O'Connell and Evelyn

Chapter two

3215 years later. Hamunaptra, 1925

Most of Hamunaptra is under the desert. Only one or two houses stand in Seti the Firsts great City of the Dead, and in those houses some soldiers are fighting for France. They are fighting with hundreds of desert horsemen.

Again and again, the horsemen came out of the desert with the sun on their backs. They had guns and they shot at the soldiers. One of the men was a better fighter than the other soldiers. This man wasn't French. He was American and his name was Rick O'Connell. Next to him was Beni, a Hungarian. Beni was O'Connell's friend - sometimes, when he wanted something. "Why are you here?" O'Connell said to Beni, and he shot again. "I took some gold from a temple," said Beni, with a smile. "And you? Why are you a soldier? Did you kill somebody?" "No," said O'Connell. "But I'm thinking about it." And he shot another horseman from his horse.

"No, tell me," Beni said. "Why are you here in the desert?" "I want to have a good time," said O'Connell. The horsemen were now very close. O'Connell shot. Then, he shouted and shot again.

"There's only you and me, Beni," shouted O'Connell. But Beni didn't answer. He wasn't there. Four horsemen were almost on top of O'Connell. He ran. He saw Beni in front of a temple. The Hungarian went in and started to close the temple door.

"DON'T CLOSE THAT DOOR!" O'Connell shouted at Beni. But Beni closed it in his face and O'Connell couldn't open it. "I'm going to get you for this," O'Connell shouted at Beni, through the closed door. But first there were four desert horsemen with guns in his face. He had a problem.

"OK," shouted O'Connell. "I'm ready. The four of you. Fight me!" But the four horsemen didn't fight. Their horses went up on their back feet. Their ears went back and their eyes opened. They threw the four horsemen to the ground and ran away. The horsemen followed them.

"Why?" O'Connell thought. "I don't understand." He turned around. There, behind him, was an old statue. It was the god Anubis. Why did the horsemen run from a statue? But suddenly, he was afraid, too. A wind came across the desert. The yellow ground moved with the wind, and under it there was a big face. It was the face of the High Priest Imhotep.

O'Connell ran away from Hamunaptra. But there were eyes on his back in the hot desert. He knew that, he could feel them. He turned and looked up.

There, high up on a mountain, were the Med-Jai.

*

Evelyn Carnahan was a quiet, uninteresting woman, people thought. And she worked in a quiet place. It was a place full of very old books - the Cairo Museum.

Evelyn put a book on the top shelf. She saw something up there and she was angry. She was angry because the name of the book started with the letter T. Why was it on that shelf? The other books on the shelf started with S.

Evelyn took the book from the top shelf. But she fell and the books fell with her. The bookshelf fell and hit another bookshelf. Then, that bookshelf hit the shelf behind it. In two minutes, all the old books in the museum, from A-Z, were on the floor. Evelyn fell on the floor with them.

The curator of the museum walked in.

"Oh," said Evelyn. She wasn't very happy. "Look at this!" shouted the curator. "What are you doing? Why did we give you a job here?" "Oh be quiet!" Evelyn thought. She said, "You gave me a job here because I know everything about the Pharaohs. I understand the old languages and I can read these books. I..." Evelyn stopped. She felt very angry and very British, but she didn't want to lose this job. She liked living in Cairo.

The curator said some more angry words and then left.

Evelyn got up and started to put the books on the shelves again.

Somebody spoke. "I am the undead," it said. Evelyn looked behind a shelf and saw... a mummy. She screamed. And then, the mummy started to laugh.

"Hello, baby sister," it said. Her brother Jonathan put his head up. Then, he came out from behind the mummy.

"Jonathan!" He was more than thirty years old - and a baby. "Jonathan, go and put that mummy back." "Ah, but I have something for you," said her brother. "Oh no!" Jonathan often found things from the time of the Pharaohs and brought them to his intelligent sister. But when people in the museum looked at them, they weren't really old. "OK," said Evelyn. "What is it this time?" It was a box, and the box had Egyptian writing on it. Evelyn looked at it. She opened the box carefully, and took out a key and a map.

