e world was cut off--the sound of the
wind, the chafing of the sands on the hills above, the movement and
cries of night-birds, beasts and insects. Absolute stillness and
original night surrounded him.

With all speed he lighted his lamp, but the flaring name illuminated
only a little space in the brooding, hovering blackness about him.

The atmosphere was stagnant and heavily burdened with old aromatic
scent, and the silence seemed to have accumulated in the years. Even
the soft whetting of his sandal, as he walked, made echoes that shouted
at him. The little blaze fizzed and sputtered noisily and each throb
of his heart sounded like a knock on the portal.

He did not pause. The darkness might cloud and tinge and swallow up
his light as turbid water absorbs the clear; the silence might resent
the violation. This was the habitation of a royal soul in perpetual
vigil over its corpse and vested with all the powers and austere
propensities of a thing supernatural. But not once did the impulse
come to him to fly. Rachel's face attended him like a lamp.

He moved forward, his path only discovered to him step by step as the
light advanced, the sumptuous frescoes done by the hand of his father
emerging, one detail at a time. The solemn figures fixed accusing eyes
upon him from every frieze; the passive countenance of the monarch
himself confronted him from every wall. One wondrous chamber after
another he traversed, for the tomb penetrated the very core of the
mountain.

The innermost crypt contained the altars. This was the sanctuary, the
holy of holies, never entered except by a hierarch.

When Kenkenes reached the final threshold he paused. Thus far, his
presence had been merely a midnight intrusion. If he entered the
sanctuary his coming would be violation. He thought of the distress of
Rachel and dared.

The first alabaster altar glistened suddenly out of the night like a
bank of snow. Kenkenes' sandal grated on the sandy dust that lay thick
on the floor. Not even the keeper had entered this crypt to remove the
accumulated dust of six years.

Under this floor of solid granite was the pit containing the sarcophagi
of the dead monarch, of his favorite son and destined heir, Shaemus,
and his well-beloved queen, Neferari Thermuthis. The opening into the
pit had been sealed when Rameses had descended to emerge no more. The
chamber over it was brilliant with frescoing and covered with
inscriptions. T