The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog - Elizabeth Peters [37]
“I hope that poor fellow who collapsed in the sûk will be all right,” was my first attempt. “You should have let me examine him, Emerson.”
“His—er—friends were there to attend to him,” Emerson said shortly.
After a while I tried again. “Our friends will be surprised to find we have gone! It was good of so many of them to come round this morning to express their concern.”
Emerson grunted.
“I am inclined to believe Mr. Neville’s theory was the right one,” I went on. “How amusingly he put it: ‘Some young fellow flushed with wine and inspired by your charms, Mrs. E., playing a silly trick.’ ”
“And my charms inspired the attentions of the three young fellows in the garden,” said Emerson, with ineffable sarcasm.
“The timing of the two events may have been pure coincidence.”
“Pure balderdash,” growled Emerson. “Peabody, why do you insist on discussing our private affairs in public?”
The only other occupants of the carriage were a group of German university students, who were carrying on a loud conversation in their own language; but I took the hint.
By the time we reached Rikka my enthusiasm had dimmed somewhat. Darkness was complete, and we were the only non-Egyptians to disembark there. I stumbled over a stone and Emerson, whose spirits had improved in inverse ratio to the lowering of mine, caught my arm. “There he is. Hi, Abdullah!”
“I should have known,” I muttered, seeing the white shape that hovered, ghostlike, at the end of the small platform.
“Quite,” said Emerson cheerfully. “We can always count on good old Abdullah, eh? I sent a message to him this afternoon.”
After the appropriate greetings had been exchanged, not only with Abdullah but with his sons Feisal and Selim and his nephew Daoud, we mounted the donkeys they had waiting and set out. How the devil the donkeys saw where they were going I do not know; I certainly could not, even after the moon rose, for it was on the wane and gave little light. The gait of some donkeys is very uneasy when they break into a trot. I got the distinct impression these donkeys did not like being out at that hour.
After a hideously uncomfortable ride across the cultivated fields I saw the light of a fire ahead on the edge of the desert. Two more of our men were waiting for us. The little camp they had set up was better than Abdullah’s usual efforts along those lines; I was relieved to see that there was a proper tent for us, and the welcome aroma of fresh-brewed coffee reached my nostrils.
Emerson lifted me off my donkey. “Do you remember I once threatened to snatch you up and carry you off into the desert?”
I looked from Abdullah to Feisal to Daoud to Selim to Mahmud to Ali to Mohammed. They stood round us in an interested circle, their faces beaming. “You are such a romantic, Emerson,” I said.
However, when I emerged from the tent the following morning I was in a better humor, and the scene before me roused the old thrill of archaeological fever.
Meidum is one of the most attractive sites in Egypt. The remains of the cemetery are situated on the edge of the low bluff that marks the beginning of the desert; toward the east the emerald carpet of the cultivated land stretched out toward the river, whose waters were stained rosy pink by the rays of the rising sun. On the bluff, rising high against the sky, was the pyramid, though I must confess it does not look much like one. The Egyptians call it El Haram el-Kaddâb, “The False Pyramid,” for it more resembles a square tower of three diminishing stages. Once there were seven stages, like those of a step pyramid. The angles between them had been filled in with stone to give a smooth slope, but these filling stones and the upper stages had long since collapsed, forming a frame of detritus all around the giant tomb.
Like the pyramids of Dahshoor and Giza, it was uninscribed. I have never understood why the kings who went to so much trouble to erect these