Whence Came You?
Episode 36
Date: 16 February 1948
CHAPPELL: Quiet, please.
(SEVEN SECONDS' SILENCE)
CHAPPELL: Quiet, please.
(MUSIC ... THEME ... FADE FOR)
ANNOUNCER: The Mutual Broadcasting System presents "Quiet, Please!" which is
written and directed by Wyllis Cooper and which features Ernest Chappell.
"Quiet, Please!" for tonight is called "Whence Came You?"
(MUSIC ... THEME ... END)
---
AUSTIN (narrates): I came from Jerusalem. I've traveled in the East a good
deal in the last twenty-odd years. And I flatter myself that I know my way
around. So when I got off the plane at Cairo, I didn't start for the camp
right away as a good storybook archeologist would have done. I made a beeline
for Shepherd's and the room I'd left a couple of days before when I went to
Jerusalem. A bath, a gin and tonic, and a large batch o' mail from the
States. (chuckles) What more can a man ask? In Cairo? On a hot night? But,
of course, it was too good to last.
SOUND: (KNOCK at the door.)
AUSTIN (sighs, to himself): Just gonna let 'em knock.
SOUND: (The KNOCKING continues.)
AUSTIN (whispers to himself): Go 'way, go 'way, go 'way...
SOUND: (More KNOCKING.)
ABE FELDMAN: Hey, Austin! Wake up!
AUSTIN (disgusted, to himself): Aw, who the--?
ABE FELDMAN: Hey! It's Abe Feldman!
AUSTIN (disbelief): Abe Feldman?
SOUND: (FOOTSTEPS across the room, door OPENS.)
AUSTIN (happy to see him): Abe!
ABE FELDMAN: Hi, Austin! (laughs) Regards from State and Madison.
AUSTIN: Well, I'll be darned! Come on in!
SOUND: (Abe enters the room, door CLOSES.)
AUSTIN: What're ya doin' here? What've you got there?
ABE FELDMAN: I sure get around, don't I? Ha, ha. This? This is gin and
tonic. How are ya?
AUSTIN: Well, I'm fine, but-- Come in. Well, sit down. You're the last man
in the world that I--
ABE FELDMAN: Here, take a gin and tonic before I drop it. (chuckles) Well,
l'chaim.
AUSTIN: L'chaim in spades, Abe.
SOUND: (They DRINK. Abe EXHALES happily.)
AUSTIN: By golly, I'm glad to see ya, boy.
ABE FELDMAN: I'm glad to see you. I've been looking here for three days,
waiting for you to come back. Hey, ya look skinnier.
AUSTIN: Well, you go out and dig holes out there for six months, lad, you'd
take off some of that fat, too.
ABE FELDMAN: Me? [Sand?]? Go 'way, you're kiddin'! Well, get your shirt on
and let's go see the town.
AUSTIN: Sit down! (chuckles) Come on, whatcha doin' here?
ABE FELDMAN (takes another drink, exhales): Business.
AUSTIN: Yeah, what kind o' business?
ABE FELDMAN: Newspaper business, natch. What's cookin' in the Middle East and
stuff. (takes another drink) Say, uh, how do you get more of these things?
AUSTIN: We'll go down to the bar in a minute. They're colder down there.
Well, go on, go on. Tell me about it.
ABE FELDMAN: Well, you know, Eddie Hoeferkamp just called me in and said
"Draw some dough and go east and send up some stuff for the Sunday feature
section, the Trib's makin' a monkey out of us again." So, I remembered the
dear old days on the midway, you and me, and... you're around here, so...
let's go see the town, huh?
AUSTIN (chuckles): Well, I'll be darned. When'd you leave Chicago?
ABE FELDMAN: Day before yesterday.
AUSTIN (remembering): Oh, boy.
ABE FELDMAN: Yep. The Loop's still there. They still got the burlesque
[pronounced burlee-kyoo] shows on South State Street. The Michigan Avenue
Bridge is always up. The Cubs are in seventh place. (pause) Now?
AUSTIN: Now what?
