Collected Short Fiction, page 99
Mustapha smiled feebly. “I was busy,” he said.
Ali’s habitual scowl grew deeper. “By the Grace of Allah, we have one more chance. We must not fail this time.”
Ahnku the Ancient sat in his stateroom, puffing reflectively at his pipe. He looked at the heavily swathed figure in the wheelchair.
“Are you warm enough, Lord and Master?” he asked. He chuckled throatily when there was no answer. “Fear not, sire; Ahnku the Ancient will not fail you. What good to be a sorcerer without being able to serve one’s Master?”
He stood up, his black eyes glittering. “I will make my Master cooler within the hour. For now, I shall but remove the blankets.”
He did so, and then sat down again, puffing slowly at his pipe. “I have waited long for this. My magic is not as great as some have thought—though I dared not admit it to my enemies.” He chuckled again, caressing his beak of a nose with one finger. “Indeed, I dared not tell my friends. But I am sure you understand, Lord and Master. I have served you faithfully for year s—ay, more than years. And I have not failed you yet.
“Nor will I fail you tonight. The jewels that are rightfully yours shall belong again to you. Had I known where they were hidden, I would have had them for you long ago. But—” A tear ran down the wizened, hawk-nosed face. “—alas, I did not know. But tonight, my Lord and Master, that which is rightfully yours shall be returned.” He wiped away the tear with a bony finger.
Linda Armitage smiled at her father. “Daddy, I respect your learning and all that, but I don’t think your choice of husbands for me is very good.”
Dr. Armitage made a steeple of his fingers and tapped his fingertips together rhythmically. “Linda, my dear,” he said mildly, “Dr. Bingham is a very nice young man. Very intelligent. Very industrious.”
Linda sighed. “But Daddy! He’s a nice boy, I’ll admit, but he—he’s so—so dull! All he has his mind on is ancient Egypt!” His smile became softer. “Daddy, darling, he’s a very smart boy; he has a great deal of intelligence. And that’s why I couldn’t marry him.”
Dr. Armitage blinked. “I don’t think I follow you.”
Linda stood up, walked over to the brandy decanter on the sideboard, and poured herself a drink. “He’s too much like you, Daddy.”
The Egyptologist watched her down the brandy neat. “You drink too fast, my dear; it will upset you. What do you mean, he’s too much like me?”
Linda poured another, and her smile became a devilish grin. “Daddy, much as I love you, I do not have an Electra complex.”
Her father blinked for a moment, then reddened. “Really, my dear! I—I’m shocked! Being on the stage in England hasn’t done well for your morals, I’m sure! Why, you talk as though you were a loose woman!”
Smiling softly, Linda finished her second brandy and then walked over to her father. She patted him gently on his cheek and said: “Daddy, you’re very wrong. I’m not going to be indignant, but believe me, you’re wrong. “I can give you all sorts of testimony—from very respectable men—that I am not at all loose.”
Dr. Armitage smiled a little, and adjusted the glasses on the bridge of his nose. “I’m sure you can, my dear. I didn’t mean it at all that way. But I still think—”
“Daddy,” she interrupted, “let’s don’t talk about Leslie.
I want to know how you did in Egypt. What sort of things did you find?”
Dr. Armitage leaned back in his chair and smiled. “My dear, I think you’ll be very proud of me—and Leslie. We’ve discovered something wonderful. It’s really one of the greatest things since the unearthing of the tomb of Tutankhamen, back in the Twenties.” His smile grew even broader as he leaned forward conspiratorially. “My dear, I think we have found the original Belt of Osiris.”
The girl looked thoughtful. “As I recall, that’s the belt which is supposed to confer immortality on its wearer. It would be nice to have such a belt.”
Dr. Armitage smiled. “My dear, this is not, of course, the mythical Belt of Osiris. But, if you will recall, a belt was made—a girdle, really—of gold and diamonds, which was supposed to be the symbol of kingship among the ancient Egyptians. It was a replica of the supposed Belt of Osiris, much as a cross in a church is a replica of the Cross of Christ. We do not, of course, believe that this belt is really the original Belt of Osiris.”
Linda grinned. “Too bad. That Belt was supposed to have granted a lot of power to the person who wore it.”
