The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi

ETERNAL REST

IN LOWER NORWOOD CEMETERY

Home to the Finest Sepulchral

Mausoleums and Monuments in London.

Privately Landscaped Memorial Gardens.

Rural Setting. Protected from Resurrectionists.

Uninterrupted Interment Assured.

Episcopal and Dissenters’ Churches.

Extensive Vaults and Catacombs

for Added Peace and Security.

Consecrated by the Bishop of Winchester

West Norwood Cemetery, Norwood Road, Lambeth.

Sir James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin and 12th Earl of Kincardine, was a short and stout man, whose hair, despite his being just forty-eight years old, was as white as snow. He was bright-eyed and clean-shaven, though thick muttonchop whiskers framed his deceptively good-natured countenance.

“I suspected something had gone wrong with the lad,” he said, “but to such an extreme? By heavens!”

“In what way wrong, sir?” Burton asked. They were seated in armchairs in the airship’s plush smoking lounge. Elgin was puffing on an after-breakfast hookah. Burton had opted for a Manila cheroot. They each had a cup of coffee on the table between them.

“He was appointed my secretary two years ago and accompanied me to China, where we’ve been overseeing the Arrow War. For the first few months, he was perfectly efficient in his work and perfectly innocuous in his private life. He had, however, brought with him a book entitled The Wisdom of Angels, with which he became increasingly obsessed. He read it over and over. When I asked him about it, he became oddly reticent and refused to discuss it.”

“The author?”

“I don’t recall. Thomas something. I’m not sure why, but I associate that volume with his subsequent behaviour, which, I’m bound to observe, left a lot to be desired. In fact, I was set to dismiss him upon our return to London.”

Burton ground the stub of his cheroot into an ashtray and immediately lit another one. After five hours of sleep and a hearty breakfast—it was now nine o’clock in the morning—he was feeling a little stronger. The laceration across his ribs was stinging but it wasn’t a serious wound and hadn’t required stitching.

“On what grounds?” he asked. “What did he do?”

Lord Elgin breathed out a plume of blue smoke and watched it curl toward the ceiling.

“There are a great many complications in our dealings with the Qing Dynasty,” he said. “I’m returning to London to brief the prime minister and our Navy—and to request military support from the French. We must quell those Chinese forces that oppose the opening of the country to improved trade, and I fear there’s no choice but to negotiate not with a handshake but with a fist. The Sagittarius will be a fist like no other.”

“The Sagittarius?”

“A rotorship, Burton; a war machine of fearsome power. Its construction is almost completed, and it will be sent to China before the year is out.”

“Very well, but how does this involve Oliphant?”

“China will only accept payment for tea in silver. This has caused a serious trade deficit, which we have countered by exporting opium there from India.”

Burton threw his hands out in a gesture that made it clear he didn’t get the point and was confused by Elgin’s obfuscation.

“Opium, Captain!” Elgin barked. “Highly addictive! We exported it as a medicinal ingredient but the Chinese immediately started puffing on the stuff like it was cheap tobacco. Now half the damned country is enslaved by it. The Qing Dynasty isn’t happy. Not at all.”

“So?”

“So to hell with them! We’ll pump enough opium into China to make addicts of the entire nation, if necessary. We’ll even force them to legalise the trade so our private companies can profit from the poppy industry, too. By God, we’ll bring the bloody dynasty to its knees unless they give us a better deal on the export of tea.”

“Dirty politics, Lord Elgin.”

“All politics is dirty. It has to be. Trade is warfare and warfare is trade. That’s the way of the world.”

“You still haven’t told me how Oliphant fits into this distasteful picture.”

Elgin pushed his hookah aside and reached for his coffee. As he sipped it, his eyes met Burton’s above the brim of the cup and the explorer saw amusement in them. He realised that Elgin was purposely provoking and prevaricating—that it was the man’s technique in negotiations and he’d employed it so frequently, it was now habitual.

Elgin leaned forward, placed his emptied cup onto its saucer, and jabbed a finger at Burton.

“The opium trade is but one factor among a great many in our dispute with China, but it’s the one Oliphant was responsible for. I relied on him to assess the situation as it developed, to communicate British demands to the emperor, and to summarise and bring to me the Chinese counter-demands—all of which would have been well and good were it not for one thing.”

“It being?”

“That the bloody fool himself became an addict.”

“Ah.”

“It came to my attention at the start of April this year. We had briefly returned to London during the latter half of March, and while there, Oliphant joined some sort of gentlemen’s club. He was rather secretive about it—never told me its name—but I gather its members share his fascination with that damned book. A mere week after we returned to China, I went to his rooms to collect some papers and found him in an opium-induced stupor.”

Burton pursed his lips and thought for a moment. “You associate his taking of the drug with the club?”

