Read Online The Mamur Zapt and the Spoils of Egypt by Michael Pearce - Free Book Online

with hot water. Owen thanked him, they fell into conversation and it was natural to follow him afterwards and join the ring drinking black tea around the fire.
    The sun was just beginning now to touch the tops of the cliffs above the camp. They rose in a steep wall to cut off the plain from the Sahara and at their foot, cut into the rock, was the incredible temple of Queen Hatshepsut, with its three great terraces, one behind the other, its marvellous double colonnades, open to the light, open to the eyes of men from miles around, but sloping back into the darkness of the cliffs and the holiest of holies.
    ‘
C’est magnifique
,’ said Paul, suddenly appearing beside him, ‘
mais ce n’est pas
the particular one they’re working on.’
    ‘Oh? What one are they working on?’
    ‘That one,’ said Paul, pointing along the cliffs to where a second temple nestled into the rock. It was smaller than the Hatshepsut temple and sadly ruined.
    ‘And therefore,’ said Paul, ‘neglected until about five years ago, when Naville began his excavations. You’ve met Naville? No? Well, you should. An interesting man and found some interesting things: the Cow of Hathor, for instance. You remember the Cow of Hathor? There was a lot about it in the papers—’
    ‘Saw it last week,’ said Owen. ‘They were moving it.’
    ‘Not part of the general exodus, I hope?’
    ‘No, no. Just from one part of the Museum to the other.’
    ‘I would hate to lose that,’ said Paul. ‘It might almost induce me to join forces with Miss Skinner.’
    ‘And it was over there, was it,’ asked Owen, looking across at the second temple, ‘that it happened?’
    ‘It’ according to Miss Skinner last night had been a simple fall. She had gone back alone one evening after excavation had finished for the day—‘oh, in the quiet, you know. I just wanted to take a quiet look, when there were no workmen fidgeting around’—and had fallen into a subterranean chamber.
    ‘My own fault,’ Miss Skinner had said.
    ‘Yes,’ Parker had said heavily, ‘it was. You ought to know better. Damned unprofessional.’
    ‘There was a thing I wished to check on.’
    ‘Well, just check on it in the daytime in future,’ Parker had said.
    ‘How did you come to fall, Miss Skinner?’ Owen had asked.
    ‘Oh. I don’t know. The hole was there for me to see, wasn’t it? And 1 had a torch. I must have been looking at something else, I suppose.’
    She had lain there for the rest of the night. It was not until the morning that her absence had been discovered. And it was not until late the following day that her cries had been heard. They might not have been heard then had not Parker, angry at yet more time being lost, ordered some of his men back to work.
    ‘However,’ said Miss Skinner briskly, ‘no bones broken. And there was no other damage apart from that to my self-esteem. Except, of course, that poor Mr Trevelyan was most frightfully worried.’
    She laughed and patted Paul playfully on the knee. ‘My faithful Achates,’ she said.
    Paul had smiled dutifully but said nothing.
    This morning he was still saying nothing.
    ‘Take a look at it first,’ he said. ‘We can talk later.’ They were going over, as soon as it became light, to take a look at the scene of the incident. Already the workmen were beginning to make their way out of the camp. ‘Breakfast!’ called Miss Skinner. ‘Breakfast is served!’ They joined her under the awning, where a bare wooden trestle table had been set up. The camp cook, rising nobly and convinced that no European ate anything other than eggs for breakfast, produced some well fried ones, together, however, with coffee, which Parker apparently insisted on.
    Parker himself was nowhere to be seen. He was already closeted with Mahmoud.
    ‘Where’s Naville?’ asked Owen. ‘Didn’t you say he was conducting the excavation?’
    ‘No, no. He finished two years ago. There was a gap and then Parker applied for the