by Sax Rohmer
“Perspiration blinded me and I was shaking with my exertions. I stood there, the fallen lantern at my feet, looking down at those two ghastly companions—the one indisputably dead; the other, for all his rigour and gray-white face, alive for all I knew to the contrary. Certainly, I had heard his voice not long since…
“Taking up the lantern, which had remained alight, I stooped and went in through the triangular opening which had been made in the wall… I found myself in the Tomb of the Black Ape!
“I need not describe it. The great sarcophagus was open—the wooden lid roughly in place, the stone one lying on the floor. I raised the sycamore covering. The mummy case was empty.
“Observing in a corner a cavern-like opening, I crossed and explored it. It proved to be a low antechamber. Into this I dragged the Dacoit so that he should be out of my sight. Then, I stood in the tomb, endeavouring to make up my mind what I should do about Barton.
“My brain was not at its best. But nevertheless I had to imagine what would happen when the Dacoit failed to report. Also, I had to take it for granted that my theory respecting his orders was correct; namely that his job was to carry Barton back to the hut, relock the door, and rejoin Fah Lo Suee wherever she might be.
“Suppose one of the enemy returned in my absence and found Barton where he lay? It was a dreadful possibility.
“First I thought of dragging him into the antechamber with the dead Dacoit. Then I realized that this would be useless. My second idea, wild though it sounds, was a good one. They would never think of looking in the sarcophagus!…
“The task was a heavy one. But I managed it. I replaced the lid, using some wedges which I found inside to prevent it closing entirely and to allow of air reaching the interior.
“I came out of Lafleur’s Shaft. I heard the sound of a descending plane! At first, I couldn’t believe my ears. Then came the explanation.
“And just as I grasped the fact that help for poor Barton—if he had not passed beyond its reach—was arrived, I heard a second sound… Said’s signal!
“Appreciating his state of anxiety—I had been missing for hours—I circled round the camp and joined him. He had heard the descent of the plane, of course, but he was even more urgently concerned about a party of three men and a woman, the men bearing heavy burdens, who at that very moment, I gathered, were setting out on camels for Kûrnal.
“I weighed the chances—and the stakes. I came to a speedy decision. Leaving Said on duty, I set out for a point on the Kûrna road—where Fletcher was posted…
“Needless to add, I failed to overtake Fah Lo Suee. Fletcher had noted the mysterious caravan, but naturally had not challenged it. I returned, and made my return known to Said…”
“You alarmed the whole camp!” I broke in. “We had learned to recognize that false dog’s howling!”
“Quite!” Nayland Smith smiled his rare, revealing smile. “But Said informed me that Rima Barton, who had been here, in Luxor, was back in camp with Ali Mahmoud and that you three fellows were with Forester in the big hut…
“Dead beat though I was, another job remained: to enable you to find Barton! I sent Said out scouting. The last thing I desired was to make a dramatic entrance that night. Said presently returned to report that you, Weymouth, and Greville had gone to the excavation with Ali Mahmoud.
“I ordered Said to creep down Lafleur’s Shaft and watch…
“He was back in less than seven minutes by my watch! He had met a woman coming out! He thought that she had not seen him. She had gone towards the Valley…
“My fatigue forgotten, I set out racing along the top of the wâdi—”
“Rima saw you!” I interrupted.
“Very likely. I observed that the door of the hut was open…
“A wild-goose chase! Madame had vanished! With characteristic cool courage she must have returned to find out what had become of her missing servant.
“When the news reached me that Barton lived, I was worse than dog-tired; I was exhausted. And that night I shared a humble shakedown with Said.”
“I dislike dividing our forces at this stage of the campaign,” said Nayland Smith, “but there’s nothing else for it. I had intended to send a message down, Petrie, if you hadn’t anticipated me. As a matter of fact”—he glanced at the table—“I was writing it when the manager rang me up. I can play my lone hand no longer.
