Strat’s heart opened as if a wrench had been applied, turning until his valves burst and his heart broke.
“It is my belief,” said the French attaché, stepping forward, “that you are also a murderer, young Stratton. Tell us how the two young men fell from the Pyramid.”
“I thought it was an accident!” cried Dr. Lightner’s Yale aide.
“Surely it was just carelessness,” said one of the Germans, who had little use for the standards of the French.
“It was the work of ghosts,” said an Egyptian.
“You heard Mr. Stratton,” argued the French attaché. “In America, the boy tried to kill. In Egypt, he succeeded.”
Just so had false accusations landed Strat in the asylum. His father was an expert at arranging the lies of strangers. Strat thought of Annie, who had saved him once. The wind increased, so that the sand it flung was painful to bare skin. All of Strat was raw: heart and hope. There was no Annie to save him this time, and he would never have wanted her here. She was the very reason Father had had him locked up, and Father would recognize her. He trembled to think what Hiram Stratton, Sr., would do to her. Desperately, Strat revoked his plea to Time.
“We will lock him up,” said the French attaché grandly, looking forward to having an American behind bars.
“No, we will lock him up,” said a British army officer, appalled that the French might have any power in a British protectorate.
“No,” said Dr. Lightner decisively. “This has occurred in my establishment and it is my choice to put the young man under house arrest. He will not be shackled nor placed under lock and key. He will not be handed over to Egyptian authorities nor British. I wish to give you the opportunity, young Stratton, to demonstrate that you are a man of honor. Should you run, it will be proof of guilt. An innocent man has nothing to run from.”
This is like a witch hunt in Old Salem, thought Strat. If I am innocent, I will be taken home to be punished. If I am guilty, I will be taken home to be punished.
But the gentlemen of Egypt, France, Italy, England, Germany and America, to whom honor was everything, awaited his response.
“I give you my word,” said Strat quietly. “I am under house arrest. Under house arrest I will stay.”
CAMINA
Camilla forced herself to look at the young man Katie had asked her to honor. Instead, Camilla had wronged him. The son was innocent of all charges, past and present. Far from avenging her own father, Camilla had sunk to the level of Strat’s father.
She must find a way to save Strat. If nothing more, she owed Katie that.
But a curious thing was happening. The boy seemed to have forgotten his accusers and his witnesses. He had turned slightly, and was staring toward the Pyramid, looking at once both bewildered and excited. He took a quick shocked breath and held it, his shoulders high and motionless.
Camilla, too, looked toward the Pyramid. She caught a glimpse of shining gold, half-seen, as through gauze. There was a rasp of shoes on sand and a girl’s laughter, half-heard, as through a door. It was Time, leaving its ghosts and passing on.
Camilla did not faint, but she lost strength and balance. People cried, “Are you all right?” and said to one another, “It’s the heat. Put her in the shade. Put a wet cloth on her forehead.”
Hiram Stratton, Sr., having lost his son’s attention, grabbed Strat’s arm. When Strat jerked free, all the men jumped forward to prevent a fight. Or perhaps to encourage one.
Miss Matthews was walked into her tent by Dr. Lightner, for only he was tall enough to take her arm. Dr. Lightner ducked beneath the tent flap and set her gently on the edge of her cot. Anxiously, he fanned her face with the brim of his canvas hat. Through the tent opening, she could see the broken nose of the Sphinx.
To every tourist the Sphinx was a mystery that must be plumbed. All paused before it to cry, Who are you? From whence do you spring?
Who am I? thought Camilla Matthews. I who rejected my gender, my family, my honor and my faith.
Egyptians had worshiped the Nile and the sun, their kings and their mummified cats. How strange and marvelous were all religions: the eternal need to find greater substance.
Camilla had shrugged over greater things. Immersing herself in low and ugly deeds, she had created a low and ugly situation. “Oh, Dr. Lightner,” she said desperately. “I must confess that I have done a terrible thing.”
