by Talbot Mundy
“No can get,” said Chu Chi Ying with an air of finality.
“Why not?”
“Too much heap plenty water:”
“Oh!” laughed Grim. “Let’s wake up now and go to bed, or he’ll tell us the number of pints of water presently.”
CHAPTER XI. “Too much water!”
To Chu Chi Ying mathematics were religion. From the moment the little old man started figuring, and interpreting the figures, he felt himself in touch with the Infinite, and was happy. The rest of us reacted in different ways. Narayan Singh, for instance, regarded the whole thing as a fairy tale, and believed it on that basis; he could gravely question facts that appealed to the Western mind, while jumping at deductions based on argument that most Westerners would instantly reject.
Grim, on the other hand, was noncommittal. Unlike the Sikh, he did not accept the whole argument as proven merely because it bordered on metaphysics; but he did not reject it, even if he could not understand it. Grim was willing to go forward and investigate. I was utterly incredulous after a night’s sleep, refusing to concede the possibility of any such mass of bullion in one piece. I knew what a magnet it would be, and how surely men would a magnet it would be, and how surely men would have persisted in their search for it.
“Besides,” I said, arguing the point with Grim, “there can’t have been all that much gold in those days. If there was, where did they get it from?”
“Why not?” he retorted. “Where does gold go to, anyhow? They had gold to burn in Babylon; where is it? How much gold has been discovered in the world in our day? What has happened to it all? The banks and government treasuries can’t account for half of it, to say nothing of what was left by the last generation. Where did all the gold go that Spain won from Mexico and South America? If the stuff can disappear out of circulation nowadays, it certainly could then, with an autocrat like Khufu doing what he darn well pleased. If he could tell off a hundred thousand men to build a pyramid, he could send another hundred thousand to the mines, for that matter; and the world is chock-a-block with ancient workings that nobody can set a date to or explain. If there’s any gold at all in Khufu’s tomb there may just as easily be a whale of a lot. Let’s go look.”
There was nothing much that we could actually do, of course, until Joan Angela’s arrival. On the other hand, there was nothing to be gained by hanging around in Cairo, where we might prove easy marks for Zegloush and his gang. So we hired a big car, and persuaded Chu Chi Ying to come with us. We started an hour after dawn, and none of us noticed any spies lurking near the house; but what we did see, as we sped toward the outskirts of the city, were extremely obvious signs of discontent — mobs gathering even at that hour, and furious spellbinders haranguing them from windows.
Our Western mob-orators are mere dead-heads compared to the agitators of the East, and for producing quick action they are as oxen compared to petrol. We began to be pelted with rocks. The windscreen was smashed before we were out of the city. We heard the bugles blowing at the Citadel to announce that Tommy Atkins was turning out to his ancient duty of restoring order.
I don’t think even Grim quite realized, as yet, the extent of the influence of that Agrarian Blocc that Zegloush nominally controlled. The mob was turned. Out for no other purpose than to provide a screen behind which to invade our quarters, although the story they told to arouse the mob was that the British had purposely reduced the price of cotton in order to impoverish Egypt and keep the country that much more easily in subjection. Our quarters was the only place raided and searched.
In blissful ignorance of all that, we bowled out along the good macadam pike under the overarching lebbakh-trees as far as the Great Pyramid, and then struck out across the desert with the Sphinx behind us. Chu Chi Ying had not had time to draw his map for us, but there was no doubt of the direction, for there were still traces here and there of the track made by Joan Angela’s lorries. Several tracks, in fact, converged toward that land of hers, for the well was the only one for scores of miles at which sweet water could be had without payment.
We had to drive slowly for fear of shaking Chu Chi Ying to pieces, so it was nearly noon when we reached the sun-dried, unpainted buildings and were accosted by a man in a blue shirt with blue powdermarks all over his face, and an unmistakable air of delegated authority. His back was truculent, and his Cockney face suggested the uncompromising impudence of drawn brass. He gave us a taste of his temper before he recognized Grim, for his eyes were the worse for blinking across sun-baked desert.
