CHAPTER XXXIV
A minute or two after the boat in which Arthur was being piloted tothe shore, under the guidance of the manager of Miles' Hotel, had leftthe side of the vessel, Mrs. Carr's steam-launch shot up alongside ofthem, its brass-work gleaming in the sunlight like polished gold. Onthe deck, near the little wheel, stood Mrs. Carr herself, and by herside, her martial cloak around her, lay Miss Terry, still as any log.
"Mr. Heigham," said Mrs. Carr, in a voice that sounded across thewater like a silver bell, "I forgot that you will not be able to findyour way to my place by yourself to-morrow, so I will send down abullock-car to fetch you; you have to travel about with bullocks here,you know. Good-bye," and, before he could answer, the launch's headwas round, and she was tearing through the swell at the rate offourteen knots.
"That's her private launch," said the manager of the hotel to Arthur,"it is the quickest in the island, and she always goes at full steam.She must have come some way round to tell you that, too. There's herplace, over there."
"Mrs. Carr comes here every year, does she not?"
"Oh, yes, every year; but she is very early this year; our season doesnot begin yet, you know. She is a great blessing to the place, shegives so much away to the poor peasants. At first she used to comewith old Mr. Carr, and a wonderful nurse they say she made to the oldgentleman till he died."
"Does she entertain much?"
"Not as a rule, but sometimes she gives great balls, splendid affairs,and a series of dinner-parties that are the talk of the island. Shehardly ever goes out anywhere, which makes the ladies in the placeangry, but, I believe, that they all go to her balls and dinners.Mostly, she spends her time up in the hills, collecting butterfliesand beetles. She has got the most wonderful collection of Egyptiancuriosities up at the house there, too, though why she keeps them hereinstead of in England, I am sure I don't know. Her husband began thecollection when he was a young man, and collected all his life, andshe has gone on with it since."
"I wonder that she has not married again."
"Well, it can't be for want of asking, if half of what they say istrue; for, according to that, every single gentleman under fifty whohas been at Madeira during the last five years has had a try at her,but she wouldn't look at one of them. But of course that is gossip--and here we are at the landing-place. Sit steady, sir; those fellowswill pull the boat up."
Had it not been for the pre-occupied and uncomfortable state of hismind, that took the flavour out of all that he did, and persistentlythrust a skeleton amidst the flowers of every landscape, Arthur shouldby rights have enjoyed himself very much at Madeira.
To live in one of the lofty rooms of "Miles' Hotel," protected bythick walls and cool, green shutters, to feel that you are enjoyingall the advantages of a warm climate without its drawbacks, and that,too, however much people in England may be shivering--which theymostly do all the year round--is in itself a luxury. And so it is, ifthe day is hot, to dine chiefly off fish and fruit, and such fruit!and then to exchange the dining-room for the cool portico, with thesea-breeze sweeping through it, and, pipe in hand, to sink into aslumber that even the diabolical shrieks of the parrots, tied by theleg in a line below, are powerless to disturb. Or, if you be energetic--I speak of Madeira energy--you may stroll down the little terracedwalk, under the shade of your landlord's vines, and contemplate thegrowing mass of greenery that in this heavenly island makes a garden.You can do more than this even; for, having penetrated through thebrilliant flower-beds, and recruited exhausted nature under afig-tree, you can engage, in true English fashion, in a game of lawn-tennis, which done, you will again seek the shade of the creepingvines or spreading bananas, and in a springy hammock take your well-earned repose.
All these things are the quintessence of luxury, so much so that hewho has once enjoyed them will long to turn lotos-eater, forget thepainful and laborious past, and live and die at "Miles' Hotel." Oh,Madeira! gem of the ocean, land of pine-clad mountains that foolishmen love to climb, valleys where wise ones much prefer to rest, and ofsmells that both alike abhor; Madeira of the sunny sky and azure sea,land flowing with milk and honey, and overflowing with population, ifonly you belonged to the country on which you depend for a livelihood,what a perfect place you would be, and how poetical one could growabout you! a consummation which, fortunately for my readers, therecollection of the open drains, the ill-favoured priests, andPortuguese officials effectually prevents.
