And Since That Day, Doomed To Receive Each Morning Numerous People Of A Strange Aspect, He Dwells Alone In His Hypogeum, Where There Is Now Neither A Being Nor A Thing Belonging To His Time.

But yes, there is!

We had not looked all round. There in one of the lateral chambers some bodies are lying, dead bodies - three corpses (unswathed at the time of the pillage), side by side on their rags. First, a woman, the queen probably, with loosened hair. Her profile has preserved its exquisite lines. How beautiful she still is! And then a young boy with the little greyish face of a doll. His head is shaved, except for that long curl at the right side, which denotes a prince of the royal blood. And the third a man. Ugh! How terrible he is - looking as if he found death a thing irresistibly comical. He even writhes with laughter, and eats a corner of his shroud as if to prevent himself from bursting into a too unseemly mirth.

And then, suddenly, black night! And we stand as if congealed in our place. The electric light has gone out - everywhere at once. Above, on the earth, midday must have sounded - for those who still have cognisance of the sun and the hours.

The guard who has brought us hither shouts in his Bedouin falsetto, in order to get the light switched on again, but the infinite thickness of the walls, instead of prolonging the vibrations, seems to deaden them; and besides, who could hear us, in the depths where we now are? Then, groping in the absolute darkness, he makes his way up the sloping passage.

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