The Mummy Read online

  Samir shuddered; he folded his arms over his chest as if he were cold.

  Julie looked steadily at Ramses. "So what you're saying is . . . if the secret fell into the wrong hands, whole regions of the earth could be rendered immortal."

  "Whole peoples," Ramses answered soberly. "And we who are immortal hunger as much as the living. We would crowd out the living to consume what has always been theirs!"

  "The very rhythm of life and death would be endangered," Samir said.

  "This secret must be destroyed utterly!" Julie said. "If you have the elixir in your possession, destroy it. Now."

  ' 'And how do I do that, dearest? If I hurl the dry powder into the wind, the tiny particles cleave as they fall to the earth, waiting for the first rain to liquefy them and carry them down to the roots of the trees, which they will make immortal. If I pour the liquid into the sand, it pools there until the camel comes to drink. Pour it into the sea and I give birth to immortal fishes, serpents, crocodiles."

  "Stop," she whispered.

  "Can you consume it yourself, sire, without harm coming to you?"

  "I don't know. I would imagine that I could. But who knows?"

  "Don't do it!" Julie whispered.

  He gave her a faint, sad smile.

  "You care still what becomes of me, Julie Stratford?"

  "Yes, I care," she whispered. "You're only a man; with a god's secret in your possession. I care."

  "That's just it, Julie," he said. "I have the secret in here." He tapped the side of his forehead. "I know how to make the elixir. What happens to the few vials I possess does not ultimately matter, for I can always brew more."

  They looked at each other. The full horror of it was impossible to encompass steadily. One had to view it, draw away from it and then reexamine it again.

  "Now you understand why for a thousand years I shared the elixir with no one. I knew the danger. And then, with the weakness of a mortal man-to use your modern phrase-I fell in love."

  Julie's eyes again filled with tears. Samir waited patiently.

  "Yes, I know." Ramses sighed. "I've been a fool. Two thousand years ago, I watched my love die rather than give the elixir to her lover-Mark Antony, a dissolute man, who would have hounded me to the ends of the earth for the formula itself. Can you imagine those two, immortal rulers? 'Why can we not make an immortal army?' she said to me when his influence had thoroughly corrupted her. When she had become his pawn. And now, in this day and age of astonishing wonders, I overruled her last words to me and brought her back to life."

  Julie swallowed. The tears poured down silently. She no longer even wiped at them with the little handkerchief. She reached across the table and touched the back of his hand.

  "No. Ramses, it isn't Cleopatra. Don't you see? You've made a terrible mistake, yes, and we must find a way to undo it. But it isn't Cleopatra. It cannot possibly be."

  "Julie, I made no mistake on that account! And she knew me! Don't you understand? She called my name!"

  Soft music drifted from the Mena House. There were twinkling yellow lights in its windows. Tiny figures moved back and forth on its broad terrace.

  Cleopatra and the American stood in a dark tunnel, high up on the pyramid; the burial shaft.

  Feverishly she embraced him, slipping her silk-covered fingers into his shirt. Ah, the nipples of men, so tender; such a key to torment and ecstasy; how he writhed as she twisted them ever so gently, her tongue darting in and out of his mouth.

  All the bravado and high spirits were gone now. He was her slave. She ripped the linen fabric back off his chest, and plunged her hand down under his leather belt to the root of his sex.

  He moaned against her. She felt him gathering up her skirts. Then suddenly his hand stopped. His whole body stiffened. Awkwardly she turned her head; he was staring down at her naked leg, her foot.

  He was staring at the great strip of bloody bone exposed in her leg, at the fan of bones in her foot.

  ' 'Jesus Christ!'' he whispered. He drew back from her against the wall. "Jesus Christ!"

  A low growl of rage and hurt broke from her. "Take your eyes off me!" she screamed in Latin. "Turn your eyes away from me! You will not look at me in disgust."

  She sobbed as she grabbed his head with both hands and banged it against the stone wall. "You will die for this!" she spit at him. And then the twist, the simple little twist. And he was dead, too.

  That was all that was required, and now there was blessed silence and his body lying there, like the body of the other, with the money showing under his sagging coat.

  Her wounds could not kill her. The blast of heat from the one called Henry had not killed her; the blast which made the horrible, unbearable noise. But all it took to kill them was this.

  She looked out of the opening of the shaft, down over the dark ocher sands towards the soft tights of the Mena House. Again, she heard the music, so sweet, drifting on the cool air.

  Always cool at night, the desert. And almost dark, wasn't it? Tiny stars above in the azure sky. She felt a strange moment of peace. Nice to walk alone, away from them in the desert.

  But Lord Rutherford. The medicine. Almost dark.

  She bent down now, took the American's money. She thought of the beautiful yellow motor car. Ah, that would take her back to where she'd come from very swiftly. And now it was hers all alone.

  Suddenly she was laughing, thrilled by the prospect. She rushed down the side of the pyramid, dropping easily from one stone block to the one below it; so much strength now, and then she ran towards the car.

