The Snake, The Crocodile, And The Dog Part 28

"Must have been a good-looking woman before he got to work on her," said Cyrus.

This apparent non sequitur non sequitur, which was of course nothing of the kind, did not escape Emerson. His teeth showed in a particularly unpleasant smile. "She was, yes. And will be again. So behave yourself, Vandergelt, I don't allow distractions of that nature to interfere with my expeditions."

"If it were up to me, I'd kick her off the boat tonight," Cyrus declared indignantly.

"No, no. Where's that famous American gallantry? She stays." Emerson turned the singularly unpleasant smile on me. "She will be company for Miss Peabody."

After they had gone, I gathered up a few things and went to the woman's room. The door was locked from the outside, but the key was in the lock. I turned it, announced my presence, and entered.

She was sprawled across the bed, still swathed in her dusty black robe. It was with some difficulty that I persuaded her to discard it, and she refused to allow me to attend to her injuries, so I handed her the clean nightgown I had brought and allowed her to attend to her ablutions in private. When she emerged from the bathroom she seemed startled to see me still there. Averting her face and cringing like the dog with which Cyrus had compared her, she hurried to the bed and got under the covers.

"I don't know what we are to do about clothing," I said, hoping to put her more at ease by discussing a subject that seldom fails to interest females. "My traveling wardrobe is not extensive enough to equip you as well."

"Your gowns would not fit me," she muttered. "I am taller than you, and not- not so- "

"Hmph," I said. "I will procure fresh robes for you when we stop at the next town, then. This one is filthy."

"And a veil- please! It would hide me from watching eyes."

I doubted it would prove a sufficient disguise to deceive the man she feared so desperately, but since my aim was to soothe her and win her confidence, I decided not to raise unpleasant subjects. Under my tactful questioning she unbent so far as to tell me something of her history.

It was a sad story and, sadly, not uncommon. The child of a European father and an Egyptian mother, she had fared better than the offspring of most such alliances, for her German father had at least had the decency to provide a home for her until she reached the age of eighteen. His death left her at the mercy of his heirs, who disclaimed any responsibility and denied any relations.h.i.+p. Her efforts to support herself in a respectable occupation had been frustrated by her age and her s.e.x, while employed as a housemaid she had been seduced by the eldest son of the family and cast out onto the street when his parents discovered the affair. Naturally they blamed her and not their child. She had used the last of her savings to return to the land of her birth, where she found her maternal relatives as hostile as those of her father, alone and despairing in Cairo, she had met . . . HIM.

Seeing she was trembling with fatigue and agitation, I bade her rest. Her reticence could not be allowed to continue indefinitely, of course. I was determined to know all she knew. But that could wait till another time and, perhaps, a more persuasive questioner.

When we tied up for the night I sent one of the servants to the village bazaar to purchase clothing for Bertha-for such, she claimed, was her name. It certainly did not suit her, conjuring up (to me at least) images of blond Germanic placidity.

I had not achieved my aim of picking Bertha's brain by the time we arrived at our destination. Emerson refused to have anything to do with the matter. "What can she tell us- that Vincey is a brute, a liar, and a seducer of women? His past activities, criminal or otherwise, are of no interest to me, I am not a police officer. His present address- even supposing he were fool enough to return to any location known to her- is equally irrelevant. When I want the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, I will find him. Just now I don't want him. I want to get on with my work, and I will do it, come h.e.l.l or high water, miscellaneous criminals, or female busybodies!"

For a stretch of almost forty miles along the Nile in Middle Egypt the cliffs of the high Eastern Desert rise sheer from the water's edge except in a single spot where they curve back to form a semicircular bay some six miles long by three miles deep. The barren, level plain seems even more forbidding than do other abandoned sites, for this is a haunted place- the site of short-lived splendor, of a royal city now vanished forever from the face of the earth.

