Extinguishing the lights of the lamps he had kindled in this chamber, he retraced his steps to the library, where he gathered up the fifteen rolls of papyrus, carrying them in the front breadth of his burnous while he held fast to the hem. In this way he returned along the arched passage until he came to the rock door which he had left ajar. He climbed through the opening and thrust the rock back into place, listening while the heavy bolt fastened itself with a sharp click.
He was now in the natural fissure of the mountain cavern, and it did not take him long to reach the stone wall which alone separated him from Hatatcha’s dwelling.
He paused a moment, with his ear to the wall; but hearing no sound, he extinguished his light and then caught the handle imbedded in the stone and swung the block upon its pivots. In a moment he was in the living-room, and the wall through which he had passed seemed solid and immovable.
He must have been absent for several hours during his exploring expedition into the mountain, and the night was now far advanced.
Kāra flung the papyri into a corner, covered them with loose rushes from his grandmother’s couch, and then threw himself upon his own bed to sleep. He had been awake the better part of two nights, and his eyelids were as heavy as if weighted with lead.
CHAPTER V.
A ROLL OF PAPYRUS.
At daybreak the dragoman thrust his head stealthily through the arch and looked at Kāra’s sleeping form with suspicion. He had visited the young man’s house in the evening and found him absent and Hatatcha’s body also gone. He came again later, and once more at midnight, and still Hatatcha’s dead form and her grandson’s quick one were alike missing.
Then the dragoman, wishing to know to what secret place the old woman’s remains had been taken, and from which direction Kāra returned, and having a fair share of oriental shrewdness, had stretched two threads across the narrow street—one on either side the arch—and afterward returned to his couch in the house of old Sĕra to sleep.