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 Lesbos 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 sand-storms 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 smells of old had lingered
eternally. Two bats fluttered to the ceiling and whirled round in
a circle.
"This is the king's chamber of Cheops," said the old priest. "Once
upon a time it contained a sarcophagus of azure granite, with
the embalmed body of the great King Cheops, or Khufu; and it was
surrounded by the sarcophagi of his brothers. He wore out his people
with taxes and heavy labour, in order to found this mausoleum for
himself. Where is he now? Where is his embalmed body? Where is his
azure sarcophagus? Where are the sarcophagi of his brothers Chefren
and Schafra? Where are they? Where are they? They are scattered
and vanished as grains of sand, the mummies of the proud rulers,
covered with scented wax and tightly swathed in narrow bandages;
and scattered and vanished are their sarcophagi; and one day these
pyramids themselves will be scattered and vanished, swallowed up in
the lap of the earth! Everything vanishes, all is vanity: thy wisdom
alone, O Neith, is needful to man!"
"Thy wisdom alone, O Neith, is needful to man!" echoed the priests.
"And we no longer possess it!"
"Alas, alas, we no longer possess it!" echoed the priests,
mechanically, indifferently, while they led the way back through the
tunnel; and their words blew away in the strange, mysterious draught,
because of the invisible ghosts that hovered.
But, when they were outside, the priests kept their torches alight;
and they led the travellers to the small, black pyramid. They pushed
open the stone door; and the old priest went in first. There was a
long tunnel, followed by a room with smooth, black, polished walls,
in which the torches and the shadows of the travellers and priests
themselves were reflected curiously.
"The pyramid of Cleopatra," whispered Caleb to Thrasyllus.
"The pyramid of Doricha," Thrasyllus corrected him, with a smile.
But the old priest shook his head gently and, in a low and fond
voice, said:
"The pyramid of Rhodopis. She lived at Naucratis and was incomparably
beautiful and chaste. One day, when she was bathing, an eagle flew
through the open ceiling of the bathroom and plucked from her maid's
hands the sandal which she was just about to lace on her mistress'
foot."
Lucius suddenly turned very pale. But the priest continued:
"The eagle flew to Memphis, where the king was administering justice
in one of the courts of the palace; and, flying above the king, the
eagle dropped the sandal, so that it fell into the folds of the king's
garment. The king was much surprised; and he examined the sandal,
which was as small as a child's and yet was the sandal of a woman. And
he bade his servants search all Egypt to find the woman whom so small
a sandal would fit. His servants then found Rhodopis at Naucratis and
carried her to the king and he married her; and, when she died, after a
few months' happiness, the disconsolate king dedicated to her the black
pyramid ... which is the costliest of all the pyramids.... Rhodopis'
scented mummy vanished; her sarcophagus vanished. But the sandal,
which the king ever worshipped, was preserved by a miracle. Behold it."
And the priests, with their torches, lighted in the middle of
the jet-black room a crystal shrine, standing on a black-porphyry
table. And in the crystal shrine lay a little sandal, like a child's
and yet a woman's, a little red-leather sandal with gold ornaments,
arabesques that glittered incredibly fresh.
"The sandal kept for tourists," murmured Uncle Catullus, with a
sceptical smile. "We shall pay for it presently, Caleb, just as we
did for the little Apis."
"But still it is very pretty, my lord," whispered Caleb, with a smile.
But Lucius was trembling in every limb. And he said to Thrasyllus:
"This is an omen. I had never heard of this legend. This sandal,
in this shrine!... I would be alone with the priest!"
The request of so distinguished a noble could not be gainsaid. The
others withdrew, after fixing two torches in sconces. Lucius remained
alone with the old priest, by the shrine of Rhodopis' sandal. And
then he produced Ilia's little sandal from his breast and said:
"Wise priest and holy father, you possess wisdom, you assuredly still
know the past. I have confidence in you: you shall tell me where the
girl Ilia is, whom I have lost; you shall tell me who stole her from
me. See, this sandal is the only trace that she left behind her. Tell
me the past and I will reward you richly."
The priest took the sandal and pressed it to his head, while his
other hand trembled above the crystal shrine:
"May the spirit of Rhodopis enlighten me," said the old priest. "I
see Ilia...."
"Dead?"
"No, alive."
"Alone?"
"No, with her kidnapper."
"Do you see her kidnapper?"
"Yes."
"Describe him to me!"
"Give me your hand, here, above Rhodopis' sandal."
Lucius stretched out his hand to the priest, above the sandal:
"Describe him to me!" he repeated.
And in his tortured mind he saw before him the image of one of his
own sailors, of whom he had been thinking lately, who at that time
used to prowl about the villa at Baiae: a Cypriote whom he had once
caught talking to Ilia in the oleanders; she had never been able to
explain what he was doing.
There was a pause. The priest's lean hand trembled violently in Lucius'
firm grasp. And at last the priest said, with his eyes closed and
his other hand still pressing Ilia's sandal to his forehead:
"I see him, plainly, plainly! Rhodopis' spirit is enlightening me! I
see the kidnapper! I see Ilia's kidnapper!"
"Is he tall?"
"He is tall."
"Broad?"
"He has broad shoulders ... and a coarse face; he is of a coarse
beauty which women sometimes like, which unworthy women prefer to
noble beauty, because they prefer rude passion to love.... Rhodopis'
chaste spirit is over me! I see the kidnapper."
"How is he clad? As a slave?"
"No."
"As a freedman?"
"No."
"As a freeman?"
"Yes."
"As a patrician? A knight?"
"No."
"As a soldier?"
"No."
"As a sailor?"
"No. Yes, he is clad as a sailor, I think, my lord. But I no longer
see him," said the priest, opening his eyes. "And I shall never be
able to tell you anything more."
He gave Lucius back the sandal. The other priests returned, took up
the torches. Quivering with suppressed rage, Lucius walked out of
the black pyramid. Uncle Catullus was already sitting on his camel.
Lucius also mounted his. The Cypriote's image now stood clearly
before his eyes. But he said nothing; his lips were tightly shut,
his forehead frowned; his grief seemed to be restrained and subdued
in his heart by his outraged pride.
And, while Caleb paid the lordly fee, as he always did, Lucius slipped
into the old priest's hand a purse heavy with gold.