“I do. A week or so later, I demanded an explanation for his behaviour. He babbled a great deal of nonsense, but from what of it I understood, I gather The Wisdom of Angels hypothesises multiple levels of existence—beyond even the Afterlife—and the club encourages the exploration of these through the use of mind-altering drugs. Oliphant told me, in all seriousness, that he’d established communication with a being from one of these other worlds. Absolute rot, of course.”

“I take it your confronting him had little effect?”

Elgin leaned back and grunted an agreement. “None. He became thoroughly unreliable. In the end, I took over the duties I’d assigned to him, and I’ll confess, it’s been more than I can comfortably cope with. Thus my determination to replace the fellow.”

A few minutes of silence fell between them. Burton finished his coffee. He looked out of the porthole and saw the rooftops of Vienna.

“Would you object to me searching his quarters?”

“Not at all.”

“Thank you, Lord Elgin. You’ve given me much to think about.”

Elgin flapped his hand dismissively.

Twenty minutes later, Burton had retrieved the key to Oliphant’s cabin from the steward and was letting himself in.

The Wisdom of Angels, its leather spine cracked, its pages worn and creased at the corners, was on the bedside table.

“Thomas Lake Harris,” Burton said aloud, reading the author’s name. He flicked through the pages, looking at the chapter titles, digesting random paragraphs, gaining an overall impression of the subject matter. It was just as Elgin had summarised, with the addition that Harris reckoned his non-corporeal beings were influencing human history. Bizarrely, he also claimed to be married to one of them—an angel known as the Lily Queen.

Burton muttered, “Utter claptrap!”

He pushed the book into his jacket pocket and started to search through Oliphant’s belongings. He found a daguerreotype showing the man posing with a white panther—the animal had moved during the exposure and its face was blurred. He opened a chest to reveal a large collection of daggers and flintlock pistols. He lifted three books down from a shelf. Two were travel journals written by Oliphant: A Journey to Katmandu, published in 1852, and The Russian Shores of the Black Sea, from 1853. The third was a thick sketchbook. Three-quarters of its pages were filled with pencilled illustrations of landscapes, buildings, and people—obviously a record of Oliphant’s various travels—but they petered out, leaving a thick section of blank paper before the sketching resumed toward the back of the volume. These pictures, which Burton guessed were more recent, were far less accomplished and appeared to be the unconscious scribblings of a meandering mind. Mostly they took the form of diagrams and sigils, many of which the explorer recognised as occult in nature. There were also rapidly made drawings of a panther and, on the last page, a bizarre self-portrait in which Oliphant had combined his own face with his pet’s, giving himself feline eyes, a projecting muzzle, and a mouth filled with canines. Above the portrait, he’d written the word Predator, and beneath it, the sentence: What better way to transcend human limitations than by quite literally becoming something a little more than human?

Burton shuddered. He closed the book but kept hold of it as he continued his search of the room.

He found a bag of opium and a number of pipes.

There was little else of interest.

He was turning to leave when something glittered and caught his eye. He crossed to an occasional table and looked down at a pair of white gloves folded upon it. A tiepin had been placed on them. He picked it up and examined it. At its top, a small disk of gold bore two symbols, one looking like the letter C but with two small lines extending outward from the left edge of its curve, the other like a mirror-image number seven. Letters, Burton was sure, but—again!—from a language he was unfamiliar with.

He pocketed the pin and sketchbook, left the cabin, and found Sister Raghavendra standing in the corridor.

“Hello, Sadhvi. Have you been waiting for me? Why didn’t you knock?”

“I didn’t want to interrupt. But what are you doing running around? You should be in bed. You’re not well.”

“I’m shaky, I’ll admit. Gad, that potion you gave me certainly brought the fever to crisis! Really, though, I’m thoroughly fed up with my bed. Don’t worry—I won’t overdo it. I want to visit Oliphant, then I’ll settle in the library and I shan’t move until we’re home.”

“You’ve already overdone it, Richard, and there’s no point in seeing Oliphant. The captain called me to attend him an hour ago. The man is a raving lunatic. Apparently he screamed and babbled his way through the early hours then lapsed into a catatonic trance. He’s neither moved nor said a word in the past three hours. Poor William! He was such a good soul. Why in heaven’s name was he killed?”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to find out.”

Burton looked the Sister up and down and gave a broad smile—not something he did very often, for he knew it looked as if it hurt him, and fully exposed his overly long eye teeth. Indeed, Raghavendra blanched slightly at the sight of it.

“Bound and smothered, I see,” he said.

She glanced down at her voluminous bell-shaped skirts, tightly laced bodice, and frilly fringes, then reached up and patted her pinned hair.

“Woe is me,” she said, “a genteel woman of the British Empire, which spreads its civilised mores across the globe and slaps its shackles on every female it encounters. Are we really so dangerous?”

