Emily and the Lost City of Urgup (6 page)

Meanwhile, Smiley Wiley and his three henchmen were gloating over the theft of the jewels. “What’ll we do now, boss?” asked Rutts. “We’ve got all the time in the world, Rutts,” replied Smiley. “Nobody knows the jewels have been stolen. So we’ll lay low until the right time comes along and then we’ll dress ourselves up as wives of some of the workers and slip out the front gate,” he added.

“But won’t four wives leaving at the same time be too many?” asked Butts. “You’re right,” Smiley noted. “Maybe just one of us should take the jewels and fence them in Cairo,” he added. “Fence them?” questioned Nutts. “What’s fence them mean, like we already got a fence surrounding the city.” “A fence is a dishonest jeweler, who will buy our gems for half their real value and then sell each piece separately to other jewelers, who won’t suspect they were stolen property.”

“Who’ll go?” asked Rutts. “Any of you know a fence?” queried Smiley. “Not me,” “I don’t,” “Me neither,” the three replied. “Then I guess I’ll have to do the job,” Smiley concurred. “I’ll leave now and sell the jewels. You three wait here and leave in a week. We’ll meet at the Old Oasis Inn, on the outskirts of Cairo, where we stayed before. Then we’ll split the money.”

There was so much digging and sifting and noting every shard of pottery, pieces of statues, liths from arrowheads and knives, parts of inscriptions, that Emily and the professors soon put the stolen jewels out of their minds. A box was found containing a parchment listing all the important people who had lived during the reign of Hotemhotem which Emily translated with the help of Professor Dasam. “You have become a first rate translator,” the professor announced proudly.

Smiley Wiley snuck in among the worker’s tents and stole an old dress. He shaved off his moustache and covered his face with a scarf. Carrying three large leather bags, made from the skins of camels and containing the jewels, he ambled slowly towards the gate.

“Alms for the love of Allah,” cried out Kadar as Smiley approached. He gave the beggar a sneer and proceeded through the gate unobserved. There he joined a small caravan of fifteen people and twelve camels, paying its leader to escort him to Cairo.

Days later, a small gang of bandits surprised the caravan, took all the money the passengers held and stole the camels. Smiley was left with his three bags which the bandits did not bother to inspect, as they peered at such an ugly old woman who looked like she needed a shave.

He and the others in the caravan found themselves alone in the sands of the desert without camels and miles from both Cairo and the Lost City of Urgup. The only thing they could see, besides the desert sands and the blue sky, was a single date palm tree, half hidden in the sand a quarter of a mile away. Night came and while the others slept in their clothes, covering themselves as best they could from the chilly night air, Smiley crept away. He scurried towards the date tree and dug a large hole next to it, burying the three bags of jewels. He looked around to be sure nobody saw him and, silently, returned to the others.

Morning came. And with it the hot sun. Thirsty and hungry, the frightened travelers picked up whatever possessions they still held and slowly shuffled westward, away from the horizon, towards Cairo. None noticed Smiley’s three missing bags.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
No Honor Among Thieves

IT WAS SIX
days before the passengers from the robbed caravan were discovered by another passing caravan. The fifteen men and women had run out of food and water and were delirious, stumbling aimlessly through the desert sands. They were fed and given water and taken to a hospital in Cairo where the men and women were separated into different rooms. When it was discovered that Smiley Wiley, dressed as a woman, was actually a man, the police were called. In questioning Smiley, all he answered in a stuttering manner was “the dddattted jjje
wwwles
.”

So the police had him transferred to a hospital for the insane.

When a week had passed from the day Smiley left the Lost City, Butts, Nutts and Rutts left the other workers early in the morning and walked almost in a run to the city gates, where Kadar and Hadar had just settled in their spots as beggars, “Alms for the love of Allah” they called out as the three henchmen almost tripped over them in their rush to get out. Hadar and Kadar were suspicious and followed the three out into the desert.

The three, although dressed as poor workers, bought three costly camels. Hadar and Kadar were now fairly sure that they were the robbers. They bought two camels and followed the thieves at a distance into Cairo to the Old Oasis Inn, which was a seedy hotel at the eastern edge of the great city. Dressed as beggars, they would never be allowed in even that shabby a place, so they found a clothing store and bought garments more suitable to traveling men. When Hadar and Kadar entered the Old Oasis Inn they overheard the three henchmen ranting and raving.

“Are you sure nobody named Smiley Wiley has been here?” Butts was demanding of the innkeeper. “About six feet tall, no beard,” added Rutts. “Carrying three bags made of camel leather,” said Nutts.

“Nobody new has been here for weeks,” answered the innkeeper, quite afraid of the three threatening men.

“The rat,” said Butts, “he’s tricked us; he’s taken the jewels for himself.” “Well we’ll track him down, the dirty scum,’ said Nutts. “How?’ asked Rutts. “We’ll question every jeweler in Cairo until we find him,” Rutts replied.

Having heard the three thieves, Hadar and Kadar slipped out a side door of the Inn. “One of us will follow them today, so they won’t be suspicious,” suggested Kadar, “the other the next day, taking turns, until we find the jewels.

Over the next week, neither the three thieves nor the two guards found a jeweler who had seen Smiley Wiley. Hadar decided it was time to go to the police and report what had happened. The police had the thieves arrested for suspicion of robbery but told Hadar they would not be able to hold them for more than three days without proof of their complicity in the crime.

