Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/258

 horses have behaved, I think we ought to give them an equal chance with ourselves." As he spoke, Denviers unclasped his arms, which had hitherto been round his horse's neck, and a moment afterwards was swimming with a grand stroke amid the waters. I raised myself from my own horse, and, plunging into the stream, followed my companion, who was within a few yards of the rocks on either side.

"Grasp the buttress on the left," he called out to me; "I will hold on to the other." I drew a deep breath, and waited for the torrent to hurl me forward. One slip, and I knew that a moment afterwards my body would be sucked into the seething gulf in front, and then all would be over. My hands clasped the buttress firmly, and, steadying myself for a moment, I drew my body slowly out of the water. When I had climbed up hand over hand in this way for several yards, I saw Denviers was already leaning over from what appeared to me to be a huge stone lattice. He stretched out his hands, and, seizing me, dragged me half senseless and exhausted behind it. Resting there until the strain of the efforts which I had made seemed to become less oppressive, I began to observe, in the dim light, the shape of the bases of the pillar which rose from the stone platform on which we were. I traced out the representations of two gigantic feet, just as Denviers looked upwards and exclaimed suddenly:—

"Look at the shape of this support, which reaches to the arched top of the chasm! Surely it is some monstrous idol!" We drew close to the lattice work and, standing with our backs to the latter, found ourselves facing an enormous idol, which we subsequently discovered was the grim guardian of one of the entrances to the tomb of On.

Its repulsive-looking head, adorned with enormous ears, was of a type similar to that of the Nubian race, and was bare of covering. Across its swarthy breast passed a carved band which interlaced a garment bound at the waist by a belt which supported the representation of a loosely-hanging garb reaching to the knees. In one of its giant hands it held a curved sword, while the other was raised to grasp a serpent which twisted in mazy coils about the idol's body.

"The entrance to the tomb of On, without doubt," said Denviers. "I wonder if we shall ever get out of it again!" We moved past the enormous image and found ourselves facing a massive stone door, which yielded readily as we pressed upon it, and then a moment afterwards we saw before us a wonderful natural hollow apparently in the heart of the mountain, for we were in the tomb of On!

and red, from the sides and roof of this gigantic tomb huge boulders protruded, while, lying stretched upon a low bier, was the body of the dead On, apparently embalmed, and conspicuous among the others round it by its length; for the dead king must have been much beyond the stature of the present race of men. A look of infinite despair was upon his face; the hands of the monarch were joined upon his breast, while in them was clasped the handle of a massive sword, the blade of which rested upon his silent form. Peering cautiously out from the position which we had taken behind one of the many boulders which strewed the floor at intervals, we soon discovered the real use to which the tomb was put. Close beside the entrance through which we had come was another, through which the moonlight streamed into the tomb, and apparently led in a direction the same as the ravine into which we had leapt. From this we conjectured that, had we ridden a little further up, we might have succeeded in turning our horses' heads into the entrance of it, and so have avoided the peril in which we had been placed. The man's cry had not come to us from in front, as we had thought when breasting the waters, but from this second entry to the tomb. Looking down the entrance we saw several of the horses behind which we had ridden haltered by a rope to some projecting fastenings in the rocky wall.

The tomb itself was no mere charnel house despite the many bodies which we saw ranging through it. By the side of the dead On we observed the form of one who must have died of extreme age, and from the description which Hassan had given us, we judged that this was the body of the Seer whom the credulous people of Khorassan believed to be still alive.

The real ruler of the tomb was a negro much like the riders whom we had seen and tracked over the plain. From the throng of men which surrounded him and were evidently narrating the capture of the victim who stood among them, we easily distinguished this leader from the abundance of the jewe11ery which he wore. His limbs were scantily clothed, but his arms and ankles were heavily bound with bracelets, while round his thickly matted hair where it reached his retreating