“None more so than you, Sadhvi,” Burton replied. “Such beauty has, in the past, caused empires to fall.”

“No, no, I’ll not have that. It is men who create and destroy empires. Women are just the explanation they employ to excuse their ill-disciplined passions and subsequent misjudgments. History is proof enough that your so-called superior sex is utterly inferior and wholly lacking in common sense.”

“Thank you kindly, ma’am,” Burton said, with a slight bow, and it struck him that—though it was Isabel Arundell he loved and would marry—he possessed few friends as loyal, true, and forthright as Sadhvi Raghavendra.

“And the reason for this bondage,” the Sister said, gesturing down at her clothes, “is that our passengers are about to board, so I thought it prudent to sacrifice my comfort and liberty, especially after having so shocked Lord Elgin with my thoroughly practical Indian garb. That’s why I’m here, Richard: to fetch you. We’re to greet the newcomers in the ballroom. After that, you can—and you will—take to the library.”

Burton grunted his acquiescence and followed her along the corridor.

“Have they told you who our passengers are?” he asked.

“Lord Stanley,” she replied. “And who? His secretary?”

“Prince Albert.”

“Prince Albert? The Prince Albert? The HRH Prince Albert?”

“That one, yes.”

“Bless me!”

“Indeed. I feel our homecoming has been somewhat overshadowed. We are eclipsed.”

Sister Raghavendra put her hands to her face and exclaimed, “Imagine! I might have met him in my smock! Thank goodness I changed!”

“And there you have it,” Burton said. “The fair sex identifies the crux of the matter.”

They reached the staircase and started up it. Impatiently, and somewhat ungraciously, Burton was forced to accept Raghavendra’s supporting hand on his elbow.

“A bloody invalid!” he grumbled. “Excuse my language.”

She giggled. “I’ve been bloody well excusing it every bloody hour of every bloody day for well over a bloody year. Why must you insist on a display of strength when you know full well you have none?”

“Climbing stairs is hardly a display of strength. And you should wash your mouth out with soap, young lady.”

“Don’t worry. By the time we land in London I’ll be as timid as a mouse, won’t speak unless spoken to, and will allow nothing but meaningless platitudes to escape my lips. I may even indulge in a dramatic swoon or two, providing there’s a dashingly handsome young man standing close enough to catch me. Let’s stop a moment and rest.”

“There’s no need. It’s a small staircase between decks, not the confounded Kilima-Njaro Mountain.”

“Be quiet, fathead! I can see your knees buckling. Good Lord, you’ve had malaria, Richard. My medicine has burned it out of you, but you require time to regain your health. For once in your life, stop trying to be a hero. Rest!”

They halted. Burton fumed. A minute ticked by.

“Can we please scale the remaining heights?” the explorer growled. “What is it? Six or seven blessed steps? I give you my solemn word they’ll not have me succumbing to a heart attack.”

They continued, and at the top of the stairs entered a smartly decorated corridor leading to double doors of frosted glass. Burton pushed them open and ushered Raghavendra through into the airship’s sumptuous though modestly sized ballroom. Most of the crew was gathered inside. Nathaniel Lawless, standing with the tall and bony meteorologist, Christopher Spoolwinder, waved Burton and Raghavendra over. As they drew near, they noticed Spoolwinder’s hands were bandaged.

“What happened?” Burton asked.

“The blithering telegraph has gone barmy!” Spoolwinder said in a plaintive tone. “Absolutely gaga! It’s been throwing out sparks, setting fire to paper, then—pow!—it sent such a shock through me I practically somersaulted across the bridge!”

“We disconnected it from the ship’s batteries,” Lawless added, “but it’s still operating.”

“Eh? How?” Burton asked.

“We don’t know!” Spoolwinder exclaimed. His naturally glum face lengthened into an expression of deep misery. “I mean to say—crikey!—it’s just not possible. The machine should be dead as a doornail. Instead, it’s churning out messages like there’s no tomorrow. Messages sent from nobody and nowhere!”

Sister Raghavendra stifled a giggle. She’d often told Burton that she found Spoolwinder’s exaggerated mournfulness highly comical, especially when he was overwrought. “Nobody and nowhere?” she asked.

Captain Lawless shrugged. “There’s no point of origin, Sister. No source. We don’t know who—or where—the messages are coming from.”

Spoolwinder added, “But it’s always exactly the same gobbledegook. Have a gander at this.” He took a sheet of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and passed it to Burton. The explorer read:

THE BEAST . . . THE BEAST . . . THE BEAST . . . YOU SHALL BOW DOWN FOR . . . OL SONF VORSG . . . BORN FROM THE WRECK OF SS BRITANNIA AND . . . LONSH CALZ VONPHO SOBRA ZOL ROR I TA NAZPSAD . . . TO REND THE VEIL . . . FROM THE FALLEN EMPIRE . . . NOW . . . FARZM ZVRZA ADNA GONO IADPIL DS HOM TOH . . . FOR THE ROYAL CHARTER . . . WILL DELIVER HE . . . BALTOH IPAM VL IPAMIS . . .

