THE STATUE IN THE HARBOUR

RACHEL AND THE
SEVEN WONDERS

BY NETTA SYRETT
ILLUSTRATED BY JOYCE MERCER

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO ROBIN

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FIRST WONDER
THE GREAT PYRAMID

Rachel was a very unhappy little girl as she sat in an omnibus with Miss Moore, on her way to the British Museum. She didn’t want to go to the British Museum. She didn’t want to be in London at all. She longed desperately to be back in her country home with her father and mother—now, alas! far away in Egypt.

Everything as Rachel said had happened so suddenly. Certainly her mother had been ill some time, but it was all at once decided that the only possible place to send her little daughter in a hurry, was to Aunt Hester, in London.

Aunt Hester, who was her father’s eldest sister, and in the eyes of Rachel, at least, awfully old, was quite kind, but also, as she admitted, quite unused to children. The first thing she did therefore, was to engage a governess to look after her niece for the seven weeks she would have to remain with her.

Miss Moore, a rather uninteresting, middle-aged lady, had duly arrived the previous evening, and at breakfast time Aunt Hester had suggested the British Museum as a suitable place to which Rachel might be conducted.

“She’s never been to London before, and, though I don’t want her to sit too long over lessons, I think she should improve her mind while she is here. The British Museum is an education in itself,” declared Aunt Hester, and Miss Moore had primly agreed.

So it happened that at eleven o’clock on a bright spring morning, a secretly unwilling little girl climbed the steps leading to the great entrance of the great museum. The pigeons on the steps reminded her of the dovecote at home, and the tears came suddenly to her eyes, as almost without thinking she counted the number of birds on the top step.

“Seven,” she murmured half aloud.

“Seven what?” asked Miss Moore.

“Seven pigeons on this step. Aren’t they pretty?” Rachel lingered to look at the burnished shining necks. She would much rather have stayed outside with the pigeons, but Miss Moore hurried on to the swing doors, and Rachel was obliged to follow her into the huge building.

“What do they keep here?” she asked listlessly, when Miss Moore had given up her umbrella to a man behind a counter, just inside.

“All sorts of things,” returned her governess vaguely. “It’s a museum, you know.”

Rachel was not very much the wiser but, as she walked with Miss Moore from one great hall to another, she was confused and wearied by the number of things of which she had glimpses. There were rows of statues, cases full of strange objects, monuments in stone all covered with carvings; curious pictures on the walls. Indeed, there were “all sorts of things” in the British Museum! But, as she knew nothing about any of them, and Miss Moore volunteered very little information, she was yawning with boredom by the time her governess remarked:

“Now, these things come from Egypt.”

For the first time Rachel pricked up her ears. Mother and Dad were now in Egypt, and as she glanced at the long stone things like tombs, at drawings and models and a thousand other incomprehensible objects all round her, she wished she knew something about them. Instead of saying so, however, and almost without thinking, she murmured, “This is the seventh room we’ve come to. I’ve counted them.”

“This is the famous Rosetta Stone,” observed Miss Moore, reading an inscription at the foot of a dull-looking broken block of marble in front of them.

Rachel yawned for the seventh time with such vigour that her eyes closed, and when she opened them a queer-looking little old man was bending over the big block.

“What is the date of the month?” he asked so suddenly that she started violently.

“Let me see. The seventh, I think. Yes—the seventh,” she stammered, raising her eyes to his face.

He was so muffled up, that nearly all Rachel could see of him was a pair of very large dark eyes, under a curious-looking hat. He wore a long cloak reaching to his heels, and one end of the cloak was flung over his left shoulder almost concealing his face.

Rachel scarcely knew why she thought him so old, except perhaps, that his figure seemed to be much bent.

“Quite right. It’s the seventh,” he returned. “And what’s the name of your house?”

Rachel looked round for Miss Moore, who strangely enough was still reading the inscription on the stone, and seemed to be paying no attention to the old man’s questions.

“It’s called ‘The Seven Gables,’” she answered.

“And where are you living now?”

“At number seven Cranborough Terrace.”

“And your name is Rachel. Do you read your Bible? How many years did Jacob work for his wife?”

“He waited for her seven years. And her name was Rachel,” she exclaimed, forgetting to wonder why Miss Moore didn’t interfere, or join in a conversation which was becoming so interesting.

“The seventh of the month, and the Seven Gables, and seven years for Rachel—and, why, there were seven pigeons just outside as I came in, and this is the seventh room we’ve come to. Because I counted them. I don’t know why—but I did. What a lot of sevens.”

“Can you think of any other sevens in your life?” asked the little old man, quietly.

“Why, yes!” she answered, excitedly. “There are seven of us. All grown up except me. And I’m the seventh child, and the youngest!”

“Seven is a magic number, you know,” said her companion, gravely.

“Is it? Really and truly?” asked Rachel. “Oh, I do love hearing about magic things! But I thought there weren’t any now?”

“On the contrary, the world is full of them. Take this, for instance.” He pointed to the broken marble block. “That’s a magic stone.”

Rachel gazed at it reverently. “What does it do?” she asked almost in a whisper.

“It’s a gate into the Past,” returned the old man in a dreamy voice. “But come now,” he went on more briskly, “can we remember any more sevens? You begin.”

“There are seven days in the week,” said Rachel, trying to think, though she was longing to ask more about the magic stone.

“There’s the seven-branched candlestick in the Bible,” the old man went on, promptly.

“And the seven ears of corn and the seven thin cows that Pharaoh dreamt about,” returned Rachel, entering into the spirit of the game.

“The story of the Seven Sleepers.”

“The Seven Champions of Christendom,” added Rachel, who had just read the book. “Oh, there are thousands of sevens. I can think of lots more in a minute.”

“It’s my turn now,” was the old man’s answer. “The Seven Wonders of the World.”

“I never heard of them. What are they?” Rachel demanded.

Again the old man pointed to the stone. “That gateway would lead you to one of them,” he said, quietly, “if, as I’m beginning to think, you’re one of the lucky children.”

