The Revenge of the Mummy, Chapter 89-90

                                                              Chapter Eighty-Nine

Harry and Moriarity looked at the approaching pirate ship and their hopes for returning home safely flew into the wind that was picking up about them.

"What now?" Moriarity demanded. "From the pan into the fire. How appropriate."

Harry looked at him and smiled. "You have one good thing to remember."

"What's that?"

"At least you're not on the side of the bad guys any longer."

"How do you know that?"

Harry didn't answer. He didn't have to. He turned back to face the incoming pirate vessel. "I suggest we raise our hands and surrender."

"You're just full of witticisms this morning, aren't you?"

"I specialize in them. Remind me to give you a free ticket to my next show in London when we return."

"Don't you mean...if we return?"
The pirate ship pulled alongside them and Harry's grin widened.

"Oh definitely when."

Captain Nemo leaned over the railing as his men kept firing into the ship they had escaped, bringing it to utter ruin and destruction behind them.

"Need a ride, Harry?"

"Couldn't think of a better time for it, Captain." Harry replied with a laugh.

"You know this pirate?" Moriarity asked.

"Yes. He's Captain Nemo. My friend."

Moriarity's eyes widened. But he said no more. He lowered his hands.

Then a Giant stepped to the railing and looked out at Harry. "I know you?"

Harry eyed the Giant quietly a long time, and then he leaped from the small boat to the side of the pirate ship and began scrambling up the net that hung over its side, until he reached the deck. Then he clasped the Giant with his arms and hugged him tight.

The Giant gave Harry a look of confusion. "I do know you?"

"Yes, you do, big guy. You're one of my finest and best friends. James Moriarity!"

The Giant stiffened as Moriarity climbed up the rope and joined them.

He gently pushed Harry away. "I do remember you!"

Moriarity raised his hands. "I am not the one you remember. That was number one."

James gave him an even more confused look, as did Captain Nemo.

"There's more than one Moriarity then? Here?"

Moriarity turned to face the Captain. "Oh so many more."

Captain Nemo's face clouded over for a moment, and then he turned to James. "I'm sorry I lied to you."

James, who was still in shock over the revelations, was beginning to remember where he had seen Harry before and the images of Watson and Sherlock, Challenger and Conan flashed through his mind. And like a great, black storm cloud hiding the sun, his confusion and loss of memory was broken and shattered.

He grabbed Harry this time and lifted him off the deck and kissed him on both cheeks. "I could marry you!"

Harry laughed. "James, a simple hello would do just fine."

James put him down, tears streaking his face. "So much time has passed, so much has happened."

He turned to the Moriarity standing there, favoring his hurt leg. "You helped me."

"Yes. I did."

"I never forget a friend."

James put a hand out and Moriarity looked at it a long time, as if he found it offensive, then his dark face lit up brightly and he accepted the hand.

At the same time a strange thing began happening to the planking about the vessel. It began sliding off into the water and floating away. As it did so, they found themselves on the main deck of the Nautilus, its golden metal shining brightly in the morning sun.

Captain Nemo cupped his hands. "Below decks. We make full steam to London!"

The men all cheered and began rushing for the main hatch, climbing inside and descending from view.

Captain Nemo looked to his new guests and to James. "It seems we all...have a lot of catching up to do."

The Captain looked at Moriarity. He looked at his feet. "I will understand if you don't trust me and thrust me from your vessel. I deserve no less for my past actions."

James put an arm about his shoulders and he gave him a startled look.

"No friend of mine shall ever suffer such a thing." He looked to Captain Nemo, as if reading his mind. For Captain Nemo was nervous about bringing the Moriarity into his ship. It was everything to him and he knew how power mad that creature had been in the past.

Captain Nemo nodded. "Your friend is my friend."

Captain Nemo stuck his hand out and Moriarity clasped it tightly with both of his, barely able to speak because of the intensity of the emotions he now felt. He hadn't allowed himself to feel friendship like this...forever it seemed.

"With all my heart, I thank you, Captain. You won't regret it. I swear it."

The Captain nodded, and then motioned everyone to hurry to the hatch as the vessel began blowing air from its ballast tanks and slowly descending beneath the waves.

Harry was the last to enter and he paused to look back at the sunken ship behind them. Nothing was left now but burning debris. He was about to enter when he saw something glow for a moment in the debris, then it vanished. He gave it a long puzzled stare, and then entered.

The hatch slammed shut behind him.

The sea boiled with frenzy as the mighty Nautilus carved its way into the depths, casting up great boils of air and water from its descent. The return to London had begun.

                                                                 Chapter Ninety

The Jungle Lord stood high on the Tower of London, his eyes narrowed like an eagles on a distant object only visible from that height. He weighed its dimensions in his mind, and then he considered it carefully.

Highgate Cemetery is a graveyard in London of historic importance. It is rumored that Alexander the Great had it built as he swept across the continents in his search for power and the Holy Grail. It was also supposed to be the real burial grounds of King Arthur and the Bull Head King of the Druish, a clan of sorcerers who once dominated the Greater Britains before Arthur and Merlin destroyed their cult and cast them back into the sea.

A large stretch of land it was bordered by post hotels on one side, large parks on three others. The visitors to the hotels often used those expensive places as a launching point to tour the ancient grounds in search of historic names...such as King Duncan the Third, and Mary of Winsor, and Robin Hood the First.

It is also the burial site of many novelists, artists, political activists and professionals. A list of their names is engraved in golden letters on a great scroll on both sides of the main gates for visitors to look at and consider the past that lay buried there.

But all the Jungle Lord, Lord Graystone, saw at that moment was the odd protuberance that thrust alongside one of the better known crypts...that of King Duncan, who was a very famous mathematician in his time, as well as all around scholar, responsible for funding many great men in scientism research and exploration.

The Jungle Lord had smelled the odd contraption as he swept through the gigantic oak trees that filled the park, but at the time it had registered as completely as now what that source might indicate. But as he completed his meticulous search of London, the scent came back to him and he remembered from where.

So now he watched the cemetery with eyes that would miss nothing. And it was from there that he saw the metallic thing slowly raise into the setting sun's light and sprout an odd nimbus of bright red and green colors.

It was the scent of the stolen metals.

It had to be the hiding place of the original Mummy creature and it looked as if it were preparing to launch a new portion of its plans for the destruction of London.

He cupped his hands to his mouth and let out his bull dragon yell, again and again.

As he did so, the air shimmered mightily, as if a great ocean were sideways in the air and beginning to swell open. It grew larger and larger.

In the streets below citizens looked everywhere to discover the source of the horrid sound, and at Baker Street, Sherlock, who stood at the window looking out as ever for his lost friend, stiffened.