The Sleeper in the Sands

by Tom Holland

  I turned round to see a man standing on the step below me, dressed in the robes of an Arab scholar, which flowed long and white like his beard and moustache. His shoulders were stooped and his face very lined; yet though in appearance he seemed fabulously old, there was nothing of weakness or frailty in his manner. Quite the opposite, for he gazed at me with such an unblinking and luminous stare that I could barely endure to continue meeting it; and indeed, so brightly did it glitter and so hollow and impassive did his thin face appear, that it seemed more a serpent’s than that of a man. And as I thought that, despite myself I shuddered; for I could not think how the old man had come to be standing behind me, when I had not even heard him climbing the steps.

  ‘What is your business here?’ I asked, attempting to disguise my unease beneath a show of brusqueness.

  The old man smiled very palely. ‘I might more fittingly ask that question of you.’

  ‘I am . . .’ I paused, then sought to draw myself up more fully. ‘I am the Chief Inspector of Antiquities,’ I announced.

  The old man’s stare seemed to flicker. ‘Does that give you jurisdiction over a Holy Place of God?’

  ‘This . . .’ - I pointed to the figure of the sun above the door -- ‘it is the image of a God once worshipped by a Pharaoh.’

  ‘Pharaoh?’ The old man took a step closer to me. ‘But it is said in the most Holy Koran that Pharaoh proclaimed there was no God but himself. So how can what you tell me possibly be the truth?’

  ‘That is what I wish to find out.’

  The old man laughed very faintly. ‘But you have no right to find out anything at all.’

  ‘I have told you,’ I repeated. ‘I am the Chief Inspector of Antiquities!’

  ‘And yet, for all that, you do not belong here. Go! Go, sir -- and do not come back!’ The old man gestured suddenly with his arm, and indeed I almost did start to leave, for in his voice I had heard a note of terrible warning and almost of appeal. But I stood my ground, for I sensed that I might be near some revelation, some extraordinary secret, and it was my hope that the old man might unlock it after all. But he merely shook his head at me; and the look in his eyes was a chilling one. ‘What can you hope to know of Egypt?’ he whispered. ‘As fears lie buried in the nightmares of our sleep,’ I heard him murmur, ‘so secrets lie buried in the past of this our land. Do not disturb them, Mr Carter. Do not disturb them. Be warned!’

  The sudden and unexpected use of my name had quite served to freeze my tongue. I gazed wide-eyed into the old man’s own unblinking stare, deep into its strange reptilian glitter. Still I tried to speak, but it was as though my mind were no longer my own but rather the thing of the old man’s eyes. I imagined I saw within them -- strange as it must sound! -- a waste of sands, and treasures scattered, abandoned on the dunes. Here a half-shattered bust of stone lay, there a glittering of gold, and sometimes, exposed and then buried by the action of the wind once again, ancient, brittle parchments, suggestive of secrets which I could not make my own. Upon these stinging winds I was blown like dust myself, blown across the old man’s dream, which seemed to stretch before me like the very wilds of Egypt. A shadow was lengthening. It seemed to be rising from beyond the horizon. It fell cold upon me and then, as I gazed ahead, I could see the form of a temple much like Karnak, half-submerged beneath the sands, but still so monstrous that it towered high above me and its shadow, as I neared it, was growing colder all the time. Then at last I had passed the outermost line of capitals, and was being blown ever deeper into the dark, and yet the temple still seemed to stretch away like infinity. There was something ahead of me, though; something buried within the place’s deepest sanctuary; some awful presence, still veiled by the dark but drawing nearer, drawing nearer all the time, as though infinity might indeed be pierced after all; and the terror was like nothing I had ever known before. I longed to scream. I had imagined I was only a second away from it now. I would behold it; for it was as though the curtain which had veiled it were being raised before my eyes. I tensed and jerked back my head; then opened my eyes. The hallucination had vanished, and I was standing alone at the summit of the stairs. Of the old Arab scholar there was not a sign.

