The Sleeper in the Sands

by Tom Holland

  In his sleep, though, in his nightmares, the bonds of self-restraint were easier to slip. Again and again, Carter would dream that the steps had been unearthed. He would imagine himself standing before the doorway, now wholly exposed. In his hands would be the tablet, and its curse would seem written in symbols of blood. He would know that the seals had to stay unbroken -- but he would order the doorway opened all the same. As he did so, the tablet would shatter in his hands, and Carter would think himself suddenly awake. But the dust of the tablet would linger in the darkness, and seem to form the shadows of strange figures in his room.

  Such nightmares, when he truly awoke from them, angered Carter. Drawn so near at last to the object of his quest, he discovered that he could not endure to be reminded of that mystery which had led him to the very doorway of the tomb, and which he had chosen to keep locked within the drawer of his desk. He began to blame his sense of guilt that he had ever removed the tablet from the sands; yet he knew he could not return it there, nor announce its discovery, for he was still unwilling to provoke the workmen’s fears. Nor could he keep it upon his person, for he did not care to feel that he was somehow grown a thief. A vexing problem, exceedingly vexing -- and yet Carter knew that a solution had to be found.

  For all the while, as the date of Lord Carnarvon’s arrival drew nearer, so his dreams were growing steadily worse.

  He had regretted bringing it almost at once. As it had done before, when he had brought it from the site of the discovery, the tablet weighed heavily in his bag. Carter shifted it from one hand to the other. A boy approached him, offering to take the portmanteau; but the very prospect of surrendering his precious burden made Carter grip it all the more tightly. He ordered the boy away.

  He watched as the rest of his luggage was loaded upon the felucca. Only when all was readied did he prepare to board the vessel himself. He clambered along the gang-plank and for a brief moment, just the briefest, he thought of turning round, taking the bag and its load back to his house. But he knew there could be no delay: he could not afford to miss the train, for Lord Carnarvon was expecting him in Cairo, and he only had three days to spare in the capital - there was no time to lose. So Carter continued up the gang-plank, greeting the captain and then taking his seat. He nestled the portmanteau by his side, and watched as the boat began to drift out from its moorings to join the widening flow of the Nile.

  Carter shifted and looked about. He could see a night heron above him, soaring gracefully through the early-morning light, still abroad in the last half-hour before sunrise. Nervously, even as he watched the bird, Carter began to fiddle with his bag and, despite not meaning to, pressed on the catch. He opened it; peered inside; felt with his hand to support the evidence of his eyes, that the sheaf of papers were still where he had placed them, sealed within an envelope at the bottom of the bag.

  Then, almost by accident, he brushed against the tablet with his fingertips. At the same moment he glanced round guiltily, to make certain that no one had been observing him. As stealthily as he could, he drew out the tablet and rested it upon his lap, then stared over the side of the boat. The Nile was flowing deeply, its waters very dark.

  Carter sat hunched a long while, frozen by his feelings of doubt and self-reproach. He knew that what he was planning was an act of cowardice, and worse -- a dereliction of all he had ever sought to be, a betrayal of every standard he held dear. He glanced back inside his bag, at the thick, sealed envelope, and shook his head. For almost twenty years the contents of that envelope had served to draw him on, strengthening his resolve, granting him self-belief, even when direct corroboration had been lacking. Now at last, so it seemed, proof of the manuscript’s value lay upon his lap -- for what, after all, had its argument been, if not that the Pharaoh’s tomb was indeed beneath a curse? Carter smiled to himself ruefully, and stroked his moustache. He knew, of course, that there was no need to take such nonsense literally. Indeed, it had been the very presence within the manuscript of fantastical wonders, and secrets born of long-abandoned superstitions, which had first persuaded him that it might hint at something more, for he had long since learned how the myths of an age can be as distinctive as their tombs, and just as important for the archaeologist to date.

  Why then, knowing all that as he did, had he found himself so unsettled by the warning on the tablet? He glanced down at it once again. Had he simply lived too long with the manuscript, he wondered, with its worlds of mystery, and impossible powers? Had it touched him more than he had ever dared to think?