“Fletcher must stay on guard. We can’t leave Sir Lionel unprotected. Rima, of course, must remain also. Indeed it would be useless to ask her to do otherwise. And I want you, Greville, to act as guide. It’s a pretty desperate expedition. But there’s a chance we may be able to strike quickly and strangle this dreadful business at the hour of its birth.”
“Just a moment, Sir Denis,” Weymouth interrupted. “Where do I come in?”
Smith turned to him, and:
“Glad to have you with me,” he replied, “although your actual duty doesn’t call for it.”
“Thanks,” said Weymouth dryly.
Smith met Dr. Petrie’s fixed stare.
“Your leave starts next Thursday,” he said. “And I can imagine how Karamanèh is looking forward to seeing London again…”
There was a short silence, then:
“Is that all you have to say?” asked the doctor.
Nayland Smith grasped his shoulders impulsively.
“We stuck together pretty closely in the old days,” he said. “But, now, I daren’t ask you—”
“You don’t have to!” Petrie declared truculently. “I’m coming!”
“But where are we for?” I asked.
“For the house at present occupied by Fah Lo Suee.”
“What!” Petrie exclaimed. “Then where is this house?”
“Near the Oasis of Khârga—which accounts for Weymouth’s inability to trace it!”
“But Khârga’s surely a hundred and fifty miles!”
“There’s a sort of railway,” I said, “and a train about twice a year, from somewhere down Farshût way.”
“Not our route,” snapped Nayland Smith. “We’re going from Esna.”
“But that’s just a caravan road—and a bad one too. The chief and I went, once—he had an idea of working on the Temple of Hibis there—and I’m not likely to forget it! Sir Lionel loves camels—and so we went on camels. It took us three days to get to Khârga and three days to get back!”
“What I wanted to know! We’re going by car.”
“Gad! There are some nasty bits!”
“There may be. But if Fah Lo Suee can do it, we can do it! The only car I could beg, borrow, or steal was a hard-bitten Buick about six years old. But I’ve got it packed in a quiet spot. I completed arrangements this morning. You might glance over this map.”
From the table drawer he produced a large-scale map, when:
“What on earth are we going for?” Weymouth demanded.
“We’re going to spy! Tonight, I have reason to believe, the powers of hell will be assembled in el-Khârga.”
I went along to the room occupied by the chief, quietly opened the door, and looked in. He lay as I had last seen him, haggard, and pale under his tan. But his expression remained untroubled, and his strong, bronzed hands, crossed, rested quietly on the sheet.
Rima was sitting by the open window, reading. She looked up as I entered, shook her head and smiled rather sadly.
I went across to her.
“No change, dear?”
“Not the slightest. But you look excited, Shan. What is it? Something that extraordinary man Nayland Smith has told you?”
“Yes, darling. He has discovered what we wanted to know. We start in an hour.”
Rima grasped my arm. Her eyes opened widely and her expression grew troubled; then:
“Do you mean—her?”
I nodded.
“Where she is?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, that woman terrifies me!… I hate the thought of your going.”
I put my
arm around her shoulders.
“You have none of your old doubts, darling, have you?” I asked.
She shook her head, then nestled against me.
“But I’m afraid of her,” she explained—“desperately afraid of her. She is evil—utterly evil. Where is this place?”
“In the Oasis of Khârga.”
“What! But that’s miles and miles away in the desert! How ever are you going to get there?”
I briefly explained Nayland Smith’s plan; and when Rima understood that he as well as Weymouth and Petrie were coming with the party, she seemed to grow easier in mind. Nevertheless, I could see that she was very troubled. And I have often wondered since if some moment of prevision came to her—if she foresaw, dimly, that a dreadful danger lay awaiting me in the Oasis of Khârga…
“Tonight… the powers of hell will be assembled…”
Nayland Smith’s strange words recurred to me.
A sound of footsteps on the gravel in the garden below brought my mind sharply to present dangers. I crossed the balcony and looked down. One glance was sufficient to reassure me. Of course, I might have known!
