A River in the Sky Read Free Page B

tissue of lies,” I said. “The fall of Jerusalem is mentioned in Second Kings, if my memory serves.”
    “It is also described in the Babylonian annals,” Emerson retorted. “An historical source, Peabody. As I was saying, there was time during the siege for the inhabitants to conceal their greatest treasures. The Ark was only one of them, though the most important. There were vessels of gold—an altar, candelabra, incense vessels, and so on. Who is to say they may not still lie hidden under the ruins of the Temple?”
    “Do you believe that, Emerson?”
    “Certainly not,” said Emerson, tiring of his teasing. “Jerusalem was taken and sacked many times. If the Babylonians didn’t seize the temple treasures, somebody else did. The Arch of Titus in Rome shows Roman soldiers carrying away some of the treasures, including a menorah. The Ethiopians claim the Ark was taken there by the son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. People have looked for it in Ireland, at Mount Sinai, and for all I know in Birmingham. Even if I believed there were the possibility of such a discovery, I would not countenance an expedition by an untrained amateur in a particularly sensitive part of the world.”
    “Gargery,” I said in some exasperation. “Will you please finish clearing the tea things away? The kitten is about to knock over the cream jug.”
    Nefret removed the cat, and Gargery, who had abandoned all pretense of carrying out his duties, exclaimed, “Then why don’t you and madam go looking for the treasure, sir? You’d do a proper job of it.”
    “Kindly stay out of this, Gargery,” I said. “It is difficult enough to keep this family on track without your digressions. I cannot imagine what the Ark of the Covenant has to do with any of this, or why the British government should take an interest in the plans of an adventurer like Morley.”
    “Would you care to have me explain, Peabody?” Emerson inquired in a devastatingly mild voice.
    “That is what I have been asking you to do, Emerson.”
    “Hmph,” said Emerson. “I presume you are familiar with the present uneasy political situation in the Middle East?”
    “I am not, sir,” Gargery said eagerly.
    “Nor am I,” Nefret admitted.
    “You really ought to make an attempt to keep up with modern history,” I said. Emerson, who had opened his mouth, closed it.
    “Palestine is of course part of the once-mighty Ottoman Empire, which during the sixteenth century of the Christian era controlled the entire Middle East, North Africa, and parts of eastern Europe,” I explained. “Like all empires founded on conquest and injustice, it could not endure; gradually its territories were lost and at the present time only the support of Britain and France, who fear the collapse of the aging giant would open the doors of the East to Germany and Russia, keeps the sultan on his throne in Constantinople.”
    “Very poetically expressed,” said Emerson, who had been waiting for my breath to give out. “To look at it another way, Nefret and Gargery, the aging giant is rotten at the core. Provinces like Syria and Palestine are racked with poverty and corruption. Britain and France don’t give a curse about the misery of the people; what concernsthem is that in the past decade or so, German influence in the region has increased enormously. When Wilhelm the Second visited Istanbul and Jerusalem, he was greeted as a conquering hero. The Germans are constructing a railroad line from Damascus to Mecca, and one is entitled to assume that they aren’t doing it for altruistic reasons. If war should break out—”
    “War!” Nefret cried. “And Ramses is there, in the thick of it?”
    “Stop worrying about your brother,” Emerson said impatiently. “There won’t be a war, not for a few more years. But it’s coming, and Germany is already making preparations—such as that railroad. Very useful for moving troops and supplies.”
    This speech was presumably an attempt to