"And where are you going?" Dio asked.
"To fetch Pentaur."
"Good, bring him here!" she said joyfully: she had been thinking about him all the time.
Issachar went out, closing the door after him.
Dio looked round the empty vaulted cell, long and narrow like the tomb—and perhaps indeed it was one. The walls were covered from top to bottom with hieroglyphic script and pictures.
She sat on the floor and waited. Tired of sitting still she got up and, taking the lamp, began looking at the mural paintings and reading the hieroglyphics. She was so absorbed in this that she did not notice the passage of time.
Suddenly the flame grew dim, gave a last flicker and went out. Walls of stifling, black, and, as it were, tangible darkness, closed in upon her. She was afraid of being left and forgotten in this coffin.
She fumbled her way to the door and began knocking and calling. She listened: a deadly stillness. She felt more frightened than ever. All of a sudden she recalled Pentaur and the fear left her: if he was alive he would come.
She sat down again, leaning her back against the wall and remained so. A strange stillness came over her; she did not know whether it was dream or waking. She was filled with the black, warm, sunny darkness as a vessel is with water. With quiet ecstasy she whispered the words she had just read in the hieroglyphic inscriptions, spoken by the dead man to the Midnight Sun, the hidden god:
"He is—I am; I am—He is."