“Ras-Ameses!” exclaimed Don. “Do you mean to say that you have found it?”
“Practically sure of it,” asserted the captain. “That’s all the good it does us though, for the present,” he added, his face falling. “It’s so solidly built it would take a charge of dynamite to blow it open.”
“No door or opening of any kind?” queried Don.
“Nothing that we’ve been able to discover so far,” was the reply. “But we’re going at it again in the morning.”
In the jubilation in which they all shared, they put aside for the moment the fact that they were prisoners, doomed to perish inevitably of hunger unless they could find an exit, for which all had hitherto searched in vain. But every little while that grim terror slipped into their thoughts, like a specter at a feast.
They talked until late into the night, and they were delighted to note the rapidity with which Don’s father was beginning to adjust himself to conditions. Yet, every so often, there would be moments of confusion that were baffling and saddening.
The next morning after a hasty breakfast, in which Mr. Sturdy’s stores played the greater part, all went to the supposed mausoleum of Ras-Ameses. They examined every inch of it with the greatest care, but found not the slightest clue to an entrance.
“Suppose you hoist me up to the top,” suggested Don.
They made a back for him, and he swung himself up. The top was flat, and made of the same massive blocks as the sides. Nothing rewarded his search.
His announcement to that effect was received with glum silence. It removed their last hope. They were thoroughly dispirited and disheartened.