probably unhealthy,' he told her. 'Cave disease is a real danger in
these old enclosed places. They say that is what killed some of Howard
Carter's people working in the tomb of Tutankhamen.'
'The fungus spores that cause cave disease breed in bat dung,' she
pointed out. 'There are no bats in Mamose's tomb. Taita sealed it up too
tightly.'
'Humour me,' he begged. 'You cannot work in there for days on end. I
want you at least to get out of the tomb for a few hours each day.'
She shrugged. 'Only as a special favour to you,' she agreed, but as they
reached the foot of the scaffolding she gave her new sleeping quarters
only a perfunctory glance and then headed for the coffer dam and the
entrance to the approach tunnel.
They had converted the landing at the top of the staircase, outside the
plaster-seated entrance to the tomb, into their workshop. Royan spread
her drawings and photographs and reference books on the rough table of
handhewn planks that Hansith made for her. Sapper had placed one of the
floodlamps above this crude desk so that she had good light to work by.
Against one wall of the landing they had stacked the ammunition crates
which contained the eight sacred statues. Nicholas had insisted on
storing all their discoveries where he could safeguard them adequately.
Mek's armed men still kept a twenty-four-hour guard on the causeway over
the sink-hole.
While Nicholas completed his photographic record of the walls of the
long gallery and the empty burial chamber, Royan sat at her table and
pored over her papers for hours at a time, scribbling notes and
calculations from them into her notebooks. Now and then she would jump
up from her desk and dart through the hatch in the white plaster doorway
into the long gallery to study a detail on the decorated walls.
Whenever this happened, Nicholas straightened up from his camera tripod
and watched her with a fond and indulgent expression. So intent was she
that she seemed completely oblivious of him and everybody else about
her.
Nicholas had never seen her in this mood, and the depth of her powers of
concentration impressed him.
When she had worked for fifteen hours without a break he went out on to
the landing to rescue her and to lead her, protesting, back down the
tunnel to the pool where there was a hot meal waiting for them. After
she had eaten he led her to her hut and insisted that she lie down on
her inflatable mattress.
'You are going to sleep now, Royan,' he ordered.
He woke to hear her creeping stealthily out of the hut next door to his,
back along the ledge to the entrance to the tomb. He checked his watch
and grunted with disbelief when he realized that they had slept for only
three and a half hours. He shaved quickly and bolted back a slab of
toasted injera bread and a cup of tea before following her into the
tomb.
He found her standing in the long gallery before the empty niche in the
shrine where the statuette of Osiris had stood. She was so preoccupied
that she did not hear him come up behind her, and she started violently
