d. While I
was in the room, Billali entered, and also shook his head.

"He will die at night," he said.

"God forbid, my father," I answered, and turned away with a heavy heart.

"_She-who-must-be-obeyed_ commands thy presence, my Baboon," said the
old man as soon as we got to the curtain; "but, oh my dear son, be more
careful. Yesterday I made sure in my heart that _She_ would blast thee
when thou didst not crawl upon thy stomach before her. She is sitting in
the great hall even now to do justice upon those who would have smitten
thee and the Lion. Come on, my son; come swiftly."

I turned, and followed him down the passage, and when we reached the
great central cave saw that many Amahagger, some robed, and some merely
clad in the sweet simplicity of a leopard skin, were hurrying along
it. We mingled with the throng, and walked up the enormous and, indeed,
almost interminable cave. All the way its walls were elaborately
sculptured, and every twenty paces or so passages opened out of it at
right angles, leading, Billali told me, to tombs, hollowed in the rock
by "the people who were before." Nobody visited those tombs now, he
said; and I must say that my heart rejoiced when I thought of the
opportunities of antiquarian research which opened out before me.

At last we came to the head of the cave, where there was a rock dais
almost exactly similar to the one on which we had been so furiously
attacked, a fact that proved to me that these dais must have been used
as altars, probably for the celebration of religious ceremonies, and
more especially of rites connected with the interment of the dead. On
either side of this dais were passages leading, Billali informed me, to
other caves full of dead bodies. "Indeed," he added, "the whole mountain
is full of dead, and nearly all of them are perfect."

In front of the dais were gathered a great number of people of both
sexes, who stood staring about in their peculiar gloomy fashion, which
would have reduced Mark Tapley himself to misery in about five minutes.
On the dais was a rude chair of black wood inlaid with ivory, having
a seat made of grass fibre, and a footstool formed of a wooden slab
attached to the framework of the chair.

Suddenly there was a cry of "Hiya! Hiya!" ("_She! She!_"), and thereupon
the entire crowd of spectators instantly precipitated itself upon the
ground, and lay still as though it were individually and collectively
stricken dead, leaving me stan