The Golden One - Elizabeth Peters [160]
By evening our plans had been completed. I had whiled away the hours exploring the rest of the house. It was like many others I had visited, with nothing of particular interest except for even more secret passages and hidden chambers than usual. Mahmud or one of his ancestors appeared to have had little faith in his government, his associates, and his wives.
According to Ramses, we should allow at least an hour to reach the spot Sethos had indicated. When we gathered in the ka’ah for a light evening repast, we discussed who should go. Naturally I intended to make one of the party, and Emerson was set on confronting his infuriating brother. Someone had to stay with the girl, we all agreed to that—Nefret with a caustic “I’m always the one”—but Selim and Ramses could not decide which of them should go and which should remain with the two young women. It lacked half an hour till the time we were to leave, and we were still discussing the matter, when a horrible, ululating howl broke the silence of the quiet night. The mashrabiya screen was ajar and I heard the words quite clearly:
“O unbelievers, prepare for death! O ye unrighteous, who walk in darkness pursued by afrits and . . .” The speech ended in an anticlimactic squawk.
In a body we rushed to the window and flung the screen open. In the moonlight I saw a dark mass huddled outside the gate, and Selim, his shoulder braced against it. Realizing they had been discovered, the invaders began battering at the gate.
I tried, too late, to catch hold of Ramses, who had climbed over the sill. He dropped to the ground and reached Selim as the gate gave way. Selim’s knife flashed. Ramses had snatched up a lever or spanner as he ran past the motorcar; he swung his arm, and a scream from one of the attackers wavered into silence.
“Quick!” Emerson exclaimed. “Out the bab-sirr, all of you.”
“Be damned to that!” I shrieked, for my blood was up. “ ‘Now who will stand on either hand, And keep the bridge with—’ ”
“Me,” said Emerson. “Curse it, Peabody, get the girls out of here. You know what to do.”
He was already halfway out the window, lowering himself by one hand.
The fighting instincts of the Peabodys were not easily controlled; but the confidence he had placed in me enabled me to master them. I expected some objection from Nefret, but she made none. Pausing only long enough to collect the bundles we had packed earlier, we fled down the stairs and through the rooms of the ground floor toward the small chamber that contained the secret door. Esin had spoken only once: “Is it my father?”
“I don’t know. Be quiet and hurry.”
The house was deserted. The servants who lived in had run away or were in hiding. One could hardly blame them for refusing to become involved in the affairs of strangers. No doubt the local authorities, such as they were, felt the same. I hoped the uproar at the gate would attract the attention of the military police, but by the time they arrived it might be too late.
Nefret had not spoken at all. We both had our torches; she held the light steady while I searched for the catch Emerson had shown me. It was stiff with disuse, but finally it yielded. The panel swung open, and we all crowded into the space beyond. The passage went through the thick wall of the house. It was ten feet long and less than two feet wide; we had to go single-file, our bundles bumping against the walls. At the end was a wooden door. It was not bolted or locked; one simply pressed a handle to release the latch, which was presumably less visible from the other side.
I did not know what lay beyond that door. This was as far as I had gone with Emerson.
“Go ahead,” Nefret whispered. “What are you waiting for?”
Her face gleamed with perspiration. Esin’s eyes were wide with terror and her breath came in short gasps. I was as anxious as they to get out of that cramped place; it was like standing in an upright coffin, with dust clogging the nostrils and a strange, sour smell. Many generations of rodents must have lived and died in that passage; their bones had crunched under our feet