“English mixed with random letters,” Burton murmured. “SS Britannia? Is there such a ship, Captain?”

“There was an RMS Britannia. An ocean liner. We sold her to the Prussians some ten years ago. They renamed her SMS Barbarossa. There’s no Steamship Britannia. Never has been.”

“And you say this message has been repeated over and over?”

“Countless times and without variation,” Spoolwinder said. “It used up nearly all our paper supply, and the telegraph burned the rest.”

“May I keep this copy?”

Lawless said, “By all means,” and straightened as the boatswain’s whistle suddenly sounded. He muttered, “Look out, here we go,” then yelled, “ship’s company, attention!”

The crew fell silent, stood with stomachs in, shoulders back, and chins up, and all eyes turned to the second set of double doors at the far end of the chamber. They swung open and Doctor Quaint stepped in, moved aside, and bowed two men through. On the left, Lord Stanley, the secretary of state for foreign affairs—short, stocky, and with a permanently aggressive expression—and on the right, His Royal Highness Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, widower of the late Queen Victoria, overweight, his long sideburns ill-concealing his developing jowls and thickening neck, and appearing to bear the weight of the world upon his shoulders.

“He looks ill,” Sister Raghavendra whispered.

Burton gave a quiet grunt of agreement.

Quaint guided the new arrivals across the ballroom and introduced them to Captain Lawless.

“An incredible ship, Kapitän!” Prince Albert declared. He spoke with a heavy German accent. “Mein Gott, gigantisch, no? How many crew?”

“Thirty-five, Your Royal Highness. We were thirty-six but lost a man in Central Africa.”

“Ach! Unfortunate! I understand you haff quite the adventure. Most successful. You solve the mystery of the Nile.”

“Not I, sir. May I present the expedition’s leader, Captain Richard Burton, and his medical officer, Sister Sadhvi Raghavendra?”

The prince smiled at Burton, who noticed lines of pain around the man’s eyes. “Oh dear. Your reputation goes before you, Burton. I am afraid almost to meet you.”

Burton bowed. “I give you my solemn assurance, Your Royal Highness, that whatever calumnies you have heard about me are probably entirely true.”

“Ja! I expected no less! You are a warrior! A man who must cut his own path through life. We are similar, you and I.”

“Similar, sir?”

“It is so! For just as you haff chopped your way through the jungles of Africa, so I haff chopped through the jungles of German Politik. We are relentless, no?”

“Then I take it your endeavours have met with success?”

“It is correct. Just as yours. I tell you this, Burton: the union of Hanover, the Saxon Duchies, unt Bavaria—the new Central German Confederation—through the middle of Prussia it will slice, so we weaken our opponents, you see? Bismarck is now nothing but bluster unt hot air. He haff no power remaining unt can offer no opposition to the forthcoming British–German Alliance. We deny him his Deutsches Reich. It is sehr gut for our countries. Sehr gut! Unt now the question of Italian independence haff been settled with Austria, I am confident there will be no more wars in Europe.”

The prince turned to Sister Raghavendra. “But forgive me, Fräulein, this is disgraceful! I do not wish to bore you with such matters. Europe is a game of chess. One concentrates unt concentrates on the next move until one’s good manners, they are forgotten completely. For far too long I haff been dealing with the devious men.”

He raised Raghavendra’s hand to his lips and continued, “I am—what is the word, Kapitän Burton: überwältigt?”

“Overwhelmed, sir.”

“Ach! Indeed. Overwhelmed. Overwhelmed to meet such a courageous young lady. It is true, ja, that you accompanied the Kapitän around the great lake in the middle of Africa?”

Raghavendra smiled and curtseyed. “Yes, Your Highness, it’s true, though the lake is not quite in the middle.”

“Remarkable! Remarkable!” Prince Albert released her hand and stepped a pace backward. He pulled at his cuffs, winced, and flinched, as if pain had lanced through him, then said, “Well, to get home you are both eager, no? As am I. Let us delay no longer. Kapitän Lawless, will you please haff the ship depart? Unt Doctor Quaint, if you would to my chamber now show me? I was up half the night watching the lights in the sky—Ach! Strange, no?—and am in need of sleep. We will meet again at the palace, Burton. I look forward to it.”

Burton opened his mouth to ask, “The palace?” but before he could utter the question, the prince turned away and said to Sister Raghavendra, “Excuse my rudeness, I beg of you. The life I chose after the death of my dear wife haff of me made a monster where the women are concerned. No manners, Sister Raghavendra! No manners at all!”