THE ROSETTA STONE

“Do lucky children have a lot to do with seven? Because if so, I ought to be one, oughtn’t I? It’s funny I never thought about it before, but there’s a seven in everything that has to do with me! And—”

“We’ll try,” interrupted the little old man. “Shut your eyes and bow seven times in the direction of this stone. Never mind this lady”—for Rachel had quite suddenly remembered the curious silence of her governess. “She won’t miss you. You may do as I tell you without fear.”

Casting one hasty glance at Miss Moore, who had moved to a little distance and was just consulting her watch, Rachel, full of excited wonder, obeyed. Seven times she bent her head with fast-closed eyes, and opened them only when her companion called softly “Now.”

Even before she opened them, Rachel was conscious of a delicious warmth like that of a hot midsummer day. A moment ago she had felt very chilly standing before the marble block Miss Moore called the Rosetta Stone, in a big, gloomy hall of the British Museum. How could it so suddenly have become warm?

In a second the question was answered, for she stood under a sky blue as the deepest blue flower, and the glorious sun lighted a scene so wonderful that Rachel gave a scream of astonishment.

“Where are we?” she gasped.

“In the mighty and mysterious land of Egypt,” answered her companion, “as it appeared thousands of years before the birth of Christ.”

His tone was so solemn that Rachel turned quickly to look at him, and, wonder of wonders, no old man was by her side! A dark-skinned youth stood there, dressed in a curious but beautiful robe with strange designs embroidered on its hem, and a no less strange head-dress, from which gold coins fell in a fringe upon his forehead.

“Oh!” cried Rachel, when she could speak for amazement. “You were old just now. I don’t understand. Who are you?” she added, in confusion.

The young man smiled, showing a row of beautiful white teeth. “My name is Sheshà. I am old,” he said. “Very, very old.” He pointed to a great object at which, so far, in her astonishment, Rachel had scarcely had time to glance. “I was born before that was quite finished—six thousand years ago.”

Rachel gasped again.

“But you look younger than my brother, and he’s only twenty,” she exclaimed.

“In returning to the land of my birth I return also to the age I was when I lived in it.... But now, little maid of To-day, look around you, for there stands, as it stood six thousand years ago, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.”

Rachel obeyed and gazed upon a huge building with a broad base, tapering almost to a point, whose walls were of smooth polished stones of enormous size. Only a moment previously she had glanced carelessly at pictures of buildings like this one, but now, as she saw it rising before her in all its grandeur out of the yellow sand, and under a canopy of blue sky, she almost held her breath.

“It is a pyramid, isn’t it?” she whispered. “I’ve seen pictures of pyramids, but I don’t know anything about them.”

“It is the first great pyramid of Egypt,” answered the young man. “And, little maid, you are highly favoured, for you see it as it looked nearly six thousand years ago. It was already old when Joseph was in Egypt, and Moses saw it when he lived in the palace of Pharaoh’s daughter.”

Rachel gasped. “But what is it? What is it built for?” she asked.

“For the tomb of a king. That pyramid—” he pointed towards it—“was built by the great King Cheops, and because you are one of the fortunate children of the magic number seven, you see one of the Seven Wonders of the World as it stood fresh from the workers’ hands.”

“Dad is in Egypt now. He doesn’t see it like this then?”

Sheshà smiled. “Nay. He has already approached the Wonder in an electric car—like all the other travellers of to-day, and instead of these walls of granite which you behold, graven over with letters and strange figures, he has seen great rough steps.”

“Steps?” echoed Rachel. “Why are there steps up the side now?”

“Because beneath these smooth walls the pyramid is built of gigantic blocks of stone, and now that their covering has been removed, the blocks look like steps which can be, and are climbed by people who live in the world to-day.”

“But why was its beautiful shining case taken off?” Rachel asked, looking with curiosity at the carving upon it.

“Because in the course of long years the people of other nations who conquered Egypt and had no respect for my wondrous land, broke up the ‘beautiful shining case,’ to quote your own words, little maid, and used it for building temples in which they worshipped gods strange and new.”

Rachel glanced again at her companion. She was still so bewildered that she scarcely knew which she should ask first of the hundred questions crowding to her mind. And then everything around her was so strange and beautiful! The yellow sand of the desert, the blue sky, the burning sun, the long strip of fertile land bordering a great river.

“That must be the Nile,” she thought, remembering her geography. “The Nile is in Egypt.”

Just as though he read her thoughts, Sheshà again broke silence.

“Do you wonder that we worshipped the river in those far-off days?” he asked, dreamily.

“Did you? Why?” Rachel gazed at him curiously.

“It was, and is, the life-giver,” returned Sheshà. “But for that river, there would never have been any food in this land. And therefore no cities, no temples, no pyramids, no great schools of learning as there were here in ancient days when Moses was ‘learnèd in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.’”

“Yes, but how could the river make the corn grow, and give you food?” asked Rachel. “I thought it was the rain that made things grow.”

“In Egypt rain does not fall. But the river, this wondrous river of ours, does the work of rain. Once every year it overflows its banks, and the thirsty land is watered, and what would otherwise be all desert, like the yellow sand you see that is not reached by the flood, becomes green with waving corn, and shady palm trees, and beautiful with fruit and flowers. Yes, no wonder we worshipped our river.”

Rachel would like to have asked him how the river was worshipped, but Sheshà seemed rather to be talking to himself than to her, and there was such a curious far-away look on his face that she felt shy of questioning him. He stood gazing at the Pyramid as though he saw things even more amazing than its mighty form.

“It must have taken a long time to build,” she ventured at last, rather timidly.

Sheshà started.

“I was dreaming,” he said. “A long time to build? Verily. Would you care to see by whom, and at what cost it was raised? I can show you. We have but to travel a little further back into the Past for that. Shut fast your eyes and bow seven times as before.”

Rachel needed no second bidding, and in a few seconds, having obeyed the instructions of her companion, she looked again upon a scene strange and marvellous. The great Pyramid was there as before, but as yet not quite finished. Its mighty walls were built, and were being covered by the smooth case of granite, and round the great pile, like ants swarming over an ant hill, were the builders—thousands upon thousands of dark-skinned, almost naked, men, toiling like the slaves they were. Here great blocks of marble and granite were being dragged from barges on the river. There, hundreds of slaves were hoisting the huge slabs into place on the as yet, unfinished walls, while multitudes of others swarmed over and round the monument, cutting, hammering, polishing, chiselling. A hum as of innumerable bees filled the air, and indeed, Rachel was reminded of a hive, the inside of which her father had once shown her, all quivering with the movement of the worker bees as they toiled to make their cells.

