Crocodile On The Sandbank Part 37

"A party, and you did not invite me?" he said. "Or am I interrupting a more personal meeting?"

"Don't be any more foolish than you can help," I said. My last words were m.u.f.fled in a huge yawn.

"Oh, dear, I am so tired. I don't know why I can't sleep."

"Evelyn seems to be the only one with a clear conscience," said Lucas, snapping his teeth together. "Or is the lucky man sleeping too?"

"Yes," Emerson said. "Walter is asleep."

"And why not you? It is too early for you to relieve me."

"Still, you may as well retire now that I am here. There is no point in all of us being awake. Sometimes I never go to bed at all. This seems to be one of those nights. I don't know why they happen," said Emerson musingly. "It is unaccountable. But I feel just now as if I should never want to sleep again."

I knew then that something was badly wrong; and that Emerson was aware of it. His idiotic speech was an unconvincing lie; his lids were half closed, his shoulders drooped; and now that I looked at him more closely, I saw that his thick black hair was damp, as if he had been pouring water on it... to keep awake?

I had employed a similar trick myself, the preceding night. All my senses p.r.i.c.kled in alarm.

"Oh, very well," Lucas said sulkily. "Since I am of no use, I may as well remove myself and finish my bottle in private- unless I can persuade you two to join me in a gla.s.s? No? Good night, then. I have no desire to go into that stifling hole of a tomb; I shall sleep in the tent down below, and you, my gallant Emerson, can waken me with a shout if we have unexpected visitors."

Cradling the wine bottle in his arms, he staggered down the path. I had not realized he was so intoxicated. Was that what Emerson feared- that Lucas would fail as a guard because of his drinking?

The moment he was out of sight, Emerson turned on me and dragged me up out of the chair into which I had slumped. He shook me till my head rolled and my hair came loose from the net.

"Wake up, Peabody! If you fall asleep, I shall slap you till you howl. Curse it, don't you understand that we have been drugged?"

"Drugged?" I repeated stupidly. "I have been fighting sleep myself for an hour, and a hard fight it was. Have you nothing in that medicine box of yours to counteract the effects of laudanum?" I tried to think. Something was certainly dulling my mind. "My smelling salts," I said, with an effort. "They are extremely strong -----"

"Oh, d.a.m.nation," said Emerson. "A pretty picture that will be! Well, it's better than nothing. Go fetch them. Hurry."

To hurry was impossible. I could barely drag myself along. But I found the smelling salts, and men had a look at Evelyn. A single glance told me Emerson was right. She was sleeping too soundly. I shook her, without effect. Either she had received a larger dose of the drug, or her delicate const.i.tution was more susceptible to it man mine. It would be difficult to awaken her.

I applied the bottle to my own nose. It was certainly effective. Feeling much more alert, I hastened back to Emerson, who was leaning up against the cliff with his arms and legs at strange angles and his eyes slightly crossed. I thrust the bottle at him. He started back, banging his head against the rock, and made several profane remarks.

"Now tell me what is wrong," I said, recapping the bottle. "What is it you fear will happen? If your reasoning is correct-"

"My reasoning was d.a.m.nably, stupidly, fatally wrong," Emerson replied forcibly. "I am missing a vital clue- a piece of information that would make sense of the whole business. I suspect you hold that clue, Peabody. You must tell me- "

He stopped speaking; I suppose the expression on my face struck him dumb. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rising. I was facing the lower end of the path; and there, barely visible, around the corner of the cliff, something moved. A low moan echoed through the air.

Emerson spun around. The moaning cry came again.

It was a frightening sound, but I knew, after the first moment, that it did not come from the throat of the Mummy. This cry held human anguish and pain; I could not have resisted its appeal if a thousand gibbering, gesticulating Mummies had stood in my way.

Quickly as I moved, Emerson was before me. He went more cautiously than I would have done, his arm holding me back, and when we reached the bottom of the path he thrust me away while he went on to investigate. The object I had seen, whatever it was, had disappeared from sight; Emerson followed it into invisibility, and for a moment I held my breath. Then I heard his low exclamation- not of fear, but of horror and distress. Rounding the rock corner, I saw him kneeling on the ground beside the prostrate body of a man. I knew the man, although, G.o.d forgive me, I had almost forgotten him. It was our vanished servant- the dragoman, Michael. "Oh, heavens," I cried, flinging myself down beside the rec.u.mbent form. "Is he dead?"

"Not yet. But I fear..." Emerson raised his hand, which had been resting on the back of Michael's head. The stains on his fingers looked like ink in the moonlight.

Michael was wearing the same faded blue-and-white-striped robe that he had worn the day of his disappearance. It was now torn and crumpled. I reached for his wrist, to feel his pulse, but a closer sight of his outflung arm made me exclaim aloud. The bared wrist was swollen and b.l.o.o.d.y.

"He has been a prisoner," I said, forcing my fingers to touch the torn flesh. "These are the marks of ropes."

"They are. How is his pulse?"

"Steady, but feeble. He must have medical attention at once. I will do what I can, but my skill is so small- Can we carry him up to the tomb? Perhaps Lucas will help."

