The Last Camel Died at Noon - Elizabeth Peters [149]
“How far, my prince?”
“Until you find him, you stupid——(a small rodent of unsanitary habits).”
Murtek cleared his throat. “My prince—forgive this low person—but he is only a child, and too young to know fear of dark places. If this leads to the tunnels, he can avoid large clumsy men forever. Would it not be better to——(entice, persuade, lure) him to come out?”
Nastasen considered this novel idea. The light of the single remaining lamp reflected from his eyeballs. “Yes,” he said finally. “It is my judgment that we should entice him to come out. You—woman—call your son.”
So distraught was I that I might actually have done so, had not the High Priest of Amon intervened. He was shaking with exasperation. “My prince, the boy will not come out if he knows we are here. It may be he is too far away to hear his mother’s voice. If you will let me speak…” He drew Nastasen aside and muttered at him.
It ended with Nastasen doing what any sensible person would have done at the beginning—closing the trapdoor and withdrawing, leaving two men on watch. Pesaker had to explain to him why guards were necessary—to keep us from escaping the same way—and there was some argument as to whether the men down below should be shut in with the fugitive. Nastasen was all in favor, but Murtek finally convinced him that they would only drive Ramses farther from the stairs and perhaps cause him to lose his way.
That was now my greatest fear. Almost I would have preferred the dungeons. The thought of Ramses wandering alone and in utter darkness, his throat parched for lack of water—losing hope, crying out for help, dashing himself against the stony walls as he ran panic-stricken through the endless night of the tunnels—falling, at last, to perish in lingering torment… I tried to banish the hideous sights from my mind, but I failed; and when at last the intruders left us, I had no difficulty at all in bursting into tears.
“Don’t worry, ma’am, we’ll find him,” Reggie exclaimed, patting my hand.
“Come and lie down, my dear,” said Emerson, leading me into my sleeping chamber.
Having thus attained the degree of privacy we required, I attempted to stop crying and was surprised to find I could not. Emerson took me in his arms and I muffled my sobs against his manly bosom. “He’ll be all right, Peabody.”
“In the dark, all alone, lost…”
“Hush, my dear. I’ll lay you odds he is not lost, but could retrace his steps at any time. And he is not in the dark.”
“What?” I raised my head. Emerson pressed it firmly back against his breast. “Sssh! I saw it when Nasty held his lamp over the opening—a burned matchstick, deliberately placed on the topmost step.”
After checking the accoutrements on my belt I discovered that a candle and a considerable quantity of matches were missing from the waterproof tin in which I kept them. Since Ramses could not have taken them that morning, he must have stowed them away the night before in the expectation of some such emergency arising, and therefore it was quite possible he had also supplied himself with food and water and whatever other commodities he deemed necessary.
“He might at least have had the courtesy to inform me of what he was planning,” I said crossly, replacing the matches and the two remaining candles. “I never heard of anything so inconsiderate and ill-considered. What the devil does he think he is doing? He can’t stay down there forever. And how are we supposed to find him when—”
“He was considerate enough to leave the burned match,” said Emerson.
“He probably dropped it accidentally.”
“He must have lit his candle or his lamp before he opened the trapdoor, Peabody. There are no windows in those back rooms; he could not have found his way, or located the spring that opens the trap, without light. No, I am sure the match was a sign, meant for our eyes only and intended to convey precisely what it did—that he has taken every possible precaution and will reestablish communication when it is safe to do so.”
He was trying to comfort me, and he succeeded—for a while. The situation was not as dire as I had first