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Page 124 text:
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Tn-:E rigramgf' he Clay Cylimler The flaming sun was sinking at last behind the wind-tossed dunes of the desert and night was descending with tropical swiftness upon an endless expanse of undulating sands. The day had been one of burning, tortur- ing heat, but with the fall of darkness came the sudden cold of the Eastern making the shivering Arabs night, draw their blankets more closely about them. The myriads of blazing stars out and the cold, white moon came sailed high above a silent world ot silvery sand. 1 At a little distance from a pit in the tioor of the desert, were pitched a handful of cone-shaped tents, whose long, pointed, black shadows lay motionless, like grotesque spikes guarding the camp. They were all dark and silent except one in which a man was sitting on a canvas chair before a small table. He was a young man, but his lean, strong features. bronzed by months of desert life, seemed set and older as the light from a spluttering tallow candle jerked and twisted them. He was turning over in his hands a small gray-clay cylinder covered with short, wedge-shaped indentations. It was no different in appearance from the hundreds that were dug up every day in excavating the. library of the ancient Babylonian city of Salamon, but the story which it had held for so many centuries was of vital interest to him. As he turned it slowly, he deciphered the words which had been indelibly scored there ages before, 0 Ra! Mighty Father of the Sun, God of Gods, Ruler of Men, to whom I, Agasson, the king, son of Menolon, the king, do offer my everlasting praise and supplication. Hear my woe and advise me in what manner to dispel it. Many suns ago, when my daughter Chloon was but a child, playing by the mighty sea which Thou alone rulest, she did meet with a young boy, dark and lean of stature, whom she did praise and admire. He did teach her to believe not in Thee and to love not me so that I caused him to be exiled from my kingdom. Nor did my daughter forget him. As the years rolled on, she grew to be a woman of rare beauty, with hair of yellow gold, even as Thy light, and I did resolve to marry her to a mighty prince, Musteres by name. llut on the eve of her betrothal, she did Hee to her boy-lover who lay burning with a fever in a far-off land: and ere I could reach her, she, too, had been consumed by the Haines of the sick- ness. The clay cylinder rested motionless in the young man's fingers as he gazed pensively out the llap of his tent upon the starry heavens and the waning moon. He was thinking of his own childhood in England when he had played on the Seashore with a golden- haired girlg Helen Merrilin her name had been. She, too, like the Chloon of old Babylonia, had hated her money- loving father, a multi-millionaire. Mr. Merrilin had resented his daughter's growing dislike, and when he learned of her meetings with the dark young boy by the sea, he had forbidden them to see each other. Thus he, Laurence Darwin, the son of a poor teacher, had been made to realize the social chasm that separated him from his playmate. As the years passed and Helen grew up to be one
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Page 125 text:
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of the most beautiful girls in England, their friendship had remained fast, but their secret meetings had become less and less frequent. When he heard that she was to marry the son of a wealthy stock-broker, he had joined an archaeological expedition to the Near East in order to forget the haunting memories of childhood. But even in the parched desert, where wate.r was a treasure, the boom of an English ocean was ever ringing in his ears and the voice of a fair-haired girl calling across the vast spaces that separated them. The next day, the simple Arab diggers found Laurence Darwin toss- ing in his narrow cot with a tropical fever, and in spite of their soothing herbs, he grew worse. Two horsemen were dispatched for the doctor, but it would be days before he could arrive. Three days later, as the Arabs were lounging about in the hot noon, one of them pointed to the east. O Solores, seest thou a cloud of dust yonder? Yes, Darab, l do. Thinkest thou it is a simoon or but the white doctor arriving from Babylon P Nay, Solores, he can scarce have received word of the master's sickness. Nor is it large enough for a simoon. As the cloud grew larger, it was seen to be caused by a group of three horsemen, riding furiously. In a short time they reined in their foaming horses at the camp, and one, a closely- veiled woman, leaped off, breathing quickly, '4VVhere is thy master? ln yonder tent, madamf' She crossed to the shelter indicated and knelt down beside the still form stretched upon the rough bed. As she smoothed his dark hair back from his fevered face, his blood-shot eyes slowly opened. Helen-Helen Merrilinf' Yes, Laurence, I am here. But you must sleep so that you will get well and come back to England with me. A quiet smile crept over the wasted features as the girl leaned over and kissed his hot forehead. She rose to leave the tent and un- pack her baggage, but in doing so, she jarred a small table standing behind her, and a gray-clay cylinder rolled on to the hard ground and broke into a thousand fragments. -Ecz'-zeczrd .-1. lVa1f0n, V-A. g -Zz .. err! gig'-Vg 'iw i I w?g a'3'! '52 ' 111 4 n mt W QNX x3 S- TS' 5' Xlwl ' lll7IflP Gluulxxxwik
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