“But I can’t go with you, my dear,” she said. “These pyramids and sphinxes and things are simply infested with people from home ... it wouldn’t do, you know ... after I get my divorce, all right, but until then....”
How sane she was!
I left her in the dahabeah, watched over by Ab-Domen who had by this time safely convoyed his camels to Cairo.
“For three days only,” I whispered, holding her tightly, “more than that I could not bear,” and without daring to look back I fled.
My objective was in the nearby terrain of the Valley of Kings but I knew better than to search in the actual valley itself which has been completely mussed by the hundreds of excavators who have sought the missing chapters of Egyptian history. Here, it is true, they have found much that is interesting and worth-while. The recent discovery of the tomb of King Tut-Ankh-Amen was a creditable performance. But I was after bigger game than that!
In beginning my quest I was greatly aided by certain papers which I had purchased many years ago from an old Levantine in Aden. He knew little of their value or I should never have secured them but vague markings on the first documents told me that the packet belonged originally in the library of Alexander the Great. Later they found their way into the archives of the Bab-el-Mandeb himself. Need I say more?
I therefore kept to the north of the beaten track of exploration. The expressions on the faces of numerous excavating parties which we passed were amusing. They considered me insane to search for buried testimony in a location to which no reference was made in their data. Such is the narrowness of many learned men.
Our group was small consisting of not more than a score of doolahs in addition to my usual companions Swank and Whinney. Five camels carried the provisions and tools. The indications contained in my papers was so precise that I felt that I could verify their statements with very little delay. Either they were true or false and that could be soon determined.
It was necessary to lay a very careful course following the exact compass-directions of my palimpsest. This done we were soon swallowed up in the immensity of the desert. It was strange how, like a great mother, the land enveloped and enfolded us. But now I trudged it with different feelings for back of me, waiting in the dahabeah, was Sarah, my tiger-mate, my tawny desert-rose! Our plan was to go immediately to Paris where she was to join the American divorce colony, for she wished to be forever freed from her outrageous husband. This being decided, I urged her to make haste so that the teeth-marks might still be shown in evidence, for they were rapidly paling. Wimpole!—the cur ... what had become of him?