Tutankhamun Uncovered (86 page)

The childishness of his pleading was tremendously irritating to me. “Of course ‘we have something’, sir.”

The lack of discipline shown by my patron at this exceptional moment and I concede that this moment was indeed exceptional was quite beyond my comprehension.

The earl persisted. “Howard, you would agree that thus far we have come across something beyond our wildest dreams, a project of enormous magnitude, even in this first room?”

I struggled for the right words but could do nought but nod my head.

“Surely you need now, right now, to comprehend the size of the task ahead of you? You need to have enough information to plan your excavation, the supplies you will need, the time it will take, the scientific team. Right?”

He was reading my mind. I nodded again.

“And remember, old chap, there is a significant risk that all this will go to Egypt. This may be our one chance to assure ourselves of at least some meagre compensation, don’t y’ think ‘on account’, as it were.”

It did not surprise me that the earl was eager for some early trophies. I had to nip that one in the bud. At last I had found the words. “Your lordship. With respect, please hear me out. I implore you to take pause. We shall get our just rewards by and by.”

“Y’ know my confidence in that is weak, Howard. Permit us to take a modicum, sir. A mere, undetectable modicum.”

“Absolutely not, your lordship. Absolutely not.” I shook my head. My expression may have appeared resolute but I confess that my spirit was weak and eager to be turned.

Carnarvon looked me straight in the eyes. In the torchlight I tried to keep a stern expression, but the earl, it seems, could sense the anticipation which burned alike within me, perhaps more even than his own. I had the strongest of desires to discover what lay beyond that sealed door.

“In the name of England we shall enter, Howard. In England’s name we shall discover what lies within. The wogs will have to wait.”

The thought had tremendous appeal. I recalled the ‘Tomb of the Horse’. I smiled. In the heat of this incredible moment I found myself incapable of thinking completely straight.

I drew a deep breath in the thick, ancient air, coughed as the dust of ages caught the back of my throat, and handed my hat to Evelyn. In that single movement, my mind was made up. There would be no going back this night.

“Evelyn, please call for Burton and ask him to bring his tackle... You must agree, your lordship, that during the course of this clandestine exploration you will do nothing but observe, and return with nothing but memories. It is on this understanding that we shall penetrate the sealed door no other.”

The earl smiled at me, but I could tell what was going on in that determined mind of his. He would have some compensation on account tonight and to hell with it. Already his pocket held something snatched up from the floor of the antechamber. And, I am ashamed to admit, my own intentions were leaning in that same direction.

A few moments later the dutiful Burton arrived.

“Harry. Do you think you can get a picture of that without moving anything?” I said, and waved my hand around the circumference of the discoloured plaster at the base of the sealed doorway.

Burton regarded it for a moment and then began setting up his equipment, carefully placing the legs of his tripod on bare patches of the stone floor. One exposure; a fresh plate; one more exposure; then he dismantled his paraphernalia and prepared to leave. It must have taken him just fifteen minutes. All the while I observed Carnarvon in the shadows, pacing impatiently from one foot to the other.

“Thanks, Harry,” I said. “You can photograph the rest of the stuff tomorrow. You go and get yourself a well-earned cocktail. We’ll join you by and by.”

I was anxious to get Burton to leave. In the cold light of day, the gesture may have seemed unnecessarily mean, but it was important to me to limit the number of persons with any knowledge of our forthcoming indiscretion. As those of us who are experienced in these matters well know, everyone has a very best friend with whom he may share a close secret, and that best friend will tell no one but another best friend who himself will tell no one and so on and so forth. The four of us presented a sufficient risk.

Burton did not linger. He had to make his way back to Luxor that evening in any case and was glad to be relieved of any further work. On his way, he left the exposed plates in tomb fifty-five. He was tired enough to trust to luck and leave developing them until the morning.

Within seconds of Burton’s departure, I armed myself with a chisel and quickly positioned myself close to the base of the sealed doorway. Crouching down between the two dusty sentinels, I began chipping away carefully at the bottom of the wall. I was conscious of at least five sets of eyes watching me at my work those of my colleagues and those of the two wooden gilded black guards of death.