  Of course, I reflected later, there need not have been anything supernatural or mysterious about my experience. I had been the victim of a skilful hypnotist, that was all. I had heard of such conjuring tricks before, and indeed sometimes seen their practice when sitting by the fire of a headman back in Thebes. Never, though, had I imagined that I might be susceptible to them myself -- for I have always considered myself to have a fairly solid grip on things -- and so, I do not mind confessing it, the experience had unsettled me to a fair degree. I chose not to linger in the mosque that night, for the door was still barred to me and I doubted I would be able to find out anything much more -- but nor will I deny that I was relieved to get back home. I lay a long while on my sofa, still feeling strangely haunted by the images I had seen, and grateful for the companionship of the birds I had brought with me from Thebes. As it ever did, the music of their song served to comfort me, and the sight of the beauty of their plumage and flight. Yet my mood of oppression was not altogether lifted, for I still felt with a novel sense of regret how lonely I had become, and began to dread what the pursuit of my ambitions might not bring. Even so, it was only after many hours that I was lulled upon the song of my birds at last to sleep.

  I woke the next morning after a night of bad dreams. I had a great deal of pressing business ahead of me, yet I could not get thoughts of the mosque from my mind. I felt certain now that I was on the trail of something very strange indeed: a secret long buried but somehow still alive; a conspiracy, perhaps, which had spanned more than 3,000 years. Where it might lead to I could not begin to imagine - for indeed, even now, I could barely believe it might exist. Nor, in truth, was I any nearer to resolving the mystery, for the door of the minaret had remained locked in my face, and though the old man had hinted at secrets, he had told me nothing more. It struck me as being a cruel feature of my quest that the more I discovered, the more there still seemed to find -- that frustration seemed the fruit of every success.

  All morning, as I went about my business, I pondered this apparent paradox. Yet events that same day were to render it even more pressing. It happened, as I was supervising work by the desert at Saqqara, that news was brought to me of a drunken affray. A group of Frenchmen, it seemed, had grown rowdy and offensive while visiting the nearby tombs, and started to create trouble for my native staff. Naturally, I hurried to investigate the matter as fast as I could and, upon arriving, discovered what appeared to be a virtual fracas. My appeals for calm were so much wasted breath, for it was not only the Frenchmen who were threatening my staff but also a group of their servants, as vicious a collection of thugs as one might ever care to encounter. It was immediately apparent to me that it was these servants who were the true cause of the trouble, and so I summoned up reinforcements and ordered them disarmed. The Frenchmen, realising that they were outnumbered, at once retreated from the confrontation, but continued to protest most vociferously when my men persisted with the attack upon their own. They demanded that their servants be left alone and, upon the condition that they would immediately withdraw, I reluctantly agreed. As my men fell back, however, I was able to study the ruffians more closely -- and one in particular, their evident ringleader, whose face as yet I had been unable to glimpse. I moved forward. As I did so, he turned to glance at me; and I shuddered at once with recognition and surprise.

  There could be no mistaking him. I had seen him only for the barest second before, when he had come at me from the darkness of the Valley of the Kings and laid me out cold -but still I knew him, that thin smile, that glittering stare. I pointed and, shouting to my staff, ordered him to be taken. But the Frenchmen, outraged by what they may have seen as my bad faith, reacted by threatening to join the fight themselves; and it was all I could do to hold them back. In the chaos of the ensuing scuffle, the villain I ha
d hoped to seize was able to make his escape, he and all his band. I was left with nothing to show for the episode save the injuries to my staff, six affronted Frenchmen -- and a potentially fatal threat to my career.

  For the Frenchmen, with that arrogance so typical of their nation, had the nerve to complain to my superior -- doubtless in the knowledge that he was a Frenchman himself. I must acknowledge here once again, however, that the head of the Service, Monsieur Gaston Maspero, was a man of rare discernment and honour who, having appointed me as Inspector in the first place, was now unwilling to dismiss me upon a trumped-up cause. He knew me well enough to accept that I had not been to blame and, despite the mounting protests from the French establishment in Egypt, he continued to stand by me. Nevertheless he wished me, for the sake of form, to offer an apology, and seemed to imagine I could do so with good grace. Naturally, however, I found such a request an insulting one, and indeed, felt the humiliation to an exceeding extent. I had carried out my duty, as I had always sought to do - how then could I apologise for other people’s faults?

