reathing with
difficulty, whispered a few words to a fellah, who ran back to the
entrance and brought two large sponges filled with fresh water, which
the Greek advised the two travellers to place on their mouths so that
they might breathe a fresher air through the humid pores, as is done in
Russian baths when the steam heat is raised to excess.

The door was attacked and soon gave way. A steep staircase cut in the
living rock was then seen descending. Against a green background edged
with a blue line were ranged on either side of the passageway
processions of symbolical statues, the colours of which were as bright
and fresh as if the artist's brush had laid them on the day before. They
would show for a second in the light of the torches, then vanish in the
shadow like the phantoms of a dream. Below these narrow frescoes, lines
of hieroglyphs, written perpendicularly like Chinese writing and
separated by hollow lines, excited the erudite by the sacred mystery of
their outlines. Along that portion of the walls which was not covered
with hieratic signs, a jackal lying on its belly, with outstretched paws
and pointed ears, and a kneeling figure wearing a mitre, its hand
stretched upon a circle, seemed to stand as sentries on either side of
the door, the lintel of which was ornamented with two panels placed side
by side, in which were figured two women wearing close-fitting gowns
and extending their feathered arms like wings.

"Look here!" said the doctor, taking breath when he reached the foot of
the staircase, and when he saw that the excavation sank deeper and
deeper still. "Are we going down to the centre of the earth? The heat is
increasing to such a degree that we cannot be far from the sojourn of
the damned."

"No doubt," answered Lord Evandale, "they followed the vein of
limestone, which sinks in accordance with the law of geological
undulations."

Another very steep passage came after the steps. The walls were lower,
covered with paintings, in which could be made out a series of
allegorical scenes, explained, no doubt, by the hieroglyphs inscribed
below. This frieze ran all along the passage, and below it were small
figures worshipping sacred scarabaei and the azure-coloured symbolical
serpent.

As he reached the end of the passage, the fellah who carried the torch
threw himself back abruptly, for the path was suddenly interrupted by
the mouth of a square well yawning black at the surface of the ground.

"T