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