The Quest of Julian Day (29 page)

‘Fortunately for us, Johnny Turk's supplies broke down so he had to fall back through lack of water and ammunition almost as soon as he got there; but if he'd had another twenty-four hours' leeway he might easily have sunk some of the ships in the Canal with his artillery. If he had, it would have taken us weeks to get it clear again and, in the meantime, all the reinforcements on their way from Australia, India and the East would have been bottled up in the Red Sea and rendered completely useless to us.'

‘What a crazy show,' I murmured.

He shrugged. ‘Anyhow, most of the muddlers are as dead as Queen Anne now and the staff officers picked for their brains these days. I don't think there's much likelihood of the present lot trying to defend important strategic points from behind if there does come a “next time”.'

The afternoon was fine and we raced on in the sunshine through the beautifully-kept Canal Zone which is under the administration of the immensely wealthy Suez Canal Company. The dues on shipping are so high that they sound almost prohibitive but they are worked out to a scale which would make it just a trifle more expensive, whatever the tonnage of the ship, in extra fuel and wages to take her round South Africa.

There is no expense in connection with operating locks along the Canal as the engineers under de Lesseps who built it found, to their astonishment, that the ocean level is exactly the same in the Red Sea as in the Mediterranean, and this naturally adds enormously to the Company's profits; on the other hand, every time there is a severe sandstorm in the Canal Zone it costs the Company £20,000 to dredge out the sand which is blown into the Canal.

As the Canal is banked on either side its waters cannot be seen from certain portions of the road and, just as we were passing the southern end of the Little Bitter Lake, this gave rise to a most queer illusion. In front of us lay, apparently, the unbroken desert valley, yet, with smoking funnel and flags afiutter,
a big liner in the distance seemed to be ploughing its way through a sea of sand.

By half-past four we were in Suez where we said goodbye to Longdon and I got into the other car. We had had to leave Mustapha in the hospital at Ismailia on account of his shattered arm and with Amin sitting next to the driver there was a seat inside for me. Sylvia was now feeling the reaction of her ordeal and looked pathetically ill and weak. She slept fitfully most of the way back to Cairo and our journey was uneventful.

The manager at the Continental had had a new room prepared for her and all her things moved into it, so Clarissa took her straight up to bed. The rest of us also were pretty done-in and after a scratch meal, for which we had very little appetite, we made an early night of it.

The following morning I had an interview with Essex Pasha and gave him a verbal account of what had happened; although, of course, he had already received official reports from Hanbury and Longdon. Sylvia was too ill to come downstairs that day so I lunched with the Belvilles, and Amin took us to see a few more of the sights of Cairo in the afternoon. On account of my adventure there two nights before Clarissa was anxious to visit the City of the Dead so we drove through its desolate, uncanny, empty streets and afterwards visited the tombs of the Mamelukes.

Until Sylvia was well again we could not do much to prepare for the expedition which the Belvilles were still set on making; and for the moment I had come to a dead-end in my vendetta against O'Kieff. Zakri and Oonas were reported by the police to be still in Alexandria. Suliman Taufik, the owner of the now defunct House of the Angels, and Gamal had both been arrested; but O'Kieff had left the Mena House and entirely disappeared. It was a considerable satisfaction to know that I had at least dealt the enemy two most effective blows, in packing up one of their dope-dens and their de luxe white-slaving depot but, for the time being, as there did not seem to be any further way of getting at them, I filled in my time by going round with Harry and Clarissa.

On the second day after our return from Suez we went to see the Tutankhamen treasures in the Egyptian museum. I had seen them before but the Belvilles were utterly amazed, like
most people who see them for the first time, at their variety and magnificence. The coloured reproductions of them which have appeared on postcards and in periodicals give but a poor idea of the actual treasures, since only a score or so of the most important objects have been selected for that purpose. The whole collection numbers over 1,700 items, each of which has some special interest on account of its uniqueness or beautiful workmanship, and fills two huge galleries; but perhaps the most staggering thing about the collection, as compared with other Egyptian antiques, is its perfect preservation. The gold and gems, the wood carving, ebony, ivory and alabaster are as fresh and bright as though they had come from the craftsman's shop only yesterday.