She gave a little scream of astonishment at the sight of the thronging multitudes, and presently heard the grave voice of Sheshà speaking.

“Behold, little maiden, in what manner this Wonder of the World was fashioned. Out of the toil and labour of flesh and blood, in the days when the Pharaohs ruled in this land, and cared naught for the lives of their humbler subjects. Of these, as you see, they made slaves who did the work that in the world of to-day is performed by machines, by steam power, by electricity, by all the new inventions of modern times.”

“Do the people who come to Egypt now know all this? I mean people who don’t come in a magic way like me. Are there history books all about Egypt as it was long ago?”

Sheshà pointed to the Pyramids. “That and many other monuments are the history books—the great tombs, and all the palaces and temples and columns still standing after thousands of years. On them are written the story of the land. Behold, it is being written before your eyes, since by what you call magic you are watching the work of men who laboured four thousand years before Christ.”

“But how can those funny pictures and signs they are cutting be writing?” asked Rachel, watching a man who was graving strange marks on the granite blocks.

“Such was the writing of the ancient Egyptians,” replied Sheshà, “called in later days hieroglyphics, or secret writing, because, as ages passed, the meaning of the writing was forgotten, and men gazed at these strange signs and wondered what they meant, and what secrets were hidden from them by a language which no one could read.”

“And did they ever find out the secret?” asked Rachel, eagerly. “Can anyone nowadays read what is written on stones like these?”

“Yes. The secret has at last been discovered. For thousands of years it was hidden, but at last, in modern days, almost within the life-time of some old men and women still on this earth, the mystery was revealed by means of a magic stone.”

“I know!” cried Rachel excitedly. “That was the piece of marble I was looking at when I met you in the British Museum—was it a minute ago, or ages?” she went on, looking puzzled. “It all seems like a dream, somehow. But I remember Miss Moore, saying ‘This is the Rosetta Stone’—and I didn’t know what she meant. And then you said, ‘That stone is a gate into the Past,’ and I didn’t know what you meant, either!”

Again Sheshà smiled gravely as he looked down at her.

“I will tell you. Ninety years ago, a Frenchman was living in this mysterious land of Egypt; knowing no more of the secret writing on palaces and tombs and temples than do you, little maiden. But while he was at Rosetta, which is a town on the sea coast not far from where we stand, he found a broken block of marble—a fragment from what was once, perhaps, a mighty temple. Upon it he saw the secret marks he could not understand, but beneath it were some lines in Greek, which he and other people could read. Now, thought the Frenchman, ‘What if these Greek words should be the translation of those hieroglyphics above, which no one for thousands of years has been able to decipher?’ So he brought the broken stone away with him. And the scholars examined it, and at last, after patient study, comparing the Greek words, which they could understand, with the mysterious signs and pictures above, they learnt to read them also. And so, from that piece of black marble which now rests in the great museum of your great city of London, learned men have made Egypt give up one of its many secrets. All that is written on columns, walls and tombs, can now be read by the scholars who have studied the hieroglyphic writing of this ancient land, and translated it into English and French, and all the languages of men who live to-day. Was I not right to call ‘the Rosetta Stone’ a stone of magic, a gateway into the Past?”

PHARAOH IN HIS CHARIOT

“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Rachel, drawing a long breath. “If that Rosetta Stone had never been found, people would still be looking at the—what did you call the writing? Oh yes, the hieroglyphics, and wondering what they mean, wouldn’t they? But you know, of course? You have always known.”

“I wrote signs and figures like these, six thousand years ago,” replied Sheshà, gazing upon the mighty unfinished Pyramid upon which, like clustering bees, the brown-skinned, half-naked men were slaving.

“Will you read me something that’s written there? Please read what that man has just finished carving,” begged Rachel, pointing to a youth who was working at the base of the Pyramid. “What do those signs mean?”

“They record,” said Sheshà, glancing at them, “that a hundred thousand men were always kept working upon this tomb. These slaves that you behold are the last hundred thousand, for as you see the Pyramid is nearly built. But for twenty years previous to this moment of Past time, every day, a hundred thousand men have been working in the same way as these poor slaves before your eyes.”

Rachel was just trying to put into words something of all the wonder and bewilderment she felt, when a strain of music that sounded rather faint and far away made her turn quickly. The sight she saw was so wonderful that I scarcely know how to describe it.

“Who is this?” she whispered. “Why are the people bowing down before him?”

“It is Pharaoh the king, come to look at his Pyramid—the tomb for himself which is rising under the hands of his slaves. Well may you gaze in wonder, O child, for never before this, has a little English maid been given sight of the far, far Past. You behold Pharaoh in all his pomp and glory as he lived six thousand years ago.”

And indeed Rachel gazed in wonder.

Looking down from the raised platform of soil on which stood the nearly finished Pyramid, she saw a broad road, thronged with a glittering company. In their midst, standing upright in a chariot painted with brilliant colours and enriched with gold, was the imposing figure of a man with an olive-tinted skin, dressed in a white robe, bordered with gold. A head-dress strangely shaped almost shrouded his face, and on his bare brown arms were bracelets, and hanging from his neck long chains of metal work.

Running beside and behind the chariot, were slaves carrying great fans, made, some of palm leaves, some of feathers. They were followed by a crowd of girls in gauzy robes, whose black hair fell in tight ringlets on their bare shoulders, holding in their hands musical instruments of curious form. Behind them followed other chariots filled with men clad in the same sort of dress as that worn by Sheshà.

Rachel saw the wonderful procession clearly enough, yet it seemed as though she was looking at it through a slight mist which quivered like hot air, and made the figures behind it a little unreal, as if something in a dream. This gauze-like mist she had noticed before, in gazing at the workers on the Pyramid. It stretched between her and the slaves like a barrier behind which, though she could watch them, they toiled out of touch, and somehow a long way from her.