ABE FELDMAN: Now we go see the town? Come on, put on your pants.
AUSTIN (laughs): You never been in Cairo before, have you?
ABE FELDMAN: Me? Heh. Not me. Why?
AUSTIN: Well, if you had, you wouldn't care much about seein' it, my boy.
ABE FELDMAN: Yeah?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ABE FELDMAN: But, uh... women!
AUSTIN (dryly): You had a good look at any of 'em?
ABE FELDMAN: Have I? Oh, boy! Heh, heh.
AUSTIN: What?
ABE FELDMAN: The one that's waiting for you downstairs.
AUSTIN: Waiting for me?
ABE FELDMAN: Wow!
AUSTIN: What are you talking about? I don't know any women in Cairo.
ABE FELDMAN: Well, there's one who knows you.
AUSTIN: Why, you're crazy.
ABE FELDMAN: I'm tellin' ya.
AUSTIN: How do you know?
ABE FELDMAN: She's been waiting down there for three days. I've seen her.
AUSTIN: What's she look like?
ABE FELDMAN: Oh, boy...
AUSTIN: Not a native?
ABE FELDMAN: Cleopatra!
AUSTIN: Is this one of your bum jokes, Abe?
ABE FELDMAN: I give you my word of honor.
AUSTIN: I don't get it.
ABE FELDMAN: Come on downstairs and you will.
(MUSIC IN AND UNDER)
AUSTIN (narrates): So we went downstairs. British colonels, American
traveling salesmen, Egyptian army officers, a thief or two, a bevy of the
ugliest women in the world. And I don't see any woman waiting for me.
ABE FELDMAN (whispers): There. By the door to the bar.
(MUSIC ... AN ACCENT)
AUSTIN (narrates): And I looked. And there by the door stood the one most
beautiful woman I have ever seen in all my life. She was no Egyptian native.
She might have descended from one of the marvelously lifelike paintings of the
Queen of the [Hap-Ho?] Dynasty that I'd seen on the walls of tombs two
thousand years old. How can I describe her? Her eyes were black. Her hair was
black... and cut in the manner of the days of the Shepherd kings that ruled
the Valley of the Nile a thousand years before the pyramids were built. Red
lips that smiled at me slowly. And I felt my knees tremble as she looked into
my eyes.
ABE FELDMAN: Come on, let's go ask her if she's got a friend.
AUSTIN (narrates): And when I looked back at her...
(MUSIC ... AN ACCENT)
AUSTIN: Where'd she go?!
(MUSIC UP AND OUT)
AUSTIN (narrates): It was midnight. Then one o'clock. And two. And then
three. We still walked the streets of Cairo. The waning moon was rising in the
northeast behind our shoulders as we turned our steps back to the hotel.
Twice... I thought I'd seen her. And twice, she -- if she it was --
disappeared into a narrow winding street where we couldn't follow... No, I
never followed women about the streets of a foreign city before, not in all my
life. For there's little enough of that in the life of an archeologist. The
women we follow died a thousand, ten thousand years before we were born. We
know them only by their portraits painted on the walls of a musty tomb. By
what we find in great, hermetically-sealed stone caskets, wrapped in rust-
colored linen, and smelling of the ghost of cinnamon and myrrh and spikenard.
I don't know why I did this--
ABE FELDMAN: I know. She wanted you to come after her.
AUSTIN: Why, that's ridiculous, Abe.
ABE FELDMAN: I heard her ask for ya.
AUSTIN: Well, what would she want of me?
ABE FELDMAN (laughs): What does a pretty gal usually want of a guy? Drinks,
something to eat, a good time.
AUSTIN: Ah, she could have had that from anybody.
ABE FELDMAN: Yeah -- me, for instance. But she wanted you, Austin.
AUSTIN: Well, why?
ABE FELDMAN: Maybe she's a spy or somethin'.
AUSTIN: A spy?
ABE FELDMAN: Maybe she wanted to sell you somethin'. You know, you grave
robbers. Maybe she knows where some old Pharaoh or somebody is planted.
