Emily and the Lost City of Urgup

by Gerry Hotchkiss

  Now, with the one million dollars that Professor Witherspoon had raised from very rich men and women in America, they were digging and removing the sands of thousands of years, discovering a golden dome shaped building.

  Emily was able to open its secret door using the same discovery she had made with the magic box. There were three rows of numbers of twelve each, as follows:

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

  Emily knew that 9 was a magic number in Arabia and she had counted from the right side to the ninth number on the top, which was the number 4. Then she counted from the left side to the number 9 and then on the bottom row she took the middle numbers, first the 7 and then the 6.

  When the door was opened, Professor Witherspoon, Professor Dasam and Emily were looking at two large and one small sarcophagi. On each was inscribed glyphs and beautiful pictures of Ibises and cats, with gold and turquoise and rubies and emeralds and lapis lazuli outlining the Pharaoh and his wife and what appeared to be a small child. The gems alone were worth millions of dollars, but as Professor Dasam said, “these tombs are priceless. They are the resting place of Pharaoh Hotemhotem, his wife, Nefertutti and I suspect the young Pharaoh, Hotemhotem II.”

  Surrounding the caskets were bronze and gold and silver pitchers and urns, giant cats and dozens of statues of men and women, who were the servants and scribes and guards of the royal family.

  “What happened to them?” asked Emily.

  “We do not know for sure,” answered Professor Witherspoon, “but we have a pretty good idea.” “In about 2599 BC, there was a great earthquake that rocked the Middle East, causing cities to be destroyed as buildings collapsed and thousands of people died - men, women and children.”

  “Hotemhotem was a great Pharaoh who believed in peace. He allowed no one to carry arms in the city; no knives or clubs. When his city was rocked by the earthquake, evil people who were jealous or mean, attacked the Pharaoh and his wife and child while they were sleeping and their guards were away helping families, whose houses were destroyed, with food and water,” added Professor Dasam.

  “Later, the evil people were captured and punished. And the people of Urgup rebuilt their city and placed this great mausoleum in it to commemorate the life of their beloved Pharaoh.”

  ‘How did it disappear? asked Emily.

  “Over time, over many, many hundreds of years, the land could not support the population. That is, it could not grow enough corn or wheat, it did not have enough water and the people slowly left for other places until none remained and the sands of the desert covered it up until today,” Professor Witherspoon explained.

  Meanwhile Smiley Wiley and his henchmen had dressed themselves up as Arab workers and when they saw the riches of the sarcophagi, the gold and silver and turquoise and emeralds and rubies and lapis lazuli, their eyes bulged and their mouths watered with greed.

  “What’ll we do now, boss?’ asked Butts. “What do ya think, Buttshead,” said Nutts. “We’ll steal the tombs,” said Rutts. “You three couldn’t lift even one of them,” commented Smiley Wiley. “We just want the jewels, but we’ve got to be clever.” “How?” asked the three henchmen.

  “First we must make fake jewels to replace the real ones, so nobody will notice. Then in the dark of night we’ll sneak in and replace the real jewels with the fake ones.” “How’ll we do that?” chimed in the three men.

  “I’ll bet the wife of one of Dasam’s assistants has clothes with lots of fake stones. So we’ll cut off a few from a dress, near the bottom where they won’t be noticed,” said Smiley Wiley.

  The wife of an assistant who worked for the two Professors was the cook and a favorite of Emily’s. She was always smiling and would tell Emily stories about Berber Tribes and caravans and holidays when they celebrated the Feast of Abraham in which thousands of young rams were cooked. She told Emily about her wedding to Panwar, who was Professor Dasam’s right hand man. How they feasted for nine days and nine nights and danced and sang and played flutes and pipes and drums. How her father had given Panwar seventy-seven camels as her dowry and they now owned seven hundred and seventy seven camels.

