The Sleeper in the Sands Read Online Free PDF

no one there, of course -- but I found myself wondering all the more what his interest in this strange site could be.
    I was soon to find out, and soon to discover what it was he hoped to find. Here, though, let me pause, for I have suddenly realised how it is grown very late, and there is work -- hard work! -- to be done in the morning. Let me resume, then -- if my labours have not been too exhausting! -- when I can, tomorrow night.

    So then - to continue - the plain of El-Amarna. As we drew near to our destination, Petrie began to break into a trot. ‘This was once the Great Palace,’ he proclaimed as he ran up the side of the mound, then back down again to seize me by my arm. ‘You, Carter,’ he said. ‘Are you not a painter?’ But he did not wait for an answer, and I found myself being tugged across a series of mounds, still at a trot, until we came to a halt at last before a walkway of planks. It had clearly been raised with meticulous care, and I remembered Petrie’s dictum, delivered to me in Cairo, that an archaeologist’s duty was not only to uncover but also to be the guardian of the past. ‘Come,’ he said, still tugging on my arm. I followed him on to the walkway. ‘There,’ he said, jabbing downwards with his forefinger. ‘If you are truly an artist, then tell me -- what do you make of that?’
    I gazed down in wonder, and not a little awe, at a pavement painted with the most exquisite designs. They had all been drawn from the beauties of nature: fish swam in lotus-filled pools, spotted cattle gambolled through fields, and cats lay stretched with eyes half-closed in the sun. Above such beasts, everywhere, seated on trees or rising up on the wing, were birds, and it was these which attracted my particular attention, for I found that I could identify almost every one. Swallows were there, and kingfishers, geese and ducks, ibises and hoopoes, all the varied birdlife which characterised the Nile. And with what freshness had they been represented, with what vivid accuracy! Certainly, in my limited experience of Egyptian art, I had seen nothing to compare with these paintings, neither for the pleasure they suggested in the world of living things nor for their exquisite naturalism of style. I turned in surprise to Newberry. ‘But these are not grotesque!’ I exclaimed. ‘These are very miracles of delicacy!’
    ‘Naturally,’ Petrie grunted. ‘It is the most important discovery, artistically, which I have ever made.’
    Newberry nodded slowly. ‘Then it must suggest,’ he murmured, ‘that the Pharaoh who commissioned such a work, the Pharaoh who desired to live in such a place, was even more extraordinary a man than we had hitherto thought.
    For see -- no chariots, no armies, no violent scenes of war. Only -- yes . . .’ -- his eyes grew wide - ‘the richness of life.’
    Still rapt, he continued to gaze at the floor and even Petrie, surveying his find, seemed to lose some of his former gruffness. He suddenly smiled, with something almost like pride. ‘He was clearly a most extraordinary man.’
    I glanced at him. ‘Who was?’
    ‘Why, the Pharaoh.’
    ‘Which Pharaoh?’
    Petrie’s eyebrows bristled with evident surprise ‘Why, Newberry’ he exclaimed, ‘you mean you have not told your assistant of Akh-en-Aten?’
    ‘He is very new to Egypt,’ answered Newberry defensively. ‘You know full well that I do not tell just anyone of my hopes for this place.’
    ‘Your hopes?’ Petrie laughed dismissively. ‘You are wasting your time on that particular score.’
    ‘I cannot believe so.’
    ‘I tell you, the French have the concession to all the cliffs hereabouts. They will have got to the tomb.’
    There was an angry silence.
    ‘Got to what tomb?’ I dared to ask.
    Newberry glanced at me, hesitation still in his eyes.
    ‘Please,’ I protested. I turned back to gaze down at the floor. ‘If there is a mystery relating to this Akh-en-Aten, then I would dearly love to hear more about