"Lost in a Pyramid; or, The Mummy's Curse" is a short story written by American author Louisa May Alcott and first published by Frank Leslie in 1869.
[1] The influence of works such as her 1862 story "Pauline's Passion and Punishment" and her 1866 novella Behind a Mask, or A Woman's Power (published under the pseudonym A.M. Barnard) is shown through her continuing preoccupation with femme fatales, in this case a mummified sorceress.
Despite strong reservations, Forsyth throws the mummy on the fire at Niles's command, Jumal rescues the hapless explorers, who have lost consciousness from the fumes.
Forsyth keeps the box as a "souvenir" and Niles later deciphers a piece of parchment which identifies the woman as a powerful sorceress who has vowed to curse anyone who dares disturb her grave.
An urgent letter arrives from a friend of Niles's, bringing news of the professor's death after wearing his own flower, which was later pronounced to be a lethal poison which drains the vitality of the wearer.
[3] However, Gregory Eiselein and Anne K. Phillips suggest that Alcott follows the plot of Theophile Gauthier's "The Mummy's Foot" (1847), conceding that the story is "an unusually early and female-authored example of the Egyptianizing thriller later dominated by male writers such as Bram Stoker, Arthur Conan Doyle, and H. Rider Haggard.