CHAPTER II
THE GAPING JAWS
Burnet ascended to the highest point of the tell, and, unstrapping a pair of field glasses, made a careful survey of his surroundings. The country between himself and the river consisted mainly of swamp and marsh, dotted with islands of various sizes. There were no dwellings within view, but Burnet knew that the region was inhabited, though sparsely, and the flight of the aeroplane, its descent near the tell, its subsequent departure, must have been noticed by a certain number of Arabs. Curiosity, if no other motive, would impel any who were near to hasten to the spot; but he saw no movement on all the wide expanse around except among the birds of the marsh; and reflecting that those Arabs who had witnessed the return flight of the aeroplane would not guess that it had left a passenger behind, he restored the glasses to their case, and prepared to complete the errand that had brought him to the spot.
Descending to the foot of the tell, he made his way to a wady that bordered it on one side. A sluggish current of muddy water flowed through the channel, whose banks were thickly overgrown with reeds. A number of these he cut with his pocket-knife, binding the stalks with tendrils of a trailing plant. With this faggot of reeds in one hand and the bundle he had taken from the aeroplane in the other, he returned to the ruins on the tell. There he stuck the former in the grinning mouth of one of the grotesque animals at the porch; then he passed inside, and once more descended into the underground room, this time, however, letting the stone slab drop into its place above.
A few seconds later the bundle of reeds hanging out of the monster's mouth disappeared. The animal, so far from being a solid block, as it appeared, was hollow, and Burnet had climbed into it by means of notches in the wall at one corner of the cellar. He withdrew the reeds: next moment they reappeared at a similar orifice on the other side of the figure, which, like Janus, was double-faced, and with this roughly extemporised broom he swept a quantity of sand over the slab, until it was hidden sufficiently to pass unnoticed except by a careful observer acquainted with its position. This done, he drew the broom back and took it down with him to the dark and airless chamber below.
If any watching Arab had seen the young British officer disappear into the earth, he would have been somewhat startled, some twenty minutes later, when the slab was lifted again and an Arab lad cautiously emerged. His head was swathed in a strip of parti-coloured cloth held in position by two thick rings of camel's hair; a dirty, shapeless, yellowish robe descended to his knees; his legs, remarkably brown, were bare; his feet were encased in leather-thonged sandals. He carried a small bundle; across his shoulder was slung a British regulation water-bottle—the only article by which he could have been distinguished from the boatmen who might be seen any day on the Tigris. He lowered the slab, swept sand over it, obliterated the footprints around, and having thrust his reed-broom into the mouth of the stone animal, picked his way through the ruins to the north-west corner of the tell, where an uninterrupted view of the country could be obtained.
He was just turning the corner of a rugged wall when, beneath him at a distance of barely twenty yards, he saw a young Arab rushing up the slope, stumbling, recovering himself, his eyes directed always to his feet. Burnet edged backwards round the corner, and was out of sight when the Arab gained the top. But there was now only a few yards between them; in a second or two the Arab would himself turn the corner, and Burnet saw that if he made a dash for the nearest cover in his rear he must inevitably be observed by the stranger before he could reach it. Whipping out a pistol as a precaution—for he knew not whether the Arab was friend or foe—he stood back. The Arab darted round the corner at racing speed, saw the pistol pointed at him, and swerving slightly grabbed at Burnet's wrist. The sudden wrench jerked the pistol out of his hands and at the same time caused both men to lose their balance. Burnet, the first to recover himself, freed his arm with a dexterous twist, and the two men closed, stumbling and swaying over the broken surface of the tell.
