The Curse of the Pharaohs

The sun rides high over the British Empire and the light still sparkles brightly in Amelia Peabody’s eye as she returns for her second adventure in archaeology and romantic mystery as recounted in her lively journal: The Curse of the Pharaohs. “The stair way went down into the rock at a steep angle. It had been completely filled with rock and rubble. By the following afternoon the men had cleared this away, exposing the upper portion of a doorway blocked with heavy stone slabs. Stamped in mortar were the unbroken seals of the royal necropolis. Note that word, oh, reader – that word so simple and yet so fraught with meaning. Unbroken seals impled that the tomb had not been opened since the day when it was solemnly closed by the priest of the funerary cult. Sir Henry, as his intimates were to testify, was a man of singularly phlegmatic temperament, even for a British nobleman. The only sign of excitement he displayed was a muttered ‘ By Jove,’ as he stroked his wispy beard. Others were not so blase’ – from The Curse of the Pharaohs It was Sir Henry’s intention to ensure that no tomb had been overlooked by the previous expedition. Scarcely had the men been at work for three days when their spades uncovered the first of a series of steps cut into the rock. The Times gave the story a full column, on page three. The next dispatch to come from Luxor, however, rated front-page headlines. Sir Henry Baskerville was dead. He was found next morning stiff and stark in his bed. On his face was a look of ghastly horror. On his high brow, inscribed in what appeared to be dried blood, was a crudely drawn uraceus serpent, the symbol of the divine pharaoh. Instead of digging up the treasures of a lost age, it appeard that Amelia and her Friend Radcliffe were excavating a deadly curse. This book is recorded on 8 cassettes and runs 11.75 hours