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Ancient Carved Ambers in the J. Paul
Getty Museum
Faya Causey

The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

This catalogue was first published in 2012 at http:
//museumcatalogues.getty.edu/amber. The present
online version was migrated in 2019 to
https://www.getty.edu/publications/ambers; it
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© 2012, 2019 J. Paul Getty Trust

Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed

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First edition 2012

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Causey, Faya, author. | Maish, Jeffrey,

contributor. | Khanjian, Herant, contributor. |
Schilling, Michael (Michael Roy), contributor. | J.
Paul Getty Museum, issuing body.
Title: Ancient carved ambers in the J. Paul Getty
Museum / Faya Causey ; with technical analysis by
Jeff Maish, Herant Khanjian, and Michael Schilling.
Description: Los Angeles : The J. Paul Getty
Museum, [2019] | Includes bibliographical
references. | Summary: “This catalogue provides a
general introduction to amber in the ancient world
followed by detailed catalogue entries for fifty-six
Etruscan, Greek, and Italic carved ambers from
the J. Paul Getty Museum. The volume concludes
with technical notes about scientific investigations
of these objects and Baltic amber”—Provided by
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Identifiers: LCCN 2019016671 (print) | LCCN
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Subjects: LCSH: J. Paul Getty Museum⁠—Catalogs. |
Amber art objects—Catalogs. | Art objects,
Ancient—Catalogs. | Art objects, Etruscan—
Catalogs. | Art objects—California—Los Angeles—
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Classification: LCC NK6000 .J3 2019 (print) | LCC
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Front cover: Pendant: Divinity Holding Hares (detail,

77.AO.82, cat. no. 4).

Every effort has been made to contact the owners

and photographers of objects reproduced here
whose names do not appear in the captions. Anyone
having further information concerning copyright
holders is asked to contact Getty Publications so this
information can be included in future printings.

URLs cited throughout this catalogue were accessed

prior to first publication in 2012; during preparation
of the present editions in 2019, some electronic
content was found to be no longer available. Where
URLs are no longer valid, the author’s original
citations have been retained, but hyperlinks have
been disabled in the online and ebook editions.
 Contents

Introduction

Amber and the Ancient World

Jewelry: Never Just Jewelry
Amber Magic?
What Is Amber?
Where Is Amber Found?
The Properties of Amber
Ancient Names for Amber
Color and Other Optical Characteristics: Ancient
Perception and Reception
Ancient Literary Sources on the Origins of
Amber
Amber and Forgery
The Ancient Transport of Amber
Literary Sources on the Use of Amber
Amber Medicine, Amber Amulets
The Bronze Age
Early Iron Age and the Orientalizing Period
The Archaic and Afterward
The Working of Amber: Ancient Evidence and
Modern Analysis
 The Production of Ancient Figured Amber
Objects
Orientalizing Group

1. Pendant: Female Holding a Child

(Kourotrophos)
2. Pendant: Female Holding a Child
(Kourotrophos) with Bird
3. Pendant: Addorsed Females
4. Pendant: Divinity Holding Hares
5. Pendant: Lion with Swan
6. Pendant: Paired Lions

Ship with Figures

7. Pendant: Ship with Figures

Korai

8. Pendant: Standing Female Figure (Kore)

9. Pendant: Head Fragment from a Standing
Female Figure (Kore)

Human Heads
 10. Pendant: Head of a Female Divinity or
Sphinx
11. Pendant: Head of a Female Divinity or
Sphinx
12. Pendant: Satyr Head in Profile
13. Pendant: Satyr Head
14. Pendant: Female Head in Profile
15. Pendant: Winged Female Head in Profile
16. Pendant: Winged Female Head
17. Pendant: Female Head in Profile
18. Pendant: Female Head
19. Pendant: Female Head
20. Pendant: Female Head in Profile
21. Pendant: Female Head
22. Pendant: Female Head
23. Pendant: Winged Female Head
24. Pendant: Female Head
25. Pendant: Female Head in Profile
26. Pendant: Female Head
Animals

27. Roundel: Animal

28. Plaque: Addorsed Sphinxes
29. Pendant: Hippocamp
30. Pendant: Cowrie Shell / Hare
31. Pendant: Lion
32. Pendant: Female Animal (Lioness?)
Lions’ Heads

33. Pendant: Lion’s Head

34. Spout or Finial: Lion’s Head
35. Pendant: Lion’s Head
36. Pendant: Lion’s Head

Boars

37. Pendant: Foreparts of a Recumbent Boar

38. Plaque: Addorsed Lions’ Heads with Boar in
Relief

Rams’ Heads

39. Pendant: Ram’s Head

40. Pendant: Ram’s Head
41. Pendant: Ram’s Head
42. Pendant: Ram’s Head
43. Pendant: Ram’s Head
44. Pendant: Ram’s Head
45. Pendant: Ram’s Head
46. Pendant: Ram’s Head
47. Pendant: Ram’s Head
48. Pendant: Ram’s Head
49. Pendant: Ram’s Head
 50. Pendant: Ram’s Head
51. Pendant: Ram’s Head
52. Finial(?): Ram’s Head
53. Spout or Finial: Ram’s Head
Other Animal Heads

54. Pendant: Bovine Head

55. Pendant: Horse’s Head in Profile
56. Pendant: Asinine Head in Profile

Forgery

57. Statuette: Seated Divinity

Technical Essay: Analysis of Selected Ambers from

the Collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum — Jeff
Maish, Herant Khanjian, and Michael R. Schilling
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
About the Authors
 Introduction

Amber and the Ancient World

Jewelry: Never Just Jewelry
Amber Magic?
What Is Amber?
Where Is Amber Found?
The Properties of Amber
Ancient Names for Amber
Color and Other Optical Characteristics: Ancient
Perception and Reception
Ancient Literary Sources on the Origins of Amber
Amber and Forgery
The Ancient Transport of Amber
Literary Sources on the Use of Amber
Amber Medicine, Amber Amulets
The Bronze Age
Early Iron Age and the Orientalizing Period
The Archaic and Afterward
The Working of Amber: Ancient Evidence and
Modern Analysis
The Production of Ancient Figured Amber Objects
 Amber and the Ancient World
The J. Paul Getty Museum collection of amber
antiquities was formed between 1971 and 1984.
Apart from the Roman Head of Medusa (figure 1),
which Mr. Getty acquired as part of a larger purchase
of antiquities in 1971, all the other ancient amber
objects were acquired as gifts. The collection is made
up primarily of pre-Roman material, but also includes
a small number of Roman-period carvings, of which
the Head of Medusa is the most important. The pre-
Roman material includes a variety of jewelry
elements that date from the seventh to the fourth
centuries B.C.: fifty-six figured works and
approximately twelve hundred nonfigured beads,
fibulae, and pendants. This volume examines the
fifty-six objects of pre-Roman date representing
humans, animals, and fantastic creatures, plus a
modern imitation. The Getty’s nonfigured pre-Roman
objects and the Roman works are not included in this
catalogue.
Head of Medusa, Roman, 1st–2nd century A.D. Amber, H: 5.8 cm
(23⁄10 in.), W: 5.8 cm (23⁄10 in.). Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum,
71.AO.355.

The ambers were acquired by their donors on the

international art market. The loss of any artifact’s
context is immeasurable, and any attempt to discuss
ambers without their original context is, to borrow an
analogy from Thorkild Jacobsen, “not unlike entering
the world of poetry.” Poetry plays a part in locating
the cultural ambients in which the ambers of this
catalogue once performed. In addition to ancient
literary sources, the work here is examined via a
large interdisciplinary toolkit, including art history,
archaeology, philology, pharmacology, anthropology,
ethnology, and the history of medicine, religion, and
magic.

