The Sleeping Sands Read online

  The two younger dervishes, for that is what they were, fell back in a laughing tangle. The oldest sat smiling and staring thoughtfully at the bemused Englishman.

  ‘You are not entirely wrong, my brothers,’ he said at length. ‘This foreigner has something of the shadows about him. He may not be a dervish, but he holds his own secrets.’

  He reached over and picked up Layard’s cup, sniffing at it.

  ‘There’s the first holy mystery,’ he declared triumphantly. ‘Let us all partake of this divine nectar. Bring us more arak!’

  The three dervishes attacked the Persian’s supply of arak and Shiraz, calling out encouragement to the dancers and offering to cast various enchantments to bring them wealth, happiness and handsome lovers. When the dance was at last finished, the girls ran giggling from the room, followed by expansive promises of supernatural fortune from the dervishes, who were now quite drunk. When the girls had left, the three stretched out on the cushions and lit up pipes, offering the sweetly scented tobacco to Layard.

  ‘Now,’ said the giant, ‘stories!’

  ‘Yes,’ said the moon-faced dervish, ‘tell us of your adventures, brother Foreigner.’

  ‘Everyone wants to hear my story,’ laughed Layard, slurring his words slightly, ‘but what of you? What tales do I get in return?’

  ‘What did I tell you?’ exclaimed the oldest. ‘He knows things, this one! He has demanded from us our greatest treasure and we are bound to honour his request.

  ‘Very well, brother Foreigner; we will each tell you a story. When you have heard our tales, then you must tell us of your adventures. Is our pact clear?’

  ‘I believe we have a deal,’ smiled Layard, settling back to listen to the dervishes’ tales.

  CHAPTER 11

  The Yellow Dog

  ‘MANY YEARS AGO,’ BEGAN THE TALL BLACK DERVISH, fixing his gaze on Layard, ‘a traveller came into the desert. No-one knew where he had come from or where he was going. He was a white man, a European like you. The name he gave himself was George Lackland, but that did not sound to any of the people of the desert like any real sort of name. So, they just called him the Frank and, when they had ascertained that he had neither money nor anything else of value of which they could relieve him, they left him to travel in peace.

  ‘He wandered from camp to camp in the great wilderness of the desert, enjoying the meagre hospitality that the desert tribes can offer. Thinking this ragged stranger might be in search of something valuable, sometimes the sheikh of one camp or another would ask the Frank what he was searching for, but each time he would only smile sadly and say that he would know what it was when he found it. The chief would shake his head sadly at this answer, concluding that the Frank’s wits had been turned by the desert sun.

  ‘So it was that the Frank wandered deeper and deeper into the great desert. The dunes towered above him like mountains. The gullies and wadis wound in impassable mazes. The black tents of the desert tribes became fewer and more scattered as he moved further and further from any habitable part of the desert and into realms unknown to men.

  ‘The sun beat down on his ragged back without mercy. The last of his water was long gone and he could feel the blood in his veins thickening and slowing in the heat. He imagined that soon he would die of thirst and exhaustion and all that would be left of him would be white bones on the yellow sand. His throat was parched and burning and his skin was blistering upon him. Suddenly, he saw ahead of him, a miraculous sight. It was an oasis, nestled among the dunes. Fearing that is was a mirage, he rubbed at his eyes in disbelief, yet the oasis remained. A beautiful crystal fountain sprang from a rock above a clear blue pool. Around the pool were gently bowing palms, heavy with succulent dates. The Frank ran forward and dived into the pool, feeling its cool sweet water bring strength and hope back to his dying body. He drank long, thankful gulps of water and, when he could drink no more, he gathered up a great bundle of dates and sat himself down in the shade of a tree to enjoy his feast. He plucked the plumpest, juiciest date from one of the stalks he had gathered and bit into it. It tasted sweeter and more delicious than anything he had ever eaten. He greedily munched at its succulent flesh and sucked every last bit of fruit from its stone. Then, disaster!

