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ZISKA

THE PROBLEM OF A WICKED SOUL

BY

MARIE CORELLI




Other Books by the same Author

THE SORROWS OF SATAN BARABBAS A ROMANCE OF TWO WORLDS THE MIGHTY ATOM,
ETC., ETC.






TO THE PRESENT LIVING RE-INCARNATION OF ARAXES






ZISKA.

THE PROBLEM OF A WICKED SOUL.




PROLOGUE.


Dark against the sky towered the Great Pyramid, and over its apex hung
the moon. Like a wreck cast ashore by some titanic storm, the Sphinx,
reposing amid the undulating waves of grayish sand surrounding it,
seemed for once to drowse. Its solemn visage that had impassively
watched ages come and go, empires rise and fall, and generations of men
live and die, appeared for the moment to have lost its usual expression
of speculative wisdom and intense disdain--its cold eyes seemed to
droop, its stern mouth almost smiled. The air was calm and sultry; and
not a human foot disturbed the silence. But towards midnight a Voice
suddenly arose as it were like a wind in the desert, crying aloud:
"Araxes! Araxes!" and wailing past, sank with a profound echo into the
deep recesses of the vast Egyptian tomb. Moonlight and the Hour wove
their own mystery; the mystery of a Shadow and a Shape that flitted out
like a thin vapor from the very portals of Death's ancient temple, and
drifting forward a few paces resolved itself into the visionary
fairness of a Woman's form--a Woman whose dark hair fell about her
heavily, like the black remnants of a long-buried corpse's wrappings; a
Woman whose eyes flashed with an unholy fire as she lifted her face to
the white moon and waved her ghostly arms upon the air. And again the
wild Voice pulsated through the stillness.

   "Araxes!... Araxes! Thou art here,
  --and I pursue thee! Through life into
   death; through death out into life again!
   I find thee and I follow! I follow!
   Araxes!..."

Moonlight and the Hour wove their own mystery; and ere the pale opal
dawn flushed the sky with hues of rose and amber the Shadow had
vanished; the Voice was heard no more. Slowly the sun lifted the edge
of its golden shield above the horizon, and the great Sphinx awaking
from its apparent brief slumber, stared in expressive and eternal scorn
across the tracts of sand and tufted palm-trees towards the glittering
dome of El-Hazar--that abode of profound sanctity and learning, where
men still knelt and worshipped, praying the Unknown to deliver them
from the Unseen. And one would almost have deemed that the sculptured
Monster with the enigmatical Woman-face and Lion-form had strange
thoughts in its huge granite brain; for when the full day sprang in
glory over the desert and illumined its large features with a burning
saffron radiance, its cruel lips still smiled as though yearning to
speak and propound the terrible riddle of old time; the Problem which
killed!




CHAPTER I.


It was the full "season" in Cairo. The ubiquitous Britisher and the no
less ubiquitous American had planted their differing "society"
standards on the sandy soil watered by the Nile, and were busily
engaged in the work of reducing the city, formerly called Al Kahira or
The Victorious, to a more deplorable condition of subjection and
slavery than any old-world conqueror could ever have done. For the
heavy yoke of modern fashion has been flung on the neck of Al Kahira,
and the irresistible, tyrannic dominion of "swagger" vulgarity has laid
The Victorious low. The swarthy children of the desert might, and
possibly would, be ready and willing to go forth and fight men with
men's weapons for the freedom to live and die unmolested in their own
native land; but against the blandly-smiling, white-helmeted,
sun-spectacled, perspiring horde of Cook's "cheap trippers," what can
they do save remain inert and well-nigh speechless? For nothing like
the cheap tripper was ever seen in the world till our present
enlightened and glorious day of progress; he is a new-grafted type of
nomad, like and yet unlike a man. The Darwin theory asserts itself
proudly and prominently in bristles of truth all over him--in his
restlessness, his ape-like agility and curiosity, his shameless
inquisitiveness, his careful cleansing of himself from foreign fleas,
his general attention to minutiae, and his always voracious appetite;
and where the ape ends and the man begins is somewhat difficult to
discover. The "image of God" wherewith he, together with his fellows,
was originally supposed to be impressed in the first fresh days of
Creation, seems fairly blotted out, for there is no touch of the Divine
in his mortal composition. Nor does the second created phase-the copy
of the Divineo--namely, the Heroic,--dignify his form or ennoble his
countenance. There is nothing of the heroic in the wandering biped who
swings through the streets of Cairo in white flannels, laughing at the
staid composure of the Arabs, flicking thumb and finger at the patient
noses of the small hireable donkeys and other beasts of burden,
thrusting a warm red face of inquiry into the shadowy recesses of
odoriferous bazaars, and sauntering at evening in the Esbekiyeh
Gardens, cigar in mouth and hands in pockets, looking on the scene and
behaving in it as if the whole place were but a reflex of Earl's Court
Exhibition. History affects the cheap tripper not at all; he regards
the Pyramids as "good building" merely, and the inscrutable Sphinx
itself as a fine target for empty soda-water bottles, while perhaps his
chiefest regret is that the granite whereof the ancient monster is hewn
is too hard for him to inscribe his distinguished name thereon. It is
true that there is a punishment inflicted on any person or persons
attempting such wanton work--a fine or the bastinado; yet neither fine
nor bastinado would affect the "tripper" if he could only succeed in
carving "'Arry" on the Sphinx's jaw. But he cannot, and herein is his
own misery. Otherwise he comports himself in Egypt as he does at
Margate, with no more thought, reflection, or reverence than dignify
the composition of his far-off Simian ancestor.

