Amelia Peabody Omnibus 1-4 (28 page)

I stopped struggling. Evelyn and I stood with our arms wrapped round one another, frozen with horror. The mummy’s hideous laughter resounded through the quiet night. It turned to face our window.

Then, at long last, from the deck to the left came the sound of voices. The crewmen were awake. The mummy heard. It raised one bandaged arm and shook a paw menacingly in the direction of the approaching men. I could not see them, but I knew they had seen the mummy; they had probably seen the entire incredible performance, which had been played out on the open deck.

With a series of acrobatic bounds, the bandaged figure left. Evelyn was limp in my grasp. I shook her, none too gently.

‘Lie down,’ I ordered. ‘You are safe, Evelyn; I must go to Lucas.’

She slumped down onto the floor, and I scrambled through the window – no easy task in my voluminous night garments. I am afraid I displayed some part of my limbs as I crawled out onto the deck, but I was past worrying about that, and the crewmen were in no condition to notice my lack of dignity. I saw them as I got to my feet; they were clustered in a dark mass at the end of the deck, huddling together like silly sheep afraid of a wolf.

Lucas was still motionless.

I turned him over, not without difficulty; he was a heavy man, and would one day be fat if he continued to indulge himself He did not appear to be injured; his pulse was strong, if a little too quick, and his colour was good. But his breath came and went in the oddest whistling gasps and from time to time his whole body quivered in a kind of muscular spasm.

At first the men would not approach, and when they finally crept forward they refused to touch Lucas, even to carry him to a cabin. Reis Hassan finally came; his whiplash voice roused the men. I fancied they were almost as afraid of him as they were of the supernatural – but not quite. As soon as they had placed Lucas on his bed, they fled.

Hassan remained, standing just within the doorway, with his arms folded across his broad chest.

Never had I so regretted that I had not learned Arabic instead of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Hassan was not anxious to explain himself, and my incoherent questions were probably as unintelligible to him as his answers were to me. I thought he was rather ashamed of himself, but the cause of his shame was not easy to ascertain. He had slept too soundly, that much I was able to understand. All the crew had slept. It was not a natural sleep. It was like a spell – like magic. Otherwise they would, of course, have rushed to answer my call for help.

That much I grasped, or thought I grasped. It did not reassure me. I dismissed Hassan, after ordering him, as well as I could, to keep a man on watch for the remainder of the night. Lucas demanded my attention; and I was uneasily aware of the fact that I could no longer rely on my crew, not even my captain. If they had not already been frightened by tales of the mummy, the night’s adventure would have done the job.

Lucas was still unconscious. I did not dare consider the nature of the force that had struck him down so mysteriously; after examining him for a wound, and finding none, I decided to treat his condition as I would an ordinary faint. But none of my measures succeeded. His eyes remained closed; his broad chest rose and fell in the strange, stentorious breathing.

I began to be frightened. If this was a faint, it was an unnatural one. I rubbed his hands, slapped cold cloths on face and breast, elevated his feet – to no avail. Finally I turned to Evelyn, who was standing in the open doorway watching me.

‘He is not …’ She could not finish the sentence.

‘No, nor in any danger of dying,’ I replied quickly. ‘I don’t understand what is wrong with him.’

‘I can’t bear it,’ Evelyn whispered; and then, as I started to speak, she added, ‘No, Amelia, it is not what you think; I admire, I like Lucas; after his courage tonight, I can hardly help but respect him. But my grief at his illness is that of a friend and cousin. Only – I am beginning to feel as if I brought disaster on all those who love me. Am I somehow accursed? Must I leave those I love, lest I infect them, as my coming brought harm to Walter – and now to poor Lucas? Must I leave you, Amelia?’

‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ I replied brusquely. Harshness was the only proper response to the rising hysteria in the child’s voice. ‘Go and fetch my smelling salts. If they are as strong as I remember, they ought to bring Lucas to his senses. They almost deprived me of mine.’