On the following morning, at twelve punctually, Arthur was informedthat the conveyance had arrived to fetch him. He went down, and wasquite appalled at its magnificence. It was sledge-like in form, builtto hold four, and mounted on wooden runners that glided over the roundpebbles with which the Madeira streets are paved, with scarcely asound, and as smoothly as though they ran on ice. The chariot, asArthur always called it afterwards, was built of beautiful woods, andlined and curtained throughout with satin, whilst the motive power wassupplied by two splendidly harnessed white oxen. Two native servants,handsome young fellows, dressed in a kind of white uniform,accompanied the sledge, and saluted Arthur on his appearance with muchreverence.
It took him, however, some time before he could make up his mind toembark in a conveyance that reminded him of the description ofCleopatra's galley, and smelt more sweet; but finally he got in, andoff he started, feeling that he was the observed of all observers, andfollowed by at least a score of beggars, each afflicted with somepeculiar and dreadful deformity or disease. And thus, in triumphalguise, they slid down the quaint and narrow streets, squeezed in forthe sake of shade between a double line of tall, green-shutteredhouses; over the bridges that span the vast open drains; past theochre-coloured cathedral; down the promenade edged with greatmagnolia-trees, that made the air heavy with their perfume, and wheretwice a week the band plays, and the Portuguese officials march up anddown in all the pomp and panoply of office; onward through the dip,where the town lopes downwards to the sea; then up again through morestreets, and past a stretch of dead wall, after which the chariotwheels through some iron gates, and he is in fairyland. One each sideof the carriage-way there spreads a garden calculated to make Englishhorticulturists gnash their teeth with envy, through the bowers ofwhich he could catch peeps of green turf and of the blue sea beyond.
Here the cabbage palm shot its smooth and lofty trunk high into theair, there the bamboo waved its leafy ostrich plumes, and all aboutand around the soil was spread like an Indian shawl, with many agorgeous flower and many a splendid fruit. Arthur thought of thegarden of Eden and the Isles of the Blest, and whilst his eyes,accustomed to nothing better than our poor English roses, were stillfixed upon the blazing masses of pomegranate flower, and his senseswere filled with the sweet scent of orange and magnolia blooms, theoxen halted before the portico of a stately building, white-walled andgreen-shuttered like all Madeira houses.
Then the slaves of the chariot assisted him to descend, whilst otherslaves of the door bowed him up the steps, and he stood in a greatcool hall, dazzling dark after the brilliancy of the sunlight. Andhere no slave awaited him, but the princess of this fair domain, noneother than Mildred Carr herself, clad all in summer white, and with asmile of welcome in her eyes.
"I am so glad that you have come. How do you like Madeira? Do you findit very hot?"
"I have not seen much of it yet; but this place is lovely, it is likefairyland, and, I believe, that you," he added, with a bow, "are thefairy queen."
"Compliments again, Mr. Heigham. Well, I was the sleeping beauty lasttime, so one may as well be a queen for a change. I wonder what youwill call me next?"
"Let me see: shall we say--an angel?"
"Mr. Heigham, stop talking nonsense, and come into the drawing-room."
He followed her, laughing, into an apartment that, from its nobleproportions and beauty, might fairly be called magnificent. Itsceiling was panelled with worked timber, and its floor beautifullyinlaid with woods of various hue, whilst the walls were thicklycovered with
pictures, chiefly sea-pieces, and all by good masters. Hehad, however, but little time to look about him, for a door opened atthe further end of the room, and admitted the portly person of MissTerry, arrayed in a gigantic sun hat and a pair of green spectacles.She seemed very hot, and held in her hand a piece of brown paper,inside of which something was violently scratching.
"I've caught him at last," she said, "though he did avoid me all lastyear. I've caught him."
"Good gracious! caught what?" asked Arthur, with great interest.
"What! why him that Mildred wanted," she replied, regardless ofgrammar in her excitement. "Just look at him, he's beautiful."
Thus admonished, Arthur carefully undid the brown paper, and nextmoment started back with an exclamation, and began to dance about withan enormous red beetle grinding its jaws into his finger.
"Oh, keep still, do, pray," called Miss Terry, in alarm, "don't shakehim off on any account, or we shall lose him for the want of a littlepatience, as I did when he bit my finger last year. If you'll keep himquite still, he won't leave go, and I'll ring for John to bring thechloroform bottle."