  Simple. Press the electric starter button. Then push the "gas pedal." At once it began to roar. Then forward on the stick, as she had seen him do it, as she depressed the other pedal, and miracle of miracles, she was racing forward, giving a mad turn to the wheel.

  She drove in a great circle before the Mena House. A few terrified Arabs scurried out of her path. She hit the throbbing "horn," as he had called it. It frightened their camels.

  Then she made for the road, pulling the stick back again to make it go faster, then shoving it forwards, just as she had seen him do.

  When she came to the metal pathway, she stopped. She clutched the wheel, trembling. But no sound came from the great empty reaches of the desert to right and left. And ahead lay the lights of Cairo, such a sweet spectacle under the paling, star-filled sky.

  " 'Celeste Ai'da!' " she sang as she started up and raced forward once more.

  "You asked for our help," Julie said. "You asked for our forgiveness. Now I want you to listen to me."

  "Yes, I want to," Ramses said in a heartfelt voice, but he was puzzled. "Julie, it is she . . . beyond question."

  "The body, yes," Julie responded. "It was hers, without doubt. But the being who lives now? No. It is not the same woman you once loved. That woman, wherever she is, has no consciousness now of what is happening to this body."

  "Julie, she knew me! She recognized me!"

  "Ramses, the brain in that body knew you. But think about what you are saying. Think about the implications. The implications are every thing, Ramses. Our intellects-our souls, if you will-they don't reside in the flesh, slumbering for centuries as our bodies rot. Either they go on to higher realms or they cease to exist altogether. The Cleopatra you loved ceased to exist in that body the day it died."

  He stared at her, trying to grasp this.

  "Sire, I think there is wisdom here," Samir said. But he too was confused. "The Earl says that she knows who she is."

  "She knows who she is supposed to be," Julie said. "The cells! They are there, revitalized, and possibly some memory is encoded within them. But this thing is a monstrous twin of your lost love. How can it be more than that?"

  "This could be true," Samir murmured. "If you do what the Earl suggests-if you give her more of the drug, you may only be revitalizing a ... a demon."

  "This is beyond my understanding!" Ramses confessed. "It is Cleopatra!''

  Julie shook her head. "R
amses, my father has been dead no more than two months. There was no autopsy performed on his remains. The only embalming done upon him was the age-old miracle of the Egyptian heat and desert dryness. He lies, intact, in a crypt here in Egypt. But do you think I'd take this elixir, if I had it in my hands, and raise him from the dead?"

  "God in heaven," Samir whispered.

  "No!" Julie said. "Because it wouldn't be my father. The connection has been fatally broken! A duplicate of my father would rise. A duplicate who knew perhaps all that my father had known. But my father wouldn't be there. He wouldn't know the duplicate was walking about. And what you have brought back to life is a duplicate of Cleopatra! Your lost love is not there."

  Ramses was silent. This seemed to shake him as profoundly as everything else. He looked at Samir.

  "What religion, sire, holds that the soul remains in the rotted flesh? It was not so with our forefathers. It is not so in any land in the world."

  "You are truly immortal, my beloved," Julie said. "But Cleopatra has been dead for twenty centuries. She is still dead. The thing you resurrected must be destroyed."

  O, I'M sorry, Miles. My father's not here. Yes, I will. Immediately." Alex hung up the telephone. Elliott watched him from the desk in the corner of the room. "Thank you, Alex. Lying is actually an underrated social skill. Some clever person should write a polite guide to lying. And all the charitable principles which justify lying so well."

  "Father, I am not letting you go out alone."

  Elliott turned back to the work at hand. His bath and brief rest had done much to restore his strength, even though it had been impossible to really sleep. He had had a quiet hour to think out what he meant to do now; and he had made his decision, though he had little hope that his scheme would work. Nevertheless the elixir was worth it. If only Samir had reached Ramses. And everything in the man's manner had indicated to him that Samir knew where Ramses was.

  He sealed the last of the three envelopes, which he had just addressed, and turned again to his son.

  "You will do exactly as I've told you," he said firmly. "If I do not return by tomorrow noon, post these letters. To your mother and to Randolph. And leave Cairo as soon as you possibly can. Now give me my walking stick. And I need my cloak, also. It's damned cold in this city after dark."

  Walter fetched the stick immediately. He had the cloak over his arm. He put it over Elliott's shoulders, adjusting it snugly.

  "Father," Alex pleaded, "for the love of-" "Good-bye, Alex. Remember. Julie needs you. She needs you here."

  "Sire, it's past six now," Samir said. "I must show you how to find this tavern."

  "I can find it on my own, Samir," Ramses answered. "Go back to the hotel, both of you. I must see for myself ... the state of things. And then I shall get word to you as soon as I can."

  "No," Julie said, "let me go with you."

  "Unthinkable," Ramses said. "It's much too dangerous. And this is something I must face alone."

  "Ramses, I'm not leaving you," she insisted.