At a critical moment in writing this introduction, I

read two of Roger Moorey’s final contributions, his
2001 Schweich Lectures, published as Idols of the
People: Miniature Images of Clay in the Ancient Near
East (2003), and his Catalogue of the Ancient Near
Eastern Terracottas in the Ashmolean (2004). Both
were important to the final shaping of my text. (It is
from the latter publication that I borrowed
Jacobsen’s quotation.) Certain of Moorey’s
observations played critical roles; among them is his
cautionary note in the Catalogue: “Even if it may be
possible to identify who or what is represented,
whether it be natural or supernatural, that does not
in itself resolve the question of what activity the
terracotta was involved in.”1

Indeed, in what “activity” were these carved ambers

involved? This catalogue attempts to address this
question. Keeping in mind the challenges presented
when working with decontextualized artifacts, I make
comparisons to scientifically excavated parallels, to
documented works in museums, and, with extra
care, to unprovenanced material in other collections,
public and private. The evidence suggests that
amber was dedicated primarily to female divinities,
and that most pre-Roman amber objects were buried
with women and children. Individually and as a
whole, the Getty Museum’s amber objects are
important witnesses to the larger social picture of the
people who valued the material.2

My interest was first sparked by the peculiar nature

of the carved amber on display in the British Museum
and by Donald Strong’s masterful 1966 catalogue of
the material.3 Strong duly noted the magical aspects
of the subjects of Italian Iron Age ambers, and I took
as a challenge one comment: “Many of the more
enigmatic subjects among these carvings probably
have a meaning that is no longer clear to us.”4

Notes

1. Moorey 2004, p. 9. ↩︎
2. White 1992, p. 560: “We have seen in the ethnographic record
that material forms of representation are frequently about
political authority and social distinctions. Personal ornaments,
constructed of the rare, the sacred, the exotic, or the labor/skill
 intensive, are universally employed, indeed essential to
distinguish people and peoples from each other.” White’s work on
Paleolithic technology, the origins of material representation in
Europe, and the aesthetics of Paleolithic adornment have
informed this study more than any specific reference might
indicate. Throughout his work, White underlines the variety,
richness, and interpretive complexity of the known corpus of
prehistoric representations. It is through his work that I began to
understand the nonverbal aspects of adornment and to consider
systems of personal ornamentation. See R. White, “Systems of
Personal Ornamentation in the Early Upper Paleolithic:
Methodological Challenges and New Observations,” in Rethinking
the Human Revolution: New Behavioural and Biological
Perspectives on the Origin and Dispersal of Modern Humans, ed.
P. Mellars et al. (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 287–302; and R. White,
Prehistoric Art: The Symbolic Journey of Humankind (New York,
2003), p. 58, where he cites the innovative G. H. Luquet, L’art et
la religion des hommes fossiles (Paris, 1926). In the 2007 article,
White publishes the earliest known amber pendant (the amber is
almost certainly from Pyrenean foreland sources), from the
Archaic Aurignacian level 4c6 at Isturitz, France. ↩︎
3. The watershed British Museum catalogue of carved amber by
Strong was published in 1966 (Strong 1966). Since that time,
there has been considerable research on amber in the ancient
world and related subjects, and a significant number of amber-
specific studies have been published during the last several
years. These range in type from exhibition and collection
catalogues, excavation reports, and in-depth studies of individual
works to broader sociocultural assessments. Still, many finds and
investigations (including excavation reports) await publication,
and the study of amber objects is behind that of other
contemporary visual arts media. There are many reasons for this
lag, including the nature of the material itself. Only a small
number of carved amber objects are on display in public
collections; relatively few are published or even illustrated; and
too few come from controlled contexts. Many important works
 are in private collections and remain unstudied. Moreover, under
some burial conditions, and because of its chemical and physical
structure, amber often suffers over time. Poorly conserved pieces
are friable, difficult to conserve and sometimes even to study;
they can be handled only with great care and therefore are
notoriously difficult to photograph, illustrate, or display. Much
more remains to be learned about amber objects from a uniform
application of scientific techniques, such as neutron activation
analysis, infrared spectrometry, isotope C12/C13 determination,
and pyrolysis mass spectrometry (PYMS), as recent research has
demonstrated. For the various methods of analysis, see the
addendum to this catalogue by Jeff Maish, Herant Khanjian, and
Michael Schilling; also Barfod 2005; Langenheim 2003; Serpico
2000; Ross 1998; and Barfod 1996. C. W. Beck’s lifetime of work
on amber is indicated in the bibliographies of these publications.
To date, only a very small percentage of pre-Roman ancient
objects have been analyzed. Several key projects specifically
related to the study of amber in pre-Roman Italy were completed
in recent years, including the cataloguing of amber in the
Bibliothèque nationale, Paris (D’Ercole 2008), and that in the
National Museum, Belgrade, and in Serbia and Montenegro
(Palavestra and Krstić 2006). In addition, two recent exhibitions
of amber from the Italian peninsula, the 2007 Ambre:
Trasparenze dall’antico, in Naples, and the 2005 Magie d’ambra:
Amuleti et gioielli della Basilicata antica, in Potenza, have added
much to the picture of amber consumption, especially for pre-
Roman Italy. In 2002, Michael Schilling and Jeffrey Maish of the
Getty Conservation Institute identified thirty-five ambers in the
Getty collection as Baltic amber (see the addendum to this
catalogue).
↩︎
4. Strong 1966, p. 11. Strong also comments: “Etruscan necklaces
include a wide range of amulets of local and foreign derivation
and the whole series of ‘Italic’ carvings consist largely of
pendants worn in life as charms and in death with some
 apotropaic purpose. The big necklaces combined several well-
known symbols of fertility, among them the ram’s head, the frog,
and the cowrie shell. The bulla which is common in amber was
one of the best-known forms of amulet in ancient Italy.” (For the
bulla, see n. 152.) ↩︎

Bibliography
Barfod 1996
Barfod, J. “Bernstein in Volksglauben und Volksmedizin.” In
Bernstein: Tränen der Götter, edited by M. Ganzelewski and R.
Slotta, pp. 453–56. Exh. cat. Bochum, 1996.

Barfod 2005
Barfod, J. Bernstein. Husum, Germany, 2005.

D’Ercole 2008
D’Ercole, M.-C. Ambres gravés du département des Monnaies,
Médailles et Antiques. Paris, 2008.

Langenheim 2003
Langenheim, J. H. Plant Resins: Chemistry, Evolution, Ecology, and
Ethnobotany. Portland, OR, 2003.

Moorey 2004
Moorey, R. S. Catalogue of the Ancient Near Eastern Terracottas in
the Ashmolean. Oxford, 2004.

Palavestra and Krstić 2006

Palavestra, A., and V. Krstić. The Magic of Amber. Belgrade, 2006.

Ross 1998
Ross, A. Amber: The Natural Time Capsule. London, 1998.

Serpico 2000
Serpico, M. “Resins, Amber and Vitumen.” With contribution by R.
White. In Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, edited by P. T.
Nicholson and I. Shaw, pp. 430–74. New York, 2000.

Strong 1966
Strong, D. E. Catalogue of the Carved Amber in the Department of
the Greek and Roman Antiquities. London, 1966.

White 1992
White, R. “Beyond Art: Towards an Understanding of the Origins of
Material Representations in Europe.” Annual Review of Anthropology
21 (1992): 537–64.
 Jewelry: Never Just Jewelry
The fifty-six pre-Roman amber objects in this
catalogue can be considered collectively as jewelry.
However, in the ancient world, as now, jewelry was
never just jewelry. Today, throughout the world,
jewelers, artisans, and merchants make or sell
religious symbols, good-luck charms, evil eyes,
birthstones, tiaras, mourning pins, wedding rings,
and wristwatches. Jewelry can signal allegiance to
another person, provide guidance, serve a talismanic
function, ward away danger, or link the wearer to a
system of orientation—as does a watch set to
Greenwich Mean Time—or to ritual observances.
Birthstones and zodiacal images can connect wearers
to their planets and astrological signs. Certain items
of jewelry serve as official insignia: for example, the
crown jewels of a sovereign or the ring of the
Pontifex Maximus. A cross or other religious symbol
can demonstrate faith or an aspect of belief. Not only
goldsmiths make jewelry; so also do healers and
other practitioners with varying levels of skill. In the
West today, most jewelry is made for the living; in
other parts of the world, objects of adornment may
be particular to the rituals of death and intended as
permanent accompaniments for the deceased’s
remains. Much jewelry, especially if figured, belongs
to a phenomenology of images, and it functions in
ritual ways. It is part of a social flow of information
and can establish, modify, and comment on major
social categories, such as age, sex, and status, since
it has value, carries meaning, and suggests
communication within groups, regions, and often
larger geographical areas.