Arthur, feeling that the interests of science were matters of a higherimportance than the well-being of his finger, obeyed her injunction tothe letter, hanging his arm (and the beetle) over the back of a chairand looking the picture of silent misery.
"Quite still, if you please, Mr. Heigham, quite still; is not theanimal's tenacity interesting?"
"No doubt to you, but I hope your pet beetle is not poisonous, for heis gnashing his pincers together inside my finger."
"Never mind, we will treat you with caustic presently. Mildred, don'tlaugh so much, but come and look at him; he's lovely. John, please bequick with that chloroform bottle."
"If this sort of thing happens often, I don't think that I shouldcollect beetles from choice, at least not large ones," groaned Arthur.
"Oh, dear," laughed Mrs. Carr, "I never saw anything so absurd. Idon't know which looks most savage, you or the beetle."
"Don't make all that noise, Mildred, you will frighten him, and ifonce he flies we shall never catch him in this big room."
Here, fortunately for Arthur, the servant arrived with the requiredbottle, into which the ferocious insect was triumphantly stoppered byMiss Terry.
"I am so much obliged to you, Mr. Heigham, you are a true collector."
"For the first and last time," mumbled Arthur, who was sucking hisfinger.
"I am infinitely obliged to you, too, Mr. Heigham," said Mrs. Carr, assoon as she had recovered from her fit of laughing; "the beetle isreally very rare; it is not even in the British Museum. But come, letus go in to luncheon."
After that meal was over, Mrs. Carr asked her guest which he wouldlike to see, her collection of beetles or of mummies.
"Thank you, Mrs. Carr, I have had enough of beetles for one day, so Ivote for the mummies."
"Very well. Will you come, Agatha?"
"Now, Mildred, you know very well that I won't come. Just think, Mr.Heigham: I only saw the nasty things once, and then they gave me thecreeps every night for a fortnight. As though those horrid Egyptian'fellahs' weren't ugly enough when they were alive without going andmaking great skin and bone dolls of them--pah!"
"Agatha persists in believing that my mummies are the bodies of peoplelike she saw in Egypt last year."
"And so they are, Mildred. That last one you got is just like the boywho used to drive my donkey at Cairo--the one that died, you know--Ibelieve they just stuffed him, and said that he was an ancient king.Ancient king, indeed!" And Miss Terry departed, in search for morebeetles.
"Now, Mr. Heigham, you must follow me. The museum is not in the house.Wait, I will get a hat."
In a minute she returned, and led the way across a strip of garden toa detached building, with a broad verandah, facing the sea. Scarcelyten feet from this verandah, and on the edge of the sheer precipice,was built a low wall, leaning over which Arthur could hear thewavelets lapping against the hollow rock two hundred feet beneath him.Here they stopped for a moment to look at the vast expanse of ocean,glittering in the sunlight like a sea of molten sapphires and heavingas gently as an infant's bosom.
"It is very lovely; the sea moves just enough to show that it is onlyasleep."
"Yes; but I like it best when it is awake, when it blows a hurricane--it is magnificent. The whole cliff shakes with the shock of the waves,and sometimes the spray drives over in sheets. That is when I like tosit here; it exhilarates me, and makes me feel as though I belonged tothe storm, and was strong with its strength. Come, let us go in."
The entrance to the verandah was from the end that faced the house,and to gain it they passed under the boughs of a large magnolia-tree.Going through glass doors that opened outwards into the verandah, Mrs.Carr entered a room luxuriously furnished as a boudoir. This hadapparently no other exit, and Arthur was beginning to wonder where themuseum could be, when she took a tiny bramah key from her watch-chain,and with it opened a door that was papered and painted to match thewall exactly. He followed her, and found himself in a stone passage,dimly lighted from above, and sloping downwards, that led to a doorwaygraven in the rock, on the model of those to be seen at the entranceof Egyptian temples.
"Now, Mr. Heigham," she said, flinging open another door, and steppingforward, "you are about the enter 'The Hall of the Dead.'"