I reopened the robbers’ hole only sufficient in height to admit myself. Pushing the mud bricks and debris behind me, I prepared to enter.

“Keep an eye on that. Don’t forget any of it when we leave this place tonight. Every scrap must be replaced before we go. No one must ever know we have reopened this aperture. We can disguise the breach. It will not be difficult.”

Carnarvon grinned broadly like the veritable Cheshire Cat. He was used to getting his way.

I felt a pressing need to lay down the law again. “Now... Before we investigate, some rules. Look before you take a step. We have only the one lamp. If the light be insufficient to show that the way is clear, do not take the step. Ask me to illuminate the area for you. Step only in areas where you can clearly see that the floor is clean even of debris. Touch nothing. Last, and most important take nothing. I must be allowed the time to accurately record everything we see in its original position.” Pointless my saying it, I know, but it had to be said.

I got down on my side and dragged myself through the low opening. Fragments of dried mud brushed onto my tweed clothing as I pulled myself through. I pushed the torch ahead of me.

As I looked ahead, the reflection from my torch temporarily blinded me. To my utter astonishment and delight, the illumination from the torchlight glared back from what appeared to be nothing less than a massive wall of beaten and engraved gold immediately in front of my face. I looked from side to side and up and down. The magnificent golden mural extended beyond my field of view in all directions. It was without question one of the outer walls of the shrine which should enclose the king’s sarcophagus and, hopefully still within it, his coffin set.

I was already in the burial chamber! I had Tutankhamen! The boy king lay within a foot or so of me! Can you imagine my excitement?

It suddenly dawned on me that I was forgetting my expectant colleagues. I pulled myself onward and inward only to discover I was about to fall. The floor of the burial chamber was deeper than that of the room I was entering from. I allowed myself to slide downward until I felt my outstretched fingers touch the chamber floor, and then walked along on my hands until the rest of my body was fully inside. This done, I sat upright and looked about myself to get my bearings.

There was a vessel just ahead on the floor and other objects beyond, but the area where I had settled was fortunately clear. I drew back a little and summoned the others to follow.

I could hear Carnarvon talking to Evelyn. “Never mind the dust, my dear. Frankly you are already pretty grubby. I will follow you directly.”

Evelyn was way beyond caring about her general appearance, never mind the state of her clothing. She prostrated herself, her hands grasping at the edges of the aperture, and began to drag herself through.

As her head appeared, I whispered to her, “We have already found the burial chamber. Mind the drop when you enter. There is precious little space between the wall and the shrine, and the floor of the room is about a yard below you.”

Since I had the torch pointed ahead of me, there was precious little light thrown behind my body, so on entering she must have found herself in almost total darkness. I moved on to the corner of the shrine and drew myself up to a standing position. With the torch held high above my head, I was able to illuminate the narrow passage Evelyn had been trying to negotiate in the darkness. While her skirt restricted her ability to manoeuvre, her more diminutive size permitted her much easier access than myself, and she was presently standing right beside me in the confined space.

Carnarvon’s head appeared at the aperture. “This is damned difficult for an infirm man, Howard. Give me a hand, will you?”

I must additionally confess that, in my state of euphoria at the time, I for once felt uncharitably disinclined to go to my patron’s aid. But I am glad to say that my inherent goodness triumphed over my bad side. I sidled along the wall until I was close to the earl and able to assist his lordship into the narrow gap between the flank of the golden shrine and the unyielding stone of the chamber wall. I helped Carnarvon to his feet.

“Where’s Callender?” said the earl, once he was vertical.

“Here! Stuck! Damnation!” The words came from the man himself, positioned about one quarter into the opening and with nowhere to go.

“Too damn fat! Sorry to have to admit it, old boy, but there it is. Can’t beat nature. Sins of gluttony have caught up with me at last, dammit. Too much beer and fish and chips!”

“Are you able to withdraw?” I called. It would have been more than embarrassing to

have been discovered here corked up, as it were, by my stuck fast colleague! “Of course, Howard. Don’t worry. I’ll keep watch with Adamson while you lot investigate. If I howl, you’d better come ascurrying.”

