The Sleeper in the Sands Read Free Page A

the vessel himself. He clambered along the gang-plank and for a brief moment, just the briefest, he thought of turning round, taking the bag and its load back to his house. But he knew there could be no delay: he could not afford to miss the train, for Lord Carnarvon was expecting him in Cairo, and he only had three days to spare in the capital - there was no time to lose. So Carter continued up the gang-plank, greeting the captain and then taking his seat. He nestled the portmanteau by his side, and watched as the boat began to drift out from its moorings to join the widening flow of the Nile.
    Carter shifted and looked about. He could see a night heron above him, soaring gracefully through the early-morning light, still abroad in the last half-hour before sunrise. Nervously, even as he watched the bird, Carter began to fiddle with his bag and, despite not meaning to, pressed on the catch. He opened it; peered inside; felt with his hand to support the evidence of his eyes, that the sheaf of papers were still where he had placed them, sealed within an envelope at the bottom of the bag.
    Then, almost by accident, he brushed against the tablet with his fingertips. At the same moment he glanced round guiltily, to make certain that no one had been observing him. As stealthily as he could, he drew out the tablet and rested it upon his lap, then stared over the side of the boat. The Nile was flowing deeply, its waters very dark.
    Carter sat hunched a long while, frozen by his feelings of doubt and self-reproach. He knew that what he was planning was an act of cowardice, and worse -- a dereliction of all he had ever sought to be, a betrayal of every standard he held dear. He glanced back inside his bag, at the thick, sealed envelope, and shook his head. For almost twenty years the contents of that envelope had served to draw him on, strengthening his resolve, granting him self-belief, even when direct corroboration had been lacking. Now at last, so it seemed, proof of the manuscript’s value lay upon his lap -- for what, after all, had its argument been, if not that the Pharaoh’s tomb was indeed beneath a curse? Carter smiled to himself ruefully, and stroked his moustache. He knew, of course, that there was no need to take such nonsense literally. Indeed, it had been the very presence within the manuscript of fantastical wonders, and secrets born of long-abandoned superstitions, which had first persuaded him that it might hint at something more, for he had long since learned how the myths of an age can be as distinctive as their tombs, and just as important for the archaeologist to date.
    Why then, knowing all that as he did, had he found himself so unsettled by the warning on the tablet? He glanced down at it once again. Had he simply lived too long with the manuscript, he wondered, with its worlds of mystery, and impossible powers? Had it touched him more than he had ever dared to think?
    Carter sighed. It was the dread that his reason might indeed have been affected, the dread that it might even come to inhibit his work, which had decided him in the end. He had been presumptuous in his fears of the workmen’s superstitions; for his own, it appeared, were far more insidious a threat. Carter smiled faintly. If it took a single sacrifice to put them to rest, to appease them, well . . . the Ancients at least might have understood.
    He glanced round again, to make certain that he was still not being watched. Satisfied, he raised the tablet from his lap. He rested it on the boat’s edge . . . then let it drop. There was a soft splash. Carter stared behind him at where the tablet had sunk, as the boat glided on. The waters of the Nile flowed as silently as before. Only the night heron, disturbed by the noise, wheeled and cried in a startled manner as it flew away before the coming of the dawn.

    At the same moment, in Carter’s house, his servant was sitting on the front porch, listening to the notes of the canary in its cage, when