“Has anything unusual happened in the last week?” Kadar inquired of the police. “Let us think,” they answered. “Oh yes,” one of the policemen replied. “About a week ago fifteen poor men and women who had been robbed were brought in from the desert. They were in a terrible shape and one of them appeared to be truly crazy. He was dressed as a woman and repeatedly mumbled something that sounded like “the dated jewels, the dated jewels.” We placed him in an asylum for the insane.”

Kadar and Hadar got the address of the asylum and hurried there. The hospital was a recently renovated large building with a lovely lawn surrounded by a high wall protecting it from the street. There were paths around the lawn with benches and palm trees and several nurses dressed in white attending men and women who wore simple smocks and sandals. Hadar inquired about the man who had been brought in dressed as a woman.

“Oh, the poor thing,” said an attendant, “he’s right over there under the palm tree staring off into the distance. Hadar and Kadar approached Smiley Wiley and one asked Smiley how he felt today. “The dddattted jjjewwels, the dddattted jjjewwels,” was all the reply their received.

They returned to the attendant and asked if there was anything in Smiley’s possessions when he arrived. “Nothing but an empty water bag,” she answered.

“Well, we have the thieves,” noted Kadar, “but we haven’t got the jewels.” “Kadar,” said Hadar, the three men in jail will be let out soon and we must report back to the Professors. You stay here and watch the men while I return to the Lost City to get more help.”

In the morning, Kadar hired a guide to help him report to him when the three thieves would be let out of jail and Hadar hurried back to the Lost City.

Meanwhile, Professor Witherspoon was in an anxious frame of mind. “Whatever has happened to Emily’s guards?” he pondered. He was afraid some terrible harm might have befallen them. “Witherspoon,” said Professor Dasam, “do not trouble yourself. I have known those two men for over twenty years and they’re more than a match for whatever thieves are involved in this trickery.” But he. too, was worried.

There was nothing they could do, so they continued in their excavating of the Lost City of Urgup. But they were more than relieved when at last Hadar arrived back at the Lost City to tell them of the discovery of the four robbers. Over tea in the late afternoon, Hadar described in detail what he and Kadar found in Cairo. Professor Witherspoon and Professor Dasam and Emily pondered the words of Smiley Wiley.

“The dated jewels, the dated jewels.”

“Do you think it refers to their antiquity?” asked Professor Witherspoon.

“Did the robbers of the caravan take them?” asked Professor Dasam.

“Had the robbers taken the jewels, why weren’t they sold in Cairo,” noted Emily. There must be some other answer, she thought.

CHAPTER NINE:
A Lesson in History

PROFESSOR WITHERSPOON AND
Professor Dasam huddled together away from Emily. “We must locate the stolen gems,” said Witherspoon, “but I do not want Emily to be near those dangerous thieves.” “Then I shall go to Cairo. Hadar and Kadar and I will follow the thieves until they lead us to the jewels while you and Emily continue the excavation of the Lost City,” suggested Professor Dasam.

“That’s a good idea, but please be careful, my great friend,” Witherspoon replied. Dasam and Hadar left that afternoon for the journey to Cairo. Professor Witherspoon and Emily returned to the workers who were digging into a new site of a very large building.

“Emily,” said the Professor, “it is time for you to learn more about the history of these great cities. For the people who lived here gave us so much knowledge of what we now take for granted. The numbers we use when we add and subtract came from them. But even more important, they gave us writing.”

“Not too far from here is a city called Ebla. In its palace was found a room containing clay tablets. On the tablets were recorded 140 years of the history of the city. The main archive room contained about 1,900 tablets. They were kept on wooden shelves. Another room nearby held the tools the scribes used to make the tablets including a bone pen to write on the clay, a stone to erase mistakes and even brick benches to sit on while they were writing.”

“In another city was found a parchment of the Vizier Ptah-hotep recording the advice of another Vizier on how to live a good life. Maybe, if we are lucky, we shall find something similar in one of the buildings we are excavating.”

“Why did they use clay?” Emily asked.

“Before they discovered how to make parchment which is made from the dried and treated skins of goats and sheep and other animals, they used clay. It was easy to cut letters or symbols into the soft clay before it hardened. And then, of course, the hard clay kept everything intact. In fact, we are very fortunate that they used so much clay. Over the thousands of years since the tablets were written, these cities experienced fires and earthquakes and other disasters that occur even today. The clay tablets just hardened whereas most of the parchments have disappeared, eroded into dust over time.”

“Did everybody write?” asked Emily. “Oh no,” the Professor replied. “The scribes were among the very few who could write. Even the Pharaohs and other nobles were illiterate. In those times there were farmers and priests, herdsmen and stable masters, soldiers and mercenaries and scribes to serve the ladies and noblemen of the great cities. The scribes were held in high regard.”

“At a much later date, in a great city not too far from Cairo was stored one of the rarest treasures ever collected. The Library of Alexandria. It contained the greatest collection of books on all that the Western world knew. Sadly, years later when the Romans sacked that city, the library was burned and with it much of the knowledge of mankind.”

“The Western world?” inquired Emily.

“Well, yes, the Western world. There is also a history, much of it even earlier than what we are excavating, in Asia. Two great civilizations separated by the highest mountains in the world grew in their own ways. 1 Over time people traveled across the mountains and traded their wares for the others goods. Today we call those routes the Silk Road because the silk which made such fine and elegant cloth, came from the Far East and was highly prized in the West.”