ch-19 Tutankhamun Uncovered

On the night of April the third, over four months later, the Earl of Carnarvon lies sweating in a hotel bed in Cairo, suffering from a terminally debilitating case of pneumonia. His eyes are open. They are wet with tears. Tears of hopeless frustration that his frail body is unable to resist the disease. Frustration that he is to be prevented from seeing his great triumph through to its glorious conclusion.

As he stares at the ceiling, mixtures of gold, black, blue, red, green and white begin to sparkle in the haze of his fading eyesight. The fragments slowly coalesce into an image. It is a woman. She is slim; quite small. A great golden collar broadly encrusted with red, blue and green glass hangs over her shoulders and about her narrow neck. Her dress is white gossamer, pleated below the waist. Each of her bare arms is enclosed by golden and jewel-encrusted bangles; her feet with golden slippers. She wears a black wig. The plaited ropes uniformly drape her sweet face. Heavy gold earrings hang from each ear lobe. There is a perfume cone on her head. The wax appears to glow as it runs in tiny rivulets over her cheeks. Her eyes are heavily outlined in black.

Her arms move towards him. There is the merest suggestion of a beckoning…