  ‘Perhaps because he was so hungry for another wondrous date or perhaps because he was a Frank who didn’t know any better, he threw the date stone over his shoulder without giving the proper thanks to Allah. Any child could have told him that this was a very bad thing to do and, right enough, it was. The Frank was shocked to hear an angry voice cry out in pain. He turned round to see that his date stone had hit an old man on the head. The old man had been sleeping in the shadow of the fountain and was not at all pleased to find a stranger in his oasis, eating his dates without a by-your-leave or thank-you. He was particularly vexed by the fact that that same stranger had thrown the stone of one of those same dates at his head and woken him painfully from a particularly pleasant dream. This was not good for the Frank. What was even worse was that the old man was a powerful wizard, who determined to teach the ill-mannered Frank a lesson. He grabbed the Frank in a bony hand and whisked him off in a shower of sand and sparks.

  ‘The Frank fell down in a faint. When he came to he found that he had been magically shut up in a dark cave. A tiny crack in the rock let in just enough light for the Frank to see his hand, if he held it in front of his nose, but was far too small for the Frank to escape through. What was worse was that the Frank could hear the sound of a great beast breathing in the cave with him. Paralysed with fear, he waited for it to fall upon him, but nothing happened. The breathing continued, huge and steady, as if the beast was asleep and the poor Frank sat as still and quiet as a mouse, terrified lest he should wake it.

  ‘The Frank spent a long, sleepless night in the cave. The next morning, he heard the sound of footsteps outside and he saw a hand pushing a flat loaf of bread and a small skin of water through the crack. Crawling over as carefully as possible and whispering as loudly as he dared for fear of waking the sleeping beast, he called out to the owner of the hand for help.

  ‘Well, as it happened, the hand belonged to me and I had for ten years been given the task of taking food and water up to the crack in the rock. You see, the cave was an ancient tomb of a very great and mighty king from long ago. As was the custom with great and mighty kings from long ago, a terrible beast had been put in the tomb to protect it from robbers and my job was to make sure that the beast remained peaceful. There was a tradition, handed down from dervish to dervish that, as long as fresh food and drink was taken each day to the cave, the beast would rest but, if it was not kept placated so, it would escape from the tomb and bring destruction upon the countryside.

  ‘Imagine my surprise when I discovered a foreigner in the tomb. The Frank told me what had happened and pleaded with me to release him but I could no more undo the wizard’s magic than fly to the moon – nor would I want to upset a powerful wizard. I explained that there was nothing I could do but promised the Frank to bring the food and water each day so that he could at least stay alive. This I continued to do, ensuring the Frank’s survival, but so terrified was he of waking he beast that, as the years passed, we exchanged hardly a word.

  ‘Day after day, night after night, the Frank lay in terror in the tomb, listening to the breathing of the great beast. Sometimes the moon would be in just the right place for a tiny sliver of a moonbeam to enter the cave and the Frank would imagine that he saw the tiniest glimpse of the creature. Sometimes, he would see the glint of great scales. Other times, he would see a tawny, thick-furred and giant paw. At other times he thought he could glimpse a huge, hooked talon and once, for a split second he could have sworn he saw the flick of a long forked tongue. Every moment of his life in the cave was spent living in fear of that creature. If the Frank had not already been a little mad he would surely have been driven crazy. Somehow, though, he managed to keep some of his wits, in part because he had found a companion.


  ‘One day, after I delivered the food and water, the Frank had noticed scrabbling footsteps outside the cave and a quiet whining noise. Pressing his eye to the crack in the stone, he saw a skinny, mangy old yellow dog. Taking pity on the stray dog, whose ribs were poking through its skin, the Frank tore a little of his bread and soaked it in water, then passed it through the crack for the dog. The dog ate hungrily and returned the next day and then the next, each time to receive a little of the Frank’s food. The Frank began to take comfort from the visits of the old dog and to take comfort too from the fact that, although he was a helpless prisoner, there was one creature in the world that depended upon him. It gave him a strength of spirit that he could draw upon during his nights of terror with the sleeping beast. He was saddened then when the dog stopped visiting for a period of three days. Fearing for his friend, he listened at the crack until, on the third day he was overjoyed to hear the familiar sound of the dog’s paws padding up to the cave.