“Not a bit of it, sir,” she responded. “You have thoroughly charmed me.”

He smiled, flinched again, and followed Doctor Quaint from the room.

Everyone relaxed.

Burton turned to Lord Stanley, who regarded him with hooded eyes and a stony expression.

“Sir—” the explorer began.

Stanley interrupted, his voice clipped. “Captain. I daresay you are keen to be reunited with your fiancée.”

“Er—yes. I wasn’t aware that—”

“That I knew of Miss Isabel Arundell? Oh, I’m aware of her, Captain. It’s very difficult not to be when one’s office is bombarded on a weekly basis by letters from her.”

Burton was suddenly lost for words.

“Apparently,” Stanley continued, “she considers you an ideal candidate for the consulship of Damascus, and is of the opinion that only an idiot would pass you up for the job.”

“She—she said that?”

“It was implied. Do I look like an idiot to you?”

“No, sir. Not at all.”

“Good. I’m relieved. I can trust my own judgement, then?”

“I’m sorry. I had no idea—”

Stanley’s stern countenance softened somewhat. “No, of course not. You were in Africa. But it has to stop. I’ll not be browbeaten by a woman.” The corners of his mouth twitched upward. “Excepting my own wife, of course; may God bless her and have mercy on my soul.”

“I’ll have words with Miss Arundell.”

“See that you do.”

“On another matter, sir—”

“Yes?”

“I have a great deal of information for you regarding the disposition and resources of the Lake Regions.”

“Good man. In reports? Properly written up?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. Have them delivered to my cabin. I’ll pass them directly to the prime minister when we reach London. Africa is one of those matters about which he prefers to form his own opinions before consulting with me. Your intended, I’m sorry to say, isn’t the only one who doubts my ability to make the right choices.”

Burton said, “Very well.”

“And enjoy the ceremony, Burton.”

“Ceremony?”

“At the palace. By George, don’t you know?”

“Know what, sir?”

“On Monday, Burton. You’re due at the palace. You are to receive a knighthood!”

At four-thirty that afternoon—it was Thursday the 1st of September, 1859—Captain Richard Burton, with his top hat in one hand and Oliphant’s cane in the other, stood beside Nathaniel Lawless on the bridge of HMA Orpheus and watched through a side window as the vessel’s rotors gouged a deep furrow through the top of a sickly yellow cloud. Ahead, four copper towers poked out of the pall, and beyond them, in the distance, the tips of factory chimneys and the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral were visible.

The sunlight, streaming from a clear blue sky, reflected glaringly from the four metal columns as the airship drew alongside them.

“Cut the engines, Mr. Wenham,” Lawless said to the helmsman. He turned to his chief engineer. “Out they go, Mr. Keen.”

“Aye, sir,” Keen replied. He lifted a speaking tube to his mouth and said, “All out!”

“Take us down, Mr. Wenham. As slow as you like.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Lawless said to Burton, “Just like they did in Africa, our riggers and engineers are now dangling at the end of chains outside the ship, and Mr. Wenham is venting gas from the dirigible, so we’ll sink very gradually. This time, though, the men outside won’t have to peg us down themselves—the station’s ground crew will be on hand to assist with trolley-mounted windlasses. The chains will be attached and wound in, hauling us down until we’re secured, and you’ll then be able to set foot on British soil again.”

The bridge suddenly turned gloomy as the fog swallowed the Orpheus.

Ten minutes later, the airship settled in the Royal Navy Air Service Station beside Battersea Power Station, the latter being the well-guarded headquarters of the Department of Guided Science.

The pride of the British fleet was home.

Lawless accompanied Burton down to the main doors, where Sister Raghavendra and Doctor Quaint joined them. They stood and watched as crew unbolted the big hatches and slid them aside before lowering the ship’s ramp. Fog rolled in. Lawless coughed.

Outside, two steam-horses—like miniature tall-funnelled versions of the famous Stephenson’s Rocket—emerged from the murk, pulling a large armour-plated six-wheeled carriage behind them. They drew up to the base of the ramp.

Lawless nodded at Quaint, who turned on his heel and hurried away, only to return moments later with Prince Albert, Lord Stanley, and Lord Elgin.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” the prince said. Stanley and Elgin nodded their gratitude. The three descended the ramp and climbed into the vehicle. The steam-horses belched smoke from their funnels, jerked into motion, and dragged the carriage back into the cloud.

Burton squinted into the pea-souper.

“Well,” he said, pushing his top hat onto his head and leaning on the panther-headed cane. “It’s nice to see London again.”

“I can’t remember it ever being this bad,” Raghavendra remarked.

“And it stinks to high heaven,” Lawless observed. “I fear we must re-adjust ourselves after being spoilt by the beauty and purity of Africa.”