  Nevertheless I accepted that, although my pride and my very honour were at stake, so also were other, perhaps more threatening concerns. For who could the Arab have been, I wondered, who had first attacked me in the Valley of the Kings, and then orchestrated the brawl which had so damaged my reputation? What was the reason for his campaign against me? And was it just a coincidence, or something far more sinister, that he should have intruded again into my life on the very day after my visit to the mosque of al-Hakim? I remembered the old Arab scholar and his parting words to me: ‘Be warned!’ Well, so I was now -- warned and prepared. For indeed, it seemed probable to me that I was closer to a breakthrough than I had ever dared to hope -- for why else would anyone be seeking to drive me from my post?

  This conviction came to seem all the more certain when I received a letter a few days after the brawl with the Frenchmen, posted to me from the Valley of the Kings. It had been scribbled, evidently in great excitement, by Theodore Davis; and it told of the discovery of a treasure-laden tomb. My emotions on reading this news were mixed in the extreme: I felt a keen interest, obviously, but also -- I must confess it - a certain degree of resentment that it was not I who had made the find. Indeed, my initial fear was that

  Davis might have stumbled upon the site which I had been excavating on my final evening in the Valley of the Kings, but a hurried reading of his letter reassured me on that point, for it seemed clear that he had been digging upon a quite different slope. Nevertheless, the find was still of an especial interest to me - for the tomb had belonged to the parents of Queen Tyi. ‘There can be no doubt about it,’ Davis asserted in his letter, ‘although I was surprised at first, for I had never heard of noblemen being buried in the Valley of the Kings. But their names have been preserved upon the lids of their coffins - Yuya, the father, and Thua, his wife. The mummies too have survived - and Yuya especially is in an excellent condition. I know you thought that he might have been a Nubian, but he don’t look like no nigger I’ve ever seen. In fact, he’s the image of a Jew politician I knew back on Rhode Island -- same beaked nose and long, scrawny neck. A wonderful find, Carter - and a damned shame you can’t be here. You dig the Valley all those years, and then the moment you’re gone we find this amazing tomb!’

  A damned shame indeed. Yet although Davis had clearly been relishing his chance to have a gloat, it appeared that our former partnership still meant something to him. The finds, he reported, would shortly be on their way to the Cairo Museum, the treasures first and then the mummies a few months after, and Davis would be needing watercolours for his projected book upon the tomb. ‘I’ve seen for myself,’ he wrote at the bottom of his letter, ‘how you’re the finest artist in Egyptian studies today. Would you consider, then, once the finds from the tomb have arrived in Cairo, painting them for me? Naturally,’ he added in a scribbled postscript, ‘I would reimburse you for your efforts.’

  I wrote back at once accepting his offer. The time might come, I thought ruefully, when I would need such employment; for although I had not yet been asked to resign, neither could I bring myself to apologise for something that had not been my fault. Maspero, clearly searching for some way out of the impasse, seemed determined to exile me far away from Cairo. I knew that by dispatching me to a backwater, he hoped to allow the storm I had raised to blow itself out; yet even so, I felt the indignity of my demotion very keenly. I could not bring myself to abandon Cairo, not at such a time, not when the trail seemed suddenly so promising -- and yet to keep my post, I would clearly have to leave. With the greatest reluctance, therefore, I bowed to the inevitable and left for Tanta, the hell-hole which had been appointed as my new headquarters. A more miserable town I had never come across, for it was dull and hot, and possessed the most appalling drains. Even my poor birds were affected by the stench, and with every breath I took I grew more tempted to resign. Yet still I could not bring myself to take the fateful step, for it was not only my income I would lose but also, perhaps crucially, my Chief Inspector’s powers. Who knew when I might not need them? Patience, I reminded myself, as I had always sought to do - patience, patience, always patience.

