by John Burke
The two men advanced into the middle of the cave and then, as though at a prearranged signal, dropped the stretcher. The covering fell away from the face of Professor Dubois. His mouth was twisted in a grimace of agony that could now never be wiped away. His sightless eyes stared up at the roof.
John Bray gasped. Annette, dazed, felt him brush past her, and then he struck the first stretcher-bearer so violently that the bony little man stumbled backwards and fell to the ground.
“John!” Sir Giles caught his arm.
“He did that deliberately. The leader—I saw him. He meant to drop it . . . contemptuously.”
Hashmi stepped forward. “You must be wrong, Mr. Bray. It is not our way to be disrespectful to the dead.”
“I know all about your ways,” said John furiously. “We have had quite a demonstration of them in recent months. The stealing of our stores . . . inciting our labor force to desert us . . . Oh, yes”—the anger bubbled out of him—“you were grateful at first. We had money to spend, and you were happy to get your hands on it. But then we found the tomb of Ra Antef. You took one look inside and decided you wanted it for yourselves. And now . . .” He obscured Annette’s father from her view. He was staring down at the dead face. “This is what you’ve done to Professor Dubois. You’re trying to frighten us away from here, aren’t you?”
“How dare you make such accusations! My Government and I have given you every possible cooperation.”
“You’ve given us no—”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” intervened Sir Giles mildly but firmly. “This is no way to hallow the memory of Professor Dubois.”
He indicated to the porters that they should pick up the stretcher again. Glancing nervously at John, they obeyed, and carried it on into one of the smaller chambers behind the cave. Annette watched it go. All the strength had fled from her limbs. She wanted to follow, to touch her father and tell him to wake up, not to lie there still and mute; but she could not move.
Hashmi said: “I demand that you withdraw—”
“We’ll strike camp tomorrow,” said Sir Giles decisively. “We are returning to Cairo.”
Hashmi swung away from John, incredulous. “But your work here is not yet finished.”
“For the safety of the treasures and ourselves, we’ll complete the tabulations in the city.”
John snorted. “It seems that your tactics have worked after all, Hashmi. Now we fold our tents and run away.”
Hashmi’s eyes seemed to recede into impenetrable shadow. The flame of the oil lamp on a bench close to him swayed slightly, and runnels of darkness coursed down his sombre features. He said in an undertone that murmured its way into the far, echoing corners of the cave:
“You cannot run away. There is no escape from the curse of the mummy’s tomb.”
Annette felt a chill clutch at her heart. Knowing how her father would have derided the mere idea, she had not ventured to say anything about the old legends of the Pharaohs who had sealed their tombs not with wax or metal but with an undying curse. But she had sensed the power of that incantation from the very moment of entering the tomb.
“Don’t talk nonsense, Hashmi.”
“We are doomed to die.” Hashmi lowered his head and for a moment might have been wrapt in prayer. “I, too—for I have transgressed with you. We are doomed to die for our acts of desecration.”
“If you believe you can pull the wool over my eyes with these old legends—”
“It is not wool that obscures your eyes, Mr. Bray, but a lack of vision.”
With a shaking hand Sir Giles opened his cupboard. He poured himself a stiff brandy and gulped it down.
John said slowly: “The tomb of Ra holds no curses, Hashmi. There are only the bones and the belongings of an ancient prince. Good can come of this discovery, but not evil.”
Annette found herself moving towards the chamber in which her father’s body had been laid. The two porters came out and edged round the wall, keeping a good distance between themselves and John Bray.
Annette went in and bent over the bed on which her father had been stretched out.
Then she screamed.
One arm lay by his side, the hand limp. The other arm was at an angle across his body, terminating in a torn, bloody stump. And beside the corpse on the bed was the severed hand with a knife an inch away, caked with blood.
Sir Giles was suddenly behind her, supporting her as she swayed backwards. John hurried in and stood between her and the horror on the bed.
He said: “The sooner we’re away from here, the better.”
3
All that week they worked feverishly, recording and checking, drawing diagrams of the burial chamber and meticulously marking every treasure that was removed. It would never be said by future scholars that the King Expedition had been slovenly and unscientific at any stage of its excavations. Crates were brought in from Cairo. Hashmi, almost as disturbed as the Europeans by the fate which had befallen Professor Dubois, rode to and fro making arrangements with the Government and with the Cairo Museum authorities. John still regarded him with deep suspicion, but was forced to admit that Hashmi was working unflaggingly on their behalf. Perhaps it was simply that the sly, mistrustful Egyptian wanted to see the back of them: he was making the way home smooth for them.
On one of his trips back to the diggings he brought with him two elderly savants from the Museum who grumbled at the way in which they had been hustled into making this journey, and then ceased to grumble when they saw what the expedition had brought to the light of day. The immediate result was an offer of seventy thousand pounds from the Museum for the treasures of Ra Antef. This would pay all the costs of the expedition and leave a considerable profit for its members.
Sir Giles was delighted. John shared his enthusiasm, but pointed out that the final decision—and the proportions of the shareout—must be left to Alexander King.
