Rice, Anne - The Mummy

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2024-11-23 0 0 113.17KB 53 页 5.9玖币

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PART • 1

THE CAMERA flashes blinded him for a moment. If only he could get the

photographers away.

But they had been at his side for months now-ever since the first artifacts had

been found in these barren hills, south of Cairo. It was as if they too had

known. Something about to happen. After all these years, Lawrence Stratford was

on to a major find.

And so they were there with the cameras, and the smoking flashes. They almost

knocked him off balance as he made his way into the narrow rough-hewn passage

towards the letters visible on the half-uncovered marble door.

The twilight seemed to darken suddenly. He could see the letters, but he

couldn't make them out.

"Samir," he cried. "I need light."

"Yes, Lawrence." At once the torch exploded behind him, and in a flood of yellow

illumination, the slab of stone was wonderfully visible. Yes, hieroglyphs,

deeply etched and beautifully gilded, and in Italian marble. He had never seen

such a sight.

He felt the hot silky touch of Samir's hand on his as he began to read aloud:

" 'Robbers of the Dead, Look away from this tomb lest you wake its occupant,

whose wrath cannot be contained. Ramses the Damned is my name.' "

He glanced at Samir. What could it mean?

"Goon, Lawrence, translate, you are far quicker than I am," Samir said.

" 'Ramses the Damned is my name. Once Ramses the Great of Upper and Lower Egypt;

Slayer of the Hittites, Builder of Temples; Beloved of the People; and immortal

guardian of the kings and queens of Egypt throughout time. In the year of the

death of the Great Queen Cleopatra, as Egypt becomes a Roman province, I commit

myself to eternal darkness; beware, all those who would let the rays of the sun

pass through this door.' *'

"But it makes no sense," Samir whispered. "Ramses the Great ruled one thousand

years before Cleopatra."

"Yet these are nineteenth-dynasty hieroglyphs without question," Lawrence

countered. Impatiently, he scratched away at the loose nibble. ' 'And look, the

inscription's repeated-in Latin and in Greek." He paused, then quickly read the

last few Latin lines.

" 'Be Warned: I sleep as the earth sleeps beneath the night sky or the winter's

snow; and once awakened, I am servant to no man.' "

For a moment Lawrence was speechless, staring at the words he'd read. Only

vaguely did he hear Samir:

"I don't like it. Whatever it means, it's a curse."

Reluctantly Lawrence turned and saw that Samir's suspicion had turned to fear.

"The body of Ramses the Great is in the Cairo Museum," Samir said impatiently.

"No," Lawrence answered. He was aware of a chill moving slowly up his neck.

"There's a body in the Cairo Museum, but it's not Ramses! Look at the

cartouches, the seal! There was no one in the time of Cleopatra who could even

write the ancient hieroglyphs. And these are perfect-and done like the Latin and

the Greek with infinite care."

Oh, if only Julie were here, Lawrence thought bitterly. His daughter, Julie, was

afraid of nothing. She would understand this moment as no one else could.

He almost stumbled as he backed out of the passage, waving the photographers out

of his path. Again, the flashes went off around him. Reporters rushed towards

die marble door.

"Get the diggers back to work," Lawrence shouted. "I want the passage cleared

down to the threshold. I'm going into that tomb tonight."

"Lawrence, take your time with this," Samir cautioned. "There is something here

which must not be dismissed."

"Samir, you astonish me," Lawrence answered. "For ten years we've been searching

these hills for just such a discovery. And no one's touched that door since it

was sealed two thousand years ago."

Almost angrily, he pushed past the reporters who caught up with him now, and

tried to block the way. He needed the quiet of his tent until the door was

uncovered; he needed his diary, the only proper confidant for the excitement he

felt. He was dizzy suddenly from the long day^s heat.

"No questions now, ladies and gentlemen," Samir said politely. As he always did,

Samir came between Lawrence and the real world.

Lawrence hurried down the uneven path, twisting his ankle a littie painfully,

yet continuing, his eyes narrow as he looked beyond the flickering torches at

the sombre beauty of the lighted tents under the violet evening sky.

