d,
and attempt it.

"Perhaps you do not know that the entrance to a serdab is almost always
very narrow; sometimes a hand can hardly be inserted. Two things I
learned from this serdab. The first was that the lamps, if lamps at
all there had been, could not have been of large size; and secondly,
that they would be in some way associated with Hathor, whose symbol,
the hawk in a square with the right top corner forming a smaller
square, was cut in relief on the wall within, and coloured the bright
vermilion which we had found on the Stele. Hathor is the goddess who
in Egyptian mythology answers to Venus of the Greeks, in as far as she
is the presiding deity of beauty and pleasure. In the Egyptian
mythology, however, each God has many forms; and in some aspects Hathor
has to do with the idea of resurrection. There are seven forms or
variants of the Goddess; why should not these correspond in some way to
the seven lamps! That there had been such lamps, I was convinced. The
first grave-robber had met his death; the second had found the contents
of the serdab. The first attempt had been made years since; the state
of the body proved this. I had no clue to the second attempt. It
might have been long ago; or it might have been recently. If, however,
others had been to the tomb, it was probable that the lamps had been
taken long ago. Well! all the more difficult would be my search; for
undertaken it must be!

"That was nearly three years ago; and for all that time I have been
like the man in the Arabian Nights, seeking old lamps, not for new, but
for cash. I dared not say what I was looking for, or attempt to give
any description; for such would have defeated my purpose. But I had in
my own mind at the start a vague idea of what I must find. In process
of time this grew more and more clear; till at last I almost overshot
my mark by searching for something which might have been wrong.

"The disappointments I suffered, and the wild-goose chases I made,
would fill a volume; but I persevered. At last, not two months ago, I
was shown by an old dealer in Mossul one lamp such as I had looked for.
I had been tracing it for nearly a year, always suffering
disappointment, but always buoyed up to further endeavour by a growing
hope that I was on the track.

"I do not know how I restrained myself when I realised that, at last, I
was at least close to success. I was skilled, however, in the finesse
of Eastern trade; and