Crocodile On The Sandbank Read online

  We sat late on our little balcony that night, watching the afterglow fade and the stars blaze out; even Emerson was companionably silent under the sweet influence of the scene. Perhaps we all had a premonition of what was to come; perhaps we knew that this was our last peaceful evening.

  I was brushing my hair next morning when I heard the hubbub below. Within a few minutes Walter came running up the path and shouted for me. I went out, fearing some disaster; but his expression was one of excitement rather than alarm.

  "The men have made a discovery," he began. "Not in the ruins of the city- up in the cliffs. A tomb!"

  "Is that all? Good Gad, the place is overfumished with tombs as it is."

  Walter was genuinely excited, but I noticed that his eyes strayed past me to where Evelyn stood before the mirror, listening as she tied a ribbon around her hair.

  "But this one has an occupant! All the other tombs were empty when we found them-robbed and rifled in antiquity. No doubt this new tomb has also been robbed of the gold and jewels it once contained, but there is a mummy, a veritable mummy. What is even more important, Miss Peabody, is that the villagers came to me with the news instead of robbing the tomb. That shows, does it not, that the fancies I expressed last evening were only fancies. The men must trust us, or they would not come to us."

  They trust Mr. Emerson because he pays them full value for every valuable object they find," I said, hastily bundling my hair into its net. "They have no reason to resort to antiquities dealers under those conditions."

  "What does it matter' Walter was fairly dancing with impatience. "I am off, I cannot wait to see, but I thought you might like to accompany me. I fear the trail will be rough…"

  "I fear so, too," I said grimly. "I must apply myself to the question of appropriate costume. My rationals are an improvement on skirts, but they do not go far enough. Do you think, Evelyn, that we could fashion some trousers out of a skirt or two?"

  The trail was rough, but I managed it. A few of the villagers accompanied us. As we walked, Walter explained that the tombs we were inhabiting were known as the Southern Tombs. Another group of ancient sepulchers lay to the north, and were, logically enough, referred to as the Northern Tombs. The newly discovered tomb was one of this group.

  After several long miles I finally saw a now-familiar square opening in the cliffs above us, and then another beyond the first. We had reached the Northern Tombs, and a scramble up a steep slope of detritus soon brought us to the entrance to the new tomb.

  Walter was a different man. The gentle boy had been supplanted by the trained scholar. Briskly he gave orders for torches and ropes. Then he turned to me.

  "I have explored these places before. I don't recommend that you come with me, unless you are fond of bats in your hair and a great deal of dust."

  "Lead on," I said, tying a rope in a neat half-bitch around my waist.

  I had Walter thoroughly under control by then. He would not have argued with me if I had proposed jumping off a pyramid.

  I had been in a number of ancient tombs, but all had been cleared for visitors. I was somewhat surprised to find that this one was almost as clear, and far less difficult than Walter had feared. There was a good deal of loose rubble underfoot, and at one point we had to cross a deep pit, which had been dug to discourage tomb robbers. The villagers had bridged it with a flimsy-looking plank. Other than that, the going was not at all bad.

  Walter too was struck by the relative tidiness. He threw a comment over his shoulder.

  "The place is too well cleared, Miss Peabody. I suspect it has been robbed over and over again; we will find nothing of interest here."

  The corridor ended, after a short distance, in a small chamber cut out of the rock. In the center of the room stood a rough wooden coffin. Lifting his torch, Walter looked into it.

  "There is nothing to be afraid of," he said, misinterpreting my expression. "The wrappings are still in place; will you look?"

  "Naturally," I said.

  I had seen mummies before, of course, in museums. At first glance this had nothing to distinguish it from any other mummy. The brown, crumbling bandages had been wrapped in intricate patterns, rather like weaving. The featureless head, the shape of the arms folded across the breast, the stiff, extended limbs-yes, it was like the other mummies I had seen, but I had never seen them in their natural habitat, so to speak. In the musty, airless chamber, lighted only by dimly flaring torches, the motionless form had a grisly majesty. I wondered who he- or she- had been: a prince, a priestess, the young mother of a family, or an aged grandfather? What thoughts had lived in the withered brain- what emotions had brought tears to the shriveled eyes or smiles to the fleshless lips? And the soul- did it live on, in the golden grain fields of Amenti, as the priests had promised the righteous worshiper, as we look forward to everlasting life with the Redeemer these people never knew?

