Burton: Sneaking Back

[Supercape]

With great effort, Burton forced the sorcerer out of his head, back to...well, wherever he had come from. He could still feel the odious remnants of the wizard, flashbacks of rituals and horrors from ages gone.

"Sir! They are coming! Everywhere! Everywhere!" Yelled Singh, who had a look off pure terror in his face. He smashed the floor below him with his sabre, and thrust into the walls. In a moment of almost coherence, he saw Burton being strangled by the mummy's stiff hand, and swung his sabre with full force.

The hand that grabbed Burton flexed and shook. Singh had taken the mummy's arm clean off with his blade; for although preserved well, it was nothing more than brittle bone, old flesh, and linen. There was a cracking sound as the humerus splintered asunder.

The hand around Burton twitched, and the severed arm fell to the floor, as lifeless as the rest of the mummy.

[Tabs]

"Munshi, God bless you!" shouted a shaken Burton, collapsing to one knee, a hand to his throat. He grabbed hold of Singh and, arm in arm, they both staggered towards the Gate, back to the Queen's Chamber.

[Supercape]

There was another spinning of angles, and sense of depth and height sideways, and the two men stood in the Queens chamber. The horrible yawning gate collapsed behind them, with a wheezing rotten sigh.

Even in the relative normality of the Queens Chamber, Singh was alive with terror, his eyes darting from wall to wall.

"The cracks! The CRACKS! we must be away from here Sir! away! away!" he yelled, slashing at the floor and the walls. His poor sabre was looking dented and chipped from the mighty blows he had reigned down on unyielding masonry.

[Tabs]

"Yes, yes, let's get out of this tomb," said Burton. Leading the poor Singh along the passages he headed for the exit. Outside the Great Pyramid they scrambled aboard their hobbled donkeys, and mercilessly jockeying the beasts race back to their hotel, and bed. They will both share a room: Singh the bed, Burton an armchair from where he can watch on, a prodigious tumbler, full of brandy, to hand.