The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog - Elizabeth Peters [54]
“Ah,” I said, motioning to the waiter to refill the young man’s glass. “Cherchez la femme! Or is it les femmes?”
“The plural, decidedly,” said Howard. He caught Emerson’s eye and added quickly, “Idle gossip, as I said. Er— tell me how you are getting on in the Valley. Any new tombs?”
For the rest of the meal we confined ourselves to professional gossip. Emerson enjoyed himself, tantalizing our young friend with mysterious hints and refusing to elaborate on them. Howard was about to explode with curiosity when Emerson took out his watch and begged he would excuse us. “One of our friends is giving a fantasia in our honor,” he explained, stretching the truth a little. “We must not be too late.”
We parted at the door of the hotel. Howard set off on foot, whistling cheerfully, and we bargained for a carriage. The main street of Luxor, lined with modern hotels and ancient ruins, runs along the river; behind it is a typical village, with streets of bare dirt and clustered huts.
No premonition of disaster troubled my mind. I was more concerned about my thin evening slippers and trailing skirts, and with the distance we had to travel. This does not prove, as some claim, that such forebodings are only superstition; it proves that on some occasions they fail one. I could have wished mine had chosen another occasion on which to fail.
We left the lights of the hotels behind us and turned onto a narrow lane between fields of sugarcane, higher than a tall man’s head. The leaves whispered softly in the night breeze. From time to time lights from country houses twinkled through the stalks. The night air was cool and refreshing; the mingled odors that mark an Egyptian town—the smell of donkeys, charcoal fires, and lack of sanitation—faded, to be replaced by a more salubrious scent of green growing crops and fresh earth. The carriage was open; the night air cooled my face; the rhythmic clop of the horses’ hooves, the creak of the leather seats blended into a magical mood of romance. I leaned against Emerson’s shoulder; his arm was around me. Not even the fixed regard of the cat, on the seat opposite, could mar the moment.
The drive was popular with visitors to Luxor, for it was one of the few country roads wide enough to take carriages. We met one or two others and had to pull off to let them by.
The driver glanced back, cursing in Arabic. I could not see what was behind us, but I had already heard the sounds: the pound of galloping hooves and a blurred chorus of voices. Someone was overtaking us, and presumably they meant to pass us, for the noise swelled rapidly.
“Good Gad!” I exclaimed, trying to look over the high back of the seat.
“It is just a party of young idiot tourists,” Emerson said. “They race on this stretch all the time.” He leaned forward and tapped the driver’s shoulder. “Let them go by,” he said in Arabic. “There is a space there ahead, beyond the wall.”
The driver obeyed, pulling over in the nick of time, and the other carriage thundered past. Shouts and cheers and a snatch of raucous song hailed us, and someone waved a bottle. Then the carriage lights disappeared around a curve in the road.
“They will have themselves in the ditch if they go on at that pace,” Emerson said, settling back.
We proceeded on our way, coming at last into a more thickly settled area. It was a strange blend of humble huts and walled houses, with open fields between.
“Not far now,” said Emerson. “By Gad, I was right! There is the carriage that passed us. In the ditch.”
“Shall we not stop and offer assistance?” I asked.
“Why the devil should we? Let them walk back, it will sober them.”
He had already ascertained, as had I, that the horse was not injured. It stood patiently by the road, while the men tried to right the carriage. They were laughing and cursing; it was clear that no one had been hurt.
We had left them some distance behind when