“You are beholding scenes that took place thousands of years ago, remember,” said the voice of Sheshà, and though Rachel had not spoken, she knew he read her thoughts, and was explaining. “Ages ago all these people were turned to dust. They have arisen before your eyes—but only like painted figures real though they seem. If you tried to touch them your hand would but meet the air.”

“What is he going to do? Where is he going?” whispered Rachel, who was feeling awe-struck, and perhaps a little frightened.

“Pharaoh is going to look at the tomb which has been prepared for him,” said Sheshà, gravely. “In a moment we will follow him into the heart of the Pyramid.”

“Pharaoh comes into the Bible,” began Rachel, looking puzzled. “But I thought you said it was another man, King Cheops, who had this Pyramid built.”

“Pharaoh was the name given to all the kings of Egypt, but this is not the Pharaoh who dreamt of the fat and lean kine, nor the Pharaoh Moses knew, who was stricken with plagues. This Pharaoh, whose other name was King Cheops, lived long before the days of Joseph and Moses.”

Rachel gave a funny little murmur of excitement.

“We have gone back far into the Past, haven’t we? It’s—it’s rather frightening. I feel as though I should never get home again!” She looked really anxious, and Sheshà laid his brown hand gently upon her head.

“Have no fear. In less time than I take to say it, you will be seated in an omnibus, travelling back to your aunt’s home,” he declared with a curious smile.

“Oh, but I don’t want to go yet!” Rachel hastily assured him. “I want to see everything. It’s so frightfully interesting,” she went on, incoherently.

“Again have no fear. You shall see and hear, for Time itself is a ‘magic’ thing, little maiden, and wonders can be worked during the opening and shutting of the eyes. Let us now follow that procession to the royal tomb.”

The painted chariot drawn by white horses with marvellous trappings, had now been reined up before the entrance to a passage on one side of the Pyramid. On either hand the workmen and the other people who had been passing to and fro now lay prostrate in the dust, while the great king was led from the chariot by the men Rachel had already seen dressed in robes like that worn by Sheshà.

“Those are the priests of the order to which I belong,” he said. “They are the people nearest to Pharaoh, the learned men whom he honours—poets, historians, physicians, as well as priests. With them he talks and takes counsel. These others,” he pointed to the poor men on the ground, “are his slaves who bow down before him, and are used as beasts of burden.”

Rachel looked at them pityingly as with Sheshà she followed the wise men and the reigning Pharaoh, King Cheops, into the passage hewn within the Pyramid. No one noticed her presence, and somehow, though she was almost close enough to touch the robes in front of her, Rachel was not surprised. Plainly, as through the quivering haze surrounding them she could see the wonderful group of people, she knew they were not exactly real. She could not have touched them. She saw their lips move, but she heard no sound.

In a few minutes the passage, which sloped upwards, broadened out into a little hall lined with polished granite. Here the priests who were following the mighty Pharaoh, very slowly and solemnly ranged themselves against the walls, leaving the middle of the floor clear. Rachel then saw the king standing alone, and looking down upon something that looked like a coffin made of red granite placed in the centre of the hall. The priests bowed their heads, and she saw their lips moving, while the king stood motionless as a statue, his white robes and his strange head-dress appearing as though they were carved upon a painted figure.

For a second Rachel saw this, and then almost before she could breathe, she was standing under the blue sky, looking at the scarcely finished outside of the Pyramid, from which all the builders had disappeared, as had also the crowds upon the road bordering the river Nile.

She rubbed her eyes. “It’s so strange,” she began, dreamily. “Was all that great Pyramid built only to hold a little grave? Because I suppose that was what the stone thing that the king looked down on, really was?”

“It was the outside case of a coffin—yes,” said Sheshà. “Such a case is called a sarcophagus. The real coffin was made of wood, placed within the sarcophagus, upon which a granite lid was fixed and sealed down when a man was dead.”

“Why did this Pharaoh want such a great place only for a tomb?” asked Rachel, still puzzled. “Fancy making thousands and thousands of people work, just to build a great heap over a grave! Why did he do it?”

“Partly because he wanted to be remembered for ever (and though he was forgotten for ages, we are now talking about him after six thousand years!) But also because of what was taught by the ancient religion of the Egyptians.”

“What was that?” asked Rachel.

Sheshà smiled, his grave, strange smile. “It taught many things difficult to explain to a little maid of to-day. But one thing was this. When a man died, his soul left his body, and wandered about, entering into other bodies—possibly for hundreds of years. But it might happen that, after many ages, the soul should want to return to its old home—its old body. Therefore, that body was carefully preserved, in case the soul should wish to re-enter it.”

“But if it was very long before it wanted to come back it would find its home turned to dust, wouldn’t it?”

“For that we provided,” answered Sheshà, “by preserving the poor body in a way that is called embalming. We filled it with sweet spices, and wrapped it closely in linen bandages, and——”

“I know! The dead people like that are called mummies, aren’t they? I was just going to ask Miss Moore to take me to see them when I met you!” Rachel interrupted.

“There are many such embalmed bodies in your great museum. When you see them, little maid, remember that you are looking upon the very features of men and women who lived under this blue sky, and enjoyed this sunshine, thousands of years before their bodies were taken to your grey city beside the Thames. They were people who worshipped indeed, but gods very different from the God worshipped in your churches and cathedrals of to-day.”

“You worshipped the river, didn’t you?” asked Rachel, presently, as Sheshà was silent.

“Osiris, God of the River and the Sun,” murmured Sheshà, as though to himself. “Him we worshipped, and Isis, the fruitful Earth, and—” He paused suddenly, and looked down at Rachel. “Our worship is difficult for you to understand. Would it please you instead, to behold this place as it looks now—to the travellers of To-day. As your father, for instance, beheld it only this morning?”

“Oh yes,” cried Rachel eagerly. “That’s just what I should like.”

“Prepare then to see nine, instead of one of these mighty works—eight of them built after this first Pyramid of King Cheops, but, even so, thousands of years old, and battered not so much by the hand of Time as by the hands of destructive men. Turn towards the river, child of To-day, and, with closed eyes, bow seven times.”

Rachel again obeyed, and, when she turned and looked, instead of one, a group of Pyramids stood up grandly against such a sunset sky as she had never before imagined. The sand of the desert, the flowing river, the worn sides of the huge buildings, were washed by a rosy glow. And battered and worn, as they now looked, they were still the Pyramids as they had stood for thousands and thousands of years before she was born.