  Walter did not appear to be absorbed in pious meditation. He was scowling as he stared down at the occupant of the coffin. Then he turned, holding the torch high as he inspected the walls of the chamber. They were covered with inscriptions and with the same sort of reliefs to which I had become accustomed in the Southern Tombs. All centered on the majestic figure of pharoah, sometimes alone, but usually with his queen and his six little daughters. Above, the god Aten, shown as the round disk of the sun, embraced the long with long rays that ended in tiny human hands.

  "Well?" I asked. "Will you excavate here, or will you remove the poor fellow from his coffin and unwrap him in more comfortable surroundings?"

  For a moment Walter looked unnervingly like his shaven brother as he tugged thoughtfully at his lower lip.

  "If we leave him here, some enterprising burglar will rend him apart in the hope of finding ornaments such as were sometimes wrapped in the bandages. But I don't hope for much, Miss Peabody. Some tombs were used for later burials, by poor people who could not build tombs of their own. This looks to me like just such a late mummy, much later than the period in which we are interested, and too poor to own any valuable ornaments."

  He handed his torch to one of the villagers and spoke to the man in Arabic- repeating the comment, I assumed. The man burst into animated speech, shaking his head till the folds of his turban fluttered.

  "Mohammed says our mummy is not a commoner," Walter explained, smiling at me. "He is a prince-a princely magician, no less."

  "How does he know that?"

  "He doesn't. Even if Mohammed could read the hieroglyphs, which he cannot, there is no inscription on the coffin to give the mummy's name. He is only trying to increase the backsheesh I owe him for this find."

  So Mohammed was the discoverer of this tomb. I studied the man with interest. He looked like all the other villagers -thin, wiry, epicene, his sunbaked skin making him look considerably older than his probable age. The life span in these villages is not high. Mohammed was probably no more than thirty, but poverty and ill health had given him the face of an old man.

  Seeing my eye upon him he looked at me and grinned ingratiatingly.

  "Yes," Walter said thoughtfully. "We must take our anonymous friend along. Radcliffe can unwrap him; it will give him something to do."

  Emerson was delighted with the find; he fell on the mummy with mumbled exclamations, so after making sure his temperature and pulse were normal, I left him to his ghoulish work. When he joined us on the ledge that evening, however, he was vociferously disappointed.

  "Greco-Egyptian," he grumbled, stretching his long legs out. "I suspected as much when I saw the pattern of the wrappings. Yes, yes; the signs are unmistakable. I am familiar with them from my own research; no one has done any work on this problem, although a chronological sequence could be worked out if one- "

  "My dear fellow, we are all of us familiar with your views on the deplorable state of archaeology in Egypt," Walter broke in, with a laugh. "But you are wrong about the mummy. Mohammed swears it is that of a princely magician, a priest of Amon, who placed a curse on this
heretical city."

  "Mohammed is a scurvy trickster who wants more money," growled Emerson. "How does he know about heretics and priests of Amon?"

  "There is another project for you," Walter said. "Investigating the traditions and folk memories of these people."

  "Well, his folk memory is wrong in this case. The poor chap whose wrappings I removed this afternoon was no priest. It frankly puzzles me to find him here at all. The city was abandoned after Khuenaten's death, and I did not think there was a settlement here in Ptolemaic times. These present villages did not occupy the site until the present century."

  "I doubt that the tomb was used by the official who had it built," Walter said. "The reliefs in the corridor were not finished."

  "What have you done with our friend?" I asked. "I hope you are not planning to make him the third occupant of your sleeping dormitory; I don't think he can be healthy."

  Emerson burst into an unexpected shout of laughter.