“You can ‘ave water for yer raiatord, and then sling yer bloomin’ ‘ooks. The howner o’ this plaice don’t allow no trespassin’, so now yer know. The ‘uts ain’t for sale, nor yet the land neither. My orders are to warn everybody off. Can yer read that notice? Ow! It’s you, sir, is it? News 0’ Miss Leich, by any chance?”
He was a strange cuss. He had six Gyppies there, whom he had paid out of his own pocket hitherto, to help him guard the place, and he had drilled them so that they jumped to attention whenever he moved his head. There was not a nail missing; he had kept the blown sand shovelled clear; and although paint was lacking, and much of the woodwork had cracked in the dry heat, the camp was as ready for use as faithful obstinacy had been able to contrive. Even the cheap brass door-knobs were clean and bright, and the only liberty he had taken with his employer’s property had been to break up some benches to construct a water-trough beside the well. He apologized for it.
“There weren’t no other wye, sir, 0’ gettin’ these ‘ere Harabs an’ their camels watered and off the lot.’ They was near drivin’ me crazy, ‘angin’ round all day dippin’ out water a quart at a time.”
That provided us with a perfect excuse for examining the well without taking him into our confidence. The well stood practically in the centre of the camp with buildings on three sides of it, and beside the old-fashioned bucket and beam arrangement, there was a motor pump installed by Joan Angela’s direction; but the pump had long been out of order, and Grim suggested putting it to rights.
The well had a score of remarkable features. It was not especially deep; a plumb-line touched bottom at thirty-five feet below water-level, and the water at that time was fifteen feet below the surface. The maximum diameter was slightly more than six feet, and there seemed to be no cistern at the bottom; nevertheless, the supply of water was apparently inexhaustible, for, however much was pumped out, it was said never to make any difference to the level, which responded only to the rise and fall of the Nile, forty miles away.
Then there were the stones of which the shaft was made. Those at the top were obviously old stones that had been found in disorder and replaced with cement fairly recently; most of them had been broken and suggested nothing more than makeshift masonry. But commencing about eight below the ground-level the courses were great, carefully squared blocks, so marvellously laid in place that, from above, the looked almost like a [...words missing...] with one foot in the bucket, under pretext of examining the iron suction-pipe belonging to the motor pump, and it was only with the utmost difficulty that I could trace the joints between the courses. Even at the corners I could not find a crack with the aid of a knife-blade.
Chu Chi Ying appeared to think we were bent on exploration there and then, and borrowing my fountain-pen he drew a diagram of the well-shaft, showing that what we supposed to be the bottom should really be no more than a sharp turn, beyond which, according to his theory, the shaft continued downward at an angle of twenty-five degrees.
“Same angle inside pylamid,” he explained.
“Twenty-six minutes, four seconds.” I determined on a long chance, and hunted for a big rock to put in the well-bucket. Having found that, I stripped my clothes off, once again set one foot on the bucket, and, clinging to the rope, told the others to let go suddenly when I gave the signal, and not to ‘haul up again until I jerked the rope violently.
With my head just out of water, waiting to give the signal, I began to have an absu
rd dread of crocodiles! There was not one chance in a thousand billion but the suggestion became so strong that if I had waited another minute I would have funked it!
At any rate, I took a long breath, raised my left hand, and plunged under, holding my nose in my left hand, after the sponge-diver fashion, and that fact contributed to the genuine danger as soon as I touched bottom. For, as Chu Chi Ying had predicted, the bottom was not flat, but at an angle, and the bucket did not hit the stonework square, but edgewise, my feet thrusting it forward as I clung with one hand to the rope; so that in a second I was shooting away down into the dark again on a slippery, stone, underwater ramp, striking out with my left hand too late to catch the edge overhead.