  At last, during the very height of an unbearable summer, I received the news that the artefacts from Yuya’s tomb had arrived in Cairo. I took a couple of weeks leave as soon as I could and travelled to the Museum, relieved to have escaped Tanta, and excited at the prospect of what the treasures might reveal. Just as Davis had asserted, they were of a magnificent quality, and it was evident that Yuya must have been a man of very great importance indeed, for he was described upon several artefacts as being ‘a man made the double of Pharaoh’, and his wife as ‘the Superior of the Harim’. Certainly, as Davis had already pointed out to me in his letter, no other commoner was known to have been buried in the Valley of the Kings -- and yet I could discover nothing which might explain such a remarkable honour. The sarcophagi, for instance, usually such a prime source of detail, appeared virtually without decoration at all, and certainly without those elaborate portraits of the gods which it was the custom for the ancients to paint upon their coffins. More frustratingly, however, I could find no hints as to who Yuya might truly have been, and how it was -- in direct contradiction of traditional royal custom - that his daughter Tyi had come to marry the Pharaoh. It had long been clear to me that these puzzles might be of a crucial significance, and so it was all the more dispiriting to find them still unresolved.

  But I had not given up hope altogether. The treasures had been displayed in a public gallery and it had proved impossible, surrounded by crowds of gawping tourists, to give them the attention they so clearly deserved. With the written help of Davis, I therefore secured permission to paint the treasures after gallery hours; and indeed, studying them late at night, with the silence and darkness of the museum all around me, my sense was heightened of the mysteries they might veil. Still, though, that veil remained drawn and I grew all the more certain, as I continued with my painting, that I was glimpsing the surface and nothing more. What, then, was I missing?

  One event in particular served to make me wonder this. I had arrived at the gallery early one evening, perhaps half an hour before the closing time. I stood for a while amongst the last few tourists, admiring the treasures as though I were one of their number. Then I laid down the painting equipment I had brought with me and wandered off to inspect the further galleries, until I could be certain that the museum had finally been closed. Only then did I return to Yuya’s coffins, back through the now empty halls, their exhibits shrouded in an unillumined gloom. Where I was working, however, a light had been left on - and it was this which enabled me to see the amulet straight away. Others might not have observed it, for it had been leaned unobtrusively against the coffin’s side - but perhaps, after my experiences in the Valley of the Kings, I had been almost expecting it. I crossed to the amulet and picked it up. I scarcely needed to inspect the design, but there it was all the same: two wors
hippers kneeling in prayer beneath a sun. I looked about me; I strained my ears. All was quiet. I hurried through the galleries, searched the whole museum . . . but still I could find no sign of an intruder. Someone must have been there, though - someone must have placed the amulet by Yuya’s coffin. If only I could find him! If only I could hunt the conspiracy down, with its web of strange secrets and long-buried legends -- and its apparently centuries-old dread of a terrible curse! But my period of leave was coming to an end; and in Tanta there would be nothing to hunt down at all.

  Even so, I went back there to my exile. I still had hopes of a recall to my former post in Cairo, and for as long as that remained a viable prospect, I was reluctant to jeopardise my career in the Service. But my sense of frustration now was damnable, and the longer I spent smelling the drains of Tanta, so the less appealing their odour became. By the autumn my patience was wearing pretty thin, and when Davis wrote to me reporting the arrival in Cairo of Yuya’s mummy and his wife’s, it was more than I could endure to wait for an official spell of leave. Instead, I caught the earliest train available and arrived, that same night, by the gates to the museum. Only a sleepy foreman was on guard, and he must have recognised me, for he waved me through. Fortunately, I had brought my keys with me, and I was able to enter the museum unattended. I did not, though, pass into the Main hallway, but took a side door which led upstairs to the first floor. It was here, I knew, that the mummies were exhibited, the bodies of some of Egypt’s greatest kings -- and also, I trusted, those of Yuya and Thua too.

  Not wishing to draw attention to myself, I was reluctant to switch on the overhead lights, and so instead I drew out my torch and flashed its beam across the exhibition room. Mummy after mummy stretched away into the dark, their withered forms preserved not in gold coffins now, not beneath the watchful gaze of Osiris, but under panes of labelled glass. I began to walk past them, my footsteps echoing through the silence. I continued to sweep my torch, peering into the face of each long-dead man until I saw, at the very end of the hall, two human-shaped objects swathed in sheets. I quickened my stride towards them, then stepped over the rope which was marking them off and approached the first body. By its side a sheaf of notes had been left: ‘Thua,’ I read, ‘the mother of Queen Tyi.’ I glanced behind me once more, to make certain I was alone, then raised the sheet and took a glance underneath.