“Cleopatra, Cleopatra!” Caleb insisted, vigorously; but he now rushed away on his bewildered camel, because he wanted to warn the priest-custodian of the pyramids that there were great lords approaching.
“Caleb is wrong,” said Thrasyllus, as the three camels stepped along sedately, among the gigantic Libyans and shouting Arabs, while Caleb tore fantastically over the sands. “The black pyramid yonder is really not the tomb of Cleopatra. The historians speak of Doricha, an hetaira mentioned by Sappho, the famous poetess, as the mistress of her brother Charaxus, who was a wine-merchant at Lésbos and travelled constantly to Naucratis. This costly black tomb is said to have been dedicated to Doricha, who died young, by her lovers....”
The cavalcade had drawn near; the camels, in obedience to the drivers’ orders, knelt down; the travellers slipped to the ground. And Caleb at once came to meet them, smiling, at the head of six priest-custodians, whose business it was to keep up the interior of the pyramids and show the shrines to foreigners.
“Do many foreigners come here?” Uncle Catullus asked of the oldest priest.
“Not a week passes in this present month,” said the old priest, “but foreigners come to admire the sacred pyramids. You are Latins, but we receive visits also from Greek lords and Persians and Indians. When the Nile has subsided to its lowest gauge, however, when the autumnal winds blow and the sand-storms begin, then no more foreigners come. For then death and destruction blow out of the desert, as the hurricanes of fate which one day will cover Memphis with a sandy shroud. See these few sphinxes, whose heads alone still project above these downs. Once they numbered hundreds; and an avenue stretched between their silence to the Pyramids. But the desert swallowed them up, the hurricanes spread them with dust, the sandy shroud covered up the wisdom of Neith. One day the shroud will cover up all Egypt and veil all her wisdom. What was known will be known no longer. That will be the punishment of the gods, inflicted upon unworthy man, who will be plunged into a night of ignorance and the bestiality of primitive desire. The centuries will turn about!”
The priests in attendance, with a simple pressure of the hand, had caused a heavy monolithic door to turn on its hinges in the largest of the pyramids. They lighted torches and went through the syrinx, a winding tunnel painted with gigantic figures of gods and with hieroglyphics. It was strange, but there was a humming and murmur of voices, though the pyramid was uninhabited. It was as though a swarm of ghosts were whirling around like a gale of wind. The impression was given immediately; and, when the travellers exchanged glances, they saw in one another’s eyes that they were all four thinking the same thing; and Caleb muttered saving incantations and repeatedly kissed his amulets.
The priests led the way, while the flames of the torches blew and blew in the mysterious draught, as though ghosts were hovering around. The travellers entered an enormous square room; huge statues were sculptured in the stone walls; and, though the room was empty, there was a smell of spices, as if the smells of old had lingered eternally. Two bats fluttered to the ceiling and whirled round in a circle.
“This is the king’s chamber of Cheops,” said the old priest. “Once upon a time it contained a sarcophagus of azure granite, with the embalmed body of the great King Cheops, or Khufu; and it was surrounded by the sarcophagi of his brothers. He wore out his people with taxes and heavy labour, in order to found this mausoleum for himself. Where is he now? Where is his embalmed body? Where is his azure sarcophagus? Where are the sarcophagi of his brothers Chefren and Schafra? Where are they? Where are they? They are scattered and vanished as grains of sand, the mummies of the proud rulers, covered with scented wax and tightly swathed in narrow bandages; and scattered and vanished are their sarcophagi; and one day these pyramids themselves will be scattered and vanished, swallowed up in the lap of the earth! Everything vanishes, all is vanity: thy wisdom alone, O Neith, is needful to man!”
“Thy wisdom alone, O Neith, is needful to man!” echoed the priests.
“And we no longer possess it!”