Kit wasted not an instant scrambling down from his disagreeable perch and hurried to their guide. “We need some water,” he said.
“There is a well,” replied Yusuf. “I take you.”
After securing the beasts, they gathered their gear and started down the wadi, soon arriving at a place where the walls flattened slightly, and there, in a fissure at the base of one wall, a deep pit had been hollowed in the solid rock; the pit was covered by a stone that, after it had been removed, revealed the end of a rope of braided hemp. Yusuf pulled on the rope, and up came a leather bucket dripping with water. The liquid was tepid, but fresh enough, and they all slaked their thirst. Kit was last to drink. “Everyone okay?” he asked, passing the bucket back to their guide. He thanked him and asked, “How much farther?”
“We walk a little,” replied Yusuf. Taking a water skin from one of the camels, he filled it and passed it to Kit. “This way.”
They followed the gently meandering course of the ancient gully as it cut deeper into the arid hills. The sheer walls of banded rock soared on either hand; sometimes their tops were so high they could not be seen from the bottom. They passed beneath low overhangs and around long curving bends-so many that Kit lost count-until Yusuf finally stopped and said in a low voice, “We must climb.” The three looked around; they were standing at a crossroads of sorts where a smaller branch joined the larger. The walls here were lower, and much eroded. In looking at the broken walls, they saw that a set of narrow steps had been carved into the rock face on one side. Yusuf started up, gesturing for the others to follow.
They reached the top and proceeded overland along a crumbling, much eroded goat track that ran along the edge of the wadi. Yusuf led them to a spindly acacia tree and stopped. “They are down there,” he said, indicating the wadi floor. “I stop here.” He held out his hand for his second coin.
“We thank you, Yusuf. If we have need of your camels again, I will look for you.”
“A’salaamu ’alaykum,” said Yusuf, turning to go. The Egyptian paused, then, glancing back over his shoulder added, “Be careful, my friends. They are bad men.”
“Do you know how many are down there?”
Yusuf thought for a moment, then held up four fingers. “May Allah the Merciful be with you,” he said as he hurried away.
Giles glanced around the barren clifftop, then turned to Kit. “What is your pleasure, sir?” he asked, unslinging his bundle.
“Let’s have a look down there and see what we can see,” suggested Kit. “Stay out of sight and keep quiet.”
“If you please,” remarked Lady Fayth, “we are not children. Kindly refrain from treating us so.”
“Sorry.” Kit turned towards the gaping crevasse. “Let’s take a look.”
They moved to the edge of the cliff, crawling the last few feet on hands and knees and then squirming on their stomachs to peer down onto the wadi floor fifty or sixty feet below, where to their wondering eyes appeared the chiselled statues of Thoth and Horus standing either side of a doorway cut into the solid rock of the canyon wall facing them. Other branches of the wadi angled off to the left and right, and the junction formed a broad triangle. These walls were honeycombed with niches, hundreds of little nooks carved into the sandstone. “There’s a temple or something down there,” observed Kit softly. Even as he spoke, a man in a long white kaftan wandered into view. He paused in the open area in front of the temple and looked around, casting his gaze up the three separate canyon corridors in turn-almost as if he knew someone was watching him. Discovering nothing out of the ordinary, however, he called out to an unseen companion and then moved on.
The three adventurers continued to watch, but nothing more happened, so with the sun scalding their unprotected heads, they edged back from the overlook and returned to their bundled provisions and weapons. “Well, I suppose if it is to be four against two-” Kit said, then hastily corrected himself, “four against three, I mean-then I suggest we make our move tonight.”
“When everyone is asleep,” said Lady Fayth approvingly. “Very shrewd.”
“I’ve watched a lot of movies,” muttered Kit.
“Sir?” wondered Giles. He and Lady Fayth exchanged a puzzled look.
“Never mind,” Kit said, looking around. The brave little acacia provided the only shade to be seen atop the overlook; it would be close quarters, but better than nothing. “It’s getting pretty hot out here. I suggest we get out of the sun and try to keep cool.”
“And then?” asked Lady Fayth.
“We wait.”
CHAPTER 35
In Which an Alliance of Consequence Is Formed
The long hot day passed. As the blistering sun sailed high overhead, Giles passed around the water skin, then opened the bundle of provisions and made a meal of apples and barley bread. As they ate, Kit dug out Sir Henry’s green book. He unwrapped it and, after orienting himself anew to the tight, crabbed script, began to read. “This is interesting!” he announced, laying aside his apple.
When nothing more seemed forthcoming, Lady Fayth said, “Pray, do you intend to relate that which has so obviously piqued your interest?”
Kit thumbed back a page in the little book. “Listen to this,” he said, and began to read aloud. “Sir Henry writes, ‘I hold two precepts absolute: That the universe was created to allow Providence its expression, and therefore nothing happens beyond Its purview.’ ” He glanced up to see his audience wholly puzzled by this nugget. “Wait, there’s more. ‘Secondly, all was made for the benefit of each: man, woman, child, and beast, down to the curve of every wave, and the flight of the lowliest insect. For, if there be such a thing as Providence, then everything is providential, and every act of Providence is a special providence.’” He looked up again. “Do you see?”
“A curious musing, perhaps,” conceded Lady Fayth. “Yet, I fail to see that it has anything do with the particular undertaking before us. Does it?”
“Well,” allowed Kit, “not at the moment maybe. But see here.” He turned the book toward her. “What is it that he’s scribbled in the margin?”
Lady Fayth bent her head to the text and squinted at the smudgy words Kit’s finger marked. “If I am not mistaken, it says ‘No Coincidence Under Heaven.’”
Kit pointed to another annotation. “And this one?”
“‘Providence Not Coincidence,’” replied Lady Fayth, glancing up again.
“No coincidence,” echoed Kit. “I think he’s trying to say that nothing happens that Providence does not permit.” Kit frowned and amended the thought immediately. “No, I mean-nothing happens that Providence cannot use to express itself.”
“Or,” volunteered Giles, “nothing happens that Providence cannot use for the benefit of all things.”
“It is a fascinating notion, to be sure,” agreed Lady Fayth doubtfully. “Do you believe it?”
Kit thought for a moment. “I don’t know. But Sir Henry seems to.”
Just then, a loud popping sound came echoing up from the canyon basin; it was followed by the rumbling growl of a combustion engine. “Whatever is that?” said Lady Fayth, looking toward the canyon.
“It is a motor,” Kit explained, wrapping the book and tucking it back into his pocket. “A machine that powers things. My guess is it’s either a vehicle engine or a generator.”
They moved to the clifftop and gazed down. The engine rumbled on, growing louder, filling the air with its rough growl. A moment later, a vintage flatbed truck swung into view, and the vehicle proceeded slowly down the wadi, trailing thick white plumes of smoke. “We’re in luck,” observed Kit. “They’re leaving.”
“What is it?” asked Giles, pointing to the truck rattling out of sight along the gully floor.