Kāra shuddered. The awful incident, the blackness that enveloped him, the clamor of noise in that silent place and the quiet suspense succeeding it, all conspired to unnerve him and fill his heart with consternation. The sacks had fallen from his grasp. He raised his injured hand, felt it, and gave a sudden cry of terror. The ring containing his ancestor’s precious Stone of Fortune had been broken by the blow and the talisman was gone.
Gone! Then the curse had fallen. It was upon him even now, and perhaps at his side stood the grim spirit of Ahtka-Rā, leering at him through the darkness and exulting in his discomfiture.
Trembling in every limb, the Egyptian fell upon his knees and began creeping here and there upon the clammy stones, his eyes staring into the gloom and his fingers clutching at every slight protuberance in the hope of finding again the wonderful stone that could alone protect him in his extremity. The curse was upon him, but he would resist its awful power. He must resist; for if he succumbed now, there would be no future escape from his fate. The stone—he must find the stone! Somewhere in that vast chamber of death it lay, slyly waiting for him to reclaim it.
The cold indifference that was an integral part of Kāra’s nature had completely deserted him. The superstitious fear inherited by him from the centuries had gripped his heart securely and made him its bond-man. He mumbled incoherently as, prone upon all fours, he shuffled hither and thither in his vain search. The words of warning contained in the tiny parchment, the solemn curse of his ancestor upon any who deprived him of the talisman of fortune, seemed alone to occupy a mind suddenly rendered witless and unruly by the calamity of the moment.
The darkness was oppressive. There was no sound since the golden bust had bumped its way into the treasure-chamber. The atmosphere, although fed and restored from some hidden conduit, seemed stagnant and full of the bituminous stench of the mummies. Kāra drew his quaking body about with an effort, feeling that the silence, the dead air and the blackness were conspiring to stifle him. He found the lamp presently, but the oil was spilled and the wick gone. It did not occur to him to strike a match.
“If the stone is here,” he thought, “I shall see its flaming tongues even through the darkness. It cannot escape me. I must seek until I find it.”
Twice he crept around the colossal sarcophagus of Ahtka-Rā, feeling his way cautiously and glaring into the darkness with distended eyeballs; and then came his reward. A streak of fire darted before his eyes and vanished. Another succeeded it. He paused and watched intently. A faint blue cloud appeared, whence the flames radiated. Sometimes they were crimson; then a sulphurous yellow; then pure white in color. But they always darted fiercely from the central cloud, which gradually took form and outlined the irregular oblong of the wonderful stone.
The radiance positively grew; the tongues of flame darted swifter and more brilliantly; they lighted the surrounding space and brought into relief the glistening end of Ahtka-Rā’s tomb.
Kāra stared with an amazement akin to fear; for the talisman lay upon the floor just beneath the triple circlet of gold whence he had pried it with his dagger. It had not only escaped from its unlawful possessor, but had returned to where the ancient Egyptian had originally placed it; and now it mocked him with its magical brilliance.
He could have reached out a hand and seized it in his grasp; but so great was his horror of the curse of Ahtka-Rā that his impulse was rather to shrink from the demoniacal gem.