  Carter sighed. It was the dread that his reason might indeed have been affected, the dread that it might even come to inhibit his work, which had decided him in the end. He had been presumptuous in his fears of the workmen’s superstitions; for his own, it appeared, were far more insidious a threat. Carter smiled faintly. If it took a single sacrifice to put them to rest, to appease them, well . . . the Ancients at least might have understood.

  He glanced round again, to make certain that he was still not being watched. Satisfied, he raised the tablet from his lap. He rested it on the boat’s edge . . . then let it drop. There was a soft splash. Carter stared behind him at where the tablet had sunk, as the boat glided on. The waters of the Nile flowed as silently as before. Only the night heron, disturbed by the noise, wheeled and cried in a startled manner as it flew away before the coming of the dawn.

  At the same moment, in Carter’s house, his servant was sitting on the front porch, listening to the notes of the canary in its cage, when suddenly there rose a faint, almost human cry. It was followed by a silence and the servant, straining to hear more, realised that even the canary’s song had been stilled. He rose to his feet, then hurried to the room from where the scream had seemed to come. It was Mr Carter’s study and upon entering it, almost instinctively, the servant turned to gaze at the cage.

  It seemed filled by a monstrous form. As the servant drew nearer, he recognised the hood of a cobra, and saw that the canary was already limp within its jaws. A flicker passed through the cobra’s coils, and it began to sway its head as though to strike once again. But then it reduced its hood and, dropping the bird, slipped out between the bars. As it glided towards him the servant backed against the desk, then watched in horror as the cobra drew nearer still. Fumbling desperately behind him, he found a small figurine; turning again, he raised it in his hand, but the cobra was already slipping past him, coiling up around the leg of the desk, then out through the window until, with a final, dismissive flicker of its tail, it was gone.

  The servant pushed the desk aside, and hurried to the window to mark the cobra’s progress across the empty yard outside. But he could see no trace of it, not even a trail left upon the dust. He shuddered suddenly, and muttered a prayer -- for it was as though the cobra had vanished into air.

  He turned back and crossed to the cage. Reaching inside it, very gently, he scooped out the corpse of the bird. It was only as he did so that he realised he was still clutching the tiny figurine in his other hand, and as he inspected it, so his knuckles whitened even more. For he could recognise the statue now: it was a figure of the King whose tomb had been found, and was soon to be disturbed; whose head-dress bore the figure of a cobra upraised -- the King whose name, he had learned, had been Tut-ankh-Amen.

  THE TALE OF THE SLEEPER IN THE SANDS

  Letter from Howard Carter to Lord Carnarvon

  The Turf Club, Cairo,

  20 November 1922

  My dear Lord Carnarvon,

  You will know how I have ever enjoyed my time spent with you, and yet on this occasion above all others, how pleasant, how gloriously pleasant, has been the cause of our meeting with each other once again! Even so the best, I may venture to hope, is still to come and I shall duly await, with the keenest sense of anticipation, your following me onwards within the next two days. By then, I trust, all should be readied for yourself and Lady Evelyn, for my preparations here in Cairo have gone exceedingly well, and everything is now purchased wh
ich we shall require to complete our excavation. I am therefore confident that between your arrival in Thebes and the commencement of our work within the Valley of the Kings, there will be no cause for delay.

  You asked me last night what I thought we might discover beyond the doorway of our - as yet - unidentified tomb. I hesitated then, in the company of others, to reply with due

  confidence; but now, putting pen to paper, I dare to proclaim that we are indeed on the threshold of a magnificent discovery, one which may grant us immortality in the annals of archaeological science. Anything - literally anything -- may lie beyond the passageway. I do not speak only of artefacts or gold but of treasures, it may be a hundred times more valuable. For unless I am much mistaken, the tomb we have uncovered is that of King Tut-ankh-Amen; and if such should indeed prove to be the case, then we shall discover within it, I prophesy, the proofs of a great and ancient mystery. Once the tomb has been opened and its contents examined, our understanding of the past may be remarkably and forever changed.

