To-day she could not come to the child when he called, for but two nights ago there was a movement and whispering at midnight in the yard of Bukdadi, and the wail arose of a voice smaller and younger than that of little Achmet. So the mother rests.
THE COURT OF THE KING
VI
THE COURT OF THE KING
“Sealed within the iron hills.”
The Approach
The moon had risen as we rode down the steep, sandy road and threaded our way through the little mud enclosures, where dogs, alive for the excitement of the night, were prowling on the walls, listening with ears pricked up for warnings of enemies, looking with vigilant eyes for some alien to draw near. As we crossed into that part of the village where they did not know us, a hoarse storm of barking filled the air, but in a minute or two we had passed beyond this, and were out among the sand-hills between the tombs, where the whole plain was flooded with a misty, uncertain light.
Song and merry-making had begun in the villages, for the full moon is festival for those who have no artificial light; but the thud of the drums, the sound of children’s voices, and the barking of dogs faded and died away, and we came out into a great emptiness, threading a narrow path between the tumbled heaps; on each side the tombs gaped dimly at our feet. On the right hand we looked far away over desert and field to the great dark pylons of a temple across the river: on the left rose sharply the sandy spur of the hill we were rounding. No one was in sight and on no side could we see any human habitation.