AUSTIN: Yeah, that could be, I suppose. (pause) Well, I'm for bed. I've got
to get out to the diggin's early.
ABE FELDMAN: Fine night we had.
AUSTIN: Eh, forget it. You got a room, huh?
ABE FELDMAN: Yeah, right down the hall. Well, knock on my door when you get
up.
AUSTIN: All right. Good night.
ABE FELDMAN: 'Night. Say, they, uh, have this incense all the time around
this place, huh?
AUSTIN: What do you mean?
ABE FELDMAN: Don't you smell it? Smells like a... funeral.
AUSTIN: I don't-- (pause) Oh. Yeah, I suppose. Night.
ABE FELDMAN: Night, Austin.
(MUSIC IN AND UNDER)
AUSTIN (narrates): I could have told him what the... incense was. I've smelled
cinnamon and myrrh and spikenard too often not to recognize it instantly.
When I opened the door to my room, the smell was almost overpowering, used as
I am to the funeral spices of ancient Egyptian tombs... No... No, I'm not
gonna tell you that a beautiful Egyptian princess of the days of [Hixtos?] was
waiting for me in the darkness. This isn't a ghost story. It's a true story.
There wasn't anyone in the room. I turned on the lights. Opened the window.
There wasn't anyone in the room. So I went to bed. Dreamed about sailing on
Lake Michigan. A storm came up and the thunder crashed.
SOUND: (Thunder CRASHES.)
AUSTIN (narrates): And I was scared to death. Then I woke up and the thunder
was the servant knocking on my door...
SOUND: (KNOCKING at the door.)
AUSTIN (narrates): ... bringing me my morning cup o' tea.
(MUSIC UP AND OUT)
AUSTIN (narrates): Abe and I got in my jeep and rode out to the excavation.
It's quite a distance from Cairo. Oh, never mind just where it is because
that's my business. And the university's. That right rear tire went flat just
I've been expecting. I forgot to put air in the spare so we took quite a
while getting it pumped up. It was late afternoon when we got there. Abe had
never seen anything of this sort. (to Abe) You see, Abe, these places are
built one on top of another -- almost every village and town in the East
is.
ABE FELDMAN: Mmm, different periods of time, huh?
AUSTIN: Yeah, that's right. There may be any number of cities built above the
ruins of another. All we do is dig out the top one, you see, recover
everything we can that's of historical importance, then go on carefully
down to the next.
ABE FELDMAN: What do you do with the stuff that's on top?
AUSTIN: Mm, has to be destroyed, naturally.
ABE FELDMAN: Aw, gee, that's too bad, ain't it?
AUSTIN: Well... we make careful records, photographs...
ABE FELDMAN: And then you just peel off the stuff and go on to the next?
AUSTIN: That's right. This is the fourth city from the top we're workin' on
now. See those big-- that big pile of rubble over there?
ABE FELDMAN: Yeah.
AUSTIN: That's the remains of the other three cities.
ABE FELDMAN: Gee... that seems a shame. All those years of work and living
and everything.
AUSTIN: Oh, we save artifacts, of course.
ABE FELDMAN: Save what?
AUSTIN: You know, uh, things that people made, pot shards, fragments of wall
paintings, decorations, that sort of thing.
ABE FELDMAN: Oh. What do you do with the people you find?
AUSTIN: People?
ABE FELDMAN: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Oh, mummies. Uh, various things. We read the inscriptions. Decide
whether the fellow was important enough to investigate further. The Egyptian
government has a great deal to say about the contents of tombs, you know.
ABE FELDMAN: Uh, find any gold?
AUSTIN: Not here so far but we probably will. This part where we're standing
was the necropolis of this particular city.
ABE FELDMAN: Huh?
AUSTIN: The cemetery, see.
ABE FELDMAN: Oh, yeah.
AUSTIN: It's reasonable to suppose that there are other tombs under here.
ABE FELDMAN: That's where you find the jewels and the gold and stuff?
AUSTIN: Mm. Generally, yes.