  You will doubtless wonder what inspires me to make such a boast, and all the more so when you recall the six years of failure we have had to endure -- barren, it must have seemed to you, of even the faintest promise. Yet you will recall as well my assurances, made with all the earnestness and vigour I could muster, that the Valley of the Kings had not been exhausted, and how when, this summer, you finally contemplated abandoning our work, I swore that I was certain that a tomb lay undisturbed. You did not then press me to justify myself, but did me the honour instead of accepting my word. I shall ever be grateful for that mark of trust, since it is certain that, but for your untiring generosity and constant encouragement, our labours would long ago have come to naught.

  Now, though, let us trust, the hour of triumph is at hand. At such a moment, my continued silence can no longer be justified. Yet as you read the papers which I have given to you, it may be you will understand my former reticence, for the story they tell is certainly a strange one. I would not have cared to stake my reputation upon it - and yet without it, as you will see, I would never have dared to believe that a Pharaoh’s tomb could indeed lie undiscovered. Therefore -- please, if you can find the time, read the papers enclosed with this letter. Some are my own: biographical reminiscences composed over the course of the past month or so, once I had learned for certain that this season -- unless successful - would be my last in the Valley. The other stories have a stranger origin. They have been in my possession now for many years -- and yet you are the first to whom I have ever shown them. I do not, of course, need to ask you to keep silent about their contents. As you will doubtless understand once you have completed your perusal of them, the papers raise matters of considerable interest. Let us discuss them in confidence once you have joined me again at Thebes.

  Until then, conserve all your energy and keep yourself well -- for I do not doubt we have a good deal of hard work still ahead of us! Yet how mightily we have laboured, and how long we have searched -- and now at last journey’s end is drawing very near!

  Look after yourself, my dear Lord Carnarvon. These papers are yours -- for so also is my success.

  H.C.

  Narrative composed by Howard Carter, early autumn 1922

  Castle Carter,

  Elwat el-Diban,

  The Valley of the Kings.

  I am not a man who thrives upon company, and yet tonight I feel - not despair, I would say - but rather the strangest compulsion to share my confidences and to justify the unfulfilled exertions of my career. Of course, should I finish this account I shall have to keep it locked from any prying eye, and yet even so it would do me good, I believe, tonight and over the course of succeeding nights, to imagine a colleague or a friend -- Lord Carnarvon, perhaps -- seated opposite me, able to listen to my words even as I commit them to paper.

  Nor, I must hope -- even at this eleventh hour -- will they moulder forever in my drawer unread. It is true that King Tut-ankh-Amen and his tomb still defy my excavations -- yet though my final season in the Valley approaches, I remain confident. He shall be found - he must be found -- for to think otherwise would indeed be to despair of my entire career. I shall never marry, I fear, and yet in truth I have been married for a long while to my hunt for this- tomb. For I realise now that I had been set upon Tut-ankh-Amen’s trail,

  without my ever knowing it, within the earliest months of my arrival in Egypt -- and indeed, it may be before even that occasion, for I recollect now an event in my youth, seemingly trivial and yet serving, so it strikes me at this distant remove, almost as a portent of much which was to come. It is not surprising that I failed to understand this at the time, for my prospects then were limited and circumscribed, and my passions confined to a self-taught knowledge of birds -not a great deal of use, sadly, to one having to make his way in the world. Indeed my education, as I have always regretted, was miserably incomplete, and yet there was no help for it, for there were bills to be paid and I had been set to earn my living at a very tender age. I did so at first as an assistant to my father, who worked as an illustrator in London and a portraitist in the country, a mode of employment which necessitated staying at many grand country residences. My favourite, and the one where my father was most employed, was Didlington Hall in the county of Norfolk -- for the family who lived there possessed both great talent and great taste, nor did they believe that quality need necessarily be determined by good birth. Certainly, they were gracious enough to recognise within me certain talents as an artist, and so to give me the run of much of their house, for they were wonderful collectors and their every room and corridor seemed adorned with treasures. To my youthful eyes, such a trove of riches seemed a fairy tale made true, and it soon became my ambition - no, my most passionate dream -- to hunt out and recover such marvels for myself.