Fletcher, pipe in mouth, was slowly pacing up and down—a sure guard, if ever a man had one.
“He stays there all the time, until the windows are closed,” Rima explained. “Then he comes up and remains in the corridor.”
I stooped for a moment over the chief, wondering what secrets were locked up in that big brain of his; wondering what had really happened down there in the Tomb of the Black Ape, and how much he knew regarding the missing contents of the sarcophagus. Rima stood beside me, and:
“You must be dreadfully tired, dear,” I said.
“Oh, I get plenty of sleep,” she replied, “in little bits. Nurse and I watch, turn and turn about, you know. I shouldn’t be happy if I weren’t doing it.”
She looked up at me in that grave way which always made me ashamed of myself, made me feel that in some spiritual sense I was infinitely less than she. She lifted her lips to mine and I took her in my arms…
Having little enough to do in the way of preparation, I might not have torn myself away so quickly had it not been for the arrival of the nurse, a stout and capable Scottish woman, well known to the management.
Perhaps it was as well. Rima clung to me almost pitifully… Yes! I think some Celtic premonition must have warned her…
Downstairs I found Petrie waiting. Nayland Smith had disappeared; but:
“We are to join him at Esna,” Petrie explained, “and for some reason which I should regard as lunatic in any other than Smith, we are to pose as natives!”
“What!”
“Complete outfits—of which he has quite a wardrobe—are ready in his rooms. Weymouth is up there, now… and Said is standing by to guide us to the meeting place.”
We stared hard at one another. But neither of us was in jesting mood; and:
“Please God we all get back safe,” said Petrie simply.
CHAPTER SIX
THE COUNCIL OF SEVEN
That journey across the desert was strange in many ways— stranger and more horrible in its outcome than a merciful Providence allowed me to foresee. Nevertheless it aroused within me that sort of warning sixth sense which once before, on the train to Cairo, had advised me of the fact that I was spied upon. Possibly those religious fanatics guarding the extraordinary woman who called herself Madame Ingomar, and whom I knew claimed a sort of divine ordinance for their ghastly crimes, reacted upon me in some odd way. All I know is that I seemed to have developed a capacity for smelling them out; as will presently appear.
Weymouth, Petrie, and Nayland Smith rode in the back of the car, and I sat in front with Said. The starting place outside Esna had been cunningly chosen and we had every reason to believe that the outset of our journey had been managed without attracting attention.
Our disguises were passably good. Both Weymouth and Petrie were well sun-browned, and I had the complexion which comes with months of exposure to the weather. Petrie’s distinguished appearance was enhanced by a tarboosh and we had agreed to address him as “Bey.” Weymouth, his robes crowned by a small white turban, resembled a substantial village sheikh; and I knew I could pass anywhere for a working Arab. Nayland Smith had retained the dress he was wearing at our first meeting.
Clear of the cultivated land that borders the Nile, and well out upon that ancient route which once had known no passage more violent than that of the soft padding camels and the tinkling of the camel bells, we met never a soul for thirty miles.
An hour, and another hour, we carried on, over desolate, gravelly, boundless waste. The sun blazed down mercilessly although it was dipping to the western horizon. On we went, and on; until, having mounted a long slope, I saw a wâdi ahead.
Nothing moved within my view, although I searched the prospect carefully through Nayland Smith’s field-glasses. The ground was hard as nails. But at the bottom of this little valley, I spied a clump of palms and knew that there must be water.
A sentinel vulture floated high overhead.
We bumped on merrily across the wildest irregularities. In no sense was this a motor road. And, having carefully studied the map, I had serious doubts of its practicability beyond the site of some Roman ruins merely marked “el-Dêr.”
Down we swept into the wâdi, Said driving in that carefree manner which characterizes the native chauffeur for whom tires are things made to be burst, and engines, djinns or powerful spirits invulnerable to damage. However, we carried three spares and could only hope for the best.
