“Yes,” Kit answered, hurrying to meet him. His noisy entourage moved with him. “Two Englishmen. They came here a few days ago. Did you see them?”
The camel driver waded into the throng and, with a word and a flick of his camel whip here and there, instantly scattered the begging children. They ran to catch up with the tour group just now entering the temple. “Old men,” said the Egyptian.
“Yes,” confirmed Kit. “Old men-two of them. One was a big man, tall, with wavy white hair.” He rippled his fingers over his head to demonstrate. “The other had reddish hair and a pointed beard.” His fingers stroked an imaginary goatee on his chin. “They were wearing dark clothes-black coats.” He patted his own shirt and breeches. “Did you see them?”
“Yes. Them I see.”
“Do you know where they went? Can you show us where they went?”
“Why you want knowing this?”
“They are our friends. We were meant to meet them here.”
“They are bad men,” said the camel driver, and spat.
“No,” countered Kit quickly. “No, please-they are good men. But they may be in trouble. Bad men were following them. We have come to help.”
The Egyptian considered this, his crinkled eyes examining Kit and his companions. “I take you.”
Turning to Lady Fayth and Giles, Kit shouted, “He has seen them. He says he’ll take us to them.”
“Fifty dirhams,” added the driver.
“Ah, yes,” said Kit. “Wait here.” Returning to his companions, he said, “I need some coins-a few crowns should do it.”
“Sir Henry and Cosimo-the fellow knows where they are?” said Giles as he stooped to remove a satchel from the bundle he carried. “He has seen them?”
“And he’ll take us to them?” questioned Lady Fayth.
“That’s what he says,” replied Kit. Taking the purse from Giles’s hand, he opened it and poured out a handful of coins, took up two of the larger silver ones, and passed back the rest. “This should do it.”
He crossed to the camel driver and held up the two coins. “This one to take us to find our friends,” said Kit, handing the coin to the driver. “And this one when we have found them.” He returned the second coin to his pocket. “Agreed?”
The Egyptian whipped the coin out of sight and made a little bow. “I am Yusuf,” he said. “We go now.” He turned and started toward the line of kneeling camels.
Kit called to the others, “Come on! He’s taking us now.”
They shouldered their bundles and hurried to join their guide and were soon clambering up onto the awkwardly sloping backs of three camels. Yusuf commandeered a donkey from one of the lads and without so much as a backward glance, they were soon jolting off along the avenue of sphinxes and into the desert. Of the three travellers, Giles most quickly mastered the odd swinging, lurching gait of their long-legged mounts, and Lady Fayth soon caught the knack; Kit, however, could not quite adjust to the jerky, undulating sway and resigned himself to an uncomfortable-and very smelly-ride. The camels, all but silent on their flat, padded feet, passed along a low rise of dust-coloured hills; away to the west, tawny dunes of sand undulated like the waves of a stationary sea.
The sun rose higher, growing steadily hotter beneath a cloudless sky. The line of hills stretched into the distance, disappearing into the silver shimmer of the burgeoning heat haze. It was not long before Kit began wishing he had thought to bring a hat-and a canteen filled with something cool and refreshing. It was an unfortunate thought, because once it had entered his head, it quickly passed from idle fancy into fixation. The more he thought about it, the more it grew to occupy his mind, filling it and driving out all other thoughts. He began to feel as if his mouth were stuffed with cotton and his throat made of tree bark; his vision became rimmed and distorted as if he were peering through cheap binoculars.
“Sir?” Kit became aware of someone calling him. “Kit, sir?”
He turned his head to see that Giles had reined up beside him. “Hmm?”
“Are you well, sir?”
“I’m fine.” Kit swallowed. “A little thirsty is all.”
“I fear, sir, that we forgot to bring any water.”
“I know. We’ll just have to wait.” Urging his mount forward, he came abreast of their guide. “Is it much farther?” he asked.
The swarthy Egyptian pointed to the rock-rimmed hills. “There,” he said. “Not far.”
Turning around on his saddle, Kit called back to Giles and Lady Fayth. “He says we’re almost there.”
Lady Fayth, shielding her face with her hand, nodded grimly.
They rode on a little longer, and then, quite unexpectedly, turned toward the same shattered hills the guide had indicated. As they approached the base of the nearest hill, they saw what appeared to be little more than a crease open out onto the desert. Yusuf turned into the crevice and, riding single file, they proceeded into a channel between two sheer rock walls-a wadi cut into the soft stone by the abundant rains of a much younger world. The air was dead still inside the wadi, but at least the high walls afforded significant shade; it was cooler at the bottom of the gulch, and Kit felt himself revive. They came to a place where the gap between the walls widened, and here their guide halted. “We leave the animals,” he said. “We walk from here.”
Kit wasted not an instant scrambling down from his disagreeable perch and hurried to their guide. “We need some water,” he said.
“There is a well,” replied Yusuf. “I take you.”
After securing the beasts, they gathered their gear and started down the wadi, soon arriving at a place where the walls flattened slightly, and there, in a fissure at the base of one wall, a deep pit had been hollowed in the solid rock; the pit was covered by a stone that, after it had been removed, revealed the end of a rope of braided hemp. Yusuf pulled on the rope, and up came a leather bucket dripping with water. The liquid was tepid, but fresh enough, and they all slaked their thirst. Kit was last to drink. “Everyone okay?” he asked, passing the bucket back to their guide. He thanked him and asked, “How much farther?”
“We walk a little,” replied Yusuf. Taking a water skin from one of the camels, he filled it and passed it to Kit. “This way.”
They followed the gently meandering course of the ancient gully as it cut deeper into the arid hills. The sheer walls of banded rock soared on either hand; sometimes their tops were so high they could not be seen from the bottom. They passed beneath low overhangs and around long curving bends-so many that Kit lost count-until Yusuf finally stopped and said in a low voice, “We must climb.” The three looked around; they were standing at a crossroads of sorts where a smaller branch joined the larger. The walls here were lower, and much eroded. In looking at the broken walls, they saw that a set of narrow steps had been carved into the rock face on one side. Yusuf started up, gesturing for the others to follow.
They reached the top and proceeded overland along a crumbling, much eroded goat track that ran along the edge of the wadi. Yusuf led them to a spindly acacia tree and stopped. “They are down there,” he said, indicating the wadi floor. “I stop here.” He held out his hand for his second coin.
“We thank you, Yusuf. If we have need of your camels again, I will look for you.”
“A’salaamu ’alaykum,” said Yusuf, turning to go. The Egyptian paused, then, glancing back over his shoulder added, “Be careful, my friends. They are bad men.”
“Do you know how many are down there?”
Yusuf thought for a moment, then held up four fingers. “May Allah the Merciful be with you,” he said as he hurried away.
Giles glanced around the barren clifftop, then turned to Kit. “What is your pleasure, sir?” he asked, unslinging his bundle.
“Let’s have a look down there and see what we can see,” suggested Kit. “Stay out of sight and keep quiet.”
“If you please,” remarked Lady Fayth, “we are not children. Kindly refrain from treating us so.”
“Sorry.” Kit turned towards the gaping crevasse. “Let’s take a look.”
They moved to the edge of the cliff, crawling the last few feet on hands and knees and then squirming on their stomachs to peer down onto the wadi floor fifty or sixty feet below, where to their wondering eyes appeared the chiselled statues of Thoth and Horus standing either side of a doorway cut into the solid rock of the canyon wall
