k
might be judged the importance of the personage whose tomb it had been
sought to conceal from the knowledge of men.

After having spent a few moments in examining these carvings, which were
in the purest manner of the fine Egyptian style of the classical age,
the explorers perceived that there was no issue from the hall, and that
they had reached a sort of blind place. The air was becoming somewhat
rarified, the torches burned with difficulty and further augmented the
heat of the atmosphere, while the smoke formed a dense pall. The Greek
gave himself to the devil, but that did no good. Again the walls were
sounded without any result. The mountain, thick and compact, gave back
but a dead sound; there was no trace of a door, of a passage, or of any
sort of opening.

The young nobleman was plainly discouraged, and the doctor let fall his
arms by his side. Argyropoulos, who feared losing his thousand guineas,
exhibited the fiercest despair. However, the party was compelled to
retreat, for the heat had become absolutely suffocating.

They returned to the outer hall, and there the Greek, who could not make
up his mind to see his golden dream vanish in smoke, examined with the
most minute attention the shafts of the pillars to make certain that
they did not conceal some artifice, that they did not mask some trap
which might be discovered by displacing them; for in his despair he
mingled the realism of Egyptian architecture with the chimerical
constructions of the Arab tales. The pillars, cut out of the mountain
itself, in the centre of the hollowed mass, formed part of it, and it
would have been necessary to employ gunpowder to break them down. All
hope was gone.

"Nevertheless," said Rumphius, "this labyrinth was not dug for nothing.
Somewhere or another there must be a passage like the one which goes
around the well. No doubt the dead man was afraid of being disturbed by
importunate persons and he had himself carefully concealed; but with
patience and perseverance you can get anywhere. Perhaps a slab carefully
concealed, the joint of which cannot be seen, owing to the dust
scattered over the ground, covers some descent which leads, directly or
indirectly, to the funeral hall."

"You are right, doctor," said Evandale; "those accursed Egyptians
jointed stones as closely as the hinges of an English trap. Let us go on
looking."

The doctor's idea struck the Greek as sound, and he made his fellahs
walk about every part