CHAPTER XII
The Night Prowler
“I’m glad you are so interested,” said Professor Bruce innocently. “Many of the people who come here have no real appreciation of what they see or hear. Their souls don’t rise above material things.”
Don gave Teddy a vigorous poke in the ribs that luckily passed unnoticed.
There were other tombs in the vicinity, that of Seti I and Amenophis II, the latter lying extended on his sarcophagus in the full glare of an electric light that seemed altogether too modern to be in harmony with a dwelling of the dead.
It was singular that the scene should have left no sense of depression on the spectators, such as they would have felt had they been in a modern cemetery. But so many centuries had elapsed that the tombs and their contents seemed to them merely historical relics. The haze of ages enveloped them. It was hard for them to think that the dried-up mummies had once been breathing living figures, that before these kings, whom the superstitious people regarded as gods, thousands had bowed in adoration, that upon their word hung the issues of life and death.
So it was with the feeling of being in a great museum that they passed from one to the other of the great monuments of antiquity adding momentarily to their knowledge of the mighty civilization that had flourished there in the dawn of recorded history, thousands of years before America had been discovered.
“Seems to me that the Egyptians thought more about dying than they did about living,” commented Don.
“It would seem so at first sight,” conceded the professor. “As a matter of fact, they got a good deal of enjoyment out of life. That is, the wealthier classes did. It must be admitted that the life of the poorer people was hard, much like that of the coolies of China to-day. But those with more money seemed to have indulged in all the pleasures that money could buy. The paintings on the walls of the palaces and temples show them at banquets, at races, engaged in hunting, and in all manner of sports.”
“Why did they pay so much attention to their tombs, then?” asked Don.
“That was a result of their religion,” replied his Uncle Amos. “It was of the greatest importance that the body should be preserved after death. The Egyptians believed that every human being possessed a double that was a perfect duplicate of himself, and that the life of the double depended upon having a body to return to after its journey to the other world. If the double came back and found the body gone, it would perish. And the loss of immortality was too dreadful a thing to contemplate. That’s why they took so much pains to embalm the body.”
“Why did they have statues of the dead man in the tomb?” asked Don.
“That was to ‘play safe,’ as you would call it,” answered the professor, with a smile. “There was always a chance that the body might be destroyed. In that case, the next best thing would be to have a likeness of the dead man for the double to come back into. And in order that the double shouldn’t make a mistake, they painted the likeness of the man on the statue.”
“So that the double wouldn’t get in the wrong pew,” murmured Teddy, but taking care this time that he should not be heard by his elders.
“In the case of kings,” continued the professor, “there were usually several statues, so that if one were broken or stolen he would still have a chance for a future life.”
“What was the idea of putting the provisions in the tomb?” asked Don, giving Teddy a surreptitious poke.
“Because the Egyptians believed that the needs of the future would be very similar to those of the present,” was the reply. “The soul, or double, would need food and drink just the same as the person did here. So jars of water and plenty of bread and meat were placed beside the mummy.
“Then, too, the rich man would need servants to wait on him. So they made little statuettes that were supposed to go with the double and do his work. The double would need a barge or other kind of boat to ferry him over the holy waters to the Fields of the Blessed. That was the reason for the boat that you saw in the tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen.”
“How about the people who were too poor to do that kind of thing?” asked Don.
“They got around it by having pictures of those things, the food and boats and other necessaries painted on the walls of the tomb,” answered his uncle.
“Not much nourishment in that,” Teddy whispered to Don.
“Those manuscripts you saw,” continued the professor, “were what is called the ‘Book of the Dead.’ They told the dead man what answers to give when he stood before Osiris, the supreme judge who weighed his character and decided whether he was worthy to enter Paradise. Among other things, he was instructed to say: ‘I have not stolen’; ‘I have not lied’; ‘I have not killed.’ You see the general idea of what was right and what was wrong was very much the same then as it is now.”
The time passed quickly, and when the party emerged from the latest of the tombs they had visited, the sun was high in the heavens and the valley was like an oven.
As they passed the different gangs of diggers they made inquiries of the overseers regarding Mr. Sturdy. The officials listened with courtesy, and in some cases with interest, but none of them could give any information. None could be found who had seen such a man as Phalos or Professor Bruce described. Nor had they heard the name. The latter of course was not surprising, for, as Don bitterly reflected, his father did not even know his own name.
“No help to be gained from these sources,” the captain summed up after a series of disheartening experiences. “It’s strictly up to us to do the finding ourselves. Now let’s get back to Luxor and make our final preparations.”
There were many other wonders in the vicinity that under other circumstances the lads, especially, would have liked to visit, such as the Colossi of Memnon, the Temple of Karnak, but everything else must be abandoned or deferred in their overwhelming desire to find Don’s father.
There had been much debate among the members of the party as to the motive power of the expedition. The captain, remembering the value of the automobiles in their Sahara trip, would have preferred them. But inquiry both at Cairo and at Luxor had shown them that there was none to be had of the type wanted, and the ordinary kind without the caterpillar tread, would have been of no use in the desert.
Had they expected their search to be confined entirely to the Valley of the Kings, they would have used donkeys, the common mode of travel in that vicinity. But this idea also was abandoned, because of the supplies that would be needed for the animals.
So they finally decided on camels, the “ships of the desert,” whose padded hoofs seemed especially made to travel the sandy wastes and who could go for days without water in case of necessity.
The captain and the professor, in their frequent journeys in Oriental countries, had learned to ride the beasts without difficulty. Teddy, too, during the time he was in charge of the Algerian, Alam Bokaru, master of camels, had become fairly expert.
