Crocodile on the Sandbank - Elizabeth Peters [89]
He raised the rifle above his head.
“I think it is a foolish, idea,” I snapped. “But if you are determined on it…. Good night, Lucas.”
I left him brandishing the weapon, an idiotic grin on his face.
Ordinarily Evelyn and I occupied separate cabins, but I had no intention of leaving her alone that night. I feigned a return of weakness, in order to persuade her to share my room without alarming her, and she helped me into bed with sweet solicitude. She soon joined me. Darkness fell as she blew out the lamp, and before long her soft, regular breathing told me that fatigue had overcome the anxieties that still distressed her.
I did not sleep, but I found it more difficult than I had expected to overcome Morpheus. I had taken only a single glass of wine, despite Lucas’s attempts to induce me to drink more. Ordinarily such a small amount does not affect me in the slightest, but as the minutes went on and the voices of the crewmen faded into silence, I fought sleep as if it had been a bitter enemy. Finally I arose—with care, so as not to waken Evelyn—and went into the adjoining cubicle, which served as our bathroom, where I splashed water on my face and even slapped it as vigorously as I dared. I was finally driven to pinching myself; and a foolish figure I would have made, if anyone had been there to see—standing bolt upright in the center of the room, applying my nails to the flesh of my arm at regular intervals.
The night was very silent. The men were asleep, I assumed. The soft night sounds of the Nile were as soothing as a lullaby. My knees kept bending, and I kept jerking myself erect. I had no idea how much time had passed. It seemed like hours.
At last, feeling slightly more alert, I went back into the sleeping chamber and approached the window. It was not the porthole sort of window one finds on regular sailing ships, but a wide aperture, open to the air but covered by a curtain in order to keep out the light. It opened onto the lower deck, not quite level with the flooring, but easily reached from it. I knew that if danger should approach, it must come this way. Our door was locked and bolted securely, but there was no way of locking the window without shutting out the air and making the room too stifling for comfortable sleep.
My hand went to the window frame all the same. After some internal debate I decided to leave it open. The increasingly stuffy air might waken Evelyn, and the window creaked, as I remembered from before. Instead I drew the curtain back just enough to see out, and remained standing, my elbows on the sill, my hands propping my drowsy head.
I could see a section of the deck from where I stood, and beyond it the silvered reaches of the river, with the night sky overhead. The moon’s rays were so bright I could make out details like the nails in the planking. Nothing moved, except the rippling silver of the water.
How long I stood there I cannot calculate. I fell into a kind of waking doze, erect, but not wholly conscious. Finally I became aware of something moving along the deck to my right.
Lucas’s cabin was in that direction, but I knew it was not Lucas. I knew what it was. Had I not expected it?
It kept to the shadows, but I made out the now familiar pale shape of it easily enough. I cannot explain why, but on this occasion I felt none of the superstitious terror that had paralyzed me on its earlier visits. Perhaps it was the skulking surreptitious movement of the thing; perhaps it was the familiarity of the surroundings. In any case, I began to feel enormous exasperation. Really, the Mummy was becoming ridiculous! Its repertoire was so limited; why didn’t it do something different, instead of creeping around waving its arms?
I was no longer sleepy, and I calculated, quite coolly, what I should do. How I would crow over Emerson if, single-handedly, I could capture our mysterious adversary! I quite forgot his admonitions. I would not be satisfied with driving the Mummy away, as we had planned; no, I must catch it!
The only question was: Should I call for help, or should I attack