The Snake, The Crocodile, And The Dog Part 11

"Always cheerful, Peabody," Emerson said, grinning. "What are you doing? I won't have any confounded bandages."

I cut off a bit of sticking plaster. "Out with it, Emerson. You are beating around the bush."

"Not at all. I am simply admitting that the evidence is inconclusive. It is suggestive, though, don't you think?"

"I think this time it is your imagination that has got out of hand." I sat down next to him. "Unless you know something you haven't told me.

"I don't know anything," Emerson said irritably. "If I did, I would not be dithering like a nervous old spinster. All the same . . We covered our tracks as well as we could, Peabody, but there are several weak spots in the fictional fabric we wove. A good hard shove at any one of them would leave a gaping hole of speculation."

"Are you by any chance referring to the Church of the Saints of the Son of G.o.d as a weak spot? Curse it, Emerson, I had to invent a religious sect, if we had claimed Nefret's kindly foster parents were Baptists or Lutherans or Roman Catholics, the most cursory inquiry would prove no such family existed."

"Especially if you had claimed they were Roman Catholics," Emerson said. Seeing my expression, he added hastily, "It was very clever of you, my dear."

"Don't patronize me, Emerson! I cannot imagine what has got you into this morbid state of mind. The story I- we- invented is no more unbelievable than many true ... I do wish you would stop mumbling under your breath It is very rude. Speak up!"

"Map," said Emerson.

"Willoughby Forth's maps? You heard how Maspero and the others laughed at them the other night- "

"The map," said Emerson loudly, "that Reginald Forthright showed to half the bloo------- blooming officers at Sanam Abu Dom. Everyone from General Rundle to the lowest subaltern knew when he went after his uncle that he had more to go on than vague rumors. He never came back, but WE did, with Forth's daughter. How long do you suppose it will take some inventive journalist to concoct a thrilling scenario out of those facts? I am only surprised your friend O'Connell hasn't already done so. His imagination is almost as rampageous as- "

"The implication is insulting and undeserved- especially coming from YOU. I have never heard such . . You are muttering again, Emerson. What did you say?"

With a shrug and a smile Emerson turned and answered, not the question but the underlying emotion that had prompted it and my other (I admit) unfair accusations. A soft answer turneth away wrath, as the Scripture says, but Emerson's methods were even more efficacious.

I had hoped to spend the rest of the week in Cairo enjoying the amenities of the hotel, but Emerson suddenly took it into his head to visit Meidum I had no objection, though I wished he had given me a little more notice.

We had spent the morning in the suk, after lunching at the hotel, Emerson left me reading and resting while he went off on some errand of his own. Upon his return he calmly announced we would take the evening train "So hurry up and get your gear together, Peabody."

I dropped my copy of Erman's Agyptiscbe Grammatik Agyptiscbe Grammatik. "What gear? There is no hotel at Rikka."

Emerson began, "I have a friend- "

"I will not stay with any of your Egyptian friends. They are delightful people, but they have no notion of sanitation."

"I thought you might feel that way. I have prepared a little surprise for you, Peabody. What has happened to your sense of adventure?"

I was unable to resist the challenge, or Emerson's smile. As I packed a small bag with changes of clothing and toilet articles, my spirits began to soar. This was like the old days-Emerson and I, alone together in the wilderness!

Once we had fought our way through the confusion at the railroad station and found seats on the train, Emerson relaxed, but none of my attempts at conversation seemed to please him.

"I hope that poor fellow who collapsed in the suk will be all right," was my first attempt. "You should have let me examine him, Emerson."

"His- er- friends were there to attend to him," Emerson said shortly.

After a while I tried again. "Our friends will be surprised to find we have gone! It was good of so many of them to come round this morning to express their concern." Emerson grunted.

"I am inclined to believe Mr. Neville's theory was the right one," I went on. "How amusingly he put it: 'Some young fellow flushed with wine and inspired by your charms, Mrs. E., playing a silly trick.'"