Evelyn nodded. I could always command her by appealing to her sense of duty. As she turned, I was electrified by the first sign of life I had seen in my patient. His lips parted. In a low, sighing voice, he enunciated a single word.

‘He calls your name,’ I said to Evelyn, who had paused. ‘Come quickly; answer him.’

Evelyn knelt down by the bed. ‘Lucas,’ she said. ‘Lucas, I am here. Speak to me.’

Lucas’s hand moved. It groped feebly. Evelyn put her hand on his; the fingers closed around hers and clung.

‘Evelyn,’ Lucas repeated. ‘My darling …’

‘I am here,’ Evelyn repeated. ‘Can you hear me, Lucas?’

The sick man’s head moved slightly. ‘So far away,’ he murmured, in a failing voice. ‘Where are you, Evelyn? Don’t leave me. I am all alone in the dark….’

Evelyn leaned over him. ‘I won’t leave you, Lucas. Wake up, I implore you. Speak to us.’

‘Take my hand. Don’t let me wander away. I am lost without you….’

This banal exchange continued for some time, with Lucas’s weak voice pleading and Evelyn reassuring him. I shifted impatiently from one foot to the other. I suspected that Lucas was now fully conscious. He was certainly not delirious in the ordinary sense of the word. Only congenital stupidity could have produced such inane dialogue. Finally Lucas got to the point. His eyes were still closed.

‘Don’t leave me,’ he moaned. ‘Never leave me, my love, my hope. Promise you will never leave me.’

Evelyn was bending so close that her unbound hair brushed his cheek. Her face was transformed by pity, and I rather hated to disillusion her, but I was not sure what she might promise in the heat of her innocent enthusiasm. If she made a promise, she would keep it. And I was determined that matters should proceed according to the plan I had conceived. So I said briskly, ‘He is coming round now, Evelyn. Are you going to promise to marry him, or shall we try the smelling salts first?’

Evelyn sat back on her heels. Her face was flushed. Lucas opened his eyes.

‘Evelyn,’ he said slowly – but in his normal, deep tones, not the moaning whisper he had been using. ‘It is really you? I dreamed. God preserve me from any more such dreams!’

‘Thank God,’ Evelyn said sincerely. ‘How do you feel, Lucas? We were so frightened for you.’

‘A little weak; otherwise, quite all right. It was your voice that brought me back, Evelyn; I seemed to be disembodied, lost and alone in the dark without a single spark of light. Then I heard your voice and followed it as I would follow a beacon.’

‘I am glad I could help you, Lucas.’

‘You saved my life. Henceforth it is yours.’

Evelyn shook her head shyly. She was trying to free her hand; and after a moment Lucas let it go.

‘Enough of this,’ I interposed. ‘I am not so much interested in your dreams, Lucas, as I am in what produced them. What happened? I saw you stumble and fall, but I could swear the creature did not throw any missile.’

‘Nothing struck me,’ Lucas answered. ‘Nothing physical…. You found no bruise, no mark, I suppose?’

He glanced down at his bared chest. Blushing still more deeply, Evelyn got to her feet and retreated from the bed.

‘There was no mark I could see,’ I replied. ‘What did you feel?’

‘Impossible to describe it! I can only imagine that a man struck by a bolt of lightning might have a similar sensation. First a shocking thrill, electrical in intensity; then utter weakness and unconsciousness. I felt myself falling, but did not feel my body strike the deck.’

‘Splendid,’ I said sarcastically. ‘We now have a creature with the power to hurl thunderbolts. Emerson will be delighted to hear it.’

‘Emerson’s opinions are of no interest to me,’ Lucas snapped.

I slept soundly for what remained of the night. I believe Evelyn did not sleep at all. When I awoke it was to see the exquisite pink flush of dawn staining the sky, and Evelyn silhouetted against it. She was standing at the window; she was fully dressed, in a businesslike serge skirt and blouse. The moment I moved, she spoke.

