Samir sat down quietly to her left.
"I didn't kill the woman," Ramses said to her. "But I am responsible for the woman's death. And I need your help, both of you. I need someone's help. And I need your forgiveness. The time has come for me to tell you everything."
"Sire, I have a message for you," Samir said, "which I must give you at once."
"What message? " Julie asked. Why hadn't Samir told her of this?
"Is it from the gods, Samir'? Are they calling me to account? I have no time for less important messages. I must tell you what has happened, what I've done."
' 'It's from the Earl of Rutherford, sire. He accosted me at the hotel. He looked like a madman; he said that I must tell you that he has her.''
Ramses was obviously stunned. He glared at Samir almost murderously.
Julie could not bear this.
Samir removed something from under his robe and gave it to Ramses. It was a glass vial, such as those she'd seen among the alabaster jars in the collection.
Ramses looked at this, but he didn't move to touch it. Samir went to speak again, but Ramses gestured for quiet. His face was so heavily disfigured with emotion that he scarce looked like himself.
"Tell me what this means!" Julie said, unable to stop herself.
"He followed me to the museum," Ramses whispered. He stared at the empty vial.
"But what are you talking about? What happened at the museum?"
"Sire, he says that the sun has helped her. That the medicine in the vial helped her, but that she needs more of it. She is damaged, inside and out. She has killed three times. She is mad. He keeps her safe in hiding, he wants a meeting with you. He has given me the time and place."
For a moment, Ramses said nothing. Then he rose from the table and headed towards the door.
"No, stop!" Julie cried out, rushing towards him.
Samir was also on his feet.
"Sire, if you try to find him sooner, you may be apprehended. The hotel is surrounded. Wait till he leaves and goes to this place for the meeting. It is the only safe thing to do!"
Ramses was clearly stymied. Reluctantly, he turned, looking past Julie with dull, crazed eyes. He moved back sluggishly to the chair and sat down.
Julie wiped her tears with her handkerchief and took her chair again.
"Where and when?" Ramses asked.
"Seven tonight. The Babylon, it's a French night club. I know it. I can take you there."
"I cannot wait until then!"
"Ramses, tell us what all this means. How can we help you if we don't know?"
' 'Sire, Julie is right. Take us into your trust now. Allow us to assist in this. If you are captured again by the police . . ."
Ramses waved it away in disgust. His face was working silently with emotion.
"I need you, and when I tell you, I may lose you. But so be it. For I have wreaked havoc with your lives."
"You will never lose me," Julie said, but her fear was mounting. A great dread of what was to come was building in her soul.
Until these last few moments she thought she understood what had happened. He had taken the body of his love from the museum. He had wanted to see it properly put in a tomb. But now, faced with the vial and these strange words from Elliott, she considered other more ghastly possibilities, denying them in the same instant, but returning to them again.
"Put your trust in us, sire. Let us share this burden."
Ramses looked at Samir, then at her.
"Ah, the guilt you can never share," he said. "The body in the museum. The unknown woman ..."
"Yes," Samir whispered.
"She was not unknown to me, my dear ones. The ghost of Julius Caesar would have known her. The shade of Mark Antony would have kissed her. Millions once mourned for her. ..."
Julie nodded, tears rising again.
"And I have done the unspeakable. I took the elixir to the museum. I did not realize how much her body had been ravaged, that whoie hunks of flesh were no longer there, I poured the elixir over her! After two thousand years life stirred in her ruined body. She rose! Bleeding, wounded, she stood upright. She walked. She reached out for me. She called my name!"
* * *
Ah, it was better than the finest wine, better even than making love, racing over the road in the open American motor car, the wind whistling past her, the American shouting convivially as he jerked the "stick shift" this way and that.
To see the houses flying past. To see the Egyptians trudging with their donkeys and camels and to leave them in a spray of gravel.
She adored it. She looked up at the open sky above, letting the wind lift her hair completely as she kept one hand firmly on her hat.
Now and then she studied what he did to make his chariot move. Pump the "pedals," as he called them, over and over again; pull the stick; turn the wheel.
Ah, it was too thrilling; too marvelous. But suddenly that horrid shrill sound caught her off guard. That roaring she had heard in the railway station. Her hands flew to her ears.
"Don't be frightened, little lady, it's just a train. See there, the train's coming!" The motor coach came to a jerking halt.
Metal pathways side by side in the desert sand before them. And that thing, that great black monster bearing down from the right. A bell was clanging. She was dimly aware of a red light flashing, like a lantern beam. Would she never get away from these hideous things?
He put his arm around her.
"It's all right, little lady. We just have to wait for it to pass."
He was still speaking, but now the great rattle and clatter of the monster drowned out his words. Horrid, the wheels rumbling by in front of her, and even the long procession of wooden wagons, filled with human beings who sat inside against the wooden slats as if this were the most simple thing in the world.
She tried to regain her composure. She liked the feel of his warm hands on her; the smell of the perfume rising from his skin. She watched dully as the last of the cars rolled by. Again the bell clanged. The light atop the pillar flashed.
The American pumped the pedals again, pulled the stick; the car began to rumble, and they drove over the metal pathways and on into the desert.
"Well, most people in Hannibal, Missouri, you tell them about Egypt, they don't even know what you're talking about. I said to my father, I'm going over there, that's what I'm going to do. I'm taking the money I've made and going over there, and then I'll settle down back here. ..."
She caught her breath. She was settling into the pleasure of it again. Then far away to the left, on the horizon, she saw the pyramids of Giza! She saw the figure of the Sphinx coming into view.
She gave a little cry. This was Egypt. She was in Egypt in "modern times," but she was still at home.
A lovely sadness softened her all over. The tombs of her ancestors, and there the sphinx to whom she had gone as a young girl, to pray in the temple between its great paws.
' 'Ah, yes, that's a pretty sight, isn't it? I tell you, if people in Hannibal, Missouri, don't appreciate it, it's their tough luck."
She laughed. "Their tough luck," she said.
As they drew closer, she saw the crowds. A great field of motor cars and carriages. And women in frilly dresses with tiny waists, like her own. Men in straw hats like the American. And many Arabs with their camels, and armfuls of cheap necklaces. She smiled.
In her time they had sold cheap jewelry here to the visiting Romans. They had peddled rides on their camels. They were doing the very same thing now!
But it took her breath away, the great tomb of King Kufu looming above her. When had it been that she had come here, a small girl, and seen this huge structure made up of square blocks? And then with Ramses, later, alone in the cool of the night, when she'd been wrapped in a dark robe, a common woman, riding with him along this very same road.