Changed though it was, Rachel recognised at once the great tomb of King Cheops, and as she looked she listened to Sheshà speaking, though somehow the voice sounded faint and far away.

“All things dread Time, but Time itself dreads the Pyramids,” she heard him say. And then, after a moment, “Gaze well, O child, upon one of the Seven Wonders of the World.”

The last words came so faintly that Rachel turned to look at her friend—and instead found Miss Moore at her elbow.

She was still consulting her watch, and Rachel was still standing in front of the black Rosetta Stone.

“I think we ought to go,” said Miss Moore. “It will take us some time to get back, and we mustn’t be late for lunch.”

Rachel drew a long breath, and followed her governess in silence.

When you have just stepped out of Egypt into the British Museum, you feel you don’t want to talk—and Rachel scarcely spoke all the way home.

On the hall table, waiting for her, lay a letter from her father, and his little daughter eagerly pounced upon it, and ran with it to her bedroom. Mother was much better already, the letter said, and, after a great deal of other news, Rachel came upon a sentence which interested her more than her father could have imagined, when he wrote it.

“I have just seen the Pyramids! One of these days you and I will go to Egypt and look at them again together. But you must learn something about them first, or you won’t be half so excited about them as I am.”

Rachel laughed gleefully. “Dad hasn’t seen King Cheops, anyhow,” she thought. “And he’d be certain to think I dreamt it if I told him all about Sheshà and the slaves. No one would believe me—so I shan’t say anything about this lovely adventure.”

She ran down to lunch, happy and excited by her secret.

“Well, how did you enjoy the British Museum?” enquired Aunt Hester, when she had heard all the news contained in the letter from Egypt.

“Oh, I loved it!” exclaimed Rachel, and two little dimples appeared at the corners of her mouth as she tried to repress a smile. “When can I go again?”

Miss Moore looked a little surprised, for she remembered no particular enthusiasm on Rachel’s part during the morning.

“A most instructive place,” she observed, turning to Aunt Hester. “I’m sure Rachel will learn a great deal there.”

And again Rachel tried to keep back a smile.

SECOND WONDER
THE HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON

All the rest of that day Rachel went about feeling excited and happy. It was not till next morning when she woke that doubt crept into her mind. Could she really have been to Egypt and seen the great Pyramid of Cheops before it was quite finished? Surely, she couldn’t really have talked to Sheshà, the priest of that ancient king! It must, of course, have been a dream. Yet how had she managed to go to sleep in the British Museum? And how was it, if she had dreamt the whole adventure, that she remembered everything distinctly, and not in the confused fashion of an ordinary dream? Rachel was puzzled, but she was obliged to come to the sad conclusion that somehow or other the glowing pictures in her mind, of slaves, of Pharaoh in his chariot, of the room within the Pyramid holding the sarcophagus, were, as her old nurse used to say, “all imagination.”

It was a terribly disappointing thought, and for the whole of the following day she felt quite dull and miserable, especially as Aunt Hester wouldn’t hear of another immediate visit to the British Museum.

“It’s too far,” she declared. “You may go next week. But I can’t think why you’re so anxious about it. Miss Moore says you didn’t seem particularly interested while you were there.”

Rachel couldn’t of course tell Aunt Hester that in her longing for the British Museum, there was a faint hope that if by any chance the adventure had been “real”—there, if anywhere, “something might happen.”

A few mornings afterwards, however, something did happen. At breakfast time Aunt Hester put down a letter she had been reading, and looked across at her niece.

“Old Mr. Sheston is coming to lunch,” she remarked. “He says he thinks he must have seen you the other day. He knew you from your likeness to your father.”

“Who is old Mr. Sheston?” asked Rachel, looking up from putting more sugar on her porridge.

Aunt Hester smiled. “He’s a funny old man who has been a friend of our family for years, and knew your father as a boy. He is doing some important work at the British Museum, so you’ll be able to talk to him about it.”

Rachel pricked up her ears.

“Why is he funny?” she enquired.

Again Aunt Hester smiled. “He dresses in a strange way for one thing, and he has all sorts of curious ideas that you wouldn’t understand. He’s a dear old man—but eccentric. Certainly eccentric,” she added as though to herself.

“Eccentric means not like other people, doesn’t it?” murmured Rachel. “I’ve never heard Dad talk about him.”

“I don’t think he’s seen him since he was a boy.... Certainly you are very like your father as he was at your age, child! I’m not surprised that the old man recognized you.”

Rachel was running across the hall just before lunch, when in answer to a knock at the front door, the parlourmaid admitted a strange figure, wrapped in a long cloak, one end of which was thrown over the left shoulder. A battered hat almost hid the face of the little old gentleman who entered—but in a flash Rachel remembered him. He was looking at the Rosetta Stone the day she and Miss Moore went to the British Museum! And he had spoken to her—or had she dreamt this? It was curious, but she really couldn’t remember. All she knew at the moment was, that he and the Rosetta Stone were, as she put it, “mixed up together in her mind.”

By this time the visitor had taken off his hat, and Rachel, so puzzled and curious that she had stopped short in the middle of the hall, saw a pair of dark eyes in a crinkled, wrinkled face under a fringe of white hair.

The old man smiled and held out both hands.

“You are Rachel,” he said. “I knew when I saw you last week in the Egyptian gallery, that you must be your father’s daughter.”

Rachel felt suddenly shy, and was glad when Aunt Hester came down the stairs and, after a word or two of greeting, led the way straight into the dining-room.

At table, during the meal, Rachel sat opposite to the guest, who now and then looked across at her, and every time she met his dark eyes she was puzzled afresh.

“You’ll be glad to hear that Rachel is most interested in the British Museum,” said Aunt Hester, presently.

“I am glad to hear it,” was all the old man said, but he smiled in such a way as to make Rachel more excited and puzzled than ever.

She listened eagerly to what he was saying to Aunt Hester. He was talking about what he called the “explorations” in Egypt, and she gathered from his conversation that men were often sent out by the people who took charge of the British Museum, to dig and explore among the ruins in Egypt and other ancient countries, and to bring back some of the things they found to London.