"Jonathan," she said. "This is very important." Evelyn and Jonathan took the box to the museum's curator. The curator looked at it.

"See!" said Evelyn.

"It's from the time of Seti the First." "Maybe," said the curator. The curator wasn't excited. Evelyn couldn't understand that. Did the curator know something about the box?

"Who was Seti the First?" asked Jonathan.

"Was he rich?" "The richest of the Pharaohs," answered Evelyn. Jonathan liked this answer. The curator looked at the map.

"This map is more than 3,000 years old," said Evelyn. She knew a lot about the Pharaohs and she wanted the curator to forget the books on the floor.

"The writing tells us that it's a map of Hamunaptra." The curator was afraid of the name Hamunaptra. But he turned away from Evelyn, so she didn't see his face. "My dear girl," said the curator, "there are a lot of stories about Hamunaptra..." "Is this Hamunaptra, City of the Dead?" asked Jonathan.

He and Evelyn had an Egyptian mother. They listened to stories about Hamunaptra when they were children.

"Yes," Evelyn answered. "Hamunaptra, City of the Dead. The Pharaohs put their gold there." The curator had the map in his hands. It was above a candle on his desk. He moved his hands down.

"No!" shouted Jonathan.

He pulled the map away from the candle and put out the fire with his hand. Some of the map was black now. You couldn't see the City of the Dead. "Why did you do that?" asked Jonathan.

"It wasn't really an old map," said the curator. "Didn't you know that, Miss Carnahan? That's very stupid of you." But it was an old map and it showed Hamunaptra. Evelyn knew that. She took the key from the curator quickly, before he threw that away. She could ask other people about the map. But where did Jonathan get it?

Outside the curator's office, she asked her brother that question. "Where did I get it? Oh, I took it from a man in a bar. He was an American. His name was Rick O'Connell." *

Evelyn and Jonathan went to the bar. Evelyn wasn't happy about that. She didn't usually go to bars and this was a very dirty bar. The American, Rick O'Connell, was there. He was always there, all day every day. He was dirty and he was ready for a fight.

"Don't I know you?" O'Connell said to Jonathan. "I saw you somewhere. And who's your little girlfriend? Very nice!" "She's my sister," said Jonathan. "Little... little... I am..." Evelyn wasn't anybody's "little girlfriend." But she didn't say that. She wanted to leave, but this man knew about the map and the key. Only O'Connell had the answers to her questions. "We... er... found this box," she began. "You want to know about Hamunaptra," said O'Connell. Evelyn's eyes opened. This American wasn't stupid. "How do you know that the box is from Hamunaptra?" "Because I found it in Hamunaptra. I was there." Suddenly, O'Connell remembered Jonathan, "You took my box," he said. And he hit Jonathan in the face. Jonathan fell on the floor.

"Tell me about Hamunaptra," said Evelyn. "I hit your brother," said O'Connell. "He's on the floor. And you want to know about Hamunaptra?" "Oh, he's OK," said Evelyn. "He's often on the floor." O'Connell almost smiled at that. This British woman was interesting.

"I was at Hamunaptra," he said. "I was a soldier at the City of the Dead." "What did you see?" asked Evelyn.

"I saw a lot of desert," said O'Connell. "I saw a lot of people die." "Where is Hamunaptra?" asked Evelyn.

"Can you take me there? I want to find a book. It's called the Book of Amun Ra and it's at Hamunaptra." Her face was close to O'Connell's. O'Connell kissed her. "What! Jonathan! Get up. You and I are leaving this bar." "Thanks for the visit," shouted O'Connell, before they walked out the door. *

Evelyn and Jonathan went back to the museum. They walked past the curator's office, but they didn't go in. So they didn't see the man in the curator's office. The man in the office knew the curator. He knew O'Connell, too. He was high on a mountain when O'Connell ran away, into the desert. His name was Ardeth Bay and he was the head of the Med-Jai. The curator was in the Med-Jai, too.

"Miss Carnahan wants to go to Hamunaptra," said the curator. "Stop her," said Ardeth Bay. "Stop her or kill her."