I did not dare let go of rope or bucket, for the stone was so slippery that to scramble back up the ramp would have been impossible. On the other hand, I could not signal, as agreed on, without letting go; so there was nothing else for it but to slide on down into black darkness, hoping that Grim would take alarm and haul short before the end of the rope should slip over the beam, or my breath give out. At a pinch my supply of breath was good for about two minutes, but it seemed like two hours before the rope tightened with a jerk and I felt the strain as they started to try to haul me up again.
They hauled so hard that the half-inch manila rope looked like breaking. Nothing happened! I could see nothing — not even light up above me; but I could feel that the bucket was caught on the edge of a sharp stone corner where the ramp left off and the masonry fell away vertically. I kicked and struggled, but failed to shift it. The harder I kicked, the tighter it stuck, and every effort only lessened my remaining breath. I did not dare strain on the rope too hard, for my weight added to their pull might cut it asunder overhead, where it chafed against the stone corner. In desperation I took a longer chance than ever, and forced my way downward until I could get the bucket in both hands and shake it loose.
By that time I was in no fit state to do what Narayan Singh would have termed scouting. The bucket came away suddenly and carried me upward, feet-first, until my feet struck the sharp corner overhead and I had no more strength left for fending my body away from the stonework. I don’t know what happened then, exactly, only that I clung to the bucket so desperately that when I reached the surface, half-unconscious, they could hardly pry my fingers loose from it. For about ten minutes I could not remember what had taken place below water, and was aware of nothing but the pain caused by being bruised and scraped against the rock. But Joan Angela’s Tommy Atkins — his name was really Atkins — had some oil that eased the pain considerably, and after a while I was able to describe what had happened.
“Chu Chi Ying is right,” Grim commented.
“Mathlematics light, not Chu Chi Ying,” the old fellow answered. “Look, see.”
He set to work and drew another diagram, purporting to show the whole arrangement of the abyss that I had nearly been drowned in. According to his drawing, Khufu’s tomb was a good-sized island, surrounded and covered by water, and with a cavern underneath it, full of water too, so that anyone attempting to burrow up from below would be swamped as soon as he pierced the masonry floor.
“Too much water!” he said pleasantly, as if the knowledge gave him private satisfaction.
“Which way does the water flow in?” Grim demanded, and, without a second’s hesitation, Chu Chi Ying connected up the Nile and the well on paper with one sweep of the pen. I have reproduced his drawing as I recall it. Grim kept the original.
By that time it was no use trying to keep the secret from Atkins.
“Struth!” he remarked, looking at the drawing over Grim’s shoulder. “Hi thought as ‘ow there was some uncommon partic’lar reason why these Gyppies was so set on gettin’ rid 0’ me. So that’s the gime! A bloomin’ sepulchre! Say-see the blighter’s cunnin’ little stratagem? ‘E set that well where it is, so’s anybody ‘ud waste ten years ‘untin’ for a tunnel leadin’ from the well to the bloomin’ Nile! Well, I’ll be damned if ‘e ‘asn’t let the water in the other end an’ taken ‘is tunnel a mile round in a circuit. D’yer s’pose that old Chink’s crazy, or does ‘e know what ‘e’s crackin’ on about?”
Grim drew a copy of Chu Chi Ying’s plan, and gave the copy to Atkins.
“Don’t show that to anyone,” he said. “Eat it before you let anyone get hold of it. Spend your time trying to trace that water-tunnel. If we’ can find that we can dig down and cut it; and once we’ve plugged it, pumping out the water will be simply a question of time. Prospect around a bit, and put your six men on to digging, but pitch a marquee over the spot, and carefully spread the sand you take out. If you need lumber to shore up the hole with, pull down partitions from inside the huts. I’ll give you that in writing so’s to make you all square with Miss Leich.”
We drove away, leaving Atkins well contented. To be trusted was the height of his ambition, and he shrewdly realized that his employer would reward him far more liberally for keeping the secret than any Egyptian would bribe him for betraying it.
We were much less contented than Atkins was by the time we drew abreast of Gizeh, for a rifleshot cracked out from among the sand-dunes and the bullet went through the top of Chu Chi Ying’s black cap, which was close enough. Evidently orders had been given to prevent our making use of the little old Chinaman on the “dead men tell no secrets” principle.
