CHAPTER IV.
UNDER THE PYRAMID.
Max slept soundly, and for hours did not dream.
When the visions of the night visited his brain, they shaped themselves in pleasing form.
He saw again the massacre of the Mamelukes, but the sight seemed stripped of its hideousness, and it appeared to Max that the foul murder committed by Mohammed Ali was necessary—that from that murder would spring the regeneration of Egypt.
Max saw the flight of Emin Bey, and fancied that the brave Mameluke still lived, and was at the head of an all-conquering army, overcoming French and English and Turk, and proclaiming the freedom of Egypt from foreign rule.
And as all this passed before the mental vision of the sleeping American boy, he thought that by the side of the conqueror he rode—not as he was then, a beardless youth, but with bronzed face and flowing beard—a turban on his head, and the sacred carpet of Mohammed carried by his side.
Then his vision changed, and he saw his father, not dead, but living, and successful as a merchant. By his side was the wife whose love had been so lavishly given to her husband and her son.
The sight of his father and mother brought tears to the dreamer’s eyes, and caused him to wake.
It was some time before he could bring back to his memory the events of the preceding day.
When they recurred to him he felt most wretched.
Had the bandits removed his father’s body, or was it still in the cave?
Could he not snap the cords which bound him, and escape from that living tomb?
“Hush!”
Was that a human voice, or only the playful prank of a gust of wind?
Max, madcap as he was, had learned wisdom.
He was not going to fall into any trap, and so he did not speak.
“Son of the morning, thou wilt die.”
“Am I dreaming,” Max wondered, “or have I gone mad?”
He raised his head, but his eyes could not penetrate the darkness.
“Confound it!” he muttered, “this is Egyptian darkness with a vengeance.”
“Dost thou want to die?”
The question came out of the darkness and sounded afar off, yet Max could almost fancy that the breath of the speaker fanned his cheek.
“Who is that speaks?”
“Question not my name.”
“Where am I?”
“In the depths of the storehouse of the great Gizeh.”
The answer was given in a low voice, almost as soft as a whisper.
“Am I then under the pyramid?”
“That is how thou wouldst express it.”
“Will you aid me to escape?”
“And thou wouldst destroy those who saved thee.”
“Nay—thou art a woman.”
“Wah Illahi sahe!”
(By Allah, it is true.)
“I would not harm thee.”
“I can save thee if thou wilt swear by the beard of the prophet that thou wilt not seek revenge.”
“The price is too great.”
“And if thou refusest, death will be thy portion.”
“Better death than dishonor,” said Max, in a grandiloquent tone, which sounded almost ridiculous in the dark, but which would have been the signal for a burst of applause from the gallery of a theater had an actor so uttered the words on a stage.
All was still as the grave.
He fancied his ankles and wrists were swelling as the cord cut into the flesh.
His brain began to reel, and he almost wished for death.
“Am I to die like this? Oh, it is horrible!” he moaned, aloud, as the agony of the thought took possession of his mind.
“Help!”
He shouted and the echo of the vault answered back mockingly:
“Help!”
He shouted again, but the only reply was the faint echo of his words.
“I shall die,” he groaned.
“Die,” said the echo, with taunting emphasis.
His brain became frenzied, and he began to laugh with boisterous guffaws.
It was the laughter of delirium and not of mirth.
The echo answered back.
The whole cave seemed peopled with laughing demons.
“Fiends!” he shouted, and his head fell back with stunning force on the rock.
When he recovered consciousness, a calmly sweet breath of air was blowing on his face.
He was being fanned.
He dare not speak for fear that the delicious breeze might cease.
The fanning continued until at last he could bear the silence no longer.
“Thou art an angel!” he exclaimed.
“I know not what thou meanest. If I am thy houri, wilt thou follow me?”
“I will.”
By some means a pitch torch was lighted and in its glare Max saw the horrible cave to which he had been removed by some unknown hands.
Skeletons and mummies, rude stone sarcophagi, and blocks of red granite in endless confusion.
But in the circle of light made by the torch he saw—
A girl.
She was not what the fashionable world would call lovely.
Her skin was dark, her hair was black as a raven’s wing.
Over her dark tresses a silver band encircled her head, almost like a halo of glory.
Her limbs were bare to the knees, but round each ankle was a massive band of silver similar to those she wore on each arm above the elbow.
Her dress was of a gauzy tissue and Max could scarcely believe but that it was a phantasm of the mind which was before him, and not a living entity.
She smiled and waved her torch as a fairy queen might her wand, and in a voice of rare sweetness said:
“If thou wouldst save thy life, follow me.”
“I am bound,” answered Max.
Two rows of shiny, white teeth were shown as she pointed laughingly at the severed cords, and again she said:
“Come! Follow me!”
“To the death,” answered Max, forgetful of all danger.
“Come, and thou shalt be one of my people.”
The houri took Max by the hand, causing a strange thrill to pass through him.
“Be not afraid,” she said, as she extinguished the light.
“With you, never!” answered Max, gallantly.
And Madcap Max followed in the dark the strange creature who had found him alone and suffering in the cave beneath the great pyramid.
Followed! But where?