“Whither would you fly, Brother?” asked Temu.
“Up Nile,” whispered Khian, “to warn our brethren who are in great danger.”
“I felt it,” said Temu. Then he rose and packed the most of the food, of which, as has been said, there was much more than they could eat, into two of the baskets wherein it had been brought which were made of reeds and had handles that could be slipped on to the arm.
“It is time to go, Brother. Faith, have faith!” said Temu.
They rose and for a moment stood still to put up a prayer to the Spirit they worshipped for help and guidance, as was the custom of their Brotherhood before they entered on any undertaking.
“I will go first, Brother, carrying one of the lamps in my teeth—the second we must leave burning—and one basket on my arm. Do you follow with the other.”
Then he stepped to the door, pulled out the food-cloth from the grating, and having listened awhile, returned, and taking the smaller of the lamps, set its flat handle between his teeth. Next he crawled beneath the table, pushed upon the stone so that it tilted up and stood edge in air, climbed through the hole on to the stone ladder, and began to descend. Khian followed. As it chanced when he had taken some three steps down the ladder, the peaked hood of his cloak touched the stone, disturbing its balance. Instantly it swung to, releasing the spring or catch, so that now there was no hope of return, since this could not be opened from beneath. Even then the purpose of this trap came into Khian’s mind. When it was desired to destroy some unhappy captive, unknown to him the spring or bolt was set back. Then shortly, as the doomed one tramped that gloomy cave he would tread upon the swinging stone and vanish into the gulf beneath, for when this was purposed doubtless the heavy table stood elsewhere. Or if his secret end was desired very swiftly, jailers would hurl him down the pit. Khian shuddered as he thought of it, remembering that this fate might well have been his own. Down, down he climbed, the feeble little lamp which Temu carried in his teeth lighting his way. It seemed a long journey, for the pit was deep, but at length Temu called to him that he had reached its bottom. Presently he was at his side perched upon a white and moving pile that crackled beneath his feet. He looked down and by the lamplight perceived that they stood upon a pyramid of bones, the bones of the victims who in past days had fallen or been cast down the shaft. Moreover, some of them had fallen not so very long before, as his senses told him, which caused him to remember certain friends of his own who had incurred the wrath of Pharaoh and, as it was said, were vanished. Now he guessed to what land they had been banished.
“Lead on, Temu,” he said. “I choke and grow faint.”
Temu obeyed, turning to the right as he had been told that he must do, and holding the lamp near the ground lest there should be pitfalls in the path, which ran down a tunnel so low and narrow that they must walk it doubled up with their shoulders brushing against its walls. For forty or fifty paces they followed this winding burrow, till at length Temu whispered that he saw light ahead, whereon Khian answered that it would be well to extinguish the lamp lest it should betray them. This was done, and creeping forward cautiously for another ten or twelve paces, they came at last to an opening in the great embankment wall built of granite blocks, upon which the palace stood, so small an opening that few would notice it in the roughness of the blocks, and, twice the height of a man beneath them, saw the waters of the Nile gleaming blackly in the starlight.
They thrust their heads out of the hole and looked down, also to right and left.