Here, equidistant from the ancient capitals of Thebes to the south and Memphis to the north, the most enigmatic of Egyptian pharaohs, Akhenaton, built a new city and named it Akhetaton after his G.o.d Aton- "the only one, beside whom there is no other." By pharaoh's order the temples of other G.o.ds were closed even their names were obliterated from the monuments. His insistence on the uniqueness of his deity made him a heretic in ancient Egyptian terms- and in our terms the first monotheist in history.

The portraits of Akhenaton show a strange haggard face and an almost feminine body, with broad hips and fleshy torso. Yet he was not deficient in masculine attributes, as the existence of at least six children proves. Their mother was Akhenaton's queen Nefert.i.ti- "lady of grace, sweet of hands, his beloved", and his romantic attachment to this lovely lady, whose very name meant "the beautiful woman has come," is shown in numerous reliefs and paintings. Tenderly he turns to embrace her,, gracefully she perches on his knee. These depictions of marital accord are unique in Egyptian art, and uncommon anywhere.

They had a particular attraction for me. I do not believe it is necessary for me to explain why that was so.

Some scholars view Akhenaton as morally perverse and physically deformed, and decry his religious reformation as nothing more than a cynical political maneuver. This is nonsense, of course. I do not apologize for preferring a more uplifting interpretation.

I trust the Reader has not skipped over the preceding paragraphs. The aim of literature is to improve the understanding, not provide idle entertainment.

We were all at the rail on the day of our arrival, watching as the crewmen maneuvered the dahabeeyah in toward the dock at the village of Haggi Qandil. The period of rest had done Emerson good, tanned and bursting with energy, he was almost his old self again- except for the confounded beard. He was also in a high good humor for, though it had almost choked me to do it, I had not pressed him on the subject of Mr. Vincey and Bertha. However, Cyrus and I had discussed the matter at length and had agreed upon certain precautions.

Waiting on the quay were twenty of our faithful men from Aziyeh, the little village near Cairo which produced some of the most skilled diggers in Egypt. I had sent Abdullah to fetch them to Amarna, and the sight of their keen, smiling faces was more rea.s.suring to me than that of a troop of soldiers would have been. They had worked for us for years, Emerson had trained them himself, and they were devoted to him body and soul.

Emerson climbed over the rail and jumped ash.o.r.e. He was still thumping backs and shaking hands and submitting to fervent embraces when I joined the group. I was not the second one ash.o.r.e, however.

The cat Anubis preceded me down the gangplank.

Abdullah drew me aside and gestured at the cat, which was giving each set of sandaled feet a thorough inspection. "Have you not rid yourself of that four-footed afreet, Sitt Hakim? He was the betrayer of Emerson- "

"If he was, it was inadvertent, Abdullah. Cats cannot be trained to lead people into ambushes- or to do anything else they don't want to do. Anubis has become very attached to Emerson, he stayed with him, on the foot of his bed, all the while he was ill. Now, Abdullah, have you warned the other men that Emerson is still in danger from the man who called himself Schlange, and told them of the subjects they must not mention?"

"Such as the subject that you are the wife of the Father of Curses?" Abdullah spoke with a sarcasm worthy of Emerson himself, and his prominent hawklike nose wrinkled critically. "I have told them Sitt. They will obey, as they would obey any command you gave, though they do not understand your reasons. Nor do I. To me, this is a foolish way of bringing back a man's memory."

"For once we see eye to eye, Abdullah," said Cyrus, joining us. But I reckon we've got to go along.

When the Sitt Hakim speaks, the whole world listens and obeys."

"No man knows that better than I," said Abdullah. Emerson's shout brought us gathering around "Abdullah has set up camp for us," he announced.

"And I have washed the donkeys," said Abdullah.

Emerson stared at him. "Washed the donkeys? What for?"

"He was following my orders," I said. "The little animals are always in wretched condition, covered with sores and inadequately tended. I do not allow . . Well, that is beside the point. Will you now condescend to tell us where we are going and what you propose to do- and why we require a campsite when we have the dahabeeyah?"

Emerson turned the stare on me. "I have no intention of staying on that cursed boat. It is too far from the tombs."

"Which tombs?" I asked, stepping heavily on Cyrus's foot to still the objection he was about to make.

