Instinctively we all started to climb out of the trench. Our sun helmets had been whipped from our heads in the first fierce blast and now the scorching fingers of the red-hot wind tore at our clothes as though it would strip them from us. For a second we staggered about uncertainly, covering our faces with our hands in a desperate endeavour to keep the sand out of our eyes. Sylvia bumped into me and I grabbed, her arm, yelling at the top of my voice:
‘Over the ridge! Over the ridge to their ’plane!’
Harry, Clarissa, Mussa and Hamid were near enough to hear my shout, even in the screaming of the storm, and the six of us, who were all that now survived of our party, began to blunder up the sand-dune; clutching at each other as we went for support against the frightful buffeting of the sand-laden gale which threatened every moment to overthrow us.
At last we reached the crest and began to slither down the other side. I had no idea where the ’plane was and through the fog of sand it was quite impossible to discern even the outline of the valley bottom; yet the storm had come up so suddenly that I believed O’Kieff and most of his men had been caught by it while still burning our camp, and so were even further from the ’plane than we were. If we could reach it before they did, the odds against us might not be quite so hopeless.
But could we reach it? Blinded as we were, we could only stagger forward down the slope praying that we might bump into it. We reached the valley bottom, as we knew by the fact that the ground beneath our feet had started to slope up again, and we halted there in desperation not knowing if we should turn to right or left. The decision was made for us. Another figure came rushing past us in the darkness and mistaking us for some of O’Kieff’s people, called in a panic-stricken voice.
‘This way, you fools! this way!’
In a second we were blundering after him and almost at once the bulk of the great ’plane loomed up in the reddish murk ahead. The man who was leading us cannoned into another who stood, holding a tommy-gun, by a short ladder that led up to the door in the ’plane’s side.
Letting go of Sylvia’s arm I drew my pistol and rushed towards them. The one with the tommy-gun had his left hand over his eyes to protect them from the sand. In the fiendish wailing of the storm he neither saw nor heard me coming. With my left hand I grabbed his gun and jerked it from him; my right, which held my own pistol, smashed into his face. The other man was equally unprepared and Mussa clubbed him with his rifle.
The door of the ’plane was vaguely discernible above, and from behind its glass panel a third man must have been keeping a look-out. Seeing the two men below him attacked, he threw the door wide and opened fire with his automatic. Hamid lurched against me shot through the head and slipped to the ground without even a moan. Clarissa screamed and fell, hit in the thigh; but Sylvia, who was just behind me, had raised her pistol and fired at the same moment. The man above clutched at his tummy, doubled up and crashed forward on us, knocking Harry over.
Mussa was the first up the ladder and I tumbled into the ’plane right on his heels.
‘The pilot!’ I gasped. ‘For Gods’ sake don’t shoot him!’
‘Right, boss!’ he panted and with his rifle at the ready he charged forward between the two rows of seats in the saloon of the ’plane to the door which gave on to its cockpit. I thought the saloon was empty and was just about to follow when a small figure swathed in dark veils sprang up from one of the low, armchair seats. The second she had ripped away the veil which hid her face I saw that it was Oonas.
For an instant she stood there staring at me in the dim, uncertain light; her great, widely spaced blue eyes were starting from their sockets. Suddenly she screamed and cowered from me in abject terror. There can be no doubt that she believed it was my ghost she saw and that I had come back to earth to claim her. In a second her face had changed from its serene loveliness, as I had first glimpsed it when she had pulled away the veil, to the contorted features of a mad-woman. Again and again she screamed upon a high, piercing note until I thought her shrieks would shatter my ear-drums.
I took a step forward and stretched out a hand to reassure her with my touch that I was real, but she sprang aside as though my hand was the head of a striking cobra. Next instant, before I had a chance to stop her, she had leapt through the open doorway of the ’plane.
As I reached it I only caught a fleeting glimpse of her through the blinding sand. She had picked herself up and was dashing away into the reddish darkness as though the Fiend himself were at her heels.