  "Julie, we must return now," Samir said. "We must be seen before they start searching for us."

  Ramses rose to his feet slowly. He turned away from the flickering light of the candle, which was now the only illumination in the dark room. He lifted his hands as if in prayer. He looked for all the world like one of the Moslems in the mosque as he stood there, a tiny speck of light shining in his eyes.

  "Julie," he said, turning back to her with a deep sigh. "If you go home to England now, you can still recover your old life."

  "Oh, you hurt me, Ramses!" she said. "You wound me to the quick. Do you love her, Ramses? Do you love this thing you've raised from the grave?"

  She had not meant to say this. She stopped, defeated, and now it was she who turned away.

  "I know I love you, Julie Stratford," he whispered. "IVe loved you from the first moment I saw you. I braved discovery to save you. And I want your love now."

  "Then don't speak of my leaving you," she said, her voice breaking. "Ramses, if I never see you again after this night, my life is destroyed."

  "On my honor, you shall see me."

  He took her in his arms.

  "My love, my brave love," he whispered, caressing her. "I need you-both of you-more than I can say."

  "May the old gods be with you, sire," Samir whispered. "We will count the minutes until we receive some word."

  Only a dim light burned in Winthrop's office. He was staggered by the report on his desk. The young official standing before him waited for orders.

  "And his head was crushed, you said?"

  "Neck broken also. Like the maid in the museum. And all his money had been taken, though his passport had been left in the mud."

  "Double the watch on Shepheard's," said Winthrop. "And get the Earl of Rutherford over here immediately. We know he's there, I don't care what his son says. We saw him go in."

  Out of the back door of the wing, Elliott walked swiftly, stiffening his left leg to take the weight off the knee. He crossed the dark parking lot and headed towards old Cairo. Only when he was two streets away from Shepheard's did he hail a passing cab.

  Julie slipped into her suite, and locked the door. The Arab robe was folded tightly under her arm. She had removed it in the cab, and she stuffed it now in the bottom of die wardrobe behind her trunk.

  Going into the bedroom, she drew the small suitcase down from the wardrobe shelf. What few things did she need? So much she possessed did not matter to her. Only freedom mattered now, freedom with Ramses, to somehow escape this hideous tangle of events.

  But what if she never again laid eyes upon this man who had thrown her entire past life into shadow? What was the point of packing this suitcase until she knew what had happened?

  Suddenly the entire thing overwhelmed her. She lay down on the bed, weak, sick at heart.

  She was crying softly when Rita came in.

  The Babylon. He could hear the drums and cymbals as he hurried down the crooked little stone street. How odd that at this moment he would remember Lawrence so keenly, his beloved Lawrence.

  Suddenly a soft collection of sounds behind him forced him to stop. Someone had dropped down off the roof! He turned around.

  "Keep walking," said die tall Arab. It was Ramsey! "There is a bar around the corner which I prefer for this meeting. It is quiet. Go in ahead of me and sit down."

  Elliott was weak with relief. He obeyed immediately. Whatever happened, he was no longer alone in this nightmare. Ramsey would know what to do. He pushed on to the little bar, and went inside.

  Beaded curtains; low flickering oil lamps; wooden tables; the usual collection of disreputable Europeans. An indifferent serving boy swabbing a table with a filthy rag.

  A tall blue-eyed Arab in handsome robes sat at the last table, his back to the right wall. Ramsey. He must have entered from the rear.

  Several patrons eyed Elliott arrogantly as he made his way to the back. He was conspicuous in his proper clothes. The least of his worries.

  He took the chair to the right of Ramsey, with its back to the rear door.

  The sputtering little lamp on the table reeked of scented oil. Ramses already had a drink in his hand. There was a bottle without a label and a clean glass.

  "Where is she?" Ramsey said.

  "I have no intention of telling you," Elliott said.

  "Oh? What are the rules of this game? Or am I to remain at a major disadvantage?''

  Elliott was quiet for a moment. He reflected upon his decision again. Worth it. Worth the shame of the moment. He cleared his throat.

  "You know what I want," he said to Ramsey. "You've known since the beginning. I didn't make this journey to Egypt to protect my future daughter-in-law's chastity. That's absurd."

  "I believed you were an honorable man."

  "I am, though today I've witnessed things that would sicken a monster.''

  "You should never have followed me to the museum."

  Elliott nodded. He picke
d up the bottle, uncorked it and filled the glass. Whisky. Ah, yes. He took a stiff drink.

  "I know I shouldn't have followed you," he said. "It was a young man's folly. And maybe I would be young again . . . forever."

  He looked at Ramsey. There was more than a touch of majesty to the man in these white robes. He looked biblical, larger than life. His blue eyes were rimmed with red, however. And he was weary, and suffering. That was quite clear.

  "I want the elixir," Elliott said politely. "Once you've given it to me, once I've drunk it, then I'll tell you where she is. And she shall become your responsibility. And believe you me, I don't envy you. Though I have done all that I could."