Free The Curse of the Pharaohs by Elizabeth Peters Page B

boat. Leaning on my parasol, I gazed complacently at the scene and took deep breaths of the soft air. Then a hand touched my arm, and I turned to meet the intense gaze of a stout young man wearing gold-rimmed spectacles and the most enormous pair of mustaches I had ever seen. The ends of them curled up and around like the horns of a mountain goat.
    Heels together, body stiff, he bent himself at the waist and said, "Frau Professor Emerson? Karl von Bork, the epigrapher of the ill-fated Baskerville expedition. To Luxor I give you greeting. By Lady Baskerville was I sent. Where is the Professor? Long have I to the honor of meeting him looked forward. The brother of the so distinguished Walter Emerson—"
    This rapid spate of conversation was all the more remarkable because the young man's face remained utterly expressionless throughout. Only his lips and the gigantic mustache above them moved. As I was to learn, Karl von Bork spoke seldom, but once he began to talk, it was virtually impossible to stop him except by the means I adopted on that occasion.
    "How do you do," I said loudly, drowning out his last words. "I am pleased to meet you. My husband is just... Where is he? Ah, Emerson; allow me to present Heir von Bork."
    Emerson grasped the young man's hand. "The epigrapher? Good. I trust you have a boat ready—one of sufficient size. I have brought twenty men with me from Cairo."
    Von Bork bowed again. "An excellent idea, Herr Professor. A stroke of genius! But I had expected nothing less from the brother of the distinguished—"
    I interrupted this speech, as I had interrupted the first; and we found that when Herr von Bork was not talking he was efficient enough to please even my demanding husband. The felucca he had hired was commodious enough to hold us all. Our men gathered in the bow, looking loftily at the boatmen and making comments about the stupidity of Luxor men. The great sails swelled, the prow dipped and swung about; we turned our backs on the ancient temples and modern houses of Luxor and moved out onto the broad bosom of the Nile.
    I could not help but be keenly sensitive to the implications of this westward journey, the same one made by generations of Thebans when, the troubles of life behind them, they set sail on the road to heaven. The rugged western cliffs, gilded by the morning sun, had for thousands of years been honeycombed by tombs of noble, pharaoh, and humble peasant. The ruined remains of once-great mortuary temples began to take shape as we drew near the shore: the curving white colonnades of Deir el Bahri, the frowning walls of the Ramesseum, and, towering above the plain, those colossal statues that alone remained of Amenhotep the Third's magnificent temple. Even more evocative were the wonders we could not see—the hidden, rock-cut sepulchers of the dead. As I looked, my heart swelled within me, and the last four years in England seemed but a horrid dream.
    The sound of von Bork's voice roused me from my blissful contemplation of that gigantic cemetery. I hoped the young man would not continue to refer to Emerson as the brother of the distinguished Walter. Emerson has the highest regard for Walter's abilities, but one could hardly blame him for taking umbrage at being regarded only as an appendage to his brother. Von Bork's specialty was the study of the ancient language, so it was not surprising that he should venerate Walter's contributions to that field.
    However, von Bork was merely telling Emerson the latest news.
    "I have, at Lady Baskerville's orders, a heavy steel door at the entrance to the tomb erected. In the Valley reside two guards under the authority of a sub-inspector of the Antiquities Department—"
    "Useless!" Emerson exclaimed. "Many of the guards are related to the tomb robbers of Gurneh, or are so woefully superstitious that they will not leave their huts after dark. You ought to have guarded the tomb yourself, von Bork."
    "Sie haben recht, Herr Professor," the young