"Robert Doherty - Area 51 - The Sphinx" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doherty Robert)

Burton laughed. "You cannot deter me with the stories of curses that you
Egyptians love to scare foreigners with. I have been many dangerous places and I
have stared death in the face. I will not blink now.
"I am on the tarigat," Burton continued. The word he spoke in Arabic
translated as the spiritual path leading to the truth, which normally meant the
truth of God, but Burton wasn't certain where his tarigat was going. He reached
into his shirt and pulled out a circular medallion that hung on a chain around
his neck. On the surface of the metal, an eye was emblazoned over the apex of a
pyramid.
KajiтАЩs gnarled fingers ran across the surface of the medallion. тАЬWhere
did you get this?тАЭ
тАЬIn Medina. From a man named Abdu Al-Iblis.тАЭ
Kaji stiffened. тАЬYou are one of his disciples?тАЭ
Burton shook his head. тАЬNo. I spoke with him one time. A most strange
person. He gave me this.тАЭ
тАЬDid you get anything else from him? A key?тАЭ
тАЬWhat kind of key?тАЭ
тАЬIf you had it, you would know.тАЭ Kaji remained still for several minutes,
Burton waiting on him. Finally the ArabтАЩs shoulders slumped ever so slightly. тАЬI
see it is to be our fate. I will take you inside. What you seek is below us.тАЭ
тАЬThe Hall of Records?тАЭ

-6-

"Yes."
Burton looked around. "Through the sand?"
 "There are other ways to go where you seek," Kaji said. He pointed at the
Great Pyramid. "We must go there." He began walking around the Sphinx's head.
It appeared to Burton that the middle pyramid was the highest, but he
knew that was a trick of the lay of the Plateau of Giza. The one farthest to the
northeast, where they were headed, was the tallest and most massive.




Burton hurried to keep up. Like Kaji, he wore the long robes of the
people of the desert. Richard Francis Burton was a strange man, and it was no
accident that he had ended up here in Egypt, searching out mysteries told of in
legends and written of on decaying parchments. Born in England in 1821, he'd
briefly attended Oxford, where he had been the only student at the time to study
Arabic. Disgusted with the closed minds at the school, he left after two years
and joined the military. In 1842 he was posted to India, where he promptly began
studying Hindustani, then Persian. Because at his linguistic talents and his
desire for adventure, he became a spy for the British army, scouting along the
borders of the English Empire in that part of the world. During one of those
missions he became seriously ill with cholera.

-7-

Given two years of sick leave, he used that time to become a Master Sufi, one