“Yes,” agreed the Egyptologist, “it was supposed to confer, not only immortality, but the ability to—well—have—uh—tremendous physical and—uh—amorous powers.” Linda said: “Give it to Leslie; he needs it.”
“Linda!”
Her smile was impish. “I’m sorry Daddy. By the way—can I see the sarcophagus? Do you really have the mummy of the great Pharaoh, Khama-Ptah-hor-Amen III down in the hold?”
“I certainly do, my dear. Would you care to see it? I have the key to the strong room in the hold.”
“Let’s go, Daddy! I’ve always wanted to see an ancient Egyptian prince in a nice, warm box.”
Ahnku the Ancient fingered the key in his hand and smiled conspiratorially to himself. Not everyone could get a key to the strong room in the hold, but, a sorcerer had resources greater than the average man.
He moved silently along the corridors of the ship, taking care not to make any more noise than necessary.
At last, he stood before the strong room, deep beneath the waterline of the Queen Victoria. He looked up and down the corridors, then inserted the key into the lock.
It turned easily, and the door clicked open. Ahnku stepped inside, flicked on the light, and closed the door behind him.
It was a huge room, protected on all sides by heavy steel bulkheads. It was filled with heavy wooden cases and boxes of all sorts, kinds, and descriptions.
Ahnku rubbed his dry, old hands together. “Tonight, my Lord and Master, you will regain your birthright.” He cackled fiendishly in glee. Then he gazed around. The room was gloomily illuminated, and the piles of boxes cast long shadows over everything.
For the first time since he had boarded the ship, Ahnku the ancient spoke English, a habit which he had fallen into for voicing ejaculations.
“Cripes! Where the hell’s the old man’s casket?”
He began prowling around the vast room.
Eventually, he found what he was looking for. The sarcophagus of King Khama-Ptah-hor-Amen III was against one bulkhead in the gloomiest part of the strong room. Nearby lay a large golden chest.
“Ahaa!” the little, weasellike man said. “AHAAAAA! The Treasure of the King!”
Pulling a golden key from his pocket, he inserted it into the keyhole and turned it. Then he lifted the lid of the golden chest. “If it isn’t here,” he muttered softly, “I shall kill—”
But he didn’t finish the sentence. Before him, glittering warmly in the dim light, lay the fabulous diamond Belt of Osiris.
“Praise be to the Gods!” the little magician said, lifting the belt reverently. “The Belt is safe!”
Then he heard a noise. He jerked his head around swiftly. The noise had come from beyond the packing cases that were piled around him. Someone was coming in the door!
His next actions were rapid, but unhurried. He scuttled over to the sarcophagus of the king—a King of Egypt who had died thousands of years before—and opened the casket.
Carefully, he clasped the Belt of Osiris around the waist of the mummy within.
“They’ll never find it there,” he chortled.
Then, moving quickly, he scuttled off into the shadowy protection offered by the piles of cases in the room.
“Down this way,” Dr. Armitage said. “Follow me.”
“I’m following,” said his daughter. “If I could only find my way through all these cobwebs!” She coughed and brushed dust away from her eyes.
“They’re not cobwebs, my dear. They’ve just loaded the ship, you know. It’s merely dust that has—”
“Yes, father.” She coughed again. “Where is this sarcophagus of yours stored?”
“It’s over here, Linda.” They made their way toward the bulkhead where the sculptured sarcophagus and the jewel-casket lay. Armitage pointed ahead, his eyes, in the dark, bright with excitement. “There!”
Despite herself, Linda felt a little tingle of anticipation as she spied the casket and sarcophagus. “Can you open them, Daddy?”
Dr. Armitage drew a flat leather case from his pocket. “Yes,” he said. “Yes—after the greatest effort, we, Leslie and I, succeeded in finding the secret to the mechanism that opens and closes the casket and the sarcophagus.”
A sliver of metal glinted in his hand. “Here’s the key,” he said. “The only key to the jewel-casket of Khama-Ptah-hor-Amen III. You have no idea how lovely these treasures are, my dear. Lovely! Lovely beyond dreams!”
“Does the same key open the sarcophagus?”
