Chapter 11

DD,

A dry, musty odor escaped as I slowly opened the door of the tomb. The warm air ruffled my feathers ever so slightly. I stopped and scratched the floor of the narrow corridor with my feet and pecked nervously. Had I found it?

I knew it... I felt it... The hour I have worked for has come at last! The answer lies within and still I pause, savoring this delicious moment of discovery. Finally, with a shiver of goosebumps, I enter. What I find within is beyond all my hopes and dreams.

Heaped everywhere, possibly disturbed by grave robbers in earlier centuries, are the nests, the feed pans, and water troughs and, oh, so many other funerary objects. Just what the great Gallapatera would have needed in her afterlife. And there! There is the Golden sarcophagus! I have found it! At last, I stand in the lost tomb of my ancestor! As I write this, my joy nearly overwhelms me. Oh, such joy as I have rarely felt ever in my life!

Tomorrow the real work begins...

Beneath The Sands