He was such a talkative, kindly little fellow, that, although he professed not to be sure how much he had told to Zegloush, it was a fairly safe bet that he had told everything. Zegloush, or someone in his confidence, had almost certainly made notes, so that the Egyptians probably stood to lose less than nothing by the Chinaman’s death, whereas he might not yet have had time to tell us all he knew.
Two servants, aided by our corps of spies, had restored our quarters to fair order before we got home, and nothing appeared to have been stolen. As a rule a mob tears down everything within reach. According to our servants’ account, there had been a great disturbance in the street below, with crowds breaking open cupboards, but finding nothing that contented them. They said nothing — did nothing, except hunt high and low, and it probably would have fared ill with Chu Chi Ying if they had I caught him under our roof.
So Grim got busy and worked out a plan of defence, which included the cook’s tasting in our presence every dish of food that he set before us. The fat, black rascal was prodigiously amused by that precaution; he was probably faithful, but certainly lazy like all the rest of them, and the knowledge that he had to take that risk three times a day did more to keep him on the qui vive than any amount of talking could have accomplished.
We might have called in the police, but that would have involved explanations that we did not care to make as yet. We decided to keep silence until after Joan Angela’s arrival, and let her make whatever disposition she might please of her own property. The Government would have to be informed before anything practical could be done toward opening Khufu’s tomb, but it was clearly her right to convey the information as and when she chose.
So we divided up our corps of spies into a bodyguard, allotting two to each of us, including Chu Chi Ying. They were unarmed, because of the stringent Egyptian law against carrying weapons — a law that, as in every country where it is enforced, works for the crook and against his victim. So they were hardly likely to show much fight in the event of attack; but what they did do was to supply each of us with three pairs of eyes, and to make it fairly safe to sleep for eight hours at a stretch.
Then we examined all the window-shutters, saw to the front-door bolts, barricaded the exit by way of the roof, and filled up everything that would hold water in readiness for an attempt at arson. Finally, Grim collected all our pistols and locked them up in the safe.
“The next stunt brother Zegloush tries will be to tempt us to fire back at somebody,” he explained. “If we were fools enough to fire, we’d all be arrested for using firearms; and there’s probably influence enough at Zegloush’s command to g
et us deported. If he can deport Joan Angela Leich he’ll figure he has the game in his own hands.”
We settled down at last for an evening indoors, with the idea of leaving the next move up to the enemy, and Grim took down from the shelf an old copy of Herodotus that he had picked up at a second-hand store. He reads Greek as easily as he could when he left school, which is more than most of us can do, and I shall probably be forgiven for not quoting in the original the paragraph that he finally lighted on after searching the volume for hours. But this was the gist of it:
“Liten,” he said quietly. “This is Herodotus describing his travels in Egypt. He is discussing the Great Pyramid and the theory current in his day, that Khufu was buried inside it. He calls Khufu Cheops. ‘But the priests told me that Cheops was really buried in a certain place entirely surrounded with water by reason of a conduit that connects it with the River Nile; and where that place is, they said that no man knoweth.’”
“Look, see! Look, see!” chuckled Chu Chi Ying in his corner.
CHAPTER XII. “Damn-fool thinkee money good for dead man. Makee plenty more mistake”
Grim was right as usual. Within the next ten days every trick was tried to tempt us to some act of violence for which we might be arrested. The house next door was an Egyptian’s, who lived in part of it and let out the remainder. He turned some tenants out and admitted others for our peculiar annoyance.
They threw things in through our windows, including soaked in oil, and other things that stank. Someone with an air-rifle kept out of sight and potted at whomever he could see between our half-closed shutters. They invaded our roof and set a light to it, and when we went up in a body to extinguish the fire with water-buckets, brickbats and the air-rifle came into use again. It was tempting to hit back, but the temptation was too obvious, especially as Zegloush was known to stand particularly well with the police.
