And yet the hand had written words which could have no other meaning.

She had no friends or relations at the Front. Her first cousins were all too young, and their fathers too old, to fight. Freddy had represented her personal and intimate interest in the army at the Front.

She read the words over and over again, until she knew them by heart, until the strange handwriting which her own pencil had formed had become familiar to her. She knew that she could never have written the words except by some outside power. But what was that power? Had anyone else ever experienced it? Was it known to Spiritualists?

As she asked herself the question, a picture formed itself in her mind of Daniel interpreting "the writing on the wall" to the guests at the feast of Belshazzar. She saw the hand write the three words: _Numbered, weighed, divided_. She saw the wonder of the King and the curiosity of his friends. G.o.d only, who sent the omen, explained it, and all which Daniel under His direction uttered, explaining it, was fulfilled.

Egypt had reconstructed in Margaret's mind the proper proportion of time as applied to the history and evolution of the world's civilization. The deeds and the victories of Cyrus, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, were not mythical deeds because they belonged to a mythical and lost age. In Egypt they had seemed to her legends of a comparatively late date.

Darius, the Mede, to whom Biblical authority awards the succession of the kingdom of the vanquished and slain Belshazzar, was removed by almost a thousand years from the world which had known the gentle King, the youthful Pharaoh, who loved not war, and whose G.o.d was the Prince of Peace.

As compared to Michael's beloved Akhnaton Belshazzar was a mere modern.

Almost one thousand years before the impious King had reigned over Babylon Akhnaton had told the Egyptian people of the unspeakable goodness and loving-kindness of G.o.d, he had preached a religion which was to abolish all wars, which was to unite all nations under the banner of universal brotherhood.

The Biblical handwriting on the wall had come into her thoughts for a good purpose. The vision of it had been sent to prove to her that such things had happened in the world before, and that there was no reason to believe that they had not often happened since. G.o.d works in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.

Her fight against her desire to believe had been solely on Freddy's account. He had so intensely disliked her interest in occultism that for his sake she had struggled faithfully to subdue it. Now she knew that she could no longer ignore the influence which had entered into her life in this strange manner, not understood by her material self. She possessed powers and qualities which with all her heart she wished that she did not possess. She dreaded this last evidence of the mysterious power which had made her very actions subservient to its will.

Yet even as she said the words she was ashamed. If the message had any connection with the figure in her vision, how could she hate it?

Instantly the tragic eyes, glowing with the light of divine love, were before her; their reproach and pity made her blush, for in denying her belief in things spiritual, she was surely denying the power of the Holy Spirit in just the same way as Peter had denied and mocked at Jesus for His a.s.sumption of divinity.

Believing, with the intuition of her higher self, with her divine mind, whose reasoning powers were in heaven, like the desert child of G.o.d--for so the everyday world would say of her if they had known--in the spiritual source of the amazing message, she ceased to question the why or the wherefore of it. She could not treat it as the mere creation of her own overwrought imagination, and yet she would be true to Freddy in the sense that she would do absolutely nothing to get into closer touch with the world behind the veil. She would make no effort to develop her powers.

On that point her conscience was absolutely clear. She had been loyal and true to Freddy; she had left all occultism and mysticism severely alone. And surely never in the world had her mind been farther separated from things Egyptian or occult than on this afternoon, when she had suddenly felt her hand begin to write of its own free will? Of all people in the world, her Aunt Anna was the last who would call up any suggestion of her vision in the Valley, and Freddy would agree that a Lyons' tea-room was amazingly unsuited for such an experience.

She puzzled her brain to find out any reason why this message should have been sent to her at this particular time, why Michael had been thrust so vividly into her life again. Her pride had driven him from her mind until he had at last actually lost his place in her daily thoughts. It would be impossible now not to think of him; she was thinking of him with a beautiful rebirth of her first romantic love.

Was he, with all his horror of bloodshed and war, in the trenches while she was snug and sleeping in her bed at night? were some mangled and unrecognizable fragments of his body lying on the battle-fields of Flanders? Or, sadder than all, had he, like Freddy, never been in action? Had his life also been a useless sacrifice?

As she asked herself the question, the bright rays of Aton shone round a figure in khaki; she saw Michael clearly and beautifully. He was illuminated by a bright and shining light. Margaret remained motionless and spell-bound. Her visualizing was more than a mere mental reproduction of an imaginary scene. The bright light which surrounded Michael revealed to her how instantly his enemies would quail before him, how terrified and amazed they would be!