Burton snorted. “So says the man who enjoyed the luxurious facilities of his ship while Sadhvi, William, George, and I were struggling through methane-bubbling swamps with crocodiles trying to eat us and mosquitoes sucking our blood.”

“Point taken. Is that someone approaching?” Lawless jerked his chin toward a shadowy figure that, as they watched, detached itself from the fog and started up toward them.

“Ahoy there, Orpheus!” a voice called. “Welcome back to the civilised world!”

“Sir Roderick!” Burton exclaimed and strode forward to meet the man, clasping hands with him halfway along the ramp.

Sir Roderick Murchison, president of the Royal Geographical Society, was a tall and slender individual whose rigid demeanour belied the warmth of his personality. “Well done, Burton!” he effused. “Well done! You’ve placed a jewel in the crown of the RGS! The Nile is cracked at last!” He slapped Burton’s shoulder. “We lost track of you last night—apparently that extraordinary aurora borealis has disabled telegraph systems the world over—but I knew the ship was due this afternoon, so braved the funk to meet you. The rest of our fellows are waiting at the Society. No doubt you’re looking forward to the comforts of home, but you’ll attend a little reception first, yes?”

“Of course, Sir Roderick, I’d be delighted.”

“Good show, old boy! I say, though, you look perfectly rotten. Are you ill?”

“A touch of fever. Nothing I can’t cope with.”

Murchison peered past Burton, uttered a cry of pleasure, then hurried up to the airship’s door—the explorer followed behind—and took Sister Raghavendra’s hand. “My dear, dear young lady! May I be the first to congratulate you? You are absolutely the talk of the town. And I’m delighted to tell you that, as a mark of respect for your astounding contribution to Captain Burton’s expedition, the Society has seen fit to lift its ban on women. You are a member, Sister! What! What! A member! The vote was unanimous!”

“Thank you, Sir Roderick,” she answered, with a slight bob. “That’s splendid news. Simply splendid! A woman member! My goodness! I am honoured!”

“Captain!” Murchison said, turning his attention to Lawless. “You and your gallant crew will be granted honorary membership, of course. You are heroes to a man. The RGS holds you all in the highest regard. There will be medals issued by the palace, I guarantee it.”

Lawless smiled and gave an appreciative nod.

“Where is Lieutenant Stroyan?” Murchison asked.

Burton responded, “I’m sorry to have to tell you, sir, that he was killed last night.”

Murchison slumped. “No! By God! No! An accident?”

“Murder. Lord Elgin’s private secretary, Oliphant, went insane and cut his throat.”

Murchison slapped a hand to his forehead. “Oh my! Oh my! Insane, you say? Oh, poor William! He was a splendid fellow. I shall have to talk to him. I’ll give him a chance to settle, obviously, but I must offer my condolences, ask whether he has any messages for those he’s left behind.”

Burton couldn’t help himself. His lip curled in disdain. “If you wish it, sir.”

“It’s my duty, old chap. The dead must be eased into the Afterlife, and as a murder victim Stroyan is no doubt confused and disoriented. A familiar voice will soothe him during his difficult transition.”

Burton shrugged non-committally.

Murchison pondered for a moment, then perked up, clapped his hands, and announced, “Shall we be off? Captain Lawless, will you and your crew join us? Should I summon more carriages?”

Lawless shook his head. “Thank you, but we must pass up the invitation, Sir Roderick. I have to summon the police to fetch Mr. Oliphant, and there is much to do aboard ship. We’ll be flying up to the RNA Service Station in Yorkshire next week for a refit and will begin preparations immediately.” He turned to the others. “Captain Burton, Sister Raghavendra, your luggage will be delivered to your homes within the next couple of days.”

Murchison said, “Very well. I shall see you on Monday, then. Medals, Captain! Medals! And well earned!”

Burton and Raghavendra said their farewells to Lawless then Murchison hustled them down the ramp, across the landing field, and into a waiting steam-horse-drawn growler.

“Back the way we came, please, driver!” Murchison called up to the massively built individual on the box seat.

“All the way to the Royal Geological Society, sir?”

“Geographical. Yes, all the way there. Fifteen Whitehall Place.”

“Right you are. Geographical, as what I said. Hall aboard? Hoff we bloomin’ well go! Gee-up!”

As the conveyance lurched into motion, Murchison said to Burton and Raghavendra, “Incidentally, I have good news. Last month, the RGS was officially sanctioned. The king, in recognition of your discovery, issued us with a royal charter. We are establishment now.”

Burton put his hand up to his beard and slowly dragged his fingers through it. “A royal charter, you say? You didn’t attempt to inform us of that by telegraph last night, did you?”

“No. Why would I when it was just a matter of hours before your arrival? Besides, as I mentioned, the whole telegraph system has been crippled since midnight.”

