CHAPTER XIV.

THE HAUNTED VALLEY

Prone upon a high crag Danbazzar lay, watching a horseman making his way down the slope of a distant valley and heading in the direction of the Nile. At last:

“He’s gone!” he said, and looked back over his shoulder.

John Cumberland heaved a great sigh of relief and, standing, stretched his cramped limbs. One long last look Danbazzar took at the receding figure, and then the two climbed down to the path below where Professor Blackwell and Barry awaited them.

“Do you think I got away with it?” the latter asked.

“No!” Danbazzar said promptly--“not entirely. Your explanation that we had gone out for jackal was good.”

“Excellent, in my opinion!” Professor Blackwell murmured. “You are really an accomplished liar, Barry.”

“Well,” Barry explained, laughing, “I knew we shouldn’t find you in the camp, and some sort of explanation had to be offered. I spoke loudly enough for you to hear me behind the screen, so that if he insisted upon staying till you returned, your story would correspond with mine.”

“Unfortunately,” said John Cumberland, “he must have heard the whistle.”

“He did!” declared the Professor--“although he never once mentioned it.”

“That is why I know he didn’t believe you,” Danbazzar added. “I shall go into Luxor on Monday and talk business to Mr. Tawwab.” He turned to Barry. “You haven’t heard the good news yet! Can you imagine that I was forced to stop work last year within a matter of hours of breaking through that portcullis?”

“What do you mean?” Barry cried.

“They cleared the entrance,” his father replied excitedly, “which Danbazzar had reclosed, without difficulty. You see, Barry, we are provided with the very best and latest gear. They set about the portcullis, and Hassan found a flaw in the rock itself beside this otherwise immovable stone door.”

“Why didn’t we find it last year!” boomed Danbazzar. “I figured that portcullis was a long, tough job!”

“They worked on it all night,” John Cumberland went on, “enlarging it----”

“Have you actually been in!” cried Barry.

“No,” was the reply; “the opening isn’t big enough. But Danbazzar and I were looking along the passage when we heard the whistle!”

“Hassan has been down,” said Danbazzar. “There’s an obstruction twenty feet below, but he reports the air is fairly good.”

“But what’s the obstruction?” Barry asked.

“I fear another portcullis,” said Danbazzar. “But the roof of the shaft seems to have collapsed at this point, or partly collapsed, and Hassan is uncertain whether there’s another portcullis or not. It may be a month’s work, or our job may be nearly finished. Remembering the purpose for which it was constructed, I look for a simple tomb. I should be surprised to find wells or dummy passages.”

“Could I possibly get through?”

Danbazzar looked him over briefly; and:

“No!” he replied, “but we have dropped a light into the shaft and you can look down. The men are at work again now.”

Excitement rose to fever pitch. Constant relays of skilled excavators could not work fast enough for John Cumberland or for Barry. By nightfall, the hole beside the mighty stone door which closed the passage had been appreciably enlarged. But whereas their first success had been due principally to a flaw in the rock tunnel itself, progress beyond this stage was a matter of patient drilling and chipping.

Danbazzar’s optimism was shown to have been excessive. Hours went by in constant work; blazing days and nights of ceaseless toil; but still the great portcullis defied them. Hassan es-Sugra, with the smallest men of the party, had attacked the lower obstruction. But conditions were bad. Both air and proper light were lacking. Since they could not be relieved, their progress was necessarily slow. And, meanwhile, the main gang chipped and chipped patiently at the rock tunnel surrounding the stone door.

By Monday success seemed to be in sight; and as Danbazzar set out for Luxor to interview Mr. Tawwab, he gave orders touching the work on the lower passage. And so, this day, which it was written should be a memorable one, wore on.

When the wonderful curtain of dusk was drawn over the valley, Danbazzar had not returned from his interview with Mr. Tawwab. Barry pictured him patiently drinking numberless cups of coffee and smoking scores of cigarettes.

