The Evening critic., 1885-04-27
THE SHADOW OF A PYRAMID.
BY HARRY w. FRENCH.
AUTHOR OF OUR BOYS IN INDIA" Our
DoYs IN CHINA" ETC.
Copyright, 1885,.

AVho AN thANhf NV
Copyright 1851
PART +.
Not many miles from the sacred Nile or
very far from Cairo, under the white moon.
light and over tho white desert sand my
friend Middleton and sat Illuminating one
night perched on the top Of a pyramid.
The platform on the summit was not over
thirty.two feet square, but the pile of rock
beneath us was "stupendous," though forty
centuries had wearied themselves out upon
II and departed destitute, discouraged and
disRraced. The sandstone grain from the
quarries Of Assouan has not yet felt the
touch of times finger, and the Arabs
proverb still holds good, that all things
dread time, but time breads a pyramid.
1t was upon the crown Of Cheops that we
sat; Cheops, grizzled and gray; Cheops,
which had seen two thousand years when
the carpenter carried his child from beneath
the Star Of Bethlehem and brought him for
shelter into the shadow of the pyramid.
Down beneath us were the two great, open
eyes of the eternal Sphinx Of Ghizeh, al
most smothered in that surging sea of sand
as it was driven in great drifts from the
desert. Far away the Nile was wearily
wandering through palm trees, where the
bondage to the brigand sand of the desert
was broken. On the other side the sky,
belated with heavy clouds which never
rain, touched the white desert and the des-
ert touched the sky.
All was silent as the spirits promenade in
the shades of Atmou, and that inner con-
sciousness Of uncertain angels in tho air
marked the certainty Of midnight There
was an Arab guide upon the platform be-
hind us. He was an incongruous element.
l asked Middleton to kill him. But he was
busy philosophizing over something, and
simply replied: "Kill him yourself" L
lapsed into silence again, looking down that
giant staircase dappled and dimpled with
moonlight aud blackened with shadows. 1t
was once n smooth surface, but the great
caliphs, to construct Cairo, carried OIL tho
triangular blocks that filled the crevices.
Middleton shivered at last, and solemnly
observed that 1t was serious thing to sit
upon pyramid at midnight, and added:
"When see these profound facts and re-
member the profounder fancies Of the peo.
ple who possessed them, l am sometimes
tempted to wonder If some of the things
they thought may not have been substan-
tial, as we'll as so much which they did. We
may laugh at their visions of spirits, yet
neither you nor l would 20 into one of
these great tombs alone, if 1t were night
outside the pyramid as well as in"
Nonsense" said, and, springing to
my feet, vowed that, without guide,
torch, a match even, l would traverse
LuO DYTdIulu Dtuedbu MOulU lCdNb
my handkerchief in the Queens chamber
and thrust my knife into the great block
of wood at the base Of the sarcophagus In
the Kings chamber, where Middleton
could go with the guides and find them
in the morning. Earnestly he entreated
me TO desist. Even an Arab, born and
bred ia the shadow of a pyramid, could
not do it, he declared, but l turned de-
liberately to the yawning mouth, fifty
faaN oh kaoA ,tI 10
The Arab guide followed me close behind
Middleton, and began to plead: "Master
has forgotten about the treacherous by
ways and all the false ways and the pit
falls, and that Anarches, the fearful
sphinx god Cheops worshiped wanders
there all night, and that Phtbah sits at
night in the Kings chamber, and that
tho Queens chamber is fearful when
Arcturus points from corner to corner of
the pyramid"
But neither of them followed me, and
| merry midnight start / made of it, into
| that low hall, so black that one might have
believed that the whole plague of darkness
which fled from Moses rod had taken
refuge in the shadow Of that pyramid.
"Lie down in the moonlight" shouted
to Middleton as / entered, and then began
cautiously making my way down the steep
decline toward the lower level of that huge
twisted the turban wound around my hat
and covered my face with one broad fold
of it, SO that the bats should not strike my
eyes, holding it in place by twist about
my neck, throwing the other end over my
shoulder, to keep 1t out of my way but as
l advanced 1t suddenly occurred to me that
there was deep reveberation in that low
gallery. The last sentence which 1 spoke
to Middleton was coming back to me in
many itful echo. Every separated syl-
liable seemed to have started a seperate
sound. The longer they lasted the louder
they grew, rumbling out of the pyramid.
The grating Of my feet grinding up the
sand added to the tumult and it added to
itself, till the rattle was rumble and the
rumble was roar, raging up and down the
dismal corridor.
"I4ie down in the moonlightw called
weird, rocky voice. "Down in the moon
light shrieked shrill, fierce falsetto.
"In the moonllghtW resounded from rocks
| which had not seen the moonlight in four
thousand years. moonlight % moaned a
million mysterious mouths, and then all to-
| gether they set up terrific howl for
light" only to break up and begin all over
again with Down in The moonlightp and
"Down" "Lie down." Heaven had not
moonlight enough to have satisfied them,
nor the bottomless pit level low enough.
When was boy and found myself
| reduced to the necessity of passing grave
| yard after dark was wont to whistle to
| give the ghosts the g0-by. Now, by some
devilish design, "Tam OShanter" came to
| my mind, and before L thought had
| whistled the first strain Such clatter
| of hoofs and whisking Of tails greeted it as
drove the breath from my body alto
| gether
| Bats, do you suggest2 Surely there were
bats there, reused from their clammy love-
makin huttering, flying, clinging, crawl
| ing all over me, but in that Stygian night
there was something more. A benumbing
terror took possession of me. Was it an
Egyptian god, whose altar fires had burned
on brick nodded by the shackled slaves of
Syria, moaning in his sleep?
Violently struck the rock lying at the
turning from the way to the we'll. In
springing to one side / stepped upon bat.
felt the soft thing crushing beneath my
foot, and with frenzied chill sprang up
ward. The roof of the gallery was less
| than an inch above my head. MOhammed
| could raise Mount Moriah with blow
from his head, but that pyramid did not
move an inch for me. Consultations swan
an impromptu universe about me. Magnif-
cent meteors Flashing fire balls, BURST
ing like rockets Then the blackness was
blacler than before, and, turning the cor
ner, / rushed onward and now upward
through the deep sand, yet it seemed a
| life time between each step. Between the
chattering of my teeth hissed an opinion
of myself in one word, "Fool !"
An instant and 1t was laundering in that
gallerysbefore me, and coming in a madden.
In fraf Ind t1Nn