Archie put his hands in his dusty trouser pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels. “Schoville will have to write them for an advance or I’m afraid we’ll all be sitting home on our laurels without a job.”
“You won’t be out of a job, Archie. Any team would love to snatch you up,” Linley said as she scrawled the letter. “Same goes for Reginald, too. And, of course, Papa could take a position teaching at a university.”
“And where would that leave you?”
“Me? I suppose I’d go with Papa.” When she finished the letter, she handed it over to him. “Dispatch a rider. There’s no need to have him return, we’ll be in Rabat before he can make it back.”
Archie nodded and was out the door. Alone for the first time since she woke up, Linley took a moment to catch her breath. The temperature inside the tent was stifling, but its canvas walls shaded her from the relentless sun. In less than forty-eight hours, there would be no trace of the excavation except the reference markers placed by the French government. The Talbot-Martins and their caravan would be on their way back to civilization—at least until their next expedition.
Hopefully there would be another expedition. She recalled the disheartening conversation with Archie. What would they do if there was no more money? Linley had never known any other life but this one. She never went to school, although she was better educated than many English girls her age. She never played with other children, trading hoops and dolls for picks and shovels. She also never had a mother, which probably had a great deal to do with all that.
Mrs. Talbot-Martin died before Linley could remember, and with nowhere else to place his young daughter, her father brought her along with him to India. From there they traveled throughout the world.
In truth, Linley never thought about her mother. And she didn’t know why she thought of her now, especially with so much work to be done. She was no good to anyone standing around with her head in the clouds.
Satisfied that Schoville would receive her letter in plenty of time, Linley walked out of the tent to join her father and the rest of the team. But instead of finding them all hard at work, she emerged to drawn weapons and angry shouts.
Someone grabbed her by the arm.
It was her father. “Button, it appears we have been duped,” he said. “The two French government representatives have just informed me that we will be going back to Rabat empty handed.”
“What?”
“I’m afraid the artifacts will be taken to Paris by French archaeologists who are on their way as we speak. So gather your things, they have spared us the camels.”
***
Linley, her father, and the rest of their team watched as the French archaeologists confiscated months of work and research, as well as all the catalogues taken that day. The containers were loaded into the backs of automobiles. Without so much as a nod, the French left with everything the Talbot-Martin team had worked so hard to find.
“Bloody hell!” Archie said, slamming his wide-brimmed leather hat onto the sand. “Bloody, bloody hell!”
Mr. Talbot-Martin patted him on his shoulder. “You can curse all you like, but it will not get our things back.”
“Do you realize what we have lost?” he cried. “This will set us back months!”
“Indeed,” the old man said. “But there isn’t much we can do about it now. No doubt they consider this their revenge for the Capitulation of Alexandria—though why they expect us to pay for the sins of our forefathers, I cannot understand…”
Ignoring them both, Linley walked over to one of the camels and dragged its head down. The rest of its body followed, allowing her to climb onto its back. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t plan on spending another night in this desert,” she said as the camel lumbered back onto its feet. “If we hurry, we can make it back to Rabat in time for dinner.”
The team had nothing else to lose, and the prospect of a hot bath and a good meal seemed to be the only beacon of hope in an otherwise disastrous day. They steered their camels in the direction of the Atlantic, following the tracks of the French motorcars back to the capital.
It was well after dark when a distress flare lit up the purple-black sky only a few hundred yards over the sand hills. Linley and the others shielded their eyes from the bright white glare, watching as it burst, fizzled, and finally sputtered down to earth around them.
“What do you make of that?” Archie asked, pulling his camel to a stop.
The Talbot-Martin team paused to listen, straining to hear anything at all over the braying of their camels. In the distance, the unmistakable pop of gunfire caused the animals to fuss and paw. Linley held tight to the reins of her mount as it twisted around and threatened to bolt.