ABE FELDMAN: Um, say, Austin, why don't you get a steam shovel in here? You'd
move this stuff a lot quicker--
AUSTIN: And probably smash some priceless inscriptions or paintings into bits.
No, my boy, we do this... gently.
ABE FELDMAN: Uh huh. And you can read this stuff, huh, the hy-ro-glyphics?
AUSTIN (corrects his pronunciation): Hieroglyphics. [pronounced heer-o-
glifics] Comes from two Greek words originally meaning "carving by priests" ...
ABE FELDMAN (chuckles): Okay, Professor. Can you read it?
AUSTIN: Yeah, of course. I can read a good deal of the later writings by
sight. When we get down to the real ancient stuff, that's a little more
difficult.
ABE FELDMAN: Oh. What does this say?
AUSTIN: What?
ABE FELDMAN: Uh, this slab here.
AUSTIN: Let's see. Uh... (reads and slowly translates) 'Here was I... Ho-Tep,
presented with a...' I guess you'd say, 'invested with... the working tools of
those who... build. In my hand, I, Ho-Tep, did take' -- uh -- 'took... the
tools of the second...' -- uh -- 'grade... of workmen in stone, the,' -- uh --
'plumb, the square, and the...'
ABE FELDMAN: The level, huh?
AUSTIN: How'd you know?
ABE FELDMAN (amazed): There were Masons in those days.
AUSTIN: Well, sure. How do you think they built all this stone stuff?
ABE FELDMAN: Hey, look at that! What's that there?
AUSTIN: Uh. It's a name. Uh... (reads) 'Sholem...' uh, It's probably Solomon.
Yeah, this was in Solomon's time.
ABE FELDMAN: Uh, right alongside the name.
AUSTIN: 'The middle... stone of an arch... which is... sacred.'
ABE FELDMAN: The keystone! These fellas didn't know how to build an arch.
AUSTIN: That's right. They didn't. Why're you so excited about it though?
ABE FELDMAN: Hey!
AUSTIN: What?
ABE FELDMAN: Lookit that!
AUSTIN: This? Yeah, that's a very fine example of wall painting. Look how
the colors are still bright. Look how they-- (stops short, pause)
ABE FELDMAN: Yeah. You see the same thing I see... don't ya?
AUSTIN (narrates): You know what I saw? You know whose portrait was painted
on the edge of the slab that came from a tomb that was old in the time of
Augustus Caesar? Coincidence or not, here was the face of the woman who waited
for me the night before in Shepherd's Hotel.
(MUSIC IN AND OUT)
AUSTIN (narrates): It's amazing how racial characteristics persist through
centuries in Egypt. I have seen Egyptian men who might have been
Tutankhamen's own brother. I've seen women that-- But you wouldn't blame me
for feeling my hackles rise a little at this uncanny resemblance to the woman
who disappeared. I kept smelling myrrh, and spikenard, cinnamon. But I hadn't
much time to think of it then. Martin Weaver, who was in charge of the actual
excavation, came up behind us.
MARTIN WEAVER: Well, I'm glad you're back, Austin.
AUSTIN: Oh, hello, Martin. How're we doin'? (introductions) Uh, this is Abe
Feldman, Martin Weaver.
MARTIN WEAVER (to Abe): How are you?
ABE FELDMAN: Hello.
MARTIN WEAVER (to Austin): Well, day before yesterday we broke through a
place, Austin, that goes down to the city underneath this one.
AUSTIN: You did?
MARTIN WEAVER: Yeah, one of the workmen found a big sandstone slab and we
cleared it away completely. I've got the big shears rigged over it now and I
thought we'd wait till you got here to lift the slab. Uh, want to do it
tonight or what?
ABE FELDMAN (like a little kid): Oh, gosh, let's do it now, Austin.
AUSTIN (to Martin): Well, what do you think? Getting dark. Let's have a look
at it.
MARTIN WEAVER: Okay. I'm glad you're back. Uh, bring anything to drink with
you?
(MUSIC IN AND UNDER)
AUSTIN (narrates): We walked half a mile. There was a little clearing at one
corner of the necropolis and the beams of the shears stood stark against the
darkening sky. There was something elemental, something... deathly about them.
