The Jewel of Seven Stars, Bram Stoker [books to read for self improvement txt] 📗

>would. That she may have held before her a definite time for making her

effort is not only possible but likely. I shall not stop now to explain

it, but shall enter upon the subject later on. With a soul with the

Gods, a spirit which could wander the earth at will, and a power of

corporeal transference, or an astral body, there need be no bounds or

limits to her ambition. The belief is forced upon us that for these

forty or fifty centuries she lay dormant in her tomb-waiting. Waiting

with that ‘patience’ which could rule the Gods of the Under World, for

that ‘love’ which could command those of the Upper World. What she may

have dreamt we know not; but her dream must have been broken when the

Dutch explorer entered her sculptured cavern, and his follower violated

the sacred privacy of her tomb by his rude outrage in the theft of her

hand.

 

“That theft, with all that followed, proved to us one thing, however:

that each part of her body, though separated from the rest, can be a

central point or rallying place for the items or particles of her astral

body. That hand in my room could ensure her instantaneous presence in

the flesh, and its equally rapid dissolution.

 

“Now comes the crown of my argument. The purpose of the attack on me

was to get the safe open, so that the sacred Jewel of Seven Stars could

be extracted. That immense door of the safe could not keep out her

astral body, which, or any part of it, could gather itself as well

within as without the safe. And I doubt not that in the darkness of the

night that mummied hand sought often the Talisman Jewel, and drew new

inspiration from its touch. But despite all its power, the astral body

could not remove the Jewel through the chinks of the safe. The Ruby is

not astral; and it could only be moved in the ordinary way by the

opening of the doors. To this end, the Queen used her astral body and

the fierce force of her Familiar, to bring to the keyhole of the safe

the master key which debarred her wish. For years I have suspected,

nay, have believed as much; and I, too, guarded myself against powers of

the Nether World. I, too, waited in patience till I should have

gathered together all the factors required for the opening of the Magic

Coffer and the resurrection of the mummied Queen!” He paused, and his

daughter’s voice came out sweet and clear, and full of intense feeling:

 

“Father, in the Egyptian belief, was the power of resurrection of a

mummied body a general one, or was it limited? That is: could it

achieve resurrection many times in the course of ages; or only once, and

that one final?”

 

“There was but one resurrection,” he answered. “There were some who

believed that this was to be a definite resurrection of the body into

the real world. But in the common belief, the Spirit found joy in the

Elysian Fields, where there was plenty of food and no fear of famine.

Where there was moisture and deep-rooted reeds, and all the joys that

are to be expected by the people of an arid land and burning clime.”

 

Then Margaret spoke with an earnestness which showed the conviction of

her inmost soul:

 

“To me, then, it is given to understand what was the dream of this great

and far-thinking and high-souled lady of old; the dream that held her

soul in patient waiting for its realisation through the passing of all

those tens of centuries. The dream of a love that might be; a love that

she felt she might, even under new conditions, herself evoke. The love

that is the dream of every woman’s life; of the Old and of the New;

Pagan or Christian; under whatever sun; in whatever rank or calling;

however may have been the joy or pain of her life in other ways. Oh! I

know it! I know it! I am a woman, and I know a woman’s heart. What

were the lack of food or the plenitude of it; what were feast or famine

to this woman, born in a palace, with the shadow of the Crown of the Two

Egypts on her brows! What were reedy morasses or the tinkle of running

water to her whose barges could sweep the great Nile from the mountains

to the sea. What were petty joys and absence of petty fears to her, the

raising of whose hand could hurl armies, or draw to the water-stairs of

her palaces the commerce of the world! At whose word rose temples

filled with all the artistic beauty of the Times of Old which it was her

aim and pleasure to restore! Under whose guidance the solid rock yawned

into the sepulchre that she designed!

 

“Surely, surely, such a one had nobler dreams! I can feel them in my

heart; I can see them with my sleeping eyes!”

 

As she spoke she seemed to be inspired; and her eyes had a far-away look

as though they saw something beyond mortal sight. And then the deep

eyes filled up with unshed tears of great emotion. The very soul of the

woman seemed to speak in her voice; whilst we who listened sat

entranced.

 

“I can see her in her loneliness and in the silence of her mighty pride,

dreaming her own dream of things far different from those around her.

