But in spite of reasoning, such terrible fear seized the man again that he put out the torch a second time, and trembling, his teeth chattering, he pushed up to one of the columns.
"How was it possible how could I decide to come in here?" thought Samentu. "Had I not food to eat, a place on which to lay my head? It is a simple thing, I am discovered! The labyrinth has a multitude of overseers as watchful as dogs, and only a child, or an idiot, would think of deceiving them. Property power! Where is the treasure for which it would be worth while for a man to give one day of his life? And here, I, a man in the bloom of existence, have exposed myself."
It seemed to him that he heard heavy knocking. He sprang up and in the depth of the chamber he saw a gleam of light.
Yes! a real gleam of light, not an illusion. At a distant wall, somewhere at the end, stood an open door through which at that moment armed men were coming in carefully with torches.
At sight of this the priest felt a chill in his feet, in his heart, in his head. He doubted no longer that he was not merely discovered, but hunted and surrounded.
Who could have betrayed him? Of course only one man: the young priest of Set, whom he had acquainted minutely enough with his purposes. The traitor, if alone, would have had to look almost a month for the way to the treasure, but if he had agreed with the overseers they might in one day track out Samentu.
At that moment the high priest felt the impressions known only to men who are looking at death face to face. He ceased to fear since his imagined alarms had now vanished before real torches. Not only did he regain self-command, but he felt immensely above everything living. In a short time he would be threatened no longer by danger of any sort.
The thoughts flew through his head with lightning clearness and speed. He took in the whole of his existence: his toils, his perils, his hopes, his ambitions, and all of those seemed to him a trifle. For what would it serve him to be at that moment the pharaoh, or to own every treasure in all kingdoms? They were vanity, dust, and even worse an illusion. Death alone was all-mighty and genuine.
Meanwhile the torch-bearers were examining columns most carefully, and also every corner; they had passed through half the immense hall. Samentu saw even the points of their lances, and noted that the men hesitated and advanced with alarm and repulsion. A few steps behind them was another group of persons to whom one torch gave light. Samentu did not even feel aversion toward them, he was only curious as to who could have betrayed him. But even that point did not concern him overmuch, for incomparably more important then seemed the question: Why must he die, and why had he been brought into existence? For with death present as a fact a whole life-time is shortened into one painful minute even though that life were the longest of all and the richest in experience.
"Why was he alive? For what purpose?"