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For a moment she stared up into the burning sky, and then her eyes appeared to roll up in her head. Only a half-moon of pale iris showed.
"Ramses," she whispered. Her bosom moved faintly with her breathing. But otherwise she lay still.
The Earl turned and reached for Malenka. Leaning heavily on her, he struggled back towards the chair. He could feel the dark-skinned woman trembling. He settled down silently on the tapestried cushions, and rested his head against the high rounded chair back of prickly rattan. This is all a nightmare, he thought. But it was not a nightmare. He had seen this creature raised from the dead. He had seen her kill Henry. What in God's name was he to do?
Malenka remained at his elbow, then went down slowly on her knees. Her eyes were wide and empty, her mouth agape. She stared towards the garden.
Flies circled over Henry's face. They swooped down on the remnants of the overturned meal.
"There, there, nothing will harm you," Elliott whispered. The burning in his chest subsided very slowly. He felt a dull warmth in his left hand. "She won't hurt you. I promise you." He moistened his dry lips with his tongue, then somehow managed to go on. "She is ill; and I must take care of her. She will not harm you, you understand."
The Egyptian woman clutched at his wrist, her forehead against the arm of the chair. After a long moment, she spoke.
"No police," she pleaded in a barely audible voice. "No English take my house."
"No," Elliott murmured. "No police. We don't want the police."
He wanted to pat her head, but he could not bring himself to move. He stared dully out into the sunlight, at the prone creature, her glossy black hair spread out in the sunlight; and at the dead man.
"I take care of ..." the woman whispered. "I take my English away. No police come."
Elliott didn't understand her. What was she saying? Then slowly it dawned on him.
"You can do this?" he said under his breath.
"Yes, I do this. Friends come. Take English away."
"Yes, all right then." He sighed and the pain in his chest intensified. Tentatively he pushed his right hand into his pocket and brought out his money clip. Barely able to move his left fingers, he took out two ten-pound notes.
"For you," he said. He closed his eyes again, exhausted by the effort. He felt the money taken from his hand. "But you must be careful. You must tell no one what you saw."
"I tell no one. I take care of ... This is my house. My brother give."
"Yes, I understand. I shall be here only a little while. That I promise you. I shall take the woman with me. But for now, you will be patient, and there'll be more money, much more." Once again he looked at the money clip. He peeled the notes off without counting and forced them into her hand.
Then he lay back again, and closed his eyes. He heard her pad softly across the carpet. Then her hand touched him again.
When he looked up he saw her draped in black, and she held another folded black robe in her hand.
"You cover," she whispered. And with her eyes, she gestured to the courtyard.
"I cover," he whispered. And closed his eyes again.
"You cover!" he heard her say desperately. And again he said that he would.
With great relief he heard her go out, and shut the door to the street.
In the long flowing Bedouin robes, Ramses walked through the museum, among the milling tourists, peering ahead through the dark glasses at the empty space at the end of the corridor where the display case had stood. No sign that it had ever been there! No broken glass, no splintered wood. And the vial he had dropped. Gone.
But where could she be! What happened to her! In anguish, he thought of the soldiers who'd surrounded him. Had she fallen into their hands?
He walked on, turning the corner, eyes moving over the statues and the sarcophagi. If he had known misery like this ever in all these centuries, he could not remember it now. He had no right to be walking here with men and women, to be breathing the same air.
He could not think where to go or what to do. If he did not discover something soon, he would go completely mad.
Perhaps a quarter of an hour passed, maybe less. Cover her, yes. No, get her out of the garden before the men come. She lay in the sun, stuporous, now and then murmuring in her sleep.
Gripping his walking stick, he rose to his feet. There was feeling in his left leg again, and that meant there was pain.