Only one thing distracted him before he reached the safety zone of his camp

chair and desk: a glimpse of his nephew, Henry, watching idly from a short

distance away. Henry, so uncomfortable and out of place in Egypt; looking

miserable in his fussy white linen suit. Henry, with the inevitable glass of

Scotch in his hand, and the inevitable cheroot on his lip.

Undoubtedly the belly dancer was with him-the woman, Malenka, from Cairo, who

gave her British gentleman all the money she made.

Lawrence could never entirely forget about Henry, but having Henry underfoot now

was more than he could bear.

In a life well lived, Lawrence counted Henry as his only true disappointment-the

nephew who cared for no one and nothing but gaming tables and the bottle; the

sole male heir to the Stratford millions who properly couldn't be trusted with a

one-pound note.

Sharp pain again as he missed Julie-his beloved daughter, who should have been

here with him, and would have been if her young fiance" hadn't persuaded her to

stay at home.

Henry had come to Egypt for money. Henry had company papers for Lawrence to

sign. And Henry's father, Randolph, had sent him on this grim mission, desperate

as always to cover his son's debts.

A fine pair they are, Lawrence thought grimly-the ne'er-do-well and the chairman

of the board of Stratford Shipping who clumsily funneled the company's profits

into his son's bottomless purse.

But in a very real way Lawrence could forgive his brother, Randolph, anything.

Lawrence hadn't merely given the family business to Randolph. He had dumped it

on Randolph, along with all its immense pressures and responsibilities, so that

he, Lawrence, could spend his remaining years digging among the Egyptian ruins

he so loved.

And to be perfectly fair, Randolph had done a tolerable job of running Stratford

Shipping. That is, until his son had turned him into an embezzler and a thief.

Even now, Randolph would admit everything if confronted. But Lawrence was too

purely selfish for that confrontation. He never wanted to leave Egypt again for

the stuffy London offices of Stratford Shipping. Not even Julie could persuade

him to come home.

And now Henry stood there waiting for his moment. And Lawrence denied him that

moment, entering the tent and eagerly pulling his chair up to the desk. He took

out a leather-bound diary which he had been saving, perhaps for this discovery.

Hastily he wrote what he remembered of the door's inscription and the questions

it posed.

"Ramses the Damned." He sat back, looking at the name. And for the first time he

felt just a little of the foreboding which had shaken Samir.

What on earth could all this mean?

Half-past midnight. Was he dreaming? The marble door of the tomb had been

carefully removed, photographed, and placed on trestles in his tent. And now

they were ready to blast their way in. The tomb! His at last.

He nodded to Samir. He felt the ripple of excitement move through the crowd.

Flashes went off as he raised his hands to his ears, and then the blast caught

them all off guard. He felt it in the pit of his stomach.

No time for that. He had the torch in hand and was going in, though Samir tried

once again to stop him.

"Lawrence, there could be booby traps, there could be-"

"Get out of my way."

The dust was making him cough. His eyes were watering.

He thrust the torch through the gaping hole. Walls decorated with hieroglyphs-

again, the magnificent nineteenth-dynasty style without question.

At once he stepped inside. How extraordinarily cool it felt; and the smell, what

was it, a curious perfume after all these long centuries!

His heart beat too fast. The blood rushed to his face, and he had to cough

again, as the press of reporters raised the dust in the passage.

'Keep back!'' he shouted crossly. The flashes were going off all around him

again. He could barely see the painted ceiling overhead with its tiny stars.

And there, a long table laden with alabaster jars and boxes. Heaps of rolled

papyri. Dear God, all this alone confirmed a momentous discovery.

"But this is no tomb!" he whispered.

There was a writing table, covered with a thin film of dust, looking for all the

world as if the scholar had only just left it. An open papyrus lay there, with

sharpened pens, an ink bottle. And a goblet.

But the bust, the marble bust-it was unmistakably Graeco-Roman. A woman with her

tight wavy hair drawn back beneath a metal band, her drowsy half-lidded eyes

seemingly blind, and the name cut into the base:

CLEOPATRA

"Not possible," he heard Samir say. "But look, Lawrence, the mummy case!"

Lawrence had already seen it. He was staring speechless at the thing which lay

serenely in the very middle of (his puzzling room, this study, this library,

with its stacks of scrolls and its dust-covered writing table.

Once again, Samir ordered the photographers back. The smoking flashes were

maddening Lawrence.