Underlying my discussion of ancient carved amber is

the belief that jewelry (adornment and body
ornamentation) is value-laden and that its form and
material qualities (the ancient use of rare and exotic
materials reflects labor, skill, and knowledge-
intensive production) are powerful indicators of social
identity. Permanent ornaments can endure beyond
one human life and can connect their wearers to
ancestors, thus playing a crucial role in social
continuity—especially when we consider that such
objects are imbued with an optical authority that
words and actions often lack, or carry messages too
dangerous or controversial to put into words. In life,
in funeral rituals, and in the grave, the decoration of
the body with amber jewelry and other body
ornaments would have had a social function,
solidifying a group’s belief systems and reiterating
ideas about the afterworld. Perhaps more than any
other aspect of the archaeological record, body
ornamentation is a point of access into the social
world of the past. Ethnographers see body
ornamentation as affirming the social construct and
structure and, when worn by the political elite, as
guaranteeing group beliefs. Interpretations of the
meanings of body ornamentation imagery must
consider how “artistic” languages work to create
expressive effects that are dependent upon the
setting.

Jewelry is made to be worn; it is often bestowed or

given as a gift at significant threshold dates; and it is
regularly imbued with or accrues sentimental or
status value because of the giver or a previous
wearer or donor. In antiquity, jewelry also was given
to the gods (figure 2). Dedications might be made at
the transition to womanhood, following a successful
birth, or in thanksgiving. Jewelry of gold, amber,
ivory, or other precious materials might be placed on
cult statues to form part of the statue’s kosmos, or
embellishment. In notable cases, such embellishment
was later renewed and the old material buried as
deposits in sanctuaries.5
Ring dedicated to Hera, Greek, ca. 575 B.C. Gilded silver, Diam.
(outer): 2.2 cm (7⁄8 in.), Diam. (inner): 1.8 cm (11⁄16 in.). Los
Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 85.AM.264.

Jewelry is one of the most powerful and pervasive

forms in which humans construct and represent
beliefs, values, and social identity. When made by
artists or artisans of the highest skill, lifelike images
can carry magical and dynamic religious properties
and can even be highly charged ritual objects in their
own right. Tiny carved amber images buried with
people considered to be members of religious-
political elites may well have played such a role.

The nature and role of amber-workers—jewelers,

pharmacists, priests, “wise women,” and magicians—
are critical to reading body ornaments. Not only the
materials and subjects, but also the technology of
jewelry-making, were integral to its effect. If the
materials were precious and the making mythic or
magical, the results were appropriate for the elite,
including the gods. The concept of “maker” also
includes supernatural entities, such as magician-gods
and other mythic artisans. In the Greek-speaking
world, the Iliad describes Hephaistos at work in his
marine grotto, making arms, armor, and jewelry:
elegant brooches, pins, bracelets, and necklaces. The
god crafted Harmonia’s necklace and Pandora’s
crown. Daidalos put his hand to all sorts of creations
and gave his name to one of the most famous of all
Greek objects of adornment: Odysseus’s brooch.6

This said, there is a problem with the language. The

modern word jewelry is, in the end, limiting and fails
to encompass the full significance of the carved
ambers. The terms ornament and body
ornamentation, adornment and object of adornment,
too, are problematic. One of the more accurate
terms, amulet (figure 3), is also loaded, as it is
situated on a much-discussed crossroads among
magic, medicine, ritual, and religion. Amulet is a
modern word, derived from the Latin amuletum,
used to describe a powerful or protective personal
object worn or carried on the person. “Because of its
shape, the material from which it is made, or even
just its color,” an amulet “is believed to endow its
wearer by magical means with certain powers and
capabilities.”7
Amber necklaces and gold ornaments from the young girl’s Tomb
102, Braida di Serra di Vaglio, Italy, ca. 500 B.C. The sphinx
pendant, the largest amber pendant, has H: 4.6 cm (13⁄4 in.), L: 8.3
cm (31⁄4 in.), W: 1.5 cm (5⁄8 in.). Approximate total length of strings
of amber: 240 cm (941⁄2 in.). Potenza, Museo Archeologico
Nazionale “Dinu Adamesteanu.” By permission of il Ministero dei Beni
e delle Attività Culturali—Direzione Regionale per i Beni Culturali e
Paesaggistici della Basilicata—Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici
della Basilicata / IKONA.

Notes

5. Paraphrased from D. Williams and J. Ogden, Greek Gold: Jewelry

of the Classical World (London, 1994), pp. 31–32.↩︎
6. Many figured ambers might have been brought to an ancient
Greek-speaking viewer’s mind by the words daidalon, kosmos,
and agalma, specifically the daidalon worn by Odysseus: a gold
brooch animated with the image of a hound holding a dappled
fawn in its forepaws, the fawn struggling to flee (Odyssey
19.225–31). Sarah Morris first brought this example to my
attention. See S. P. Morris, Daidalos and the Origins of Greek Art
(Princeton, 1992), esp. pp. 27–29. See also Steiner 2001, pp. 20–
21; and F. Frontisi-Ducroux, Dédale: Mythologie de l’artisan en
Grèce ancienne (Paris, 2000).
What M. J. Bennett (Langdon 1993, pp. 78–80) writes about
Greek Geometric plate fibulae might be applicable to other
contemporary and later precious figured ornaments in the Greek-
speaking world. Objects with complex imagery might reflect “the
ordering of the world (kosmos).… Considering that kosmos
meant ‘the universe,’ ‘order,’ ‘good behavior,’ as well as ‘a piece of
jewelry,’ the fibula was not a mere fashion accessory, but rather a
sophisticated ontological statement.” G. F. Pinney, Figures of
Speech: Men and Maidens in Ancient Greece (Chicago, 2002), p.
53, with reference to Hesiod’s Theogony 581–84, writes: “The
vocabulary of kosmos makes ample use of words for splendor
and light: lampein, phaeinos, aglaos, sigaloeis.” The point is
glamour in the form of radiance, light emanating from
shimmering cloth and gleaming metals.
Agalma occupied distinct but related semantic areas in Greek,
as Keesling 2003, p. 10, describes: “It could designate any
 pleasing ornament, or a pleasing ornament dedicated to the
gods. In the fifth century, Herodotus used agalma to refer
specifically to statues, the agalmata par excellence displayed in
the sanctuaries of his time.” M. C. Stieber, The Poetics of
Appearance in the Attic Korai (Austin, TX, 2004), is illuminating
as she probes agalma for the sculptures and their accoutrements
in her discussion of the kore as an agalma for the goddess and
the korai as agalmata in and of themselves. She reminds us that
the term is used of real women in literature (Helen of Troy and
Iphigenia in Aeschylus’s Agamemnon 7.41 and 208,
respectively).↩︎
7. Andrews 1994, p. 6. The literature on amulets, amuletic practice,
magic, and ritual practice in the ancient world is vast. The term
magic is used here in its broadest and most positive sense.
Although M. Dickie and others argue that magic did not exist as a
separate category of thought in Greece before the fifth century
B.C., practices later subsumed under the term did, especially the
use of amulets. The use of amulets implies a continuing
relationship between the object and the wearer, continuing
enactment, and the role of at least one kind of practitioner. Dickie
2001, p. 130, concludes that the existence and wide use of
amulets in Rome by the Late Republic “leads us back into a
hidden world of experts in the rituals of the manufacture and
application of amulets, not to speak of those who sold them.”
Pliny uses three words to describe amber items used in medicine,
protection, and healing: amuletum, monile (for a necklace), and
alligatum, when citing Callistratus. Greek terms for amulet
include periamma and periapta. Following Kotansky 1991, n. 5, I
use amulet to encompass the modern English talisman and also
phylaktērion. The Greek recipes in the Papyri Graecae Magicae
use the latter term.
In early Greece, as elsewhere earlier in the Mediterranean
world, an amulet was applied in conjunction with an incantation,
as Kotansky (ibid.) describes. Incantations required the
participation of skilled practitioners and receptive participants.
Socrates, in Plato’s Republic, lists amulets and incantations as
among the techniques used to heal the sick, a tradition that
continued at least into the Late Antique period. Galen, for
example, sanctions the use of incantations by doctors (Dickie
2001, p. 25, and passim).
Other works invaluable for framing this discussion of amulets
and amber are Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum, vol. 3,
s.v. “magic rituals”; R. Gordon, “Innovation and Authority in
Graeco-Egyptian Magic,” in Kykeon: Studies in Honour of H. S.
Versnel, ed. H. F. J. Horstmannshoff et al. (Leiden, Boston, and
Cologne, 2002), pp. 69–112; S. Marchesini, “Magie in Etrurien in
orientalisierender Zeit,” in Prayon and Röllig 2000, pp. 305–13;
W. Rollig, “Aspekte zum Thema ‘Mythologie und Religion,’” in
Prayon and Röllig 2000, pp. 302–4; Oxford Companion to
Classical Civilization, ed. S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth (Oxford
and New York, 1998), s.v. “magic” (H. S. Versnel), p. 441; P.
Schäfer and H. G. Kippenberg, Envisioning Magic: A Princeton
Seminar and Symposium (Princeton, 1997); Meyer and Mirecki
1995; Pinch 1994, pp. 104–19; Andrews 1994; Wilkinson 1994;
Ritner 1993; Faraone 1992; Faraone 1991; and esp. Kotansky
1991; Gager 1992, pp. 218–42; H. Philipp, Mira et magica:
Gemmen im Ägyptischen Museum der Staatlichen Preussischer
Kulturbesitz, Berlin-Charlottenburg (Mainz, 1986); Bonner 1950;
and S. Seligman, Die magischen Heil- und Schutzmittel aus der
unbelebten Natur mit besonderer Berücksichtung der Mittel
gegen den bösen Blick: Ein Geschichte des Amulettwesens
(Stuttgart, 1927). In Egypt, an amulet could at the very least, as
Andrews 1994, p. 6, summarizes,