In an ecstasy of wonder and surprise Margaret called to him. Her voice broke the spell; her eyes saw nothing, nothing but the shadows and the half-lights shed by her inadequate gas-jet in the large room.

She fell on her knees beside her bed. She must get closer to G.o.d, she must feel Him, for there was no human being in whom she could confide.

She was terribly alone; her body hungered for arms of sympathy, her mind for understanding ears. The lonely and love-starved will know how she craved to be gathered up and comforted; how she longed to throw off her self-reliance, to let it be lost in a strength which would make her feel like a little child in a giant's arms. As only G.o.d knows what is in our hearts, only G.o.d understood her unspoken prayer. He was not shocked by its pitiful humanity. That night He permitted the tired V.A.D. to sleep in the strength of His everlasting arms.

CHAPTER XXI

Some few days later a letter arrived for Margaret from Hada.s.sah Ireton.

It contained interesting and surprising news. Michael Ireton had been thrown in close contact with one of the excavators who had formed the camp in the hills behind Tel-el-Amarna--they were now both employed in the same Government office in a.s.siut.

From the excavator Michael Ireton had learned that the secret police had traced the movements of the native who had given the Government the information about the chambers in the hills, and had discovered him.

But, as bad luck would have it, he was ill with smallpox and incapable of giving any information. The man had died without recovering consciousness. The excavators had become more and more convinced that he had stolen the treasure, and that it was now resting in its second hiding-place, awaiting, it was to be hoped, its final discovery.

If the man had recovered, his information could no doubt have been bought. To an Eastern a guinea in the hand is worth twenty in the bank.

The reason, Hada.s.sah explained, for the excavators' belief that there had been a hidden treasure, of jewels if not of gold, was the fact that half a mile or more beyond the site of the excavation three uncut jewels of considerable value had been found in the open desert. They had been covered and hidden from sight by the drifting sand, and there they would have lain perhaps for ever but for the stumbling of a tired donkey, which was carrying a native and a huge load of forage to a subterranean village, not very far from the site of the excavation.

The disturbing of the sand had exposed the jewels, which caught the sunlight and the sharp eyes of the desert traveller.

He was an old man, exceedingly honest, uncontaminated with the ways of city dwellers, so he took the jewels to the _Omdeh's_ house and asked him if he thought that they were valuable, and if they were, what he should do with them.

The _Omdeh_ (it was the same _Omdeh_ who had so little credited the story of the hidden treasure when he had spoken of it to Michael) was as surprised as he was suspicious. His interest was aroused. Could these fine jewels have been dropped by the thief who had burgled the tomb? These were his thoughts, although Hada.s.sah did not know it.

He at once carried them off to the Government camp in the hills. The excavators p.r.o.nounced them to be ancient stones of great value.

The other reason for their belief that the treasure had been stolen was the fact that the inner chamber, in which they had found absolutely nothing, had obviously been built with a view to holding objects of great value. It had all the qualities of a royal treasury. The inscription on the wall spoke of it as "the treasure-house of Aton."

That no ancient plunderer had entered this chamber, which the heretic King had cut out of the rook under the hills behind his city, was obvious. There had been practically no excavating to be done, in the sense in which Margaret thought of excavating, because the chambers were all in a state of perfect preservation; none of them were blocked up with rubbish. Once the entrance had been opened up--and this had been done by the native who had discovered the site--they met with little difficulty.

The entrance had been so skilfully hidden, that the excavators wondered how it had happened that the ignorant native who gave the information had discovered it (this Hada.s.sah considered extremely interesting and convincing from Michael's point of view) and what had put him on the track of the hidden treasure.

These questions, Hada.s.sah said, her husband had refrained from answering. He considered that the treasure, in its second hiding-place, belonged to Michael, that it must remain there until he found it. Michael Ireton had listened to all that the excavator had to tell and had held his tongue on the subject of Mr. Amory's expedition; the psychical part of it would probably have called forth much derision and scoffing.

Hada.s.sah ended her letter by congratulating Margaret on the fact that the treasure, whether it was great or small, did exist, that it was an actual fact. The finding of the jewels proved that Michael's theories and occult beliefs were justified. "And after the war you will be able to go with him on his second pilgrimage, for certainly the spirit of Akhnaton has saved the treasure for him. What the world calls chance has preserved the King's legacy from profane hands."

The letter was written from the Fayyum, where Hada.s.sah was staying with her boy. Her constant visits to this beautiful oasis had wrought great changes in the house in which her cousin Girgis had spent the greater part of his life. Her aunt and cousin had, with native quickness, learned to speak English quite fluently, and Hada.s.sah had, by her tact and sympathy, helped to develop their lives and intellects. The household was scarcely recognizable as the one in which, only a few years ago, she and Nancy had endured a terrible half-hour at afternoon-tea.

