Chapter 2

I filled a pipe whilst trying to muster my ideas. Then, glancing up, I
met the doctor’s steady gaze; and:

“Your news was a great shock to me,” he said. “Barton, I know, was one
of your oldest friends. He was also one of mine. Tell me—I’m all
anxiety to hear.”

At that I began,

“As you may have heard, Dr. Petrie, we are excavating what is known as
Lafleur’s Tomb at the head of the Valley of the Kings. It’s a queer
business and the dear old chief was always frightfully reticent about
his aims. He was generous enough when a job was done and shared the
credit more than fairly. But his sense of the dramatic made him a bit
difficult. Therefore, I can’t tell you very much about it. But two days
ago he shifted the quarters, barred all approaches to the excavation,
and generally behaved in a way which I knew from experience to mean that
we were on the verge of some big discovery.

“We have two huts, but nobody sleeps in them. We are a small party and
under canvas. But all this you will see for yourself—at least, I hope I
can count on you? We shall have to rush for it.”

“I am coming,” Dr. Petrie replied quietly. “It’s all arranged. God knows
what use I can be. But since he wished it. . . .”

“Some time last night,” I presently went on, “I heard, or thought I
heard, the chief call me: ‘Greville! Greville!’ His voice seemed strange
in some way. I fell out of bed (it was pitch dark), jumped into
slippers, and groped along to his tent.”

I stopped. The reality and the horror of it stopped me. But at last:

“He was dead,” I said. “Dead in his bed. A pencil had dropped from his
fingers and the scribbling block which he used for notes lay on the
floor beside him.”

“One moment,” Dr. Petrie interrupted me. “You say he was dead. Was this
impression confirmed afterwards?”

“Forester, our chemist,” I replied sadly, “is an M. R. C. P. though he
doesn’t practise. The chief was dead. Sir Lionel Barton—the greatest
Orientalist our old country has ever produced, Dr. Petrie. And he was so
alive, so vital, so keen and enthusiastic.”

“Good God!” Dr. Petrie murmured. “To what did Forester ascribe death?”

“Heart failure—a quite unsuspected weakness.”

“Unaccountable! I could have sworn the man had a heart like an ox. But I
am becoming somewhat puzzled, Mr. Greville. If Forester certified death
from syncope, who sent me _this_?”

He passed a telegram across the table. I read it in growing
bewilderment:

_Sir Lionel Barton suffering catalepsy. Please come first train
and bring antidote if any remains._

I stared at Petrie, then:

“No one in our camp sent it!” I said.

“What!”

“I assure you. No member of our party sent this message.”

I saw that it had been delivered that morning and had been handed in at
Luxor at six a. m. I began to read it aloud in a dazed way. And, whilst
I was reading, a subdued but particularly eerie cry came from the
courtyard. I stopped. It startled me. But its effect upon Dr. Petrie was
amazing. He sprang up as though a shot had been fired in the room and
leaped towards the open window.

§ 2

“What was it?” I exclaimed.

Whilst the cry had not resembled any of the many with which I was
acquainted in the land where the vendor of dates, of lemonade, of water,
of a score of commodities has each his separate song, yet, though weird,
it was not in itself definitely horrible.

Petrie turned, and:

“Something I haven’t heard for ten years,” he replied—and I saw with
concern that he had grown pale—“which I had hoped never to hear again.”

“What?”

“The signal used by a certain group of fanatics of Burma loosely known
as Dacoits.”

“Dacoits? But _Dacoity_ in Burma has been dead for a generation!”

Petrie laughed.

“I made that very statement twelve years ago,” he said. “It was untrue
then. It is untrue now. Yet there isn’t a soul in the courtyard.”

And suddenly I realized that he was badly shaken. He was not the type of
man who was readily unnerved, and I confess that the incident—trivial
though otherwise it might have seemed—impressed me unpleasantly.

“Please God I am mistaken,” he went on, walking back to his chair—“I
must have been mistaken.”

But that he was not, suddenly became manifest. The door opened and a
woman came in, or rather—ran in.

I had heard men at the club rave about Dr. Petrie’s wife, but the
self-chosen seclusion of her life was such that up to this present
moment I had never set eyes on her. I realized now that all I had heard
was short of the truth. It is fortunate that modern man is unaffected by
the Troy complex; for she was, I think, quite the most beautiful woman I
had ever seen in my life. I shall not attempt to describe her, for I
could only fail. But, seeing that she had not even noticed my existence,
I wondered, as men will sometimes wonder, by what mystic chains Dr.
Petrie held this unreally lovely creature.

She ran to him and he threw his arms about her.

“You heard it!” she whispered. “You heard it!”

“I know what you are thinking, dear,” he said. “Yes, I heard it. But
after all it isn’t possible.”

He looked across at me, and suddenly his wife seemed to realize my
presence.

“This is Mr. Shan Greville,” Petrie went on, “who brings me very sad
news about our old friend, Sir Lionel Barton. I didn’t mean you to know,
yet. But. . . .”

Mrs. Petrie conquered her fears and came forward to greet me.

“You are very welcome,” she said.

She spoke English with a faint fascinating accent.

“But your news—do you mean——”

I nodded.

Into the beautiful eyes watching me I saw the strangest expression
creeping. It was questioning, doubting; fearful, analytical. And
suddenly Mrs. Petrie turned from me to her husband, and:

“How did it happen?” she asked.

As she spoke the words, I thought she seemed to be listening.

Briefly, Dr. Petrie repeated what I had told him, concluding my handing
his wife the mysterious telegram.

“If I may interrupt for a moment,” I said, taking out my pocket case,
“Sir Lionel must have written this at the moment of his fatal seizure.
You see—it tails off. It was scribbled on the block which lay beside
him. It was what brought me to Cairo.”

I handed the pencilled message to Petrie. His wife bent over him as he
read aloud, slowly:

“_Not dead_ . . . _Get Petrie_ . . . _Cairo_ . . . _amber_ . . .
_inject_ . . .”

She was facing me as he read—her husband could not see her face. But he
saw the telegram slip from her fingers to the carpet.

“Kara!” he cried. “My dear! What is it?”

Her wonderful eyes, widely opened, were staring past me through the
window out into the courtyard; and:

“_He_ is alive!” she whispered. “O God! _He_ is alive!”

I wondered if she referred to Sir Lionel; when suddenly she turned to
Petrie, clutching the lapels of his coat and speaking eagerly,
fearfully.