Page:Weird Tales Volume 30 Number 02 (1937-08).djvu/36

 followed by naked Negroes staggering beneath the loads of their goods. The soldiers who walked haughtily in either direction were Egyptian, beyond doubt. Daunt laid his hand affectionately on Stubbs' shoulder.

"Stubbs, I know this is a dream. I know you are really dead. But it is good to believe you here for a little while. I should say that this dream city is Thebes, about the time of the Pharaoh Akhnaton."

Kerns' deep laugh cut in.

"You're going to have a jolt, Reverend, when you find this rummy place is real, and that Stubbs hasn't been croaked after all. But I guess it'll be a jolt you can stand. Give him the works, Stubbs. Tell him. Tell him about"

horses, at the touch of Stubbs' guiding hand on the reins, turned into a great city square. Kerns stopped talking. He was not an impressionable man, but this sight silenced him.

Opposite them, yet at least half a mile distant, was the greatest building Daunt had ever seen. Its many-pillared beauty rose to such a sheer height that the top seemed literally in the sky.

"The Temple of Horus, sir," Stubbs said, reverently.

He reined in the horses and pulled over to the side of one of the broad, flower-bordered drives which wound through the immense square. His face was troubled.

"What's that starting out in front of the temple, Mr. Kerns?" he asked.

Kerns shaded his eyes.

"Chariots!" he answered. "A lot of them." Suddenly he gave a start. "I'd almost forgotten!"

"Guess I may as well tell you, sir," Stubbs said to the little clergyman. "All this sounds mixed up, I know. It is mixed up. Mr. Kerns and I don't know exactly how we got here, any more than you do. Maybe we were all knocked on the head or given a shot in the arm. But we both remember that they turned this chariot over to us and told us to drive through the city for a while and enjoy ourselves. It's a good thing I learned to drive the milkman's horse when I was a kid."

"They?" echoed Daunt.

"The guards at the city gate. That's where we found ourselves when we came to. They're the ones who told us the little we know about this place. They must have dressed us up in these funny clothes while we were unconscious. Queer you weren't dressed up, too. And they told us something else—just a nice, friendly little bit of information. It seems these people—whoever they are—don't like visitors. They kill 'em. But first they let the visitors drive around and see their town. One of the soldiers wasn't such a bad sort. He said that when we noticed other chariots taking after us, we should whip up our horses and drive like the wind. He hinted—it wasn't any more than a hint—that we might escape, if we had plenty of luck."

"Stubbs, where are we?" Daunt demanded.

The broad-shouldered man-servant slowly shook his head.

"I don't know, sir. I honestly don't. I rather gather, from what the soldiers said, that all this is under the earth—another world below ours that nobody ever knew about; one that connects up in some way with ancient Egypt. But I don't know. That's the truth."

"Do you mean to say this is not a dream?"

"I don't think so."

"They're coming our way!" Kerns declared, excitedly.

Stubbs whirled the big horses about with as much easy skill as if he had spent