  One day, Panwar’s wife, whose name was Apera, said to Emily, “let me show you my wedding gown and maybe, if I lose a few pounds, I might wear it again.” They went to Apera’s tent and in a box under several layers of beautiful rugs Apera took out a gossamer gown with layers of silk, embroidered with semiprecious stones that looked like the real ones.

  “Oh dear, oh dear,” sighed Apera, “look how many of my stones have been lost.” “I must be more careful.”

  “Do you wear this gown very often?” asked Emily. “Oh no,” replied Apera, “not since my wedding five years ago.”

  Emily thought to herself, “then why should those stones be missing”, and she kneeled down to inspect the hem of the gown where more of the missing stones had been sewn. “That’s funny,” thought Emily, “there is no sign of wear or tear, in fact it looks like they were clipped off.” But she didn’t say anything to Apera lest it disturb the lovely cook.

  Just before dark, before the moon rose in the sky, Smiley Wiley and his henchmen, dressed as Arab workers, tarried behind the other workers at the end of the day. They hid in the great mausoleum after everyone had left. They had hidden candles in the pockets of their dress. After the secret door was shut they lit the candles and hurried to the room of the tombs. There they set about removing the jewels from each sarcophagus, replacing them with the semiprecious gems they has cut from Apera’s wedding gown. Then they hid out in a corner until the next day when the door was opened and they joined the other workers coming in.

  “We shall have to hire guards when we have finished excavating this great building,” noted Professor Dasam, “to protect these magnificent tombs from grave robbers.” “But how could they ever carry these heavy sarcophagi away without anybody seeing them?” asked Emily.

  “Oh the robbers wouldn’t steal the whole sarcophagi. Why the jewels alone are worth a fortune,” he explained. “They are beautiful just as we see them now,” said Emily and she stepped up on a box next to the child’s tomb to inspect the jewels more closely. She put on white gloves, which archaeologists use when working with priceless old objects, to touch a ruby the size of her thumb. It rolled right off the tomb on to the floor. Emily was mortified.

  “Emily!” Professor Witherspoon commanded, “you must be extremely careful touching these tombs. Now get right down at once!” “I am very sorry,” replied Emily, “really, I hardly touched the ruby.” Then she got down on her hands and knees to find the ruby. It was right under Professor Witherspoon’s left shoe and she gave it to him.

  “Goodness gracious!” he exclaimed, “this isn’t a ruby, it’s just a semiprecious copy!” Then he and Professor Dasam examined the three tombs finding all of the jewels to be fake. “There must have been grave robbers here centuries ago, I’m afraid,” noted Professor Dasam. “How sad, how sad,” echoed Professor Witherspoon.

  “But why would they bother to replace the stones with fake ones,” asked Emily. “Why indeed,” noted the Professors, “why indeed.” “Whoever took the jewels may be still be here among us. But where did he or she get the fake ones?” they added.

  “I think I know,” announced Emily and she told them about the missing semiprecious gems from Apera’s wedding dress.

  CHAPTER SEVEN:

  Double Trouble

  “WHOEVER STOLE THE jewels doesn’t know that we know they were stolen,” Professor Witherspoon noted. “If we keep this quiet among the three of us, the thieves will have no reason to rush to get away.”

  “Then how shall we find them?” asked Emily.

  “Well, since there is little reason for them to try and kidnap Emily, now that they have the jewels, maybe we can empl
oy Hadar and Kadar to help us,” said Professor Dasam. “That is, of course, assuming that there is only one set of thieves here in the city, “ he added.

  “Why don’t we dress up Hadar and Kadar as beggars. We can station them by the entrance to the city, so that they can observe anyone leaving,” suggested Emily. “A capital idea,” added Professor Witherspoon.

  Hadar and Kadar, with some reluctance, put on old torn and dirty clothes, sandals ripped with only partial soles remaining. They looked like such poor bedraggled souls that even Emily had to laugh at their appearance. Their reluctance, however, had little to do with their costume; they were worried more about leaving Emily unguarded. With assurances from the professors, they took up two spots by the fence on either side of the entrance to the city, squatting on their haunches and calling loudly, “Alms for the love of Allah, alms for the love of Allah.”

