Arthur finds him­self caught in a pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tion by the Riv­er Tigris in August of 1876. With the city of Nin­eveh engulfed in the dev­as­ta­tion of a spread­ing plague and cholera, Arthur is unable to con­tin­ue his work. Strug­gling with the iso­la­tion and the mount­ing pres­sures of his mis­sion, he decides to send a telegram to the Trustees of the British Muse­um, request­ing an ear­ly end to his expe­di­tion. His hope for relief is dashed when he receives a brief and imper­son­al reply from S. McAl­lis­ter Jones, the Museum’s sec­re­tary, empha­siz­ing cau­tion but offer­ing no solu­tion to Arthur’s desire to return home. Left with­out the escape he so des­per­ate­ly craves, Arthur feels increas­ing­ly trapped, his quest for dis­cov­ery weigh­ing heav­i­ly on his spir­it. He finds solace only in the dis­card­ed rem­nants of past archae­o­log­i­cal teams, sift­ing through chipped pot­tery and ancient tiles that no one else had cared to exam­ine.

As Arthur sorts through the debris, he stum­bles upon a strik­ing cobalt tablet—an unex­pect­ed trea­sure that piques his curios­i­ty. This tablet, part of the Epic of Gil­gamesh, holds a por­tion of the sto­ry that Arthur has nev­er encoun­tered before, reveal­ing a deeply res­o­nant theme of loss. The text speaks of Gil­gamesh return­ing home a bro­ken man, strug­gling with the weight of his expe­ri­ences, and in the midst of his sor­row, Arthur finds a reflec­tion of his own inner tur­moil. The tablet is par­tic­u­lar­ly cap­ti­vat­ing due to its ded­i­ca­tion to Nis­a­ba, a mys­te­ri­ous god­dess, rather than the typ­i­cal deity, Nabu. Arthur, lost in thought, reflects on the impor­tance of rivers in Mesopotami­an cul­ture, real­iz­ing that they rep­re­sent much more than mere geo­graph­i­cal fea­tures. They serve as vital life­lines con­nect­ing the past with the present, embody­ing the cycles of life and death, as well as the grief and loss inher­ent to the human con­di­tion. This insight deep­ens Arthur’s under­stand­ing of the civ­i­liza­tions that once thrived along the Tigris and Euphrates, and how their sto­ries are still inter­twined with the land­scape today.

Amid these reflec­tions, Mah­moud arrives with star­tling news: a young Yazi­di woman has been seen trav­el­ing alone in the area. Arthur’s mind imme­di­ate­ly jumps to Leila, a woman who had once proph­e­sied dis­as­ter, and his hope flares up at the thought of find­ing her. Mah­moud, how­ev­er, cau­tions him against the dan­gers of chas­ing this lead, not­ing that such pur­suits often end in dis­ap­point­ment and dan­ger. But Arthur, dri­ven by the hope of final­ly find­ing Leila, insists on set­ting out for Cas­trum Kefa, where Leila’s sis­ter is said to reside. Deter­mined to fol­low this thread of hope despite the poten­tial risks, Arthur pre­pares for the jour­ney with renewed pur­pose. Mah­moud, see­ing that Arthur’s deter­mi­na­tion is unwa­ver­ing, reluc­tant­ly agrees to accom­pa­ny him, under­stand­ing the dan­gers of ven­tur­ing into the unknown alone.

The jour­ney begins in mid-August, with Arthur and Mah­moud trav­el­ing through the arid land­scape along the Riv­er Tigris, leav­ing behind the ruins of Nin­eveh. Arthur’s body is weary, but his spir­it is rein­vig­o­rat­ed by the thought of final­ly find­ing Leila and per­haps dis­cov­er­ing answers to the ques­tions that have plagued him for years. As they move fur­ther from Nin­eveh, the land becomes more des­o­late, yet Arthur feels a con­nec­tion to the ancient his­to­ry that still lingers in the sand. Each step brings him clos­er to the past and to the truth he seeks, not only about the woman he is search­ing for but also about him­self. In this jour­ney, Arthur is not just chas­ing a woman who might nev­er be found, but he is also grap­pling with the echoes of his own life, the mis­takes he has made, and the redemp­tion he longs for. As they head toward Cas­trum Kefa, Arthur faces the inevitabil­i­ty of the unknown, a man in search of answers, hope, and clo­sure.