‘Quick, Julian!’ Sylvia was calling just below me and I saw that she was endeavouring to carry Clarissa up the ladder. Harry was behind them but he could give little help because of his wounded shoulder. In a moment I had the two girls in the ’plane and Harry slumped in after them, dragging the door shut with his good hand.
Brushing the dust from my red and aching eyes I stared out through the window at the place where Oonas had been swallowed up in the black night that was now all about us. I had no scruples about O’Kieff or his hirelings but I could not leave her to choke to death out there in the whirling sand. Whatever her faults and crimes, which God knows were many, there was no doubt that she had loved me for a brief season. The others were safe now, and it was up to me to go out and get her.
As I gripped the handle to open the door again, Sylvia guessed my intention and flung her self upon me.
‘No Julian! No!’ she shouted. ‘It’s absolute madness! You’ll never find her and it would only be chucking your own life away.’
I had not noticed Mussa come back into the saloon to see that we were all safe on board; but the ’plane was now vibrating and I could hear the roar of its engines.
‘Let me pass!’ I yelled, but as I thrust Sylvia aside the ’plane began to move.
It bumped twice on the valley bottom, then lurched sickeningly so that those of us who were standing were thrown off our feet. With incredible swiftness the ’plane flashed out of the sandstorm into the clear, bright sunshine, but for the next few minutes it behaved like a crazy thing, and we were flung from side to side as it switchbacked and floundered through the airpockets caused by the violent disturbance below.
When at last the bumping eased a little and we managed to sort ourselves out I knew with bitter certainty that as we could not see the contours of the ground it was quite impossible to land again until the storm was over.
The floor of the ’plane was three inches deep in sand and everything in it was covered with a thick coating of golden-yellow dust. We could hardly see from end to end of the inside of the saloon and all of us were coughing from the frightful irritation in our throats and lungs, but the air began to clear when the ’plane had been in motion for about five minutes.
Clarissa was stretched out at full length on the floor. Harry and Sylvia knelt at either side of her endeavouring to ascertain the extent of the wound in her thigh. She was in considerable pain and on cutting away her clothes we found that the bullet had torn her outer leg-muscle badly, but fortunately it had not touched the bone. On discovering that she was in no immediate danger I left the others to staunch the blood and bind up her wound while I hurried forward to the cockpit.
Mussa, who had served us so splendidly, was squatting there on his haunches with his rifle at the ready just behind the pilot; whom I found to be a white man although his tanned face showed that he had been living out of Europe for some time. He was quite a young fellow with rather a devil-may-care expression about him, but he eyed me with considerable uneasiness as I said:
‘How are you off for petrol?’
‘I’ve enough for another five hours’ flying,’ he replied gruffly. ‘We fuelled to capacity before we started.’
‘What’ll she do?’
‘Cruising speed’s 160. We came from Dakhla and I could get her back there in about a couple of hours.’
‘How about Luxor?’
‘That’s roughly 500, say three hours and a quarter. Let’s hop to it, shall we? I know a young woman
in Luxor.’
His flippancy was doubtless partially due to nervous apprehension as to what was likely to happen to him when we landed. I ignored it and asked, ‘Who does this ’plane belong to?’
‘That swine O’Kieff,’ he muttered.
‘Are you in his regular employ?’
‘No. His own man went sick on him and I was offered a thousand pounds to take this job on with the proviso that if I didn’t keep my mouth shut afterwards I’d get a knife in my back.’
‘You knew what they meant to do out here?’
He shrugged. ‘One doesn’t get a thousand pounds for a few hours’ flying and I needed the money. But of course I shall deny that if you mean to charge me. You can’t force me to take you back, if I decide not to.’
‘Can’t I? That’s all you know.’ I tapped the pistol at my belt. ‘I assume you’d rather fly us where you’re told than have a bullet in your head?’
