The Buried Pyramid (20 page)

Stephen’s lips moved quickly, trying and discarding possibilities.

“Let’s see, the first one could be ‘been’ or ‘seen,’ but as we have the ‘S’ already, ‘been’ it is.”

Jenny scribbled in the “B” and sighed. “The next one is even worse. Let’s skip it and go on to the other two letter combination: blank-e. That has fewer options: ‘he,’ ‘me,’ ‘we.’ ”

“ ‘He’ can be discarded,” Stephen said. “Remember, we already know that ‘H’ is represented by ‘Q.’ ”

“Right,” Neville agreed. “Shall we try the other options?”

Jenny had been penciling down an alphabet with the letters they had worked out written under their corresponding letter. Now she paused, a strange expression on her face.

“Wait!” she said, holding her pad so they could see what she had written. “There may be a faster way. Do either of you see anything odd here?”

Stephen was the first to reply. “N-O-P and their equivalents -V-W-X follow in the same order.”

“So do H-I and their equivalents, Q and the Eye of Horus,” Neville added. “Why, I believe that the alphabet is represented in the usual order!”

“With one exception,” Jenny agreed, pencil working. “ ‘I’ is represented by a symbol rather than a letter, interrupting direct correspondence rather neatly between ‘H’ and ‘I,’ two of the first letters we might guess. I suppose the Sphinx wanted us to work for our message.”

“I wonder why?” Neville asked, but he expected no answer.

“Here it is,” Jenny said, looking down at the deciphered text. “Though I don’t know what good it will do us.”

She had inserted punctuation where it seemed appropriate, so the text she turned for Stephen and Neville’s inspection read:

TWICE YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. YOU BELIEVE NO ONE KNOWS WHAT YOU SEEK. THINK WE ARE LEGION. YOU ARE IN DANGER. SPHINX.

“Blast him!” Neville exploded. “If we’re in such ruddy danger, why doesn’t he just tell us what it is?”

“Hush, Uncle,” Jenny cautioned, indicating where the civil servant was stirring under his newspaper.

Neville nodded apology.

Stephen was frowning at the message.

“I think he
is
telling us, after a fashion. Put a full stop after the word ‘think,’ and the message becomes a bit clearer. He is saying that we believe that no one knows what we seek, but we should think about the evidence to the contrary. That is, our correspondent knows. Then he tells us that he is not alone in his knowing: ‘We are legion.’ Then he reminds us we are in danger.”

“Hm,” Neville grumbled. “So why doesn’t he tell us who this legion is and stop dancing around the point?”

“Perhaps he is afraid for his own safety,” Jenny offered. “This legion who offers us danger would certainly not be kind to a traitor within its ranks. If Sphinx succeeds in warning us off, then he saves us and saves himself.”

“I wonder,” Stephen said, returning to an earlier question, “why he has switched formats? Twice hieroglyphs, then this.”

“Because he’s a bloody damn nuisance,” Neville replied sharply, “too in love with his own conceit to be direct.”

“Perhaps,” Jenny said, “but as I transcribed, I came up with another answer. Look at the handwriting. It is in block print, true, but the letters are quickly drawn. Look how the downstrokes on the ‘H’ and ‘K’ are extended. The curves of many letters are less than precise as well. I think he wrote this, if not in a hurry, at least with enough speed that he could not permit himself the luxury of drawing elaborate hieroglyphs.”

Stephen nodded. “It was addressed to us care of the ship. If he had to make sure his message would not have to be forwarded, he might have felt pressed for time.”

“Note,” Jenny said, “that this letter is the first not to contain a warning about a woman. Is she then no longer a danger or is it simply that our correspondent wanted us to realize that our danger was offered from multiple sources, not just one?”

“Not enough information to go on to decide that point,” Neville said.

He folded the new message and its translation away with the previous missives, and all three fell into thoughtful silence. The train continued to rattle along, but they hardly noticed the small villages and green fields. Throughout the marshy land, ducks and herons, along with many less easily identifiable birds, rose in protest at the tumult of the passing train.

At last Jenny spoke, “Uncle Neville, you may wish to find the pharaoh, but I believe that the one I hope to find is the Sphinx.”

7

Papa Antonio

In cairo, they parted from the Travers family with thanks and protestations of gratitude on both sides.

“Do come see us,” Mary Travers begged Jenny. “We can have so much fun getting to know Cairo.”

Jenny promised she would, but she thought that the parts of Cairo she would be interested in and those that would fascinate Mary Travers would overlap very little. Still, Mary would certainly want to visit the standard tourist attractions, and she was pleasant enough company.

Jenny had an ulterior motive as well. If Uncle Neville thought she was keeping up her friendship with Mary, Jenny would have an excuse ready if ever she needed to get away unsupervised. Jenny didn’t know if such a need would arise, but she firmly believed in being prepared.

After collecting their trunks, Uncle Neville selected one porter from the swarm who converged on the passengers.

“Shepheard’s Hotel?” the man asked in fairly good English.

“No,” Neville replied. “Do you know the hotel run by Antonio Donati? Papa Antonio?”

A grin split the man’s wiry black beard.

“Sure I know Papa Antonio. That where you go?”

“That’s right. We’ll need a wagon or donkeys to carry the trunks. Can you get them?”

“I can. A prince among wagons. Strong.”