It's not an archeologist's job to be sentimental or superstitious -- none of
us would stay on the job very long if we were, but.... The half-inch steel
cable was attached to a block of stone that was the only thing that separated
us from something that happened perhaps forty centuries ago and... well, there
are times when a man's entitled to shiver a little in the wind that rises over
the desert at sunset. Abe was beside himself with excitement.
ABE FELDMAN (childlike throughout): Let's pull it up, Austin. Go on, let's
pull it up, huh?
AUSTIN: Go ahead, Martin.
MARTIN WEAVER: Okay. Glad we got the engine. That slab weighs about seventy
tons.
AUSTIN: (after a slight pause) Go ahead!
SOUND: (The engine STARTS. SCRAPE of slab being lifted.)
AUSTIN (calls out to Martin): Little higher!
ABE FELDMAN (gasps): Gosh! (coughs) The air from down there...! (coughs)
AUSTIN: That air you're breathing, Abe, was breathed by Pharaohs long before
Moses led his people out of this country.
ABE FELDMAN: Gee.
AUSTIN: Okay, hold it, Martin!
MARTIN WEAVER: Right!
SOUND: (Engine STOPS.)
ABE FELDMAN: You-you goin' down there, Austin?
AUSTIN: Tomorrow.
ABE FELDMAN: Aw, not now?
AUSTIN: No, no. It's late.
ABE FELDMAN: Aw, gee, I'd like to go down there.
AUSTIN: We will in the morning.
MARTIN WEAVER (approaching): How is it?
AUSTIN: Let's take your flashlight.
MARTIN WEAVER: Here ya are.
AUSTIN (after a pause): Mummy case. Some wall paintings.
ABE FELDMAN: Let me see!
AUSTIN: Take the flashlight.
ABE FELDMAN: Oh, boy, oh, boy! It isn't far down there. I'm gonna jump down!
MARTIN WEAVER and AUSTIN: Oh, no, wait! Stop! Don't do that!
ABE FELDMAN: I'll be all right!
SOUND: (Abe SLIDES down and LANDS at the bottom.)
AUSTIN (annoyed and upset): Now, don't go running all over that place,
trackin' it up, Abe!
ABE FELDMAN (off): I won't! Boy, it's dark down here!
AUSTIN (quietly, to Martin): Get a ladder, Martin.
MARTIN WEAVER: Yeah, okay.
AUSTIN (calls out): You hear me, Abe?!
ABE FELDMAN (off): I hear ya! Throw me your flashlight!
AUSTIN: Doggone it, that's the last time you--! Here! (pause) Now, stand
still!
ABE FELDMAN (off): I'm standing still... Hey, Austin!
AUSTIN: What?
ABE FELDMAN (off): There's a picture on the wall.
AUSTIN: What picture?
ABE FELDMAN (off): Over here on the wall -- oh, darn it. I dropped the light.
AUSTIN: Well, stand still. Martin'll back in a minute with his light.
ABE FELDMAN (uneasy, off): Austin!
AUSTIN (very annoyed): What?
ABE FELDMAN (off): There's... something in here.
AUSTIN: Well, be careful. It might be a snake.
ABE FELDMAN (off): No. It-it-it ain't a snake, it-- (screams horribly)
AUSTIN: Abe?! Abe?! Abe, what happened?
(MUSIC IN AND UNDER)
MARTIN WEAVER: Look out, Austin! Look out! The slab!
(MUSIC to indicate a seventy ton slab CRASHING to the earth...)
AUSTIN (narrates): We worked all night long, Martin and I, splicing that
steel cable and raising the heavy slab that had imprisoned Abe in that place
of the dead. We had no hope but what could we do? A miracle might have
happened -- there might have been a chink between the slab and the opening it
covered, an opening through which a few breaths of air might have seeped into
the tomb. The snake might not have bitten him -- he might have killed it. So
we told each other... all through the night. The stubborn cable cut our hands
and defied our every effort. The sun was just rising when we at last had made
it fast and Martin started the engine.
