According to Ramses, we should allow at least an hour to reach the spot Sethos had indicated. When we gathered in the ka’ah for a light evening repast, we discussed who should go. Naturally I intended to make one of the party, and Emerson was set on confronting his infuriating brother. Someone had to stay with the girl, we all agreed to that – Nefret with a caustic “I’m always the one” – but Selim and Ramses could not decide which of them should go and which should remain with the two young women. It lacked half an hour till the time we were to leave, and we were still discussing the matter, when a horrible, ululating howl broke the silence of the quiet night. The mashrabiya screen was ajar and I heard the words quite clearly:

“O unbelievers, prepare for death! O ye unrighteous, who walk in darkness pursued by afrits and…” The speech ended in an anticlimactic squawk.

In a body we rushed to the window and flung the screen open. In the moonlight I saw a dark mass huddled outside the gate, and Selim, his shoulder braced against it. Realizing they had been discovered, the invaders began battering at the gate.

I tried, too late, to catch hold of Ramses, who had climbed over the sill. He dropped to the ground and reached Selim as the gate gave way. Selim’s knife flashed. Ramses had snatched up a lever or spanner as he ran past the motorcar; he swung his arm, and a scream from one of the attackers wavered into silence.

“Quick!” Emerson exclaimed. “Out the bab-sirr, all of you.”

“Be damned to that!” I shrieked, for my blood was up. “ ‘Now who will stand on either hand, And keep the bridge with – ’ ”

“Me,” said Emerson. “Curse it, Peabody, get the girls out of here. You know what to do.”

He was already halfway out the window, lowering himself by one hand.

The fighting instincts of the Peabodys were not easily controlled; but the confidence he had placed in me enabled me to master them. I expected some objection from Nefret, but she made none. Pausing only long enough to collect the bundles we had packed earlier, we fled down the stairs and through the rooms of the ground floor toward the small chamber that contained the secret door. Esin had spoken only once: “Is it my father?”

“I don’t know. Be quiet and hurry.”

The house was deserted. The servants who lived in had run away or were in hiding. One could hardly blame them for refusing to become involved in the affairs of strangers. No doubt the local authorities, such as they were, felt the same. I hoped the uproar at the gate would attract the attention of the military police, but by the time they arrived it might be too late.

Nefret had not spoken at all. We both had our torches; she held the light steady while I searched for the catch Emerson had shown me. It was stiff with disuse, but finally it yielded. The panel swung open, and we all crowded into the space beyond. The passage went through the thick wall of the house. It was ten feet long and less than two feet wide; we had to go single-file, our bundles bumping against the walls. At the end was a wooden door. It was not bolted or locked; one simply pressed a handle to release the latch, which was presumably less visible from the other side.

I did not know what lay beyond that door. This was as far as I had gone with Emerson.

“Go ahead,” Nefret whispered. “What are you waiting for?”

Her face gleamed with perspiration. Esin’s eyes were wide with terror and her breath came in short gasps. I was as anxious as they to get out of that cramped place; it was like standing in an upright coffin, with dust clogging the nostrils and a strange, sour smell. Many generations of rodents must have lived and died in that passage; their bones had crunched under our feet as we walked.

“I am waiting for the men to join us,” I replied. “We cannot take the risk of being separated. Since I do not know whether they will follow us through the bab-sirr or come round to the back, we had better remain where we are. Put out the torch, Nefret. I expect they will be along shortly.”

My confidence was not assumed. With the aid of Emerson’s strength, they should be able to close and barricade the gate and beat a strategic retreat. However, it is difficult to estimate time in the dark; we waited, breathing with difficulty, for what seemed like hours, before hinges creaked and a square of paler darkness opened before me.

“Don’t shoot,” said a familiar voice.

I tucked my pistol back into my pocket. “I couldn’t be sure it was you,” I explained. “Are Ramses and Selim -”

“All present and accounted for,” said Ramses breathlessly. “We can’t stay here, they’ll be looking for us. Let’s go.”

“Where?” I demanded, squeezing through a narrow aperture and a curtain of thorny vines.

“We have an appointment at midnight, I believe. I am all the more anxious now to hear what the… fellow has to say. Damn these cactuses,” Emerson added.

They formed a hedge a few feet away. The wall of the house rose sheer and windowless behind us. Nefret and Esin followed me out and Emerson closed the panel, which was of wood painted to resemble the plastered surface of which it formed a part.

“Lead on,” I said.

The narrow lane into which we had emerged led back to the square, but it was obvious we could not go that way; from the sounds of it, a full-scale riot was in progress. A tongue of fire shot up. Someone usually sets fire to something during these affairs, which, once started, go on of their own momentum – especially when there are interested parties fanning the flames. As we retreated in the opposite direction, I heard the same high-pitched shriek of “unbelievers.”

It was fortunate that we had explored the town earlier. Cactus hedges and high walls formed barricades that had to be got round, and twice the sight of men waving torches forced us to retreat in haste. It was quite exciting. However, we found ourselves at last in the open countryside. The moon shone brightly down on fields of waving grain and groves of orange and fig trees.

Moonlight is good for lovers but it is cursed inconvenient for fugitives. We kept to the shadows whenever we could, and once the sound of approaching hoofbeats made us dive for cover in a ditch. After the small troop had galloped past, I said to Emerson, “They were our fellows, Australians and New Zealanders. Perhaps we ought to have stopped them.”

“Do you want to explain this evening’s events – and her – to General Chetwode?” Emerson demanded.

It was a rhetorical question, and he did not wait for an answer.

The distance was less than two miles, but I would never have found the place without a guide. The small hamlet had long been abandoned and the majority of the houses had collapsed into shapeless piles of stone. One or two of them still retained their walls and parts of the roof. There was no sign of life in the half-ruined structure to which Ramses led us.

“We are a trifle late,” I whispered. “Perhaps he has left.”

“If he isn’t there, I will go to Gaza and drag him out by his collar,” Emerson muttered.

He wasn’t there. Ramses, who had insisted on searching the place before we entered, returned to report this fact. “It’s not that late,” he added. “Give him time.”

“I suppose we can’t expect punctuality under these circumstances,” Emerson admitted. “This is as good a place as any to rest; we may as well make ourselves comfortable. What have you got in that bundle, Peabody?”

“Only the bare necessities, I fear. Water, of course, and my first-aid kit. Did any of you incur injuries that require attention?”

“Nothing to speak of,” Emerson said. He let out a soft laugh. “Your quotation was apropos. The damned fools tried to crowd in all at once. ‘In yon straight path a thousand may well be stopped by three,’ as the Lays of Ancient Rome so poetically expresses it. We pushed them back, got the gate closed, and shoved a cart up against it. Then, unlike Horatius and his comrades, we retreated in good order. Selim wanted to stay and fight on, but I dragged him away.”