Neville tilted the page Alphonse had handed around for inspection so he could read it more clearly in the firelight.
“I wonder,” he said slowly, “if the boat mentioned here isn’t an actual boat. Didn’t the ancient Egyptians envision the sun as a boat? A boat on which a bunch of gods sailed?”
“Sometimes,” Alphonse replied. “Another common image was of a flaming ball being rolled by a dung beetle—this is one reason the scarab beetle was sacred and used for amulets.”
“Slow down,” Neville insisted. “Sometimes too much knowledge is counterproductive. What’s caught my eye is the way these people go ‘as’ the Nile and the boat. If the boat was a usual type of vessel, why ‘fly’? I assume you didn’t employ poetic license in your choice of words?”
“I did not,” Alphonse said stiffly.
“I didn’t think you would,” Neville replied soothingly. “Now, here we have an inscription dating from a lot later than the legend you’re tracking down, right?”
Alphonse nodded, still frowning.
“What if it offers some sort of directions?” Neville continued, excited by the picture that was building in his mind. “Directions written down later, for those who might have forgotten the way to the Valley of Dust but who might need to go there to make offerings? If the boat is the boat of the sun, then it travels from east to west. The Nile travels south to north—contrary to just about every river I know. It’s stretching some, but what if traveling as the Nile and the boat is traveling northwest?”
Alphonse’s frown was replaced with a grin.
“If this is so,” he said, “then the reference to a homecoming makes sense. It is a coming to the Valley of Dust—the final home of Neferankhotep’s mortal remains. And the Eye of the Hawk . . .”
“Confirms our guess,” Neville interrupted, too enthused to remember his manners. “There are only a few directions from which this Hawk Rock would resemble a hawk. We came from southeast. The other angle that would provide the same general orientation is looking back at the rock from further to the northwest.”
Eddie Bryce thumped him on the back.
“Maybe you’re stretching, Captain,” he said, “but it’s a nice bit of work nevertheless. What do we do now?”
“Tomorrow,” Alphonse said, “I will go atop the Hawk Rock and study the land to the northwest through my telescope. Perhaps I will see something. Even if I do not, I would wish to journey some distance in that direction to see if we can find evidence to confirm Neville’s reasoning.”
Derek interjected, “We may run short on provisions, sir.”
“Nonsense!” Alphonse replied with an airy wave of his hand. “Captain Hawthorne has found both fresh water and camel fodder. With the departure of our guides, we have two more man’s worth of provisions yet untouched. And the Valley of Dust was said to be populated with goats.”
Neville didn’t say anything about that last. He knew if he did Alphonse would merely point out that Chad Spice’s journal had been correct on the matter of finding water at the Hawk Rock. Besides, if he was in the least honest with himself, he had to admit that he, too, was curious as to what they might find. Being part of a major archeological discovery could only do good things for his reputation, both within the Army and in wider circles as well.
“I think we would not be imprudent,” Neville said, “to continue our journey at least a bit further northwest. Tomorrow morning while Alphonse makes his telescopic survey we will finish replenishing our water and cut fodder for the camels.”
“Very good,” Alphonse said, rubbing his hands briskly together. “Everything is perfectly in order.”
Jackals barking in the small hours just before dawn were the first sign that everything was far from in order.
“That doesn’t sound right,” Eddie said to Neville, after the captain shook him awake. “Too many. Too scattered. I might believe it of a wolf pack, but jackals . . .”
“My thoughts exactly,” Neville agreed. “I’m going to wake the others. I’ll send Derek to help you ready the camels. Muffle the harness. We’ll take the gear but leave the tents set up.”
“Are we leaving?” Eddie asked, stomping into his boots.
“I want to get out of this canyon,” Neville replied. “ ‘Box’ seems too apt a description for it. Let’s make certain the box doesn’t turn into a coffin.”
Neville woke Alphonse and Derek, warning them to keep both light and sound to a minimum. Then he crossed to the small tent Miriam occupied. He’d half-expected to find it empty, but the girl was waiting, dressed and alert.
“Those are not jackals,” she said as soon as she saw him.
“I thought not,” Neville replied. “This canyon is too closed in for my tastes.”
“I understand,” Miriam replied. “I will help with the camels.”
“Good. Send Eddie Bryce to me. I want him on guard.”
Since their gear had been ready for a morning departure, loading the camels didn’t take long. The jackals’ barking had nearly ceased, but Neville wasn’t fooled into complacency. Earlier, whoever was out there must have been getting into position. Now they were probably waiting for better light.
By the time Derek reported that the camels were ready, Neville had made his plans. Open desert was hardly preferable to the box canyon, but it did offer a faint hope for escape.
“Form up,” he told the others. “We’ll get out and head east toward the Nile.”
No one spoke. No one protested, though the glimpse Neville had of Alphonse’s expression demonstrated more eloquently than any impassioned words that Neville would pay dearly if this proved a false alarm.
It isn’t, though, Neville thought, and moved his camel forward.
Camels’ feet are soft and made for traveling across sand. They are quiet, but not noiseless. Equally, though Neville’s band carried no lights and the moon had set, the darkness was not absolute. Starlight is quite enough for eyes accustomed to its glow. Even so, Neville hoped they might get away with it.
But whoever it was who had raised the jackal’s call in the darkness did not wait for daylight to attack. Perhaps someone noticed that, though the tents kept their places, the grumbling shapes of the camels were no longer picketed at the camp’s fringe. Perhaps the attack had been planned for earlier in any case.