(MUSIC OUT)
SOUND: (Engine STARTS.)
AUSTIN (narrates): We fastened the rope onto the cable and we swung the great
stone slab aside. I was down in the tomb almost before it had cleared the
opening.
SOUND: (Engine STOPS.)
AUSTIN (narrates): It was too late. I nearly sickened as I called to Martin.
He jumped down, too.
SOUND: (Martin EXHALES as he LANDS on his feet.)
MARTIN WEAVER: Oh, my good--! What happened to him?
AUSTIN: He thought it was a snake.
MARTIN WEAVER: No snake did that.
AUSTIN: No.
MARTIN WEAVER: I saw a pigeon once that a hawk had been at.
AUSTIN: We-- we'd've been too late even if the slab hadn't fallen.
MARTIN WEAVER: Well... (suddenly tense) Austin.
AUSTIN: What?
MARTIN WEAVER: That mummy case. Was the cover off it last night when you
looked down here?
AUSTIN (amazed): No... (confused) Why, Abe couldn't've--
MARTIN WEAVER: That lid weighs ten tons.
SOUND: (FOOTSTEPS to the mummy case.)
AUSTIN (narrates): Then we looked down into the stone coffin. I hope I shall
never see the like of that again.
MARTIN WEAVER: Look. What is it?
AUSTIN (narrates): The mummy of a man. A tall man... in a robe of gold
cloth. Not wrapped in linen bindings, just a robe of gold cloth with strange
symbols woven into the cloth. And his head -- not a man's head -- the head of
a hawk! No, not a mask -- we looked carefully -- a man with the head of a
hawk. And the hawk's beak... all dabbled with red.
(MUSIC IN AND OUT)
AUSTIN (narrates): I didn't believe it either. It couldn't be. But it was.
It was the father of all the Egyptian gods, Osiris. Osiris, the brother-
husband of Isis, the founder of the world's first empire. Osiris, who was
murdered sixteen thousand years ago. And his body was hidden by Isis, his
wife, with a blasting curse on any who might find his tomb. It was
impossible, it couldn't be. But there it was. And Martin... and I... and a
dead man... were there in his tomb with him. And the curse hung heavy in the
musty air around us.
(MUSIC IN AND UNDER)
AUSTIN (narrates): And then the first rays of the sun, reflected from
something above us, stole down into the tomb and I saw the pictures on the
wall. I saw Osiris with his hawk's head and the robe he wore and the [mitre?]
on his hawk's head was the same as the mummy wore in the casket. I saw
Isis, his wife, weeping over the body of her murdered husband. And the beauty
of the work of the long dead artist was unbelievable. And I saw another
picture. There was the daughter of Isis and Osiris. Yes. Yes, of course I
could read the inscriptions. Yes, of course I could recognize her face. I'd
seen it before. In the lobby of Shepherd's Hotel.
(MUSIC ... AN ACCENT)
And the inscriptions on the wall were terrifying. There were secrets there
that men would give their lives to possess today. There were secrets there
that we've only begun to imagine today. I'm a scientist. I know. Or do I? We
forgot the thing in the coffin. We - we forgot the thing on the floor. And it
grew darker and darker in the tomb. And I read on and on. I stood before the
painting of the one who was Osiris' daughter. Long black hair. Red lips that
smiled at me. And my heart stopped at the inscription under the portrait. I
read it over again -- 'Be... not... afraid... A-Us-Tin' [pronounced ah-oos-
tin] -- carved into the living rock in the ancient hieratic characters
uncounted centuries ago. Not by the hand of the artist. I knew who had carved
my name there... 'Be not afraid, Austin.' And I wasn't afraid at all when I
discovered that the thing that was making it dark down there was a great slab
of sandstone... slowly swinging around and down to imprison us all in the tomb
that the wife of Osiris had cursed.
(MUSIC ... AN ACCENT, THEN OUT)
AUSTIN (narrates): Martin Weaver was a very brave man. Martin Weaver didn't
scream and cry in the heavy dark. Martin Weaver talked to me quietly.
