Page:Orczy--the gates of Kamt.djvu/67

 god should have need to ask such questions. I could see in his eyes that he was making a vigorous effort to recollect something in the past, then he said:

"How beautiful is thy temple, oh, all-creating Ra! … so beautiful … and so dark … so jealously guarded … no one knows what lies beyond.… I tried to know … to learn thy secrets. I know now!… the valley of death, whence no man returns, the valley of earth and sky, where hunger gnaws the vitals and thirst burns the throat … where evil birds croak of eternal darkness, and vile beasts prowl at night …"

He was trembling from head to foot, and his eyes, quite wild with terror, watched a black raven close by, which had alighted on a skull and was picking some debris of flesh out of the hollow sockets of the eyes.

"Give me sleep, oh Anubis!" he moaned, "and rest … eternal sleep … and rest … and rest …"

"He is dying," I said, kneeling down beside the maniac and supporting his head. "Give me some brandy, Girlie." "I think it would be kinder to knock him on the head; this prolonged agony is terrible. What fiends, I wonder, invented this awful mode of dealing with criminals?"

"Well! we shall know soon enough. I wish he could manage to tell us how he came across those hills, and how best we can find our way."

I had poured a few drops of brandy down the dying maniac's throat; it revived him momentarily, for he gave a gasp and murmured:

"Is this thy fire, oh! Osiris?"

"It is life," said Hugh.

"Life is a curse outside the gates of Kamt."

"Then thou must endeavour to go back to Kamt."