A poet sang of ancient Petra a hundred years ago: “The rose-red city, half as old as time.” Its first written history is to be found in the Bible when it was the home of the Horites, cave dwellers whose progenitor was Hori, the grandson of Seir.
For centuries Petra was the rich crossroads of the world. The Arabian peninsula was a network of caravan routes. The products of Africa, Arabia, and India were taken through Petra and re-routed to the valley of the Nile, Palestine, Phoenicia, and the Euphrates-Tigris valley.
On this morning the descendants of those same desert tribesmen, who occupied the tombs and caves of Es Siq a thousand years ago, gazed down on the Imperial Camel Corps as it made its way between the massive ramparts, of red and purple and yellow.
Traces of the arch and gate, that once made Petra impregnable, faded away into mammoth clumps of oleander blossoms. The unbroken walls were like gigantic skyscrapers along two sides of a street. Caverns high up on the sides were like huge windows. Dark stains that were sometimes red and sometimes purple jetted down the sides.
The Imperial Camel Corps was silent, as had been that caravan the night before, as it gaped at the wonders of Es Siq.
McCoy and Kestrel were taut and tense as they watched for some sign of the slaughter of the night before. For a half mile nothing came to their gaze except the ominous walls of the cleft and the pebbled floor.
As they came abruptly around a corner they saw a thing huddled on the limestone floor. It was as red as the sandstone rocks above it. A half dozen huge and ugly vultures scurried away and winged into the air.
Kestrel's face was white and was trembling as he spoke to McCoy a few moments later.
“It looks as though our court-martial was right,” he said. “Douglas must have been a thief and a murderer, too, if he was mixed up in this thing. I've always thought until now that we might have been wrong.”
“This settles that,” McCoy replied. “But where is the caravan? Where are the bodies of the men who were murdered? Where are the camels?”
“We'll leave the majority of the men here and take a half dozen on into Petra, with a machine gun,” Kestrel said grimly. “This thing of caravans disappearing completely is giving me the creeps, McCoy. I'll dispatch two I messengers back to Ma'an with orders for three of our ships to search from the air in this vicinity. They'll probably find nothing. This thing is tied up to the theft of our planes and the sabotage.”
Kestrel, McCoy, and six native riders kept on up the cleft until the temple, El—Khazna, burst upon them unexpectedly. The sheer beauty and mystery of the place kept them silent. They watched the changing colors of the ancient temple as it became red under the sun.
Something within them stirred as they tried to grasp the significance of the centuries that had raced by since unknown men had cameoed out this temple to an unknown deity. What could the mute figures on its face tell of the past and the present, and of the ancient city of Petra that was lost to man for a thousand years?
They passed the theater that had been constructed in the days of the Romans, and the ruins on the temple, Qasr el Bint, that was once the castle of Pharaoh's daughter.
They were silent, as men will be when they are with their thoughts, as they entered the crumpled ruins of the ancient city. At first sight it looked as though they were within a blind pocket with two ranges of sandstone mountains on the right and the left, and ancient walls to the north and south.
But nature had cracked an entrance to the east through Es Siq and to the west by the Wadi es Siyagh.
They searched the amphitheater and tombs and temples of the city, studied the great high place of sacrifice on the Zibb Atuf through glasses. They stood at the base of the highest mountain in Petra, Umm el Biyara, and tried to find the ancient stairway that made the flat-topped fortress accessible to man.
They turned their glasses on the Holy of Holies, the top of Jebel Harun-the Moslem shrine of Aaron. They knew that within the mosque was the only Dushara still in use, except. the black stone of the Kaaba in Mecca. They knew that the site is so sacred that no non-Moslem is allowed to enter or even approach its holy precincts, so they turned their glasses away.
“It seems incredible that we can find only tracks,” Kestrel said. “They would have to stop and rest the camels unless they killed them and took the cargo on fresh camels. What did they do with the riders they killed?”
“Probably threw them into the gorges of the Wadi Musa,” McCoy said. “But they couldn't get out of here with camels unless they went out through Es Siq. '“The Wadi es Siyagh is impassable to caravans now.”
“You think they're still in here?”
“I don't know” McCoy answered. “I don't know where they could be unless they are up there on Jebel Harun, the Moslem shrine. And they couldn't get camels up there.”
“Nor would they dare,” Kestrel said. “An army of a thousand hostile Bedouins would come out of the hills if they attempted to defile the sacred image of Dushara.” “That's true,” McCoy said. “I think our best bet is to comb the place from the air. You may have a report from the three planes you ordered out.”
“We'll go back to Ma'an and leave a small garrison in Es Siq,” Kestrel said. “We're going to have trouble, McCoy. Hell is going to pop around here. I want to get into the rooms of young Douglas in Ma'an and see what I can find. There may be a clue there.”
COMMANDER KESTREL puckered his brow as he read the letter he had found in James Douglas' room. He had gone through Douglas' effects thoroughly, without finding a single thing that gave any clue to his death, until he found that letter.
DEAR BILL:
I don't know whether you will receive this before you leave China. I got your letter yesterday, and I can't tell you how appreciative I am.
But first let me wish you luck in China. I hope you get an order from the Nanking government for a couple of hundred planes. Good luck to you on that score!
As I told you in my last letter there are queer things going on here. The natives are restless and our Intelligence can't seem to get to the base of the thing. Eight of our fighters were stolen off the Royal Air Force field” Sabotage has been committed again and again. The whole thing remains a mystery. Then I was framed and stripped of my pips and wings and drummed off the field in disgrace.
You say in your letter that you will pick me up on your way back from China. You speak of flying from Nanking to Barnes Field, New York, as though you were going for an evening stroll!
Just one thing: I must clear my name before I leave here. I am going to do that, or die trying. I know you will understand how I feel about this. Our wing commander-Kestrel-is beside himself. There is treachery and danger, in the very air. You can almost see it. I know more about it than I can tell you in a letter. When you arrive here I will tell you what I know and, perhaps, you will help me unravel the thing.
I had always wanted to come to Arabia-"the land of mystery and romance.” The mystery is still left, but not the romance.
I can't tell you how this thing is burning inside me, Bill.
I ——-
There was a lump in Kestrel's throat as he came to the point where Douglas had stopped writing. He could picture young Douglas writing it, ready to pour out his soul to relieve his feelings. He wondered if a man could write a letter like that and still be guilty. He doubted it. Yet, stolen articles had been found in Douglas' rooms. He wondered for the first time if, as Douglas had claimed, he had been framed.
What, he asked himself, did Douglas know that he, Kestrel, didn't know? Was that the reason his dead body had been found in Es Siq?