That afternoon the Belvilles drove out with Amin to see the Pyramids, which they had not yet visited, while I put in a few hours writing up this journal; but we arranged to meet again that night to see the Continental Cabaret, which is the best show of its kind in Cairo, and when we met there Clarissa said that Sylvia's doctor had agreed that she would be well enough to get up the following day.

The next morning the four of us got down to business. Sylvia was looking a little subdued, I thought. She had lost the hardness which had seemed to me such a prominent feature of her make-up at our first hectic meeting, and I liked her better in this chastened mood. I was glad to see that she greeted Harry and myself without the least embarrassment and that she looked fairly fit again; no worse, at all events, than if she had been confined to her room for a couple of days with a severe cold.

Harry produced the notes she had loaned him and she read them through for us. They began with the translation of the front of the top half of the tablet which ran:

‘I, Heru-tem, make obeisance to thee, Osiris, Lord of Abydos, King of the Gods, Ruler of Eternity, whose names are manifold, whose transformations are sublime, whose form is hidden in the temples, whose Ka is holy. Homage to thee. Hathor-Isis, Divine Mother. To thee also, Horus, Royal Hawk, Great Son, Protector of Warriors. Intercede for me, Heru-tem, when the time of my trial cometh before thy august
Father in the dread hall of Ma
ā
ti. For behold, I am a just person. I know the names of the forty-two assessors of the dead and can justify before them without fear.

‘I was full of goodness and of gentle character and a ruler who loved his town. The hungry did not exist in my time even when there were years of famine. For behold, I ploughed the fields both north and south; thus I found food for its inhabitants and I gave them whatever it produced. I did not prefer a great person to a humble man: not a daughter of a poor man did I wrong, not a widow did I oppress. There was not a pauper round me; until the coming of the Persian there was not a hungry man in my time.

‘Behold. I fought gallantly; I led my men into battle.'

It was here that the stele had been broken; the translation of the lower part of its front continued:

‘In my chariot I was a mighty man. My arrows sped fast. I wielded my mace tirelessly, crushing the skulls of Pharaoh's enemies.

‘It was the will of the Great Ones that Pharaoh should be chastened in my day. Pharaoh submitted to the Persian and the people knew a humiliation such as had never come upon them before in the whole history of the land. The gods were mocked; their statues were thrown down; the treasure of ages was looted from the temples; the shaven priests were sacrificed as an offering to strange gods; the tears of the people were more abundant than the waters of the Nile.

‘In Thebes the Persian proclaimed himself Pharaoh and Lord of the Two Lands. His flail smote the peoples of the North and the peoples of the South. He commanded thy servant, Heru-tem, to appear before him. His captains had made known to him my strength and my valour. To take service under the Persian was abhorrent to me yet, behold, I did this thing that by his favour I might protect and feed the people of my town.

‘There came a time when even the wealth of Thebes was not sufficient to satiate his greed. He styled himself King of Kings and willed that no people should escape the weight of his sceptre. Travellers filled his ears with tales of rich cities
which lay beyond the desert to the West. He planned to lead his host out of Egypt for their conquest. The riches of the distant Oasis of Amon enticed him. For many months he made preparations for his journey, yet when the time came the Great Ones willed that he should not march with his army.

‘The wealth of the land was collected at Thebes. The host was sent forth and behold, I, Heru-tem, was among them, being a captain of a thousand. The Persian lay sick and was to follow after. We journeyed through the Oases on the west bank of the Nile (of Kharga and Dakhla); then for many days across the sands by the way which has been prepared for us. Each night we halted at the cisterns (water jar dumps) which the advance-guard had placed against our coming; without them we should have died of thirst.'

The translation was here continued from the back of the upper portion of the stele.

‘We deviated neither to right nor left but marched in a straight line as is the manner of the Persians.