  Meanwhile, Smiley Wiley and his three henchmen were gloating over the theft of the jewels. “What’ll we do now, boss?” asked Rutts. “We’ve got all the time in the world, Rutts,” replied Smiley. “Nobody knows the jewels have been stolen. So we’ll lay low until the right time comes along and then we’ll dress ourselves up as wives of some of the workers and slip out the front gate,” he added.

  “But won’t four wives leaving at the same time be too many?” asked Butts. “You’re right,” Smiley noted. “Maybe just one of us should take the jewels and fence them in Cairo,” he added. “Fence them?” questioned Nutts. “What’s fence them mean, like we already got a fence surrounding the city.” “A fence is a dishonest jeweler, who will buy our gems for half their real value and then sell each piece separately to other jewelers, who won’t suspect they were stolen property.”

  “Who’ll go?” asked Rutts. “Any of you know a fence?” queried Smiley. “Not me,” “I don’t,” “Me neither,” the three replied. “Then I guess I’ll have to do the job,” Smiley concurred. “I’ll leave now and sell the jewels. You three wait here and leave in a week. We’ll meet at the Old Oasis Inn, on the outskirts of Cairo, where we stayed before. Then we’ll split the money.”

  There was so much digging and sifting and noting every shard of pottery, pieces of statues, liths from arrowheads and knives, parts of inscriptions, that Emily and the professors soon put the stolen jewels out of their minds. A box was found containing a parchment listing all the important people who had lived during the reign of Hotemhotem which Emily translated with the help of Professor Dasam. “You have become a first rate translator,” the professor announced proudly.

  Smiley Wiley snuck in among the worker’s tents and stole an old dress. He shaved off his moustache and covered his face with a scarf. Carrying three large leather bags, made from the skins of camels and containing the jewels, he ambled slowly towards the gate.

  “Alms for the love of Allah,” cried out Kadar as Smiley approached. He gave the beggar a sneer and proceeded through the gate unobserved. There he joined a small caravan of fifteen people and twelve camels, paying its leader to escort him to Cairo.

  Days later, a small gang of bandits surprised the caravan, took all the money the passengers held and stole the camels. Smiley was left with his three bags which the bandits did not bother to inspect, as they peered at such an ugly old woman who looked like she needed a shave.

  He and the others in the caravan found themselves alone in the sands of the desert without camels and miles from both Cairo and the Lost City of Urgup. The only thing they could see, besides the desert sands and the blue sky, was a single date palm tree, half hidden in the sand a quarter of a mile away. Night came and while the others slept in their clothes, covering themselves as best they could from the chilly night air, Smiley crept away. He scurried towards the date tree and dug a large hole next to it, burying the three bags of jewels. He looked around to be sure nobody saw him and, silently, returned to the others.

  Morning came. And with it the hot sun. Thirsty and hungry, the frightened travelers picked up whatever possessions they still held and slowly shuffled westward, away from the horizon, towards Cairo. None noticed Smiley’s three missing bags.

  CHAPTER EIGHT:

  No Honor Among Thieves

  IT WAS SIX days before the passengers from the robbed caravan were discovered by another passing caravan. The fifteen men and women had run out of food and water and were delirious, stumbling aimlessly through the desert sands. They were fed and given water and taken to a hospital in Cairo where the men and women were separated into different rooms. When it was discovered that Smiley Wiley, dressed as a woman, was actually a man, the police were called. In questioning Smiley, all he answered in a stuttering manner was “the dddattted jjjewwwles.”

  So the police had him transferred to a hospital for the insane.

  When a week had passed from the day Smiley left the Lost City, Butts, Nutts and Rutts left the other workers early in the morning and walked almost in a run to the city gates, where Kadar and Hadar had just settled in their spots as beggars, “Alms for the love of Allah” they called out as the three henchmen almost tripped over them in their rush to get out. Hadar and Kadar were suspicious and followed the three out into the desert.

