The Titanic and the Temple of Doom

 One day, a British Egyptologist, called Douglas Murray, was staying in the

exotic and fascinating city of Cairo, when he was contacted by a man he did

not know, a strange American adventurer. The American had something

unusual to offer the British archaeologist, something that was certain

to thrill him: a beautiful ancient Egyptian mummy-case,  containing the mummy

of the high-priestess from the temple of the god Amon-Ra. The object was

over 3000 years old, but in beautiful condition – gold, with bright paintings on

it, and a "portrait" of the priestess. The American did not want a lot of money

for it, and Murray was delighted. He gave the man a cheque.

    The cheque was never cashed. That evening the American who had sold

the case died.  For his part, Murray arranged to have the treasure sent back to

Britain. However, it was not long before he learnt more about the beautiful

mummy: apparently it had been discovered in a funeral chamber in a dry part

of the Nile Valley. On the walls of the chamber, there were inscriptions

which warned of terrible consequences to anyone who broke into the tomb.

Murray was pretty sceptical about this warning until a few days later, when a

gun he was holding exploded in his hand, shattering his arm. The arm had to

be amputated.

 Murray decided to come back to England. On the return journey, two of his

companions died from mysterious causes, two servants who had handled the

mummy died soon afterwards. By this time, Murray had decided that there

really was a spell on the mummy, and he decided to get rid of it. A lady he
knew said she would like it, so he gave it to her. Shortly afterwards, the lady's

mother died, and her fiancé left her: she herself caught a strange disease. She

tried to give the mummy case back to Douglas Murray, but naturally Murray

did not want to have anything more to do with the cursed object. 

In the end, it was presented to the British Museum. It was presumed that that

would be the end of the story, but it was not.

At first, the British Museum was happy to receive it. Murray warned the

governors of the British Museum for the horrible effect it could have on people.

But they didn’t listen. The governors wondered whether Murray was serious

about this. They reasoned that he might had bad intentions, that he wanted to

keep the mummy. But later, they found out that Murray was right. Some of the

people who had a part in bringing the mummy in, making place for the mummy

and installing it, died suddenly. But these governors were very down-to-earth,

and didn’t believe in fairy tails. They decided to do some scientific research,

and they found out that there was a lot of poisonous material in the mummy,

which was very unusual. Then they decided to hermetically seal the chamber

of the mummy. This is where the problem was solved. Everyone could watch

the mummy for a safe position, without getting poisoned, and enjoy the short

time travel they experienced at the museum.

Adapted by CHAY to match student training purposes. Original source from:

https://linguapress.com/intermediate/titanic-doom.htm

Original ending:

Even in the museum, the mummy continued to cause strange events. A

museum photographer died shortly after taking pictures of the new exhibit; and

a curator also died for no apparent reason. In the end, the governors of the

British Museum, not usually considered to be frivolous people, decided to get

rid of the mummy.  They decided to give it to a museum in New York. At the

start of April 1912, arrangements for the transfer were complete, and the

mummy began its journey to its new home. Unfortunately .... or was it

fortunately? ... the New York museum never received its new exhibit. For when

it sank, one of the objects in the strong-room of the Titanic was the mummy

case of the priestess of the temple of Amon-Ra.  Or so they say.