He Shall Thunder in the Sky - Elizabeth Peters [81]
A hasty glance round the room showed first, Emerson, upright and rigid in the center of the floor; and second, the walls intact as they had been when I last saw them. The prince Sekhemankhor and his lady gazed with serene satisfaction at the offering table before them; the long ranks of servants carrying vessels and flowers, leading cattle and cutting grain were unmarred. A great gasp of relief issued from my throat. A great shout of fury issued from Emerson.
“What the devil do you mean by this, Selim? Nothing has been disturbed. Are you afflicted by dreams and visions, or . . .” His eyes narrowed. Seizing the young fellow by the collar, he pulled him close. “You haven’t taken to hashish, have you?”
“No, Father of Curses.” Selim looked hurt, but not especially worried. The men were all accustomed to Emerson’s explosive temper. It was his low, measured tones they feared.
“You were too quick,” Selim went on in an injured voice. “You did not let me explain. It is not this part of the tomb that has been entered. It is the burial shaft.”
“Oh.” Emerson released his grip. “Sorry. Show me.”
As I have explained, the tombs of this period consist of one or more rooms aboveground that served the funerary cult of the deceased. The mummy and its grave goods lay at the bottom of a deep shaft cut down through the superstructure into the underlying rock. Lacking museums and tourists desirous of purchasing works of art, the ancient thieves stole only what they could use themselves or sell to their unsophisticated contemporaries—linen, oil, jewelry, and the like. Therefore (as the Reader has no doubt deduced) they went straight for the burial chamber. Of all the tomb shafts thus far excavated, only one unplundered burial had been found.
Could this be such another? Let him who will deny it, but that hope is foremost in the minds of all archaeologists. Amelia P. Emerson is not such a hypocrite. I wanted—primarily of course for my dear Emerson—an untouched burial, with its grave goods intact—collars of gold and faience, bracelets and amulets, an inscribed coffin, vessels of copper and stone—a burial even finer than the one Mr. Reisner had discovered two years earlier. There was cause for optimism. The knowledgeable tomb robbers of Giza had considered the shaft worth investigating.
It had been completely filled with sand. Emerson had intended to leave it till the last, since, as I have explained, there is seldom anything down there. The opening had been located, however, and it was there we went.
Someone had certainly been doing something. Where there had been only a dimple in the ground now gaped a hole some three feet deep. Stone lined it on all four sides and sand was scattered around the opening, the unmistakable signs of a hasty excavation.
Hands on hips, brows lowering, Emerson stared down into the hole and remarked forcibly, “Curse it!”
“Why do you say that, Emerson?” I inquired. “Surely this is a hopeful sign. The tomb robbers of Giza—”
“May already have found what they were looking for,” Emerson said.
“So near the surface?” Ramses asked. He put out a hand to steady Nefret, who was teetering on the edge of the opening.
Emerson brightened. “Well, perhaps not. They may have been frightened away by a guard. I made it easy for the bastards, though, erecting that roof to hide them from passersby. Now I suppose we must clear the damned thing out before they have another go at it.”
“One of us will