For whatever reason, before Neville and his band had traveled far from the Hawk Rock, a shrill cry of rage and disappointment pierced the clear desert air. Neville knew that their enemies would seek them to the east—for there was nothing but desert to the west. Speed, then, rather than deception was their only chance.
He thumped his camel and the creature reluctantly stretched out its limbs in an undulating run. The other camels followed suit without prompting. Indeed, the shrieks from where the Hawk Rock bulked behind them were prompting enough.
It’s five days back to the Nile, Neville thought despairingly. If they have camels or horses we’re sunk. Maybe we should have fought it out back there.
But he knew his small group wouldn’t have had a chance. He and Eddie were in training, but Derek was disabled, and Alphonse didn’t even carry a gun. Miriam would also be useless in a fight. Indeed, Neville expected that if he looked back he would see that her camel—and perhaps one of those bearing their supplies—would be gone. What better way for the Bedouin girl to win back her father’s support?
Thus Neville was surprised out of all proportion when Miriam’s camel drew alongside his own. The girl called out to him.
“Follow me, Captain Hawthorne. I know a place where, Allah willing, these superstitious dogs will not follow.”
Neville did not permit Miriam to take the lead; she pressed her camel to the front. The beast—not the water carrier this time—lightly burdened by no other weight than her lithe form, took the lead easily.
And Neville followed. What else could he do? Miriam was offering some hope, slender though it might be. If her offer proved to be another trap—well, they were already into it up to their necks. Glancing back over his shoulder, he was certain he saw a fair-sized dust cloud occluding the stars and knew that at least some of their pursuers were mounted.
Miriam led them to an area where the desert was broken and rocky. A rise—nothing like the Hawk Rock but at least higher and more substantial than sand dunes—rose from the surrounding area. When they drew closer, Neville realized that the rock showed signs of having been carved and shaped. He was not surprised when Miriam drew her camel to a halt and announced:
“It is a necropolis of the old kings. My father and his brothers have come here to rob the dead, but they have never trusted the place. Their fear may slow them long enough for us to make a defense.”
Neville saw the wisdom in her words. Unlike the box canyon, where they could be surrounded on all sides, here they could claim the high ground. His and Eddie’s rifles were likely to have better range than what the Arabs carried—at least he hoped so. Even Derek and Alphonse might be able to be of some use—and he no longer felt a desire to dismiss Miriam out of hand.
“Can you use a rifle?” he asked her as they herded the camels within the most sheltered perimeter of rocks. Derek forced the beasts to kneel and efficiently began unloading the most necessary supplies.
“I can,” Miriam said, “but I can do more than that.”
Moving with a lithe grace that demonstrated more clearly than words that she had no fear of this city of the dead, Miriam showed Neville several openings into the tombs.
“We can shelter within,” she said, “if needed.”
Neville nodded.
“Eddie!” he called back to his sergeant. “I’m going to do some scouting.”
“Right, Captain,” came the jaunty reply. “The Bedouin have stopped just outside of rifle range. I borrowed the professor’s binoculars and it looks like they’re arguing.”
Neville wasted neither breath nor time in reply. Lighting a candle, he ducked into the first opening. This led to a dead end, but the second opening led to a well-preserved chamber. He was about to penetrate more deeply when Miriam’s voice came echoing down the corridors.
“Please, Captain Hawthorne, Eddie Bryce is calling. Someone has been hit!”
Neville was outside almost before the Arab girl finished speaking. Derek was wrapping a length of fabric around his employer’s left forearm. Alphonse was pale and so shaken that even his eyebrows seemed to have lost their customary exuberance.
“Report, Sergeant!” Neville snapped, flinging himself down behind their makeshift bulwark and readying his rifle.
“Not all of them are scared of ghosts,” Eddie replied, “but a whole lot more are scared of my rifle. Alphonse was clipped by a ricochet, not a direct hit.”
“Where are they?”
“Pulled back out of range. We’ve got the drop on them, though, and a clear line of sight all around.”
“Problem is,” Neville replied, “you and I can’t watch everywhere. If we are forced to start shooting . . .”
Eddie shrugged noncommittally. The matter wasn’t worth spelling out.
“Please, sir,” Derek said. He’d finished wrapping Alphonse’s arm and was belly-crawling to join them. “I can watch.”
“I can watch,” Miriam said breathlessly in Arabic. She might not understand English, but Neville had already accepted that she was no fool. “And shoot.”
Neville nodded. He shared out both rifles and sidearms, posted Derek and Miriam so that the group now possessed an overlapping field of vision in all directions, and felt completely hopeless. From what he could glimpse through Alphonse’s binoculars the Arabs outnumbered them four or five to one.
Favoring his lacerated arm, Alphonse crept up beside Neville.
“Captain, this is a ruin, yes?”
Neville tried to manage a chuckle. “But not likely the Valley of Dust, I’m afraid.”
“No. Not likely. However, I understand ruins where I do not understand warfare. With your permission, I shall continue the scouting you had undertaken.”
“You have my permission,” Neville said. “All I ask is that you make the rounds from time to time with fresh water. It’s going to get damned hot out here.”
“Of course!”
And it did get damn hot. The Arabs launched the occasional charge, but were driven back without much effort, occasionally dragging a wounded comrade. Sometime around noon, Miriam confirmed what Neville suspected.
“They can wait. Why risk shooting and harming the camels? A day or two is nothing, especially with water near.”