the lost centuries and were never known except by history, by the papyri
inscribed with hieroglyphics, brought thus together, how many things
will they have to say to one another, how many ardent questions to
ask about their loves, about their crimes! As soon as we shall have
departed, nay, as soon as our lantern, at the end of the long galleries,
shall seem no more than a foolish, vanishing spot of fire, will not the
"forms" of whom the attendants are so afraid, will they not start
their nightly rumblings and in their hollow mummy voices, whisper, with
difficulty, words? . . .

Heavens! How dark it is! Yet our lantern has not gone out. But it seems
to grow darker and darker. And at night, when all is shut up, how one
smells the odour of the oils in which the shrouds are saturated, and,
more intolerable still, the sickly stealthy stench, almost, of all these
dead bodies! . . .

As I traverse the obscurity of these endless halls, a vague instinct of
self-preservation induces me to turn back again, and look behind. And
it seems to me that already the woman with the baby is slowly raising
herself, with a thousand precautions and stratagems, her head still
completely covered. While farther down, that dishevelled hair. . . . Oh!
I can see her well, sitting up with a sudden jerk, the ghoul with the
enamel eyes, the lady Nsitanebashru!



CHAPTER V

A CENTRE OF ISLAM