There were no doorkeepers; and the travellers walked on, through the endless dromos. The monolithic colossi rose on either hand; but they also were shelving to one side, or sinking away. Lastly, from out of the vista of the pylons, which stood in endless row after row, a group of priests approached the travellers. It was the high-priest of Ammon-Râ, accompanied by eleven other priests; and they were all very old and grey. They all had grey locks and they all wore long, grey beards. They all wore long, fiery red robes; and, when they drew near in procession, they were like gods in their placid dignity.
They did not wish to betray their surprise to the travellers. The oracle of Ammon was no longer visited as it had been visited two centuries ago. It was no longer held in honour; the temple was fallen into decay; summers would pass without the advent of a single pilgrim. But Lucius had wanted to consult the oracle of Ammon just because its historic past gave it a poetic charm for him. And, when he saw the high-priest approach, he stretched out his hands in reverence to the ground and knelt and bowed his head; and Thrasyllus, Caleb and Tarrar knelt and bowed behind him.
“What do you seek, my son?” asked the centenarian high-priest.
“The truth,” replied Lucius.
“Then enter into the House of the Sun,” the high-priest ordained.
And the travellers rose; and the priests gladly led the way. They led their visitors through the pronaos and naos to the secos, to the holy of holies. And, pointing in the golden shade of midday dusk, between pillars like tree-trunks, to the enormous statue of Ammon-Râ, old as time, the sun-god with the bull’s head, the high-priest continued:
“The Sun reveals the truth to him who is worthy to hear it, even as ages ago he revealed the truth to Alexander of Macedon. Before his coming, the deity uttered himself only by moving his brows and wrinkling his bull forehead between his divine horns. But the deity addressed Alexander of Macedon with the sound of his lowing voice and told him, in words plainly audible to the king and all his following, that he was the son of the Sun, the son of Jupiter Ammon-Râ.”
Lucius looked up at the statue. In the golden twilight of the temple, where the noontide daylight filtered in and broke between the pillars in a shimmer of dust, he saw the supreme god, who was no longer held in honour, wrapped in shadow, paintless wood and colourless basalt, blind and pock-pitted where his bull head and his human neck had been robbed of the jewelled eyes and the precious stones with which he had once been inlaid. And Lucius felt so deep a compassion within himself for the fading god, once all-honoured and now forgotten in his distant, sinking temple in the Libyan desert, that he bent his knees in pity and reverence.
The Jewish seer, who lived in the cave of Neith, had haply seen the new god, the Son of Jahve, crowned with light for days and days. Here, in the immensity of his ruined sanctuary, Lucius beheld the fading of the god who was forgotten, but whom, centuries ago, Alexander of Macedon had travelled through whirlwinds and sandstorms to seek.
When Lucius looked up, he was alone with the old high-priest:
“Father,” he said, kneeling, “I would know the truth. I would know if what I believe to be the truth, revealed to me by oracle after oracle, is the truth to Jupiter Ammon-Râ.”
“My son,” said the priest, “the truth does not shine forth until after meditation, after contemplation and pious prayers, after days and nights of communing with the deity. I will be your intermediary. And you shall know what you would know, if you have faith.”
“Father,” said Lucius, “I lay my forehead, heavy with care and suffering and doubt, in your holy hands.”
And he bowed his head towards the priest’s open palms.
He remained five days and nights together with the priest. In the temple, the golden shadows of the day changed into the blue shadows of the night and the glittering of the sun into the flickering of the lamps. There was prayer and fasting and the touch of soul to soul.
XXII
After five days and nights, Lucius knew. Pale, tired and enlightened, he sought out his followers, Thrasyllus, Caleb and Tarrar, who were staying in the great, cavernous rooms of the temple. And he was calm, peaceful and dignified. He bathed and ate and slept. And at night, in the silence of the temple-grounds, which wove itself into one mystic atmosphere with the golden gleam of the stars, he woke Tarrar and said:
“Take this sycamore box.”
It was a small casket of delicate workmanship, which had always accompanied him wherever he went.
Tarrar, heavy with sleep, took up the little box.
“Follow me,” said Lucius.
The little slave, in astonishment, followed his master. Lucius passed through the shadow-haunted temple-precincts, which stretched endlessly in every direction. He went through the parks, which were haunted with sphinxes and obelisks and thick with the sultry heat of datura-scent. He went through the whole oasis, under the grove of palm-trees and past the huts of the natives.
Tarrar followed him. The little slave felt, inquisitively, that the sycamore casket was not locked. He opened it for an instant; and by the flickering starlight Tarrar saw a small woman’s sandal, which he knew. The little slave wondered and
