HE KNELT DOWN AND felt the wall. He could feel the opening or the tunnel and then the walls of the tunnel itself for a distance of about three inches. Then a new stone, completely closing off the corridor.
It must have been actuated by the original door, he thought. When I opened it, I released another stone which came down and resealed the passageway.
Nasty.
He tapped the stone. This one, unlike the door, was solid.
“Can you hear me?” he called.
Silence.
“Alan!”
Nothing.
And then a horrible thought occurred to him. Suppose the stone had crushed Conway when it descended?
He did not have long to wonder. In a few moments, very faintly, he heard a tapping. He tapped back, waited, and heard an answer.
Listening, he realized that Conway was signaling to him in Morse code.
“God damn it, I don’t know Morse code,” he shouted.
The words echoed.
Must be a fair-sized room.
After a while, the tapping stopped. Pierce tapped, but there was no reply. Probably gone for help.
“God knows I need it.”
He listened to his own voice and tried to judge the size of the room, its dimensions. Impossible. Maybe a blind person could do it.
“Got to figure something out,” he said. He realized that he was talking because he was afraid. He was trapped in a space of unknown dimensions, unknown contents, deep in the earth. It was a terrifying idea.
“Keep busy. Don’t think about it.”
He bent over and ran his fingers across the floor, searching for his flashlight. He found it and touched the smashed glass face. He pressed the button, but there was no light. He dropped it again.
“Matches?”
He felt his shirt pocket and discovered that he had brought his cigarettes. It occurred to him that he should not light a match, since it would consume oxygen, but he had to see what was around him, at least for a few moments.
Anything was better than not knowing.
He patted his pockets: no matches. Cigarettes, but no matches. He must have left them on the floor in the other room.
“Damn.”
At least, they would come back for him. Conway was probably already scrambling out of the cleft, going for the Land Rover to get help. He wondered what reaction would be in the camp. How long would it take them to get back? Would they come immediately or wait until night? What if Iskander showed up and wanted to know where he was?
In the darkness, he looked at his wrist. The dial glowed faintly, the only light in the room. It was three-fifteen in the morning.
If Conway returned to the camp and came directly back, it would be at least three hours. It was impossible to say how long it would take them to move the block and reopen the passage.
Suppose it took days? Suppose the block weighed several tons?
He coughed and breathed stale, dry air. Was this place airtight? How much air was in the room?
How long could he last?
He shook his head and sat on the floor. Better stay calm, breathe slowly. Conserve everything. Try to form a plan of action.
They might take days.
Horrible thought.
If he did not suffocate, what would be next? Not starvation: you could go quite a long time without food. Water: that was the problem. Somewhere, he had read how long a man could go without water. It was not very long. Two days—something like that.
As he thought, he felt himself begin to sweat. Don’t sweat, you’re wasting water. He felt ridiculous. His heart pounded in his chest. He breathed deeply and forced himself to be calm.
He tried to remember an article he had once read about two Germans lost on the desert. They had survived weeks, drinking their own urine.
He leaned back against the wall and sighed. He was being morbid and needed something else to think about. They’d probably have him out of here in four hours.
He looked at his watch. Three-nineteen.
“Give them time.”
He turned around and ran his fingers over the wall. He felt a thin vertical groove. Moving his hand laterally, he felt another groove about seven inches away. In between, shapes had been shallowly cut into the rock.
Rows of hieroglyphics.
So this room, like the sunken chamber, was covered with painted figures in long vertical rows from floor to ceiling.
This might even be the burial chamber itself.
The thought was disquieting.
Whatever the room was, he was the first person to set foot inside it for three thousand years. All around him were sights no man had witnessed for all those centuries.
In a way, it was fitting that he could not see them either.
“Explore.”
But he had no idea how large the room was, and he had a vision of himself stepping away from the wall, losing it forever. Lost in a world of blackness.
Did he have any string?
Again, he patted his pockets: no.
A knife? No.
Then he had an idea. He stripped off his shirt, found the tail in the darkness, and ripped it with his teeth. The fabric was surprisingly strong, but he finally managed to tear several long strips from the back up to the collar. He knotted them all together to make a single long strip, like a kite tail.
Using the flashlight and a small rock that he found, he anchored one end of the improvised ribbon to the wall near the entranceway and took the other in his hand. He moved down the wall, feeling it with his hands, counting his steps.
Fifteen feet, and he reached a corner. He was about to follow the next wall, when he felt the ribbon tighten. He went back and started the other way. This one ran nine feet before reaching a corner.
So one wall was twenty-four feet long. At least he knew something.
He returned to the passage and sat down to think. He was tempted to step out and explore the central portion of the room, but at the same time he was hesitant.
Finally, curiosity overcame him, and he crawled forward on his hands and knees, holding one hand out in front of him.
After a few moments, his fingers touched something.
He felt and gripped the object.
It was an upright, muscular human calf.