“Nonsense,” he said roundly. “Here. A damp cloth will cool your thoughts.”
Pressing the comforting cotton against her burning eyes, Camilla made her confession. “I set young Mr. Stratton up for this crime. I took that gold sandal. Yes, it was I. I placed it in the young man’s trunk so you would blame him. He is innocent.”
Relief washed over Camilla. At last, she had done a good thing. She might be flung out of camp or thrown onto the next ship. She even might be the one sent to prison. But at least Strat would not suffer at her hands. She risked a humiliated glance at Dr. Lightner.
But he was regarding her with great esteem. A soft smile crossed his face. “Nothing,” said Dr. Lightner, “is so beautiful as a woman who sacrifices for a man. Miss Matthews, how kind and generous is your feminine heart. You wish to save the boy from punishment. How I respect you. But no one will believe that trumped-up story. Your truthfulness and honor are visible to all who have met you.”
It had not occurred to Camilla that she would not be believed. “Truly, sir, it was my doing. I committed the act.”
“Now, now. You have enough troubles merely enduring the great heat. Ladies should not be here at this time of year. As for the theft of the sandal, it is too much for your feminine sensibilities to accept that some men are evil and do evil things. I think it best for your sake to remove you to Lady Clementine’s abode. She delighted in your company, as of course do I, but her villa is better for you than this hot and dusty encampment.”
“But you must explain to everyone, Dr. Lightner, what really happened. Especially it must be made clear to the French, who have jumped to dreadful conclusions.”
“Dear girl, we know what really happened. Young Stratton is his father all over again. I fear he does not deserve your assistance. One day he too will clench a cigar in his teeth, looking and smelling like the smokestack of his factory. He too will burn down that factory in order to get his way.”
Camilla gave a little cry and hid once more behind his handkerchief.
“You know of that fire?” His arm had gone around her shoulder and she felt the comforting heat of his body. “That factory burned when I was in America raising money for this expedition,” he told her. “Innocent people died in that fire. I’m told there was no investigation. Mr. Stratton simply paid off everyone involved.”
Not everyone, thought Camilla. I wonder if Mama would have accepted his money, if he had offered it, to keep us in school. I accepted money from him. Passing it through Mr. Duffie’s hands does not cleanse it. I am a sinner with my hands dipped in Stratton money.
Oh, there were too many moral problems here, and she without her church. “I do not think young Strat is like his father,” she said. Tears filled her eyes, she who was supposed to be like a man and never weep. She could not help quoting Katie. “I think he is a good and decent and generous boy.”
She was talking as if she really were a decade older than Strat, but in fact she was two years younger. Remembering that she was only seventeen made her want to behave seventeen, and weep on Dr. Lightner’s shoulder, and be taken care of. But that was not her lot in life, and she must not weaken.
Dr. Lightner burst out, “How touched I am by your tender heart! No matter what your height and frame say of boldness and strength, in fact you are gentle and full of love. Willing to sacrifice so that a young man might go free! Oh, Miss Matthews.”
Camilla had completed the task of making him fall in love with her, weeks ahead of schedule. He was too good for her and she must walk away from him, but perhaps she could use the trap she had set for Dr. Li
ghtner to undo the trap she had set for Strat.
“Honored sir,” said Camilla shakily, “might we discuss a way to extricate the boy from his father’s grasp? Such a wicked man does not tell the truth. I believe Hiram Stratton lies even about his son. I believe there were no such events as the kidnapping and the attack. Please. Let us conjure a way to set Strat free.”
Dr. Lightner fiddled with some shards of pottery on which undeciphered hieroglyphs awaited his expertise. His thumb stroked letters incised thousands of years ago by a scribe. “If you have fallen in love with the young man, Miss Matthews,” he said bravely, “I will do all within my power to assist you in saving him.”
Camilla dropped the handkerchief and all pretense. How gallant he was! And how she agreed that nothing was more beautiful than one person sacrificing for another. “I have fallen in love with you, sir. But I am in a position to know that the father is truly evil and to extricate the son I do require your utmost assistance.”
