The Last Camel Died at Noon - Elizabeth Peters [73]
There was no need to discuss what we would do. We would go on, refusing to admit defeat, until we could go no farther. That is the way of the Emersons.
But we were a sorry crew. Bearded and gaunt, Emerson led the way. Except for his bright eyes, Ramses looked like a miniature mummy, thin as a bundle of sticks, brown as any sun-dried corpse. I was only glad I could not see myself. We plodded doggedly on until the cool of morning passed and the sun beat down with hammer blows of heat. I began to see strange objects in the glimmer of furnace-hot air—mirages of palm trees and minarets, gleaming white-walled cities, a towering cliff of black rock topped by fantastic ruins. They blended into a gray mist like that of evening. My knees gave way. It was an odd sensation, for I was fully conscious; I simply had no control over my limbs.
Emerson bent over me. “We may as well finish the water, Peabody. It will only evaporate.”
“You drink first,” I croaked. “Then Ramses.”
Emerson’s lips cracked as they stretched in a smile. “Very well.”
He raised the canteen. I focused my hazed eyes on his throat and saw him swallow. He passed it to Ramses, who did the same, and then gave it to me. I had finished the last of the water, two long, delicious swallows, before the truth dawned on me. “You didn’t—Ramses, I told you—”
“Talking only dries the throat, Mama,” said my son. “Papa, I believe we can use one of the blankets as a litter. I will carry one end, and you—”
The harsh cackle that emerged from Emerson’s throat was a travesty of his hearty laugh. “Ramses, I am honored to have sired you, but I don’t think that idea is practicable.” Stooping, he lifted me in his arms and started walking.
I was too weak to protest. If there had been any liquid left in my body, I would have wept—with pride.
Only a man like Emerson, with the physique of a hero of old and the moral strength of England’s finest, could have gone on as long as he did. As my senses swam in and out of consciousness I felt his arms holding me fast and the slow steady stride that carried us forward. But even that mighty frame had its limits. When he stopped he had just enough strength left to lay me gently upon the ground before he crumpled and dropped at my side—and his last act was to stretch out his hand so that it rested on mine. I was too weak to turn my head, but I managed to move my other hand a scant inch, and felt another, smaller hand grasp it. As my senses faded into the merciful oblivion of approaching death, I thanked the Almighty that we were all together at the end, and that He had spared me the torture of watching those I loved pass on before me.
BOOK TWO
CHAPTER 8
The City of the Holy Mountain
THE Hereafter was not nearly so comfortable a place as I had been led to expect.
Not that I had possessed precise ideas of what lay Beyond, for, to be honest, the conventional images of angels and halos, harps and heavenly choirs had always seemed to me a little silly. (Not just a little silly, if I am to be entirely honest. Preposterous would be more like it.) At worst, I believed, there would be quiet sleep; at best, a reunion with those loved ones who had gone on before. I looked forward to meeting my mother, whom I had never known but who, I felt sure, must have been a remarkable individual, and to finding my dear papa in some celestial reading room pursuing his endless researches. I wondered if he would know me. In his earthly existence he was sometimes rather vague on that point.
Delirium takes strange forms. If I had not been so confident of having lived a thoroughly virtuous life, I might have thought myself translated to Some Other Place, for I felt as if I were being broiled on a huge griddle. Quantities of water were poured down my throat without assuaging my burning thirst. Worst of all, my demands for my husband went unanswered. I ran down endless corridors walled in mist following a shadowy form that ever retreated before me. Could my estimation