The Jewel of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker (ebook and pdf reader .txt) 📖

Chapter XV The Purpose of Queen Tera

“Now, as to the Star Jewel! This she manifestly regarded as the

greatest of her treasures. On it she had engraven words which none of

her time dared to speak.

 

“In the old Egyptian belief it was held that there were words, which, if

used properly—for the method of speaking them was as important as the

words themselves—could command the Lords of the Upper and the Lower

Worlds. The ‘hekau’, or word of power, was all-important in certain

ritual. On the Jewel of Seven Stars, which, as you know, is carved into

the image of a scarab, are graven in hieroglyphic two such hekau, one

above, the other underneath. But you will understand better when you

see it! Wait here! Do not stir!”

 

As he spoke, he rose and left the room. A great fear for him came over

me; but I was in some strange way relieved when I looked at Margaret.

Whenever there had been any possibility of danger to her father, she had

shown great fear for him; now she was calm and placid. I said nothing,

but waited.

 

In two or three minutes, Mr. Trelawny returned. He held in his hand a

little golden box. This, as he resumed his seat, he placed before him

on the table. We all leaned forward as he opened it.

 

On a lining of white satin lay a wondrous ruby of immense size, almost

as big as the top joint of Margaret’s little finger. It was carven—it

could not possibly have been its natural shape, but jewels do not show

the working of the tool—into the shape of a scarab, with its wings

folded, and its legs and feelers pressed back to its sides. Shining

through its wondrous “pigeon’s blood” colour were seven different stars,

each of seven points, in such position that they reproduced exactly the

figure of the Plough. There could be no possible mistake as to this in

the mind of anyone who had ever noted the constellation. On it were

some hieroglyphic figures, cut with the most exquisite precision, as I

could see when it came to my turn to use the magnifying-glass, which Mr.

Trelawny took from his pocket and handed to us.

 

When we all had seen it fully, Mr. Trelawny turned it over so that it

rested on its back in a cavity made to hold it in the upper half of the

box. The reverse was no less wonderful than the upper, being carved to

resemble the under side of the beetle. It, too, had some hieroglyphic

figures cut on it. Mr. Trelawny resumed his lecture as we all sat with

our heads close to this wonderful jewel:

 

“As you see, there are two words, one on the top, the other underneath.

The symbols on the top represent a single word, composed of one syllable

prolonged, with its determinatives. You know, all of you, I suppose,

that the Egyptian language was phonetic, and that the hieroglyphic

symbol represented the sound. The first symbol here, the hoe, means

‘mer’, and the two pointed ellipses the prolongation of the final r:

mer-r-r. The sitting figure with the hand to its face is what we call

the ‘determinative’ of ‘thought’; and the roll of papyrus that of

‘abstraction’. Thus we get the word ‘mer’, love, in its abstract,

general, and fullest sense. This is the hekau which can command the

Upper World.”

 

Margaret’s face was a glory as she said in a deep, low, ringing tone:

 

“Oh, but it is true. How the old wonder-workers guessed at almighty

Truth!” Then a hot blush swept her face, and her eyes fell. Her father

smiled at her lovingly as he resumed:

 

“The symbolisation of the word on the reverse is simpler, though the

meaning is more abstruse. The first symbol means ‘men’, ‘abiding’, and

the second, ‘ab’, ‘the heart’. So that we get ‘abiding of heart’, or in

our own language ‘patience’. And this is the hekau to control the Lower

World!”

 

He closed the box, and motioning us to remain as we were, he went back

to his room to replace the Jewel in the safe. When he had returned and

resumed his seat, he went on:

 

“That Jewel, with its mystic words, and which Queen Tera held under her

hand in the sarcophagus, was to be an important factor—probably the most

important—in the working out of the act of her resurrection. From the

first I seemed by a sort of instinct to realise this. I kept the Jewel

within my great safe, whence none could extract it; not even Queen Tera

herself with her astral body.”

 

“Her ‘astral body’? What is that, Father? What does that mean?”

There was a keenness in Margaret’s voice as she asked the question which

surprised me a little; but Trelawny smiled a sort of indulgent parental

smile, which came through his grim solemnity like sunshine through a

rifted cloud, as he spoke:

 

“The astral body, which is a part of Buddhist belief, long subsequent to

the time I speak of, and which is an accepted fact of modern mysticism,

had its rise in Ancient Egypt; at least, so far as we know. It is that

the gifted individual can at will, quick as thought itself, transfer his

body whithersoever he chooses, by the dissolution and reincarnation of

particles. In the ancient belief there were several parts of a human

being. You may as well know them; so that you will understand matters

relative to them or dependent on them as they occur.

 

“First there is the ‘Ka’, or ‘Double’, which, as Doctor Budge explains,

may be defined as ‘an abstract individuality of personality’ which was

imbued with all the characteristic attributes of the individual it

represented, and possessed an absolutely independent existence. It was

free to move from place to place on earth at will; and it could enter

into heaven and hold converse with the gods. Then there was the ‘Ba’,

or ‘soul’, which dwelt in the ‘Ka’, and had the power of becoming

corporeal or incorporeal at will; ‘it had both substance and form… .

It had power to leave the tomb …It could revisit the body in the

tomb … and could reincarnate it and hold converse with it.’ Again

there was the ‘Khu’, the ‘spiritual intelligence’, or spirit. It took

the form of ‘a shining, luminous, intangible shape of the body.’…

Then, again, there was the ‘Sekhem’, or ‘power’ of a man, his strength

or vital force personified. These were the ‘Khaibit’, or ‘shadow’, the

‘Ren’, or ‘name’, the ‘Khat’, or ‘physical body’, and ‘Ab’, the ‘heart’,

in which life was seated, went to the full making up of a man.

 

“Thus you will see, that if this division of functions, spiritual and

bodily, ethereal and corporeal, ideal and actual, be accepted as exact,

there are all the possibilities and capabilities of corporeal

transference, guided always by an unimprisonable will or intelligence.”

As he paused I murmured the lines from Shelley’s “Prometheus Unbound”:

 

“‘The Magnus Zoroaster … Met his own image walking in the

garden.’”

 

Mr. Trelawny was not displeased. “Quite so!” he said, in his quiet way.

“Shelley had a better conception of ancient beliefs than any of our

poets.” With a voice changed again he resumed his lecture, for so it

was to some of us:

 

“There is another belief of the ancient Egyptian which you must bear in

mind; that regarding the ushaptiu figures of Osiris, which were placed

with the dead to its work in the Under World. The enlargement of this

idea came to a belief that it was possible to transmit, by magical

formulae, the soul and qualities of any living creature to a figure made

in its image. This would give a terrible extension of power to one who

held the gift of magic.

 

“It is from a union of these various beliefs, and their natural

corollaries, that I have come to the conclusion that Queen Tera expected

to be able to effect her own resurrection, when, and where, and how, she