“You will persuade Mr. King that this is fair, yes?” pleaded Hashmi. “Then the treasures will remain here, in our own country.”
“I think it is only proper that they should be displayed in your Museum,” Sir Giles agreed.
Hashmi sighed with relief. “Perhaps if it is done so, the curse will be alleviated.”
Sir Giles tactfully made no reply to this. John was tempted to attack this absurdity once more and try to find the real motives behind it, but a warning frown from the older man silenced him.
In the last couple of days there was, in any case, little time for argument. They needed all the willing help they could get to have each precious item crated and labelled. Working their way across the main chamber, taking the treasures out piece by piece, they were at last left only with the lavish sarcophagus itself. They had not dared to carry it out until now: it required all the strength of their porters, and these men could not be allowed to trample across the floor until it had been thoroughly searched for the tiniest relic of grave furniture.
Now the sarcophagus containing the mummified prince was lifted and manoeuvred up the passage to the outside world. Once Ra Antef had lived and feasted under this blazing sun; had hunted the wild geese and, as carvings on his great chair showed, had fished in the Nile and reclined in his barge while musicians played and sang to him. He had been laid in earth, on his way to the feasting and singing of another world; but now he emerged once more, still and resplendent, into the burning intensity of his old world.
Sir Giles supervised the lowering of the sarcophagus into the crate which was ready for it. Sweat streamed down his face. They were nearly at an end and so far there had been no accidents. It was unthinkable that this last and most precious object should be damaged.
John stood with his arm around Annette, some feet up the slope of the valley, from where he could watch the other end of the crate.
“Steady!” Sir Giles was urging the porters. “Hassan, your end down . . .”
There was the creak and scrape of jarring woodwork.
“All clear at your end, Joh
n?”
“All clear.”
“Gently, now . . .”
It was done. The porters began to shriek with laughter, proud that the job was over.
“Well, that’s the last. I never thought we’d do it in the time.” John looked down at the sheets of paper he had been carrying. He released Annette, took out a pencil, and added a final tick to the inventory. “Annette, put these somewhere safe, will you?”
She took the papers gravely from him. Her face was sad and unresponsive. He would be glad when they could take her away from here. He had suggested that she should go on ahead of them, but she had refused to leave until work was completed. She hated the place and all its associations, but she was her father’s daughter and could not leave a job unfinished. She worked grimly, without pleasure, and without even the interest she had shown in the earlier stages. Somehow she had closed in on herself. He longed for the time when he could persuade her to venture out again, to smile and relax in his company, to be the Annette he was going to marry.
Sir Giles went round the crate, patting it affectionately as though it were some favorite pet animal, and puffed up the slope. He looked, thought John, five years younger. His mission was accomplished: the tension was slackening already, just as John wished it would slacken in Annette.
“We’ve made archaeological history,” said Sir Giles. “We won’t be forgotten, my boy. Never! The Museum will have the completest collection of royal grave furniture so far discovered, and the finest mummified specimen in history.” He stared down at the crate: he might almost have been able to peer through the wood into the gilded splendor within. “It’s a triumph—for you, for me, for all mankind.”
A dark figure crossed the entrance to the tomb and came up towards them.
“Hashmi,” murmured John. “I wonder what little schemes he has now.”
“I think you wrong him.” Sir Giles waved and went down to meet Hashmi halfway. “We’re just going to celebrate, Hashmi. Come and join us. Your Government must be very pleased with you.”
“Perhaps they’ll pay for the champagne,” observed John dourly.
Hashmi looked at the two Englishmen with what seemed a glint of mockery in his dark, secretive eyes: a mockery mingled with some indefinable apprehension.
He said: “Before you become too full of high spirits, you have a visitor—your benefactor, Mr. Alexander King.”
John suppressed a groan. He glanced at Sir Giles, who blandly said: “Well, this is a surprise! But only fitting that he should be here to join us.”
“He’s in the office.”
When they first established their headquarters in the caves, the phrase “the office” had been a joke; but now it had become so familiar that it had lost all facetiousness and was soberly used even by Hashmi.
They walked towards the rock face and the mouth of the largest cave.
Annette, carrying the papers which John had given her, was already on her way. They saw her go in. Two minutes later they followed her, to find Alexander King booming and laughing in his usual effusive way.
King was a man who liked to be liked. John suspected that if ever he realized someone disliked him he would be immediately vicious. His desire that everything should go the way he wanted it to go was the greedy desire of a child: at the slightest hitch he grew petulant and looked round for someone to blame. But when people and things behaved as he thought they should, he was bluff and generous and back-slapping.
“A little present for you,” he was saying to Annette, quite unaware of her withdrawn, despondent mood. “A present from Constantinople. Didn’t know I’d been there and back while you were playing with your buckets and spades, did you? Look . . . Turkish candy. Try a bit. I want your opinion.”
Annette automatically took a piece. As Sir Giles entered the cave, King swung towards him, beaming.
“And you, Sir Giles. Good to see you. Here—try some.”
Sir Giles took a piece, chewed on it, and nodded. “Er . . . yes. Delightful.”
“That’s it. Turkish Delight.” King laughed. Then he looked from one to the other. “How are things going?”