Of some other land, far, far away under the canopy of the silent night,

lit by the cool, beautiful light of the stars. A land under that

Northern star, whence blew the sweet winds that cooled the feverish

desert air. A land of wholesome greenery, far, far away. Where were no

scheming and malignant priesthood; whose ideas were to lead to power

through gloomy temples and more gloomy caverns of the dead, through an

endless ritual of death! A land where love was not base, but a divine

possession of the soul! Where there might be some one kindred spirit

which could speak to hers through mortal lips like her own; whose being

could merge with hers in a sweet communion of soul to soul, even as

their breaths could mingle in the ambient air! I know the feeling, for

I have shared it myself. I may speak of it now, since the blessing has

come into my own life. I may speak of it since it enables me to

interpret the feelings, the very longing soul, of that sweet and lovely

Queen, so different from her surroundings, so high above her time!

Whose nature, put into a word, could control the forces of the Under

World; and the name of whose aspiration, though but graven on a star-lit

jewel, could command all the powers in the Pantheon of the High Gods.

 

“And in the realisation of that dream she will surely be content to

rest!”

 

We men sat silent, as the young girl gave her powerful interpretation of

the design or purpose of the woman of old. Her every word and tone

carried with it the conviction of her own belief. The loftiness of her

thoughts seemed to uplift us all as we listened. Her noble words,

flowing in musical cadence and vibrant with internal force, seemed to

issue from some great instrument of elemental power. Even her tone was

new to us all; so that we listened as to some new and strange being from

a new and strange world. Her father’s face was full of delight. I knew

now its cause. I understood the happiness that had come into his life,

on his return to the world that he knew, from that prolonged sojourn in

the world of dreams. To find in his daughter, whose nature he had never

till now known, such a wealth of affection, such a splendour of

spiritual insight, such a scholarly imagination, such … The rest of

his feeling was of hope!

 

The two other men were silent unconsciously. One man had had his

dreaming; for the other, his dreams were to come.

 

For myself, I was like one in a trance. Who was this new, radiant being

who had won to existence out of the mist and darkness of our fears?

Love has divine possibilities for the lover’s heart! The wings of the

soul may expand at any time from the shoulders of the loved one, who

then may sweep into angel form. I knew that in my Margaret’s nature

were divine possibilities of many kinds. When under the shade of the

overhanging willow-tree on the river, I had gazed into the depths of her

beautiful eyes, I had thenceforth a strict belief in the manifold

beauties and excellences of her nature; but this soaring and

understanding spirit was, indeed, a revelation. My pride, like her

father’s, was outside myself; my joy and rapture were complete and

supreme!

 

When we had all got back to earth again in our various ways, Mr.

Trelawny, holding his daughter’s hand in his, went on with his

discourse:

 

“Now, as to the time at which Queen Tera intended her resurrection to

take place! We are in contact with some of the higher astronomical

calculations in connection with true orientation. As you know, the

stars shift their relative positions in the heavens; but though the real

distances traversed are beyond all ordinary comprehension, the effects

as we see them are small. Nevertheless, they are susceptible of

measurement, not by years, indeed, but by centuries. It was by this

means that Sir John Herschel arrived at the date of the building of the

Great Pyramid—a date fixed by the time necessary to change the star of

the true north from Draconis to the Pole Star, and since then verified

by later discoveries. From the above there can be no doubt whatever

that astronomy was an exact science with the Egyptians at least a

thousand years before the time of Queen Tera. Now, the stars that go to

make up a constellation change in process of time their relative

positions, and the Plough is a notable example. The changes in the

position of stars in even forty centuries is so small as to be hardly

noticeable by an eye not trained to minute observances, but they can be

measured and verified. Did you, or any of you, notice how exactly the

stars in the Ruby correspond to the position of the stars in the Plough;

or how the same holds with regard to the translucent places in the Magic

Coffer?”

 

We all assented. He went on:

 

“You are quite correct. They correspond exactly. And yet when Queen

Tera was laid in her tomb, neither the stars in the Jewel nor the

translucent places in the Coffer corresponded to the position of the

stars in the Constellation as they then were!”

 

We looked at each other as he paused: a new light was breaking upon us.

With a ring of mastery in his voice he went on:

 

“Do you not see the meaning of this? Does it not throw a light on the

intention of the Queen? She, who was guided by augury, and magic, and

superstition, naturally chose a time for her resurrection which seemed

to have been pointed out by the High Gods themselves, who had seent

their message on a thunderbolt from other worlds. When such a time was

fixed by supernal wisdom, would it not be the height of human wisdom to

avail itself of it? Thus it is”—here his voice deepened and trembled

with the intensity of his feeling—“that to us and our time is given the

opportunity of this wondrous peep into the old world, such as has been

the privilege of none other of