These stones which now
appear, whitish in the night, this secret-looking dwelling near the
boundary wall of Thebes, proclaim the spot, and verily at such an hour
as this it has an evil aspect.
Ptolemaic columns, little vestibules,
little courtyards where a dim blue light enables you to find your way.
Nothing moves; not even the flight of a night bird: an absolute
silence, magnified awfully by the presence of the desert which you
feel encompasses you beyond these walls. And beyond, at the bottom,
three chambers made of massive stone, each with its separate entrance.
I know that the first two are empty. It is in the third that the
Ogress dwells, unless, indeed, she has already set out upon her
nocturnal hunt for human flesh. Pitch darkness reigns within and I
have to grope my way. Quickly I light a match. Yes, there she is
indeed, alone and upright, almost part of the end wall, on which my
little light makes the horrible shadow of her head dance. The match
goes out - irreverently I light many more under her chin, under that
heavy, man-eating jaw. In very sooth, she is terrifying. Of black
granite - like her sisters, seated on the margin of the mournful lake -
but much taller than they, from six to eight feet in height, she has a
woman's body, exquisitely slim and young, with the breasts of a
virgin. Very chaste in attitude, she holds in her hand a long-stemmed
lotus flower, but by a contrast that nonplusses and paralyses you the
delicate shoulders support the monstrosity of a huge lioness' head.
The lappets of her bonnet fall on either side of her ears almost down
to her breast, and surmounting the bonnet, by way of addition to the
mysterious pomp, is a large moon disc.
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