| In 1917 Emerson and Amelia bring their clan to
Egypt to stay. It is no longer safe to travel back and forth
on the open ocean as the Germans sink all ships, civilian and
military, alike.
In Cairo Cyrus tells them of antiquities from
a royal tomb that are showing up on the market, and Mr.
Smith makes overtures to Ramses about joining The Great Game, again.
Amelia and Nefret can't get the family out of
Cairo fast enough.
In Luxor, Amelia presents Nefret and Ramses
with the completed home that she has planned and had built for them
several hundred yards from the Emerson home. Nefret takes this
in her stride, but there are a few tense moments as Amelia waits to
see if they approve of her actions. For once, she feels
tentative and unsure.
Jamil and Jumana feature in this volume. Jamil
has estranged himself from the Emersons, and made himself an
outlaw. But he is looking for revenge and his aging father
cannot bring himself to censure him. Jumana is torn between her
loyalty to her brother and her obligations to the Emersons.
The Emersons begin to excavate in the
Workmen's Village at Deir el Medina, but the rumors of a royal tomb won't go
away, so Emerson and Cyrus go hunting. What they find smells
to high heaven, literally. There is a tomb, now emptied,
and there is also a badly decayed corpse.
In the midst of all the rumors of illegal tomb
finds, a Curious American couple and their son appear
on the Luxor scene asking directions to the village of the tomb
robbers. It seems they are collectors, and they resist all of
Emerson's attempt to dissuade them from doing a little digging on
their own.
And if that's not bad enough, Ramses must once
again take to his disguises to try and rescue his uncle from the
Turks. Emerson insists on providing him with some local backup and
cheerfully commandeers a motor car, a false beard and some rather
extravagant papers of passage. Amelia and Nefret refuse to let
him go alone, so they all take off toward Gaza. Emerson as the
sheik and Amelia as his older wife, with Nefret posing as his
younger one.
In this book Cyrus finally finds his royal
tomb, the local thieves are thwarted and Nefret has her heartfelt
prayer to Hathor, The Golden One, answered.
Many of the old character reappear in this
volume. The Great Cat of Re is introduced.
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