Base Camp - Night
The two camps have now joined together. Rick and Beni are roasting chunks of hairy meat over a fire. Jonathan wrinkles his nose, disgusted by the smell, "What is this stuff? It smells like our late friend, the warden."
Rick and Beni both grin. Jonathan looks horrified, "You did not!? .... We're not!?"
"Rat gizzards. They smell bad and taste worse, but that's the best the desert has to offer." Rick explains. The gloating Americans sit down, fondling their jeweled jars.
"Say, O'Connell, whaddya think these honeys'll fetch back home?" Henderson gloats, still messing with his jar.
"We hear you gentlemen found ourselves a nice gooey mummy. Congratulations." Burns exclaims mockingly.
"Ya know if ya dry him out, you can sell him for firewood." Daniels continues. The Americans laugh. Evy and Maggie both walk up, sit down, and drops a pile of big dusty bug skeletons onto the ground.
"Scarabs, flesh eaters, I found them inside our friend's coffin. They can stay alive for years living off the flesh of a corpse or in this case..." Evy explains. She looks at the meat, "famished." Maggie gags. It looked and smelled horrible.
Rick and Jonathon look at the bug skeletons disgusted, "Are you saying somebody threw these things in with our guy, and they slowly ate him alive?" Rick asks grimacing.
"Very slowly." Maggie finishes.
"He certainly was not a popular fellow when they planted him," Jonathon states.
"Must of got a little too frisky with the Pharaoh's daughter." Rick guesses smirking.
"According to my readings, our friend suffered the Hom-Dai, the worst of all ancient Egyptian curses, one reserved for only the most evil blasphemers. In all of my research, I've never read of this curse having been performed." Maggie explains to the people around her.
"That bad, huh?" Rick asks walking over and sitting next to her and pulling her into his lap.
"Yes, they never used it because they feared it so. it's written, that if a victim of the Hom-Dai should ever arise, he would bring with him the ten plagues of Egypt." Evy explains next, looking over to everyone around the cooking meat.
"The ten plagues? You mean all ten plagues." Rick asks her eyes widening ever so slightly.
Beni looks fearful before his annoying voice rings through the air, "Like what that Moses guy did to that Pharaoh guy?"
"That's one way of putting it," Maggie says from Rick's lap digging her head into his neck to try and escape the smell that makes her nauseous.
"Let's see, there were frogs, flies, locusts-" Jonathon begins.
"Hail and fire." Burns continues.
"The sun turning black," Henderson adds.
"Water turning to blood." Daniels drags on.
"And my personal favorite: people covered in boils and sores." Jonathon finishes. All the men share nervous looks, really spooked. Evy just laughs at them, then pulls a meat stick out of the fire.
"Fried gizzards anyone" She asks laughing. Maggie scrunches her nose in disgust.
Camp- Later that Night
Having just freshened up for bed, Evy exits the temple and steps past the sleeping Diggers. She spots the Egyptologist, his jeweled canopic jar snug under one arm, the Book Of The Dead laying loose under the other. Evy stares at the Book, nervously biting her lip, then she sneaks over, carefully steals it, and quickly tip-toes away.