  The three, although dressed as poor workers, bought three costly camels. Hadar and Kadar were now fairly sure that they were the robbers. They bought two camels and followed the thieves at a distance into Cairo to the Old Oasis Inn, which was a seedy hotel at the eastern edge of the great city. Dressed as beggars, they would never be allowed in even that shabby a place, so they found a clothing store and bought garments more suitable to traveling men. When Hadar and Kadar entered the Old Oasis Inn they overheard the three henchmen ranting and raving.

  “Are you sure nobody named Smiley Wiley has been here?” Butts was demanding of the innkeeper. “About six feet tall, no beard,” added Rutts. “Carrying three bags made of camel leather,” said Nutts.

  “Nobody new has been here for weeks,” answered the innkeeper, quite afraid of the three threatening men.

  “The rat,” said Butts, “he’s tricked us; he’s taken the jewels for himself.” “Well we’ll track him down, the dirty scum,’ said Nutts. “How?’ asked Rutts. “We’ll question every jeweler in Cairo until we find him,” Rutts replied.

  Having heard the three thieves, Hadar and Kadar slipped out a side door of the Inn. “One of us will follow them today, so they won’t be suspicious,” suggested Kadar, “the other the next day, taking turns, until we find the jewels.

  Over the next week, neither the three thieves nor the two guards found a jeweler who had seen Smiley Wiley. Hadar decided it was time to go to the police and report what had happened. The police had the thieves arrested for suspicion of robbery but told Hadar they would not be able to hold them for more than three days without proof of their complicity in the crime.

  “Has anything unusual happened in the last week?” Kadar inquired of the police. “Let us think,” they answered. “Oh yes,” one of the policemen replied. “About a week ago fifteen poor men and women who had been robbed were brought in from the desert. They were in a terrible shape and one of them appeared to be truly crazy. He was dressed as a woman and repeatedly mumbled something that sounded like “the dated jewels, the dated jewels.” We placed him in an asylum for the insane.”

  Kadar and Hadar got the address of the asylum and hurried there. The hospital was a recently renovated large building with a lovely lawn surrounded by a high wall protecting it from the street. There were paths around the lawn with benches and palm trees and several nurses dressed in white attending men and women who wore simple smocks and sandals. Hadar inquired about the man who had been brought in dressed as a woman.

  “Oh, the poor thing,” said an attendant, “he’s right over there under the palm tree staring off into the distance. Hadar and Kadar approached Smiley Wiley and one asked Smiley how he felt today. “The dddattted jjjewwels, the dddattted jjjewwels,�
�� was all the reply their received.

  They returned to the attendant and asked if there was anything in Smiley’s possessions when he arrived. “Nothing but an empty water bag,” she answered.

  “Well, we have the thieves,” noted Kadar, “but we haven’t got the jewels.” “Kadar,” said Hadar, the three men in jail will be let out soon and we must report back to the Professors. You stay here and watch the men while I return to the Lost City to get more help.”

  In the morning, Kadar hired a guide to help him report to him when the three thieves would be let out of jail and Hadar hurried back to the Lost City.

  Meanwhile, Professor Witherspoon was in an anxious frame of mind. “Whatever has happened to Emily’s guards?” he pondered. He was afraid some terrible harm might have befallen them. “Witherspoon,” said Professor Dasam, “do not trouble yourself. I have known those two men for over twenty years and they’re more than a match for whatever thieves are involved in this trickery.” But he. too, was worried.

  There was nothing they could do, so they continued in their excavating of the Lost City of Urgup. But they were more than relieved when at last Hadar arrived back at the Lost City to tell them of the discovery of the four robbers. Over tea in the late afternoon, Hadar described in detail what he and Kadar found in Cairo. Professor Witherspoon and Professor Dasam and Emily pondered the words of Smiley Wiley.

  “The dated jewels, the dated jewels.”

  “Do you think it refers to their antiquity?” asked Professor Witherspoon.

  “Did the robbers of the caravan take them?” asked Professor Dasam.