Crocodile on the Sandbank - Elizabeth Peters [49]
Walter and Evelyn broke in simultaneously in an attempt to change the subject. They succeeded for the moment, but Emerson was sulky and snappish for the rest of the evening. When I tried to feel his forehead to see if he had developed a temperature, he stalked off to his tomb, fairly radiating grumpiness.
“Don’t mind him, Miss Peabody,” Walter said, when he was out of earshot. “He is still not himself, and enforced inactivity infuriates a man of his energy.”
“He is not himself,” I agreed. “In normal health he is even louder and more quarrelsome.”
“We are all a little on edge,” Evelyn said in a low voice. “I don’t know why I should be; but I feel nervous.”
“If that is the case we had better go to bed,” I said, rising. “Some sleep will settle your mind, Evelyn.”
Little did I know that the night was to bring, not a cure for troubled minds, but the beginning of greater trouble.
It is a recognized fact that sleepers train themselves to respond only to unfamiliar noises. A zoo keeper slumbers placidly through the normal nightly roars of his charges, but the squeak of a mouse in his tidy kitchen can bring him awake in an instant. I had accustomed my sleeping mind to the sounds of Amarna. They were few indeed; it was one of the most silent spots on earth, I think. Only the far-off ululation of an occasional love-sick jackal disturbed the silence. So, on this particular night, it was not surprising that the sound at the door of our tomb, slight though it was, should bring me upright, with my heart pounding.
Light penetrated cracks in the curtain, but I could see nothing without. The sound continued. It was the oddest noise—a faint, dry scratching, like the rubbing of a bony object on rock.
Once my pulse had calmed, I thought of explanations. Someone on the ledge outside the tomb—Michael, keeping watch, or Walter, sleepless outside his lady’s chamber? Somehow my nerves were not convinced by either idea. In any case, the sound was keeping me awake. I fumbled for my parasol.
The frequent mention of this apparatus may provoke mirth in the reader. I assure her (or him, as the case may be) that I was not intending to be picturesque. It was a very sturdy parasol, with a stiff iron staff, and I had chosen it deliberately for its strength.
Holding it, then, in readiness for a possible act of violence, I called softly, “Who is there?”
There was no response. The scratching sound stopped. It was followed, after a moment or two, by another sound, which rapidly died away, as if someone, or something, had beat a hasty but quiet retreat.
I leaped from bed and ran to the doorway. I confess that I hesitated before drawing back the curtain. A parasol, even one of steel, would not be much use against a feral animal. The scratching sound might well have been produced by claws; and although I had been told that there were no longer any lions in Egypt, they had abounded in ancient times, and an isolated specimen might have survived in the desolate region. As I stood listening with all my might I heard another sound, like a rock or pebble rolling. It was quite a distance away. Thus reassured, I drew back the curtain and, after a cautious glance without, stepped onto the ledge.
The moon was high and bright, but its position left the ledge in shadow. Against this dark background an object stood out palely. It was at the far end of the ledge, where it curved to pass around a shoulder of rock; and I was conscious of an odd constriction of my diaphragm as I glimpsed it.
The shape was amorphous. It was of the height and breadth of a man, but it more resembled a white stone pillar than a human form, split at the bottom to present an imitation of a man’s lower limbs. Stiff, stubby appendages like arms protruded at shoulder height, but they were not arms; humans arms were never so rigid.
As I stared, blinking to cure what I thought must be a failure of my vision, the shape disappeared. It must have moved around the corner of the path. A faint moaning sigh wafted back to me. It might have