Hashmi was suddenly very still. He appeared not to be listening, but John knew that he was taut with concentration.
Sir Giles said: “I have some splendid news for you, Mr. King. As you’re the financial backer of the expedition, I’m sure you’ll be pleased. Hashmi Bey has obtained a very handsome offer from the Cairo Museum for all our discoveries—more than enough to defray all our expenses and to show . . . ah . . . a good return on the investment, if I may put it that way.”
“How handsome is handsome?”
“For the complete contents of the tomb of Ra,” said Sir Giles, “seventy thousand pounds.”
King’s laugh struck a harsh resonance from the dark recesses of the cave. “Seventy thousand pounds? Seventy thousand? You must be out of your mind.”
Sir Giles stiffened. He was not used to dealing with men who addressed him in this way. A curt protest rose to his lips, and John longed for him to utter it. But Sir Giles remained silent, offended.
“I tell you,” King went on, falling once more into his noisy joviality, “I’m going to road-show this mummy throughout the whole world. That way we’ll make . . . hell, it couldn’t be less than seven hundred thousand pounds.”
“But you can’t!” The cry was torn from Hashmi. For the first time John felt sympathy for the Egyptian. There was no questioning the sincerity of that outburst.
“What do you mean, can’t? Don’t tell me I can’t.” King dismissed Hashmi with a derisive wag of his head. “You stick with me”—he thrust the words at Sir Giles and John—“and you’ll see some real money.”
Sir Giles cleared his throat. “This is unheard of.”
“It sure is. Never been anything like it before.”
“Relics of this importance and value cannot be treated as a side show.”
“It is blatant sacrilege,” said Hashmi.
“Nothing sacrilegious about making money.”
Hashmi’s sense of outrage seemed to inspire him with a new dignity. He was a small man compared with the overpowering Alexander King, but he took on a certain stature as he confronted the American.
“If this is your serious intention and not some form of humor which I do not understand,” he said earnestly, “then I will be forced to discuss the matter with my superiors.”
“You go right ahead and do that.”
Hashmi turned to Sir Giles, who by now was eyeing the cupboard where he kept his drink. “Sir Giles, I trust that your integrity and good taste will finally prevail in this matter.”
“Sir Giles works for me,” said Alexander King with an edge to his voice.
Hashmi nodded slowly and thoughtfully. He began to move to the entrance. “There are certain steps we must take. If you will excuse me, sir . . .”
King waved him away. He snorted as Hashmi left the cave. “Ah, they’re all alike. Always getting worked up over something. Well, let him check. He’ll find there isn’t a thing he can do about it. Now, let’s get down to details.”
Sir Giles could resist no longer. He opened the cupboard and poured drinks—a particularly large one for himself. John accepted a glass, but found that all taste seemed to have left him.
“We open in London,” said King, “on the third of March.”
“You really are serious,” said Sir Giles.
“Like I’m always saying, you got to go where the money is.”
Sir Giles peered morosely into his empty glass and decided that he deserved a refill. After another gulp he said: “But this . . .”
“You’ve been telling me right along what a great discovery this is. Right? One of the greatest things that’s happened for centuries.”
“For the good of mankind—”
“Who’s in a better position to do them good—you or me?” rasped King. “You’d let the whole lot go into some stuffy museum in a one-camel town where no one ’ud see it e
xcept a few tourists on a wet afternoon. I can show it to the world. If folk want to be educated, I’ll educate them . . . at ten cents a time.”
Sir Giles was flushed with brandy and anger. The two worked and reacted one on the other. His manner grew more pompous and at the same time, pitifully, more ineffectual. John had never seen his superior at such a loss.
“Can’t be done,” snapped Sir Giles. He thought around this for a moment and then added: “Can’t be done.” He put his glass down forcefully. “King . . . Mr. King . . . if you persist in this childish exhibition, I shall have no alternative. No alternative. None. Have to withdraw from any further responsibility in this matter.”
“Oh, now, who’s being childish?”
“Can’t be associated with it,” growled Sir Giles. He turned decisively away; but he really had nowhere to go, and was left clutching the edge of the curtain across the entrance, debating whether or not to march out.
There was a simmering pause. Alexander King stood very still, then turned to John. He raised a sardonic eyebrow, inviting the young man to take a good look at the leader of the expedition—and John had to admit that there was something childishly sullen about Sir Giles Dalrymple’s back view. It was even worse when Sir Giles stole a covert glance at the glass which he had melodramatically and rashly slammed down.
King said deliberately: “Like to change your job, John? Like to take charge of things in London—and see how we go on from there?”
John gasped. He thought of the acclamation there would be, the prestige, the openings there would be for him afterwards. But then he looked at Sir Giles. His loyalties were still to the man who had employed him, who had chosen him out of the dozens of candidates who longed to come on this expedition.
“As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “Sir Giles is still in charge.”
“Sir Giles leaves the buggy ride right here.”
Dalrymple swung round. Surrender was in his trembling hand as he reached for the glass. He said: “That’s right, John. You heard Mr. King. And you heard me—I’ve resigned.”
