Guardian of the Horizon by Elizabeth Peters Page B

would only increase his determination to follow us. Supposing we send him and Daoud off to Luxor tomorrow, with instructions to gather a few of our men and proceed at once to Aswan. We will stick to the story about the interesting ruins west of Meroe until it is no longer possible to conceal our real purpose." "You mean to go straight through to Aswan, then, without stopping in Luxor?" Emerson asked. "Are you asking me, sir?" Ramses's dark brows tilted up in surprise. "You seem to have been more on top of this business than the rest of us," Emerson said. "Perhaps I have a more suspicious nature than the rest of you." One of Ramses's rare smiles warmed his thin face. "More suspicious than your mother's? Give her a whiskey, Ramses, she appears to have fallen into a stupor." "What?" I said with a start. "No, thank you, Ramses, it is time for dinner." I had been in a kind of stupor, induced by sheer consternation. For as we discussed the persons who might know of the Lost Oasis, a name blazoned itself on my brain in letters of fire. Walter and Evelyn had known--and so had one other individual. I had told him of it myself. To do myself justice, I had not been aware of his true identity at the time, for his masquerade, as one of my old friends, had been perfect. We had first encountered him when he tried to steal the Dahshur treasure out from under our noses, and over the years he had become our most dangerous opponent. He was one of the cleverest men I had ever met, well informed about the antiquities that he specialized in stealing, a master of disguise and a criminal of the deepest dye . . . Sethos, the Master Criminal. Rallying, I directed Mahmud to serve dinner. There was no point in mentioning our old nemesis to Emerson, who resented Sethos all the more because of the latter's professed attachment to me. No, there was no need. I had learned how to identify him now, and if he had the audacity to show his face--one of his many faces--I would know him and expose him. We got Selim and Daoud off to Luxor and made arrangements to have the Amelia follow at her own pace. It took longer than I had hoped to gather our supplies, even with Emerson threatening the merchants. I hadn't had to equip an expedition of this nature for a long time. Everything from mosquito netting to tinned biscuits had to be purchased in Cairo, since we could not count on finding them south of Aswan, and we had to maintain the pretense that we were bent on archaeological excavation. Cameras and photographic plates, paper and writing supplies, surveying instruments, medicines--the list was endless, and I kept adding to it. Emerson had his own list, and so did Nefret. The delay was maddening, even though prudence would have dictated an even longer delay because of the heat. My sense of urgency had been held at bay hitherto by the impossibility of earlier action, but now that we were closer in space and time to the moment of truth, the more impatient I became. When there is a dangerous or unpleasant task ahead, one (I, at any rate) wants to get it over with. I began to feel as if we were trapped in a web of surmise that spread daily. The merchants with whom we dealt gossiped about us, and it proved impossible to avoid all our old friends, who came round or sent round offering advice. Emerson's reputation for unreasonableness served us well with the latter; they had no difficulty in believing he had settled on the Sudan rather than go hat in hand to M. Maspero. On the day before our departure we were in receipt of a telegram from Sir Reginald Wingate, the governor general of the Sudan, inviting us, in the most courteous terms, to call on him in Khartoum. "The devil," said Emerson. "Does he expect us to go four hundred miles out of our way to pay him a social visit?" "He expects us to inform the Sudanese government concerning our plans," Ramses replied. "As other expeditions have done. Win-gate has always been interested in Egyptology, and he runs a tight ship."