Emily and the Lost City of Urgup (7 page)

Emily and the professor went back to the new building just being unearthed. The size of the stone pillars holding the extremities of the building’s walls suggested that it might be the palace, itself. And as the workers uncovered one of the walls, Emily could make out, faintly, the drawings of figures: of rams and men and women and chariots. “Maybe there will be rooms with clay tablets here,” thought Emily, “I hope so.”

That night in the tent over a brazier, a bronze pot holding wood and camel dung which served as the fuel for a fire, Emily mused about the strange comments made by the thief who was in the asylum. “The dated jewels.” “What could that mean?, she pondered. Emily decided to write down all the facts she knew. First, there were or appeared to be four thieves. One left the Lost City about a week before the others, dressed as a woman. Question. Why. The man joined a caravan which was set upon by bandits who robbed them of their money and the camels. Question. Did the bandits discover the jewels and if they did why didn’t they sell them in Cairo? The first thief was sent to an asylum but he did not have any jewels.

Three men left a week later apparently to meet the first thief at an inn in Cairo. The men were very upset when the thief was not at the inn and they talked, rather too loudly, about the jewels. Then they sought stolen gems at every jewelry store in Cairo. But none were found.

Surmise, the first man had the jewels but lost them somewhere between the Lost City and Cairo.

How far had the first thief traveled when the caravan was set to by robbers? Emily asked herself. The police noted the fifteen travelers had been wandering in the dessert for about four days. Emily thought some more. Let’s presume that these people were so confused that they traveled about the normal distance of one day in those four days since they did not have camels and they were lost. How long would the trip take normally? she wondered. Emily sought out the Professor who told her the trip usually took about a week.

That means, thought Emily, the robbers were only one day out of Cairo when they stopped that caravan. “Professor Witherspoon,” Emily asked, “I would like to go to the Museum in Cairo to see so much of what has been found in other lost cities.” “A good idea,” the professor replied, “it is time to broaden your knowledge and besides we both need a break from living in these tents. But you must promise me you will not go far from my side. Remember three of those thieves by now have been released from the jail and are free to roam the city.”

“I promise,” said Emily with her fingers crossed behind her back.

CHAPTER TEN:
A Little White Lie

“EMILY,” PROFESSOR WITHERSPOON
announced, “I have great news. We shall not have to ride to Cairo on those bumpy camels. A large roadster is available for all of us to ride in. What a relief!”

But Emily wasn’t relieved. The camel caravan took a week to get to Cairo, but what about the roadster? How fast would it go. How would she know when they were about one day’s camel ride from Cairo.

“How long will it take us?” she asked the professor. “Actually I haven’t the faintest notion. Maybe a day or two shorter or a day or two longer than a week,” he answered.

Emily was in a pickle. Should she tell the professor the real reason she wanted to go to Cairo - to find the missing jewels*. He might be angry that she was not forthright with him in the first place. Or he might think it a childish whim. Or worse, he might leave her here at the Lost City and go by himself, as a punishment for her not quite telling the truth. Emily decided the best course of action was to say nothing. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” she once heard her father say.

The tents were taken down, folded and put away in large boxes along with the braziers, cots, bedding and rugs. Food was prepared for the journey together with large leather bags of water and several umbrellas to protect them from the constant sun so fierce in the daytime. Extra blankets were folded for the nights, so cold and ominous with just the sands of the desert and the wind whining under a moonless sky. Tonight was the dark of the moon when everything seemed most dangerous.

Earlier that morning when Emily awoke, she looked outside her tent. There stood the roadster with its large wheels of solid rubber unlike today’s tires. There was no air inside to deflate from a puncture. In the front of the engine was an odd looking bar turned at right angles and stuck into the center of the grill. Despite her concerns, Emily was impressed. She inspected the car, the windows that were already open, the doors and running board and radiator cap on top of the hood. She asked the professor what the strange bar was doing, sticking out from the front of the automobile.

“That is a crank, Emily,” he answered. “You turn it clockwise until your hear a spurt and a putter. You’ve turned the motor on. Now I have to be very careful, because I am left-handed and quite often when the engine starts that crank comes flying off right at me. Right-handed people are standing to the left of the crank so if it does fly off, it just flies by them, whereas I am standing on the right side. Right in its path.”

I am right handed, Professor,” said Emily. “Can I crank the engine?” “Well, it’s not that easy, I am afraid,” he answered, “but thank you for the offer.”

The professor stood as closely as he could to the middle of the front of the roadster while he cranked. Nothing happened. “Maybe we’ll need camels after all,” thought Emily. “The engines cold from arriving here last night. I may have to give her several cranks to get her started,” the professor commented to nobody in particular. He often was found talking to himself. On the fourth crank the engine caught and rumbled steadily in a noise quite out of place in the desert.

With all the trunks and bags and boxes piled on top, Emily and several servants including her favorite, Apera, the cook, sat in seats behind those of the driver. It was clear to see that Apera was not at all comfortable in the roadster. The noise it made frightened her but she said nothing. The professor announced that he would drive and the driver would sit next to him as navigator, looking at a map they had brought.

“This should take about a week,” the navigator told the professor. What a relief came over Emily’s eyes until the navigator went on, “unless we hit a sandstorm. They can wreck havoc with an automobile’s engine. I have brought along a large tarpaulin to cover the car should that happen.”

The professor put on eyeglasses surrounded by leather with an elastic band that went around his head. Then he put his well worn fedora hat with a black band around its brim back on his head. Emily wanted to laugh at the sight but thought better of it.

