Read Monsters in the Sand Online
Authors: David Harris
Monsters in the Sand (13 page)
‘No, you idiot! The watch is not the bet.’ Henry took a page from the bag. ‘Here’s your copy of some cuneiforms you found somewhere here. I give you a single quick look at them, and you get one minute by your watch to find the matching cuneiforms.’
‘What’s the wager?’
‘A scented letter from a certain Khanumi. If you find the cuneiforms, you win her letter. If you fail, I read the letter aloud to all the gloating, drunken guffaws at the next embassy Christmas party.’
‘Huh. I’ve copied thousands of cuneiforms here. We’ve found six hundred wall panels, seventeen chambers, ten winged bulls, and I suspect we’ve broken into a third palace – perhaps the most important one. It has grooves in the floor, like sunken railway lines. I think they would’ve been for a huge trolley on wheels to carry hot feasts into the king’s great hall. With this maze of tunnels, it’s not physically possible to reach the right cuneiform in
one minute. So, to make it a fair bet, give me just one clue.’
‘Your watch first, if I’m to time you.’
Austen handed the watch over and Rawlinson opened it.
‘Right – your clue. Think of a king, described as a wolf attacking sheep in their fold.’
Austen’s ears hummed with the rush of blood. ‘You’re joking.’
‘This could be it.’ Rawlinson beamed. ‘The one moment you’ve been waiting for. Or you could be the laughing stock of the embassy and then the world’s newspapers.’
Austen snatched the page and studied it.
‘That’s enough.’ Rawlinson grabbed it back. ‘Go!’
Crouched over, Austen tried to run fast. The king could only be Sennacherib. Which chamber was it? He’d found five pairs of bulls guarding palace rooms and it could be any one of them. Think, think – what were the cuneiforms for the king on the Black Obelisk of Nimrud? He’d always thought that king was Sennacherib.
‘Thirty seconds,’ Rawlinson shouted, close on his heels.
Austen skidded to a halt at a crossroads. Casually, to tease Rawlinson, he looked along each of the four
tunnels in turn, then bellowed into the last, ‘Sheik Awad, Abraham Aghar, Hormuzd, Mohammed Emin.’ His voice soaked into walls like water on dry earth. But the sheik walked into sight at the far end of one tunnel.
‘Bring the others!’ Austen yelled. The glory of Nineveh was theirs as much as it was his.
‘Fifteen seconds, thirteen, ten –’
Austen followed two grooves in the floor, walked between two guardian bulls, turned left and pointed to the third panel along. ‘The top four lines.’
Rawlinson held the page to the writing on the wall. He cleared his throat. ‘How will you feel if you are wrong about Nineveh being at Nimrud?’
‘Nineveh?’
‘Perhaps you’d like to see my translation of these cuneiforms?’
Austen held out his hand.
But Rawlinson hesitated. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I won’t be ready to publish this as definitive until there’s conclusive corroborating evidence. But I think we should be in a better position in only three or four years. Oh – one other thing.’ He took a small package from his bag. It was spongy, as if it held a soft gift as well as a letter. He sniffed it and screwed up his nose. ‘Phew! Your winnings, I believe. That’s right, you muttonhead, you’ve got Nineveh!’
‘This has arrived from Bombay, sir.’ Hormuzd passed an envelope across the breakfast dishes, but he turned aside to hide his feelings.
The envelope was marked
Bombay.
Their bull and raft-load of treasures must’ve arrived in Bombay, so why was Hormuzd looking as if he was at a funeral?
Austen skimmed the letter. The English clergyman at Bombay had taken his congregation to the docks, where the Nimrud collection was stored. He had forced open the lids of crates and held up artefacts as proof that the Bible was literally true. Then he had given a lecture about the wicked geologists who were challenging the date of Creation as noon, on the 23rd of October, 4004 BC. This attack on God’s
Word was threatening the foundations of Christian civilisation. The congregation had helped themselves to vases and ivories to decorate their dining tables. Many treasures had been damaged then dumped back in the crates. The labelling was scattered and jumbled. Objects had not been re-wrapped in felt. The Nimrud collection had been loaded onto the ship and was on the high seas.
Austen stood alone on Kuyunjik, watching a full moon touch the rim of the desert. As the moon sank into the desert sand, sunlight burst above the hazy peaks of the Zagros Mountains. He tied the purple headscarf, the gift from Khanumi, to his belt. By now she’d be in Teheran, taking gifts to Hussein, who was still a hostage in the eunuch’s palace.
One more minute. It was so hard to turn away from the mountains. But he had to go to London and open those crates from Bombay. Then he’d fight the museum directors for funds to return. And he’d be forced to endure endless formal dinners and mindless social gossip, be polite to the hopeful young women his mother had invited to tea. And after all that, he’d somehow survive Aunt Sara’s punishing program of
‘Celebrity Appearances’.
Austen Henry Layard – the Lion of Nineveh.
If he’d actually
found
Nineveh …
Rawlinson was still cross-checking translations. Austen took once last glance southwards, towards Nimrud, then, with his Bedouin cloak wafting behind him, he strode across the top of Kuyunjik.
