ndages, they left him at the bottom of his sarcophagus of
sandstone. And since that day, doomed to receive each morning numerous
people of a strange aspect, he dwells alone in his hypogeum, where there
is now neither a being nor a thing belonging to his time.

But yes, there is! We had not looked all round. There in one of the
lateral chambers some bodies are lying, dead bodies--three corpses
(unswathed at the time of the pillage), side by side on their rags.
First, a woman, the queen probably, with loosened hair. Her profile has
preserved its exquisite lines. How beautiful she still is! And then a
young boy with the little greyish face of a doll. His head is shaved,
except for that long curl at the right side, which denotes a prince of
the royal blood. And the third a man. Ugh! How terrible he is--looking
as if he found death a thing irresistibly comical. He even writhes with
laughter, and eats a corner of his shroud as if to prevent himself from
bursting into a too unseemly mirth.

And then, suddenly, black night! And we stand as if congealed in our
place. The electric light has gone out--everywhere at once. Above, on
the earth, midday must have sounded--for those who still have cognisance
of the sun and the hours.

The guard who has brought us hither shouts in his Bedouin falsetto, in
order to get the light switched on again, but the infinite thickness of
the walls, instead of prolonging the vibrations, seems to deaden them;
and besides, who could hear us, in the depths where we now are? Then,
groping in the absolute darkness, he makes his way up the sloping
passage. The hurried patter of his sandals and the flapping of his
burnous grow faint in the distance, and the cries that he continues to
utter sound so smothered to us soon that we might ourselves be buried.
And meanwhile we do not move. But how comes it that it is so hot amongst
these mummies? It seems as if there were fires burning in some oven
close by. And above all there is a want of air. Perhaps the corridors,
after our passage, have contracted, as happens sometimes in the anguish
of dreams. Perhaps the long fissure by which we have crawled hither,
perhaps it has closed in upon us.

But at length the cries of alarm are heard and the light is turned on
again. The three corpses have not profited by the unguarded moments to
attempt any aggressive movement. Their positions, their expressions have
not changed: the queen calm and beautiful as ever; the man ea