The Footsteps of History
PROFESSOR POLLYANNA NORTH was an educated woman.
In her late thirties, she had already made a name for herself as one of only a handful of female archaeologists working in service to Queen Victoria, and this fact alone made her the object of much attention. 'A rare gem of a woman' and 'One of the Empire's finest exported treasures' were just two of the niceties that her peers had bestowed upon her. Polly was under a great deal of pressure not to come back to England empty handed on this dig, especially as the Queen herself had seen fit to honour her at a forthcoming gala dinner. That would normally have sent tingles of excitement up and down the woman's spine, but she currently had nothing of worth to present.
The abandoned district of Umkaza was some miles away from Bara Mephista on the outskirts of the low-lying flatlands to the west of the River Nile. Abandoned years before, it had become home to a small group of archaeologists and historians. Polly's benefactor was convinced that Umkaza held a glorious treasure and he had invested a great deal of money in this venture to discover it. Polly was desperate not to let him down, but after digging with her small crew for some time yet finding little of value, she was rapidly running out of both hope and luck – in equal measure. Rebuilding, reconstructing and retracing History's footsteps were not tasks for the impatient, but even Polly's vaunted endurance was sorely waning of late.
The Professor was up to her armpits in sand and dust when she became distracted by several of her young crew running up to her, gathering her up in their excited swarm as they led her to one of the many deep pits dug at the far end of the marked site. She placed her hands on her hips and scowled at the two excited men in the pit, their filthy faces smudged with dust and dirt.
'What on earth is all the fuss about, Mal? Have you found something?' she asked.
'Yes, ma'am!' said the smaller of the two Egyptians. 'Something quite odd.'
'I'm sufficiently intrigued, Mal,' said Polly. A small crowd gathered around her, all eager to hear her assessment. She squatted down onto her knees and leaned into the pit, as Mal handed her what he had discovered in it. It was unmistakably a bone. Removing a magnifying glass from the top pocket of her blouse, Polly lifted the bone closer to her eyes and blew the remaining dust from it. 'Approximate length eighteen inches…width: just less than an inch.'
'There are lots of them down here, ma'am. The deeper we dig, the more we find. Perhaps as many as fifteen, maybe more,' said Mal. 'What animal do you think it might be? Horse? Camel?'
Polly North clenched her jaw. 'Human.' The word was like a crash of thunder to those crewmembers within earshot. 'It's a femur – a thigh bone, to those unfamiliar with anatomy. How many of these things did you say were down there?'
'At least fifteen, ma'am,' replied Mal. 'But there are lots of other bones too of all shapes and sized, piled one of top of the other. We will have to dig a little deeper to know how many for certain.'
'Don't,' said Polly. 'Leave them where they are, Mal. Fifteen bodies in a pit, piled on top of each other can only mean one thing. This is a mass grave, and it's never good news to go excavating a mass grave, trust me.'
'Why not, Professor? These bones…might they not be ancient Nubian in origin? There are so many in one place; if this is a sacrificial site…perhaps they might be a clue. Perhaps they might eventually help us find "The Pharaoh's Cradle?"'
'That's highly unlikely, Mal, especially if my instincts are spot on.' Professor North held her magnifying glass an inch from the bone, inspecting its length carefully. 'It can't be much older than twenty or thirty years at the most. Sorry to say, Mal, there is no place for them in the Cairo Museum of Antiquities…and no way could the Pharaoh's Cradle be buried here. We'll just have to keep on searching, chaps.'
The crowd chorused a disappointed sigh. But rising above it, Polly was distracted by a tumultuous noise echoing all around her.
Screams littered the air.
Aksak Faroud and a band of twelve Scarabs tore into the encampment astride horses. Wearing a dark red hood, the Scarab leader held his sword high in the air. Professor North's crew were caught between an intense desire to flee and the inability to do anything about it, their fear freezing them to the spot.
'Who are these men?' asked Polly of Mal, clutching at the younger man's clothes as he crawled from the trench.
'Clan Scarabs!' he gasped.
'Clan Scarabs?' cried Polly. 'What are they doing so far from their territory?'
'I am sorry, Professor…but I do not plan on waiting to find out.' With that, he climbed from the pit and ran at top speed across the dig site, his arms flailing in the air as if he were being pursued by a swarm of wasps.
Pretty soon many other workers followed his lead. Polly looked around at the ensuing chaos. Her excavation crew were running scared in all directions, the merest mention of the words 'Clan Scarabs' igniting a fire underneath their feet. Polly was dumbfounded, unable to move. What could she do? Where could she go? Polly had never heard of them attacking an archaeological site before.
It made no sense.
Aksak Faroud's quarry was an easy target to spot. The only pale-skinned female around – actually, one of the few people around full stop, for most of the others had fled. Polly gulped down her fear. The bestial pack headed towards her determinedly.
'But this is insane!' she said to herself. 'We have nothing worth taking!'
Apart from Professor Pollyanna North herself, it seemed…