The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog by Elizabeth Peters Page A

materials, gold beads alternating with blue, and ending in cylindrical rods of solid gold. The flail represented (as I have always believed) the other aspect of rule: power and domination. It certainly
would have inflicted a painful blow if it had been made of more durable materials, as the original whip undoubtedly was. No such objects had ever been found in Egypt, though they were known from countless paintings and reliefs.

"We agreed, did we not," said Emerson, "that it would be unconscionable to keep these remarkable objects from scholars They are unique, and they are two thousand years old if they are a day—
treasured relics. They belong not to us but to the world."

"Well, yes— we did agree in theory, and I am of the same mind still, but we cannot display them
without explaining where we found them."

"Precisely. We will find them. This season."

I caught my breath. "It is an ingenious idea, Emerson. Brilliant, even. No one is better able than you to arrange a convincing if misleading ambience."

Emerson fingered the cleft in his chin and looked a trifle uncomfortable. "Dishonesty goes against the grain, Peabody, I confess it,- but what else are we to do? Thebes seems the most likely place for such a— er— discovery, the Cushite conquerors of the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty remained there for some time. We must account in some way for the information about ancient Meroitic culture we acquired last winter.

Sooner or later one of us, or Walter, will let something slip, it is not humanly possible to write about the subject without displaying information we ought not to have."

"I agree. In fact, the article you sent to the Zeitschrift in June— "

"Devil take it, Peabody, I said nothing revealing in that article!"

"In any case," I said soothingly, "it will not be published for some time."

"These scholarly journals are always behind schedule," Emerson agreed. "So you are thinking along the same lines, Peabody?"

"What lines?" I began rummaging in my box of medical supplies. "I am surprised at you, Peabody. Usually you are the first to find portents of danger all around, and although I admit there are a number
of individuals who have reason to dislike us, recent incidents are beginning to suggest quite a different theory."

He sat down on the edge of the bed. I brushed the hair from his brow and applied antiseptic to his wound. Absorbed in his theory, he ignored attentions he was not ordinarily willing to receive without complaint.

"Our luggage appears to have been searched. Theft was not the object, nothing was taken. Tonight we were both attacked. Murder was not the object, we must assume, I think, that abduction of one or both
of us was. For what purpose?"

"Some of our old enemies may want to carry us off and watch gloatingly while hideous tortures are inflicted upon us," I suggested.

"Always cheerful, Peabody," Emerson said, grinning. "What are you doing? I won't have any confounded bandages."

I cut off a bit of sticking plaster. "Out with it, Emerson. You are beating around the bush."

"Not at all. I am simply admitting that the evidence is inconclusive. It is suggestive, though, don't you think?"

"I think this time it is your imagination that has got out of hand." I sat down next to him. "Unless you know something you haven't told me.

"I don't know anything," Emerson said irritably. "If I did, I would not be dithering like a nervous old spinster. All the same . . We covered our tracks as well as we could, Peabody, but there are several weak spots in the fictional fabric we wove. A good hard shove at any one of them would leave a gaping hole
of speculation."

"Are you by any chance referring to the Church of the Saints of the Son of God as a weak spot? Curse it, Emerson, I had to invent a religious sect, if we had claimed Nefret's kindly foster parents were Baptists
or Lutherans or Roman Catholics, the most cursory inquiry would prove no such family existed."

"Especially if you had claimed they were Roman