Mahmoud had been out for quail in the morning, and the savoury odour of his cooking increased the appetite of the party, already keen enough at the end of an arduous and exciting day. Having performed their somewhat limited ablutions, they assembled in the tent over a surreptitious cocktail, perforce without ice.

“It seems to me,” said John Cumberland, “that this thing has developed into a race. The man Tawwab is out for blackmail. That’s clear.”

“Can we keep him off until we succeed, or will he hold us up?” murmured Professor Blackwell. “Success might come almost any day. What is beyond that further obstruction no one can pretend to guess. But as to what it _is_, from my scanty observations--for the light was very bad--I have formed a theory.”

“What’s your theory, Blackwell?” John Cumberland asked.

“It is this,” the Professor continued: “That first portcullis blocking the passage was built to be raised--I am sure of it.”

“I believe you are right,” said Barry; “and it worked in deep grooves.”

“Quite! Quite!” The Professor nodded. “By what means such a vast lump of rock was lifted, I leave to the greater knowledge of Danbazzar to explain. I am no Egyptologist. But I think the obstruction twenty feet down, from what I can see of it, is, or was, a second portcullis. The broken pieces look of about the same thickness as that at the top.”

“But why should the second be broken and not the first?” Barry demanded.

“Which brings me to my theory,” the Professor continued. “I think the second portcullis, at some time when it was raised, fell and was shattered.”

“By Jove!” John Cumberland exclaimed. “You may be right!”

“I am almost sure I am,” the Professor said. “I think I can see one of the deep grooves it worked in. If this is so, it should be fairly easy to clear the débris, and, unless there is a third portcullis, intact, why should we not then find ourselves in the actual burial chamber?”

“It’s possible,” his friend admitted. “Let’s hope you’re right.”

“There are no inscriptions to be seen on the walls of the passage,” Barry remarked.

“No,” said the Professor; “but I understand that this is usual. Am I right, Cumberland?”

“Quite right. But we may look for something very _un_usual in the chamber itself.”

They were all feverishly restless, but as their presence at the excavation merely interfered with the work, for this restlessness there was no proper outlet.

Dinner concluded, and Mahmoud having cleared the table, the Professor and John Cumberland, shirt sleeves rolled up and cigars lighted, settled down to poker. Barry, pipe in mouth, sauntered out into the _wâdi_, vaguely wondering why Danbazzar had not returned.

Without consciously intending to do so, he found himself following the familiar path, to which he no longer required a guide. On he went and down, until he came to that little ravine which opened into the valley just above the tomb. In the nick of time he remembered the usual routine and clapped his hands sharply three times.

Had he forgotten, the result would have been a blast of a police whistle and the suspension of operations!

The ingeniously screened working lay in deep shadow. He could see neither of the guards, but, standing there, silent, he could hear vaguely, deep in the heart of the rock, a sound of regular muffled blows. He was tempted to open the sand trap and to penetrate to the scene of activity, but overcame the impulse and turned right, walking up the valley to where it came out on the shoulder of a hill. Here, squatting under a curious mass of rock roughly resembling a giant skull, was one of the guards, who stood up as Barry approached.

“_Lêltak sa’ îda!_” said the man, saluting him.

Barry echoed the words, to which he was now becoming accustomed, and passed on. The guard reseated himself under the rock.

He determined to walk up as far as the ancient caravan road which crossed the crest above, a spot from which, Danbazzar had informed him, the view by moonlight was remarkable. He had counted, however, without the natural difficulties of the route. The path which he had intended to follow disappeared into midnight gullies and twined about upstanding crags. The shadowy places might be full of pitfalls. Barry paused, looking up at the ridge sharply outlined against the clear blue of the sky.

Perhaps, after all, discretion was the better part of valour. He might quite easily break his neck if he attempted this climb in the darkness. He stood there for a while looking about him, and knocking out his pipe upon the heel of his bass-soled shoe.

These slopes above and below he knew to be literally honeycombed. This weird place, almost unreal in its colouring under the moon, was no more than a vast necropolis. A month before, with New York’s life pulsing around him, the thought of this desolation and of being lonely amid it would have been appalling. Yet so adaptable is human nature that already he was growing accustomed to these haunted solitudes.

