Then suddenly he withdrew his hand, raised it high above his head--and a grey pigeon swept low over the desert, rose up and up, higher and higher! It circled once, twice, three times. Then, straight as an arrow it set out... undoubtedly bound for the Oasis of Kharga!
'Very clever,' said Nayland Smith grimly. 'We shall therefore be expected. I might have guessed she wouldn't be taken unawares. But it confirms my theory. '
'What theory?' Petrie asked.
'That to-night is a very special occasion at the house of the Sheikh Ismail! '
'We're running into a trap,' said Weymouth. 'Now that we know beyond any doubt that we're expected, what are our chances? It's true there's a railway to this place--but it's rarely used. The people of the oases have never been trustworthy--so that our nearest help will be a hundred and fifty miles off!'
Smith nodded. He got out and joined me where I stood beside the car, loading and lighting his pipe. He began to walk up and down, glancing alternately at me, at Weymouth, and at Dr. Petrie. I knew what he was thinking and I didn't interrupt him. He was wondering if he was justified in risking our lives on so desperate a venture; weighing the chances of what success might mean to the world against our chances of coming out of the job alive. Suddenly: 'What's the alternative?' he snapped, peering at Weymouth.
'There isn't one that I can think of. '
'What do you say, Petrie?'
Petrie shrugged his shoulders.
'I hadn't foreseen this,' he confessed. 'But now that it's happened...'
He left the sentence unfinished.
'Get the map out, Greville,' Nayland Smith rapped.... 'Here, on the ground.'
I dived into the front of the car and pulled out the big map.
This we spread on the gravelly path, keeping it flat by placing stones on its comers. Weymouth and Petrie alighted; and the four of us bent over the map.
'Ah!' Nayland Smith exclaimed and rested his finger on a certain spot. 'That's the danger area, isn't it, Greville? That's where we might crash? '
'We might!' I replied grimly. 'It's a series of hairpin bends and sheer precipices, at some points fourteen hundred feet up.... '
'That's where they'll be waiting for us!' said Nayland Smith.
'Good God!' Petrie exclaimed.
I exchanged glances with Weymouth. The expression in his blue eyes was enigmatical.
'Do you agree with me?' rapped Smith.
'Entirely. '
'In short, gentlemen,' he went on, 'if we pursue our present route it's certain we shall never reach el- Kharga.'
There was an interval of silence; then: 'We might easily break down before we get to the hills,' I said slowly. 'No one at the other end would be the wiser, except that we should never enter the danger zone. Now'--I bent and moved my finger over the map--'at this point, as you see, the old caravan road from Dongola to Egypt is only about thirty miles off. It's the Path of the Forty, formerly used by slave caravans from Central Africa. If we could find our way across to it, we might approach Kharga from the south, below the village marked Bulag--it means a detour of forty or fifty miles, even if we can do it. But...'
Nayland Smith clapped me on the shoulder.
'You've solved the problem, Greville!' he said. 'Nothing like knowledge of the geog- raphy of a district when one's in difficulties. We're in luck if we make it before dusk. But how shall we recognise the Path of the Forty? '
'By the bleached bones,' I replied.
3
Sunset dropped its thousand veils over the desert. The hills and wadis of its desolate expanses passed from a glow of gold through innumerable phases of red. We saw crags that looked yellow under a sky of green: we saw a violet desert across which the ancient route of the slave traders stretched like a long-healed scar. There were moments when all the visible world resembled the heart of a tulip. But at last came true dusk with those scat- tered battalions of the stars set like pearls in a deep, velvet-lined casket.
Wonderful to relate, we had forced the groaning Buick over trackless miles south- west of the road, had found a path through the hills and had struck the Darfur caravan route some twenty miles below el-Kharga. A difference in the quality of the landscape, a freshening and a cleanness in the air, spoke of the near oasis. Then, on a gentle slope: 'A light ahead!' Weymouth cried.
I checked Said. We all stood up and looked.
'That must be Bulag,' said Nayland Smith. 'The house of the sheikh lies some- where between there and el- Kharga. '
'It's a straight road now,' Petrie broke in. 'Thank heaven, there's plenty of light. I'm all for blazing through the village as hard as we can go and then finding some parking place outside the town. '
'Pray heaven the old bus can stand it!' Weymouth murmured devoutly.
And so, headed north, we set out. The road was abominable, but fairly wide where it traversed the village. Nayland Smith had relieved Said at the wheel and the scene as he coaxed a way through that miniature bazaar was one I can never forget. Every man, woman, child and dog had turned out....
'They may send the news to el-Kharga,' said Smith, as we finally shook off the last pair of staring-eyed Arab boys who ran after us, 'but we've got to chance it.'
We parked the doughty Buick in a grove of date-palms just south of the town. Weymouth seemed to anticipate trouble with Said, but I knew the man and had never doubted that he would consent to stand by. We left him a charged repeater and spare shells, and there were ample rations aboard to sustain him during the time he might have to mount guard. We marked an hour on the clock when, failing our reappearance, he was to push on with all possible speed to the post office at el-Kharga and communicate with Fletcher. How he carried out these orders will appear later.
As the four of us walked from the palm grove:
'It's a good many years,' said Weymouth, 'since I disguised myself!'
I looked at him in the moonlight, and I thought that he made a satisfactory and most impressive sheikh. True, his Arabic was bad, but so far as his appearance went, he was above criticism. Dr. Petrie was a safe bet; and Sir Denis, as I knew, could have walked about Mecca unchallenged. For my own part I felt fairly confident, for I knew the ways of the desert Arabs well enough to be capable of passing for one..
'We may be too late,' said Nayland Smith; 'but I feel disposed, Greville, to make straight for the town; otherwise we might lose ourselves. Then, you acting as spokesman, since you speak the best Arabic, we can inquire our direction boldly. '
'I agree,' said I.
And so it was settled.
4
El-Kharga, as I vaguely remembered, though a considerable town of some seven or eight thousand inhabitants, consisted largely of a sort of maze of narrow streets roofed over with palm trunks so as to resemble tunnels at night. We penetrated, and presently found our way to the centre of the place. A mosque and two public buildings attracted my attention; and: 'Down here,' I said, 'there's a cafe, where we shall learn all we want to know.'
Two minutes later we were grouped around a table in a small smoke-laden room.
'Look about,' said Nayland Smith. 'Kismet is with us. Whatever is going on in el-Kharga is being discussed here, tonight.'
'I told you this was the place,' said I.
But I looked about as he had directed. Certainly we had discovered the one and only house of entertainment in el-Kharga.... Little did I realise, as I considered our neighbours, where my next awakening would be! Here were obvious townspeople, pros- perous date-merchants, rice growers, petty officials and others, smoking their pipes in evening contentment. A definite odour ofhashish pervaded the cafe. But the scene looked typical enough, until: 'Those fellows in the comer don't seem quite in the picture,' said Weymouth.
I followed the direction of his glance. Two men were bending over a little round table. They smoked