‘I’d risk that and break all your necks rather than go like a lamb to the slaughter.’
‘I don’t think you’d be quite such a fool as to crash the ’plane if it came to a show-down,’ I said quietly. ‘But we’ve got two wounded people in our party and I want to get them in as quickly as I can. As you didn’t participate in the actual shooting I’ll make a bargain with you. If you’ll fly us back without any argument I won’t hand you over to the police for complicity in this ghastly business?’
‘That’s decent of you,’ he grinned. ‘Where d’you want to go, Luxor or Dakhla?’
‘Neither for the moment. I want you to cruise round until this storm dies down because there’s just the chance that some—some of our wounded may have survived and if so we must pick them up.’
I left him with Mussa still on guard and rejoined the others. Clarissa was easier now and they had her settled in one of the long, low, comfortable chairs. All of us were suffering from the most appalling thirst and Sylvia was busy bandaging Harry’s shoulder, so I went through to the rear compartment of the ’plane hoping I should find some sort of pantry and a stock of drinks there.
It proved to be a small kitchenette and an open cupboard showed a rack with a good array of bottles but as I stepped through the door I almost fell across the body of a man. There, trussed up on the floor, lay Lemming.
‘Hello!’ I exclaimed. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Good God!’ he gasped. ‘That shooting! It was you capturing the ’plane. Is Miss Shane with you, and the others? Did you all get away all right?’
‘The four of us made it and one of our Arabs but your friends succeeded in murdering thirteen poor wretches,’ I told him grimly.
‘But I tried to stop them,’ he moaned. ‘I tried to stop them when they opened fire. They were too many for me. They tied me up and threw me in here.’
‘I see. You got an attack of conscience at the last minute,’ I said sarcastically. ‘Somehow when we met before I didn’t think you would make a very full-blooded sort of crook.’
‘I’m not a crook!’ he declared angrily. ‘I went in with O’Kieff’s bunch to try to find out what they were up to and then land them.’
If any story could have appealed to me that one should have. It was the very thing I had tried to do myself a couple of years before; but for the moment I didn’t believe him, although I remarked, a trifle more amiably:
‘You don’t seem to have done very well at it.’
He sighed and wriggled into a sitting position. ‘The swine was a damned sight too clever for me. I only learnt by chance that he was coming out to Egypt on some business connected with Sir Walter so I offered my services to him as an Egyptologist, and he took me on. When I heard about Sir Walter’s murder I got the wind up, but I thought I’d better stay in with O’Kieff to see if I couldn’t land him with the murder. I meant to take that bit of tablet to the police but you put the lid on that by preventing my getting hold of it. Then I tried to get away with one of the photographs, but they found me out and locked me up in a house in Cairo. I’ve been cooped up in a filthy cellar there till two days ago when O’Kieff turned up with some stuff you’d found out here, to get my opinion on it. Then he offered me the choice of being strangled by one of his thugs or coming out here to advise him on his digging. Naturally I wanted to save my neck, so I accepted.’
His story now seemed to have a ring of truth about it. Getting out my knife I knelt down and cut the cords that bound him, as he went on:
‘I wasn’t certain if your party was still out here or not so I didn’t know if we should run up against you; but I was simply praying for a chance to help you out of it if we did. Are—are—are—all of you really all right?’
‘Both the Belvilles are wounded, but Miss Shane and one of our servants and myself got through untouched.’
‘Thank God for that,’ he murmured.
‘There’s one thing, though,’ I went on, ‘that doesn’t quite fit in with this yarn of yours. How about the three thousand pounds you blackmailed out of the Belvilles before they left England?’
‘Oh, that!’ He stumbled to his feet and began to shake the thick coating of dust from his clothes. ‘Yes, I plead guilty there. But Sir Walter was an old screw and although he was entitled to it as the head of last year’s expedition, it was I who found the tablet. We quarrelled but I didn’t see why I should lose my share of the loot on that account. As a matter of fact, though, I didn’t think there was any real chance there would be any. That’s why I cashed in by the only way I could think of while the going was good.’