"I can manage."

Emerson turned Michael over; with a single heave of his broad shoulders he lifted the dragoman's slight form into his arms, and rose.

And then- dear Heaven, I can scarcely write of it now without a reminiscent shudder. Screams- the high, agonized shriek of a woman in the extremity of terror! They died in a long, wailing moan.

Emerson bounded forward, carrying the unconscious man as if he weighed no more than a feather. I followed; and as we came around the corner of the cliff, the whole hideous tableau burst upon our eyes, like a scene from the worst conceptions of Madame Tussaud.

On the ledge above us stood the Mummy. The blind, bandaged head was turned toward us; one stubby leg was lifted, as if our sudden appearance had stopped it in midstep. To the crumbling, rotting bandages of its breast, the horror clasped me unconscious form of Evelyn.

Her tumbled golden curls hung down over its arm; her little white feet peeped pathetically out of the folds of her nightdress. After the first scream of terror she bad fainted dead away, as any girl might, finding herself in the arms of such a suitor. I began pounding on Emerson's back. He was barring the entrance to the narrow path, and I was frantic to pa.s.s him and attack the thing. I remembered poor Evelyn's exclamation on that far-off day, when a ghoulish peddler had tried to sell us a mummified hand. She would die, she said, if the withered flesh should touch her.... Well, we had it trapped now. If it had supernatural powers, it would need them all to escape me.

The pa.s.sage of time seemed to halt; I felt like one trapped in quicksand, or the slow, floating motion of a dream, where enormous effort is required to make the slightest movement. Then all sorts of things happened at once.

Lucas came out of the tent, which was not far from us. I a.s.sumed he had been asleep, had been wakened by Evelyn's screams, and, his senses dulled by wine, had been slow to respond. He took in the situation at a glance, and moved more quickly than I would have expected. In his haste, he collided with us. Emerson kept his feet with difficulty, falling back against the cliff face with the body of the dying man still in his arms; I was thrown to the ground. While we were tumbling about, the Mummy took advantage of our confusion. Flexing its stiff knees, the creature jumped-actually leaped from the ledge. Such was my state of mind, I half expected to see it take wing and soar through the air like a giant bat. Alighting, still erect, amid the tumble of rocks at the base of the cliff, it scrambled down the slope and ran. Evelyn's fair hair streamed out behind.

"Pursue it!" I shrieked. "Do not let it escape!"

At least that is what I believe I shrieked. Emerson informs me that my language was less coherent, and so inflammatory that he positively blushed, despite the urgency of the moment. He, of course, was in a dreadful predicament; enc.u.mbered by the injured man, he could hardly fling him to the ground. I was so entangled in the abominable garments forced on women by the decrees of fas.h.i.+on that I could not arise.

It all depended on Lucas; and after the first confused moments, he rose to the occasion.

"Never fear," he cried, leaping up. "It will not escape me! Remain here- we must not all abandon the camp- I will rescue Evelyn - "

Running fleetly, he was already several yards away as his last words reached my ears.

An echoing cry came from above. Looking up, I saw Walter, who had just emerged from his sleeping chamber. If he had been drugged, the vision before his eyes woke him with a vengeance; with another shout of mingled rage and horror, he flung himself down the slope and followed Lucas.

As I started after them, Emerson kicked me in the s.h.i.+n. I must confess he could not have stopped me in any other way, since his arms were occupied.

"This is madness," he groaned. "Keep your head, Peabody; someone must act sensibly- follow me, you must remain with Michael."

The advice was excellent; the difficulty was in following it. The folly of pursuit was manifest; if the young men could not catch up with the mummified miscreant, it was futile for a woman, hampered by her skirts, to try and do so. I could still see the pale shape of the Mummy, as it flitted in and out among the rocks. Walter stumbled along behind, waving his arms and shouting. All this happened, of course, in far less time than it takes to write it down.

I ran after Emerson, who was ascending the path in great leaps. If I was not wringing my hands, it was because I needed them to keep my balance. Emerson was correct; it was necessary for one of us to tend Michael's wounds, but I really did not see how I could bear to remain there, in ignorance and forced inactivity.

Emerson laid his burden gently upon his couch. To do him justice, he had not wasted a moment, nor did he waste time now in unnecessary directions to me. Instantly he turned back to the entrance. I reached for the lamp, meaning to light it. As I did so, there came a crack and a whine from without. Emerson's tall form, silhouetted in the doorway, staggered and fell.

12.

IT IS vain to attempt to describe my sensations at that moment. I had recognized the sound as that of a bullet. I dropped the lamp; I forgot my injured servant; for an instant I even forgot Evelyn and her deadly peril. I started toward the spot where I had seen Emerson fall.

My heart had not missed more than a few beats, however, when a hand caught my ankle and brought me cras.h.i.+ng to the ground. I fell on top of Emerson, and heard his grunt with pain. My hands, fumbling at his face, encountered a wet, sticky flow.

"You are wounded," I exclaimed. "My G.o.d, Emerson- "