Hada.s.sah often wished that Girgis could have seen the development and change which the widening influence of Western ideas had brought about in his old semi-native, semi-European home.

In all things relating to the war it was an ardently pro-English household, which, ever since its outbreak, had become a veritable inst.i.tution for Coptic war-workers. Veiled figures hurried to it, carrying their knitting, proud and pleased to be imitating the efforts of the European ladies in Egypt, and knit they did from morning until night, with the patience and endurance of the uncomplaining East.

Hada.s.sah's letter greatly disturbed Margaret. If it had only come before Freddy was killed, how she would have gloried in it, how delightful it would have been to tell him that even a scientific body of excavators had come to the conclusion that a treasure had been laid up by the religious fanatic--for that was Freddy's summing-up of Akhnaton--that the seer's vision had again proved true!

But now she had no one to rejoice with. Freddy had been taken from her, and Michael was lost, and there was not a creature in all her world who would care one bra.s.s farthing about the strange materializing of Michael's spiritualistic theories. All that she cared most about she had to subdue and crush back. Probably Freddy, in his new life, was understanding and sympathizing, for she knew now with a nervous certainty that the veil is very thin.

Hada.s.sah had said in her letter, when referring to the death of the native, "This sounds as if Millicent's servants had played her false.

The police report that she never reached the hills, so whether her dragoman deliberately took her off the track, and allowed one of her servants to go to the hills and secure the treasure, remains a mystery which may never be solved. But one thing is pretty clear--that her cavalcade was never seen in that part of the desert, for, as you know, the drifting sand in Egypt carries information; it conceals and reveals many things undreamed of in our Western philosophy."

As Margaret read these lines she cursed her own stupidity with a bitter curse. If she had used a little more tact and shown less jealous rage, she could have learnt from Millicent all which now so baffled them.

She could easily have discovered if she had ever reached the hills.

Margaret was rereading the letter in her off-hours. Her first reading of it had been very hurried, for it had arrived by the first post, and she had only found time to devour it with eager eyes, eyes which searched its pages for one precious item of news. She was scarcely conscious of her desire for news of Michael's whereabouts. There was always the hope, unexpressed even to herself, that he had written to the Iretons. If he really was at the Front, surely he would have told them? But the letter contained no such information.

Her disappointment was, however, drowned in surprise and pride. With one fell swoop the letter had obliterated the pa.s.sion and obsession of war which had held her in its clutches. It made her forget, for a little time, at least, that such a country as Germany existed. Her mind was again vivified with visions of the desert and the various scenes which Hada.s.sah's letter suggested. Flashing before her eyes was the open desert, the unbroken light, and the stumbling donkey, heavily-laden and meekly submissive, with the gleaming gems, betrayed by the rays of Aton. She could visualize the astonished native fingering them and holding them up to the light; the sunlight, Akhnaton's symbol of divinity, was to bear testimony to the fact that the bright objects which had caught the Arab's eyes were beautiful and rich-hued gems, that they were indeed a portion of the treasure which he had hidden from the avarice of the priests of Amon, who set up graven images and worshipped false G.o.ds.

For the first time since she had been doing the work of a pantry-maid, Margaret set out the tea-trays and washed up the cups in an automatic, aloof manner. Her material body was busy in the hospital-pantry, while spiritually she was far away. Visions rose and faded before her eyes in rapid succession, but the one which she saw oftenest was the look of surprise and smiling incredulity on Freddy's face. The cry in her heart was for his sympathy, for his knowing, for his congratulations on the wonderful piece of news. Why could he not have been allowed to know it while he was still alive on this earth and able to talk to her?

She wanted to be personally and materially close to him while he read the letter.

She longed for that more ardently and whole-heartedly than anything else; she hungered for it even more fiercely than the coming back of Michael, whose return into her life she was convinced would eventually happen. Whether it would be for her happiness or otherwise she was ignorant.

When she thought of his coming and of her first meeting with him, her pride rose up in arms, her mind was devastated with embarra.s.sment. The meeting would open up old wounds, which she had imagined were healed.

There she had been mistaken; they were like the wounds of a patient which appear to be healed while he lies at rest in the hospital, but which break out again when he resumes his normal life. The war had drugged Margaret's senses.

She had curiously little fear for Michael as a soldier, for whenever she thought of him as one, as fighting at the Front, she saw the bright light surrounding him, and disarming his amazed opponents.