Lucius made no further reply, absorbed in what he was reading about Joseph and Moses, about Jahve and Pharaoh Amenophis, who was the father of Sesostris. …
XVII
The golden noonday sky paled; the blinding topaz of the heavens melted away into amber honey; and the sands of the desert stretched out wide, far and endless to the last glittering streak of the horizon, on which the sun had set. Behind the group formed by the travellers—four camels surrounded by drivers and guards, Arabs and Libyans—between the darkening palm-trees the gigantic city of Memphis sank into shadow like some vast extinct monster; and the crumbling palaces of the kings sloped down the hill, as it were tumbling into the Nile, and mirrored their ruins in the clear sapphire of the stream, where the pools lay pink and gold among the tall reeds and the lotuses closing on the face of the water. The last fallen pillars lay, round and immense, in the luxuriant grass, amid a riot of scarlet and crimson poppies. Mysteriously carved with hieroglyphics, they were as felled Titans of rose-red granite; and they pressed heavily on the ground wherein they were sinking. They were of a melancholy majesty, those huge overthrown pillars which had supported the golden roofs above the might of the Pharaohs.
Caleb rode his camel with a swagger, as though he were bestriding his Sabaean mare. He dug his heel into the camel’s side; and the startled brute took great strides, snorting and grunting; Caleb roared with delight. The Libyans, big-limbed and powerful, went silently; the Arab drivers yelled and shouted.
Forty stadia from Memphis rose a broad, hilly dyke, on which the pyramids stood. And Caleb, who, as the guide, also knew a thing or two, cried:
“My lord, two of the pyramids yonder, the largest, belong to the seven wonders of the world! They are a stadium high; and the length of their sides is equal to their height. They are the two tombs of the Pharaohs; but the smaller pyramid, higher up on the hill and, as you see, built entirely of black stone, was the costliest of all.”
He trotted on his startled camel around the others and cried:
“Master Thrasyllus won’t deny it, learned though he is!”
Thrasyllus smiled; and Caleb, glad at being allowed to speak, continued:
“That black stone comes from Southern Ethiopia and is heavier than any other stone and incredibly hard! That is why the pyramid cost so much. But then it was erected by all the lovers of Queen Cleopatra; and it is she who is buried there!”
“Caleb,” cried Master Thrasyllus, “what you have been telling about the black stone I accept; but Cleopatra, who died in Alexandria, was not buried at Memphis.”
“Cleopatra, Cleopatra!” Caleb insisted, vigorously; but he now rushed away on his bewildered camel, because he wanted to warn the priest-custodian of the pyramids that there were great lords approaching.
“Caleb is wrong,” said Thrasyllus, as the three camels stepped along sedately, among the gigantic Libyans and shouting Arabs, while Caleb tore fantastically over the sands. “The black pyramid yonder is really not the tomb of Cleopatra. The historians speak of Doricha, an hetaira mentioned by Sappho, the famous poetess, as the mistress of her brother Charaxus, who was a wine-merchant at Lésbos and travelled constantly to Naucratis. This costly black tomb is said to have been dedicated to Doricha, who died young, by her lovers. …”
The cavalcade had drawn near; the camels, in obedience to the drivers’ orders, knelt down; the travellers slipped to the ground. And Caleb at once came to meet them, smiling, at the head of six priest-custodians, whose business it was to keep up the interior of the pyramids and show the shrines to foreigners.
“Do many foreigners come here?” Uncle Catullus asked of the oldest priest.
“Not a week passes in this present month,” said the old priest, “but foreigners come to admire the sacred pyramids. You are Latins, but we receive visits also from Greek lords and Persians and Indians. When the Nile has subsided to its lowest gauge, however, when the autumnal winds blow and the sandstorms begin, then no more foreigners come. For then death and destruction blow out of the desert, as the hurricanes of fate which one day will cover Memphis with a sandy shroud. See these few sphinxes, whose heads alone still project above these downs. Once they numbered hundreds; and an avenue stretched between their silence to the Pyramids. But the desert swallowed them up, the hurricanes spread them with dust, the sandy shroud covered up the wisdom of Neith. One day the shroud will cover up all Egypt and veil all her wisdom. What was known will be known no longer. That will be the punishment of the gods, inflicted upon unworthy man, who will be plunged into a night of ignorance and the bestiality of primitive desire. The centuries will turn about!”
The priests in attendance, with a simple pressure of the hand, had caused a heavy monolithic door to turn on its hinges in the largest of the pyramids. They lighted torches and went through the syrinx, a winding tunnel painted with gigantic figures of gods and with hieroglyphics. It was strange, but there was a humming and murmur of voices, though the pyramid was uninhabited. It was as though a swarm of ghosts were whirling around like a gale of wind. The impression was given immediately; and, when the travellers exchanged glances, they saw in one another’s eyes that they were all four thinking the same thing; and Caleb muttered saving incantations and repeatedly kissed his amulets.
The priests led the way, while the flames of the torches blew and blew in the mysterious draught, as though ghosts were hovering around. The travellers entered an enormous square room; huge statues were sculptured in the stone walls; and, though the room was empty, there was a smell of spices, as if the
