Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 2 (1925-02).djvu/189

 and I was recruited into the rank of a supervisor.

"Engrossed deeply in this new and fascinating work, I completely forgot my sorrow. My health returned in considerable measure, and my mentality was sharpened. I had no time to muse over bygone griefs, for my entire day was devoted to excavation work, and my entire night to pleasant and refreshing sleep. Things went on in this fashion for several weeks; I was living life anew, and I was content and happy.

NE DAY the heat had been particularly fierce, and I was indisposed to join the ranks of the excavators. Moreover, I was seized with a slight fever which confined me to my bed. And that day, as I lay abed in the silence of the little room, old thoughts and memories began to come back. Oh, how hard I tried to drive those maddening visions from my brain! But to what futile avail!

"That night my old sadness returned to me. Fain would I sleep, but my depression weighed too heavily upon me. Again that strange daze of old, born of great sorrow, entered my brain. I became restless. I yearned to be about, to walk and breathe in the cool air of the blissful night. I jumped out of bed, donned a light white suit, and went into the silent night.

"From out of the silvery billows of the Nile, in the purple distance, the moon was slowly rising. A heavy and impressive silence lay over the land. Toward the north reposed Thebes—Thebes, which contained the ruins of an ancient civilization. The night was cool and its beauty great, and within me was the desire to walk, to flee from my sorrow into the somber mystery of the night-hued north. So I turned my steps toward Thebes.

"I do not know how long I walked, for I was lost in a deep revery during the entire journey. However, it seemed to have consumed but little time, for soon I came in sight of the city. On the horizon I saw the grand ruins of Thebes loom up into the slowly changing sky.

"When I arrived at Thebes the last streak of darkness had gone, and the skies became aflame with the fierce color of the early dawn. The air was calm, and the ruins of the ancient city rose with a strange melancholy into the fiery light. Nowhere was a living thing visible, and I was alone in the archaic city, which was as silent as the sheeted dead.

"The long walk to Thebes had in a measure dispelled my feeling of depression, and having returned, in a degree, to my normal state, I was seized with a desire to explore the silent ruins. So in the fiery light of the early morning I began to walk among the grand ruins of Thebes.

"I had been walking about for quite a while, absorbed in the romance of an ancient world, when my feet caught against a mutilated statue of Anubis lying prostrate on several fragments of a marble column. The next instant I had fallen to the ground. When I rose and looked about me confusedly, I observed an enormous, lidless sarcophagus lying several feet away from where I stood. My heart beat with excitement at this sight, for I felt that I had discovered something of great value. Now I was in a position to repay Dr. Brenner for his great kindness. The sarcophagus was built of dull yellow basalt, and it contained a mummy that had in no way suffered disturbance.

"I dragged my find into a darkened corner of the ruins and repaired hastily to Dr. Brenner to inform him of my good fortune. He assigned