inscribed by the divinely gifted Pharaoh before he died. Throughout the ages, we guardian priests have watched history unfold, and always it has agreed with the ideographs on those tunneled walls. We believe.
“It is because of our belief that I have sought you out. For within the secret crypt of the Black Pharaoh it is written upon the walls of the future that you shall descend there.”
Stunning silence.
“Do you mean to say,” Cartaret gasped, “that those pictures show me discovering the spot?”
“They do,” assented the dark man, slowly. “That is why I came to you unbidden. You shall come with me and fulfill the prophecy tonight, as it is written.”
“Suppose I don’t come?” flashed Captain Cartaret, suddenly. “What about your prophecy then?”
The Arab smiled. “You’ll come,” he said. “You know that.” Cartaret realized that it was so. Nothing could keep him away from this amazing discovery. A thought struck him.
“If this wall really records the details of the future,” he began, “perhaps you can tell me a little about my own coming history. Will this discovery make me famous? Will I return again to the spot? Is it written that I am to bring the secret of Nephren-Ka to light?”
The dark man looked grave. “That I do not know,” he admitted. “I neglected to tell you something about the Walls of Truth. My ancestor — he who first descended into the secret spot after it had been sealed, he who first looked upon the work of prophecy — did a needful thing. Deeming that such wisdom was not for lesser mortals, he piously covered the walls with concealing tapestry. Thus none might look upon the future too far. As time passed, the tapestry was drawn back to keep pace with the actual events of history, and always
they have coincided with the hieroglyphs. Through the ages, it has always been the duty of one priest to descend to the secret tomb each day and draw back the tapestry so as to reveal the events of the day that follows. Now, during my life, that is my mission. My fellows devote their time to the needful rites of worship in hidden places. I alone descend the concealed passage daily and draw back the curtain on the Walls of Truth. When I die, another will take my place. Understand me — the writing does not minutely concern every single event; merely those which affect the history and destiny of Egypt itself. Today, my friend, it was revealed that you should descend and enter into the place of your desire. What the morrow holds in store for you I cannot say, until the curtain is drawn once more.”
Cartaret sighed. “I suppose that there is nothing else left but for me to go, then.” His eagerness was ill dissembled. The dark man observed this at once, and smiled cynically, while he strode to the door.
“Follow me,” he commanded.
To Captain Cartaret that walk through the moonlit streets of Cairo was blurred in chaotic dream. His guide led him into labyrinths of looming shadows; they wandered through the twisted native quarters and passed through a maze of unfamiliar alleys and thoroughfares. Cartaret strode mechanically at the dark stranger’s heels, his thoughts avid for the great triumph to come.
He hardly noticed their passage through a dingy courtyard; when his companion drew up before an ancient well and pressed a niche revealing the passage beneath, he followed him as a matter of course. From somewhere the Arab had produced a flashlight. Its faint beam almost rebounded from the murk of the inky tunnel.
Together they descended a thousand stairs, into the ageless and eternal darkness that broods beneath. Like a blind man, Cartaret stumbled down — down into the depths of three thousand vanished years.
The temple was entered — the subterranean temple-tomb of Nephren- Ka. Through silver gates the priest passed, his dazed companion following behind.
Cartaret stood in a vast chamber, the niched walls of which were lined with sarcophagi.
“They hold the mummies of the interred priests and servants,” explained his guide.
Strange were the mummy-cases of Nephren-Ka’s followers, not like those known to Egyptology. The carven covers bore no recognized, conventional features as was the usual custom; instead they presented the strange, grinning countenances of demons and creatures of fable. Jeweled eyes stared mockingly from the black visages of gargoyles spawned in a sculptor’s nightmare. From every side of the room those eyes shone through the shadows; unwinking, unchanging, omniscient in this little world of the dead.
Cartaret stirred uneasily. Emerald eyes of death, ruby eyes of malevolence, yellow orbs of mockery; everywhere they confronted him. He was glad when his guide led him forward at last, so that the incongruous rays of the flashlight shone on the entrance beyond. A moment later his relief was dissipated by the sight of a new horror confronting him at the inner door way.
Two gigantic figures shambled there, guarding either side of the opening — two monstrous, troglodytic figures. Great gorillas they were; enormous apes, carved in simian semblance from black stone. They faced the doorway, squatting on mighty haunches, their huge, hairy arms upraised in menace. Their glittering faces were brutally alive; they grinned, bare-fanged, with idiotic glee. And they were blind — eyeless and blind.
There was a terrible allegory in these figures which Cartaret knew only too well. The blind apes were Destiny personified; a hulking, mindless Destiny whose sightless, stupid gropings trampled on the dreams of men and altered their lives by aimless flailings of purposeless paws. Thus did they control reality.
These were the Blind Apes of Truth, according to the ancient legend; the symbols of the old gods worshipped by Nephren-Ka.
Cartaret thought of the myths once more, and trembled. If tales were true, Nephren-Ka had offered up that final mighty sacrifice upon the obscene laps of these evil idols; offered them up to Nyarlathotep, and buried the dead in the mummy-cases set here in the niches. Then he had gone on to his own sepulcher within.
The guide proceeded stolidly past the looming figures. Cartaret, dissembling his dismay, started to follow. For a moment his feet refused to cross that gruesomely guarded threshold into the room beyond. He stared upward to the eyeless, ogreish faces that leered down from dizzying heights, with the feeling that he walked in realms of sheer nightmare. But the huge arms beckoned him on; the unseeing faces were convulsed in a smile of mocking invitation.
The legends were true. The tomb existed. Would it not be better to turn back now, seek some aid, and return again to this spot? Besides, what unguessed terror might not lair in the realms beyond; what horror spawn in the sable shadows of Nephren-Ka’s inner, secret sepulcher? All reason urged him to call out to the strange priest and retreat to safety.
But the voice of reason was but a hushed and awe-stricken whisper here in the brooding burrows of the past. This was a realm of ancient shadow, where antique evil ruled. Here the incredible was real, and there was a potent fascination in fear itself.
Cartaret knew that he must go on; curiosity, cupidity, the lust for concealed knowledge — all impelled him. And the Blind Apes grinned their challenge, or command.
The priest entered the third chamber, and Cartaret followed. Crossing the threshold, he plunged into an abyss of unreality.
The room was lighted by braziers set in a thousand stations; their glow bathed the enormous burrow with fiery luminance. Captain Cartaret, his head reeling from the heat and mephitic miasma of the place, was thus able to see the entire extent of this incredible cavern.
Seemingly endless, a vast corridor stretched on a downward slant into the earth beyond — a vast corridor, utterly barren, save for the winking red braziers along the walls. Their flaming reflections cast grotesque shadows that glimmered with unnatural life. Cartaret felt as though he were gazing on the entrance to Karneter — the mythical underworld of Egyptian lore.
“Here we are,” said his guide, softly.
The unexpected sound of a human voice was startling. For some reason, it frightened Cartaret more than he cared to admit; he had fallen into a vague acceptance of these scenes as being part of a fantastic dream. Now, the concrete clarity of a spoken word only confirmed an eery reality.
Yes, here they were, in the spot of legend, the place known to Al- hazred, Prinn, and all the dark delvers into unhallowed history. The tale of Nephren-Ka was true, and if so, what about the rest of this strange priest’s statements? What about the Walls of Truth, on which the Black Pharaoh had recorded the future, had foretold Cartaret’s own advent on the secret spot?
As if in answer to these inner whispers, the guide smiled.
“Come, Captain Cartaret; do you not wish to examine the walls more closely?”
The captain did not wish to examine the walls; desperately, he did not. For they, if in existence, would