‘Right ho,’ I said. ‘You had better come and tell the Belvilles that yourself, and help me carry along some of these drinks.’
He fished a tray out of the cupboard and set some glasses on it while I collected a good assortment of bottles, then I led the way back into the saloon. As we appeared Sylvia looked up from tying a sling she had made for Harry’s arm.
‘Darling!’ she exclaimed. ‘How wonderful!’
I thought she was referring to me and the drinks so I grinned amiably, but Lemming pushed past me and, setting the tray he carried down in Harry’s lap, seized Sylvia in his arms.
‘Where have you sprung from?’ she babbled on. ‘They told me you were in Alexandria. But what are you doing here?’ Her voice quavered off in uncertainty and distress as it struck her that Lemming must have been on the ’plane the whole time and was one of O’Kieff’s associates.
In a wild spate of words, as he kissed her again and again, he was explaining how he had been eating his heart out with worry for her during the last month while O’Kieff had kept him in a cellar, and telling her how he had been overpowered when he tried to prevent O’Kieff attacking us from the ’plane.
Within a few moments everything was straightened out between them with the exception that no mention had been made of Clarissa’s £3,000; but recalling all Sylvia had told me of her young archæologist, the truth about that was as clear as daylight. The Belvilles had not been friends of Lemming’s and as far as he was concerned were only the capitalists who were financing Sir Walter’s expedition. Since the old man had refused to let Sylvia marry him he had recklessly resorted to blackmail in order to provide his Sylvia with a cook and enough cash to enable them to get married.
Doubtless he still had the money safe in his bank at home, but in any case we had got away with about twenty-five thousand pounds’ worth of treasure which would be ample to reimburse Clarissa and provide Sylvia with a nice little private income which was all she needed to realise her dreams of marriage and children.
There was one moment just after we had passed round the drinks when she threw me a sudden anxious glance; but I knew that our few hours together had only been a sort of very delightful desert madness. As I was sitting behind Lemming I put two fingers to my lips and smiled at her; which little gesture she could interpret both as a good luck salutation and an indication that I was not the sort of chap who would ever kiss and tell.
I took some drinks through to Mussa and the pilo
t who asked me how long I meant him to go on circling round and round above the place from which we had risen. Looking down I saw that 4,000 feet below us the storm was still raging. None of the ridges of the dunes were perceptible and as far as the eye could see we appeared to be sailing over a vast stretch of pinkish-yellow cloud which was in constant, violent motion.
‘Leave a good margin of petrol to get us back,’ I said. ‘But I would like to fly out the storm over this spot if it’s at all possible.’
I felt there was little likelihood now that Oonas or any of our wounded me could still be alive down there but I was determined not to leave the place, unless we absolutely had to, without making quite certain. With a heavy heart I rejoined the others in the cabin.
We managed to wash some of the worst of the dirt off ourselves and an hour sped by while Lemming gave us a more detailed account of his unfortunate adventures. Having played a lone hand against O’Kieff myself I could sympathise with him now, and on closer acquaintance I found him to be a very decent fellow.
Sylvia was half-way through an account of our excitements, for his benefit, when Mussa came along to the cockpit to say that the pilot wanted to see me.
I went forward at once and he pointed downwards. While we had been talking the air below had suddenly cleared and the great storm of sand was whirling away to the northward like a huge bank of dense, yellow fog. The longer ripples of dunes which from our altitude looked little larger than the ridges upon a tide-washed beach were now visible again in the clear air below us.
It was impossible to tell from that height in which valley our camp had lain but the pilot assured me that we could not be far from it and should pick it up when we got lower. We descended to 1000 feet and continued to circle over valley after valley but every one of them was exactly similar, without break or marking to distinguish it from its neighbours.
The Quest of Julian Day Page 43