Dr. Lightner wrapped her hand tightly in his and kissed the top of it. “Do you mean that?” he whispered. “That you—that you—” The words were too intimate to be repeated.
Camilla nodded.
“Here is a way out then,” he said. He patted her hair and cheeks, afraid to overstep his rights, but too emotional to keep a correct distance. “The British love war so very deeply. The wars in India have run out, and war in the Sudan may end within days, but luckily, war looms in South Africa. Those Dutchmen down there, Boers they call themselves, are trying to throw the British out. Everybody is happy. There’s nothing like a good fight. I shall suggest young Stratton to my British friends as a cameraman. Off he goes to fight the Dutch. Thousands of miles once more between him and his father. This time we shall see that he uses a false name.”
It was perfect! Strat would be saved. On her way back to America, Camilla would disembark in Spain to give Katie money and news. She would tell the truth about her own foul deeds and then she would find the priest of the convent at the hospital, and tell him the truth also. She would get her religion back if she got nothing else, and once home, she would no longer spy for Mr. Duffie. Somehow she would keep her brothers in school, but not that way.
Maybe I really could sell my first article as Strat sold his first picture, she thought, and from there go on to a splendid career. I shall be a spinster, but with fewer regrets, for I shall shine on my own.
Dr. Lightner stood. “I shall go then, and see how this may be managed.”
Camilla looked into his face and immediately had more, not fewer, regrets. She did not want to be a spinster. She wanted Archibald Lightner. “And the French?” she said, jumping up. “What about their silly accusation?”
“Please, my dear. Sit back down and rest. The heat tired you.”
“I’m over it,” said Camilla crossly. “How will you handle the French?” She opened the tent flap for him instead of the other way around.
He laughed. “I don’t know yet. First, let’s make sure the young man himself will go along with our plan.”
STRAT
The gold sandal had been set upon the dusty table where Dr. Lightner wrote up his notes in the evening. It seemed to Strat that the slipper actually sang: an ancient high quaver, a golden voice from the past. He touched the delicately incised gold rope under which a girl’s toes had once slid.
Strat’s heart actually stopped. It hit his ribs once, with a huge thrust of energy, and then it ceased to beat.
Annie had worn that sandal.
Around him, the figures and their speech glazed, as raw umber over oils on a painting. The angry men grew solid and still, fixing themselves as people on paper. There was light and shadow and heat. There was not sound.
A camel train appeared on the horizon, like liquid slowly poured over the sand, long black shadows spilled behind.
And Strat spilled out of the picture, falling and tumbling, like the French boys from the top of the Pyramid. His bones smashed against its rocky sides, and Strat could not understand this, because he was not on the Pyramid, but on the sand. His skin was laid open by the scrape and assault of the stones. His mind broke apart, thoughts scattered like seed from a clumsy hand.
He spun into the vortex of the past. There were faces with him: hideous, unknown others being wrenched through Time.
And then he hit bottom, and it was stone.
CAMINA
The members of Dr. Lightner’s dig were turning in circles in the sand, like dogs deciding whether to lie down. The German scholars and the French attaché were puzzled and embarrassed. They could not produce Strat for Dr. Lightner and Miss Matthews.
“Where did you put your son?” Camilla demanded of Mr. Stratton. “Surely you have not already incarcerated him? It was agreed that he would stay upon his honor.”
Mr. Stratton was bewildered and angry. “He was here a moment ago.”
“He ran,” opined the French attaché.
“He couldn’t have,” objected the Yale assistant. “He must be here. We’ll help you look, Miss Matthews.”
But nobody could find Strat. There was not a trace of him.
“He has fled,” said Dr. Lightner sadly.
“Proof of guilt!” said Hiram Stratton gladly.
“Strat said he would put himself under house arrest,” said Camilla through stiff lips. “He will be back by dark. He gave his word, and I accept that.”