"And my charms inspired the attentions of the three young fellows in the garden," said Emerson, with ineffable sarcasm.

"The timing of the two events may have been pure coincidence." "Pure balderdash," growled Emerson. "Peabody, why do you insist on discussing our private affairs in public?"

The only other occupants of the carriage were a group of German university students, who were carrying on a loud conversation in their own language, but I took the hint.

By the time we reached Rikka my enthusiasm had dimmed somewhat. Darkness was complete, and we were the only non-Egyptians to disembark there. I stumbled over a stone and Emerson, whose spirits had improved in inverse ratio to the lowering of mine, caught my arm. "There he is. Hi, Abdullah!"

"I should have known," I muttered, seeing the white shape that hovered, ghostlike, at the end of the small platform.

"Quite," said Emerson cheerfully. "We can always count on good old Abdullah, eh? I sent a message to him this afternoon."

After the appropriate greetings had been exchanged, not only with Abdullah but with his sons Feisal and Selim and his nephew Daoud, we mounted the donkeys they had waiting and set out. How the devil the donkeys saw where they were going I do not know, I certainly could not, even after the moon rose, for it was on the wane and gave little light. The gait of some donkeys is very uneasy when they break into a trot. I got the distinct impression these donkeys did not like being out at that hour.

After a hideously uncomfortable ride across the cultivated fields I saw the light of a fire ahead on the edge of the desert. Two more of our men were waiting for us. The little camp they had set up was better than Abdullah's usual efforts along those lines, I was relieved to see that there was a proper tent for us, and the welcome aroma of fresh-brewed coffee reached my nostrils.

Emerson lifted me off my donkey. "Do you remember I once threatened to s.n.a.t.c.h you up and carry you off into the desert?"

I looked from Abdullah to Feisal to Daoud to Selim to Mahmud to Ali to Mohammed. They stood round us in an interested circle, their faces beaming. "You are such a romantic, Emerson," I said.

However, when I emerged from the tent the following morning I was in a better humor, and the scene before me roused the old thrill of archaeological fever.

Meidum is one of the most attractive sites in Egypt The remains of the cemetery are situated on the edge of the low bluff that marks the beginning of the desert, toward the east the emerald carpet of the cultivated land stretched out toward the river, whose waters were stained rosy pink by the rays of the rising sun. On the bluff, rising high against the sky, was the pyramid, though I must confess it does not look much like one. The Egyptians call it El Haram el-Kaddab, "The False Pyramid," for it more resembles a square tower of three diminis.h.i.+ng stages. Once there were seven stages, like those of a step pyramid. The angles between them had been filled in with stone to give a smooth slope, but these filling stones and the upper stages had long since collapsed, forming a frame of detritus all around the giant tomb.

Like the pyramids of Dahshoor and Giza, it was uninscribed. I have never understood why the kings who went to so much trouble to erect these grandiose structures did not bother to put their names on them, for humility was not a notable characteristic of Egyptian pharaohs. It is also uncharacteristic of tourists, ancient or modern. As soon as the great art of writing was invented, certain individuals made use of it tco deface monuments and works of art. Three thousand years before ouir time, an Egyptian tourist came to Meidum to visit the "beautiful templle of King Snefru," and left an inscription, or graffito, to that effect om one of the walls of the temple. Snefru was known to have had two suc;h tombs,- we had worked at one of them, the north pyramid of Dahshooir. Petrie, who had discovered the graffito in question, decided that thiis must be Snefru's second pyramid.

"Bah," said Emerson. "One graffito does not const.i.tute proof of owrn-ers.h.i.+p. The temple was already a thousand years old when the coim-founded scribbler visited it, the guides of that remote era were probab>ly as ignorant as those of the present day. Snefru's two pyramids are the ones at Dahshoor."

When Emerson speaks in that dogmatic tone, few care to contradilict him I am one of those few, but since I agreed with his views I did not do so on that occasion.

