Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/676

668 interior. As I have already said, there were several inscriptions on the walls of this apartment: these the count had translated—you can see them if you like. Young Giovanni—Luigi—what’s your name, take these keys, unlock the bottom right-hand drawer of that writing-table, and give me out a parcel rolled up in a piece of rag.

“This piece of canvas,” continued the Italian, “once held the head of a human being, whose dark countenance with its widely-opened eyes, its lip drawn up as though he had died a violent death, and its large white teeth, gave me a startling shock when I first saw it. Certainly those eyes must have looked on Thebes when it was a crowded city: and for aught I know it may have been such when it was inhabited by a race of people who existed there before the Egyptians had become a nation, if he were a type of them, for his hair was of a reddish-yellow colour, and his eyes a bright and rather pale blue. It remains where I saw it, that is to say, in the building I have referred to, for I wanted the canvas for a purpose of my own. Here are the count’s notes; they are most of them incomprehensible, owing to the abbreviations he used: probably he thought he would have future opportunities of examining the hieroglyphics, but the most important is clear enough, it runs thus: ‘Let the serpent be thy guide on thy right hand.’ This the count told me referred to the direction to be followed: that is to say, in going and returning through the labyrinth of apartments we must follow the direction in which the figure of the serpent appeared to be travelling. The rest of the notes you can look over at your leisure, if you like. And now to return to my story.

“From the apartment we had broken into we saw, as soon as we had lighted our candles, a flight of stone stairs, which widened as we went down after the manner of a fan. There were in all about fifty or sixty steps. Before we had descended more than four or five of these, the count put his foot on something which looked like a heap of dirt, but on holding the candle closer, proved to be the remains of a human being; and we saw that similar shadowy heaps were scattered over the steps as far as our lights enabled us to see. Some had the appearance of being seated with the head bent forward on the knees, others were extended over two or three steps, as if asleep, others again had evidently dropped asleep with their arms round each other’s necks; in short there was no imaginable attitude in which these skeletons were not to be seen. There was something awe-inspiring in these remains of human beings, some of whom, from their life-like attitude, looked as if they were capable of rising and questioning us with regard to our intrusion. After a few seconds spent in looking fearfully about us, and in reflection, the count stepped carefully over a recumbent figure, and I followed close behind him, stopping whenever we came near a figure which seemed in better preservation than the others, to examine it. In nearly every case we found that the bodies, however perfect in appearance, crumbled to fragments under the lightest pressure, while the woollen robes which enveloped them remained entire, and served as a cerecloth to keep the remains of each together. The robes were of an extremely fine texture, and the brilliancy of their colours after so many hundreds of years, we agreed in low whispers, was owing to their having remained in a place from which light and dust were totally excluded. The colours I saw were either scarlet or purple: and as I passed my candle over them, I saw here and there the dull glitter of a gold chain, the links of which in every case were in the form of a serpent.

“The apartment we found ourselves in, on reaching the bottom of the steps, was about twenty feet in width, and as well as we could judge by the imperfect light given by our candles, may have been forty feet in height, and in length about thirty paces. The walls were covered with paintings, not in fresco, but done on some textile fabric, which adhered to the walls so closely that it required considerable force to remove it. Beneath each panel was painted a serpent, in such vivid colours, that I started back when I saw it, thinking it was a real serpent gliding along the ground. A closer examination showed that the appearance of rotundity was not quite an optical illusion due to the art of the painter, but partly the work of the sculptor. I noticed in passing hastily that the figures were not mere outlines, as in that fresco behind you, which was brought from a temple at Edfou, but draped figures; and I was particularly struck by one which represented a dim, shadowy figure of enormous proportions, resembling a man in all respects but one—it was painted without a face. Before this figure were several dressed in long robes, and among them, though standing aloof, and as though he were answering a charge, one which must have been the portrait of the person whose head I afterwards found wrapped in canvas. Guided by the serpent, we passed from this apartment into a broad passage, and from this we turned aside into another, which led to a chamber compared with which, that we had just left was small and insignificant. Of its immense proportions we could scarcely form an idea, owing to the want of light, our candles being wholly inadequate for the purpose. We could discern no paintings on the walls except the serpent, which seemed to have accompanied us from the other room. At one end the wall projected forwards, and had a large number of little niches, in each of which was a beautifully sculptured figure of a man, alternating with a geometrical figure surrounding a painting of the same dim and vaporous-looking figure without a face, of which I have already spoken. In front of this projection was a block of stone, the top of which was slightly hollowed out: it occurred to us that this was used for sacrificial purposes, but there was nothing to establish the fact, and the only grounds we had for the supposition were its position and appearance. Still following the course indicated by the serpent, we passed through three other apartments of equally magnificent dimensions, the walls of which were covered with beautiful paintings, in all of which the figures must have been at least ten feet high. It was in the last of these we met with the most impressive spectacle I ever saw or heard of. The approach to it was so intricate that but for the guidance of the reptile we should never have penetrated to it; nor was access to it at all easy even