To Don, however, though he had occasionally mounted one of the brutes, it was something to be mastered. But as they had to remain at Luxor for a couple of days, owing to the delay in receiving the permit for excavations, for which Zeta Phalos had applied to the Egyptian Government, he had plenty of time to learn and had soon conquered the swaying, sickening sensations that beset the novice.
Who should accompany the party had been a subject of much thought on the part of Phalos.
“I do not think that we shall have to do much digging,” he said, as he was discussing the matter with the captain and the professor. “If my indications are correct, it will be a matter of finding a certain entrance rather among the rocks than the sands. And the main thing, anyway, is to find that entrance. If we find that much excavation is needed, we can retrace our steps and get a force of laborers. In the meantime, the fewer we have with us, the better our chances of not having our secret betrayed.”
“Right you are,” agreed the captain.
“But we shall need some one to take care of the animals, shan’t we?” asked Don, who was standing near.
“Yes,” replied Phalos, smiling on the eager, level-headed boy. “And for that purpose I have fixed on Ismillah and Abdul. They have been in my household for years. Their fathers served my father. They are absolutely trustworthy and devoted to me. Ismillah is an excellent cook and handy man, and Abdul knows all there is to be known about camels.”
So it was settled, and after the permits had arrived and all the supplies secured that would be needed for the trip, the searchers set out on their double quest—to seek for Mr. Sturdy and for the Tombs of Gold.
The first was by far the most important, to the Americans of the party at least, and it was to this they gave their chief attention.
They traversed the Valley of the Kings, stopping at every place where excavations were going on to make inquiries of the foremen in charge. But always the answer was in the negative, until a doubt began to creep into Don’s mind whether his father had ever reached the spot that had possessed so strong a fascination for his deranged mind. When two days had thus been passed fruitlessly, this doubt became almost a conviction.
In the course of their journeying, they passed the cliff from which Phalos had copied the inscription. It was at a dizzy height, and increased their respect for the man who had dared its perils.
The captain unslung his field glasses and passed them around, so that all could have a look at the curious writing that had withstood the centuries. They studied it with interest, Don far more acutely than that of any other member of the party, because of his belief that his father had also risked his life in securing a copy of those queer hieroglyphics.
“How on earth could any one read such writings?” asked Teddy.
“They couldn’t up to a little more than a hundred years ago,” replied Zeta Phalos, with a smile. “The knowledge of it had passed utterly out of the mind of man for nearly two thousand years.
“Then, at the time Napoleon was in Egypt, one of his engineers in digging a fort uncovered a stone, not much bigger than you could carry in your hands, that had on it three different kinds of writing. One was Greek, another was in the writing of the common people of old Egypt, and the third was in the writing used by the Egyptian priesthood similar to what you see up there. The stone was called the Rosetta stone, and is now in the British Museum.
“Of course, the Greek could be read, and scholars were struck by the idea that the other inscriptions referred to the same thing. So they compared the Greek with the other characters and so learned what the symbols meant. That was the beginning, and before long they had an old Egyptian grammar and dictionary. That little stone proved to be the key that unlocked the whole vast storehouse of Egyptian history.”
As they moved on the surroundings gradually assumed a desert character. The cliffs grew lower and were in many places replaced by sand dunes.
Don’s attention was attracted by the countless little heaps of stones they passed, each consisting of a little upright slab of rock, held in place by others on each side.
“What are those, Uncle Amos?” he asked.
“Prayer stones,” answered the professor, after a casual glance. “They are the prayers of travelers to the gods of their city that they might have a prosperous journey. Those fragments of pottery indicate that a bowl, probably containing water, was set beside each pile.”
“A prosperous journey,” mused Don, as he thought of the object of his own search, and though he did not erect a similar pile, there was a prayer in his heart.
On the night of the second day they made their preparations to pitch camp. A tent was soon erected, and while Abdul fed, watered and tethered the camels, Ismillah prepared a meal that fully justified his master’s opinion of him as a cook.
After supper, the travelers stretched themselves out on the sands, enjoying the faint breeze that had sprung up after sunset and studying the splendor of the Egyptian sky, studded with stars that glowed like so many jewels. Above them spread the Milky Way, like a spray of silver dust.
“The Nile of the heavens,” murmured the professor.
“What do you mean?” asked Don.
“The old Egyptians considered the Milky Way the Nile of the future life,” was the answer. “They used to fancy that the departed ones were sailing up and down that, just as they used to sail the Nile when they were alive.”
“Quite a poetical fancy,” remarked the captain.
“How nice and homelike,” said the irreverent Teddy. “You could just look up and say, ‘There goes Aunt Jemima.’”
The professor looked rather shocked, but the captain laughed.
“I’m afraid you’re a hopeless case, Teddy,” he said. “But now I guess we’d better turn in. We want to get an early start to-morrow before the sun becomes too hot.”
His suggestion was followed and all except Don were soon sound asleep.
But the boy tossed about restlessly on his blanket. It was not the heat that prevented him from sleeping, for he had become inured to that in the Sahara.
It was the tormenting uncertainty as to his father’s fate. He had felt hopeful of finding him in the Valley of the Kings. With each new gang of workmen discovered, his heart had thrilled with the thought that perhaps these were the ones his father had employed, and every time his hopes had been dashed to the ground. Would he ever find him?
A sound came to him from without. He propped himself up on his elbow and listened. Again he heard it, faint but unmistakable. It seemed to come from the direction of the camels.
Silently he crept out from the shelter of the tent and looked toward the tethered camels.
As his eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness, he could make out the gaunt figures of the beasts. Then gradually he saw something else—the figure of a man moving about stealthily.
With a shout Don rushed toward him.