The porter named a price. Sir Neville countered with a much lower figure. They dickered back and forth for a while, settling on an amount that seemed to leave both men well satisfied. Then the same routine was followed with a passenger carriage.

“Bert,” Neville said, “do you mind riding along with the trunks?”

“No problem, sir,” Bert said with an apprehensive glance at the porter.

“I don’t expect you’ll have any trouble,” Neville assured him. “The porter will follow right behind the carriage. You’re simply insurance that he remembers where he’s going.”

Emily was handed up into the carriage, where she drew her skirts up around her, her attention split between keeping an eye on her husband and staring at the strange buildings and exotic people who crowded around.

Once the carriage was clattering towards their destination, Stephen leaned forward and asked, “Sir Neville, neither of those fellows asked very much. Indeed, their highest price was a great deal less than I saw you present our cabin steward aboard
Neptune’s Charger
. Why did you bother to make such a fuss?”

Neville grinned, looking more relaxed and happier than Jenny could recall, even when she included those times he’d been mooning over Lady Cheshire.

“Well, Stephen, bartering is the custom here. If you don’t dicker, the word spreads that you’re an easy mark, and the natives will try to take you for anything they can get. Can’t blame them really. They live pretty miserable lives on the whole.”

Stephen nodded. “I noticed that you didn’t let on that both you and I understand Arabic. Was that part of the same?”

“That’s right,” Neville agreed. “Never tell more than you must. It’s fascinating what you may overhear.”

Jenny smiled at a memory.

“Really,” she said, “it’s not too different from what we dealt with in the West. Papa always said that the Indians weren’t sneaky, but we aren’t their people, and they see no reason to give us a fair shake, not when they see we have so much. Until we prove ourselves friends, we might as well be enemies.”

“That’s not just true in foreign lands,” Stephen added. “I’ve seen a Cockney take a country farmer for everything he’s worth, just because the farmer speaks with a different accent.”

As the carriage left the train station, nearly naked children ran alongside the wheels holding up their hands and begging for
baksheesh
.

“That’s alms,” Neville explained to Jenny and Emily. “Islam declares that it is a virtue to give to those less fortunate—that such generosity will be rewarded in heaven.”

“Doesn’t Christianity?” Jenny asked, puzzled.

“Not in the same fashion,” Neville replied. “I believe there is some sort of formula: give so much, get so much credit. The idea is good, but the difficulty is that a class of professional beggars has emerged. In the worst cases, children are deliberately starved or mutilated so they arouse pity.”

“Poor mites!” Emily exclaimed.

Jenny shuddered and her hand, which had been reaching for her purse, fell limp.

“There are ways to deal with the beggars, ways that benefit the real poor without encouraging the professionals,” Neville said. “I’ll explain later.”

In addition to the children, scrawny dogs chased after them, barking at the carriage, at the running children, and even at each other, adding greatly to the general commotion. Robed Arabs leaned out to watch their progress from arched windows and doorways, their interest growing more and more intense as the carriage left what even Jenny’s inexperienced eye could tell was the tourist quarter near the station.

This curiosity was far from standoffish. Vendors ran alongside the carriage offering fruit, flowers, wooden and clay bead necklaces, and even statuettes and pottery adorned with hieroglyphs and the painted images of Egypt’s old gods.

“As ancient as yesterday’s mud,” Stephen said, speaking just loudly enough that the others could hear him over the noise. “You would think they would take more care.”

“Some do,” Neville assured him. “However, we have all the marks of being just off the boat. We seem like easy targets. Similar statuettes are often artificially aged, encrusted in sand, then buried where a local guide can lead a susceptible tourist to ‘discover’ them.”

Jenny looked at him quizzically.

“What’s the point of that, Uncle Neville? Just a joke?”

“No. There has been an effort since the Egyptian Museum was founded in the late fifties to regulate the removal of antiquities from the country. Tourists are routinely advised of these regulations and of the penalties attendant upon their violation. Therefore, a tourist who believes he has made a find can easily be encouraged to bribe the guide to stay quiet about it—thereby earning the guide a great deal more than he could make by selling the same figure as a souvenir in the bazaar. Another benefit—at least for those who are running the con game—is that someone who is smuggling an antiquity from the country is quite unlikely to show it to an expert.”

Emily sniffed. “These Egyptians seem like dishonest sorts.”

Neville shrugged. “Many are. Most are simply poor.”

Their progress through the crowded streets was slow, providing ample opportunity to study Cairo’s polyglot architecture. Squat, practical dwellings built of mud, and not terribly different from what Jenny had seen in the southwestern parts of North America, contrasted vividly with the needle-pointed minarets of the mosques.

Occasionally, they passed a house that would have been perfectly in place in London or Paris. Then there were buildings that showed remnants of Roman construction. Whatever the style, balconies overgrown with vines and flowers abounded. The variety was fascinating, but Jenny rapidly grew tired of the dust and noise—especially after how spoiled she had been on both train and steamship.

I’m getting soft
, she chided herself.
This wouldn’t have bothered me once—at least, not so quickly. If I want to prove myself fit to go with Uncle Neville, I need to show some backbone.

Despite this resolve, she was relieved when the carriage pulled into a curving driveway before a tidy building faced with white stucco. The hotel’s arching doorways and windows belonged to many regions of the Mediterranean, but the style of the trim and the elaborate iron grills that latticed over the windows somehow evoked Italy rather than Egypt.