The Curse of the Pharaohs - Elizabeth Peters [42]
“Help me, Emerson,” I cried irritably. “I am entangled in the netting. Why do you not arise?”
“Because,” said a faint voice from the bed, “you stepped onto my stomach when you stood up. I have just now recovered my breath.”
“Then employ it, if you please, in action rather than words. Unloose me.”
Emerson obeyed. It is not necessary to reproduce the comments he made while doing so. Once he had freed me he ran to the door. As his form crossed the band of moonlight from the open window I let out a shriek.
“Emerson, your trousers—your dressing gown—something—”
With a violent oath Emerson snatched up the first garment that came to hand. It proved to be the one I had discarded upon retiring, a nightgown of thin white linen trimmed with wide bands of lace. Tossing this at me, with an even more violent oath, he began searching for his clothes. By the time we reached the courtyard the shrieks had stopped, but the excitement had not subsided. All the members of the expedition were gathered around a servant who sat on the ground with his arms over his head, rocking back and forth and moaning. I recognized Hassan, one of Lord Baskerville’s men, who was employed as a night watchman.
“What has happened?” I demanded of the person nearest me. This happened to be Karl, who was standing with his arms folded and every hair in his mustache neatly in place. He was fully dressed. Bowing, in his formal German fashion, he replied calmly, “The foolish person claims he saw a ghost. You know how superstitious these people are; and at the present time—”
“How ridiculous,” I said, in considerable disappointment. I had hoped the disturbance might have been caused by the murderer of Lord Baskerville, returning to the scene of the crime.
Emerson seized Hassan by the neck and hoisted him up off the ground. “Enough!” he shouted. “Art thou a man, or a dribbling infant? Speak; tell me what sight brought our valiant watchman to this pass.”
Emerson’s methods, though unconventional, are usually effective. Hassan’s sobs died away. He began kicking his feet, and Emerson lowered him till his dusty bare soles rested on the beaten earth of the courtyard.
“Oh, Father of Curses,” he gulped. “Wilt thou protect thy servant?”
“Certainly, certainly. Speak.”
“It was an efreet, an evil spirit,” Hassan whispered, rolling his eyes. “The spirit of the one with the face of a woman and the heart of a man.”
“Armadale!” Mr. Milverton exclaimed.
He and Lady Baskerville were standing side by side. Her delicate white hands clutched his sleeve, but it would be hard to say which of them was supporting the other, for he was as pale as she.
Hassan nodded vigorously, or at least he tried to do so; Emerson was still holding him by the throat.
“The hand of the Father of Curses renders speech difficult,” he complained.
“Oh, sorry,” Emerson said, releasing him.
Hassan rubbed his bony neck. He had recovered from his initial fright, and there was a crafty gleam in his eyes that made me suspect he was beginning to enjoy being the center of attention.
“I saw it clearly in the moonlight, as I made my rounds,” he said. “The very form and image of the one with the face—”
“Yes, yes,” Emerson interrupted. “What was he doing?”
“Creeping through the shadows like a serpent or a scorpion or an evil djinn! He wore the long linen robe of a corpse, and his face was thin and drawn, with staring eyes and—”
“Stop that!” Emerson roared. Hassan subsided, with another roll of his eyes, as if he were judging the effect of the ghost story on his audience.
“The superstitious fellow was dreaming,” Emerson said, addressing Lady Baskerville. “Return to bed. I will see to it that he—”
Like many of the men, Hassan understood English much better than he spoke it. “No!” he exclaimed. “It was no dream, I swear; I heard the jackals howling in the hills, I saw the grass blades bend under his feet. He went to one of the windows, oh, Father of Curses—one of the windows there.”
He gestured toward the side of the house in which all our rooms were