afford some kind of magical protection, a concept

confirmed by the fact that three of the four Egyptian
words translate as “amulet,” namely mkt (meket), nht
(nehet) and s3 (sa) come primarily from verbs meaning
“to guard” or “to protect.” The fourth, wd3 (wedja), has
the same sound as the word meaning “well-being.” For the
ancient Egyptian, amulets and jewelry [that] incorporate
 amuletic forms were an essential adornment, especially as
part of the funerary equipment for the dead, but also in
the costume of the living. Moreover, many of the amulets
and pieces of amuletic jewelry worn in life for their magical
properties could be taken to the tomb for use in the life
after death. Funerary amulets, however, and prescribed
funerary jewelry which was purely amuletic in function,
were made expressly for setting on the wrapped mummy
on the day of the burial to provide aid and protection on
the fraught journey to the Other world and ease in the
Afterlife.

In the ancient Near East, the great variety of human problems

handled by recourse to amulets is already well documented in
the Early Dynastic period. See B. L. Goff, Symbols of Prehistoric
Mesopotamia (New Haven and London, 1963), esp. chap. 9, “The
Role of Amulets in Mesopotamian Ritual Texts,” pp. 162–211. The
role of magic as described in Assyro-Babylonian elite literature is
relevant: magic was prescribed and overtly practiced for the
benefit of king, court, and important individuals; it was not
marginal and clandestine; and only noxious witchcraft was
forbidden and prosecuted. See E. Reiner, Astral Magic in
Babylonia (Chicago, 1995).
Keeping in mind the cultural variants of death and burial rituals
in the places and periods under consideration here, there may
have been a considerable lag between death and the readying of
the corpse, including cremation, excarnation, or other
preparations before burial rituals. The production of sumptuary
and ritualistic objects suggests the existence of specialists
(religious-ceremonial or political-ceremonial) who themselves
may have used insignia associated with their positions.↩︎
Bibliography
Andrews 1994
Andrews, C. Amulets of Ancient Egypt. Austin, TX, 1994.

Bonner 1950
Bonner, C. Studies in Magical Amulets, Chiefly Graeco-Egyptian. Ann
Arbor, 1950.

Dickie 2001
Dickie, M. Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World. New
York, 2001.

Faraone 1992
Faraone, C. A. Talismans and Trojan Horses: Guardian Statues in
Ancient Greek Myth and Ritual. New York, 1992.

Faraone 1991
Faraone, C. A. “The Agonistic Context of Early Greek Binding Spells.”
In Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion, edited by C. A.
Faraone and D. Obbink, pp. 3–32. New York, 1991.

Gager 1992
Gager, J. Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World.
New York, 1992.

Keesling 2003
Keesling, C. M. The Votive Statues of the Athenian Acropolis. New
York, 2003.

Kotansky 1991
Kotansky, R. “Incantations and Prayers for Salvation on Inscribed
Greek Amulets.” In Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion,
edited by C. A. Faraone and D. Obbink, pp. 107–37. New York, 1991.
Langdon 1993
Langdon, S., ed. From Pasture to Polis: Art in the Age of Homer. Exh.
cat. Columbia, MO, 1993.

Meyer and Mirecki 1995

Meyer, M., and P. Mirecki, eds. Ancient Magic and Ritual Power.
Leiden, 1995.

Pinch 1994
Pinch, G. Magic in Ancient Egypt. Austin, TX, 1994.

Prayon and Röllig 2000

Prayon, F., and W. Röllig, eds. Akten des Kolloquiums zum Thema
der Orient und Etrurien: Zum Phänomen des “Orientalisierens” im
westlichen Mittelmeerraum (10.–6. Jh. v. Chr.), Tübingen, 12.–13.
Juni 1997. Pisa, 2000.

Ritner 1993
Ritner, R. K. The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice.
Chicago, 1993.

Steiner 2001
Steiner, D. T. Images in Mind: Statues in Archaic and Classical Greek
Literature and Thought. Princeton, 2001.

Wilkinson 1994
Wilkinson, R. H. Symbol and Magic in Egyptian Art. London, 1994.
 Amber Magic?
While magic is probably the one word broad enough
to describe the ancient use of amulets, the modern
public finds the term difficult. As H. S. Versnel puts
it, “One problem is that you cannot talk about magic
without using the term magic.”8

But even if it were possible to draw precise lines of

demarcation between the ancient use of amber for
adornment and its role in healing, between its
reputation for warding off danger and its connection
to certain divinities and cults, such categorizations
would run counter to an understanding of amber in
its wider context. Amber’s beauty and rarity were
evident to an ancient observer, but its magnetic
properties; distinctive, glowing, sunlike color and
liquid appearance; inclusions and luster; and exotic
origins were mysterious and awe-inspiring. Amber’s
fascination and associative value prompted a wide
range of overlapping uses.9 Pliny the Elder, for
instance, put together an impressive list of uses for
amber, including as a medicine for throat problems
and as a charm for protecting babies.10 Diodorus
Siculus noted amber’s role in mourning rituals, and
Pausanias guided visitors to an amber statue of
Augustus at Olympia. The main sources of amber in
antiquity were at the edges of the known world, and
those distant lands generated further rich lore. Myths
and realities of amber’s nature and power influenced
the desire to acquire it. As the historian Joan Evans
has observed, “Rarity, strangeness, and beauty have
in them an inexplicable element and the inexplicable
is always potentially magical.”11 Beliefs about
amber’s mysterious origins and unique physical and
optical properties affected the ways it was used in
antiquity and the forms and subjects into which it
was carved.12

Excavations during the last half century, especially in

Italy, have greatly improved our understanding of
how amber functioned in funerary contexts. The
emerging picture is also enhancing our
understanding of how amber objects were used
before their burial. A number of amber pendants,
including the Getty objects, show signs of wear
(figure 4). Unfortunately, we can only speculate as to
whether the ambers were actually possessions of the
people with whom they were buried, how the objects
were acquired, and in which cultic or other activity
they played a part. There is no written source until
Pliny the Elder, around A.D. 79, to tell us how amber
was used in life (in a religious, medical, magical, or
other context).13 Only a few fragments of
information from early Christian sources add to the
Roman picture. All evidence before Pliny is
archaeological and extrapolated from earlier sources
—from Egypt, the Aegean, the ancient Near East,
and northern Europe. In Egypt, and to a lesser
extent in the ancient Near East, much more is known
about how amuletic jewelry was produced, and by
whom and for whom it was produced. In both
regions, we find instances of amulets specifically
designed for funerary use and of previously owned
amulets continuing their usefulness in the tomb.
Female Head in Profile pendant, Italic, 500–480 B.C. Amber, H: 4.4
cm (17⁄10 in.), W: 3.8 cm (11⁄2 in.), D: 1.6 cm (3⁄5 in). Los Angeles,
J. Paul Getty Museum, 77.AO.81.30. Gift of Gordon McLendon. See
cat. no. 25.

