fragments which had been found on the last day of digging, and Lucas to explore. He went jogging off on his little donkey, looking sufficiently ridiculous with his long legs trailing. When he was out of sight, Emerson turned to me.
'Come along, Peabody.'
'Whereto?'
'You said you wanted to see the royal tomb.'
'What, now?'
'Now is as good a time as any.'
I looked up at the broiling sun, now near the zenith; then I shrugged. If Emerson thought to subdue me by such tactics, he would soon find out that I could keep up with any project he proposed. I went to my tomb to assume my rationals. They were dreadfully creased and dusty, and I wished I had purchased several similar costumes.
When I emerged, Emerson was pacing up and down and glaring at his watch.
'Will Walter come?' I inquired, deliberately dawdling.
'Walter had better remain here. There must be someone on guard; I have told Abdullah to go after his lordship, in case the fool breaks a leg trying to climb the cliffs or tumbles off his donkey. Come, come, Peabody; if you don't hurry I will go alone.'
I went- not because he had ordered me to do so, but because I suspected he wanted a private discussion with me.
However, no such development ensued. The walk was too difficult for leisurely conversation. We turned into a long rocky wadi, or canyon, and followed its course for several miles. It was the most desolate area I had seen yet. The steep, barren walls of the wadi were streaked and cracking; not a single blade of grass or hardy weed found sustenance in the sunbaked soil. The floor of the valley was covered with rocks of all sizes, from enormous boulders to pebbles, which had fallen from the cliffs. The silence was absolute. It was like being in another world; a world in which life was an intrusion.
After about three miles the rock walls closed in and smaller wadis opened up to left and right. We turned to the northeast and picked our way through a narrow valley. As we stumbled along, Emerson began to ask questions, but they were not the questions I had expected. Instead he interrogated me about Lucas. I answered as shortly as I could. The drift of Emerson's curiosity convinced me that I had been correct in both my assumptions; he was immensely curious about the extent of Lord Ellesmere's fortune and the degree of his interest in Evelyn. I found it increasingly difficult to avoid his inquiries and finally put an end to them by picking a quarrel. That was never difficult with Emerson. He stalked along in offended silence until we reached the isolated tomb which had been prepared for the heretic king and his family.
In an effort to protect it from thieves seeking the rich treasures buried with the dead, the royal tomb had been situated in a remote part of the cliffs. The attempt at security had failed; the tomb had been robbed again and again. If Khuenaten had ever been buried mere, the royal mummy had vanished centuries ago. I shivered, even in the breathless heat, as I looked up the slope at the high dark hole that marked the entrance to the tomb. An air of brooding desolation hung over the spot. Disappointment and failure haunted it. Toward the end of his life, the royal reformer must have known that his religious revolution would not succeed. After his death his very name had been obliterated. I thought I would not like to come here after dark; it would be too easy to hear, in the jackals' howls, the lament of a starving, nameless ghost.
Emerson, unaffected by the aura of the place, was already scrambling up toward the entrance. Before it was a little plateau, about fifteen feet off the ground. I followed him, unassisted. He had brought candles; we lighted two of them and went in.
The tombs of Egyptian royalty were not the simple structures their subjects built. This one had long corridors, steep stairs, turns and curves designed to frustrate the cupidity of thieves. These devices had succeeded as well as such devices usually do- that is to say, not at all. The royal tomb had been roughly cleared, probably by the experienced thieves of Haggi Qandil. Otherwise we would not have been able to penetrate its interior at all, and even so, it was a breathless, dusty, uncomfortable trip. We were unable to reach the burial chamber, because a deep pit, like the one in the other tomb I had seen, cut straight across the corridor. There was nothing to bridge it with. Emerson's suggestion that we run and jump was probably not to be taken seriously. I certainly did not take it seriously.
We retraced our steps to the top of the second flight of stairs, where three small rooms were located off the main corridor. Here crumbling reliefs showed the death and burial of a princess, one of Khuenaten's daughters. She had died young, and had been laid to rest in her father's tomb. The little body, stretched out stiffly on its bed, looked very pathetic, and the grief of the parents, holding one another's hands for comfort, was strangely moving. Almost one could hear a thin moan of anguish echoing down the deserted corridors --
And then there was a moan- or at least, a faint sound of some kind. The reader can only faintly imagine the horrific effect of such a sound- of sound of any sort- in those dark, musty rooms that had never been inhabited except by the dead. Before my scalp had time to prickle, the fainter sound was followed by another, less ghostly, but even more alarming. It was a loud crash of falling rock. Whatever the sound lost by reason of distance was regained by the rolling echoes. I started and dropped my candle.
Using language no lady could possibly remember, much less reproduce, Emerson scrabbled around in the debris that littered the floor until he found the candle. He relighted it from his own. Then he looked directly at me and spoke in the quiet voice he employed in moments of emergency.
'You are no fool, Peabody, if you are a woman. You know what that sound may mean. Are you prepared? You will not swoon, or scream, or become hysterical?'
I gave him a look of withering scorn, and in silence started out of the room.
With Emerson breathing heavily behind me, I made my way along the corridor. I did not expect that we would meet with any obstruction there. The walls and floors were carved from the living stone of the mountains. No; the difficulty would be at the entrance, and long before we reached that spot I knew that my surmise was unhappily correct. From the foot of the final stair I saw that the light which should have been apparent at the entrance was- not apparent.
We made our way up the stairs, not without difficulty, for rocks littered the steps, and stood at last before the entrance. The narrow opening was closed by stones- some as small as pebbles, some as large as boulders.
I blew out my candle. It was obvious that we had better conserve what little light we had. I was stooping to pluck at the rocks when Emerson turned to stick his candle onto a ledge in a pool of its own grease.
'Take care,' he said curtly. 'You may start another landslide that will sweep both of us down the stairs.'
We dug for a long time; not as long as it seemed, perhaps, but the first candle was almost burned out when there came a sound from without. It was, to say the least, a welcome event. At first the words were indistinguishable. Then I realized that the person was speaking Arabic. I recognized the voice and, in the stress of the moment, understood what was being said. The voice was Abdullah's. He demanded to know if we were within.
'Of course we are within,' shouted Emerson angrily. 'Oh, son of a blind, bowlegged mule, where else should we be?'
A howl, which I took to be one of delight, followed this question. The howl was followed by a shout in quite another voice: 'Hold on, Miss Amelia! Lucas is on the job!'
All at once Emerson threw his arms against me and pushed me against the wall, pressing his body close to mine. Although I am now alone as I write, my Critic having gone off on an errand, I hesitate to express the thoughts that flashed through my mind at that moment. I knew Emerson was no weakling, but I had not fully realized his strength until I felt the rigid muscles of his breast against mine and felt my bones give under the strength of his grasp. I thought… I expected -- Well, why not admit it? I thought he wasembracing me- relief at our unexpected rescue having weakened his mind.
Luckily these absurd notions had no time to burgeon in my brain. A horrible rattling crash followed, as the barricade gave way, and great rocks bounded down the stairs and banged against the walls. I felt Emerson flinch and knew he had been struck by at least one rock, from whose impact his quick action had saved
