The Golden One - Elizabeth Peters [114]
He was in Egyptian clothing, a dark robe and carelessly wound turban. His face was the image of his sister’s now that he had shaved off his mustache; he looked very young and very harmless. But there was a knife thrust through his sash, and in his right hand he carried a long stick.
“The spirit of my revered cousin Abdullah troubles me,” the old man retorted. “We have dishonored him, Jamil, but it is not too late to seek forgiveness. Come with me to the Father of Curses, who will help you.”
Jamil’s pretty face twisted into a grimace of pure hate. His head turned from side to side, his eyes searching every shadow. Whether he saw us or only deduced our presence I will never know; but he raised the stick to his shoulder, holding it as one might hold a rifle. It was a rifle—Yusuf’s antique weapon, his most prized possession.
Yusuf cried out. “No, Jamil! You said you would not fire it unless one attacked you. Put it down.”
Emerson stepped out into the moonlight. “Drop it, Jamil,” he called. “Yusuf, get away from him.”
Aiming my pistol at the ground in front of Jamil, he took a long step forward. If he meant to say more or do more, he did not have the chance. A loud explosion rent the air and the darkness was reddened by fire. Somewhat belatedly I tried to fling myself in front of Nefret.
“Dear God,” Ramses whispered. “The damned gun exploded. I was afraid it would someday, he must be—”
Emerson was running toward the crumpled form. By the time we reached Jamil there were two crumpled forms. Yusuf had bent over his son, shrieked, and dropped like a stone.
Jamil was still alive. When I saw the ruin that remained of his face I could only pray he would not live long. His one remaining eye rolled from side to side and focused. Sounds whistled through his broken teeth.
“Jumana. Sister. Is our father—”
After one horrified look at Jamil, Nefret had known there was nothing she could do. Kneeling by the old man, her hand on his bared breast, she said, “It is his heart. We must get him to the house.”
“Heart,” Jamil said faintly. “I killed him. My father. Sister—listen—the tomb—”
Jumana leaned closer. Shock had deprived her even of tears. “Do you want to tell me where it is? Speak, then, and go to God having done that last kindness.”
“Kindness.” I think he was trying to laugh. It was a dreadful sound, bubbling with blood. Then he said, with a last burst of strength, “The fools. It was there, before their eyes. In the hand of the god.”
Yusuf lived only long enough to take the hand of his daughter (placed in his by me) and murmur a few unintelligible words. A sentimentalist might say he had died of a broken heart. In scientific terms he had succumbed to the same heart ailment from which Abdullah had suffered in his last years. We left Ramses to stand guard over Jamil, and Emerson carried Yusuf’s wasted body back to his house. I looked back as we walked away. The lovely shape of Abdullah’s tomb was outlined by moonlight and shadow. In the deeper shadows of the doorway, nothing moved.
There was not much we could do for the afflicted family. Indeed, the angry looks directed at us by some of its members indicated that our best course was to leave them alone.
The whole ghastly business had taken far less time than I had realized—less than half an hour from start to finish—but explanations and changes of clothing delayed the longed-for moment when we could settle down on the veranda.
Ramses was the last to join us. Though the tightness of his mouth betrayed his distress, he was his usual phlegmatic self when he replied to our questions. “I left him with his cousins. They made it clear I was not wanted. Where is Sennia?”
“I sent her to bed,” I replied, as Emerson pressed a glass of whiskey into his son’s hand. “She made quite a fuss, and Horus tried to bite me.”
“Jumana?” was Ramses’s next question.
“She finally broke down, but not until Fatima took her in a motherly embrace. Perhaps,” I mused, “I emphasized too strongly the virtue of a stiff upper lip.”
“What a pity,” Nefret said softly. “The family