MARTIN WEAVER: It'll be all right, Austin. The workmen'll be here before long
and they'll see the slab and Ebrahaim knows how to run the engine.
AUSTIN: I hope so, Martin. I hope they'll be in time.
MARTIN WEAVER: They'll be in time. He'll start the engine and pull the thing
off, all right.
AUSTIN: I hope so, Martin.
MARTIN WEAVER: Sure. They'll know that something's wrong.
AUSTIN: Where are you?
MARTIN WEAVER: Right here.
AUSTIN: Well, stand still.
MARTIN WEAVER: I am standing still.
AUSTIN: I thought I heard you move.
MARTIN WEAVER: Oh. ... You afraid, Austin?
AUSTIN: Are you?
MARTIN WEAVER: Not particularly. But I--
AUSTIN: Yes?
MARTIN WEAVER: Well, the thing in the tomb-- Where're you going?
AUSTIN: I haven't moved.
MARTIN: Why, I thought I felt your hand on my arm.
AUSTIN: No. Sit still. Don't use up the air.
MARTIN WEAVER: Well, you sit still.
AUSTIN: I tell ya, I didn't move.
MARTIN WEAVER: Something's moving.
AUSTIN: It couldn't be.
MARTIN WEAVER: Austin?
AUSTIN: What?
MARTIN WEAVER: (sharp intake of breath)
SOUND: (A body FALLING, followed by silence.)
AUSTIN: Martin? Martin? Martin! Answer me, Martin!
AUSTIN (narrates): And there was nothing but silence. And then another
footstep. And I felt a hand on my arm and I screamed with terror.
(MUSIC IN AND UNDER)
AUSTIN (narrates): But it was a gentle hand and it led me gently away from
where I stood in the dark. And I followed. I hit my head on a solid stone
wall. My feet dragged as I followed whoever it was through a door that I knew
couldn't be there. And a voice breathed in my ear.
FEMALE VOICE (whispers): Austin.
AUSTIN (narrates): And I smelled cinnamon and myrrh and spikenard. And I
followed on. And soon there was a glimmering of light ahead of me and I felt
the hand release my arm and I walked on toward the light. Then, in a little
while, another little room, hewn out of the solid rock. And the light burning:
a little bronze lamp at the head of a mummy case of lacquered, painted wood.
And the portrait image on the lid of the sarcophagus, the same face, the
smile. And I came closer to read the inscription I knew would be there, an
inscription put there so many, many years ago. (reads) 'I have freed you,
Austin -- now free me...' (narrates) My hand went to the fastening of the
lid... when I looked up to the wall above. The portrait again. But with a
difference. The same costume, the same jewelry, the same headdress. But the
head... was the head of a hawk. The head of Osiris' daughter...
(MUSIC OUT)
AUSTIN (narrates): So, I sit here. And the little bronze lamp is flickering
low... No... I haven't opened the coffin.... I'm afraid to.
(MUSIC ... THEME. FADE FOR)
ANNOUNCER: You have listened to "Quiet, Please!" which is written and directed
by Wyllis Cooper. The man who spoke to you was Ernest Chappell.
ERNEST CHAPPELL: And Murray Forbes played Abe Feldman. Martin Weaver was Don
Briggs. As usual, the original music for "Quiet, Please!" is composed and
played by Albert Buhrmann. Now, for a word about next week's "Quiet, Please!",
here is my good friend, our writer-director, Wyllis Cooper.
WYLLIS COOPER: I've got a story for you next week, called "Put on the Dead
Man's Coat" -- it's about a man who had an idea that... wasn't good for him...
ERNEST CHAPPELL (repeats the title as if savoring it): "Put on the Dead Man's
Coat" -- the title of next week's "Quiet, Please!" ... And so, until next week
at this time... I am quietly yours... Ernest Chappell.
ANNOUNCER: "Quiet, Please!" comes to you from New York. This is the Mutual
Broadcasting System.
(MUSIC ... THEME ... END)