  ‘This time, the dog had brought a gift to the man. In his old stained teeth, he gently held a small, round object, which he dropped by the crack and nudged gently towards the Frank with his nose. The Frank inspected the object and found it to be a hard brown seed or nut of some kind. He tried to bite it, but it was too tough to eat, so thinking it might at least grow into a flower to brighten his cave, he buried it in the dirt by the crack where it might at least get a little light. Carefully, he sprinkled a few precious drops of water on it to help it grow.

  ‘The years passed and still the yellow dog came each day after I had left the food and drink. The old dog became older, the Frank became a little more used to the terror of the sleeping beast and the little plant grew as each day the Frank dripped a little water upon it. First it sprouted out tiny green shoots. Then, these grew into a strong little seedling. From the seedling sprang a fine sapling and this in turn grew into a tough little bush. Year upon year, the trunk of the bush became a little thicker and its branches and roots twined a little tighter around the rocks.

  ‘Then one day, a miracle! The Frank awoke as usual in his cave, to find himself dazzled by a blinding light. Sunshine was flooding into the tomb. The little bush had twisted and twined its roots and branches so deeply into the rock that it had cracked asunder, leaving a space big enough for the Frank to easily walk through. Hardly believing it was possible, he sprang to his feet and leaped through the opening. Sitting, faithfully waiting for him on the outside was the yellow dog. The Frank bent down to the dog and threw his arms around its neck, weeping tears of joy and calling down all the blessings of Allah upon it. Then, he stood and faced the sunrise and walked into the desert, the faithful dog at his heel. For all I know, they are still out there.’

  Mad Mrs Walmington

  ‘Unlike my brother’s tale,’ chirruped the moon-faced dervish, ‘my story happened just a few weeks ago, in the great city of Baghdad. It concerns another mad foreigner, but this one was a woman.

  ‘I found myself in Baghdad a few months past and briefly in need of some travelling funds, so I decided to set myself up in business as a purveyor of religious relics and various magical items. The trade in these items is always lively in that great city and within a fairly short time, I found that I had established a reputation and my business had begun to grow to such an extent that I was able to establish a small booth in the bazaar. I was sitting in my booth one day when an elderly European woman entered, wearing the strangest mixture of English and Bedouin clothes. She announced herself as a Mrs Edith Walmington and declared that she had been told by a reliable source that I might be able to furnish her with items containing secrets of the Chaldean astrologers of ancient Babylon.

  ‘I reluctantly explained to the woman that, to my knowledge, I possessed at that time only one item pertaining to the Chaldeans, as she called the Babylonians and that, for reasons best left unsaid, that item was not for sale. At this she became quite agitated and insisted I sell it to her. I tried to calm her, indicating that there remained some dubiety as to the exact provenance of the item and warning her that objects of this sort were not always easy to possess. This only added to her determination and anger, to the both of which I now found myself exposed. Mrs Walmington was a remarkably formidable woman and I soon found myself subject to a battery of threats, pleas and promises. She offered me quantities of gold; she threatened to call down the officers of the Pashalic upon me; she even described how she would return with a company of British marines to take the item by force if need be, in the name of free trading and fair bargaining. Against such an onslaught, no-one could hold strong.

  ‘Alas, I am only human. I took a wooden casket from a chest in my booth and opened it up before her, revealing a small stone tablet. The tablet was greatly aged and much of its inscription had been eroded but it still bore a profile that was unmistakably Babylonian and a series of faint zodiac inscriptions. Mrs Walmington was overjoyed. She at once offered me a bag of gold coins for the tablet. For reasons of my own, I refused, insisting that I would sell it for one copper coin; nothing more and nothing less. She consented at once and eagerly handed me the coin, snatching up the tablet in triumph and dashing from the shop before I had the chance to change my mind or the opportunity to tell her any more of the artefact. However, if I thought that was the end of the matter, I was grievously mistaken.