We might also ask how amber pendants in the form

of age-old subjects (goddesses [figure 5], animals, or
solar and lunar symbols) relate to older traditions. In
the ancient Near East, Kim Benzel reminds us,
symbolic jewelry pendants signified emblematic
forms of major deities from as early as the third
millennium B.C.:

Symbols of divinities have a long tradition of

representation in various media throughout the
ancient Near East. They were certainly meant
to be apotropaic, but likely had far greater
efficacy than the purely protective. An emblem
was considered one mode of presencing a
deity.… The power embodied in [such]
ornaments thus would have been analogous to
the power embedded in a cult statue—which is
perhaps why in the later religions, along with
idol worship, jewels were banned.14
Addorsed Females pendant, Etruscan, 600–550 B.C. Amber, H: 4.0
cm (13⁄5 in.), W: 10.2 cm (4 in.), D: 1.3 cm (1⁄2 in.). Los Angeles, J.
Paul Getty Museum, 77.AO.81.1. Gift of Gordon McLendon. See cat.
no. 3.

The subjects of the Getty pre-Roman figured ambers

vary, but without exception, they incorporate a
protective as well as a fertility or regenerative
aspect.15 It is easy to see that the same amulet that
had helped to ensure safe entry into the world of the
living could serve a similar function in smoothing the
transition into the afterworld, or world of the dead.
Many images allude to a journey (figure 6) that the
deceased’s shade, or soul, takes after death, and
these pieces are difficult to see as intended for the
living: these must have been gifts or commissions
specifically for the dead. The ambers that show wear
do not indicate who used them. While there is no
direct evidence as to whether the amulets found in
burials were owned by the deceased during their
lives, it is tempting to assume that this could have
been the case. Were they purchases, part of a
dowry, heirlooms, or other kinds of gifts? Ambers
were made, at some point, for someone, whether
bought on the open market or commissioned to
order. Inscribed Greek magical amulets (lamellae)
“that had been commissioned for specific purposes
(or most feared dangers) came to represent for their
wearer a multivalent protection, a sine qua non for
every activity in life. And in the face of the liminal
dangers of the afterlife passage … this same amulet
that had come to protect all aspects of life would
now be considered crucial in death, the apotropaic
token of the soul.”16

Ship with Figures pendant, Etruscan, 600–575 B.C. Amber, L: 12 cm

(47⁄10 in.), W: 3.5 cm (13⁄8 in.), D: 1 cm (3⁄10 in.). Los Angeles, J.
Paul Getty Museum, 76.AO.76. Gift of Gordon McLendon. See cat.
no. 7.
The wear on many objects is undeniable. Some
amber pendants are both worn and “old-fashioned”
for the context in which they were found, and they
cause us to remember that in antiquity there was a
well-established tradition of gift giving during life and
at the grave.17 Figured ambers, including those in
the Getty collection, may have been worn regularly in
life for permanent protection or benefit; others, on a
temporary basis or in crises, such as childbirth,
illness, or a dangerous journey. Others may have
been grave gifts or offerings to divinities, perhaps to
propitiate underworld deities. In some cases,
deceased girls may have been adorned as brides—a
common aspect of funerary ritual.

How these objects might have functioned in

reference to clanship or other social identities, during
either life or the rituals surrounding death, should
also be considered. Among certain populations, there
might have been a generally accepted role for amber,
in the range of subjects into which it was formed
and/or the objects it embellished. Some subjects
might have been pertinent to clans or larger
communities, in the way that shield emblazons might
be. Some imagery might have been special to family
groups, who may have traced their origins, names,
or even good fortune to a particular deity, animal,
totem, or myth. If an elite person whose family’s
founder was a divinity or Homeric hero was buried
with a ring with an engraved gem representing, say,
Herakles (figure 7), Odysseus, or Athena, might the
same have been done with figured ambers?
Engraved Scarab with Nike Crowning Herakles, Etruscan, 400–380
B.C. Banded agate, H: 1.8 cm (3⁄4 in.), W: 1.4 cm (9⁄16 in.), D: 0.9
cm (3⁄8 in.). Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 85.AN.123.
Another random document with
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 CHAPTER XI.
STARTLING NEWS.