When the sand under the roadster was hard, the ride was quite comfortable. But when the sand turned soft, the roadster seemed to buck and twist this way and that like a bronco in a rodeo. Emily loved it when it twisted and bumped making her rise off her seat. She felt she was on a roller coaster. But poor Apera hunkered down and picked up her prayer beads, privately praying that Allah would deliver her from this mad contraption.

At night tents were put up, braziers fired, and bedding put on top of rugs over the sand. There were no cots because they would have taken too much room in the automobile. Apera, thanking Allah for bringing her safely this far, cooked dinner for everybody. Lamb stew with date nuts, couscous and a special tea made from ginger roots. Fine dirt from the sand kicked up by the roadster’s tires seemed to be everywhere. Of course there was no place to bathe, so each person dusted off another before retiring to bed.

The next day was very much the same as the last day, as the car bumped and twisted over the sands of the desert towards Cairo. Professor Witherspoon and the driver took turns driving and if the truth were told the passengers greatly preferred the driver. At times the professor seemed to let his mind wander and with it the roadster.

It looked like the company would escape any problems until the sixth day when an horrendous sandstorm could be seen gathering dust to the West and coming straight for the travelers’ automobile. In the distance, off the track the car was following, the driver spotted a palm tree. He headed there to park the car under the tree to escape the worst of the storm. And he faced the back of the roadster directly into wind from the storm, much as a sailor points his boat into the wind.

All the windows and doors of the roadster were closed as tightly as possible and the large tarpaulin was wrapped over the whole roadster. Then the driver and Professor Witherspoon got in back with the other passengers, making each seat bench quite crowded.

Winds blew, more ferocious than Emily could ever imagine, rocking the automobile this way and that. At one moment it felt as if the whole car would tip over only to be righted and tipped in the other direction. The tarpaulin was blown away like a kite at the seashore. Despite closing the windows, fine sand crept through, covering everybody. It wasn’t until the early hours of the night that the storm passed by and a calm arose that was as eerie as the roaring of the wind had been before. Nobody moved. Listening. Awaiting another storm.

But there was no other storm. In the dark, the passengers alit from the roadster, dusted off their clothes and breathed the cold fresh air outside.

“It is too early to drive on and too late to set up camp,” said Professor Witherspoon, “so everybody just make the best of it until morning and daylight.”

“I think that palm tree saved us, praise Allah,” Apera remarked to Emily. “Isn’t it strange that out here away from the birds or insects that might plant a palm seed in the ground that this lonely date palm should be standing,” she added. “Date Palm?” asked Emily. “Oh yes,” replied Apera. “In another month you will see the dates closely gathered in the branches.”

“The dated jewels,” Emily mused. “If this tree is about one day’s camel march from Cairo, it must have been seen, near where the robbers attacked the caravan. Suppose the thief hid them here by the date tree. “Apera,” Emily asked, “would you help me?” “Of course, my dear, “Apera replied, “what can I do?”

Emily explained her suspicion that the jewels were buried near the date tree. “But the sands have added another two feet to the dessert,” Apera noted. Nevertheless, the two women sifted sand from the tree to six feet away in every direction. Nothing was found. “Oh dear,” sighed Emily, “here I have made you work so hard for nothing. Please forgive me.”

“Not at all,” said Apera, “there was nothing else to do until daylight anyway and I hate to be idle.” “Just think, by tomorrow we shall be in Cairo and I shall be with my beloved Panwar, who has been helping Professor Dasam there.”

The roadster seemed to be in good shape. When Professor Witherspoon cranked it a couple of times it caught on and made that rumbling sound all of the passengers had gotten used to, except for Apera who still fingered her prayer beads and implored Allah to see her safely through the ordeal.

“I’m afraid the automobile is stuck quite deeply in the sand,” said the driver. “Will everybody get behind the boot and push together.” “The boot?” asked Emily. “That is what the English call the trunk of the car and, of course, the English were here well before we Americans,” explained the professor.

“One.” “Two.” “Three, now push,” the driver called. At first nothing stirred. The car seemed stuck for life. But suddenly it began to move. “Don’t let up,” called the driver. And miraculously the roadster rose and rose out of the deep sand until it was about to be level with the desert when suddenly the front tires stopped dead and sank back two feet.

The driver and Professor Witherspoon were befuddled. “Emily,” called the professor, “would you crawl under the bonnet, I mean the front hood, and see what might be in the way of the tires.”

Emily crawled on her belly under the roadster’s radiator between the tires. She scraped sand this way and that way and was about to crawl back out when she felt something. She dug her fingers into the sand. Something was there that felt smooth and it wasn’t sand. She dug some more but it was too deep to remove. She crawled out and told the professor there was something there but she could not remove it alone.

The driver asked the passengers to push the front of the roadster back into the sand right on top of the roots of the palm tree When the automobile was backed right against the tree, the driver and Professor Witherspoon and Emily got on their hands knees and looked for the spot Emily had felt before. “Right here,” she said.

In no time time at all three large bags made from the skin of a camel were uncovered. The professor opened one bag. “By Jove,” he exclaimed, “we have found the stolen jewels.” “Let us thank the storm,” he added. “And let us thank Allah,” added the driver.

“And,” said Apera, “let us thank Emily who had an idea that this is where the jewels might be hidden.” Apera told them about Emily’s idea and how the two of them had looked all over for the jewels, but, of course, couldn’t dig near the date palm tree where the roadster was stuck in a pile of sand.

“Emily,” asked the professor, “is that why you wanted to go to Cairo?” Emily’s eyes looked down at the sand and she seemed unable to speak out. “Yes,” she said at last in the quietest voice imaginable.