“You have got Araxes on the brain, Doctor,” he said, with a forced smile, “and in our conversation we are forgetting that the Princess has promised to tell us a fairy-tale, the story of the Great Pyramid.”
The Princess looked at him, then at Denzil Murray, and lastly at Dr. Dean.
“Would you really care to hear it?” she asked.
“Most certainly!” they all three answered.
She rose from the dinner-table.
“Come here to the window,” she said. “You can see the great structure now, in the dusky light,—look at it well and try, if you can, to realize that deep, deep down in the earth on which it stands is a connected gallery of rocky caves wherein no human foot has ever penetrated since the Deluge swept over the land and made a desert of all the old-time civilization!”
Her slight figure appeared to dilate as she spoke, raising one slender hand and arm to point at the huge mass that towered up against the clear, starlit sky. Her listeners were silent, awed and attentive.
“One of the latest ideas concerning the Pyramids is, as you know, that they were built as towers of defence against the Deluge. That is correct. The wise men of the old days foretold the time when ‘the waters should rise and cover the earth,’ and these huge monuments were prepared and raised to a height which it was estimated would always appear above the level of the coming flood, to show where the treasures of Egypt were hidden for safety. Yes,—the treasures of Egypt, the wisdom, the science of Egypt! They are all down there still! And there, to all intents and purposes, they are likely to remain.”
“But archæologists are of the opinion that the Pyramids have been thoroughly explored,” began Dr. Dean, with some excitement.
The Princess interrupted him by a slight gesture.