The unique exhibit

The impossibility of what was happening filled Boyd with extraordinary excitement. He silently moved his lips and once again brought the stethoscope to the chest of the mummy lying before him.

"Incredible," he muttered hoarsely, as if weakened.

Professor Loyell, apparently deeply shaken, sat motionless behind his desk, staring into space.

"Weak sighs... approximately once every two minutes. But why, contrary to tradition, were the organs not removed?" Dr. Boyd slowly straightened up. The light from the desk lamp flashed in his glasses. "Incredible," Boyd repeated, putting the stethoscope into the breast pocket of his jacket. Then, as if following the professor's example, he also fell into a stupor.

After several minutes of mutual silence, Loyell finally came to himself. The sparks of reason reignited in his eyes, his gaze sharpened, falling upon the doctor. The expression of genuine fear frozen on Boyd's face brought him back to reality. But in the next second, he recoiled so violently that the chair under him creaked sharply.

For a moment, it seemed to him that the chest of the mummy lying on the surgical table had risen. Could he, a scientist, who had relied on science and its immutable postulates his entire conscious life, an honorary professor of history and archaeology, so easily accept such an unthinkable phenomenon as a mummy retaining respiratory functions, the age of which was counted in millennia, as a fact? However, signs of life in the mummified body of King Djedefre, whose century had ended during the reign of the IV dynasty of pharaohs, had been attested to by another scholarly man, a member of the Royal Society of Medicine, Dr. Wilmore Boyd, with almost twenty years of surgical practice in London.

Nevertheless, the professor was forced to admit that the signs of life he personally observed in the mummy, which was originally supposed to enrich the exhibits of the archaeological museum, were quite eloquent evidence of genuine fear and rational shock, reflected on the face of the astonished Dr. Boyd.

Suddenly, a dull pain pierced Professor Loyell's head, and he heard a voice. "Amset... son of Horus... your Hat... gift to me... old man."

The professor massaged his temples. The pain subsided, but the voice persisted.

"Kebeksenuf... son of Horus... gives my Ka a new abode, which will serve me, born under the constellation of the dog... divine ruler... King Djedefre."

Dr. Boyd stood, leaning over the mummy, and with profound amazement examined its gray, forever closed eyelids. He again began to listen through his stethoscope, changing its position around the chest of the mummified pharaoh's body every second.

Loyell suddenly realized that his vision was failing him greatly. He wanted to wipe the lenses of his glasses, but found it extremely difficult: his hands seemed to have become stiff. And his entire body didn't respond at all. Through a vague haze, he saw the puzzled face of Dr. Boyd leaning over him, who generously responded to his request to examine the recently discovered mummy. Perhaps he had suffered a stroke? And the doctor, of course, was just in time. He must have been too agitated. But this mummy, for some unknown reason retaining its organs... Thanks to this unique find, before Loyell could unfold such horizons as Howard Carter himself could not dream of.

But now everything was clear. Surely he was experiencing hallucinations. And voices... Yes, now he heard his own voice somewhere nearby. "Delusion," Loyell persuaded himself, "it all just seemed to me."

The doctor smiled and said that he didn't hear anything resembling breathing anymore and that undoubtedly, both of them had succumbed to the play of imagination.

Professor Loyell wanted to sigh in relief and agree with Boyd's conclusion, but in the next moment, someone else spoke, saying:

"I suppose we should keep this glaring misunderstanding a secret, doctor. After all, we don't want to become a laughingstock in scientific circles with you."

A wave of horror engulfed Loyell when his own face appeared next to Boyd's. Only that gaze, directed at him from above through the lenses of glasses, radiated malicious triumph.

The one who had seized his body smirked sardonically and added:

"A worthy specimen for our museum, wouldn't you agree?"

In a horror bordering on madness, Loyell understood they were talking about him. In despair, he wanted to scream, to shout with all his might to expose the impostor posing as himself, to convey to Boyd that he, the real Professor Loyell, was hopelessly locked in this dead shell, motionless, silent, bound by the decay of the mummy.

The doctor's voice trembled with the excitement that only a scholar could experience.

"It's unique, professor. Congratulations! I foresee a grand success."