"All the tombs. The southern group is a good three miles from her and the northern group is even farther There is another interesting area in a hollow behind that low hill near the center of the arc of the cliffs."

"There are no tombs there," I objected. "Unless the brickwork..."

Emerson gestured impatiently. "I will make my final decision tonight. My object today is to make a preliminary survey, and the sooner you stop arguing, the sooner we can get at it. Well? Any further objections?' He wheeled suddenly on Rene, who had edged closer. There were no further objections.

Before the day was over, any doubts as to Emerson's physical condition were removed. He declared we did not need the donkeys- a statement with which everyone disagreed but to which everyone except myself was too cowed to object. I knew perfectly well that he was testing us- me, especially- and so I did not object either. We must have walked almost twenty miles, counting the perpendicular distances we covered scrambling over piles of rocky scree and climbing up and down the cliffs.

The easiest way of describing this hegira is to envision the area as a semicircle, with the Nile forming the straight side. The cliffs of the high desert curve like a bow, at the extreme north and south ends they almost touch the riverbank. Haggi Qandil is somewhat south of the midpoint of the straight line, so we were a good three miles from the nearest section of the cliffs.

The path led through the village and the surrounding fields out onto the plain- an undulating, barren surface littered with pebbles and potsherds. The ruined foundations of Akhenaton's holy city lay under the drifted sand. It had stretched the entire distance from the north end of the plain to the south. The portion we had excavated during the years we worked at Amarna lay farther to the south, but I felt sure the slow, inexorable hand of nature had reclaimed the site and buried all evidence of our labor as it had that of the ancient builders.

Emerson struck briskly out across the plain. Quickening my pace, I caught up to him. "I take it, Emerson, that we are going to the northern tombs?"

"No," said Emerson.

I glanced at Cyrus, who shrugged and smiled and invited me, with a gesture, to walk with him. We allowed Emerson to forge ahead, with only Abdullah close on his heels. No one else seemed eager for his company.

We did, in fact, visit some of the northern tombs, but not until after Emerson had indicated another kind of monument he wanted to examine in detail that season.

Around the rocky perimeter of his city Akhenaton had carved a number of commemorative markers defining its boundaries and dedicating it to his G.o.d. Emerson and I had found and copied three of them ourselves. These stelae, as they are called, were similar in form, a central round-topped marker bearing a long hieroglyphic inscription under a scene in bas-relief that depicted the king and his family wors.h.i.+ping their G.o.d Aton, in the form of a sun-disk extending rays that ended in small human hands. Statues of the royal family stood on either side. Most of the boundary stelae were in ruinous condition,- some portions had been deliberately destroyed by the royal heretic's enemies after his death and the restoration of the old G.o.ds he had denied.

"There are two series of inscriptions, one earlier in time than the other," said Emerson. Hands on his hips, bareheaded in the baking sunlight, he stood staring up at the cliff that towered over us. "This is one of the earlier,- there are two princesses shown with their parents. The later stelae show three daughters."

Cyrus took off his solar topi and fanned himself with it. "How the d.i.c.kens you make that out I don't know. The top of the darned thing has to be thirty feet off the ground and the cliff is absolutely sheer."

"It cannot be approached except from above," said Emerson. He turned. Charlie was trying to hide behind Abdullah, whose tall form and voluminous robes offered a good-sized shelter, but Emerson's eyes went straight to him. With ferocious good humor Emerson said, "The boundary stela are your responsibility, Holly. A healthy young fellow like you should enjoy the challenge of copying texts while you dangle at the end of a rope."

A precipitous path led us up to the ledge on which the northern group of n.o.bles' tombs were located. Once they had gaped open, vulnerable to the depredations of time and tomb-robbers. Recently the Antiquities Department had put up iron gates at the entrances to the most interesting of them. Emerson studied these gates, which had not been there in our time, with critical curiosity.

"Isn't there an American saying about locking the barn door after the horse is stolen? Ah, well, better late than never, I suppose. Who has the keys?"