Emily and the Lost City of Urgup Read Online Free PDF

camel rose and Emily found herself sitting higher than the first story of a building nearby.
    Off they went and it wasn’t long before Emily actually enjoyed the camel ride, swaying this way and that with so much to see high above the street level. Soon they were in the desert leaving Cairo behind in the dusk of evening. They arrived at a small town and booked rooms at an inn beside another Mosque. Emily’s room was small but clean and she soon fell asleep only to be awakened in the middle of the night by a voice, a singsong voice, calling strange words in Arabic. There seemed to be echoes everywhere, then silence.
    In the morning she asked the professors what the voice was that awakened her in the early hours. “You heard a Messim,” explained Professor Dasam; “he call us to prayers five times each day, to remind us that Allah, or God as you would call him, is great and we must honor him by trying to live a life worthy of his greatness.”
    The next afternoon the small caravan arrived at the Holy Well of Shambac. It was an oasis, a large garden filled with palm trees and fragrant bushes, surrounded by many tents. In front of the tents, tables were set up selling fruits and nuts and every sort of tea. The professors’ party set up their own tent not too far away, bought tea and boiled fresh water from the well.
    When they had their fill, Professor Witherspoon took out Emily’s parchment and he and Professor Dasam studied it carefully, looking this way and that way. As they examined the parchment a small gust of wind arose and swiped the parchment right out of Professor Witherspoon’s hands, where it swooped this way and that way and suddenly stopped, dropping it down the Holy Well.
    “Oh dear, oh dear,” exclaimed the professor, “what shall we do?”
    Emily looked down the well. All she could see was darkness surrounded by the stones that had been placed on all sides deep into the sands of the desert. Above was a bucket about two and one half feet in diameter and three feet deep. It was attached by rope to a metal frame which was above and on two sides of the well.
    The parchment is made of animal skin, thought Emily. “That means it won’t sink right away. Maybe I can go down the well and retrieve it.” The idea actually frightened her. Were there spiders and snakes and all sorts of creepy crawlies down there? And suppose the bucket overturned and sent her right to the bottom into the water!
    Emily steeled herself and approached the two professors. She told them her plan. Neither liked the idea. It was too risky. She was too young. The parchment probably was already under water.
    “But suppose it isn’t. It’s made of some animal skin. Please, please let me try. We can’t give up finding the Lost City or Urgup,” she pleaded. The professors thought long and hard. “All right,” they said, “we’ll give it a try.”
    Emily climbed into the bucket with her knees tight against her body holding on to the rope with both hands. Slowly the professors and Panwar let down the rope into the well. As she descended the light became darker and darker until she could only see a foot from her hand. After about fifty feet Emily noticed that the wall of the well seemed to change in tone and color, as if the well housing was made of a different material.
    Then she noticed what looked like writing on the insides of the well. Soon she could hear water below and then she jerked the rope to let the professors and Panwar stop lowering her. Just under the bucket the parchment floated in the water. Emily leaned over to get it. The bucket twisted and Emily found herself out of the bucket holding onto the rope just inches above the water. She crawled up the rope, hand over hand, until the bucket righted itself. Then she carefully lowered herself back into the bucket. This time, very slowly and carefully she reached down and caught the parchment.
    Three tugs on the rope told the men to pull Emily and the bucket up to the top of