The man who appeared in the ruined temple, in company with

Haidee, and to the astonishment of Lieutenant Harper, was no other
than James Martin, who had escaped the terrific explosion of the
magazine. But for his dress he might have been taken for a native,
as his face was black with smoke and powder.
“I am fulfilling my promise,” said Haidee, “and I have rescued this
man, your countryman. You may be of service to each other.”
“We meet under strange circumstances,” Harper said, as he held out
his hand to Martin, “but I am none the less thankful. We both stand in
imminent peril, and our lives may not be worth many hours’
purchase; but two determined Britishers are a match for an army of
these cowardly wretches.”
“That is so,” answered Martin. “But I do not think my time has come
yet, seeing that I have escaped from twenty deaths already. I was
one of the defenders of the magazine until our lion-hearted
commander ordered it to be blown up. I managed to escape the fiery
storm, and crept into a cavernous hollow formed by a mass of fallen
masonry. I must have been there some hours, for, when I awoke
from a sound sleep, I was ravenously hungry, and, at all hazards,
determined to creep out of my hole and seek for food. It was quite
dark, and I groped about amongst the ruins until I reached the road
leading to the Palace. I walked for some distance, until a voice asked
where I was going to. The voice belonged to this woman, who had
just emerged from one of the private gates leading to the Palace
grounds. At first I thought she was an enemy, and I drew my
revolver, which I had been fortunate enough to retain, although it
was unloaded. Still, an unloaded weapon, I thought, was quite
enough for a woman. ‘Who are you?’ I asked, ‘and why do you stop
my way?’ ‘I am a friend, and I wish to save you,’ she answered. I
could not be mistaken in those tones, I thought. They were too
gentle, too kind, to belong to an enemy. And so, returning my
weapon to my belt, I extended my hand to her, and said, ‘I trust
myself entirely to you; lead me where you like.’ ‘I will lead you to
safety, and to a countryman of yours, who is dear to me,’ she
answered. And here I am.”
Haidee had remained silent during Martin’s speech. Her head was
bent and her arms folded. Harper crossed to where she stood, and
took her hands. The scarlet flush of morn was in the sky, and as it
tinged her beautiful face, he saw that her brows were knit, and her
teeth set, as if in anger.
“Haidee,” he said gently, “words cannot thank you for what you have
done; I am already heavily indebted to you. How can I discharge that
debt?”
“I need no thanks,” she answered. “Haidee is true to her promise; but
my heart is heavy, for he who should have come with me now is
gone.”
“Do you refer to Moghul Singh?” asked Harper, in some
astonishment, and not without a slight feeling of pleasure. For,
though Singh was a double-dyed traitor, Harper did not like the
thought of having to act the part of a private assassin.
“To whom else should I refer?”
“How comes it then that he has gone?”
“He has gone by order of the King.”
“Ah! is that so? Where has he gone to?” Harper queried in alarm, for
the thought occurred to him that the man had departed to convey the
signal for a rising in some other place.
“He has gone to Cawnpore.”
“To Cawnpore!”
“Yes, and for Haidee’s sake you must follow him.”
“Nay, that cannot be,” Harper answered, with ill-concealed alarm.
“Cannot be—cannot be!” she repeated, in astonishment, and
drawing herself up until their eyes met. “Are my wrongs, then, so
soon forgotten?”
“Not so, Haidee; but you forget that I am a soldier. My first duty is to
my Queen and country, and that duty must not be neglected in my
desire to redress private wrongs. I bear for you all the feeling a man
of honour should have for an injured woman; but I cannot—dare not
—go to Cawnpore.”
“Cannot—dare not!” she echoed, in astonishment, letting his hands
fall; “and is ‘dare not’ part of a soldier’s creed? Sits there a craven
fear in your heart?”
“No,” he cried, his face burning at the suggestion. “For I have none;
but I hold that my honour should be the paramount consideration. I
can die, but I cannot sacrifice that which is dearer than life to a true
soldier—honour.”
“You wrong me,” she answered passionately. “I have made no such
request; but I have saved your life—I have given you liberty. You
have my heart; I ask but one service in return.”
“And that service I would have rendered if Moghul Singh had been
here, for he is a traitor, and an enemy to my race and country.
Moreover, I have a personal wrong to settle, because he betrayed
me, subjected me to gross indignity, and would have slain me. But
for a time he escapes retribution. I cannot follow him. The moment I
stand outside of these city walls a free man again, I must hurry back
to my regiment. Failing to do that, I should be branded as a
deserter.”
“I comprehend now,” she cried, throwing herself at his feet. “I had
forgotten that, and you must forgive me. Never more can happiness
be mine. Into the dust I bow my head, for the light of my eyes will go
with you. Poor Haidee will set you free. When night closes in again
she will lead you and your countryman clear of the city; then we must
part—never, never to meet again.”
He raised her up gently, and passed his arm soothingly around her
waist, for she was terribly agitated, and shook like a wind-tossed
reed.
“Do not say that we shall never meet again, Haidee. Chance may
bring me back here, and if I escape the many deaths which
encompass a soldier at a time like this, we shall meet. But even
though I may not come to you, you can at least come to me.”
“Haidee would gladly live in the light of your eyes; but if I can hold no
place in your heart, we must part for ever.”
Harper struggled with his feelings. He was on the horns of a
dilemma, and the way out of the difficulty did not seem straight. His
arm was still around Haidee. He felt her warm breath on his cheek,
and heard the throbbing of her heart. Her upturned eyes were full of
an ineffable expression of love, of trust, of hope—hope in him. How
could he wither that hope—misplace that trust? How could he leave
her in the city at the mercy of the treacherous King? As he thought of
these things, he wished that she had never opened his prison door,
but had left him to meet death alone. For cold, indeed, would have
been his nature, and stony his heart, if he had not felt the influence
of her great beauty. To look into her face was to feel sorely tempted
to cast his fortunes on the hazard of the die, and sacrifice all for this
woman’s sake. But the inward voice of conscience kept him back.
Wife, country, honour, were in the scale, and they must have weight
against all other considerations. “No,” he thought, “rather than I
would be branded with the name of traitor, I will walk boldly forth into
the heart of the city, and bare my breast to the insurgents’ bullets.”
A deep sigh from Haidee called him back to a sense of his position.
He led her to the stone seat, and said kindly—
“Why do you sigh? I know it is the language of the heart, when the
heart is sad; but, have hope; brighter days may be dawning, and in
your own lovely valleys you may yet know happiness and peace.”
She turned upon him almost fiercely, and her eyes flashed with
passion.
“Do you mock me? Why do you speak to me of peace and
happiness? Would you tear the panther from its young, and tell it to
pine not? Would you torture the sightless by stories of the beautiful
flowers, of the glittering stars, of the bright sun? Would you bid the
dove be gay when its mate was killed? If you would not do these
things, why bid my heart rejoice when it is sad? why talk to me of
peace, when peace is for ever flown? But why should I speak of my
wrongs? Even now, Moghul Singh is on his way to Cawnpore, to
bring back one of your own countrywomen.”
“To bring back one of my countrywomen!” cried Harper in
astonishment. “What do you mean?”
“Yesterday, there came from Meerut, a man by the name of Jewan
Bukht. He brought with him, as captive, an Englishwoman—young
and beautiful.”
Harper’s nerves thrilled as the thought flashed through his brain that
this Englishwoman could be no other than Miss Meredith; for Walter
Gordon had told him what he had learnt from Flora with reference to
Jewan Bukht. He almost feared to ask the question that rose to his
lips, and not without a struggle did he do so.
“Her name—did you learn her name—Haidee?”
“No.”
“What was Bukht’s object in bringing her here?”
“He is in the pay of Nana Sahib, but is also an agent for the King. He
thought to remain here, in the Palace, where he has relations; but,
on arrival, an imperative order was waiting him, that he was instantly
to depart for Cawnpore: and he lost no time in hurrying away. When
he had gone, the King heard of Jewan’s captive, and of her beauty,
and he commanded Singh to follow, with a band of retainers, and
bring the woman back. Long before Singh can overtake him, Bukht
will have arrived in Cawnpore; and when Singh gets there, it is
doubtful if he can return, owing to the vigilance of the English.”
When Haidee had finished her revelations, Harper entertained no
doubt that Jewan Bukht’s unfortunate captive was Flora Meredith,
and that being so, the first question that suggested itself to him was,
whether he was not justified in attempting her rescue.
“Haidee!” he said, “from what you state, I have every reason to
believe that the lady carried off by Jewan is a relation of mine, and
that it is my duty to follow her.”
“Your duty to follow her?” Haidee repeated mournfully. “When I
spoke of your following the craven-hearted Moghul Singh, you
replied that it could not be, and yet this man is an enemy to your
race, and has slaughtered with exultant ferocity many of your
countrymen! But now you proclaim your readiness to throw to the
wind all those scruples which applied to him in favour of the woman!
You speak in parables, and poor Haidee in her ignorance
understands you not. Only her heart tells her this: she holds but little
place in your thoughts.”
“Ah, Haidee, how you wrong me! Your reproaches are undeserved.
However great the number of my faults, ingratitude is certainly not
one of them. How can I forget the services you have rendered to
me? how forget the great wrongs that you yourself have suffered?
But the laws of our two nations are different. Society in my country is
governed by a code of rules, that no man must depart from who
would not have his reputation blasted. I hold a commission in the
service of my Queen. Would you have me sully my name by an act
that I could never justify to my superiors?”
“To what do you refer?” she asked with startling energy. “Sooner
than I would counsel you to dishonour, sooner than I would bring
shame upon you, this little weapon should be stained with my own
heart’s blood!”
As she spoke she drew quickly, from the folds of her dress, a small,
glittering stiletto, and held it aloft, so that the glow of the now rising
sun made red its gleaming blade. Fearing that she meant mischief,
Martin, who had been a silent witness of the scene, darted forward
and caught her hand. She turned upon him with a look of sorrow,
and said—
“Do not fear. The women of my country hold honour as dear as those
of your own. I said the weapon should find my heart sooner than I
would bring shame on the head of your countryman, and that I will
never do.”
Martin released his hold and drew back respectfully, for there was
something so touchingly sorrowful in her tone, and yet so majestic,
that both her listeners were deeply impressed.
“Yours is a noble nature,” said Harper. “It is that of a true woman’s,
and it is the differences in our nationalities only that cause us to
misunderstand each other.”
“Why should there be any misunderstanding? A Cashmere woman
never forgets a kindness, she never forgives an injury; and there is
one wrong, which, when once inflicted upon her, only the death of
the wronger can atone for. Were I back amongst my own people,
those of them in whose veins runs my family’s blood would band
themselves together to avenge me, and they would never rest until
they had tracked down and smitten the foul reptile who found me as
a lily, fair and bright, who plucked me with a ruthless hand, who
befouled me, and robbed me of treasures that have no price, and
then flung me away, a broken, friendless woman.”
“You can never say with truth,” answered Harper, “that you are
friendless while the life-blood warms my veins. By everything that I
hold dear, I pledge myself to use every endeavour to protect you,
and set you right again.”
His words were like magic to her. They touched her and sank to
those hidden springs whence flowed gentleness, love, and truth. As
she stood there before him, the very embodiment of womanly grace
and beauty, it would have been hard indeed for a stranger to have
imagined that in her breast rankled one feeling of hatred. How could
he stay the invisible electric fire which passed from him to her, and
from her to him, and drew both together, even as the needle is drawn
to the magnet? Human nature is the same now as it was when time
began, as it will be until time ends. Each of these two beings felt the
influence of the other. She was taken captive, bound with chains that
galled not, and filled with the ineffable sense of adoration for one
who had suddenly risen before her as a worldly god, from whom she
would draw hope, peace, happiness, and life, and that being so, she
was willing to bow down and yield herself as his slave. And he,
deeply sensible to her great beauty, and pitying her for her sorrows,
felt like a knight of old would have done, whose watchword was
“Chivalry,”—that he must champion her for the all-sufficient reason
that she was a woman, defenceless and alone.
Whatever scruples he might have entertained at first, he felt now that
he was justified in using every endeavour to rescue Flora Meredith,
and that he would be serving his country loyally in following Moghul
Singh with a view of bringing him to justice.
“Haidee,” he said, after a pause, “I will go to Cawnpore.”
“That is bravely spoken,” she answered, her face beaming with a
look of joy; “and you may be able to render good service there by
putting your countrymen on their guard? for I know that the Nana
Sahib but waits a fitting opportunity to give the signal for a rising.”
“But are you not wrong in supposing that the Nana Sahib is false?
He has ever proved himself a courteous and kindly gentleman to the
English, and I am impressed with the idea that at the present
moment Cawnpore is a safe refuge.”
“Dismiss all such ideas,” she answered, with energy. “Do you judge
the nature of a leopard by the beauty of his spots? I tell you, that in
all the Indian jungles there stalks not a tiger whose instincts are
more savage, or whose thirst for blood is more intense, than this
smooth-faced, smiling Nana Sahib. Ever since the return of his
agent, Azimoolah, from England, whose mission to your Queen
failed, the Nana has cherished in his heart an undying hatred for
your race. Often has he visited this city in disguise to confer with the
King, and for years they have been organising this revolt. I tell you
that Nana Sahib is a demon, capable of performing deeds that the
world would shudder at.”
“This is strange and startling news, Haidee,” cried Harper, in
astonishment, “and doubly justifies my journey to Cawnpore. The
division is commanded by one of the Company’s Generals, Sir Hugh
Wheeler, and I shall consider it my duty to apprise him of the
treacherous nature of the Nana. I appeal to you, comrade,” he said,
turning to Martin, “and shall be glad of your advice.”
Martin was a man of few words. He had proved his reticence by
refraining from taking any part in the conversation between Haidee
and Harper.
“Go,” was the monosyllabic answer.
“Good. And you?”
“I will, when once outside of these walls, make my way to Meerut.”
“Excellent idea,” cried Harper, as a new thought struck him. “You can
not only report me, but render me a personal service. My wife is
stationed there; visit her, and inform her of my safety.”
“I will make that a duty. But what is your name?”
“Charles Harper, lieutenant in the Queen’s —— regiment. And
yours?”
“James Martin, late engineer in the Delhi Arsenal, now a homeless,
penniless waif, saved from an appalling storm of fire, but everything I
possessed in the world lost through the destruction of the magazine.”
“But you yourself saved for some good end, Mr. Martin,” Harper
replied, as he took his hand and shook it warmly.
“Saved so far,” joined in Haidee; “but there are terrible risks yet to
run before you are safe. When darkness has fallen I will endeavour
to guide you clear of the city—till then, farewell. I must hurry away
now, or I may be missed.”
She caught the hand of Harper and pressed it to her lips, and,
bidding Martin adieu, was soon speeding through the avenue of
banyan trees towards the Palace, and the two men were left to
discuss the situation alone.
 CHAPTER XII.
WAKING DREAMS.

