they would probably, had they known of it,

have thrown up the whole task and run away.

 

“Their ignorance, however, and our discretion preserved us. We made an

encampment close at hand, but behind a jutting rock a little further

along the valley, so that they might not have the inscription always

before them. For even that traditional name of the place: ‘The Valley

of the Sorcerer’, had a fear for them; and for us through them. With

the timber which we had brought, we made a ladder up the face of the

rock. We hung a pulley on a beam fixed to project from the top of the

cliff. We found the great slab of rock, which formed the door, placed

clumsily in its place and secured by a few stones. Its own weight kept

it in safe position. In order to enter, we had to push it in; and we

passed over it. We found the great coil of chain which Van Huyn had

described fastened into the rock. There were, however, abundant

evidences amid the wreckage of the great stone door, which had revolved

on iron hinges at top and bottom, that ample provision had been

originally made for closing and fastening it from within.

 

“Mr. Trelawny and I went alone into the tomb. We had brought plenty of

lights with us; and we fixed them as we went along. We wished to get a

complete survey at first, and then make examination of all in detail.

As we went on, we were filled with ever-increasing wonder and delight.

The tomb was one of the most magnificent and beautiful which either of

us had ever seen. From the elaborate nature of the sculpture and

painting, and the perfection of the workmanship, it was evident that the

tomb was prepared during the lifetime of her for whose resting-place it

was intended. The drawing of the hieroglyphic pictures was fine, and

the colouring superb; and in that high cavern, far away from even the

damp of the Nile-flood, all was as fresh as when the artists had laid

down their palettes. There was one thing which we could not avoid

seeing. That although the cutting on the outside rock was the work of

the priesthood, the smoothing of the cliff face was probably a part of

the tomb-builder’s original design. The symbolism of the painting and

cutting within all gave the same idea. The outer cavern, partly natural

and partly hewn, was regarded architecturally as only an ante-chamber.

At the end of it, so that it would face the east, was a pillared

portico, hewn out of the solid rock. The pillars were massive and were

seven-sided, a thing which we had not come across in any other tomb.

Sculptured on the architrave was the Boat of the Moon, containing

Hathor, cow-headed and bearing the disk and plumes, and the dog-headed

Hapi, the God of the North. It was steered by Harpocrates towards the

north, represented by the Pole Star surrounded by Draco and Ursa Major.

In the latter the stars that form what we call the ‘Plough’ were cut

larger than any of the other stars; and were filled with gold so that,

in the light of torches, they seemed to flame with a special

significance. Passing within the portico, we found two of the

architectural features of a rock tomb, the Chamber, or Chapel, and the

Pit, all complete as Van Huyn had noticed, though in his day the names

given to these parts by the Egyptians of old were unknown.

 

“The Stele, or record, which had its place low down on the western wall,

was so remarkable that we examined it minutely, even before going on our

way to find the mummy which was the object of our search. This Stele

was a great slab of lapis lazuli, cut all over with hieroglyphic figures

of small size and of much beauty. The cutting was filled in with some

cement of exceeding fineness, and of the colour of pure vermilion. The

inscription began:

 

“‘Tera, Queen of the Egypts, daughter of Antef, Monarch of the North and

the South.’ ‘Daughter of the Sun,’ ‘Queen of the Diadems’.

 

“It then set out, in full record, the history of her life and reign.

 

“The signs of sovereignty were given with a truly feminine profusion of

adornment. The united Crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt were, in especial,

cut with exquisite precision. It was new to us both to find the Hejet

and the Desher—the White and the Red crowns of Upper and Lower

Egypt—on the Stele of a queen; for it was a rule, without exception in

the records, that in ancient Egypt either crown was worn only by a king;

though they are to be found on goddesses. Later on we found an

explanation, of which I shall say more presently.

 

“Such an inscription was in itself a matter so startling as to arrest

attention from anyone anywhere at any time; but you can have no

conception of the effect which it had upon us. Though our eyes were not

the first which had seen it, they were the first which could see it with

understanding since first the slab of rock was fixed in the cliff

opening nearly five thousand years before. To us was given to read this

message from the dead. This message of one who had warred against the

Gods of Old, and claimed to have controlled them at a time when the

hierarchy professed to be the only means of exciting their fears or

gaining their good will.

 

“The walls of the upper chamber of the Pit and the sarcophagus Chamber

were profusely inscribed; all the inscriptions, except that on the

Stele, being coloured with bluish-green pigment. The effect when seen

sideways as the eye caught the green facets, was that of an old,

discoloured Indian turquoise.

 

“We descended the Pit by the aid of the tackle we had brought with us.

Trelawny went first. It was a deep pit, more than seventy feet; but it

had never been filled up. The passage at the bottom sloped up to the

sarcophagus Chamber, and was longer than is usually found. It had not

been walled up.

 

“Within, we found a great sarcophagus of yellow stone. But that I need

not describe; you have seen it in Mr. Trelawny’s chamber. The cover of

it lay on the ground; it had not been cemented, and was just as Van Huyn

had described it. Needless to say, we were excited as we looked within.

There must, however, be one sense of disappointment. I could not help

feeling how different must have been the sight which met the Dutch

traveller’s eyes when he looked within and found that white hand lying

lifelike above the shrouding mummy cloths. It is true that a part of

the arm was there, white and ivory like.

 

“But there was a thrill to us which came not to Van Huyn!

 

“The end of the wrist was covered with dried blood! It was as though

the body had bled after death! The jagged ends of the broken wrist were

rough with the clotted blood; through this the white bone, sticking out,

looked like the matrix of opal. The blood had streamed down and stained

the brown wrappings as with rust. Here, then, was full confirmation of

the narrative. With such evidence of the narrator’s truth before us, we

could not doubt the other matters which he had told, such as the blood

on the mummy hand, or marks of the seven fingers on the throat of the

strangled Sheik.

 

“I shall not trouble you with details of all we saw, or how we learned

all we knew. Part of it was from knowledge common to scholars; part we

read on the Stele in