He made the story of these explorers and what they discovered, so exciting, that Aunt Hester, who did not at first seem very curious, began to ask questions. Rachel wanted to ask a great many more, for her head was still full of her strange dream—as she now called it—about Egypt, and it was interesting to know how all the tombs and monuments and statues she had seen last week had found their way to England.

“You can run away now, Rachel,” said Aunt Hester, when lunch was over, and Grayson was bringing in coffee.

“Don’t let her run very far,” observed Mr. Sheston. “Because I’m going to take her back with me to the Museum in ten minutes.”

He said this without looking at her, and Rachel gasped for joy, and glanced imploringly at Aunt Hester, who laughed.

“You always announce what you are going to do, I remember,” she declared, speaking to her guest. “You never ask.”

“A habit of mine,” returned the old gentleman quietly. “Acquired long ago.”

“Go and get ready,” said Aunt Hester, with a nod to her niece, and Rachel flew like the wind.

Ten minutes later she was seated in a taxi-cab with Mr. Sheston, who talked about her father, about her country home, her brothers and sisters, and everything in the world except just the things Rachel wanted him to talk about—Egypt and the Pyramids.

At last, however, he said quite suddenly, just as they were going up the steps of the Museum, “How long is it since you were here?”

“Five or six days, I think, or perhaps—”

“Seven days,” corrected the old gentleman, quietly, and all at once Rachel began to get excited.

They entered the building, and she noticed that all the officials in uniform touched their hats to the little old man who was evidently very well known there. He turned at once to the Egyptian Gallery, and as they passed the Rosetta Stone, Rachel looked back.

“I know all about that,” she said, glancing up at Mr. Sheston, who only smiled.

“We will go to the Babylonian Room in a minute,” he said. “Do you know where to find Babylonia on the map?”

Only that morning, in looking as she always did now, for Egypt, Rachel had seen it marked in her atlas.

“It’s up above Arabia, isn’t it?” she began, uncertainly “Up above the Persian Gulf.”

“And do you remember any of its cities that were famous once?”

“Babylon?” suggested Rachel.

Mr. Sheston nodded.

“Babylon,” he repeated, and after a moment added, as though to himself, “How far is it to Babylon?”

“Why, that’s in a book of poetry I’ve got,” exclaimed Rachel. “It’s called ‘A Child’s Garden of Verses.’”

“Yes, there are a great many things in Stevenson’s Child’s Garden,” said the old man. “We’ll find out how far it is to Babylon presently. But, before we do that, just come into this room for a moment.”

He took her hand and led her into a narrow passage to the right of the big Egyptian hall through which they had come.

“Is there anything here that reminds you of—something else?” he asked.

Rachel glanced about, and suddenly her eyes rested on a monument against a wall, carved curiously in stone. Beneath it there was an inscription, and she went nearer and began to read the words aloud.

“The tomb of Sheshà, High Priest of Cheops,” she began, and suddenly stopped short.

“Why...!” she exclaimed, turning to Mr. Sheston, and then again stopped short, for in his place stood her friend Sheshà in his beautiful robe, his young face framed by the strange head-dress she so well remembered! And yet—somehow—it was Mr. Sheston too! Sheshà and the old man were in a curious way one and the same person!

“Why, you are Sheshà!” cried Rachel, incoherently. “But then—why?”—she glanced at the tomb—“That means you were dead—ages and ages ago?” she whispered. “How can you be here—?”

The young priest smiled. “Tombs are but folly,” he answered. “Do you remember, little maid, what I said to you of the soul, and how it lives and returns after many thousand years to inhabit the same, or perhaps another body?”

Rachel nodded, too overwhelmed to speak.

“Well, then, are not tombs folly?” he repeated, still smiling. “But come, of Egypt you have had a glimpse already. Now shall you behold Babylon.”

He turned and led the way towards another gallery running parallel with the Egyptian one, and, as Rachel followed him, she wondered for a moment why the people strolling about in the Museum did not stare in amazement at the wonderful figure of Sheshà in his priestly robe. No one took the slightest notice, however, and she remembered that Miss Moore had on a previous occasion seen and heard nothing.

“They’re not mixed up with seven, I suppose,” she reflected, before Sheshà began to speak again. He talked, she thought, rather as though he were translating from another language, trying to make what he said quite modern. “But sometimes,” thought Rachel, “he forgets—and then he says ‘behold,’ and ‘verily,’ and old-fashioned words like that!”

“Let us first look at some of the wonders which, long buried, have come at last to this Museum,” he suggested, pausing in front of a huge statue. It represented a creature with the body of a bull, and the face of a man with a long curled beard cut square—while from the shoulders of the beast sprang two great wings.

“Here is one out of many such marvels,” he added.

Rachel looked at the monster, full of curiosity.

“Was this dug up by the people you were talking about to Aunt Hester to-day? I mean—at lunch time—when you were—Mr. Sheston?”

Sheshà smiled. “I was the same person then as now. It was only my body that was different.... Yes, little maid, this was found by the explorers not far from Babylon. Now glance with me at these pictures in stone.” He turned into a narrow gallery close at hand, and pointed to the walls against which were fastened large slabs of stone sculptured most beautifully with scenes of hunting, with processions in which kings rode in chariots under graceful canopies like parasols hung with fringe, or stood looking down upon long lines of prisoners chained together.

“These came from the palace of one Tiglath Pileser, a king who lived more than seven hundred years before Christ was born. He was one of the conquerors of Babylon.”

“But I do want to see Babylon itself!” exclaimed Rachel. “You did mean I should really see it, didn’t you?”

“Patience!” murmured Sheshà. “Patience! You are just about to see Babylon first as it is now—and then as it was in the days of its splendour. Shut your eyes. Beat seven times with your foot on this stone floor—and have no fear of what befalls. You are safe with me.”

Trembling with excitement, Rachel did as she was told, and at the last tap of her foot, was conscious of a most strange and wonderful sensation. She seemed to be out of doors, and not only out of doors, but rushing through the air, while a noise like that of a great engine almost deafened her.