At the base of the mound, Sheik Awad held the reins of his horse. When Austen approached to mount, the sheik gripped his hand to help him up. Tattered red silk ribbons hung from his turban and down over his eyes, concealing them.
‘Ya bey,
you be careful of bandits.’ He wriggled Austen’s musket deeper into its holster. Keeping his head down, the sheik said, ‘May Allah, the light of heaven and earth, bring you back safely, my son.’
Hadla and Masoud ran from the shadows and took hold of Austen’s feet in the stirrups.
Hormuzd hung back.
‘You take care of Nineveh until I return,’ Austen called out to him. ‘There is still so much to discover.’
About twenty feet above him, on the side of the mound, stood Abraham Agha, Mohammed Emin and the rest of his workers. At the very moment Austen shook the reins, the men raised their muskets. As his
horse stepped forward, they fired. Rose petals burst into the sky and drifted down over him.
The sheik held the bridle and ran with the horse. The children, holding onto the stirrups, trotted along until they had to let go. But the sheik refused to stop until he began to stumble.
‘Sheik Awad,’ Austen said, ‘we will always be only one breath apart.’
The sheik released his grip on the bridle and stood there alone, watching, until Austen’s small figure was swallowed by the sands.
THE TIMES
LONDON, 16 JUNE 1994
Tuckshop decoration sold for $US11.9 million.
The small object, covered in whitewash, had hung near a dartboard in the tuckshop of Canford School, in Dorset, England.
Julian Reade of the British Museum, identified the piece as genuine, despite experts in 1957 dismissing it as a plaster copy.
It was, in fact, a fragment of a basrelief from a wall of the Palace of Ashurnasipal II, a King of Assyria in the ninth century BC.
In 1847, Austen Henry Layard, who discovered Nineveh, presented the small bas-relief to a friend, Sir John Guest, of Canford House, who’d helped sponsor Layard’s return to Mesopotamia.
Layard discovered Nineveh at Kuyunjik, a mound near the city of Mosul, on the Tigris River. During his five years in Iraq, Layard, an amateur archaeologist, unearthed eight palaces, hundreds of tons of antiquities, several miles of walls decorated with cuneiforms and sculptures, and found among other extraordinary treasures, the Library of King Ashurbanipal – 26,000 tablets revealing the history, religion, art, politics, medicine, literature, mathematics, food, astronomy, science and thousands of
details about the life in one of the greatest empires of the ancient world.
Layard was rewarded for his years of work by being offered an unpaid job as a minor official in the British Embassy at Constantinople. Public outrage caused him to be sent back to continue his work at Nineveh. Prime Minster Disraeli later appointed Sir Austen Henry Layard as Ambassador at Constantinople — the beginning of a glittering and at times tumultuous diplomatic career.
If you love adventures, this book is for you. I especially love the part where Hiram puts his negotiating skills to the test with the cannibals in order to avoid the most disgusting things. Could the mystery meat be human flesh? You’ll have to read the book to find out.
A great excuse for keeping your nose stuck in a book, as it could pass for homework (this is history, but not as you know it). This was one of the most exciting books I’ve ever read – I couldn’t put it down (just ask my mum)!
– Travis, Wollongong Academically Gifted Class
If you’re looking for action, this is the book! Within the first sixteen pages the intrepid adventurer and historian Hiram Bingham has faced a rock slide, almost fallen off a cliff, raced a terrible storm … and jumped a chasm on a mule in the dark. This is a book boys 8 – 12 years will especially love and any child fascinated by early history will equally enjoy it.
– Reading Stack
A great novel for young readers aged 9 upwards, who loved
Indiana Jones
and who adore a gripping adventure.
– Robert, age 11
David Harris’s fictional retelling of Bingham’s adventures is beautifully crafted and the author’s lively storytelling and well-honed attention to detail bring Bignham’s stirring travels to life like a return to the Boys Own adventures of yesteryear. Highly entertaining.
– Magpies
I’ve always wanted to be an archaeologist and go on adventures like these. But, I couldn’t eat another person.
– Joel, age 10.
I was really surprised that Hiram was still scared of falling off cliffs.
— Thomas, age 12
I laughed a lot at Castillo and thought, ha, ha, this time he’s screwed.
– Jonathan, age 14
Everyone in the room sort of leaned in to hear what happened next.
– Will, age 12
I had two serious options. Turn the page, or shut the book and never know what happens when you walk off the edge of the map.
–Aaron, age 15
 | The ABC ‘Wave’ device is a trademark of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and is used under licence by HarperCollins Publishers Australia. |
First published in Australia in 2009
This edition published in 2011
by HarperCollins
Publishers
Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
www.harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © David Harris 2009
The right of David Harris to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him under the
Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000
.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968
, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
HarperCollins
Publishers
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Harris, David (David William), 1942-
Monsters in the sand / David Harris.
ISBN: 978-0-7333-2097-2 (pbk.)
ISBN: 978-0-7304-9543-7 (ePub)
1st ed.
Sydney : ABC Books, 2009.
Time raiders
For children.
Archaeology — Juvenile fiction.
A823.3
