Lion in the Valley Read Free

facility as English," Emerson pointed out.
"And you never saw his face when it was not swathed in hair. Never in my
life have I seen such a beard! Would you know him if you saw him again sans
beard?"
    "Certainly."
    "Humph."
Emerson put his arm around my shoulders and drew me closer. "Well,
Peabody, I admit that nothing would give me greater pleasure than to punch that
swine on the nose, and if he intrudes into our affairs I will deal with him as
he deserves. But I have no intention of looking for trouble. I have better
things to do. Promise me, Peabody, that you will leave well enough alone."
    "Oh,
certainly, my dear Emerson."
    "Promise."
    "I
promise I will not go looking for trouble."
    "My
darling Peabody!" Emerson drew me into a fond embrace, careless of the
watching sailors.
    I
had every intention of keeping my word. Why look for trouble when trouble is
certain to come looking for you?
    After
disembarking at Alexandria, we boarded the train for Cairo. The journey takes a
trifle over four hours, and it is considered somewhat tedious by most
travelers, since the route crosses the featureless alluvial plains of the
Delta. To the trained eye of an archaeologist, however, each mound, or "tell,"
indicates the presence of a buried city. Ramses and Emerson were constantly
arguing about the identification of these sites, an argument in which I took no
part since I do not see the sense in debating matters concerning which so few
facts are known. As I told them, only excavation will determine the truth.
    Not
until we were within a few miles of our destination was the view enlivened by
the sight of the Giza pyramids in the purple distance, framed by the low Libyan
hills. It was always at this point, and not on the crowded quay at Alexandria,
that I felt I had really arrived in Egypt.
    Emerson
smiled at me in silent sympathy before turning back to feast his eyes upon the
glorious vision. He had profanely consented to put on his new gray suit, and
was looking particularly handsome—though I confess that Emerson's splendid
physique shows to best advantage in his working costume of shabby trousers and
a rumpled shirt open at the throat, with rolled sleeves baring his
muscular forearms. He was not wearing a hat because Emerson consistently
refuses to wear a hat even when working under the baking sun, and it is beyond
my powers of persuasion (extensive though they are) to overcome this prejudice
of his.
    The
elegance of his appearance was only slightly marred by the great brindled
feline perched on his knee. The cat Bastet was staring out the window of the
train with an interest as keen as Emerson's, and I wondered if she realized she
had returned to the land of her birth. Ramses would have claimed she did, for
he had an exaggerated opinion of the creature's intelligence. She had been his
constant companion ever since she had joined our family several years before,
and was now an experienced traveler, since Ramses insisted on taking her with
him wherever he went. I must say she was far less trouble than her youthful
master.
    Ramses—ah,
Ramses! My eloquent pen falters when I attempt in a few words to convey the
complex personality contained in the body of the eight-year-old boy who is my
only child. Some superstitious Egyptians actually claimed he was not a child at
all, but a jinni that had taken up its abode in Ramses' meager frame. There are
good jinn and evil jinn (the latter being commonly called efreets), for this
class of mythological beings is morally neutral in origin, an intermediate
species between men and angels. I had not chosen to inquire to which class
Ramses was commonly believed to belong.
    Ramses
was grubby and disheveled, of course. Ramses is almost always grubby and
disheveled. He is drawn to dirt as a crocodile is drawn to water. He had been
(for Ramses) relatively tidy when we got on the train. An hour or so after we
left Alexandria I looked around and found him