Was it Arabic or Nubian? Was it of the ancient language of the Pharoahs, or the almost as ancient Syrian?
How did she overhear his conversation about the Mamelukes?
“I begin to think she is a fairy,” said Max, his head growing dizzy with puzzling over the matter.
“How long am I to remain here?”
There was no one to answer the question, so it had to remain still in the realm of doubt.
“Where am I?”
That query he could answer with a positiveness that could not be controverted. He was in a tomb.
At first the thought nearly drove him mad, but he got accustomed to the idea. After eating and drinking there, much of the superstitious fear had left him.
“Where shall I sleep?” he asked himself, “for I am tired and exhausted. The sand man has been about a long time,” he laughed; “yes, sand in my eyes, up my nostrils, down my throat, in my ears—the sand man has done his work this time. What was that?”
Max possessed a splendid amount of courage, but to be alone in a tomb and suddenly to hear a terrible noise, and to be nearly suffocated with dust, to have the torch knocked over—fortunately not extinguished—would be sufficient to set the strongest nerves quivering, and make the most valiant man tremble. He dare not raise his head.