  ‘A few days later, the woman returned to my booth in a state of great distress. Her skin was pale and grey and there were black rings around her eyes as if she had been unable to sleep. I asked her the cause of her discomfort and she explained to me that its source was the artefact itself. She told me that every night since purchasing it from me, she had been plagued by the same terrible dream. Each night, no matter where she had secreted it, the tablet would appear in a dream at her bedside. From within the tablet itself, a great voice would be heard and a djinn of horrific appearance would spring forth from it, chanting the same incantation over and over:

  Silver begets silver; gold begets gold;

  Copper begets copper; mysteries beget the untold;

  To escape with your lives, sell me four times;

  Gold, silver, copper - each has one worth;

  The last is for metal not made on God’s earth;

  When the last sale is made, if you still keep a hold,

  The final price I claim is your mortal soul!

  The terrible djinn chanted its spell over and over in Mrs Walmington’s dream until at last the cock crowed for morning. When she awoke, she found that, sure enough, no matter where she had hidden it, the tablet was sitting beside her bed.

  ‘I listened in horror to her tale, for while the tablet had been in my possession I had experienced the very same dream! I decided to tell her the story of the tablet. I had first received the tablet in an honest trade, but, as soon as the dreams started to occur, I had investigated further and had discovered a little more of its history.

  ‘The tablet had been discovered deep in the desert in an old tomb by a brother dervish. He had been delighted to discover that, upon taking possession of the tablet, his personal fortunes began to change for the better and, being a wise man, he connected this good fortune to some power of the tablet. However, soon after finding it, he began to experience a strange and disturbing dream of much the same nature as Mrs Walmington’s. He decided that, good fortune or not, his soul was too precious a commodity to be risked so he sold the tablet for one gold piece to a European traveller who was interested in relics of the Holy Lands. This traveller was a superstitious Christian who became quite terrified by the dreams that plagued him upon taking possession of the artefact. He at once cast the stone away in the desert and fled to Baghdad, convinced that some sort of devil was after him. However, no matter how often he cast the stone away, each morning it would return to his side. Terrified, he sought out a trader in magical artefacts and discovered me, just at the point of establishing my trade. I was very happy to buy it for the price of one silver piece and soon enjoyed the pleasant upturn in my busines
s that I have already described.

  ‘However, I too was plagued by terrible dreams. Each night I would lock away the tablet in a magical wooden casket yet every morning it would reappear at my bedside. I had no magic strong enough to break its curse. I determined therefore to seek out advice from my brothers, to find some way to escape the spell of the tablet. Before I had the opportunity to seek my brothers out, Mrs Walmington had stormed into my shop like a desert wind and whisked the tablet away for one copper piece.

  ‘The delirious Mrs Walmington insisted I buy back the tablet but alas, I could not. For, as the djinn had predicted in the dream, the tablet could only be sold four times and each time for a different metal. The first three sales had already taken place – for gold, silver and copper. The fourth and final sale could only be for a metal not made on earth. I had no idea what kind of metal that was and sent the poor woman from my booth, afraid that I might share whatever awful fate the djinn had planned for the tablet’s owner.

  ‘When next I heard of the unfortunate Mrs Walmington, she seemed to have gone quite mad. She was seen roaming the streets of Baghdad in a frenzy, accosting passers by and demanding to see their purses. When those foolish enough to oblige her showed their purses to her, she would rant and scream that they had no coins and that they were penniless paupers, even if their purses were filled to the brim with gold or silver. She would ask in all seriousness whether men had coins forged by angels in the clouds or minted by whales and mermaids in the depths of the sea. No coin made on earth was of any possible value, she would insist. Soon, news of the crazy woman’s arrival in the bazaar was enough to send strong men running for the safety of their homes. Yet, despite her reputation as a madwoman, Mrs Walmington’s fortunes continued to flourish. An English publisher paid her a very large sum for the rights to publish her memoirs and several of the antiquities she had collected on her trip to date proved to be of exceptional value, commanding high prices from collectors of such curios. In a short while, she became very wealthy.