5. ZAEMON'S CURSE


It appeared that for the present at any rate I was to have my
residence in the royal pyramid. The glittering cavalcade drew up
in the great paved square which lies before the building, and
massed itself in groups. The mammoth was halted before the
doorway, and when a stair had been brought, the trumpets sounded,
and we three who had ridden in the golden half-castle under the
canopy of snakes, descended to the ground.

It was plain that we were going from beneath the open sky to
the apartments which lay inside the vast stone mazes of the
pyramid, and without thinking, the instinct of custom and reverence
that had become part of my nature caused me to turn to where the
towering rocks of the Sacred Mountain frowned above the city, and
make the usual obeisance, and offer up in silence the prescribed
prayer. I say I did this thing unthinking, and as a matter of
common custom, but when I rose to my feet, I could have sworn I
heard a titter of laughter from somewhere in that fancifully
bedecked crowd of onlookers.

I glanced in the direction of the scoffers, frowningly enough,
and then I turned to Phorenice to demand their prompt punishment
for the disrespect. But here was a strange thing. I had looked to
see her in the act and article of rising from an obeisance; but
there she was, standing erect, and had clearly never touched her
forehead to the ground. Moreover, she was regarding me with a