I think it was then that it finally dawned on Carnarvon. In his excitement, he hadn’t heeded the possibilities. What if we had been discovered in the act of opening the holy sepulchre? I, however, had already considered the consequences and discounted the risks. No one in authority was likely to venture into The Valley that evening. And Adamson would make sure that any casual passersby did just that, pass by.

“You shouldn’t concern yourself, m’lord,” I comforted. “I wouldn’t have made any attempt at this were there any risk of discovery. You need not worry... I am making my way toward the east end of the shrine. That is where the doors should be. We shall be able to see whether they remain sealed. Take the greatest care. I implore you... Do not to touch anything,” I repeated.

My two followers squeezed around the southeast corner, taking care not to brush against the painted wall and the side of the shrine, and to avoid some objects stacked against the wall. They were obliged to keep as close to me as they could. I held all the light they had to see by.

I could see another opening. “There is another low doorway around this corner, ahead and to our right. This one’s totally open. High enough to walk through as long as y’ stoop. Can’t quite see what might be in there yet but...” Just then I saw it. “Damn! Damn and blast!”

I knelt down and placed the torch upright on the floor. Hyperboles of light reflected brightly off the embossed gold sheeting covering the doors to the outer shrine. As I turned to my expectant colleagues, the golden light threw eerie, rippling shadows across their faces.

“Possibly bad news. No seals! There are no seals! Someone has opened the shrine in antiquity.” “Why don’t you withdraw the bolts and take a look inside, Howard?” Lady Evelyn, also crouching, was peering around her father’s flank.

“No, Lady Evelyn. We are taking sufficient risk as it is. I do not want to leave indelible marks that could betray our early entry. Let us just leave everything as we find it. We shall know these answers soon enough.”

I was more cross that things might be disturbed inside the shrine. But the body had to be there, unless the shrine had been built over an empty space. I recalled the empty coffin in the ‘Tomb of the Horse’. I shook my head in disbelief. This just could not happen to me again!

“Besides, whoever it was can’t have taken anything of any size through that small opening. Even we had trouble squeezing through it. Tutankhamen will be whole. I am certain of it. Providing he was put here in the first place!”

I began to find the old, stale atmosphere in the chamber uncomfortable to breathe and started coughing again. The noise echoed, it seemed to me, from everywhere. It startled my colleagues so much that Carnarvon jumped and Evelyn fell back onto her bottom, luckily onto nothing more than the dusty stone floor. I picked up the torch which Carnarvon had just kicked over and, bending down so I could see better, turned to look behind him into the additional room.

It was my turn to be startled. Right in front of me, no more than a yard from my face, and confronting me directly, was a somewhat larger than life-size black Anubis jackal covered in a dull, dusty and insect eaten shawl. Its head was in the style of the period erect and alert with enormous, gold tinted ears pointing vertically upward. The torchlight picked out the dark, obsidian eyes. They seemed to flash sternly back at me. I must have stood there transfixed for some seconds.

My impatient friends had to tap me on the shoulder to get my attention.

“Whatever is it, Howard?” Evelyn, heavily intoxicated with excitement, giggled in the darkness behind me.

“Come and look, Lady Evelyn, your lordship. We are confronted by the king’s guardian, Anubis. What a magnificent beast. His like I have only seen in a damaged and parlous state before that recovered from the tomb of Horemheb.”

Our eyes were by now well accustomed to the pale light thrown by the single torch, and we all could see quite plainly that in the room ahead of us the dog, lying prone on a shrine of its own, sat in guard on a host of objects of all shapes and sizes placed in orderly, serried ranks about the room. The most commanding object lay behind the dog the most beautiful creation I had ever set eyes on a large golden box framed within a gilded portico which rose almost to the ceiling. On its roof was a frieze of brightly coloured cobras, and facing each of the visible walls the slight, golden figure of a goddess with her arms outstretched in a gesture of protection. In front of this shrine stood the golden head of a bull with tall, upright, ebonised horns. Boxes and boats were stacked everywhere in profusion.