‘I am going to camp,’ she announced firmly. ‘You need not come, Amelia; I will be back soon, I will hurry. I hope to persuade Mr Emerson to bring his brother here, and to set sail at once for Luxor. But if they will not come, then – then I think we should go. I know you will not want to leave, Amelia; I have seen how interested you are in – in archaeology. But I think Lucas will go, if I ask him; and I shall leave, with him, if you want to remain here.’

The sight of her pale, resolute face checked the remonstrance that had risen to my lips. I saw that I must speak with careful consideration. The girl believed the awful idea that had come to her the previous night! It was both pitiful and amusing to note that she had no qualms about burdening Lucas with her deadly presence, as she thought it, when it came to a choice between endangering Lucas or Walter.

‘Well,’ I said, getting out of bed, ‘you will not go without breakfast, I hope. It would be silly to faint, from inanition, in the middle of the desert.’

Evelyn unwillingly consented to partake of breakfast. As she restlessly paced the upper deck, I sent a servant to summon Lucas. It was easy to see how the events of the night had affected the crew. Young Habib, our smiling waiter, was not smiling that morning; and the usual cheerful babble of voices from the lower deck was not to be heard.

Lucas joined us while we were drinking our tea. He looked perfectly fit, and said he felt the same. Evelyn immediately told him of her plan. Lucas was not fool enough to fail to understand her agitation. His eyebrows climbed alarmingly as she spoke. In case he should miss the point I kicked him under the table. And when he turned to me indignantly, I semaphored warning as well as I could. He took the hint.

‘My dearest,’ he said gently, ‘if you wish to leave this place, you shall leave. I told you that your slightest wish was my command. But I must make one small reservation. You can ask me for my life, but not for my honour as a gentleman and an Englishman! You cannot ask me to abandon our friends. No, do not speak, I will order the crew to be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice, and to carry you and Miss Amelia to Luxor, or wherever you wish to go. But I will remain. You would not respect me if I fled now.’

Evelyn sat in silence, her head bowed. I decided to intervene. I could hardly take exception to Lucas’s sentiments but he managed to create an atmosphere of sticky sentimentality that disgusted me.

‘I have no intention of leaving unless the Emersons join us,’ I said firmly. ‘And I will deal with my own crew, if you please, Lucas. You may give yours whatever orders you like.’

‘I will,’ Lucas replied huffily.

And he went off to do so, while I summoned Reis Hassan and made another effort to break through the language barrier. I had thought of asking Lucas for the loan of his dragoman as interpreter; but what I had seen of that shifty-eyed personage did not impress me, and if Emerson had not been able to induce Hassan to speak openly, I thought no one could.

Hassan managed to convey one concept unequivocally. He kept repeating the word ‘go,’ and pointing upstream.

‘Emerson?’ I asked, and gestured toward the camp.

Hassan nodded vigorously. We were all to go. Today.

That was one Arabic word I understood, although the word for ‘tomorrow’ is even more commonly used. I repeated it now.

Hassan’s face fell. Then he gave the queer Arab shrug.

‘Tomorrow,’ he said soberly. ‘
In ’shallah.
’

I knew that word too. It means, ‘God willing.’

S
OON
after breakfast we set out. The sun was well up; the sands shone palely gold, and the glare, even at that early hour, was hard on the eyes. There was little conversation during the walk. Evelyn had not spoken at all since she made her declaration; I was worried about her, and – which is not usual for me – uncertain as how I might best relieve her strange fears. Not that I blamed her for being distracted; most girls of her protected station in life would have been prostrate after the experiences she had undergone.

The first person to greet us was none other than Walter. He wore a sling, to support the injured arm, but otherwise he seemed well enough, and I was delighted to see him on his feet. He came to meet us, not quite running, and grasped my hand. But he looked at Evelyn.

‘You cannot conceive how relieved I am to see you,’ he exclaimed. ‘I was furious with Radcliffe when he told me you had gone.’

‘I don’t know why you should have been worried,’ I replied, returning his hearty handclasp. ‘It was you we worried about. How do you feel? And where is your brother?’

‘You won’t believe it,’ Walter said, smiling. ‘Guess.’