"Get out, all of you, get out!" Lawrence said. Grumbling, they retreated out of

sight of the door, leaving the two men standing there in stunned silence.

It was Samir who spoke first:

"This is Roman furniture. This is Cleopatra. Look at the coins, Lawrence, on the

desk. With her image, and newly minted. Those alone are worth-"

"I know. But there lies an ancient Pharaoh, my friend. Every detail of the case-

it's as fine as any ever found in the Valley of the Kings."

"But without a sarcophagus," Samir said. "Why?"

"This is no tomb," Lawrence answered.

"And so the King chose to be buried here!" Samir approached the mummy case,

lifting the torch high above the beautifully painted face, with its darkly lined

eyes and exquisitely modeled lips.

"I could swear this is the Roman period," he said.

"But the style ..."

"Lawrence, it's too lifelike. It's a Roman artist who has imitated the

nineteenth-dynastic style to perfection."

"And how could such a thing happen, my friend?"

"Curses," Samir whispered, as if he had not heard the question. He was staring

at the rows of hieroglyphs that circled the painted figure. The Greek lettering

appeared lower down, and finally came the Latin.

"Touch not the remains of Ramses the Great" Samir read. "It's the same in all

three tongues. Enough to give a sensible man pause."

"Not this sensible man," Lawrence replied. "Get those workers in here to lift

this lid at once."

The dust had settled somewhat. The torches, in the old iron sconces on the wall,

were sending far too much smoke onto the ceiling, but that he would worry about

later.

The thing now was to cut open the bundled human shape, which had been propped

against the wall, the thin wooden lid of the mummy case carefully laid upright

beside it.

He no longer saw the men and women packed at the entrance, who peered at him and

his find in silence.

Slowly, he raised the knife and sliced through the brittle husk of dried linen,

which fell open immediately to reveal the tightly wrapped figure beneath.

There was a collective gasp from the reporters. Again and again the flashes

popped. Lawrence could feel Samir's silence. Both men stared at the gaunt face

beneath its yellowed linen bandages, at the withered arms so serenely laid

across the breast.

It seemed one of the photographers was begging to be allowed into the chamber.

Samir angrily demanded silence. But of these distractions, Lawrence was only

dimly aware.

He gazed calmly at the emaciated form before him, its wrappings the color of

darkened desert sand. It seemed he could detect an expression in the shrouded

features; he could detect something eloquent of tranquillity in the set of the

thin lips.

Every mummy was a mystery. Every desiccated yet preserved form a ghastly image

of life in death. It never failed to chill him, to look upon these ancient

Egyptian dead. But he felt a strange longing as he looked at this one-this

mysterious being who called himself Ramses the Damned, Ramses the Great.

Something warm touched him inside. He drew closer, slashing again at the outer

wrapping. Behind him, Samir ordered the photographers out of the passage. There

was danger of contamination. Yes, go, all of you, please.

He reached out and touched the mummy suddenly; he touched it reverently with the

very tips of his fingers. So curiously resilient! Surely the thick layer of

bandages had become soft with time.

Again, he gazed at the narrow face before him, at the rounded lids, and the

sombre mouth.

"Julie," he whispered. "Oh, my darling, if only you could see ..."

The Embassy Ball. Same old faces; same old orchestra, same old sweet yet droning

waltz. The lights were a glare to Elliott Savarell: the champagne left a sour

taste in his mouth. Nevertheless he drained the glass rather gracelessly and

caught the eye of a passing waiter. Yes, anodier. And another. Would that it

were good brandy or whisky.

But they wanted him here, didn't they? Wouldn't be the same without the Earl of

Rutherford. The Earl of Rutherford was an essential ingredient, as were the

lavish flower arrangements, the thousands upon thousands of candles; the caviar,

and the silver; and the old musicians sawing wearily at their violins while the

younger generation danced.

Everyone had a greeting for the Earl of Rutherford. Everyone wanted the Earl of

Rutherford to attend a daughter's wedding, or an afternoon tea, or another ball

such as this. Never mind that Elliott and his wife rarely entertained anymore in

either their London town house or the country estate in Yorkshire-that Edith

spent much of her time in Paris now with a widowed sister. The seventeenth Earl

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Rice, Anne - The Mummy

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