  "Being dead is the ultimate of unhealthiness, I suppose. Never fear; the mummy is resting in a cave at the bottom of the path. I only wish I could account for his original position as easily."

  "I might have a look at the tomb in the morning," I said. "That would leave the afternoon for working on the pavement- "

  "And what do you expect to find?" Emerson's voice rose. "Good God, madam, you seem to think you are a trained archaeologist! Do you think you can walk in here and- "

  Walter and Evelyn broke in simultaneously in an attempt to change the subject. They succeeded for the moment, but Emerson was sulky and snappish for the rest of the evening. When I tried to feel his forehead to see if he had developed a temperature, he stalked off to his tomb, fairly radiating grumpiness.

  "Don't mind him, Miss Peabody," Walter said, when he was out of earshot. "He is still not himself, and enforced inactivity infuriates a man of his energy."

  "He is not himself," I agreed. "In normal health he is even louder and more quarrelsome."

  "We are all a little on edge," Evelyn said in a low voice. "I don't know why I should be; but I feel nervous."

  "If that is the case we had better go to bed," I said, rising. "Some sleep will settle your mind, Evelyn."

  Little did I know that the night was to bring, not a cure for troubled minds, but the beginning of greater trouble.

  It is a recognized fact that sleepers train themselves to respond only to unfamiliar noises. A zoo keeper slumbers placidly through the normal nightly roars of his charges, but the squeak of a mouse in his tidy kitchen can bring him awake in an instant. I had accustomed my sleeping mind to the sounds of Amarna. They were few indeed; it was one of the most silent spots on earth, I think. Only the far-off ululation of an occasional love-sick jackal disturbed the silence. So, on this particular night, it was not surprising that the sound at the door of our tomb, slight though it was, should bring me upright, with my heart pounding.

  Light penetrated cracks in the curtain, but I could see nothing without. The sound continued. It was the oddest noise-a faint, dry scratching, like the rubbing of a bony object on rock.

  Once my pulse had calmed, I thought of explanations. Someone on the ledge outside the tomb- Michael, keeping watch, or Walter, sleepless outside his lady's chamber? Somehow my nerves were not convinced by either idea. In any case, the sound was keeping me awake. I fumbled for my parasol.

  The frequent mention of this apparatus may provoke mirth in the reader. I assure her (or him, as the case may be) that I was not intending to be picturesque. It was a very sturdy parasol, with a stiff iron staff, and I had chosen it deliberately for its strength.

  Holding it, then, in readiness for a possible act of violence, I called softly, "Who is there?"

  There was no response. The scratching sound stopped. It was followed, after a moment or two, by another sound, which rapidly died away, as if someone, or something, had beat a hasty but quiet retreat.

  I leaped from bed and ran to the doorway. I confess that I hesitated before drawing back the curtain. A parasol, even one of steel, would not be much use against a feral animal. The scratching sound might well have been produced by claws; and although I had been told that there were no longer any lions in Egypt, they had abounded in ancient times, and an isolated specimen might have survived in the desolate region. As I stood listening with all my might I heard another sound, like a rock or pebble rolling. It was quite a distance away. Thus reassured, I drew back the curtain and, after a cautious glance without, stepped onto the ledge.

  The moon was high and bright, but its position left the ledge in shadow. Against this dark background an object stood out palely. It was at the far end of the ledge, where it curved to pass around a shoulder of rock; and I was conscious of an odd constriction of my diaphragm as I glimpsed it.

  The shape was amorphous. It was of the height and breadth of a man, but it more resembled a white stone pillar man a human form, split at the bottom to present an imitation of a man's lower limbs. Stiff, stubby appendages like arms protruded at shoulder height, but they were not arms; humans arms were never so rigid.

  As I stared, blinking to cure what I thought must be a failure of my vision, the shape disappeared. It must have moved around the corner of the path. A faint moaning sigh wafted back to me. It might have been the sigh of the wind; but I felt no movement of air.