He began to refill his pipe. Upon a ridge fifty yards away, sharply outlined in the moonlight, a slinking shape appeared for a moment and as quickly disappeared. A jackal! Only the night before one had visited Mahmoud’s pantry, had succeeded in some mysterious fashion in opening the door, and had absconded with a cold chicken, a portion of a tin of sardines, and a piece of cheese. Another, even more original in his tastes, had stolen one of Professor Blackwell’s slippers.

Barry determined to return to the camp by a circuitous route which he knew, and which would bring him out at the lower end of the _wâdi_. Having satisfactorily lighted his briar, he set out, now walking more briskly and wondering if the night shift at work in the tomb of Zalithea had succeeded in penetrating to the second portcullis.

Danbazzar, an old hand at the business, had arranged a sort of bonus system which was a constant urge to the men, and effectively abolished any possibility of slacking. If the shift which changed at twelve o’clock or that which changed at four should be in a position to report that their immediate objective had been gained, they were instructed to awaken Danbazzar, or in his absence John Cumberland.

Barry, stepping out briskly upon the comparatively clear path which he had chosen, conjured up a vision of the chamber in which, if their hopes should be realized, they would find Zalithea.

Prior to their final departure from Luxor he had visited several characteristic tombs under the guidance of Hassan es-Sugra. He imagined that the chamber of the sleeping princess would be different from any of these. His impatience was so great that he could scarcely contain himself. He doubted if even his father’s enthusiasm was greater than his own. Danbazzar, whatever he felt, revealed little. Hassan es-Sugra seemed to be removed from all human emotions.

Coming to the lowest point in his descent, about half a mile below the excavation, he paused, looking about him.

By moonlight the place was different. But he recalled that it did not matter which of the several paths to the left he took, since any of them would ultimately bring him to his destination, and if one should prove impassable he could always return. Crossing a flat-topped mound, he descended the slope beyond and saw beneath him a rugged bowl dotted with minor ruins, probably of those stone huts which occurred in the Valley of the Kings. He stood looking down. It might be wise to avoid this valley, which no doubt contained pitfalls and across which he would have to climb rather than walk.

Then, as he hesitated, suddenly he saw something--something that caused him to shrink back, to inhale sharply--to wish he were not alone.

A figure was moving in the deep shadows of the hollow--a figure definitely horrible in such a place at that hour. It presented the appearance of a tall, gaunt man! There was a faint light, too, a fitful, elfin light which rose and fell--rose and fell--among the ruins!

All the old confidence with which Barry had walked through this place of the dead now deserted him. He recognized that he was afraid--and was ashamed of the recognition. But he retraced his steps swiftly, never pausing or glancing back until he had regained the main path.

Then, from behind him, far behind him, came a sound.…

Someone or something was climbing up from the bowl of the little valley!

In the profound silence of that place the noise was clearly audible. A jackal was out of the question; for no four-footed creature is more silent than a jackal in its comings and goings. He stood still, listening intently. Footsteps!--unmistakably those of a man and not of any four-footed beast!

Immediately facing him where he stood was an irregular mound of rock and sand, outlined on the right by the silver of the moon, but a place of ebony shadows on the left. He crossed into the shadow and waited. Nearer and nearer came the approaching footsteps. Whoever was coming up from the valley of the ruined huts was about to enter that narrow gully through which Barry had walked!

Half a dozen reasonable explanations presented themselves, but his mind rejected them one after another. Eeriness touched him with a cold finger. He watched the vague slash in a wall of darkness, which, from his present position, represented the entrance to the gully. Now, the one who approached was coming along it. In another moment he would be out. Three more paces must bring him into the light.

Barry’s heart was beating rapidly. He was afraid--and did not know of _what_ he was afraid.

And now he realized that the one who walked had cleared the gap, although he could not yet see any movement in the shadow. A second--two seconds--three seconds elapsed… and a man came out into the moonlight.

It was Danbazzar!