“There is a secret way,” she answered quite calmly. “If thou art prepared for the risk, I am quite ready to accompany thee. Let us at once explore.”
Together we approached the base of the third pyramid, and Zohra, after careful calculation and examination, led me to a spot where there was a hole in the stone just of sufficient size to admit a human foot. One might have passed it by unnoticed, for so cunningly was it devised that it looked like a natural defect in the block of granite.
“Behold!” she cried. “Climb, and I will follow.”
The day was hot, and the sun had only just passed the noon, nevertheless I placed my foot in the burning stone, and scrambling forward found that she had made no mistake. At intervals there were similar footholds, winding, intricate, and in many instances filled with the nests of vultures, but always ascending. For fully half an hour we toiled upward to the apex, until we at length reached it, perspiring and panting, and minutely examined the single enormous block of stone that capped the summit. By its size I saw that no human hands could move it. If the treasure lay beneath, then it must remain for ever concealed.
“That parchment giveth no instructions how the spoils of war may be reached. We must discover that for ourselves,” she observed, clambering on, still in her ragged male attire with which I had furnished her before leaving the stronghold of the Black Sultan.
I was clinging with one arm around the apex itself, and with the other grasping her soft white hand. She had looked down from the dizzy height and shuddered, therefore I feared lest she might be seized with a sudden giddiness. But quickly she released herself, and proceeded to scramble along on hands and knees, making a minute investigation of the wall.
Her sudden cry brought me quickly to her side, and my heart leapt wildly when I discerned before me, in the wall of the pyramid, immediately at the base of the gigantic block forming the apex, an aperture closed by a sheet of heavy iron, coloured exactly the same as the stone and quite indistinguishable from it. Some minutes we spent in its examination, beating upon it with our fists. But the secret how to open it was an enigma as great as that of the closed cavern in our book of the “Thousand Nights and a Night,” until suddenly, by merest chance, we both placed our hands upon it, and it moved slightly beneath our touch. Next moment, with a cry, we both pushed our hardest, and slowly, ever so slowly, it slid along, grating in the groove, which was doubtless filled by the dust of centuries, disclosing a small, dark, low chamber roofed by the apex-stone.
Stepping inside, our gaze eagerly wandered around the mysterious place, and we at once saw that we had indeed discovered the treasure-house of Lebo the Great, for around us were piled a wondrous store of gold and gems, personal ornaments and great golden goblets and salvers. The aggregate value of the treasure was enormous.
“Of a verity,” I cried, “this is amazing!”
“Yea,” she answered, turning her fine eyes upon me. “I give this secret entirely and unreservedly unto thee, as reward for thine aid. At the going down of the sun I shall part from thee, and leave this home of my race for ever. In six hours’ march, by the secret gorges, I can reach our encampment, therefore trouble no further after me. Close this treasure-house, return to thine own people, and let them profit by thy discovery.”