TO THE
PRESENT LIVING RE-INCARNATION
OF
ARAXES
ZISKA.
THE PROBLEM OF A WICKED SOUL.
Dark against the sky towered the Great Pyramid, and over its apexhung the moon. Like a wreck cast ashore by some titanic storm, theSphinx, reposing amid the undulating waves of grayish sand surroundingit, seemed for once to drowse. Its solemn visage that had impassivelywatched ages come and go, empires rise and fall, and generations ofmen live and die, appeared for the moment to have lost its usualexpression of speculative wisdom and intense disdain—its cold eyesseemed to droop, its stern mouth almost smiled. The air was calm andsultry; and not a human foot disturbed the silence. But towardsmidnight a Voice suddenly arose as it were like a wind in the desert,crying aloud: “Araxes! Araxes!” and wailing past, sank with a profoundecho into the deep recesses of the vast Egyptian tomb. Moonlight andthe Hour wove their own mystery; the mystery of a Shadow and a Shapethat flitted out like a thin vapor from the very portals of Death’sancient temple, and drifting forward a few paces resolved itself intothe visionary fairness of a Woman’s form—a Woman whose dark hair fellabout her heavily, like the black remnants of a long-buried corpse’swrappings; a Woman whose eyes flashed with an unholy fire as shelifted her face to the white moon and waved her ghostly arms upon theair. And again the wild Voice pulsated through the stillness.
“Araxes! … Araxes! Thou art here,—and I pursue thee! Through lifeinto death; through death out into life again! I find thee and Ifollow! I follow! Araxes! …”
Moonlight and the Hour wove their own mystery; and ere the pale opaldawn flushed the sky with hues of rose and amber the Shadow hadvanished; the Voice was heard no more. Slowly the sun lifted the edgeof its golden shield above the horizon, and the great Sphinx awakingfrom its apparent brief slumber, stared in expressive and eternalscorn across the tracts of sand and tufted palm-trees towards theglittering dome of El-Hazar—that abode of profound sanctity andlearning, where men still knelt and worshipped, praying the Unknown todeliver them from the Unseen. And one would almost have deemed thatthe sculptured Monster with the enigmatical Woman-face and Lion-formhad strange thoughts in its huge granite brain; for when the full daysprang in glory over the desert and illumined its large features witha burning saffron radiance, its cruel lips still smiled as thoughyearning to speak and propound the terrible riddle of old time; theProblem which killed!
* * * * *
It was the full “season” in Cairo. The ubiquitous Britisher and theno less ubiquitous American had planted their differing “society”standards on the sandy soil watered by the Nile, and were busilyengaged in the work of reducing the city, formerly called Al Kahira orThe Victorious, to a more deplorable condition of subjection andslavery than any old-world conqueror could ever have done. For theheavy yoke of modern fashion has been flung on the neck of Al Kahira,and the irresistible, tyrannic dominion of “swagger” vulgarity haslaid The Victorious low. The swarthy children of the desert might, andp