“Yes—but it’s a slightly different technique. I’ll show you. Here—let’s open the sarcophagus first, shall we?”
He slid the key into an aperture at the side of the sarcophagus, and began to move his wrist. She glanced at him uneasily.
“Dad?”
“Yes, Linda?”
“I’d rather see the jewels,” she said, moistening her dry lips. “I’m—not so terribly interested in the mummy after all.”
Armitage looked at her, then chuckled. “But—but Linda, the mummy’s perfectly harmless! Don’t be foolish, my dear! Why—”
He caught a glimpse of her nervous face and chuckled again. “Very well.” He drew the key out of the unopened sarcophagus and handed it to Linda. “Here—the pleasure is all yours, dear. You may open the jewel-casket, if you like.”
She took the key from him and walked to the casket.
Armitage rubbed his hand lovingly along the rim of the sarcophagus, feeling a warm glow of pride. After years of work in the field, was his great discovery; this was his crowning achievement.
“I’m having trouble with the key, Daddy,” Linda said unhappily. “How do you work it?”
“I’ll be right over,” Armitage said dreamily, still lost in contemplation. As he started to walk toward her, he glanced down at his foot. A scarab-shaped amethyst lay there, sparkling brightly against the dull black of the deck.
Curious, he thought. What’s that doing there?
Then he stooped and picked the jewel up, his heart beating faster. The amethyst had no business being there—none at all!
Hastily, he crossed the few feet that separated him from the jewel-box, snatched the key from Linda. “Great heavens! Something must have happened!”
With trembling fingers he fumbled the box open and peered down. He stared for a long moment.
“What’s the matter, Daddy? Something wrong?”
“Yes,” he said somberly.
“The Belt! The Belt of Osiris—it’s gone!”
“How horrible! But you said yours was the only key!”
“I know,” Armitage said. He looked around the strongroom frantically, staring at the scarab in his hand—the scarab that must have fallen from the Belt of Osiris.
“You wait here,” he said. “I’ll have to see the Captain about this. That Belt was priceless—simply priceless! I’ll have to see the Captain!”
“But Daddy!”
Linda called a third time, but saw there was no point in calling again. Dr. Armitage had rushed out—leaving her alone in the dank, musty hold!
That was just like Daddy, she thought, once the surprise of being left alone had worn off. Leaving her alone like this, all because of some missing trinket. The hold was a nasty, unpleasant place, and there were strange creakings someplace near the back.
Rats, she thought, with a little shudder. Rats. Every ship had rats in the hold. Uneasily she glanced down at her trim ankles as if expecting to see a beady-eyed little rodent nibbling at her at that very instant.
The creaking continued. Linda didn’t like it, not at all.
Nervously, she tiptoed back to the jewel-casket and lifted its lid. She peered in.
The jewels were lovely. There was a single immense ruby, carved in a multitude of facets and seeming to glow with a deep, warm inner light. There was a jewel-encrusted coronet which she lifted out tenderly and placed around her head. After a moment, she returned it to the box.
There were other gems there too. The casket was probably worth millions—and Daddy, she thought ruefully, would give it all to the museum at the University, to be put behind glass for people to gape at.
Creak-k-k!
Linda glanced up in alarm. It seemed to her as if a crate at the bar corner of the hold had moved, somehow. For a moment, she thought she saw a faint, shadowy shape gliding between the packing-cartons.
Just my imagination, she decided firmly. The ship’s probably rolling, that’s all.
Creak-k-k-k!
This time it couldn’t be imagination. She felt her heart pounding furiously. Dropping the diadem she was holding, back into the box, she closed the lid and spun on her heel, making a complete 360-degree examination of the hold. It seemed to be empty. It seemed to be.
I wish Daddy would get back, she thought.
Creak-k-k-k-k-k!
She turned again—and glanced at the sarcophagus.
And gasped.
The massive lid of the ancient coffin was rising, slowly, unbelievably, beyond any shred of doubt.
She stood there, rooted to the deck, watching in terror as the lid moved upward. In the half-gloom, she could make out a figure within the sarcophagus—the white, bandage-swathed figure of—of—
In could only be the mummy. It was sitting up now, one arm clinging to the outside of the sarcophagus, pulling itself to a standing position.
