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him again what it was he hoped to find.
    Newberry shifted in his saddle to inspect the distant tents and mounds of the excavation. ‘Petrie is a great archaeologist,’ he said at last. ‘He has a flair for the minutiae of history. He can erect whole structures of understanding from the fragment of a pot. And yet . . .’ - he turned again to face me -- ‘there are those who hunt prizes much greater than pots.’
    ‘You are one of them, I presume?’
    Newberry nodded abruptly; and I could see how, despite the shadow of the cliff, his eyes were glinting brightly. ‘My God, Carter,’ he exclaimed suddenly, as though his words were a torrent barely dammed until that moment, ‘have you ever thought, ever considered, how little we understand of the Ancients? Yes, Petrie digs his mounds, and temples, and pots, but what do they truly tell us? No more than a skull can tell us of what a dead man once dreamed. And what dreams - what wondrous dreams! -- the people who dwelt in this land must have had. Those are what I hunt!’ In his passion he had reached across from his saddle, and now he pulled upon my arm. ‘The long-forgotten mysteries of those ancient times!’
    ‘Mysteries?’ I frowned at him. ‘I don’t understand. What can you mean?’
    Newberry checked himself as though suddenly embarrassed. ‘The Greeks spoke of them.’ His tone was more reserved and sober once again. ‘Even the Egyptians themselves, in dark, uncertain hints, in terms of nervous awe. Of the wisdom possessed by the priests -- something ancient, very ancient, and impossibly strange.’ He swallowed, then looked away. ‘Nor, I believe . . .’ he swallowed again -- ‘the rumours that I spoke of. . . they are not altogether dead.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ I exclaimed a second time.
    ‘The peasants hereabouts - the fellahin . . .’ - he turned back to me -- ‘they too have strange stories.’
    ‘Of what?’
    Newberry shook his head.
    ‘I am intrigued,’ I continued, ‘but I can scarcely believe . . .’
    ‘What? That the past might run so deep?’
    I did not answer him, astonished by the sudden violence of his tone. Newberry must have observed my look of surprise, for he reached out again and gently squeezed my arm. ‘History around here is like the Nile itself he said, more calmly now. ‘An eternal, ceaseless flow. Statues and pots lie preserved beneath the sands. Why should not traditions linger on as well?’
    I trusted that my expression did not betray my feelings of doubt. ‘And what is the particular tradition you have heard?’
    ‘That there is a tomb hereabouts, still hidden, the object of a curse.’ Newberry paused. ‘A tomb which had once belonged to a King.’
    ‘Akh-en-Aten?’
    Newberry shrugged very faintly. ‘This is what the folk tales report of the King. He had not been a worshipper of idols like the other Pharaohs, but rather a true Muslim; for he had believed in Allah, the one and only God. In the name of this God, the King had driven all the demons from the land, and their priests from the temples which they had stained with living blood. But the ambitions of the King betrayed him in the end, for he was afraid of death and wished to live for ever; and so he sought to discover the hidden name of God. He fell like Lucifer, whom the peasants hereabouts know as Iblis, Prince of the Jinn. A curse was laid upon his tomb that he, who had sought eternal life, should now for ever be restless in death. And so he remains even to this day, a demon whose breath is the winds of the desert -- and the womenfolk scare their children with his tale.’
    He paused, then smiled. ‘I apologise,’ he murmured, suddenly diffident, ‘for the perhaps melodramatic nature of my tone. Yet it is an intriguing story, I think you will agree.’
    ‘But. . .’ I frowned, and shook my head. ‘A myth, surely?’
    ‘And what are myths, if not the expression of some hidden or forgotten truth?’
    Yet . . . the vast length of time we are