Free Mr Impossible by Loretta Chase Page A

the eye of a guide, to whom he signaled. The man
quickly joined them. Mr. Carsington pointed to the entrance Belzoni
had discovered three years earlier, now a black rectangle on the
north face of the pyramid.

    The guide summoned
another, and the two men led them up through the clearing in the
rubble that had for so many centuries concealed the entrance.

    Daphne knew it was
wiser to save her energies for the ordeal ahead. She reminded herself
that she was doing it for Miles’s sake, that she loved him
dearly and would do whatever she needed to bring him back safe. She
told herself that what she felt in the small passageways was
irrational, mere emotion. She was a rational being. All she had to do
was concentrate on facts.

     

     

    THE ENTRY PASSAGE
was four feet high, about three and a half feet wide, a hundred and
four feet five inches long, and descended at an angle of twenty-six
degrees, Mrs. Pembroke informed Rupert.

    Rupert had no
trouble estimating the height and width. He’d done that
automatically as he entered, and was estimating the angle of descent
even while he watched the uneven sway of her handsome backside as she
preceded him.

    Watching her
derriere was no small feat, considering he walked folded almost in
half on an uneven surface and had his hands on the walls to maintain
his balance and keep track of the passages’ features.

    In any event, he
hadn’t as clear a rear view of the lady as he could wish. The
guides’ torches were fighting a losing battle against the
darkness.

    They’d gone
about fifty feet when Mrs. Pembroke enlightened him about the
dimensions.

    “ You’ve
measured it, then?” he said.

    “ I quote Mr.
Belzoni’s calculations,” she said. “At the end of
this passage, he encountered the portcullis. You can imagine the
labor in this constricted space of raising a granite block nearly as
tall as you are, five feet wide and fifteen inches thick.”

    Though Rupert could
work out how it might be done, he let her explain how Belzoni had
analyzed and solved the problem, using a fulcrum and levers, and
stuffing stones in the grooves to support the block as they raised it
by slow, slow inches.

    When they came to
the portcullis, Rupert didn’t have to feign admiration. Raising
it in this small space was no negligible feat. He paused and ran his
hands over the sides of the opening and the bottom of the stone.

    Then he huddled
under and continued for a few more feet until she stopped to turn
toward him.

    “ We must
descend the shaft next,” she said. “Belzoni used a rope
and later piled some stones to one side, but someone brought a ladder
recently, and left it.”

    “ Much more
civilized,” Rupert said. He noted a hole overhead while
watching how gracefully she turned, though she was obliged to move in
the same hunched-over style as he.

    They descended the
shaft in the civilized way, continued down another passage, then up,
then straight on. The way grew easier. It was high enough to allow
Mrs. Pembroke to walk upright, though Rupert still had to keep his
head down.

    At last they
entered the great central chamber, where he could easily stand
straight. The tall room’s ceiling tapered to a point, the angle
mimicking the pyramid’s.

    The guides stood by
the door, holding their torches aloft. On the south wall, large
letters—proper Roman letters, not the curls and squiggles of
Arabic nor yet the curious little hieroglyphic figures—proclaimed,
“ Scoperta da S. Belzoni 2 Mar. 1818.”

    “ ‘ Opened
by Signore Belzoni,’” Mrs. Pembroke translated, though
even Rupert could deduce the meaning.

    “ The
sarcophagus in Cheops’s pyramid stands on the floor,” she
said, walking toward the west wall of the chamber. “But here,
as you see, it is sunk into the ground.”

    It was not so easy
to see. The darkness was so thick one could practically feel it. The
torches made little headway against it.

    Rupert gazed about
the room. “So many secrets,” he said.

    He