The Sleeping Sands by Nat Edwards

unspoilt young voice echoed along graceful avenues of marble columns, painted a honey pink by antiquity and the dawn. The two rode along an ancient broad street, paved with marble slabs. At one end was a great triumphal arch, faced at its other by a magnificently ornamented gateway. A double row of columns lined each side of the street, from which radiated further rows of dozens, if not hundreds of columns marking out the ancient footprints of streets, squares and circles. The remains of majestic buildings loomed from among lush oleanders, wild olives and pine trees that together with a tumble of fallen columns and capitals populated the ancient city. No matter of time, ruin or neglect could diminish its regal symmetry. There were theatres, public buildings, palaces and temples, the greatest of which stood in a great peristyled court that must once have held tens of thousands of worshippers, gathered, like Layard and Antonio, to bear witness to the rising sun.
    As the sun rose, painting the great courts of Jerash with a ballet of receding and interweaving shadows and giving vibrant life to the painted autumn leaves, Layard stood enchanted. Light sparkled on the surface of water held in a great marble cistern near to the triumphal arch and danced along the course of a narrow aqueduct that still fed the city. It was as if the dry desolation of the desert had been washed away by some antique and almighty power. He felt new hope fill his heart and fresh new possibilities fill his mind.
    ‘Donna nobis pacem ’ sang Antonio.
     
    *                      *                      *
     
    The European emerged from the cave-mouth above the ruins of Petra. His face betrayed a slight pallor and he held a perfumed handkerchief to his mouth – a curiously incongruous accessory for a man who gave every other impression of hardened stoicism. He squinted in the sunlight and turned to the two impassive Lurs at his side.
    ‘Your handiwork?’
    Each gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head.
    ‘Well, well. It seems that another player might have entered the game. I do hope our young gentleman is faring well.’
    He stood and surveyed the caves around about, from which dirty frightened faces were peering forth. Without removing his gaze, he spoke to the Lurs.
    ‘Find out what you can.’
    He listened to the scrape of two long curved knives being drawn from their scabbards and the soft padding of two pairs of sandals on the sand. The footsteps faded and all he could hear now was the distant buzzing of flies.
     
    *                      *                      *
     
    ‘Ha, ha, ha!’ roared the Bashi Bozuk, after entertaining Layard and Antonio with quite possibly the filthiest joke either of the travellers had ever heard. Antonio went quite pale and looked down at his slippers, suddenly fascinated by some minute detail of their stitching. Layard attempted something like a smile and tried to change the subject.
    ‘So, what brings you to Jerash?’
    ‘Taxes. A few of the locals have been a little slow at paying up recently,’ beamed the soldier. ‘In his wisdom, Ibrahim Pasha has sent me to help persuade them.’ He laughed good-naturedly and poked at their small fire with a stick.
    ‘They complain about failed crops; about animals dying; about the plague – well, we all have problems, don’t we?’ He beamed a huge, contented grin, giving every impression that he had never encountered a single problem in his long and corpulent life.
    ‘There is always money hidden away somewhere and I seem to have a talent for finding it. From your own account, a good deal of it in these parts has been relieved from your good self. So here I am, doing the Pasha’s dirty work, may a thousand flies take an unhealthy interest in his rear end. Still, it keeps me away from cavalry duty and the Pasha’s little local expeditions. There seem to be more and more skirmishes