“We are near Babylon!” said a voice close to her ear, and, as she opened her eyes, Rachel gasped, for she was seated in an aeroplane, and the pilot of the machine, in the dress of an airman, was—Sheshà! Rachel had so often longed to fly, that at first she could think of nothing but the wonder and excitement of her first rush through the air, and it was only by degrees that she began to notice the earth below. The machine was dropping nearer to it now, and she saw they were flying over a vast plain through which flowed a river. Three large mounds near this river broke the monotony of the desert place, overarched by the beautiful blue sky, and when the aeroplane skimmed yet lower, Rachel saw little figures moving near the mounds, like ants running over an ant heap.

At the same moment the noise of the aeroplane’s engine ceased, and she was able to talk to the pilot.

“Why those are men, aren’t they?” she said, pointing to the tiny figures. “And what are those heaps of rubbish there?”

“All that is left of Babylon—the beautiful and proud City of Babylon,” answered the voice of the pilot, Sheshà.

Rachel looked at the desert plain with its three “rubbish heaps,” as she called them, in silent astonishment.

“Is that where the bulls with wings and the other things in the British Museum come from?” she added at length.

“Some of them—yes.”

“And are those little men down there digging up other things now?”

“Yes. They are working for the Museum. By-and-by, in a few weeks, perhaps, you may read a column in your newspaper at breakfast time giving an account of the latest things found in that heap,” he pointed to the largest of them. “That mound below you is called Babil, and it covers the palace in which dwelt King Nebuchadnezzar, nearly three thousand years ago.”

“The Nebuchadnezzar in the Bible that I was reading about with Miss Moore only this morning?”

“Yes—the Nebuchadnezzar who conquered the city of Jerusalem and brought the Children of Israel captives to Babylon—the Nebuchadnezzar who set up the golden image to which Daniel would not bow down.”

“And the fiery furnace!” interrupted Rachel, eagerly, “that didn’t burn the three Children of Israel when Nebuchadnezzar threw them into it.... I remember!... And there’s a psalm about them when they were prisoners in Babylon.”

“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion,” quoted Sheshà, in a dreamy voice. “There is one of the rivers of Babylon.” He pointed to the great stream—the Euphrates—on both sides of which the city was built.

“It doesn’t look as though there could ever have been a city here,” Rachel declared, gazing down upon the desert and the mounds of earth. “How could it have disappeared altogether like that?”

“Thousands of years have passed since it was standing. It has been burnt to the ground many times, and laid in ruins. The sand of the desert has swept over it, and new races of men have arisen, knowing nothing of its ancient grandeur. It is only sixty years ago that scholars from France and Germany and England began to explore those heaps of rubbish which cover its palaces and temple.”

“Oh, I do want to see them!” exclaimed Rachel. “I mean as they used to look when Nebuchadnezzar was king. Not just the bits of them that people dig up now!”

“We will make a landing,” said Sheshà in a matter-of-fact voice, and in a few moments the aeroplane had touched the ground, and he was helping her to jump out of the marvellous machine, which, surrounded as she was by so many other marvels, Rachel took almost as though she had been used to an aeroplane all her life.

“You behold Babylon as it looks to-day,” went on Sheshà, stretching out his hand towards the ruins. “In a second you shall behold it as it looked three thousand years ago when Nebuchadnezzar was king. And your guide shall be a little maid of your own years.” Almost before he had finished speaking he laid his hand gently over Rachel’s eyes....

“Count the magic number aloud.”

The voice that spoke certainly did not belong to Sheshà, and when full of eagerness her eyes flew open they rested first of all upon the loveliest and strangest little girl you can possibly imagine.

Her hair, black as ebony, was cut straight across her forehead, and fell in tight ringlets to her shoulders. She wore a thin gauze robe spangled with gold, and on her bare brown arms there were bracelets, and round her slim little ankles golden anklets, which tinkled as she moved.

As her great dark eyes met Rachel’s blue ones she said gravely:

“I am Salome, handmaid to the Queen of this city of Babylon. Come with me and you shall see all its riches and its glory. Sheshà has commanded it.”

Rachel was too bewildered to wonder how it happened that she understood the child, who was certainly not talking English. But, strange language though it was, she seemed to know it as well as her native tongue. There were besides, other and even stranger things to amaze her, for before her, under the burning blue sky, was spread a gorgeous city, or rather what looked like miles and miles of gardens and palaces and temples, enclosed within huge walls.

From the slightly raised ground on which Rachel with her new companion were standing, she could see these city walls—a double row of them—stretching away to form a gigantic square enclosing the river, the woods and gardens, and all the strange buildings which made up the city.

“Oh look! look!” she cried suddenly, as all at once, actually on the top of one of the inner walls, she saw a brilliantly painted chariot drawn by four horses, coming at a furious pace towards her. It was driven by a long-haired man who stood upright within the car, urging on his steeds—till he came so near the end of the wall that Rachel held her breath, expecting to see chariot, horses and driver dashed to the ground. But, before she could cry out, the man, with marvellous skill, turned horses and chariot, and drove at full speed back again along the wide top of the wall.

“Just think of a wall broad enough for four horses to gallop along—and turn!” Rachel almost screamed the words in her excitement.

“That is Akurgal, the driver of the king’s chariot,” said the little Babylonian girl, unconcernedly. “He drives like the wind for fury when it pleases him.”

Rachel scarcely knew in which direction to look first, so glorious was the view. She saw that each of the four sides of the wall was pierced by gigantic gates made of bronze—all the gates opening upon broad streets which crossed one another, so that the whole city was divided into squares, filled with gardens and houses. The broad river flowed through it from north to south, and over the river hung a mighty bridge, at each end of which was a palace.

It was difficult for Rachel to make up her mind in which direction to turn her eyes, but the sight of something that appeared like a forest-covered mountain rising near one of the palaces, was so lovely that she pointed to it and turned to Salome.

“What a beautiful mountain!” she exclaimed. “How funny there should be only one—because the rest of the country is so flat. There isn’t another hill as far as ever I can see,” she added, glancing over the wide plain in which the city lay.

Salome smiled.

“That is no mountain,” she said. “It was made by human hands. It is the great glory of our city, and, so my mistress says, in time to come, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon will be called one of the Wonders of the World.”