Linda didn’t wait. She screamed, once, sharply, and then turned and fled. Her heels clattered over the deck as she ran through the strong room and out into the dim corridor. Behind her, the creaking grew louder.
Lady Blessingame (of the Stratfordshire Blessingames) stepped out into the corridor beyond the door of her stateroom, smiling superciliously.
If Lord Blessingame was silly enough to allow her to travel to America, there was no reason why she should not take advantage of it.
The sun had dropped beyond the western horizon, and moonlight had fallen over the ship. It was really terribly romantic, Lady Blessingame thought.
The corridor, while not brightly lighted, was well filled with dim yellow-orange light, which permitted her to see easily the thing that approached her.
It was a tall, shambling figure, covered with rotting linen bandages, and smelling of the dust of an ancient tomb.
Lady Blessingame stared in shock at the horrifying figure, and suddenly collapsed to the deck.
Adelaide Dorensen closed the door of a stateroom. Just before the door closed, she pulled it open just a bit and said: “Orrie Vorre, shweety.”
“You mean au revoir,” said First Officer Pinkin, within the cabin.
“Thash Freeh—er—French,” said the blondehaired Adelaide. “Anyhow, thanksh for the champagne—and all.”
She closed the door and walked carefully down the companionway. “Great stuff, champagne,” she said gleefully to herself. “Really great stuff.”
She stopped, suddenly, as someone approached her down the companionway. She peered carefully at the figure.
“Watcha matter witchoo?” she asked. Then, realizing that her diction was hardly up to par, she restated the question. “Watsa matter with yew? Wats alia bandages for?”
Then the unmistakable odor of decaying cloth came to her, and Miss Adelaide Dorensen remembered the horror stories of her childhood.
She turned around quickly, jerked open the door of the First Officer’s stateroom, and pushed herself inside.
“Migod!” she said blankly to the astonished Pinkin, “The Mummy Walks Again!”
First Officer Pinkin sat up in his bunk. “I beg your pardon, Miss Dorensen?”
Miss Dorensen looked absolutely stupid and slid to the floor. She was out colder than an Antarctic iceberg.
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Stephen Lendrip, having spent a comfortable evening gazing at the sea and smoking Lu favorite briar, decided to go below. In his hand he carried his walking-stick, a weapon which had stood him in good stead for many a year. It contained a long-bladed knife—almost the equivalent of a Roman short-sword.
Against an unarmed man, Sir Stephen would never use the stick sword, but many years as commanding officer of the Eleventh Hussars had made him aware of the fact that an armed man could easily be overwhelmed by a determined man. The stick was a comfort in crisis.
He stepped down the ladder toward the lower deck, and, swinging his stick joyfully, he headed toward his stateroom.
He turned a corner, and was suddenly confronted with a gentleman clad entirely in gauze bandages. He collided violently with the figure and then stepped back.
“I say, old man; you could at least whistle!”
The bandaged figure stepped back, too.
Then Sir Stephen whipped out his sword. He saw what it was that stood before him, and, in spite of his horror, he lunged forward with the blade.
The wrapped thing stepped back quickly, and, in doing so, almost collided with a dark figure behind it. The point of the blade narrowly-missed the figure’s abdomen.
Sir Stephen stepped forward again, this time aiming his point at the thing’s throat. The thing moved with lightning-like speed. Its hand came up, palm first, and deflected the blade. Then it’s fist lashed out, slamming against Sir Stephen’s jaw with skull-shattering force.
Sir Stephen went down for the count.
Dr. Avery Armitage ran up the spiral ladder to the upper deck at top speed. He reached the deck and looked around. Where was he? He could smell the faintly fishy odor of salt air—
In the moonlight he saw the deck around him, and, looking up, he saw the bridge deck.
Galloping across the main deck, he ran up the ladder.
Captain Humphrey Boggs stood on his bridge—monarch of all he surveyed. He thrust out his lower lip, patted his bulging abdomen and said: “A bit to starboard, young man. You’re half a point off.” The helmsman was just complying with the order when a clopping sound was heard on the stairway leading up to the bridge.