He went in, and a strange sight met his gaze. They were standing inthe centre of one side of a vast cave, that ran right and left atright angles to the passage. The light poured into it in great raysfrom skylights in the roof, and by it he could see that it washollowed out of the virgin rock, and measured some sixty feet or morein length, by about forty wide, and thirty high. Down the length ofeach side of the great chamber ran a line of six polished sphinxes,which had been hewn out of the surrounding granite, on the model ofthose at Carnac, whilst the walls were elaborately painted after thefashion of an Egyptian sepulchre. Here Osiris held his dread tribunalon the spirit of the departed; here the warrior sped onward in hischarging chariot; here the harper swept his sounding chords; and here,again, crowned with lotus flowers, those whose corpses lay around heldtheir joyous festivals.
In the respective centres of each end of the stone chamber a colossustowered in its silent and unearthly grandeur. That to the right was astatue of Osiris, judge of the souls of the dead, seated on hisjudgment-seat, and holding in his hand the source and the bent-headedsceptre. Facing him at the other end of the hall was the effigy of themighty Ramses, his broad brow encircled by that kingly symbol whichfew in the world's history have worn so proudly, and his noblefeatures impressing those who gaze upon them from age to age with asense of scornful power and melancholy calm, such as does not belongto the countenance of the men of their own time. And all around, underthis solemn guardianship, each upon a polished slab of marble, andenclosed in a case of thick glass, lay the corpses of the Egyptiandead, swathed in numberless wrappings, as in their day the truereligion that they held was swathed in symbols and in mummeries.
Here were to be found the high-priest of the mysteries of Isis, theastronomer whose lore could read the prophecies that are written inthe stars, the dark magician, the renowned warrior, the noble, themusician with his cymbals by his side, the fair maiden who had--sosaid her cedar coffin-boards--died of love and sorrow, and the royalbabe, all sleeping the same sleep, and waiting the same awakening.This princess must have been well known to Joseph, that may have beenher who rescued Moses from the waters, whilst the babe belongs to adynasty of which the history was already merging into tradition whenthe great pyramid reared its head on Egypt's fertile plains.
Arthur stood, awed at the wonderful sight.
"Never before," said he, in that whisper which we involuntarily use inthe presence of the dead, "did I realize my own insignificance."
The thought was abruptly put, but the words represented well what waspassing in his mind, what must pass in the mind of any man of cultureand sensibility when he gazes on such
a sight. For in such presencesthe human mite of to-day, fluttering in the sun and walking on theearth that these have known and walked four thousand years ago, mustindeed learn how infinitely small is the place that he occupies in thetale of things created; and yet, if to his culture and sensibility headds religion, a word of living hope hovers on those dumb lips. Forwhere are the spirits of those that lie before him in their eternalsilence! Answer, withered lips, and tell us what judgment has Osirisgiven, and what has Thoth written in his awful book? Four thousandyears! Old human husk, if thy dead carcass can last so long, whatlimit is there to the life of the soul it held?
"Did you collect all these?" asked Arthur, when he had made asuperficial examination of the almost countless treasures of themuseum.
"Oh, no; Mr. Carr spent half his long life, and more money than I cantell you, in getting this collection together. It was the passion ofhis life, and he had this cave hollowed at enormous cost, because hethought that the air here would be less likely to injure them than theEnglish fogs. I have added to it, however. I got those papyri and thatbeautiful bust of Berenice, the one in black marble. Did you ever seesuch hair?"
Arthur thought to himself that he had at that moment some not far fromhis heart that must be quite as beautiful, but he did not say so.
"Look, there are some curious things;" and she opened an air-tightcase that contained some discoloured grains and a few lumps ofshrivelled substance.
"What are they?"
"This is wheat taken from the inside of a mummy, and those aresupposed to be hyacinth bulbs. They came from the mummy-case of thatbaby prince, and I have been told that they would still grow ifplanted."
"I can scarcely believe that: the principle of life must be extinct."
"Wise people, say, you know, that the principle of life can neverbecome extinct in anything that has once lived, though it may changeits form; but I do not pretend to understand these things. However, wewill settle the question, for we will plant one, and, if it grows, Iwill give the flower to you. Choose one."
Arthur took the biggest lump from the case, and examined it curiously.
"I have not much faith in your hyacinth; I am sure that it is dead."
"Ah! but many things that seem more dead than that have the strangestway of suddenly breaking into life," she said, with a little sigh."Give it to me; I will have it planted;" and then, with a quick glanceupward, "I wonder if you will be here to see it bloom."
"I don't think that either of us will see it bloom in this world," heanswered, laughing, and took his leave.