Taking him all in all, he is, however, no worse, and in some respects
better, than the "swagger" folk who "do" Egypt, or rather, consent in a
languid way to be "done" by Egypt. These are the people who annually
leave England on the plea of being unable to stand the cheery, frosty,
and in every respect healthy winter of their native country--that
winter, which with its wild winds, its sparkling frost and snow, its
holly trees bright with scarlet berries, its merry hunters galloping
over field and moor during daylight hours, and its great log fires
roaring up the chimneys at evening, was sufficiently good for their
forefathers to thrive upon and live through contentedly up to a hale
and hearty old age in the times when the fever of travelling from place
to place was an unknown disease, and home was indeed "sweet home."
Infected by strange maladies of the blood and nerves, to which even
scientific physicians find it hard to give suitable names, they shudder
at the first whiff of cold, and filling huge trunks with a thousand
foolish things which have, through luxurious habit, become necessities
to their pallid existences, they hastily depart to the Land of the Sun,
carrying with them their nameless languors, discontents and incurable
illnesses, for which Heaven itself, much less Egypt, could provide no
remedy. It is not at all to be wondered at that these physically and
morally sick tribes of human kind have ceased to give any serious
attention as to what may possibly become of them after death, or
whether there IS any "after," for they are in the mentally comatose
condition which precedes entire wreckage of brain-force; existence
itself has become a "bore;" one place is like another, and they repeat
the same monotonous round of living in every spot where they
congregate, whether it be east, west, north, or south. On the Riviera
they find little to do except meet at Rumpelmayer's at Cannes, the
London House at Nice, or the Casino at Monte-Carlo; and in Cairo they
inaugurate a miniature London "season" over again, worked in the same
groove of dinners, dances, drives, picnics, flirtations, and
matrimonial engagements. But the Cairene season has perhaps some
advantage over the London one so far as this particular set of
"swagger" folk are concerned--it is less hampered by the proprieties.
One can be more "free," you know! You may take a little walk into "Old"
Cairo, and turning a corner you may catch glimpses of what Mark Twain
calls "Oriental simplicity," namely, picturesquely-composed groups of
"dear delightful" Arabs whose clothing is no more than primitive custom
makes strictly necessary. These kind of "tableaux vivants" or "art
studies" give quite a thrill of novelty to Cairene-English Society,--a
touch of savagery,--a soupcon of peculiarity which is entirely lacking
to fashionable London. Then, it must be remembered that the "children
of the desert" have been led by gentle degrees to understand that for
harboring the strange locusts imported into their land by Cook, and the
still stranger specimens of unclassified insect called Upper Ten, which
imports itself, they will receive "backsheesh."