Rachel started. “There are seven Wonders of the World,” she began, eagerly. “I’ve seen one of them already—the Great Pyramid, you know. And now——”

“I have heard of the Pyramid in the land of Egypt,” Salome interrupted. “But come now and see more closely our wonder—the Garden that is like no other in the world.”

She took Rachel’s hand, and in a few moments they had entered the city through a gate which Rachel noticed was covered with tiles of blue enamel as brilliant as the sky above them. And on either side of the gate, like sentinels, stood huge winged bulls carved in stone. But how different they looked here, she thought, in the golden sunshine, with the wonderful blue tiles behind them, and their great shadows, black as ink, stretching on either hand!

“This is one of the new gates built by our king,” Salome told her. “He has caused inscriptions to be written about them so that all the world may know what adornments he has added to our fair city of Babylon. Our city that shall last for ever,” she added proudly.

Rachel glanced at her, and thought of a great rubbish heap she had recently seen—“the mound called Babil which covers the palace in which dwelt King Nebuchadnezzar nearly three thousand years ago”—she remembered the very words of Sheshà.... How amazing it was to be walking with this little girl in the very city that now lay under a mound of earth! To be talking to a little girl who lived nearly three thousand years ago, and had no idea that her home was even now being dug up in fragments by men living in the world to-day!... For a moment it all seemed too puzzling to be true. Rachel rubbed her eyes with her disengaged hand, and half expected the whole vision to disappear. Yet when she looked again, the lovely scene still lay before her, and she could feel the warmth of Salome’s little brown hand within her own.

“I must be getting used to the Past,” she reflected. “Because now I can feel as well as see the people. They didn’t seem quite real when I was with Sheshà in Egypt. But now it’s different. Is it because these people didn’t live quite so far back into the Past as King Cheops and his slaves, I wonder?”

She glanced again at the grave, strangely clad little girl at her side, who talked as though she were quite grown up.

“I mustn’t say anything about the rubbish mound, or tell her anything about the sort of world I belong to,” she reflected hurriedly. “She wouldn’t understand. I suppose she thinks I’m living in her times, but have just never happened to see Babylon before. And that’s quite true!” she added to herself, with a little inward chuckle.

While such thoughts as these were hurrying through her mind, she was looking right and left, full of eager curiosity, for the bridge she was crossing was thronged with amazing figures.

Men with black, curling beards, bare-legged, and bare-armed, wearing tunics of brilliant colours, passed her. Some of these were seated upon the backs of camels following one another in long lines. The soft-footed, grey beasts were loaded with merchandise, and the bales on either side of their humped backs swayed as they moved. They were decked fantastically with trappings of plaited scarlet wool, hung with tassels of brilliant colour. After such a procession of camels and their drivers, would come perhaps a chariot with four horses abreast, driven by a fierce-looking man in a gorgeous fringed robe, whose dark eyes flashed like jewels in his bronzed face. Following one such chariot, she saw a group of girls in gauzy tunics, bracelets on their arms, tinkling anklets above their feet, dancing as they came, and singing a wild song as they tossed their arms above their heads.

“They are going to the Temple of Belus,” explained Salome, as Rachel stood still to look at them.

She turned round and pointed with her little brown forefinger to a great building at the other end of the bridge.

“Later, if there is still time, you shall see the temple of the great God. But let us hasten now towards the gardens, for there, in the cool of the day, the queen walks with her maidens, and I must be in attendance.”

Rachel was torn between her longing to be actually within the wonderful Hanging Garden and her desire to linger on the bridge which afforded such a magnificent view. She gazed with delight upon the broad shining river which divided the city, and upon the ships with gracefully curved sails which, rowed by almost naked slaves, moved to and fro over its surface.

Some of these ships were drawn up against the quays which lined the river, as far as eye could reach, and Rachel saw a swarming multitude of men staggering under corded chests of wood which the ships had brought to be unloaded.

Salome stopped to watch the slaves at their work.

“That is merchandise for the palace, I trust,” she observed. “We have awaited it too long, and the queen grows angry.”

“What sort of things are in those boxes?” Rachel asked.

“Ivory and ebony for the thrones, and for the couches and the chariots, emeralds and fine linen, and coral and agate. Spices from Arabia and precious stones and gold,” answered Salome, in a sort of chanting voice.

Rachel gasped. It sounded like a fairy tale. Yet she remembered something like it—Where was it? In the Bible, surely!

Just as the thought of the Bible crossed her mind, a group of men passed close to her. They were dressed rather differently from the other people around her, their faces, too, looked different, and their eyes were very sad.

“Who are those men?” she enquired, looking back over her shoulder. “They look so unhappy—and homesick, somehow.” Rachel knew what it was to be homesick!

Salome glanced at them carelessly. “They are Hebrews who call themselves the Children of Israel. Our king, the great Nebuchadnezzar—may he live for ever—conquered their country and took their treasures from Jerusalem, their chief city, and brought many of them here to Babylon to live. They hate us, and we despise them.”

Rachel started as the words of the psalm darted into her mind. “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down.... We hanged our harps upon the willows....” She had heard this sung in church, and it had meant nothing to her but just “a psalm.” Yet, here before her very eyes now, was one of “the rivers.” There were “the willows” fringing streams which flowed through the innumerable gardens, and she had just met some of the captive Jews! Rachel gasped again as all these things became “real” to her—something that had actually happened—was, in fact, happening before her eyes.

“It’s awful to be homesick,” she murmured, rather to herself than to Salome, who, without replying, ran on in front of her to a flight of steps at the end of the bridge.

“This is one of the entrances to the Hanging Garden,” she explained, looking back. “We must hasten, lest my mistress calls for me.”

Rachel followed her from terrace to terrace, too overwhelmed with delight at the glimpses of beauty she caught right and left to say a word. She saw that the whole garden was supported, tier above tier, by gigantic arches, and Salome told her each terrace was made of plates of lead, holding earth so deep that great forest trees could grow in it. If she had not known this, the whole place would have seemed to Rachel as though blossoming by magic in the heart of a forest growing in mid-air. She could scarcely believe it was not the work of some magician.

By the time they reached the uppermost terrace, on a level with the city wall, she was not only breathless, but struck dumb by the beauty and wonder of everything round her.