“What is day to those who live in the eternal blackness of a pyramid as though already they were dead?” asked Khian gloomily.
“Oh! a great deal,” replied Temu cheerfully, “because one knows that the sun is shining without. Also darkness has its comforts; thus in it, having nothing else to do, one can pray longer and with a mind more fixed.”
“But that the sun is shining on others does not comfort me in a stifling gloom, Temu, and I can pray best when I see the heaven above me.”
“As doubtless you will soon again, Prince, for be sure that by now, having lost us, those soldiers have departed to report to his Majesty that we have melted away like spirits.”
“In which case his Majesty will make them into spirits, Temu, that they may search for us elsewhere. Certainly, wherever those soldiers go, it will not be back to Tanis unless they take us with them. Think now. We have escaped from Pharaoh’s strongest dungeon which none has ever done before. The Queen Nefra and all our brethren, save Roy who chose to stay behind to die, have escaped his army. What would his mood be, then, towards those who reported to him that they had tracked and hunted us, only at the last to let us slip through their fingers? No, Temu, unless we accompany them, I think that they will not return to Tanis.”
At this moment the Sheik appeared bearing a lamp.
“Have the soldiers gone?” asked Temu.
“Come and see,” said the Sheik, and turning, led them down the passages. “Now look,” he added, pointing to the eyeholes.
Khian looked, and when his sight grew accustomed to the bright light that flowed from without, perceived the soldiers, fifty or more of them, engaged in building themselves huts or shelters of the loose stones that lay about. Moreover, by setting his ear to the hole, he heard an officer call to someone whom he could not see, asking if all were well with the companies that watched the other faces of the pyramid. Then understanding that these men were sure that their quarry lay hid within the pyramid and intended to guard it day and night until starvation or lack of water forced them to come out, Khian motioned to Temu to look for himself and sat down upon the passage floor and groaned.
“Certainly,” said Temu after a while, “it seems as though they were going to stop here a long time, for otherwise they would not be building themselves houses of stone. Well, we will outwit them somehow. Faith—have faith!”