  I retreated to my bed, but I did not sleep well the rest of the night. The first pale streaks of dawn found me wide awake, and I was glad to arise and dress. I had managed to convince myself that what I saw was a large animal of some kind, raised on its back legs as a cat or panther will rise; so the full horror of the night did not strike me until I stepped out onto the ledge, which was now illumined by the rising sun. As I did so, something crackled under my foot.

  Sunrise in Egypt is a glorious spectacle. The sun, behind the cliffs at my back, shone fully upon the western mountains; but I had no eye for the beauties of nature then. The sound and feel of the substance my foot had crushed was horribly familiar. With reluctance I bent to pick it up, though my fingers shrank from the touch of it.

  I held a small fragment of brown flaking cloth, so dry that it crackled like paper when my fingers contracted. I had seen such cloth before. It was the rotting bandage which had once wrapped an ancient mummy.

  6

  I STOOD on the ledge for some time, trying to think sensibly. Emerson had spent some hours with the mummy. Fragments of the fragile cloth, caught on the fabric of his garments, might have been brushed off when he sat down at dinner the night before. But as soon as the idea entered my mind, common sense dismissed it. There was a regular trail of the stuff leading down the ledge as far as I could see. If Emerson's clothes had been so untidy I would have noticed. Further, Emerson's chair was some six feet away from the door of our chamber. He had never approached our door last night; and the largest heap of fragments was there, as if it had been deposited by a creature who stood for a long time on our threshold.

  I don't know what instinct moved me to action-fear for Evelyn's nerves, perhaps, or concern for the superstitions of the workers. At any rate, I dashed inside, snatched up a cloth, and swept the horrible fragments off the ledge. Evelyn was still sleeping; and from below, the fragrance of coffee reached my nostrils. Michael was on duty early.

  I was not the only early riser. As I stood by the campfire sipping my tea, Emerson came down the path. He gave me a surly nod and paused for a moment, as if daring me to order him back to bed. I said nothing; and after a while he went on and disappeared into the cave where his precious mummy had been deposited.

  He had not been within for more than a few seconds when the sweet morning air was rent by a hideous cry. I dropped my cup, splashing my foot with hot tea; before I could do more, Emerson burst out of the cave. His inflamed eyes went straight to me. He raised both clenched fists high in the air.

  "My mummy! You have stolen my mummy! By Gad, Peabody, this time you have gone too far! I've watched you; don't think I have been unwitting of
your machinations! My pavement, my expedition, my brother's loyalty, even my poor, helpless carcass have fallen victim to your meddling; but this-this is too much! You disapprove of my wwk, you want to keep me feeble and helpless in bed, so you steal my mummy! Where is it? Produce it at once, Peabody, or- "

  His shouts aroused the rest of the camp. I saw Evelyn peering curiously from the ledge above, clutching the collar of her dressing gown under her chin. Walter bounded down the path, trying to stuff his flying shirttails into his waistband and simultaneously finish doing up the buttons.

  "Radcliffe, Radcliffe, what are you doing? Can't you behave for five minutes?"

  "He is accusing me of stealing his mummy," I said. My own tones were rather loud. "I will overlook his other ridiculous accusations, which can only be the product of a disturbed brain-"

  "Disturbed! Certainly I am disturbed! Of all the ills on earth, an interfering female is the worst!"

  By this time we were surrounded by a circle of staring faces; the workers, coming in from the village, had been attracted by the uproar. They could not understand Emerson's remarks, but the tone of anger was quite comprehensible; their dark eyes were wide with alarm and curiosity as they watched Emerson's extraordinary performance. Foremost in the crowd stood Mohammed, the man who had led us to the tomb the day before. There was the most peculiar expression on his face- a kind of sly smirk. It interested me so much that I failed to respond to Emerson's latest outburst, and turned away, leaving him waving his fists at empty air. Mohammed saw me. Instantly his mouth turned down and his eyes widened in a look of pious alarm that would have suited an angel.

  Seeing the futility of communication with Emerson when he was in this state, Walter turned to the cave where the mummy was kept. He was soon out again; his expressive face told me the truth before he spoke.