For the next two days we busied ourselves with the private tomlbs. There were several groups of them north, south and west of the pyramid- for the cultivated land eastward was of course unsuitable I for tombs. We had ample help. I had never really expected to be alcone with Emerson, the presence of strangers always attracts local villagers demanding baksheesh or asking for work or simply satisfying thheir curiosity They began wandering in while we were at breakfast the ffirst day, and after interviewing them Emerson set some to work umder Abdullah's direction.

I always say that if one cannot have a pyramid, a nice deep tomhb is the next best thing. All the pyramids had cemeteries around therm- tombs of courtiers and princes, n.o.bles and high officials, who were given the privilege of spending eternity in proximity to the G.o.d-king they had served in life. These Old Kingdom tombs were called masteabas because the superstructure resembled the flat-topped, sloping-skided benches found outside modern Egyptian houses. The superstructures, built of stone or mud-brick, had often disappeared or collapsed into shapeless mounds, but they were not the parts that interested me. Under the mastabas were shafts and stairs descending deep intoo the rock beneath and culminating in the burial chamber. Some of the rricher tombs had substructures almost as delightfully dark, tortuous and bat-ridden as those of the pyramids.

Emerson very kindly allowed me to go into one such tomb (because he knew I would do it anyway).

The steeply sloping entrance ramp was littered with debris and only four feet high. It ended in a shaft, which I was obliged to descend by means of a rope held by Selim, who, at Emerson's insistence, had followed me down. I usually employed Selim for such work, since he was the youngest and slimmest of the trained men, one was always encountering holes through which a larger body could not easily pa.s.s, and of course the low ceilings presented a difficulty for taller individuals. Emerson was not particularly fond of tombs like these, he kept banging his head and getting stuck in holes.

But I must not allow my enthusiasm to lead me to a more detailed description, which might bore my duller readers and which is not really relevant to the tale I am telling. Suffice it to say that when I emerged, gasping for breath (the air in the lowest portions of such tombs is extremely hot and very close) and covered with a sort of paste compounded of perspiration, stone dust, and bat droppings, I could hardly contain my appreciation.

"It was delightful, Emerson! To be sure, the wall paintings are of poor quality, but I saw sc.r.a.ps of wood and linen wrappings among the debris in the burial chamber. I am sure we ought- "

Emerson had been waiting at the entrance to pull me out. Having done so, he hastily backed away, wrinkling his nose.

"Not now, Peabody. This was intended to be a survey, we haven't the manpower or the time to excavate. Why don't you amuse yourself with the pyramid?"

So I did. It was quite a nice pyramid in its own way, though the pa.s.sageways were not so extensive or interesting as the ones in the Giza and Dahshoor monuments. Like them, it had been opened by earlier explorers who found it had been completely looted in antiquity.

On the afternoon of the second day came a further addition to what had now become something of a small mob-a pair of what Emerson refers to as cursed tourists. He unbent a trifle, however, when one of them introduced himself as Herr Eberfelt, a German scholar with whom Emerson had corresponded. He was a virtual caricature of a Prussian, monocled, stiff as a board, and very formal in his manner.

Herr Schmidt, the young fellow with him, was one of his students- a plump, pleasant chap who would have been quite handsome had it not been for the ugly dueling scar that disfigured one cheek. German students take great pride in these scars, which they consider evidences of courage rather than of stupidity, which in fact they are. I am told the students even employ various painful and unsanitary methods of preventing the wounds from healing so that the scars will be as conspicuous as possible. Herr Schmidt's manners were as faultless as his face was not. He addressed me in broken but delightful English and appeared more than ready to accept the cup of tea I offered However, Emerson insisted on showing them around the site and the young man obediently followed his superior.

I had finished my tea and was about to go after them when one of the workmen sidled up, glancing shyly at me from under his thick lashes. Like the other men, he had stripped off his robe while working and was attired only in a wrapped loincloth. His sleek, smooth body shone with perspiration.