I don’t know what it was, unless perhaps the smoother running of the car, which drew my attention to the path ahead. We were now in the cup of the valley and rapidly approaching that clump of palms which I had noted. Suddenly:
“Pull up,” rapped Nayland Smith.
His hand gripped my shoulder. Said pulled up.
“Look!”
We all stood and stared ahead. Nayland Smith pointed. The surface was comparatively soft here; and clearly discernible upon the road, crossing and recrossing, were many tire marks!
“Fah Lo Suee!” said Smith, as if answering my unspoken query. “You can set your mind at rest, Greville. The road to Khârga is practicable for driving.”
It was a curious discovery, and it set me thinking, hard. When Madame Ingomar had visited the camp, had she come all the way from the oasis, and had she returned there? Presumably, this was so. And, as always happened when my thoughts turned to this phenomenal woman, a very vivid mental picture presented itself before my mind. Her long, narrow, jade-green eyes seemed to be staring into mine. And I saw one of those small cigarettes which she loved, smouldering in a long engraved holder between delicate ivory fingers.
We passed the tree-shaded well, and mounted a stiff slope beyond. I cannot answer for the others, but, as I have indicated, my own thoughts were far away. It was just as we reached the crest, and saw a further prospect of boundless desert before us, that I became aware, or perhaps I should say conscious, of that old sense of espionage.
Nothing moved upon that desolate expanse, over which the air danced like running water. But a positive conviction seized me—a conviction that news of our journey had reached the enemy, or would shortly reach the enemy. I began to think about that solitary Pharaoh’s Chicken—that sentinel vulture—floating high above the palms…
“Stop!” I said.
“What is it?” snapped Nayland Smith.
“May be nothing,” I replied, “but I want to walk back to the brow of the hill and take a good look at the wâdi through which we have just come.”
“Good!” He nodded. “I should have thought of it myself.”
I got out the glasses, slung them across my shoulder, and walked rapidly back. At a point which I remembered, because a great blackened boulder lying straight across the road had nearly brought us to grief, I stooped and went forward more slowly. This boulder, I reflected, might provide just the cover I required. Lyi
ng flat down beside the stone, to the great alarm of a number of lizards who fled rapidly to right and left, I focused my glasses upon the clump of trees below me.
At first I could see nothing unusual. But the vulture still floated in the sky and the significance of his presence had become unmistakable… Some living thing was hidden in the grove!
Adjusting the sights to a nicety, I watched, I waited. And presently my patience was rewarded.
A figure came out of the clump of trees!
I could see him clearly and only hoped that he could not see me. He might have passed muster, except for his tightly knotted blue turban. Emphatically, he was not an Egyptian. Standing beside the irregularly marked path, he placed a box upon the ground. I studied his movements with growing wonderment.
What could he be about? He seemed to be fumbling in the box.
Then suddenly he withdrew his hand, raised it high above his head—and a gray pigeon swept low over the desert, rose up and up, higher and higher! It circled once, twice, three times. Then, straight as an arrow it set out… undoubtedly bound for the Oasis of Khârgal.
“Very clever,” said Nayland Smith grimly. “We shall therefore be expected. I might have guessed she wouldn’t be taken unawares. But it confirms my theory.”
“What theory?” Petrie asked.
“That tonight is a very special occasion at the house of the Sheikh Ismail!”
“We’re running into a trap,” said Weymouth. “Now that we know beyond any doubt that we’re expected, what are our chances? It’s true there’s a railway to this place—but it’s rarely used. The people of the oases have never been trustworthy—so that our nearest help will be a hundred and fifty miles off!”
Smith nodded. He got out and joined me where I stood beside the car; loading and lighting his pipe. He began to walk up and down, glancing alternately at me, at Weymouth, and at Dr. Petrie. I knew what he was thinking and I didn’t interrupt him. He was wondering if he was justified in risking our lives on so desperate a venture; weighing the chances of what success might mean to the world against our chances of coming out of the job alive. Suddenly:
