Read Online The Seventh Scroll by Wilbur Smith - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Wilbur Smith
Tags: Historical
Ads: Link
master landscapist, Capability Brown, had created the gardens sixty years later. The results were perfection.
The museum was set in a grove of copper beech trees half a mile beyond the house. It was a sprawling building that had obviously been added to more than once over the years. Mrs. Street was waiting for her at the side door, and introduced herself as she let Royan in. She was middle aged, grey-haired and self-assured. "I was at your lecture on Monday evening. Fascinating! I have a guidebook for you, but you will find the exhibits well catalogued and described.
I have spent almost twenty years at the job. There are no other visitors today. You will have the place to yourself.
You must just wander around and please yourself. I shall not leave until five this evening, so you have all afternoon.
If I can help you in any way my office is at the end of the passage. Please don't hesitate."
From the first moment that Royan walked into the display of African mammals she was enthralled. The primate room housed a complete collection of every single species of ape and monkey from that continent: from the great ilver-backed male gorilla to the delicate colobus in his long flowing mantle of black and white fur, they were all represented. Although some of the exhibits were over a hundred years old, they were beautifully preserved and presented, set in painted dioramas of their natural habitat. It was obvious that the museum must employ a staff of skilled artists and taxidermists. She could guess what this must have cost. Wryly she decided that the five million'dollars from the sale of the plundered treasure had been well spent.
She went through to the antelope room and stared around her in wonder at the magnificent beasts preserved here. She stopped before a diorama of a family group of the giant sable antelope of the now extinct Angolan variety, Hippotragus niger variant. While she admired the jet black and snowy-chested bull with his long, back-swept horns, she mourned his death at the hand of one of the Quenton, Harper family. Then she checked herself. Without the strange dedication and passion of the hunter-collector who had killed him, future generations might never have been able to look upon this regal presence.
She passed on into the next hall which was given over to displays of the African elephant, and paused in the centre of the room before a pair of ivory tusks so large that she could not believe they had ever been carried by a living animal. They seemed more like the marble columns of some Hellenic temple to Diana, the goddess of the chase.
She stooped to read the printed catalogue card:
Tusks of the African Elephant, Loxodonta africana.
Shot in the Lado Enclave in 1899 by Sir Jonathan Quenton-Harper. Left tusk 289 lb. Right tusk 301 lb. Length of larger tusk 11' 4'. Girth 32". The largest pair of tusks ever taken by a European hunter.
They stood twice as high as she was tall, and they were half as thick again as her waist. As she passed on into the Egyptian room she-marvelled at the size and strength of the creature that had carried them.
She came up short as her eyes fell upon the figure in the centre of the room. It was a fifteen-foot-high figure of Rarnesses 11, depicted as the god Osiris in polished red granite. The god-emperor strode out on muscular legs, wearing only sandals on his feet and a short kilt. In his left hand he carried the remains of a warlbow, with both the upper and lower limbs of the weapon broken off. This was the only damage that the statue had suffered in all those thousands of years. The rest of it was perfect - the plinth even bore the marks of the mason's chisel. In his right fist Pharaoh carried a seal embossed with his royal cartouche.
Upon his majestic head he wore the tall double crown of the upper and lower kingdoms. His expression was calm and enigmatic.
Royan recognized the statue instantly, for its twin i stood in the grand hall of the Cairo museum. She passed it every
The museum was set in a grove of copper beech trees half a mile beyond the house. It was a sprawling building that had obviously been added to more than once over the years. Mrs. Street was waiting for her at the side door, and introduced herself as she let Royan in. She was middle aged, grey-haired and self-assured. "I was at your lecture on Monday evening. Fascinating! I have a guidebook for you, but you will find the exhibits well catalogued and described.
I have spent almost twenty years at the job. There are no other visitors today. You will have the place to yourself.
You must just wander around and please yourself. I shall not leave until five this evening, so you have all afternoon.
If I can help you in any way my office is at the end of the passage. Please don't hesitate."
From the first moment that Royan walked into the display of African mammals she was enthralled. The primate room housed a complete collection of every single species of ape and monkey from that continent: from the great ilver-backed male gorilla to the delicate colobus in his long flowing mantle of black and white fur, they were all represented. Although some of the exhibits were over a hundred years old, they were beautifully preserved and presented, set in painted dioramas of their natural habitat. It was obvious that the museum must employ a staff of skilled artists and taxidermists. She could guess what this must have cost. Wryly she decided that the five million'dollars from the sale of the plundered treasure had been well spent.
She went through to the antelope room and stared around her in wonder at the magnificent beasts preserved here. She stopped before a diorama of a family group of the giant sable antelope of the now extinct Angolan variety, Hippotragus niger variant. While she admired the jet black and snowy-chested bull with his long, back-swept horns, she mourned his death at the hand of one of the Quenton, Harper family. Then she checked herself. Without the strange dedication and passion of the hunter-collector who had killed him, future generations might never have been able to look upon this regal presence.
She passed on into the next hall which was given over to displays of the African elephant, and paused in the centre of the room before a pair of ivory tusks so large that she could not believe they had ever been carried by a living animal. They seemed more like the marble columns of some Hellenic temple to Diana, the goddess of the chase.
She stooped to read the printed catalogue card:
Tusks of the African Elephant, Loxodonta africana.
Shot in the Lado Enclave in 1899 by Sir Jonathan Quenton-Harper. Left tusk 289 lb. Right tusk 301 lb. Length of larger tusk 11' 4'. Girth 32". The largest pair of tusks ever taken by a European hunter.
They stood twice as high as she was tall, and they were half as thick again as her waist. As she passed on into the Egyptian room she-marvelled at the size and strength of the creature that had carried them.
She came up short as her eyes fell upon the figure in the centre of the room. It was a fifteen-foot-high figure of Rarnesses 11, depicted as the god Osiris in polished red granite. The god-emperor strode out on muscular legs, wearing only sandals on his feet and a short kilt. In his left hand he carried the remains of a warlbow, with both the upper and lower limbs of the weapon broken off. This was the only damage that the statue had suffered in all those thousands of years. The rest of it was perfect - the plinth even bore the marks of the mason's chisel. In his right fist Pharaoh carried a seal embossed with his royal cartouche.
Upon his majestic head he wore the tall double crown of the upper and lower kingdoms. His expression was calm and enigmatic.
Royan recognized the statue instantly, for its twin i stood in the grand hall of the Cairo museum. She passed it every
Similar Books