Oh, Strat, she thought, if you are not back …
No man here will forgive you for breaking your word. Even Dr. Lightner may refuse to help you after all.
STRAT
Above Strat spread a sky vast and dark, pierced by a thousand stars and a sliver of moon. Torches burned in tall posts, illuminating pyramid, pillar and stone.
He stood exactly where he had been standing in another time, fifty feet from the causeway. He had arrived at the beginning, when Khufu’s Pyramid was perfect. It was a ghost, or he was.
Strat’s breath came in shallow spurts, as if he were afraid of antique air. Slowly his lungs returned, his legs and strength, and he could feel again the sweet beating of his heart.
He was surrounded by temples and mastabas and monuments he could not identify because they did not exist in 1899. He could not see the Sphinx. The causeway, mostly destroyed or buried in his time, was lined with statues, covered by awnings and scented by flowers in massive pots.
He became aware of a steady, rhythmic tapping. He turned and looked toward the Nile. The sound of feet marching, he decided; guards, perhaps, walking back and forth during their night watch. Partially visible through the tall pillars of an open temple, motionless in the water of a lagoon that had vanished long before Strat’s time, lay a large and well-lit boat. Although he judged the hour to be very late, there was a good deal of activity on its deck.
It seemed best not to attract attention. Strat stayed well away from the torchlight.
First he would examine the Pyramid. He had climbed it, photographed it, fallen in love with it—but only its core. Think of seeing it as Khufu’s architects had planned! Strat was astonished to see a wall around the Pyramid, with the obvious intent of preventing visitors from scaling the monument. The year 1899 had its advantages after all; you need not just stand at the bottom and stare up.
Suddenly he saw the Sphinx. It existed, not half-broken, but half-carved.
O mystery of mysteries, thought Strat reverently. You are a creation of man, and that man must be Khufu!
He was startled by a sudden clatter and some sharply issued orders.
In ancient Egyptian! He was thrilled. He strained to hear, for nobody in 1899 knew how to pronounce the words so painstakingly translated from hieroglyphs.
A phalanx of soldiers was forming near the lagoon. They marched through the temple, pivoted sharply and turned onto the causeway. Their boots and the shafts of their spears slammed against the pavement. Strat drew deeper in the shadows. There were not many soldiers, and yet the sound they made was the sound of many: the relentles
s echo of men who would show no mercy and give no quarter … men not unlike his own father.
The procession was both beautiful and threatening. In the midst of the soldiers was carried a huge litter. Strat could not see the occupant, but he recognized the tall crown from tomb paintings: the headgear of the Lord of the Two Lands.
Pharaoh.
The man was so motionless in his litter that Strat decided this was a representation of the Lord of the Two Lands, and not the king himself.
All too aware of his khaki-colored trousers and shirt, Strat dropped down into the sand, that he might cast no shadow. The sand was cold, having no capacity to hold heat. The desert that had failed to roast a man by day tried to freeze him by night. Strat shivered. Farther out in the sand, a high vicious yapping began.
A pack of wild dogs? No, he thought, this is Egypt. Jackals.
The jackals were much too close and far too interested. Also not unlike his father.
Next in the procession came men who seemed neither soldier nor priest, another litter and more soldiers.
Fearful of discovery, Strat inched backward over the sand, although moving into range of the jackals did not seem wise either. But the parade stopped well away from him. They did not pause in front of one of the temples or mastabas or baby pyramids. They gathered, it seemed to Strat, around a shadowy circle in the causeway itself.
He squinted to see better, and writhed in the sand for a better angle. It looked like a manhole, like a—
Strat was embarrassed. This was ancient Egypt. There was no room for confusion under these circumstances. It must be a tomb entrance.
Pharaoh’s litter was set down. Soldiers assisted Pharaoh out of it. They removed his crown and he himself swung off his cape. So he was real. His chest was as hung with medals and ribbons and sashes as any British officer bound for war. He was spectacular.
The Time Travelers: Volume Two Page 25