Burton grunted. “Hmm! Peculiar. Our own telegraph went off the rails and churned out a lot of gibberish. There were a few English words mixed in with it—‘royal charter’ being two of them. Quite a coincidence.”

“Stroyan,” Murchison said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Stroyan. He was trying to get through from the Other Side. They say all past and future knowledge is available in the Afterlife. William obviously saw that the king has endorsed our organisation and, through means of the dysfunctional telegraph, tried to tell you.”

“If I may,” Sister Raghavendra interrupted, “I don’t wish to diminish the significance of the royal charter, Sir Roderick, but surely where matters of life, death, and the Afterlife are concerned, it’s a comparatively trivial matter? Surely, if William’s spirit were to contact us, it would have something more substantial to communicate?”

Murchison crossed his arms. “It was merely conjecture. Should I assume, then, Sister, that you’ve adopted Captain Burton’s skepticism where the Afterlife is concerned?”

“I remain open-minded.”

Murchison acknowledged her statement with a hum then addressed Burton. “But you’ve returned from Africa with your objections intact, I suppose?”

“As before, I neither support nor denounce the idea,” Burton replied. “Whether there is an Afterlife or not, I simply do not know, and since I exist in the material world, nor do I need to know. What I oppose is the undue influence in our society of spiritualists who claim to convey messages to us from the departed. In the event that the mediums aren’t all charlatans and the communiques are real, I have to ask, what motivates the dead to make the effort? Why are their messages so frequently abstruse? What is their agenda? No, Sir Roderick, I’ll not have it. My life is my own and Death will come in due course, but until it does, I’ll avoid the Afterlife, will make my own decisions, and will brook no meddling from Beyond.”

The three of them grabbed at hand straps to steady themselves as the growler navigated a corner.

“As a non-believer, you are in the minority,” Murchison observed.

“Quite so. The majority succumb to blind hope and allow it to compromise their intellect.”

“You have no hope?”

“I am realistic. My mind dwells on the lessons of the past and the challenges of the present, not on the unknowable future.”

“Ah ha! So you dismiss prognosticators as well as mediums?”

“Of course. They are obviously fraudsters.”

Sister Raghavendra patted Burton’s arm and said to Murchison, “In expressing his views, Captain Burton is never backward in coming forward. We had many discussions of a philosophical nature during our safari. After each one, I felt as if I’d been savaged by a jungle cat.”

“I fear for Miss Arundell,” Murchison mused. “Has she any lion-taming skills, Burton?”

The explorer gave a slight smile. “Isabel believes she’ll eventually beat me into submission with her ferocious Catholicism.”

Murchison shook his head despairingly. “Of all the people to marry into the country’s most influential Catholic family, I’d never have predicted it to be you. How do her parents feel about welcoming a stubborn and outspoken atheist into their clan?”

“When she told them, her mother became hysterical and fainted and her father vowed to shoot me. She’s had a year to work on them. Perhaps they’ve calmed down.” Burton coughed and moved his tongue around in his mouth. “Really, can this awful stink possibly get any worse?” He fished a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to his nose.

“We’re next to the Thames,” Murchison said. “This time last year, the stench was so bad they had to abandon parliament. Thank heavens for Bazalgette!”

“Who is he?”

“Joseph Bazalgette—a freshly emerged luminary among the DOGS. His designs for an advanced sewer system were approved a few weeks after your departure and he got to work immediately. The city has been in upheaval, but there’s not a single citizen who isn’t happy to put up with the nuisance of it in the knowledge that, when the tunnels are completed, the air will be breathable and the roads clean. Actually, Burton, you timed your expedition well.”

“How so?”

“There’s a subterranean river—the Tyburn—that flows through your part of town, under Baker Street, Marylebone, and Mayfair, beneath Buckingham Palace, on through Pimlico, and into the Thames slightly to the west of Vauxhall Bridge. Bazalgette has incorporated it into his system. It was one of the first parts to be constructed, so for many weeks the district where you live was badly disrupted. You avoided much inconvenience.”

“It’s finished now?”

“That part of it, yes. The Tyburn now runs into one of the system’s main arteries—the Northern Low-Level Sewer—which, when complete, will extend all the way from Hackney in the west to Beckton in the east, running parallel to the northern shore of the Thames. By God! You should see it, Burton! Such an undertaking! It’s the Strand that’s suffering at the moment—and its theatres and hotels are vociferous in their complaints, as you’d expect—but Bazalgette works like a demon. It won’t be long before that part of the city returns to normal while he ploughs onward into the Cauldron.”

“Gracious!” Raghavendra exclaimed. “He’s going into the East End? Isn’t that awfully dangerous?”