To Harper and Martin it was weary waiting through that long day.
They dozed occasionally, but suspense and anxiety kept them from
enjoying any lengthened or sound sleep.
Occasionally sounds of firing, and yells of riotous mobs reached
them, but nothing to indicate that an action was being sustained in
the city.
In fact, with the massacre of the Europeans, and the destruction of
the magazine, there was nothing for the mutineers to do but to
quarrel amongst themselves and to bury their dead.
The city was in their hands. Its almost exhaustless treasures, its
priceless works of art, its fabulous wealth, were all at the disposal of
the murderous mob.
And never, in the annals of history, was city sacked with such
ruthless vandalism, or such ferocious barbarity. Some of the most
beautiful buildings were levelled to the ground from sheer
wantonness. Costly fabrics were brought out and trampled in the
dust, and the streets ran red with wine.
All the gates were closed, the guards were set. And for a time the
hypocritical and treacherous old King believed that his power was
supreme, and that the English were verily driven out of India.
But he did not look beyond the walls of his city. Had he and his
hordes of murderers cared to have turned their eyes towards the
horizon of the future, they might have seen the mailed hand of the
English conqueror, which, although it could be warded off for a little
while, would ultimately come down with crushing effect on the black
races.
Perhaps they did see this, and, knowing that their power was short-
lived, they made the most of it.
As the day waned, Harper and his companion began to gaze
anxiously in the direction of the avenue, along which they expected
Haidee to come.
The narrow limits of their hiding-place, and the enforced
confinement, were irksome in the extreme, and they were both
willing to run many risks for the sake of gaining their liberty.
“That is a strange woman,” said Martin, as he sat on a stone, and
gazed thoughtfully up to the waving palm boughs.
“Who?” asked Harper abruptly, for he had been engaged in
cogitations, but Haidee had formed no part of them.
“Who? why, Haidee,” was the equally abrupt answer.
“In what way do you consider she is strange?” Harper queried,
somewhat pointedly.
“Well, it is not often an Oriental woman will risk her life for a
foreigner, as she is doing for you.”
“But she has personal interests to serve in so doing.”
“Possibly; but they are of secondary consideration.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes. There is a feeling in her breast stronger and more powerful
than her hatred for the King or Moghul Singh.”
“What feeling is that?”
“Love.”
“Love! For whom?”
“For you.”
“Well, I must confess that she plainly told me so,” laughed Harper;
“but I thought very little about the matter, although at the time I was
rather astonished.”
“I can understand that. But, however lightly you may treat the matter,
it is a very serious affair with her.”
“But what authority, my friend, have you for speaking so definitely?”
“The authority of personal experience. I spent some years in
Cashmere, attached to the corps of a surveying expedition. The
women there are full of romantic notions. They live in a land that is
poetry itself. They talk in poetry. They draw it in with every breath
they take. Their idiosyncrasies are peculiar to themselves, for I never
found the same characteristics in any other nation’s women. They
are strangely impetuous, strong in their attachments, true to their
promises. And the one theme which seems to be the burden of their
lives is love.”
“And a very pretty theme too,” Harper remarked.
“When once they have placed their affections,” Martin went on,
without seeming to notice the interruption, “they are true to the
death. And if the object dies, it is seldom a Cashmere woman loves
again. But when they do, the passion springs up, or rather, is
instantly re-awakened. There are some people who affect to sneer at
what is called ‘love at first sight.’ Well, I don’t pretend to understand
much about the mysterious laws of affinity, but the women of
Cashmere are highly-charged electrical machines. The latent power
may lie dormant for a long time, until the proper contact is made—
then there is a flash immediately; and, from that moment, their hearts
thrill, and throb, and yearn for the being who has set the power in
motion.”
“But you don’t mean to say that I have aroused such a feeling in
Haidee’s breast?”
“I do mean to say so.”
“Poor girl!” sighed Harper, “that is most unfortunate for her.”
“She is worthy of your sympathy, as she is of your love.”
“But you forget that I have a wife.”
“No, I do not forget that. I mean, that if you were free, she is a worthy
object.”
“But even if I were single, I could not marry this woman.”
“Could not; why not?”
“What! marry a Cashmere woman?”
“Yes; is there anything so outré in that? You would not be the first
Englishman who has done such a thing. Why, I have known
Britishers mate with North American Indian women before now.”
“True; but still the idea of Haidee being my wife is such a novel one
that I cannot realise it.”
“The heart is a riddle; and human affections are governed by no
fixed laws.”
“But really, Martin, we are discussing this matter to no purpose. If
Haidee entertains any such passion as that you speak of, it is
unfortunate.”
“It is, indeed, unfortunate for her, because if her love is
unreciprocated she will languish and die.”
“What do you mean?” asked Harper sharply, and with a touch of
indignation. “Surely you would not counsel me to be dishonourable
to my wife?”
“God forbid. You misjudge me if you think so. I speak pityingly of
Haidee. It is no fault of yours if she has made you the star that must
henceforth be her only light. What I have told you are facts, and you
may live to prove them so!”
Harper did not reply. His companion’s words had set him pondering.
There was silence between the two men, as if they had exhausted
the subject, and none other suggested itself to them. The short
twilight had faded over the land, the dark robe of night had fallen. It
was moonless, even the stars were few, for the queen of night
appeared in sullen humour. There were heavy masses of clouds
drifting through the heavens, and fitful gusts of wind seemed to
presage a storm. The boughs of the overhanging palms rustled
savagely, and the child-like cry of the flying foxes sounded weirdly.
There was that in the air which told that nature meant war. And
sitting there with the many strange sounds around them, and only
the glimmer of the stars to relieve the otherwise perfect darkness,
what wonder that these two men should dream even as they
watched and waited.
Martin had bowed his head in his hands again. Possibly his nerves
had not recovered from the shock of the awful fiery storm that had
swept over his head but a short time before; and he felt, even as he
had said, that he was a waif. Like unto the lonely mariner who rises
to the surface after his ship has gone down into the depths beneath
him, and as he gazes mournfully around, he sees nothing but the
wild waters, which in their savage cruelty had beaten the lives out of
friends and companions, but left him, his destiny not being yet
completed—left him for some strange purpose.
Harper was gazing upward—upward to where those jewels of the
night glittered. He had fixed his eye upon one brighter than the rest.
Martin’s words seemed to ring in his ears—“It is no fault of yours if
she has made you the star that must henceforth be her only light.”
And that star appeared to him, not as a star, but as Haidee’s face,
with its many changing expressions. Her eyes, wonderful in their
shifting lights, seemed to burn into his very soul. And a deep and
true pity for this beautiful woman took possession of him; poets have
said that “pity is akin to love.” If no barrier had stood between him
and her, what course would he have pursued? was a question that
suggested itself to him. Martin had spoken of the mysterious laws of
affinity; they were problems too abstruse to be dwelt upon then. But
Harper knew that they existed; he felt that they did. How could he
alter them? Could he stay the motes from dancing in the sunbeam?
He might shut out the beam, but the motes would still be there. So
with this woman; though he might fly from her to the farthest ends of
the earth, her haunting presence would still be with him. He knew
that; but why should it be so? He dare not answer the question; for
when an answer would have shaped itself in his brain, there came
up another face and stood between him and Haidee’s. It was his
wife’s face. He saw it as it appeared on the night when he left Meerut
on his journey to Delhi—full of sorrow, anxiety, and terror on his
account; and he remembered how she clung to him, hung around his
neck, and would not let him go until—remembering she was a
soldier’s wife—she released him with a blessing, and bade him go
where duty called. And as he remembered this he put up a silent
prayer to the Great Reader of the secrets of all hearts that he might
be strengthened in his purpose, and never swerve from the narrow
way of duty and honour.
The dreams of the dreamers were broken. The visionary was
displaced by the reality, and Haidee stood before them. She had
come up so stealthily that they had not heard her approach. Nor
would they have been conscious that she was there if she had not
spoken, for the darkness revealed nothing, and even the stars were
getting fewer as the clouds gathered.
“Are you ready?” she asked, in a low tone.
“Yes, yes,” they both answered, springing from their seats, and
waking once more to a sense of their true position.
“Take this,” she said, as she handed Harper a large cloak to hide his
white shirt, for it will be remembered that his uniform had been
stripped from him. “And here is a weapon—the best I could procure.”
She placed in his hand a horse-pistol and some cartridges. “Let us
go; but remember that the keenest vigilance is needed. The enemy
is legion, and death threatens us at every step.”
Harper wrapped the cloak round him, and, loading the pistol, thrust it
into his belt.
“I am ready,” he said.
She drew close to him. She took his hand, and bringing her face
near to his, murmured—
“Haidee lives or dies for you.”
The silent trio went out into the darkness of the night. Heavy rain-
drops were beginning to patter down. The wind was gaining the
strength of a hurricane. Then the curtain of the sky seemed to be
suddenly rent by a jagged streak of blue flame, that leapt from
horizon to horizon, and was followed by a crashing peal of thunder
that reverberated with startling distinctness.
“Fortune is kind,” whispered Haidee; “and the storm will favour our
escape.”
Scarcely had the words left her lips than a shrill cry of alarm sounded
close to their ears, and Harper suddenly found himself held in a vice-
like grip.
 CHAPTER XIII.
FOR LIBERTY AND LIFE.

