At Any Rate, That Man's Idea Of
The Torment Was A Hot, Crowded Underground Room, Underhung With
Patterned Cloths.
Once in his life at a city in the far north, where he
had to make a speech, he met that perfect combination.
They led him up
and down narrow, crowded, steam-heated passages, till they planted him
at last in a room without visible windows (by which he knew
he was, underground), and directly beneath a warm-patterned
ceiling-cloth - rather like a tent-lining. And there he had to say his
say, while panic terror sat in his throat. The second time was in the
Valley of the Kings, where very similar passages, crowded with people,
led him into a room cut of rock, fathoms underground, with what looked
like a sagging chintz cloth not three feet above his head. The man I'd
like to catch,' he said when he came outside again, 'is that
decorator-man. D'you suppose he meant to produce that effect?'
Every man has his private terrors, other than those of his own
conscience. From what I saw in the Valley of the Kings, the Egyptians
seem to have known this some time ago. They certainly have impressed it
on most unexpected people. I heard two voices down a passage talking
together as follows:
She. I guess we weren't ever meant to see these old tombs from inside,
anyway.
He. How so?
She. For one thing, they believe so hard in being dead.
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