“Ah, how happy my father will be—he who was so desolated because of my mutilation, and who had, from the day of my birth, put a whole people at work to hollow out for me a tomb so deep that he would be able to preserve me intact until that supreme day when souls must be weighed in the balances of Amenthi! Come with me to my father—he will receive you well, for you have given me back my foot.”
I found this proposition natural enough. I enveloped myself in a dressing-gown of large flowered pattern, which gave me a very Pharaohesque appearance, hurriedly put on a pair of Turkish slippers, and told the Princess Hermonthis that I was ready to follow her.
Hermonthis, before starting, took from her neck the tiny figurine of green paste and laid it on the scattered sheets of paper which covered the table.
“It is only fair,” she said smilingly, “that I should replace your paper-weight.”
She gave me her hand, which was soft and cold, like the skin of a serpent, and we departed.
For some time we spun with the rapidity of an arrow through a fluid and grayish medium, in which faintly outlined silhouettes were passing to right and left.
For an instant, we saw only sea and sky.
Some moments afterward, obelisks commenced to rise, porches and flights of steps guarded by sphinxes were outlined against the horizon.
We had arrived.
The princess conducted me toward the mountain of rosy granite, where we found an opening so narrow and low that it would have been difficult to distinguish it from the fissures in the rock, if two sculptured columns had not enabled us to recognize it.