"Let me alone,"  he said. He put on his greatcoat and pulled on his leather gloves. 
Sharpies. A stupid man, Sharpies. He felt in his coat pocket for the knife he'd carried 
for years. Yes, still there. He drew it out now, and examined the thin steel blade." Oh 
no, sir,"  Daisy gasped." Don't be a fool,"  he said offhandedly, and closing the knife 
and putting it back into his pocket he went out the door.
  
  No sound now but the low gurgling of the fountain in the conservatory, the ashen 
twilight long gone, the Egyptian room lighted only by the green shaded lamp on Lawrence's 
desk.
  
  Julie sat in her father's leather chair, back to the wall, her silk peignoir soft and 
comfortable, and surprisingly warm, her hand on the diary which she had not yet read.
  
  The glittering mask of Ramses the Great was ever so slightly frightening, the large 
almond-shaped eyes peering into the soft shadows; the marble Cleopatra appeared to glow. 
And so beautiful the coins mounted on black velvet against the far wall.
  
  She had inspected them carefully earlier. Same profile as the bust, same rippling hair 
beneath its gold tiara. A Greek Cleopatra, not the silly Egyptian image so popular in 
programmes for Shakespeare's tragedy, or in the engravings which illustrated Plutarch's 
Lives and popular histories galore.
  
  Profile of a beautiful woman; strong, not tragic. Strong as Romans loved their heroes 
and heroines to be strong.
  
  The thick scrolls of parchment and papyrus looked all too fragile as they lay heaped on 
the marble table. The other items could also be easily destroyed by prying hands. Quill 
pens, ink pots, a little silver burner meant for oil, it seemed, with a ring in which to 
position a glass vial. The vials themselves lay beside it-exquisite specimens of early 
glasswork, each with a tiny silver cap. Of course all these little relics, and the string 
of alabaster jars behind them, were protected by small, neatly inscribed signs which 
read:" Please do not touch."
  
  Nevertheless, it worried her, so many coming here to view these things.
  
  "Remember, it's poison, most definitely,"  Julie had told Rita and Oscar, her 
indispensable maid and butler. And that had been enough to keep them out of the room!
  
  "It's a body, miss,"  Rita had said." A dead body! Never mind it's an Egyptian King. I 
say leave the dead alone, miss."
  
  Julie had laughed softly to herself." The British Museum is full of dead bodies, Rita."
  
  If only the dead could come back. If only the ghost of her father would come to her. 
Imagine such a miracle. Having him again, speaking to him, hearing his voice. What 
happened, Father? Did you suffer? Was there even one second when you were afraid?
  
  Yes, she wouldn't have minded such a visitation at all. But no such thing would ever 
happen. That was the horror. We went from the cradle to the grave beset by mundane 
tragedies. The splendour of the supernatural was a thing for stories and poems, and 
Shakespeare's plays.
  
  But why dwell on it? Now had come the moment to be alone with her father's treasures, 
and to read the last words he wrote.
  
  She turned the pages now to the date of the discovery. And the first words she saw made 
her eyes fill with tears.
  
  Must write to Julie, describe everything. Hieroglyphs on the door virtually free of 
error; must have been written by one who knew what he was writing. Yet the Greek is 
entirely of the Ptolemaic period. And the Latin is sophisticated. Impossible, Yet there 
it is. Samir uncommonly fearful and superstitious. Must sleep for a few hours. Am going 
in tonight!
  
  There was a hasty ink sketch of the door of the tomb and its three broad paragraphs of 
writing. Hastily she turned to the next page.
  
  Nine P.M. by my watch. Inside the chamber at last. Appears to be a library rather than 
a tomb. The man has been laid to rest in a King's coffin beside a desk on which he has 
left some thirteen scrolls. He writes entirely in Latin, with obvious haste but no 
carelessness. There are droplets of ink all over, but the text is completely coherent.
  
  "Call me Ramses the Damned. For that is the name I have given myself. But I was once 
Ramses the Great of Upper and Lower Egypt, slayer of the Hittites, Father of many sons 
and daughters, who ruled Egypt for sixty-four years. My monuments are still standing; the 
stele recount my victories, though a thousand years have passed since I was pulled, a 
mortal child, from the womb.
  
  "Ah, fatal moment now buried by time, when from a Hittite priestess I took the cursed 
elixir. Her warnings I would not heed. Immortality I craved. And so I drank the potion in 
the brimming cup. And now, long centuries gone by-amid the poisons of my lost Queen, I 
hide the potion which she would not accept from me-my doomed Cleopatra."
  
  Julie stopped. The elixir, hidden amongst these poisons? She realized what Samir had 
meant. The papers had not told that part of the little mystery. Tantalizing. These 
poisons hide a formula that can grant eternal life.
  
  "But who would create such a fiction!"  she whispered.
  
  She found herself staring at the marble bust of Cleopatra. Immortality. Why would 
Cleopatra not drink the potion? Oh, but really, she was beginning to believe it! She 
smiled.
  
  She turned the page of the diary. The translation was interrupted. Her father had 
written only:
  
  Goes on to describe how Cleopatra awakened him from his dream-filled sleep, how he 
tutored her, loved her, watched her seduce the Roman leaders one by one...
  
  "Yes,"  Julie whispered." Julius Caesar first and then Mark Antony. But why would she