"Backsheesh" is a certain source of comfort to all nations, and
translates itself with sweetest euphony into all languages, and the
desert-born tribes have justice on their side when they demand as much
of it as they can get, rightfully or wrongfully. They deserve to gain
some sort of advantage out of the odd-looking swarms of Western
invaders who amaze them by their dress and affront them by their
manners. "Backsheesh," therefore, has become the perpetual cry of the
Desert-Born,--it is the only means of offence and defence left to them,
and very naturally they cling to it with fervor and resolution. And who
shall blame them? The tall, majestic, meditative Arab--superb as mere
man, and standing naked-footed on his sandy native soil, with his one
rough garment flung round his loins and his great black eyes fronting,
eagle-like, the sun--merits something considerable for condescending to
act as guide and servant to the Western moneyed civilian who clothes
his lower limbs in straight, funnel-like cloth casings, shaped to the
strict resemblance of an elephant's legs, and finishes the graceful
design by enclosing the rest of his body in a stiff shirt wherein he
can scarcely move, and a square-cut coat which divides him neatly in
twain by a line immediately above the knee, with the effect of
lessening his height by several inches. The Desert-Born surveys him
gravely and in civil compassion, sometimes with a muttered prayer
against the hideousness of him, but on the whole with patience and
equanimity,--influenced by considerations of "backsheesh." And the
English "season" whirls lightly and vaporously, like blown egg-froth,
over the mystic land of the old gods,--the terrible land filled with
dark secrets as yet unexplored,--the land "shadowing with wings," as
the Bible hath it,--the land in which are buried tremendous histories
as yet unguessed,--profound enigmas of the supernatural,--labyrinths of
wonder, terror and mystery,--all of which remain unrevealed to the
giddy-pated, dancing, dining, gabbling throng of the fashionable
travelling lunatics of the day,--the people who "never think because it
is too much trouble," people whose one idea is to journey from hotel to
hotel and compare notes with their acquaintances afterwards as to which
house provided them with the best-cooked food. For it is a noticeable
fact that with most visitors to the "show" places of Europe and the
East, food, bedding and selfish personal comfort are the first
considerations,--the scenery and the associations come last. Formerly
the position was reversed. In the days when there were no railways, and
the immortal Byron wrote his Childe Harold, it was customary to rate
personal inconvenience lightly; the beautiful or historic scene was the
attraction for the traveller, and not the arrangements made for his
special form of digestive apparatus. Byron could sleep on the deck of a
sailing vessel wrapped in his cloak and feel none the worse for it; his
well-braced mind and aspiring spirit soared above all bodily
discomforts; his thoughts were engrossed with the mighty teachings of
time; he was able to lose himself in glorious reveries on the lessons
of the past and the possibilities of the future; the attitude of the
inspired Thinker as well as Poet was his, and a crust of bread and
cheese served him as sufficiently on his journeyings among the then
unspoilt valleys and mountains of Switzerland as the warm, greasy,
indigestible fare of the elaborate table-d'hotes at Lucerne and
Interlaken serve us now. But we, in our "superior" condition, pooh-pooh
the Byronic spirit of indifference to events and scorn of trifles,--we
say it is "melodramatic," completely forgetting that our attitude
towards ourselves and things in general is one of most pitiable bathos.
We cannot write Childe Harold, but we can grumble at both bed and board
in every hotel under the sun; we can discover teasing midges in the air
and questionable insects in the rooms; and we can discuss each bill
presented to us with an industrious persistence which nearly drives
landlords frantic and ourselves as well. In these kind of important
matters we are indeed "superior" to Byron and other ranting dreamers of
his type, but we produce no Childe Harolds, and we have come to the
strange pass of pretending that Don Juan is improper, while we pore
over Zola with avidity! To such a pitch has our culture brought us!
And, like the Pharisee in the Testament, we thank God we are not as
others are. We are glad we are not as the Arab, as the African, as the
Hindoo; we are proud of our elephant-legs and our dividing coat-line;
these things show we are civilized, and that God approves of us more
than any other type of creature ever created. We take possession of
nations, not by thunder of war, but by clatter of dinner-plates. We do
not raise armies, we build hotels; and we settle ourselves in Egypt as
we do at Homburg, to dress and dine and sleep and sniff contempt on all
things but ourselves, to such an extent that we have actually got into
the habit of calling the natives of the places we usurp "foreigners."
WE are the foreigners; but somehow we never can see it. Wherever we
condescend to build hotels, that spot we consider ours. We are
surprised at the impertinence of Frankfort people who presume to visit
Homburg while we are having our "season" there; we wonder how they dare
do it! And, of a truth, they seem amazed at their own boldness, and