Her concern was justified. London’s East End was the city’s poorest, meanest, and filthiest district. A labyrinth of narrow alleyways, bordered by decrepit and overcrowded tenements, overflowing with raw sewage and rubbish of every description, it bred disease and despair in equal measure. The destitute lived amid the squalor in vast numbers and were vicious to such a degree that the police wouldn’t go near them. Disraeli had famously referred to the area as “a country within our country, and a damned wicked one at that.” When asked how to best solve the problem, he’d replied, “With fire.”

Murchison nodded. “Of course, but even criminals and ne’er-do-wells can see the advantage of having their effluence flushed away. The gangs that operate there have guaranteed that Bazalgette’s people will be protected and treated well.”

“Will wonders never cease?” Burton murmured. His eyes started to water. He took slow and shallow breaths.

Murchison smiled. “You’ll adjust, old boy. You’ll need to. To a lesser degree, this stench currently pervades all of London north of the Thames.”

“Why so?”

“Because until the principal west-to-east artery is finished, all the smaller tunnels running into it, flowing from north to south—the Tyburn included—have had their flow tightly restricted by a sequence of sluice gates. The muck is backing up, and it may well rise into the streets before it can be released into the completed system.”

“And south of the river?” Raghavendra asked.

“Tunnels are still being constructed to carry the effluence into the Thames. When they’re done, another big west-to-east intercepting tunnel will be constructed, parallel to the river’s south bank.”

“Incredible,” Burton said. “A monumental task!”

“Quite so. Bazalgette is a miracle worker.”

Sister Raghavendra, who appeared less affected by the stink, asked, “And what other progress has been made by the Department of Guided Science, Sir Roderick? Its inventors are so prolific, I fully expect London to be unrecognisable to me once this fog clears.”

“Steam spheres,” the geographer answered.

“And what are they?”

“Horseless carriages—large ball-shaped machines with a moving track running vertically from front to back across the circumference, giving motive power. They are two-man vehicles. Not much good for the city streets—which are too crowded—but excellent for a run in the country.”

The growler swayed and bumped. They heard the driver shout something insulting, probably to someone who’d blocked their path.

“And submarine boats,” Murchison continued.

“Vessels that travel beneath the surface of the sea?” Raghavendra guessed.

“Exactly so.”

“My goodness. Whatever for?”

“The DOGS have but a single bark, my dear: Because they can!”

Burton pushed aside the curtain and peered out of the window. Vaguely, he saw gasworks looming out of the fog, and deduced that the growler had by now traversed the complete length of Nine Elms and was proceeding north through Lambeth.

“Not much traffic,” he observed.

“You haven’t noticed,” Murchison said, “no doubt because you’re acclimatised to Africa, but it’s very warm for the time of year. We’ve had the hottest summer in living memory and it’s brought with it regular London particulars. In such murk, people fear to set foot in the streets lest they get lost or mugged.”

“Or suffocate.”

“Indeed.”

“Our driver appears to know where he’s going.”

“He’s a reliable cove. Montague Penniforth. I use him a lot. He normally drives a hansom but hires a growler when he has occasion to. I’m convinced he can see in the dark.”

Burton let the curtain fall back into place. He wiped his eyes with his handkerchief then pressed it again to his nose. He’d spent most of the day sleeping aboard the Orpheus, but although he felt much recovered, his hands were still trembling and his throat was dry. Dropping his left hand to his pocket, he surreptitiously felt the outline of a bottle of Saltzmann’s Tincture.

During the course of the next half-hour, Murchison and his companions discussed various incidents that had occurred during the expedition, while the growler took them along Palace Road to Westminster Bridge, crossed the reeking Thames, turned right at the Houses of Parliament, and trundled along King Street and Whitehall to Whitehall Place. Finally, it drew to a stop outside number 15, a many-windowed building situated opposite Scotland Yard.

The passengers disembarked. Murchison paid Penniforth and the carriage departed, its wheels grinding over the cobbles, its engine panting smoke.

“Two or three hours, my friends,” Murchison said. “That’s all we ask of you. Just time enough to take a drink with your fellows and entertain them with a few tales of derring-do. Then you’ll have three days to recuperate before the ceremonies at the palace.”

Burton looked at the building’s grand entrance.

Knighted! He was going to be knighted!

It would give him influence.

Damascus. Marriage. Books. No more of this. No more RGS. No more exploring. No more danger.

Tomorrow, he’d get back to his half-finished translation of the Baital-Pachisi, a Hindu tale of a vampire that inhabits and animates dead bodies. With that completed, he’d be able to commence his great project, a fully annotated version of A Thousand Nights and a Night, translated from the original Arabic—an undertaking which, he reckoned, would keep him busy for at least the first couple of years of his consular service.

“Shall we?” Murchison asked, waving Burton and Raghavendra toward the door.

They crossed to it, pushed it open, and entered.