"But maybe ye looked into strange graves?"
"O gods!" cried one of the party, "could we commit such a sacrilege? It is only the wicked Thebans may their hands wither! who disturb the dead, so as to drink away their property in dramshops?"
"What mean those fires at the north there?" interrupted the prince.
"It must be, worthiness, that Thou comest from afar if Thou know not," answered they. "Tomorrow our heir is returning with a victorious army. He is a great chief! He conquered the Libyans in one battle. Those are the people of Memphis who have gone out to greet him with solemnity. Thirty thousand persons. When they shout."
"I understand," whispered the prince to Pentuer. "Holy Mentezufis has sent me ahead so that I may not have a triumphal entry. But never mind this time."
The horses were tired, and they had to rest. So the prince sent horsemen to engage barges on the river, and the rest of the escort halted under some palms, which at that time grew between the Sphinx and the group of pyramids.
Those pyramids formed the northern limit of the immense cemetery. On the flat, about a square kilometer in area, overgrown at that time with plants of the desert, were tombs and small pyramids, above which towered the three great pyramids: those of Cheops, Chafre, and Menkere, and the Sphinx. These immense structures stand only a few hundred yards from one another. The three pyramids are in a line from northeast to southwest. East of this line and nearer the Nile is the Sphinx, near whose feet was the underground temple of Horus.
The pyramids, but especially that of Cheops, as a work of human labor, astound by their greatness. This pyramid is a pointed stone mountain; its original height was thirty five stories, or four hundred and eighty-one feet, standing on a square foundation each side of which was seven hundred and fifty-five feet. It occupied a little more than thirteen acres of area, and its four triangular walls would cover twenty acres of land. In building it, such vast numbers of stones were used that it would be possible to build a wall of the height of a man, a wall half a meter thick, and two thousand five hundred kilometers long.
When the attendants of the prince had disposed themselves under the wretched trees, some occupied themselves in finding water; others took out cakes, while Tutmosis dropped to the ground and fell asleep directly. But the prince and Pentuer walked up and down conversing.
The night was clear enough to let them see on one side the immense outline of the pyramids, on the other, the Sphinx, which seemed small in comparison.