Ramses and the priests entered the main building by an immense court and passed between two rows of sphinxes. Here in a very spacious, but somewhat dark, antechamber were eight doors, and the overseer inquired,
"Through which door dost Thou wish to go to the treasure, holiness?"
"Through that by which we can go the most quickly."
Each of five priests took two bundles of torches, but only one ignited a torch.
At his side stood the chief overseer holding in his hands a large string of beads on which were written certain characters. Behind them walked Ramses surrounded by three priests.
The high priest who held the beads turned to the right and entered a great hall, the walls and columns of which were covered with inscriptions and figures. From that they entered a narrow corridor, which led upward, and found themselves in a hall distinguished by a great number of doors. Here a tablet was pushed aside in the floor, discovering an opening through which they descended, and again advanced through a narrow corridor to a chamber which had no doors. But the guide touched one hieroglyph of many, and the wall moved aside before them.
Ramses tried to remember the direction in which they were going, but soon his attention was bewildered. He noted, however, that they passed hurriedly through great halls, small chambers, narrow corridors, that they climbed up or descended, that some halls had a multitude of doors and others none whatever. He observed at once that the guide at each new entrance dropped one bead from his long rosary, and sometimes, by the light of the torch, he compared the indications on the beads with those on the walls.
"Where are we now?" asked the pharaoh on a sudden, "beneath the earth, or above it?"
"We are in the power of the gods!" replied his neighbor.
After a number of turns and passages the pharaoh again said,