The cry of alarm that startled the fugitives came from a powerful
Sepoy, and it was his arms that encircled Harper.
“Traitorous wretch!” said the man, addressing Haidee; “you shall die
for this. I saw you leave the Palace, and, suspecting treachery,
followed you.” And again the man gave tongue, with a view of calling
up his comrades.
He had evidently miscalculated the odds arrayed against him. Martin
was a few yards in front, but realising the position in an instant,
sprang back to the assistance of his companion. Then ensued a
fierce struggle. The man was a herculean fellow, and retained his
hold of Harper. Martin was also powerful, but he could not get a grip
of the Sepoy, who rolled over and over with the officer, all the while
giving vent to loud cries.
“We are lost, we are lost, unless that man’s cry is stopped!” Haidee
moaned, wringing her hands distractedly; then getting near to Martin,
she whispered—
“In your comrade’s belt is a dagger; get it—quick.”
The Sepoy heard these words, and tightened his grasp, if that were
possible, on Harper’s arms, and rolled over and over with him, crying
the while with a stentorian voice.
Not a moment was to be lost. There was no time for false sentiment
or considerations of mercy. Martin, urged to desperation, flung
himself on the struggling men, and getting his hand on the throat of
the Sepoy, pressed his fingers into the windpipe, while with the other
hand he sought for Harper’s belt. He felt the dagger. He drew it out
with some difficulty. He got on his knees, his left hand on the fellow’s
throat. As the three struggled, the Sepoy’s back came uppermost.
It was Martin’s chance. He raised his hand, the next moment the
dagger was buried between the shoulders of the native, who, with a
gurgling cry, released his grip, and Harper was free.
As he rose to his feet, breathless with the struggle, Haidee seized
his hand, and kissing it with frantic delight, whispered—“The Houris
are good. The light of my eyes is not darkened. You live. Life of my
life. Come, we may yet escape.” She made known her thanks to
Martin by a pressure of the hand.
Another brilliant flash of lightning showed them the stilled form of the
Sepoy. A deafening crash of thunder followed, and the rain came
down in a perfect deluge.
The storm was a friend indeed, and a friend in need. It no doubt
prevented the cry of the now dead man from reaching those for
whom it was intended, as, in such a downpour, no one would be
from under a shelter who could avoid it.
The howling of the wind, and the heavy rattle of the rain, drowned
the noise of their footsteps.
Drenched with the rain, her long hair streaming in the wind, Haidee
sped along, followed by the two men. She led them down the avenue
of banyans, and then turning off into a patch of jungle, struck into a
narrow path. The lightning played about the trees—the rain rattled
with a metallic sound on the foliage—heaven’s artillery thundered
with deafening peals.
Presently she came to a small gateway. She had the key; the lock
yielded.
“There is a guard stationed close to here,” she whispered: “we must
be wary.”
They passed through the gateway. The gate was closed. They were
in a large, open, treeless space. Across this they sped. The lightning
was against them here, for it rendered them visible to any eyes that
might be watching.
But the beating rain and the drifting wind befriended them. The open
space was crossed in safety.
“We are clear of the Palace grounds,” Haidee said, as she led the
way down a narrow passage; and in a few minutes they had gained
the walls of the city.
“We must stop here,” whispered the guide, as she drew Harper and
Martin into the shadow of a buttress. “A few yards farther on is a
gate, but we can only hope to get through it by stratagem. I am
unknown to the guard. This dress will not betray me. I will tell them
that I live on the other side of the river, and that I have been detained
in the city. I will beg of them to let me out. You must creep up in the
shadow of this wall, ready to rush out in case I succeed. The signal
for you to do so shall be a whistle.” She displayed a small silver
whistle as she spoke, which hung around her neck by a gold chain.
She walked out boldly now, and was followed by the two men, who,
however, crept along stealthily in the shadow of the wall. They
stopped as they saw that she had reached the gate. They heard the
challenge given, and answered by Haidee. In a few minutes a flash
of lightning revealed the presence of two Sepoys only. Haidee was
parleying with them. At first they did not seem inclined to let her go.
They bandied coarse jokes with her, and one of them tried to kiss
her. There was an inner and an outer gate. In the former was a door
that was already opened. Through this the two soldiers and Haidee
passed, and were lost sight of by the watchers, who waited in
anxious suspense. Then they commenced to creep nearer to the
gateway, until they stood in the very shadow of the arch; but they
could hear nothing but the wind and rain, and the occasional
thunder. The moments hung heavily now. Could Haidee have failed?
they asked themselves. Scarcely so, for she would have re-
appeared by this time. As the two men stood close together, each
might have heard the beating of the other’s heart. It was a terrible
moment. They knew that their lives hung upon a thread, and that if