  Yet though generous and open in all other matters, there was one room to which the family barred me entry, for I was warned that its contents were especially precious. Naturally, I sought to respect their wishes - but equally naturally my interest was piqued, for human nature, I suppose, is always what it is, and all the more so when that nature is a child’s.

  So it was that in the end, like Bluebeard’s wife, I could no longer hold out against my curiosity and crept away, while my father was occupied with his painting, to inspect the secret room. I discovered, to my surprise, that the door was unlocked and, opening it stealthily, I passed inside. The room beyond was in darkness, and for several seconds I could make out nothing at all. Feeling my way along the side of the wall, therefore, I reached for a curtain and pulled it aside, allowing a shaft of sunlight into the room. At once I gasped in wonder and surprise, as I viewed the collection of objects before me. Never had I seen such strangeness before! There were figures of stone and clay and gold, pictures painted on panels of wood, and the body of a mummy swathed in tight cloth -- laid out within its coffin, for all the world as though it were asleep. The idea inspired in me a remarkable fascination, and a shiver of mingled dread and delight. I approached the mummy and gazed at it in stupefaction for a long while, then went from object to object, inspecting each one with the minutest attention. What a bizarre nature these people must have had, I thought, what bizarre patterns of behaviour, and assumptions, and beliefs, to have created such things -- and yet, as was evident, they had been human just like me!

  Of course, lost in my astonishment, I was at length discovered in the room -- and yet, such was the kindness of my hosts and so evident, no doubt, the brightness in my eye, that I was not punished but encouraged in my enthusiasm. During the next few years, such became my taste for Egyptian art that I came to have the greatest longing to visit Egypt itself. It was now that I regretted my poverty all the more, and my lack of education too, for in truth I knew nothing of Egyptology save what I had seen at Didlington Hall, and so my understanding of it continued very small. Yet in the end, at the age of seventeen, it was to be my skill in draughtsmanship which gave me my chance to journey there, for it had been
decided that a survey was required of all that country’s monuments before the art upon their walls began to crumble into dust, and I was recommended by the kindness of my patrons for the post. It was not as an excavator, then, nor as anyone with any claims to specialist knowledge, but rather as a humble copyist that I first of all entered an Egyptian tomb.

  What paintings I discovered there! And again, in the next tomb, and again after that -- endless galleries of wonder and beauty! Alone amidst such work, with the darkness illumined only by a feeble torch, I felt all those emotions I had experienced years before amidst the private collection at Didlington Hall, yet multiplied now a thousand times, for I was standing where the Ancients had once stood themselves, and this affected me more strongly than I had ever imagined possible. I found myself impressed by a profoundest sense of timelessness, so that I would almost forget the long roll of centuries and imagine that the figures before me were freshly painted - or even, sometimes, alive upon the wall!

  I recall, for instance, one example in particular which somehow served to place all my feelings on the matter into focus. It happened one afternoon that I had been copying the painted image of a hoopoe. When I had finished my work for the day, I walked to the entranceway to the tomb where I saw, to my astonishment, a living example of the very same bird -- its plumage, its posture, the angle of its head, precisely the same! I felt almost shaken by the coincidence; and all the more so when, having mentioned it to my superior on the surveying team, Mr Percy Newberry, he told me that to the Ancients the hoopoe had been a bird of magical significance. I answered him that I could well believe it - for indeed, I had felt a little touched by magic myself! The idea that both I and an artist who had lived more than 4,000 years before my time could have observed and represented the same species of bird struck me with the force of a thunderclap -- and I felt once again the strangest sense of how the present and the distant past might yet be linked. Inspired by such fancies, I found my own work steadily prospering and my fascination with the world of ancient Egypt, my concern to penetrate its mysteries, growing all the more. Nor did I ever cease to be struck, copying the figures before me, by how familiar they seemed -- and yet, at the same moment, how very haunting and strange.