“For what?” Zaraf asked.
Neal wondered what reason the girl would give for asking him here. To tell the truth would reveal to Zaraf her suspicions concerning him. He looked at her, and her eyes met his in an imploring glance, before she faced Zaraf. Her slender body stiffened and her chin raised slightly as she said:
“I have hired Mr. Kirby,” she said clearly, “as consulting archaeologist. He will leave with us tomorrow morning.”
Zaraf’s steely calm was shaken. “Are you out of your mind?” he asked hoarsely.
Neal stared at Jane in amazement. It was preposterous, out of the question, completely unthinkable. He didn’t know a thing about archaeology in the first place, and secondly, why should he be wandering over the desert looking for lost cities? It didn’t make sense.
Then he looked at Jane, and suddenly it did make sense. For some crazy reason it became the most logical thing in the world for him to go anywhere, do anything this girl wanted. She was looking at him beseechingly, hope and confidence shining in her eyes.
He turned to Zaraf, smiling faintly at the man’s obvious consternation.
“That’s right,” he said cheerfully. “I’m the new archaeologist. I’m not such a hot archaeologist, but I’m a pretty good shot and I hear the desert is just full of snakes and rats.”
Zaraf struggled to restrain his anger. His cheeks were touched with red and his cold eyes were twin pools of hate. But his voice was as soft as silk as he said:
“You have to shoot a snake before it stings you. Remember that my young friend.” He turned then, and with a mocking bow to the girl, left the room.
“Lovely fellow,” Neal murmured.
“He’s dangerous and cruel,” Jane said worriedly. “I–I shouldn’t have gotten you into this. I have a terrible feeling that I’ll hate myself for it. If anything should happen to you, I’d feel as if it were my fault.”
Neal picked up his hat and smiled down at her.
“Forget it,” he said. He sauntered to the door, and grinned back at her. “I wasn’t kidding, you know, when I told our chum that I was a pretty good shot. The fact is I’m a damn good shot. See you tomorrow.”
The tiny caravan of four camels and three attendants wound its way from Cairo the following day, as the blazing morning sun served notice that the day would be scorching hot.
Each camel carried a passenger, and was led by a native attendant at the end of a stout rope. The fourth camel carried huge leather sacks of water. It was roped to the last camel in the train and clumped awkwardly along, apparently unimpressed by the fact that it carried the most precious commodity of the desert — water.
On the lead camel rode Max Zaraf. Behind him rode Jane Manners and bringing up the rear was Neal Kirby, swaying awkwardly on his lurching steed, and feeling uncomfortable and strange in his pith helmet and breeches and boots.
Zaraf had the map in his possession and gave the directions of travel to the native guides. For two days the trip was monotonously uneventful, varying little in detail from hour to hour. They traveled for the most part in the cool of the morning and evening and laid up during the blistering heat of the day. The terrain was endlessly unchanging. Slight rises of sand gave way to sloping valleys that led only to still another hill.
On the evening of the third day Zaraf waved them to a stop and Neal climbed stiffly from his camel, glad to ease his muscles after a hard four-hour stretch. He walked through the soft sifting sand and assisted Jane Manners to alight. Zaraf was walking back toward them from his camel. They had stopped just below the summit of a rather high hill, and the fine top sand was blowing down on them in swirling, uncomfortable clouds.
“We stop here,” Zaraf announced, coming up to them.
“Here?” Neal echoed. “Let’s go over the hill to the valley. We’ll get out of this wind that way.”
The native drivers, dark-skinned and inscrutable, waited stolidly for orders. They were a proud, silent breed of men, neither volunteering information, nor expecting it. As long as they received their money for the day’s work, it didn’t matter what their white-skinned masters did.
Zaraf glared bale fully at Neal.
“I have said we will stop here,” he repeated angrily. “I’m deciding on our course and if I decide to stop here it’s because I have excellent reasons for doing so.”
Neal shrugged. It seemed a small matter to argue about. Maybe Zaraf did have a good reason for stopping here.
“Okay,” he said, “if you can stand the sand I guess Jane and I can put up with it.”
Zaraf turned without a word and walked back to his camel. The natives went to work building a shelter, and preparing the evening meal. The camels, relieved of their packs, settled placidly down on their haunches, like so many quiet cows.
Darkness fell swiftly. Neal said good-night to Jane and turned in early. The fires burned out in a few hours and before the moon came up the tiny camp was slumbering.
Neal awoke the following morning as the first rays of the rising sun slanted into his eyes. He blinked sleepily and yawned. His first thought was of water. Every morning he awoke thirsty, for the desert’s searing heat dried out the moisture in his body as he slept. He climbed to his feet, stuck his feet into his boots and pulled on his shirt. Then he crawled out of the narrow pup tent, straightened up and looked around.
For an instant he stared about unbelievingly. The camels and the native guides were nowhere in sight. The black ashes of the evening’s fire still showed as cancerous spots against the whiteness of the sand, but the natives’ sleeping gear and packs — and more vital, the camels — w ere vanished as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed them.
For seconds Neal was too stupefied to act. All he could do was stare in numbed bewilderment at the bleak expanse of the desert.
When his dazed senses finally recovered, he wheeled and charged toward the other two sleeping tents.
“Zaraf! Jane!” he shouted. “On your feet. Our guides have pulled a fade-out with the equipment and camels.”
He was so excited that he did not notice the abysmal silence that seemed to stretch over the desert like a Vast tight blanket.
Reaching Zaraf’s tent he jerked open the flap. He opened his mouth but the excited words on his lips died there. For Zaraf’s sleeping pad was undisturbed. It had obviously not been used that night.
Neal felt the cold of panic close over his heart. For a silent, timeless instant he stared incredulously at Zaraf’s empty tent — then he was racing madly through the thick sand toward Jane’s tent. He shouted her name wildly and the hills threw back the mockery of an echo.
He ripped open the flap without waiting for an answer to his shout. One glance showed him it was empty. The sleeping pad had been used, for it was twisted and tossed into a jumbled heap. Neal’s eyes picked quickly about the interior, noticing the generally disarrayed condition of the sleeping articles and clothes. One corner of the tent sagged drunkenly inward, and he could see that the rope and peg had pulled out of place. Everything pointed to a struggle or rough house of some sort. Neal stood up, a frantic fear clawing at his attempted calmness. As far as his eye could reach, the desert sands spread in a never-varying, never-ending expanse of sun and heat.
“Jane!” he shouted desperately.
“Jane!... Jane!”
The echo mocked him.
Neal peered into Jane’s tent again. A comb and hair brush were lying on the canvas floor, along with her wrist watch and a ring she usually wore. Neal’s frown deepened. Jane wouldn’t have left things like that if — if—
One inevitable conclusion forced itself on him. Zaraf had taken Jane by force, and with the camels and water, deserted in the dark of the night. There was no other conclusion possible. Neal realized then, with sickening abruptness, that in all probability this had been in Zaraf’s mind from the outset.