‘For twenty-two days we saw no man, nor wild life, nor vegetation. For water we relied upon that which had been buried; our food we carried with us. Three days more and we should have reached the great Oasis; but the false Gods of the Persians bore them not up; their guides betrayed them. On the twenty-third day we were diverted by a ruse from the line we should have followed. That night we failed to come upon a cistern. The guides fled in the night and made off secretly to the Oasis. For two days and two nights we marched and counter-marched, striving to find our path. The third day we turned back upon our tracks. Men were dying of thirst when we found again the last cistern at which we had halted. There was a half-ration of water for the men but none for the horses. The chariots with their loads of treasure had to be abandoned. The soldiers mutinied; many officers were slaughtered.

‘With me was the priest-astronomer, Khnemnu. Each night he had taken observations of the stars. These are the readings for the place where the treasure of Egypt was lost; the place where the army of the Persian was stricken by the Great Ones
in their wisdom; so that of itself it fell to pieces, its thousands dying in terror and confusion.'

There followed a date from the old Egyptian calendar and numerous astronomical figures which meant nothing to us; but Sylvia said that Sir Walter had worked them all out during the previous spring and, reducing them to modern tables, had satisfied himself that the catastrophe had occurred in approximately Lat. 28° 10″ N. Long. 25° 33″ E. It was here, too, that the break in the tablet occurred again so that some of the date was on the upper part and the atronomical observations on the lower. In consequence the site of the treasure could not be calculated unless one had both halves of the tablet. Sylvia went on with the translation of the back of the lower portion which read:

‘By thy grace, O Lord of millions upon millions of years, I, thy servant Heru-tem, chanced upon eight large water-jars buried apart from the rest. Five others (men) were with me. We watered our horses and escaped into the night leaving the dying army. Our water lasted six days and on the seventh we found another cistern. For a time we remained there regaining strength from the surplus left by the army. We set out again but the sand betrayed us. Khnemnu had many years and was the first to die. My companions followed him to thy bosom. O Lord Osiris. Count it unto me that although I was weak I gave each a burial according to the rites with such sustance as I had. I alone reached the Oasis (of Dakhla).

‘The people gave me back my strength and I remained with them. Had I returned to Thebes to make known the loss of the whole army the Persian would have killed me. The people of the Oasis honoured me for my wisdom and made me a ruler among them. They gave me groves of date palms and I prospered. Behold, I dealt fairly with them; I gave them good counsel. For a score of years I lived happily among them.

‘Guide my feet in the Hall of Truth, O Ruler of Eternity. O Lady Hathor, have compassion upon a simple man who has protected the weak. O Horus, Royal Son, intercede for a soldier who has not shirked danger. Order it that when my heart is weighed in the scales against the feather of Ma
ā
ti that it may not depress the balance. See to it that my entrails
are not cast before Ammit, the Eater of the Dead. Grant thou that I may sail down to Tattu like a living soul and that I may live for ever among the blessed in the Fields of Sekhet-Aaru.'

As Sylvia ceased we all sat silent for a moment. Those simple sentences brought ‘the man who came back' strangely near to us. Actually he had died many centuries before Christ was born; yet it seemed as though the mists of time had dissolved for a moment and that he might have returned out of the desert only yesterday, so clear and convincing was the record which had come direct from him to us moderns of the age of steel.

Sylvia then produced the lists which she had made out before our arrival of things which she considered it would be necessary for us to take on our expedition. As Harry read them through carefully I suggested a few additions and we divided amongst us the work of getting them together. The vehicles for the convoy had been shipped out on the ‘Hampshire'; the tents and most of the stores had already been ordered, but if we succeeded in finding the spot where Cambyses' army had foundered we should naturally want to dig up as much of the treasure as possible before returning; and once we left the Oasis of Dakhla behind we should be entirely cut off from any source of supply.

That meant we had to budget to make ourselves self-supporting for about five weeks in the desert and must carry with us an innumerable variety of items. As I listened to the long lists I soon saw why it was that, quite apart from the three thousand pounds Lemming had blackmailed out of her, Clarissa had had to sink such a large sum in this expedition.